E.ON SE

Good morning, everyone. Dear analysts and investors, a warm welcome from my side to our first quarter 2026 earnings call. I'm here with our CFO, Nadja Jacobi, who will present our results. As always, we will leave enough room for your questions at the end. With that, over to you, Nadja.

Thank you, Iris, and a warm welcome from my side as well. Only two and a half months ago, we presented our full year 2025 results to you and updated our outlook until 2030. Today, I will give you an update how we performed in the first quarter. The last months have been marked by a volatile macro environment caused by geopolitical turmoil. The ongoing U.S.-Iran tensions drive commodity prices higher and increase market volatility. Our results demonstrate our ability to effectively and successfully deal with market turbulence, as we have shown before, during the COVID and the energy crisis caused by the Ukraine war. The resilience and defensiveness of our unique business model positions us as a safe haven in an increasingly volatile world. Most of our EBTA is generated in regulated energy networks, where earnings are largely protected against volume and price risks. Strong secular growth trends make us nearly independent of economic cycles. Our predominantly European supply base and procurement leaders largely unaffected by U.S. terrorist developments. Around 98% of our supply spending is within Europe. Our energy infrastructure business is supported by long-term contracts and price adjustment mechanisms, which provide inflation protection and commodity price pass-throughs. And for our energy retail business, we have a robust risk management framework and hedging regime in place and have no direct exposure to the Middle East or any directly affected markets. Before I move to our Q1 results, I would also like to share a few words on our over-acquisition which was announced on Monday. This transaction provides us with a unique opportunity to acquire a highly synergistic portfolio. It represents a highly complementary fit to our existing UK business. We see three key value drivers. The combination will allow us to drive material economies of scale by optimizing customer operations and offering innovative products to a broader customer base. It strengthens our UK market position and enables further development of a customer-centric and digital energy business. Customers are increasingly expecting simple, digital, sustainable, and affordable energy solutions. This transaction strengthens our ability to deliver exactly that at scale. From a financial perspective, the transaction supports our long-term earnings growth and cash generation. It creates additional financial headroom to further support our investment capacity in regulated networks and delivers a positive EPS impact. They've approached this transaction with clear financial discipline and a strong focus on integration planning from day one. With our track record of turning around underperforming UK businesses, we possess the necessary knowledge and capabilities to carry it through successfully. They're excited about the opportunities ahead and are confident that this combination will create long-term value for our customers and shareholders. That said, let me now turn to our results for the first quarter of this year with my four key messages. First, Aon delivered a strong operational financial performance, which puts us firmly on track to achieve our full year guidance. Our adjusted EBITDA reached 3.3 billion euros and our adjusted net income came in at around 1.3 billion euros. This links into my second message. Our growth trajectory is progressing well. our investments continue to materially exceed depreciation. Most of our investments are allocated to our German power networks business to further enhance the energy transition. Third, our balance sheet remains strong. Economic net debt of around 46 billion euros in the first quarter reflects the typical Q1 cash flow seasonality driven by the working capital pattern of our business models. And finally, we fully confirm our guidance, including our development policy. Let us move on to our Q1 year-over-year adjusted EBTA bridge. Starting with energy networks, adjusted EBTA was broadly stable year-over-year. Continued investments in our regulated asset base supported earnings growth across all business regions. This was offset by negative structural effects, mainly from deconsolidating one of our regional utility participations in Germany, NEW AG, and the sale of our Czech Air Networks business. In addition, we saw high costs to support the continued expansion of our networks business. We have continued our track record of operational excellence, even as network complexity has increased significantly. Beginning of this month, Germany experienced exceptionally high solar generation. A peak generation of around 46 gigawatts coincided with low holiday demand of only around 43 gigawatts. This led to prolonged periods of sharply negative power prices, at times reaching almost minus 500 euro per megawatt hour. In these challenging conditions of high system volatility, all of our DSOs were able to maintain full system stability, This effort was also recognized positively by the regulator. Moving on to our energy infrastructure solution business. Here we have seen positive earning effects from the commissioning of new projects and the parcel of higher procurement costs related to previous years. In energy retail, we delivered a strong first quarter. We saw a slight earnings increase in Q1 driven by temporary effects from phasing of price adjustments in our German business which we expect to normalize over the course of the year. In addition, the performance of our UK B2B business has continued to normalize as expected. Our adjusted net income came in as expected at around 1.3 billion euros. All T&L items below adjusted EBTA developed in line with our expectations in Q1. Looking ahead, the current development in adjusted net income is expected to be offset over the course of the year by higher interest expenses. As stated in February, we expect an increase in interest expenses this year, driven by higher net debt levels from ongoing investments and higher refinancing costs for maturing low-coupon bonds. A portion of this is already visible in Q1. Overall, we remain well on track to achieve our full-year adjusted net income 2026 guidance. Looking at the development of our economic net debt, I would like to highlight four key points. First, our promised investment growth trajectory is progressing and we are well on track to deliver our full-year targets. The negative operating cash flow in the first quarter reflects the typical seasonal working capital pattern of our business and is expected to reverse over the course of the year. Third, we are well advanced in executing our 2026 funding plan. Ahead of recent market volatility, we secured 1.6 billion euros in the euro bond market and a further 1.4 billion euros from investors outside the euro bond market even during the volatile period. This brings us to total funding of 3 billion euros at attractive spreads, covering more than half of our 2026 requirements and underlining both the resilience and increase in diversification of our funding base. And finally, our balance sheet remains strong. And we continue to see substantial extra balance sheet capacity over the guidance horizon. And this has just been confirmed yesterday by S&P and Fitch, while affirming our triple D plus ratings with stable outlook. Let me conclude today's presentation with my key takeaway. First, we delivered the first quarter as promised, even against the backdrop of geopolitical uncertainty and elevated market volatility. The strong Q1 downturn firmly supports our expected guidance delivery for 2026. Second, Our growth trajectory, especially in power networks, is progressing well and continues to drive the energy transition in Europe. Third, our balance sheet remains strong. We will continue to focus on delivering an attractive total shareholder return based on value-creative organic growth and an annually growing dividend per share. Finally, we fully confirm our full year 2026 guidance and 2030 outlooks. And with that, back to you, Iris.

Thank you, Nadja. And with that, we will start our Q&A session. Let me remind you all that you please stick to two questions each. And with that, the first question comes from Julius Nicholson from Bank of America. Hi, Julius.