Moody’s adjusted leverage for a utility such as VERBUND is typically measured as adjusted debt (financial debt plus operating‑lease obligations and other quasi‑debt items) divided by EBITDA. Using the available financial statements we can approximate this ratio:

- **2021 (year‑end 2022‑01‑01)**  
  - Total financial debt (non‑current + current financial liabilities): €3,296.6 M  
  - Cash & cash equivalents: €318.6 M → Net debt = €2,978.0 M  
  - EBITDA (2021): €1,578.9 M  
  - Net‑debt/EBITDA ≈ 2.98 B / 1.58 B ≈ 1.89  

- **2022 (year‑end 2023‑01‑01)**  
  - Total financial debt: €3,953.9 M  
  - Cash & cash equivalents: €409.3 M → Net debt = €3,544.6 M  
  - EBITDA (2022): €3,160.7 M  
  - Net‑debt/EBITDA ≈ 3.54 B / 3.16 B ≈ 1.12  

If we also add the right‑of‑use assets (a proxy for operating‑lease liabilities) the adjusted net‑debt rises but the ratio still falls from roughly 1.95 in 2021 to 1.17 in 2022.  

The key driver is the steep rise in EBITDA (more than doubling) while net debt grew only modestly. Consequently the leverage metric fell markedly, indicating a clear improvement in the company’s adjusted leverage position in 2022 compared with 2021.

<answer>Improving</answer>