Elkem Asa Ord (ELKEF) Q1 2026 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

Okay, I think we're ready to start. Good morning and welcome to Elkem's first quarter results presentation. My name is Olger Lindstrøm. I'm responsible for investor relations here in Elkem. To take us through today's agenda, we have CEO Helge Olsen and CFO Morten Viga. Helge will go through the highlights for the quarter, the market update, and the outlook for the second quarter. CFO Morten Viga will then present Elkem's first quarter results in more detail. We will open for Q&A after Helge and Martin's presentations. So with that, I give the word to CEO Helge Olsen. Thank you, Odbjerg, and good morning, everyone. Welcome. Yeah, we are expecting to close the sale of the silicones division to Blue Star today, the 30th of April. This transformation will move Elkem towards a more pure play, Metals and Materials Company. Another goal and motivation behind this is to sharpen our strategic focus, tighten capital allocation and improve earnings quality. We're also using this opportunity to streamline the organization and cut costs. And following the transaction we plan to raise new equity of 1.5 billion NOC to a completely announced book building process, and of course in order then to strengthen the balance sheet. And this equity offering is guaranteed, as previously communicated. In addition, we have secured an offer from our relationship banks for a fully underwritten debt refinancing of 1 billion euros. The operational performance in the quarter was hampered by challenging market conditions. Visibility is quite limited, we have to say that, due to changing trade regulations and all the geopolitical uncertainty ongoing. Silicon products presented a weak result in the first quarter, mainly impacted by production curtailments at several brands in Norway. but primarily affe...