\n" } Fabian Joseph (Investor Relations): Hello, everyone. This is Fabian Joseph from Investor Relations.

Also on behalf of my entire team, I wish you a very warm welcome to our full-year 2025 conference call. With me today are our CEO, Guido Kerkhoff, our CFO, Oliver Falk, and our CEO Americas, John Ganem.

They will guide you through the presentation, and afterwards, we are happy to take your questions. In order to ask a question, you have to press the live Q&A button, and we will open your line.

With that, I'd like to hand over to you, Guido.

Thanks, Fabian, and welcome to our full-year '25 conference call. Before I dive into the highlights of the past financial year 2025, let me start with a brief and important update regarding the voluntary public takeover offer by Worthington Steel.

As announced by Worthington Steel yesterday, the company has decided to adjust the terms of its offer. Specifically, Worthington Steel has lowered the minimum acceptance threshold to 57.5% and extended the offer period to March 26, 2026.

We understand this step and consider it a logical and common procedure for further increasing transaction security. With the total number of shares currently secured by Worthington Steel, including acceptances and direct holdings, standing at 56.92% as of yesterday, the transaction is now very close to reaching this new threshold.

Please always keep in mind that the management shares, which account for around 0.5%, will be tendered, but due to the quiet period, they can only be tendered from now on. I want to emphasize that this technical adjustment does not change the compelling strategic rationale for the business combination or the attractiveness of the offered price of €11 in cash per Klöckner & Co share.

Therefore, our Management Board and Supervisory Board of Klöckner & Co SE will perform a detailed review of the amended offer document and update their joint response statement in a timely manner. Both remain convinced that the offer by Worthington Steel is in the best interest of the company and its stakeholders.

All shareholders who have not yet tendered their shares now have time until March 26, 2026, 24 hours local time in Frankfurt am Main, to do so. I will now begin with the financial highlights of the year.

We have delivered a solid performance for the full-year '25 despite tariff- and trade-related uncertainties. Also, forex effects have negatively impacted our results.

Despite the aforementioned difficult environment, we were able to grow our shipments on group level slightly to 4,528,000 tonnes. The slightly negative development in the Kloeckner Metals Europe segment was overcompensated by the continued strong performance in Kloeckner Metals Americas, driven by further market share gains.

Sales came in at €6.4 billion, slight decrease year-over-year in both segments as well as on group level, largely price-related. This development was a result of lower average price level over the year compared to the previous year as well as negative forex effects.

We achieved a considerable increase in gross profit despite the volatile steel price development in full-year 2025. Gross profit in the previous year had been heavily impacted by windfall losses caused by the substantial steel price correction over the course of '24, an effect that did not repeat itself in '25.

The gross profit margin also improved considerably compared to the previous year. EBITDA before material special effects came in at €171 million, a considerable increase year-over-year and a result within our guidance range.

For the fourth consecutive year, and as we guided, we achieved a positive operating cash flow. Full-year '25 operating cash flow came in at €110 million.

Consequently, and also positively affected by the proceeds from the eight distribution sites in the US, we were able to considerably reduce our net financial debt year-over-year, reaching the lowest net financial debt level since Q2 2023. We will propose to the Annual General Meeting to pay a dividend payment of 20 euro cents per share.

This would be the fifth consecutive dividend to our shareholders, demonstrating that we are a steady and consistent dividend player throughout the cycle. Let's now have a look at our performance in Q4 '25 by segment.

In our segment Kloeckner Metals Americas, shipments increased slightly year-over-year in Q4 '25, continuing the positive trend seen throughout the previous quarters of the full-year '25. Therefore, volume was the highest we've ever achieved in a fourth quarter, which underscores the success of our North American growth strategy.

However, due to the lower average price level year-over-year, sales in Q4 came in slightly below the previous year's quarter, further impacted by adverse forex effects. Prices remained volatile after the temporary peaks in Q2 2025.

EBITDA before material special effects came in at €19 million in Q4. In our segment Kloeckner Metals Europe, shipments increased slightly, while sales remained constant compared to the previous year's quarter.

EBITDA before material special effects of segment Kloeckner Metals Europe was approximately breakeven, which is a considerable improvement compared to the last year's quarter and a constant development consistent to last quarter. This demonstrates that our consistent optimization efforts are continuing to pay off.

In the recent months, we made important steps in our company development in the regions DACH and North America. On January 15th, we announced the intended divestment of the Becker Group in Germany.

Prior to this, we conducted a comprehensive analysis of all strategic options. This will enable Becker to participate in an industry consolidation in Europe under new ownership, allowing us to place a sharper focus on higher value-added products and services.

Becker delivered an improved performance in January and February this year, reflecting the solid foundation we've built together and demonstrating that the business is well positioned to accelerate its growth even further under new ownership. In Switzerland, we completed the acquisition of Locher Behälter to further strengthen our regional footprint.

This step has enabled us to achieve efficiency gains by leveraging the asset base in the existing network. The acquisition was closed in December '25, and the integration process has already been completed.

We continue to expand our production and processing footprint across North America with targeted investments that strengthen our higher value-added and service center business. These investments ensure that we can meet growing customer demand with expanded production and processing capabilities.

As we're constructing a new aluminum flat-rolled processing facility in Columbus, Mississippi, directly located at Aluminum Dynamics' new production site. During the fourth quarter, we reached a milestone by breaking ground on the construction site.

Building completion is planned for late Q4 '26, with equipment startup expected in Q2 '27. By adding a dedicated cutting-edge aluminum processing facility, we can make the most of the NM&M acquisition and accelerate our automotive growth in North America.

In Payton, Iowa, we started a new heavy fabrication operation after agreeing to lease the former Bauer Built manufacturing site. By bringing the entire Bauer Built team into Klöckner, we're preserving their long-standing expertise and ensuring a seamless transition.

The site significantly expands our heavy fabrication capability, including welding, assembly, and complex finishing services. With this operation, we can better support agricultural and industrial customers who rely on advanced fabrication and large-scale production capacity.

In Querétaro, Mexico, we were installing a new coil-fed Schuler laser blanking line to meet rising demand for aluminum blanking, especially from automotive customers. This line is being installed at our new facility and scheduled for commissioning in the second quarter of '26.

The technology delivers superior consistency and cut quality compared to traditional blanking methods. Customer inquiries from automotive OEMs in Mexico are already increasing as the startup approaches.

Following these steps, we generate around 44% of our sales with HVA when considering our group, excluding the eight distribution sites in the US that we sold. This business is responsible for the majority of our EBITDA, which clearly proves that we are on the right track with our strategy.

Going forward, we will capitalize even more on our strong presence in North America and the DACH region and press ahead with our group strategy. With that, over to you, Oliver, for further financial insights.

Yes, thank you. As Guido stated, the market environment continued to remain challenging in '25, with a volatile steel price development following the US tariff announcement in February.

Despite these steel price volatilities, coupled with the ongoing challenging macroeconomic environment, we achieved an EBITDA before material special effects of €21 million in quarter 4 '25 and €171 million in full-year '25, a result within our guidance range. In addition, we delivered a significantly positive operating cash flow for the fourth year in a row, solid results taking into account the macroeconomic environment we operated in.

Although steel prices remained volatile, we are seeing an upward trend in the US and Europe right now. This trend was already visible in quarter 4 '25 as well as in the first two months of Q1 '26, based on higher expected demand.

We are confident to translate the positive pricing trend into strong operating results in quarter 1 '26 and beyond. In addition, we continue to leverage our digitalization and automation initiatives.

The number of digital quotes increased by around 13% year-over-year in full-year '25. Therefore, we continue to release sales people from manual work related to quotes.

Let's take a look at the development of our shipments, sales, gross profit, and gross profit margin for the fourth quarter '25. Shipments increased slightly year-over-year, driven by a strong performance of both segments.

Sales decreased slightly year-over-year due to the overall average price level and unfavorable FX effects, despite the positive shipment development, and came in at €1.5 billion in quarter 4 '25. Gross profit came in at €272 million in quarter 4 '25, after €261 million in quarter 4 '24, a considerable increase year-over-year.

Gross profit margin also increased by 17.6% to 18.6% year-over-year. We will now focus on the EBITDA development in the fourth quarter and in the full-year '25.

In quarter 4 '25, EBITDA before material special effects came in at €21 million. In the fourth quarter, we recorded positive price and volume effects adding up to a total of €19 million year-over-year.

OPEX in quarter 4 '25 were in total €26 million higher year-over-year. In addition, we experienced negative year-over-year FX effects of €3 million in quarter 4 '25.

Material special effects mainly consisted of gains related to the divestment of our eight distribution sites in the US, partly offset by restructuring costs, coming to a net total of €30 million for quarter 4 '25. For the full-year '25, EBITDA before material special effects amounted to €171 million.

Over the year, we benefited from a positive volume effect of €90 million and a positive price effect of €89 million. The results of full-year '24 were burdened by windfall losses related to steel price corrections that did not occur in '25.

OPEX increased by €65 million year-over-year. Further, we recorded negative FX effects of €7 million, mainly resulting from US translation.

Lastly, material special effects came in negative at €20 million, with the non-quarter 4 impact primarily driven by the deconsolidation of our Brazilian entity and restructuring costs. We are now coming to cash flow and net debt development.

In the full-year '25, reported EBITDA was €152 million. Further, we had a net working capital release of €63 million.

Taking into consideration interest, tax payments, and other items totally €106 million, our cash flow from operating activities came in positive at €110 million in full-year '25. Including net CAPEX of €5 million, free cash flow was positive at €105 million for the full-year '25.

This also includes the proceeds of €96 million from the divestment of eight US distribution sites. Let's have a look on our net financial debt.

Negative effects were visible for leasing and dividends. Leasing totaled an amount of €71 million and are mainly related to the execution of our strategic projects, such as our on-campus partnership with Nucor in Brandenburg, Kentucky.

Dividends, of course, €20 million, related to the dividend we paid to our shareholders in full-year '25. Positive effects of €57 million were visible for FX and other, including effects from divestments.

Accordingly, our net financial debt decreased considerably year-over-year to €709 million after €780 million at the end of the previous year. This is the lowest level of net financial debt since quarter 2 '23.

We will now focus on the group's financing. We continue to possess a diversified financing structure.

With credit facility of approximately €1.3 billion excluding leasing, we are very solidly positioned, including contractual terms and financial covenants. Overall, we maintain a total financial headroom of around €0.8 billion.

Net debt came in at €709 million for full-year '25, a considerable decrease year-over-year end, as mentioned beforehand, the lowest level since Q2 '23. Further, leverage came down considerably, and will continue to do so as we execute our strategy.

I now hand over to John to have a closer look at our end markets in North America.

Thank you, Oliver. After a fairly challenging demand environment in 2025, we now expect a decent recovery in 2026, with North American real steel demand increasing by 1% to 2% compared to the prior year.

Of course, there remains significant uncertainty related to the current conflict in the Middle East and continued unpredictable trade policy that can impact the outlook. Also critical for North America will be a positive outcome to the USMCA review, which is now underway.

This would provide more clarity for all participants within the metal supply chain and may help kick-start many investments that are currently on hold, giving a potential boost to steel demand starting at some point in the second half of 2026. Now looking at the expected development in specific market segments: construction activity is expected to recover, with total building starts expected to improve between 1.5% and 2% in 2026.

This is after both residential and non-residential square footage contracted by approximately 3% in 2025. Lower mortgage rates could provide further upside on residential.

Non-building and infrastructure investments should continue to grow in 2026, albeit more moderately than they did last year, which saw these segments surge by more than 15%. Data centers as well as power and utilities should continue to lead the way for the next several years.

Manufacturing activity, as indicated by the ISM Manufacturing Index, has expanded during the first two months of 2026. This is a very positive development, considering this index indicated contraction for almost all of 2025.

In line with this indication, after two consecutive years of negative growth, we now expect overall new orders for industrial and off-highway equipment to increase between 2% and 3% in 2026, with some variation depending on the specific segment. I would also note that current forecasts from critical large OEM customers are indicating even stronger growth rates heading into the second quarter of 2026.

Trade policy clarity and lower interest rates could help these key steel-consuming segments regain even more positive momentum as the year develops. Turning to transportation, the automotive segment has been the most impacted by changing trade policy as well as the removal of EV tax credits.

This resulted in auto production declining by approximately 1% in 2025. For 2026, current forecasts indicate flat to slightly lower production in North America, with Mexico recovering slightly and the US potentially contracting modestly.

On the defense shipbuilding front, activity remains positive, and Kloeckner's current defense programs are set to grow strongly, with multiple large program commitments recently awarded. We also continue working closely with key mill partners to position ourselves strategically to support and benefit from what's expected to be a significant increase in defense shipbuilding investments over the next decade.

Demand from appliance, HVAC, and electrical, which are all key segments for KMC Americas, were flat to down in 2025 as many companies worked to reduce inventories and rebalance supply chains, especially over the second half of the year. The situation for 2026 is now expected to be fairly stable, with production at key OEM customers normalizing at more consistent levels by the second quarter.

Improving conditions in residential construction could provide some additional momentum in the second half of the year as well. Energy continued to be the strongest steel-consuming segment in 2025, and this trend should continue in the current year.

Power transmission growth will remain extremely strong in 2026, increasing by over 15% year-over-year after achieving a similar result in 2025. Modernizing and expanding the North American transmission infrastructure is imperative in order to support the significant forecasted increase in demand for electricity across North America.

This is especially critical for data center investments. While renewable growth rates have come under pressure due to recent changes in government policy, we're still expecting modest growth again in 2026 of between 1% and 2%.

With that, I'll quickly summarize the North American outlook as follows: while risks and uncertainty remain, we are firmly optimistic when it comes to both steel demand and market price fundamentals in 2026. Market cycles are setting up somewhat more favorably than the past two years, and as previously mentioned, a positive outcome on the USMCA review would provide some much-needed clarity and further upside potential for North American steel demand.

With that, I turn it back over to Guido to provide an update on Europe.

Thank you, John. In total, we expect real steel demand in Europe to increase by 1% to 2% in '26 compared to the previous year.

However, it's too early to assess the economic consequences of the escalating war in Iran. Disruptions to trade and surging energy prices could add to global uncertainty, with adverse effects to our key customer industries.

Coming now to our sectors, starting with the construction industry: overall, we expect the construction industry to have a slightly positive development in '26. Activity in the sector will be supported by elevated infrastructure spending, while structural drivers such as pent-up demand also remain in place.

Let's continue with manufacturing, machinery, and mechanical engineering. Mechanical engineering is expected to grow slightly in '26, also supported by increased German infrastructure and defense spending.

However, capacity limits, labor shortages, trade policy uncertainties, and rising Asian competition will prevent a faster recovery. In the defense sector, we're seeing a surge in demand that considerably outpaces previous years' demand growth.

We continue to benefit and capitalize from our active positioning in this sector by leveraging our capabilities and also our financial strength, providing a clear advantage over smaller competitors. Transportation: let's first focus on automotive.

The industry association expects a slight increase in '26, though absolute volumes will remain far below 2019 levels. Demand is expected to remain on rather low levels for as long as there is no significant improvement in the broad economic outlook, including global trade and consumer sentiment.

Now shipbuilding: while the commercial segment in shipbuilding could face increased pressure due to economic uncertainty, we're well positioned in the grey ship sector to benefit from upcoming demand. Household and commercial appliances, a segment with marginal impact on our European business, is expected to develop on constant level in '26 as the EU-US trade deal is expected to reduce uncertainty marginally.

However, customer demand remains rather subdued and will restrain activity in this sector. Energy industry: the energy industry is expected to grow slightly, supported by ongoing electrification of transport and heating, which will provide structural support to electricity demand over the medium to long term.

Let's now come to the financial outlook for the first quarter of this year and the full-year '26. As John and I pointed out, we expect the macroeconomic environment to remain challenging, especially in Europe.

For the current quarter, we expect a considerable increase of shipments and sales, each quarter-over-quarter. EBITDA before material special effects in Q1 is expected to come in between €20 million and €60 million.

For the full-year '26, we forecast shipments and sales to develop on a constant level year-over-year. As we closed the divestment of eight US distribution sites at the end of last year.

We're therefore forecasting a constant development for the full-year '26 without these locations. Consequently, sales are also expected to come in at a constant level.

In total, we expect a strong EBITDA before material special effects in the full-year '26 and a considerable increase year-over-year. Moreover, we also expect operating cash flow to come in significantly positive, above full-year '25 figures.

We're now happy to answer your questions.

Once again, if you would like to ask a question, you have to press the live Q&A button, and we will then open your line. Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press the live Q&A button.

Yes, the first question comes from Boris Bourdet, Kepler Cheuvreux. Boris, your line is open now.

Yes. Hi, can you hear me?

Yes, we can hear you.

Perfect. Thank you for the presentation, and thank you for taking my questions.

The question would be maybe the first one on Iran. I've noticed that you consider it's a bit early to assess, but I would be interested in getting your thoughts on the potential impacts on your clients and on your side, if any.

That would be the first question. Then regarding the outlook: so you're building an outlook with volumes and sales pretty flat, I was wondering how much of that is linked to the deconsolidation of your distribution sites and what would be the underlying assumptions.

Regarding prices, obviously US prices have been moving up quite substantially, as well as European prices. We've seen that prices have been a positive contributor, a tailwind of €89 million in '25 versus '24.

What would be the bridge on current prices for 2026? Maybe a last one on Europe: You've elaborated on your expectations, but do you see early signs of rebounding demand with the CBAM and the coming new TRQ?

Thank you.

Yeah. Let me start with Iran.

As we're largely supplying, and I will start with the direct effects for us locally. Therefore, our direct impact that our supply chains will be affected, we don't foresee anything there.

We can continue, and I think within the steel supply chain overall for our suppliers, we don't foresee anything. Whether there will be any impact on our clients remains to be seen, and I think it's rather a question of how long the conflict will remain and the Strait of Hormuz will be closed.

If not, and oil prices will recover and customer demand will not that much be affected, that would be the ideal case. If it takes longer and uncertainties prevail, that could impact us.

Far, we don't see it, and directly, there will be no real impact. Now, outlook: the eight sites, it was distribution business, therefore that was the eight sites, that was quite some revenue and some shipments that were affected.

That's why in total, indeed, our guidance clearly is an increase that will be above the 1% to 2% that we see in the markets. Our current performance we see in Jan and February proves that.

That doesn't look too bad. The prices in the EU and in the US lately as well are supportive for that development and the increase in the demand that we see.

Now, how the second half will turn out, John has talked about USMCA, we have the Iran conflict, it's all a bit too early to really say how the second half will look like. That remains to be seen.

Otherwise, underlying, I think we're more positive than we have been a quarter or two ago. What we see is order intake and development of the business is organically better than last year structurally.

And

The projects which we are ramping up right now in the US, like Brandenburg,

in

Mexico, they are also contributing.

Exactly. They will be supporting.

CBAM and, as you rightly mentioned, these things will help that especially here in Europe, we have continued support from that side, that this might continue and we might have seen the trough now and see an increasing recovery. Not coming back to 2019 levels, but still, recovery.

I would only add on the pricing front, with the divestment of the distribution sites, our portfolio is much more contractual in nature than it was previously. I think that somewhat it doesn't eliminate exposure to market price volatility, but it certainly mitigates it to a fair degree.

I think the current pricing environment is quite positive for our contract business into the second quarter and likely into the third quarter.

Okay. May I ask another one?

I don't know whether there are other people in the queue or not. Otherwise

Go ahead.

Just looking at the consensus, because you provide qualitative guidance in terms of you expect a considerable growth, which in your vocabulary means more than 5%. That lets a lot of options open.

Consensus is currently at €233 [million?] .

Are you comfortable with that level?

If we were not, we would have to state it.

Okay. Fair enough.

Thank you.

Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press the live Q&A button, and we will then open your line. There seems to be no further question at this time, I hand back to Guido for some final remarks.

Thank you very much. If there are additional questions that will come up, just don't hesitate to contact Fabian and his team.

We're available for that. Thank you very much, and talk to you next time.

Thank you.