Compagnie de Saint-Gobain S.A.

Thank you. Good evening, everybody. I hope that you have received our press release and you have been able to go through the highlights. Together with Sridhar, our CFO, we will present our Q1 performance, which is solid despite some markets remaining difficult. We saw a sequential improvement in volumes versus Q4 of 2023, which are progressively troughing in Europe country by country. On the operational side, our local teams continue to take country by country the right proactive measures on commercial priorities, on pricing, on purchasing actions, and also, of course, on cost. So they have clear priorities to optimize their P&L and make the best of their local environment. On the strategic side, the quarter has been busy. We continue to pursue at a good pace our growth strategy as worldwide leader in light and sustainable construction, and we have been decisively allocating capital in a disciplined manner. This is demonstrated once again first by our recently announced acquisitions to expand our presence in the fast-growing geographies of North America, Asia Pacific, and emerging markets, which now represent around two-thirds of the group operating profit. In Australia, of course, our acquisition of CSR will give us a leading position in light and sustainable construction within a very attractive market with strong democratic needs and also a new building code with stricter energy efficiency requirements. In Canada, our acquisition of Bailey in metal frames will further reinforce are offered for light and sustainable construction in the country following the moves of KCAN and Building Products of Canada in recent years. The processes which are necessary for completion are underway. Together, these two acquisitions will add more than 3% to our group sales on a full year basis. Second, on the strategy side, we keep going with our focus on the attractive construction chemicals market with six Bolton acquisitions since the start of the year. All this means that we continue to deliver strong milestones on our strategic roadmap to reinforce the group's profitable growth profile. I now hand over to Sridhar who will give you additional information about our first quarter sales.

Thank you, Benoit, and good evening to everybody. As Benoit said, Saint-Gobain demonstrated once again its resilience in Q1 with a sequential improvement in volumes even in the difficult new construction market environment in Europe. In Q1, we had a negative scope impact reflecting our continued portfolio optimization strategy. Volumes were down 4.7% in the quarter with a negative working day impact of around minus 1.5% at the group level. This means we saw an improvement in volumes compared to Q4. which was at 4.5%. Thanks to our pricing discipline and purchasing actions, we were able to benefit from lower costs in energy and some raw materials, delivering a price-cost spread positive in Q1 and in all segments, even with prices down 1.1%. Given the strong focus on price-cost spread from each and every country CEO, I'm confident that we will once again deliver a positive price-cost spread for the full year 2024. Now let us look at by segment. Overall in Europe, we saw a sequential improvement in volumes and we are progressively trapping country by country. Volume showed an improvement compared to Q4, which were at around minus 6% at comparable working days. Note, working days were especially negative in Europe at more than minus 2%. We continue to see contrasted trends by end market with resilient renovation but weak new construction. The difficult new construction markets impacted Nordic countries and Germany while renovation markets remained more resilient. In the UK, we saw a smaller decline in Q1 and we think we have troughed. We are benefiting from a strong commercial dynamic in the country thanks to our complete solutions offering, which is allowing us to lead and gain market share. In Eastern Europe, we saw positive volumes for the second quarter in a row, leveraging our full set of solutions across the broadest offer in the market. In France, we were impacted by the weak new construction market, but continue to outperform thanks to our strong position in the renovation market. Renovation market continues to be resilient. Spain and Italy saw solid performance with volume growth in resilient construction markets. In the Middle East and Africa, we achieved strong growth, especially in Turkey and Egypt, thanks to our recent investments. In the Americas, The strong growth of 5.9% in Q1, up in both volumes and prices, was driven by our clear outperformance in North America. In North America, we continue to see strong volume growth. We benefited from a strong renovation market on an easier comparison basis in roofing as well as the stabilization of the new construction market at a very good level. We continue to gain market share thanks to our comprehensive offer for exterior and interior solutions for the light construction market. The recent integrations of Kaikan and Building Products of Canada contributed to this robust sales momentum. Latin America saw continued weak markets, but volumes are now stabilizing at the level of Q4. In Brazil, certain macro economic indicators are improving, and we are benefiting from our complete solutions in light construction. Coming to the Asia Pacific region, we saw a robust growth of 4.5% in Q1, driven by India. India delivered another strong performance with market share gains thanks to our complete solutions approach, the right trade-off on price, and our targeted investments for growth. We continue to take many sustainability-driven initiatives in the country, including the production of a very low-carbon plaster, increasing the amount of recycled content in our products, and also using biogas energy. In China, although the new construction market remains difficult, we are continuing to gain market share thanks to our positioning in renovation, our expansion in certain regions, and above all, our attractive offering, delivering quality, circularity, lighter solutions, and excellent customer service is helping us to strengthen our position. Southeast Asia remained at a good level, driven by Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore, thanks to our rich set of solutions. Now, let us look at our global customer markets. High-performance solutions saw organic sales decrease 5.4% in Q1 on a high comparison basis. We saw a significant decrease in our reinforcement grid business ad force, due to the weak new construction market in Central Europe. However, in construction chemicals, we continue to have a good dynamic, both in CREZO and GCP, driven by infrastructure projects and innovations to decarbonize construction. In Q1, Saint-Gobain Construction Chemicals opened two new plants. Our mobility business was stable on a high comparison basis and our business serving industrial markets decreased due to weaker industrial markets linked to the investment cycles. To sum up, Sangoba remains resilient with a sequential improvement in volumes. We continue to achieve market share gains in many countries through our solutions. We are confident to deliver a positive price-cost spread for the full year and also to achieve in 2024 a double-digit margin for the fourth consecutive year. Now I hand over back to Benoit for the concluding remarks.

Thank you, Sadaf. So I would like to make a few comments to conclude. First, I would like to thank our team. I'm very proud of the operational results They have achieved in Q1, despite some markets remaining difficult. And the solid performance in Q1 is thanks to their hard work, focused on outperformance, a very strong discipline execution, and also good trade-offs, such as investment for growth, proactive cost rationalization, or footprint optimization, wherever necessary. Although new construction markets in Europe remain difficult, we have seen a sequential improvement in volumes in Q1, and we are progressively troughing in Europe country by country. Renovation, which represents around 60% of our sales in the region, remains more resilient. We have delivered also strong performance of growth in North America, Asia, Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa, and also in construction chemicals. So at the group level, we believe we have reached a floor and the worst is behind us. We are confident to deliver a double digit margin once again in 2024, which will mean a fourth consecutive year of double digit margin for Saint-Gobain. So to sum up, 2024 will be another successful year for Saint-Gobain. Why that? Because we will show once again our performance versus our markets, also another year of strong resilience. We will continue to deliver important milestones in our strategic worldwide leadership in light and sustainable construction with very good quality assets, business and geographic positions, that bode very well for our future. Thank you for your attention and Shredda and I are now happy to answer any of your questions.