Bekaert Sa Unsp/Adr

Good morning and welcome to the BACAR H1 2026 results call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode and we will open the floor for your questions after the presentation. If you require assistance, you may press star zero on your keypad at any time and an operator will assist you. If you wish to join the queue to ask a question at any time, you may press star one Should you wish to remove yourself from queue, press star 2. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to your host, Mr. Dries van Amme, Director of Investor Relations. The floor is yours.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Descartes H1 2026 results presentation. Thank you for joining us today. Before we begin, as usual, let me draw your attention to the Safe Harbor Statement. This presentation that we will run through today contains forward-looking statements. These statements reflect current views of management regarding future events and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause actual results to be materially different from any future results, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Baycard provides the information in this presentation as of its date and does not undertake any obligation to update these forward-looking statements contained in it in light of new information, future events or otherwise. We also do not claim any liability for statements made or published by third parties and Baycard will not undertake any obligation to correct such data Thank you, Dries.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. As many of you know, this is my first earnings call as CEO of Beka, and I'm pleased to have the opportunity to engage with our investors and analysts for the first time. I look forward to building an open and constructive dialogue with all of you. So I will start with a few reflections from my first two months at Beka and the key highlights from the first half. Seppo, our CFO, will then take you through the financials and operational review in more details. After that, I will come back to discuss how we are building on a stronger foundation created in recent years, and we will then close with a fully hot look before opening the call for questions. So before turning to our first half results, I would like to share a few reflections from my first months What attracted me to Bakeout was a combination of strong fundamentals and untapped potential. This is a company with a long history of innovation, deep engineering expertise, and global leadership positions. At the same time, I believe that business is at an important moment in shaping its next phase of development. What I found in my first month is a company that has delivered strong results in a period characterized by low industrial growth and external geopolitical shocks. The company sustained its profitability at a higher level, strengthened its balance sheet, generated strong cash flows, and improved returns. Bekaert also took some preliminary steps to simplify its portfolio, including divesting some commoditized businesses and attractive multiples. Footprint and cost-saving actions made the company leaner, creating a strong foundation for the future. What is clear to me is that the next chapter should increasingly be focused on organic and inorganic growth, preferably on engineered solutions for our key customers, rather than just engineered products. Since joining Baycab and meeting employees, customers and other key stakeholders across our businesses and regions to understand Baker's strengths and improvement needs and more importantly to understand where opportunities exist to create differentiated value. This process helps me and the board to assess how our portfolio should evolve in order to simplify the company over time and further strengthen it. Bekaert has proved itself in recent years into a stronger and more resilient company. We have unique engineering capabilities, strong customer relationships, and many differentiated positions in markets supported by long-term trends. My mandate and my ambition is to build on this foundation and accelerate our transformation journey towards profitable growth and a higher value enterprise. My objective is also to ensure that the quality of this company, the strength of its capabilities, and the potential of its portfolio are fully reflected in how Baycard is understood by the market. This will require key strategic choices, strong execution, and a more focused direction of where Baycard is heading towards and how it creates long-term shareholder value. I'm excited about the opportunity ahead, and I look forward to working with our teams to shape the company's next phase in its long, successful history. With that, let us turn to our first half performance. In the first half of 2026, BayCart demonstrated agility in a volatile environment. The Middle East conflict led to inflationary pressure and supply chain disruptions, but our teams reacted quickly through commercial discipline Sa Unsp-Adr We secured new data centers projects in sustainable construction. We increased our share of wallet with key customers in power and data transmission, and we renewed long-term supply agreements with major elevator manufacturers. We were also capable of capturing the strong demand from Asian tire manufacturer in tire cores. Despite the challenging backdrop, we maintain an ABU margin above 8%, demonstrating the resilience of our business model. Finally, our balance sheet remains strong with the leverage of just 0.8 tons. These financial strengths support our disciplined capital allocation approach, including the one euro 90 cents dividend paid in May and the ongoing 200 million euro share buyback program. Overall, our H1 results demonstrate both the agility of our business and our ability to capture growth opportunities. Seppo will now take you through the H1 2026 results in more details. Thank you, Olivian.