Schindler Hldg Ag Akt

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Schindler Q1 Results 2026 Conference Call and Live Webcast. I am Valentina, the Chorus Call Operator. I would like to remind you that all participants will be in listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session. You can register for questions at any time by pressing star and 1 on your telephone. For operator assistance, please press star and 0. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Lars Brosson, Head, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Valentina. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to our Q1 2026 results conference call. My name is Lars Brosson. I'm Head of Investor Relations at Schindler. I'm here together with Paolo Campagna, our CEO, and Carla Begeiser, our CFO. As usual, Paolo will discuss the highlights of our Q1 results and our 2026 market outlook, and Carly will take us through the financials. After the presentation, we're happy to take your questions. We plan to close the call at 11 o'clock. With that, I hand over to Paolo. Paolo, please go ahead.

Thank you, Lars. Good morning, everyone. Glad to be back to report on our Q1 results. And overall, I'm pleased with the start we made in 2026. continuing our strong operational momentum from the last year. At the same time, we face a very volatile macro environment, which we are responding to. More during this call. Let me start with growth. In terms of order intake, we grew close to 3% in Q1. Well, this is still not the growth level we would be happy with, but let us look together at three important points. First, We are pleased with our product momentum. We are seeing very good traction with our new modular platform in the new installation markets. Remember this was started to be rollout 24 in Europe and continues in other zones in 25. Not only is growth picking up here, but we are also seeing very visible improvements in terms of field installation efficiencies, which helps. Secondly, The ramp-up in our new mid-rise product in the US continues to exceed our expectations. And thirdly, the roll-out of our standardized modernization packages is gathering pace, also increasingly facilitating growth in modernizations outside of our existing maintenance portfolio. And finally, in terms of large projects, we are seeing some improvements here too. Large projects grew in Q1 versus the first quarter of last year and our project pipeline looks promising for the rest of 26. An additional word on modernization. Growth here continues to stand out. Order intake was up 15% in the quarter and I'm really pleased to see that our revenue growth was even higher. Our backlog execution continues to move in the right direction globally and all our region grew modernization revenue by double digits in the first quarter. We continue to expand our supply chain and field installation capacities, which make us confident that we will continue to execute our modernization backlog successfully throughout 26. Looking at total group revenue growth, we were off to a slightly softer start in 26, growing 1.7% in Q1. Revenue in our new installations business was down high single digits in the quarter, with China still the main headwind. But we confirm our full year guidance of a low to mid single digit growth, as Carla will share with you the details later. Now, operationally, as I said, I'm very pleased with the quarter. Our operating margin expanded by another 100 basis points to 13%. in Q1, seasonally our lowest margin quarter of the year. And operating cash flow was strong again this quarter at over 500 million. But let me briefly also talk about the broader operational environment as we see it today. It is clear that the crisis in the Middle East brings some challenges we need to respond to. As the revenue contribution from the Middle East makes up less than 2% of the Schindler Group, the top line impact actually remains modest. But serving our customers in this region has been met with some challenges in the past two months, particularly for the new installation deliveries. We have currently around 200 units produced, which are on hold or in transit, and which we are actively looking to deliver to customer sites, via alternative routing to still active ports. But outside of that, even the broader impact on our supply chain remains limited, we are facing some additional cost inflation in terms of logistics, fuel and energy costs, and commodities. Carla will provide you all the details on the expected cost impact. In terms of mitigation measures, We are actively working on pricing actions in order to offset this cost pressure. All these prices as well as surcharges across new installation, modernization and our service businesses. As well as working closely with our supply chain to manage efficiencies on the supplier side as well. Oriented Translation is significantly impacting our financial performance with the continued appreciation of the Swiss franc. This quarter we faced an FX headwind of over 200 million to our order intake at 7% and Q1 marks with that one of the highest hit quarters on record in terms of FX headwinds. Last but not least, an award on sustainability and our consistent effort in product development. We are pleased to be awarded the ESG Award 26 for our low-carbon emission steel elevator pilot at the MIPIM 26. Many of you know the MIPIM is one of the leading real estate events globally in the annual calendar. The award comes at a time when we all are reminded of the importance of energy efficiency. And we are proud to be leading the industry with the first ever low carbon emission steel elevator installation. Turning now to slide four and our order intake in the first three months of the year. In service, our maintenance portfolio continued to expand with the strongest growth in Asia Pacific, excluding China. In Americas, while we saw growth in value terms, Our selectivity was leading in units recaptured to a modest decrease, confirming our overall strategy. But next, we expect to see a gradual improvement over the coming quarters. In modernization, we have been able to continue with a strong momentum recorded in 25, with the only exception being Asia-Pacific, excluding China, where orders marginally decreased, primarily to lack of large projects in the quarter. China again was the standout with growth well into double digits as we continue to benefit from the bond program further scaled up for 26 from the 120,000 elevators units replaced last year. In new installations, our global order volumes declined by more than 5% to China. In the rest of the world, our NI installation orders through double digit driven by EMEA and Asia again excluding China. Moving to the market outlook on slide 5. We have decided to keep our outlook unchanged for the time being while continuing to closely monitor the effects from heightening geopolitical tensions on construction markets, both in Middle East and globally. Foreign investment has played a significant role in driving growth within Middle Eastern real estate markets in recent years. Therefore, we remain attentive to any potential impact on investment flows to the region. Construction input costs were still at elevated levels already prior to the onset of the conflict in Iran eight weeks ago. These, together with rising oil and gas prices, are likely to contribute to further cost increases placed on builders and, subsequently, on homebuyers. The surge in inflation has also altered the global interest rate outlook from a trajectory of steady reductions to one that now carries an increased risk of further trade hikes, with implications for both demand and supply. within the real estate sector. In spite of these challenges, we did observe robust activity modernization markets across nearly all regions. However, at this time, we are not revising our outlook upwards, preferring to await confirmation of the continued strength in the coming quarters. In installation, Just to call out a few selected markets, construction activities continue to gradually pick up in Germany, with multifamily building permits up close to double digits on the 12-month rolling basis, and strong growth in new orders recorded by builders in the residential sector. Activity in Brazil remains solid, driven by affordable housing, and in the U.S., there have been mixed signals as multifamily permits and starts have risen in spite of its architectural billing index remaining below 50 for 33 consecutive months. In China, construction remains under pressure, with all key lead indicators such as floor space started and real estate investment down by more than 10% again in Q1. With that, Let me turn over to Carla to work us through our financial results in more detail.