Grupo Cementos De Chihuah

Good morning and welcome to GCC's third quarter 2025 earnings results conference call. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that this call is being recorded and that all participants will be in listen-only mode. Please also note that a slide presentation accompanies today's webcast. The link is available on the company's IR website at gcc.com. I would now like to turn the call over to Sahory Ogushi, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining. With me today are Enrique Escalante, our Chief Executive Officer, and Maik Strecker, Chief Financial Officer. The earnings release detailing this quarter's results was released yesterday after market close and is available on GCC's IR website. This conference call is also being broadcast live within the Investors section at gcc.com. and both, the webcast replay of the call and transcript will be available on the same site approximately one hour after the end of today's call. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that our remarks today will include forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from those contemplated by this forward-looking statement. Factors that could cause these results to differ materially are set forth in yesterday's press release and in our quarterly report filed with the Mexican Stock Exchange. Any forward-looking statements that we make on this call are based on assumptions as of today and we undertake no obligation to update this statement as a result of new information or future events. With that, let me now turn the call over to Enrique.

Thank you, Sahory, and good morning, everyone. Over the past year, we have listened carefully to our teams, customers, and partners. That dialogue sharpened our long-term direction Our vision, mission, and anchor strategies. Our new 2030 vision is clear, to improve quality of life by creating a better tomorrow. We will deliver it by executing on our mission, to be the supplier of choice of high-quality construction materials, building stronger communities, and creating lasting value for all stakeholders. And we will do so through our three anchor strategies, People, Growth, and Planet. With that framework in place, let me turn to the choir. 3Q25 unfolded against a mixed macro backdrop. Both the US and Mexico cut interest rates, and while the costs today are not yet sufficient to fully restore activity, They are an encouraging signal for improvement in some segments. At the same time, trade rhetoric continues to influence project timing and investment decisions in some markets. Against this backdrop, we delivered 10% revenue growth. For context, the third quarter of 2024 set a high bar with record margins. and Mark, the launch of our proactive cost and expense program, which creates a top comparison this year. Margin compression was steeper than what we expected in the quarter. However, we're executing targeted commercial and cost measures to support profitability in the fourth quarter and to set a healthier run rate as we enter 2026. This improved run rate will also be supported by the absence of a couple of one-offs that are not expected to recur next year. Operationally, our plants run normal throughout the quarter, an important proof point following the isolated disruptions we experienced the first half of the year. As part of our people's strategy, we continue to invest in safety and training We continue investing in strengthening our safety culture, guided by the vision of becoming a world-class safety organization. During the first nine months of the year, we reduced our recordable incidents, including lost time incidents, by 18% compared to the same period in 2024. We certified 75% of our safety professionals in our serious injuries and fatalities Thank you. Thank you. and enhance the integration and analysis of information, helping us strengthen our decision-making capabilities. Through the DCC Cement Training Institute, we have dedicated close to 12,000 hours of training year-to-date and are assessing needs to build more tailored plants for next year. Turning to our planet's strategy. Our alternative fuel substitution increased 3 percentage points in the quarter, led by our Pueblo plant, which reached 18.7% year-to-date through optimized use of tire dry fuel. We also expanded the share of blended cement, driven by pozzolanic cement production at our Tijeras plant, where blended products now account for 83% of plant volume, up 55% As a result, our clinker factor improved by 1% each point, and we reduced our Scope 1 CO2 emissions by 2.2% year-over-year. Finally, turning to our growth strategy. Cement volumes increased by 6.4% and our concrete operations delivered a 52.7% gain. Momentum in wind farm projects continued and our ready mix plants ran at capacity to support demand. During the third quarter, we supplied four wind farm projects across North Dakota, Colorado, and Texas, with additional projects scheduled to begin next year. Importantly, the projects in our pipeline are funded and proceeding, which gives us certainty in the durability of this work stream into 2026. These energy generation projects connect to the grid investment now underway. In Colorado, we are participating in the Power Pathway. A US $1.7 billion program designed to enhance reliability and enable future renewable development. Activity is expected to run through 2026. Taken together, wind installation and transmission upgrades create a cohesive multi-year opportunity set for our cement and concrete businesses across the region. Infrastructure demand remains steady. We continue to work on interstate highways near Odessa and El Paso, Texas, and advanced construction at the Denver International Airport. We're wrapping up Loop 88 in Lubbock and beginning activity on Highway 27 near Amarillo, Texas, positioning the network well for a solid close to the year. By contrast, The residential segment remains under pressure. Affordability is still considered constrained with a 30-year mortgage rate around 6.3%. Permits and starts remains to do, and we do not expect a meaningful rebound throughout the first half of 2026. Recent rate cuts in the US are a constructive signal But they have not yet translated into the level of affordability needed to re-accelerate housing. Within oil and gas, activities softened at lower oil price and recounts did not support higher production. As a result, oil well cement declined as a share of U.S. cement volumes by roughly three percentage points, reducing the contribution of a higher value product in our mix. That mixed shift, combined with software underlying demand and increased availability in certain markets, weighted on price realization, resulting in an average cement price decrease of 3% year-over-year for the quarter. Looking ahead to 2026, we're maintaining a disciplined focus on offsetting cost increases and improving margins. We have notified customers of an $8 per ton price increase for construction cement effective January 1st. At the same time, our recent aggregate acquisitions have been integrated. They are performing as planned and our focus on operational and commercial excellence is lifting synergies. Turning to Mexico. Conditions were mixed throughout the quarter. Industrial demand remains subdued and macro uncertainty kept decision-making cautious. Industrial developers are largely in a holding pattern for the same reasons we outlined earlier in the year. This is most visible in quarters, where customers have still yet to allocate available inventories built in prior years. While activity in Chihuahua has held broadly stable, we're staying close to customers and have positioned ourselves to book quickly as confidence returns. Amid that backdrop, cement volumes improved in September as the mining comparison base began to normalize. The segment performed in line with expectations. One customer's end-of-life mine closed In August 2024 is the year-over-year comparison in the third quarter. With a second closure in November 2024, we will still affect part of the fourth quarter. Importantly, we are nearing the end of that high base as we had in 2026. Despite this headwind, and in contrast with our U.S. market, residential demand in the state of Chihuahua remained very robust, delivering a high single digit growth year to date, even before any impact from the new federal housing initiative. Projects under that new program are now moving from planning into execution and should provide incremental growth on top of an already solid residential backdrop. We expect activity to begin in Ciudad Juarez before year end, with Chihuahua following next year. On infrastructure, we sustain activity on the Babispe Highway connecting Sonora and Chihuahua State, and the City of Chihuahua advanced the preparation phase for three bridges. We expect initial work to start in the fourth quarter, with a larger share concentrated in 2026 at execution scales. The bagged cement remains robust and continues to contribute good margins to our Mexico results. Overall, our focus in Mexico is on disciplined preparation for the next year. positioned in GCC to capture an eventual recovery in industrial while continuing to leverage strength in residential and the visibility created by this year's infrastructure programs. From a capital allocation standpoint, the Orenza expansion remains fully on track. Today, we have deployed approximately 518 million of the total investment. The new line is expected to begin shipping cement in December of 2026. The new production line has the flexibility to switch between oil-bought cement and construction cement as market conditions evolve, an important capability given oil price dynamics. Drawing on our experience adding capacity to the market, especially under adverse economic conditions, as was the case During our Pueblo plant startup in 2008, we will enter the market slowly and deliberately dispersing new sales through multiple small terminals across several Texas markets, capturing savings in trade and distribution costs by shipping closer to the plant. In this way, we avoid market disruption and enhance value creation mid-term. Odessa will assume lanes currently served by Samalayuca into West Texas and through Trenton, Texas. This redeployment expands our logistics network and unlock freight efficiencies across the footprint. Finally, on M&A, let me be explicit. It is a top priority. We remain active in evaluating opportunities in both cement and aggregate that enhance our network within conservative leverage thresholds. Our approach is this good. We will deploy capital where it strengthens the network and meets our strategic and financial criteria. However, let me ask, as we have been commenting We no longer will limit our growth strategy to the region where we currently operate. We are now open to grow in other U.S. markets where we can start building a new network capturing value based on our current experience. We are prepared to move decisively when the right assets are available. With that, let me turn the call over to Mike for his financial review.