Linde plc

Ladies and gentlemen, good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Linde first quarter 2026 earnings call and webcast. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. And after the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Juan Pelias, head of investor relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Abby, thank you. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for attending our 2026 First Quarter Earnings Call and webcast. I'm Juan Penaez, Head of Investor Relations, and I'm joined this morning by Matt White, Chief Financial Officer. Today's presentation materials are available on our website, aslindy.com, in the Investor section. Please read the forward-looking statement disclosure on page two of the slides and note that it applies to all statements made during this teleconference. The reconciliations of the adjusted numbers are in the appendix to this presentation. Matt will provide some opening remarks. I'll give an update on Lindy's first quarter financial performance, and then Matt will finish the updated outlook, after which we will wrap up with Q&A. Let me now turn the call over to Matt.

Thanks, Juan. And good morning, everyone. The Lindy team delivered another solid quarter against a challenging economic backdrop. EPS of $4.33 grew 10%. Operating margins reached 30%. And return on capital remained at a healthy level. of 24%. The high-quality compounding growth of our company, no matter what the environment, is a testament to the unwavering commitment of all 65,000 employees to create shareholder value. And given the recent geopolitical volatility, it may be helpful to provide a brief update by end market, which you can find on slide three. As a reminder, the top half shows consumer-related end markets at approximately one-third of sales, while the bottom half represents industrial-related markets for the remaining two-thirds. The growth rates reflect price and volume, but exclude FX or M&A. Starting at the top, healthcare at 16% of global sales grew 1% year over year. We provide gases, equipment, and services to medical institutions, such as hospitals, and direct to the home. Normally, a resilient market like this should grow in line with demographic trends or low to mid single-digit percent. And while we're experiencing those growth rates in most countries, the U.S. home care business has been relatively flat. In late 2025, a new U.S. health care policy resulted in less services for a specific piece of equipment, which is reflected in the current run rate and will continue for the next several quarters. Aside from this particular issue, the rest of healthcare is performing as anticipated while providing a resilient balance to the more cyclical markets. At 9% of sales, food and beverage grew 5% from broad-based strength. The largest contributor is the U.S. beverage business, where we continue to see increased customer need for new services and applications. In addition, traditional bottling and food freezing growth remain quite strong, especially in North and South America. Overall, food and beverage has grown mid to high single digits over the last several years and is expected to remain a steady contributor. Electronics increased the most at 10%, primarily driven by continued investments in advanced chips to support AI. The growth is heavily weighted toward the US, China, and Korea, since our substantial electronic sales in Taiwan are excluded as a non-consolidated 50% joint venture. As both the scale and industrial gas intensity continue to expand in this sector, Lindy remains well positioned. We're currently investing more than a billion dollars of the project backlog for ultra high purity plants, which will support the most advanced fabs in the world. And there's more to come, as we have a high degree of confidence in adding substantial new projects to the backlog this year. Moving to industrial end markets, You can see growth across the board, which supports the notion we're starting to lap more difficult comps after years of stagnant industrial activity. Chemicals and energy, representing 22% of sales, increased 3% as growth in Americas and APEC more than offset contractions in EMEA. Americas was driven by higher activity for hydrogen and nitrogen, and U.S. Gold Coast refining and Latin American upstream energy. While APAC increases primarily came from our recent investments in the Jurong Island integrated complex. AMEA continues to experience negative volumes, primarily from onsite customers shifting production to more competitive assets outside continental Europe. It remains to be seen what the longer-term effects could be for the Middle East conflict, but so far, It appears activity is relocating to more feedstock-advantaged assets in Americas and, to a lesser extent, APAC. And while we're on this topic, I think it's worth providing a brief update on our helium business. Helium was in oversupply for a few years through 2025, but recent events have created acute global shortages. Lindy's sources from a very broad base since supply chain constraints are a recurring challenge. Therefore, we are currently well positioned, despite some of the recent outages. Given our business is largely contracted, the priority is to meet existing customer commitments. After that, we still anticipate excess molecules, allowing us to pursue new multi-year contracts with high quality customers. Therefore, I don't anticipate significant spot sales this year since we're focused on securing long-term agreements. Returning to the end market slide, metals and mining grew 3%, similar to chemicals and energy. The entire growth is coming from Americas, as both APAC and EMEA are relatively flat. A combination of better industrial activity and protectionist policies from U.S. to Latin America, have supported local metals production over imports. Furthermore, we're seeing renewed competitiveness from customers of more gas-intensive integrated blast furnaces when compared to EAS, primarily from constraints associated with cost-effective scrap and electrical infrastructure. The last industrial end market of manufacturing grew 5%. half of the increase came from aerospace activity in the United States, primarily supporting space vehicle production, testing, and launch, as this end use continues to see strong double-digit percent growth. We'll isolate aerospace as a separate end market when it consistently exceeds 5% or more of global sales, which will be a function of the frequencies, size, and propellant type of future space launch. Excluding aerospace, the Romanian market grew low single-digit percent as strength across the Americas, especially in the U.S., was partially offset by continued weakness in EMEA, while APAC slightly improved over last year. Within the U.S., packaged gases grew mid-single-digit and hard goods double-digit percent. which aligns with the recent favorable U.S. production statistics. In hard goods, growth was balanced between consumables and equipment and driven by energy, construction, and general metal fabrication. AMEA activity was softer from continued weak industrial activity, including direct and indirect impacts from the Middle East conflict. And in APAC, we experienced moderate volume growth driven by China and Southeast Asia. In summary, the portfolio is doing what one would expect. As geopolitical events shift production around the world and secular growth trends drive concentrated investments, our business units continue to adapt and capture their fair share. And while no one can predict how the next few months will play out, let alone the next few years, I'm confident the Linde team can navigate the volatility and continue to deliver high-quality compounding growth. And I'll turn the call over to Juan to walk through the financial results.