Hello and welcome to the Constellium First Quarter 2023 Results Conference Call. My name is Alex. I will be coordinating the call today. [Operator Instructions] I will now hand over to your host, Jason Hershiser, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Alex. I would like to welcome everyone to our first quarter 2023 earnings call. On the call today, we have our Chief Executive Officer, Jean-Marc Germain and our Chief Financial Officer, Jack Guo. After the presentation, we will have a Q&A session. A copy of the slide presentation for today’s call is available on our website at constellium.com and today’s call is being recorded. Before we begin, I would like to encourage everyone to visit the company’s website and take a look at our recent filings. Today’s call may include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements include statements regarding the company’s anticipated financial and operating performance, future events and expectations and may involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties. For a summary of specific risk factors that could cause results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements. Please refer to the factors presented under the heading Risk Factors in our annual report on Form 20-F. All information in this presentation is as of the date of the presentation. We undertake no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law. In addition, today’s presentation includes information regarding certain non-GAAP financial measures. Please see the reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures attached in today’s slide presentation, which supplements our IFRS disclosures. I would now like to hand the call over to Jean-Marc.

Thank you, Jason. Good morning. Good afternoon, everyone and thank you for your interest in Constellium. Let’s begin on Slide 5 and discuss the highlights from our first quarter results. I would like to start with safety our number one priority. We delivered best-in-class safety performance in the first quarter with a recordable case rate of 1.6 accidents per million hours worked. In the first quarter, we had several sites achieve safety milestones with anniversaries for a number of years up to 8 without a recordable case. I want to congratulate all of our employees on this excellent performance. But the safety journey is never complete and we all need to remain focused on this critical priority. While our performance in the quarter was excellent, we are always focused on maintaining and improving our safety performance and we still have accidents happen. Turning to our financial results, shipments were 389,000 tons, down 3% compared to the first quarter of 2022 mainly due to lower shipments in PARP. Revenue of €2 billion decreased 1% compared to last year as improved price and mix was more than offset by lower metal prices. Remember while our revenues are affected by changes in metal prices, we operate a pass-through business model, which minimizes our exposure to metal price risk. Our value-added revenue, which reflects our sales, excluding the cost of metal, was €754 million, up 16% compared to the same period last year. Our net income of €22 million in the quarter compares to €179 million in the first quarter of 2022. As you can see in the bridge on the top right, adjusted EBITDA was €166 million, slightly below the first quarter of 2022. A&T adjusted EBITDA was a new quarterly record and increased €20 million compared to last year, while AS&I adjusted…

Thank you, Jean-Marc and thank you everyone for joining the call today. Please turn now to Slide 7. Value-added revenue or VAR was €754 million in the first quarter, up 16% compared to the same quarter last year. Looking at the first quarter, €157 million of this increase was due to improved price and mix in each of our segments. Volume was a headwind of €20 million due to lower shipments in PARP. Finally, metal impacts were a headwind of €40 million due to inflation on input cost, such as hardeners and alloying elements as well as weaker scrap performance in the quarter compared to the same period last year. The balance of the change was due to favorable FX translation tied to a stronger U.S. dollar. There are two important takeaways from this slide. First, we grew our value-added revenue by 16% compared to last year And second, we continue to have pricing power. Price and mix and price specifically is the biggest increment of our year-over-year variance and helped us offset inflationary pressures. Now turn to Slide 8 and let’s focus on our PARP segment performance. Adjusted EBITDA of €55 million decreased 33% compared to the first quarter of 2022. Volume was a headwind of €11 million with higher shipments in automotive more than offset by lower shipments in packaging and specialty rolled products. Automotive shipments increased 19% in the quarter versus last year as new platforms continue to ramp up and demand generally appear stronger. Packaging shipments decreased 11% in the quarter versus last year due to inventory adjustments across the supply chain in both North America and Europe and lower demand. Price and mix was a tailwind of €47 million primarily on improved contract price, including inflation related pass-throughs. Costs were a headwind of €64 million…

Thank you, Jack. Let’s do on Slide 15 and discuss our current end market outlook. Starting with packaging, in packaging, the inventory adjustments continued across the supply chain in both North America and Europe. We are starting to see some signs of demand weakness in both regions as a result of the current inflationary environment, a lack of promotional activity and following a multi-year period of rapid growth during COVID. We are confident in the long-term outlook for this end market, though given can makers capacity additions in both regions recent announcements of Greenfield investments here in North America and the growing consumer preference for the sustainable aluminium beverage can. Longer term, we expect packaging markets to grow low to mid-single digits in both North America and Europe. We will participate in this growth in both regions as announced at our Analyst Day last year. As Jack noted, the company is highly focused on stabilizing the operating challenges we have been experiencing at Muscle Shoals so that we can take advantage of the end market dynamics in North America. We’re encouraged by the improved performance we have seen recently at Muscle Shoals, and remained very confident in our ability to restore the plans profitability and performance over the course of 2023. Turning now to automotive. OEM sales and production numbers globally are still at a low base compared to pre-COVID levels, with uncertainty continuing in the order books. However, will remain very positive in this market and increase demand in PARP and AS&I gives us reason for optimism. Automotive inventories are low, consumer demand remains high, and vehicle electrification and sustainability trends will continue to drive demand for lightweighting and use of aluminium products. Let’s turn now to aerospace. The recovery in aerospace continued in the quarter, with shipments up…

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Our first question for today comes from Emily Chieng from Goldman Sachs. Emily, your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Good morning, Jean-Marc and Jack, thank you for the update today. I wanted to start with the packaging markets. I know you’ve talked a little bit about the destocking cycle. I think last quarter, you also mentioned you were still confident in meeting internal volume targets of packaging this year, given a contractual thresholds you have in place. But is there any risk to that view at this point, and for your customers, specifically, in what you’re seeing there? Where does Constellium stand in the destocking cycle?

Yes, good morning, Emily. Thanks for the question. So on packaging, we remain confident in our ability to achieve our internal targets. But they are towards the low end of the variance that is allowed within our contractual arrangements with customers because we are seeing not only the stocking, but as I mentioned, some weakness in end demand. And I think that’s due to two factors. One is inflation, clearly squeezes disposable income for consumers. But more importantly, there’s been no promotional activity of late, and these four – cans, beverages in general. And you see that in the results of the beverage companies where, pricing is very strong for them, but volume is weaker. So I think we’re in a place where we believe the market will be still growing over the medium-term. But this year is a little bit of a challenge and will be towards the lower end of our expectation of our expectations, volume wise.

Understood. And maybe a second question, just shifting gears a little to the Muscle Shoals asset. I know you mentioned there was some labor inefficiencies that were driving the weakness, but were there any other operational issues or will we just expect over time as labor inefficiencies posit that asset should see better profitability?

Yes, so yes, we expect to be recovered by the end of the year, as I mentioned, on the few are earning schools, I guess, since the since the fall, it takes time to recruit and train people, we are making progress, we have less open positions, we are spending a lot of maintenance on the assets as well. So that’s a headwind in our cost variance when you look at PARP performance versus last year, this quarter versus last year. But I think we’re setting the foundation for a return to solid operating performance and financial performance by the end of the year. The encouraging signs that we’re seeing is that when we look at our indicators, there’s more and more green lights on the dashboard, in terms of performance of the plant. And that allows us for instance, even though, can sheet is weak, as we mentioned, to take plenty of opportunities in automotive, and that’s one of the beauties of our diversified model where, we can – if one market is not doing so well, well, there’s other opportunities in other markets that will seizing. So I’m quite encouraged but what I’m saying – seeing but truly typically, operational performance improves before financial performance improves. And I think by the end of the year, will be in a very good place.

Great, thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from a Curt Woodworth of Credit Suisse. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Great, thanks. Good morning, Jean-Marc and Jack. First question is around. Hi. I guess it’s around changes to the guidance. So it seems like from a cost perspective, you still are seeing €300 million target. You did raise the guidance. I’m just kind of curious maybe what has changed from the update you gave towards the end of last year, we were looking for more meaningful decline. And then with respect to price cost, it does seem like you’re getting very strong price mix this quarter 157. So that’s a pretty strong run rate. But it seems like you intimated that you still would be negative price cost this year. So I’m just wondering if you could also give us any color on what you think net price is embedded in the guidance.

Yes, thank you Curt. So let me start with your first question. That will give you a little bit color here. I think, as we kind of finished Q1, it really It was a little better than kind of what we had expected, just given the favorable trends, trends in aerospace and automotive as well as some of the sub segments within the industrial markets. And we do expect, some of that, to continue into the second quarter, aerospace and automotive should continue to perform, the lower can stock demand, will likely could also last into this quarter and, the visibility for some of the other markets are not kind of where we’re used to seeing. So, and remember, you also have the continued cost pressure from inflation, as well as from Ravenswood of activities, given the strengthening our aerospace and automotive businesses. So, that’s why we are fundamentally not really changing our existing views and outlooks for, the second half of the year. And that kind of explains the guidance. And then on to your second question, I think, on the cost side, we did call out, we let’s, we should expect to see high levels of inflation, about €300 million, we’re kind of one quarter into that, but we are confident in our ability to, has to some of the cost as well as with the pricing power that we have.

And if I step back, Curt, I think, when we were late last year, we are thinking we’ve got this big wave of inflationary pressures, are we going to be quick enough to pass that through, because there is no question in our mind that we can pass it through, but the pace at which we can pass it through as a very significant impact on 2023 outcome, and where, prudent, I think in our assessment of what kind of job we can do in passing it through. And what we would see nearly six months after seeing that big wave that teams have done an excellent job at negotiating with customers, our customers have been supportive. And we are in a much better place than we thought we would be six months ago or three months ago. And that’s why we see less of a pinch.

Okay. And then one follow-up on packaging for me as well. So, at the Analyst Day you talked about, I think 200,000 tons of incremental can sheet by ‘25 and ultimately estimated that duration of these contracts were being extending up to I think 4 years to 5 years. So, can you comment on how much of that have you contracted at this point in time, obviously, the beverage can side there have been some push outs in the capacity, and then the CapEx around that, do you still feel comfortable in that, I think 175 to 200 number you quoted? Thank you, guys.

Yes. So, we did communicate last year at the Analyst Day, 200 tons of additional volumes in can sheet. Now, that’s a ‘26 number, because it’s a run rate in ‘25. But that’s because of the ramped up. We are 80% to 90% contracted on those. As you know, there is some variance within the contractual commitments, so we can come in a little bit lower, but not meaningfully lower, if weakness persists. So, we feel very comfortable about this market, the capital deployment plans we have. And remember that these products use the same lines as the automotive line, you are going to see the finishing lines after the – for automotive. So, we have versatility in terms and optionality in terms of where we decide to use that capacity. So, we feel very good about the outlook. And we are essentially close to 90% contract.

Okay. Thanks very much.

Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Timna Tanners of Wolfe Research. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hey. Good morning. Just a few follow-ups on with regard to the percentage of your tonnage that you think you can pass-through cost pressures on. I think in the past, you have talked about 90%, 95% of costs you could pass-through in a given year. And I know you alluded to some spillage into further time periods, is that 90%, 95% still a good frame of reference?

Yes. I think it’s directional, but it’s good. And as you can see on the on the variance chart, you see that, we are referring to Page 11 of the presentation. You see a price and mix variance of 138. There is an element of mix in there, so it’s an all price. And you see a cost variance of 130. And in the 130, it’s not inflation only, right. There is other factors like, for instance, we are bringing in more people in aerospace and transportation because of the booming demand. We are spending more on maintenance in our facilities to make sure we are ready for the future. But overall that’s, yes, I think the numbers show our ability to pass-through most of the inflation as it happens, and the rest of it in the following period.

Okay. Great. And then I know you addressed that can sheet expansion with Curt, but I just thought it would be helpful to go back to, again, the Investor Day and some of the other broad growth initiatives you talked about, can you give us an update across the board with some of those initiatives that you had laid out for us?

Sure. So, those initiatives are really the foundation for the over €800 million of EBITDA guidance we give for 2025. So, if I look at the different elements there, maybe by market, so we talked about can sheets, seen 2025, it’s roughly 140,000 tons, that would be for the year, right. For the year 2025, that would be variable. And I think most of that, as I mentioned, 90% is contracted essentially. And there may be a little bit of variance depending on how the markets go. But that’s we feel – that’s something we feel very good about. That’s why we are spending a lot of money on maintenance and capital expenditures to get ready for that. So, we feel good about it. I think we are a little bit behind given the current market situation overall, because of the weakness in cans. But I think the silver lining here is, there is two things. One is you get the other beverages, packaging materials down much more than cans are. So, that shows that for the brands and the consumers that cans are preferred. The other aspect – the other silver lining is with the increased focus on recycling, we know that aluminium pays for its recycling waste, plastic and glass don’t. And what that means is, as there is more and more legislation or push to recycle more, not only will we have more used beverage cans to recycle, but also there will be more need for cans because they are a preferred package and they cost less to recycle than the other packages. So, I think the fundamentals here are very strong, and it could have a very long tail well beyond the 2025 horizon. So, we feel very good for can sheets. They are even though…

Yes. I just wanted an update, so that’s great. Thank you very much.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Corinne Blanchard of Deutsche Bank. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hey. Good morning Jean-Marc and team. I am just going to go back on the packaging and the trend that you are seeing. We normally see higher seasonality in 2Q and 3Q. Would you expect that to be relatively muted this year, or do you still expect to have intermediate seasonality coming through?

So, I am not sure I heard the question Corinne exactly. But yes, I mean typically, you have the strong first half in can stock given the seasonality of the business. Now, we do this year have this lower demand factor and destocking phenomenon that’s happening, right, and that’s continuing. We are seeing it to continue into Q2, so that’s going to have a little bit of impact on volume. But we are hopeful, that’s going to come back in the second half.

I think what’s going to drive it really, which is unknown still is whether the beverage companies will run promotions on that. I was at my local store the other day, and what I used to get for €6, I am paying €9 for it now. So, that’s a change. If there are promotions, I think that’s going to spur some more demand, if they were not, I think will be the much more muted environment from a seasonality standpoint than what we are used to see.

It makes sense. And then maybe a follow-up on competition, or I think Steel Dynamics, have been announcing further expansion or like capacity coming sooner than maybe the market was expected. Can you comment like do you see any wait for you, and in which segments maybe?

Yes. So, I don’t know the specifics of what you are mentioning the announcements you are mentioning about Steel Dynamics. But in our supply-demand projections, we believe we need as a North America as an industry more capacity. So, that capacity is needed to because of the growth we would see in both can and automotive and a very substantial share of imports which we do not believe are competitive, or provide the good service levels that our can makers customers need. So, we believe that capacity is needed. Now, if it comes sooner than when it is exactly needed that could be a problem. But as I mentioned, we are more than 90% contracted through 2025. So, we feel we are in a very good place. And we have got contracts that run through 2028. So, we feel like we are in a very good place.

Great. Thank you.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Josh Sullivan of The Benchmark Company. Josh, your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hey. Good morning.

Good morning Josh.

Just as far as the record aerospace demand, is that broad based across Airframers and customers, is there any particular platform driving the near-term results? We have seen some other material suppliers talk about inventory stocking for the A350. Does that mean your aluminium lithium products might be accelerating faster than other products?

So, Josh, we still see narrowbody as a key driver for growth. A350 may come back with – may increase the build rates. It’s not as substantial driver just yet. We are seeing it’s really broad based, much more demand. I will remind you that, when we went through COVID, our shipments, our production went down by 50% when the build rates went down by only 30%. So, there is an element of restocking that needs to happen. It is very difficult to know how long it’s going to take to restock. But I think what we are seeing through the supply chain is everybody being worried about, I am not going to run out of product. So, this is really accelerating the growth that is needed. But at the same time, we are still shipping below what is needed to meet the build rates that are announced by the OEMs. So, we feel like there is a longer passive opportunity for us for ‘24, ‘25.

And then just one on the automotive side. In 2022, the number of plant shutdowns due to various supply chain issues, how should we think of the recent automotive strength for Constellium just relative to restarting some of that production and inventory catch up versus the organic growth relative to kind of full year SAR expectations?

And so, I think the full year SAR expectations are, both North America and Europe kind of 6%, 7%. And we are growing double digits. And what – the gap here is a result of a number of factors, but one which is important is further penetration of aluminium. And that’s something that we see continuing to come into play. So, we feel pretty good about our ability to maximize the use of our automotive assets. And we are not fully sold out just yet. So, we think there is some nice upside there going into next year as well.

Got it. Thank you for the time.

Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Sean Wondrack of Constellium. Sean, your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hi, Jean-Marc and Jack. Thank you for taking my…

We know you are still at DB, by the way.

Less there. So, just looking today, it’s great to see that you increased the guidance, what has sort of changed versus your prior outlook that you gave us?

Yes. So, I think the – our beat in the first quarter clearly helps us be more comfortable, but our ability to pass-through the price increases. But we – as Jack mentioned earlier, for the nine months to go, we are not really changing our guidance, right. We feel like there are still enough uncertainties around the geopolitical environment. The older books in some of our segments tend to be short, whilst we see a lot of strength in auto, and aero for instance, and there is still this uncertainty around packaging. We are going to have promotions or not in the summer. So, we feel very good about our increased guidance, but we are not calling it yet real upside to the next nine months.

Great. And do you think the fact that the packaging guys might be seeing some easing inflationary pack – inflationary trends might be increasing their willingness to lower prices a little?

Possibly. Yes, I hope so.

Great. And then just across some of the other cost…

I am sorry. I was saying that would be an upside if it happened.

Great. That makes sense. And then have you seen inflation easing in any of your other cost buckets? I know, you have mentioned labor has been up, but just within maybe freight or any other areas?

Yes. So, no, it’s I mean on the energy side in Europe. If you look at the spot prices, it did kind of come down a little bit, but that’s really still well above historical averages. And I think inflation, it’s a big category, and it’s really broad base, right. So, we are still seeing tremendous pressure on other buckets, like labor, alloy, coatings, etcetera, so.

Okay. Thank you. And then it’s great to see that you have kept your free cash flow outlook. What are your plans to sort of allocate that free cash flow going forward, just going to build cash or do you think you would apply it? Sorry, go ahead.

Well, so I mean, this goes into the capital allocation priorities a little bit, right. And I think for us, nothing has changed. Our priority is still to take our leverage down to 2.5x, less than 2.5x. And that remains the priority. We were spending more on cutbacks to generate returns, additional returns for our shareholders. But deleveraging remains the priority. So and we mentioned in the past that deleveraging comes in a couple of different ways. One is from earnings growth, and secondly, from debt pay-down, so that gives you a flavor.

Okay. Great. Thank you very much for taking my questions.

Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Katja Jancic from BMO Capital Markets. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hi. Thank you for taking my question. Just quickly on the A&T segment, either the offered ton, it was very strong this quarter. And I think last quarter, you mentioned margins, that business should be somewhere between €800 to €900 per ton, how should we think about margins going forward or over the next few quarters?

So, obviously, A&T had a stellar performance this quarter and continued to have stellar performance, very proud of the achievement. I think first quarter margin really reflects continued pull from customers, so more aerospace as part of the portfolio, aero and TID, but also more favorable, aerospace mix within aero, if that makes sense and the TID business is also holding up pretty strong. So, I think remember the business – Katja, remember the business flex quite a bit in terms of cost during COVID, in the down cycle, and not all of that has kind of fully caught up in up-cycling environment like the one we are in today, and obviously, that’s the benefits – that’s beneficial for margins. We saw some of that in the fourth quarter of last year, it was actually throughout last year, and is continuing to this year. But over time we do expect cost to catch up, but margin for this business unit, up-cycling environment should still stay very strong.

So, in other words, the 800 to 900 Katja, is kind of an average across cycles for the aerospace and transportation division, in a very strong aerospace market going up will be above that range. And I think that’s what we are seeing now. So, we would expect for this year to be above the 800 to 900, average through the cycle.

Okay. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. We have no further questions. And I will hand back to Jean-Marc Germain for any further remarks.

Well. Thank you, Alex and thank you everybody for participating today. We are delighted with our performance in the first quarter. I think it’s a good foundation for a strong and better than expected 2023. Thank you everybody and stay safe. Goodbye.

Thank you for joining today’s call. You may now disconnect your lines.