Sonae, SGPS, S.A.

Good afternoon and welcome to SONE's first quarter 2026 results conference call. The call will be structured in two parts. First, a presentation by SONE's CFO, Mr. Joao Dolores. And afterwards, there will be a Q&A session where you will be able to put your questions. Questions may be raised in two ways, by submitting a written question in the box below the player, or by joining the conference call and dial pound key 5 on your telephone keypad to enter the queue, I will now hand the call over to Mr. Joao Dolores, CFO. Sir, please go ahead.

Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining today's call, where we will cover Sonai's Q1 results for 2026. Besides myself and the investor relations team, we have with us Cristina Novais from BrightPixel, Fernando Mazuel from NC, and Miguel Moreira from Sierra. Let's now begin with the highlights of the quarter, starting with NC. In the first quarter of 2026, MC once again reinforced its leadership positions across grocery in Portugal and health and beauty in Iberia. In grocery, turnover increased by 8% year-on-year, supported by high single-digit Lycra-Lycra across all store formats. This sales performance was underpinned by a solid growth in volumes, having resulted in yet another increase in market share and a wider gap to the second tier in the market. At the same time, profitability continued to improve. The underlying EVPA margin increased from 9% to 9.5%, benefiting from higher operating leverage and continued efficiency gains across the business. In health and beauty, turnover increased by 11.5% year-on-year, supported by solid like-for-like growth and continued expansion of the store network, both in Portugal and in Spain. The integration and operational alignment across the different banners continues to progress well, and this has enabled additional synergies and higher efficiency improvements. As a result, the underlying EBITDA margin improved from 11.6% to 12% in the quarter. Overall, MC continues to deliver strong top-line growth while simultaneously improving profitability. Turnover increased by 8.7% year-on-year, reaching €2.1 billion in the quarter, while profitability continued to improve with the consolidated underlying ETA margin increasing from 9.5% to 10%. This strong operational performance continues to drive solid cash flow generation and a strong deleveraging path. Net debt for the ETA reduced further from 2.7 times to 2.4 times, reinforcing MC's financial profile. Moving to Vorten. Vorten delivered a very positive quarter in Q1. combining robust sales momentum with improved levels of profitability. Turnover increased by 8.9% year on year, supported by a solid like-for-like growth of 7.6%. This performance was broad-based across categories and channels, with strong momentum in core electronics and appliances, alongside double-digit growth in services. Both the online and offline channels contributed positively to growth, while the Vorten app continues to gain relevance and strengthen customer engagement. The company's new loyalty scheme, linked to the confidence ecosystem, is also enabling higher benefits for consumers and increased levels of customer stickiness. Profitability improved significantly during the quarter. The underlying Indian margin increased from 3.8% last year to 5% this year, reflecting the stronger sales performance an improved category mix and reinforced operational discipline. Regarding Musti, Musti continued to scale its operations while simultaneously investing in some transformational initiatives to support future growth. Sales increased by 16% year-on-year, supported by a solid like-to-like growth of 3.9% and by the contribution of the recent acquisition of Zoo, which represented 8 million euros in revenue this quarter. Excluding this contribution, Moosky would have grown 9% year-on-year. Gross margin improved to 44%, benefiting from the increase in share of own and exclusive food brands in the total sales mix. The adjusted BTA margin remained above 10%, despite the significant investment the company is undertaking in growth initiatives, scalability, and integration capabilities. Pet care remains a structurally attractive category, with strong long-term fundamentals. and Musti continues to represent a key growth platform within Sonai's portfolio. Moving on to Sierra now. Sierra sustained a solid operational performance during the quarter, which supported further NAV expansion. Across the European shopping center portfolio, tenant sales increased by 5.4% on a like-for-like basis, with all shopping centers remaining close to full occupancy, while rent collection levels continued to be robust. At the same time, Sierra continued to expand its services and investment management activities while progressing with several development projects. Overall, this strong operational performance supported NAD growth to €1.2 billion, representing an increase of €59 million year-on-year and €32 million quarter-on-quarter. In telephone technology, NOS continued to deliver a quite resilient operational and financial performance at the start of this year. Total revenues increased 2% year-on-year to €460 million, driven by IT and cinema and audiovisuals, which more than compensated for the slight decline in telecommunications revenues, which were partially affected by severe weather-related impacts in specific regions of the country after the storms that the country faced at the beginning of this year. Free cash flow generation remained strong as a result of the improved profitability and lower capex levels. Notch contributed €20 million to our equity method results in Sonai's consolidated accounts in the first quarter. BrightPixel maintained a disciplined investment approach, balancing selective capital allocation with the evaluation of diversified investment opportunities. This was a relatively uneventful quarter, as our active portfolio recently revealed €321 million, with cash invested amounting to €242 million. implying a potential cash-on-cash multiple of 1.3 times. Moving on to consolidated figures. Overall, our consolidated turnover grew 7.1% year-on-year to 2.7 billion, driven by strong performances of our retail businesses, which more than offset the deconsolidation of mall and zippy fashion banners after the divestment process that we executed last year. On a comparable basis, excluding the impact of its M&A activity, Total revenues would have grown 9% year-on-year. Underlying EBITDA grew 17% year-on-year, mainly reflecting the strong performance of MC, but also the positive contributions from Vorton and Musti. The underlying EBITDA margin improved from 8.5% in Q1 2025 to 9.3% this year, representing an increase of 78 basis points. Consolidated EVPA increased by 14% year-on-year, supported by the solid evolution at the underlying EVPA level. All in all, our net results attributable to SAI shareholders grew 11% to 47 million euros. The strong operational performance generated 257 million euros of free cash flow in the last 12 months, and this enabled further progress in our deleveraging path with consolidated net financial debt decreasing 163 million. The group's loan-to-value reduced from 15.8% at the end of Q1 of 2025 to 13% at the end of March of 2026, as we continue to progress on this deleveraging trend. Our net asset value notably grew 9% this quarter to 5.5 billion euros, This performance was driven by the consistent positive performance of our retail businesses, particularly MC, and by the appreciation of the large share price in this quarter. On an annual basis, in the last 12 months, Sonai's net asset value increased 20% year-on-year. On a per-share basis, NAV reached €2.85 per share. As you know, our share price has been on an impressive run, having increased 80% in the last 12 months. Nevertheless, the room for further appreciation is still very significant. We currently have an implicit 50% upside potential to reach the NAD level, and we remain fully committed to capture this potential. This is all for now. Thank you very much. You can open the session to Q&A.

If you wish to ask a question, you may do so by submitting a written question in the box below the player or click on the blue hand button on the audio player to ask orally. You can also ask a question via the conference call and dial pound key 5 on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. The next question comes from Juan Rios Perez from Santander. Please go ahead.