L'Air Liquide Ord

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Early KID Q1 2026 Revenue Conference Call. All participants are currently in listen-only mode until we conduct a question-and-answer session, and instructions will be given at that time. I will now hand over to the Early KID team. Please begin your meeting, and I will be standing by.

Good morning, everyone. This is Aude Rodriguez, Head of Investor Relations. Thank you very much for attending the call today. François-Jacques and Jérôme Delton will present the first quarter of the new. For the Q&A session, they will be joined by Émilie Mouren-Renoir, Group VP, Overseeing Operations in IMEA, and by Adam Peters, Group VP, CEO of AirDT North America. Adam is on the phone with us from the U.S. In the agenda, our next announcement is on July 28th for our half-year 2026 results. Let me now hand you over to François.

Thank you, Aude, and good morning, everyone. It's my pleasure to share Helikid's highlights for the first quarter of 2026. This quarter, our performance once again demonstrates the resilience and agility of our business model and our outstanding capacity to grow within a complex global environment. Business-wise, our project backlog has reached a numerical high, further securing our trajectory for profitable growth in the years to come. Let's move to the next slide. The first quarter results clearly underscore the strengths of our model. The numbers speak for themselves. Sales grew plus 3.4%, excluding effects and energy, bolstered by the accelerated integration of GIG in South Korea in January, which was originally planned for the course of H1. This overall sales performance confirms our ability to capture growth organically and through acquisitions in key geographies and sectors. Looking ahead, we remain firmly committed to a margin extension ambition in spite of the environments. We see this with our operational indicators that are equally strong. IAM pricing remains accurate, stepping up sequentially to 3.4% above Q4 last year. This demonstrates our continued discipline and effectiveness in managing value in a demanding macro environment. Efficiency gains. Our momentum here is excellent. We delivered plus 8% growth in efficiencies over Q1 last year. A significant performance considering this comes on top of the almost 30% state change achieved in 2035. It clearly validates that our major transformation program continues to deliver. Cash flow remains remarkably robust, up plus 7% excluding currency impact. providing us with the financial flexibility to fund our future ambitions. Finally, and this is remarkable, our investment backlog reached a new historic peak at 5.5 billion euros, up from 4.9 billion euros at the end of 2025. This provides us with exceptional visibility. These are tangible, high-quality projects currently under construction, that will fuel our profitable growth as they come online. In summary, it has been a very solid start of the year, characterized by resilience in our operations, acceleration in our strategic investments, hence validating our strategy. Moving to slide four, I would like, of course, to address the current geopolitical situation in the Middle East and its implications. While our direct financial exposure is limited, as the region represents approximately 1% of group sales, we are managing the situation with the utmost discipline and care. Our response to the challenges is guided by clear priorities. Safety first. The security of our 500 employees in the region remains our absolute priority. I can confirm that they are all safe and supported. I would like to thank them very much for their outstanding commitment to continue to support our customers in the region. Second, operational continuity. Our local assets remain intact and operational. While some are running at adjusted rates, we see once again the critical nature of our business. supplying medical oxygen to hospitals, maintaining home-made care services in Saudi Arabia, for example, or providing essential nitrogen for refinery safety. Regarding operational challenges, of course, there is the global helium supply chain. The temporary shutdown of helium production in Qatar affects roughly 30% of the global supply. Having 80% of our global helium volumes contracted with customers, more than any of our competitors, we have to take into account the global shortage early on. In this context, we are operating under temporary contractual relief and managing the allocation of available volumes taking into account where appropriate, the criticality of specific applications, and of course, in full respect of applicable laws. Keep in mind, these are temporary measures and all contracts remain in place. Leveraging our global footprint, we are optimizing supply from our other sources and utilizing our storage assets, such as our cavern in Germany, to minimize the impact for our customers. Other challenges include for our customers, energy and feedstock availability, or the robustness of supply chains for key raw materials. Regarding inflation, while it represents an initial headwind, our proven ability to manage pricing and efficiencies allows us to protect our margins and drive long-term value creation. Overall, at this stage, we remain confident in our ability to continue to manage the impact of those challenges. In the current context, I will not and I cannot talk about opportunity. But let's keep in mind that we could see some positive outcomes from the structural shift that will result from the situation. In particular, Aliquid is uniquely positioned to capture regional shifts in industrial demand as we have a global footprint. Also, we could expect a rebound effect in the US, where lower energy costs and manufacturing policies are attracting global industrial production. Here, our unique position in large industries, industrial merchants and electronics is an advantage. Third, we can anticipate an acceleration of the reshoring trend with strategic autonomy becoming a priority for our customers and for any space. This is particularly visible in the electronics sectors. It should be seen also in other sectors, like what we have experienced, for steel in the US, but also in Europe. So, over the medium term, this conflict reinforces the role of hydrogen in energy sovereignty and resilience. As hydrogen was losing momentum when only considering decarbonization, we already see a renewed interest in Europe, in the Middle East, and in Asia to consider hydrogen as a fundamental pillar of energy independence and resilience, complementary to electrification. And lastly, the long-term value of being able to provide resilient supply will be probably better appreciated by our customers, enabling us to leverage our strong operating reliability. Moving to slide 5. In today's volatile environment, our core strengths allow us to continue preparing for the future. Our performance is anchored by structural competitive advantages. Extensive diversification, our business model is naturally hedged across geographies. diverse industrial and healthcare sectors, and an extensive customer base. Local and global agility. Despite our global presence, we maintain a decentralized organizational structure. This allows us to remain agile enough to capture regional growth opportunities while leveraging the scale of the group to drive global efficiencies. Intrinsic resilience. This is the hallmark of our model. It allows us to protect our margins and sustain performance in adverse economic environment. And innovation DNA. Our technological leadership and our ability to listen to our customers remain key differentiators. This allows us to navigate the present environment and continue to proactively build our future. In Q1, There are clear signs of this. We successfully closed the DIG Airgas acquisition ahead of schedule, allowing us to capture the full-year contribution of this strategic asset throughout 2026. As mentioned, our project backlog has reached a historic height of 5.5 billion euros. It is a significant reservoir of growth that we translate into revenue and earnings. And, We are pursuing the good transformation to improve the margin, enhance our cash flow, and return to our shareholders. In short, we are leveraging our strength to navigate the current environment while resolutely preparing the air liquid of tomorrow. Moving to slide 6, I would like to highlight two major project wins this quarter. On the left, we are expanding our presence in the U.S. Gulf Coast through a partnership with Hyundai Steel and POSCO. AirBetid will invest over $350 million to build a world-class air separation unit and extend our local pipeline infrastructure in Louisiana. This project is a perfect illustration of the industrial restoring trend currently revitalizing the U.S. market. By connecting this new low-carbon steel complex to our existing network, we are not only supporting Hyundai Steel during venture, but also increasing our network density and scale effect. This allows us, for example, to meet also the growing needs of Koch Methanol, an existing customer on the same pipeline. It is a clear example of how our integrated infrastructure creates a multiplier effect for profitable growth while offering the best competitive solutions to our customers. On the right, we have secured a major electronics project in Hiroshima, Japan. We will invest 200 million euros to build two ultra-high-purity carrier gas units for a global leader in semiconductors. This project is critical for the manufacturing of the next-generation chips and reinforces Air Liquide's global leadership in electronics. Our position in Japan is unique, being the only global industrial gas supplier in the national growing market. We have an extensive local footprint with 78 dedicated electronics units and our Electronics Tokyo Innovation Campus. This long-standing presence over 40 years in electronics allows us to partner with our customers and key toolmakers on their most advanced technological roadmaps. These two successes are some contributors to our record 5.5 billion euro backlog. And stay tuned, because there's more to come. Turning now to slide 7, in a global underground land that remains complex, the resilience of our business model and the agility of our teams allow us to look ahead with confidence. Based on our selling start of the year and the strengths of our strategic initiatives, we confirm our guidance for 2036 and margin ambition for 2037. Thank you very much for your time. I will now hand over to Jérôme to provide a deeper dive into our first quarter financial performance.