A warm welcome to our conference call for the financial year results 2025 of AMAG Austria Metall AG. I'm Christoph Gabriel, Head of Investor Relations, and I'm delighted to welcome our management board members, Dr. Helmut Kaufmann, CEO and COO, Claudia Trampitsch, CFO, and Victor Breguncci, CSO. All board members are guiding you through the business development in 2025, based on our full year's presentation. At this stage, I would like to remind you that our full year's presentation, as well as the financial report and the magazine for 2025, have already been published on our website under Investor Relations this morning. After the presentation, you will have the opportunity to ask questions during the Q&A session. Please also feel free to reach out directly to me in case of any further questions that might occur after the Q&A session.
As always, please note the disclaimer, especially regarding forward-looking statements that can be found at the beginning of our presentation on slide two. I'm now handing over to Helmut Kaufmann, CEO, who will start with presenting the main highlights in 2025. Thank you.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, from my side. As Christoph mentioned, I will start with the slide on financial highlights for the year 2025, and would like to point out that in a difficult year, operational strength, consistent cost management, and some tailwinds from the Canadian investment in the primary metal smelter, Alouette, supported our revenues and earning trends and ensured, again, financial stability. The revenues grew by 2.1% to EUR 1.478 million, and compared to the 2024 number of EUR 1.448 million.
EBITDA resulted in EUR 137 million, slightly above the announced upper limit, despite some challenging conditions throughout the year, especially for the site Landshut, which was actually 23.5% down the EUR 179.2 million EBITDA for AMAG in 2024. Net income after taxes resulted in exactly EUR 34 million, which was 21.3% down compared to the EUR 43.2 million in the year 2024, which resulted in earnings per share of EUR 0.96, compared to EUR 1.23 in 2024.
The operating cash flow grew by 41.3% to EUR 168.1 million, and resulted in a very strong free cash flow, a growth of 262.5% to EUR 115.3 million. Compared to the 2024 numbers, EUR 119 million for the operating, and EUR 31.8 million for the free cash flow. The dividend proposal, which we will present to the Annual General Meeting in April, is EUR 0.75 per share, compared to EUR 1.20 per share in 2024. Finally, brief outlook for this year, 2026. Of course, it's very early in the year. We see a lot of volatility, and therefore, a precise EBITDA forecast at that point in time is not possible.
However, we can point out that we see some positive signals from the markets. Let me shift to the operational highlights for last year. I mentioned already that we had volatile surroundings, but the operational strength was supporting AMAG. Metal division, let me start with this one. Very important for the future development of AMAG is that an agreement was re-reached in the middle of last year for the key terms and conditions for a long-term electricity contract for our Canadian smelter, Alouette, which shall last to the end of 2045, so for the next 20 years. In the Casting division, productivity grew compared to 2024. Delivery reliability, so delivery performance was high and customer satisfaction was also high.
In the Rolling division, continuous process optimization in the internal slab production significantly reduced the scrap rate and increased delivery performance. Productivity gains were made in the rolling slab production, as well as in the rolling mill, and productivity grew in both areas compared to 2024. The utilization of the rolling mills was successfully stabilized, which was not so easy in this volatile environment. We were even able to increase the capacity for plate production and able to sell this additional capacity so that we could achieve record sales for heat-treated aluminum plates last year. Generally speaking, for AMAG Ranshofen, we had a successful continuation of ongoing working capital measures. Metal inventories were reduced to the lowest level since 2019, and investments in equipment were deliberately reduced to a minimum and are focused mostly on replacement activities.
As you know, we are very well invested, very modern plant in the center of Europe. Let me continue with innovation. Highlights there were, of course, in the area of sustainable alloys, especially sustainable alloys for the foundry industry at the beginning. It is important to develop materials which can consume higher amounts of scrap and are therefore optimized for recycling. We focus here on the utilization of mixed scrap and try to develop materials which fully capable for safety critical components. We were also able to develop and introduce high strength, ductile structural components for the automotive industry. Our alloy developments for our sustainable material brand, AL4ever, continued.
AL4ever stands for CO2 optimized materials, where we actually guarantee levels of CO2 emissions connected to the production of this material. This was now also introduced in the area of aircraft products, where maximum strength, corrosion resistance, and safety are combined with minimum CO2 impact. We also continued in the development of virtual rolling techniques. Computer optimized process development and product development at the site in Ranshofen. Of course, our customers can benefit from such solutions because we customize the products, and we are quicker in the introduction of new products. Let me have a short look at last year's in a little bit more detail.
I think for the first time, we show here a summary of the four quarters, because it was so volatile that the four quarters actually differ, were different. At the very beginning, in Q1 last year, very volatile aluminum prices. You remember from 2024 into 2025, a very high alumina cost, significant increases in the U.S. Midwest Premium, and an announcement of 25% of the U.S. tariffs, of course, had a strong impact. The general market sentiment was subdued globally. This was connected to a weakening industrial activity and of course, increased the pressure on us, to sell and to sell at good margins in Casting and Rolling division. In the second quarter of 2025, the aluminum price increased significantly.
The alumina price, on the other hand, was reduced, and because of the increase now to 50% increased American U.S. tariffs, U.S. Midwest Premium grew. Direct and indirect effects, we talked about indirect effects because of an impact on our customers in Europe. Because of the U.S. import tariffs gradually were reflected in our earnings performance and at AMAG's operating divisions. Challenges in the availability and the price development of aluminum scrap because of scrap export from Europe to international markets also led to rather unfavorable conditions. Basically, we had to be very careful and selective with products and markets for the Rolling division. In Q3 last year, the conditions for the Metal division remained rather attractive, so aluminum prices high alumina prices, low rising premiums, this was good.
Nevertheless, cautious optimism was evident, partly due also to some positive attitude of the purchasing managers, reflected in the purchasing managers index, including Germany. On the other hand, competition increased, especially in the area of industrial applications. Effects of U.S. tariffs, again, were intensifying the margin pressure in the Rolling division. Finally, in Q4 last year, again, further increase in aluminum price and stable alumina prices were positive for us. Sustained increase in the U.S. Midwest Premium, now was really fully offsetting the negative effect of the U.S. tariffs.
In the Rolling division, the competition remained high, connected to continued high competitive pressure on pricing, especially in Europe, especially again, for recycled foundry alloys, and aluminum products, for the foundry alloys also because, again, of scrap availability and pricing of scrap. The increased price pressure particularly had influence on the margin in the area of industrial applications, and this was reflected in the earning situation in the Rolling divisions. Of course, we did not just sit and watch the development. We responded with stabilizing measures that we quickly were able to implement. We also in the past, we oftentimes mentioned that AMAG is flexible and flexibility helps. We had to show flexibility in basically all our product areas.
In the Metal division, of course, there was a strong impact on the American tariffs and our sales had to decide continuously, basically on a daily basis, into which global area we would sell our primary metal. We were able to quickly change and try to find the best solution for AMAG. As you can see, in 2024, we sold 100% of the primary metal to North America. In 2025, only 60% of the products went to North America, 40% already to Europe. As I mentioned, this was daily activity to decide. Let me continue with the casting division. We were here rather indirectly affected.
As I mentioned, before, the casting division do about 95% sales into the automotive industry. Automotive, customers from Europe were affected by the American tariffs. It was more difficult or partly, impossible for them to sell into the American market, and this had some negative influence on the casting division. Again, we had to adjust, and we did so. In the Rolling division, tariff clauses in our contracts and difficult to produce products with some complexity enabled AMAG Rolling to stabilize the delivery, even to the American customers, in terms of volumes. It is shown on this slide that roughly 15% of our overall shipments in the past and also last year go to the American market.
Of course, these changes, and the adjustments in pricing had, of course, some influence on our competitive situation, and it increased the price pressure and the earnings quality in the rolling division. In operational words, I can tell you that we, of course, looked into the subject of productivity, and we were able to achieve productivity gains in both cast houses and in both rolling mills. The numbers here are certainly better than in the years before, where we also reported good numbers. The shipments of rolled products more or less remained unchanged in terms of tonnage, to the year before, to the year 2024. Let me say, the wide, as we always say, the wide product portfolio allowed us to adjust.
We again, were able to sell 204,000 tons of flat rolled products, but the product mix was different, and Victor will explain in detail later. The supply of raw materials, especially the supply of aluminum scrap, could be secured. This was also possible because of our ability to utilize lower scrap qualities. Even for these lower scrap qualities, the prices increased, so this certainly had an influence. I have to tell you also that we successfully continued our cost efficiency measures at the site in Ranshofen. We were able to achieve savings in excess of the inflation and a little bit more, and this helped us to cushion the effects of the increased price pressure that came from basically all global markets.
In addition, finally, I can tell you that we were also very strict in terms of investment discipline and working capital optimization. This contributed very nicely to AMAG's Group's financial position. With this information, I would like to hand over to Victor, who will tell you about the market and shipment situation in 2025.
Thank you. Thank you, Helmut, very much. Good morning from my side. I'm turning to page 12, where, as Helmut just described, the challenging year of 2025, we can see in the sentiment indicator of the PMI index that we're still not yet completely in a reversal of the trend. We saw that at the end of the year, we were coming from an economical situation with a little bit of more positive and more better expectations for the economic situation globally. We still don't see strength in all the markets, but we see that reflected in our order intake that I will mention more towards the end of my slides.
We come to the global demand for aluminum, it remains solid, very promising for the next four, five years, not only in the primary side, but also in the flat roll product in all the areas. China is a main driver of growth. Europe still subdued. We don't see necessarily a strong recovery from the demand, in our, in the Western market, where we ship, the magnitude of 70%-75% of our sales. It's important to mention that the flat roll product demand for aluminum, especially for our site in Ranshofen, remains strong in the medium to long term.
When we try to translate that into segments, as we have been showing in the last three, five years, transport, driven by aerospace, automotive, transportation, remains a strong user of aluminum, where we are very well positioned in our capabilities and our assets. Packaging and industry, with mechanical engineering being also good drivers. This gives us, as we saw in the execution of our strategy last year, how can we mitigate fluctuations in markets with a broad portfolio of capabilities in the flat world, in Ranshofen. This steady growth gives us a positive outlook that we have reached somehow the bottom of this demand cycle, and that 2026 might show better signs of recovery.
I would like to explain a little bit and give a little bit more details on what happened last year in our shipments. From 2024, when we go to page 15, in 2024- 2025, we saw a drop of almost 22% on our total shipments. How did it happen? In the metal business, in our smelter in Canada, there was a drop of a magnitude of 5,000 tons last year, due mainly for pot relining and temporary availability of pots. This is back into full capacity in our smelter in 2026, so this was an important impact in our sales from our Canadian Alouette smelter.
As, as Helmut already mentioned, casting business has been very much impacted, not only in our, upsat, in our shipments, but also in the margins, but also as well in the mix. We tried to mitigate the lower demand and the overcapacity we have in the foundry alloys, primary and secondary alloys, with more liquid material, which gives us a little bit more flexibility in where we can position our capacity. Nevertheless, we saw a reduction in our shipments in the region of Western and Central Europe in the magnitude of 2,500 tons. Rolling our main business in Ranshofen, we saw a big impact from the mix changes that happened when compared to 2024.
A reduction in aerospace business, which created, and we saw this in the whole market, I mean, not only the U.S. tariffs impacted, but also the very strong inventory quantity we had in North America, but also in Europe. Together with the fluctuations in the build rates on the main airframers, we saw that the availability of heat treat capacity impacted very much the aerospace demand during the year of 2025. We used this capacity to shift this availability of rolling hours into the industrial application segment, not only in Europe, but in United States as well, but also in Asia, especially driven for semicon industry and also some industrial machinery, where we saw, at the end of the year, an improvement in the sentiment and in the demand. Packaging was also a big driver.
We saw this happening here in Europe, we took advantage of the situation to support those customers in that area. As we've been saying, Helmut mentioned this, I'm mentioning again, the overcapacity, the scrap availability, the pressure on the pricing of scrap, we saw also the impact on how can we position our products in most profitable markets, impacted us, especially in Q3, Q4, that we saw, as I said before, sort of the bottom of our shipments capability. When we shift into the distribution of how our shipments in the rolling business happened, it's just giving a little bit of numbers.
We saw a reduction in demand in automotive, driven to mostly from United States' tariffs implications from some customers, but also some indirect impact from our OEMs here in Europe, where had issues in placing orders for their platform. We saw the indirect impact in our shipments in the magnitude of 3%. Aerospace, as I mentioned before, we used the capacity into the industrial applications, which grew 8% compared to 2024.
In the heat exchanger business, we saw a little bit of adjustments in the market here in Europe, and but a little bit of growth more towards the United States, where having this ability to play with premium products, and the rise of the Midwest gave us the chance to penetrate the United States and in North America with better product mix in the heat exchangers as well. In any sense, based on this scenario and on the situation that we saw during the year, we are believing, and we're gonna mention in this towards the end of the discussions today, that we have a noticeable increase in the average order backlog.
We see a little bit of improvement coming back from aerospace in the beginning of this year, towards the middle of this year. This is a positive trend. There are some supply chain shortages happening in North America, where we also see the reflection in our order intake. Industrials in Europe also show a positive trend in our order intake. We're coming from a very difficult Q3, Q4 from a volume, mix and margin point of view, into a scenario where we see, based on the economical trend, but also we see in our order intake, in our order book, positive signs that 2025 difficulties is in the direction of improvement.
I will transfer now my, the part of the slides to Claudia, who will give a flavor on how the numbers are looking like. Thank you.
Hello from my side. I will start with some information on the market prices that are relevant for our group earnings. First of all, we heard it before from my colleagues, we had a very strong aluminum price development the last year, where you see that at the end of the year, we were above EUR 3,000, and that level still is. We still are keeping this level. That is relevant for our sales out of Canada, and as well for has influence on our group revenues, but also on our revenues on our working capitals.
We now go to the Midwest Premium development. Here you can see reflected all of the information you got before on the U.S. tariffs. All the high increase we can see here is due to higher U.S. tariffs that are offset by the premium. Now the Midwest Premium is at the level above $2,200, which fully covers now the tariffs in there. Compared to last year, where we had a more or less record high for quite a long time on alumina price, which directly affects our revenue costs, now the level really went down, and we are now seeing a level at about $300 per ton.
Compared with the high aluminum price I mentioned before, we now have a very attractive relation between these two market prices that affect especially our revenues and earnings out of the metal segment. When I go now to the revenues, you can see that compared to 2024, and even given the difficulties we heard about before, we had an increase in the revenues out of with 2%, and that's mainly, as you can see in our reconciliation, it's mainly due to the aluminum price, as I mentioned before, which had a steep increase in the last year compared to the year before. When I now go to the EBITDA, we can tell that even though we had a.
Increase in the, in the revenues, which is, you can see in nearly all segments. What we now will see when we go to the EBITDA, that the EBITDA went, we can't transfer that increase fully to the EBITDA. That has several reasons. One of them was mentioned before by my colleagues, that we had mix shifts due to market conditions. We had price effects due to the price pressures, Victor mentioned before, in the relevant markets where we are in, and we had the effects by the U.S. tariffs, the direct and indirect effects we were talking about before.
In addition to all of that, we also see that we had to deal with negative impacts out of personal costs, energy costs. This all sums up to that our EBITDA 2025 is lower, but at least at a very solid level, given all the circumstances we are in at EUR 137 million. I want to give you a little bit more detail on the several segments, so that I can sum it up in those areas. For the Metal division, we have the effect that the lower shipments we mentioned before, but out of the U.S. tariffs, even though the U.S. tariffs are compensated by the U.S. Midwest Premium, what changes for us or for.
Is that in the years before, we had an advantage out of Canada to the U.S., as we had a tariff exemption, which sums up to 10% for the rest of the companies who sell. This exemption is now eliminated, and therefore we have a decrease in our earnings in the Metal division. The positive effect I showed you before is that our raw material costs for alumina especially in the second half, are going down. For the casting division, we have a lower EBITDA due to the challenging market condition we mentioned before, and the price pressure as well. For the Rolling division, I think Victor explained everything that leads to the changes in the product mix, the increased competition, and the price pressure.
I want to mention again, these are all negative influences, but as Helmut elaborated before on, we didn't sit and wait, but did a lot of measures where we were able to influence and contribute to make the best out of the macroeconomic situation we are not able to change. When we have a short look also on the EBITDA of the fourth quarter, it shows even more precise or drastically the things I mentioned before, because when you see the whole year, if we had a first quarter, which wasn't influenced by the tariffs and so on, but when you just look at the fourth quarter, you see it even more, namely the effects of the tariffs and the changed product mix in there.
This leads to a different picture than one year ago for the fourth quarter. The net income after tax, just to finalize it up to there, is influenced by much lower depreciation than last year. Just to remind you, last year we had an impairment loss. We had to balance in. This year, it's quite more or less a normal depreciation, given the lower investment, also our depreciation is below our investments.
This now brings me up to our cash flow statement. When I mentioned before that we did everything and worked very hard on make all the best out of the situation and influence where we are able to do it, many of these things you see reflected in our cash flow. We have a cash flow out of EUR 168 million from the operating activities. In there, we have a positive impact out of our working capital measurements, where we have a level in, not in value, because the value is influenced by the alumina price, but in tons, a level that is lower than 2019 on the metal side. We reduced our inventories.
We did measures on the receivable side to do all things possible to increase our cash flow. The same is true for the investing activities. You know, from AMAG that we are a very modern and well-built facility in Landshut and had very big investments in the last years. We are now in a phase where we, at the one side, have lower investments because of our past activities, but also very strict on where and how we now do our investments there. This all sums up to a record level of a free cash flow we had in 2025 of EUR 115 million.
To sum it up, we can give you a short view on all our key figures for the group. As I mentioned before, we are able, in these difficult environments, to keep our revenues. We did everything to achieve a EBITDA of EUR 137 million, and had a very attractive influence then on our balance sheet. This leads me now to the balance sheet, everything that we mentioned before leads to a effect on the net financial debt as well. We could significantly reduce our net financial debt with 16% alone this year, we could reduce our ratio of the EBITDA to net debt as well, with 23.5%.
We are now at the level of 2.3, and this is a very solid and good basis for us for the year to come. Again, we see that the equity and the equity ratio, given all the measurements on balance sheets, and working capital and our financial stability, we see that we could increase our equity ratio with 1%. Also, in times where we have to figure on our financial stability, we do not lose that lens on the ESG key figures.
We heard before about flexibility, mix shifts, and so on, but still, we were able to have a high or even higher than last year scrap utilization rate. That's given to the efforts of our team to source and recycle all the scrap needed to achieve these numbers. Also for the TFR, I also want to point out we were able to reduce it even more, so we are also proud of that achievement as well. Now I can hand over to Helmut again, who will give you some information on the dividends and the outlook for 2026.
Yeah. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, I try to speed up a little now so that we will have some time for Q&A as well. I already mentioned that we will propose EUR 0.75 as a dividend to the Annual General Assembly on 16th of April. One week later, the dividend payment date will happen. I try to be quick here as well. We do expect a general growth continuation in the various global markets as is shown here. We do see already some positive signals, especially in our Rolling division.
In more detail, for metal division, this year, we expect a full utilization of the installed capacity combined with good prices for aluminum and still positive for us, relatively low prices for alumina. This lets us expect general positive development for this division. Casting division, still under pressure, as we said, very strongly dependent on the European automotive industry. The availability of scrap and the scrap prices connected to this business are of major importance. Here, of course, there is some fight on the market to be expected. For the rolling division, we expect sales increase. Victor already mentioned some reasons. Aerospace is one, where we expect a continued growth or ramp up of the two big aircraft producers.
Automotive on the one hand side remains challenging in Europe. However, there are some short-term market opportunities in the United States. We do expect a positive effect from this, and we therefore expect a stronger sales this year. Packaging, architecture, sports remain stable and industrial applications, which is also of global importance for us, remains price sensitive. This means also that our internal programs to optimize our cost position have to continue. Of course, it's impossible at the moment to tell you detailed numbers, but the signal that I want to send to you is as positive as we see it from the market, we expect a positive development this year. Very finally, in a little more than a year from now, we celebrate the 15 year anniversary. Excuse me?
A month.
What did I say?
A year.
In a month from now, yes. Sorry. On April 8th, we will celebrate 15 years of AMAG being listed at the Vienna Stock Exchange. I think this was a positive move for us. It secured our long-term future. It was very positive for our investment program at the site in Landshut. It helped us to achieve autonomy and independence and a positive development also for the future. Thank you very much for now. We are now open for your questions.
Thank you so much for the presentation. We will now move on with the questions from your side. For a dynamic conversation, we kindly ask you to ask questions in person via the audio line. To do so, just raise your virtual hand, and if you have dialed in via phone, you can use the key combination star key nine to enter the queue, followed by pressing star key six to unmute yourself. We will start with Patrick Speck, please go ahead with your questions.
Yes. Good morning. Can you hear me?
Yes.
Yes.
First of all, congratulations on the very solid performance in 2025, and thanks a lot for the very detailed presentation. My first question is about the current situation of tariffs in the U.S. After the Supreme Court decision on general tariffs, do you see any chance that the still existing tariffs on aluminum could be lifted too? I mean, are there any lawsuits against those types of tariffs too? What's your knowledge about that?
As you correctly mentioned, the current Supreme Court of the United States is only relevant for other tariffs, but not for the tariffs on the steel and aluminum, and I'm not aware of any lawsuits there. At the moment, also the sentiment we get from The Aluminum Association, the Canadians and so on, is that people are expecting it to stay.
Okay. As you mentioned, the premium now.
Yes.
Those tariffs, right?
It's true, the premium covers the tariffs. At the end, it's reflected then in there, in the input price for every company which processes the aluminum, because you must take into account the. When you bought as a, let's say, as a U.S. producer, you bought aluminum 2024, it was, let's say, a price of $2,200 and $400 premium, so $2,600. Now you have $3,000 aluminum and $2,200 Midwest, so you're now at the double price for the same product one year ago. It's really, really affecting their input cost.
Yeah. Understood. Secondly, your CapEx spendings came down significantly, I think as planned, as you mentioned. What should we expect for the current year? Maybe a sidestep or a further reduction? What should we type in the models?
What our goal is or our plan is to stay below depreciation, because we invested a lot the last years, and now it's we're in a situation where we could maintain the high level of our high quality of our equipment and to stay very modern, but there is no big investment plan, so therefore, we are below depreciation. That's the plan.
Could be, I mean, anything below EUR 80 million, maybe, or that's roughly your depreciation?
Yeah. Yeah. It's, that's roughly it.
Okay. Thirdly, maybe I missed it, but I think you did not mention the new CBAM regulation, or at least the sharpened CBAM regulation. Could you comment on that, how it's affecting your business, and maybe also, what's the financial burden you expect from this?
Yes.
Regulation in the current year?
I didn't mention it, you're right, because it's the phase where you have to, let's say, pay for CBAM starts with January 2026, and therefore we didn't have had it in there. I think the big issue is that even though it's now in the phase where you have to pay for CBAM, the calculation itself and the input numbers are still at the one side unclear, and at the other side, if you need to use actual numbers, you will be able in 2027 to calculate the real numbers for 2026. That's, I think, one of the big globally, the big issues with CBAM, that it's very difficult to figure out what's the real impact on that side. How do we deal with it?
On the one side, we are affected when bringing the aluminum from Canada to Europe, because then it's a non-European import. Therefore, we normally sell it duty uncleared, so that it's not on our balance, not in our duties, let's put it that way. On the other hand, we are, when we have to import on the for Ranshofen site, we try to import it at least duty cleared or in a way that we can minimize the risk of additional payments, so importing from the EU, for example.
It's an interesting topic, and it will, let's say, evolve over the next years, because when the free CO2 allowances we get in Europe will go down until 2034, it will be more and more a cost factor there. In one sentence, a lot of things unclear. We have a lot of people working on that on a daily basis to look at it so that we know which measures we need to do if there is more information on that. Yep.
Yes, exactly. I think it's a bit early to tell, but in any way, it's affecting the whole industry. Yeah, but thanks a lot for commenting.
Yep.
That's it from my side so far. Thanks.
Thank you so much for your questions. We will move on with the questions from Michael Marschallinger. Please unmute yourself.
Yeah.
Oh, Mr. Marschallinger, I can see that you are speaking into your microphone, but unfortunately, we cannot hear you, so maybe you need to switch to another device. Let's move on in the meantime to a person who has dialed in with the phone ending 6609. Please go ahead, unmute yourself by pressing star key six, and then please ask your questions and introduce yourself to us. Therefore, we can't hear you as well. Mr. Marschallinger, let's try again.
Hello. Can you hear me now?
Yes.
Oh, perfect. Thank you. Thanks also for the presentation and your remarks. I have two questions left. Firstly, on the pricing pressure you see in rolling. I believe you always face some kind of price pressure on the end market. How does this pricing pressure in the fourth quarter compare to the previous quarters? Is it possible to provide some numbers here? Would you expect the same degree of pricing pressure to continue now in the following quarters?
Let me take that one, Michael. First of all, it's important that we recognize that for some products that we have in our portfolio, especially those that are more commercial and commodity-oriented, there is a very strong overcapacity, not only in Europe, but globally, right? Rolling capacity. When we have any relaxation in demand, this overcapacity really takes its toll on us, and you see this, what's happening in the direction of executing our commercial strategy. Q3 and Q4 were the moments where we saw the direct and indirect impacts of the U.S. tariffs, and we saw the impact of capacity in Europe and as well as in the U.S., and we shifted our capacity to.
From this high-premium products to products in the industrial areas, where we saw that we were competing face-to-face with regional and global players, where we were able to shift the capacity from aerospace, as I said before, into the industrial, right? Q3 and Q4 were very difficult because of the order intake we had in Q1 and Q2, which was full of uncertainties. We saw now in Q4, in terms of shipments, the impact on the numbers, as we said before. We expect this trend, especially now, and as Helmut Kaufmann was mentioning, CBAM is putting a little bit of more pressure on the Rotterdam Premium. We see the Rotterdam Premiums increasing a little bit more. This all impacts the whole dynamics in the European landscape.
We expect that demand will be an improvement, as I said, in the sentiment indicator. We have more clarity and more understanding in how the players can play in the United States, in North America, given the geopolitical conditions. In the end, we are seeing the recovery of some premium markets that will remove the need to sell into industrial.
And gives a chance to be more fierce on our commercial execution for industry. To your question, I explained Q3 and Q4, and I gave you a little bit of sentiment on what's expected for Q1 and Q2.
Mm-hmm
Specifically maybe for the whole year of 2026.
Okay. It's also fair to assume, I believe, that the fourth quarter also marked the bottom yearly end results for rolling. Is it fair to assume?
It's not wrong to say that, for reasons that are far beyond our capability to define, from a market-oriented condition, but also from how we could deploy our capacity in the right market. It was my view today, and the view of our company, the moment of recovery that we're seeing now in the order intake that I mentioned in the end of my slides.
Okay, understood. Okay, that's it for me. Thank you.
Thank you so much for your questions. In the meantime, Mr. Steiner, from the phone dial-in, has sent his questions over to us. On behalf of him, I would read them out. His first question is: How do you see product mix developing in rolling and casting over the year? Any expected changes worth highlighting that could affect margins and the current year?
Okay, let me take that one. First of all, thank you, Patrick, for the question. Well, in the casting business, we are navigating the better recovery on the casting products in Europe, right? In Germany specifically, we see potential improvement. Our order intake is demonstrating that. Still very much challenged on the mix of combustion engine and electric cars. How can we position our products there if we sell ingots or we sell liquid materials? We're navigating as we see the opportunities. In rolling, as I said before, we see the short-term shortages in the U.S. for automotive and the improvements in the heat exchanger business. These are premium products where we are placing confidently that we increase shipments during the year of 2026.
Needless to say, recovery, given the destocking that is finishing from the aerospace, not only in Europe but also in North America, we see recovery on our shipments in aerospace as well. In all sense, we, despite the uncertainties we see ahead of us, with regards mainly to the tariffs and how this affects us in the United States, but also in Europe, we see a positive trend in our order book for 2026, given this mix changes that I just mentioned now.
All right. Thank you so much. His second question is, a primary aluminum production capacity over 2026, any maintenance or other capacity, sorry, reducing events expected over the current year?
At the end of 2025 and beginning this year, we were back to full capacity in the smelter, and this is also the plan for the year 2026. Even though we are doing maintenance, it's a regular way, so we do not expect any losses there at the moment.
Thank you so much. Mr. Steiner says, "Thanks a lot. Very helpful." We have two questions left from Mr. Matejka. His first one is: Could you give some words on the features of AMAG AL4ever, and what happened to your CrossAlloy developments?
As you were named, Christian Matejka, thank you for the Frage. Sorry, I have to answer in English. I know Mr. Matejka understands German, but sorry. AMAG AL4ever is a general brand name that applies to all our products, where customers request defined upper limits for the connected CO2 level. Actually, we sold such products to various branches, automotive, packaging, sports, and we see that a growing number of customers is asking for this. At the moment, or beginning, I would say, with Trump last year, there was a feeling in the market that sustainability questions are now less important, but new development is maybe a little more difficult. This has some influence on the development of CrossAlloy. The development is slower than we expected. Nevertheless, we continue.
We continue with trials with different customers in, again, various application areas. I think this is generally true material development and the convincing of customers to use alternative materials to their already well-known current use, is time-consuming and difficult, but this is one of the activities that we are used to and keep doing.
Thank you so much. The last question is from Mr. [Matejka] as well. It's a bit longer. You mentioned new energy contract in Canada gives some comfort on future energy price developments. In respect to the actual expanding need for electricity from data centers, is this a competitive advantage against your competitors besides your partner at Alouette?
For the smelter, it is very relevant to have a secured energy supply, and of course, as it is a monopolist in Canada, we are talking to the politicians there to negotiate the contract. It's they have the possibility to decide which strategy they are going on, if they want to support it or supply the energy to existing industry that provides work or employment there, or to give it to new companies. I think that that's always something that's that they have to measure out. I would say we are now in the region for more than 30 years, and we are very reliable energy consumer there.
We ourselves do not see us at the moment that they're building their data center, and we have some issues there, because it's quite regional, you know, we have to buy from the region, the energy, so it's not something we can buy somewhere else. I think globally, there is some issues or pressure on who and where we will distribute the energy. We saw it in the industry, for example, that there was in Mozambique, a smelter, which will be closed in three months because of exactly this issue, that they do not get any further energy contract because of the government decision to transfer or distribute the energy to other areas.
That's definitely an issue and very, very key topic for a smelter to be competitive.
Thank you so much. In the meantime, we have received no further questions. Therefore, I hand back to Christoph.
Ladies and gentlemen, thanks a lot for your participation to this call. Again, feel free to give me a call or write me an email should there be any questions left. I'm happy to assist. Otherwise, I wish you a great weekend. The weather forecast certainly looks promising. Thanks a lot. Goodbye.