ICL Group Ltd Price & Performance (ICL)

The company undertakes no obligation to update any information discussed on this call at any time. We will begin today with a presentation by our CEO, Mr. Ravi Zoller, who by Mr. Abraham Lahab, our CFO. Also joining us today is Alad Aronson, our incoming President and CEO. Following the presentation, we will open the line for a Q and A session. I would now like to turn the call over to Ravi.

Thanks, Peggy, and welcome, everyone. Thank you all for joining us for our twenty twenty four Annual Earnings Call. This will be my final call as ICL's CEO ICL. And I am pleased to reflect on the past twenty eight quarters to share our results with you once again today. While there are still some challenges related to the situation in Israel, we successfully managed to minimize the impact of worry related disruptions throughout 2024 and the situation is getting better now. Please turn to Slide three for a brief overview of 2024 which wrapped up the year of continued market share gains for our specialties driven business. Sales were $6,000,000,008.04 $1,000,000,000 while adjusted EBITDA was $1,469,000,000 dollars representing a margin of 21%. Adjusted diluted earnings per share $0.38 for 2024. Throughout the year, we maintained our overall momentum, despite persistent potash pricing headwinds. For 2024, cash prices decreased 24% versus the prior year. However, our sustained focus on our specialty driven businesses helped drive annual EBITDA up 8% to these three segments. Industrial Products, phosphate solutions, growing In total, our specialties businesses represented 70% of 2024 EBITDA and 73% of fourth quarter EBITDA. As always, continue to focus on strong cash generation which resulted in free cash flow of $758,000,000 for the full year.

Additionally, we wrapped up the year by delivering a total of $242,000,000 dividend with an industry leading dividend yield of 3.8%, Once again, even in a very challenging year, we delivered a total return ahead of our peers. 2024. We had a number of big wins in 2024, as we expanded strategic relationships and accelerated the launch of innovative new products across all of our specialties driven business, We also delivered on our efficiency plans for targeted cost savings. Finally, as I mentioned, we contained worry and disruptions in 2024, and maintained good production there. And for 2025, we expect a smoother path overall. I would ask you to turn now to Slide four a look at some key fourth quarter and full year financial As you can see, we ended the year close to the high end of our operating guidance with fourth quarter specialties driven EBITDA of $253,000,000 up 20% year over year. We also delivered an increase in consolidated adjusted EBITDA margin for the which came in at 22% even as EBITDA decreased by $7,000,000 year over year. Meanwhile, operating cash flow in the fourth quarter for this year was in line with the fourth quarter of twenty twenty three and in my view our balance sheet as we exit 2024 was the strongest in recent years.

Let's start with a review of our divisions and begin with our Industrial Product business on Slide five. For 2024, sales of $1,239,000,000 dollars were up slightly versus 2023 as was EBITDA of $281,000,000 For the traditionally soft fourth quarter, sales were down versus the prior year However, EBITDA of $70,000,000 improved significantly up 25% on cost efficiencies. While EBITDA margin also showed a dramatic increase and moved up from 19% to 25%. For 2024, we continue to strengthen our partnerships and customer relationships as these long term alliances contribute to our market share gains in the We had another solid year for Specialty Minerals as sales increased year over year. Annual sales of Clear Boring Fluids which are used in the oil and gas industry decreased versus the prior year due to drilling cycles. However, these may begin to vary in a positive way due to recent policy shifts. Importantly, industrial products delivered a gain in its sales for its phosphorous based frame retardants in the fourth quarter. This business has begun to benefit from new antidumping measures implemented in The EU in 2024 and U. S. Customers are also expected to be influenced by antidumping proceedings now pending in The U. S. As a result of this, we saw good customer uptake [indiscernible] with some key partners already transitioning production lines to this innovative product. [indiscernible] In other new product news, industrial products recently unveiled a revolutionary sustainable solution for the treatment of Biofilm.

On Slide six, you will see our Pudash division results for 2024. With sales of $1,656,000,000 dollars and EBITDA of $492,000,000 Our average putash price was down nearly $100 CIF per ton versus 23 while total sales volume is down approximately 127,000 metric tons same type. In total, sold 4,600,000 metric tons of foot ash in 2024, and we expect to benefit from our decision to defer some fourth quarter sales into 2025. In Spain, we had record potash production at our Suriya site delivering more than 800,000 metric tons. Despite the war, Relson was short staffed, we were able to maintain fairly normal production levels in Israel. And while we still continue to face operational and logistical challenges at our Head C operations, we adopted some long term risk mitigation measures, war related infrastructure issues. In twenty twenty four, we saw significant improvement in annual cost per ton at our Spanish operations and in total. For Portage overall, we benefited from our ongoing operation and efficiency efforts in 2024, and we expect to see continued improvements in 2020. Turning to Slide seven in our phosphate solutions division, where 2024 sales were $2,250,000,000 Results in general were ahead of our expectations despite lower Life ethyloric acid prices, as we benefited from favorable volume and mix as well as lower raw material costs.

Commodity prices were also higher than expected in 2024, but lower versus the prior year. For the fourth quarter, we saw a slight year over year decrease in phosphate solutions sales as an increase in external sales did not offset lower internal sales. Annual EBITDA of $559,000,000 also slightly decreased on a year over year basis However, EBITDA margin expanded to 25%. We were able to improve this rate as we prioritize cost savings and production efficiencies through 2024. We also significantly benefited from higher volumes and lower raw material costs. Our phosphate specialties results were aligned with market dynamics as it North America and Europe were relatively stable but remain competitive while South America was influenced by significant influence from China. Overall, we maintained our focus on market share and volume gains, while delivering new products and expanding our reach including into cosmetics. We're also looking into additional food specialty opportunities, including geographic and in 2024, we introduced a new alternative dairy solution. We Our Y Page joint venture in China delivered multiple production records including another overall record year with continued strong demand for battery grade phosphide One of the strengths of our YPH facility is the ability to flex between customer demand for battery and agriculture solutions and our team there does an excellent job of optimizing between the two.

In North America, we've been hosting customer meetings our Battery Materials Innovation Qualification Center in St. Louis which became operational in less than one year. For our commercial LFP plants in The U. S, we are now finalizing the detailed engineering process. As mentioned in previous earnings calls, we continue to align this capital spend to match anticipated customer demand time. For Europe, in January of this year, we signed a strategic agreement with DynaNonic, currently number two in the world in cathode material capacity to produce lithium iron phosphate at our existing site in San Francisco. While this project is currently only in its planning stages, it demonstrates our commitment to developing high quality solutions for [indiscernible] Turning now to Slide eight. Our growing solutions business division, the twenty twenty four sales of $1,950,000,000 dollars were down year over year. EBITDA of $2.00 $2,000,000 decreased 70% for the same time while EBITDA margin of 10% expanded significantly versus the prior year. For the fourth quarter, we saw similar improvement in EBITDA was up significantly and margin rate which improved 12% from 3% in the fourth quarter of twenty twenty. Overall growth and profitability was driven by efficiency efforts and improved product mix, as well as lower raw material costs.

In 2024, the business continued to target market share growth via both M and A and new product innovation. In The UK, we completed a bolt on acquisition toward the end of the year to strengthen our position in the turf and landscape market. While based on The UK, Greenvest is renowned for its specialty granular and liquid nutrition products serving all global markets. In North America, we had record sales volumes in 2024, with strong growth in Mexico and Canada. In Asia, we achieved record breaking annual sales volumes specialty agriculture fertilizers. Fourth quarter sales in Brazil were lower than expected due to significant currency fluctuation tight liquidity, and soft soybean crop economics given lower commodity prices and margins. However, for the full year, we saw improved profitability and further market share growth in Bussel. In 2024, Growing Solutions entered the biological fertilizer business delivered new product sales of more than $250,000,000 and extended its R and D efforts and innovation partnerships. I would now like to wrap up with a few highlights on Slide nine. Once again, solid execution from across the entire company helped deliver winning results for ICL. We continue to drive long term growth in specialties driven EBITDA which meaningfully sets us apart from our commodity based peers.

We enhanced our partnerships across three of our specialties driven businesses, industrial products, Boxwood Solutions and Grooming Solutions as we strive to work with the best to achieve our goals and expand our presence globally, In some instances, this means extending customer relationships over the long so we can both benefit during the good times and where are the bad times together. In other situations, we bring our expertise to our customers to help them succeed. And of course, we're always working to find the best partners to help get our products to market in every reach. We made three complementary acquisitions while also driving new product innovation. We will continue to innovate as it is an inherent part of ICL's G and A and one of the key areas that helps distinguish us. We advanced our battery material aspirations into Europe and received partnership support as well as government funding. And we remain on track to strengthen our leadership positions in 2025. We are already leaders in bromine, and specialty phosphates, and we are now moving to the top in growing solutions by consistently improving our market share and position. As you can see on Slide 10, we delivered shareholder value ahead of our peers once again a very challenging year for our industry.

And in spite of geopolitical challenges, well beyond our control. In 2024, we also actively managed various concession renewal efforts and for the Dead Sea specifically, we provided feedback on a draft government report participated in the consensus committee meeting. During twenty twenty four, we also successfully settled a large portion of outstanding lead life. We also continue to advance our sustainability efforts and improved our rankings across multiple key global metrics. And finally, on the occasion of my final earnings call with ICL ICL, I want to thank my hardworking and dedicated team spread across the globe together we share the achievements of the past seven years, and I would not have been able to reach this point without the support from each every ICL employee. Thank you. I also want to congratulate Elad Aronson our new CEO. Elad has earned his promotion by delivering proven business performance and clear demonstration of leadership skills. He is passionate about ICL's future opportunities and he will join us today for a Q and A session so that you can get to know him. Good luck Alad from all of your ICL colleagues. And with that, I would now like to turn the call over to Adilane.

Thank you, Raveed. And to all of you for joining us today. Let us get started on Slide 12 and take a look at some key market metrics. It's a truly global company serving a variety of end markets we look beyond fertilizer prices to a wide array of macro indicators. Starting with inflation, where rates were fairly stable with the exception of Brazil, which saw a 40 basis point increase in inflation in the fourth quarter. Looking into January, inflation rates picked up in The U. S, EU and Israel, while China was flat but it decreased slightly versus year end rates. Interest rates increased in Brazil in the fourth quarter up approximately 150 basis points while rates in The U. S, Israel and India was flat as rates in the EU and UK declined. For 2025, order to date interest rates are flat and declining for all countries with the exception of Brazil, is so 100 basis point increase versus the fourth quarter. Global industrial production growth of 2.4% was up approximately 70 basis points in the fourth quarter with quarterly rates expected to be in the 2.9% to 3.3% range throughout 2025. On a sequential basis, fourth quarter housing starts in The U. S. Were up 11% However, trended back down to third quarter territory in January.

Turning to Slide 13, and key fertilizer market metrics. Grain prices were mixed in the fourth quarter with corn up 7% on a quarterly basis, while other crop prices fell versus the third quarter. However, all crops have improved quarter to date in 2025 versus the year end with the exception of rights, Pharma sentiment in the fourth quarter improved dramatically over the third quarter up more than 50% the positive trend continued into 2025 as U. S. Farmers retain their post election optimism and sentiment rose another five points in January, Potash and fossil prices continue to diverge as potash prices declined again in the fourth quarter while phosphate prices increased versus the third quarter. Process prices stabilize in January while phosphate prices continue to climb up 4% since year end, Like others in the industry, we expect global potash shipments for 2025 to be roughly in line with 2024. With a range of 71,000,000 to 75,000,000 metric tons While there is a lot of global chatter in the industry, overall dynamics look good for 2025 and potash prices have gone up since the beginning of the year. Ocean freight rates decreased significantly in the fourth quarter down approximately 22% versus the third quarter.

In January, this dropped even further and for the month daily rate it lows not since its early in COVID On Slide 14, you can see some key market metrics for energy storage and electric vehicles. And also overall demand trends [indiscernible] and LSP Phosphate, which continue to grow, For North America, we see expected future demand continue to shift more towards ESS users For this quarter, we are also highlighting demand in Europe following the announcement of our joint venture agreement with DynaNomics, to establish LFP production at our existing site in Spain where we are receiving government funding for our efforts. If you will now turn to Slide 15, for a look at our full year sales bridges, on the left side, you can see the year over year change for each of our business divisions with potash once again having an outsized impact on the year over year decrease in sales, However, I would like to point out the positive impact Industrial Products had on overall annual sales. Turning to the right side of the slide, you can see the benefit received from higher quantities and also the impact of lower prices once again, especially for potash, and the effect exchange rates had on sales.

On Slide 16, you can see the impact lower potash prices, on our 2024 EBITDA of 1,000,000,000 to $169,000,000 We were however able to offset some of this impact to higher quantities lower raw material costs and improved production efficiencies. Slide 17 provides a look at our fourth quarter sales bridges with potash once again In total, sales for the fourth quarter came in at $1,601,000,000 On the right side of the slide, you can see the impact from prices and exchange rates. On the left side of Slide 18, you can see the year over year change in quarterly EBITDA by segments. On the right side, the impacts from lower prices is apparent with increased quantities and lower raw material costs unable [indiscernible] oil to oil the fourth quarter of twenty twenty four EBITDA came in at $347,000,000 quite similar to the fourth quarter of twenty twenty three. Turning to Slide 19, once again, ICL remained the leader in terms of average realized potash price. As we continue to maximize the profitability of our cost efficient resources.

On Slide 20, I would like to remind you of ICF's leadership position the global bromine market. While bromine prices remain under pressure, The DTC continues to be the most cost competitive source of bromine and accounts for approximately two thirds of global supply capacity. If you turn to Slide 21 ICL, you can see how our business breaks down on both a regional basis and by division. For the fourth quarter, Asia and Europe were equally represented at 27% of sales South America were both around 20%. Before we wrap up, I would like to share a few highlights on Slide 22 As Raviv mentioned, our balance sheet is strong and we ended the year with available resources of approximately $1,600,000,000 Our net debt to adjusted EBITDA rate at quarter end remained at 1.2 times Once again, we are distributing 50% of adjusted net income to our shareholders which translates to a total dividend of $52,000,000 this quarter resulting in a trailing twelve month dividend yield of 3.8% During the fourth quarter, we continued to prioritize [indiscernible] as we do consistently throughout 2024, also remain focused on cost savings and efficiency efforts with results ahead of our expectations Importantly, we maintain a consistent and disciplined approach to capital allocation which you can see demonstrated on Slide 23.

Which is a view I do not typically present As you can see, we have been able to deliver more consistent performance versus our peers during the risk tenure. Thanks to our focus on specialties and cash generation, which has resulted in more predictable growth and fewer surprises. Finally, if you turn to Slide 24, I would like to update you on our 2025 guidance So our Specialties driven business divisions which include industrial products, growing solutions and frost feed solutions we expect EBITDA be between $950,000,000 to $1,150,000,000 in 2025. We expect total sales volumes to be between four point five million and four point seven million metric ton and we expect our effective annual tax rate for 2025 will be approximately 30% in anticipation of higher potash prices. I would, however, remind everyone that in the first quarter, our quarter sales will be more heavily weighted to toward our annual contracts with China and India which are at lower prices than current market rates, Now before we begin the Q and A, I want to thank all the for his leadership over the past seven years I'm proud [indiscernible] in 2025 and beyond. And with that, I would like to turn the call back over to the operator for Q and A. Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Your first question comes from Ben Thoreau with Barclays. Your line is now open.

Yes. Good morning and thank you. Well, good evening to you. Good morning to the ones in The U. S. Thank you very much for taking my questions. First of all, Rafe, all the best for your upcoming retirement in a few weeks. It was pleasure working with you. All the best and a lot welcome. On your new expanded role from growing solution into CEO. So I wanted to to get that off first. Thank you, Bill. Appreciate it.

Great, great stuff. So two questions I had for you. So number one was really just a more general maybe if you could talk a little bit about the demand drivers that you've been seeing and that you've been laying out within the phosphate solutions business I mean, it feels like it was a very strong 2024 and was like one of the call it more commoditized still exposed ones, but holding in fairly well over a year over year basis. So just wanted to understand like the underlying demand be it what goes into food, what goes into fertilizer, what goes into battery materials, If you could share some incremental thoughts as to how you think about 2025 in phosphate solutions in particular?

That would be my first question. All right, thanks. So we had headwinds coming from WPA prices which were trending down But at the same time, we overcame that by increasing volumes And the increase of volumes on specialty products come primarily from expansion with additional innovation innovative products would be food products in China where we set up a new production facility for specialties. New products in pharmaceuticals and for cement applications. We had good pipeline in products and we still have great pipeline going forward into 2025. So we expect now that prices of Whitehorse forecast have stabilized, we expect continued running growth. 2025.

The overall market hasn't grown very much probably by two or 3% but we've grown our market share. Through volume.

Okay.

Got it. And then just a minor question, I would like to like kind of like understand what's behind that. And it's kind of like just general trade noise, etcetera related. So in your press release, you highlighted that within Industrial Products, you've got better volumes, particularly in Europe because of certain duties on TCP TCPPP from China. So just wanted to understand what's behind that and how you think about Just a the general setup on trade disputes, be it between Europe and China, U. S. And China? How you think this is going to play out and just given your global footprint, how you're positioned in a market that that seems to be more exposed to certain tariff or duty risks going forward?

Okay. So thanks for that question. We have local production facilities in Europe and in The States that suffered injury from dumping prices from China.

The product, the Chinese products is also under threat, meaning that within the next three to four years, you won't be able to use that product anyway because of sustainability issues. And we have a new line product that that meets all the sustainability requirements. And the injury and the antidumping taxation that comes comes with it allows us to replace the Chinese product currently in Europe because the Anticom has already ruled. And there's an ongoing process in The U. S. Which least our customers are pretty confident that that we'll end our way because some of them are already considering turning their production lines into with adaptations to using our product. So the nice thing is that typically anti dumping processes are for the short term for a year or two years or three years here.

It's a whole new family of products that we call very well that will replace the Chinese product and because they meet the sustainability requirements, they will stay for the long run. So this is a new market opportunity for us that has short term implications for 2025 and more beyond that. This is for mainly for construction applications. And it's a good development for us. Actually, P4 based products have been suffering for the past year and a half or so. Construction has also, as you know, has been has seen very moderate demand. So overall, gaining market share in the construction application with a sustainable product that will give us long term sales with very nice profitability is is a very good development for us.

Perfect. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Your next question comes from Kevin Estrach with Jefferies. Your line is now open.

Hi. Thank you for taking my question. I guess real quick, I mean have you guys seen any Chinese bromine capacity exiting the market?

We haven't seen the bankruptcies in the past March. We saw one bankruptcy before that, but we have seen significant both in China and also in Djibouti. And of course, we've replaced that we replaced a lot of that again, reductions in production, not any significant bankruptcies yet.

Yet. Okay, understood. Thank you. You touched on some more related issues and then also sort of tariff impact on trade flows you guys have more local production. But I guess just I guess wanted to get a sense of how you were thinking about the potentially rapid changes in the situation in Eastern Europe geopolitically for you guys as it relates to fertilizers?

So from the perspective of demand, the demand is very solid. For all types of major fertilizers. We expect as Ram said, before, we expect above $70,000,000 $70,000,000 I'm sorry, 70,000,000 tons of potash, anywhere between 70,000,000 to 75,000,000 this year, which correlates with 2024. And in terms of what's happening in Eastern Europe, we don't expect that changes in the war situation are going to significantly impact things going forward because, Belorussian and Russian product are entering into the market Other volume is entering in the market and actually they have made supply side decisions to limit some of that production coming into [indiscernible] Belarusians announced a million tons that are not coming into the market this year and just recently a few days ago, Russians also said that they were going to go through unexpected maintenance operations and also limit some of the supply globally because of additional domestic needs. So that that and the potential tariffs in The U. S. Are much more significant than the change in the war situation in the East. As far as the war in Israel, as you know, it's we're in a much better situation now. There's some of the issues we've had had to do with people being on reserve duty and that means getting out of our maintenance [indiscernible] And getting back to our maintenance routines is quite a challenge and it'll take us a little more time to be completely back to normal probably until April when we have our annual shutdown and then we can finalize some of the processes So that's a very significant thing.

The other thing is, of course, transporting through the Red Sea, which has been a real a real problem to solve during the past recent months I was trying not to say problem, say challenge with it's been a problem and, of course, things look a lot better now. So supply chain, maintenance production, Red Sea, all those things are looking much brighter for next year. And of course, potash prices are down trending up like we expected at the end of the year. And coming back to the beginning of the question, the Ukraine Russian conflict is not going to be a major issue for global supplies. I'll just ask my colleagues if they want to add in if I miss something.

Okay.

Hope that answers.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Your next question comes from Joel Jackson with BMO Capital Markets.

Your line is now open. Hi, good evening. It's been such a pleasure working with you. All these years good luck in your next chapter. A couple of questions for me.

Couple of questions for me. You obviously reiterated your specialties guidance EBITDA guidance for the year and we're talking about, of course, higher potash prices lately. Can you talk about In potash, like I imagine your outlook is better than it was three or four months ago when you gave your initial specialty guidance.

But which is reiterated like I said, I imagine you have a better potash outlook now than you did a few months ago. Is that fair?

We have a better outlook on pricing If that was the question.

Exactly.

Okay.

On pricing and the answer.

Yes. Look, what we have now is that prices are trending up. And they've actually gone up about 15% in The U. S. In the past month and a bit. And it looks like Chinese and Indian contracts are going to happen very soon. And of course, they're going to at least it looks like they're going to show a nice increase in price To give you exact numbers, It would be too early for that at this point.

Maybe to add or maybe if I may. Please go ahead. Hi, Joel. Just to add that we need to clear out of the way existing content that we have. So the average price which will be obtained in Q1 is not necessarily indicative of the better effective prices that we have going forward. That you always need to take into account that there's a pipeline that we need to clear first. After that, of course, we are all watching and seeing the same things. And there is good potential that prices will go up, as we all know.

And to give more flavor, typically at this point, which is February, we'd be sold out at least until the June. May and not because we don't have orders or demand, we have plenty. But every time we close a deal, we feel sorry that we didn't wait another week. So we're trying to manage that carefully and maximize our [indiscernible] Would you say your lag is three months in the price book versus what we're seeing in the bench in the market, two months, four months, what would you say is kind of lag? It's hard to say it's mix because in some it's way more than two or three months ICL China because it's annual contract. And in The U. S, it's probably less than a month. So I would say mix probably less than a quarter. Okay. And then finally, we're obviously seeing it seems that we're seeing a lot of inch like incremental interest in ESS even in what a lot of battery industry people might have thought six months ago, twelve months ago, think we're seeing ESS related lithium demand, for example, up 40%, 50% CAGR Can you talk about [indiscernible] What's going on secondary storage, things you're seeing versus three months ago, six months ago, like is this turning at what rate and how fast is it going?

I think there's a lag between government will and needs of major suppliers and the ability of the supply chain to adjust to the Western the Western incentives plans, governmental decisions, there's a lot of uncertainty around future policy, etcetera. So I think what we're seeing is that everybody is looking to see a new [indiscernible] two or three years and everybody's trying to time themselves. We ourselves are in the same situation where we're trying to time our large capital not to make them too early before the market is ready to consume our product on the one hand and on the other hand not to make mistakes vis a vis potential policy changes that can hurt us. So if we didn't have those uncertainties, we would have acted senior as well. So we The reason that the inflection point is not touchable yet, nobody knows it's going to be in two years or two point five years or three years. But ultimately EVs and storage the revolution has happened The threshold of 30% market share or what has been crossed in enough countries. So it's clear that things are happening. And the question is, how dominant will the Chinese be?

How how dominant will government regulation be and I think there's a lot of there are a lot of different opinions but ultimately, it's a matter of it's all a matter of timing. The demand is there, so it's just a matter of the timing. And the behavior of commodity market.

If I may follow-up on that with one more on the same topic. Would you say if you look at LFP demand for EVs versus LFP demand for ESS, would you say that transparency of the EV situation the EV dynamic is much more transparent and it's much less transparent ESS. Would you characterize it that way?

Maybe the insight that I can bring into the picture and you can see it on one of the wrong slides, was that The U. S. Is more dominated by by non EV storage. And Europe is much more EV storage. And EV also there's no united policy So maybe things will happen faster at the country level but that's the main difference between EV and non EV storage. Very high demand in The U. S. Unless and more easy in Europe.

Wanna pitch to you? Just one thing is, Joel, you need to we need to also understand that the end market for DSS, the static one, and EVs, which is basically private citizens is quite different.

So on the ESS side, I think it's more let's put it this way. It should be more to straight line in EVs has many questions. By the way, geographies can be quite different. And, you know, I've been told in certain meetings, not internally, it's telling us that the [indiscernible] number is that in Europe, for instance, they need to get the car below the €25,000 benchmark as in price. Also, people are still they need to see how the cars age and what it means, etcetera. And so the EV market the regression line is, as Aviv said, it's very clear but around the end, there can be quite a lot of bumps. That's the way we see it right. And there was also a significant shift to LFP technology. So I mean as a raw material provider for metal material, we're actually selling a lot more this year than we sold last year. Due to the and it's not because the overall market for CAM material has grown much, it's because the market share for LFP has increased considerably and that's also a factor in everybody else's Thank you very much. Thank you, Joe. Your next question comes from Laurenti Alexander from Jefferies.

Your line is now open.

So good morning. I wanted to touch on the battery market from a different angle, which is to what degree do you think do you see you need to pull forward investments in the LFP downstream in order to hit your market share goals? I mean, what did or in other words, to what extent are you seeing competitors ramp up capacity in response to the market opportunity?

It's a great question. We see things are happening very slowly in The U. S. We don't see too many competitors moving forward, although everybody knows where the market is going. Because it requires significant CapEx, it requires committed customers. So we've pulled up our plans I guess so far by fourteen or fifteen months, and it could be more because we're not going to supply cathode material before the cell cell factories are ready to produce. So that is the timing that is necessary. Some of it in Some of that in The U. S. Has to do with the adaptation of the adaptation to non Chinese technology, which is not trivial. There are not a lot of competitors out there that are able to do that at this point. I think in Europe, they actually started slower, but things may move faster. Because Europe is keen on allowing the Chinese to to be involved and they're not excluding Chinese technology. So for us, for example, the safest way is to partner with number player in the world, DynaNomics. And go after the European market. So we may end up going after the European market faster than we originally expected and The U. S. Market moves slower than we that we expected at the beginning.

And it all has to do with with making certain that we acted a disciplined way. With our CapEx and with our strategy.

I think, Laurent. And if I may just Go ahead. [indiscernible] If you have another follow-up on the LFP side. And ask it and then I'll try to answer.

So it was just I just wanted just to touch on kind of the investment cycle for you. If you you for you from going from the decision to go ahead with a new tranche of LFP capacity to being fully qualified in commercial, Can you give a sense for what that timeframe is? Compared to the timeframe it takes for the customer to convert their capacity to be able to use your non Chinese supply. In other words, is your investment loop shorter or longer than the customers decision qualification warranty loop. Do you see what I'm getting at?

Yes, I do. And I think the answer is that for customers that are already in the market and producing cells, The cycle is much shorter than some of the very large OEMs that have not done that yet. So the question is who is the customer The timing, once you have the technology and you have a qualified You have a qualified product it takes anywhere between eighteen to thirty six months in order to have [indiscernible] after all the test with an experienced customer and longer with non experienced customer and also longer if you're using the new technology versus proven technology. So Obviously, to set up a new plant based on most advanced technology, partnering with DynaNonic is is less complicated and setting up a new plant with new technology that that's working for the first time in the world.

Okay. Please go ahead. [indiscernible] to some degree more complicated because currently, the non Chinese car manufacturers are not having a great success, no one after the other. And are many reasons. Part of it is obviously the cost points, the points of they can sell. Second is they're still trying to retrofit existing gasoline or diesel cars into electric, whereas the Chinese basically I built a car around the computer and battery. And I believe if you look at the whole ecosystem, of the non Chinese car manufacturers, what they would have to do in order to survive is take a fresh look at the full design of the cars they are talking about. Of course, they even have to wait certain price points, and it's quite an effort that they need to go to. I'm sure we will even still have the same for the industry. And therefore, I believe that they are now attaching to one of these said, looking left and right, we need to do is obviously do all the preparatory steps in order to have the shortest way once we decide to go to manufacture. But other than that, be very watchful What is our entrant when we start putting in the big dollars?

And this is exactly what we're doing.

And as far as The U. S. Is concerned, just so we don't get fixated on EVs, stationary storage is our primary opportunity and also from a perspective of the expected time to Perfect. Thank you. Thank you for the extra detail.

There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call over to Ravev Zoloft for closing remarks.

Okay. So I want to thank you for joining us again for our conference call and ICL ICL entering 2025 in a good way. Some of our markets are stabilized, some of our markets are looking up The worst situation is more or less behind us and we're getting back to normal. We're going through management transition and it looks like we've managed through it in a good way.

Very proud to give the reins over to our very talented Helad Aronson and I suggest that in order to start your tradition, maybe you'll finish this conference call thinking employees and of course introducing yourself Saying a few words. So please allow and thanks to all of you for it was it's been great working with you and iSeal is a great company. It's a privilege to be part of it and it's a privilege [indiscernible] Thank you, Ravi, and hello, everyone. I'm happy to be here, happy and excited to be here. I'm with ICL for the last four years, mainly focused on fertilizers. Those days I'm I'm in my learning phase, onboarding process, which will be completed soon. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Ravi for the significant transformation ICL has undergone under his leadership and specifically for the support you provided to me also in this onboarding phase. And my last comment is to say thank you very much for the entire ICL employees. All across the globe which responsible for those results. And I'll be with you in the next quarter. Thank you.

Thank you very much, everybody.

Ladies and gentlemen,