A2A Spa Ord

Hello, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the A2A 2026 Q1 Results Presentation Conference call. My name is Zach, and I will be your operator for today's event. Please note that this conference is being recorded, and for the duration of the call, your lines will be on listen-only mode. However, you will have the opportunity to ask questions at the end of the presentation. This can be done by pressing pound key 5 on your telephone keypad. I will now hand you over to your host, Marco Porro, Head of Industrial Relations, to begin the conference. Please, go ahead.

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining for the first quarter 2026 results. Today, the results will be illustrated by our CEO, Mr. Renato Mazzoncini, and the CFO, Luca Moroni. I will immediately leave the floor to Renato.

Okay. Okay. Thank you, thank you, and good afternoon everyone. Thank you for joining our call today. Let's start with the statement Alfred North once said that the art of progress is to preserve order amid change, and to preserve change amid order. And let's say in the last three months, we have seen a lot of changing inside the energy landscape in Italy and in Europe. So let me start with a brief overview of the macro scenario and how we are responding to preserve both order and change in our mission to be ready to power. So in Q1, Q1 was marked by uncertainty and super-high volatility in the energy market, fooled principally by two external factors. The first is is the proposed measures in Italy and in Europe to mitigate the impact of rising energy costs and industrial competitiveness. In Italy, as I said, the decree for the tariff. And after a couple of days, the geopolitical tension in the Middle East and in Iran. So, what happened in the slide number two is that, for example, the PSU gas price peaked at around 6 euros per megawatt hours, while the PUN spot price ranged around 80 to 170 euros per megawatt hours. And it continued moves in the forward curves. So, visibility is still limited, but conditions are well below the 22 extremes you can see in the graph at slide 2, in the left part of the slide. Against this backdrop, our actions are geared to support short-term system stability and to deliver on the targets we have communicated to shareholders. And our first step was to give customers, especially households, greater stability by maintaining our six-price contract offers. And this now accounts for around half of our mass market exposure. So consider that 50% of our customer base mass market is in fixed price. Our 26th renewal generation, in line with our policy, is already edged for more than 70%, giving us full visibility for this year. We will continue to closely monitor developments and to respond as necessary, navigating an environment that remains highly fluid. So, that's the short-term picture. But, as you know, a 2A's vision is built on long-term resilience. And this commitment remains unchanged. And the let me say that exactly in this situation to have a 10 years industrial plan is fantastic because in this situation the short term is a problem to face but is not let's say the polar star so the contingent geopolitical phenomena of today only start to underscore the long term importance of Italy's energy independence And for this reason, the expansion of our renewable and high-efficiency flexible capacity remains a key driver. For example, during the quarter, we commissioned the Terzi Banzi plant, adding around 30 MW of wind capacity in southern Italy. And we reiterated our investment strategy, almost half of the quarter spending direct towards generation plants and in our power grid to remain the backbone of the energy transition. Electrification of consumption remains a sector trend underpinning our capital allocation choices And it's super interesting the fact that in Italy, the demand was up to 3% in Q1. You know that there is sometimes a discussion if really the demand will grow. And we can say that in this Q1, there is a visible growth of the demand, especially in Lombardy. in which the growth rises in double digits, 10%. And this is an encouraging signal, of course. Equally encouraging is the fact that data centers will continue to emerge as a new high-consumption customer segment, And we seek confirmation of this in the fact that the connection request in our electricity distribution network, in particular in the province of Milan, in particular Dueretti, that is the company, you know, that we bought... two years ago from Enel, now amount around 330 megawatts. Consider that is a medium voltage, let's say not more than 10 megawatts. That means 33 new data centers, at least, that ask for new connections only around Milan. So, despite ongoing volatility, I can confirm that our resilient business model, diversification, and the long-term perspective supported by strong execution enable us to maintain our investment commitments. So, let me give you a few highlights, looking at slide number three, in which you can see our numbers, our economics. Also, we see both positive and downward variance in these figures. Taken together, they underscore the two crucial factors. Our financial resilience and our commitment on targeted investments. And I think the most evident metric of this is our net financial position, which remains sound and under control. At 5.6 billion versus 5.5 at 0.25, the movement is entirely consistent with the typical business seasonality. The leverage ratio holds 2.5. broadly stable year-on-year, confirming the group financial discipline and balance sheet resilience, even in a quarter of active capital deployment. In short, the figures confirm our resilience, which is far confirmed by our continued commitment to targeted investment. And in slide number four, And we continue in our CAPEX plan deployment, confirming our commitment on our long-term strategy vision. You can see 4% more of CAPEX compared with last year. But what is super important is that in Q1, we have 21% of growth in the development capex. 210 million euros refers to development project. And the key pillars of our investment strategy are improving the efficiency of power distribution networks, accelerating our development path towards renewable energy, increasing the flexibility of generation plants, and Of course, the capex in circular economy that I remember is also this heating and water cycle. So, that's a big picture. Now, let me turn to Luca for a more detailed analysis of the results. Please, Luca.