Remy Cointreau Unsp/Adr

Welcome to the Remy Contreau 2025-2026 Fourth Quarter Sales Presentation. For the first part of the conference call, the participants will be in listen-only mode. During the questions and answers session, participants are able to ask questions by dialing pound key 5 on the telephone keypad. Now I will hand the conference over to Luca Murata, Deputy CEO and CFO. Please, sir, go ahead.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. As highlighted in our press release, Q4 sales grew by 8.9% organically speaking, including 4 points of Chinese New Year calendar effects. This performance reflects a strong growth of cognac, plus 15.5%, including 7 points of Chinese New Year calendar effects, positively. mainly driven by China, which benefited from a favorable base of comparison, including the end of the disruption in the Chinese duty-free. As a reminder, it was clearly present the previous year in Q4. And, clearly, another positive element, which is the good resilience during the Chinese New Year. In parallel, America recorded a moderate decline due to high comps in the U.S. and some phasing effects specifically in Canada. Second important point to highlight and to explain this plus 8.9 Q4 performance, stable performance in liposensory division, minus 0.1%, which reflects a solid momentum in the US and China, but more contrasted performance in EMEA on the back of phasing effect. Q4 sales decline increase breaks down as follows. Volume decrease of 2.4% and plus 11.3% of price mix effects. Largely driven by mix on the back of strong auto performance of cognac versus glycosine spirits. This performance brings annual growth to plus 0.2% in line with guidance. and represent plus 1% growth, excluding the duty-free impact in China at yearly level. This was a broad picture. Looking at the overall sales performance by region, America is up by 7.2% on 12-month basis, which includes a slight decrease in sales in Q4, mostly driven by negative phasing effect in Canada and high comps in the U.S., APAC is down 4.3% on a 12-month basis, of which two points of duty-free disruption impact the yearly level. In Q4, APAC generated a very strong growth led by China, despite soft consumer confidence and tightening regulatory environment. Indeed, clearly, we have to acknowledge the region benefited from a low base of comps, and around 12 points of Chinese New Year calendar effect, but at the same time, a very good resilience during Chinese New Year. So it's not only comps of technical effect. That's the message. In parallel, rest of Asia performance was weak, affected by tough market conditions. EMEA was down 3.1% this year and continued to display mixed performance. performance in Q4 as well, as consumers adopted a more cautious approach. One last word, a little bit more transversely, on travel retail, global travel retail across all the regions. The business unit, more than a division, can we call it, was up by low double digits over the year, including a strong double-digit growth in Q4, led by APAC, also considered in the low base of comps, and EMEA. This was sell-in shipment. Now let's talk of value depletion, group level, best approach of sell-out. In the US, value depletion declined by mid-single digit year-on-year over 12 months, of which a decline of mid-single digit in Q4, including a decline of low single digit in volume.

In China,