Umicore Powerhouse in CAM with ambitions backed by solid order book

Last week's At the Core Battery Materials event in Poland, including a site visit to Nysa, highlighted the company's broad technology toolbox, tailored for both entry, mass and premium LDV segments. The competitive position of Umicore's NMC-focussed technologies vs LFP remains a key question, despite strong arguments for regional differentiation. We do believe that global OEMs prefer to establish local supply chains in ao Europe and North America, for reasons of supply security, geopolitical independency and carbon footprint. High manganese and solid-state technologies will in our opinion support the position of NMC-chemistries outside of China in the coming decade. Importantly, we remind that Umicore has already secured an order book of 270 GWh by 2030. As such we believe Umicore is well placed to play an important role in the electrification of transportation with an estimated LDV CAM market share within a 10-15% range until the end of the decade. Whilst CAM is the major growth driver for Umicore in the coming years, battery recycling has the potential to also become a major growth driver into the next decade, with site selection for a first industrial plant ongoing. We maintain our BUY rating with TP lowered from € 38 to € 35.