Arcadis Nv S/Adr

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. I am Gailie, your chorus call operator. Welcome and thank you for joining the Arcadis conference call and live webcast to present and discuss the third quarter 2024 trading update. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Ms. Christine Dish, Investor Relations Director. Ms. Dish, you may now proceed.

Good afternoon and good morning, everyone, and welcome to this conference call. My name is Christine Dish. I'm Investor Relations Director at Arcadis. We are here today to discuss Arcata's third quarter 2024 training update, which has been released this morning. With us on the call are Ellen Brooks, our CEO, and Virginie Duprat, our CFO. We will start with the presentation by Ellen and Virginie, which will be followed by Q&A. We would like to call your attention to the fact that in today's session, management may reiterate forward-looking statements, which were made in the press release. Please note the risks related to these statements which are also described in the press release and on our websites. Now, please, over to you, Alan.

Thank you, Christine, and good day, everybody, and welcome to our third quarter 2024 results call. Arcadis has delivered another strong quarter with significant order intake of €1.3 billion, mainly driven by large multi-year project wins, most notably in mobility, but also for industrial manufacturing projects across sectors. This is providing us with further revenue visibility for the years to come. Net revenue for the quarter was 962 million euros, with good organic growth of 5% driven by all business areas. While we continue to be selective in projects which we pursue. Our backlog stood at 3.6 billion euros at the end of the quarter and continued progress on our three-year strategic initiatives as resulted in further operating EBITDA margin expansion to 11.4%. This is up from 10.7% in the same quarter of last year. Our long-term client relationships, combined with our global expertise in managing large-scale programs and integrated service offerings, across our GBAs have been key drivers of our sustained profitable growth. By focusing on cross-selling to our key clients and leveraging our global excellence centers, we are driving improved backlog quality and sustained margin expansion. Increasingly, we are seeing clients turning to a single delivery partner to manage complex projects, including large infrastructure programs or industrial manufacturing projects across different sectors. We are uniquely positioned to meet this demand by leveraging our diverse global skill set, combining our industry leading design and engineering experience with most notably our sustainability advisory and industrial decarbonisation expertise. We can deliver greater efficiencies and secure long term transformation for our clients. With that, let me give you a few examples of what we are doing. The first project I would like to showcase, which is a focus from this quarter, is Fraser River Tunnel in Vancouver. This is an important example of how our integrated cross GBA offering is acting as a key differentiator, being led jointly by mobility teams in Canada and the Netherlands and with contributions from resilience, places and intelligence. This is truly a cross GBA win. We have been appointed as design and engineering consultants to the Cross Fraser Partnership Consortium, which is working with the province of British Columbia in Canada to deliver this $4 billion Fraser River tunnel project. This is a new state-of-the-art eight-lane tube tunnel which will alleviate traffic congestion, reduce travel times and enhance safety across one of Vancouver's busiest transport corridors. In delivering this project, we will leverage advanced engineering solutions and sustainable construction practices. A key highlight here is our specialized expertise in immersed tube tunneling, a technique we've refined over multiple Dutch projects. Only a few global firms have mastered this approach, which enables us to design shallow, cost-effective tunnels. In addition to tunneling design, we will lead environmental assessments, implement intelligent transport systems, and deploy our assured data-led cost control system. This was originally developed for the HS2 project in the UK. And this system facilitates collaboration and delivers real-time data analytics to optimize the project management. The program will run for three years, and at its peak, around 300 Arcadians from across the globe will be involved. Teams in Canada and Netherlands will be supported by colleagues in Australia, the US, UK, and Belgium, with significant contribution from our global excellence centers. As such, this project exemplifies how our integrated cross GBA offering is integral to successful delivery. By engaging in cross-GBA work sharing, fostering cross-border collaboration and tapping into our global talent pool, we will ensure we are bringing the very best skills and knowledge to the project. It is also a demonstration of our strategic ambition to grow capacity and capability in our GECs to help deliver these major transformation projects, strengthening our position in key markets globally. Next, I'd like to highlight another win this quarter where we secured a renewed framework contract to provide engineering services for the Dutch Zuydes Dock program, which will run until 2036. Focused on the remodeling of Amsterdam Zuyd station, this is one of the largest infrastructure projects in the Netherlands. Not only will it signify improved accessibility, But the project will also be critical when it comes to elevating the Zardes Business District into a top international destination for living, working and leisure. This project brings together expertise from across our places, mobility and resilience business areas and draws from our experience working on other large infrastructure projects, particularly in countries such as Australia and the UK. Our integrated approach combines a range of Arcadis solutions from sustainability advisory, climate adaptation and smart sustainable buildings through to intelligent rail and connected highways. It is this cross-sector multifaceted approach that sets us apart from the competitors, where we bring together the best minds from around the world to deliver tailored solutions to our clients. I am delighted that through our involvement in this project, we have been able to continue our long-standing relationships with Rijkswaterstaat, ProRail and the City of Amsterdam, who together make up the executive organisation overseeing the Zuiderstok programme. Much of the strength of our pipeline is driven by these multi-year projects such as this one that I'm showcasing now, where the longevity of our client relationships combined with our service offerings are key differentiators for us and integral to driving continued success. Finally, I'd like to showcase another significant win this quarter, which combines our expertise in places and resilience. We have been appointed to support Heineken in driving carbon reduction efforts across multiple brewery sites worldwide and achieving net zero in scopes one and two emissions by 2030. As you can expect with multi-phased framework agreements like these, the majority of the order intake will be recorded as the project progresses into the implementation stage. We are in a pilot phase of the project right now, and hence the larger part of the order intake will appear in our backlog in the years to come. This project involves developing and implementing a net zero roadmap focusing on reducing energy demand and carbon footprint at production facilities and supporting Heineken's transition to renewable energy. Our expertise in decarbonisation, alongside our capabilities in advanced industrial manufacturing, will play a crucial role here. Our approach to this project focuses on leveraging the expertise of a core global team to lead overall roadmap development and engineering, while our local teams will work closely with Heineken to implement the solutions on the ground. An example here, for example, here would be the installation of solar panels and the transition from gas boilers to heat pumps, all of which will reduce a significant carbon emission and operational expenditure. In this project, we are realizing the benefits of our strategic partnership with Honeywell. Announced in May 23, we will collaborate together to provide an end-to-end approach to decarbonization, combining Honeywell's building automation systems and software with our expertise in sustainability consulting and project execution. This will be integral to helping Heineken realize and accelerate its energy and carbon reduction efforts globally. So you will have seen from these three examples I've just shared the extent to which large multi-year project wins are driving order intake and providing us with excellent long-term visibility for the future. This has been heavily driven by mobility and the delivery of large-scale global infrastructure projects. Our significant order intake this quarter was driven by four such projects booked this quarter, with durations extending to 2036. not including any variation orders. This includes the Gateway Programme, which was one in the first quarter of this year and is now fully commencing on site. Together, these four projects achieved €350 million of order intake. That's approximately 25% of the total order intake this quarter. These large contracts will take some time to mobilise. And the chart you can see on the right-hand side provides an indication of the phasing of these secured revenues. The visibility this provides enables us to optimize our resource planning, which includes our global workforce and the GECs. Our proven expertise in delivering comparable large-scale projects globally, combined with our long-standing client relationships and cross-GBA integrated expertise, have been key to our ability to win these projects. With a focus on core and high growth markets in the US, UK, Canada, and the Netherlands, we are continuing to realize significant opportunities, leverage our global excellence centers, and implement the first year of our strategy. And with that, I would now like to hand over to Virginie, who will take you through our financial results for the third quarter in more detail. Thank you.