Trading update for the first three months of 2025
Navigating challenging markets successfully
Financial highlights
- Q1 2025 consolidated sales of € 991 million (-3% vs Q1 2024) driven by:
- Like for like volumes were down -1% (€ -12 million)
- Price-mix reduced sales by -1% (€ -11 million)
- Pricing impact from the pass-through of lower input costs was -2% (€ -23 million)
- Portfolio change <+1% (€ +4 million)
- Currency impact +1% (€ +9 million)
- Sales from joint ventures (non-consolidated) of € 214 million (-2% vs Q1 2024)
- Central overhead and operating cost savings partially offsetting margin pressures from the challenging market environment
- Lower capital expenditure requirements for 2025, growth platforms well positioned
- Intensive working capital focus to maintain robust cash flows
- Balance sheet remains strong with low financial leverage
- Dividend of € 1.90 per share proposed at AGM
- Ongoing two-year € 200 million share buyback program with around € 50 million purchased to date
Operational and strategic highlights
- Rubber Reinforcement - strong performance in China offsetting volume decreases in Europe and North America; continued overcapacity and uncertainty over tariffs
- Steel Wire Solutions - solid sales performance both on volumes and mix
- BBRG - production output reliability maintained for Steel Ropes in UK and North America; tariff uncertainty delaying customer orders in Ropes and lower hoisting demand in China
- Specialty Businesses - Sustainable Construction experiencing project delays in flooring in North America, while adoption accelerates in growth markets; as expected, lower contribution from Ultra Fine Wires
- Steel Wire Solutions disposal in Costa Rica, Ecuador and Venezuela on track
Tariff impacts
The introduction of tariffs, the threat of further tariffs and escalating trade tensions are creating significant uncertainty for Bekaert, its suppliers and customers. Bekaert is a global business which benefits from a relatively high proportion of local sourcing and local production, and a business model where it is typical to pass on additional costs such as raw material or energy costs to its customers. The group is successfully negotiating increased pricing with its customers to include the additional tariffs. The financial impact of the tariffs to date has been minimal.
In several business segments, most notably construction, customers are delaying orders or investment decisions awaiting clarity on the tariff situation. Beyond the simple application of tariffs to products and raw materials, there are larger, long-term questions as to how these tariffs will affect end market demand, change trade flows between regions, encourage substitution of alternative products and materials, and ultimately impact economies around the world. How these longer-term effects will impact is very uncertain at this stage and could be material.
Outlook
As outlined previously, the difficult market conditions of the second half of 2024 continued into Q1 2025 and in response Bekaert took actions to protect margins and cash flows. This weak business environment is expected to persist with the ongoing uncertainty around tariffs, global trade and macro-economic outlook.
To date, Bekaert has been able to mitigate the impact of tariffs through local sourcing and production and with the direct pass through of tariff effects on raw materials and finished goods. Therefore, at the currently anticipated tariff levels and excluding any impacts from additional tariffs, the indirect and longer term impacts of tariffs or further economic deterioration, the group expects stable sales and EBITu margins for the full year 2025 compared with 2024, with a more equally weighted first and second half split.
Conference call for analysts and investors
Yves Kerstens, CEO, and Seppo Parvi, CFO, will present Bekaert's Q1 2025 trading update to analysts and investors at 09:00 a.m. CET on Wednesday 14 May. This presentation can be accessed live upon registration (registration link) and will be available on Bekaert's website after the event.
