Hello, good afternoon Europe, good morning to the US. This is Jürgen speaking from ams OSRAM. I welcome everybody to our fourth quarter 2024 and full year 2024 credit holder call. With me today is Rainer Irle, our CFO, and for the introduction, we'll walk you through a few selected slides from the analyst call, and then we open the floor for Q&As. Rainer, the turn is yours.
Thank you. Good afternoon and good morning to the US. Let me give you a quick recap of the most essential topics from today's announcement and the analyst call this morning European time. We are on track. We generate cash, and our turnaround is in full swing. We re-established the Base is ahead of plan. The savings are showing its effect more and more in our profitability, despite heavy headwinds during the year and the quarter. Let us look at the financial performance of the group on slide two. Revenues came in flat quarter over quarter at EUR 882 million, above the midpoint of the guidance.
The stronger US dollar helped a bit. In brief, the strong semis aftermarket auto L&S business compensated a small seasonal and cyclical quarter on quarter decline in semis. Year over year, we are only down 3% despite the weaker industrial, medical, and automotive markets and the phase-out of an OEM lens module business. Now, on profitability. Adjusted EBITDA margin improved year over year by 50 basis points to 17%, thanks to Re-establish the Base and the non-refundable engineering payments that we keep receiving.
EBITDA down EUR 60 million quarter over quarter, we reduced wafer starts in Q4 to reduce inventories. We had customer engineering payments in both quarters, but in Q3 it was higher due to some catch-up payments. It was EUR 150 million, the same absolute number as a year ago on a lower revenue base, which is good. Let us briefly look at the semiconductor business dynamics. I'm on page three now. Semis in total came down 3% year over year and 6% quarter over quarter. This can be explained by looking at the main verticals.
First, automotive. Our biggest exposure, biggest market revenues came in even a bit better than we thought, 3% up, where we had guided flat this quarter over quarter. Cyclical demand was indeed down due to ongoing uncertainty in the supply chain. However, we succeeded in reducing the order backlog for some spare parts. In addition, new position sensor projects ramped up and revenues, they're grown noticeably. The 14% decline year over year was due to the inventory correction as well as a higher basis of comparison. Q4 2023 has been our record quarter so far for auto revenues.
Second, industrial medical is still the weakest of all. Horticulture revenues declined, as a peak installation month during the third quarter of each year when new greenhouse light fixtures are installed for the winter season. The professional lighting segment is still okay, though. Mass market and medical non-use, but it feels like we have reached the bottom. Third, consumer, where we are mainly supplying sensors to smartphones and wearables. A strong quarter was EUR 210 million sales. The seasonal decline of 9% comes after the typical peak Q3 quarter when large mobile phone platforms ramp.
Demand from the Android space remains very healthy. Some parts were even becoming a bit short. Now, the next slide is very dear to my heart and cash flows. Now, as you remember, when we tapped into the Eurobond, we said that we wanted to use the proceeds also to reduce supply chain financing, which we did. In Q3, we benefited from a $250 million customer prepayment that boosted operating cash flow. We did not get such a prepayment in Q4, but another tranche of non-refundable engineering payments that we will be getting every quarter.
As such, fourth quarter operating cash flow came in strong with EUR 79 million, as you see in the table at the bottom of the slide. We actually reduced factoring in Q4 by around EUR 100 million, and you can imagine how strong the operating cash flow would have been without that. You can also see the improvements from Re-establish the Base kicking in. Inventories went down a bit in Q4 due to reduced wafer starts. Just for the warning of that, net interest paid is always included in the definition of operating cash flow and free cash. Now on CapEx, basically flat with EUR 104 million.
Now, almost half of that number, more than 45 million, was still payments from the MicroLED equipment overhang that we had to pay. But the good thing is Q4 was the last quarter with such a significant burden from MicroLED. Without that, we would have already been below our 8% CapEx to sales target. Looking at inflows from divestments at the bottom of the table, the € 27 million are almost entirely for MicroLED equipment that we were able to resell. All in all, this led to a positive free cash flow in the fourth quarter. And you're obviously proud of the next chart on the right side of the page.
We turned a heavily negative free cash flow into a positive one within one year, a minus € 330 to positive € 12 million. And we could rein in CapEx significantly. We implemented Re-establish the Base faster, and we could leverage our technology position to receive significant upfront payments by customers, which in the end made the success possible ahead of time. A clear indication that the company and its cash flows are back on track. Now, let us look at the full fiscal 2024 strategy and business summary. I'm on page five now. 2024 presented some surprising challenges.
The biggest headwind was certainly the cancellation of the microLED cornerstone project. Later in the year, the weaker auto demand came on top. We reacted fast and decisive, and I'm pleased with what we achieved in these circumstances. Before we touch upon some of the points in more detail, let me share the major achievements from my perspective. First, the focus on the core portfolio in the Semis business has proven itself right. We showed a solid 7% revenue growth when you correct the reported revenues in Semis for the contribution from the exited non-core business. Second, the savings from our Re-establish the Base strategic efficiency program are exceeding the 2024 targets and starting to show effect.
We'll be much more visible in 2025 with improving profitability. Third, the non-core semiconductor portfolio is almost entirely out of the door, though customers might still place some very last orders this year. Technology leadership is at the heart of our strategy and structure growth ambition. We won the German Future Award for our latest automotive forward lighting solution, and customers entrust us with cutting-edge technology developments that they are paying for. New business was won almost at the same pace as in 2023, close to € 5 billion of design wins spent on the talent.
We stabilized and improved company profitability despite the hit from the discontinued large micro LED program. Above all, most importantly, we finished the 2024 with a positive free cash flow, including net interest. The customer prepayments were pivoted for this achievement. And with that, let's take a look at the business on page six. In 2023, we divested about €124 million of revenues in the Lamps segment. At constant currencies and same portfolio, revenues would have stayed almost flat with just 1% down year over year in a like-for-like comparison.
For 2024, we recorded in total €3.43 billion with a small currency headwind of €9 million. Now, considering Re-establish the Base and ignoring the non-core portfolio revenues, we grew 4% year over year on group level. The Lamps business declined year over year by 14%. Like-for-like, the decline was minus 4%. I just mentioned that we had sold a number of unprofitable businesses in 2023. The 4% decline was essentially because of exiting some OEM module business. Looking at Semis' reported revenue, stayed flat.
If we look, sorry, at the core portfolio only, we see an increase of approximately 7% year over year, very nicely in line with the midterm trend line growth ambition for our semiconductor business. If we look one level deeper, it is certainly evident that the growth in the core comes from the rebound of the consumer business, driven by launching of new products, including the regained LS socket we had spoken about earlier. We grew by almost EUR 90 million year over year in consumer applications to EUR 716 million euro. Automotive was just slightly down despite the inventory correction that hit the second half of 2024, approximately EUR 980 million versus EUR 1 billion a year ago.
Industrial medical was also down 2024, reaching a low of around EUR 680 million, which looks to be the bottom of the cycle now. Now on slide seven, with reported revenues and absolute EBITDA down, EBITDA margin stayed flat at 16.8%. Supported by Re-establish the Base, we were on track to improve the margin, but then the auto market slowdown in page two spoiled the party. We often get asked where we see the great improvements of Re-establish the Base in the numbers. You see the effect in EBIT number on the right-hand side, a lower cost base and the gradual phase out of non-profit products led to an improved adjusted EBIT margin by 50 basis points.
That, again, a bit spoiled by the market weakness. You can also see it in lower R&D spending and in lower SG&A, which both came down nicely. Again, once market improve, it will be more visible. Now on slide eight, winning new business is essential for our structured growth model in Semis. Fiscal year 2024 was again a very successful year in this respect. We could book well over EUR 1 billion of new wins in the fourth quarter, despite this slowdown in autos and the weak industrial medical market. This brings the full year tally close to the EUR 5 billion mark.
The new wins in the fourth quarter were very well distributed with many smaller projects reflecting the broad business traction that we are enjoying. Still, a few wins stand out. We made especially good progress in China with our automotive products. Our products convinced another leading Chinese OEM, and we landed multiple design wins with broad portfolio at that OEM that will feature in many new models. But the momentum also continued in many other applications. Nice wins in professional lighting and new sockets for our spectral and time-of-flight sensors in Android smartphones.
In the full year or to date view, the new business won accumulates remarkable numbers. Slide nine, here you find the latest update on debt, liquidity, and maturities. Our cash balance remains unchanged. We had € 1.1 billion cash on hand end of year. By the end of December 2024, we paid back the short-term bilateral facilities. However, we also received € 140 million in new bilateral loans, exactly as we had told you when we last met. Next in line is a 2025 convert. We are going to pay it back at maturity in March from cash on hand.
The value of the Malaysia sale and leaseback transaction remained stable at € 441 million as interest accrual was offset by FX effects. This brings us to pretty much unchanged net debt position of € 1.85 billion compared to the previous quarter. The outstanding minority December, towards the end of 2024, we only saw a small amount of shares tendered. Our revolving credit facility could in principle fully cover an exercise of all outstanding Osram Licht AG minority put options. Taking cash, the revolver, and the bilateral lines into account, our available liquidity remains strong at around EUR 1.76 billion.
And the factoring lines that we reduced in Q3 and Q4 are still available, but they are not shown here as available liquidity. On the right, you find the maturity table of our outstanding debt. And now let me summarize the key developments of the last quarter and the whole year on slide 10. In the last quarter, we delivered revenues in a difficult environment above the midpoint of the guidance. We delivered profitability above the midpoint of the guidance, and we came in free cash flow positive. And for the whole year, 2024, we had a small positive free cash flow, which is nice.
The core Semis portfolio grew approximately seven%, clearly driven by the ramp of new sensor products. Reported revenue was a bit down due to the deconsolidation of Lamps and Systems business and the steep decline in the old non-core Semis businesses. Re-establish the Base implementation is progressing really well with already €110 million run rate savings implemented. The Semis non-core portfolio is mostly history, and customers continue to love our products. Close to €5 billion new business won in 2024. And that concludes the last year.
Now we come to 2025 on slide 11. So for the first quarter, we expect revenues to land between €750-€850 million. Automotive Lamps aftermarket will be seasonally lower. Automotive Semis should see their low point in view of the persisting uncertainties and corrections while the order intake has improved recently. Industrial medical continue to be weak. Consumer continues to go down seasonally. Christmas season is over. Also, this year we'll have a new Christmas season. In line with flow through, but with Re-establish the Base savings making a difference, adjusted EBITDA margin will be between 16 plus minus one and a half at EUR/USD of 1.05.
Looking at the revenues for the entire year, we have a pronounced first-second half seasonality in our business in every year. Think of the seasonal cycle in the auto Lamps aftermarket business, horticulture, products for consumer handhelds, automotive Semis. This year, this seasonality will be even more pronounced with the cyclical low in automotive Semis in the first half and the persistent weakness in industrial automation and medical. Now, why are we optimistic that H2 will be better than the first half? Principal drivers are scheduled project ramps in automotive, industrial, and smartphones.
So they will come for sure. And the cyclical recovery that we start seeing in higher order intake will come on top. A word on the new tariff war. We assess the situation to the extent new tariffs are known or expected. In detail, the trade flows are quite complicated. We do currently see, though, not a meaningful impact to our cost base. The noticeable impact on our business would come along when global car production is negatively affected or when people buy fewer smartphones. All in all, we have to see how the situation develops.
Now, looking at profitability, we are ahead of realizing our run rate savings from Re-establish the Base, and this will lead to improved gross margin and bottom line even with moderate revenue development compared to 2024, and looking at cash flow, we will be very strict on CapEx investments and plan for less than 8% of sales, lower than our target operating model. Finally, we expect free cash flow to come in exceeding €100 million, and for the avoidance of doubt, that obviously includes the net interest paid. This concludes our remarks, and we are happy to take your questions.
Thank you. As we move into the Q&A portion of the call, I would like to remind you that we are using the raise hand feature. This can be found at the bottom of your Zoom screen, or if you're dialing in, please press star nine. I will pause a moment to allow a queue to form. Our first question comes from Toby Hanson. You'd like to unmute your line and ask your question.
Hi there. This is Toby Hanson at Sona. I just wanted to ask on the liquidity front. So when you look at the available liquidity figure that you give and then the amount of cash that you have, I think the total difference is about €660 million. And obviously, our RCF is €800 million. What's the reason for the difference? Are you issuing guarantees or anything out of the RCF that reduces the availability of it?
Yes. Yeah, that is correct. We have been using some of it to guarantee the customer prepayment we got last year. So €650 is the remaining amount.
Okay. And that guarantee will remain in place until that prepayment reverses in 2026 or begins to reverse?
Yeah. Yeah.
Okay. And then on the bilateral lines, I guess if you just talk through what the relevant why you've extended some of the lines for only less than 12 months seemingly, given the amount that mature in 2025, like why do you need these lines at all and why did you not extend them out further?
Yeah. I mean, discussion optimizing on pricing. I mean, the smaller one is one we're extending every year by year. And the other one is a two-year new line. We were kind of getting a good offer, good pricing for a two-year extension. So that's basically the logic. The bonds have a higher maturity and the bilateral lines are a little bit shorter matured.
Okay. Thank you. Our next question comes from Thibault Leneveu. You'd like to unmute your line and ask your question.
Yes. Do you hear me?
Yes.
Okay. Perfect. Just a question on the cash on hand. So it's €1.1 billion, if I'm correct. What is the amount of cash in the individual statements? Could you explain the amount of cash? What is the amount of cash at the topco level, at the holdco level?
You're asking kind of if there's any trapped cash in there or what's the reason for the question?
The reason for the question is to have more clarity on the location of the cash. And this is the question I'm asking to many companies I follow.
Yeah. But there is no trapped cash in the company, right? So we can basically move.
But it was not my question. My question was, what is the amount of the cash at the topco level?
Yeah. It's around €800 million. But that's something we could change at any time.
Okay. And could you remind me the expected materializations, the ramp-up of the expected materialization of the exercise of the put options at Osram?
Yes. Certainly. So we expect the final verdict in the second half of the year. And then shareholders, minority shareholders that.
I'm sorry. I can't hear you very well. Yeah.
So we expect the verdict in the second half of the year, and then shareholders have two more months to tender their shares. The outstanding amount was €560 million, I believe. But we expect only a portion of that to be tendered. I mean, a larger portion. But there's also more than 10,000 retail investors in there that we believe a lot of them will actually stay in.
Okay. On the factoring lines, could you indicate what is the amount of the factoring lines that remain available?
Yeah. It is somewhere close to EUR 200 million, a bit less than EUR 200 million.
And what was the average drawdown of these lines during the full year to 2024?
With the mid of the year, we had drawn almost all of that. And then we started reducing Q3 a bit. And we reduced further by around a million or so in Q4.
And at the end of Q4, no drawdown?
Oh, we still had from the end of Q4. Let me quickly check. 16. Okay. Almost nothing. Yeah.
So 16.
Yeah. That was kind of.
Okay. And the last question on my side.
That was part of the strategy, right? To draw on to tap into the bond and use that to repay short-term supply chain financing.
Okay. Last question on my side. Could you remind me if there is a maintenance covenant on the RCF? I haven't looked at it for a while.
The covenant?
The maintenance covenant on the RCF?
Yeah. Yeah. That is a four times forward adjusted net debt to EBITDA. And forward adjustment means that all improvements you were making from your structuring programs, you add on top to the average of the last four to the cumulative last four quarters, right? So in a simple way, you could say it's roughly 1.25 times the rolling EBITDA of the last four quarters in relation to the net debt.
So just to see again, could the next people in line please restrict themselves to two questions? We have so many people wanting to ask questions. So it's just a matter of fairness giving the colleagues a chance to ask a question as well.
Thank you for your answers.
Thanks.
Moving on to our next question comes from Ryan Aylward. If you'd like to unmute your line and ask your question.
Thank you, guys. So you had mentioned you guys have a you're optimistic around some cyclical recovery in autos in the second half of 2025. Could you just comment on, is there anything particular from your seats that gives you the encouragement of a rebound in kind of global auto demand?
Yeah. I think the end market demand hasn't really changed a lot. If you look at L&S numbers, they're currently seeing it's down, I believe, 0.8% or so in 2025. So basically flat year over year. But we have been seeing a reduced demand in Q3 and Q4, certainly also in Q1, which is solely based on our customers and, I mean, the OEMs reducing their inventories. Maybe they prebuild wrong parts, wrong cars. And so the supply chain is being cleaned up. But it's not that there's fewer cars sold, really. So as in every kind of this supply chain bullwhip effect, it takes a few quarters and then it comes back.
And that's what we're seeing. And the question is how quickly will it come back? It's always the question for the shape of the recovery. So we don't know yet how quick it will recover. We're certainly seeing that the book-to-bill is improving significantly. We're seeing an increased order intake. It's probably too early to say what shape of recovery we will be seeing.
Sorry. That was a good answer. Just to confirm, and I want to make sure I understand what you're saying, so you're saying in Q3 and Q4 of the last two quarters, your auto decline has been more than the decline in auto sales, and so if auto sales are flat through Q4 2025 of this year, you expect just some recovery for AMS to be more in line. Is that what you're saying?
I mean, the weakness last year, I mean, took, I would say, a mid-double-digit billion number of revenues away from the previous forecast, right? So it was significant. Otherwise, it would have been even stronger last year. Now, Q3, Q4, we saw a weakness. We still had the ability to make up for some backlog. Q1, we don't. There's no backlog left. So Q1 is probably the weakest quarter in auto. And then we see improvement going forward because we have a stronger book-to-bill, right? The order intake is improving. And we also have the design wins kicking in, right?
And the reason why we believe that the second half will be better is first because of the design wins, right? So that revenue will come. And also because we believe in a cyclical recovery because we've seen improved book-to-bill now.
Got it. Thanks for clarifying. And then my second question is, you guys had mentioned it looked like working capital was up pretty significantly. It was up, I think, 35% versus prior year. Could you discuss the drivers of that? Is there any write-off risk? And I guess maybe some of this is just due to the factoring.
That is solely, I mean, compared to Q3, inventory is around EUR 40 million. I was saying year over year, your working capital is up 35%. Yeah. And you can look at quarter over quarter, year over year. The main reason is factoring, right? Because we have been reducing factoring end of last year. And it's also year over year. Inventory is up, certainly, because we have some more complex products, like the new ALIYOS product that has very complex supply chains where it was kind of a six-month cycle time or so. So that certainly also increases inventory. But the major drive or the major reason for the change, particularly Q3 to Q4, is the change in factoring.
Thank you very much.
And there's no write-off risk, right? I mean, we're always accounting for our inventory risk-adjusted.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from Peter Osram Wick. If you'd like to unmute your line and ask your question.
Thank you. Thank you. Can you hear me?
Yes.
Okay. Thank you very much. So two questions from me. First, just following up on the auto demand, you said that in semis, you have seen, you think you have seen the bottom, and now you're seeing improvement. Can you give us a bit more color on what is this improvement in order intake and also the further improvement you expect in 2025? To what extent is it driven by a larger number of cars being built versus the increased content per vehicle, which I think is a longer-term circular trend, which is more LEDs going into every single car?
Yeah. So I mean, for the cars produced or sold, we follow very much IHS, which is basically flat year over year, 0.8% decline. We have more design wins kicking in in the second half of the year, which is basically more content. And then we had the last two quarters with the low in Q1 now, just to reduce demand because customers were reducing their inventory levels. And we assume that is now coming to an end. And we see an improvement in the order intake throughout the semi, also for automotive.
Right. I mean, I think the genesis of the question is that IHS actually reduced their expectations for the second half since we had the Q3 call. And your guidance remains essentially unchanged, right? I think they expected before weak H1, better H2. And on the tariff risks, they also reduced the expectation for H2 25. So they're just trying to understand how do we square the difference, right? Because you haven't really changed your guidance.
We do not give guidance for a year, right? We only give guidance for a quarter. The guidance we publish for Q1. And then we say in addition that we expect a more significant uptick in the second half of the year.
Okay. That's fair. And my second question is about the broader approach to refinancing. Whether there's been any update on how you think about addressing the maturities beyond 2025?
Yeah. I mean, the big maturity coming up is the convertible bond in 2027 for EUR 760 million. We certainly have a plan, as I said. And the plan consists of positive cash flows in the next couple of years, which will reduce our indebtedness a bit. But as I said last time, it is also certainly that we are looking at kind of to generate a bit of proceeds from some of the assets we have, some of the smaller business we have, to jumpstart the next round of refinancing.
And when do you expect to start the work on the refinancing of 2027s?
Yeah. I mean, we want to be done a good year ahead of it. So that would be somewhere mid of 2026 or so.
Okay. All right. Thank you very much. Best of luck.
Our next question comes from Ankit Gupta. Please unmute your line and ask your question.
Yeah. Thanks. Just a couple of questions before. Hey, Ankit, we lost you. Am I audible?
No. Yeah, you're back.
Okay. So a couple of questions. The first one is around the cost-saving plan. Since overall guidance is around EUR 225, any guidance like how much you're planning to achieve for 2025? And the second is, probably I might missed it, but what is the outstanding number for the supply chain financing as of December?
The outstanding amount of supply chain financing was pretty low. And the target for resale was the base, which was 150, I believe. Yeah. I mean, last year we were ahead, so kind of like seeing this year, we will also come in a bit higher.
Okay. So supply chain financing, I think for FY23 was around EUR 150 million. So is it materially lower for this year, December 2024?
Yeah. I mean, factoring came down to very little there.
Got it. Got it. Thanks. Thanks for the question.
Our final question comes from Chris Money. Please unmute your line and ask your question.
Give me just a second. Hello?
Hello, Chris? Can you hear me?
Yes. Now we can hear you. Apologies. It seems to be a lot of lag. Just a really brief one for me. Just in terms of tariffs, I just wanted to dig in a little bit more on that. I appreciate there's no real clarity at the moment and it's ever evolving, but I'm assuming you've done a lot of scenario analysis. What, if anything, are you most concerned about in terms of potential tariffs out there? And then what you can see as mitigants, I guess, to protect the business from anything? Because I don't know how much directly you're kind of shipping into the States, for example, if they put tariffs on components going straight in.
I guess a lot of manufacturers are outside the US and then shipping the vehicles in. I guess that's not really your problem. Just curious to sort of understand how you can kind of defend yourself and how much really impact. I know you said there's not a lot at the moment, but just curious.
Yeah. I mean, the amount of product that we ship from China to the US is, I mean, below 50 million a year. And there's also a bit from Mexico. So we try to reroute that, right, in particular, because we often have factories outside China. You really have to look at kind of does 10% tariff make a difference or not in those decisions? And then the next question is kind of, I mean, are you able to pass it on to your customers or not? So whenever the customer is the importer, right? I mean, if you ship it FCA, incoterm FCA, the customer is the importer, and then they would pay the customs.
If it's a DDP or if you have a warehouse somewhere in the US, then you are the importer. Then the question is, can you pass it on to the customer? So far, very low impact. It would get bigger, certainly, if there were tariffs on more countries, including Germany and Austria or, I mean, or Malaysia or Singapore, which hasn't been touched so far, then it would be larger. In the end, probably the largest risk anyway is kind of if there would be a global economic slowdown because of the tariffs. I mean, that's what history tells, right?
I mean, the higher the tariffs, the lower the GDP growth for everybody. We are observing the situation every day, and we try to optimize our supply chains accordingly.
Okay. That's helpful. Thanks. And in terms of just the guidance on Q1, obviously, it's still pretty negative. I just wondered if you've given any guidance between the different segments as to what growth looks like, consumer versus auto versus industrial within that.
Yeah. I mean, it's a lot of impacts, right? I mean, our traditional lamps and systems business, Q4 is always strongest, Q2 is the weakest. Q1 is in between, but it's lower. Our whole CSA business, the segment for consumer applications, it's a very cyclical business, right? Because all the new mobile phones are launched in the second half of the year. And then you start pre-producing in Q2 or so, but Q1 is quite weak in that whole consumer business. And then also in automotive, I don't think that automotive real demand is lower than in Q4.
But we had, as I said, in Q4, the ability to reduce some backlog, right? So we had some orders where we were a bit delinquent. We reduced the delinquencies, and now there's nothing left for Q1. So kind of auto will be weakest in Q1, I believe. Consumer, as it's typical seasonality, lower in Q1, and also the traditional business sees a bit of a decline. At 9%, that is not an untypical number for our business. Not too different from last year.
Okay. Thank you.
Next up, we have a question from Dan Grillo. Please unmute your line and ask your question.
Hi, guys. Just a quick one. I know there isn't any kind of resolution on the plant in Malaysia, but how is interest in it looking at the moment? Have you had ongoing conversations? How many kinds of parties, etc., might be potentially interested?
There's quite a few companies that already looked at it. Certainly more than 10. Some are a bit too small, some are a bit too big. And for some, it's just right size, but the timing is not perfect. They are waiting for a bit of a recovery. We have this week a large semi company looking at it, looking for a new site in Malaysia. So it is a bit the cyclical problem also because currently, I mean, as I see the fab people, they are not investing. Also, the senior players are careful. But if demand will recover, we'll probably see much more interest going forward. So we remain confident that we will resolve it. It's just difficult to say when exactly.
All right. Thank you very much,
And our last question on the line comes from Jeff Cope. Please unmute your line and ask your question.
Hi. I was just wondering if you can confirm the maturity on the RCF and if you guys have had any conversations with banks about extending that in order to meet the put obligation?
Yeah. I mean, I understand your question. Please accept that we don't want to disclose exactly what we are doing here. But I mean, it is quite obvious what would make sense. And please be assured that we will do the right things.
Okay. Thank you.
And that concludes our Q&A session. I'll hand back to management for any closing remarks.
So thanks, everyone, for joining. Thanks a lot for the questions. And as usual, and as you've done very actively, you can reach out to us on email. We'll be partly on the road, so we try to answer as quickly as possible. But the team with me, Vanessa and Juliana, will also try to respond as quickly as possible. That concludes this quarter's credit holder call. Thanks a lot. And looking forward to speaking to you our latest next quarter.