Ferroglobe PLC (NASDAQ:GSM) Q1 2023 Earnings Conference Call May 9, 2023 8:30 AM ET

Company Participants

Marco Levi - CEO

Beatriz García-Cos - CFO

Anis Barodawalla - VP, IR

Conference Call Participants

Lucas Pipes - B. Riley Securities

Martin Englert - Seaport Research Partners

Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Ferroglobe's First Quarter 2023 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later we will conduct a question-and-answer session, and instructions will be given at that time. As a reminder, this conference call may be recorded.

I would now like to turn the call over to Anis Barodawalla, Ferroglobe's Vice President of Investor Relations and Corporate Strategy. You may begin.

Anis Barodawalla

Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining Ferroglobe's first quarter 2023 conference call. Joining me today are Marco Levi, our Chief Executive Officer; and Beatriz García-Cos, our Chief Financial Officer.

Before we get started with some prepared remarks, I'm going to read a brief statement. Please turn to Slide 2 at this time. Statements made by management during this conference call that are forward-looking are based on current expectations. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements can be found in Ferroglobe's most recent SEC filings and the exhibits to those filings, which are available on our webpage, ferroglobe.com. In addition, this discussion includes references to EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA, adjusted gross debt, net debt, and adjusted diluted earnings per share, among other non-IFRS measures. Reconciliation of non-IFRS measures may be found in our most recent SEC filings.

At this time, I would now like to turn the call over to Marco Levi, our Chief Executive Officer. Next slide, please.

Marco Levi

Thank you, Anis, and good morning, or good afternoon, everyone. The first quarter has been very productive, and we have achieved significant milestones that demonstrate our commitment to deliver value to our shareholders. During the quarter, we continued to make progress in deleveraging our balance sheet by paying down debt. We have focused on managing our operations, and have successfully released working capital. On the operational front, we continue to start operations as we expand our capacity and are finalizing agreements to provide long-term renewable energy to our Spanish plants. Our company is at a pivotal moment in its history, ready to seize substantial growth opportunity as the largest western producer of silicon metal, a critical component of many industrial and consumer goods, and in particular, a key material supporting the green energy transition. The global trends towards renewable energy are driving strong growth in the solar analytic vehicle battery markets. The growth outside of China is being amplified by an increased focus toward onshore. These onshoring trends are being enhanced by incentives such as the Inflation Reduction Act in US and its equivalent in Europe, the Green Deal Plan for Net Zero Age, which are focused on local production and reducing reliance on China. As the western market leading silicon matter producer, Ferroglobe is in a unique position to capitalize on these trends, providing an opportunity that will drive strong growth for years to come.