Elkem Asa Ord (ELKEF) Q2 2026 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

A warm welcome to LKM's second quarter results presentation. My name is Adger Lindstein. I'm responsible for investor relations in LKM. To take us through today's agenda, we have, as usual, CEO Helge Aasen and CFO Morten Viga. Helge will cover the highlights and the business update, followed by market update and outlook for the third quarter. Morten will then present the results for the second quarter. We are pleased to welcome... Elke Snikst, CEO Dag Teigland today. Helge will shortly introduce Dag, and he will give a short introduction. We will then open for Q&A after Helge and Morten's presentation. And with that, I hand over to CEO Helge Aasen. Yeah, thank you, Helge. Welcome and good morning. I'm doing this without the suit today. It's quite warm in here. It's actually my last quarterly presentation before handing over the CEO role to Dag. So it's been a privilege to lead Elkem. I've had this role almost continuously for 17 years and I'm quite proud of what this organization has accomplished. I'm also confident that the company is well positioned now for Continued Value Creation and of course looking forward to support Elkem going forward also in my new role as chair of the board. So going to the highlights this quarter we continue to face quite challenging market conditions and Elkem must continue to deliver on its continuous and various improvement initiatives. The organizational streamlining following the sale of the silicones division has been completed and the cost reductions, I would say, are on track and progressing as planned, actually a little bit ahead of plan. We have also successfully raised 1.8 billion in new equity and refinanced our main bank facilities. and combined with other measures to improve the balance sheet we have achieved a significant n...