Constellium SE (NYSE:CSTM) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Sean Wondrack: Got you. Okay. And then I thought it was interesting your comment about how in Auto, you’re seeing strength in the U.S. and weakness in Europe. I was wondering if you could kind of peel away if that comment a little bit more for us, please?

Jean-Marc Germain: Yes. I think the – in Europe, we see the European market being a little bit weaker and also the German OEMs having more difficulties selling their cars overseas. So that’s, I think, what is driving the weakness in Europe at the moment.

Sean Wondrack: Got you. Okay. And obviously, you’ve done a great job with the capital structure. It’s nice to see you within the new leverage target range. You were clear about share repurchases on the call. Just my question is, in terms of M&A, you have these three segments up and running really well now. Could there be a consideration if you saw the right deal to maybe add another leg to the stool here or to maybe tack on something to one of your existing segments? Just kind of curious how you’re thinking about that at this point?

Jack Guo: Yes. It’s a really good question. So I think – and that sort of goes back to keeping a balanced capital allocation approach. And going back to the intention of returning a large portion of our free cash flow towards share repurchase, but while maintaining some flexibility and maintaining flexibility both financially and potentially strategically. I think our approach when it comes to M&A, as you know, is quite conservative. We want to make sure we do the right deals for our shareholders. So we’ll be highly selective. But these – so we would consider tuck-in acquisition opportunities at great value.

Sean Wondrack: Right. No, that makes a lot of sense. And then I guess just one last one. Are there further opportunities to marry additional recycling facilities with your manufacturing facilities? And just when we think about that, how important is it to be early to that game or first mover as we think about this in time?

Jean-Marc Germain: Yes. So Sean, there is definitely an opportunity for us to increase our recycling content, our recycling operations, a mix of metal that comes in, that is scrap as opposed to primary. And we will continue to make investments in that domain. And these investments will be organic and could be also M&A. But it is clearly a priority of ours to continue to increase our recycling footprint and capacity.

Sean Wondrack: Got it. Thank you very much for taking my questions. Appreciate it.

Jean-Marc Germain: Sure.

Jack Guo: Thank you, Sean.

Operator: This concludes our Q&A. I’ll now hand back to Jean-Marc Germain, CEO of Constellium for final remarks.

Jean-Marc Germain: Well, thank you very much. We are very proud with our progress. As you can see, this demonstrates – our performance demonstrates that we are really focused on value in the context of quite a few markets that are down our profitability continues to improve, and we are very confident in the future as evidenced by the announcement of our share repurchase program. I look forward to updating you on our progress in April. Thank you very much, everybody. Have a good day.

Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, today’s call has now concluded. We’d like to thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines.

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