Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. (NYSE:CLF) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Lourenco Goncalves : Yes. Let me add one point to this answer in terms of capital returns. If you look into the numbers that we returned through share buybacks last year, and you compare to the dividends that we are paying prior to the time that we cut the dividend by around COVID time and never reinstituted because it was a new company after buying AK, buying ArcelorMittal, buying FPT. But if you compare the dollar amount, it’s not by any stretch a disadvantage, against the amount of money that you would have paid for have kept the dividend based on the numbers of the past. So I would say — I’ll give you a long explanation to tell you something. If the investors tend to value dividends more than the share buyback we can easily replace 1 with the other with — and to be a neutral cash flow impact on us.

I just believe that the share buybacks are more tax efficient than the dividends. But this is something that we’re discussing internally. And there’s a strong possibility that we can just interrupt one and go to the other. It’s a decision that we haven’t made yet. I’m thinking, but we will be making this decision soon, and to be, at a very least, distributed neutral to our cash flow.

Operator: Our next question comes from Tristan Gresser with BNP Paribas.

Tristan Gresser : The first one, I think in the past quarters, you provided some full year ASP guidance based on the forward curve. Is it something you’re comfortable sharing today given the good level of visibility you have notably on your contract?

Lourenco Goncalves : Tristan, look, we believe that we gave at this time a more granular information on the ASP that will probably help you better than what we’re doing before. Remember, the future curve is just a forward-looking assumption that might not materialize. What we are doing with automotive prices is real because these are contracts that are signed. And by the way, Tristan, these are negotiations that are not easy to get to because every single automotive manufacturer that we are negotiating against were throwing on us that the competitors, they never say their names, but the competitor or one competitor or two competitors were offering lower prices, in some cases, much lower prices. So that was the uphill battle that we had to fight in order to get what we got.

And we are proud of what we did. And again, these are real numbers. These are not assumptions towards future that can change on a dime. These are numbers that will be firm. So I believe that we gave enough information for you to model better than what we’re doing before. I hope you agree with that.

Tristan Gresser : Yes. No, I think that’s totally fair, and I appreciate the color on the contract structure and the improvement. If I — maybe a follow-up on that, maybe. We’ve seen the product mix quite — evolve quite a bit in Q4, and I think you previously flagged that. Maybe looking into Q1 and full year 2023, how would you expect the product mix to evolve especially on growing volumes, notably on the HRC side, on the coated side? And finally, maybe you could give us a sense of how much more volumes in stainless and electrical can you achieve or you’re already at full capacity?