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Hello. Good afternoon and thank you for joining Gestamp's Full Year 2021 Results Presentation. I am Alvaro Bachiller, Director of Corporate Controlling and Investor Relations. Before proceeding, let me point you to the disclaimer on slide 2 of the presentation that has been posted on our website and that sets out the legal framework under which this presentation must be considered. The conference call will be led by our Executive Chairman, Mr. Riberas, and myself. Ana Fuentes, Director of Investor Relations, is also attending the call with us. At the end of the conference, we will open up for Q&A.
Now, let me turn over the call to our Executive Chairman.
Good afternoon. Thanks for joining us in this conference call in which we will present the full year results for 2021 and also we will provide our guidance for 2022. I'll just give a summary that I think we have been able to obtain very solid results in 2021 despite a very challenging auto market. I think we have been able to react fast, continuing our efforts during the 2020 year, and this has been – has allow us to meet quite comfortable the guidance that we have in the beginning of last year.
In concrete, specifically, we have been able to outperform in terms of our revenues by 8.1%, the global auto production of commercial light vehicles. In terms of EBITDA margin, we have been able to reach 12.3% which is much better than what we did in 2020. And also, it's higher than the one we had in 2019 with much lower volumes. We have been able to have a free cash flow generation this year of €248 million. And altogether with 2020, we have generated €524 million. And we have also been able to come back to the net income, allowing us this year to pay the dividend against 2021 year results.
If we move to the slide 5, here, we are basically trying to explain that we have been able to improve or to increase our profitability in a year which has been quite negative in terms of volumes. You will see the chart. In fact, in 2021, the global manufacturing of light vehicles have reached 77.1 million, which is 9%, almost 9% less than initial forecast in the beginning of the year and is substantially lower than the 89 million vehicles which were produced in 2019. But not only the volumes in absolute terms, but also the volatility in terms of the production schemes has also been very difficult to manage in our plant and, of course, the impact of the different variants around COVID.
In this environment, quite difficult, we have been able to generate a 12.3% margin of EBITDA which 2.1% margin expansion versus 2020, with only 3% more in terms of production of vehicles. And we have also improved, as I mentioned, 0.5% in terms of EBITDA margin compared with 2019 with 13% lower auto market production. I think clearly that we have been able to consolidate the kind of very important step we did in 2020 around our fixed cost structure and also around our efficiency measures and stability of our operations. And also, we have been able to offset part of the inflationary pressure we have, especially in the second half of 2021, in some of our geographies.
Moving to the slide 6, I think as I mentioned in the beginning, we have been able to meet clearly and improved our guidance for 2021. In fact, we did an improvement of the guidance in July. In fact, we have reduced our target in terms of CapEx from 7% that we guided in February to 6.5% revenues. And in terms of net debt, we increased from a debt that we wanted have of €12 billion, excluding IFRS, to a net reduction of more than €100 million for the full year 2020. At the end of the day, the final results for 2021, we have been able to outperform in terms of revenue the market by 8.1%. In terms of EBITDA margin, we have been able to obtain a 12.3% EBITDA margin with much less volume. In terms of CapEx, we have a 6% CapEx to sales with less revenues. And we have been able to reduce our debt with €190 million which is in terms of IFRS, including IFRS 16, a net reduction of €219 million.
Moving to the slide 7, here, we have all the figures concerning the financial year 2021. In terms of revenues, as mentioned, almost €8.1 billion which is an increase of 8.5% compared with the previous year, €11.2 billion at constant FX; an EBITDA of €998 million which means a very important improvement, 31.7% compared with the previous year; EBITDA margin of 12.3%; EBIT of €413 million compared with €158 million in the year 2020; a net income of €155 million compared with a negative or the losses of €71 million in 2020; with a CapEx of €531 million even lower than the one we have in 2020; with a net debt of €2.266 billion, which represents a reduction compared with the previous year of €219 million.
In the slide 8, we have the financial performance for the fourth quarter. This quarter, we have our total revenue of €2.214 billion, a little bit less than the one we had in the fourth quarter 2020 and basically impacted by a full October. But we have been able to generate in absolute terms the same EBITDA of €296 million, which means that our EBITDA margin has grown from 12.5% in the fourth quarter 2020 to 13.4% in this last quarter. EBIT, same, €140 million than in the previous year. And net income of €55 million which compare with the €20 million of the fourth quarter 2020 and with a little bit more of CapEx reaching in this fourth quarter, €192 million.
If you go to slide 9, here, we are going in detail on every single market and we are trying to outline what has been our performance compared with revenues compared with the market. Overall, this outperformance means that we have been able to do 8.1% more than the market. The market has grown by 3.1% and we have grown 11.2% in FX constant. But it's true that this outperformance could have reached 11.8% if we are talking on a weighted basis. We have done this overperformance in each of the geographies. For instance, in Europe, we had slight positive sales, but the market had a very severe decline. But we had [indiscernible] (00:07:46) outperformance in the case of Eastern Europe, 16% growth when the market was basically flat. Good performance both in Asia, in Mercosur, and in NAFTA.
So, if we move to the slide number 10, trying to have a kind of wider perspective. I think as we guided and as we mentioned in our Capital Markets Day last year, we have had a period up to 2019 that [indiscernible] (00:08:14) for us a kind of high growth period, a time that we were able to boost our turnover by €1 billion even if the market was already declining 2018 and 2019. We were able to increase the amount of employees worldwide basis which is more than 40,000 employees. We had cumulative investment in this period of €2.5 billion and adding to our footprint 17 new greenfield operations. It's true that in 2021, we had some stabilization and structural changes, of course within a new auto production market, new scenario with 12 million vehicles less in 2021 in comparison with 2019. We have been able to have the implementation of a very aggressive Transformation Plan which means we have been able to reduce our fixed cost. We have been able to stabilize our industrial operations. We are very focused in CapEx moderation because we already have a very solid asset and, of course, focused in a very important work around our working capital.
With all this, we have been able to end up this 2021 with 12.3% margin of EBITDA. And already, we have been able to tackle part of the inflation that we have suffered in the second half 2021. For 2022, I think clearly, we have improved our starting point. We have clearly consolidated profitability level, and the intention is to keep it going in that direction, focusing in profitability and also free cash flow. And of course, trying to be able to continue the transformation that we started in 2020, and now we are really moving on and trying to really move and improve the culture of Gestamp for the future through the ATENEA Plan. And of course, we will be able in a position to tackle the new opportunities in the market.
And just to slide 11, to end this part of the presentation, in terms of net profit, we in our Capital Markets Day, we mentioned that we were going to focus in the net profit, and we have shown that. This year, we have been able to generate a net profit of €155 million which I think is very relevant. We have been able to improve our EBITDA margin. We have been able to reduce, in absolute terms, our net financial expenses. We have been also buying and integrating some minority positions we have acquired. And also, we have improved our tax management. So, that means that for this year, we are going to be able to come back paying dividends in the half of the full year 2021. We will pay 30% of the net profit of 2021, and that will represent €47 million. That means that we would come back to our policy of 30% payout of dividends. And it's true that we only have missed once, which was the second payment of the dividend related to the year 2019 because that was to be paid in the first half of 2020, and we assume that it was our responsibility not to do so.
And with this, now, I hand it over to Alvaro.
Perfect. Thank you, Paco. I will start the financial section by providing a few highlights in our revenue and EBITDA performance on a regional basis. During 2021, we have outperformed the market at the revenue level in each of the regions that we are present in. We have also seen an EBITDA margin expansion versus 2020 across all our geographies. Western Europe is the region which has been the most impacted by the semiconductor shortages. But despite this, we have managed to outperform the market by 10% and, most importantly, we have expanded our margin to 10.2% despite the volatility in production schedules which always makes it harder to adjust your cost base. In Eastern Europe, we have experienced strong above-market growth as a result of a beneficial OEM mix and a strong performance in our joint venture in Turkey. This good performance at the revenue level was accompanied by strong profitability levels reaching 18.3% in the region.
In NAFTA, both the US and Mexico have performed well against the market and with margin expansion in both countries, especially in the US, leading to an overall margin of 10.9%. Mercosur has seen a significant volume recovery with a 30% market outperformance, with a strong recovery of Argentina which has almost doubled its revenue figure versus 2020 and also a recovery in Brazil. Profitability has also recovered strongly from 2.4% in 2020 to 11.4% in 2021 driven by both regions. Lastly, Asia has seen double-digit growth versus 2020 mainly concentrated in China and India. Our profitability level for the regions stood at 14.4% which now includes the high contribution from our joint venture. We have also seen a good improvement in margins in India. Overall, a very good performance at the group level on both the top line and EBITDA margin which at 12.3% is above 2019 levels of 11.8% despite considerably lower auto production volumes.
Now, moving on to CapEx on slide 14, we have continued to moderate our capital expenditure during 2021, meeting our revised guidance of being at a ratio of CapEx-to-sales of around 6.5%. I think it's important to highlight that our initial guidance at the beginning of the year was to be around 7% and we then revised this downwards in July to 6.5%. Hence, we have met our revised targets despite a more challenging environment which has reduced our top line versus our initial expectations which makes meeting the ratio-driven guidance even more ambitious.
Our total CapEx for 2021 amounted to €531 million, which is almost €30 million less than during 2020. We have managed to maintain our current topics €241 million, which is 3% of sales, which compares with 3.5% in 2020. Our gross CapEx, mainly plant expansion, stood at €188 million or 2.3% of sales. Intangible CapEx stood at €95 million or 1.2% of sales, which is mainly linked to R&D spending. We continue to work closely with our customers on new projects with a strong focus on electric vehicles.
During 2021, out of the €429 million of tangible CapEx, which includes recurrent CapEx and growth CapEx, more than 40% was related to EV projects. And out of this figure, almost one-third was related to battery box projects.
On slide 15, we have an overview of our free cash flow generation during 2021. It is important to go over some of our recent history to understand how our free cash flow generation profile has changed over the years. Up to 2019, we have undergone a high investment period with the aim of capturing very attractive opportunities with OEMs. This, for example, has meant that from 2017 to 2019, we had a cumulative €1.3 billion of growth CapEx, which was negatively impacting our free cash flow or net debt position without the full positive impact on EBITDA.
We have an approximate three-year ramp-up period until we reach full production in the projects. And normally, in year one, we have a negative impact as the full cost structure's in place but with very low volumes. Hence, we have the full impact on free cash flow on net debt on day one but the positive EBITDA impact has a time lag. This amount has not come down as a result of our CapEx moderation. From 2019 to 2021, cumulative growth CapEx stood at €686 million which is approximately 50% of the cumulative growth CapEx from 2017 to 2019.
The investments into new projects have allowed us to strengthen our strategic position with customers and is now positively impacting our EBITDA which enriches our free cash flow generation profiles. The ramp up of projects is improving the group's ,profitability strengthening our EBITDA in absolute terms which together with our CapEx moderation and active working capital management policies has led to a strong free cash flow generation over the last two years, generating more than €500 million. In 2021, we have generated €248 million of free cash flow, excluding dividends and acquisitions of minorities.
Now that we have covered our shift to free cash flow generation, on slide 16, we want to focus on the strong deleveraging path that we have undergone since 2019. Our net financial debt has come down by €456 million since 2019 from €2.7 billion to €2.3 billion or €1.9 billion excluding IFRS 16. Our leverage ratio has significantly improved. And as of December 2021, our leverage stood at 2.3 times on a reported basis and 2 times excluding IFRS 16. This level is in line with our mid-term expectations that we had at the time of the IPO.
We continue to actively manage our capital structure. And as you know in May 2021, we repurchased our €500 million 2023 bond. This has allowed us to extend our approximately €1 billion syndicated loan facility from 2023 to 2025. This is part of our strategy of returning to a more normalized level of liquidity after a period of uncertainty especially in 2020.
Our current liquidity of €2.3 billion, out of which €1.5 billion in cash, comfortably covers our maturities for the next three years. We think that our current capital structure maturity profile is well-balanced, but we continue to actively monitor the market with the aim of enhancing our maturity profile as well as improving our financial costs.
Now, let me hand over the presentation back to Executive Chairman for the final section.
Okay. Thank you, Alvaro. If you move to the slide 18, I have here presented the – what we already present in the Capital Market Day which took place in June 2021. And we provide that same kind of guidance for 2022. I think at that time we emphasized that we work on our people moving in trying to control our fixed cost and moving on in the direction of stabilizing all the industrial operations with a clear focus in the improvement around Industry 4.0 and, of course, moving along with the ATENEA Plan. But it's also true that, at that time, these guidance were based in a kind of market volumes that we were expecting in 2022 to be at the level of the volumes we have been in 2019 in terms of – based on manufacturing [indiscernible] (00:19:03) the kind of normal scenario around raw materials and inflation.
In fact, if you move to slide 19, I think the reality for 2022 is going to be totally different than the one we expected one year ago. In terms of global manufacturing, what is now expected to happen in the full year 2022 until now is that this production could be at the levels of €84 million when we were considering in the Capital Market Day in June last year. And this quarter seem to be at a level of €89.7 million. It's true that progressively the market is recovering from the crisis of semiconductor. We've already seen. We've already observed a kind of recovery in the months of November and December last year as a result of improving even though there is uncertainties around it.
And of course, by 2023, we feel that it's going to be a recovery. And by 2023, we could be able to come back to the levels that we had already in 2019. And of course, this growth is not going to be the same kind of growth. It's going to be a different material because it's going to be much more content of electrical vehicles including both [indiscernible] (00:20:13) vehicles and [indiscernible] (00:20:14)
If we move to slide 20, also, at that time, the Capital Market Day, we were not able to really manage what was going to be the evolution of the steel prices. The reality is that the spot steel prices during 2021 suffered an extraordinary increase during the whole year. But at that kind of the prices of the steel, which were for the open market, were basically stable because there are annual negotiations. So, right now, what is going to happen is that in 2022 is going to be a very important jump in the steel prices. We, of course, have all the mechanisms in place to do a perfect pass-through in terms of absolute terms, but, of course, it's going to be some kind of mathematical impact in our percentage of margins.
This impact will be different in different regions. Probably, it's going to be more in areas like Europe and probably less because we have already suffered part of this impact in areas such as US or maybe Asia. And of course, we are already suffering and we will suffer a very important inflationary topics. Of course, I'm not right now taking into consideration what would be the impact of the crisis we started to see and to analyze during last week. But, of course, there is already some inflationary pressures in energy, labor, cost and other topics.
So, with all these in mind, in the slide 21, we are talking about the guidance for 2022. And basically, we are doing essentially restating the guidance that we already provided last year. In terms of revenues, we are guiding now, we guided before, and it seems to be the performance. In this case, as far as is going to be, this kind of extraordinary increase of the price of the raw material of the steel prices, we believe that this mid-single digit, we need to add an additional 10% to 15% growth, which is going to be just the mathematic impact of the first two of the increase of the steel prices.
In terms of EBITDA margins, we are guiding from a margin of 12.5% to 13%. By doing that, we are offsetting less volumes, as I mentioned, we are considering €84 million rather than €89 million that we considered last year, and offsetting a very important part of the inflation. So we are giving us some kind of room in order to be able to do it. But in terms of the mathematical impact of this particular of the steel prices, could be a kind of impact in terms of margin of EBITDA of 150 basis points to 200 basis points. In any case, what is important that, in absolute terms, we are preserving what we were guiding last year. So that means that our commitment this year, assuming that the environment is not going to suffer dramatic changes for the next month to come is that we should be able to increase our EBITDA in absolute terms by 13% to 15%, which means an additional EBITDA of €130 million to €150 million comparing with EBITDA 2021.
In terms of CapEx, as we mentioned already last year, our CapEx will be under the limit of 7% of revenues, and the free cash flows will be more than €200 million. In this case, like in previous year, assuming that that will be excluding dividends and the acquisitions.
Moving to the slide 22, I just did not want to mention – not to mention that we are right now, in a very special opportunity in the growth on the development of the electrical vehicles. From one year to another, the forecast from the different consultants are giving us higher and higher figures for [ph] reviews. (00:24:00) In this case, for instance, you can check, but for the year 2028, just in June 2021, IHS were forecasting 28.7 million of units of electrical and plug-in hybrids. Now, the same assumption is considered in 36 million, so that leaves a very, very important jump in just in a few months. And of course, we, in Gestamp, feel very comfortable around what is going on with electrical vehicles because our technological expertise is to provide enough many opportunities just to improve the system part that we have. But we have also a lot of opportunities coming from a new content around the battery systems, the battery boxes, and other parts.
Don't forget that, as Alvaro has explained before, just this year, 30% of our CapEx has been directed to battery boxes. There are going to be new players, special pure EV players which are going to grow, and we can have a very good exposure to them. And of course, this is a new arena around the case and the new players is going to represent an increase in outsourcing for suppliers like us. So we see a lot of opportunities and we don't forget that we need to be very strict in trying to focus in efficiency and profitability and debt. But of course, we have a very important platform, solid platform to address opportunities in the market.
Moving to slide 23, this year has been – 2021 has been also a very active year for us in terms of our strategy and our long-term strategy around ESG. And we have been able to do a lot of different initiatives. Just as a reminder, we have been able to sign a very important PPA agreement with Naturgy, so that we provide that all our plant in Spain will use clean steel starting from this year or 100 years in a row. We have been the first Tier 1 supplier being able to buy in this great [indiscernible] (00:25:55) via the certificates for green steel. We have also joined the [ph] code or (00:26:00) in order to be able to expand the assets to computer science in the schools. We have also signed an agreement with the company POWEN to install solar panels in all – in 22 of our plants in Spain and Portugal in order to improve our Scope 1 and 2 CO2 emissions.
We have of course started the Gestamp ESG Academy, so that means that mandatory all of our employees will have the education of specific ESG as soon as possible. And then we have also the first group in the automotive sector which has been certified by AENOR, as a zero waste certificate.
So just to end up in slide 24, closing remarks, I think clearly we have been able to deliver in 2021 in a very, very challenging year. We have been able to address growth to reduce our debt to generate free cash flow and increase our margin of EBITDA and at the same time, we have preserve our position and with the customers. This focus in profitability and free cash flow is going to keep – we will keep on doing that in 2022.
We are already moving on in the idea of this new culture and inter-formation plan of the group. So ATENEA plan is ongoing and it's going to generate a lot of changes for the next year to come. In 2022, as mentioned, we will continue with their delivery and addressing new opportunities, especially around the growth of the electrical vehicles.
And I think right now with this, I conclude the presentation and of course, we are now open for your questions.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Q&A session starts now. [Operator Instructions] Please be informed that there might be a short silence while questions are being registered. Thank you. The first question comes from Christoph Laskawi from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Good evening. Thank you for taking my questions. And also thank you for elaborating on the steel impact in detail. The first question will be in relation to that as well. Could you comment, if possible, at all at this stage on the phasing of the steel impact? When we look at the revenues, is it more H2 or H1 weighted and then on earnings – I mean, for the full year, at [indiscernible] (00:28:23) there are no impact on the absolute earnings. But is there a time where you have a lag impact in H1, for example, which then will be compensated in H2 or is it more or less covered already?
And then also related to the high enrollment, could you give us an indication on the working capital impact for the year relating to that? Third question, more related to the current crisis. Given your production footprint in Eastern Europe, do you see any disruptions in the production in Eastern Europe, in the supply chain? And a bit of a comment on current callouts or current trading in that regard would be appreciated. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you very much for your questions. I think I would try to address the steel impact and the crisis and probably, Alvaro, you can take one on the working capital. If you go to the – if we can go to steel impact, as you know, we have the agreement with our customers that there is going to be able to pass-through. And every time we do this agreement of pass-through, no matter how much time it takes to find – reach an agreement is proactive starting from January. So we don't see any problem coming from steel impact or any differentiation between H1 and H2. What is true is that we are still considering that probably there could be more problems around supply chain in the first half of the year than in the second one. Still, we need to know. But so far in terms of the impact of the steel, we are not considering any important change between the first half and the second half. And of course, the only messages around what would happen with supply chain and especially semiconductors, and that is, of course, addressing the current crisis that we are talking about. It does not mean a very important disruption.
But if we go to the – what we are – what is our assumption today with this crisis and disruption, first of all, I would like to say that we, in Gestamp, we are running operations in Russia. We don't have operations in Ukraine. We are running four operations. One of them is the largest in Kaluga and three small ones between Tolyatti and Saint Petersburg.
Overall, last year, the sales that are coming up from this plant represented roughly around 1.3% of ourselves, and we have less than 500 people working in our plant today in Russia. And so far, until Friday last year, everything working well. So of course, this is the kind of impact we have. And then in terms of other kind of disruptions that we see, we don't have any kind of specific problems for sales out of our plant in Russia to all the perimeters.
And what we have already seen is some kind of problems starting to appear with some players of the – of some OEMs, which are based in Ukraine that is [indiscernible] (00:31:22) today that some plants in Western Europe are starting to stock but still the visibility around but still the visibility around what is going to be the severity of this is not clear but is not – it does not seem to be very severe. But still I think it's very early to address and I just wanted to tell you what is today our current position in Russia which I think is significant.
And maybe, Alvaro, you can address one about working capital.
Thanks. During 2021, we have successfully implemented measures to improve our working capital, which has resulted in an inflow of €100 million and a lot of focus on the receivable side and also reviewing all of the payment terms with our own suppliers and then trying to keep inventories under control. I think in 2022, with the sharp increase in raw materials, in theory, receivables and payables should more or less be offsetting each other. And what will be more challenging will be on the inventory side. So, you know, there is a high likelihood that the working capital will revert versus what we had in 2022. But we continue to have a lot of focus to try and keep it as much as possible under control.
Thanks a lot.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Akshat Kacker from JPMorgan. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Akshat from JPMorgan. Two from my side, please. First one, if you could talk about the increasing inflationary pressures that you're seeing from energy and labor. I remember at the last quarterly call, you mentioned that this is not a big headwind, as you saw at that point. Is it possible to quantify what are we seeing for 2022 or probably 2023 as well?
And second was a follow up on the current geopolitical situation. Can we talk about any structural impact on the auto industry from the situation in Russia and Ukraine especially when it comes to key metals or materials for the industry like aluminum, palladium or platinum? How do you see those kind of metals supply and prices being impacted? Thank you.
Okay. Thank you for your questions. I think, of course, inflation is here, and it's also something that we have already tackled during the previous year. In general terms, I would say that, for many years, in some specific countries, we are used to this kind of high inflation rates, and we have been always a system in order to be able to pass through part of these problems. I'm talking about countries like Brazil or Argentina or Mexico or even Turkey during 2021. So we have already a system in place, and we are able to preserve our margins.
It's true that 2021, especially in areas like US, and also in some extent in Europe, we have had some impact coming up from inflation, especially, I would say, that labor inflation, especially in areas like US or even in some countries of Eastern Europe have been already a problem. We have been working very, very hard in efficiency in order to be able to offset the increases in wages that we have been able to – that we have suffered. And in fact, as you have seen in our figures, we have been able to do it quite okay.
For this year, we are not – we don't see any kind of additional pressure, a very similar pressure that we had already in previous year in US. But it's true that now there is some risk also associated in Europe with the wages. Still, it does – it's not happening, but there is still a pressure in place. And of course we have this pressure coming out from energy, from freight, and others that we have been able already to tackle in some extent at the end of last year. And we are having right now all the kind of efficiency in place in order to be able to offset this part of the inflation. So that is going to help us in order to be able to preserve our margins and to be able to tackle the inflation, and that's why it's not going to allow us to be able to increase our margins.
And concerning your second question, it's still very early to say. We as Gestamp, we are [indiscernible] (00:35:29) directly impacted by any kind of structural changes. As I mentioned already, our sales in Russia are limited, so that will depend the kind of conflict that we'll have, whether it's going to be something rather quick or not and how many countries are going to be implied. So far, it's true what we mentioned that Russia and Ukraine to some extent are very important suppliers in terms of aluminum and steel and palladium and all this. And at the end of the day, it could be an impact in terms of prices and some of the tightness in terms of deliveries.
But I think it's a little bit early to say what is going to be the impact there. So far, I think right now we are trying to do is taking care of our people in Russia and also taking care of some Ukrainian people that even though we don't have plants in Ukraine, we do have plants in close to Ukraine in areas like Poland, in the Czech Republic or Slovakia. And we are right now offering them the possibility to have a legal advice and also the possibility to hire some Ukrainian people now that they are suffering in such difficult conditions.
Understood. Thank you so much.
Thank you. The next question comes from Francisco Ruiz from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.
Buenas tardes. I have two questions. The first one is regarding how comfortable you are with IHS estimates for 2022? I mean, I remember that, I think it was in Q3, you, Paco, commented that while IHS was around 9% call your [indiscernible] (00:37:11) something different, something better. Do you have a still the same feeling or mainly both things have been aligned?
And the second question was still on the steel impact. I mean, how certain is this 150 to 200 basis points impact? I mean, if there is a reversion of steel right now, could we see a better movement or this is an annual thing that is taken every January? Thank you.
Thank you, Paco, for your questions. I think confirming the estimate for 2022 of HIS, as I mentioned before, today, they are still guiding for 84 million vehicles. And it's true that we have always had a different kind of thinking around this forecast. That one is that this forecast, of course, is independent of what could be the impact of this last crisis – geopolitical crisis around Ukraine and Russia. I think so far it's early to address. But before [indiscernible] (00:38:20) again we're not taking that into consideration. I think, of course, there are different threads that the [indiscernible] (00:38:27) have a mixed feeling. First of all, we believe that 84 million is still a figure which is very low compared with the 89 million in 2019 and with the 95 million that we have in 2017.
Second thing, it's true that due to the problems of the COVID in 2020 and the problems of semiconductors in 2021 is we are kind of a non-satisfied demand. And we have seen that in many different parameters. So there could be a possibility that as far as the semiconductor problem will be solved, this demand will still be there. But, of course, we are talking about economy. We are going about, talking about sentiment. Right now, we don't know what is going to be the feeling of the people in the future whenever they are going to buy or not a new car. We believe that this is not really a big topic. This kind of coming back of this demand is going to happen, and we would probably see good volume for the future. And you just have to try to understand what are the commitments of different countries and different carmakers of what is going to be the amount of electrical vehicles that should be in the road for 2030 and 2035. So, something really needs to happen, but many things need to work in the same direction. So, maybe I'm not giving you a very clear indication, but today we have a kind of mixed feelings.
And concerning the impact of steel, as mentioned, we know, for instance, that our estimation for Europe is there. [indiscernible] (00:40:01) The agreement with steel mills are done. Basically, most of our customers have also concluded their annual negotiations. There is still some of them missing, that's why there is always a margin. And we really believe that this is going to happen especially in Europe. As mentioned, there are other areas which are a little bit more not spot but a little bit more short-term basis, no? I think, for instance, in the case of Mercosur, the movement happened a little bit earlier. Also, in Asia and also in US [indiscernible] (00:40:32) there is a specific resource system which is not – the prices of the steel are not moving themselves through the different agreement.
Overall, we believe that the assumption that is included in this guidance is the correct one, and we believe that there is going to be this kind of extraordinary impact of the pass-through of the increase of the steel prices in 2022 between 150 to 200 basis points.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. The next question comes from Victoria Greer from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Good evening. A couple of questions, please. I wanted to ask you a bit more about the battery box businesses as you're spending CapEx there. Yeah, I guess you're feeling quite good probably about your order intake. Can you talk a bit about your order intake for battery boxes? Are you seeing any new business from your new start-up OEMs that are focused only on BEVs? And can you talk a bit about when we can expect the CapEx you're spending now to come into series production? And then, my second question, just some housekeeping modelling items, please, for 2022. Could you give us your expectations for D&A interest cost and tax rate for 2022? Thanks.
Okay. So, thanks, Victoria. And concerning battery box here, we have mentioned in the presentation that roughly around 30% of the CapEx of 2021 has been directed to the battery boxes and all around the battery boxes because sometimes, it's complete battery boxes and in some cases we are talking just about the different parts of these battery boxes. The order intake has been quite solid. Part of this investment is related to the order intake of the previous year where we already have some kind of very important nominations you remember around some Volkswagen platforms and also some Daimler platforms. For this year, we have taken very important nominations for pure EV players both in US and also in China. And right now, we see the kind of progress and the kind of technology that we are offering to them is very attractive. So, I would prefer not to give you details but yes, the message is that we are taking very important business coming out from pure EV players.
And in terms of sales, we already start to see sales, relevant sales in 2022. But we are assuming that the peak in terms of sales of these orders that we have been already nominated and that we have already invested or we are in the moment to invest is going to happen around 2024. Of course, what we are planning is that within 2022 and 2023, we will keep on taking new nominations on battery boxes because our position is quite solid. And maybe Alvaro, you can help me with the second one.
Yeah. Sure. On the D&A, I guess it's difficult to provide guidance on revenue figure. I think we're going to see an increase in absolute terms in D&A levels as a result all of that CapEx that has been coming in place. Then, on the interest line cost, I think we'll try to be at least in the same place as this year and, if possible, a little bit better. Then, on taxes, I would assume the same tax rate as what we've had in 2021. And then, the minority outflows, I think if you look at it from a percentage of GDP, maybe that will also slowly come down to the extent that we are buying back minorities.
Great. Thank you very much.
Thank you. The next question comes from Álvaro Lenze from Alantra Equities. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. The first one would be on the guidance, EBITDA guidance. In absolute terms, you're guiding for 13% to 15% growth. These would compare to IHS estimates of 9% growth in auto production plus your mid-single-digit revenue growth outperformance and maybe some additional margin increase. So, I wanted to understand this, what's the source of the upside for margin improvement excluding the impact of the pass-through of raw material prices would come from. Are you considering potential increase in prices to offset the energy and personnel and logistics costs or is this from additional savings from the ATENEA Plan? Or what's driving this flattish to potentially increasing margin, again, excluding the raw material impact?
The second question would be on the CapEx which seems to be ramping up to circa 7% of sales from 6.5% this year, whether this is due to any specific projects or due to just you having been overly tightening the CapEx budgets and now returning to a more normal level. And lastly, the margin in Turkey has surprised me positively. I know you mentioned good performance of the JV in Turkey, so I don't know if you could provide some more detail there. Thank you.
Okay. Thanks for your questions, and I will try to give you more like – to provide more data around your three questions. In related to the guidance, it's true that we have tried to stay in what should be, let's say, our normal improvement in terms of margins for the year 2022. And at the end of the day, we thought it was convenient to give you and to provide also an additional guidance in absolute terms. So, what we are right now telling you is that even if everything is going to happen, we should be able to generate an EBITDA which is 13% or 15% higher in absolute terms than the one that we generated in 2021. So, that basically will mean that this market that we are talking about is that we are assuming in line with HIS that the global production is going to be something around 9%, and always are guiding for a kind of mid-single-digit outperformance out of that.
And what we are going to be able to do is basically to try to be able to offset the lower volumes that we are going to have in 2022 compared with the volumes that we were expecting at the Capital Markets Day last year, and also that we are going to be able to offset the important pressure coming out from inflation. So, we are lucky to be able to do that. We should be able to reach this 13%, but we want to have a little bit of space in order to be able to understand and to be able to address if everything of the inflation that we are expecting, we should be able to accept with the kind of improvements we are doing with the ATENEA, with Industry 4.0 and everything. Today, clearly, our target is to really go for that, but the challenge is much higher than the one we saw last year because, again, inflation and volumes are much more challenging than we expected in the Capital Markets Day last year.
Regarding CapEx, it's true that we are ramping up a little bit. Don't forget that this CapEx in terms of CapEx to sales is lower than the one we had in the period between 2017 and 2019. In any case, it's related to a specific project. Anytime we talk about CapEx, we have let's say a kind of recurring CapEx and a growth CapEx. So, part of this CapEx or a very important part of this CapEx is to projects that are already awarded or projects we are intending to be awarded within this year, so that is the idea. It's not any kind of reverse because as I think we have explained in the last three meetings, is that due to the kind of CapEx growth that we did in the period before and due to the low volume that we still see in the market, we have some kind of capacity available in order to be able to grow without doing CapEx in this kind of traditional technologies we have already in Spain. We have presence and we are basically investing in some welding facilities. And basically, what we are trying to do is have the growth CapEx to be directed to this kind of new opportunities, and EV and battery boxes very important part of it. So, it's not a reverse. Now, we have a very good position and we are taking advantage to be able to capture a very important part of the market which is going to grow and is going to be very profitable.
And regarding Turkey, there is nothing much to say. I think we have a very good plant running in Turkey. We are doing a very important outperformance. For instance, I would say that we have seen a very extraordinary performance from our operations in Turkey. They have been able, in a difficult scenario, to really be able to achieve from customers and to be able to have a kind of improvement of their prices to be able to compensate inflation and all the programs that we have seen in Turkey, and we have been able to generate a very solid amount of millions of EBITDA in euros, not in Turkish lira. So, I think this is one case. And of course, even though volumes in our Polish plant has been a little bit lower in some extent, we have been able to perform very well and also in Slovakia and Czech Republic. We have also performed quite well in our Hungarian plant. For real, I feel very much satisfied with what has been the performance of our plants in Eastern Europe.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached the end of our Q&A session. Dear speakers, back to you.
Thank you very much for joining our full year 2021 results presentation, and feel free to reach out to the IR team if you have any additional questions.
Okay. Thank you very much to everybody.