Earnings call transcript: Tubothix Group’s Q4 2024 results show strong performance despite lower nickel prices

Tubothix Group reported its second-best financial results in company history for Q4 2024, achieving total sales of $767 million and an EBITDA of $107 million. Despite facing a 21.5% decline in nickel prices, the company maintained robust financial health, highlighted by a 64% increase in total equity compared to 2023. According to InvestingPro data, the company’s market capitalization now stands at $6.5 billion, with its stock delivering an impressive 70.5% return over the past year. Tubothix’s strategic investments and innovation initiatives, particularly in low-carbon solutions and new sectors, are key drivers of its positive outlook.

Key Takeaways

• Total (EPA:TTEF) sales reached $767 million, with a strong EBITDA margin of 13.9%.
• Tubothix launched the Sentinel Prime connection, enhancing its product portfolio.
• The company expanded its manufacturing footprint with a new plant in Abu Dhabi.
• Strategic agreement with Mubadala brings a $200 million capital injection.
• 2027 sales target set between $1.2 and $1.4 billion.

Company Performance

Tubothix Group’s Q4 2024 performance underscores its resilience amid fluctuating commodity prices. The company achieved its second-best financial outcome, driven by strategic investments and diversification efforts. With a focus on low-carbon solutions and expansion into sectors like nuclear and aerospace, Tubothix is positioning itself as a leader in innovative manufacturing.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: $767 million
• EBITDA: $107 million (13.9% margin)
• Net Financial Debt: $255 million
• Debt to EBITDA Ratio: 2.4x
• Total Equity: $482 million (64% increase vs. 2023)
• Planned Dividend: $25 million

Outlook & Guidance

Looking forward, Tubothix has set ambitious targets for 2027, aiming for sales between $1.2 and $1.4 billion and an EBITDA of €200 million. The company anticipates a record year in 2025, with potential mergers and acquisitions in strategic sectors. InvestingPro analysis reveals the company’s strong financial health score of 2.77 (rated as "GOOD"), though it currently trades above its Fair Value. Analysts maintain a "Buy" consensus with price targets ranging from $170 to $193 per share. Tubothix is committed to reducing its net debt below 2x EBITDA, signaling a strong focus on financial stability.

Executive Commentary

CEO Jesus Suresh Mounis highlighted the company’s strategic shift, stating, "2024 has been an extremely important year for our goals for 2027." He emphasized Tubothix’s transformation from a cyclical company to a diversified and stable business. Mounis also noted the significance of the Sentinel Prime connection, describing it as "the most relevant patent in our company’s history."

Risks and Challenges

• Fluctuating commodity prices, particularly nickel, could impact future sales.
• Potential tariffs in the US market might affect profitability.
• The company’s expansion into new sectors like nuclear and aerospace carries inherent risks.
• Maintaining a competitive edge in technological innovation is crucial.
• Managing debt levels and financial stability remains a priority.

Tubothix Group’s strategic initiatives and financial discipline have positioned it for continued success, despite the challenges posed by market volatility and global economic conditions.

Full transcript - Tubize-Fin (TUB) Q4 2024:

Raquel Rieck, Investor Relations, Tubothix Group: Good morning and welcome to this results presentation. My name is Raquel Rieck and I’m responsible for Investor Relations.

I’m with Jesus Suresh Mounis, CEO for the group and Guillermo Ritogarte, the CFO. We are first going to give a brief presentation on the results and landmarks for the year and then we’re going to move on to the Q and A. I’d like to remind you that questions can only be asked in writing. For that, you can use the tool that’s been made available on the webcast. I’ll now hand over to Jesus Smedes.

Thank you, Raquel. Good morning, everyone. And thank you very much, for attending this results release for the Tubothix Group. Twenty twenty four has been an extremely important year, a year where we have met many landmarks, many of the goals we’ve set ourselves and a year whose landmarks are going to determine the future of this company. On the one hand, the signing of the strategic agreement with Mubadala, a partner that has not only contributed $200 in capital with the purchase of 49% of our OCT GCRA division, but it’s also a partner with a great deal of influence especially in The Middle East.

More important still is the presentation of our new, Sentinel Prime connection, which can be seen here. It’s a connection that we’ve been working on during the last eight or nine years, with a lot of hard work and a connection that is going to reposition Tubathex in the world, in the OCTG world. It’s a connection that not only is helpful for our own products, but obviously is a connection that can be applied to any kind of material for OCTG. On the other hand, we’ve started the macro ADNOC order. We started in the first quarter of the year to produce the steel to make the pipe.

And we also have to say that we haven’t billed yet. It’s a year as we can see in the results that we still don’t have the billing for that effort we’ve made during the whole year to manufacture the product and therefore we can’t yet see the margin related to this product. A very important year in our positioning in another strategic product, our umbilicals where we’ve had a lot of new orders and where we can say that we are positioned in the top two in this umbilical manufacturing with a portfolio that is not only covered for this year, but practically for next year too to a large extent. And the confirmation of our strategic relationship with Petrobras, one of the main consumers for gas extraction products. And during this year, we’ve obtained significant orders not just for this year but also for the coming years.

And with all this, we’ve ended up with sales of $767,000,000 And again, I underline that this has been impacted by not starting to sell the product for Adnoc, although we do have the costs related to it. And this has taken us to results of CHF107 million in EBITDA, 13.9% margin over sales. And this is within our strategic goals. And it’s the second best result in our history. And again, it’s been impacted by not having yet build the AdNOC product.

These historical landmarks and being able to have a significant backlog makes it possible to present the distribution of a dividend of DKK25 million at the shareholders meeting approximately $10,000,000 in ordinary dividend with an additional dividend of some $15,000,000 So an important year, especially for our goals for 2027 and our strategic plan. The evolution during the year, as anticipated, has progressed in results ending up the last quarter with 28,900,000.0 in EBITDA. And for the annual series, you can see a significant change after the results in 2018, ’20 ’19 with around 70,000,000 in EBITDA. There’s been an increase in the last three years and this year has been the second best in the history of the company. And looking at in greater detail, 13.9% EBITDA margin, 8.3% EBIT margin.

These are results that are within our goals. And the result in Q4 is similar to results in last year’s Q4 with significant results On the bottom line, the non sale of the AdNOCA product has significantly increased working capital of $310,000,000 an increase of NOK 75,000,000 during the year. And again, we’ll now start to destock. We’re starting to sell that product that we’ve been manufacturing and which we haven’t been able to build yet. And this has taken us to a 14% working capital over sales.

Our goals were between 30%, thirty three %. Last year, we ended up with 27.5. And this means that we have working capital ready for this year for 2025. Net financial debt, we finished at $255,000,000, 20 5 million less than last year with a debt to EBITDA ratio of 2.4 times. And we have a negative structural debt, which means that all our debt is directly related to working capital with work in progress and stock that has already been sold to customers with no risk.

The result for 2024 meets these margins that we had set ourselves. And moving on to sales details. Sales obviously have been affected by the average price of nickel, which as we know has an influence on our sales level, not so much in results, 21.5% on average lower than the previous year. And with the nickel price at 2023, we’d be at a very similar level to last year’s sales. The big landmark is production at the new plant where we’ve started with the machining.

And during the year, the pipe is being manufactured at our Spanish plants. And in Q1, we will start to build this product. And we can what we can clearly say is that if nothing outstanding happens during the year, the year 2025 without a doubt is going to be a record year for the company where we’re going to underline all these landmarks I mentioned earlier. And moving on to the balance sheet. Well, we’ve made investments of 60,400,000.0 in the new plant in Abu Dhabi.

We’ve also made strategic investments in The Middle East in our Machining division at NTS, which is reinforcing our position in the region. And on the other hand, the dividends we’ve paid out of $14,500,000 The increase in working capital that I mentioned earlier and the cash inflow of 182,000,000 with the Modalla stake. In all this, we finished with $255,000,000 debt, which means a multiple of 2.4. We’ve strengthened the balance sheet. We currently have a liquidity over $330,000,000, which we will reduce during this year and liquidate credit lines and a solvency level with a total equity over our assets of 36% with a cash generation of 25,700,000.0 and the total equity of $482,000,000, which is an increase of 64% versus twenty twenty three.

This takes us to the commitment of reducing debt below two. This is just being in line with this commitment of reducing the net financial debt of EBITDA below the multiple of two, a goal that we think can be fulfilled this year. Excuse me. Regarding what you just said, I would like to add something and reinforce the messages given by Jesus for the future. The, to affect the financial structure, I would say, is one of the greatest strengths we have for the strong growth we’re anticipating for 2025.

If we look back at 2024, it’s obvious we’ve had a very important cash and capital inflow from the Mubadala Group. We’ve also made a very strong investment in The Emirates over 60,000,000. And in the working capital side, if we went to specific figures, all the material that is at our various facilities, which is the material that’s going to be built in ’25, would also be close to 60,000,000. This is an enormous effort, an effort that confirms the structural profitability of the company. In the previous slide, Jesus mentioned that nickel had dropped by 23%, twenty four % in the year.

In the old Tubers VI, this would have been a debacle. We were involved in distribution. We sold at a variable price. Today, we can prove that whether nickel prices go up or down, the structural profitability of the group is around 14%, EBITDA or more. We’re saying that we’ve made an enormous effort in CapEx and working capital that we’re going to transfer it forward.

Anyone that looks at the whole balance sheet and looks not only at the working capital will see that we’d have 400,000,000 in stock. Yes, but that stock is at acquisition stock at production cost. It doesn’t include the margin and that stock is mostly sold. If we put the stock at fair value, we would probably have to add about EUR 60,000,000 if we valued it at the structural profitability that we are obtaining. If we add to that an extremely high equity of over €1,300,000,000 and a liquidity of €300,000,000 and but we have a commitment to reduce financial expenses in the year, a reduction that could be more than 25% of the financial expenses we have today.

How are we going to achieve that? We’re going to achieve it by using more favorable interest rates, by radically reducing growth financial debt, by reducing the spreads. We’ve had both long and short term because liquidity situation of the company is not what we had before. And without going, much further, I’ll just give an example. Today, we are issuing successfully bonds at three point four, eighteen month with an eighteen month maturity successfully at approximately 3.4%.

This is an implicit spread of 0.6%. So the market is already recognizing the solvency and the financial liquidity because it’s radically changing the way it’s financing us. If we turn all that working capital that Jesus mentioned into billing and results because they are closed and committed orders, We are providing absolute stability for twenty five, twenty twenty six and we’re anticipating the compliance of the whole objective track record that we had designed in the plan up to 2027. Thank you, Guillermo. Explaining sales, 26% of our sales have been, for gas extraction, 19% oil.

The industrial side, which is a more traditional side, 28%. And what we call new businesses, new developments in recent years provides significant sales of 20%, and this is going to grow in the coming years. And regarding the destination of the sales, Europe has less and less weight at 29%. And a few years ago, it was the region where we sold most, The U. S.

With 26%. And Asia and especially The Middle East already represents 42% of our sales. We’ve been able to have an important order entry, 0.95% book to bill, which allows us to maintain our portfolio between billion, billion and this gives us a great deal of visibility for this year’s sales and for coming years. If we go sector by sector in OCTG, significant contract side with Petrobras, starting production for Abu Dhabi, which is going to mean annual sales of approximately 150,000,000 to 200,000,000 additionally for the group and a very intense commercial activity in other countries where we believe that we’re going to have opportunities in the coming years. Launching the connection, I again repeat that it’s an extremely important landmark for us.

It positions us in a completely different world. It’s going to allow us to offer the market integral solutions with the post sales service and engineering services. On the drilling side, a slowdown in The U. S. It was an election year, so it hasn’t been a good year in that sense.

The Biden administration and the drill, drill, drill, policy should help us this year. The subsea, important umbilical contracts, we’ve seen very strong years and we are extremely well positioned. These are all products that we didn’t build some years ago and we are becoming one of the top three in the sector. The industrial side, which is where we come from, the world of distribution, the commodity world has been a low year. This sector is more related to the GDP of the various countries.

And as Jagie Yermo explained, if we had been positioned the way we were previous years, this would have been a fairly disastrous year, let’s say, for the group. The change in our position is what has enabled us to have a much more stable result. On the nuclear side, Power Gen, we’re making major R and D efforts, especially for the small nuclear reactors, where we see a very significant increase in this business for the coming years and where we are extremely well positioned in the development phase with our customers. ’25 will be a very important year of SMR orders and ’26 and ’27 will be years with a great deal of growth in this sector. The new business unit we announced last year, low carbon, well, it’s evolving.

On the one hand, carbon capture and storage, over 200 projects in the final investment decision phase for the coming years. Let’s see what happens in The U. S. Before because of the subsidies, it was an important market. Let’s see what happens in the future and also with The UK with strong growth expectations.

Our Sentinel Prime connection is also ideal for this kind of application. Ammonia and fertilizers, where we’ve also put out our own alloy, with major advantages for this sector. And this is starting to grow with the first orders for this alloy and where we also foresee a significant growth in the coming years through a proprietary solution, applying ceramics to the pipe that also helps to reduce emissions and also hydrogen and electrolyzers where we’ve delivered the first orders to various customers. And as we said on Capital Markets Day in 2023, it’s clear that this sector is going to grow and it’s also clear to us that the rate of growth isn’t what was predicted, but we’re in an excellent position and we’ll see how it evolves in the coming years. The Aerospace and Defense areas, a sector that’s growing, where we’re very well positioned in The United States and where we’re also making decisions to grow in Europe in the coming years.

And, Hydraulic and Instrumentation, a fairly weak year in 2024, but with good outlooks for growth in 2025. The main ESG indicators are in line with the trajectory of previous years. We are meeting the goals we set for ourselves in energy intensity and in CO2 reduction and other aspects for example, safety. The share we started 2024 with a share at during the year. We’ve had a drop to EUR2.7.

We reached the bottom at the September and finished the year at EUR3.25. And, 2023 was an important year for the growth in the share price. And it’s also being very important in the first two months of this year. The target price of the analyst is EUR 5 so we have very relevant potential upside. This is our new plant in Abu Dhabi that came into operation with the first phase, the machining phase.

These facilities for pipe shaping that will start up this year. The summary, well I think that has been a good year for results. The second best results in our history clearly affected by not having yet sold this product that we have been affected, otherwise results would have been even better than last year, a very important year in market positioning and in signing agreements with customers. And the most important thing without a doubt and what opens a new era for Tubathex is this connection. There are few on the market at the premium connections for the most demanding applications.

And we can say that the technical results of the approvals have favorably surprised even us. We’ve had results that prove that we have the best technical solution that can be offered to the market. And therefore, we look forward to a major events this year and the coming years, thanks to this new innovation that we’ve presented. So we confirm our commitment for the strategic plan up to twenty twenty seven, where we had undertaken to reduce our footprint in oil and gas, especially in oil. Gas is our natural product and we believe that it’s a transition energy without a doubt.

And, becoming leaders in low carbon with new renewable energy solutions being a reference in sustainability. We clearly continue with our objectives and this has to take us the results of $1,200,000,000 to $1,400,000,000 in 2027. And this obviously will depend on the price of nickel. It’s very complicated to be able to predict our sales, but more or less in that range is where we should be. And this should take us to an EBITDA over €200,000,000 that could include some inorganic integrations, some acquisitions to complement the strategy.

And this would take us also to the commitment of keeping at a net debt a bit of less than two. And again, we expect to be able to meet this this year or to come very close. And also in spite of the inorganic growth that we’re considering, but we believe that we can stay around these results. And the news of the payout we’ve just announced and that will be ratified by the shareholders meeting. A total of $25,000,000 in dividend this year.

And very good, we can move on to the questions. Thank you very much, Jesus. We can start with the questions about the Vietnam project. We’re asked whether we’ve already started to build the project in this first quarter or when do we expect to put out the first invoice. And we’re also asked about whether we have visibility about a possible expansion of that project or a new contract from that customer.

Well, we’ve started to bill at low levels in Q1. We have a ten year contract with them. And obviously, other suppliers supplied them in the past and that portfolio has to be cleaned out. What we have been confirmed is that the order is going to be well above the undertakings and we expect an invoicing year after year between 150,000,000 and 200,000,000, which is practically guaranteed for the next four or five years with the forecast investments and the commitments of ADNOC for gas extraction in the coming years. And beyond the contract, The contract, again, it’s approximately, 1,000,000,000 over ten years that would take us to an average of a hundred million.

And without a doubt, the coming years will be significantly above that. We’re talking about 150,000,000 to 200,000,000 in invoicing in relation to this contract. And also the fact that we have a plant over there, even though there’s no written agreement, obviously implies that the position of Dubatheque’s for future Adno car contracts puts us in a much better position because of that local manufacturing we can offer and that no other competitor can offer. Yes, there’s a point there or two points that I think we ought to mention. Emirates has followed the philosophy of acquiring technology, acquiring development and promoting a made in Emirates.

We don’t say it very often, but among the global made in Emirates projects, the project that Tubathex has on its hands is the most important one that’s been carried out so far. So therefore, there’s not just a commercial and industrial position in the country, but you’re also an institutional benchmark in The Emirates. And it’s also important to remember that the contract is for a billion dollars, the mega contract and Jesus sees that contract speeding up. But that contract also says that 80% of the future needs of ADNOCs in CRI will come through Tubathex or the Tubathex Group and the joint ventures set up together with Mubadala. And I mentioned this because it’s another relevant actor on a financial and institutional level in The Emirates.

If we have all those resources to build up the project and if we had what we have ahead of us, and today we are not the protagonist, but this that you’re seeing here. And I think that gives us all the circumstances to make it a successful project and has occurred with the technological development of this connection. In the end, it’s, much better than what we ourselves expected. And in relation to this connection you’ve just mentioned, I’m going to put these questions we received on Sentinel. First of all, why is it so disruptive and what advantage does it give us to have our own connection?

What is the difference with other things on the market and why is it better? Well, the technical aspects, so why do we think it’s better than the others? Well, I’m not going to go into that. The demands for this kind of application are very strict. This is used in very aggressive environments and this has to withstand very high pressures and temperatures and there can’t be any leaks and especially if it’s gas as we can understand.

So it’s a metal to metal connection where pipes connect from the well and it’s extremely demanding. And we can say that there are two connections on the market that at the top of the premium market. This is the disruptive side. We’ve surpassed the tests with technical results that as far we know have not been surpassed by other connections on the market. Why is it important to have it?

Because the customer is looking for a final solution. They want a solution to be delivered, pipes with the connection and to also to provide a service, a service that is, a service at the extraction site. We have technicians, engineers on the platforms, both in Brazil, and we’re also going to have them in the future in Abu Dhabi, where we have technicians twenty four seven at the well. And we have after sales service, and we’re going to have an important engineering service that we have to set up in Abu Dhabi. So it’s a solution.

It’s not the delivery of a Piper product, it’s an integral solution. And we also asked if we expect to build Sentinel in 2025. Yes, of course. The order with Adnoc has been updated and we’re already starting to supply everything with our own connection. So those are 150,000,000 to 200,000,000 in sales that we said we expected with the Adnan project.

We’re asked if we’re going to see that in 2025. There are some that want to run before they can walk and whether it also includes the Sentinel and billing. Yes, it includes Sentinel without a doubt. We’re in the delivery startup phase. We had the production phase startup last year, as I explained, and we’re currently filling the warehouses and we’re starting to sell.

On an annualized basis, we’re going to invoice 150,000,000 to 200,000,000 in this year. It will possibly be somewhat below 150,000,000. We’re also asked about the effect of the launching of Sentinel and whether this can have an impact on our EBITDA margin goal. Could it improve our long term target somehow? Well, here I focus on two ideas.

First of all, stabilizing. We’ve undertaken the commitment of having operating performances around 14%, fifteen %. We’ve made a statement, which I think is very powerful to be independent of the volatility cycle of basic raw materials like nickel taking on major global projects with a local content. And therefore, the response to that is that once it’s stabilized and once the company is positioned in the sales environment of around EUR 1,000,000,000 or more as we indicated in the strategic plan, this profitability is going to increase. Why?

Because it’s no longer going to be based on the materials of origin. Jesus, a moment ago, explained a clear case of an integral service, a proprietary solution, a complete services from the beginning. In other words, from the time we we produced the steel in our steelworks until we carry out the last connection operation at a well. All this forms part of the Tubathex scope. And obviously, before we depended on external supplies for the connection, there was a margin we lost, but we also lost control over the value chain.

Now we have the value chain completely under control from beginning to end with a proprietary solution that we believe is much better than those that are currently available on the market that has been developed based on stainless steel and CRA, which is the most demanding material for a well. So therefore, the technical requirements, the air tightness guaranteed and having taken a complete approach to local content of places like Emirates or The United States, we’ve been doing this for years. And since we have the technological and service solutions, the normal thing would be that after stabilizing the operating margin between 1415% in a time series that goes beyond the strategic plan, we will be able to gradually increase it. This is the goal. Yes, and it’s important to underline that we have our NTS division with machining centers all over the world from Asia, Europe, United States.

And obviously, this is a strength for the machining of this connection. This provides us with global access to all customers very quickly. This is where we have a major synergy from the machining point of view. Regarding the results in the last quarter of the year, we’re asked whether this includes sales or deliveries to Petrobras. Yes, they are included.

There has been an effect that we’ve broken down over the years, a deferment in order entry and invoicing. And this obviously doesn’t include the latest Petrobras orders. We’ve announced joint orders of over EUR 100,000,000 that will be supplied in 2025 and 2026. And it’s a timely question because we’ve asked about the deferment in the production or billing in The Emirates, but there has also been a deferment factor in the Petrobras contracts. But it’s just a temporary delay because while we’re emphasizing the integral solutions for The Emirates, it’s the same concept for Petrobras and not because we want to sell a connection, but because the customer is going to ask us to provide the best connection available on the market, which is this one.

And there has been invoicing for Petrobras. There will be a lot more in the future. And if everything goes well, there are contracts that will be negotiated over the coming years. And we believe that the company will be in a differential position to be able to win those projects or macro projects in many cases. Changing to the nuclear sector, we’ve said that EDF (EPA:EDF) is our main customer in the nuclear market in 2024.

Can we expect new contracts for the renewal of their nuclear plant fleets over 2025? Well, yes, we can expect it from EDF and from other customers. We’re on the OpEx side, replacing current products and also providing technical solutions vis a vis the corrosion problems that have existed. But we’re on the OpEx side, but we’re getting into the CapEx side. We’re starting a new era for the nuclear world.

There are many projects at this time that are going to be decided on in the coming years. We expect decisions this year and especially in 2026 and 2027, both for Westinghouse nuclear plants where we have an exclusive contractor and also especially in the small nuclear reactors, as I said earlier, where, where with all the players, all the manufacturers at this time, we’re working on development with EDF, Westinghouse and others. I’d like to mention a trend, perhaps a more long term trend. If somebody thinks that data centers and AI centers can be set up without having stability through nuclear modular reactors on or reutilization of the nuclear fleet. They’re completely mistaken.

The resort to nuclear energy in France represents more than 60% of their energy mix, in Spain, Twenty Percent. Losing that while they’re trying to set up data centers all over the country is a wild idea. And I relate this to the global European policy, the paradigm will change, will go back to reality and understand that there needs to be a buffer in the energy mix to complement all the wind energy or photovoltaic energy developments. In any case, I think that we’re very ready for the nuclear world. We have a range of products that nobody has on the market right now.

We can deliver the full solution, forged products, machined pipes, connections and this makes us clearly different to others. Coming back to connections, we’re asked if there is any possibility of applying Sentinel outside the stainless steel world. Of course, as Guillermo said, this connection has been designed for the most demanding requirements, Our current product, the stainless steel product, but it’s also the product with the smallest volume from the point of view of OCTG. It’s obvious that this technology can be used for the entire OCTG product range for products that where we don’t manufacture the pipe, but where we can provide a solution. And that’s why I mentioned our machining capabilities practically all over the world.

So we can serve this connection to customers using different materials. Talking about the cash and the relevant liquidity position we have, they ask us about the application of those funds. Do we see a significant year in M and A in 2025 for us? And they also ask whether there’s the possibility of buying back shares or extra dividends. M and A and share buybacks.

Well, I’ll start with, let’s say, the liquidity structure, which we believe is a differential together with the solvency of the company. Right now, the financial focus is reducing gross financial debt and the return to the shareholder to ordinary and extraordinary dividends as shown in the announcement we’ve made today. We believe that that trend is going to continue over time. We believe that the company is going to clearly generate cash in the coming years. That cash generation has to be returned to the shareholder who in the end is the owner of the company.

And we can ensure that liquidity. As I said earlier, we’ve undertaken to reduce the financial expenses and all that liquidity as well as financing the working capital in our accounts will be used to remunerate the shareholder in an ongoing way and grow as much as it can in the coming years. It’s a clear commitment from us. And when we ensure that we’re under two times financial debt EBITDA, we’re including a relevant remuneration for the shareholder via dividends. And regarding M and A, what we announced on the Capital Market Day, M and A is obviously help us position and reinforce ourselves in consider to be strategic and will help us with that diversification.

We’re committed to. In other words, I can’t say exactly when we’re going to to do it because that’s impossible in the M and A world. They also ask about specific sectors. Well, I think that we’ve already announced the specific sectors and what our strategy is so we can imagine where we want to grow. Let’s also see what’s on the market, what we can find and what the possibilities are.

There isn’t a must for this year necessarily. We believe in the three years, twenty twenty five, twenty twenty six and 2027, there will be M and A’s within these parameters we’ve set with around two in debt EBITDA. If we have bigger acquisitions, that mean that we exceed that figure, it won’t be a drama either. Our debt is currently 100% sold working capital. So our debt is negative at this time.

We’re also asked about the semiconductor sector, a relatively new sector for us. How is that evolving and what do we think about it? Well, we’re working very hard on it. We believe that it’s going to be a very important sector. We need to make certain investments to have a proper position.

They’re not relevant. They’re part of the usual investments made every year and we’re working on it. We have to get ready both in The United States and India, where there will be requirements for this kind of product in the coming years. And, of course, the million dollar question, how does the Trump tariff policy affect us and the quotas in The United States. Yes.

Well, looking back at when he announced tariffs last year, we can say that we benefited from it. We don’t have competition. We don’t have anybody that manufactures a stainless steel pipe in The United States. We have seven plants in The United States. The two, pipe plants and the five machining plants.

Well, we have to look at the small print of the tariffs. But initially, we feel it shouldn’t have a negative impact on us. Let’s see if it has a positive impact. If it’s a product that’s imported and the tariffs are applied, that means that prices will have to increase because there’s no competition in the country. There’s an issue that we have to look at there.

The details, the regulations on the tariffs haven’t been determined yet and it will take months. But there is a clear reality and it’s a very big difference compared to other companies. For many years in constant growth, Dubathex has had a technical commercial and industrial structure that’s very powerful in The United States. The seven plants that Jesus mentioned, Salem in Pennsylvania, Dunant in Oklahoma, all the Ameri West assets that were acquired from the Carpenter Group. And we also have to look at what those companies do in Salem or in Durant.

They’re manufacturing pipe for the aerospace sector. Some of the Coats we see, rockets we see launched every day on TV carry parts and pipes manufactured by us. The production team at Omega West leases or sells tooling for drilling. The President of The United States has been very clear about what he thinks about drilling in the coming years in The United States. And in Houston, I think that we have one of the most important technical and commercial offices in the world in our sector with a differential product stock.

And if we can say that we have OCTG or umbilical products that don’t have local production in The United States, this can mean that, first of all, that our North American manufacturing fabric will be reinforced. Any products where there are no local substitutes, there could be a pass through to the end customer. And in very specific numbers of all the turnover in The U. S. In a two or three year timeframe, 60% or 70% is made in USA.

And this isn’t a coincidence because the strategy defined by the company with a made in Emirates and made in USA with a made in India is absolutely close to the industrial fabric and the specific needs of those countries. If that is increased because of de globalization or geopolitical factors or because of protectionism, the important thing is to be close to the sectors and the end users in those countries. This has been an extremely clear strategy since twenty twelve, twelve, T13, and it’s been progressive, constant, and has covered The Middle East, Asia and The United States. Conclusion, we are present industrially and technically in the most sophisticated sectors in the stainless steel pipe sector in those countries and that’s an important competitive edge. Although we have to be cautious, as Hesus said, regarding the final content of the tariffs and the products included or excluded.

There’s a very curious and direct question regarding the umbilical sector. Technica published results yesterday and they were very optimistic in the medium and long term. Why not consider increasing capacity in umbilicals and reduce that backlog of more than a year? If we expand the capacity, which is something that we’re analyzing right now and will possibly do it, it will be to maintain the portfolio, but to increase the portfolio of the backlog, The lead times, there are only two manufacturers. To summarize, all the others that try to get in have given up, it’s very complex.

There are two manufacturers and the market is growing as Techneep said, and we have to follow that. The increase in capacity is an issue we’re looking at. We’ve just signed a long term agreement with Once Upsea, a company that was the merger of OpSe7 and Accea, which has been the biggest umbilical manufacturer in the world. We have an agreement that we signed three weeks ago, a frame agreement. So we expect a great deal from this sector and we’re going to back it.

Okay. On the negative side, what isn’t evolving well or is doing worse than expected? Well, let’s see. I think that in general, it’s been a low market year. Not just for us, it’s been felt by the whole sector.

The whole world has dropped in sales. In our case, we haven’t dropped in manufacturing. I’ll say it again. We’ve been very busy manufacturing Adnock, even though we haven’t sold it yet. And for us, again, it’s been an extremely important year in all sectors.

There’s nothing that has gone especially badly except for commodities, our most traditional product, which has suffered a drop of 20%, thirty %. But what was 80% of our turnover is now 20% and the 80% we’re invoicing now are products that we didn’t manufacture some years ago and which are much more stable in sales. To close, we left the last question about 2025. What prospects do we have for new contracts in 2025? And can we give a little bit more color about the EBITDA and debt to goals for the year?

Well, regarding contracts, yes. We have two major OCTG customers right now, Adnoc and Petrobras. And then other things that are a complement, We’ve been working for years to position ourselves with other very relevant customers the way we have done with Adnoc and Petrobras. And I hope that this year we’ll be able to include another third major customer, major portfolio for the eCTG world and take the first few steps with other customers. And we expect this year to be an important year for orders in OCT, umbilicals, high nickels and also in nuclear without a doubt.

And goals for 2025 EBITDA and debt. Well, we never give forecast figures. We’ve made two things very clear. We made it clear that we expect this year to be a record year for the company. If nothing strange happens, we’ve practically achieved that with what we’ve got.

And regarding debt, if everything goes well, we’ll be below the multiple of two. And to summarize what the year has been, I think that the evolution of the company in recent years is very clear, a complete repositioning in the market. We have nothing to do with the cyclical company we were a few years ago. We are involved in diversification as we saw before in our sales figures and this is going to gradually improve. As I said, 80% is new product with much more margin and above all much more stable.

The forecast of an ADNOC or a Petrobras, it may be delayed by three months or whatever, but their installation forecasts for the next five years are clear. There are not going to be major changes. We are in a much more stable world than we were before. Obviously, variations can be due to nickel prices, not margin, because I think that we’re quite experts now on how to hedge raw materials. But our commitment is there, the commitment for 2027 and we’re on the right path.

And 2024 has been an extremely important year for this, extremely important. The agreement signed this year are going to be an absolutely determining factor for this group in the coming years. And especially this new baby we have here on the table, we’ve patented many things, but this has been the most relevant patent in the history of this company without a doubt. So with nothing further to add, very good. Well, thank you all very much.

And we’re open to any doubts or queries. Yes, please get in touch through our website or email and we’ll answer your questions. Thank you very much for your interest and for your confidence in the company.

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