Arkema S/Adr

Good morning, everybody. Welcome to our KMAS Q3 24 results conference call. With me today are, as usual, our CFO, Marie-Josée Doncion, and the Investor Relations Team. To support this conference call, we have posted a set of slides which are available on our website. And as usual, I will start with some comments on the highlights of the quarter before meeting Marie-Josée to go through the financials. And at the end of the presentation, we'll be available to answer your questions. So the macroeconomic conditions we encountered in the third quarter remain broadly in line with what has already been observed for several quarters, namely continued self-demand in a global challenging macro environment. Once again, there was no sign of remount overall, and we should even add that the automotive sector has worsened, not to be in Europe. After an encouraging month of July, demand slowed down in September, which reflects inventory adjustments end of the quarter at some customers. Despite this context, Arkema achieved, we believe, strong financial results, significantly higher than the average of its peers. We were able to deliver again a solid sales growth in Q3, up 2.9% compared with last year, driven by specialty materials in Asia and in the U.S., while Europe suffered from low demand overall. Besides, we increased our EBITDA by more than 5% and reached an EBITDA margin at the elevated level of 17%. confirming once again the strength of our portfolio, the high resilience of the group's top line and profitability in these more difficult market conditions. Our performance in Q3 was driven by our specialty materials, 92% of our sales and recorded a significant 90% EBITDA growth and 80 bps EBITDA margin increase compared with last year. To achieve this good result, we continue to manage quickly our costs and to push the commercialization of high value-added solutions, notably in those sub-markets supported by the global megatrends. If we look now briefly at the results of our three specialty material segments, here are some key points I'd like to outline. First of all, adhesives. Adhesives delivered again a strong quarter in the continuity of the first semester. EBITDA significantly grew by 9% compared with last year, and EBITDA margin reached its record high at 15.7%. This was, we think, quite an achievement. These very good performance were delivered in a low-volume environment, particularly in the construction market. while some industrial markets, such as packaging or labeling, showed a more positive dynamic. In advanced materials, EBITDA growth was also significant at 10% year-on-year, primarily driven by high-performance polymers while performance at IT were facing the high comparison base of last year, and were also impacted, as you know, by this temporary shutdown of our German organic peroxide plant. The segment benefited in the quarter from PM contribution, despite at a slightly lower level than Q2, from the positive dynamic in new generations to our specialties, and from the continued development of our high-performance solutions in attractive markets like energy, sports, and healthcare. As I mentioned earlier, the automotive sector started to slow down, notably in Europe, and in particular, at least temporarily, the EV market seems to grow more slowly than expected. The coating solution segment resisted relatively well while continuing to face low cycle market conditions in the upstream part. Fortunately, the segment benefited from better volumes and an improved mix in the downstream additives and resin. All in all, EBITDA was up in this segment by 6.5% and EBITDA margin reached a reasonably robust 13% figure. Beyond delivering this short-term, we have continued to prepare our mid-term features with a gradual ramp-up of our major organic projects, including the successful restart of our polyamide 11 operation in Singapore in September after its regulatory shutdown. The smooth completion of our investment in our new 1-2-3-3 ZD capacity in the U.S., which is expected to start by the end of this year, And also, and we look forward to that, the preparation of the closing of those laminating adhesive business acquisition expected in Q4. We have also made significant progress on our CSR roadmap to decarbonize our value chain and more and more crucial topic for our customers. As an example, thanks to improved process efficiency and the use of renewable and low-carbon energy, we have decreased even further the carbon footprint of our flagship biobased polyamide deliverance, which is now 80% less than a comparable fossil-based polyamide, such as P820. In this space, we have also developed more and more products based on bio-sourced or renewable raw materials, enabling to reduce their carbon footprint while maintaining their performance. Last and not least, you may have seen that we have recently announced some changes to the Executive Committee following the retirement of two of its members. With the appointment of Sophie Fouillard and Thilo Quint, with the appointment of Laurent Tellier, the Executive Committee maintains its sense of competence while further increasing its diversity. With this new organization at the top of the company, we are well equipped to move on with our 2028 roadmap. I will now hand it over to Marie-Josée for a more in-depth look at the financials before we discuss the outlook at the end of the presentation.

Thank you, Thierry, and good morning to all of you.

So I'll start with our revenues. So group sales amounted to 2.4 million euros in Q3, increasing by 2.9% in one year.