Maire S.p.A.

Good afternoon. This is the Chorus Call Conference Operator. Welcome and thank you for joining the First Quarter 2023 Financial 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 Alessandro Bernini, Chief Executive Officer of Myra Technimont. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon to everyone, and thank you for joining Myra's first quarter 2023 financial results conference call. I am also pleased to have with me Fabio Fritelli, our CFO. Before looking at our operational and financial results, let me start from where we left on our capital market day, where we presented MIRE's 10-year industrial plan. Our current strategy approach is based on our position as enablers of the energy transition and intends an upgrade of our business model with a new organization based on two business units. The first one, Sustainable Technology Solutions, is the home for solutions designed to enable innovative and sustainable processes, offering technology licensing, high value added services, and proprietary equipment. By the nature of these activities, this business is characterized by lower volumes and higher profitability. The other business unit, Integrated Engineering and Construction Solutions, is the home for solutions to realize future-proof, technologically advanced plans thanks to our specialized know-how and world-class engineering expertise. As such, these businesses enjoy higher volumes and revenue visibility. A flexible and adaptable business model where technologies and ENC can be offered to our clients through an integrated approach but can also live independently. We have been deploying this strategy even before we announced it in early March and its effectiveness is already evident in the first quarter results. The quarter has shown robust performance, with revenues, EBITDA, and net income all growing double-digit vis-à-vis the corresponding period of last year. Similarly, we enjoyed a strong operating cash flow, which has led to an adjusted net cash position close to €95 million, in line with December 2022. The operating cash flow more than compensate the investments mainly related to the acquisition of Concert. Subsequently, in April, we finalized the acquisition of Myromono, owner of the Cat C technology. Both have significantly contributed to the expansion of our technology portfolio. Our €7.9 billion backlog, which as a reminder no longer encloses the Russian projects, continues to be healthy and well diversified, making us confident about our immediate future. Let's have a more detailed look at our operational performance. we were awarded in the first quarter were well spread across different geographical areas, mainly across Europe, Asia, and the Americas. As you know, the award timing during the year varies widely from quarter to quarter. In this respect, and based on the ongoing tenders we have submitted, we expect a much stronger second quarter and an equally strong second half, which will allow our group to reach a 2023 book-to-bid ratio of at least one per. Let's look at the operational performance of our business unit. The effectiveness of our strategic approach can be clearly seen in the strong order intake in our sustainable technology solution business unit. At 78 million euros, it represents a seven-fold increase versus the 2022 first quarter. The business unit backlog stands at close to 200 million, an increase of almost 40 million since the end of last year. The shorter cycle nature of this business is reflected by a backlog cover, which is at parity. From a geographical standpoint, the sustainable technology solutions backlog strengthened its exposure to Asia, also due to the recent award, the ultra-low energy urea plant in China, which we will see in more detail later on. Moving on to our integrated ENC business unit. Order intake of 225 million encompasses new awards related to feeds, which are characterized by high profitability and allow to get involved into the project since the early stages. Activities extensions of the carbon capture plant of Casal Borsetti in Italy. Change orders finalized with the clients on various projects. Our 7.7 billion backlog at the end of March provides a picture of our historical and longstanding exposure to Middle East and a good balance between the other regions in the world, from Europe to Africa, from Asia to the Americas. A backlog cover of 2.2 provides good visibility all the years ahead. representing a solid backbone of our business. Let's take a look now at the ultra-low energy urea award that has been granted to Stamicarbon. This is the largest ultra-low energy urea plant to be licensed in China by the group, and the scope of work encompasses licensing, process design package, and equipment supply. It has a design capacity of 3,950 metric tons per day and is the seventh plant globally based on Stanley Carbon's proprietary innovative design, which allows steam consumption to be reduced by about 35% and cooling water consumption by about 16% compared to traditional processes. This project strengthens our technological leadership in sustainable and energy efficient solutions and represents a fertile proof of Stanley Cardo's undisputable leadership in the Eurea licensing market where we enjoy a 60% market share. Moving to the select award for our integrated ENC solutions, a clear example of synergies and cross-fertilization across the two business units is provided by the carbon capture plant of Casal Borsetti. In December 2021, we were awarded engineering awards by ENI, And now we got the extension to ENC activities for the Ravenna carbon capture storage phase one. The plant would be able to separate the CO2 from emissions from the natural gas plant's turbo compressor, purifying and compressing them, thus allowing the capture of about 25,000 tons per year of carbon dioxide, which would otherwise be released into the atmosphere. The technology used for the capture of CO2 in emission gases operates at high efficiency and low power consumption, even at low concentrations. It has already been widely used to capture emissions of hard-to-abate industrial sectors worldwide. Moving on to the group's commercial pipeline, we are pursuing opportunities worth over €54 billion. We continue to see a healthy set of attractive projects, driven by the resilience of our core business and supported by clients' willingness to invest in energy infrastructures and technologies for the transformation of natural resources. Such a positive environment bodes well for our group's growth prospects in the year ahead. The effectiveness of our integrated approach is further demonstrated by the amount of potential opportunities originated by our sustainable technology solution business at over $10 billion, or 20% of the total pipeline. As we continue to develop our integrated strategic approach, we are confident to increase this set of high-value added opportunities, further increasing our technological leadership. With reference to the integrated ENCs opportunities, given the increasing size of large projects and the FEC consortia generally selected, The timing for the final investment decision requires more time compared to the past. Our commercial efforts are also widely diversified across key geographies, and all the regions where the group is active continue to remain extremely attractive. In particular, the Middle East is one of the areas where we see potential new awards in due course. Asia is also an area that continues to show significant opportunities. Before we move to our financial results, I would like to focus on the expansion of our technology proprietary portfolio as we recently completed two important acquisitions, CONSER and CAT-C. CONSER is a technology licensor and process engineering design company which owns an extremely strong portfolio of technology patents dedicated to the added value specialty chemical processes, including cost-effective and process-flexible technologies for the production of biodegradable plastic monomers. Conser's leadership position is demonstrated by its 50% plus market share in China, a country that has shown significant potential over the last few years due to their ban of non-biodegradable plastic for single-use products announced in January 2020. Furthermore, we expect to significantly grow concert business by leveraging on the group's commercial capabilities to penetrate new markets and by expanding its offering to proprietary equipment and catalysts. The strategic value of this acquisition is also based on a growing demand for bioplastic products, which is expected to increase at an annual growth rate of 7% up to 2050 and quadruplicate in this decade alone. The deployment of our technology strategy as of today was not limited only to CONSERV. As we completed also the acquisition of the CAT-C technology, which has now been transferred to a newly established company named Mairemono, which we control with a 51% stake. CAT-C is a depolymeration depolymerization technology which allows to recover high-curity monomers from sorted plastic waste. It was tested on Plexiglas in its proprietary demonstration plant with outstanding results, a 95% conversion rate. This process is expected to be extended to other value-added plastics, including the depolymerization of polystyrene and widely used plastic with numerous industrial applications from food packaging to electronic and automotive. We want to scale up and industrialize this technology while developing a commercial offering which will encompass licensing, process engineering, and proprietary equipment to be able to generate a double-digit profitability going forward. Our strong commitment to sustainability is not focused on green technologies only, but is a 360-degree responsible approach, embracing all the areas in which we operate, recognized by the various ESG ratings assigned to our group. Our ESG roadmap centered around environmental sustainability, the value of our people and of the territories where we operate, and the innovation which relies on our technological DNA has been deployed in an extensive set of initiatives to be pursued this year. Our net zero task force is implementing a vertically focused action plan aimed at reducing the emissions generated within our organization. We are strengthening training in health and safety, as well as the action plan of our diversity, equality, and inclusion work group. Our sustainable, unsustainable innovation, so-called innovability, we are focused on reaching up the 24 cooperation agreements with universities all over the world. We are also strongly committed to developing a sustainable supply chain, expecting over two-thirds of expenditure from ESG screened suppliers, as well as to keep creating values in the territories in which we operate with a number of CSR projects for local communities. Last but not least, We are heavily promoting training on business integrity, as we have included ESG targets in our NGOs and long-term incentive schemes. I will now hand over to Fabio for his review of the first quarter financial results. Please, Fabio.

Thank you. Thank you, Fabio.