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. So together with Chreda, our group CFO, we will present our Q3 2024 performance. As expected, we saw a sequential improvement in organ growth in Q3. The Americas, Asia-Pacific, and high-performance solutions saw good levels of activity. but sales continued to be affected by weak new construction markets in Europe. With the exception of France, however, most countries in Europe are at or near a low point. On the operational side, we continue to be disciplined in our execution and deliver well on what we can control. Our local teams are proactive, taking the right measures at the right time to deliver on their priorities, whatever their local environment. There is no one-size-fits-all mentality, but we are making the most of our local markets, focusing on cross-selling actions with solutions to outperform, tactical decisions on pricing, industrial actions to either adjust costs where we need to, or invest for growth where we need additional capacity in order to meet growing demand. On the strategic side, our recent acquisitions in North America, Asia Pacific, and construction chemicals made a good contribution to our growth in Q3 with a positive structure impact. I'm excited to say that in recent months, we have closed both Bailey, reinforcing our offer for light construction in Canada, with now a position of number one in building materials in this country and we have also closed csr establishing a leading position in light and sustainable construction in australia we are focused on the integration of all our recent acquisitions and implementing the planned synergies I'm thus very confident that we have the right action plans and the right teams in place to create value exactly like we have done, for instance, on Continental Building Products or Criso. We have also announced two important acquisitions in construction chemicals in recent months, Phosphoroc in India, the Middle East, and Asia Pacific in particular, and OVNIVERE the CENIX brand, which is their commercial brand, in Mexico and Central America. These two acquisitions will accelerate our presence in these fast-growing construction chemicals markets. Both acquisitions are expected to close in the first half of 2025, and we are excited to get started on the integrations as soon as we can. As you can see, we continue to allocate capital in a disciplined and decisive manner as part of our growth strategy as worldwide leader in light and sustainable construction. I will now hand over to Shredda, who will give you additional information about our third quarter sales. Shredda.

Thank you, Benoit, and good evening, everyone. As Benoit said, Saint-Gobain saw a sequential improvement in organic sales in Q3. with good levels of activity in the Americas, Asia-Pacific, and high-performance solutions, but continuing to be affected by the weak new construction markets in Europe, particularly in France. We had a positive structural impact of 3.4% in Q3, thanks to our recent acquisitions in our targeted growth markets like North America, Asia-Pacific, and construction chemicals. Volumes were down 1.5% in Q3 and by 3.1% over the nine months in line with our expectations for the full year of a low single-digit volume decrease. Prices were stable sequentially, down by 0.5% in the third quarter and by 0.8% over the nine-month period, generating a positive price-cost spread thanks to the robust pricing discipline and the overall tailwind from the raw material and energy costs. Looking at the Q3 trend, we are confident to deliver a positive spread for the second half, although the magnitude of the spread will be, as expected, much smaller in H2 than H1 due to the comparison basis. Now let us look by segment. Overall, in Europe, we saw a noticeable improvement in sales compared to the first half beyond the technical swing in working days, which were around plus 2% in Q3. Organic sales were down 4.5% in Q3 compared to down 7.9% in H1. We continue to see contrasted trends by end market. New construction remains significantly down, but renovation continues to remain resilient. Apart from France, most countries are at or near a low point, which is in line with what we told you previously. We have troughed in the UK with almost flat sales volume in Q3, which is a solid outperformance, and in the Nordic countries and Germany, we think we are close to a low point. Eastern Europe continued to see the volume growth we have now seen for the several quarters. Elsewhere, Spain and Italy continued to show slight growth with supportive renovation markets and market we clearly outperformed in these countries. And we saw a strong growth in the Middle East and Africa thanks to the recent investments. In France, we also continue to outperform in a new construction market which remains significantly down thanks to our strong renovation exposure and our comprehensive range of solutions. Given to the political uncertainty, we expect France to take a few more quarters to reach the low point as we told you at the end of July. Leading indicators for borrowing and market sentiments are encouraging, however, helped by falling interest rates and improved affordability. In the Americas, sales were up 0.8% like for like in Q3. North America remains stable at a good level as we continue to benefit from our comprehensive light solutions offering, bringing high value-added for customers and also the price increases that we are successfully implementing latin america returned to growth in q3 with the start of the expected recovery in brazil where we also saw share gains in the market with the opening of the third plasterboard line the asia pacific region saw good resilience in sales with a small decrease of 0.9% in Q3. India outperformed once again with continued volume growth, driven by our complete solutions and the strength of the Sangoban brand in the country. In China, the new construction market remains difficult, but we achieved market share gains thanks to our renovation exposure. Our move towards inner China and our fully digitally managed sales model is helping us. Southeast Asia saw sales led by Vietnam and Indonesia. And the last, but not the least, we began the integration of CSR in Australia during Q3, following completion of the acquisition in July. Now let us look at our global customer markets. High-performance solutions saw organic sales rise 0.7% in Q3, a clear sequential improvement. We saw a recovery in our sales of our ad-force reinforcement solutions and further growth in our construction chemicals business, with continued good trends in CREZO and GCP up around 4% like-for-like in Q3. Mobility sales stabilized. We outperformed the underlying auto market thanks to our strong technological positioning and also the innovation that we invest continuously. Our businesses serving industrial markets were slightly up despite some industrial markets remain uncertain. To sum up, Q3 saw a sequential improvement in organic growth We once again achieved market share gains in many countries thanks to our complete solutions offering and empowered local organization. We are confident to deliver a price-cost spread for the full year and for the H2 alone. I now hand over the floor back to Benoit for his concluding remarks.

Thank you, Sridhar.

Now I would like to make a few comments to conclude. We confirm that we expect some of our markets to remain difficult over 2024 overall, with weakness in new construction and resilience in renovation in Europe, and good levels of activity in the Americas, Asia Pacific, and high-performance solutions. Despite this mixed context, our teams are delivering country by country, enabling us to deliver a strong operating performance. As a result, we expect a further increase in our operating margin in 2024. Even in challenging markets, we therefore continue to demonstrate again our resilience, reflecting the quality of our businesses and the strength of our organization. We have a clear and focused strategy as leader in light and sustainable construction that has been paying off strongly over the last years, supported by structural needs to construct in a more sustainable manner to improve the energy efficiency of existing buildings, to deal with population growth, urbanization, and more and more to adapt to climate change. We are continuing to execute in a decisive manner to reinforce the group's profitable growth profile. As you saw in our July H1 presentation, two-thirds of our operating profit now comes from North America, Asia-Pacific, and emerging countries, markets with strong structural growth. And with our recent acquisitions, we have created on the pro forma basis, a 6.5 billion euros platform in construction chemicals. So in conclusion, 2024 will be another year of success and strong execution for Saint-Gobain. And I'm very confident that our strategic plan has set us up for many successful years to come. Thank you for your attention and Shada and I are now happy to answer any questions.

Thank you. This is the conference operator. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their telephone. To remove yourself from the question queue, please press star and two. Please pick up the receiver when asking questions. The first question is from Ibrahim Omani of CIC.

Hello, Benoit Schrader. Thank you for taking my question. I have three, if I may. The first one is about the France and Europe low point. In France, should we expect to reach the low point in Q4 2025? And in the other European country, when do you see the low point? My second question is about the crisis. Is crisis still outperforming its sector in terms of top line and margin? And maybe my last question on CSR and Bailey, could you give us an update on the integration of these two companies? Is everything on track as you expected?

Thank you for your questions. I would say overall in Europe we see and we expect to continue to see moving forward a gradual sequential improvement. Clearly, as you know, in Eastern Europe, we have turned to positive volumes, and now it's four consecutive quarters. As we said, in the UK, we had flattish volumes in Q3. We were actually slightly positive in Germany in Q3, and also positive in South Europe. So truly, I think the low point has been reached, or we have passed it in most of the countries, and we are very close to that in the in the Nordic countries. In France, it will be more gradual. As you can imagine, the political situation has created a bit of a wait-and-see attitude recently. As Schrader mentioned, we start to see some green shoots in terms of market sentiment, in terms of financing on the credit side. So it will take a while. Renovation is resilient. I think we will continue to see a good level of activity in terms of And we see that also in the statistics of the craftsmen in France, which is above 70 days of order book. It has not changed. It has not deteriorated. The new construction will take a bit longer. So it's a bit too early to say, but yes, it will take several quarters for France to turn up on new construction. On your question regarding CRISO, yes, we continue to outperform. We mentioned 4.1% in terms of like-for-like growth in Q3, so I think it's a nice outperformance, you may say that, and margin is extremely solid. You remember that we started with CRISO as a stellar margin when we bought it and it has even continued to improve. So yes, Crizo is holding well on the margin. We are very disciplined on innovation, on bringing new innovation, new products, notably around sustainability to our customers and continuing to outperform in terms of like-for-like growth. CSR and Belay, well, I was in Australia in early July for the close and Shreda was there for a full week end of August. The organization is in place. It's crystal clear for them. We have connected the dots on multiple topics, notably world-class manufacturing, on all the traditional corporate integration, be it IT, finance, EHS, purchasing. We have sent a few people there. For instance, our deputy purchasing guy, has been sent over there to oversee not only Australia but also Asia-Pacific purchasing. So a lot of good actions are in place. We had several managers of CSR in our annual meeting gathering for the top 140 managers of Saint-Gobain mid-September. So the spirit is very positive. The link with the teams of Saint-Gobain is there and the attitude is exactly what we expect. So I'm very happy with what we We have a team, a very strong team in Australia. Belay is also a very strong company in Canada. I was there two weeks ago, so it's well on track. Connecting, it's more on the sell side in terms of cross-selling. When you sell steel frame, you can sell plasterboard. We share some common distributors, so it's more on the selling side. But yes, we connect the dots also in Canada quite nicely. And again, the spirit in Canada is positive. So yes, we are confident about those two and confident that we will create value on all the acquisitions exactly like we have done strongly even on year two. Remember, CRIZO was year two, Continental Green Products was year two. So I'm very confident that we are on track for good momentum, notably in Canada, Australia. And we are also preparing, but it's more the background because we cannot talk more on SEMICS. In Mexico and Central America and FOSROC on the other side, we are preparing also with multiple visits, multiple discussions with the teams. But of course, we cannot go too much too far because we are still in the antitrust filing. But I'm very confident that, again, the teams are well connected on all these fronts of integration.

Thank you very much.

The next question is from Elodie Rall of J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.

Hi, good evening. Thanks for taking my questions. I have two on margins, if I may. So the first one is on the near-term outlook. So you've tweaked your guidance a little bit to look for further improvement in margins versus last year at 11%. Is there any reason why H2 shouldn't see the same kind of year-on-year improvements, which was 40 pips in H1? I mean, I know the price-cost is a bit lower but still positive than H1. Volume should be better in H2 than H1. And you have the positive impact from acquisition. So would it be fair to look for a similar improvement? My second question is on the midterm outlook for margin. You achieved margin improvement so far despite a weak volume environment. So where do you think margins could go with a volume recovery? And maybe if I can throw in actually a third one on the performance in construction chemicals, which was quite impressive, up 4%. If you could provide some color there on volumes and pricing and across regions. Thanks very much.

I will let Shredar take the first one, and I will take the second and the third.

Yeah, so, Elodie, H2, you need to compare with last year H2, and... We have to keep in mind that we expect the volumes to remain negative in the second half, so that would certainly be one of the factors. The second thing is price-cost spread. Yes, it will be lower. We said we were very confident that we will deliver a positive price-cost spread, but in terms of Euro terms, it will be very limited. And so for us, I think, you know, when you look at it, the best way to look at it is that for the year, we are going to, we are confident that we are going to make progression as compared to what we delivered last year. So I think at this point of time, we will not be more precise than that, but just keep these two factors, which is an important factor, which will have an impact on the second half versus last year's first second half.

And being close to the end of the year, it makes sense to give you a picture for the full year margin, which again will be another new record. On your second question for the midterm outlook. So first, we will talk about our expectations in February for 2025. And as you know, and as you expect, we will have a capital market day in the second half of 2025 to reset the guideline and the the roadmap for the next five years. So it will be a good opportunity to talk about that. What I can tell you is that we have established a very strong, rock-solid organization in order to deliver tactically on the ground, be it on initial topics, be it on pricing, be it on cross-selling solutions, et cetera. So that's, I think, a very strong pillar on which we'll continue to capitalize and to build. When there will be some volume recovery in Europe, there will be some operating leverage. And the third point I would mention is that, as you have seen over the years, we have made very attractive acquisitions which are running at an attractive margin, and therefore we should expect the ongoing impact from our M&A activity from recent years or recent months to continue to have a positive impact on the Mardin. So I hope I gave you enough, not too much, but that gives you a bit of color of how we are thinking of the way we shape the group in terms of quality of the business, quality of execution, and very strong growth and profitable profile. Now on construction chemicals, yes, we have a good performance in Q3, It's a lot related notably to some countries in Northern Europe, some countries also in Asia, and also a good performance in some countries of Western Europe like France. So it's overall quite spread. I would say the good support behind this project this growth is a very focused organization on cement additives and admixtures for concrete with dedicated dedicated teams with also a good innovation pipeline notably on sustainability so i think it's a across multiple countries it's not just one and with again a very good streamlined quality of business i when i was in the us in early october i did review our north american chriso gcp business The teams on the ground are very good, and we have won some customers based on the quality of service, based on the depth of the knowledge of our teams, and plus the innovation behind it. And we continue, if I take the US as one example, we continue to add labs where we were not present in some parts of the country, so being closer to the customers in terms of both lab and mixing units. So it's a combination of multiple factors, and all this with the leadership of Thierry Bernard, who is a very strong expert in that field.

Great. Thanks very much.

The next question is from Paul Roger of BNP Paribas Exxon.

Evening, Benoit, Sherida, and Trim. Thanks for taking the questions. So just two for me, then. If we can talk a bit about pricing. I think you mentioned stable sequentially in the quarter, but I do think previously you talked about some increases in Q3, I think notably in the Americas. So I'm just wondering, did they not stick or were there some declines elsewhere which basically offset that? And then secondly, are you expecting any boost in U.S. roofing sales or indeed other U.S. sales after the storms in the country recently?

So maybe I take the second one. and Shredda will take the first. No, we have a good activity in North America, notably on roofing. I think we gained share when I look at the statistics in Q3 for the armor in North America, so a good performance both in terms of pricing and volume for roofing. When you look at the recent storms, well, first, we have been fortunate that we didn't get any damage our teams their families and of course for also our assets we think that it could indeed provide some additional volume in some parts of the country for next year this year overall 2024 was not a very exceptional year in terms of storm it was actually slightly below We had a bit of carryover effect from the storms of 2023 into 2024, but the activity in terms of weather and storm was not particularly strong. But indeed, in the southeast, some of the recent storms and hurricanes should bring some additional volume in this part of the country for next year, and I would say it's unfortunate, but it fits well with the new capacities we have announced because we have a new capacity for roofing in Georgia to serve the southeast that will come on stream in the second quarter of next year. And as you may also remember, we have a second line in our large plasterboard plant in Palatka, in Florida. And also this flood and hurricane, it will trigger quite a lot of activity for gypsum, we think, going forward. So overall, yes, a good, solid third quarter in the U.S., both for roofing and gypsum. Keep in mind that also gypsum, it's a lot related to single-family homes, and the housing starts on single-family has been up recently. So it's solid and even up, if I take the latest statistics. Maybe, Shredda, for the first one.

Yes. So, Paul, when you look at the numbers, it is basically minus 1.1 in the first quarter, and then it's 0.8, and then the third quarter has been minus 0.5. So when you look at it optically, clearly we are making the impact is lesser and lesser quarter on quarter. We did see a push on prices, particularly in the U.S. market. If you recall, we have been trying to push the prices each time we had the opportunity, more so in roofing business and gypsum businesses, and they've been quite successful in doing that. and then you know in all other countries it's again by country we do make certain trade-offs there are places where we have to need to make some adjustments if you recall we had talked about the glass but then again at the end of the day this is all in line with the deflation that we saw in their input cost so this is again intelligent trade-off that each country manager is doing depending on the the tailwind that he's seeing in the input cost in his country. So this is a very permanent ongoing monitoring happening. I think what is most important is that we remain very confident to deliver price-cost spread positive. And that's what I said in the beginning itself, that when I look at the trend, what we saw in Q3, H2, I remain, again, confident to deliver a price-cost spread which is positive.

And I should have mentioned it because you asked about the U.S., but we announced also some price increase for Gypsum in the U.S., which will happen in the first quarter of 2025. So we are ongoing tactically, as Fredard said, on some pricing actions.

That's great. Thank you very much. Have a good evening.

Thank you, Paul.

The next question is from Ephraim Ravi of Citigroup.

Thank you. So two questions. One, again, on pricing. So you've had sort of pricing pressure in the glass businesses, but in pretty much every other business, my understanding was that you are having a pricing increase. Is that still the trend going forward, i.e. all the decline is essentially coming from the glass-related businesses where there has been kind of cost pass-through impact rather than the core kind of construction impact? driven businesses. And secondly, in terms of automotive or mobility, it's down 1.5%. Are you seeing any impact of the further decline that you're seeing in the outlook for European automotive in terms of your outlook for Q4 and into 2025?

Thank you. And one comment, general comment. Shada will give you some color by country. we manage our business, you remember, by country for the last six years. So the way you look at it, and indeed, the pricing situation varies by country.

Yeah. As far as glass is concerned, I think it's more or less stabilized. It's being managed very closely. Whatever corrections we had to do, we had done it in the beginning of the year, depending on what the tailwind we had seen. And again, this is a business that we saw also the biggest tailwind. So it's being monitored and... and we see that in a much more stable situation as far as the glass prices are concerned.

And indeed, we look at it by country. For instance, recently in Central America, Mexico, Brazil, we were slightly up in pricing in glass. So again, it's based on all the different market dynamics. On mobility, I think what we see in Q3 is clearly a strong outperformance because we are with a unique technology on most of the models. for high-end models, also for, I would say, classic EV or hybrid vehicles. So it has been a deliberate strategy over the years to go after value, higher margin on that business. And we benefit from that because we are positioned on the successful model. So I'm not particularly worried about what we read or what has been announced by others. I would say when you are on the commodity side and only in Europe, remember that our business is only 30% Western Europe. All the rest is outside of the world in terms of mobility. And we have this unique ability to service customers, be it in North America, be it in India, be it in China, Thailand, Korea, Brazil, notably on their new models. So no particular worry about the current trend that we may see elsewhere on Europe O2. Thank you.

The next question is from Briescia of HSBC.

Good evening, gents. I have two questions as well. So the first one is on North America. That performance is flat in Q3. If you could just split that into volume and price and provide some color on what you look at is the demand going forward at least into Q4 and into 2025. And what's the kind of capacity? You talked about expanding capacity. So I was wondering, what's the underlying capacity to deliver growth into 2025? in North America. And the second one is on raw material side. So you talked about price costs being spread, getting squeezed out into H2. So looking into 2025, if Sridhar can help us kind of understand how the raw material dynamics looking like, are you seeing some inflation there coming in, or if so, and what's the magnitude of it?

I will take the second and I will come back to the first one.

Yes. So, you know, when you look at the raw material inflation situation, as of now, it continues to be a deflationary environment. But I would say for 2025, I would expect there will be an inflation. That's my assumption. It's too early. We will anyway talk in the end of February. But whatever trend I see, I think we should see. And in a way, I feel also it's good, good for us because when you have some news of inflation, then you have enough of reasons to go back to the customers and try and start trying to push the prices. And actually, we started preparing, preparing for it. And typically, that's what Sangam has done it systematically in the last four years. You've seen that we anticipate and take proactive steps So the teams are looking at making, depending on, again, country by country, some price increase in the beginning of next year.

Thank you. And coming back to your question on North America, well, first, keep in mind that we had quite a strong price increase in Q3 last year in roofing, so the comparison basis is a bit higher. Overall, U.S. is up. volume and price, and Canada is slightly soft. So it's better to read it that way. And within the US, we are stronger in roofing, insulation, if I take it in the right order, gypsum, and slightly soft in siding. But again, against a very strong comp from Q3 last year. So that's a role a combination of price and volume for U.S., slightly negative in Canada, and roofing being the strongest line in Q3. Insulation is quite strong as well, gypsum also, and siding a bit softer. And going into next year, I'm confident that we'll have a good activity. Again, housing start on single family, which is what matters the most for us, are moving in the right direction. The sentiment from home builders is positive. There is, as you know, a large shortage of supply. Mortgages have been up and down flattish around 6% in the last month and quarters. If there is any additional interest rate cut, it would help. We discussed already what could be the impact of renovation notably for roofing coming from extreme weather impact. So altogether, we think 2025 will stay at a good level of activity in the U.S. It could be also bouncing back in Canada because we expect also the Bank of Canada to cut, they have done already some of that, but to cut interest rates going forward. So altogether, 2025, I'm confident for a solid activity in North America, U.S. and Canada.

Thank you. And just a supplementary on the U.S. elections, if Republicans in Delta have changed any of the dynamics, you think, on the underlying demand trends?

Frankly, our managers on the ground don't see and don't expect any impact from the election one way or the other. What they expect, like anyone, is to have a clear cut in terms of result of the election. But in terms of program one way or the other we don't expect any significant shift or move and again the demand is there the affordability gets better the sentiment from the home builders is there so we are confident to have a solid activity going forward in the US keep in mind it's a local business so I was in early October in the US visiting Georgia, Florida, Texas, Arkansas what matters is the how strong you are in terms of market share, local teams, solutions in those parts of the country. And there is a demand. So that is why we have put additional capacity in that part of the country. And also to your question, they are limited in scope. We are talking about, if I take a roofing, it's a 5% additional capacity, 5% to 7% additional capacity for our business as Saint-Gobain. And hopefully... As we speak, we are on allocation. We are on allocation for roofing U.S. We benefit from our acquisition of roofing in Canada because our plant in the west, in Edmonton, is not fully loaded. We have put the quality and the standards of this plant of Canada to the standards of the U.S. in terms of quality, and now we have the ability to ship from Edmonton to the north of Canada and our plants in Minnesota to ship south. And we are benefiting from that. So it will be a nice addition to have something else in the southeast of the US to service the US next year.

That's great. Thank you very much.

The next question is from of Morgan Stanley.

Thanks very much. Hi, gentlemen. I've got two questions of clarification, and then just one on the French tax situation. So maybe let's just do the French tax thing first. Have you had any thoughts about what higher corporate taxes might mean for the bottom line? Is there any potential offset to tax increases that we can think about? So that's on that. And then just two points of clarification. Did you say that volumes were positive in Germany in the third quarter? I know you reported the top line negative, but therefore I assume that there's an element of your price decline. And then just on the maps of HPS, So you've reported that the construction chemicals business grew at 4.1% and that your exposure to the industrial end markets was up by 0.7. But then the blended growth of construction and industry is up 1.9 in the third quarter. And I can't get to that number. I can't get to 1.9 because construction chemicals, if I remember, is quite a bit larger than that industrial in market. Correct me if I'm wrong. So basically the question is, is that 4.1 a like-for-like number, or is there an element of M&A in that? And if it is a like-for-like number, why is the number from construction and industry not higher?

Correct. Thank you for asking. So it's a like-for-like of CRIZO GCP, i.e. the business related to cement additives and concrete admixtures. If I take the original business of CRIZO on which we added GCP, keeping in mind that mobility is a sizable business within HPS. So indeed, all the figures that Freda highlighted in his early introduction are like-for-like. If I were to take the full construction chemical business, including the mortar, the tile fixing, the external insulation and facet that we have within the different countries, we are more in the 2 to 2.5% like-for-like range. So a bit below the specialized business of CRISO and GCP, but in the 2.5% range for the total construction chemical business of Saint-Germain, which is close to the that will be 6.5 billion euros once we have integrated FOSROC and CEMICS. So coming back to your question on France taxes, so keeping in mind that overall the way I look at it is that we have one third of our operating profit that comes from Western Europe and less than half of that coming from France. So first, on the operating profit side, we are talking about some smaller numbers. And also, you should keep in mind that we have put quite a lot, a large part of our financial charges that are based in France. So at the end of the day, the net income in France that will be taxed at a higher corporate tax is quite a limited impact in terms of earnings per share for Saint-Gobain. That doesn't mean I'm happy that it's going up, but it's a limited impact at this stage based on the structure of our profit and the structure also of our financing and the deductible charges that we have in France. Your second question was on volume in Germany. Yes, they were slightly up 1.3%, if I'm correct, in the third quarter in Germany. So it's modest, but as you know, green shoots are important. We have performed quite well, notably in gypsum. Volumes of glass were slightly up in Germany and Austria. Sorry, but it's the same cluster for us. So volumes were slightly up in 2003.

That's very helpful. Thank you. The next question is from Arnaud Leman of Bank of America.

Thank you. Good evening, gentlemen. Just two questions on my side, please. Just sorry to come back on the guidance of further margin improvement. The margin improvement in the first half is about 40 basis points. Is it a fair assumption to assume that the full year should be also around 40 basis points? That's my first question. And my second question is around purchase price accounting. You've done a lot of acquisitions in the last 18 months, could we have an indication of the impact on PPA somewhere between operating income and EBIT? Thank you.

I think Schrader answered quite clearly on the margin already. So again, we are close to the end of the year. I think it's important for us to give you the picture for the full operating margin. And we have a given you some color on the volumes, the price-cost impact that will be positive, not the same magnitude. So that's what we can say on the margin for the second half. The big picture is that, yes, for the fourth consecutive year, Saint-Gobain will continue to improve its margin despite a difficult environment. And it is related to the fact that strategically we have totally changed the quality of the business because we have two-thirds of our profit coming from North America, Asia, emerging markets, businesses which are holding or improving quite nicely and doing well overall. So that's what I would say on the margin and PPA.

Yeah, so you should, you have seen the PPA, what we had in the first half was something like 100 million and this would go a little bit more because of CSR impact so you know we're talking of an annualized figure something like 200 million so something like that so I think some of these things are in progress and you should see that we would anyway talk precisely in the end of February Thank you very much The next question is from Yassine Touari

of on-field investment research.

Yes, I have three questions. My first question, and also thank you for taking my question. My first question would be on your strategy. So Kingspan is entering the mineral wood and the wood fiber market. You've got companies like Atex, Knaff and Rockwool that are also starting to embrace solution selling. I think Holcim was expressing recently the willingness to look at insulation assets in Europe to complete its offering. And my question would be in this context, what do you think this means for Saint-Gobain? And looking at the long term, what can you do to make sure that Saint-Gobain has a competitive advantage when more and more companies are trying to offer a complete offering to contractors, architects, and builders. Second question on your margin. So when I look at your selling on a general expense as a percentage of sales, it's not too different from what it was like 15 or 20 years ago. When I look at other companies, like, for example, SICA, they were able to improve their SG&A as a percentage of sales by nearly 1,000 by this point. And here my question is like, when I look at your transformation program since 2018, you've been able to consistently reduce your SG&A by maybe like 40, 50 basis points every year. Do you think that this is something that is sustainable? You can continue to reduce this cost for the next decade or so? And the third question would be on the price versus cost spread. How confident are you in your ability to again get a neutral or positive price-cost spread in 2025 based on the price increase that you've announced on your discussion with clients?

So I will take the first two questions and, Schroeder, you take the third one. Well, on the strategy side, I'm extremely happy because it means that the strategy that we have launched in early 2019 of moving towards solutions And we did it because it makes sense for the customers. They are not asking for a polyurethane square meter. They are asking for a complete facade, a complete acoustic solution. So I'm happy to see that some of our competitors are validating the strategy of cross-selling and solutions that we have put in force over the last six years. What it means for Saint-Gobain is that first, we started very early, and second, we still have by far the largest offer on the market, because to my knowledge, in Spain, because you mentioned them, they moved from plastic foam recently to mineral foam. Okay, but it's one plant. We have 30 plants of mineral wool around the world. Apex, it's nice to see that they moved from plasterboard It was the last standing independent player that they bought, Ursan. But again, they don't have glass. They don't have construction chemicals. They don't have waterproofing. They don't have flooring applications. So for me, it's a validation that the construction market is changing, and you cannot build like we used to do 20, 30 years ago if you want to build with sustainability, with productivity, with well-being, and with major performance of the benefits before and after. So I think we are leading the way. We have engaged all our teams and our organization behind that. I'm not aware that any of some of our competitors have made strategically some reorganization of their own teams, but maybe they have better models or different models, and it's fine. I respect all the names that you have put together. it makes sense because that's the way we should move and lead on sustainable construction we are by far the largest so in terms of scope in terms of benchmark in terms of learning from sweden to norway sweden to canada what means stonewall what means flooring applications this is extremely positive for summer and then when it's time to go after acquisitions i can tell you that we won recent acquisitions, notably on construction chemicals, not on price. Some of the names you mentioned were much higher than, for instance, the acquisition we made in Mexico, much higher, but we have been faster, very disciplined in terms of how we communicated to the target. And we had a Mexican strategy with Mexican managers to integrate CEMIX. So at the end of the day, we've a very strong alignment of the purpose of Saint-Gobain, the strategy, a local, super-strong Mexican manager. We didn't win on price. We won on attractiveness of the setup of Saint-Gobain. So, more to come. For Throck, it was the same story. I know we played 11 times. I know the price was offered above 15 times just a few days before we announced the deal. And we could win because we were attractive as a creative, innovative... I don't want to be too long, but for me it's nice to see that the industry is moving in the right direction. It would be very annoying for me if others were going 180 degrees. That means we are wrong and we should change, but I think we are all coming to the same business conclusions. On the margin, we have improved significantly the margin as a percentage of cells within Saint-Gobain over the last five, six years. It's a bit easier, of course, when you have growth and volumes. When it's coming down, like in Europe, it's a bit tougher. But yes, we have continued to improve the DNA and we'll continue to have all the necessary productivity actions country by country. Of course, when you are in a big country like in the US, you have a much lower SG&A to sales ratio compared to Denmark. But in Denmark, you need local Danish sales guys in the street to sell. But yes, there has been a constant and it remains a constant effort to do well on this side of the P&L and control what we can control. And we have dropped the SG&A significantly since 2018 or 2019.

On your question on our confidence to deliver on price-cost spread, you have seen what we have done in the last five, six years. I think we have a process put in place. There is a lot of proactive steps. Everybody is monitoring this at a country level. I remain very confident that, you know, very confident that structurally, if you see the way the price-cost spread is being monitored, I'm very, very confident that we should be able to deliver year after year. You know, now it's part of routine. It's become really every single business review, people talk about it. So, again, it depends on quarter to quarter. I mean, like, for example, in the second half, it's going to be in terms of magnitude, it will be lower. But, again, it's price-for-spread, positive, and it's more for technical reasons. So in a nutshell, I think I remain confident and there is no reason why we should not have the pricing power and discipline on pricing to deliver price-cost-per-positivity.

Thank you very much.

The next question is from Harry Goat of Burenburg.

Oh, hi. Good evening. I just wanted to come back to the comments, Benoit, you made, I think, in your opening remarks about European volume trends in the last quarter. And I think you referenced most markets being asked around the trough and growth in some markets with the exception of France. But if I look at the like for like, albeit revenue numbers you give for the period, we're running it down sort of between 3% and 5%. And I appreciate there's a negative price effect in there. But how do you square off

comments you made about growth and I think Eastern Europe Germany in the UK with those still quite negative like light numbers thanks shut out you want to give some color country by country yeah so you know again we what we said is that if you look at within the European countries each country at the pattern is little different so UK has reached the trough tough when you look at the numbers Nordics and Germany is closer to the trough use Eastern European countries have demonstrated consistent growth Spain and Italy has been growing in a decent way so it's a basically a combination of a different pattern that you saw and different cycle the period of the cycle that you see within the European country France has certainly started off late and it also had this unprecedented political instability which has led to a wait-and-watch situation and that's clearly the reason which is having an impact and we think that it will take a few quarters for us to get back to the normal level in France.

And you should take the appendix of the press release. If you look at the minus 1.9% volume we have in Northern Europe in Q3, it's mostly related to the Nordic countries because indeed And you know Nordic countries are meaningful in terms of size. Indeed, we are slightly positive in Germany. We are flattish in the UK, and we are up in Eastern Europe. If you take South Europe, minus 3.3, here you have the weight of France, which, as you know, is big in South Europe. But the rest is positive, of course, in Middle East and Africa, positive in South Europe, and even positive in the Benelux. So you have basically the weight of Nordics and France in terms of volumes in Q3. But other than that, it's exactly aligned with the whole comment I made in the introduction. OK. Thank you very much.

The next question is from Gregor Kugulic of UBS.

Thank you. So just maybe a couple of questions. maybe on volume. So I kind of hear from you, you think Europe, let's say X France next year can be up, maybe us flat to up, uh, maybe EM up. Um, so I guess my question to you is, do you think that all sums up or I guess, are you confident that you think next year's volumes can grow? And then maybe a more shorter term questions on Q3, obviously you did, um, minus one and a half that's with a 200 bibs trading day impact. Is that the sort of runway rate we should expect for Q4, or is there anything we need to consider, comparison basis or otherwise, that you want to flag? And then maybe coming back to France, so you helpfully give color on the tax rate. Thank you. On MaPrimRenov, the sort of changes to the subsidy program, I guess I want to get your interpretation what that means for volumes for your renovation business, please. Thank you.

Thank you. You are right to ask all those questions on the volumes. In the short term for Q4, in percentage terms, we expect to maintain similar trends as in Q3, with sequential improvement in some countries, but without any benefit of the positive working day impact. So Q3 trends will continue overall. Most, as we just discussed, most European countries are close to trough, except France, which is more difficult. North America will continue to do well, remaining at a good level. So overall, we expect a sequential improvement in volumes H2 versus H1, and I think we gave a lot of colors in the different geographies, but that's for the volumes in Q4 without the positive benefit from the working days. Moving into 2025, Again, we expect to continue on this gradual improvement path. We don't expect a V-shaped recovery. This gradual improvement, I think, will unfold country by country, as we have started to see in the last quarters, starting four quarters ago in Eastern Europe and progressively moving into better territories like Germany in Q3. France will take a bit longer. That's for Europe. I think I mentioned that we expect a good level of activity overall in North America. Asia, in high-performance solutions, also should continue on the similar trend compared to what we have seen in Q3. And for Saint-Gobain, the big picture is that we have two-thirds of our profit, again, coming from North America, Asia, and the market. So, yes, I wish the French market The French market could be a bit faster recovery. It will take several quarters, but the bulk of the profit comes from all those geographies, North America, Asia, and the American markets. Of course, we'll give you more color in February, but overall it's moving and it continues to move in the right direction, exactly like we told you quarter after quarter in 2024. Where we are today is exactly what we expected at the end of Q1, at the end of Q2, and we are there at the end of Q3. So it's this kind of gradual improvement. On MAPRIM-Renov, it's a bit too early to conclude because discussions are going on, but I expect more or less the level of support to remain the same, around 2 to 2.5 billion euros of support. That has been discussed even recently, but it's not concluded yet. What is important is that... We have overall a construction and housing minister who is very supportive overall of the housing market, conscious of the lack of supply that has been delivered in the market in the last two years. For instance, they want to extend towards all the country what we call eco-PTZ, so it's a zero-interest loan. It used to be very, very restricted based on low-income people, and based on areas, geographic areas, where there was a lack of supply. At the end of the day, it was not used. They are thinking, and it seems to have a bilateral or multilateral support, they are thinking of having this zero interest loan moving up from 80,000 euros to 100,000 euros, and second, being generalized across all the country. So that will be more for new buildings, but I think it's important to keep that in mind. on the renovation. What has helped since May is that it's not only targeting the global renovation, which are, as you know, good in terms of performance in terms of jump on energy efficiency but sometimes complex or costly to deliver all the four five steps that you need to deliver and they have also agreed to subsidize and support the monogest the single gesture do we say single step one step type of renovation so and this should continue and this should remain so I think overall I don't expect any drop or any lower support overall for this single family or energy efficiency renovation in the French market going forward. Thank you.

The next question is from Tobias Werner of CIFO.

Yes, good afternoon Benoit and Shredda. Thanks for taking my questions. And I'm a bit cheeky, I'll do four but very short ones. Number one, you highlight France as having a delayed recovery by a few quarters. Following sort of the renovation side of the equation quite closely, one can actually see a rebound post the summer, or at least in the data I follow. So could you give us a sense what sort of split there is between the new build side and the renovation side in terms of growth or decline for that matter. That's the first question. Secondly, when I look at raw material prices here, I built myself a little spreadsheet to look at your main inputs. If I look at asphalt PVB and coking coal prices, and I look at steel, scrap, silicon, and soda, ash, and then cement, sand, gypsum, and other additives, they seem to be exiting the quarter at worse rates. In other words, your raw material input costs seem to be coming off, especially for liquid asphalt, when I look at that, with the exception of cement, sand, gypsum, and other additives. So that should be, in my mind, good news. Maybe you can comment on that. Thirdly, in terms of HPS, I hear what you say, in terms of the activity, but your comp last year was really weak, i.e. minus 5.4% in the same quarter. So your minus 0.1% at the moment doesn't look necessarily that great in that context, but you said that the trend should continue. So are we seeing a sequential improvement from here? And then just lastly, Grenfell, the report was out in the late summer. Is there anything to add from your side? Thank you.

Well, not Another question. Thank you, Tobias. We will try to remember all of them that we took note. On the French market, it's more than 70% renovation-driven for us versus new-built. There are some early indicators that are encouraging, but I prefer to stay a bit cautious to say those green shoots are a bit early and it will be gradual. There is still a bit of uncertainty there, in this wait-and-see political attitude in France. So yes, when you talk to the CAPEB, the trade association of all the craftsmen, it's not deteriorating. It's flat in terms of order book, in terms of days of order book. So we are on this plateau. But I would wait a bit more to be more categorized in terms of where are we heading. But it's not on the renovation side. It's not falling down. but I think it will take a while to bounce back quite seriously. So that's what I would say on the French market. And clearly, new built is still coming down because it's not because we have new statistics on credit that are moving up. If you see the new statistics in new built in France, they are still coming down. And keep in mind that there is a lag between permits and the others to Saint-Gobain in terms of building materials on new builds. So I think on the volume of activity in France, we are still a few quarters from the trough as we discussed.

So as far as raw material is concerned, I think, Tobias, yes, you're right. Some of the trends are in the right direction. Clearly, when I see what we had seen in 2024, the soda, ash, chemicals, they're all deflationary, and energy was also lower, but now energy is picking up. Transportation, which is connected to energy, which is picking up, and that's why I expect that in 2025, I think we should start seeing inflation, which is, in my view, is actually good. It just has a good reason to go back to the customers, and in our business, constantly having small inflation it's helpful so we will keep looking for anticipating and looking at all the opportunities as I mentioned before that the teams have started looking at and preparing for announcing the price increase in the beginning of next year on on Drenfeld there is nothing to add nothing to add specific you know the you know the global report which is basically just confirms what we have said it before Everything we have put in the Cellotex website as we have been doing systematically. I think the good part is at least there is some report which is on the table which also shows that I think the bigger reason for all the fire has been the cladding system and any kind of insulation material would not have really sustained there.

On HPS, maybe you are right to say that it's... There are several moving pieces because mobility, which is a sizable portion, is slightly down, but much better than the underlying auto market. We are moving up in some industrial markets from a low base, which you are right, but it's encouraging, but it's still weak. So here again, we have mixed signals, and I would wait a bit more to be strong in terms of statement on that, but it's a... ceramic applications for decarbonization and some other books on investment related business for glass etc we have started to see some some positive trends so that's that positive and i think we commented construction chemicals also at force you know at first being related to external insulation in eastern europe in central europe the fact that at first term positive more than four percent like for like for me it's a positive sign from a low base You're absolutely right, but it's moving into the right direction.

Great. Thanks a lot.

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I think we may have exhausted all your questions, so thank you very much for your time tonight. Again, a very solid performance of Saint-Gobain in Q3, with this sequential improvement on our like-for-like growth, with a good contribution of all the very strategic acquisitions we have made recently, with further progress in terms of operating margins for the full year in a quite challenging overall environment. So it demonstrates again, it has been multiple semesters and quarters now, the resilience of Saint-Gobain, the quality of our organization, the strength and the strategic meaning of what we have been doing in terms of solutions towards light and sustainable construction. So I'm confident that 2024 will be another year of success for Saint-Gobain and we have put in place the right pillars, the right teams and the right quality of business to continue to make good progress for the years to come. So thank you. We will talk again for our 2024 results, which will be on the 27th of February 2025. And if I don't see all of you between now and then, I wish you a very good and peaceful fourth quarter. Thank you very much. And have a good evening.