Imerys Sa Ord

Good afternoon to all of you, and thank you for joining us today to review Imerys H125 results. With me this afternoon, as usual, Sébastien Rouge, our CFO. And as usual, please let me start by giving you a few highlights of the semester we just closed, and in particular, on the second quarter of the year. I think Imerys delivered a very resilient H1 results. On a comparable basis, our sales were flat. and our EBITDA for the underlying business was even up. And I think this is a great achievement, considering the environment around us. If we go a bit more in detail, the performance in the first half was the result of a good start in the year with a solid Q1, and for sure a softer Q2. This sudden and unpredictable U.S. tariff policy, and especially the changes thereof, triggered a global uncertainty in the U.S. land, a bit everywhere, but also in North America. Despite softer volumes in two, organic growth for the first half of the year was flat, basically, compared to last year. Even in this challenging context, we posted an increase in EBITDA versus last year, 1.7, both for the second quarter and for the full first half, excluding, of course, Perinita and the contribution of JD, as well as change, which in Q2 turned significantly negative, reporting in Euro, and Sébastien will show you the impact of the dollar devaluation. As I said, this demonstrates the strength and the resilience of our company, but also the good work done on cost-saving, cost-saving initiatives and programs, pricing discipline, innovation, and I will come back on this because it starts to be significant, and also thanks to the investments we have launched in the last two years on growing businesses, such as conductive additives, that are finally starting to deliver significant sales and profits. The adjusted EBITDA for the first semester was 281 million euro, a 16% margin. For 2025, the group targets an adjusted EBITDA in the range of 540, 580 million euro, assuming no big deterioration or change in the overall economic environment. And during the call, this call will provide you a bit more details on our assumption, as well as important, a progress update on our lithium project in France. So, the new slides on the second slide, which gives you, I think, a good picture to illustrate the sales performance of the group for H1 by geography. Contrast this, as you can see. Top rights, Europe, is clearly the weak link in the chain with persistently low industrial activity, notably a difficult automotive sector, maybe an improving construction industry, but still at historical low levels. And again, to give you an example of the, let's say, tough situation in Europe, I mentioned Germany. The country alone dropped in H1 of this year by almost 10% in sales compared to last year, or a drop of 18 million euro. So more than the entire drop of the group sales in H1. There are reasons to be optimistic, but we'll come back to that for the future, and I'll come back to that later on. Even with a softer Q2 compared to Q1, especially around the construction world, not only can we install it with organic growth, also for the full H1. Asia growing nicely, not only India where we invested with our last green field around construction and steel, not only in China where we invested in automotive, and of course around the battery production world. So dynamic, and last but not least, on the contrary, in terms of growth, the fastest growing is South America. We invested a lot in innovation, and as I mentioned before, we start seeing the fruits of the work. The next slide, I would say here, it underlines the robustness of the image business model. On the left, you can see the evolution of adjusted debita, as I already mentioned, including the perinita. And I remind you, it's the divestiture of the assets serving the paper market in July of last year, so the last quarter where we will see an impact. And removing contribution of gavees. which was exceptionally exceptional in H1 last year, significantly lower this year, and Sebastien will give you more details, adjusted the increase for the underlying business by 1.5% year on year. And on the right is one of the reasons, I say one of them. The reason for this increase is the balance between price and cost, which remains strongly positive and constantly positive, which has good work done on costs, on cost retainments, but also our agility to react to market changes in terms of pricing when it comes. As I always said, it is important to maintain this balance always positive, and I think we do it successfully. If we now look at our mid-market and their trends, I'll be quick because partly we discussed it already or I presented it already looking at geographies. It should be noted that fluctuating U.S. tariffs has had a limited direct impact on the English business. We said it before, but they did have a more important impact on some of our customers or our end markets, and I think of automotive in Europe, and generated a global uncertainty with, for sure, slowdown demand a bit everywhere. Maybe more optimism for the future, and we will look at it in our audit. Looking at the markets, construction in general, not good. We see a lot of or very little growth. Europe, historical low levels, but we do see signs of a rebound. North America was good in infrastructure, low in residential. Q2 was really low. I hope the recent agreements with the different countries will bring more Certainty and confidence to consumers to spend and hopefully a limited inflation causing to interest rates to finally drop. Positive in Asia and even in China. Consumer goods, next slide, very little to say, resilient, solid, all geographies. Now that seems to have a limited impact in the U.S. probably. we do expect also in the US to remain sustained. The next slide automotive is definitely the most difficult Europe with the third quarter of significant drop in a row. The US also turning negative. One bright spot, which is China, the local market as well as exports. Our last investor issue we call our polymers for light weighting of, sorry, our investment in light weighting, in terms of light weighting of polymers, especially in the car industry in China was definitely a good choice, and we do see a strong market in China. On the next one, energy, depends a lot on industrial activity, so quite soft in Q2 and H1. Electronics has been okay, also okay, and the very good news is the The electric vehicle market is showing a significant rebound in Europe, double-digit in America even, and remains very, very solid in China, by far the biggest market in the world. And this trading for new policies is definitely showing its effects. We do expect the market to continue on a very solid base. In the financial activity we mentioned before, soft in Europe, softer in the U.S. in Q1, but even Okay, and we do see good momentum in Asia in general. And a lot of iron and steel, which is typically a consequence of the construction and automotive industry, which are the main users by far of iron and steel and reflects. But the markets are slowing up. It should be good in the U.S. if these 50% theories are confirmed, which is the case. and slowing in China, and slower construction industry compared to past years. Also, we do expect countries to limit Chinese export of steel through protectionism, and therefore, going forward, Chinese steel production should remain subdued. If we look now a bit more in detail at our figures, I hand over to Sebastian.

Thank you, Alessandro. Good evening, everyone. Let's go through some of the key aspects of our financial performance, and we start with revenue. The group report says that 1.76 billion for the first semester of 2025. It represents a 0.4 decrease at constant exchange rate and perimeter as compared to last year. The perimeter effect, minus 136 million, is mainly due to the disposal of the paper activities made last July. And we have also deterioration of 19 million of the FX effect. This comes in particular from a drop of the USD versus Euro in Q2. To be noted, sequentially, sales continue in an upward trend. Q2 sales are higher than Q1 of this year. They are also higher than Q3 and Q4 of 2024, which were comparable quarters after the disposal of the paper of the assets serving the stock market zone. If we look now into more detail at our three business segments, we start with Performance Minerals. This business generated $1.056 billion since the beginning of 2025, and it represents 60% of Imerys Group. Overall, the business shows a slightly positive organic growth as compared to last year, supported by price development across all regions. Revenue in the Americas was most dynamic, up 1.3% at constant scope and exchange rate. Price increase negated the impact of software volumes as the construction sector was still penalized by high interest rates and business uncertainty. Revenues in Europe, Middle East, Africa, and Asia-Pacific shows a slight decrease of 1%, at constant scope and exchange rate in H1 this year as compared to last year. This has mostly due to 1.9% decline in volume, reflecting low activity in automotive, painted and coating industries, and partially offset by positive filtration business. At the CDBGA, of H1 stood at 186 million in 1994 at comparable exchange rate and perimeter, thanks to effort on costs and well-adjusted price-cost balance. Now looking at our audience for FLE abrasive construction, generated by this business in the first semester, reached 518 million, a 5% decrease as compared at constant scope and X rate. Sales in the refractory market were particularly impacted by low industrial activity in Europe, increased Chinese competition, and, to a lesser extent, low industrial activity in the U.S. Our construction solutions, in a difficult market, held up very well. The second quarter saw similar trends to the first-bar incentives caused by the U.S. tariff policy. The prices held up well across all regions. The adjusted EBDA decrease was really due to the volume drop. Pretty fresh balance and cost-efficient actions helped mitigate this impact in the first half year. Now we complete this segment review with the solutions for energy transition business. The graphite and carbon activity generated revenue of 123 million in H1 this year. up 20% versus 2024, confirming in Q2 a good start of the year. Sales growth is driven by robust end markets with vehicles and creative polymers, by market share gains and by new product launches. Adjusted EBDA improved thanks to this significant sales volume increase. If we look now at the Quast Corporation as a whole, 100%, The business generated 82 million revenue, a large almost 70% drop versus last year's exceptional first half. The performance remained affected by a very disturbed solar value chain with persistent high inventory, even if activity improved progressively in Q2. Net income fell sharply to 12 million. If we now look at the profitability as a whole, for the first semester of 25, adjusted EBITDA reached 281 million. Compared to last year, the profitability was impacted by the deterioration of the contribution from our joint ventures. You remember, its contribution was exceptional in H124. The adjusted EBITDA was also impacted by the perimeter effect of minus 34 million, resulting from the disposal of the assets serving the paper market last July. Restated from this perimeter and JV impact, adjusted EBDA from our fully owned business is growing by 5 million, net of change impact, which proves again the resilience of Umairi's business model. The adjusted EBDA margin, which is 16%, benefiting from a strong performance of the graph size and carbon, and performance mineral businesses. It reached 17.3% if we look at Q2 alone. Let's look now at the other elements of our income statements for the first semester of 2025. Current operating income reached $143 million following EBITDA decrease year-on-year and a slight increase of depreciation expenses. With current financial expenses close to last year level, same thing with lower tax expenses, the current net income group share landed at 83 million, suffering mainly from the lower contribution of our JV and the negative perimeter impact. Net income group share after non-recurring expenses, which are limited to 12 million euros, reached 71 million euros as compared to 142 the previous year, reflecting the decrease in current net income. Let's have a look now at our cash flow generation. We reported a net current free operating cash flow of 60 million before strategic capex, 40 million if we include the lithium capex. The decrease compared to prior year is practically primarily due to a lower profitability and significantly reduced dividends from our joint venture, and that was partially offset by a decrease in efforts in our capital expenditure. For the full year, net current free operating cash flow should benefit from improved operating working capital, traditionally better in H2, and lower capital expenditures. Excluding the strategic capex, these are expected to be below 270 million as compared to 290 million last year. How do these different elements translate into Emery's balance sheet? With the normal seasonality of our working cap and the limited impact of non-operational cash, the net debt increased by $135 million, mostly linked to the dividend distributed last May. Net financial debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio increased mechanically to 2.5, following the impact of scope and JV contribution. Rating agencies remain confident in the strength of Imery's financial structure, and reiterated recently their investment rate rating. On this good note, now hand over to Alessandro for the outlook and Émile.

Thank you, Sébastien.

Before deep diving a bit on Émile's project, a word on the outlook. As mentioned at the beginning, we target... for the year 20, for the full year 2025, and adjusted EBITDA in the range of 540 to 580 million, assuming material deterioration in the overall environment. We do expect our volumes to turn positive in the second part of the year for several reasons. First, I think the recently announced agreement with the U.S., Europe-U.S., 15% is high. Am I happy? Not really. But it is a level which is first bearable by the overall industry. And secondly, it is a basis on which people can calculate, invest, and take decisions. The uncertainty, hopefully, is gone. Secondly, I believe that our innovation in South America and other smaller businesses are starting to deliver, so we should see some growth right there. The electrical markets will continue to grow, and in the end, the numbers I will show around mainly confirm all the forecasts are positive. We are very well positioned. We have invested the capacity to support the growth of these markets, and that will deliver growth. And last, I think the production industry is turning its point, and for sure in Europe, But in the U.S., we should see also the same trend in the U.S. Lastly, there has been a measure announced 10 days ago from the European community on protection measures on certain imported minerals from China. And dumping, as it's simply called, is valid since July 17. This should also bring some additional volumes and growth to our European activity in the second half. is to say that we're confident in the success of this company. We will navigate these challenging worlds with discipline, with focus on cost, and with a long-term view. And I remain with Nick for the second half. Before I open to Q&A, I'd like to thank, as we promised a long time, on Emily, on our lithium project, where we stand, the fundamentals, the results of the pre-feasibility study. Quick summary, target to produce 34 tons per year of very great lithium hydroxide by the end of the decade. This volume would be sufficient to power 700,000 electrical vehicles per year. France produce around 1.1 million per year, so close to the entire needs of this country. It's based on a hard rock, an important resource located in the middle of Europe, in the middle of France, in Alier Department, so nicely located. And, of course, it will be into a value chain supply chain being built in Europe, Iran, and Greece. This is being classified as a project of international interest under the Critical Raw Materials Act. If we check on the elements or the outcomes of the recently completed feasibility study, First, I would say everything confirms the strong fundamentals of the project in detail. World-class deposits, worldwide for UBROC. Higher or significantly higher sources than originally estimated, so 370 million tons of lithium oxide at 1% concentration, which implies minimum a 50-year life of it. Some areas even show a 1.10 significant areas. a concentration as high as 1.22%, which would be really world class. Production process works, has been validated through testing in a dedicated lab now since a few months on a continuous basis, and we have more than one ton of lithium produced that is being tested by battery makers as we speak. Lithium production will be environmentally and socially responsible, to be half of the average of other existing lithium operations, and water consumption should be among the lowest in the world. The project will create at least 1,500 jobs, direct and indirect, in the air. The cost will be competitive. The cash cost announced is €70 per kilo. Well, it will be in the very low end of the range, which is reduced. On the less-reviewed topics, which we expected in excess of a billion, is in reality higher than expected, revised up to 1.8 billion. Two main reasons. One is evasion over the last three years, and the second one is ESG compliance. So we had to add some elements, some machines, some pieces of equipment to improve our ESG footprint or ESG performance. compliance that has a cost. Still, good news ahead of us, substantial reductions have been identified in a new engineering phase and are under finalization and a tax credit of 200 million has been confirmed for the project as eligible. We do expect this to materialize as well as subsidies, especially at European level. The return of the project remains interesting in line with our expectation, considering especially the long-term markets forecast for lithium prices, and I have a slide dedicated to this later. Commercial production EDX would be now then for 2030, including the long public EDX and the permitting phase, which is ongoing right now. The decision, which is one of the questions often asked, not to go on the commercial land, would be needed by the end of 20%. The project is really exemplary in terms of responsible mining and our commitments to ESG in terms of footprint, water consumption, stakeholder management, really I would say difficult to do that. On the next slide is expectation from the market. So top left you see the expected growth and supply expected growth of lithium needs and demand and supply up to 2035. Cargo of 30%, pulling past, expected for the future. This growth will create a gap with demand, gradually, of course, but supply will be outgrown by demand. It's only a question of when. And below you see different studies showing the moment of inflection. As a consequence, typically, of a market which would become unbalanced, there is an overall alignment on the different studies showing that lithium prices will and should gradually recover from their current value levels. The consensus price around the end of the decade is significantly higher than today's, probably between $20 and $30 per kilo. When I say lithium, I always mean carbonate or lithium carbonate equivalent, which is the typical state sold in the industry. The next slide, which is the target market for the NLE project. On the left, you can see the growing demand for EVs and hybrid cars should reach 83% penetration in 10 years. But not only bottom part, not only cars will drive leaks in demand, there is a growing demand for energy storage, as well as other mobility applications, such as trucks or two-wheelers. All of this will generate significant additional market growth in the future. On the right, Europe will potentially need around 550,000 to 600,000 tons of lithium per year. At this stage, all known, all announced projects, if fully implemented and operational, will not be able to meet such needs, with a deficit estimated at at least 160,000 tons per year by the end of the decade. This is why we do expect the lead market to become increasingly interesting and a matter of European sovereignty. And to conclude, an overview of what we have done in the past years, where we stand today, and what are the next steps. We have concluded the scoping study, included the public debates, and the pre-visibility study. We have produced battery-grade lithium hydroxide on a continuous basis in a dedicated laboratory, and this is being tested by our customers. Next steps are now for completing, which is ongoing, the definitive feasibility study, fundamentally the engineering of the commercial plants, which is ongoing. The construction of industrial pilots to confirm and test the process and the technology and the navigation of the products once all permits, which is not the case yet, will be obtained.

plus given the title project, the search of an ad partner.

Thank you for listening and I now open the floor to questions.

Thank you. To ask a question, you will need to press star 1 and 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 1 and 1 again. We will now go to our first question. One moment please. And your first question today comes from the line of Ibrahim Homami from CIC. Please go ahead.

No, thank you for taking my question. I have two questions. The first one is about your guidance. What is the assumption behind in terms of Forex organic growth and PXU contribution? And given the level of EBDA, what would be your next EBDA integration? And my second question is about each project. Do you have discussions with potential partners and what are the profiles of these partners if they are?

I start on the second one. As I mentioned in the past, our preferred partner would be an industrial partner that normally brings, let's say, financing to the project, join us in the project, but also expertise and know-how, especially on how to manage topics of this size, which is clearly beyond immerse strength of typical topic size. Being that we are very open, we are investigating opportunities, and I think we will be, after the summer, going towards the end, we will be able to comment in more detail. Could be financial partners, could be private equity, could be funds. The project is considered of high interest in the industry, and we remain very confident that we will find the right partner for Emily. If you see your questions, I would say the If I look at the first half of the year, I think over the first half of the year, the business has been improving, especially in terms of sales. We do see an activity resuming, especially the forward art market, which has been affected by the extremely high inventory throughout the chain, from materials and finished modules, panels throughout the chain. We do see productions in China starting to be gradual. It will be customer by customer. We released that two years ago in our graphite and carbon business for batteries. After the big hike, a big drop in demand, once inventory are back to normal levels, activity will resume because the underlying market installation of photovoltaics remains very solid with high single digit or double digit growth. And I think the best confirmation is the way our conductivity business is doing now, very strongly. I believe one day TQC will come back. With that time, we remain prudent of future developments because we have limited, as you know, in front of the main, basically the only market, China, and information from China needs to be taken with it. The smaller part of the business, so no question about it. And I think we have a question.

Yeah, go ahead.

I think we have a question.

So you can write us some behind your data and .

On the first, we have a, we have a, We have planned with something a little bit better than the spot. We'll show you how it evolves. So there is a bit of risk and opportunity, but we don't see anything major, at least if we believe what are the expectations of EOSD and Reals, which are big contributors so far. So on the left, I should not give you a precise number because some of the elements are actually in the At which speed do we resume the CAPEX? How do we partner? It will obviously have an impact. What I can tell you is that basically we've seen the most of the mechanical degradation of the leverage. You remember it's built on a 12-month rolling average. We left the very high H1 over 34 and replaced it with something lower this year. Now we will have an H2 over 35 that will be way more, way closer than the DH2O34. So UDEMAS mechanically will be more or less in the same range as of today, with a very dedicated focus then to regain progressively and reduce the leverage by a natural re-increase of the EVDA in the following years, exactly as we saw after the last crisis of 2020. So that's how we are paying that right now is again a little bit of a known with the way and the speed at which we finance the lithium.

From a working capital perspective, a middle of the year is typically a peak because there is a lot of mining activities which happen only in summer. And therefore, we see a significant drop towards the end of the year. which, of course, helps generating a strong cash flow generation.

Very helpful. Thank you. Did we answer all? Yeah. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Jason Fairclough from Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Good evening, gentlemen. Thanks so much for the presentation. Just had a couple quick ones on the Emily project. So I was just taking a look at the price. I think the price of lithium is down by about 85% from when we started talking about this project, and now the capex is up by 80%. So I guess, you know, with this new set of inputs, how much do you think the lithium price is going to go up from here for this project to be NPV neutral? Like, do we need to have lithium prices – 20, 30% higher from here? Do you have a second question? Yeah, well, the second one is, I guess, and it's a bit more of a philosophical one, so apologies if I get a bit philosophical. We seem to have a lot of very Lacoste lithium brine projects. So I guess my philosophical question is, is there really still a place for hard rock lithium projects? Interesting your thoughts.

Okay, in your first part of the question are facts, the price in 22 and the price today. Today offer outstripped demands and therefore we see the, which is a bit typical in what is effectively a commodity. at $10 per kilo, which is more or less the current price, this project will not fly, it will not be done. I don't, it depends on certain assumption costing, but I think a project like the Emily one, with probably MPV zero, probably around 13, 14 dollars per kilo.

So 30, 40% up compared to today.

I think the lithium price is what is key is lithium prices. Any known project today will not be enough to supply future demand. So I don't believe we will see 80 again for a very good reason. If lithium costs $80 per kilo, we will not buy electric vehicles because they will become too expensive. But the lithium price, which is more or less what all institutions and experts estimate, the lithium price between 20 and 30 is realistic, dollar per kilo, of course, is realistic because of demand as it does and because projects will not be made if it is a 10. So that's our estimation. Fortunately, we don't have to take a decision on the capex today because it will be definitely a difficult one. But we are preparing, as I always said, an opportunity. When the time comes, as I said before, we will try to secure contracts and offtake at prices which will make the project attractive. But all of this is ahead of us. Emily, today is in the first half of the cost curve. Yes, the top quartile are only brines. which are typically cheaper, then we can look at the environmental footprint of especially water consumption of these projects. When you start moving out of brine and you come to hard rock, then Emily becomes a very competitive project. According again, not to Alessandro, but to studies, there is not enough brine to fly the world. And for hard rock today, as a matter of fact, more than 50% is hard rock already today. Both of them are being developed, and people are investing in both. But still, studies say brine will not be enough, and the best known reserves of brine have been tapped. Again, as for hard rock, you go to the lower concentration, smaller pockets, and so on. I still remain convinced the world will need so much lithium that a deposit like this one, given the size, the ESG, the compliance being European, I think there is a lot of room for this project going forward.

Okay. Thanks very much, Alessandro. Thank you.

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Aaron Ciccarelli from Berenberg. Please go ahead.

Hello, hi, good evening. Thanks for taking my question. I have two, please. The first one is on Carbon Black. I see that your company, Orion, has announced the decision to shut down several production lines in the US and Europe. What kind of impact is that from Orion's rationalization on your pricing, especially now that it looks like we are in a market that is rebounding? The second one is about your full year guidance on the BTA. I notice you expect volumes to turn positive in the second half of the year caused by different markets. Thank you.

Thank you. Let's say on pricing, by the way, we have a comment, especially, let's say, in a small market as the one of Carbon Black, where really few players are present. I was not aware that Orion has announced shutdowns. We announced investments in the last three years. We have put more than 150 million CapEx in this business. We are very glad we did it because as you can see from the results, it is growing very rapidly and very strongly and very profitably. And it's not only batteries. We have a good momentum in conductive polymers. I think we have an excellent product is the reference in the market. That's why now that we have capacity, we are even gaining market shares. We have the capacity to supply for the next two, three years. So I expect this trend to continue and market will dictate the price as always. Customers and competition, but we believe we are really the best product in the market. On our guidance, as always, we tend to be prudent. The world has been complicated lately, so we have given a larger range and we put some question marks. Let's say on the positive side, I believe, as you say, our conductivity business will continue to go solidly. Look at EV sales as an example, but also electronics, where our conductive polymers go, it will continue to grow. We believe construction in Europe has turned the points, and in some parts, especially Eastern Europe, is solid. Northern Europe, the central part is still behind. France, especially in Germany, there is more momentum, and with interest rates at this level, we do expect to resume and grow. The same for the U.S. because actually the U.S. was very soft in Q2, housing starts, housing permits, renovation. It was uncertainty. It was uncertainty and fear of costs. I think an agreement on tariffs that gives certainty to allow also in the U.S. a restart of activity in general. Europe has been struggling on the back of tariffs as well. I believe this certainty and 15%, as I said before, not that I'm happy, but I think it is something that the industry can live with, and certainly we can live with for our own minerals. We have a South American business growing strongly on the back of agriculture, our new products in the agricultural sector, again, positive. And I mentioned we... There is a measure that the European Union has introduced in the middle of July on an anti-dumping case, Chinese fused minerals, to protect the local industry. The local industry is Imerys and other players, so I do expect a good rebound in this business as well. There are a lot of positive factors that make me believe H2 could be a good one. Asia remains solid for us. maybe a question mark on the speeds of return of TQC. So we tend to be prudent because it has taken longer than expected, but once again, having little visibility. So question, we remain prudent on the ramp up, but we do believe the market will resume to growth and maybe still the automotive sector in Europe to really understand not only EVs, which are good, but the normal car sales. We had a drop in H1. Are we at the end of the cycle, and are we resuming growth?

So a lot of more positive news rather than negative news going ahead for me. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 and 1 on your telephone keypad. That is star 1 and 1 if you would like to ask a question. On to the next question. One moment, please. And the next question comes from the line of Sven Edelfeld from Odo. Please go ahead.

Yes, good evening, gentlemen, and thank you for taking my question. Sorry, I was disconnected, so maybe you But can you confirm that the guidance you're providing is excluding TQC? And as well, TQC in Q2, can you give us the contribution? I think it's zero, but I'm not sure. And clearly I have had some questions from numerous investors, so I'm probably the only one wondering. So then my question would be on the U.S. integration, I think there is no hearing schedule for the time being, so can you help us having an agenda on this regard? Second question is on the market share. When I look at your, let's say, first slide on the market share, I think it's 10 to 13 or something like that, It seems to me that you're underperforming your underlying market. So maybe can you tell us if it's true or not? And the last question, how is your discussion with JBL going? I mean, are they happy about the current situation? And is there some action that might be necessary to take to, let's say... turn around a little bit further the company?

Thank you. A lot of questions then, so we'll try to go through. The first one is our guidance, the guidance for the group, so that includes TQC. Given the performance of the first half, which is published in the press release, we've been prudent because we don't know exactly at which suite it will return, but it is included. As I said, I don't know if you are disconnected already. If I look at the first half, I believe there has been a progressive improvement of activity. So probably the worst is behind us, and we look with more confidence to the future. We don't split the two quarters, but as I said, it's . It remains a good business. And forget that the result is net income and not EBITDA. EBITDA is higher. So the business remains a good business. Simply, we had such an incredible Q1 last year that everything in perspective. But we'll come back. It's a solid business. It's a preferred product. There is no substitution. And the underlying market, which is photovoltaic installation, remains very solid. litigation, you're right, the date has not been set. The hearing was suspended pending resumption. There were some technical issues that have been addressed. Amendments to the plan have been filed. We are waiting for the judge to set a further briefing, a form of record that we are to deliver by August 10, which we will do, and she will set the new date. So, the date is unknown. If you look at the court calendar, you know that it's going to be mid-autumn because there are no available dates. So, unfortunately, and frustrating, there will be some delay. I think not in the merits, and it's not bad news other than on timing, but we are at disposal of the judge, and she will decide when she is ready to resume. Market share, I struggle a little bit to connect your question. Let's say underlying markets give you a trend. So if steel is down, probably our refractory activities will be down. Then if it's down 5%, not necessarily, we will be down 5%. It depends on inventories and on the geography. But the underlying market is for sure the driving force. And I believe we are largely aligned, at least in terms of direction. When I look at our market share and performance, and we do an exercise bottom-up every quarter with all the businesses, and we look at the businesses, there are statistics written on in production in Europe. So you can check each one in detail, and that's why we built this example. Or the best reference you can take is to take the few minerals companies that publish numbers, which are purely minerals, let's say so. If you are aligned, it means you're doing okay. If you're better, probably you're gaining market share. And when you're worse, you're probably losing market share. So two peers have published already last week. Both of them have worse results than us, both in terms of volumes and EBITDA, especially if I look at underlying EBITDA. So the email is underlying business, as you can see. because it's a subject on its own. And the same was valid also for Q1. So I definitely believe that overall the group is not losing market share. On the contrary, it's probably gaining here and there some market share. Therefore, we're going to lose on some here. Probably we have lost a bit share in Europe in high energy minerals against Chinese competition. We have written that and we have mentioned it before. And it's one of the reasons why the European community has introduced an anti-dumping measure to protect the industry because there is dumping. And so the concept is there is dumping and therefore we shall protect the industry. It has been implemented 10 days ago. We will see the impact. Difficult to quantify today, but definitely it puts competition back to normality. And I think when competition is normal, we can win and we will win back. market share. Also Europe, also specifically on this very limited niche, but it is the place where I can say, yes, we have lost. Last, GPL, I believe our shareholders are happy with this company because we deliver, even in difficult times, because normally we deliver better than our competitors, which is a key. You're not alone and you're subject to your market, but if you do better than others, I think the shareholders should be happy. Do we have pressure? Yes, always. And I would say today our mission is really on costs. As long as volumes don't rebound significantly, our job is to work on costs. If you look at H1 overall, I think we have done an excellent job. We have different initiatives on overheads, on fixed costs, on spending. We will do more in H2 to be ready if the market doesn't rebound as I expect. But better to be ready than to be sorry later. So that's the, and of course, when you work on cost, you work also on capex. Sebastian mentioned it, we will spend less in H2 than usual, or much less than last year. First, because we are well invested, but also because you never know how the market develops, given all what has happened the last few months. So that's, I think, the mission that we need to accomplish and then continue growing and innovate.

Thank you very much, Alessandro. That's very clear, very helpful. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. There are currently no further questions. I will hand the call back to you, sir.

Thank you very much. Thank you for the constructive discussion and for listening to us tonight. Thank you, and for sure to many of you, a nice vacation.

Thank you. Bye.