Compagnie de Saint-Gobain S.A.

Good evening. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the Saint-Gobain Q3 2026 sales conference call. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions by pressing star 1 at any time. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Benoit Bazin, Chairman and CEO, and Maud Thuaudet, CFO of Saint-Gobain. Please go ahead.

Good evening, everybody. I hope that you have received our press release and you have been able to go through the highlights. Together with Maud, our CFO, we will present our Q3 2026 sales. Like for like sales increased plus 2.5% in Q3. In July, we told you that the longer the war in the Middle East lasted, the more the like for like would be driven by price. And this is indeed true. What we saw in Q3 with pricing driving the like-for-like, demonstrating our strong pricing power. We saw like-for-like growth in all regions and another outperformance in construction chemicals with plus 6.3% growth in the quarter. The rollout of our lead and grow strategy continues. Our solution strategy is working well, pulling the offer country by country to deliver more high added value sales, more specified sales, and also more cross-selling. Our broader range of solutions is driving double-digit growth in Poland and the Czech Republic. The specified project pipeline rose double-digit in Brazil. and we have also bolstered our technical support capabilities, for instance in the U.S., with a new fire testing facility in North Borough, Massachusetts. We know indeed from our customers' feedback, notably for non-residential applications, that building science expertise is one of the key reasons they come to Saint-Gobain Solutions. We are winning new projects in the non-residential and infrastructure markets in line with our goals For instance, a green energy giga complex in India, where in India, non-residential and infrastructure cells already represent nearly 40% of our cells in the country. And also the Izmit metro in Turkey. In Northern Europe, we are now active in over 200 data center projects, specifying an increasingly broad range of solutions. Together, these strategic action priorities are driving our performance in key countries. For instance, in Spain, Italy, Eastern Europe, the US, India, China, and the Middle East. On the strategic side, we are also delivering fast with determination on the group's profile optimization with 3.3 billion euros of sales in divestments or acquisitions announced year-to-date, making very good progress on our target of more than 20% portfolio rotation in terms of sales by 2030. So far this year, we have announced 11 divestments, including DAL in the Nordics, which should close next week in attractive conditions. We have also announced 17 acquisitions, and I'm particularly excited about the growing position we are building infrastructure in the U.S. with the acquisitions of Xypex and D.S. Brown, differentiated high added value construction chemical solutions. We will continue to be active, strengthening the profile of the group and allocating capital to our investment priorities. You may have also seen that we have appointed as chief AI officer to our executive committee Annika Hagen. Annika Hagen will structure, prioritize, and scale up our successful local artificial intelligence initiatives that have been put in place across countries and businesses over the last few years. We are already a leader on AI in the construction sector, Combined with our very large database, AI is a real competitive advantage for Saint-Gobain in terms of optimizing commercial effectiveness, answering sales quotes, all the RFQs for craftsmen in France across hundreds of sales outlets, R&D, of course, manufacturing and business processes. Last week, Microsoft chairmen and CEOs visited our teams in Paris to dig specifically into how we at Saint-Gobain are accelerating the development of new, more efficient construction materials. Annika's appointment will ensure that we make the most of the opportunities that AI offers us across the group. Now, getting back to the Q3 sales, I will hand over to Maud We will discuss the figures in detail.

Thank you, Benoit. Good evening, everyone. I'm pleased to give you some details on our Q3 sales release. And I will start with sales growth. Q3 sales were up 2.5% like for like, with growth in all regions, and an outperformance in construction chemicals, which saw 6.3% growth in Q3. As usual, let's look at the technical effects first. We had a positive currency effect in Q3 of 1.4%, mainly due to the appreciation of currencies in the Americas against the Euro. The scope effect was negative 2.1% for the quarter, mainly reflecting our continued portfolio streamlining with the divestment of distribution businesses in the Nordics, Brazil and Belgium, and of dry mortars, off-site construction and HKO in Germany. As Benoit said, the divestment of DAL, the Nordic specialist distribution business, is expected to close on November 2nd. Prices increased in all regions in a more pronounced inflationary environment, helped by proactive actions on commercial excellence and sales of higher value-added products as part of our solutions approach. We expect 2026 inflation to be on the high side of the mid-single-digit range of our 12 billion raw materials, energy, and transportation bill. Inflation is creeping up a bit everywhere, especially in the U.S., in transportation. We are confident to achieve a neutral to slightly positive price-cost spread for the full year at the group level. Now, on energy specifically, We are much less energy intensive than some may think with an energy bill below 4% of group sales, around half electricity and half gas. So our gas bill represents less than 2% of group sales. Remember as well that we are well hedged at 75% plus for 2026 and well hedged beyond at 70% plus for 2027 and higher for the coming winter. Now let us look by region. Sales in Europe increased 2.5% like for like in Q3, driven by new construction, pricing and high added value products with a contrasted situation country by country. Northern Europe grew 3.4% like for like, driven by growth in our main market with the exception of the UK which was impacted by the downturn in construction market. The Nordics saw further good growth, benefiting from value-added mix and our multi-product specification capabilities with increased exposure to non-residential. Switzerland and Eastern Europe continued to outperform, with Poland and the Czech Republic delivering double-digit growth. Germany was up slightly, supported by non-residential renovation and by infrastructure. We are seeing their commercial success in construction chemicals, especially for energy infrastructure. Turning now to Southern Europe, which was up 1.6% like for like over the quarter. France delivered slight growth in a cautious market. Renovation was affected by the uncertainties weighing on consumer confidence, despite new construction growth in Q3. Heatwaves had a slightly negative impact on the quarter but should be a growth opportunity for the group in the long term. They have concentrated attention on the need to adapt to climate change and at Saint-Gobain we have the solutions to reduce indoor temperature by up to 10 degrees, be it in residential or non-residential buildings. Spain-Italy increased slightly with interior solutions continuing to capture market share, the Middle East, Delivered further double-digit growth led by construction chemicals and with a strong outperformance in Turkey. Benoit discussed our AI strategy earlier in the call and we are already advancing fast on the ground. In Southern Europe, for example, we are introducing advanced AI power control systems in our placebo plants, initially at Quinto pilot site in Spain. and this project has the potential to gain around 1.5 days of production per line per year. If I move now to the Americas. The Americas rose 0.6% like for like in Q3 reflecting growth in North America and a contraction in Latin America. North America delivered 2% like for like growth Thanks to an increase in both prices and volumes. This growth was driven by construction and despite industrial solutions remaining down. The inflationary environment is accelerating particularly for transport. Roofing and plasterboard were slightly up, outperforming thanks to our differentiated solutions In a market affected by the absence of major weather events and by the decline in new residential construction. The outperformance in interior solutions was also supported by exposure to non-residential applications. In roofing, our focus on differentiating ourselves is evident in the market share gains of our certainty integrity roof system solutions for climate resilience, and the good momentum we have seen in contractor engagement with a 10% rise in the number of accredited contractors over the nine-month period. We delivered, lastly, another strong high performance in construction chemicals with high single-digit growth and market share gains. Latin America decreased 3%, like for like, with volatile markets, affected in the short term by the current context. The quarter saw caution ahead of the presidential elections in Brazil, but we are progressing well with our lead and growth strategy. The region saw further growth in construction chemicals in Brazil, in Mexico, and Central America, thanks to the success of Cemex, and in Peru with the integration of QSI Peru. Lastly, moving on to Asia-Pacific, which delivered strong organic growth of 8% in Q3 thanks to strong momentum in India and Southeast Asia. India saw further market share gains with double-digit organic growth driven by the strong reputation of the Saint-Gobain brand in the country along with our comprehensive, innovative and sustainable offering. An AI-powered customer recommendation tool has been developed and deployed within sales teams in the country and this leverages customer buying patterns, product mix analytics and sales context to drive more effective customer interactions and conversion rates. Southeast Asia continued to grow thanks to Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia benefiting from the increasing adoption of sustainable construction solutions and a greater market share in data centers. We are investing to continue to capture this momentum with the startup of new lightweight board production lines in Malaysia and Vietnam and the acquisition of a new plasterboard production line in Vietnam. Australia reported slight growth driven by new construction and we once again outperformed in China showing modest growth in a market that remains down. So to sum up Q3, like for like sales growth in all regions, prices increased in a more pronounced inflationary environment, we are confident to achieve a neutral to slightly positive price-cost spread for the full year at the group level. Our local teams are proactive and focused on a small set of priorities like for like growth, cost management and outperformance. Benoit, I hand over to you for the concluding remarks.