Hello, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the presentation of the annual sales for Mersen. During the call, you will only be listening, but you will have the chance to ask questions at the end of the presentation by pressing on star one to record your question. I'll now hand over to your host, Luc Themelin, CEO, and Thomas Baumgartner, CFO. Over to you. Thank you. Hello, everybody. A few words of introduction to present the highlights of the past quarter and the past year. Obviously, the symbolic milestone of EUR 1 billion in sales has been passed in 2022, and this is a great satisfaction for us at Mersen, and we haven't finished yet. Our growth markets were once again major contributors to growth, in particular solar this year, which exceeded EUR 100 million in sales, wind power, which exceeded EUR 50 million, electric vehicles above the EUR 20 million mark, and semiconductors with silicon and silicon carbide over EUR 110 million. The year was also marked by very good performance in the process industries for both divisions. Thanks to these performances, which validate our strategy, we expect current operating margin for the year to be around 10.9%, slightly up on the previous guidance of 10.8%. I'll now hand over to Thomas, who will go into detail on these different points. Thank you, Luc, and good evening, everybody. It has been a great year, and the fourth quarter, second semester, half of the year, with organic sales up by 19%, a similar quarterly growth figure to the third quarter, quarterly sales of EUR 294 million, also close to the record level of the third quarter. This quarter, we benefited from a favorable currency effect, although slightly less significant than in Q3, at EUR 7 million or 2.9%. Total group growth in Q4 was therefore 22.7%. As you know, our two divisions and main geographies all saw strong growth. We'll begin with the geographies. Business in Europe was up strongly in most countries and in both divisions. The semiconductor and renewable energy markets, particularly wind power, were very dynamic. In France, in particular, business was buoyant, driven by aerospace and chemicals. In Asia, it was also the renewable energy and semiconductor markets which were buoyant. In China, very strong growth in solar energy offset the lower activity in chemicals, railways, and the electricity sector. In North America, activity was very dynamic in both divisions and in a large number of markets: renewable energies, green transport, and semiconductors. Electricity distribution also grew strongly, benefiting from favorable price trends. Looking by division, advanced materials grew organically by almost 20%, with sales of EUR 162 million, driven by three strong markets. Firstly, solar energy for the group as a whole. Sales in 2022 exceeded EUR 100 million, as Luc mentioned. I would remind you that on the materials side, we mainly supply, that is 75% of the group in this market. Growth was also significant in semiconductors, in particular with a strong acceleration in silicon carbide semiconductors in the fourth quarter. Finally, the strong momentum in the process industries continued. The electrical power division posted sales of EUR 132 million, with organic growth of over 18%. Electricity distribution in Europe and the U.S. was still very dynamic, buoyed by price increases, and growth was also very strong for electric vehicles, as expected. We posted EUR 20 million in sales in this market. On the other hand, the electric market in China was down in the final quarter. Over the year, sales therefore hit EUR 1.115 billion, showing organic growth of more than 15% on 2021. About 5% of that growth is due to price increases. Taking into account the favorable exchange rate effects, and mainly due to the rise in the U.S. dollar and the Chinese renminbi, growth was almost 21%. As Luc said, this good performance allows us to raise slightly our operating margin guidance for the year as a whole. We are now expecting 10.9%, up from 10.8%. That concludes my comments, and we're now available to answer any questions you might have. Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, press star one on your keyboard, and I will tell you when you can ask your question. The first question. Thank you. Hello. Hello, can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. Perfect. I had a first question about that effect on growth. Is this just the price increases? Is this just carrying on the costs, or are you also increasing the margins slightly? That's my first question regarding 2022. For 2023, could you say what risk factors there might be for your activity, looking at things as they stand today? One final question in the more medium term. There was communication from STMicroelectronics. Do you have more news about your partnership, and what can we expect for your sales figure in 2023? Thank you very much. For the first question, the second question is very complicated. The risk factors, we often talk about the geopolitical environment and have done so for about a year. That remains the same. We finished the year with good bookings for orders, which suggests the start of the year should be strong. There are still many more months to go this year, and we'll have to take things as they come. I can't really say more for the moment about 2023 as a whole. Nobody really can. Can you hear me? Just on that question, you talked about the price rises from last year, which will carry over to this year. About 2% of the, so there is inflation, which will be important next year, high next year. There will also be energy costs, which are going to be quite high in Europe. That regards the inflation and prices. Regarding your first question, we'll give a more detailed answer. On the whole, what we can say is that the costs of inflation in 2022 were passed on, and in 2023, we'll have to increase prices more to cover the whole amount of inflation. That is something which isn't clear yet and which we will be working on this year in the hope of passing on some more price increases. Soitec, the announcement from Soitec and STMicroelectronics obviously is a positive factor, although it's not really a surprise given the position of STMicroelectronics in that market. Our aim is to be able to propose things to Soitec for 2024 and in the specifications, and with specifications and quantities that are reasonable and which pretty much match the demand from Soitec. We have some turnover in 2023, but as it's a partnership, that doesn't really count for much. It's more development. In 2024, more certainly, there will be more in terms of sales. Our objective is to bring out the industrial products. There's quite a lot to be done on the plant and on the equipment to be set up to meet the requirements. We also work with STMicroelectronics on traditional products, and they were already a very good client for us. Thank you very much. That's very clear. The next question, over to you. Hello, good evening. I have two or three questions. The first one is you talked about EUR 110 million for silicon carbide, etc. You did EUR 47 million on traditional electronics, semiconductors, EUR 36 million last year on SiC. We know that there is a boom in SiC. Can we have the breakdown of that EUR 110 million, how that breaks down? Is there more SiC and associated specifically for that? Three to continue growing at a good rate on silicon carbide. Also, what do you need to do to keep up with growth on that market? The second question is to come back to that price effect and more specifically regarding electrical protection and possibly fuses. There is turnover in Q4, which is very high, with organic growth of 4%. You mentioned an important price effect. What is the price effect specifically on Q4 compared with the volumes in that division, and to what extent today, or how do you see the prices going, prices notably of copper? How do you see that going over the next three to four months? I imagine you're hedged on this. How do you see prices evolving in this very specific area, notably of fuses, which does represent a large part of that division? Regarding the price effect, we track the price effects not on our global sales. In Q4, there was an acceleration of about 6% of the price effect. More generally, that is broken down between electrical power and the question of regarding whether we can continue to increase. That's a valid question. You did mention copper. Copper is tending to be perhaps more favorable at the moment than it was at the start of the year. There is not just copper. There is also inflation on some other components and on energy as well, although that has less of an impact on fuses than on other things. We need to increase prices further. We are working on that. As at the beginning of 2022, it is not going to be easy, but we are doing everything necessary. On the silicon carbide, 50 up from 36 with an acceleration at the end of the year. We had not really been expecting that sort of growth at the beginning of the year in our roadmap, but there was that acceleration, which suggests things are positive for the future. We need a couple more months to work on this to see what we can do to cover demand for 2023 and then looking forward to 2024, 2025, 2026. We are in discussion with one of the big players, and you can imagine who. We are trying to see what we can do, what amount to invest in what type of products for that market. It takes a bit of time. It is a bit complicated. There are a lot of companies which are very ambitious for the deliveries of electric cars for 2024, 2025, 2026. That is a sector that is very promising. There is one final question regarding solar. You mentioned that there was strong growth there in 2022 with EUR 100 million. We know that a few years ago, there were some pretty sudden downturns in that sector. What is the impression you have today about the market? Do you think there is a risk of excess capacities, or do you feel quite at ease with this? Do you think that in 2023, it is going to continue to grow after this strong growth this year? We have decided our ambition was to be at EUR 100 million. A large part of that comes from the materials in that EUR 100 million. We have kept our production in solar in China at a certain level because we have other ambitions, other markets. We are not going to go up to 200. Perhaps 110 might be possible, perhaps even 120. Not much more than that in the graphite product. We have lost some market share locally, necessarily. As you said, we're staying focused on the very high-tech side where we think that the Chinese are going to have some difficulty penetrating the market. There is growth that is there. I don't know exactly what is being announced for the coming three years, but big growth figures. I don't have the figures yet for 2022, but we're not particularly concerned or worried about that EUR 100 million figure. It won't go down to 20 like it did in 2012. We are attentive to this. There is a competitive sector which is quite considerable. We feel quite confident about this, and we're working on quite complicated applications. The coming growth, if there is any in 2023, is more likely to be on the electrical protection than on the graphite side because on graphite, you're going to stay at the same level of sales in principle. Yeah, exactly. There's a little bit of room for maneuver, room for growth, but not the sort of growth we saw this year. As we announced, we have the idea that the graphite plant isn't in North America. It's not in Europe. It's in China. Increasing our production capacity in China would be complex and with a risk of being too focused on that market. That seems so perhaps there's less risk on silicon and SiC. That's why we're capping that growth on solar. Thank you very much. We have another question. Good evening. Thank you. My question is also about renewable energies globally and notably on solar to have some indications about the growth that we can expect this year. You've already answered to some extent, but could you explain a bit the geographical exposure of the group to renewable energies? What is the weight of China? What is the weight of the other geographies? Solar for the materials, but out of that 100 figures, 70%-80% is on materials. And that's practically all in China where we have partnerships which are quite sound. The rest is linked with the electric products is worldwide. If you look at the big countries which are doing the big photovoltaic installation facilities, the U.S. is installing quite a lot and Europe. We're not everywhere, but our clients often are Chinese. Our Chinese clients then export products all over the world. They're not just buying for China. For wind, that's much more global, worldwide. The aftermarket is more open in the U.S. That's perhaps two-thirds in North America, a bit less in Europe. We also work for the OEMs, Nordex, Vestas, Siemens. You know who those players are. We deliver to them. There are also people who manufacture generators. I will not explain the whole chain, but that is more European. The support plans for that sort of sector in the U.S. at present or in the future, the plans to support local production, would that encourage you perhaps to invest in the U.S. or Europe in coming years? Are you talking about wind energy still or more generally? More generally. Solar, once again, the cell manufacturers are in China, so we have to stay effective and keep up our performances with our four, five big clients in China where we have our plants. There is a direct link there. Obviously, the end market for solar energy needs to continue growing, and it looks like it is, and to grow. Wind energy, sometimes we see it is difficult to install wind turbines in certain places. There can be perhaps more discussions. Whereas with solar panels on rooftops, that's perhaps simpler. I think perhaps solar is going to develop to grow more. I think it's the graphite side that will be kept on wind, where EUR 50 million, which is quite good because we've been at about EUR 45 million for quite a few years. We're going to be working on the aftermarket where the machines are getting bigger and bigger. That is a business we're going to continue working on. That doesn't require particular investments. We have the teams there. We have everything we need. Also, we can deliver anywhere. If there is more solar production in the United States, obviously, we are capable of delivering. We're very good on hydro in Brazil as well because there are lots of dams there. We have a subsidiary in São Paulo which can deliver to them, even though those sales figures are less than for solar. That is also part of the things that we offer. Thank you very much. The next question from Oddo. Good evening. A first question regarding China. You mentioned the slower activity in some sectors. What are things looking like for 2023? My second question is regarding the prices. Can we consider that there's a positive spread in 2023 with price increases which will be enough to offset the rising costs? Could you also talk about the ACC contract which was announced recently? That's a big contract. Could you talk about the terms and conditions of that contract and the CapEx that you're writing in the budget? How is that going to be organized over time? For the prices. We're beginning with a C that's an important contract for us, our first really in batteries with a very big manufacturer. We've done things for upmarket vehicles, but here we're talking more about mass-produced vehicles. $50 million on the line to deliver that contract this year. We'll have some years at EUR 40 million. It won't be divided equally over all the years, but that represents a certain number of parts. It's an innovative product, but one that we do master. In 2023, I think at the end of the year, there will be a few that will be coming off the lines. The real quantities will be coming up in 2024 and 2025. That's when ACC's platform will really be delivering through to 2027, 2028. We're also working with them on other applications. It might not be finished. We're very happy to everything that's a really good reference for us and can enable us to develop. We're rather happy with that. Regarding China. Yeah. Obviously, the things that are sluggish aren't the solar energy. It's more in the electrical power division. For example, there have been investments in new equipment for rail and high-voltage power lines for power transfer around the country. That's where there aren't too many projects. In fact, the problem probably started the year before. As things stand, there's nothing really fantastic going on in those sectors. It will pick up again. ACC, I think it's going to be more end of 2024, I should say, for the production, perhaps the prototypes earlier. Regarding the prices, what I was saying is that our objective is to offset inflation. We're not there yet, but I think we have a lot of products which are made to order. We're close to our clients. We have innovative products. I think we have all the things we need to be able to manage this, and we managed in 2022. I hope that we will achieve that objective of offsetting inflation. As things stand, that isn't the case yet for the prices that we have. The next question from BNP. Hello. Can you hear me? Yeah. Good evening. I have two questions. Could you come back to the solar business? You said that you really focus on the high-tech segment where the Chinese competition is less. Could you tell us what that really corresponds to, what type of products that means? Secondly, in your pitch, we feel that you do feel quite confident. You're working on a new roadmap. As you said, you need a few more weeks to fine-tune the figures. How do you see things? Do you think you'll get back to us when you do the annual figures or for the figures for Q1? When do you think we will have a new roadmap? For the annual figures, you should get the roadmap regarding that question. For the high-tech in solar, in fact, little by little, the Chinese have been coming up with equipment for furnaces to make ingots of silicon for the rectangular plates. They have increased the size of their furnaces enormously in four to five years. When you increase that, you also increase the size of the graphite parts and the components around them. It appears that our Chinese competitors are having difficulty proposing those large dimensions. They can produce a few, but the larger sizes are more complicated for them to produce. When you increase the size of the furnaces, they're also increasing the size of the cells. For the thermal treatment at the end, they need to do heat treatment. Once again, the frames they need are at a size where they also have difficulty producing. We feel that they are making some progress on this, but it's not that easy. There are other parts in the furnaces which are very exposed to the silicon vapor. That's the same. We perhaps can handle that a bit better than they can. That's very clear. Thank you very much. We never know whether we're clear when we're talking about the technical. Yep. You explained that to someone who isn't a specialist like me. You explained that very well. I know you did already answer sort of, but without having the objective for CapEx for the coming three to five years, but for 2023, are you expecting a big acceleration to prepare for 2024 and 2025? Is it going to be more in 2024, 2025 that will see the big acceleration in CapEx? If there is a big acceleration, will that mean raising debt, perhaps increasing capital? How do you see yourselves financing that ramp-up? That's a lot of questions. At the moment, we're discussing with the clients. We have very dynamic markets with acceleration. Today, we're discussing with the clients. The idea is to contractualize and to ask commitments from them because when you're talking to clients, obviously, we try to get commitments to know where we stand, to make sure it is serious. For the moment, I can't really say more regarding the ramp-up. There will be one. I think we're still too far ahead of that to know exactly when or how that will be financed. I hope I can tell you more about that when we present the annual figures. On the funding of that ramp-up? We'll see. Okay. I'll settle for that answer. We have a couple more months. There are requests coming in. We'll have to see what that represents in terms of CapEx and financing. Thank you to both of you. Thank you. I wanted to come back to a question you mentioned at the start of the year was looking good so far. I wanted to come back specifically, how do you see the start of the year? Do you have any visibility in the analysis with the brushes and things like that? Also regarding fuses, industrial fuses. Obviously, there is a lot there in the U.S. through the distributors. If I could have your feeling about the start of the year, are we seeing an economic slowdown around the world in Europe and the U.S.? Are you feeling that on these more standard products, or for the moment, is everything going well? We are not feeling much for the moment so far. At the end of the year, we had some small, we are expecting figures to go down slightly with the distributors, but the figures are still good on the fuses. As you say, that is an indicator. They are an indicator. That is interesting. We do sometimes see quite quick changes. For the moment, things are still at a very good level. On the brushes, I don't really know what I can tell you. It's not a huge part of Mersen, but there are the industrial brushes for relatively old motors, which are very effective in heavy industry. That's stable for the moment, I would say. There is the part which started about 15 years ago on the generators for wind turbines we mentioned earlier. With wind energy, there's lots of replacement equipment, which means there's growth in that area for us. The more industrial side, perhaps it's on minus, is perhaps growing less, but wind energy has taken over. That's what I can say. I don't know exactly what you wanted to know. It was just to know whether aside from the wind energy, there were other things that were new or trends that you have observed specifically. That has answered my question. Nothing specifically. No. In the technology of the motors for the engines for cars, there isn't really. There are a few cars fitted with engines with brushes, but the tendency is more towards permanent magnets. Regarding industrial brushes, we do find some niche markets. We have a client in Germany who do brushes for conveyors for Amazon. That's a few million. There is no big trend there. Okay. Thank you very much. There are no other questions. If there are no questions, we will see you on the 15th of March. Could you confirm that there are no more questions? We have questions which have just come in from Paribas. Good evening. Can you hear me? Just a quick question regarding your activity on electric vehicles with silicon carbide. I was wondering whether today you're already working with Chinese EV manufacturers, and could that be a good relay for growth for you? To explain a detail for you, we work on that with people who do the substrates, but those substrates then go to their clients like STMicro and people like that, and Toshiba, people like that, who do the power transistors. When we talk, we're producing the ingots right at the beginning of production, but we're incapable of telling you where those products go at the end. There are contracts with Mercedes, which are beginning, and that's all in the coming years. All that is switching over to SiC, which is why we have that demand. We deliver directly to the manufacturers for electric protection for the batteries. That is our focus. We deliver to Chinese manufacturers, but more to US and European manufacturers. On this business, is that something? What are the ambitions of the Chinese manufacturers in EVs? Is that likely to drive a marked acceleration for you on Chinese manufacturers rather than Europe? Is that unlikely to change much? We're not seeking to work with local OEMs in China. I think we already have quite enough to do. Our focus is we talk about ACC (unconfirmed). It's more the added value on the batteries, fuses, for equipment for European cars and North American vehicles. That's a huge market as it stands. Okay. That's clear. Thank you. The next question from Oddo. Just a quick explanation regarding the order bookings you mentioned and your visibility today. What visibility do you have for the coming months, three months, six months, more? How has that evolved over the last few years? We have five to six months of bookings. Two years ago, two, three years ago, we were more at three months. It has increased significantly. I do not think that we are the only industrial company to have bigger bookings than in the past. That does give us a certain visibility when the booking levels are good. That suggests that the beginning of 2023 is looking quite good. Thank you very much. If you would like to ask a question, press star one. Good evening. Can you hear me? Hello? We can hear you. Just to come back to what you said, we understood regarding the financing of the CapEx for the medium term beyond 2023. You were asked also about debt or an increase in capital. Just to be clear, I don't really see that an increase in capital would be necessary. You do have quite a lot of room for maneuver regarding debt without needing to increase capital. In any case, we'll talk to you about that in March. I can't answer that question for the moment because we don't have the amount of the investment yet. We'll have to have confirmed demand with some investments. At the moment, we wouldn't be looking at an increase in capital. What level of leverage do you feel at ease with? We have a leverage policy of about 1.5-2.5. Some other companies are more at 3.5. We'd like to have some additional flexibility. Thank you. Which means that, looking quickly, if you were to go towards 2.5, that's rather than having a rate of 90-100 million, we'd have to be looking at 300-400 million in CapEx. If you say so. You could double your CapEx without reaching that 2, 2 and a half, 2.5 figure. Absolutely. Okay. Thank you very much. There are no questions. If you have a question, press star one. There are no other questions. In that case, if there are no more questions, we will see you on the 15th of March for the annual results. Thank you very much. Have a good evening. Goodbye. Thank you for taking part in today's conference, and you can now hang.