Thales S.A.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to today's Thales first half 2024 results conference call. The presentation will be held today by Mr. Patrice Kane, Thales chairman and CEO, and Pascal Bouchier, Thales CFO. It will be followed by a question and answer session, at which time, if you wish to ask a question, you need to press star one and one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. I must advise you that this conference is being recorded today. I would now like to turn the conference over to Ms. Alexandra Boucheron, VP, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Welcome and thank you for joining us for the presentation of CELES 2024 Half-Year Results. I'm Alexandra Boucheron, Head of Investor Relations at CELES. With me today are Patrice Kane, Chairman and CEO, and Pascal Boucheron, CFO of CELES. As usual, this presentation is audio webcasted live on our website at stylusgroup.com, where the slides and the press release are also available for download. A replay will be available soon after the end of the event. With that, I'd like to turn over the call to Patrice Kane.

Good morning, everyone. So, as usual, I will start with the highlights of the period. and I'm now on slide number two. So we have enjoyed a strong commercial dynamics again in this first half and notably in a defense and security where we have recorded three orders in excess of 500 million euros. This momentum was especially driven by large orders leading our backlog to reach a new historical record of 47 billion euros. Sales were also robust, growing by 6% organically, standing at the top of the guidance range set for this year. This growth was fueled by strong organic growth in aeronautics and defense and security ahead of our expectations. Strong achievements in terms of profitability as well, with an EBIT margin up 20 basis points compared to last year, While we increased our R&D expenses, notably in space, and Pascal will come back to it, and faced high comps for the IS. Last but not least, we completed the acquisition of Cobham Aerospace, and we eventually finalized the disposal of our transport activity. And I would take this opportunity, of course, to thank all the teams who contributed to this operation. Let's move now to slide number three, looking at our financial performance in the future. As previously said, we have enjoyed strong commercial momentum this semester, with order intake increasing by 26% in real terms and by 23% organically, and reaching 10.8 billion euros ahead of expectations. The book-to-bill ratio is once more above 1 at 1.13. Sales reached 9.5 billion euros, growing by 8.9% in real terms and 6% organically. Ebit grew by more than 10%, while EBIT margin improved to 11.5%. This is in real terms, and Pascal will come back on organic numbers later in this presentation. Adjusted net income grew by 6%, taking into account higher financial expenses, as you know, and reaching 866 million euros. Free operating cash flow is positive at 23 million euros, down from previous year as expected, in a still tight supply chain environment, it reflects higher stocks to face higher demand and the need to build strategic inventories to properly serve our customers. Lastly, our net debt position increased by about 400 million euros compared to December 2023, taking into account dividend payments and the completion of our share buybacks program. After this brief introduction, I now hand over to Pascal, who will comment our financial results in greater details.