Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Full Year Results 2024 Conference Call. I am Sergeant, the Chorus Call operator. I would like to remind you that all participants will be in a listen-only mode, and the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session. You can register for questions at any time by pressing star and then one on your telephone. For operator assistance, please press star and zero. The forecast, planned, and forward-looking assessments and statements contained in this presentation were made on the basis of all information available to AMAG up to 5th February 2025. If the assumptions on which the forecasts are based do not materialize, targets are not achieved, or risks occur, actual earnings may differ from those currently anticipated. We assume no obligation to revise such forecasts in light of new information or future events.
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Good Morning , ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to our conference call for the full year 2024. I am together with all board members of AMAG, CEO and COO Helmut Kaufmann, CFO Claudia Trampitsch, as well as CSO Victor Breguncci. Helmut, Claudia, and Victor will guide you through the presentation today. As usual, we will enter into the Q&A session directly after the presentation, where the management board is happy to answer your questions. Before we start, I'd like to remind you that the press release, the presentation, and our annual report were published on our website at 7:30 A.M. this morning. Now, I would like to hand over to CEO Helmut Kaufmann. Helmut, please start your presentation. Thank you.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, also from my side, I will immediately start with slide number three with the financial highlights of 2024, very briefly, because my colleague Claudia Trampitsch will then go into more details, so we are happy to report that despite the very challenging environment, we were able to achieve revenues of EUR 1.448 million, which is very close to the level of 2023. EBITDA of EUR 179.2 million was at the upper end of the communicated EBITDA range and slightly below the 2023 number of EUR 188 million. Net income after taxes was at the level of EUR 43.2 million, and we have to say, despite impairment losses, which will be explained later, and we had a strong cash flow from operating activities at the level of roughly EUR 120 million, and with this result, we propose a dividend of EUR 1.2 per share.
Of course, it's very early in the year. You know, every day we have different news from global developments, so it's too early at the moment to give any indication for earnings forecast or EBITDA for the year 2025. Let me continue with operational highlights on slide number four. Again, we could show that with our strategic positioning, it was possible to move through these difficult times, and we can say that in all product areas, starting with primary metal in Canada, recycling foundry alloys in Ranshofen, and rolled products also in Ranshofen, we reached roughly the level of last year in terms of tonnage, and it is especially important to mention that in the rolling division in Ranshofen, this number of 205,000 tons was reached despite a significant change or shift in product mix.
We reduced the packaging sector, but we were able to cover this gap with record sales in the automotive, transport, and aerospace area. In addition, we have a slide after. We prepared for the future with important qualifications that will somehow provide the ground for the upcoming years. This is described in a little bit more detail on slide number five. We were able to reach new qualifications with three additional automotive OEMs and with two aerospace OEMs. As you know, this is difficult, time-consuming, and so we are very happy that this was possible. In addition, as you will see a little bit more about this on the upcoming slides, we had some successes in innovation and sustainability by further developing AMAG CrossAlloy, reaching some prototype levels with some target customers.
We also introduced a new recycling foundry alloy for, let me say, surface-sensitive automotive wheels, and also we were able to prepare for energy supply of the future with renewable energy. This recycling foundry alloy with a recycled content of above 70% for this critical component of bright machined wheel, and you can see here a symbolic photograph on this slide. Looking at the development of our sustainability, CO2 emissions in comparison with the global or the European average company or the average CO2 emissions, there you can see that AMAG Alouette is leading in primary production with the lowest level of CO2 emissions per ton of aluminum, that we are ahead in the recycling division, and that we are very advanced and ahead also in the rolled product group, so overall we can see innovation sustainability at AMAG progresses very well.
This is also seen by outside auditors and rating companies as well as customers. On slide number 12, you can see a number of awards that we achieved last year. For example, sustainalytics rating, sorry, for sustainability is AMAG still rated on first place in the group of 41 aluminium companies. Same for EcoVadis, where we are in the top 1% group. Platinum rating, we received a very important group of awards from our main aerospace customer, Airbus, where we got special awards also for innovation and special award for sustainability. For the first time, we received the maintenance award, Austria. We were honored, and this is especially focused on AMAG rolling company. We were honored to be the best maintenance performance in Austria. With this, I hand over to Victor for the explanation of markets and shipments. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much, Helmut. I would like to jump into page 14. As you have in the presentation, Helmut has presented some good results and good news from the market. As you can see in page 14, that the market, the economic situation is not yet back to where we would like it to be, especially in the region where we have the majority of our shipments. We took advantage of what is the market today looking like in North America and also in Asia. In general, our commercial strategy remains solid, and we're going to see a little bit more in numbers how it happened.
But before that, let me just jump into slide 15, and where we can see, first of all, on the primary side, there is a solid moderate global growth in consumption of primary aluminum, which is positive news for our smelter in Canada. And this positions us very well in the upstream that the quantities of metal that we have and that we ship from there remain stable and solid. Moving to page 16, as you can see, this graph represents how we look at the future for the demand of rolled products. We see the growth is a bit steeper than the primary aluminum side, which is a good thing for us because in the rolling business, we do have the opportunity to capture tailwinds coming from demand growth from many segments, as we can see in slide 17. Markets are aluminizing, as we say internally.
We see very strong usage of aluminum in transport, the automotive and aerospace, for example, with a 6.7% growth expectation per annum until 2029. But in other areas like industry, construction, and packaging, we see that there is, this remains as compared to last year, a very important growth in the usage of aluminum. But what does that mean for us at AMAG? Yeah, in the AMAG group, we can see that we have the same level of shipments in the whole group. We look at the metal. It's a very stable and solid performance in our Canadian smelter, where we are using the maximum capacity that we have, and shipments were in line to what we had last year. In the casting business, we have a very difficult market.
This is a very regional automotive dedicated market where we were able to capture in the automotive industry the orders that we needed. We have less shipments, 1,300 tons less, but we were able to manage our capacity accordingly, and we see this as a good result according to what we had last year. And last but not least, in the rolling business, we see numbers are moving sideways in terms of tonnage. But when we look within the mix, we had, in my opinion, a great year, as you can see in page number 19, where we grew where our strategy is based on. So we had a record year in aerospace. And as Helmut said, the diversity that we have in terms of qualifications and presence with aerospace OEMs has shown to be the right way forward.
We grew more than the market grew in the last year, which is fruit of our investments in the last five, six years in qualifications, so we're very glad for our position in aerospace at the moment. In automotive, similar approach. We had our record year with 50+ thousand tons of growth that is also global. We are serving customers in Europe, but also in North America and in Asia. And these qualifications that we have, the platforms that we serve, have grown in a magnitude that allowed us to grow to about 50,000 tons of capacity of utilization. In second best year in the brazing segment, we grew also despite the difficulties that we have in the Eurozone in terms of growth, industry, and automotive. We were able to grow in a very high magnitude. This is the second best year, only behind 2023.
And we adjusted the portfolio in the segments where we could be more present. So in industrial applications, we grew in Asia and in North America, taking the situation that we have a lower demand in the European market, especially in the German region. And adjusted the portfolio in the packaging business, growing into new qualifications. If we go into page 20, you see the positives and negatives I just mentioned. And in packaging, we adjusted our capacity to the competitive market that we have, but it's good to see that we are also making new qualifications for more customers in this segment. So in a nutshell, if I go into page 21, we see the rolling division, the order trend is increasing after the dip we have in 2023, second half. So we had a good year last year coming to the levels that we would like to have.
We consolidated the growth in the segments where our commercial strategy is indicating: aerospace, automotive, heat exchangers, sports, and some opportunities in Asia and North America, and in that sense, I think in a nutshell, I give you a view of how we executed our performance last year. I would like to bring this now to Claudia Trampitsch, who's going to translate into numbers what I just mentioned in the market.
Before I go to our results, I want to give you some information on market prices. So first of all, in 2024, although it was quite volatile during the year, overall, we faced an increase of the aluminum price, which had a positive effect on our revenues and then on our earnings. On the other hand, when you look at the aluminum price, we have seen a steep increase of aluminum price. This was due to supply chain disruptions, but also production problems at some refineries. And therefore, we saw it rising up to nearly $800. And this will also affect our first month of the next year as well. But overall, when I now move on to our revenues, we were able to nearly have the same amount of revenues as last year, which was due to all the things that my colleagues mentioned before.
So mainly, if you see the volumes and the mix shifts to make better and the LME rising at the metal segment, these are the main components that brought us to the region of nearly EUR 1.5 billion in revenues. When we now move on to our EBITDA, which was, by the way, the fourth highest in history for us, which is a great achievement when you look at how market and what last year and which challenges we had to face. But we really, due to our flexibility and the positive volume and mix effects, we were able to reach an EBITDA of EUR 179.2 million. If I now move on to give you some information division-wise, I can tell that for the metal division, we were affected by stable production and the high aluminum price.
But on the other hand, as I mentioned before, the high aluminum price was affecting the EBITDA as well in the second half of the year, I can say. A positive effect we have seen, I think we also mentioned it before, that there always could be an effect of evaluation due to our derivative hedging, and this is always a evaluation you do on the closing date. So that could be not so predictable, but we had a positive tailwind here as well, and therefore we could reach a solid EBITDA on that side. For the casting division, it was a solid shipment volume, a challenging environment in the automotive industry, as mentioned before, and therefore it was a little bit lower than last year.
For the rolling division, we had a shift in product mix, which was really a positive effect on our EBITDA, but which also occurred was that we had to do some risk provisions for contracts, and therefore we had a negative effect compared to last year because we had a positive effect out of that last year. When you calculate that, it has a negative effect in total. Overall, you can see that we had a really exceptional EBITDA given the circumstances. Especially, I want to point out when you look at the Q4 2024, that it was not just affected, as mentioned before, by valuation effects, which we do at the balance sheet stage, but also compared to last year, a positive effect due to the volume and the mix in the rolling business.
That's a positive thing here to point out that we see that our fourth quarter was really good and far above the quarter last year. When I move on to the net income after taxes, there are two things I want to point out that are perhaps unusual and affect our EBITDA. First thing is that we had to impair for our AMAG component business due to impairment testing we have to do regularly because of our reporting standards. And on the other hand, we also had an effect at the tax rate due to not capitalized tax losses out of that business. But that sums up and ends up in total by EUR 43.2 million for our net income after taxes. When we now move on to our cash flow, you see we have a cash flow from operating activities of EUR 119 million.
This was affected by positive effects out of working capital optimizations. But on the other hand, we had some reporting-based issues due to high receivables because of the high volume of shipments I mentioned before, an increase in the aluminium price, and also payment deferral in Canada. Our investing cash flow was as budgeted as planned, and it was lower than last year. When we have a short look at our balance sheet, you can see we have a stable trend in equity and gearing. Our equity this year was influenced by the earnings after tax I mentioned before, but also by the dividend we paid last year. That was the main effect. All the other effects that also sum up here are evaluation effects we have to account for. Our gearing ratio is also quite stable.
What I perhaps want to point out for our gearing ratio is that we had successful refinance last year, where we were able to refinance 119 million EUR, and this affects our total assets and therefore our gearing ratio. Before, we heard some information about our sustainability and goals and achievements. I want to point out on page 33, where you can see the main ESG figures we want to point out at you. You know that for scrap utilization, for example, it's always affected also by our product mix. But you see we're still constantly on that high level that we can point out. So it's nearly the same as last year. Also we can see to point out something else is that we had a decrease in TRIFR injury rate, which is also always a positive thing to report for us.
We added some detailed information on each division in our presentation. The main information I already pointed out before. So I can hand over to Helmut to give you an outlook on the 2025.
Yes. I would like to start and repeat what I already said in the introduction concerning dividend proposal. You can see on slide 38 that we will propose to our annual general meeting a dividend of EUR 120 per share. This meeting will be held on the 15th of April, and we expect that this will be the outcome. Concerning the outlook for 2021, Victor already mentioned that we still have a lot of uncertainty globally, we can say. Unfortunately, still a rather weak European and especially German environment, but every day we hear now about additional introduced uncertainties, especially from the U.S. president. Luckily, we expect increasing global demand for aluminum products in the future, as CRU reports, and we expect, as in the past, a rather stable business performance of our primary metal production, metal division in Canada.
The strong increase of the aluminum price in the second half of 2024, however, impacts our expectation for the first half of 2025 negatively. The casting division is strongly dependent on the European automotive industry, but with some, as I already explained, with some successful alloy development and expertise in recycling and casting, we expect that we will have a stable situation, and in the rolling division, we expect that our broad setup, our implemented strategy will help us, and we will have to be flexible with all these uncertainties, so we see this as a key success factor in this year. This leads me to the conclusion, and I repeat what I said before. At this point in time, it is too early to provide an earnings forecast or an EBITDA range for this 2025 year.
With this, we close the presentation, and I say thank you very much for listening, and we are open for your questions.
Ladies and gentlemen, we'll now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and then one on their touchscreen telephone. You will hear a tone to confirm that you have entered the queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use only handsets while asking a question. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time, and we have the first question coming from the line of Michael Marschallinger from Erste Group. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good morning, everybody. Thanks for taking my questions. I have two, and firstly, on page five of your presentation, the highlights for 2025, these new qualifications from these three new auto OEMs you mentioned, so as I understood, this did not materialize in any orders yet, but I would like to know what are your expectations in terms of order intake. And also, this new OEMs you qualified for, is that in reaction, as you mentioned, to the weaker European business, especially Germany is really weak, so is that maybe also to offset some weaker business here, these new qualifications?
Generally.
Yeah, thank you. Generally, as we said, our strategy is to be wide in products, wide in regions, and wide in customer base. So that with the flexibility that we have, that we can shift if one area or one customer has lower demand, we could possibly move to alternative customers. Qualifications, this means the permission to sell a product to a customer, rather time-consuming, and so you cannot usually do many in parallel. So we have this step by step. And we try, and this is the case. I cannot name now the OEMs, but this is the case that we try to expand the base to not be dependent, as people sometimes think, on the German automotive industry. We want to be able to supply globally.
So, we already supply to European customers, American customers, also Asian customers, but we are not qualified for the whole OEM, all of the OEMs globally. And so we continuously grow this base. And the same is true for the aerospace sector. Material or product after product, for one after the other OEM, we try to expand our market areas where we can then offer and sell products. So what this means here is that this is now the door opener for the sales department to approach the customers and offer.
Okay. Understood. And just from a timing perspective, when you get now these new qualifications, how long would it take, you think, until you could see some order intake? Yeah.
Generally, this means that from now on, the sales team can approach these customers. But then, of course, it always depends on when the customers introduce new models, when they have the so-called RFQs out, so that we can actually offer. But starting from now.
Okay. Understood, and the second question on possible U.S. tariffs on your operations in Canada. Could you elaborate a bit on the possible impact and scenarios you're seeing that?
Yes, so for our operation in Canada, where we produce primary aluminum, we are located on the East Coast, so we have the possibility to sell either to the U.S. or to Europe. It depends. It's mainly a pricing issue or a transport logistic issue, which one is more favorable for us, and that's the starting point. What we are seeing now on the tariff side are two things, so there were tariffs announced for material, so for every product out of Canada to the U.S. This was delayed for one month, let's say, so these ones could kick in at the beginning of March, and on the other hand, there were tariffs announced for aluminum products from all over the world to the U.S., also for 25%. This will start 12th of March.
So these two tariffs are, let's say, in the room and could possibly affect us for our sales to the U.S. out of Canada. And we will have to see what's the real impact then in the market. We don't know, I must say, if these ones will come cumulative. This could be. And then we have to evaluate whether it makes sense to sell to the U.S. or to sell to Europe. And we are preparing for these both options.
Okay. Thank you for answering my questions.
The next question comes from the line of Markus Remis from ODDO BHF. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good morning. Thanks for the presentation. I'll have to start with the geopolitics. I mean, I think in the past, you've always been advocates of the idea that given that the U.S. is in a production deficit, it would simply be, say, the higher costs that have to be borne by U.S. customers for your aluminium shipments from Canada. I mean, I guess that's still unchanged. The U.S. is in deficit. Did it maybe even get bigger in the last years, or was there some sort of buildup of capacities domestically?
I can tell you that there is still a deficit. Let's say they need roughly, so these are rough numbers, 5 million tons a year and can produce themselves not even a million. So they have a big deficit, which is quite mainly supplied by Canada. And I think the interesting question will be if the tariffs will be for every country, if that stays like it is now announced, or if there will be exceptions. Because that makes a difference on how prices develop and where the U.S. customers have to pay it, or if it has other shifts in the market. So I think that's one of the main uncertainties, let's say.
Okay. And are there any countries that could particularly benefit, say, being exempt from the tariffs, whereas the usual exporters to the U.S. are impacted by higher tariffs?
So I must say I really don't know. What I can tell you, that there have been exceptions in the past. It's also Canada has had an exemption on tariffs for aluminum, so this could happen. But I really don't know because there are no signs on that at the moment from the U.S.
Thank you. Okay. I'd like to stay on the upstream part and the aluminum price updrift that we've seen. You elaborated that it was partly on the production side. And are there, I should say, the drivers of this updrift still in place, or anything changing shorter term?
So what we saw in 2025, that the price declined. So we are now at a much lower level. So it went better. We are now, I think yesterday it was around $500.
Yeah. All right. So the price-cost squeeze might be limited to Europe due to?
If it stays that way, yes.
Yeah. Absolutely. Okay. And then I would have a question concerning aerospace because there's still talks about kind of issues in the supply chain and, yeah, some OEMs not being able to really execute on the planned production rate. Is that something that you encounter? So could aerospace even be stronger, or is kind of your part of the business hardly impacted?
That's true. That's very true. We see that there is plenty of metal in the chain, not only in North America. Reasons that we know that it's happening with a major OEM in that region, but also the challenges that we have for a bigger ramp-up of the major OEM here in Europe can impact the whole flow of metals. That's why we discuss internally. Our commercial strategy is very much concentrating where it makes sense for us to be partnering and also having the diversity with other OEMs and platforms, so having every qualification that supports the growth of our position in the sector. We do see that. We have circumvented this with sales into other, let's say, qualifications in terms of OEMs. The main driver are the bigger two OEMs that have a very positive outlook when you look in the next 10, 15 years.
When you talk about different OEMs, does it also include Chinese aerospace companies or specifically asking about plane makers?
Yes, yes. We include the Asian OEMs. We include the other European smaller in terms of size airplane OEMs. We have Latin American OEMs. So we are positioned with AMAG to participate in every plate and sheet demand that the aerospace market demands. So yes to your question, yes.
Okay. Can you remind us of the share of aerospace volumes that are not Airbus and Boeing?
If I were to give you a number, I would be not able to confirm that in the next six months or year because it changes shipments every quarter. So it depends on how the offtake happens. So every number I would give you, certainly, the major OEMs have a bigger share. Let's put it that way. But pricing exactly, it will be unfair to name and to give a number that I would not be able to commit to it in the coming quarters. Let's put it like that.
Brackets? Brackets. Would that be easier for you? Where it's kind of the range where it's plugged to it?
Again, I wouldn't feel comfortable because there are quarters that I have lower volumes from the major OEMs and I have bigger volumes. So in the end, it's a number I cannot commit to. But if I can make you satisfied with the answer, it is that the majority comes in the bigger two OEMs or even with an incumbent OEM coming from Asia. So these are the main drivers of volume. But it doesn't mean that we're not growing in the other segments as well. So if I can give you an answer like that, I think you'll understand.
Sure. Final question, more of a bookkeeping one. What should we pencil in for investments in the next year? Would it be again around this EUR 85, 90, 95 million?
Capex.
Sorry, I didn't get the question. So you mentioned the CapEx.
The investment budget for next year, is that probably again €85-€95 million?
Our benchmark is always depreciation. As we are not when we have, let's say, a usual year, not the years we had where we made the big expansion. Normally, our benchmark is depreciation. We will stay around the €80-90 million that we had last year.
Okay. Thank you.
The next question comes from the line of Murta Duarte from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone, and thank you for the presentation. I have three questions. Firstly, on the metal division, could you just elaborate on what's the exposure to this record high alumina prices we saw on Q4? Did you look through the spike in alumina and held out on committing to volumes at that price, or were you forced to when basically we'll have significant impact in Q1, Q2, where I would assume this would be unprofitable or a very low level of profitability?
We are buying on long-term-based contracts for the whole year. Our pricing is quite over the average of the year. I think if you take the average we presented, it's also the average we have to face. We have, let's say, an inventory stock about two to three months. If you see a high price, let's say, in December, it also will affect the next month, so the first quarter, and perhaps also the second quarter because it needed some time to decline. That will affect us, let's say, for the first half year. Then it could, when it stays like this, because that's not so much time until now that we've seen this declining, if it stays like this, then you can see a positive impact on the second half of the year.
That's clear. Thank you. Then on aluminum tariffs, it's quite clear that the intention is to bring back capacity to the U.S., breaking a four-year capacity decline trend. But bringing new capacity will obviously take, at a minimum, three to five years. And we've seen the Midwest Premium adjust aggressively to these tariffs. So can we assume AMAG in the short term will actually, on the upstream division, have higher margins as a consequence?
I don't know. There are so many uncertainties, I have to say. We don't know when and what's calculated, how the market will react on other sites out of the Midwest Premium, how logistics will work, how other market participants will react. So that's nothing I can give a solid number on. But what I can say, what we know is that the U.S. themselves are not able to build up capacity that much. So it will not, the deficit could not shift that fast or that intense to bring it back to them. Yeah.
Okay. That's clear. And then just keeping on tariffs, but now for the rolling division, given the increase that we've seen this quarter of shipments into the U.S., particularly in autos and industrial applications, could you elaborate how that would affect what's the share of rolling going to the U.S.? And yeah.
So yes, we are shipping from Austria, from Europe to the US. We do not have a production site there. So we are exposed to possible tariffs, for sure, because we have business with the US, let's say, of roughly 30,000 tons. And I think that's what it could be for the next year as well. But here also, it's a thing that we do not know how it will affect. But let's say we are prepared and we are preparing. We are prepared that we have where we already have contracts, the contracts reflecting on possible tariffs. And we are in talk with our customer. We are preparing on the operational side as well to be able to calculate and pay tariffs as requested. And that's what we can do at the moment. But what we are not able is to provide any possible impact.
Okay. Thank you. Final question from my side on the dividend. At EUR 1.2 per share, it's quite a high payout ratio that comes out to about 5% dividend yield. Is this the target? So are you basically targeting the 5%? And can we assume this as a kind of a base for dividend?
I think that we can say that the 1.2 are in line with our dividend policy.
Okay. Thank you. That's it from my side.
As a reminder, if you wish to register for a question, please press star and the one on your telephone. The next question comes from the line of Christian Obst from Baader Bank. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning. First, two questions concerning the cost situation currently, so you have roughly stable number of employees on a year-on-year basis. What do you expect from the increase going forward, and do you see some possibilities maybe to save some money or to reduce the personnel cost going forward? And the second one then also related to the cost side, you have some tailwind coming from the energy supply. What is the current structure here and what do you expect in the year 2025 to come?
I would like to comment on the number of employees. First of all, I know that this is a little bit complicated, but we mentioned that we had a significant shift in product mix. And for example, we reduced the number in tonnage in packaging, and we increased the number of tonnage in automotive and aircraft industry. These are very different value chains, actually. So products from automotive and aerospace require significantly more pieces, production steps, more pieces of equipment that need to be run by staff. So we look at it in terms of productivity. So if you compare the number of people of last year and the number of people the year before, it's very good productivity that we had last year, although the number of people seemed to remain equivalent or stable.
So we look at it. So actually also people per ton or tons per people might be misleading too. We always have to look at what we produce. So we had, in other words, we had good productivity increase last year.
Okay.
This is also the way we approach this year.
When it comes to the payments for the employees, was there a problem the years before with the high increase of wages, especially here in Austria? What do you expect or calculating for this year?
Yeah. For this year, we calculate the increase in half hours, we say, in Austria.
The increase we had, it was you always have a negotiation with the employees, with the unions at the end of the year, and the increase then, which was 4.8%, this will affect the year 2025.
Okay, well, approximately 5%+ .
Yeah. And on the other cost you mentioned, that's part of our daily business to look everywhere where we can be more efficient and where we can stay profitable. And that's what we're working on every part of the cost structure during the year.
Of course. But do you still have some additional possibility to reduce the cost there? In the end, I don't think so. Because if you have more production steps, especially also, as mentioned before, on the aerospace production, then you cannot lower the amount of energy you're using, right?
Yeah. This is correct. This is the same story with the CO2 emissions. We also always reflect the product mix. Yeah, but of course, and we are proud, and on the other hand, we are famous for our continuous improvement process, and we continuously work on operational improvement programs.
Yeah. Of course.
We think that these were quite successful last year.
Yeah.
And so we are optimistic.
Definitely. Nevertheless, I have to mention one point, which is the return on capital employed. So you'll have a high capital employed, of course, because of the high investments you have done over the last years, very successfully, by the way. But nevertheless, return on capital employed is well below any kind of calculated average cost of capital, and it was mostly below 10% over the last 10 years almost. Do you have any kind of problem how to increase really the return on capital employed? Because otherwise, to be very blunt, it would be destroying capital or earnings over the time when you're not achieving the WACC over an average period going forward.
I think you mentioned the right period in your question because you said that over the last 10 years, and that was now when I just referred to our Austrian plant. That was the period where we did the huge investment. So we invested in the new hot rolling mill, the new cold rolling mill. And this is, we are quite investment-intense or capital CapEx-intense on how our production works. And therefore, for sure, if you look at the last 10 years, it was that way. And when you look at the last year, for example, and what I said before about next year's CapEx, this year's CapEx, you see that we are already now starting to be under the depreciation. So that is what then goes in the right direction. And we're working on every other thing, as we said before, for the profitability.
As I mentioned before, there's the cost side, of course. And we talked a lot about possible demand and impact on that side. But to double the earnings to reach a return on capital employed of 9% or 10%, this is really a challenge going forward. Do you have this target already also in your remuneration for the management or not? I haven't found it again.
We publish our. Do you know when we publish it?
Yeah. You know, Christian, this is Christoph speaking. All this is associated with the annual general meeting where our remuneration report is going to be published. So it is not possible to find the report now on our homepage, but you have to wait another two or three weeks, and you will find it.
Yeah, and there you see how the remuneration policy looks like and what we are regarding on.
Okay. Thank you very much and all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Christoph Gabriel, Head of Investor Relations, for any closing remarks.
Thank you very much for joining this conference call. As always, I'm happy to assist you in case of any further questions. So just give me a call or write me an email. I'm happy to discuss on the telephone as well. So have a great day and thank you. Goodbye.
Goodbye.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now over. Thank you for choosing Chorus Call, and thank you for participating in the conference. You may now disconnect the line. Goodbye.