Ferroglobe PLC (NASDAQ:GSM) Q4 2023 Earnings Conference Call February 22, 2024 8:30 AM ET

Company Participants

Alex Rotonen - Vice President of Investor Relations

Marco Levi - Chief Executive Officer

Beatriz García-Cos - Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Lucas Pipes - B. Riley Securities

Martin Englert - Seaport Research Partners

Operator

Good morning ladies and gentlemen and welcome to Ferroglobe's Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2023 Earnings Call. At this time [Operator Instructions]

I would now like to turn the call over to Alex Rotonen, Ferroglobe's Vice President of Investor Relations. You may begin.

Alex Rotonen

Thank you, Heidi. Good morning, everyone and thank you for joining Ferroglobe's fourth quarter and full year 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 our 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 exhibits to those filings which are available on our web page at ferroglobe.com. In addition, this discussion includes reference 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 like to turn the call over to Marco Levi, our Chief Executive Officer.

Marco Levi

Thank you, Alex and good morning, good day and good evening to everyone. Thanks for joining us on the call today. We appreciate your interest in Ferroglobe. We are very pleased with our strong execution in 2023, where we improved our operations, strengthened our balance sheet and posted solid financial results of $315 million of adjusted EBITDA. While our end markets were extremely challenging in 2023, we focused on things that were within our control to position the company for the long-term success. I'll discuss a couple of the highlights of our execution and strategy. Then Beatriz will discuss the great strides we have made in improving our balance sheet a little later.

Overall, operations performed at a high level in 2023. Our European plants set a new historical record for opening efficiency as measured by kilowatt hours per ton improving by more than 3%. In the third quarter, we completed a strategic acquisition of a high-quality quartz mine located in South Carolina which will ensure access to quartz needed to produce high-quality silicon metal in our U.S.-based silicon metal production plants. Aligned with our strategy to grow our advanced silicon metal business, we signed a term sheet for a global joint venture with a leading battery material company in Europe to develop advanced EV battery materials using silicon in the anode.