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Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. We are going to announce the Q3 results for Grupa Kety S.A. On behalf of the company, we have the whole management board of Grupa Kety S.A.; and the President of Management Board; Mr. Lechowicz, who heads the Flexible Packaging, Rafal Lechowicz. And we are going to start today's meeting as usual with the presentation part, and after that, you will be able to ask questions and the gentlemen will seek to answer them.
So Mr. Dariusz Mañko, President of the Management Board, will start.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.
The third quarter of 2022 is over. A good quarter for the company. PLN 253 million EBITDA, PLN 171 million net profit which is an excellent result, an excellent quarter for the company. Another excellent quarter, actually, with a safe level of debt. We paid another tranche of the dividend, PLN 168 million, so the debt is at a decent level. Well, in a nutshell, this day and age and in this context, which you know perfectly well, the company is in excellent shape and is doing very well indeed. However, we must not ignore the fact that the market has changed. It has changed dramatically since the first half of the year, from a very high level of orders. We enter the second half of the year, H2, and obviously, the number of these orders on the horizon is smaller. So at this point, how do we approach it? How do we go about it? Well, we approach this as a natural response of the market after what happened earlier, namely, the unnatural demand which, in our opinion, was unjustified. And well, that was a -- delays, wait for our customers where deliveries were very long, and we have to work at full capacity. So we did realize and everybody had to be prepared for this, that the correction would eventually come. Are we actually maintaining this well? Not really, not really. We're not -- we're not doing that. So there comes the moment in life when we've to face the correction, we have to face this. And well, the company in these difficult conditions will definitely keep generating excellent results and excellent profits, so we're not worried about this. It's always the case that when a correction comes, some good signals appear for the company. So we're already recording this. So the main raw material the group's activities based on, namely aluminum, we are observing a decrease there. And the appreciation of the euro against zlotys, so exports over 50% and the whole group exports actually are favorable to us. Obviously, there are some negative aspects related to utilities, gas, electricity, prices of energy. This is obviously a disadvantage. But as I have mentioned, we've been working for quite a long time in this business and we've been coping also with some difficult challenges of the overall economic cycle.
And for us, this is economic situation, this cycle is no surprise. It comes as no surprise. We have been reasonable. We are being prudent, and so we might expect a slightly weaker Q4. But I believe that next year in 2023, we will see a certain recovery and then it will come back to normal. Well, maybe not back to the crazy demand from Q1 or Q2, so H1, in other words, but to -- but to reasonable levels, with which we will be able to work calmly.
So other important things, we are working in the working capital area. And here, there are some certain shifts, certain adjustments in the investment field. As I have told you, some simple action. But these key development projects have been continued in any case, and I believe that we will have to prepare ourselves to work with a smaller volume of orders. And we are expecting this year 2023 to be completed in accordance the forecast, with the outlooks we presented to you earlier.
Some interesting facts also, I wanted to give you some relevant facts. For the first time, we actually entered the integrated report competition. And The Best Annual Report, this is the actual name, and -- of the competition. And our team, our extensive team. [ Michal ] you see him here, but also other people, I would like to congratulate them and I'd like to thank them for doing an excellent job. It's not -- it's actually not a huge thing, as it sometimes happens. And our group, we do this on an in-house basis. There's no huge group of people, but there is a whole lot of enthusiasm. So well, the whole management board bows before this team, because they have done an amazing job really jumping -- onboard the wagon, so to speak, as newcomers.
So at this point, I would like to give the floor to Piotr in the Extruded Products segment. And thank you, and I'm obviously available should you have any questions.
Hello. Piotr Wysocki, Extruded Products segment.
A couple of words about the macro situation. As you see in the chart, the quotations of aluminum prices in 2022 from the peak caused by the war and the level of -- up to $4,000, really. That was the peak. Now, we have $2,200, so it's going down. Although, well, the market is quoted in dollar and the U.S. dollar is -- currently, it has a high price, but -- this is the reason for this. But the pellet premium, which is early this year, late last year levels unseen in history. $1,600 per tonne. But now, in a couple of months, this has gone down to $1,020. These are the most recent quotations we can see in terms of the pellet premium. Obviously, high prices of electricity, of gas, and this affects us and this has been affecting the whole of Europe. The European market is remaining on the strong demand pressure, and this is becoming difficult, the market is becoming difficult. And however, we are winners in this situation. Two important things that happened this week, sanctions imposed on Russia aluminum. This is being discussed, or sanctions to be imposed on whole Russian production, on the leading Russian company, Rusal, Oleg Deripaska, the owner, directly. I will only say one thing. For us, this is a totally neutral thing. And a couple of years ago, Rusal accounted for 50% of our purchases. We would buy -- we would cover 50% of our needs, but buying from Rusal, this went down to about 12%. This year, we coped without buying from them. So after the war broke out, we basically abandoned all cooperation with Russian companies, and we have managed to go through this year without purchasing even one tonne delivered by Rusal. So the sanctions imposed in Russia are, for us, a totally neutral aspect.
What are the important things that have been going on in Europe? Well, a quantum leap in imports from Turkey. Well, this Russian aluminum, which has not ended up in European markets, has been redirected to Russia at very, very low prices. If it can be sold and sold. Any quantity they can sell, they sell it and this cheaper Turkish aluminum is processed in -- this cheap Russian aluminum is actually processed into profiles, which end up in Europe, and work is underway. And here on the Polish side, we work with the Polish Aluminium Association. The European Aluminium Association is also working to stop this inflow of Turkish aluminum profiles to Europe by introducing, for instance, constant duties on aluminum profiles from Turkey as restrictions.
Lower volumes. Lower volumes mean that we are working on the level of high stocking, high inventory in the first half of the end. So the first quarter can be divided into excellent months. July and August, despite the summer holiday season, excellent sales figures, and a slightly weaker September. Generally, the whole quarter, we're happy. This was an excellent quarter. An increase in revenues, thanks, for instance, to an effective selling policy, higher prices and an expansion of the selling network, if we're talking about exports. And if we look at the structure broken down by individual sectors, we have decreases in interior decoration and construction. However, there has been a nice recovery in transport and automotive.
What is interesting in September? For the first time, our export sales were higher than domestic sales. Obviously, Germany, there is talk about the tough market. This is the largest market in Europe. Our policy from several years ago has yielded fruit very nicely. We developed our sales services there, and we see the effect here in Poland here, it's going down and the whole of export is actually larger than domestic sales.
You also see wholesale stockholders and then, with our dedicated profiles, these are hard alloys. And this results from the global situation in the market. And after the war broke out, there was a significant stop in deliveries of hard alloys on the Russian market. And this market is behaving totally differently compared to the others. Today, hard alloys, there's a boom really. And this is one thing, it's the stopping of deliveries. Second thing, the whole arms -- armaments industry, which has a huge demand for hard alloys. So hard alloys are doing really nicely and we are selling a lot, and we could be selling even more. I've already talked about markets, and how that's continued, and we'll now use.
What does it mean that it's lower? Well, we're not working Saturdays and Sundays. We used to work in a full team system, but we have come back, I believe, to a healthy level. It's hard to actually maintain work on Saturdays and Sundays due to the employee market. For instance, people do not necessarily want to work every Saturday, every Sunday. There are obviously, holidays. This is all in line with the labor code. But on these Saturdays and Sundays is when you don't work, but production capacities are used at the level of 74%, and I believe that this is an excellent use we are making of our production capacities. And obviously, we also have the establishment in Ukraine, which is working to a very limited extent, we have to say this. It is working, there is production there, but to a very limited extent.
Now as far as the investment plan is concerned and its implementation, the key investments. There is the press, 2,000, 4,000 presses. Obviously, this is all in line with the schedule. Slight shifts which are allowing us to obtain better pricing, better savings on this project, and I guess Rafal will tell you more about it. And the production tools, well, this is following the volume. The level always reflects the volume we are having. So these tonnes, we are extruding, and other projects we are running in line with the budget assumptions.
Some interesting facts I wanted to give you of [indiscernible] project. And now, we are past the preparation phase. The pre-series production is launching in November. And I guess this is 50 cars, 50 sets we need to produce. And the demand, we know this, and we have feedback from sellers, from the make. And there's huge interest actually, and we are ready for series, production in series. Production in series is in line with all the projections, all the plan that actually implemented for this make. It should launch late June, early July, so the volumes are much higher. So the 50 cars will be produced in November.
We seek to -- as far as the environment is concerned, as far as sustainable development is concerned, we have obtained the environmental declaration for aluminum profiles made with the billet produced at our foundry. And I would like to boast a bit. Our carbon footprint for our profile is 3.3 kilograms of CO2 per kilogram of profile compared to the European average, which is 9. So we are the leaders in Europe in terms of carbon footprint for profiles.
Some important things that have happened, that happened in last quarter. The trade show in Düsseldorf in September, the first time after the COVID hiatus, and the whole aluminum industry met for the first time after a couple of years. And this was a very interesting meeting place, talks about the directions for growth. Not even the short-term ones, but the longer-term perspective, the long-term forecast for aluminum. And have to confirm that there is one trend that aluminum is a raw material whose consumption will increase virtually in all sectors of industry.
That's it, I guess. So thank you.
Hello. Good morning, and welcome, everyone. Tomasz Grela, about results of the Aluminum Systems Segment.
So first quarter is for sales has been about PLN 600 million. It's 8% more than the comparable quarter of the previous year. And unfortunately, at the level -- at the volume level, it was sales lower by 16%. So this has impacted the results of EBITDA at the level of PLN 80 million, PLN 90 million compared to PLN 107 million last year. So as a moment ago, I've said this was impacted by only matters of lower sales levels in terms of volumes.
And as for our sales structure, it's at the similar level as until now. So this product structure and direction structure, I would say, very similar with slight increase of exports sales this year, which is a good forecast for the future. Because considering the comparable euro and dollar exchange rate, it seems that it's a very positive trend. As for the market environment, as for national sales, we see continuous stable sales at the level of the Object Facility segment. So as I've clarified many times, we work in the scope of 3 segments, the Facility segment, Object segment, also Sales segment in the basic market. So what is tested for house and apartments, and also sales for network customers, chain customers. So the companies which from national and foreign sales produce the ready product, the finished product. As I was saying, sales in this segment, Facility, Object segment, seems to be -- seems to have a very good high level. We don't see here -- in the future, we don't foresee any problems here. We continue to obtain interesting projects in this scope.
You can see here in the photos presentation, very impressive facilities constructed with our material. And as for the basic customer markets, what goes to the market of windows and doors for house and apartments, here, of course, as the whole industry -- the construction sector, we keep noticing. We see a strong, I would say, slowing down of sales and also the forecast for next month. This is caused, of course, by the situation in the market. Higher credit costs, loan costs and higher prices of energy and less possibility to obtain loans. All this impact the construction markets. We are here in a similar situation as the whole market is, so here, we also keep observing significant lowering of sales.
As for the direction of network sales, here, the customers and from a high extent, our customers who export their products, and after 1, 2 months of such stagnation which we were observing, it seems that now, everything has gone back to the right track and kind of came back to the right track. And the sale of our product to export market is also starting to develop very dynamically. And it's probably the effect of money from the National Recovery Plan, which was very quickly distributed into matters of changes connected with us adapting to lower energy consumption. It's mainly countries such as Italy, the countries, the Benelux and France. There, this program started operating very quickly, and this is visible in their sales results. As for the sale of -- in the foreign markets, which also we present. Here we present several of the facilities selected from the recent time. Export sales, as I was saying, is developing quite better, a little better than the national market. Very positive signals from the whole market, the Balkan market. So the market which until now, we have not been present in. It seems it's a market of the future from our point of view, and very good response from the markets of the Middle East, very good meetings. We had various trade shows, trade fairs, projects that are planned together. And also, we've got an order from the New Zealand. It seems that the distance from that location is not favorable for us. Nevertheless, as we were showing you, have been showing you many times, our products reach basically every continent.
So what we also observed. It's a trend, unfortunately. It's not the only situation of foreign sales, but generally, as for matters of lowering credit limits for our clients. Unfortunately, we have to face that. It's not the first time we are facing such a situation in the recent -- over 10 years, we've had such periods happening many times. So we will have to simply make our liability policy more restrictive, but it should not impact the sales effect. Our next element is the price pressure from the side of the competition. As Piotr mentioned, for sure, we are noticing a significant drop of aluminum prices in the market. In our case, unfortunately, this is accompanied by high dollar exchange rates, so the possibilities for maneuver are smaller than those imposed by the Western competition. This is the competition where this is the situation we are facing. Also, additionally, as Piotr mentioned, once again, I wanted to underline that we, as opposed to our foreign competitors, Western competitors, and as the war around it, we have stopped, ceased any operation in the Eastern Belarusian market. From that moment, we have not bought any material at all from Russia, and we do not buy any profile sections based on these raw materials from Russia. Whether they are transported through Turkey or any other country. If they're from Russia, we don't buy them. It's our strategy. And perhaps due to financial matters also, in this context, perhaps our competition now may lower these prices in the market, whereas that's our decision. And I think the quality of our product, the quality of our service is really great, so I think we won't be forced to perform any price correction here downwards.
Also, information about the first sales of our products, fireproof products. As you know, as part of the investment held this year, we have started the production of fireproof glass. It's a process that we've started in the beginning of the year, and constructing the plant and equipment from -- with the most modern line for production of fireproof glass. And in the recent months, we have numerous tests we have to perform in order to certify that glass. We've separately certified the plans, separately certified the products based on our glass, and also, finally certify our customers. Unfortunately, that's the 4-tier path, and it elongates the introduction of a product to trade. But at this moment now, we are practically at the end of all these formalities. And as we were mentioning, October is the month in which from our plant, the first glass, fireproof glass produced in our plant will leave our plant is in October. We're really counting on it that next year, the sales will significantly contribute to the sales of Aluprof Group in this scope.
As for other investments, for the most important ones, we have started the assembly of the vertical paint shop number 3 in the Bielsko plant. I think that in the coming months, it will be possible to finish assembly of this production line to pass the test, and that we will be able to -- it will be possible to be operated at 100%, which will allow us to redirect on the strong foreign external paint shops to our own paint shop, which is a very significant in the current difficult times. And the last investment connected with the extension of our plant in Zlotów. Please be reminded that it's an investment based on constructing a new production hall, equipping it with vertical paint shop with vendors, which -- in order to create a very similar service center in terms of warehouse and logistics. Similar to that we have in Bielsko. We have finalized our negotiations, so we are just -- we're just -- soon, we are going to make the decision about select the final contractor. And I believe that at the beginning of next year is the period when we will be able to start construction and make some decision about perhaps shifting -- delaying this connected with financial matters forces as to that, but we shall keep watching that.
And as for some curiosities, perhaps some of you have already heard, ladies and gentlemen, that in September, we had our -- the summing up of the Aluprof contest. We have concluded that contest Facility of the Year. I believe this is the most important event not only in the aluminum industry, but also in the construction and architectural industry in the country. 500 guests, most important, most significant prominent architects from the country, and most important investors. It seems to us that this event once again has reinforced the position of Aluprof as the leader in this sector and the industry, and it shows that the facilities constructed in our -- with our systems are the most important ones constructed in the country. And the final piece of news I want to share with you is the next showroom we have opened in Prague. Prague and -- in the map of our European sales, Prague, as the capital of Czech Republic, is a natural choice for us. So the Czech market and the British market are two most dynamically developing markets. So therefore, we start to -- we decided to, first of all, start an open-ended treatment in Czech Republic showrooms where we will be able to professionally run trainings and also show our customers our -- the advantage of our products over our competition.
That's all for me. Thank you very much. I'm open to your questions.
Good morning. Rafal Lechowicz, Flexible Packaging Segment.
Ladies and gentlemen, in the first quarter, we were dealing with spectacular increase by -- several dozen percent increase of the value of sales and also the profit generated by the segment. The situation makes us happy. The more that these results were obtained with very -- in an unfavorable market surrounding. In the third quarter, there was a rapid drop of demand for polypropylene films in Europe. And this situation, and they are also equaling the decreases of the levels of the raw materials used for the production of this film.
The scale of these drops, you can see on the right side of the slide, the chart, granulate PP on the right side. This interaction, in connection with [indiscernible] with a full portfolio of orders after the second quarter allowed us to limit to a minimum impact of the market drop on our achieved results.
Here, I would like to strongly underline that several dozen drop of prices of polypropylene film in comparison to the -- those achieved in the first semi year 2022, the first half of this year, was showing an impact in the coming quarters -- will impact the value of the sales and also the profit most achieved as part of our segment. Similarly, dynamic as part of the BOPP segment. Similar drops you can observe on the chart on the left side of the slide, referring to the prices of polyethylene prices. On the basis of that, in the second segment, segment of Packaging, the majority of multi-layered laminates are produced. In this case, however, the impact on the price is not that strong because polyethylenes, most frequently, are only one of the many layers in the produced packages.
Additionally, what is also stabilizing in this business area, the fact also stabilizes prices here is the fact that packages have a much higher added value than BOPP films. The remaining subtract in the production process, such as aluminum foils, paper and VOH, are constantly and hardly accessible, and therefore, the market prices are relatively high.
Can I have the next slide? As I was saying in the beginning, these unfavorable circumstances, external circumstances, have not prevented us from achieving record best results of the third quarter. In this period, our sales has increased by 1/3 compared to Q3 2021. And once again, in this year, it has achieved a level of growth to PLN 400 million. What is even faster, over 60% more, there was an even faster increase of operational profit, over 60%. And we have achieved a record, as for the first quarter, PLN 80 million versus PLN 49 million in Q3 last year. EBITDA is increasing by over 50% to nearly PLN 90 million, whereas the net profit by over 60% with the record of PLN 63 million. Here, I would like to kindly remind you that from the beginning of the year, we have generated already net profit at the level of PLN 212 million, which was the result of -- which was a result -- which is more -- over 25% better than after the first 9 months of the years 2020, '21. So ladies and gentlemen, since the profits were increasing much faster than the value of the sales, this means of course, if we have been operating higher margins, that was indeed the case. This parameter at the EBITDA level achieved 22.4%, and it was by 3.1% higher than the same period of the previous year.
Still, there is an increase of the export. It is now nearly 60% of the total turnover in the segment. Please be reminded that the market that are most important for us are the German, the Netherlands and the Swiss and Italian markets. However, the biggest increases we achieved in the Ukrainian market where the sale was over 3x higher than in Q3 2021.
Can I have the next slide? Right. We continue to operate with a very high level of utilization of the production capacities. We have 89% ratio, and was 3 percentage points higher compared to the same period of last year. As far as the implementation of the investment plan is concerned, it's going in accordance with the schedule. And I would just like to remind you that the expenditures concern mainly investments maintaining or sustaining the production potential. So this is all, as far as I'm concerned, is there any questions, I'm obviously available during the conference as we go on. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. I will now attempt to sum up in several slides the consolidated financial results. And what has already been mentioned here by the previous speakers, this was a quarter in which we observed many changes, the turbulence and the trends which for several years, have been very favorable to us. And the market has been demanding. I'm talking about the market environment, about the demand mainly in the construction area. So the Extruded Products segment, and we also recorded an excellent situation, an excellent increased situation, in the Flexible Packaging market, because this is a resistant, this is resilient to these market turbulences. I'm talking about the sectors concerned. And the turbulence in this market, as far as the quotations are concerned, the quotations of basic raw materials, they are decreasing. The Polish zloty is becoming depreciated, so in the Polish zloty, aluminum in combination with the pellet premium demonstrated about 12% in increase trend. So nevertheless, we have seen some increases in sales revenues despite the certain decreases in the aluminum processing segment. PLN 1.5 billion in the quarter, a very high result. EBITDA, which we have a couple of million zlotys above the excellent result of last year. However, we see a very clear reflection in terms of the composition of the breakdown of the profit between the individual segments, around PLN 45 million lower results of the Extruded Products out of the Flexible Packaging Segment. So, and that's that. And so we recorded an operating activities result in the quarter. And also the macro environment, higher interest rates are influencing this. Our debt increased compared to the previous year by PLN 140 million, so this is about a 12%. However, the majority of the increases in financial expenditures, this is related to interest, and this is the cost of interest. As we all know, nearly 4 times increase. And PLN 200 million of gross profit, and so a lower effective tax rate, around 13% this quarter. And as we signaled early this year, investments, selected investments in the Aluminum Systems Segment and in the Extruded Products segment will be able to benefit from the -- from the tax facilitation. So deferred tax assets, we saw an effect to that and led a reduction of the tax burden in that quarter. PLN 170 million in net profit and nearly PLN 600 million in net profit for 9 months, so that's comparable to last year's result for the whole of 2021, actually. Next slide shows the liquidity situation. Cash flow is very important in the market period we are dealing with now. And the first time actually, we saw a quarter in which the operational cash flows were correlated directly with EBITDA. PLN 280 million of cash flows and operating activities, including PLN 41 million related to an increase in the demand for working capital. I would like to remind you that in H1, the increase in working capital was PLN 400 million. So this is the first quarter of that kind. September was the first month in which we saw a reverse trend in terms of the balance of net working capital investments, as we already mentioned, and with the previous quarter.
Nearly PLN 100 million expenditures in this quarter, this reflects the schedule of CapEx implementation envisaged for this year. And as a result, debt in the quarter increased by PLN 85 million. Excellent operational EBITDA made it possible to pay out the first tranche of dividend, PLN 168 million, and in part to finance investments. And the remaining part being financed with third-party debt.
And now, our situation in the ground in terms of debt from the point of view of 9 months. We see that debt is increasing by about 12% year-on-year. Our EBITDA is also increasing significantly. If we look at the 12-month period YTD, so net debt-to-net EBITDA are below 1%, so this is a very safe level. And we need draw attention to the fact that -- we have to have it in the back of our mind that on the 11th of October, we paid out the second installment of dividends, so then [indiscernible] will be also influencing the debt level in Q4. So no changes in terms of the term or currency structure of our debt.
As I mentioned during the previous conference, we started renewing our borrowings. This happened to some extent in Q3, PLN 220 million. I would just like to remind you, we informed you about the increasing of the credit balance by PLN 220 million with PKO BP. And this quarter, we informed you about the renewal of [indiscernible] with Pekao S.A. and increasing the limit thereof, and in turn also investment financing for the Extruded segment -- Extruded Products segment. Work is going on in line with the schedule, and we hope the distribution will be equally stable as we reach the end of this year.
That evolution in the period of 9 months, as we already mentioned, for the period of 9 months, operational cash flows were PLN 350 million, and this already takes into account the PLN 450 million spent on increased working -- net working capital needed in response to the scale of our activities in relation to quotations of our products, price quotations of products. PLN 242 million spent on investments YTD, and in Q4, this amount will probably be higher. And the remaining figures, interest. The first installment of dividend, I already mentioned. And finally, just above PLN 1 billion in debt. But as I said, this is -- these ratios are safe. And finally, the final part, a brief comment on the expectation on the outlooks as regards Q4. Well, the situation, as we know, is highly volatile. However, we are expecting on a temporary basis that the demand restrictions will be maintained, we observed it especially at the end of the last quarter. So mainly reduction in the order volume, which as was mentioned by the previous speakers. Nevertheless, in this tough situation, we will see increasingly often pressure margin because this will be a fight for volumes. And we're expecting stable quotations of raw material prices, and I will just explain this. It's not to predict whether they will be rising or folding in this situation because the decreases, well, the lack of demand would point to decreases, but certain stabilities is also seen. Custom duties, Russian aluminum, so these drivers of turbulence and these prices might be changing. And we're assuming a rather stable level, which means that in the operational area, we need to focus in the situation on ensuring the highest possible operational performance.
So as the previous speakers have mentioned already in Q3, we made some decisions to adapt some measures to optimize our activity to make sure that our results are as optimal as possible in the situation, which is hard for us. And we are confirming the implementation of key investment projects. We want to continue with that, but we would just like to inform you that we -- in Q3, we performed the review and some streamlining of our schedule for the project. And -- but then in early August, we talked about the expected CapEx for the year would be around PLN 450 million, probably. It seems to us that up to PLN 100 million, it might still be limited up to PLN 100 million. So CapEx for this year will be probably above PLN 350 million.
Where does the PLN 100 million figure come from? Well, this is mainly Extruded Products segment and the Aluminum Systems Segment. So a slightly more Extruded Product segment. Two reasons, adaptation of the investment expenditures to the scale of the business because that's what was mentioned. Tools and equipment, we use directly into production processes, so the kind of turnover and recovery will be slightly shifted in time. And secondly, the savings. We managed to achieve and see the progress of the implementation of the main investment, the production shop and the 2 presses. I guess we will maintain the scales of PLN 40 million to PLN 50 million.
And another part is the Aluminum Systems Segment. And what Tomasz mentioned, we are currently approaching the finish line in terms of negotiation of the contract for within the contracts as well due to the fact that it has been implemented in such a difficult environment. I'm talking about Q3, basically finalization of this. the closing has been shifted. And so these millions of zlotys will be shifted from this year to the next. And as we said, however, this corresponds to market trends. It won't reduce our potential to slightly shift CapEx, so this is not risky for us.
As far as financing is concerned, I've already mentioned with the level of debt we have, we are basically approaching the end of the efforts to organize an investment facility. Long term -- this is long-term facility that we've already paid the second installments dividend. And we continue to confirm that in the case of the forecast we communicated in mid-2022, it continues to be realistic. Looking at the assumptions underlying this, judging by the situation, we are on the safe side. And looking at the financial ratios, it seems that by the end of the year, we will have reached a net debt-to-EBITDA 1.3, 1.25. Thank you.
Thank you for the presentation. Now, we shall pass to the questions, and I have seen a couple already. Unfortunately, they are not -- well, in the FIFO or LIFO system. So the order is slightly random, but I hope that we'll be able to read all of them and answer all of them.
So the first question to Mr. Wysocki. Where does the plastics team, in terms of the adjustment on the segment results, come from? So this is the consolidated profits higher than the total for the segment.
Yes, indeed. It's -- thank you for this question. As you know, between the Extruded Products segment and the Aluminum Systems Segment, around 20% of the Extruded Products segment ends up in the Aluminum Systems Segment. So in accordance with the consolidation rules, part of the sales performed in the quarter, they continue to remain unsold. So the Extruded Products segment showed profit on the sales performed, but a part of it is still in the warehouse of the Aluminum Systems Segment. So this is simply the stock turnover, and basically, these transactions are gradually eliminated for the purpose of consolidation, and the unrealized profit on inventory is also gradually eliminated. So early June, this profit we'd eliminate was [ x ]. And at the end of September, we had to basically PLN 12 million or so, this profit was about PLN 12 million smaller. You're talking about the stocks in SSA. And so this adjustment was more so we eliminate less profit. This is simply [indiscernible], at the end of Q3, was smaller.
Another question is about the investment program.
So the slowdown, will it have any effect on the investment program of the Aluminum Systems Segment and Extruded Products segment? And what should we expect in terms of investments in '23 in these segments?
Well, perhaps I'll start.
As far as 2023 is concerned, ladies and gentlemen, we remember in the strategy, the amount was around PLN 200 million or PLN 300-odd million envisaged for the year. We communicated that back then. But we obviously started the budgeting process, and several months from now, we hope to be able to come to you with specific events. But I've already explained this, these are shifts which are essentially -- it's a different investment phasing, basically. It's not about limiting its scope or its extent, and so it won't really affect our operations to a large extent because this is simply a response to the market situation.
So as I was showing in the Extruded Products segment, the most important investments are the press 2,000 and 4,000 tonnes, and they are being implemented. I think that in 2023, it will also with finishing of this -- implementation of this investment. I would want to add that due to some, let's say, movements, not scope shifts. Well, we are doing this investment, we have got high savings, thanks to those. Also, in our case, as I mentioned, investment connected with the extension of the plant in Zlotów has been postponed from the current year to the coming year in the same scope as it was presented in the budget in our strategy. So therefore, we are not limiting ourselves here as for the scope, but simply the date of starting the investment has been postponed.
The next question refers to the estimated estimations for the fourth quarter. Last year, it was about PLN 200 million EBITDA. Is such a result possible to repeat in the fourth quarter of the current year ?
Ladies and gentlemen, well, actually, last year, all the segments have provided really good results, exceptionally good results. It was also a good period, a period of very good market situation. Now we are entering this market, this quarter and on slightly different situation. We already see it in the results of the first quarter. So the reduction of volumes also on the forecast for EBITDA is PLN 980 million. We have executed PLN 870 million. This means that there is a lack of, let's say, PLN 110 million. Of course, December is a specific market. And also, if you look at the implementation of profit in the third quarter, we have to remember that September is a month that it's a bit worse than July and August. And on this basis, we analyze this forecast.
I can only say that it seems for the current -- for the time being, it seems that if nothing special happens, we are on the safe side of this forecast. So probably EBITDA should exceed this PLN 110 million perhaps slightly, but it's this level. Yes, it will be lower than last year. This is mainly related with the extruded and drawn product segment because, as you remember last year, it provided PLN 75 million, but that was an increasing trend for the pricing of aluminum. Now, you've got a completely different situation. So it will be very difficult to repeat this result.
And a question to Mr. Piotr Wysocki.
The closing by Norsk Hydro of the Slovakia plant, will it impact -- does it impact, in some scope, obtaining orders in the segment of extruded and drawn products, because this plant has been supplying the remaining hydro segments in billet -- with billets?
Well the closing of the Slovakia plant, it has not happened suddenly. I have to say Hydro is now one of our key providers for billets. We had on this program planned, and I don't see any impact -- negative impact in the future on the deliveries from this direction. This has been closed by casting plants not due to the demand. We are closing this casting plant not due to the demand, but foundry. But due to the fact that Hydro wanted to be some, let's say, a green organization. Constantly, we speak about in the topic of green aluminum is present in discussion. And the Slovak will have --- in Slovakia, by Hydro, all this energy was provided was delivered from coal. It was based on coal.
But the closing of these -- the production of these billets by Hydro closing, it does not impact. There's no impact. We have it supplemented from other sources also by Hydro, and this whole program was elaborated a long time ago. It's not the sudden situation.
I understand. And also here, we had a question about -- but this also has not impacted negatively their chain, right? So the pumping lines of Hydro have not impacted -- the stumping lines have not impacted negatively the purchase of profiles, right?
Decision about the closing of castings of original aluminum, or some -- it's not a decision that's made suddenly. You have to get prepared for that. Hydro, which -- for this profiles, it's -- besides the fact that it's our greatest provider, it's also our greatest competition. It has a stumping line and suddenly, they sort of divide that to stumping lines and press shops from the billet. So it was a program which was -- this started in 2021. And this program, it really worked on, nothing bad happened.
Another question referring to the Extruded Products segment. Because we have mentioned the fact that we do not purchase aluminum from the Rusal company, but -- and then asker mentions that we mentioned direct purchases, right? And what, in the case of a situation we buy aluminum from trade companies, are we sure that they, in turn, have not bought this material from Rusal? And in case of a lack of aluminum, will this [indiscernible] our products with accessibility, availability?
Well, are we sure? Yes, because we get the certificate of origin in case of -- this raw materials is very important and aluminum in Middle East, so we have deliveries from the Middle East, from Africa, generally. And then the raw materials, so aluminum, the original material we buy through intermediaries such as Glencore, Goldman Sachs. But they also -- at the beginning of the war, Glencore announced that until the end of the contract, they'll continue collaboration but they won't sign new contracts. So now, we are shown that we do not possess Russian aluminum official. We've got certification, certificates of origin for each tonne of aluminum, of the raw material we purchase.
Another question referring to this Extruded Products segment. In connection with the high demand for hard alloys, is there any plan for increasing the throughput and then the operation in this scope versus full purchase of new presses?
Well, in the strategy that we have announced, we have not mentioned any purchase of a new press, and that's what -- we're going to speak to is for hard alloys. Hard alloys are quite a shallow market, I have say. This means that we sell about 1,500 tonnes. So in the current situation, geopolitically, we could sell perhaps even twice as much. The question is how long the situation will maintain? We're not planning to invest in a new press, whereas we have other ideas to -- for increasing the throughput and the capacity in the hard alloy plant through some reworks of other devices and modernizations. But also, as I was saying, in the following year, perhaps while signing the contract for 2023, we have some ideas here which would allow us to increase the sales of hard alloys without constructing a new press. And also what's interesting, using one of them, the soft presses we have.
Thank you very much. I want to add that this 1,500 tonnes is, of course, per month.
Yes, of course.
And now one more question, perhaps to Mr. Piotr? Mr. Piotr is quite popular among the askers today. So recently, there was an article published that Turkey is investing in 100 presses for profiles, for sections. 500,000 tonnes per year is the capacity. So when can we expect that the EU will react with appropriate customs, clearance customs fees, considering the fact that Turkey is buying aluminum from Russia? Is there any formal proceedings in progress already?
Well, here we operate through the Polish Association of Aluminum Manufacturers with officials in Poland, and similar operations, similar actions have been undertaken by the European Association of Aluminum Product Manufacturers. It's a really big problem in Europe throughout. The European Association is undertaking discussions, has been discussing for a long time, because this topic has been mentioned with the officials in Europe a long time ago. There is a matter of supply, supplementing just certain data, some arguments, and they're really very active. The partly that is very active here is Germany, German associations and presses, press shops. And also Spain really strongly fears this problem, is really active and not being -- in order to introduce some limitations. We don't know, but these discussions are in progress. So what will be very important will be the meeting, which will be held next year, next week. The Annual Meeting of the European Association of Aluminium Manufacturers, which will take place in Athens, in Greece. It's one of the main problems which will be discussed there namely, what are the next steps that should be taken? And as I was saying, it's a really long process. These discussions have been in progress for really a long time ago, several months before.
So but a strong -- very strong, concrete discussions took place during the trade fair in Düsseldorf . Aluminum trade fair where this topic was really strongly discussed. Thank you very much.
Another question. The next question refers to the Aluminum System Segments. What effects do we expect in the coming year connected with the production of gas proof -- fireproof glass? The scale of the sales profits? Will it be profitable already next year?
Well, the scales will be as good as the market allows us? And this development, as we were discussing, we noticed that the construction market is slightly -- has slightly settled down, I have to say. But we are not afraid no worries that this product which we have already produced and have certified, it would be any problems to sell it in the national and the foreign markets. We won't present any specific numbers because this will be presented after this next year's budget will be confirmed about the situation we have. We, as the owner of the system and the deciding company, we are the party deciding which glass will be analyzed in our systems and which will be certified and which present in the documents. So we have, therefore, great advantage compared to any other manufacturer of fire glass. And I have to say that we are planning to use this dominant situation, position we have. Therefore, I am convinced that already next year, when you hear when this operation will be for sure profitable. As for the scale, as I was saying in a moment, we should present specific numbers after the budget assumptions are passed.
Now a question to, once again, the Extruded Products segment, and the question refers to the possible contract with the military industry. It was mentioned that in this sector really powers the demand, is the source of demand, especially in case of the hard alloys. So a question from an asker, what is the scale of Extruded Product segment for this industry, for this sector? And what can we expect here?
If we're speaking about the mandatory sector, we mentioned -- we'll only hard alloys. The question about contracts, well, we have got some contracts going through that. We are working on obtaining new ones. Here, we are more limited by our actually production capacity than by the market. What percentage this is for today, about 20%, 30%. We could, of course. It's a matter of only how much we dedicate to this specific industry sector because we have such high demand. And our limited capacity, we select the best contracts, the best deals.
This -- there's also a question about the price, and where it is better to direct these tonnes we have.
The next question refers to the -- okay, Ukrainian asset deductions. In the third quarter, there's the question for a comment. What we can expect in this scope, whether we continue solving of possible risks connected with meeting some obligations in the future?
Well, we are running activity in Ukraine in a very safe, secure way. What we have been solving is -- was mainly in the second quarter, simply regaining control and launching the production. And in the third quarter, actually, this solution was about PLN 5 million. PLN 3.5 million was the working capital. And it's on rotation. So something which is risky, but simply be managed to either through stock or through liabilities, and we managed. And the PLN 1.5 million was actually the fitting the write-off to fixed assets. So this property was amortized, so it depreciated. So for fixed assets, we left these write-offs in the full amount for today because with this scale, very limited activity, which Piotr mentioned, simply this write-off should be maintained. We are not expecting significant -- if the situation in Ukraine does not change significantly, well, we don't expect any room for some significant reversal situation of write-offs because the situation is clear. Whereas, the write-off for fixed assets will be maintained, we foresee.
In our explanation, the PLN 5 million was basically a release, not an additional write-down.
Now another question. Now for the extruded segments, just for a change, for the Extruded Products segment, about the fiscal project. So potentially, the outlooks in terms of the revenues, if we have full production capacity. The director mentioned since the start of the year. Can we actually estimate the influence of this project on the revenues of the segment?
Well, the project has been implemented mainly in our Slovenian company. And whether we -- as you said, we are in the pre-budgeting phase, so we will have it all calculated very precisely. But now, we are just looking at the number of items, pieces needed, but we have been talking about -- around several dozen percent increase in revenues in our company in Slovenia. So from the point of view of the segment, maybe it's not huge. But from the point of view of our Slovenian-based company, yes, it is a very substantial contract. The largest one we will be implementing soon, but I can't really tell you about the exact pricing levels. It all depends because all production is based on the aluminum exchange really, and also the fluctuation is actually in line with changes in the market, in the exchange.
So now, for the Aluminum Systems Segment. In Q3, the segment did it make any adjustments in terms of prices in its price list, or where the levels already seen in previous quarters?
No, we didn't make any pricing adjustments, the most recent upward price adjustments was the April one. And since that time, we have been working on the same pricing levels. Obviously, in terms of export sales, this has been in different influence, depending on the exchange rate changes. But the recent pricing shifts that have been appearing are actually related to personal campaigns for newly-introduced products. Or is it a standard measure really to make -- to enable a newly-launched product to make a presence on the market, we do that. So that's a 5% promotional offer for newly-launched products at the end of the year. But generally, as I said, the pricing levels have been kept at the same level since April.
Next question is about exchange rates, so foreign currencies. Do we hedge against the USD, PLN exchange rate? Because it has been mentioned that the decreases in aluminum prices were actually amortized with the increase of the exchange rate, USD to PLN. This would point to the hedging not been sufficient.
And well, we are -- we have exposure to the U.S. dollar due to the purchases of aluminum, due to the Aluminum Systems Segment level. So the hedging policy there is actually in the horizon of 9 to 12 months. But currently, transactions, these are 6-month transactions, up to 50% of exposure, which we are calculating. So a certain part remains unhedged. But if you look at the change of the pricing of hedging transactions which we presented out of the financial statements, there are 2 types of these transactions. One is basically foreign currency, so this concerns U.S. dollar to a large extent. And the second one is aluminum. So on aluminum, we are losing because these are the decreases in quotations. We've been talking about ForEx. If you look at that in the quarter, that was for us, basically a favorable change in pricing because this means that we can buy the U.S. dollar in the future at the lower exchange rate than the one quoted currently.
Now, a question concerning the Aluminum System Segment. There are decreases in the sales of lots of residential premises being reported by real estate developers, and this is also predicted for the coming quarters. To what extent do the lower sales of residential premises by real estate developers translate into the Aluminum Segment and decreases there?
As I told you in my presentation, well, the real estate development segment in terms of flats in our breakdown is basically, it's the same group as the individual -- as the sales to the individual consumer, so the average Joe building the house. And basically, we've been recording the biggest decreases in sales in that segment. And the situation will probably stay the same in the next couple of months until the market environment improves significantly, and this is obviously a matter of inflation and cost of lending and high cost of construction materials, and this will all translate into the number of construction permits issued. And I can't tell you at this point what kind of an increase or decrease we are expecting next year. However, just like the whole construction industry, the whole construction market, we will be feeling this influence over the next couple of months.
And now a more general question. Mr. Mañko in the presentation mentioned that the long-term forecast for aluminum are excellent. The consumption is to grow virtually in all -- in most, if not all industries. And the same goes for copper, I suppose. The order of the question is wondering, so if that is the case, which metal -- the market will be taken away from which metal, in that case?
Well, think this will be a great -- this will come as a great surprise to you if I tell you if we look at the automotive sector, the steel basically, even windows, doors even in cars, aluminum is really driving out steel in terms of the materials used. So I've heard also that. We are slightly saddened by the crisis, and it has really brought us down. But since I have -- I just want to tell you that we are here in the room, there's a translation in English, and the room is impressive. So maybe we were not -- the press, our team has really been that bruised and battered. However, we want to keep moving forward nevertheless. And as usual, in Grupa Kety and in such moments as this one, because we are definitely facing a difficult time, diversification helps. And we are present in 3 segments, mind you, and there are 3 other segments which sell products in different directions. So if that weren't enough, the level of development is very high.
And please note that Flexible Packaging, we are working with the largest company groups there. So actually making sure that this packaging is -- what's that? To make it more uniform, to make more homogenous, to make it more degradable, and to prevent a conflict with the natural environment.
And please know that packaging in this case, in many cases, this is a leader in terms of the excellent brands. I don't want to name them. I don't want any advertising here, but what Tomasz Grela said that in systems, single family housing, real estate development, this part of the market is definitely feeling the effects of the crisis now. But please note that all the hard work that the segment has been doing, the Aluminum Systems Segment, to the fact that we really even sell to New Zealand, the products, and they are installed there. So they are using what is going on in Europe. So large facilities in Italy, France, Germany and other countries, so this is all conforming to us, and this is comforting. And then for us, and this is a direction which we may -- is keep, and to defend against the decreases, which are affecting other industries.
So for architects, you see, [ Theresa, Justin ], mind you, I am so lucky to remember these architects who were honored to accept invitations to Aluprof to that exquisite event. Which is, in my opinion, one of the best organized and one of the best events construction industry in this part of Europe.
I have to say that back in the day when I started my work here and I started developing the systems here. Sometimes, they let them even open doors because they had excellent deliveries and service from our foreign competition, Western competition. But today, they are -- there are meant to be our guests at this exquisite event, and they praise it and they say this the best organized event they have ever attended.
So here, again, I go before the marketing department, they have an excellent power in terms of Aluminum Systems Segment and they do their role too. And what Piotr said in relation to Extruded Products, yes, indeed. The construction industry, less demand and the interior decoration, less demand. But automotive, on the other hand, Fisker is only one of the themes that Piotr has mentioned, but there's a whole lot of new contracts for automotive that really are promising, and they do promise high yield and high increases in the future. So this is another good direction in which the Extruded Products segment has been going in.
And historically, we have been producing hard alloys, and we currently have 100% of our capacity filled by the orders, so we can barely fulfill them. And -- but if we look at the group, the diversification in terms of the segments, diversification in terms of the areas in which the segments move, allows us to calmly look into the future.
And I -- perhaps I should say this at the very end, but since I have the mic, I will tell you right now that's in tough moments. Well, the best ones actually have their days of the speaker. And there is a wide open door for Grupa Kety. And another, we can actually make this quantum leap again to be in Western Europe.
And someone asked this question about aluminum from Russia, right? And it seems to me, well, we don't have any influence on this. This is only a question of the hyprocrisy, which is flooding not only Europe, but the whole world. But if we say that we don't use Russian products, in our case, this is aluminum and aluminum billets, then let us continue to deliver on this promise. And so we just need to say to others, don't be hypocritical. Please face this problem, and struggle with it successfully and face up to the challenge. We still have Ukrainian families we are looking after. And we know what happened not only in Biedronka where we have our plant, but in all of Ukraine, and we have absolutely no doubt. We won't be buying aluminum from Turkey or from Ukraine. So billets which are produced with -- what's that? Russian, exactly, that's what I wanted to say, sorry. So neither Russia nor Turkish aluminum or billets built on the basis of Russian deliveries.
My wish would be that Brussels and the responsible committees and bodies, I wish they actually examined this problem in depth and made this competition fair here in Europe. But unfortunately, this is not the case. So yes, I've elaborated on this a bit, but I really wanted things to be a bit merrier here.
So as far as the diversification policy is concerned. Let's ask the -- the other person, Mr. Lechowicz, who has been listening to our conversation calmly with composure. And, let's ask him about the information concerning the BOPP film segment and the expected decreases in the future. How might this translate into the results of the segment? How big is the potential in terms of the decrease in margin and BOPP for you?
So we should actually separate the last 3 years, which have been quite atypical for this segment actually in a good way. So first of all, the start of the pandemic Q1 2020, then the blocking of the Suez Canal and the shortage of materials in the market. So this is Q1 2021. And this, accompanied by high consumption, continued high consumption, then the outbreak of the war in Ukraine in Q1 2022. All these phenomenon led to panic in the raw materials market, and the PP film is one of these raw materials affected by this panic.
And in such situation, the segment tends to behave really well. And in that period, we achieved above-average results. And first, you have to position it. What does it mean that the results might drop in the future compared to the average, to the results recorded on average over all these years or compared to the baseline created by the extraordinary events that took place over the last 3 years? So if we're talking about the decrease compared to, let's say, normal results, that's called the normal results achieved in this business, I would like to the 5-year strategy where the EBITDA margin is assumed at 13% in this business, that's what we assumed. In this context, we are not expecting decreases.
But if you ask me about a reduction compared to the baseline created by the extraordinary phenomenon I talked about when margin reached 30%, 40% of the EBITDA level, well then we will see significant decreases in the coming quarters. So it's more like about 12%, then a couple of dozen percent in the future. I'm talking about a bit EBITDA.
And the contribution of the BOPP business, I'm talking about EBITDA to consolidated profit/loss of the whole segment. We need to realize that over the last period, it has been larger than in the Packaging business. So this is indeed an impact -- a significant impact on the result of the segment in the coming period. But what it will be exactly? Well, I can't tell you at this point. We will be observing this market, and we will be keeping you up to date. So as I said, we're coming back to about a 12% margin from 30%, 40% margins.
One of the last questions, are we planning an update of the strategic objectives, considering the inflation? Do we want to update these objectives, these goals at least by the amounts resulting for inflation?
If we update the strategy, then it would be an holistic update, I would say, not just focusing on one indicator. So for now, in this respect, no.
The next question to Mr. Piotr Wysocki again. So why do we have such a low carbon footprint from in the profiles compared to, for example, this average, which Director mentioned?
Well, generally, this is results from the technology, we use certain solutions. It's a very complicated and complex project. It's like calculating the pre-consumer, post-consumer scrap that's generated in our case. It's only understand [indiscernible] as you know, because we have to fix lower.
So I'll say it once again. I mean, the technology generally [indiscernible]. It's not just some special technology. It's a technology which is applied here and there are advantages that we return on scrap to our own mills. So it's a complicated process of calculating which kind of scrap when enters this carbon footprint. And here, we could -- you could write PhD thesis based on this, but it's confirmed. This carbon footprint in the amount of 3 kilos is confirmed by independent external institutions, and we are the certifiers.
And on the Director to the financial -- question to the Financial Director, referring to the working capital in the fourth quarter. Are we expecting any reversal on this trend? You mentioned that the trend is downward engagement in financing capital, and whether the fourth quarter would be the first one this year where the working capital would release cash for us?
Well, those were -- ladies and gentlemen, those were our forecast, of course. This first signal in September was visible because in September, around about PLN 60 million, this reversal of the demand, that was the amount. And take into consideration that there was a slowdown of the price drops for raw materials. And September -- August, September were the months when the scale of operation was adopted.
But I would put it this way that in terms of the direction, yes, downwards, but it's very difficult for us to estimate the amount. So we are estimating that it may be a fluctuation in the range of PLN 60 million. This is the scale. Because on the other hand, I would also point to the problems that -- problems or perhaps limitations, restrictions or, let's call them, challenges, which were underlined by my colleagues in the beginning -- by my colleagues from each of the segments. That in the market, there is not yet -- we don't have stability in the market, right? There is really a lot of components whose accessibility is limited. So here, we have to secure the appropriate stock level inventory level, the maintenance production optimum. And it's hard to speak about hundreds of millions of PLN, but the trend for sure, yes, probably up to several million. Several thousand -- million.
This was the last question which I've got in my inbox. And if any of the questions -- I have omitted any questions, please, repeat them to my e-mail address. I will try to respond to your question as soon as possible. Thank you very much for today's meeting.
Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. The recording from the transmission will be made available in a few days on our website. And as we have mentioned, it was being interpreted, so we're going to have both Polish and English version. And for the investors, for foreign investors, I hope that in a similar form, we shall continue. In the future, it will be perhaps more convenient for you than a conferences through the Zoom app, or perhaps even we shall return to on-site meetings. However, I think that the one we have now also have got the advantages.
So President, would you like to comment on something?
Thank you very much. So thank you very much, and see you next time.
[Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]