SIG Group AG

Welcome to the SIG Q1 2026 results conference call and live webcast. I am Sandra, the course call operator. I would like to remind you that all participants are 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. Webcast viewers may submit their questions in writing via the relative field. For operator assistance, please press star and zero. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it is my pleasure to hand over to Christoph Ladner, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Sandra. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to SIG's Q1 training update conference call. My name is Christoph Ladner, and I joined SIG in April as Head of Investor Relations. With me today, hosting the call, is our CEO, Nico Geco and our CFO, Arne Erkens. In today's conference call, we refer to the presentation that is available for download on our website. As always, I would like to draw your attention to the disclaimer and cautionary statement on slide number two. The call may contain forward-looking statements containing risks and uncertainties. These statements are subject to change based on known or unknown risks and various other factors which could cause the actual results or performance to differ materially from the statements made in the court. Having said that, let me now hand over to Mikko.

Good morning also from my side. We have a lovely morning here in Neuhausen. The sun is shining. I'm pleased to walk you through our performance in the first quarter. All in all, we had a very solid start of the year. Despite a difficult market environment and strong comparisons from last year, our revenue at constant currency was stable year on year. And more importantly, we delivered clear improvement in profitability and cash flow. Results are positive. Also positively impacted by the actions we announced last September and October, and those, of course, are bearing fruit now in this year. And the focus is cost discipline, execution, and strategic priorities. Looking at quarter one in more detail, revenue at constant currency and constant raising was stable year on year. And Septic Carton grew by 1%, supported by good performance in Asia and India. And on the volume side, Jill Carton had a positive growth of 0.8%. The back of the box and spark pouch business declined 5.7%, which was also reflecting a continued weakness in out-of-home consumption in material markets. On profitability, adjusted EBIT margin increased to 13.4 up from 12.8 last year. Also, improvement in cash flow compared to last year. Strategically, our focus remains firmly on aseptic system solutions. and restructuring program that we announced last year, and it's progressing exactly as planned, and of course ramping up in the first half of this year. We maintain our full year guidance, having initiated targeting actions to mitigate potential impact of the Middle East conflict. Then we briefly discuss the Middle East situation on this slide. The Limea region represents around 40% of the one-fourth of the group revenue, with Egypt and Saudi Arabia being the largest countries, followed by North Africa and India. As we are aware, the conflict and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has driven prices up for oil and gas, and also having impact on energy, transport, and logistics. Importantly, we have not seen disruption on our plant in Riyadh, and we managed to supply chain challenges effectively. I'm actually very proud of our team in Saudi Arabia and logistics team who managed the situation well. The financial impact of the conflict in Q1 was limited, but we are seeing raw materials and costs for freight increase and we therefore have initiated mitigation measures including discussions around around search charges to protect our bottom line going forward then if you look at the quarter one financial summary in in more detail reported revenue declined you do the foreign exchange effects while revenue at constant currency remained stable. Adjusted EBITDA margin improved slightly, and adjusted EBIT, which is now our main measure for the profitability, increased to 96 million, translating to 13.4 margin, as I mentioned before. Adjusted net income rose to 48 million, And the free cash flow saw the clear improvement, reflecting low capital expenditure and disciplined working capital management. In Europe, revenue declined 4.6% at constant currency. This reflects off the demand in core aseptic carbon categories, such as milk and sauce, and also that we had a very high comparison from the year before. Back-in-the-box and spouted bouts performed well in the region, but that also benefited from low comparison from the year before. Positive news is that India, Middle East, Africa, revenue grew at constant currency, on top of a very strong Q1 the year before. We think that these numbers also reflect a small impact from some customer stocking in the region, and because of the current conflict in the region. Aseptic carton growth remains strong, despite the sale of portica situation, while back-in-the-box and spouted pouts goes down due to high comparisons. Asia-Pacific delivers strong performance with revenue growth of 7.8% at cost of currency. Growth was supported by channel expansion, increased market coverage through innovative products, and the favorable timing of Chinese New Year for this quarter. Chinese New Year, of course, every year will impact China numbers and Asia numbers a lot. We are also seeing continued good development in Indonesia because of the new school milk program in the area. In the Americas, revenue declined by 2.5% at constant currency and constant pricing. Growth in aseptic cotton, in particular in Brazil, was offset by continued softness in the back of the box as part of parts in the U.S. Now I will hand over to Anne, who will take you through the financial performance in more detail.