Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for holding. At this time, we would like to welcome everyone to CSN Conference Call to present results for the Fourth Quarter 2023. Today with us, the Company’s executive officers. We would like to inform you that this event is being recorded, and all participants will be in listen-only mode during the Company presentation. Ensuing this, we will go on to the Q&A section when further instructions will be provided. This event is being webcast through internet and can be accessed at ri.csn.com.br, where the presentation is also available. The replay of this event will be available for a period of seven days. Before proceeding, please be advised that some of the statements herein are mere expectations or trends and are based on the current assumptions and opinions of the Company management and the performance and events may differ materially from those expressed herein, which do not constitute projection. In fact, actual results, performances, or events may differ materially from those expressed or implied by forward-looking statements as a result of several factors such as overall and economic conditions in Brazil and other countries, interest rates and exchange rate levels, future rescheduling or prepayment of debt nominated in foreign currencies, protectionist measurements in the U.S., Brazil, and other countries, changes in law and regulations and general competitive factors at a global, regional, or national basis. I’d now like to turn the floor over to Mr. Marcelo Cunha Ribeiro, CFO and Investor Relations Executive Officer, he will present the operational and financial highlights for the period. Mr. Ribeiro. You may proceed.

Good morning, everybody, and thank you for attending CSN's conference call. As usual, I will go on to the presentation. And before going on to the question and answer session, I will give the floor to Mr. Benjamin Steinbruch. Now we had a strong EBITDA of R$ 3.6 billion in the fourth quarter, confirming the robustness of the CN model of diversification, integration, and verticalization, reaching an EBITDA margin of 29%, even in difficult moments for the production of steel, and because of the prices that are dropping. Despite this, we achieved the best results in the year through this diversification. Second highlight, a strong cash generation, R$ 387 million, which enabled us to reduce our indebtedness. Even with the seasonality, we have better sales of cement and steel. And as a third highlight for second consecutive quarter, we were able to decline the leverage rate. So we have had a significant reduction now. To continue on with the presentation on page 4, we see the EBITDA evolution. We ended the year with the strongest EBITDA margin, R$ 3.6 million, a growth of almost 30% sequentially, thanks to the excellent performance of mining. But all of the businesses and the company contributed in steel. We practically increased the results twofold. We had a good performance in price, which was surprising because of the former price behavior but we focused on volume in cement. We had good results with the seasonality hampering results at the end of the year and in MRS very good results as well as in energy because of the recent price recovery of energy in the Brazilian market. We ended the year at R$ 11.9 million, a decrease vis-à-vis 2022 because of the more difficult moment in the steel sector. We continue to speak about cash generation.…

Good day, everybody. Thank you for the opportunity of presenting our results for the quarter. Now these results are presented through an independent specific release and the data is consolidated and will be published in an integrated report in April. As the main highlights of the period, we have maintained the stability of our dams. In ’23, we went from level 2 to 3 in July. We have a request for recognition of this stability and the license will be issued now after an auditing. We also had an evolution of course. We ended up with the lowest accident frequency rate and this includes all types of accidents and in December we began a specific program to prevent accidents with high fatality rates. A great highlight for the period is our new goal for cement and new target. And this goal, of course, will be aligned with the global indices. Now cement corresponded to more than 40% of our rates in CSN, the highest in the group. We continue to make strides in diversity, especially when it comes to the representativity of women. We went up to 60% in 2023 with specific advances of women in roles of leadership. And finally, the evolution of the company and the main ratings of the world, SMP, our results in CDP, perhaps this CDP has one of the largest data banks in the world and we are part of that platform. We are leaders in environmental management in a scale that disclosed their results and we went from B in 2019, we got to A minus in 2023 and all of this referring to water safety and several other indicators and all of our platforms have this level of performance and you can observe the great challenge it has been to achieve these figures. Thank you once again for your attendance.

Thank you, Helena and before we go on to the questions, we would like to turn the floor over to our Chairman Mr. Benjamin Steinbruch.

Good morning, everybody, thank you for attending the CSN earnings conference call. I would like to address a few words to you basically referring to last year. Our businesses very generally did very well with a greater focus on steel as you know in cement, we worked very well almost 3 million tons with a margin that is once again going back to what it used to be Marcelo mentioned that we had 30% before we acquired LafargeHolcim, we are resuming to those levels. We have 24% of margins and of course we will continue to seek out the 30% and because of the maturity and the growing synergies of our businesses, we will be able to continue recovering these margins working fully and has always been our purpose to work at full steam and to intelligently work with the distribution of cement throughout the Brazilian territory, logistics and infrastructure with a very good performance, MRS, Tecon, Tecad and the North East Railroad and the [inaudible] Railroad at a somewhat more accelerated pace at present. And they have proven to be very good businesses, important for the future of the CSN group. In energy, the prices have been reacting quite speedily and with increases, which allows us to believe that the year 2024 will end up being a very positive year for energy business. Mining, as you were able to see, was excellent. It continues to have an excellent performance, where on the growth, not only in terms of quantity but also quality. We had good deliveries last year and without a doubt we will perform even better this year. Of course, continuing on with that pace of growth that we showed in the third and fourth quarters of 2023. And steel has now moved away from that uncomfortable situation…

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Daniel Sasson from Itau BBA

Good morning. Thank you all. Thank you for taking the question. My first question is to Benjamin. In your final statement, you said you're seeking capital for the challenges you have in mining. Would it make sense to hold a follow on operation to raise cash for mining and perhaps increase the company's brief load, or is this not the option? Perhaps you are referring to strategic partnerships or a free sale of iron ore through agreements as you announced previously with Glencore along those lines an attempt of IPO for the cement business perhaps could be something for the short term. You attempted to do this in the past and I believe the unit is one step ahead of all others. So which are the preparations to replicate this intention of having each CSN vertical becoming self-sufficient standalone companies with more currency to grow? My second question refers to Martinez. Martinez, we have seen an improvement in the steel production cost with the price of steel dropping in the domestic market. This hampers your margin. We see that the steel plant is below the potential it could deliver. So which are the main drivers for a margin enhancement that you foresee from coming quarters? Will this come from sequential reductions of cost in slab, for example? Or does this depend on stronger efforts in terms of pricing? Thank you for taking my questions.

Danial, thank you for the question. And I will respond in terms of mining because of the fact that it has already been listed. This question of follow-on exists, but it is not our priority. Perhaps we will continue seeking out a strategic partner for the challenges that we face in terms of mining. And these are areas of challenges. We're referring to 25%, 30%, 40% of return in our peripheral projects that would have lower investments but would have a higher and faster return. Perhaps seek partners that could make these investments feasible to have a faster return in the mining. balance. We are open, as we have always been, to strategic capital that could add value more than the market for these specific opportunities. And because of our very strong growth and investment plan that we have in mining, it would allow us to do this. As you know, we have extremely good assets. We have 80% of control on mining, which means we have sufficient space to make strategic decisions that will enable us to advance at a faster pace with these peripheral projects, make them feasible and have short-term return. Basically, this is what we foresee for mining. As you yourself have mentioned, we have five businesses that we would like to have separate independent businesses that will be listed, standalone businesses. Mining has already been listed. We have cement where we continue to have that desire to hold an IPO, as well as in our other three businesses. And our proposal is that they become independent and listed companies as soon as possible and that this capital opening become something viable. Our idea for growth, which I have mentioned previously, is always as a function of having a better route to market. We believe that…

Thank you, Benjamin. Hello, Daniel. Good morning. Regarding the recovery of margins, an important point to begin this. I'm quite optimistic despite the market that was somewhat hostile at the beginning of the year. And of course, I depend a great deal on facts and data. If we look at January 2024, there was a growth of 11% in domestic sales. Imports had a drop of 40%. Last year, if we see what happened, apparent consumption grew 3%. Domestic sales dropped because imports were out of the curve. Now, if we imagine that imports will go back to a sustainable level, we're not speaking about eliminating imports in Brazil, but reducing them to 12% or 11%. I believe the market could grow 10% this year in Brazil. That is a reason to begin to recover margins in the domestic market, recover margins in general. Now, regarding the segments, if you look at them structurally one by one in industry, the house appliances and buses, all of them speak about growth. There's positive data from construction. We follow this with cement and long steel. There is a carryover of works in the residential sector. And the government signaling positively to my house, my life, this should accelerate. So the industry for automobiles has maintained a very positive scenario compared to previous years. I don't foresee great concerns in terms of what will happen with apparent consumption in the market. But of course, we have the problem of imports and competition. The isonomy of competition, what happens at CSN that makes it different from other plans is that we have a portfolio. We have 50% of ordered products and our strategy has never changed. It was always the same. We work with a horizontal integration, looking at all suppliers, looking at the…

Our next question comes from Leonardo Correa from BTG Pactual.

I hope everything is well. Good morning to all of you. Two questions in the steel segment. Martinez to go back to the competitiveness of steel. For many years, CSN was the winner with an enormous competitive edge, with a very low price, with verticalization. What draws attention when we look at the figures and the graph of the presentation is the cash cost for a slab of $700, a bit below $700, in a scenario where slabs are being sold at a lower price internationally, and BQ in China negotiated at $550, $560. So there's a mismatch compared to global price parameters, your cost in the steel. And of course, this has a relevant impact on your margins, besides the issue we are aware of, competition versus imported products, and low purchasing power. If you could focus more on cost, how do you foresee that evolution to $600 per slab, the R$ 3, 000 as you mentioned? Secondly, it allowed me to go back to the anti-dumping rates, all of that discussion that has gained recent traction in Brazil, but still pending a solution that will be agreeable to all players in the steel market. We accompanied your problem with dumping with steel sheets. And what the government has done so far is marginal, minor help for pipelines and rebar. So how has your request been received for steel plate? And why haven't you asked for anti-dumping for other lines as well? These are my questions. Thank you very much.

Thank you for the question, Leo. Now I read the report today, and that's exactly what is written in your report. It's truly perfect, and that is what happened with CSN. I truly don't need to comment on this, and it speaks very clearly to the diversification, integration, not putting all the eggs in the same basket, and what we do commercially and the wealth of our product portfolio. Now this is something I wanted to mention because I was quite impressed with the results of the report that you launched today and that I read this morning. To answer the second question, and I'm going to mention everything I have read about these points, I would like to praise the Ministry for Development of Industry and Commerce, especially the Technical Corp at CSN. We're going to follow the rules of the World Trade Organization. We have no choice. The world is globalized, harmonized, and I obtained the regulations of the World MO, and we worked with them, and it was very good work. We recompiled the data. We presented the period. We spoke about all the players, market data. What is coming from China, and they heard our request, and there's an unheard of willingness in the steel sector of making this anti-dumping research in Brazil and call it provisional and shortening this process so that it is 90 days or 120 days at the utmost, so we want this anti-dumping of metal sheets repainted and others who end in 90 days to be implemented in 90 days and according to the calculations we carried out with this ministry this anti-dumping margin is not lower than 50%. So this is an account and it has been presented for templates now. Yes, CSN is also exerting pleasure for compensation of…

Simply to add to this, this is Marcelo. This plan updates back for some time. It's not a reaction to this more difficult year that we had in our investor days, cement days. We have spoken about this in detail with CapEx guidance that will enable us to attain this cost. And the diagnosis is what you mentioned. We need to go back to tier one levels, as Martinez mentioned. And this will happen in the coming years. This will not come from BQ. It comes from much more than that. We add value. We have the coded products. We are downstream. So the slab variable is important. But to take a good look at the plan we have is a solution for this.

Our next question comes from Ricardo Monegala from SACRA Bank.

Good morning, everybody. We have two questions. And a follow-up on Sasson and other questions regarding cost. The explanation is very clear that we will see the cost of slab dropping down to the level of R$ 3, 000 per ton, now in the shorter term should we see a sequential trajectory of cost R$ 3, 400 to R$ 3,000 during the quarter or will this not be sequential? I would like to confirm something with you that I have perceived. There was a great deal of relief in terms of coal and coke and in the price that you paid for third-party products for the steel mill so which will be the trajectory of the cost line going forward? Now the second question for cement. There's a recovery -- there was the expectation of a cost recovery in the fourth quarter, there was pressure instead now what changed since the last results call to impact the cost of cement and what can we expect going forward to reach that 30% margin? Does this depend on price? Does it depend on increasing volume than price or work with Lafarge? These are my questions.

Thank you for the questions, Ricardo. This is Marcelo now the reaction to costs. There is a very short term issues, the normalization vis-a-vis the operational problems we had last year and the maturity of investments for the mid and long term, the battery, the hot rolled laminators so this figure of R$ 3 ,000. We don't have a date for that, it is not a guidance in our Investor Day we have more details of our investments and terms. What I can say is that regarding more imminent issues of the steel mill, we have three converters. We're ending the repair of the last of them now in March to allow for normalization and volume and quantity, and of course this will allow us to have more robust volumes and the fixed cost. This has a clear impact that is measurable as this will happen at the end of March the big step you should expect now for the second quarter, there will be drops, but there will be a more significant drop in the second quarter. I will give the floor to Martinez now.

Ricardo, thank you for the question. What happens at CSN is that our passion is always for results, the last line item. And we always have an enormous challenge set forth by the Chairman, growing volume, growing prices, work in a fragmented way. So you will agree with me that these are very challenging goals. What happened in the fourth quarter? Obviously, the competition did not look at CSN with their arms crossed. We grew 7% during the year. Normally, CSN drives the price in the market. That's what we're in the market for, to push prices, to be the best, to fragment everything, to sell less for more. But unfortunately, in the fourth quarter, we had to follow the strong trend of competition, especially in markets where we do have higher competition, like São Paulo, so as not to lose out on volume. In our case, the beauty of all of this is that our cost and our production director, Divaldo, was also able to maintain the cost at a good level, maintaining margins at 24%. So in steel or cement, we always work with volume, margin, price, and this is part of our day-to-day work. I'm going to give the floor to Divaldo to add to the second part of your question.

Ricardo, good morning, this is Divaldo, simply to add to what was said by Martinez, the Lafarge integration process. Today, we're celebrating one year and six months and we consider the process concluded, fully executed successfully. We were able to capture more than 90% of synergies and new synergies appear day after day in all business areas. Reduction in the price of electrical energy. Production of the plants and the company gains in negotiation for supply, for raw materials, so several actions in terms of operational excellence, the reactivation of equipment, fuel mixes, and much more. Martinez has already spoken about fragmented sales, that is important in logistics. So in some several actions that we have captured that will be operating full in the year 2024, they were all captured during 2023 and this year on some that we had, and we have already seen an expressive reduction in costs. The fourth quarter ended at 7% lower than the fourth quarter of 2022. And a scenario of increase in sales, 7% growth of sales, vis-à-vis a drop of 1.5% in the market. So we were able to somewhat recover our margins to 24% although we're seeking more than 30%, we know that this is possible and this is what we're aiming for.

Our next question comes from [inaudible]. He says good morning and thank you for taking my questions. How should we think about the leverage goal 2.5 in the context of transition, asking this differently. How will this change your tolerance regarding leverage? Can you offer us some details about how you're thinking about this in terms of the balance? Would you consider injecting capital to maintain your present levels of leverage with this transaction delay and IPO for the cement plant? Thank you.

Well, thank you for the question, Declan. Now, let's go straight to the point. The acquisition does not change our ambition of being at 2.5 times. I think this conciliation possible, based on some initiatives that were mentioned by Benjamin. They include a search for a partner in energy as well as in mining, a future IPO for cement. We're going to pursue this regardless of the acquisition, and in the acquisition to structure the new debt in such a way that part of the indebtedness can also be transformed into equity. So this is an alternative that we're going to have to think about if our proposal is a winning one, but it's the only way that this would become interesting for CSN, a capital structure in the acquisition that will not increase our leverage. This is a non-negotiable assumption. We know that if that is the path we follow, that IPO, yes, would have to wait for approval and integration. There are other initiatives that would control the leverage and would lead towards a performance we expect in 2024. It's a performance in cash and EBITDA, recycling the CSN capital, and how to structure the acquisition. All of this will make sure that the integration will not increase our leverage.

Our next question comes from Antonio Alex. He would like to know if there is a term for the court to judge the CSN appeal in terms of Usiminas.

No, the court has not issued a deadline, so any comment in that direction would not have a stand.

Once we have no further questions, the Q &A session ends here. I would like to return the floor to Marcelo Ribeiro for the closing remarks.

Well, thank you one and all. Once again, I would like to thank you for your attendance for the earnings result call for the fourth quarter, 2023. It was a good year, but with challenges in steel. And this call marks the beginning of the year, 2024, where we have great expectations in terms of our in-house performance and regarding the market. So we count upon your attention in terms of our performance in coming quarters. Once again, thank you very much.

The result earnings fall for CSN ends here. We would like to thank all of you for your attendance. Have a very good day.