Metlen Energy & Metals PLC (MTLN) Earnings Call Transcript

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. I'm Popi, your Chorus Call operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Mytilineos financial results conference call to present and discuss the Mytilineos S.A. first half 2023 financial results. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Evangelos Mytilineos, Chairman of the Board of Directors and Chief Executive Officer; and other senior executives. Mr. Mytilineos, you may now proceed.

Thank you very much. Welcome, everyone, from Greece and overseas in this conference call on the occasion of the publication this morning of our half year results. It is a sad moment for Greece, as you know, especially foreign guests in this conference call. Our country has been facing an extraordinary wave of wildfires from north to south. We have had casualties. We lost 2 pilots flying kind of firefighter. People have lost their homes. It's a very difficult times for Greece. And I apologize for bringing the conference call earlier. So some American friends may miss the opportunity to be present on the call. But as a confederation of Greek Industries, we had an appointment with the Prime Minister to discuss issues with the economy and so on. But unfortunately, we had to cancel because of the situation. Therefore, that's why we're bringing this conference call earlier. Let's hope things will get better. So I'm sure you have all read the flash notes. You've seen them, read the statements, came out this morning. As management, we are pleased with the results. The situation in the first half as far as our group is concerned, has been achieved on the background of collapsing energy prices of serious retreat of aluminum prices and aluminum premium prices. Therefore, this is not what one would call a favorable background. Therefore, these kind of results, they deserve a special merit which I hope you share with the management.

We have some interesting questions that have been already placed by some of the participants in the call. If you allow me to start from these questions. And then if there are more questions, we are here, myself and the management team to reply to all your queries. Mr. Nestoras Katsios from Optima asked one question. Congratulations on your strong set of results. One question, if I may. Can you please provide us with an updated guidance on your 2023 profitability? Do you think that the positive outlook for the remainder of the year will be enough for Mytilineos to meet the EUR 1 billion target in EBITDA, obviously, given that the first semester EBITDA, if doubled, amounts to just below EUR 900 million. I was asked in the Annual General Meeting about guidance for the year. And for those of you that do not remember my reply, I repeat what I said. I said, if there are no unforeseen events, I am pretty confident that we will comfortably exceed the EUR 1 billion mark by the end of the year in terms of EBITDA. I don't know how many people believe what I said then because I'm quite used to quite a lot of people not believing what we -- what guidance we give. And when we announced last year 800-something EBITDA, as you probably remember, a lot of people in the market thought that, that was a blip, and that was due to the extraordinary situations in the markets, especially the energy markets. And then we would return back to our usual, until the COVID era, our usual EUR 300, EUR 350 EBITDA. They were proven wrong. And in the Annual General Meeting I said what I said. Now we are 2 months later, there have been no extraordinary or unforeseen events. Therefore, I repeat exactly what I said. And the fact that we are getting closer to the end of the year makes me even more comfortable that we will finally exceed the EUR 1 billion mark on the EBITDA. For those of you that have been following the company for a number of years, I know it may take you a little time to comprehend and digest the fact that Mytilineos company has changed the level of performance and the figures of the accounts. But I think we should all start to realize that these new levels are here to stay. And what we're looking for is the next level. We are not looking back at all. We are looking back for the day after. And when we reach the day after, please don't be surprised again. Mr. Ioannis Masvoulas from Morgan Stanley. First, how has the rising interest rate environment impacted your growth ambitions? Are you seeing higher cost of project debt or downward pressure or anticipated asset rotation gains? That gives me the opportunity to tell you officially that our company at the moment is operating at an interest rate level of 2.75%, and not only 2.75%, but on a fixed basis, not a floating basis. So the answer to this particular question is that we have not seen any pressure on our margins because of the overall increases in the interest rates of the central banks. That is also the case for the asset rotation plans, which, in any case, do not rely entirely upon the interest rate environment. There are many other parameters which make an asset rotation profitable or less profitable or whatever. We are not there yet. I think the central banks, especially the Fed, has already reached or is probably reaching the peak of the interest rate cycle. So I hope that we have seen the worst as far as the central banks are concerned or almost the worst. Let us not forget as well that our company has a very high reputation in the markets and especially in the local markets, which helped us to raise EUR 500 million, especially 91% from retail investors at an interest rate of 4%, when other companies with similar rating, they have to pay at least 6% in the euro capital markets. So this is, for us, one of the advantages of having rating from the agencies, which is just one notch away from investment grade. But we will speak about it later. I think there is a relevant question on this one. Second question for Mr. Masvoulas says, performance in the first half '23 was exceptionally strong with EBITDA per megawatt hour at EUR 18. How much of this is driven by the declining power prices? And what shall we expect for the second half? I thank you very much for this question because it gives me the opportunity to repeat again the synergistic model of the group. As you are all aware, our Energy segment has 5 subsegments. Many of them are complementary. And it may be often the case that one segment does better than the other in 1 quarter or 1/2 of the year, and the other does better in the next half. In this particular case, I will tell you that the energy customer solutions will not do as good as it did in the first half of the year. But on the other hand, because we're in a stable to slightly upward movement in the energy markets, the energy generation and management segment is going to do much better than the potential weaker performance of the energy customer solutions. Therefore, it's interesting to see the energy as a segment in total. And bear always in mind the synergistic model and how one is covering the potential weakness of the other. And the overall result is pointing up. And as a matter of fact, considerably up compared with the first half. On the working capital, what explains the EUR 122 million outflow lead items in first half '23? What is the expectation for working capital investment in the year? Mrs. Kontogianni, our Chief Finance, will answer this question, please.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There is a usual pattern in our cash flows to have slippage of pool of mature payments of the previous years to the next. We've chosen to identify those and report them in our flash notes separately. You can spot them under the title 2022 lead items on Page 20, 21 of the flash note. And exactly the same pattern applies to all flash notes we have released up to now. For example, on excel 2022, respective figure was around EUR 100 million. Those [122 million] of course, will remain the same until the end of the year. And with the opportunity of this question, I would like also to comment on the nature of the cash flow and explain that traditionally, our cash flows from the first half of the year are the weakest, especially regarding the operating cash flows. This is because mainly we are securing major components of our working capital. Our estimations are that cash flow will be improved in the second half, finishing the year with a strong cash flow, while specifically on the side of the working capital, we do not expect this to be much higher than what is presented in today's accounts.

Thank you, Eleftheria. I think the answer is very clear and complete. And I continue with Mr. Ioannis Noikokyrakis from Alpha Finance. Question number one. Could you please speculate on the potential consequences from high renewable production during particular hours of the day? In the first half of the year, especially in the spring, we saw, in the Greek wholesale market, what we have seen in many European markets in the past years, which means we have seen 0 pricing. I have tried a few times to make clear to everybody that the advantage of -- sorry, the disadvantage of renewable owners or operators which is 0 pricing for Mytilineos is a big advantage because Mytilineos has a huge battery, which is called aluminum smelter. And if we can feed the aluminum smelter with 0-priced electricity, you can all understand what the result is going to be. So therefore, this is another synergistic model example, which you have to bear in mind when we think about 0 pricing. Zero pricing is here to stay. And I think especially in Europe, there is such a strong push from Brussels as well as from the national government for more and more renewable production. More and more renewable production, without any doubt, will bring -- will need more and more batteries and more and more specialized grids, which both at the moment do not exist. And not only do not exist, but we are some years away from having a grid that can accommodate the totality of the renewables that are coming in such a strong push in the market. And of course, you know very well that the batteries that are probably the most technologically advanced at the moment, they will last for only 2 hours. Therefore, as long as we continue to make more and more renewable, say, solar, wind or whatever, we make more and more renewable production. There would be days when sunny days and windy days or both where we will have 0 pricing. The question for all those involved in this market is what you do when you have 0 pricing. And we have an answer, as I said. Question number two from Mr. Noikokyrakis is how close is Mytilineos in securing an investment-grade status for the first time in its history? What will be the benefits? Our member of the Board and Chief of the Treasury, Mr. Gavalas, who has had such a great success on the Greek bond last week, will you please answer the question, Christos.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So we cannot really estimate the precise time on these upgrades. What we can really comment on this very spot-on question that you've raised is that we clearly consider that we qualify for an upgrade, both from financial performance point of view as well as from a business profile, following the steps that the group has had the recent years. Now the public core fixed funding, which accounts for EUR 1.5 billion already in the global and local markets, allows us to consider that on the back of where the bonds are trading currently. The yields are having more or less spread over swaps of 80 basis points. That clearly indicates that we are trading all the other investment grade level. We think that the group trajectory has -- and also the state outlook which is clearly positive, allows us to expect that this is going to be achieved, I mean, the target of having an IG level in the near future. Benefits are plenty and important, both from the financial, commercial and business point of view and clearly close the gap between us and the global peers in order to operate more competitively in the global front. So we do expect that this is going to be the case in the near future. And all we can do is keep on delivering the results that we have done so far. Thank you.

Thank you, Christos. I'm turning to Mr. Nikos Athanasoulias from Eurobank Equities. Question number one, will the repurchasing of own shares continue given the significant increase of the share price over the last few months? I think if you read the daily statements, you will probably see that almost on a daily basis, we continue the repurchasing of our own shares. We have great belief in the company, a great belief in the way things are going. And I think repurchasing our own shares is probably one of our best possible investments. Question number two, could you provide some more color on the impressive performance of the integrated supply and trading activity? There's no doubt that we have managed to establish a dominant position in the Southeastern European markets as far as gas is concerned. This is helping our own results, but it's helping the integrated supply in trading segment as well. I think this business is here to continue. It will be expanding further from all kinds of sources, and it is also here to stay with favorable numbers. Question number three. Following EU's requests for gallium production by Mytilineos, has the company decided to proceed with the development of the required facilities? If so, when are you expecting this investment to occur? And what are the estimated costs and returns? Okay. As you know, Europe has gone ahead with the Critical Raw Materials Act, which is a small answer to the American IRA, but it's something anyway. There's no European IRA because as I said on other occasions, the Europeans are not putting a lot of money on the table. So it is true that the gallium is a rare product, and it is produced during the production process of bauxite turned to aluminum. We have a big production of alumina. And we can potentially, according to the first figures, we can potentially, if we go ahead with certain investments that have to be made -- and I'm not talking about huge numbers, by the way. It would be double digit, not triple digit figures. We can cover the requirements of the totality of the European market for gallium. We are -- this is relatively new to us and our engineers, but it is not difficult. How quickly we can move, it will depend mostly on the availability of the equipment that we need, the machinery that we need and the special resins that we also need for the production. If there is an FID on the gallium production, we are, of course, in continuous contact with the European Commission. The European Commission as well as the Greek government, in this particular case, because of the problem with Chinese origin material, they are ready to help as much as possible on this one. We are in constant contact. And I think after there is an FID, we would be able to produce the first gallium in about 2 years. And then, of course, as I said, we can provide all the countries required by the European Union. So please stay tuned on this one. We will report in the months ahead. The costs and returns on the gallium. I'm sorry, it's a little early to answer this question. I would like to know to have much more information and then give you some more specific figures broadly next time we speak. So Mr. Manos Chatzidakis from Beta Securities. Congratulations for the strong results and the solid performance. Number one, when should we expect the new CCGT to start commercial operation? And so far, what utilization rate is achieved? We have to consider and take into account that this H-class turbine, which is used in this new plant, which is a huge turbine and I recommend to those of you that have not visited our industrial premises lately, to try to find the time and visit us again, and have a look at this unique new plant. So as always, very modern equipment, takes a little time to commission properly. There are usually small issues to solve. In our case, fortunately, we have not lost a significant amount of production. The plant is in hot commissioning since June. In the first half of the year, in the results that you have in front of you, the contribution of the H-class is minimal. But in July, even in the hot commissioning period, not in the commercial commissioning -- in the commercial operation, this plant is a plant that has delivered the biggest amount of megawatt hours in the system in times and days of huge energy requirements. So that is a great start. That makes us very happy and it give us big confidence for the months to come. And it is one of the reasons that's why you hear me so confident about the rest of the year. The second question is a number of transactions are taking place in Greece in renewals. Is Mytilineos participating in this round of M&A talks? Or the existing portfolio in Greece is not for sale? Thanks again for this question, which is a good opportunity for me to clarify something. Aluminum of Greece alone needs 1,800 megawatts, or to put it differently, it can accommodate 1,800 megawatts. Whether these megawatts are going to be from our own portfolio, which by the way, the first megawatts have already started to get into the system as we write in our flash note, so whether it's our own portfolio or PPAs or a combination of the 2 does not make any difference for aluminum. On top of this 1,800, we will need more green megawatts for our retail portfolio. As more and more customers, they ask for at least part of the electricity they buy to be green electricity. So on this one as well, stay tuned. We are not in the market to buy anything that we consider is not a very good opportunity. We don't have a name for overpaying. The fact that we are very liquid company does not mean that we are ready to overpay in order to go with the flow. We prefer to make ourselves what we make. We make it at a good price. And the cost that we make the renewable parks, solar, wind are usually quite lower than the level -- the price level of the transactions that take place. And there's another last question. Can you please give us an update with regards to a dual listing potential? The first time I received a question like this was December 14, 2022, when we made the presentation of the company transformation. And I remember, it was a very particular question whether we intend to proceed with the listing in the London Stock Exchange, especially on the FTSE 100. And I had said, I remember very well, and I think some of you will also remember, I had said then that our top line turnover, the midline EBITDA and bottom line figures, they would all put us from the 48 to 52 position on the FTSE 100 list. The capitalization put us on the 150 list. And I thought that was a clear answer. Since then, a lot of things have changed. Among others, the performance of the London Stock Change, in particular, the FTSE 100, has been extremely mediocre for the first half of the year. But the performance of Mytilineos has been much better. Therefore, as we speak, our fourth -- the capitalization issue, the 4 parameter of the equation is easily within the FTSE 100. But I beg you, please do not isolate the foreign listing or the dual listing. Please see the whole picture of the group. Please see the internationalization of the group. It is no secret that we are, at the moment, in the process with some big investment banks in order to make a selection and work with them on the future of Mytilineos in the international markets, including the capital markets, of course, including the possibility of convertible bonds or committed revolving credit facilities as well as a foreign listing or a dual listing. So please see this holistically. It's not isolated. It is the internationalization of the group that is important, and everything else comes together. So these are the questions that I had in front of me. Please go ahead and ask whatever you want now. Thank you very much.

The first question comes from the line of Keen, Andrew with Edison. Mr. Keen, can you hear us?

I can. I'm sorry. Can you hear me now?