Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to ANDRITZ webcast, regarding the publication of the Q1 2023 results. My name is Stefan Schantl, I will moderate today's webcast. I would like to welcome President and CEO, Dr. Joachim Schönbeck, and CFO Norbert Nettesheim, who will present the financial highlights of Q1 2023. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Now I would like to hand over to Mr. Schönbeck. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you very much, Stefan, for the nice introduction. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you very much for joining our call and spending the time with us. Hardly welcome to our call. It's only seven weeks ago that we met last time, March 8th. We expected from last year onwards, we expected the Q1 quite gloomy with the tight central bank policies and the predicted recessions. However, it did not turn out that way. However, after we met last time, basically the world on your side changed a lot. On March 9, this Silicon Valley Bank stock plummeted by 60%. Day after, the bank was shut down.
Basically 10 days later, this UBS took over Credit Suisse. I think you all followed what happened with First Republic Bank in the last 2 days. They also lost two-third of their company value. You are all aware of that. However, the good news is, none of these banking turmoils have affected ANDRITZ and, as far as we know, also not one of our customers and projects. However, financing definitely is not getting easier under these circumstances. Before coming to the results of ANDRITZ in the, in the Q1 , I basically would like to do some bookkeeping, housekeeping with you.
We made some changes from January 1st onwards in our reporting structure as we have decided to report the pump business and certain parts of the Pulp & Paper business, which basically is not delivered to the Pulp & Paper industry, to report that under the business area Separation from January 1st onwards. The full year effect, if you look at last year, is around EUR 300 million, which is added to Separation and taking away the EUR 80 million roughly from Pulp & Paper and about EUR 230 million from Hydro. In our presentation, our last year figures are adjusted to this new reporting structure in order not to confuse you.
We are doing that in order to align our product and our offerings a bit according to the markets for our customers as the pumps and these non-pulp and paper-related products. They're also being supplied in the same markets where Separation is working in and under a very alike similar business model. It's pulp and paper, it's energy, it's metals and minings, chemicals, iron and steel, oil and gas, and water. We believe that a lot of synergies can be taken from this from this setup, and it also enables further growth in all areas, which, you know, is our target.
Coming, having said that, coming to our, to the Q1 results, I would say despite everything I said before, we are quite happy with the outcome of the Q1 We had a very good order intake of EUR 2.4 billion in the Q1 . Even though it is 7% down from the EUR 2.6 billion last year, which clearly was dominated by two large orders for one pulp mill which we received and a large order for the hydropower sector from Mexico. This was last year. Without a large order, saying of anything above EUR 100 million, without that, we are quite happy with the EUR 2.4 billion order intake.
The revenue grew very much. We had an increase of 29% to EUR 2 billion in the Q1 . Also the order backlog grew against the Q1 of 2022, but also against the last quarter of last year to a total backlog now of EUR 10.4 billion. Which gives us a good order and good work for the months to come. The EBITDA increased basically on the same rate as the revenue to EUR 159 million, which is up 30% compared with the Q1 of last year. The net income even rose higher by 46% to EUR 103 million, compared with EUR 70 million in QQ1 of 2022.
The net liquidity remained on the same level, with EUR 907 million. Looking a bit closer to the numbers on the order intake. As I said, we had a slight decline from last year. With EUR 2.4 billion, we are on a very comfortable level. I mentioned that Pulp & Paper and Hydro dropped a bit because the previous year's quarter was dominated by large orders that we took. What is very remarkable is the steep increase in the Metals business. 34% increase to EUR 670 million order intake.
The increase is mainly driven by Metals forming, which is Schuler, received a large order for a complete press line from Asia and many, many other smaller orders. In the Metals processing business, we had a very good order intake. Separation grew, continued their steady growth by 8%. In total, the order intake we had from Europe, North America, 57%, a bit down from the previous year. The revenue increased by 29% to almost EUR 2 billion, and that increase was supported by all four business areas.
The highest increase, 44%, came from Hydro to EUR 356 million, followed by Pulp & Paper to which reached EUR 908 million revenue in the Q1 . 22% increase in Separation to EUR 277 million. At Metals, increased by 18% to EUR 422 million. Overall, this increase was mainly driven by higher capital business. The capital share rose to 61% compared with the Q1 of last year. The service business dropped proportionally to 39%. Here you see the split in service and capital business for the business areas. You see that we had a slight drop in the three business areas, Pulp & Paper, Metals and Hydro.
While Separation could continue the nice increase in the service business out to 49%, which is a real good value, and we expect further increase in that. The order backlog, as I said, record high EUR 10.4 billion. 70%, of course, is related to Pulp & Paper and Hydro, where we have the large orders that's totalling up to 70%. It's a good resource for the revenues of the next quarters to come. The earnings have been significantly up. We increased the EBITDA reported by 30% and the EBITDA adjusted, we increased even by 37%. The adjustment is related to an extraordinary income which we had in the last year.
On the operational level, we could improve the EBITDA margin from 7.7 to 8.2%. On the reported margin, we increased from 8% to 8.1% EBITDA margin to a total of EUR 158.5 million in the Q1 . The profitability by business areas. Here you see that basically Pulp & Paper and Hydro are stable compared to Q1 of last year. While this extraordinary effect basically only affected the Metals business area. Here I wanted to report that because on the operational level, we could increase the EBITDA margin from 4% to 4.9%.
As the Metals business area has been under a lot of questions and concerns from investors, from your side for some years, I think that's a good proof that the turnaround has been achieved and is continuing in the right direction. On Separation, we had a very nice increase in profitability from 9.8% to 10.5% EBITA margin. I give over to my colleague, Norbert, who will explain to you the financials in a bit more detail.
Yeah. Ladies and gentlemen, who are on the call, also good morning from my side. As done in the past meetings, I will lead you quickly through the financials. Here you see the bridge from EBITDA to net income. EBITDA and EBITA is explained by Joachim already. Nothing to add from my side, everything normal there. The first element where we have some improvements is the IFRS 3 amortisation, which is now down to EUR 12.5 million. The difference is simply due to the fact that the Schuler depreciation, the amortisation is now coming to its end and that we have now, let's say, this reduced level of amortisation.
We also can expect then for the next quarters to be at that level as long as we don't do a major acquisition, which will then change this number again. Financial results are improved from EUR 10.7 in the last year, Q1 , to EUR 8.3. Very simply based on the change in the environment of the interest and of our financial investments, which is a little bit more profitable now with the higher interest rate. This leaves then to an 7% EBT, which is compared to the 6.3% which we had in the last year, 0.7 percentage point and 44% increase. We continue here, as already said, our improvement in our financial result numbers.
This also you see then in the net income, which you see achieved EUR 102.5 million, including minorities. Excluding minorities, as it is published in the press releases, is EUR 104.5 million, yeah. This is now the Q1 with a number above EUR 100 million, and we are confident that we will stay in this range also in the next quarters to come. That's about net income. Going to the next page shows you the cash flow. Same picture as presented in the past. I started with net income, adjust the non-cash elements in our results. Quickly wanted to point out, effect from release of provisions is EUR 7.8 million.
These effects from, let's say, provision releases after this huge restructuring provisions which we did in the past, goes now to its end. Also means that the net income is not supported so much anymore by release of provisions, and that this transfer position to cash now comes down. Everything fine so far. We have now in this quarter something to report which is, on the first view, a significant development. EUR 170 million, let's say, cash decrease or negative cash flow from increase in working capital. On the other hand, you all know our business well enough to understand that this is a pure effect from the execution of the huge capital orders.
Last year we were in the phase where we mostly had, let's say, positive cash in these projects. In the early beginning, you have these down payments. At the beginning, you have engineering work, you don't have that much cash consumption in the early stage of the execution. Some of our projects, especially those which we booked in Q1 last year, turning now into the middle of the execution phase. Where you have the huge cash outflow to our suppliers for purchasing of the material and of the sub-supplied goods. This then leads to a significant increase in the contract assets, which is more or less POC inventory. EUR 147 million increase in this point and with the other dimension then in the cash.
We lost EUR 150 million cash by simply executing the orders. On the other hand, down payments from new orders on a normal level, no big increase. This and last number on, in this table at the right side is only a +EUR 6 million, this is more or less the major effect. All the rest is Q4, Q1 topics. Let's say major sales in the Q4 led to receivables, which are now going down, a EUR 100 million tailwind from the reduce of receivables. On the other hand, after sending so much to customers in the Q1 , now building up inventories in the completed contract area again, which is EUR 84 million. Overall, I would comment this as a pretty normal development in the business where we are in.
In the big projects capital business, you have these fluctuations in working capital from quarter to quarter. For the future, we will see it in both direction. This is normal for the business as we are in. That's the major point for working capital. Reducing then the tax, which we paid of EUR 50 million leads to a negative cash flow from operating activities in this quarter of EUR 31 million. Going then to the liquidity situation. Exactly what I explained, you see here in the numbers. You have a decrease of EUR 77 million in gross liquidity, which is nothing else than the EUR 31 million I explained before. The CapEx of something at the end of EUR 40 million, which then led to the EUR 77 million decrease in cost liquidity with nearly no change in debt.
This also then ends up in a decrease in net liquidity of EUR 77 million. Further on, we are still with this nearly EUR 2 billion gross liquidity on a very favourable level of liquidity. Last but not least, from my side here is a summary. I always look at the column plus/minus. A lot of double-digit pluses all explained in detail before. The only, let's say, not so nice issue is working capital development, the cash flow. We are with EUR 100 million negative, EUR 136 million negative net working capital. We are still favourable in the negative, which is for us as a capital business provider range, which we consider as a normal and a good range. As long as it's negative, we consider it well.
Allow me a last remark on employees. Here this increase of 2 and a half thousand sounds a little bit. Well, looks a little bit big, but here you have to consider that in this number we have 1,200 people which came into ANDRITZ after acquisitions of the last year, which we didn't have in the numbers in Q1. That's from my side, and I pass back to Joachim, who will continue with the divisional overview.
The good message on the employee definitely is that out of the 2,500, 1,300 could be attracted to work with ANDRITZ last compared to the last quarter, which gives us a good feeling that in the battle for talents, we are well positioned, and we are providing a good environment for the people we like to get on board. Coming to an update on the business areas. Also here, you see new names and new faces. From April 1st on, we are happy to welcome two new board members to our team, who are succeeding Wolfgang Semper and Humbert Köfler, who have retired, or in case of Humbert Köfler, who will retire by end of September.
Frédéric Sauze is taking over the Hydro business area. He's in the energy business for over 30 years. He's with ANDRITZ since 10 years, and he's a French citizen. Dietmar Heinisser is in charge of the business area Separation. He is with ANDRITZ for more than 25 years, and he is Austrian citizen. You see that we are widening the diversity, maybe not as much as you like to, but at least we added a further nationality to our team. Looking to the more detailed numbers and the business development in the business areas. As I said, in Pulp & Paper, order intake a bit down compared Q1 of last year, mainly driven by the capital business.
We had a good increase QoQ in the service business. Revenue, a strong increase by 30%, and also the EBITDA rose in the same magnitude. Large increase on employees. This was this acquisition of a provider of biomass boilers and pressure part manufacturing in Croatia. Profitability was 9.8% at a stable level. If we look to Metals, it's a strong increase in order intake. Very good markets as well from the automotive side, basically for Schuler, electro vehicles as well as conventional press technologies.
Also on the metals processing side, we saw a very active market, especially on the stainless steel side, and we took a very important order for a rolling mill in for a customer in North America, which will establish a good basis for future business to come in that area. The revenues grew nicely by almost 20% in both sectors. The earnings were up by 19% to EUR 19.5 million. The EBITDA margin reported remained on the same level, 4.6%, but rose, eliminated by extraordinary effects from 4.0% to 4.9%. You see we are on the right track there.
The increase in employees is basically driven by the acquisition of the Sovema part of our battery business. Hydro, excellent development in revenues. That's up 44% to EUR 355 million. It's down in the order intake by 40%. You know, we booked a large order from for a couple of modernisation plants in Mexico in the Q1 last year. We are very confident that we can make up this gap in the months to come. Profitability remains stable at 6%. EBITA is now up to EUR 21.3 million in the Q1 .
like to tell you a bit about what we are doing in the business, we are very happy to that Greenko selected ANDRITZ as their partner for their intelligent green energy venture, which they have set up. I think Greenko is one of the most remarkable new players in this renewable energy area, as they are one of the first, the first one in India, and I believe one of the first worldwide, who is guaranteeing their customers uninterrupted supply 24/7 of renewable carbon-free energy. They do it by investing in a wind farm, a solar plant, and a pump storage reservoir.
This pump storage facility is supplied by ANDRITZ, so they can take care of the energy coming from wind and solar when there is no demand. They pump the water up, and they take it down to into the lower level when it's dark and when there is no wind. We believe especially for India, this is very important because without their technology, you need to add in India for each megawatt of solar power, you need to add 1 megawatt of coal power because on the other side, the grids will become unstable, which definitely would not support our environmental goals and also not the environmental goals of India.
We are happy that everything works well in this project. We have been awarded with the first order in 2020 and got the repeat order two years later last year for Gandhi Sagar pump storage plant. The first line will go into operation in 2024 and then the second one year later. We trust that there is more to come. On the Separation business area, they continued their very favourable development. They are nicely up in all areas. Their business is not driven so much by large orders, but by much more continuous business. Order intake rose by 8%, revenue by 20%, and the margin nicely climbed up from 9.8 to 10.5%.
EBITA delivered EUR 29 million in the Q1 . That's basically what we had to tell you. The outlook, we see ongoing project and investment activities in all business area, and we believe it will continue on good to satisfactory levels. We confirm our financial guidance for this year, that we will continue the profitable growth. We believe, we will increase in both revenue and earnings compared to last year while watching the economic and geopolitical challenges very every day. Thank you very much for your attention. If you have any questions, we are happy to answer.
Thank you very much for your presentation. We are now ready for the Q&A session. To ask a question, please follow the guideline which you can see now on your screen. Okay, we have already received several questions. The first question comes from Sven Weier.
We cannot hear you.
The next question comes from Sven Weier from UBS. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good morning from my side. Thanks for taking my questions. The first one is on the Pulp & Paper business. I was just wondering, obviously, in the last couple of weeks, we had a few profit warnings from the industry, lower pulp prices, some issues there. I just wonder how you see the situation. Do you feel that changes anything in the, in the investment plans of your clients? Also if you could update us on the status of Paracel. That's the first one. Thank you.
Yeah. I mean, I'm old enough to understand that the commodity prices go up and down. Pulp prices went down. You know, we had startup of two major pulp assets in South America in the last couple of months. That's the Arauco plant from MAPA and the Taurus project from UPM. There is probably a bit, there is pressure in the market. We do not believe that this will too much impact the long-term investment strategy of our clients. It can postpone projects.
At the moment, we had the cancellation of 2, basically 3, large pulp investments in Russia last year because they could not be executed because of the sanctions. They have been, they have been announced, which resources had been available, and now the market needs to make up for that. That is, that might come as an upside. In South America, I would say there is the at the moment certainly only 1 project to come, that's the Cerrado project, which will start up next year, and a smaller revamp of another mill. I would say it will not impact on the long term, but it might impact timing.
On Paracel, I can basically give you no news. We are ready. We are committed to the project. We are available to support. We heard that the financing is not ready yet. You probably, your colleagues in the banks know more about that than we do.
Okay, fair enough. Thanks for that. The second question is on the Hydro business and the Lao order you announced in December. I guess probably fair to assume that you did only book a smaller share of the project in Q1. Can you provide us with the split how this mid-triple digit order is going to break down between Q1 and Q2?
Which order you are talking? I missed that.
The December order you announced for Lao.
Oh, okay.
The EUR 500 million project, I think.
Yeah. Yeah, we have a, we only booked in the Q1 the down payment, which is roughly 10%. Yeah.
Mm-hmm. The rest comes in Q2 then on the order intake side?
That's my strong assumption, yeah.
Okay. Thank you. The final question from my side is just the divisional changes you outlined at the beginning of the presentation. I just wonder, does that in any way impact also your midterm margin targets for the divisions? I mean, it has a bit of a dilutive impact on the Hydro business. It has an accretive impact on Separation. Is that too early to...
We have.
to comment on?
I mean, we are telling you about the reporting changes we made. Of course, we also made some changes in the management. We thought we give a couple of months' time to understand, also to understand the full potential of the synergies and the market perspectives. When we make our next outlook, I believe that we will review these figures also under this, under these circumstances. Yeah.
Okay. Thank you, Dr. Schönbeck.
The changes were made to become better.
Understood. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from Ingo Schachel, BNP Paribas.
The next question comes from Ingo Schachel from BNP Paribas Exane. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks. The first question would be on your free cash flow, and you explained, let's say, a lot of the or all of the line items, very well, and it's understood that it's a typical business model related cash flow volatility on many lines. I think the one line which I found a bit surprising was the contract liabilities, which did not increase despite the still very strong order intake. Can you comment a bit on how you expect contract liabilities to evolve in the next quarters, assuming that order intake remains strong, you will hopefully book Paracel and so on? We don't expect a normal increase of that line, or are you seeing higher reluctance from customers to prepay now that interest rates are higher?
No, it was simply timing of down payments and timing of orders received. With further order intake, we also will expect this line to grow again. What I should remark here is that when it is stable, while you increase the asset side, this is a shift, yeah, because we book projects either on the passive or on the liability or on the asset side. It's communicating numbers. Your question was how it will develop. Yes, we don't expect it going down significantly in the next quarters.
Okay, very clear. On the cooperation that you've outlined with Greenko partners on pump storage and several projects in India. Can you give us a bit more detail on the commercial relationship with that client? It's obviously a very big investor in pump storage. Is it fair to say that you are basically the exclusive supplier to them so far? Is there any, let's say, mechanism in your cooperation that makes you exclusive supplier or will the next projects be sort of negotiated on an arm's length basis, with you probably expecting a higher hit rate?
No, we are not exclusive. At least not that we are aware of. There is no exclusivity agreement. I think it's a strong commitment that before the first plant of that kind goes into operation, they are already committed to a repeat order. The first project is moving on very well. It's an excellent cooperation. We believe that if we deliver as promised, and it looks like that, there is a very solid ground also to be the partner for the other projects to come.
Okay, thank you. Can I just finish with a quick housekeeping question on the segment reclassification? On the pumps business that you're reclassifying to Separation, can you tell us roughly what the end market split of that is at the moment? How much is Hydro, how much is Pulp & Paper, and how much other end markets?
We need to. Stefan will take care of that and provide information.
Okay.
I cannot. Sorry, I'm not prepared for that.
Okay, no problem. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from Daniel Lion.
As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial star five on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Daniel Lion, from Erste. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good morning. Thanks for taking my question as well. I would like to follow up a little bit on the order intake of the Metals division, which has gone up nicely. Do you expect this level to somehow be a new run rate for the coming quarters? Actually it would indicate that if you remain on this level, that the order intake could maybe increase about 20% year-on-year for the full year. Is this a valid assumption, or do you think that the Q1 was simply really strong?
We can say that the Q1 was very strong. We know that the project, as I said, is still project activities are still on a quite good level. You know, it's extremely difficult to forecast the order intake, especially for these large projects. In general, there is a huge demand for investment in both the automotive industry as well as the steel industry, because they have particular challenges with this energy transformation we are now going through. We see a positive outlook on the market, but whether this continues really on a quarter to quarter basis, it's we cannot say.
Maybe to go into more detail here, reflecting also on the investment into new battery plants. We might have a revenue of, like, EUR 50 million, at least that's what you communicated. How quickly can you move up the scale here in order to grow the market? In the end, I can imagine that there must be a huge dynamic from this part of the market.
There is a huge dynamic, and here we're really talking about large projects. We are, you know, there are many projects announced for what they call gigafactories from battery makers as well as from car makers. We are now in an intensive process, so we are bidding for these projects. We are qualifying technology, basically testing and proving that the technology is on its way to be ready from the stage where we are to the demands of a gigafactory. That is also one reason why these projects, even though they are announced for a long time, have not been contracted with any supplier. As you know, there is also strong competition.
We have, in this area, we are mainly facing competitors from Asia who are very competitive, very aggressive. Our target is, we are in that. Our target is to go and book one of the first orders already during this year. Then we are definitely talking about a volume significantly higher than EUR 50 million.
Yeah. Clear. Overall going down to profitability level.
What revenue level would you expect, that you'd need in order to reach your target profitability of, between 6% to 7%?
We believe that we do not need a volume growth to reach that. We have a certain amount of, I would say low margin backlog, which we need to get out, which is on the way. We have strong plans to increase the service ratio. We do not see that we need a further increase in volume to beyond the level that we had. That's not the plan.
Oh, okay. Sounds positive.
Yeah.
Perfect. Thank you very much.
Many thanks. The next question comes from Peter Rothenaicher, Baader Bank.
The next question comes from Peter Rothenaicher from Baader Bank AG. Please go ahead.
Hello, gentlemen. Another question on Paracel. Clearly, if you would not receive this order perhaps in this year, might there be the risk that your capacity utilisation in the Pulp & Paper business would go down? How do you react on this? How do you prepare? Is there definitely a risk that then perhaps in latest in 2025, Pulp & Paper sales volume would decline considerably?
Yeah. If we don't book large orders, the revenue in Pulp & Paper will decline.
Mm-hmm.
This is easy mathematics. In the capital business in pulp and paper, we are used to the effect that there are large orders and you cannot predict them. When they are there, you need to be ready. If you don't have them, you need to make sure that you don't have too many resources on board. I would say, we have adjusted our business model quite well to that kind of environment. The ability to adapt in volume, in competence, yeah, in the right, in the right level is, I would say, is there, and we are not afraid of that.
On the other side, we have a lot of development projects and new technologies which we introduced to the market over the past years, where we see a continuing strong demand on biomethanol, on sulfuric acid generation in context of a pulp mill. That business is picking up. As these are new technologies, we also need more engineering. We are watching that carefully, but we do not make ourselves dependent on one big project.
Building backlog.
Mm-hmm.
Okay. During the recent call, you had expressed very high confidence regarding margin development in the current year. If I remember correct, so you were optimistic to see perhaps even a slight margin increase on a group level for 2023. Is this still the case? And also, here with regard to the Pulp & Paper sector, which you expressed with the team.
We, as I said, our view on that has not changed. I think the, we are the, Q1 confirmed that we are on a good track there to increase earnings and sales.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Sure.
Thank you. The next question comes from Miro Zuzak, JMS Invest.
The next question comes from Miro Zuzak from JMS Invest AG. Please go ahead.
Hello, good morning. Congratulations. A couple of questions from my side regarding the seasonality of the business and the line items in your P&L. Let's start with the material cost line. If I look at your typical seasonal pattern, then you have in Q1 a relatively low material quota. Low materials going through your P&L leading to a relatively high, what I call gross margin. This year, this specific gross margin was more than two percentage points lower than last year. Typically, the Q1 was the strongest one, and then the next were the weakest. We're weak. Is this the same this year? Do you expect this gross margin or to come down over the rest of the year or the material quota to be up over the rest of the year? That's the first question.
we have these regular fluctuations in material quota and margin simply due to the POC logic in the large projects. We don't expect further fluctuations and significant fluctuations for the next quarters.
That margin overall was in the Q1 good. There will be some changes certainly with the mix of the execution. We don't see any reason for giving you any emergency messages for the next quarters.
Okay. For the wages, like, the personnel cost line, Q1 is typically the lowest figure in the years. Will it be the same this year? To which can we expect the personnel costs will also have the usual seasonal pattern this year?
Yeah, exactly. The personnel cost development is simply driven by the dates when general salary increases become effective. This is in Germany and in Austria, usually not at the first of January, some time over the year. According to that, we will have in the Q3 and Q4 , a little bit higher personnel cost to be expected. On the other hand, we have told you several times that we are going to also revise prices in the service business. There's also kind of a lead time until these price increases become effective. We further on hope at least are convinced that it stays balanced, that this will not have an impact on profitability in the Q3 and Q4 .
Okay. Good. Thank you.
Thank you very much. There are no further questions. Thank you very much for your attention and for your participation in today's webcast. If you have any follow-up questions, please contact me, send me an email. I wish you a happy day and see you and talk to you next time. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Yep. Bye-bye.