CSN Q4 2025 Earnings Call - One-time leverage spike, BRL 18bn asset-sale plan to fix capital structure

Moderator, Conference Call Moderator, CSN: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. At this time, we would like to welcome everyone to CSN’s Earnings Conference Call for the fourth quarter 2025 and full year. Today, we have with us the company’s executive officers. We would like to inform you that this event is being recorded, and all participants will be in listen-only mode during the company presentation. Ensuing this, we will go on to the question and answer session when further instructions will be provided. The event can be accessed at ri.csn.com.br, where the presentation is also available. There will be a replay service for this call on the website. Before proceeding, we would like to state that some of the forward-looking statements or trends are based on current assumptions and opinions of the company’s management. They may differ materially from those expressed herein, which do not constitute projection.

Antonio Marco Campos Rabello, Chief Financial Officer and Investor Relations Officer, CSN: In fact, actual results, performances, or events may differ materially from those expressed or implied by forward-looking statements as a result of several factors, such as general and economic conditions in Brazil and other countries, interest rates and exchange rate levels, future rescheduling or prepayment of debt denominated in foreign currencies, protectionist measures in the US, Brazil, and other countries, changes in laws and regulations, and general competitive factors at a global, regional, and national basis. We would now like to turn the floor over to Antonio Marco Campos Rabello, Chief Financial Officer and Investor Relations Officer, who will present the company’s operating and financial highlights for the period. You may proceed, Mr. Rabello. Good morning, everybody, and thank you for participating in another earnings call for CSN.

We’re here to speak about the result for the fourth quarter 2025 and full year, a very special period for the company, where we achieved important goals. The third quarter had been very good, and the fourth quarter was not different. We begin with the highlights on slide 2. We have a quarter marked by negative seasonality of the rain period and weaker rains, and CSN was able to present its stronger results for the year. We have enormous operational resiliency and with cement and logistics presenting consistent results. The mining was impacted by non-recurring events. We had 15% increase in our EBITDA. All of this because of record volumes in mining and logistics, lower costs in steel, and the price environment that began to recover in the cement market.

Now, despite our operational resiliency, we saw our leverage increasing for the first time of the year, only in this exercise because of an increase in investments and other expenses. On January 15th, CSN announced a strategic movement that was necessary to improve the capital structure of the group. We are working with assets that will enable us to raise until BRL 18 billion to reduce leverage and to open the path for the growth of the group, and this should continue on until the end of the year. The leverage is a one-time effect that is being addressed definitely in the group. We now go on to the highlights of mining. In the fourth quarter of 2025, we had the second largest volume of production and sales in the company’s history, despite a weaker seasonality and a weaker rainfall period.

This reflects the efficiency of the company in terms of its production capacity and its logistics model. In 2025, the sales volume for the first time went beyond 45 million tons, going beyond the guidance in 5%. Since the IPO in 2021, the volume has had a growth of 8.4% every year without investments in capacity during the period, showing the capacity of our logistics structure and the efficiency of the production. The combination of record results and maintaining the prices at a high level allowed us to grow 9% in EBITDA for the year. In steel, we had a new drop in the production cost, reaching the lowest levels since 2021. We had significant strides in operational production, of course, an optimization in the use of raw material.

This continuous reduction of cost reinforces the structural complexity of the operation and contributes toward maintaining margins in a period of a difficult commercial structure. We are trying to support the anti-dumping measures being put in place in the last few months, and this is important for local producers. This is reflected in the results of 2026, allowing steel to be an important growth factor for this year. In the cement market, we continue to observe strong performance, and the company is able to pass through prices even in a period of weaker commercial operations. This shows the resiliency in the market, and we have a more positive commercial environment due to the capacity of local producers. We also have a new strategy, and the priority is results in detriment of volume.

With a strict control of costs, the company had another year with an EBITDA margin reaching 30% for the fourth quarter 2025. Finally, looking at the right of the slide, we have the highlights of logistics and energy. We had record EBITDA for the year 2025 in energy and logistics. This is one of the main pillars for the verticalization of CSN and one of the factors for organic growth in the group. Now we have a new logistics sub-segment in the railroad area, adding freight of trucks to trimodal ports, and MRS presented record cargo volumes during the year with impeccable operations. In the fourth quarter of 2025, we were positively impacted by the excellent operational performance for the year, enabling the company to maintain an EBITDA margin stable vis-à-vis last year, 42% in energy.

This is another year of strengthening with growth of 79% in EBITDA, impacted by an improvement in prices. Now, let’s go on to the next slide. We show you our EBITDA margin and adjusted EBITDA for 2025. This was the best result of the year, with an EBITDA of BRL 3.3 million and a margin of almost 28%. This performance shows a strong resiliency in mining, logistics and cement and non-recurrent events that we observed in steel. To the right, you can see the positive evolution that almost all segments enabled us to have with EBITDA, with the only exception in cements, where there was price pressure with raw material in the first half of the year. In the other segments, the growth of EBITDA and profitability are the result of the extraordinary efforts put forth by the company, especially in mining and logistics.

Besides the assertive strategy that we applied in steel, we stopped one of our furnaces to enhance the efficiency of the operation. The EBITDA of BRL 11.8 billion during the year represents a sound growth of 15% vis-a-vis the previous year, pointing to the potential of the company to further advance capturing results. For 2026, cement and steel, of course, will increase, while mining and logistics will benefit from the operational efficiency, maintaining the iron ore cost at very high levels. In the following slide, we share with you our investments during the period. You can observe a growth of 42.4% of CAPEX vis-a-vis the previous quarter. This is a seasonal concentration of disbursements during the year.

Besides strategic projects such as P-15 in mining, the recovery of the UHE in Jacuí, and the renovation of our freight fleet in the logistics multimodal, we had a higher disbursement of investments at the end of the year. When compared with the same period, 2024, the figure, in truth, was not altered. The total investment for the year added up to BRL 5.9 billion, in line with the advance in the infrastructure of P-15 and as part of the guidance set forth for the year. We go on to slide number 5.

Here we have our working capital, where we can observe an important release during this quarter, once again because of seasonality with lower commercial activity in steel and cement, impacting receivable accounts. We had a growth of 8.5% in the quarter, reflecting a higher volume of purchase of iron ore from third parties. In the next slide, we share with you our adjusted cash flow that was negative BRL 261 million. A significant improvement vis-à-vis the result of the previous quarter because of a slowdown in investments for the period. This shows the resiliency of the operation and the release of working capital. The company has been able to reduce the impact of cash burn throughout 2025. Now, the outlook for the future of cash is more favorable as we expect a very good evolution in 2026.

Besides the reduction in inventory levels and the gradual decrease in the interest rate levels. In the next slide, we share with you the situation of our indebtedness and leverage and the behavior of our debt during the quarter. To the left, the main message here is that we have increased indebtedness because of the concentrated investments at the end of the year and the cash flow during the period. Now, the leverage indicator for the last 12 months reached 3.47 times with the first increase after three consecutive quarters of drop. Despite this, one-time increase in leverage, the company is committed to reducing its debt and shows its commitment towards social capital.

On January 15th, 2026, we presented to the market a strategic plan to speak about liquidity and leverage of the group using the cement asset and assessing routes and other strategic movement for the development of our steel plant. All of this will contribute to strengthening the company and significantly reduce the leverage. To the right, you see the main vendor during the period, the extraordinary impact of the steel mill, amortization of prepayment contract for steel, the renewal of new operations of prepayment during the period, and the effects of the exchange rate. Let’s go on to slide number 8. We present to you our indebtedness profile. We have a very high level and in the short term, we have banking debt, and we will be able to honor these without difficulties. We have been working actively towards lengthening a significant part of the curve.

Presently, we’re speaking with banking institutions to anticipate the payment and to reduce our gross debt that will be achieved through the sale of our assets. With this, we end the presentation of consolidated results, and we can go on to slide 10 to speak about the highlights of the steel plant. In the third slide, we see the result of our commercial activity with a reduction of 6% in the quarter sales because of the typical seasonality of the period. This retraction is also due to the high level of inventory among local distributors, increasing the volume of imported material in the domestic market. Now, it’s important to note that most of the reduction of commercial activity mainly came from the foreign market.

There’s a reduction of 7.5% in the pace of sales vis-a-vis the previous year due to the foreign pressure mentioned and the strategies adopted by the company during the year, where we are prioritizing profitability instead of volume. In the following slide for production, we see that the result of the fourth quarter is the highest quarterly volume for 2025. We have been able to obtain greater efficiency at our production center. The strong drop in annual comparison is due to a stop for maintenance of our furnace without further consequences for the products produced and the price per ton.

To the right of the slide, you can see that the cost of production dropped once again in this quarter, reaching the lowest level in the last four years, reflecting an increase of efficiency in our production process with a better use of raw material. Now, the performance per ton also had a significant improvement because of the positive dynamic of cost and the positive effects recorded in the period. A lower level of use of our installed capacity also helped. We go on to the financial performance of the steel mill on slide twelve. That strategy of prioritizing profitability instead of volume during part of the year 2025 was assertive. We had consolidated growth of 2.6% in the annual average price, despite the difficulties with imported materials.

On the other hand, we’re still being pressured by the struggle of the company against imports and the stop of the furnace number two. To the right, the story is different. We had an increase in profitability in the quarter and for the year. You see the operational efficiency and the commercial discipline that is very consistent with prices, despite the highly competitive environment. We also had the positive impact of the extraordinary effect that I mentioned previously. Now, also because the profitability is a result of a very assertive productive efficiency that we have adopted for the local market. Now, to address that pressure of imported material with the competitive measures being adopted, the steel mill will be an important vector of growth for the results of 2026. Let’s now go on to the mining segment.

On slide number 14, we have the result of production and sales. 2025 was a special year for CSN, with records in purchases and production. For the first time, we went beyond 45 million tons produced in the period. This performance shows the high efficiency in production and our logistics efficiency. Now, we reached the guidance and went beyond it for the year. This was the second best quarter in the history of the company, only behind the previous quarter because of the beginning of rainfall. For the year, we had a volume of 45.9 million tons sold, which represents the best results in the company’s results, showing the strengthening of our logistics platform and our capacity for shipment. With the 2025 result, the company was able to record an average growth of 8.4% since the IPO, with extraordinary operational efficiency.

Now, regarding the financial performance on slide 15, the reduction of net revenue during the quarter reflects a combination of a lower volume of shipment with a slight reduction in price. Nevertheless, the results of the year show sound growth of 18% with operational records and maintaining the iron ore prices at high levels. In EBITDA, we also had a strong performance with an increase of 9% for the period with an adjusted margin of 41%. The annual result is due to the sales volume and a better performance during the efficiency and the cost efficiency. This shows the structural robustness of the sector of mining. Here we have adjusted EBITDA for the fourth quarter compared to the previous quarter. In this case, we can see the impact of seasonality of the period with lower volumes because of the beginning of rainfall.

Now, additionally, the performance was also impacted by a worsening in the cost of freight, more purchases from third parties, and because of the effect of cargoes exposed to future quote periods. Let’s go on to analyzing cement. On slide 18, we see the sales volume for the quarter and for the year. Cement seasonality is even more marked at the end of the year. Because of the rainfall, we have a lower number of working days. We also have the holidays at the end of the year. This justifies the impact on sales for the year. Now, in the yearly performance, we see stability despite the price increase in the second half of the year. This shows a good level of consumption of cement in the Brazilian market, despite the high interest rates in the country.

This also proved the resiliency of the demand and the commitment of the company of preserving volumes in a highly competitive environment. In the next slide, we see the financial performance of that segment with a drop of 6% in net revenue because of the seasonality offsetting the price increase for the period. On the other hand, the result for the year shows the highest level of revenue recorded for the company. Now we have scale, logistics efficiency and operational discipline, enabling us to capture opportunities associated to additional demand. As regards EBITDA, we had a slight drop because of the increase of raw material observed in the first half of the year that were normalized throughout 2025.

This allowed us to have profitability close to 30% in the second half of the year, the highest margin in the entire sector, reinforcing the competitive edge of our operation because we’re working with newer plants and a fully verticalized system. We go on to analyzing the logistics segment on slide 21. Here we see new records obtained during the year 2025. Net revenue and EBITDA were increased through efficiency that ended up in the highest EBITDA ever recorded. This also was helped by the Grupo Tora working with railroad. Because we now have control over the entire logistics chain, we have railroad logistics is the main driver of the result, sustained by a strong movement of cargo, especially sustained by MRS.

Helena Guerra, ESG Executive, CSN: EBITDA reached almost BRL 2 billion with a margin of 44%, a level slightly below 2024 because of the lower contribution of the port modal and lower margins from the Grupo Tora. Finally, we go on to slide 23 to speak about energy, another segment presenting historical records. Here, the financial performance was driven by the operational robustness and the price of the sale of energy during the year. We had a growth of 79% in 2025, with an adjusted EBITDA margin of 54%. With this, I would like to end the presentation of the segment, and I invite Helena Guerra to present our ESG highlights. Well, good morning, everybody. When we speak about the strides in our ESG agenda, I think the main point is very simple. We’re not dealing with a simple agenda.

Antonio Marco Campos Rabello, Chief Financial Officer and Investor Relations Officer, CSN: All of the achievements are in the operational area, in the financial area and others. Now, we have increased the security of our dam. We began 2025 with our dams being fully certified. Besides the advances in our schedule of decharacterization of the dams. This, of course, is fundamental in mining to reduce our environmental liabilities. Despite that heavy volume of rains that we have recorded, our operations maintain their conditions stable and secure with all of the company operating under safety. This shows the robustness of our platform in terms of operational security. The rate of accidents stands at 1.9% stable during the years. We had a reduction of more than 10% in events with the potential of being lethal, serious consequences with a reduction of 67%.

This means more secure operations and less operational losses. In environmental management, we continue to advance in our investments. What is important is to streamline everything we have. We have BRL 750 million invested with relevant impacts in the quality of Volta Redonda and in areas surrounding our operation. This also reduces our regulatory risk of our main assets. Now, we have advanced in the reduction of CO2 in our cement operation. We are the best company when it comes to the price of carbon among global companies. We had a relevant evolution in the main ESG indicators in 2025. Of course, we have improved our position in all of the global entities. We are among the best assessed worldwide. We have joined the CDP for Climate in terms of risk management. Another important point, I’m almost concluding here.

We have reached our goal in diversity, goal set forth in 2020. Now we have reached 28%. This is an important achievement, but it also helps us to retain our employees, especially in a sector that is so labor-intensive. It also generates operational gains. In 2025, our program for continuous improvements invested more than BRL 120 million per year. All of this reinforces what we have always wanted. Our ESG agenda does not happen in isolation from our operations. We have worked to have less regulatory risk, less environmental risk, and this means better stability and competitiveness for the company as a whole. Thank you very much. I will return the floor to Marco. Thank you. We will now give the floor to our CEO, Benjamin Steinbruch, for his remarks. Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the CSN earnings result.

Benjamin Steinbruch, Chief Executive Officer, CSN: I will begin with the segment, beginning with mining. We had a very good year in 2025, with all of the records achieved in terms of production, purchases, shipment, working arduously on cost. We were able to maintain a lower guidance in cost that was set forth for the year 2025, and month after month, attaining the necessary production with an important follow-up of the shipments at the port. Now, the forecast with investments, especially regarding P-15, are materializing, according to the schedule. We’re following on the evolution closely of this project. It’s one of the main projects for mining. The prices are higher than the market expected. This contributed to our results. As well as contributing for performance in 2026. We had that outlook of a price increase because of the war, because of China. We had significant increases in prices very recently.

Antonio Marco Campos Rabello, Chief Financial Officer and Investor Relations Officer, CSN: Of course, we have our commitment with cost. This is part of the lower range of the guidance, a commitment that we have made. We are following up on the increase of production at the port month after month with good results. Therefore, I think the results are better than we had expected, not only in terms of production, but also in terms of shipments, purchases, and reducing costs. I would say that we’re doing the same this year. We’re challenging ourselves ever more in production, in mining, and the shipments at the port with a constant cost reduction. In terms of steel, we began important work in the second half of last year to reduce costs, to have more predictable production. Quarter-on-quarter, we work to obtain these results.

We have already reached the lower cost, lowest cost in the steel mill in the last few years, and we’re working on this to make it something constant so that we can evermore have a cost reduction. With the measures adopted by the government in terms of anti-dumping that had an enormous impact on our value-added products, on our coated products that were coming in in volumes higher than 60%-70% in the market. With the present-day measures, we believe the Brazilian market can go back to normalcy, working without these aggressive measures and the turbulence due to the excessive imports we were facing. We believe that prices will slow down, and this will lead to an improvement. We’re also strongly working towards reducing our inventories. With this, we’re going to harness an enormous amount of cash. We have BRL 12 billion in inventory.

We hope to be able to reduce these soon through the sale of finished products, of all types of products, and also in terms of raw material and products that are under production. All of this, of course, will enhance our values in terms of parts and equipment. Well, there will be an increase because of the P-15 project. As you know, all of the parts are coming in. They have had an increase, but we’re also working with what we have from other sectors that, well, do not refer to the P-15. We believe that the steel mill will continue to deliver very good results. We’re working with furnace three, producing the same amounts we produce with furnace two, while producing practically the same amounts. Of course, this has a significant cost reduction, and this is something that we want to put in place.

This is what all of our workers at Volta Redonda would like to achieve. We hope that the steel plant will continue on with this evolution of reducing costs, but maintaining production with a price improvement in the domestic market. With the anti-dumping measures, we believe that the market will become, I’m sorry, more efficient. Now we are working quarter on quarter in terms of good production with prices under evolution. We had a timing problem with raw material for energy. The price had increased considerably. Well, this had an impact on our cost line item, but we do believe that the margin evolution that we are practicing can perhaps become annualized, and you will have a view of which would be our results for this year for cement, and the results will be much higher than those we had in 2025.

We had a very strong price evolution in the Northeast, more specifically, and a positive price increase in the Southeastern market, especially for bulk products. This will reiterate the good performance in 2025. In logistics, this is the segment that has the greatest potential valuation for CSN. We have created a company of logistics which will enable us to have all of our assets properly priced for mining and steel. Now, the price is practically 50% less than you normally see in logistics companies. We believe that the contribution of this will be enormous for the company once our investments in logistics become fully operational, which we believe will happen in the third quarter of this year. Now, regarding energy, there’s another important pillar for us, for growth, of course. We had the positive growth of last year with very good margins.

We have an asset that will strongly contribute to the results of CSN for the year 2026. We had an EBITDA that was higher than that of last year, 15% higher, reaching almost 2 billion BRL. This is an expressive figure. Two billion BRL in EBITDA is a significant amount. We had a temporary problem of an increase in debt. Marco can perhaps clarify this subsequently, but it was a one-time effect due to the non-renewal of the prepayments for mining, the exchange issue that favored mining considerably. Of course, Marco can give you further explanation on this. Now, this is simply a one-time effect, and we will recover this with the exchange rate, without a doubt, in the first quarter and the renewal of the prepayment for the export of iron ore that we carry out in large volumes.

This is not something we do every month or every two months, ’cause we need to have the necessary volumes to obtain the prepayment. Marco subsequently can fully explain to you what happened regarding our debt in the fourth quarter. Speaking very generously, I can say that CSN is doing very well in all of its production sector, logistics, mining, steel and others. The steel segment is also converging towards this with the efforts that we are doing. What we want is not to have significant cash burn. We see this in 2025 vis-à-vis 2024. We’re going to put a halt to this in 2026. Along with the deleveraging measures we have announced, we believe that in the second quarter, we will begin to show very good results.

This is what I wanted to share with you, and I return the floor to Marco Rabelo. Thank you very much for your attention. Thank you, Benjamin. Let us now go on to the Q&A session. Thank you. We will now begin the Q&A session for market analysts and investors. Should you have a question, please click on Raise Hand icon or type in your question. The first question is from Rafael Barcellos from Bradesco BBI. Well, good morning, everybody. Thank you for taking my question. The first question regarding your disinvestment plan presented about a month ago. If you could share with us the details of the negotiation and which is the timing foreseen to begin the operations. My second question regarding the steel plant. We have observed some price initiatives. I believe there is a 5% increase set forth for April.

Benjamin Steinbruch, Chief Executive Officer, CSN0: Which is your view of the dynamic of demand, inventory price, and the efficacy of the recent measures adopted for the market protection measures announced recently? Thank you for the question. This is Marco Rabello. I will address your first point. As you heard on January fifteenth, we’re highly focused, as Benjamin mentioned in his comments. We want to have the signing of all of these processes in the third quarter of this year. Now, in the case of the sale of the control of Cimentos, this is a very healthy process. We have received several proposals after the presentation in January. We have potential buyers from different geographies, several from Asia, from Europe, as well as Brazilian ones. We believe we will have a highly healthy and competitive process for the sale of cement.

Antonio Marco Campos Rabello, Chief Financial Officer and Investor Relations Officer, CSN: We have Morgan Stanley with a mandate to head this operation. We have been working with them for some time. The entire process for the preparation of material VDR information package is well advanced. We believe we will have a speedy process in the coming months. To give you more color, the signing will be in the third quarter. In two months, we will have several proposals, and everything is quite feasible. Regarding the infrastructure, the process is advancing positively. As support, we have Bradesco and Citibank. We have advanced in a different way. We spoke with the potential buyers before the transaction in 2025. We were testing the potential of this vehicle, and the results were positive. The appetite of the market for this infrastructure platform that we have created with these seven assets is important.

Martinez, Steel Segment Executive, CSN: The dynamic has been very strong from the viewpoint of discussion with the buyers, but it does have a structural complexity that is different from cement. We’re creating something new, using different assets of a group for something novel. Of course, we have regulatory institutions involved in the process, such as the CADE and others. For the third quarter, the commitment continues to be valid, and we will get there. Hello, Rafael. This is Martinez. To speak specifically about prices, let’s give you a more complete scenario that we have imagined for steel for the first half of the year and the second as well. If we analyze what happened in those pillars that I mentioned, cost, operational excellence, imports, premiums, competitiveness, value, price. In the last two years, CSN was hit very strongly. We had higher costs. We were bombarded by imports.

Antonio Marco Campos Rabello, Chief Financial Officer and Investor Relations Officer, CSN: There still are some imports, and we had to follow the market to be able to compete. Now, the opportunity is to change this curve completely. In the first quarter, we should have stable volumes in steel, and in the second quarter, we’re already foreseeing an expressive increase in our portfolio in added value materials that represent 50% of our output. Still, in the first quarter of 2026, our forecast is that the price presented will be between 4.5% and 6% for the first quarter, keeping in mind the other initiative that we have for the higher added value products. We have reduced the discounts. We still have not begun that stage of price increases. I think the reduction of discounts is more important.

To reinforce what Benjamin said about anti-dumping measures regarding China and coated products, the initiative of CSN against anti-dumping is important because it will extend for five years. The entire anti-dumping process will extend for five years. Against China, I think those problems have been resolved. We now have the attention of the entire industry, not only of steel, but upstream, industries as well. We have the issue of circumvention and the impact on trade. If you look at the exports of China to Vietnam, they ended the year with 7 million. That could be also derailed to Brazil, Korea with 4, so we have to be attentive to this. Another initiative is supervision of the RFB and INMETRO to guarantee that the products reaching Brazil have the proper specifications for Brazil, ensuring this will not compromise work or the performance of equipment.

In this first half of the year, this is our forecast for price between 4.5% and 6%. Other factors can also help us to increase prices because of the events in China, the finance, the spike in iron ore, coal that went from $200-$250. Now, if we put this together with operational excellence, the cost of slab dropping from $330-$310. With those initiatives, our margin will end up with a positive two-digit figure. These are the opportunities we foresee in the market for the first and second quarter. Well, thank you, Martinez. A follow-up. At the end of last year, when we were speaking with market participants, I understood that there was a slowdown in demand, along with a higher inventory level in the market, along with the port.

Benjamin Steinbruch, Chief Executive Officer, CSN0: Now, which is the evolution of that dynamic, especially when we’re at the end of the first quarter looking at the second quarter? An excellent question, Rafael. Allow me to mention a third point. Last year, the apparent consumption of flat steel in Brazil that ended at 16,500 was a record, an absolute record. The only problem was that the internal sale of that was 12,200 compared with 14 million in 2013. We still have not gone back to that level. I have made some calculations to see what the year will be like. Imports closed last year around 25%. It’s worthwhile remembering that CSN was hit by a storm, 50% Galvalume, 60% metallic coated, sheets 43%.

Antonio Marco Campos Rabello, Chief Financial Officer and Investor Relations Officer, CSN: If we are able to reduce this and go back to a level of 13 million in the domestic market, now there will be coming into the market 1.5 million-2 million. I think this is what will happen in the domestic market. Steel will also have a strong growth. The steel consumption in Brazil, that is at a very interesting level. At the end of last year, the beginning of this year, what happened was an anticipation of the import purchases, so much so that in February, according to government data, double the amount was imported. I’m saying that the opportunities are there to recover margin through the reduction of discounts and a slight price increase. This will allow us in the first and second quarters to have the inventories in Brazil to be consumed, a part of them at least.

What is more important is that the figure for demand continues to be strong, very healthy, and the main goal is to recover the purchase of imports for the domestic market and to have CSN recover everything in terms of the coated products. Thank you. Thank you very much. The next question comes from Daniel Sasson from Itaú. Hello. Good afternoon to everybody. Thank you for taking my questions. My first question for Marco. I know you gave us more color in terms of your strategies, that we will have novelties in the coming three months with a signing or operation in the third quarter. Some things are perhaps outside of the control of the company market conditions, for example.

Daniel Sasson, Analyst, Itaú: Which are the strategic alternatives you have in mind as your B or C plan? If you will have a bridge loan, a temporary financial structure to calm down the market and buy you some time to analyze that competitive process that seems to be very healthy for the cement assets especially. It would be interesting to understand your mindset regarding those alternatives. A follow-up for Martinez about the previous question. Martinez referred to the volumes coming from China. They are now more protected, the five-year extension of the anti-dumping law. Are you concerned with volumes coming in from other places, for example, volumes coming in from Korea? And are you going to request that investigation be begun for products coming in from other countries? This is something we can see happening in the short term.

Antonio Marco Campos Rabello, Chief Financial Officer and Investor Relations Officer, CSN: In May, you have the maturity of that second year of that hybrid system of quotas and tariffs. Will this system be replaced, a 25% import tariff for everybody, or would this not happen? Simply so that we can better understand your mindset. Thank you. Daniel, this is Marco. Thank you for the question. Well, first of all, you know how all companies work, especially companies of the size of CSN. Financial management has a myriad of options, alternatives, and strategies, not only to address the liquidity of the company, but also the debt of the company. We have an entire arsenal at our disposal that we are building to be able to use. Because of our company profile, we will only bring to the market something when the operation has been signed, closed, and has become fully formal.

We will disclose this to the market with great isonomy. We avoid bringing in intermediate operations about financial operations that the company is considering now to answer your question. Because of media, there is a great deal of information on media about the operations the company is working on. Yes, as you mentioned, and I said during the presentation, we do believe on the sale of assets of the company. This has been very healthy. Cement stands out. Cement has a higher check involved in the operation. It’s more emblematic, and it draws more attention of the market. They mentioned in the market that we were carrying out an operation with that asset. Now, our priority is a structure where the sale of cement is a collateral to the operation. We were very close to concluding that operation a few weeks ago.

We had negative events, including other companies that were not CSN’s, and this generated a great deal of noise in the credit market, private credit funds, banks as well. Now, if we speak about the war, we’re all following up on this. We ended up not signing at that moment. We have waited a few more days waiting for the dust to settle. We are now back with this operation in the market. The same group of banks that was with us is presently working with us again, and the operation at this point is very mature. In a matter of days, very few days, this operation should be signed and fully closed. Once it is closed, the company will formally disclose this to the market to inform all the stakeholders directly. Of course, we have other options.

Martinez, Steel Segment Executive, CSN: I focus more on this one because of its media presence. I prefer to give you more color on that operation that is very close to the closing. It will be a highly healthy operation, bringing about qualitative and financial benefits for CSN, for the sale process, and for our creditors as well. Hello, Daniel. That’s an important question. There’s a piece of data that I would like to reinforce here. The participation of the government has been decisive at this point in time. We need to thank the participation of Minister Alckmin and Mr. Rosa. After a long time, we were able to convince them that we cannot compete with China.

Antonio Marco Campos Rabello, Chief Financial Officer and Investor Relations Officer, CSN: Secondly, there’s an issue of deindustrialization that could happen faster than we imagined, and that measures have to be put in place with a greater speed. In the last 4 or 5 months, we were able to achieve this. Regarding the anti-dumping, when we began the process, we worked on anti-dumping because this is a system that will extend for 5 years in metal sheet. First of all, we work with China, and I’m referring to margins. Simply to give you an idea, margins of $300-$500 in dumping margins in Brazil. A month ago, the government also approved the anti-dumping project for free pre-painted and galvanized with very high margins of $300-$700.

In the case of galvanized products in metal sheets, and the end of the investigation will be in four or five months against Germany, Holland and Japan. It’s not only China working with dumping in Brazil. In tin plate, we found margins of $500-$800 per ton of tin plate. Now, regarding the circumvention routes of escape for trade, it’s important to highlight that in cold rolls, the main problem here is Korea. We’re working with the government to observe in those countries and with other products what could be done. Another country that entered Brazil in tin plate without a background is India. There are some countries we have our eyes on so that we can lead to a more encompassing discussion regarding anti-dumping. We have India, Korea and more.

Another important matter, we have to be careful with this, and it comes from Paraguay. There are some companies that could bring the products to Paraguay and bring them to Brazil without tariffs. We’re closing up this operation to be fully competitive in this sense. Regarding China, nowadays, the premiums with imported material nationalized coming from China are already negative. As I mentioned, we began to carry out some reductions in discount. They’re very timely for coated products. Throughout this quarter, beginning of next quarter, we will begin to recover a more equal level of imports and premiums. Thank you. Thank you very much, Martinez. Regarding the possibility that the government will abandon the system of tariffs and quotas in May. What was simpler was to put a 25% import levy for everything.

It’s not long lasting like the anti-dumping, so the great victory was to put, for the main products of CSN, the anti-dumping mechanism. The government has 14 systems under the quota and tariff system, and there is pressure from the steel company that this should become 25% for all. Now finally, there are 7 million of steel coming to Brazil through direct import. Of the 6 million that comes into Brazil, there’s an additional 7 million coming in indirectly. In the upstream chains, the government sees an increase in imports: home appliances, machines, equipment. Last year, there were 500,000 cars imported into Brazil. The industry as a whole has understood that this is not a problem for steel. It refers to competitive autonomy for the industry as a whole. Thank you. Thank you very much, Martinez.

Benjamin Steinbruch, Chief Executive Officer, CSN1: The next question comes from Tatiana Caldini from JP Morgan. Good morning. First of all, a follow-up. You’re speaking a great deal about investments. I would also like to hear a follow-up on partners in steel. We saw that the results of this quarter, independent of the adjustments, show that this is a very challenging industry. What is happening to these partnerships in the steel sector, and if you have news of a potential sale? Is this part of the pipeline, and which is the partnership? The second question for steel again refers to imports. What do you foresee as being different vis-à-vis what has been approved in anti-dumping compared to tin plates? Is there a different protection for tin plates? Do you have to speak to the government? Is this the only path open to you? Thank you. Tatiana, this is Marco.

Antonio Marco Campos Rabello, Chief Financial Officer and Investor Relations Officer, CSN: I will answer the first part of the question. First, referring to the steel plant, we had a significant cost reduction during the year. In the fourth quarter, we had the lowest cost of production per slab in the last four years. Everything’s referring to the competitive capacity of the company while we’re delivering this. Now, with the anti-dumping measures approved and with the prices, we do have this new equation of price recovery, and this will enable the steel plant to continue growing its EBITDA to appropriate levels. Regarding strategic alternatives and plans, we have a plan from January fifteenth. We’re carrying out an in-depth assessment process in-house that will take some more months to discuss the type of partnership we want, the projects we will work with those partners to reach an EBITDA margin that is even higher, already aided and abetted by the prices.

Martinez, Steel Segment Executive, CSN: This is the assessment we’re carrying out at present. Regarding your question about the company’s sale, there is no definition in the company until we are able to assess investment routes, possible partnerships to support a better profitability in the steel plant. As soon as we have something, of course, we will broadly disclose this to the market. Tathiane, regarding import, what I am forecasting for the year is a drop of 1.5-2 million in imports. What happened in January and February was simply an anticipation of purchases. For the first quarter, we’re going to be directly impacted because this volume of imports coming to the domestic market will further benefit CSN. We have more added value products. We’re focused on construction, compared to other companies that have spot prices. This is important.

Antonio Marco Campos Rabello, Chief Financial Officer and Investor Relations Officer, CSN: Let’s think of a pre-painted product that we obviously produce in Brazil. There’s a new line that is ready to be assembled that is in Porto Real. We’re going to work with that line as well. There will be a demand for this. If we look at a pre-painted product, our margin presently is BRL 900 per ton, with a slight cost reduction, nothing expressive, of BRL 200 per ton and a correction in our discount, we could increase that margin to $300 per ton. The issue of profitability will bring us interesting surprises when it comes to the drop of imports that will impact us directly. When it comes to tin plate, for example, what is coming here will no longer come from China.

In the countries where we have anti-dumping, Germany, Holland and Japan, there will be an increase in imports. Now, the growth in the domestic market will be stronger in tin plate in the first market. We should increase sale by 20% in Brazil in a product where we have a very high margin. The scenario is very positive, very different from what we have faced in the last two years. I think this situation is here to stay. There are other situations we have no control over, but we can recover margins because of the prices. That was very clear. Thank you very much. The next question comes from Marcelo Arazi from BTG Pactual. Good morning, everybody. We have two questions. The first I would like to discuss that increase in net debt in the company.

Marcelo Arazi, Analyst, BTG Pactual: You published a negative cash flow of almost BRL 300 million, but net debt increased close to BRL 400 million. If we could better understand this gap. There are BRL 900 million in prepayment, monetary variation. We also have business combinations, something that is not very clear to me. If you could give us more clarity here regarding these two points. If you allow me a second question. There’s a relevant impact in the EBITDA of the steel mill this quarter. If you could give us more clarity in terms of those impacts and if they should continue going forward. Thank you. Marcelo, thank you for the question. This is Marco once again. Regarding the slide of net debt, I’m looking at it here.

Antonio Marco Campos Rabello, Chief Financial Officer and Investor Relations Officer, CSN: The two main impacts, we have a discussion of exchange variation, 900 reais, the payment of iron ore, BRL 900 million, and of course, the exchange variation. We had a devaluation of exchange at the end of the year. Now we had the valuation of the real as a strong currency at the beginning of the year and the prepayment of iron ore. Benjamin explained this very clearly. As always, these are operations of $300 million-$500 million at a single time, and we do this in mid-year. We did this in the third quarter of 2025. We didn’t do it in the fourth quarter. We’re going to do it between the first, second or third quarter. We’re looking for the best market moment to carry out this assessment, but our cash position will vary during the year.

As we didn’t do it then, this amortize the operation, the amortization goes throughout the year, and we have that drop in our cash. These two events are events that come back very clearly for the beginning of 2026. You speak about BRL 1.2 billion. We do have some event with a very clear impact. If we add them up, among them, we have variation in the MRS accounts. If we consolidate those figures, we have an increase in the debt of MRS, a reduction in cash of MRS.

The impact of BRL 200-300 million that you mentioned, there was an event for operational performance and that will explain the BRL 1.2 billion and a carrying out of a large number of surveys in the company for a monetization plan for our inventory, something we have already remarked on at the end of last year, amounting to BRL 1.2 billion as a whole. We reassess, restated this amount for inventories. This had to be adjusted. It’s a second-line inventory, and this brought about a significant impact on our indicators at the end of last year. Now, for the inventories we have begun to amortize. In 2026, we will have positive results. Now, another impact on steel also comes from the BRL 1.2 billion.

It’s an adjustment of factors that are from outside of the company, an adjustment of one-time effects, based on the costing and external factors for the company. This is a factor referring to other operations. It’s part of the net revenue of the company. Now, some of this was generated by the shutdown of furnace two as well, quite extensive. Now, this is put in the line item, other operations, something done in the fourth quarter. It wasn’t done during the other quarters. We do this at the end of the year, and we ended up having the total impact of the year only on the fourth quarter. To answer your question, this is not a factor that will be repeated in 2026, because this type of classification of events only happens with temporary factors.

For factors that will remain in place for longer periods, they are not part of that accounting law CPC 16. I hope this has been explained clearly. Thank you. Thank you very much. The next question comes from Guilherme from XP. Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for taking my question. I also have two questions. The first question in terms of cash generation and all of the topics we discussed here, is there the opportunity of reducing or making CapEx more flexible for the project P-15 in mining? Could we see lower figures in your business plan going forward? My second question refers to steel and the anti-dumping themes. Is there any update in terms of the anti-dumping of the queue? Any timing referring to the products that have already come in, the pre-painted and galvanized products?

Benjamin Steinbruch, Chief Executive Officer, CSN2: When will we see this scenario of volume being reduced from China and a better context of supply and demand in the domestic market, so that you can pass through better prices in these product lines impacted by the anti-dumping? Guilherme, thank you for the question. I will address the first part. We have a company with five segments of the size of CSN. It’s obvious that we’re quite flexible in holding that CapEx to manage the company or in moments of difficult liquidity. We do have that possibility when we define strategic route for the steel mill and bringing in partner. We want to improve that discussion of reducing CapEx for the steel mill. Now, the space we have in midyear should be for investments of 45%-50% of investment or steel that was contemplated in the plan of fifteenth of January.

Antonio Marco Campos Rabello, Chief Financial Officer and Investor Relations Officer, CSN: Now, all of this should bring a benefit in the use of cash of the company and CapEx as a whole, and the sale of the cement segment that will also bring about a reduction in CapEx. To answer in shorter terms, yes, we do have that flexibility. The discussion in the company does have that focus on CapEx. At the end of the year, we should have a better situation in CapEx. Guilherme, in tin plate, galvanized and cold rolled lamination, the discussion is over. In hot rolled product, the government came to a preliminary determination but has not applied provisional rights. They have opted to do this because of the red tape referring to control. There are margins that vary from $230-$300 in BQ. Now, the legal term of 18 months will be in December.

Martinez, Steel Segment Executive, CSN: Based on the conversations we have with the government, the final determination should be implemented until June or July at the most, and this is positive. Regarding China, another important case that could be used as jurisprudence for the other anti-dumping problems we’re looking at. For tin plate, for Germany, Japan and Holland, the legal term is December of 2026. The government has already set forth a preliminary of $315, but this has not been enforced yet. It should be enforced in the next two or three months. This is the portfolio that we have for trade defense and competitive isonomy. We’re always looking at the damage, the cause, and the anti-dumping proven in these cases. Now, the quota tariff program has helped us. It could be more effective if we increase the number of items.

Antonio Marco Campos Rabello, Chief Financial Officer and Investor Relations Officer, CSN: Now, what we’re going to do during the year, in the first quarter, there were no reductions of imports, quite the contrary. There was a strong increase in February, so a more expressive reduction should come about in the second half of the year. My expectation is that we will have a reduction during the year of 1.5-2 million tons of the products that impact CSN. There’s a question that Marcelo Arazi posed that was not answered. The CSN margin and what will happen going forward, we had a very difficult scenario despite this, and comparisons are hateful but necessary. If we take away the non-recurrent effect of the idle capacity explained by Marco, we would have an EBITDA margin of 7.6%-8% higher than the average of the sector. It was a huge challenge for us.

Imagine competing with products that have 50% imports. We had to be very creative to capture and bring in those results. Although these are not the final results we imagined. In the second quarter and until the end of the year, we should recover margins, bring them close to two digits or somewhat above two digits. Depending on the incoming imports, they should drop impressively in my understanding. Thank you. Thank you very much. The next question comes from Marcio Farid from Goldman Sachs. Thank you for taking my question. Simply a quick follow-up regarding steel. For the first quarter, you will have an increase of 4%-6%. That wasn’t very clear for me. Or is it simply a reduction of discounts for the first quarter? Now, given that outlook of a potential improvement in volume and a drop in imports, is there any planning?

Henrique Marquez, Analyst, Goldman Sachs: Are you thinking of potentially reconnecting your furnace too? Is this part of your short-term planning, or are you going to wait for the Volta Redonda furnace? Now, regarding the prepayment. This fourth quarter, was this one-time effect? Are you having a difficulty in rolling the prepayment contracts? Is there any type of concern that you have or not? You mentioned that it should come back in the first or second quarter. Once again, as these are large contracts with a relevant impact in cash generation, I would better like to understand the timing of the rollover of these contracts. In truth, Henrique, in the first quarter, between the improvement in mix and reduction of discounts, we should stand between 4.5% and 6%. This is not the impact of a price increase, but this will positively impact our results in the first quarter.

Martinez, Steel Segment Executive, CSN: Regarding the top furnace 2, I would like to underscore this. We have a strategy to complement our production with the purchase of slab. If we look at the track record in 2023, we brought in 400,000 and 2024, 670, almost 700,000 tons. In 2025, we were more creative. As we stopped the top furnace 2, we brought in more BQD that had a cost performance ratio that was more interesting. We ended the year with 500,000, 200,000 in slab, the rest in PDQ. This strategy proved to be successful. We are following up to see what will happen with the situation of slabs.

Antonio Marco Campos Rabello, Chief Financial Officer and Investor Relations Officer, CSN: There has been an increase in price vis-à-vis Europe, but I believe we will still, during 2026, live with the purchase of imported raw material, and perhaps from the domestic market, if the conditions are correct to be able to compete. Enrique Marquez, about the prepayment question, as I mentioned during the call, there is no link with the difficulty in funding and the issuance of new prepayments. Quite the contrary, we have a large number of trading companies interested in carrying out the prepayment. Last year, we had two additional companies looking out for the company to do this with better prices than that we have now. Companies wanting to work with a prepayment line with CSN. There is no concern. It’s simply due to the amount of iron ore involved in those transactions that makes sense for them.

Sometimes it’s not justified to carry out operations below BRL 800,000. For the fourth quarter, maybe have operations of BRL 2.5 billion-BRL 3 billion. That is why we do this operation twice a year. Not more than twice. We could do this three times, but not more than twice a year. This is what we did last year and in previous years. Of course, no difficulty in this case. Thank you. Thank you very much. The next question comes from Pedro Melo from Citi. Good morning. Good afternoon. Thank you for taking our question. Several questions have already been answered. I would like to go back to deleveraging plans. Among the alternatives that you mentioned, the sale of assets, cement, steel. Perhaps there’s another relevant cash source.

Pedro Melo, Analyst, Citi: This is important for the market when we think about amortization of BRL 1.4 billion in 2026. Would you have another plan besides the one we have already discussed? Thank you. Pedro, thank you for the question. Now to attempt to answer your question in a very clear way, proposals for strategic deleveraging in the company goes through the sale of assets, generating capital within the company, and based on that, of course, we’re going to incentivize the entire market to reduce net debt and, continue on with the refunding in the company. Now deleveraging of $14, $15, $16 million as we have been mentioning. We have title securities that are easily discounted in the market. The strategy when it comes to using the capital that will be raised with this financial activity is to do things in the most friendly way possible.

Antonio Marco Campos Rabello, Chief Financial Officer and Investor Relations Officer, CSN: This is the company mindset. Thank you. Now, simply to add to this, it’s a strategy, the sale of assets and monetization of assets the company has. Besides these assets, as everybody knows, this is in our balance. There are several other assets the company has that could be also sold further ahead, that could be used for deleveraging. These two assets show that because of the size of the check, they will be sufficient to comply with the intended deleveraging. Thank you. The next question comes from Nicholas S. from France. Good afternoon. Thank you for taking my question and for all of the comments.

Nicholas S., Analyst, France: I simply have a follow-up on the liquidity of the holdings, specifically, if you could give us more color on your present day cash for the entire holdings and how you look upon liquidity for the maturity of the bond in 2026, rolling out the other debt in 2026, and the drawdown risk that we saw during the quarter, simply to comfort the market that is a bit under stress because of liquidity. Thank you for the question, Nicholas. The cash, to speak very clearly, we spoke of BRL 16 billion consolidated. If we take away the cash of mining, cement, and other smaller companies, if we focus on the holding cash, 5.5 billion BRL, a comfortable cash for the company indeed.

Antonio Marco Campos Rabello, Chief Financial Officer and Investor Relations Officer, CSN: Now, to answer to the bond for 2026, $1 billion maturing in a little more than one month at the end of April. The 2028 bond, of course, is our main goal. We’re focusing on this. We want to reduce this with cash and with liability management, with refunding as is normal for an amount of this size. As some have asked, it will be very important because of this strategy that we have now, even the bond for 2028. We will have sufficient material, a good base. We will work in a friendly and intelligent way with the market to reduce the 2028 bond. There’s an important increase of suppliers at the end of the year, but this is linked to the purchase of iron ore from third parties for mining. This is not drawdown risk.

I don’t know if this has answered your question. Thank you. Thank you very much. We would like to remind you that should you wish to ask more questions, please click on the Raise Hand icon or send in your question through the Q&A icon. Once again, if you wish to pose a question, please click on the Raise Hand icon or send in your question through the Q&A icon. As we have no further questions, we will return the floor to Mr. Marco Rabello, CFO and Executive IRO, for the closing remarks. Thank you all for your questions. Of course, we are at your entire disposal to clarify any doubts that you may have in the coming days and weeks. Of course, we will always meet at these earnings calls. I will now return the floor to our CEO, Mr.

Benjamin Steinbruch, Chief Executive Officer, CSN: Benjamin Steinbruch, for the closing remarks. I would like to thank all of you for your attendance at the CSN earnings call. We do hope that the government will continue to support Brazilian industry as a whole, especially the steel plant, which was the most impacted. I would like to add that we are going to do our homework. We have been delivering what we have promised. We’re working arduously in the steel plant. We have obtained good results, and we will continue to work in this way. As regards supplies, this part has been fully mobilized. We’re purchasing in a better way at a lower cost. In terms of our commercial part, this has been very well set up. We’re reducing our inventories beginning in March.

Antonio Marco Campos Rabello, Chief Financial Officer and Investor Relations Officer, CSN: We think there will be a significant improvement in the market. January and February, perhaps was not very good, but March has already shown very strong results, in terms of sales commercially. Now our greatest commitment, deleveraging, we reaffirm our commitment here as we have been doing. We have committed the company to doing this in the shortest term possible. There was a question from Guilherme from XP regarding CapEx. We’re working not only on CapEx but also focusing on OpEx. We do have sufficient flexibility in terms of investments. We’re scanning all of our contracts, and we will have good results regarding all of this.

We should not be working with a high inventory of 2 million, but regarding investments and maintenance, we have to be very determined to have an efficient and rapid reduction so that this can also help us in the part of deleveraging, not only through the sale of assets, but enhancing the capital structure. Of course, we have short, medium and long-term alternatives for deleveraging and negotiation of different ways of deleveraging, not only the structure that was mentioned by Marco, the one that is best known in the market. We do have other alternatives that can be put into action as soon as we conclude with this one. We have a second one, a third alternative that has already been contracted. It is our obligation to have alternatives, and we do have them.

The increase of debt, that timely increase of debt, this is a one-time effect. There will be a reversion in the first half. Now, the issue of the prepayment, perhaps this will extend to the second quarter. Now, we have been favored by the exchange rate. We already see an improvement in that direction, as well as everything else that was explained to you by Marco. I would like to thank all of our employees for their work, and I invite them to do even more. I invite them to be ever more determined so that we comply with what we have committed to do, the deleveraging and in other areas. We have very good assets. We’re going to do our utmost to get the most out of them.

I thank all of you for your attendance, and we’re at your entire disposal for any question that you may have. I will return the floor to Marco Rabello for the closing. Thank you all for attending this conference call. We will now conclude our earnings call for the fourth quarter, full year 2025. Have a very good week. The CSN earnings call ends here. Have a very good afternoon.