Rexel Sa Unsp/Adr

Good morning, this is the conference operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Rexel First Quarter 2026 Sales Conference Call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. If anyone needs 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 Mr. Guillaume Dessier, Group CEO of Rexel. Yes, go ahead, sir.

Yes, good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for our first quarter 2026 sales presentation. I appreciate you making the time to be with us this morning. As always, I'm joined by Laurent Delabarre, our group CFO, who will walk you through the detailed sales figures in just a few minutes. But first, I'd like to take a look at the key highlights of the quarter, and then I will conclude this presentation by sharing how our strategy and ongoing transformation continues to support our performance while navigating an uncertain macro environment. With that, let's get started. I'm on slide three, and I could summarize the first quarter as follows. A solid start to the year with all three geographies in clear positive territory for the first time in the last 11 quarters. As you know, the quarter was also marked by the Middle East crisis, with some impacts, albeit still limited. I will return my concluding remarks to the potential risks and opportunities that could emerge if the conflict were to last. Overall, compared to our initial expectations, we benefited in the quarter from a better pricing contribution, offsetting temporary volume softness, mainly due to weather effects, project timing, and business selectivity in some countries. The better selling prices reflected our capacity to pass through price increases in the context of higher raw materials prices, including the recent rise in energy prices. The sales progression was driven by high growth segments in North America, such as data centers and booming solar activity in Australia, while Europe moved to positive territories. In Europe, the electrification rebound is a potential additional tailwind against the backdrop of the Middle East touch crisis. With that, let me now hand over to Laurent, who will take you through the details of our first quarter numbers.

Laurent. Thank you, Guillaume, and good morning to all of you. Let's start on slide five. The different building blocks of our Q1 26 revenue performance are sales to that $4.7 billion, up 3.4% on the same day basis. This growth was mainly driven by a sequential improvement in selling prices, both cable and non-cable, contributing to 280 basis points, while volumes grew at a more moderate pace, contributing for 60 basis points. More specifically, on the selling price increase, cable prices benefited from a good pass-through of higher copper price, above US$12,500 in Q1-26, and non-cable products benefited from higher commodity price, Easyway Piping now back to positive territories. A few additional considerations. First, the scope effect was stable as the impact of the 2025 acquisitions of Warshower, Swing, Jack Ma and Techno BI was offset by the disposal of our business in Finland. Second, our calendar effect stood at minus 0.9% and will reverse in Q3 and Q4 this year. Third, the currency effect was a negative 4.3% in the first quarter, mainly from the US dollar's significant depreciation. And we expect this effect to ease in the remainder of the year, assuming unchanged spot rates. And we anticipate a circa minus 1.5% impact for the full year 26. On slide six, you see the breakdown of our sales evolution by geography. As mentioned by Guillaume, Q126 growth was driven by North America and Asia Pacific, with Europe now in positive territory. Let me add that, restricted from solar, 10 days sales in Europe would have been up 1.2%. More specifically, APAC posted very strong growth, plus 11.4%, mainly driven by Australia and Asia to a lesser extent. In Australia, Sales were up plus 16.7%, boosted by our capacity to better capture trends in solar activity, supported by battery subsidies. In Asia, sales in China increased by 4.4%, and sales in India grew by 14.7%, with both countries supported by industrial automation activity. I will detail Europe and North America in the next two slides. So moving now to slide 7 on Europe. 10-day sales were up plus 0.6% in the quarter, improving sequentially from broadly stable sales into 425. Volumes remained negative in a market that was still soft and was also impacted by some temporary effects, including weather impact and business selectivity, while pricing continued to improve sequentially. It was also interesting to see growing demand in energy efficiency solutions at the end of the quarter, as illustrated by Watco in the Netherlands. Detailed information by countries provided on this slide, but let me highlight the main country dynamics. France benefited from strong demand in HVAC and solar activity, mainly from small commercial projects. The dark region remained impacted by trends in solar, but improved sequentially, mainly thanks to Germany and Switzerland. And let me add that industry in Germany remained positive into one. Benelux was up 3.9%, driven by both Netherlands and Belgium. The UK was still impacted by a difficult macro environment and continued business selectivity. And finally, Sweden was broadly stable. Also, momentum improved month after month. On slide 8, we move to North America, which remains the group's main growth engine in the quarter. All three markets were positively oriented in the quarter, is non-residential remaining the main contributor. Digital sales continue to accelerate, up more than 500 basis points, reaching 28% of sales thanks to the adoption of digital tools. Concerning the United States specifically, first, growth continues to be driven by data centers, with a material contribution in the quarter. The non-residential segment also grew in such segments as hospital, or water, wastewater. Second, industrial automation was up plus 3%, confirming the positive trend that we have started to see in recent quarters. Third, backlog was strong, up in double digits compared to the end of December 25. Returning to Canada, sales grew 9.1%, supported by data center projects and industrial automation. With this, let me now hand back to Guillaume for some concluding remarks and our outlook. Thank you, Laurent.