Bureau Veritas Sa

Hello and welcome to Bureau Veritas Q3 2023 Revenue. My name is Alicia and I will be your coordinator for today's event. Please note this call is being recorded and for the duration of the call, your lines will be on listen only. However, you will have the opportunity to ask questions at the end of the call. This can be done by pressing star 1 on your telephone keyboard to register your question. If you require assistance at any point, please press star 0 and you will be connected to an operator. I will now hand you over to Hinda Garbi, CEO, and François Chabat, CFO, to begin today's conference. Thank you.

Thank you, Alicia. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening to everyone. I'm pleased to welcome you to the third quarter revenue conference call. I'm joined here by François Chabat, our group CFO. The revenue growth delivered in the third quarter reflects the continued strong performance since the start of the year. This is a great credit to the work of all our teams around the world, and it allows us to confirm our guidance for the full year. Our strategic focus is firmly on high-growth markets such as sustainability and energy transition, and on ensuring that our business mix and investments generate long-term value for the company and our shareholders. To that effect, we are reinforcing Bureau Veritas' leadership in sustainability services by augmenting our capabilities through partnerships that I will share with you during the call. Looking at the quarter highlights, in Q3 2023, revenue was 1.4 billion euros, up 6.1% at constant currency. The organic increase was 5.8%, showing a very solid underlying performance year to date at 8.1%. This is achieved after a very strong Q3 last year and while navigating a complex macro and geopolitical environment. Three of our businesses delivered particularly strong organic revenue growth ranging from 11.4% to 15.8%. Consumer products stabilized as expected. We remain confident about the fundamentals of our addressable B&I market space, although the division was affected this quarter in percentage terms by challenging comparables. The scope effect was a positive 0.3% reflecting the impact of the Voltron acquisitions realized last year, partially offset by recent small disposals. Forex had a significant negative impact of 8.4% in Q3, primarily due to the appreciation of the Euro against most currencies. We continue to benefit from our portfolio leadership position in our served markets and from the development of new solutions in sustainability, decarbonization, and energy transition. They played a key role in driving our organic growth. Looking at the mix over the first nine months of 2023, marine and offshore, industry, and certification continued their strong growth momentum. The robust performance year-to-date in BNI and agri-food and commodities was moderated in Q3 by challenging comparables. Following the challenging first health and consumer products, our activity stabilized as expected in the third quarter. From a geographical standpoint, the Americas, Middle East, and Africa are leading the pack alongside a very robust performance in Europe. Before passing on to Francois for the financial review, I'd like to share with you our progress in CSR performance at the end of September 2023. We are committed to health and safety by continuing our prevention programs and reducing accidents. On the gender diversity front, we remain committed to our 35% target by 2025. On decarbonization, our plan has been validated last June by the Science-Based Target Initiative, or SBTI, in line with the one and a half degree goal of the Paris Agreement. Additionally, we were recently included included in the cac sbt 1.5 index we are on target with the 2025 co2 reduction goals and we are aligned with our sbti plans we note that china lockdown skewed last year's metrics favorably i would like now to hand over to francois for the financial review thank you inda good afternoon good evening to all uh taking now a closer look at the revenue bridge

1.4 billion euros were generated in Q3, with an overall contraction of 2.3% on a reported basis, mainly attributable to negative currency effect of 8.4%. This is mostly due to the strength of the euro against US dollar and most currencies. The solid organic revenue growth of 5.8% has been achieved against a particularly strong Q3 last year. External growth contributed to 0.3% on a let's go basis, reflecting the impact of recent disposals as part of our active portfolio management strategy, and the fact that most of the Bolton acquisitions realized in the past few quarters are now annualized. On the acquisition side, we continue to have some promising projects in the pipeline. On a nine-month basis, Buretas delivered $4.3 billion, We achieved a 9.1% growth at constant currency, with organic revenue increasing by 8.1%, while the acquisition net of disposal contributed to 1%. The strong performance highlights the momentum around those secular growth drivers. Forex, in fact, presents a drag of 4.8%, leading to a total growth of 4.3% on the net reported basis by the end of September. When it comes to the performance of the different businesses in the last quarter, Q3, three activities led the growth, namely marine and offshore, industry, and certification. They all delivered double-digit organic growth on the back of a continued momentum in sustainability and ESG drivers, including marine decarbonization and renewable energy projects. Agri-food and commodities delivered a low single-digit organic revenue growth driven mostly by agri-food markets, notably in Brazil, and the ongoing good momentum in government services. Building infrastructure and consumer product services recorded a flat performance over the quarter, as expected. For CPS, I think, as we told you in June, we're in the ramp-up phase for CPS. After H1 being negative, we'll have a flat H2, with Q3 already stabilized. For B&I, it's linked to tougher comparables and seasonality specific to Q3. You will hear more about it in the business review by Hinda. The M&A impact of 0.3% reflects the Bolton acquisition last year in B&I and consumer products and the recent disposal of a non-core automotive business, which was part initially of our industry division. Moving on now to the nine months, where organic growth of 8.1% is fueled by industry, again, marine offshore, and certification. So the three strong growth engines, which are currently the best performing division, the three of them recording double-digit growth. Building infrastructure and agri-food communities are displaying mid-to-high organic growth. And when it comes to the consumer product segments, as expected, it's showing a low single-digit contraction with the ramp-up phase I've just mentioned. I now pass back to Inda for the detailed business review.