Earnings Call Transcript - GSM Q2 2023

Operator, Operator

Good day, everyone, and welcome to Ferroglobe's Second Quarter 2023 Earnings Call. I will now hand the call over to Alex Rotonen, Ferroglobe's Vice President of Investor Relations. Please proceed.

Alex Rotonen, Vice President of Investor Relations

Thank you, Nadia. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining Ferroglobe's Second Quarter 2023 Conference Call. Joining me today are Marco Levi, our Chief Executive Officer; and Beatriz García-Cos, our Chief Financial Officer. Before we get started with prepared remarks, I'm going to read a brief statement. Please turn to Slide #2. Statements made by management during this conference call that are forward-looking are based on current expectations. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements can be found in Ferroglobe's most recent SEC filings and exhibits to those filings, which are available on our web page at ferroglobe.com. In addition, this discussion includes references to EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA, adjusted gross debt, net debt, and adjusted diluted earnings per share, among other non-IFRS measures. Reconciliation of non-IFRS measures may be found in our most recent SEC filings. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Marco Levi, our Chief Executive Officer.

Marco Levi, CEO

Thank you, Alex, and good day to everybody. Thanks for joining us on the call today. We appreciate your interest in Ferroglobe. I would like to briefly comment on our safety record improvements as our employees are our most valuable asset. Over the past 18 months, the rate of lost time injuries declined by 66% based on our rolling 3-month data, approaching best-in-class industry standards. One of our top priorities is providing a safe work environment for our employees. And we will continue to focus on providing the safest possible workplace. Our solid results in the second quarter reinforce our strong execution and ability to successfully navigate a challenging market. Sales increased 14% and adjusted EBITDA increased 136% to $106 million over the prior year quarter. Our cash balance reached $363 million, the highest level in Ferroglobe's history. In addition, our net debt further declined to $37 million, also a record level for the company. Last month, we took a significant step in our deleveraging efforts by redeeming $150 million of our senior secured notes reducing our note balance to less than $150 million, highlighting our strong cash position and reinforcing our confidence in our long-term cash generation potential. To put our overall debt reduction accomplishments in perspective, since the first quarter of 2022, we reduced our gross debt from $520 million to $250 million, in addition to reducing our interest expense. This transaction enhances our flexibility as we continue to evaluate capital allocation priorities. As discussed before, our goal is to prudently deploy cash to enhance long-term shareholder value. Beatriz will provide more color on this in her remarks. Recently, the U.S. Department of Energy added silicon metal to its critical materials list. As the leading U.S. silicon metal producer, Ferroglobe is a significant beneficiary of this development. The Solar Energy Industry Association estimates that the U.S. solar manufacturing capacity will increase from 7 gigawatts in 2021 to more than 42 gigawatts over the next 3 to 4 years. As onshoring efforts among all Western regions continue to build momentum, we expect to be a significant beneficiary as a critical part of the solar supply chain due to our global footprint and ability to produce high-purity silicon metal. The Inflation Reduction Act and other legislative and financial initiatives throughout the supply chain are expected to benefit Ferroglobe for years to come. The electric vehicle market continues to represent a significant growth opportunity for Ferroglobe. We recently signed an agreement to license patents to strengthen our position in the EV battery market, reinforcing the company's position as an emerging leader in high-quality solutions for this market. This agreement allows us to advance Ferroglobe's proprietary technology and develop silicon products for the next generation of lithium-ion cells. As the silicon content in anodes increases, battery performance, charging time, and storage capacity will substantially improve our current technology. This will enable Ferroglobe to produce low-carbon solutions and also accelerate the energy transition. We are very excited about these developments as they reinforce the long-term growth opportunity for the company. In April, we started operations in France, which helped our volume and cost performance during the quarter. Operations in Spain remain limited due to less competitive energy prices. Our flexible global footprint enables us to move production during volatile energy periods to lower-cost plants in other regions and still provide quality products to our European customers. Overall, our operations continued to perform well. We recently signed a competitive long-term power purchase agreement with a Spanish energy provider starting in January 2024, covering a portion of our required energy needs and utilizing 100% green energy. Importantly, this is our first power purchase agreement in Spain, and we expect to sign additional agreements in the coming months. This will help us reduce our exposure to energy price volatility in Spain. The global economy remains soft, impacting the end markets that we serve. Overall, prices continued to decline in the second quarter due to weak demand impacting silicon metal, silicon alloys, and manganese alloys. We expect the market to remain challenging in the third quarter as higher inflation and interest rates are anticipated to continue impeding economic activity. Interestingly, in late July, the IMF raised its global growth forecast for 2023 slightly to 3%, despite a shallower-than-expected recovery in China. The IMF maintained its 3% global growth estimate for 2024. This, combined with our internal views, provides optimism for 2024, as excess inventories should be depleted, and the supply-demand balance for our products should improve. Despite these challenging market conditions, we are reiterating our 2023 EBITDA guidance of $270 million to $300 million due to Ferroglobe's disciplined cost control and proactive energy agreements in 2023. Next slide, please. Let's start with silicon metal. Revenue was $195 million in Q2, up from $161 million in Q1, an increase of 22%. Adjusted EBITDA for this segment increased $31 million to $82 million in Q2, up 165%. Our silicon metal business was up, primarily driven by the restart in France, partially offset by lower prices due to a challenging market environment. Volume increased 37% quarter-over-quarter to approximately 50,000 metric tons. Our average realized price for silicon metal sales decreased by 11% compared to the previous quarter, driven by lower index pricing in the U.S. and Europe. This price decline negatively impacted adjusted EBITDA by $17 million. We continue to benefit from our energy agreement in France and the indirect CO2, which together contributed roughly half of the cost-benefit with lower raw material costs being the next larger contributing factor. As for the silicon metal outlook, we are starting to see initial signs of increased customer inquiries as the recent inventory overhang is almost fully corrected. At the same time, the price environment appears to have stabilized. Another positive sign for the silicon metal market is the reduced exports from China, which should bode well for future prices. Next slide, please. Moving to silicon-based alloys. Revenue was $133 million in Q2, essentially flat with the prior quarter. Adjusted EBITDA for Q2 was $32 million, up 45% from the prior quarter. Sales volumes remained flat over the prior quarter. Average realized pricing was down 2% over the same period, negatively impacting EBITDA by $3 million. Relative to the prior quarter, silicon alloys benefited from lower raw material costs, which were the largest contributor to cost improvement. This, combined with higher CO2 compensations, were the primary drivers of the cost impact. The demand outlook for silicon-based alloys remains soft due to the weakness of the European steel markets, with specialty ferrosilicon performing relatively better than standard. Our strategy to prioritize higher-margin specialty and foundry products over commodity-grade silicon alloys enabled us to achieve better pricing and margins, demonstrating the effectiveness of our execution. Moving to Slide 7. We move to Manganese-based alloys. Manganese-based alloys revenue was $78 million in Q2, up 27% over the prior quarter. Adjusted EBITDA for Q2 was $1 million, down $2 million from the prior quarter. Sales volumes were up 34% over the prior quarter, positively impacting adjusted EBITDA by $1 million, while average realized pricing was down 5% over the same period, which negatively impacted EBITDA by $3 million. The weakness in the European steel market continues to put pressure on the spreads between the alloy and ore, which are currently at historical lows. However, we do not believe that the current spreads are sustainable. Should this continue, we would expect a supply response. In Q2 2023, our costs in the manganese-based alloys segment were relatively flat compared to the prior quarter. Before turning the call over to Beatriz, I want to emphasize that we are steadfast in our focus on driving future growth and enhancing shareholder value. Despite the current market softness, we are very well-positioned to take advantage of the market upturn which we believe will begin in the coming quarters. We are very bullish on Ferroglobe's role in the transition to green energy through solar and battery markets which we believe provides a significant long-term growth opportunity for the company. Beatriz, please.

Beatriz García-Cos, CFO

Thank you, Marco. Please turn to Slide 9 for a review of the income statement. Our second quarter results improved over the first quarter due to an overall increase in volume and cost efficiencies, partially offset by weaker pricing. Revenue for the second quarter was $456 million, up from $401 million in the prior quarter. The 14% increase from the prior quarter was due to stronger volumes, driven by the resumption of operations in France after idling in the first quarter as a result of our energy agreement. The volume increase related to our French operations was primarily in silicon metal and manganese alloys, which increased 37% and 34%, respectively. Our volume gains were partially offset by lower prices. During the second quarter, raw material and energy consumption costs improved to $229 million versus $255 million in the prior quarter. The lower raw material and energy consumption for production costs were driven by cost benefits from our energy agreement. Cost of sales as a percentage of revenue improved to 55%, down from 58% in the prior quarter. Excluding the accounting impact from the short-term PPA in Spain, cost of sales declined to 50%, down from 64% in the first quarter. Operating profit in the second quarter was $63 million, versus $44 million in the prior quarter. As a percentage of sales, operating profit was 14% in Q2, up from 11% in Q1. The $19 million increase in operating profits at the second quarter was driven primarily by higher volumes and cost efficiencies. Net financial expenses in the second quarter declined to $1 million, down from $11 million in the prior quarter. The decline was attributable to lower debt outstanding as we continue to execute our deleveraging strategy. In addition, we extended the maturity of one of our government loans, resulting in a one-time true-up of accrued interest during the quarter. Next slide, please. Our adjusted EBITDA in the second quarter was $106 million versus $45 million in the previous quarter. Adjusted EBITDA margins increased to 23% in the second quarter, up from 11% in the first quarter. Silicon metal and manganese volumes increased in the second quarter as we resumed production in France. The volume increase positively impacted adjusted EBITDA by $34 million. The average selling price across our portfolio declined by 6.7%, resulting in a negative price impact to adjusted EBITDA of $23 million. Declines in prices in the second quarter were impacted by soft demand. Improved costs positively impacted adjusted EBITDA by $50 million, mainly due to our energy agreement, CO2 compensation, and declining raw material prices. Slide 11, please. We ended the second quarter with a record cash balance of $363 million, up from $344 million in the prior quarter, an increase of $19 million. Total adjusted gross debt was $400 million, flat from the prior quarter. During Q2, we repurchased $2 million of our senior secured notes in the open market, which was offset by accrued interest. Net debt declined to $37 million in the second quarter, another record level. As a result, net debt as a percentage of equity improved to 4% in the second quarter, down from 8% in the prior quarter and 30% in the year-ago quarter. This dramatic improvement over the past year highlights our progress in reducing our leverage and strengthening our balance sheet. Furthermore, in July, we redeemed $150 million of our 9.375% senior secured notes due in 2025, effectively reducing the outstanding note balance by half and lowering our annual interest expenses by approximately $14 million. Overall, in less than 18 months, we have reduced gross debt by $270 million, down from roughly $520 million, approaching our objective of having approximately $200 million of gross debt. For the next step in our capital structure, we are currently evaluating the most effective capital allocation policy to maximize shareholder value. As you are probably aware, before we can return any capital to shareholders, we must remove the covenant restriction in our senior secured note debt agreement, which prevents dividends and share buybacks. Given the strength of our balance sheet and the alternatives at our disposal, we believe such restrictions will be removed in the coming months. Next slide, please. During the second quarter, we generated operating cash flow of $24 million versus $135 million in the prior quarter, primarily due to a $75 million tax payment made during the quarter. The high tax payment was the result of record earnings in 2022. Free cash flow in the second quarter was positive $1 million versus $117 million in the prior quarter. During the quarter, we had a working capital release of $79 million. We had a total of $66 million of noncash items related to the accounting impact of the short-term PPA in Spain and the energy agreement. We plan to build inventory in the coming months as we prepare for the first quarter earnings in France. We expect that this will increase our overall working capital in the next quarter. CapEx outflows in the second quarter were $23 million versus $17 million in the first quarter. We continue to project our base-level CapEx for 2023 to be around $75 million, with the potential to increase depending on additional spending for growth and ESG initiatives. Lastly, cash flow from financing activities in the second quarter was $19 million versus negative $96 million in the first quarter, impacted by bond repurchases, early repayments, and bond interest payments. Next slide, please. At this time, I'll turn the call back over to Marco.

Marco Levi, CEO

Thank you, Beatriz. Moving to the corporate update on Slide 14. As we have already discussed during the call, we made a significant step in strengthening our balance sheet when we redeemed half of our outstanding senior secured notes in July. This transaction is an important step that better positions us for the forthcoming capital return decisions. The U.S. Department of Energy's designation of silicon metal as a critical material is a big win for Ferroglobe as the leading producer in the U.S. Combined with a strong push by the U.S. government to strengthen the domestic supply chain, it facilitates the onshoring trend which has already seen tremendous progress. We believe the incentives created by the Inflation Reduction and CHIPS Acts put us in a strong position to take advantage of these growth trends in the coming years.

Operator, Operator

Now we're going to take our first question. The question comes from Lucas Pipes from B. Riley.

Lucas Pipes, Analyst

Good job on the cost management during Q2. And my first question is in regards to Beatriz, your comments in your prepared remarks regarding the restrictions on capital returns being removed in the coming months. And so my question is, what is your desire to return capital to shareholders in this somewhat weaker macro industry environment? And then more broadly, both Beatriz and Marco, how you kind of think about capital returns versus pursuing growth, do you think you have the ability to do both? Thank you very much for your perspective.

Beatriz García-Cos, CFO

Thank you, Lucas, for the question. Well, as you exactly point out, our senior notes do not allow us to either pay dividends or share buybacks. So now at the moment, we are about to look at the options that we have to return capital to our shareholders, either in the form of share buybacks or in the form of dividends once we sort out the issue around the covenants on the senior notes. As we see it, we have a couple of options at the moment. On one side, we can get consent, of course, from our senior notes. The other option is to refinance or to redeem our senior notes. We feel quite strong about the cash generation that we have at the moment. So those are the options that we have at the moment. Once we get to that point that either we refinance or redeem our senior notes or, as I explained before, we get consent, then we will be evaluating what is the best financial policy for the company, either in the form of share buybacks or payment of dividends. I think this could be something that we're going to be announcing shortly.

Lucas Pipes, Analyst

That is very helpful. And a follow-up question. Marco, you mentioned the critical material status for silicon metal. If you could maybe comment on the implications for your business of that U.S. designation. You also mentioned a licensing agreement in your prepared remarks. If you could maybe expand on some of the details of that agreement, what it could mean in terms of potential revenue, would appreciate a perspective on that. And then separately, kind of near-term question, just how you think about the cadence of EBITDA for the remainder of this year given you reiterated your full-year guidance? I know there were a few questions in there.

Marco Levi, CEO

Thank you, Luke. Well, the news from the U.S. are particularly good because silicon metal has been already classified critical and strategic by the European community. And now the U.S. has confirmed the fact that silicon metal is critical for the green transition. Now, of course, being the largest producer of silicon metal in the U.S. and in Europe, we see great opportunities to benefit from this, not only because we know that our business is cyclical and will come back, but there is growth related to solar and batteries, and I think that due to our global asset footprint, we are pretty well placed to compete successfully to exploit these opportunities. Regarding the license, yes, we are working on batteries on two fronts. One front is basically supplying chemical producers to produce products that partially replace graphite in the anode, and this is already going on. These specific licenses support our second development, which is towards the full replacement of the graphite with silicon in the anode. So having this additional know-how at our disposal is going to speed up our development. The third question was about?

Lucas Pipes, Analyst

The cadence of EBITDA. So obviously...

Marco Levi, CEO

We are currently at $151 million at the end of the first half and have confirmed our guidance of $270 million to $300 million. The market is very challenging right now regarding volumes and price trends. We expect better conditions in the new year, but in the meantime, we anticipate delivering strong results in Q3 and lower results in Q4 because we will need to reduce our production in France due to energy conditions.

Operator, Operator

And the next question comes from the line of Martin Englert from Seaport Research Partners.

Martin Englert, Analyst

Good afternoon, everyone. I wanted to touch on costs. Costs were well managed in the recent quarters, but maybe what you are seeing incrementally there as we move into and through the back half of the year, kind of your expectations that we'll continue to see some deflation there that will act as some mitigating factor on the declining price environment.

Marco Levi, CEO

You want to start, Beatriz, on cost?

Beatriz García-Cos, CFO

Yes, I can start. Thank you, Marco. Martin, I think on the cost side, what we have been seeing in this quarter is, in general, a decrease in raw material pricing. The only raw material with prices that are still holding is coal and the carbon credits as well. I think going forward, we continue to see this trend sustained in Q3 and in Q4. I think the big caveat for us is around coal pricing. Of course, the main contributor to the cost is the energy benefits that we have to run our assets in France.

Marco Levi, CEO

Yes. Martin, we continue to benefit from our energy contracts, particularly in France in Q3. And as I mentioned, during Q3, we will have to be like we have done last year, maintaining a certain level of inventories to support the slowdown of production foreseen for the end of Q4 in France in silicon metal.

Martin Englert, Analyst

And some of those items that were adjusted for EBITDA and/or were beneficial from a cost perspective that you called out while reviewing the size like the PPA and carbon credit. What's the expectation that will continue at like a similar rate? Or are those off the table for the remaining quarters?

Beatriz García-Cos, CFO

Yes. Martin, in this quarter, we adjusted to the EBITDA the PPA that we signed in Spain. It was a swap for two months. So you saw the impact that we adjusted even if it is a positive impact in the quarter. And then I think as one of the highlights in our presentation, we said that we signed or executed the first PPA in Spain. And this would be the first one because our target is to cover more or less 50% of our energy consumption with this PPA. So you can expect more movements like that going forward.

Martin Englert, Analyst

Earlier in the call, you mentioned that the new Spanish PPA wasn't effective until January 2024. Is that correct?

Marco Levi, CEO

You are right, Martin.

Martin Englert, Analyst

Okay. I understand. Can you provide insight into volume expectations for the third and fourth quarters? You mentioned that fourth-quarter volumes are likely to be lower sequentially. Could you elaborate on that?

Marco Levi, CEO

The picture is the following for us. Silicon metal, we see a slightly better situation than in the previous quarters. We think that the supply chain is rather empty. And we see our orders coming now more regularly than before. This is valid for silicon metal. While for alloys, we have at least for commodities, we have to wait until the end of the year. Of course, we have the advantage of pharmaceutical, specialty, and foundry that has a rather stable volume trend, but definitely, the supply chain of manganese alloys and ferrosilicon standard still suffers from oversupply.

Martin Englert, Analyst

Understood. One last question here, you mentioned this in your prepared remarks, but did you expect working capital relative to sales to increase quarter-over-quarter in Q3? What was the reason for that expectation?

Marco Levi, CEO

Apologies. I was not clear, my fault, Martin. Let me try to repeat it more clearly. We expect an increase of working capital in Q3 driven by the fact that we will slow down production in France, where we have the core of our silicon metal production in Europe at the end of Q4. So we will need to start building inventory of silicon metal. So this means producing more finishing goods, but also by the right volumes of key raw materials.

Martin Englert, Analyst

Okay. At a group level, any goalposts on how we should think of overall working capital as a percentage of sales in Q3 then?

Marco Levi, CEO

Well, the silicon metal will be higher than our target 21%, 22%. We expect to run at this level. Ferrosilicon and manganese will continue to be north of 25% of our sales.

Martin Englert, Analyst

All right. Excellent. I appreciate the time and congratulations on navigating the environment and on the cost front.

Operator, Operator

And the next question comes from the line of John Rolfe from Crescent Capital.

John Rolfe, Analyst

Nice quarter. Two questions for you. One, on the cash flow statement, there was a $62 million outflow related to the other line item. I was hoping you could provide a little bit of additional color around that. And then as my follow-up, could you just maybe give a bit of additional detail in terms of what is the practical impact of having the Department of Energy add silicon metal to its critical material list?

Beatriz García-Cos, CFO

John, let me answer the noncash items question. So there are mainly two items that you need to take into consideration. One is the PPA that we have in Spain. And the second element that you need to take into consideration is our energy agreement in France. So those are the two items that are playing a role on these noncash items.

John Rolfe, Analyst

Got it. So what do you need to post collateral for those energy and power agreements? Or is it just a payable that you have to make at some point in the future?

Beatriz García-Cos, CFO

It's a receivable. On the energy, it's receivable. And on the PPA, it's just what I explained before is the adjustment of the swap agreement that we have in Q2 2023.

Marco Levi, CEO

John, on your second question, the thing is that when we think about what's happening in the solar and batteries market, the idea in the U.S., but also in other countries is to establish the full supply chain. And what is important is that everybody understands what are the elements of this supply chain and the fact that silicon is recognized as a critical and strategic raw material implies that silicon and investments related to silicon are going to be considered by legislators, by politicians, by investors. So this is really the essence. And as these things are moving pretty fast in the Western world where we have a main footprint in silicon metal, this puts us in a good position to exploit some of the coming opportunities.

John Rolfe, Analyst

So just as a quick follow-up, I mean, does that designation give you increased confidence for instance that the government will continue to keep antidumping tariffs on some of the countries that they currently have the tariffs on that sort of thing?

Marco Levi, CEO

Yes, this is part of the onshoring and defending local production, yes. I mean this is happening also in Europe. Unfortunately, in my opinion, Europe is less efficient than the U.S., not only in protecting from dumping, but also in terms of walking the talk. So I think I'm very optimistic about the situation in the U.S. at the moment.

Operator, Operator

And the next question comes from the line of Morten Normann from Carnegie.

Morten Normann, Analyst

I have two questions. One is a fairly easy one. What is the sales mix between the U.S. and Europe in metal and silicon-based alloys? And the second question is regarding the CO2 compensation, how do you book that? You mentioned higher CO2 compensation in the second quarter. And what was the incremental change in the CO2 compensation between first quarter and the second quarter? And is the CO2 compensation in the second quarter also representative for what you will book in Q3 and Q4?

Marco Levi, CEO

Okay. As far as I know, usually, we don't give data about the mix by geography. But let me try to help you a little bit. In Europe, we sell the entire mix. So we sell silicon metal, silicon-based alloys, foundry, and manganese alloys. In the Americas, we don't sell manganese alloys, while we are present with silicon metal, ferrosilicon, and foundry products. Outside of these geographies, we have quite an important footprint in South Africa that supplies basically for ferrosilicon Europe, while for silicon metal, the asset in Polokwane, South Africa supplies a little bit everywhere in the world. We have a plant that produces electrodes in China. It's the only plant that we have that produces electrodes and now this production basically goes to the U.S. and to Europe. We have a plant in Argentina that supplies calcium-silicon and foundry products to supply Europe. This is broadly our mix.

Beatriz García-Cos, CFO

And Martin, regarding the CO2 to your question. To comment, comment number one is that the CO2 is, I'm sure that you know that, but okay, is an allowance that we receive based on the production of the previous years. And then we book it in our P&L based on the production of the quarter. And as you remember, in Q1, we didn't produce in France. In this quarter, we have been resuming operations in France, so we have been producing. So the amount of CO2 that we book in our P&L is higher than in Q1. So the way to look at CO2 is depending if our plants are operating; you will see a different amount of CO2, if this answers your question.

Operator, Operator

And the question comes from the line of Greg Bennett, just a stockholder.