Morning everyone, welcome to Bekaert's Full-Y ear 2022 financial results. Many thanks for joining. First, just to outline and remind that today we'll be operating under the usual safe harbor for future statements. I'd very much like to introduce, firstly Oswald Schmid, CEO, and Taoufiq Boussaid, CFO. I begin to the usual with an introduction highlights followed by financial review and operational. Thanks. Thank you, Guy. A warm welcome. Good morning. Welcome on behalf of our Peter and myself, we are delighted to present the full- year results of 2022 of Bekaert. As we'll be presenting another year of strong strategic progress despite the many global challenges we all face. We continue to perform to transform and to grow. Through disciplined pricing, we compensated for a lower volume, reaching 70% higher sales, a record EUR 5.7 billion. Through commercial execution, footprint adjustments and operational excellence, we have closely maintained margins across all these operations. Looking at our transform pillar, in addition to accelerating innovation, sustainability, and digital efforts, we have made a significant disposal in line with our strategy. I will come later to this one. This refers to SWS in Latin America. Last but certainly not least, we have made strides in our target markets of energy transition, decarbonized construction, and steel mobility. When we look on the financial highlights, we have record sales. We've only maintained the margin. What we can see is the sales up 5.7% close, maybe to EUR 549 million, also close to 20%. The net debt to leverage comes as you can at 0.7. I think it's also remarkable when you look on the year comparison from 2022- 2019, you see the current 9% of consolidated sales, 24%-22%. The ROCE has increased as well, but the net debt came down by 21%. When we move on, this is our purpose, and I think we explained it many times. Our purpose and strategic direction continue to serve as a compass to everything that we do. We continue to stand for our core SWS, auto components, cyclical markets for energy transition and other room, as well as build our beyond steel approach. For example, in significant focus in hydrogen, and I will come back on both topics later. We do this with the goal to become the leading partner, and I think this is important to mention. It's really moving beyond manufacturing. It's moving beyond just being a supplier of Steel Wire Solutions, really focusing on our focus. How do we do this? It remains unchanged. We continue to perform, transform and grow and so that we can be best how to serve our customers, but also be the best counterpart for our partners, employees, investors and society. We continue to do this in a smart, safe and sustainable manner, and we have achieved a lot of milestones, some of which I would like to highlight in the next slide. Allow me to give you an update on our transformation update. Our new corporate purpose was established in driving realistic product strategic progress. Just give me a little bit of, allow me some examples. Among others, we are really proud we were awarded the Tire Manufacturing Innovation of the Year awards for our P Pro3. It's a cobalt-free coating. We reduced by 8.3% our Scope 1 and 2 carbon emissions compared to late 2019. We were granted the Advanced Performance Decarbonization Award by the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China. We further digitized significantly or continued our digital journey by developing our inspection technologies, but also driving data intelligence into our everyday processes. When we look on the recognition on our efforts, I would say ESG, it's really that we are on board. More broadly, we are delighted that this has been recognized all the efforts by sustainability group, ESG ratings agencies and by the likes of Euronext, who have selected us for their ESG index of the top 20 Belgian listed. We are really working incredibly hard to support others and provide solutions to climate change, energy passage. We are also very active internally to prove and to improve our own standing. In 2022, our ambitious CO2 reduction targets were formally validated by the SBTi. Now with this short introduction, I would like to hand over to you, Patrick. Thank you, Oswald. Good morning, everyone, thank you for joining this call. I will go jump directly into it. 2022 was in many aspects an environment where that I refer to as a perfect storm for Bekaert. This is following the 2021, which was exceptionally strong. A year where we benefited from several tailwinds and delivered a record performance when it comes to several financial KPIs. In many aspect, 2022 gave us a perfect stress test scenario to test and validate the resilience of the assumptions and the direction and the changes that we have been implementing in the company for the last three years. The first element of stress test, which we have been confronted during 2022, was related to the decline of the volume in a couple of key geographies for the company. As a headline, we saw our volume in tonnage eroding by approximately 9% during the year, which has erased roughly EUR 425 million from our top line. This volume erosion was primarily due to the subdued environment in China and the overall weak economic context in Latin America. The second stress test element was related to the overall inflationary environment throughout the year, during which we faced significant increases of our main input cost categories. The company has responded very effectively to this challenge by further strengthening our pricing management capabilities and execution. This has allowed the company to validate our pricing execution in a very successful way as our efforts have allowed us to generate a 10.5% sales expansion, equivalent to EUR 500 million through pricing changes, combined with the usual passed on wire rod price changes. Last but not least, we have further accelerated our portfolio segmentation and go-to-market execution, which has allowed us to further maximize our mix contribution, resulting in an additional top-line expansion of another € 500,000. The combination of those two actions have allowed us to expand our top line by almost EUR 1 billion, which, combined with the sales erosion I was referring to earlier, is resulting in an organic growth of 12%. We have also benefited, as you know, from a positive currency effect on the China RMB and the USD, which have added roughly EUR 214 million to our 2022 sales of EUR 5.7 billion. I will elaborate later on the specific performance of each of the views, but just wanted to give you a highlight on the EBIT performance for the year. I think that when you look at this performance from a qualitative standpoint, I think that this EBIT performance for 2022 is a strong evidence, which is demonstrating that Bekaert is becoming more resilient, and we can perform and sustain performance independently from the business cycles. 2022 saw the combination of three major headwinds which have affected the company profitability. The first one is a neutral wire rod price evolution throughout 2022, which, in comparison to the previous year, generate a profit with profitability drag of EUR 124 million. Second, and I refer to that, our volumes were down roughly 9%, and this has erased from our PNL EUR 58 million worth of margin contribution. Lastly, the combined effect of the volume under absorption plus the inflationary effects on labor, utilities, and transportation has increased our conversion cost by EUR 214 million compared to 2021. The combination of these three elements have generated a drag of almost EUR 400 million versus previous year. More than 80% of this drag has been mitigated through the improvement which has deployed within the business, primarily through our ability to more efficiently drive the pricing, to better segment our product offering, and through various cost saving and self-help measures. With all these actions, we have been able to limit the EBIT gap versus last year to approximately EUR 53 million with an EBIT of 8.1%, including the dilution effect of the inflation pushes at zero margin on cost categories such as utilities. We have estimated the inflation effects that have generated a dilution of roughly 150 basis points. In line with the indication we gave during our H2 guidance, this would have corresponded to an estimated normalized EBIT at approximately 9.5%. Again, in line with what we stated in our H2 trading update. Now moving to the performance of our business franchises. I will start with our Rubber Reinforcement business. 2022 turned out to be a relatively challenging year for Rubber Reinforcement. The main headwinds were related to the volume contraction of roughly 13%, which was primarily driven by China. We had also to deal with relatively stable wire rod prices, which unlike previous year, didn't generate the positive inventory valuation. Lastly, we saw a very important utility inflation, especially in EMEA, but we have been successful in passing this through our end customers, this has been translated into the sales performance, as you can see. The business, despite all these headwinds, the business did, however, grew its top line by 7% on a full-year basis, including the impact of the reclassification of our Hose and Conveyor Belt into the Specialty Businesses. The growth profile is primarily driven by a strong pricing execution, a mix optimization, which has led to the revenue expansion that I have referred to, which has completely erased the volume drop that we had to deal with during the year. RR, as you know, is significantly exposed to China. It's a big, important market for us. China didn't recover during 2022. It's a decrease that we started hinting at and discussing already in June 2021. The country was impacted by the COVID-related lockdowns, the high stock in the supply chain, in addition to a general weak business context. Our market share did decrease during the year, but this was a consequence of a decision that we have taken where we have given the priority on margins versus volumes in a market which again was quite depressed. In Q4, we did adjust our strategy, and we have been able to regain some market share. We are back to a 20%, which is an average of our market share in China for the last couple of years. Looking at other regions, North America, volumes have not recovered yet to the pre-COVID levels. Southeast Asia was slightly lower, and EMEA was down due to Russia. On the positive note, India did perform very strongly, we do continue to see very strong prospects as far as India is concerned. Profitability-wise, our costs were negatively impacted by the lower volumes in China, this has triggered some underabsorption of volumes costs. We did suffer from the substantial cost inflation, particularly in EMEA, and in particular again during the third quarter of 2022. Again, we were, however, able to pass on a substantial share of this utilities inflation to the customers. Moving to our Steel Wire Solutions business. The franchise is reporting a strong sales expansion of 14.5% on the back of a very strong pricing and mix effect of 10% and a passed on wire rod prices increase of 14%. These upsides have allowed us to significantly offset the volume contraction of roughly 13%. A volume contraction which has accelerated in the second half of the year with significant decreases in Latin America, South Latin America, but also EMEA, and China. The Southern Latin American market has continued to be challenging throughout most of 2022, with a weak economic condition and a degraded consumer confidence. As a result, the key applications in those markets such as construction and agriculture, have remained relatively subdued. Demand from energy and utility markets have, however, benefited from a very positive momentum, especially in North America. In terms of profitability, the lower volumes did generate an operational deleverage with margin on sales eroding by 4% compared to last year. It's however important to highlight the fact that the business has structurally improved against 2020 baseline, with an EBIT contribution increasing in absolute terms by more than EUR 50 million on the back of lower volumes, again, compared to the baseline of 2020. That's for SWS. Moving to BBRG. Thank you. BBRG has reported a limited volume loss, roughly 4%, but they have benefited from a strong upside from price and mix and passed on changes in wire rod prices, which has allowed the business unit to post a record top-line expansion of almost 22%. Oil and gas did benefit from strong demand in particular in the U.S. Volumes in this segment were up 23% versus last year. Mining activities were also very strong, with volumes approximately up by 5%. The strong performance in these two segments has been partially tempered by a subdued business environment in the other segments, such as grain industry and industrials, structures, and fishing, and marine, which were down year-over-year. Our second segment within the business unit is our Advanced Cords, which has delivered record sales on the back of a very strong performance of our armoring wire products. They also benefited from the pickup of the automotive business in China, and volumes in Advanced Cords were up 8% during the year. Profitability-wise, we can probably, at this stage, state that the profit stabilization of BBRG is over, so we are now posting an EBIT which is above 10%. The profit restoration plan has yielded all the results that we were expecting from it. Again, the business unit delivered an underlying EBIT of EUR 60 million, margin of 10.3%, significant increase versus the situation where we were a couple of years ago. Moving to Specialty Business. Specialty Business is reporting a record high level in terms of top-line expansion, roughly 30%. This is on a like-to-like basis, and excluding the allocation of the Hose and Conveyor Belt to the division. We did see a strong momentum across the four segments of the franchise, which have all delivered double-digit growth in all the key regions. In Building Products, we saw strong effect of a boost in price and mix. In Fiber Technologies, we have achieved a strong growth of 25% on the back of a very solid performance in high-end filtration, semiconductor, and hydrogen applications. Our combustion business has also delivered a very good performance on the back of successful price of actions with major customers in all the regions. We have also accelerated the move from Assen to Romania to lower our production costs of burners. Lastly, our Hose and Conveyor Belt gained strong momentum, in particular within businesses serving OEMs and mining end markets, and has also gained targeted market shares as a result of a competitor, BMZ, from Belarus being subject to sanctions. Profitability-wise, for Specialty Businesses as a whole, the BU has delivered a record high EBIT at EUR 132 million, which corresponds to an 83% increase from previous year. The EBIT yield margin on sales is up 200 basis points at 16.7%, and now the division with this level of performance is accounting for 30% of the total company EBIT. A couple of words now on some key metrics of the PNL for total Bekaert. Our EBIT after deduction of the one-off elements, which were amounting to EUR 93 million and were primarily related to the restructuring of BBL in Germany and the impairment of our Russian plants in effects. The EBIT is standing at EUR 366 million. Our ATR continues to further improve and is now reaching 26%, down 2% versus last year as a result of the usage of the tax attributes related to the deferred tax assets on formerly loss-making entities. Our EPS stands at EUR 4.78, which translates into an underlying EPS before one-offs at EUR 6.44, so slightly down by EUR 0.65 on a like-to-like basis compared to 2021. Moving to the balance sheet and discussing some key elements of the working capital. The working capital in relative terms has reached a very decent level of performance at 13.5%, so significantly down versus the position where we were when we discussed our H2 results. Very strong effort in terms of managing the balance sheet during the second half of the year. In absolute term, we are reporting an increase of EUR 172 million to, which are primarily driven by a couple of elements on which I will elaborate now. I will start with inventory. Our inventories at year-end have remained roughly flat compared to 2021 in absolute value, with a small increase, roughly EUR 22 million, which are primarily driven by FX. Importantly, our DIO has improved by three days versus December 2021 and is standing at 90 days of inventories by the end of December 2022. Receivables also is following a positive trend, with a slight decrease in absolute terms of EUR 20 million. The DSO as a consequence is improving by three days and stands at 87 days as of the end of December of 2022. The deviation that we have, so the 100 basis point increase in percentage is primarily coming from the payables. Our DPO has reached a record low level of 125 days by the end of Q4 of last year. This is significantly down versus the level where it stood in 2021, where it was at 143 days. The acceleration of the payment terms to suppliers has caused an overall deviation in working capital, primarily coming from accounts payable by EUR 114 million. As a result of that and the consequence that we have been able to maintain and to further strengthen our balance sheet, we have decided and our board has approved the increase of our dividend by 10%. We will be distributing as you already know EUR 1.65 per share. It's a nice progression as you can see in the graph versus the 2019 baseline. 68% increase in our dividend. With EUR 1.65, we are now reaching a payout ratio of 34%. We are complementing this dividend distribution by the continuation of our share buyback program that we have initiated back in 2022. The program will continue under the same parameter for the same quantums at EUR 120 million and four tranches of EUR 30 million per quarter. With that, back to you, Oswald. Thank you very much, Taoufik, I would like to continue with the short operation and strategic review. As a reminder, you know, we have core business strength from our optimized core business, but we also have a leading partner beyond markets. When we talk about the core business, it's about leveraging the global footprint, the local sourcing. It's about the pricing, the mix, and continuous portfolio management. We have seen before there's a lot of work done on innovation, dispensations, sustainability, as we just observed. Beyond markets, and we walk on two legs because we think we are much strong on two legs, is this really enabling the energy transition for renewable electricity, power infrastructure, and hydrogen production. Further, with our ceramics, for example, to help the decarbonization construction to facilitate urbanization with green and high performance solution. Last but not least, participating in new mobility with the battery electric vehicles. When we move on now, this is a very busy slide. I just would like to take some out of this relating to our three strategic pillars. In 2022, we are focusing again pricing, mix, footprint adjustments, improve efficiency. We also develop sustainable opportunities, digitalization and innovative solutions. All of this will continue to grow in our target markets, energy transition, construction, decarbonization, and new mobility solutions. In 2023, we will continue our pricing discipline and efficiency programs, but also particularly emphasize on scaling our positions in HydroChain and ultra-fine wires in RDWs and Armor, as well as Dramix. You have seen we have been quite busy, and this is just to show extract what we have done. You also see that we have also partnerships in there. We have further penetrated in especially in Dramix, in the cleaner concrete solutions, and we are really, I would say, extending our offering in this new, I would say, beyond steel applications. When we go ahead, and I think we are benefiting from this fast-growing and higher margin activities alongside a robust and growing core. When you look on 2019, Rubber Reinforcement and SWS and EBIT underlying was about 78%, and PPRG plus Specialty Business was about 22% our share of the EBIT underlying. Now looking at 2022, you see SWS are now 63% and 37% is already covered by PPRG and by Specialty Business. Looking on the growth over three years carriers, this means for PPRG and Specialty Business more than 44% and for SWS, for Rubber Reinforcement and SWS, it's 13%. Also, I think more important is to see the right side of the slide because it says Rubber Reinforcement SWS from 2019- 2022 grew from 6.6- 7.6 profitability. When we look on PPRG and Specialty Business, I feel it confirms our strategy to go also in these new markets, in these new applications because they double the profitability. I think it's quite impressive in an environment where a lot of headwinds were around to get this improvement done. When we continue this, and I came back to that, what I mentioned before, you have seen today there was a proposal sale to Steel Wire Solutions in the businesses we have in Chile and Peru. It's a really wise way to do it. I think that is the regional topic. We want to reduce the exposure in economically volatile markets in Latin. I think it's also clear the end markets we are in for a very long time, which are getting more and more commoditized, which are more low-end product portfolio where we see less growth and more volatility. This is not where our core business and our strategy is reflected. Financially, of course, we would also like to do a reduction of our exposure in these cyclical and volatile markets. I think from the strategic fit, it's very clear to exit these non-core activities. When you can see it really is mainly in agriculture and in construction. In just 60%, even 60% out of the EUR 650 million are always clearly linked to newer commodity and distribution business. I think this was absolutely important to reposition our company and to go in higher value applications. Short, look on our activities within Hydrochain. When you look on the whole ecosystem coming from production, distribution, transport, and application, and you see here that our new logo, our new icon, the piece, we have a significant play opportunity in those areas. On the one side, it's about the generation to having, I would say, market maker electrolyzer components. Here we are really extremely innovative. We get excellent feedback from our customers. They join in even in long-term contracts to make sure that we are really a leading edge. The second thing is in transport and distribution. We have our hose wire business. We have our Armofor. I think here we can have a significant play in transporting and distributing of Hydrochain in future. Last but not least, there's also an application where we have this burners, what Niko was referring to. I think we have really an opportunity with our gas burners. They can be modified to being HydroChain burners. This is, I think, with a lot of effort to change this technology to use instead of gas, HydroChain. What you really see we have here in play, we are here market makers, and I would say we have a leading position in technology we currently develop. Summary and the outlook, and I think a lot was referenced already from Taoufik. Rubber Reinforcement is for sure have significant pressure on pricing, falling raw materials. I would like to point out it's not only that we are falling the raw materials, it's up to us to be not only a manufacturer, we want to be a leading partner, and we are cooperating with our customers in sustainability, in innovation, more sustainable solutions. China, currently subdued. I think as we see a little bit of, I would say, optimistically that the second half of 2022 there might be a growth coming up. We will capture the India momentum. This will continue. I think Europe and North America, we have a cautious outlook, but I think there will be depending on how much the imports are really affecting the market as well. Steel Wire Solutions, we continue the portfolio management. We see very promising North America with our energy transition overhead lines. The construction may be building on the weaker base, this is linked to, I would say, a global approach. Specialty Businesses, also referred to Taoufik, energy transition continues. We will further invest in the capacity in 2023 and 2024. We want to be market leader, we want to be market maker. On the short term, the customers, of course, it's always by when it's going to be ramping up. PPRG, extremely strong order book, and I think we never had such a big or a strong order book. We see on the Armofor huge opportunities. We are building up capacities. Customers are joining in the long-term supply agreements, and we see further strong demand in the more in offshoring, especially for synthetic ropes. We will continue to further consolidate and make sure that we capture efficiency gains in our good position. Now coming to the outlook, we had a good start. The robust It was a robust start in 2023, but I think it's still quite early because the year just has begun. We are confident, you know, that we can capture after this start, the further opportunities from our execution of the strategy and capturing the efficiency gains. There will be significant growth coming from our new markets, sometimes a little bit depending on the timing, and we will continue the business mix of we have seen also in SWS area, that we really focus on high-end application and get out of more commoditized low volume, low of opportunities. Our thick profitability is a very strong balance sheet we have been able to solidify as well. This underpins what we say, the 10% dividend increase and the continued share buyback, which was announced today and referred by Taoufik. I think our mid-term targets on sales growth and the EBIT underlying margin between 9 and 11 is unchanged. To give you a quick summary, pricing discipline, commercial execution, third, innovation in all areas, also in the core business, but also going beyond, I think this is a big opportunity. Continuing the sustainability progress, it's clearly a business opportunity. The targets have been validated. We get a lot of good cooperation from our customers and requests to join in co-development. We have been selected for the BEL ESG Index. It's also a responsibility to walk our talk. A robust financial position will really allow us that we put more emphasis at higher margin markets and fast-growing markets we can capture, and the profitability and cash generation is to maintain. Balance sheet remains strong. I think this will support the dividend payout at the EUR 120 million share buyback. With this, I think, I turn back to you. Super. Thank you so much, guys. Now we'd like to open up to questions. If you'd like to make a question, please put your hand up in the Teams application. Alexander, I think you're first. Like to unmute the line. Please go ahead. Yes. Good morning. Congratulations to the Bekaert team on the nice set of results. I had a couple of questions. I'll start with 3. Just looking at the wire rod prices, is it safe to assume that most of the inventory revaluations or the negative revaluations is behind us? How much revaluation can we expect for 2023 at the current prices? Second question would be on China, which has a significant impact on the Rubber Reinforcement. Just wondering if China recovers completely, how much volume increase can we expect for the Rubber Reinforcement group? It's a bit on the guidance, third question. You say 9%-11% EBIT margin through the cycle. That looks like an average, considering that we are at 8.1% for 2022. Just wondering how we should look at that for 2023, because as you know, consensus currently stands at 7.6%. Yeah, if you have to move up to the 9%, it's quite a big change, obviously. I'll start with these questions and then leave it to my colleagues. Thanks. Hi, Alexander. I will start with the wire rod prices. What has happened during 2022 is that we did see a significant drop of the wire rod during the year. This is really bringing the adjustment in valuation versus the previous year. The projections that we currently have are kind of indicating that we're reaching potentially a plateau when it comes to the steel prices, at least for the upcoming 4 to 5 months. Very difficult to predict what will happen after. I don't think that it will go below. I think that what we potentially anticipate is more an increase of the wire rod prices subject to the level of demand that we will be seeing in China. This will be clearly the key driver when it comes to the wire. Working assumption that we have now is that we will not see major variances in wire rod prices, so that would mean a neutral inventory valuation with potentially six months from now, a pickup of the prices due to the demand increasing in China, which could potentially lead to a positive inventory valuation. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. I can capture China. I think it's absolutely. When you look at the economy, it's one of the biggest economies. What will happen after the lift of the COVID. Restriction in December. I think what they forecast as a growth, and I would like to participate, is 4%- 5%. This is very clear. There are some risks. You're absolutely right. There is geopolitical pressures. You know, when you see the tensions with U.S., you see still some supply chain risk on the chips and lithium batteries. There is within, I would say, China also a little bit of a decreased recovery on the steel mills, et cetera, and there's labor shortage. On the other side, we have avoided that we, in this environment, that we participate in that great ocean competition. Yes, we have lost a little bit of volume, but on the other side, we could keep much marked prices than our competitors publish in their way. Also have a different mix, you know, in the areas where we go off range, the utilization. It's not only manufacturing, it's really the whole package which we offer to our customers. When we look on the outlook, I would say we are cautiously optimistic. Quarter one is maybe still subdued, but we expect gradually a recovery from the second, first quarter and in that our business. What we also need to look is everybody's looking at the risk and building scenarios accordingly. I would like to extend, it's not only China. What we are looking is Southeast Asia. This is China, this is India, and this is, we say also including Vietnam, yeah? Also Indonesia. I think just to look on China would be only half of the glass we look at because there are interactions. We see China's customer going to Southeast Asia, we will be there. We see the opportunities with India, we will be there. Vietnam, for example, will give us a very good platform to export them maybe to other areas like US, like Europe. We delivered the first products to our customers. What is important to see, there are a lot of opportunities coming back to China. On energy transition, they gain momentum. We see all these offshore platforms, wind platforms, they really get, I would say, a lot of momentum. We see the hydrogen infrastructure coming up. For example, of the mayor of Shanghai, there's a lot of interest to work together with us. Of course, electric vehicles. 9 million shall be sold in 2023, are produced and sold. This automotive demand is improving, and we would like to participate. Green construction is also a big opportunity. When we just say, "You know, how can we make this happen?" We have evidence, we got a big project for offshore open mooring. We have the Armofor blueprint, which goes very well ahead. We get also the Dramix area when we think about projects and metro, precast, sustainability. We got also the China decarbonization. We capture all this opportunity. On our reinforcement, we have to have a broader look on Southeast Asia, including China, Indonesia, Vietnam and India. I would say in the energy transition, we can capture opportunities we see in China. Yeah. Guidance, so again, we stated 9 to 11. You are right, this is an average over the period. I think that where we stand now, after months of trading, I think that it's still too premature to be able to guide you exactly on where or what we will be aiming at. Oswald has referred to the fact that we have started with a very decent level of trading for the first part of the year. Whether this is sticky, I mean, we want to give us some time to look at it. We do think, however, that we are better equipped to manage some of the potential headwinds that we might be facing during the year. In a nutshell, we do think that the consensus where it stands now, I think that we're comfortable with it, and we will be adjusting it or guiding you more precisely along the year. We will be providing a range when it comes to our sales and profitability levels similar to 2022 in our Q3 update. If the environment stabilizes, we don't have all this volatility, we might be more precise earlier during the year. In the current context, that's really the best we can do. Okay. Thank you for that. Okay, good. Now I'd like to open up the line to Frank for the next question. Yes. Good morning, all. Frank Claassen of the Degroof Petercam. Three questions, please. First of all, on the sale of your activities in Latin America, in Peru and Chile, could you roughly indicate what kind of multiple you've been able to sell this activity? Secondly, could you elaborate on the hydrogen, the electrolyzer components business? Where are we on revenues? What kind of plans do you have? I can remember that it's been quite a scale up for the coming years. could you elaborate on that, please? Finally, what can we expect for CapEx in 2023, and what are the main projects? Thank you. I will answer the first one, Frank. This one is pretty straightforward. Chile and Peru businesses have been disposed of, at a multiple of 6 x EBITDA multiple. Yeah. I think on the hydrogen, I think maybe, Guy, you can pull up the one slide we have here, because it's very impressive what we have here. We have seen the topic that we are in the ecosystem and we're just looking for this one slide. The next one. You know, with the achievements we had. Okay, just give us a second for technical reasons. Doesn't look that we can technically switch it this way. I will do it probably on this one. What we have done in 2022 is, you know, we have built production capacity. The same for this is, for example, expansion we initiated in China and in Europe. What we will do in 2023, we will build up a 2 gigawatt capacity in addition in China and Europe. We are thinking about the location where we can have a significant, we call it giga. It's not the Tesla giga, but it's for us the giga of roughly about 5 gigawatt in Europe. We'll talk about the commercial acceleration. We have seen that the triple-digit growth, this is absolutely impressive. What we do here is closing, I would say, supplier agreements long term. Because the materials, our customers, they want to make sure that we have the capacity, that we have the product, and that our technology is a leading edge there. We have a very specialized team there, and we launched a dedicated team in quarter three, and we have also a decline. The team is further growing. We launched a really dedicated, and I really want to repeat this, a dedicated hydrogen lab at our R&D facilities in Belgium. This is really a core of hydrogen. We cannot do it alone. You know, this is something where there's sometimes a bet not everything is clear. Is the ramp-up an S-curve? Is the ramp-up linear? I think what we do to make sure that we have the technology leadership there, we do partner, for example, with Bekaert Powder Coating. We have done the investments. We are in a consortium with Highway. We work with them, with John Cockerill. We have a, with a lot of companies, and we joined the Hydrogen European network. We will continue to do this because this is not an isolated business development. It is really something where we, with partnerships, I think we have the best progress, and with the co-creation together with the customer is the most promising way to proceed. Could you maybe, Sorry to interrupt, but could you maybe quantify how much revenues you currently make and what is maybe the target for the coming years? 2022, our revenues were roughly, between, around EUR 50 million. We're expecting a doubling in 2023. From 2025 onwards, we should see an exponential growth of this business. Okay. One hundred million around two in the period 2025- 2026, and exponential along with the scale-up and the implementation of all the production facilities. This will start kicking in starting 2026. Again, very decent level of margin and profitability for these businesses, although the share does remain relatively modest for the next couple of years before we have all of our production facilities in place. Sounds good. The CapEx question? Yeah. CapEx, for the period for 2023, we will be aiming at something between EUR 200 million and EUR 250 million. Why I'm giving you a band, it's because we want to have a stage gate approach when it comes to some of the significant investments that we will be doing in CapEx. A significant share of this investment of CapEx is allocated to our hydrogen business, we're still looking at the different models to build up these facilities. We haven't yet concluded whether we will do it through modular solution. Are we going to do some investment through leases or things like that? This is still under assessment. Obviously we want to make sure that we take the decision which allows us to better optimize our cash allocation. Most of the investment in CapEx or significant part of the CapEx investment we will be doing next year will be hydrogen. The target is to spend between EUR 200 million and EUR 250 million in 2023. Okay. That's helpful. Thank you very much. Thank you, Frank. Very good. Next, Wim Hoste. If you launch your line, please. Yes. Good morning also from my side. A couple of questions as well. Maybe first diving into Rubber Reinforcement. Can you elaborate a little bit on the dynamics in the Chinese market? You, yeah, you started fighting a bit more aggressively for market share in the past couple of months. What is the reaction of your competitors to that? How do you see margins as a result of the equation, volumes versus these pricing dynamics? Could you help us understand a little bit what the outlook there is for 2023? The ramp-up scenario for Vietnam linked to Rubber Reinforcement. A second question on energy costs and general inflation. Can you maybe help us understand what kind of increase in costs are you seeing for 2023 versus 2022? A last question would be on the share buyback, which in my opinion is not really aggressive or ambitious. Is that because you want to be very prudent from a balance sheet perspective, or is it because you see, for example, M&A opportunities coming up on the horizon? Can you maybe elaborate a little bit on that as well? Those were my questions. Thank you. Okay. Hi, Yves. We start with the question on China. There are two dynamics at play in China currently. The first one is related to the volume, the second one is related to the pricing. As we have explained throughout 2022, our strategy was not to run after the filler business because our analysis did show that focusing on the margin and targeting the premium constructions would allow us to generate a better yield versus going after the filler business. This is what we have done throughout 2022. What has happened, and obviously, again, as explained, this came at the expense of a loss of 2% market share, leading to a plant occupation which was in the range of 92%. Roughly, yeah, not completely optimized in terms of optimization. What has happened in Q4 is that this pricing pressure that we have noticed throughout the year did seem to stabilize. Probably to provide you some context, these pricing issues that we had or experienced in China, have been triggered primarily by two competitors. It was a fight between Shougang and Daye. Daye pushing the prices significantly down, Shougang following to some extent, and Bekaert trying to stay outside of this red ocean type of environment. What has happened in Q4 is that they started realizing, both Shougang and Daye, that this comes at a significant expense. This didn't. It allowed them to fill up their plants, but it came at a significant drop of their profitability. Daye issued a profit warning, and Shougang, because of this, price strategy that they have decided to adopt, has significantly degraded their level of performance. What we have noticed in Q4 is that they started realizing that it was not the right approach, and they started stabilizing the price levels, and this is how we have been able to regain the market share at 20%. With 20%, this should in theory lead us to a plant occupation above 95%. We will see what would be the dynamics in 2023. Nevertheless, I think that there is potentially an issue of overcapacity in China. It's something that we are very well aware of, so we will need to look at how we can more dynamically manage our current footprint in China. As far as the commercial strategy, the go-to-market, the product segmentation, I think that our strategy is the right one. Balancing between the cost-efficient product and the premium solutions, on which we are still the market leaders, and a focus on margin delivery rather than just volumes. I don't know what if you want to add something. Absolutely perfect. I just would like to take your question on Vietnam. The situation is that we have successfully produced our samples, and we have start sending this to our growing numbers of customers. The one customer already these trials are completed, and the materials is approved. Operators are being trained. We call it the, I would say, the main tire supplier customers. They have been visiting our plant in the meantime. I would say we have about 10,000 tons at the end of the second half of 2023, I would say. It's really what I said before. It has to be in the context of Southeast Asia. This is what we would like. We want to capture demand of, I would say, 90,000 tons in the coming years. This is also for, one side, for export and to maintain the leadership. When we really look at it, we do a lot to have here a state-of-the-art factory. You know, when we look on energy consumption, when you look on engineering, when we look on ergonomics, it's really best practice is what we are implementing in this building. As I say, it's gonna be really a fantastic hub in this area to serve the local markets, because we see China's customers going outside of China, meeting those market demands, but also having an export platform for U.S. and for Europe. Your next question, Yves, was on the energy. When we did our budget, it was at the time where prices started, energy prices started decreasing, but they didn't reach the level where they were at the end of 2022. We were still banking as working assumption on prices which were at level higher than the one that we see currently. Again, prices have significantly came down since August 2022. We do think that there is still an upside potential for the balance of 2023. As you know, we have included in most of our contracts, especially with RR, hedging clauses for energies-surcharges. This has worked quite well. We are benefiting from it in a context where prices have came down because these energy surcharges are also benefiting from a three-month time lag. We have adjusted for the other BUs, our pricing based on the energy. We do think that anyway, we are properly covered. At some point of time, if the prices decrease beyond what we initially expected, we will need to pass on some of these benefits to our end customers or try to retain pricing as long as possible. I think that our current system and our hedging mechanisms do work well. Last question is on the SVB. Well, I mean, not aggressive. I mean, it again depends on whom you ask the question to. We do think that EUR 100 million in the current context is a very strong sign of confidence in the future. You might come indeed from the perspective that our balance sheet is strong, so we could afford distributing more. Mathematically, this is correct. Again, we are business leaders, and what we want to do is rebalance the way we are redistributing the value to our shareholder. Part of it is through the capital allocation. The other part of the value redistribution to the shareholder is by improving the business. By improving the business, we refer to investing in some of the core activities where we want to develop. Hydrogen, for instance. It's by doing inorganic growth. This is still on top of our agenda. Again, we want to have a measured, balanced way of returning the value, and that's why we do think that EUR 100 million for the time being is a very reasonable amount. Okay, very clear. Thank you very much. Excellent. Now we go to Emmanuel. Your line's open. Yes, thank you. Good morning, all. A few questions from me. I will do them one by one. First of all, on the volumes. The volumes dropped substantially in 2022. Could you share a little bit more your thoughts on what you expect for 2023? 9% volume drop in 2022. We do not see, or the working assumption so far is not to aim at a major pickup of the volumes. We will have some geographic shifts in the profile of the volume delivery in the sense that we're anticipating that North America and EMEA volumes compared to 2022, the volumes will go down. However, we are expecting a pickup starting Q2 in China, which all in all should bring the volumes on a consolidated perspective, roughly in line with what we have seen in 2020. That's the working assumption. In the middle, everything can happen. Having said that, it's also a decision that Oswald and I have taken willingly towards, in terms of objective towards the business, because we do think that operating under a stretched volume assumption is a good way to accelerate the cost efficiency measures and the optimization of the cost base. It's something which has proved to be very efficient and very relevant to do in 2022. We didn't want to let the volume go dramatically in the budget assumptions from our businesses because we want them to keep putting the right level of focus in optimizing their cost base, and this is what we'll continue doing in 2023. Maybe to add on this, Emmanuel, for example, it's a smaller part, but in BPRG, intentionally, we got rid of some volumes where there was no margin. This was also how we say the portfolio management and you know, to really get more volume, and we see it in fantastic order proposals in North America to go more in this way where higher value. Yeah. Okay. No, that's clear. Thank you. The second question is on your portfolio. After the divestment you announced this morning, do you believe that the portfolio is now the one that you want to have in the long term, or should we expect more divestments? I think what you can expect is a continuous review of our portfolio of our portfolio. I think it's also to say when we're saying to the core, and I think SWS is something where we don't see a future because of several reasons, volatile markets, low cost, low margin. I think this is what we are constantly reviewing. I think it always has to be linked in the step, what can we do in order to, I would say enrich our portfolio in other areas where we have an energy transition, decarbonization, electrical vehicles. It's a shift on the one side. It's really... You know, we have a tradition with SWS. It was a 75-years old partnership with Air India, was very successful. We believe now that this is, was the time that we exit this and focus on other ones. The review, this is also the footprint on the portfolio. This is what Taoufik and myself are doing all this on a daily base. Yeah. Okay. Okay? Okay. Yeah. Then on the 2023 guidance, I think you mentioned before that you will give more detailed guidance. When do you expect to do that? Is that only after Q3, or did I misunderstood? No, I mean, last year we did it in Q3. I think that if we are still dealing with the same level of volatility, you shouldn't expect a more precise guidance before Q3. Should the environment stabilize or see a significant upside or a confirmation of the trading trends that we're seeing so far in Q1 be confirmed and be sticky, we might provide a more accurate guidance already in H2. Okay. I see. Yeah. Okay. Then maybe just two quick questions on hydrogen and Dramix. On Dramix first, could you disclose how important this business is in terms of EBIT? Also give an update on the current penetration rate and what you where you expect it to go in the coming years. Dramix. This is the major part of the business within our Specialty Businesses. I think it roughly represents EUR 400 million in terms of sales, with a level of profitability, which is as well in the range of 15%-16%. During 2022, the overall volumes have not increased dramatically, probably in the range of a limited 2%. What has happened is significant work in terms of mix and focus on some more value added type of products and applications. What we do see is constant improvement in terms of adoption, with obviously differences in terms of geographic penetration. I think that as far as Europe, what we see is an acceleration of the adoption of the Dramix solutions into big infrastructure projects. I think that we have referred to some key landmark projects associated with that, like the new metro line in Paris, some also landmark projects in Latin America, in Colombia, with some key tunnel infrastructure in the U.S. and so on. The key game changer for us will be the penetration and the adoption in China. I think that what we need to wait and see is the release of the subsidies for infrastructure once the new elected authorities are in place, and that the investments can be released in China. This is the window of opportunity for us to start actively pushing for the adoption in this very big market, which can definitely be the key accelerator and catalyst for the growth in this business. Yeah, I think it's not only Europe. We have Norway, we have Mexico, we have Sydney, this area where we have projects. I think it's what you say, China will put investments in the decarbonization of their construction. This is the opportunity you have described. Okay, thank you. Finally on hydrogen. I would like to understand a little bit how capital-intensive this business is, the kind of return on invested capital you expect to generate with it. Because I think in the past you kind of gave an indication of the price per gigawatt. I would like to understand the cost, the CapEx cost per gigawatt. We will come back to you on the CapEx cost per gigawatt. We don't have really the metric in mind. We have a projection of how much we will be investing to build up the capacity. I think it's not something which is stable, so it's following a curve, because I mean, as you know, the name of the game in the hydrogen industry is to scale up as fast as possible to bring the cost down. The cost at year one is not equivalent to the one that we would see along the life cycle. Well, we'll see what kind of metrics we can provide you and send it to you. All I can say is that when it comes to the returns of this business, it's significantly higher compared to anything else that we have seen in the company. This is the reason why we are very optimistic. I would not say bullish yet, because we want to have a cautious approach in terms of how we are allocating capital to this business. The returns are extremely exciting. I think the way that Taoufik from Emmanuel is that we have a modular approach, you know. That we really scale it up with the requirements of gigawatts required. This is allows us, whenever the demand curve is there, to follow this demand curve. What we see from our customers, they come now and say, "Please reserve those quantities," et cetera. I think this is a little bit more stringent than the returns, but Taoufik is saying are really interesting. What is the visibility you have on this business? You mentioned that you did EUR 50 million in sales in 2022. You expect EUR 100 million by 2023, if I understood you well. Is this kind of in the pocket? What are the kind of lead times? I mean, what we do that. We're very firm and strict on that we want long-term supply agreements signed with the customers before we start investing. This is really the prerequisite. We have already started the campaign for finalizing the long-term supply agreements. We have two of the biggest world hydrogen producers who have signed long-term supply agreements with us. There's a campaign currently going on. As far as the volumes are concerned, these are quite solid and backed up with strong commitments. Take-or-pay. Sorry? Take-or-pay. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Strong commitments. Very strong commitments. Yes, we have the visibility, and we're scaling up along the commitments we're getting from the end customers. Visibility you have is then way beyond 2023, if I hear you right. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, I mean the LTSAs are five years at minimum LTSAs. Yeah. Renewed LTSAs, automatic renewal and things like that. No, I mean, it's a business that we're building for at least the next 10 years. Yeah. Okay. That's helpful. Thanks a lot. Very good. I think we've got time for one last question, so I'll go to Stijn, please. Yes. Yes, good morning. Thanks for the update. Couple of follow-ups from my end. The first one is the Q4 volume decline in rubber. Is that mostly China or is it also Europe? China was already down in the fourth quarter of 2021, and some peers mentioned an aggressive destock in Europe and North America in Q4. Can you give sort of give color on the Q4 volume number in rubber? Q4 was primarily. I mean, China did improve throughout Q4. Not massively. What we did see is a volume drop in Europe. I think that it potentially has to do with the fact that the logistic costs have came down, and there might have been some inflow of goods coming potentially from China, with Chinese competitors trying to see how they can bridge their capacity gaps that they have with some of the domestic market issues and profitability issues that they have domestically. China was kind of picking up somehow in Q4. This is how we have regained our market share to 20%. We did see a drop in Europe. Not sure whether this is going to be sticky. I do think looking at the trading environment for the first part or the first month of the year, that things have stabilized in terms of volumes for Europe. Very difficult to draw conclusion. Simple answer to your question, Q4 the drop was primarily coming from China. Okay. Obviously have a straight effect of it. Yeah. Absolutely. Okay. The next one is, I'm a bit puzzled by your response on Alexander's FIFO question that you see steel prices flat from here. The sentence on slide 26 for RR, where you see significant pressure on pricing with falling raw material costs, and I assume that statement is made with regards to 2023. How should I square these two, these two views? I mean, the statement that we made is that what we do see now is that there's a continuation of the raw material prices drop that started in 2022, which will still impact a part of 2023, but it will reach a plateau, as I said, in 4-5 months from now. Okay. There is indeed a falling of the prices, a plateau 4 months-5 months from now, with potentially a pickup if the Chinese condition and the market demand in China in terms of construction, steel and things like that pick up. Again, working assumption is that it continues, a plateau towards the month of June. Question mark after what happens is the China rebound and reopening of the economy and for the investment going on, is it going to generate the tension on the demand of steel? That remains to be seen. Okay. Understood. That explains. Then, building further on this, when you see FIFO neutral over 2023, does that mean that sort of the EUR 124 negative being in the second half of 2022 will fully reverse in the first half of 2023? A negative drag and then... Yeah, sorry. No, no, no. No, no, no, no. How should I see- Yeah, yeah. How should I see phasing of the year-over-year impact? Yeah. I mean if you average the evolution that we are currently expecting for the raw material, you should have zero impact when it comes to FIFO and inventory valuation in 2022. Twenty-three. Slightly continue... Sorry, 23. It might slightly continue to decrease for the first five months. It will stabilize after. Then it might pick up a little bit for the balance of the year. When you average it will be a 0.5 for impact with equivalent inventory valuation comparable to 2020. Understood. The last question I have is on energy price, because that has been a drag obviously in the second half. They have significantly eased in recent months. Yeah. Shouldn't we see a relief from here onwards? Or how do you see sort of this evolve in 23 with regards to your bottom line? Yeah, yeah. We do see indeed the relief when it comes to the energy prices. I mean, they started decreasing as of August 2022, and the trend does seem to continue. As far as we are concerned, for the first part of 2023, it will generate a significant upside because we have, I think I referred quickly to that, we have a 3-month time lag between the moment we charge our energy indices and the moment where we match it with the actual prices. We're still charging the energy surcharges as per the contractual terms we have with some customers based on the prices that we had three months ago. We have some benefit there. After that, I mean, we will not have these energy surcharges. It will be replaced by a relief in terms of cash conversion cost, with potentially a lowering of this cash conversion cost because of cheaper energy costs. Understood. Okay. This was for me. Thank you. Thank you. Very good. That completes the Q&A. Okay. Thank you very much for attending and joining in. Looking forward to see you next. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Bye-bye.