Pierre Vareille
Analyst · Barclays Capital. Please go ahead
Thank you, Paul. Thank you all for joining us today. Constellium achieved solid 2014 performance of €275 million in adjusted EBITDA, reflecting strong performance in our AS&I and P&ARP segments, offset by headwinds from higher metal premiums and continuing operational headwinds in A&T. Shipments increased 4% to 1.1 million metric tons. And starting with a series, we are now providing additional shipment and revenue disclosure by product line. That new data, which is in the press release and in the appendix of the slide deck, shows the total automotive shipments, including both rolled and extruded automotive were 165,000 metric tons. This means that in 2014, 16% of our total 2014 shipments were automotive products. I will discuss this more a bit later. Revenue for 2014 was €3.7 billion, up 5% nominally, but when adjusted for LME prices, premiums, and currency exchange rates, revenue on a like-for-like basis, increased 2% over last year. Lastly, in 2014, we continued to improve our trade working capital, reducing our base of sale outstanding by 5 days from 25 to 20 as compared with last year. Turning now to Slide 6, total Packaging and Automotive Rolled products shipments of 620 kt were up 4% over last year, with packaging volumes steady. Specialty and other thin-rolled products volumes up 10%, and automotive rolled product shipments up 37%. During the quarter, our Neuf-Brisach facility once again had excellent operational performance. Our Body-in-White growth projects in Europe remained on scheduled with our expansion projects of 27 metric tons in Singen, now on line and on budget. In addition, the 100,000 ton project in Neuf-Brisach France and in the U.S. in Bowling Green, Kentucky are both proceeding on track for 2016. Additionally, strong constraints that are in Body-in-White puts us on track for near term decision to add a second finishing line in the U.S. Lastly, the adjusted EBITDA for the P&ARP segment was negatively impacted by €6 million in 2014 due to increased metal premiums. Turning now to Slide 7, the Aerospace and Transportation segment continues to have solid long-term demand with a majority of our space business contracted under long-term basis. Overall for the segment, shipments were 238,000 tons, down 3% from last year. I’m very pleased to have appointed Laurent Musy to the position of President of A&T, after his exemplary performance in P&ARP over the last seven years. Laurent brings over a 16 years of experience in this industry and his primary focus will be on improving operational performance and addressing capacity constraints. Overall in Q4, A&T results were as we anticipated given the hot mill outage of Ravenswood facility, which reduced our EBITDA by €5 million. Our recovery plans are proceeding as anticipated and we are already making significant progress in reducing the backlog and debottlenecking our aerospace facilities. In addition, the new pusher furnace capacity in Ravenswood is on schedule to be installed, qualified and fully operational in 2016. Lastly, metal premiums impacted A&T results negatively by €8 million for the full year. Turning now to the Automotive Structures, and this is the segment on Slide 8. Demand in the Automotive Structures market remained strong, while the industry market had less growth and continues to become more competitive. During 2014, total shipments grew 9% to 208,000 tons compared with last year with Automotive extrusions volume up 28%. The plant capacity expansion in Michigan we previously mentioned is now complete and we are beginning to increase pollution volume for our North American automotive customers. Our plant expansion and reorganization in China is in progress. We are also pleased to report that Constellium is one of the largest suppliers of structural parts to Ford of the F-150 pick-up truck. We recently announced €23 million investment in Decin, Czech Republic, which will increase capacity of this growing facility by over 20% from 60,000 tons to 73,000 tons when completed in 2018. This investment has previously been included in our Constellium capital expenditure forecast. Lastly, the negative impact of increased metal premiums on the AS&I segment was €9 million in 2014. I will now hand it over to Didier to further discuss our financial results.