Leonardo Spa Ord

Good evening, this is the Chorus Call Conference Operator. Welcome and thank you for joining the Leonardo First Quarter 2023 Results Conference Call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, they may signal an operator by pressing star and zero on their telephone. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Ms. Valeria Ricciotti, Head of Investor Relations and Credit Rating Agencies. Please go ahead, madam.

Good evening, everybody, and thank you for joining us today on our first quarter 2023 results conference call. Valeria Ricciotti, Head of AR and Credit Rating Agencies. Today, our CEO, Alessandro Profumo, will take you through our progress during the first quarter of this year, and then our CFO, Alessandra Genco, will take you through the Q1 financial results and our outlook for the full year. And we will then welcome your questions. And with this, I will now hand you over to our CEO, Alessandro Profumo.

Thanks, Valeria. Good evening, everybody, or good morning if you are in the US. And thank you for taking the time to join us today. Let's start with the key points about our first quarter results and our recent progress. We are pleased to announce results which show a good start to the year, on track, with continuous strong commercial momentum and financial performance. As further evidence of what we have said recently in March, we are continuing to deliver on our promises with growing commercial success, strong delivery and execution. making the group stronger, more resilient and sustainable, and importantly, in a better and stronger position to capture new opportunities. We are continuing to step up and accelerate our commercial performance, achieving very strong order intake of 4.9 billion in the first quarter, up 29.3% on the first quarter last year, and adjusting to 2022, excluding the contribution of the GES. and this is excluding any jumbo orders, with a B2B at 1.6 times. We have continued strong program delivery and grown our top line, with revenues in the first quarter of 3 billion, up 2.6%, on a perimeter-adjusted basis, and delivered solid EBITDA, with a strong performance of 119 million, up 4.4%, in our business division class DRS, reflecting the perimeter adjustment and excluding the expected soft start to the year of our strategic joint ventures, which were down 21 million year-on-year but are expected to improve during the year. And please note that the first quarter is normally the smallest contributor to the year. We have again improved our free operating cash flow to negative 688 million in the first quarter up almost 400 million on the same period last year, confirming the good progress we are making on improving our cash generation. Our net debt is down 1.1 billion versus first quarter 2022 at 3.7 billion, firmly progressing on our deleveraging plan. And first quarter results confirm the strength of our main group defense and governmental business and the continuing recovery in aerostructures. We are on track and are confirming the guidance we have set out recently for the full year 2023. Moreover, two days ago we have also finalized the disposal of the smallest ATM business unit in the US. So, in summary, in the first quarter we have continued to deliver and showing that the group is stronger, more resilient, sustainable, and is better set up to capture best growth opportunities. And I'm also very proud to say that Moody's has just, today, upgraded Leonardo to investment grade, recognizing a stronger execution through the pandemic the delivering track record, solid growth prospects in defense activities in light of a tense geopolitical context, and conservative financial policies with a commitment to further deliver the balance sheet. And you know, the investment grade is one of our key targets set in the industrial plan. As you know, my own experience in Leonardo is coming to an end. after six intense and beautiful years, I should say fantastic years, that have been filled with strong purpose and immense fulfillment. I will pass the baton to my successor, aware of having contributed to building a stronger company over this period, that is capable of facing the future with a long-term perspective. It has been an outstanding experience both personally and professionally. And I thank you most sincerely for the wonderful journey we made together. And with this, I want to hand you over to Alessandra to run through the first quarter results in more detail. Alessandra.