Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the voestalpine publication third quarter, business year 2025-2026 conference call. I am Mathilde, the Chorus Call operator. I would like to remind you that all participants will be in 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 one on your telephone. For operator assistance, please press star and zero. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Peter Fleischer, head of IR. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and a warm welcome to our first quarter to third quarter results of the business year 2025-2026, the first nine months of the actual business year. With me is Herbert Eibensteiner, our CEO, and Gerald Mayer, our CFO, who will give you a brief overview of what has happened in these first nine months, and we will be happy to answer your question afterwards. Herbert, please feel free to go ahead.
Thank you, Peter. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, also from my side. I will jump right into the presentation. For those who are not so familiar with voestalpine, I would like to give a brief introduction. voestalpine is a global special metals and steel company and an industrial group, and we combine this steel and metal production with processing and engineering competence. From this expertise, we develop these special high-quality solutions that offer our customers the competitive advantages. We are a leading partner for high-tech industries with high entry barriers, such as aerospace, automotive, or Railway Systems, and we are stock-listed since 1995 and committed to value creation for our shareholders. So, what happened in this first nine months, when it comes to the global economic environment?
Let me start with Europe, which is the biggest market for voestalpine. In one word, relatively weak. So we had from the beginning of the business year a relatively subdued economic development, and only in the last few weeks or days we see a slight upturn in industrial production in Europe. And when we come to North America, you know all the action around tariffs. We have still a robust economic growth, but we know that this is mostly driven by this high investment in the tech sector. In industry growth is by far weaker. And when we go to or look to Asia, in particular China, we see a relatively stable economic development, and this is supported mostly by exports into the rest of the world, also because even more because of tariffs.
And South America, which is Brazil, the biggest market for us, we see a reduction in economic sentiment. Why, we have this increase in interest rates, and we see strong competition from Chinese imports, knowing that Brazil is not protecting its borders and trade flows. Let me come to the highlights of the first three quarters. We have very solid results in the first nine months, in a relatively challenging environment. I have mentioned that, and I think it's very positive that we have a very, very strong financial position. Gerald will present it in his press part of the presentation, and for me, it's very important that we can show again strong cash flow development, also in the last quarter. Our markets, railway infrastructure, aerospace, and Warehouse and Rack Solutions, unchanged, positive, good development.
I would say, the best it's best to describe the rest of the markets is that it's a stable demand at low level in mechanical engineering construction industries. We have a mixed development in automotive industry on the one hand, steel flat steel, which is very positive, mainly driven through gaining more market share, and the Automotive Components business is a bit weaker. So coming from all these restructuring measures we have implemented, we see also a decreased number of employees compared to previous year. So what is still our strategic focus? It's, there's three pillars. The first is more short term. We have these reorganization measures in place. We do also portfolio optimization, portfolio management.
you know we have sold Buderus in High Performance Metals, and I think in the last days you have heard that we also have divested BÖHLER Profil in January, which is signed but not closed so far. And I think the biggest part of reorganization is Automotive Components. We sold all its sites worldwide, but also High Performance Metals. again, streamlining the warehouse structure, streamlining the sales structure, and also in all those activities, focus is efficiency, efficiency, efficiency. And we are quite good on the way, and all the programs in time. So we do not forget our growth activities, which are strategically Railway Systems, Tubes and Sections, warehouse solutions, and aerospace. And we are focusing also in new regions for us, in attractive regions, and this is India.
I will come afterwards in the presentation with a bit more information. The third pillar is this decarbonization projects we have running on two sites in Austria, so where we want to replace two out of five blast furnaces by electric arc furnaces, EUR 1.5 billion, and I think all these projects are on time and on budget. So in a year from today on we will start the ramp-up, for instance, in both activities for these greentec steel projects. Let me come to the top three highlights. I think I want to give you some positive impressions what we are doing or what we have done. You know that Railway Systems is a very international business where we do business all over the world, but also in the small Austrian railway markets.
So we have recently closed the project in Austria, Koralmbahn , which is a 35 km-long tunnel, one of the longest worldwide, and we provided for this project 290 km of rail and 235 turnouts, and all the digital monitoring system. I think that's a quite positive project from voestalpine, and we have numerous other international railway projects all over the world, very important for us. We are also in Rack Solutions, a bit smaller as a business, but also with very positive projects. Currently we are working on a hybrid warehouse in Turkey, the biggest we have ever built, 230 m long, 80 m wide, and 40 m high, with thousands of pallet places, and a similar project in Czech Republic for a tire producer. This is with 50 m even the highest we have ever built.
So you see even in a very traditional business, there is every year new demand in bigger and more complex projects all over the world. And I have mentioned India before. So for us at the moment, a relatively small market. We have only EUR 190 million revenue. There are five location production sites with 1,000 FTEs. And we have already a turnout activity there, but we want to expand these engineering and design capabilities in India with a couple of people in India which are training the local guys to improve our footprint there. First production site is planned in special tubes, special sections. Most of you know that we have a standard procedure for that, 20,000 sq ft building, then adding three to four machines.
after five years we fill up this facility, and then we think of the next steps. We will start that next year, I think, and we are growing in aerospace supplies. In India, so where we have seen more and more activities for delivery to the OEMs, and we have achieved the first important approvals so we can deliver to the producers of aerospace airplane parts. And also we have a welding consumables facility there. We want to expand that. The market is growing. So two topics. Railway very important for us. Warehouse very important for us. And geographically, India is small, but will develop steadily in the years to come. So let me come to a quick view on the Divisions. Steel Division, very, very, very strong, very strong performance in a relatively weaker economic environment.
We faced a very good demand from the automotive industry. I have mentioned before that I think that we gained market share when it comes to higher quality steel sheets. And also, in the energy sector, which is mostly heavy plates. In all the other markets, mechanical engineering, building, and so on, I have mentioned it before, with a relatively stable and on a lower level demand. Market sentiment in the steel sector improved after the announcement of the EU safeguard measures and CBAM. I think we will discuss that for sure when we come to your questions. With a positive outlook for the remainder of the year and into especially next year to come.
When you look at the EBITDA figure with more than 13%, I think considering the time, we are in a very good result. High Performance Metals, a bit different, with a very weak economy, and uncertain market condition with a high import pressure, especially when it comes to tooling and industrial parts. Oil and gas was impacted by this low rig count with low exploration. Aerospace, on the other hand, very strong development in Europe, and in the course of the year, we see a very good improvement from the demand of Boeing. And we have got additional volumes, additional contracts in this segment. High Performance Metals is a very important part of our reorganization plans, and we see these first positive results out of that when you consider we're decreasing volumes and the results remain steady.
So, for me, it is that the reorganization and restructuring is working. And we, as I mentioned before, we built a new sales organization, and most of that is already implemented, and we will see the positive results into next year. And even in this difficult situation, we have this 7.6% EBITDA margin. Metal Engineering, Railway Systems, the biggest part of Metal Engineering is Railway Systems with good performance. We have typical seasonal effects in the winter months, in this year, maybe a bit more. And Industrial Systems show different performance when it comes to welding, relatively stable at satisfactory levels. On the other hand, we have Tubulars, which is heavily impacted by the U.S. tariffs.
This is OCTG business, and half of the business is U.S. business, so we have, again, reduced our volumes there, and Wire is operating in a very weak market environment. But in the course of the year we have, at least, increased the volumes on the price sides. We are working actively on the efficiency in all these activities. We have implemented efficiency programs, and everything is well in place and on schedule. And we look at the figure. The Division has 8.7% EBITDA, and we have promised you that we give you a deeper insight of the railway of the Railway Systems unit, which is the biggest part, the biggest part of of the Metal Engineering Division.
It's a very important driver also for our long-term growth ambition, and this business. In this business we are a full-service provider, globally, of railway infrastructure solutions. The biggest part is turnout systems with more than 60% of sales, and we have very good development in all markets globally. It's not only replacement and maintenance, it's also new projects, new activities, and Rail Technology. Rail is a bit below 30% of sales with ongoing solid performance. Main market is Europe. This is new business for us, but again, very positive development, especially in Central and Eastern Europe. This is a part of the business we want to grow in the future as well. And Signaling has grown quite significantly in the last years. Again, already 6% of our sales, a very good development, and we are delivering at very good level.
You see, when you see this 10.3% EBITDA margin, you are aware that this is the most important part of this Metal Engineering Division. Metal Forming, as I mentioned before, Automotive Components compared to what we see in the Steel Division is weaker. So we are mostly focusing on European carmakers. So in Europe we see this 12 million cars and not more. And even the U.S. tariffs had an impact in our North American market, our business in Automotive Components. And as I mentioned before, we are in a deep reorganization part, and as it's clear that we have a way to go, but we are sticking to our plan. And so far, on time.
And also we see here the first positive results. Also we have an outflow of money or costs for restructuring in this area. So Tubes and Sections. Overall solid performance. We had a slowdown in the second half of the year after the summer because of some delayed projects. We've receded in the fourth quarter, more or less, good results with a bit lower volume. Precision Strip has improved in the course of the year also, profitability-wise. And you know, Warehouse and Rack Solutions, I have touched it. Very strong demand, long order book, also for next year, and even in 2027. EBITDA margin here because of the weakness of Automotive Components with 6.3%.
So this was a very brief overview of the Divisional developments, and I would ask Gerald to guide us through the figures.
Thank you, Herbert. So after this, as Herbert said, brief overview, I would say it was even comprehensive. I would like to share with you how this is reflected in our financials. So we have in front of us our table here with our key KPIs. So you see there that revenues are down roughly EUR 600 million. EUR 450 million out of this EUR 600 million are referring to lower prices, another EUR 50 million referring to a weaker U.S. dollar in particular. We had higher volumes, so this came with plus EUR 120 million.
And then you remember that we sold last year Buderus Edelstahl, and they had an impact last year of EUR 220 million, so this is a reduction which we have, of course, then in the first nine months of 2025/2026. Talking about our profitability, you see that all the lines are in green, lights are on, so we are up in all of these line items. So EBITDA is at EUR 1 billion, a little bit above EUR 1 billion compared to EUR 970 million last year. EBIT is up EUR 470 million compared to EUR 390 million last year. So in particular strong, as also Herbert explained, was our Steel Division operationally. We are up in HPM Division and in Metal Forming Division, also of course partly driven by negative one-offs last year. We talked about restructuring efforts in our Automotive Components business unit.
I talked about the sale of or the divestment of Buderus Edelstahl last year. This had a positive impact this year. Metal Engineering was a little bit weaker compared to last year. I will talk about that in some moments. What is interesting here on this table is profit before tax. It's significantly up. There's one main reason between EBIT and between profit before tax. It's our financial income. We reduced our net debt by roughly EUR 300 million if I compare and average the first nine months last year to the first nine months this year. And also interest rates are down, as you know, and this had this impact of yeah a significant impact this year, and so therefore EUR 120 million up.
On the other side, talking about profit after tax, you will realize immediately that we had quite a higher or let's say perhaps an unexpected higher tax rate. Last year it was very positive, a very low one. Talking about last year, the main impact was that we recognized taxes for prior years last year, about EUR 20 million. This year it's the other way around. We had tax losses, as I talked about that, also in our half-year presentation in Brazil, in Germany in particular, where we did not recognize tax losses, and therefore the tax rate is above 30% for the first nine months. Talking about the first bridge, EUR 968 million to EUR 1 billion roughly. So you see here the significant impact of lower prices in the first half and positively compensated at least partly by lower raw materials.
So the gross margin is down EUR 137 million, roughly 60%, attributable there to our Steel Division and EUR 75 million to our Metal Engineering Division. And out of the EUR 75 million in our Metal Engineering, I can share with you that, a stake of EUR 50 million refers to simply higher tariffs, to the U.S. tariff situation in our Tubulars business in Metal Engineering. Yeah, higher volume and mix effect, which is positive there with EUR 73 million. So in particular in our Steel Division, we have had a super capacity utilization rate, in the first nine months, so we came with 300,000 tons, higher volumes. So this is, more than EUR 100 million. The mix effect is a little bit negative there in Steel Division, and in HPM Division we lost some volumes compared to last year, so this had a negative impact there.
But in total for the group, as I said, EUR 73 million+. In Miscellaneous is also, as I mentioned here, the part of Miscellaneous is plus EUR 134 million. We had, of course, the impact of Buderus. We had the impact last year of our re-restructuring or reorganization efforts we had in, in Automotive Components. On the other side, inflationary effects were compensated, by our cost, let's say, efforts we had all over our group, and this is in brief bridge number one. And bridge number two, I share with you the deviations of the respective voestalpine Divisions. You see there that we had this positive, development in steel. As I mentioned before, higher volumes, lower prices, negative mix effect, but positive also optimized cost effects ended up in EUR 50 million+.
As you know, also last year was still a very positive one, and here we were doing even better, so we are very proud of the performance here of our Steel Division. HPM, as also Herbert said, reorganization is on track. We have positive effects there, which compensated for the lower volumes. We still have facing headwinds in HPM's markets. There, it's turning a little bit at the moment, and we think we bottomed out the last months. We're a little bit better in terms of order intake and also in terms of turnover, so we see some slight improvements there at the moment. But market-wise in the first nine months, it was weaker compared to prior year. We also talked about reorganization of several logistics sites.
There we reduced manning, so this will have also positive impact in future and had a positive and first positive impacts in our first nine months here. Metal Engineering, I mentioned, this is the only Division where we lost a little bit ground, at least when we talk about results compared to prior year, so we are down EUR 79 million. In particular I would say, and it's obvious. So the main part there is the tariff situation in the U.S. We published that we reduced manning in our Tubulars business unit in Austria, and this is simply the only reason there is lower tariffs and a little bit, of course, also the rig counts Herbert mentioned before. In the business unit, we also are facing headwinds from the markets.
Very solid, is our welding business unit in Metal Engineering, and we also were talking about Railway Systems before, before, which is strong, stays strong, very solid, and of course we also have some cyclicality or seasonality in there. But, very solid, and we have for sure a prosperous future in front of us in, in Railway Systems. Metal Forming Division, last but not least, plus EUR 21 million. If we look here at the businesses at our, business units, we are a little bit weaker in, in, in Tubes and Sections, which is the biggest business units there compared to prior years. I would say in, in total it is solid, but also some headwinds in, in these first nine months. But, we expect also a, a good future there. Automotive components was touched by Herbert. We closed Birkenfeld.
We have now 200 people less just because of that, and very positive is precision strip and warehouse and racks, as Herbert shared with you some moments ago. Very positive cash flow situation. What you see here is the summary, actually. Cash flow from results is EUR 873 million. I would like to add here the EUR 228 million from change in working capital. So if you add this up, we are above our EBITDA level. It's clear, so that we had very positive impacts there from working capital initiatives, and yeah, I think yeah, we did a good job there. We had some negative effects also in there because we had volumes picking up, for example, in Steel Division on the other side, positively.
We optimized, and we continue to optimize in HPM, also in Metal Engineering, and there is more to come also in Metal Forming. Investing activities, you see here that we are exactly at the level of our prior year. You know our guidance of EUR 1.1 billion for the full year, so you immediately can see that we are not at the run rate for, let's say what you would expect perhaps for the first nine months. Our guidance stays at EUR 1.1 billion at the moment, as our big investment projects are up and running and are on time and on budget, actually. Of course it is milestone-driven, and you never know exactly do you have a cash out then end of March or is it beginning of April or whenever it is. So it is but we stick to this EUR 1.1 billion in terms of guidance.
What you also have to take into account, if I talk a little bit about guidance, and I would like to do that now here, that in the fourth quarter, we always have our cash outs for our CO2 certificates, ETS cash outs, which we paid normally in Q1. This is extra EUR 180 million roughly, which you do not see in the first nine months, and the additional cash outs for CapEx, as I mentioned before. So this leads then to the guidance of EUR 1.1 billion or another EUR 350 million to go until end of our business year, but it should stay a positive free cash flow, and we also expect a slight positive free cash flow in our fourth quarter.
Talking about our solid balance sheet, about our financial structure there, what you see here, and I share with you that we reduced, since the beginning of the year, net debt by another EUR 200 million, roughly. Our equity position is right now 50% or EUR 7.6 billion, and gearing is down to 1.0 net debt to EBITDA or 19%. So very solid. I think we think, given the big projects which we have in front of us, given the idea, also Herbert shared with you talking about strategic things that we have some growth segments in front of us, some, a lot of uncertainty, we are convinced that the strong balance is a good, let's say, a good and necessary foundation at times like this. So this was my summary, and Herbert will now continue with the outlook.
So I think the outlook is not really a surprise for you. So we think that the global economy has more or less adapted after the imposing of these tariffs in the U.S., and we think that more or less the trends will continue. What we have seen before, automotive industry remains on current levels. As I mentioned before, these 12 million cars a year, construction, mechanical engineering, consumer goods more or less stable at current levels. Demand from the conventional energy sector for pipelines will remain strong in this fiscal year, and but we see no pickup in exploration activities, which would be positive for OCTG. So, stable situation, but we see still this positive momentum in railway infrastructure. We have a good order book in aerospace and also Warehouse and Rack Solutions.
We can say that we are booked quite well, and all this implementation of our reorganization works quite well, so we can confirm the guidance of EBITDA between EUR 1.4 billion and EUR 1.55 billion. So that was our outlook, and we are happy to answer your question now.
We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on the 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. Persons on the phone are requested to disable the loudspeaker mode while asking a question. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. The first question comes from the line of Alain Gabriel from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Yes, good afternoon, everyone.
I have two questions from my side. The first one is starting with the guidance, since that was the closing remarks. Your Steel business is highly levered to the improving spreads in Europe. The guidance for Q4 may not have fully captured the extent of the price action that we have been seeing recently in Europe. Can you help us better understand the drivers between volumes, pricing, and costs as we look at your Steel business beyond Q4, i.e., into Q1, fiscal 2027 and beyond? That would be my first question.
Yeah, to a certain extent, the most recent pickups are in our pricing, because we have it in our yearly contracts and also here and there in quarterly business.
But when you ask beyond Q4, we have all this, you know, we have all this picture in mind, where we have CBAM now in since January. We have this safeguard safeguards in front of us. We think that safeguards will be implemented in with 1st of July, and all the infrastructure programs in Germany, maybe the first defense spending is in front of us. Surprisingly, the commission is talking about or discussing about how we proceed with the free allowances, CO2 allowances. So I think that's quite a positive momentum into next year. But we have to say, you know, there are two scenarios. A scenario with a quick pickup of prices, and there is a scenario with a steady development of steel prices.
I would say, we think of the steady development in the course of the year, considering that safeguards will come into effect in July, and also the infrastructure measures. We think, and I have presented this also in last quarter, we think that the first bigger projects will come during the summer or after the summer. So I think, and we have with this with our, how should I say, our contract structure, we have a certain time lag, so we are now locked in with our quarterly with our yearly business where we have achieved a certain improvement, but we are then locked in. We have half here. This is 40% of our business.
40% of our business is quarterly business, so where we are closer to the markets, and the rest is then half-year business. So we will see a certain time lag. So we will see improved prices in the course of the year with this before-mentioned time lag of voestalpine, and I think it will improve, but this is how we see our guidance in the course of the year. And we know that we have into next year this project business in Heavy Plate, which is and we have some delays in projects. We know that into 2027 there are big projects again.
So I think we will come through this year, 2026, with slightly improving prices for voestalpine, maybe a bit behind the market, because of the things I mentioned, but we will then fully benefit in 2027 from all these positive effects.
Thank you. That's clear. And the second question is on HPM, which has been a drag on the business for the last few quarters. You are clearly doing lots of efforts and progress in restructuring the business, but ultimately we may need to see an improvement in, let's say, automotive tooling, industrial CapEx, and other end markets. Are you seeing any early signs of restocking or improved order intake?
I appreciate the outlook for the business may not look great now, but at least any signs of green shoots that you are seeing, or do you expect a more prolonged demand trough? And then an extension to the question, what utilization rates are you currently running at for that business? Thank you.
Yeah, the utilization rate is relatively low, I would say, at 80%. And so there is room to improve. That's the reason why we make these efficiency measures. I would say, and you know, there was a sentence in our presentation, slight improvements, but to see that we see a quicker recovery, I think it's not the case. We see good products in China.
We see this better. Better projects in aerospace, but we see this improvement in results are mostly coming from the restructuring parts.
I would like to add one sentence there. I think we also, you know, we also really working hard there in reducing working capital. By doing that, of course, we produce also less, so we expect also a positive impact there next year. In the last months, in particular, step by step, we saw some small signs. You were asking about small signs of improvement in tooling. Yes, we do see that. So in my opinion, we bottomed out there, and it should go up. At least this is our take, as of today. Means restructuring is going as planned, and I would say we will also see a higher level of production.
So we clearly expect an improvement there for next year. And you were asking the last times, what is this midterm, long-term outlook there. We stick to that. So in three years, we will have this EUR 400 million level of EBITDA.
Thank you. Thank you very much.
The next question comes from the line of Tristan Gresser from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.
Yes, Hi. Thank you for taking my question. First, on the EBITDA guidance, I, I was wondering why you did not refine a bit more the full-year guidance now, now that we have only one quarter left. Put another way, what would drive the EBITDA to the low end of the guidance, and what do you think would drive it to the high end?
And, at this stage, with the visibility you have, do you think the top end of the guidance is more than likely?
Tristan, I think, fair question. And we were really thinking about that. You saw that we signed to sell one of our companies in HPM Division, and our guidance simply covers both scenarios. Do we close or not close this deal? And if we close this deal, we are more at the upper side. If we don't close it, we are more at the lower side of our guidance. So this is actually the take there. And you could split it, yeah. Is it EUR 1.4 billion- EUR 1.475 billion, or is it EUR 1.475 billion- EUR 1.55 billion? So it is, and we simply don't know if closing will happen or not.
Okay. All right.
No, that's, that's very clear then. And then on the, the auto contract negotiations, I, I think you, you mentioned it. I would just wanted to, to see if you could add a bit more color. So they have concluded, the vast majority of it has concluded already. You, you're still not negotiating. Were you able to, to recoup the, the kind of loss, the year-on-year loss you, you had last year, or is it going to be more, the, the increase you managed to lock in, is it more type of a, a mid-double-digit increase, for, for this for this calendar year? Well, and, and also if you can share some outlook, for auto demand and, and volumes, not necessarily for fiscal Q4, but for the calendar year 2026.
Yeah.
I think we will be fully booked in the steel Division. I think we will be fully booked in our automotive business. We have these contracts. We have achieved, you know, we do not do everything in January, so we have also in April and June and even in the fourth quarter, negotiations in the third quarter. But when you put everything together, it's the bigger part is negotiated in January. Yes, we achieved a plus in our auto yearly auto contracts. I think, volume-wise, we got a bit better mix. That's always the third part. We are talking about volumes, mix, and prices. Yes, we achieved a better mix.
I think we are fully booked in auto. So, I think that's the overall big picture. You know, when you would consider negotiations in October, we would have a reduction. And with the improvement and the announcements of safeguards and whatever, we could achieve a plus in our auto contracts.
All right. That's very clear. And maybe a last question, if I can squeeze that in. The Heavy Plate business that's been really successful in fiscal 2026, on the energy side, you mentioned some delays. So should we expect the performance in fiscal 2027 to be not as good as what you've seen in 2026?
Yes. You know, we are fully booked till the end of the year, more or less.
In the second half of 2027, we see some delays or postponing of projects into 2027. This will be the difference between 2027 and 2026.
Okay. It's more of an issue of maybe volumes rather than the margins themselves?
No, it's no margin squeeze. So, you know, this is a project business, and we either you get the project or it's postponed or not available. In this case, it's postponed into 2027, and we think it's not lost so far. This is the reason why we are for 2027, quite 2027, 2028, quite optimistic.
Okay. All right. Perfect. Thank you. Thanks a lot.
We now have a question from the line of Dominic O'Kane from J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead. Hello. I have one question.
So, if I just think about the interplay between your EBITDA, your cash flow, and your balance sheets, so as we enter calendar 2026, I think there is a runway over the next couple of years where it's reasonable we can start thinking about maybe a EUR 2 billion a year continuing EBITDA profile. And obviously, with the Capital Markets Day in October, you unveiled a new dividend policy and gave more details around your thoughts on the balance sheet. So my question is, given what you've reported this morning, we're now sitting in a situation where you have 1x net debt EBITDA. Should we start to think about, you know, potential deleveraging of the balance sheet from this point forward?
Therefore, how should we think about your use of the balance sheet as we look into 2026 and 2027? Thank you.
Yeah, let me take this question. I think what we said in our Capital Markets Day, nothing really changed. So we are on track to all we said. So we really try our best to deliver there, and I think we are well on track there. And talking about the next years, we'll see what really will come. So I think Gerald explained a little bit our view and our take there, and I think we have to wait and see a little bit how things actually are really developing.
In terms of debt level in our balance sheet, I think in particular in times like that, where uncertainty is high, it's better to have a little bit more deleveraged, perhaps, a balance sheet, but we are more or less there where we should be. And there is also some room for growth in there. This is also clear. And I think we also talked about the three areas where we want to grow, and we simply want to be also ready for that. So I think everything unchanged. Our policy in terms of capital allocation is as presented, including dividends, as presented during our Capital Markets Day. So no real change. We simply deliver what we promised. So this is our take there.
If I could just ask one additional question.
So, you've provided us with kind of free cash flow projections for FY 2026. Is it too early to say whether we could think about a similar number, sort of for 2027?
Thanks. Yeah. What I can share here at the moment, you know, we are right now preparing our business plan for the next year and our budget. But our take there is, next year, one thing is clear. We will have, I would say, in terms of CapEx or cash flow from investing, a similar level, like we have this year. EUR 1.15 billion is still our guidance for next year, in terms of cash flow from investing activities. In addition to that, we know that we have to rely on a blast furnace, for example, and Donawitz in our plan.
So there are some extraordinary things which lead to some cash out, but our clear plan is to deliver, again, a positive, free cash flow. It will be at the same level as this year. I would say it is a little bit more limited, to optimize working capital in addition to what we did the last 18 months. I think we achieved a lot there, and we will not see the same magnitude again. This is not realistic, in my opinion. But it should stay a positive free cash flow, in particular driven by the two, Divisions we did which did not contribute that much in the last years. Means this is, in particular, now Metal Forming and HPM Division. And for the reasons I just mentioned for metal engineering, I expect here a little bit less contribution.
Also from Steel Division, here also we are peaking in terms of cash outs for our investing activities.
Excellent. Thank you.
The next question comes from the line of Bastian Synagowitz from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good afternoon all, and thanks for taking my questions, actually. I'll maybe bring one question forward, given that we are already on the topic of capital allocation. Maybe just following up on CapEx specifically. I guess at the Capital Markets Day, you gave this guidance for EUR 1.15 billion CapEx, and you said that that also is a good assumption for the midterm. But of course, there's the EUR 400 million de-cap CapEx which will start to fade over time. My understanding is that you may have sharpened your midterm plans on CapEx a little.
So could you just please update us on what your CapEx thinking is once the de-cap burden eases? And then briefly also on buybacks, I guess, given your balance sheet, given that you do expect another positive cash contribution next year as well, and I guess the outlook generally looks quite positive, would you still consider buybacks as well if the time is right and balance sheet and cash flow do allow it? Thank you.
So we did not make our mind about buybacks and so on. It still stays, as I said. I simply would like to confirm now what we said at our Capital Markets Day and let us start to present and to deliver something for the next year.
In terms of midterm outlook, in terms of capital expenditure, very similar to what we said before. EUR 1.15 billion for next year is what we assume. EUR 1.1 billion for this year, as I think we also shared with you last time. And then I would expect it goes more to EUR 1 billion or a little bit below EUR 1 billion for the future. And this is then roughly at the level of our future depreciation when we start to depreciate also the new projects. So this is roughly how we see it at the moment. And of course, we need some room for perhaps some maneuvers in the future.
Understood. Okay. No, absolutely understood. I think you should probably provision for a bit of flexibility.
And then maybe just lastly on, I guess, demand also in the rail business, which obviously is a business where people turned quite, quite positive a year ago. Could you just go a bit more into detail, what you're seeing there? I guess the last calendar quarter is always a bit weaker, but do you now start to see more activity coming through in the German market as well?
Yeah. We got this frame again, a frame contract in Germany. So it was a bit weaker in autumn, I would say, October, November. You know, the management change and all those things, I guess, it was the, that was the result.
What we see now is that, steadily, I would say, not at once, steadily, new demand is coming into this frame contract. So, I assume that the Deutsche Bahn is well aware that repair measures will also be very important in the future. So, I think it will be a normal business year in Germany. Everybody who thinks that Deutsche Bahn has stopped repairing the railway infrastructure is for sure wrong. So we will get this project on stream, not immediately, certainly with a certain time lag. As I said, these infrastructure projects will then come more and more in the course of the year.
Okay. Understood. Thank you.
As a reminder, if you wish to register for a question, please press star and one on your telephone. We now have a question from the line of Tommaso Castello from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon and thanks for taking my question. I got one left. Maybe if you could spend a few words on your capacity utilization rate at your steel operations. And I'm referring especially to the capacity of displacing potential lack of volumes coming from imports should, as the estimates say, yeah, the import level be reduced by around 10 million tons given the new trade measures and CBAM into the future. Is that something that you are confident in?
Yeah. I think, this is, this is a good figure.
So we know that the cut of this quota regulations is around 12 million tons, which is 10% of the actual production in Europe, roughly. I would say that would lead to this higher capacity rate in Europe. And maybe we will see some, or the expectation is that the prices are rising. I think that's a very strong trade measure, as safeguard. And it's not finally decided, but we will see it in July. And in combination with CBAM, and all the other topics I mentioned, infrastructure, maybe the first defense spends, this will improve the economy in Europe. So all in all, in the next two years, I would say, very positive, especially 2027.
Yes, please.
Our utilization was relatively high. There is always room for different capacity. But this will be around, I would say 300,000 tons, which is always possible to produce more. I think we will fill up our capacity in our steel mill relatively quickly.
Okay. Sorry. So just to confirm, you can add 300-400 kilotons per annum should the market demand that volumes?
Yes.
Okay. Thank you.
Once again, to ask a question, please press star and one on your telephone. We have a follow-up question from the line of Tristan Gresser from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.
Yes, hi. Thank you for taking the follow-up question.
It's just on the—there's been a lot of news flows and news around the potential reform of the ETS system and potentially the extension of the free allocations for industrial players in Europe. I was wondering if you could share your position. It does seem that a year and a half ago, that was not even part of the debate. And now it's, it seems that there is strong momentum building around it. So how likely do you think this will be some sort of relief in terms of free allocation? What do you think could be the options that the Commission is looking at? And eventually, if it comes to that and you receive more free allocation or for longer, will that change how you approach decarbonization spending?
And can you spread out maybe your de-carb project on a longer time period?
Yeah. I think it's, as I mentioned before, it was really a surprise that we started or the Commission started this discussion. You know, all over Europe, all this CO2 emitting companies, chemical industry, steel industry, we are fiercely asking the environmental ministers to ask the Commission to prepare something how we can design this free allocation, the ETS system, to a more pragmatic approach. And so this was the start of this discussion. I think this for us it's positive. We are underallocated. And I think and I was always of the opinion that in the time we are investing in CO2 reduction, we cannot in addition pay for CO2 allowances. And I think that's true.
It's considered from the Commission. We will see how the options are. Is it then 100% dedication to CO2 reduction, or a certain percentage? I think everything is in discussion. But at the end, when it would come into action, it will be a relief for our future capital expenditure, our cash management.
All right. That's very clear. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Peter Fleischer for any closing remarks.
Thank you very much for your time, for spending the time with us and for these very interesting discussions. However, if there come up any questions or if you need any additional information, please feel free to drop either Gerald or myself a line. We will be happy to answer.
Thank you very much and have a good day.