Tenaris S.A. (NYSE:TS) Q1 2024 Earnings Conference Call April 26, 2024 8:00 AM ET
Company Participants
Giovanni Sardagna - Director of Investor Relations
Paolo Rocca - Chief Executive Officer
Luca Zanotti - President, U.S. Operations
Gabriel Podskubka - Chief Operating Officer
Conference Call Participants
Arun Jayaram - J.P. Morgan Securities LLC
Alessandro Pozzi - Mediobanca Group
Marc Bianchi - TD Cowen
David Anderson - Barclays Plc
Luke Lemoine - Piper Sandler Companies
Joseph Charuy - Bank of America
Luigi De Bellis - Equita SIM
Operator
Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Q1 2024 Tenaris S.A. Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker’s presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today’s conference is being recorded.
I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Giovanni Sardagna. Please go ahead.
Giovanni Sardagna
Thank you, Gigi, and welcome to Tenaris 2024 first quarter conference call. Before we start, I would like to remind you that we will be discussing forward-looking information in the call and that our actual results may vary from those expressed or implied during this call.
With me on the call today are Paolo Rocca, our Chairman and CEO; Alicia Móndolo, our Chief Financial Officer; Gabriel Podskubka, our Chief Operating Officer; and Luca Zanotti, our President of our U.S. Operations.
Before passing over the call to Paolo for his opening remarks, I would like to briefly comment our quarterly results. Our first quarter sales reached $3.4 billion, down 17% year-on-year and flat sequentially, as an increasing volume and the full consolidation of the coating business acquired in the previous quarter offset the impact of lower selling prices in the Americas.
Average selling prices in our tubes operating segment decreased 15% compared to the corresponding quarter of 2023 and 6% sequentially. Our EBITDA for the quarter was up 1% sequentially to $987 million. Our EBITDA margin remained flat at around 29% as the reduction in average selling prices was offset by a strong operating performance, a positive contribution for our newly acquired coating business, and a $25 million gain from legal claim’s resolution in Mexico and Brazil.
With operating cash flow of $887 million and capital expenditures of $172 million, our free cash flow for the quarter was $715 million. Following share buybacks of $311 million during the quarter, our net cash position increased to $3.9 billion, up from $3.4 billion at the end of last year.