Good evening to all, and thank you to join us for the Aquafil video conference on the 2023 results. Before going ahead, let me remind you that this presentation might contain certain statement that are neither reported financial result, nor other historical information. Any forward-looking statement are based on Aquafil current expectation about future events, and are subject to risk and uncertainties that could cause a result to differ from those expressed by the statement. For a discussion of the risk and uncertainties, you should review the disclaimer in the presentation we issued today. Say that, allow me to leave the floor to Mr. Giulio Bonazzi for his remarks. Thank you, Karin. Good evening to all, and thank you again for attending our video conference. The year 2023 was characterized by strong volatility of the reference market. The trends anticipated during the presentation of the company's targets last November were confirmed by the group's consolidated results. Overall, the year just ended showed a modest volume decline compared to the previous one, though with different dynamics across the various product lines. In the fourth quarter, demand in EMEA exceeded that recorded in the same period of the previous year for both fiber for carpets and polymers. As for the product line relating to the fibers for garments, the strong weakness that characterized the whole year continued. In terms of volume sold, the United States showed a slightly weak performance in the markets of fiber for carpets and for garments. In Asia Pacific, volume sold remained substantially aligned to the 2022. The engineering plastics project in EMEA reached the objectives set for 2023, thus confirming the growth expectations for the next two-year period. Margins significantly decreased as a result of the sharp decline in 2023 of the high unit value of inventories stocked in 2022, with an effect on the year of EUR 24 million. Volumes sold of ECONYL-branded products exceeded the previous year levels. The group confirms the operating and financial results previously announced, while continuing to pursue the strategic goals of increasing productivity and energy efficiency, as well as reducing cost and containing debt. Thank you, and now we are here to answer to your questions. This is the Chorus Call conference operator. We will now begin the question and answer session. To enter the queue for questions, please click the Q&A icon on the left side of your screen, and then press the Raise Your Hand button. Please do not mute your microphone locally and, when prompted, make sure you turn on your webcam in the pop-up window. If you are on the phone instead, please press star one on your keypad. The first question is from Yoshi Samir with H.C. Wainwright. Please go ahead. Yes. Thank you. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my calls. My first question is on your outlook for 2024, 2025. You have reiterated the outlook that you gave previously. What gives you the confidence? Do you have visibility in how the regions are working out? Just wanted to see what challenges could emerge that could change this outlook. Thank you. Thank you, Sameer. Well, we gave these targets during our video presentation of last November based on forecast given by our customers and on certain assumptions. We are pretty confident to reach especially the debt reduction target, because of course, we have some reserve in terms of capital expenditures during the next 24 months. Nevertheless, the year started in terms of volumes pretty aligned with what we were expecting, though of course, with usual differences that you may find between different areas. We can confirm, as I have just said during my first speech, that the European area is performing slightly better than expected. The Asia Pacific area is on the rise in comparison with the 2023 levels. While unfortunately, United States, in both businesses, is showing a weakness, which is, in our opinion, mostly driven by the expectation of future decrease of interest rates that unfortunately are not materializing. Please remember that our business in U.S. is strongly dependent on construction and automotive, which are both places where the consumers normally can wait for some months in the expectation of a decrease of the interest rates. Other than that, for example, a challenge that we are facing right in this couple of months is the Suez Canal and the Red Sea problem. Of course, transportation are creating problems to the European chemical industry in terms of procurement of raw material coming from the Arabian Peninsula, which is causing a sharp increase of the raw material, which will be recovered during the second quarter. Again, what I can say is that, for sure, we are pretty strongly controlling our cost structure. Our restructuring is continuing where, of course, the demand is not returning to levels that are more satisfactory where the previous years, and we will continue to pursue the policy, the politics of reducing our leverage in, let's say, containing our cost and keeping our cash flow in terms of capital expenditures. Great. Thanks for that color. Really helpful. On the engineering plastics project, you said that it is progressing way well, and you see in the next two years, it going according to your plan. What is the market size that you are planning to address with this, and what level of revenues do you expect maybe in 2024 and 2025? Just would like to understand that. Engineering plastic for us in Europe is a long-term project. We have invested something like €12, 13 million during 2023. At the end of the same year, we started up the first line of our operation. Both lines are operating almost at full capacity, and it's a continuous work in terms of improving efficiency, increasing the output. From now on, we will start also our actions in terms of bringing to the market better products in terms of margins. We made this investment for several reasons. First of all, we intend to recover, as we are, the production of fiber waste, which is naturally coming from our core business of making fibers. Before, we were selling this fiber waste to a third party, according to a contract that has expired completely at the end of last year. This is a way to give better value to this stream, which of course, we try to avoid to make every day, it's impossible to go to zero. Secondly, we wanted also to keep, how can I say, support of our polymerization in order to have a good operation rate. Of course, with the future idea of developing and introducing into the market ECONYL products also for the engineering plastic industry, where we are every day bringing to the market samples and introducing ECONYL to several new customers. We have already some, of course, it will take a while, we intend, of course, to develop many as we were able to make also in the carpet and textile industry. These are the main reasons. If we look at our polymer and engineering plastic, let's say, area of business, which we internally we keep separated, is today something which is above 10% of our revenues, that we count it is going to increase during the coming years and will support our revenues in our European area, where during the last, let's say, three to four years, we have showed more difficulties in growing our revenues. While in Asia and United States, we have more confidence because, of course, are markets where Aquafil has a lower market share. There are still possibilities of gaining market shares against other players. In case of Asia Pacific, very likely following the growth of the real estate market and the automotive market, which is still taking place differently than in our area. Got it. Thanks. One last one. A quick one, I guess. You have the 60% target for the ECONYL, as a% of fiber revenues. During 2024, should we expect it over the 49.6% that you saw in 2023, like 52, 53, 54? Do you have any number in mind targeted? Yes, of course, we have, because we have a budget forecast. Forgive me if I will not declare them loud. We are working hard, of course, to continuously introduce new ECONYL products into the market, and still the acceptance and the resilience of ECONYL is shown also by the last results. For example, the Japanese market that we are penetrating lastly in Asia Pacific is almost entirely coming from ECONYL product. In the last quarters, we have also introduced ECONYL into the residential market in Australia, which will be, of course, a niche. We are, as said, continuously introducing ECONYL products, as well as also during the coming quarters, and especially 2025, we will introduce also some new technologies for validating different fiber waste streams that today are unrecyclable, but coming from the nylon textile industry. This will be very important to give the possibility to our customers to think to make products that are recyclable and at zero waste. Okay. What can I say? We are still confirming our target of reaching, or let's say, approaching the 60% level at the end of 2025. We have enough capacity from the upstream, and we are working harder and harder in order to continuously improve our ECONYL performances also in terms of cost. Thank you. Thanks for taking my questions, and good luck for 2024. Thank you very much. The next question is from Niccolo Storer with Kepler. Please go ahead. Good afternoon, thanks for taking my questions. The first one is on volumes expectation for 2024. You talked about the beginning of the year aligned to your indications provided in November. I was wondering if by product category, this is also confirmed for NTF, where you are expecting a particularly strong recovery after the weak 2023. The second question, and last one, is on efficiency measures you have anticipated in November. If you can give us an update on where we are now on that front. Sorry, maybe a very last one on energy prices. We have been seeing a quite sharp decline in gas prices, and I was wondering if this could potentially bring some upside to your EBITDA guidance in 2024. Thank you. Thank you, Niccolo. NTF strong recovery, I would not define like that because it's a partial recovery of the big loss that we posted during the last year. Strong recovery will be when we recover fully the loss of 2023, and maybe also regain some further sales. We're expecting the NTF still a weak first semester because the destocking in this area of business last, unfortunately, one year, while in the carpet industry is taking much shorter. That is why last year, if you remember, we have got a particularly weak April and May in the carpet industry in Europe. Starting from June, we have seen step by step a recovery arriving to the fourth quarter, and I confirm to you also during the first quarter of 2024, to something which is even slightly better than last year then our expectations. Our volume expectations for 2024 are overall confirmed, with very likely some differences in the geographical areas and in the product categories. Of course, our global positioning is always, or at least so far, it has helped always to respect our projections and our forecast, thanks to the fact that when there is a weak area, normally there is another area which fortunately, or for, say, structural reasons, is performing better than the other one. Efficiency measures. Last year, we targeted a personnel reduction of 200 people. This has already reached, and we are still continuing this work of reducing our labor cost, which, it is decreasing more than the inflation is increasing thanks to this strong action of cost containment. This is particularly sad because nobody, of course, would like to reduce the personnel, but until now it has been made without, let's say, big problems, because believe it or not, especially in Central Eastern European countries, there is still an unbelievably strong demand of labor. It is sufficient with small actions to, let's say, not substituting the people that are leaving or changing job. Hopefully, the market will recover, we will not be obliged to continue this work. Energy prices. Energy is important for us, particularly important when we speak about ECONYL, but of course, ECONYL is made by raw material, fixed cost are basically represented by labor and energy. The work on the fixed cost is the one that I have just mentioned. The work on energy has been made with last year, in the middle of 2023, the startup of a new power plant, cogeneration plant in Slovenia. Okay. That will help us, also thanks to the lower natural gas prices, to have a steam procurement at a much cheaper price than we were buying from the local power station. That was also changing, so it was absolutely necessary to do, which maybe Karim and Roberto will explain to you later, has also given some kind of, let's say, higher leverage in our balance sheet. Without this investment, our leverage would have been EUR 16 billion lower. This because of IFRS 16. In reality, the plant is owned and operated by a third party, a large, let's say, multi-utility coming from Germany. Of course, our auditing company has written the theoretical cost of the next 10 years' rental of this power plant, including all the maintenance fees that are correlated. We are, how can I say, having the debt, but leaving part of the margins to a supplier. These are, how can I say, things that we have not been able to fix and to adjust with our auditors. Okay, this is giving us a big advantage in terms of cost, both electric energy and steam. Which is absolutely super important when you are producing ECONYL. Yes, this is giving us some, let's say, margin, especially with our budget forecast. We will see also how the market is going to perform. Great. Thank you. Welcome. The next question is from Carlo Maritano with Intermonte. Please go ahead. Good evening, everyone. I just have a couple of questions. The first one is on financial cost for 2024. I was wondering if your assumption, the assumption you provided in the business plan, are still consistent with the expectation given the negotiation of the covenants with financial institution. The second one is on networking capital. In the fourth quarter, you achieved a remarkable EUR 40 million decrease compared to the previous period. I was wondering if you expect this level could be further shrink during the future, or you believe that an expansion will be necessary given that you expect a volume growth. Thank you. Thank you. Carlo. I leave the floor to Roberto, who is the CFO. I will take the first question. In relation to the financial cost of 2024, we do confirm what are the expectation under the budget we gave. In terms of covenant and waiver received, the cost is negligible, and there's basically no impact on our 2024 cost. We do expect, but we didn't feature in our financial cost, a possible, yet almost sure cut of interest, which could potentially give us a little bit of upside. Overall, we do confirm our financial cost expectation provided before. In terms of networking capital, I believe that what has been done during the 2023 has been a very good result. We managed to obtain and to squeeze our working capital in order to, let's say, recover cash and being able to keep our net financial position based on the books, substantially unchanged compared to the previous year. I think at this moment in time, we have reached almost the, let's say, the optimal level. There might be some potential upside here and there, but not material in a way that we have seen in 2023. Yes. If I can add a little of color. Quantity-wise, we have reduced our goods on stock around 30%. Yes. Which has been a remarkable decrease. We are now working hard to keep this level, and we are very much confident to be able to keeping this level during 2024. Of course, to further reduce it starts to be quite challenging, because 30% is a big number. Which, of course, has also resulted in a loss in terms, not only because of the unit value, but because we have sold something instead of manufacturing. This year, of course, we will produce what we are going to sell, which is, of course, helping our shops in order to have a better efficiency. Thank you. The next question is from Dave Storms with Stonegate. Please go ahead. Hello. Thank you for taking my question. Just curious how you're thinking about pricing and the ability to maybe pass through some of those costs with the expected increase in volumes, in 2024. Pricing, we have to take a little of time to explain. When we are speaking about the carpet business, we have, let's say, an habit with our customers and the industry to pass through the raw material price increases with a delay of one quarter. This is particularly true in Europe and Asia Pacific. We have markets like USA that are reacting more on a monthly basis than on a quarterly basis. Of course, there are differences when we speak about automotive final, let's say, destination of our products or residential or commercial. In the automotive, normally We don't see when the raw materials are declining. We don't give 100% of the decline. When raw materials are increasing, we are not asking for 100% of the increase, because, of course, the final customer is, how can I say, behaving more rigidly, if I may say so. You can see historically, you can see the series of the last 20-plus years, we have always been able to pass through, as well as we are very seriously returning to the market the decreases of raw materials when raw materials are going down. 2022 and 2023 as well have been particularly special because we have also, met, or we have worked in a high inflation environment. Not only the raw material prices have been accounted, but also labor, transportation, energy, and so on. And during 2023, four, the factors that have actually decreased, mainly energy and transportations, we have recognized to the customers, this kind of decrease. This is our way of working. If we are so good in passing through the price increases, it's also because we are serious and transparent with the market and the customers when some costs are decreasing. We are trying to share good and bad market moments. For 2024, we have seen December and January, traditionally weak in terms of raw materials. Then we have seen an increase in February and another increase in March. This especially in Europe and U.S. But we have seen in the same time in March, instead of an increase, a decrease of the prices in Asia. Overall, the market is not demanding more. Overall, the global market demand is not, healthy or improving, but there are dynamics that are different. If the Saudi Arabian Peninsula is not shipping raw materials or petrochemical raw materials into the European market, they are likely to ship them when possible to Asia. And this is causing this big variation between Europe and Asian prices. That, of course, for us are or may represent an advantage because windows of arbitration are opening. If you are acting quickly, you can sometimes buy raw material in Asia, transporting them into Europe and gaining some, how can I say, small competitive advantage with, the competitors that are acting only local. We are expecting overall a market price which is not dissimilar, or at least this is our forecast to the one of 2023. Initially, we were thinking to a slight decrease. We are now in reality on a slight increase on our projections. For sure, we are not expecting big differences like the one of 2022 going up or the one of 2023 going down. Also to answer to Sameer, of course, the outlook of 2024 will be dramatically supported by not having EUR 24 million of depreciation of our inventory. That has caused the big loss of 2023. As a reminder, if you wish to register for a question, please press Q&A on the left bar and raise your hand or press star one on your telephone. The next question is a follow-up from Dave Storms with Stonegate. Please go ahead. Dave Storms, your line is open. Hello. There it is. Sorry, excuse me. Just one more if I could. With the expected increase of ECONYL volumes, how much of this expansion is expected to come from current customers, and how much of it is dependent on acquiring new customers? Well, I would say that today our customer base of ECONYL is pretty large and eradicated. We are not expecting many new customers. We are expecting, let's say, our present customers with some also new ones growing our product lines having ECONYL inside. Please consider also one factor. ECONYL demand is growing faster when raw material prices are high, because, of course, the customers are finding also, how can I say, cost advantages or less disadvantages, if I may say so, when, of course, oil prices and oil derivatives and fiber intermediate prices are high. Clearly, they are also becoming more confident to launching products also maybe in the medium low end of the market. 2023 has been a year of a very low market prices in terms of fiber intermediate product. Clearly the market has not been very active in this respect. It was just the normal growth that we have, let's say developed during 2022 and 2021. We are now expecting a new flow of requests of sampling, of new product development, as well as, of course, we are actively, continuously introducing ECONYL into new product lines. Like, for example, technical yarns for ropes, fishing nets. For those who are following us, you will have noticed some communications with regard to ECONYL entering also the space of the fishing nets, both in Europe and in Asia, with some Japanese customers. This also thanks to the cooperation that we are having with Itochu Corporation, or C-ITO, depending how you want to call that. We have launched also some products as technical gloves. We are launching now some new products as area rugs, as well as also in the textile area for different applications. It's a continuous development, searching for new markets, for new customers, as well as also for new applications. Understood. Thank you for taking my question. Pleasure. For any further questions, please press Q&A on the left bar and raise your hand, or press star one on your telephone. Mr. Tonelli, gentlemen, there are no more questions registered at this time. Thank you to all. Thank you to Giulio and Roberto. Thank you to all the people that joined our conference call. We'll see you to the next one during May next week also. During next week in Milan. Definitely, yes. For those who are coming. Oh, yeah. Thank you.