On Wednesday evening, the Luxembourg Stock Exchange held its second Investors Day at the Bourse in Luxembourg city centre.
Robert Scharfe, CEO, Bourse de Luxembourg, welcomed everyone and talked about the investment climate, big and small companies and the regulatory environment, including MIFID2. He welcomed the speakers who would be representing public and private companies as well as investors.
Michel Wurth, Board Member at ArcelorMittal, addressed the 100-strong attendance about the steel group and the exceptional challenges it faces in the markets; steel performance is resilient while mining costs are exceeding targets; nevertheless the group has strong liquidity and deleveraging targets are on track. Steel demand is contracting and competition is coming from exports from China at unsustainable margins; the stabilisation of the price environment is likely to end the destocking cycle.
However, demand prospects are encouraging, particularly in core developed markets, where 2015 group steel shipments will be higher than 2014, and 2016 is expected to be higher than 2015. Emerging market demand is likely to contract at a slower pace and the China market is expected to stabilise. He explained that 2016 will see USD 1 billion lower cash requirements (total of USD 2.5 billion lower since 2012). The group is showing strong liquidity and net debt has been improved; average debt maturity is 6.3 years.
Addressing specifics, he stated that ArcelorMittal is the global leader in steel for the automotice sector, with its global R&D platform sustaining a material competitive advantage. He also presented various project case studies where ArcelorMittal long products have been used throughout the world.
Gérard Lopez, President at Genii Capital, delivered a presentation on Private Equity (PE) from the perspective of being a real alternative to the stock exchange. He explained that PE is a model necessary for start-ups and is often used by family groups. Also, various companies choose to remain private have the possibility of turning to PE as opposed to going public. PE also avoids heavy regulation and limits potential responsibility, as well as allows such investment to be directed into specific areas.
Companies that have used a PE model in recent times include DELL, Heinz, Nestlé, Nike and 3M, amongst others. On the other hand, companies that have gone down the road of IPOS have included Tesla, Twitter and more.
He also talked about practical aspects of how the two approaches (sock exchange, private equity) could work alongside each other; he stressed the flexibility of the board / management being a signiicant issue here.
Marie-Hélène Massard, CEO at AXA Assurances Luxembourg, presented the group and talked about AXA being the #1 insurance brand globally with a turnover of €92 billion. She explained how its focus/culture of innovation allows its to accelerate its investments in innovative companies and projects world-wide, to create a complete eco-system.
The formal part of the event was folowed by a networking cocktail.
Photos by Geoff Thompson (top): Robert Scharfe, CEO, Bourse de Luxembourg; (below): Gérard Lopez, Président, Genii Capital; Marie-Hélène Massard, CEO, AXA Assurances Luxembourg; Vincent Ruck, Moderator; Michel Wurth, Membre du Conseil, ArcelorMittal
