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Operator: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Enel Chile First Quarter 2026 Results Conference Call. My name is Carmen, and I'll be your operator for today. [Operator Instructions] During this conference call, we may make statements that constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements may include Enel Chile S.A. current expectations, intentions, plans, beliefs, and projections. Forward-looking statements are based on management's current assumptions and expectations, do not guarantee future performance, and involve risk and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements as a result of various factors. These factors are described in the Enel Chile's press release on its first quarter 2026 results. In the presentation accompanying this conference call, Enel Chile's annual report on Form 20-F on the risk factors. You may access our first quarter 2026 results press release and presentation on our website, www.enel.cl, and our 20-F on the SEC's website, www.sec.gov. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates. Enel Chile undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements or to disclose any development as a result of which these forward-looking statements become inaccurate, except as required by law. I would now like to turn the presentation over to Ms. Isabela Klemes, Head of Investor Relations of Enel Chile. Please proceed. Isabela Klemes: [Foreign language] Good morning, and welcome to Enel Chile's 2026 first quarter results presentation. We greatly appreciate you taking the time to join us today. My name is Isabela Klemes. I'm the Head of Investor Relations. Joining me this morning are our CEO, Gianluca Palumbo; and our CFO, Simone Conticelli. Our presentation and related financial information are available on our website, www.enel.cl, in the Investor section, as well as through our investors app. In addition, a replay of the call will soon be available. At the end of presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions via webcast chat through the Ask a Question link. Media participants are connected in listening mode. Gianluca will kick off the presentation by covering key highlights of the period, our portfolio management actions, and providing updates on the regulatory context. Following that, Simone will offer an overview of our business economic and financial performance. Thank you all for your attention, and now let me hand over the call to Gianluca. Gianluca Palumbo: Thank you, Isabela. Good morning, and thank you for your participation. Let's start the presentation with our main highlights of the period. Let's begin with portfolio management. During the quarter, hydrological conditions were favorable, which helped us reduce portfolio risk and supported a stable operating performance across the business. We will come back to this point in more detail later on. At the same time, through EGP Chile, we started the construction of 3 battery energy storage projects in the northern part of the country. These BESS projects will add around 0.5 gigawatts of additional capacity and will play a key role in strengthening the flexibility of our portfolio while supporting our commercial strategy. In addition, Enel Generacion Chile signed a new LNG supply agreement with Shell. This agreement allows us to better valorize surplus gas volumes already available and to optimize LNG and Argentine gas supply for our generation business. Importantly, this initiative is fully aligned with our long-term business vision for Chile. This is particularly relevant in the context of the growing deployment of battery energy storage systems, which are essential to ensure a more flexible and efficient portfolio. Let's now move to the country and regulatory context. Starting with the VAD 2020-2024 process, tariff resettlements have been postponed until July 2026. At this stage, the regulator is working on alternative solutions to fund this payment with the objective of avoiding any impact on regulated customers' tariffs. Turning to the VAD 2024-2028 process. During the quarter, the regulator published the preliminary technical report, volume 2, in January 2026. Over the next few months, we are awaiting the publication of the final report. Let's now turn to business profitability. The first quarter of 2026 delivered consistent financial results. EBITDA showed a solid improvement compared to previous years, plus 16% during the period. The extraordinary general meeting approved a capital increase of CLP 360 billion at Enel Distribucion Chile, reinforcing the company's balance sheet and overall financial flexibility. In addition, the annual general meeting approved the final dividend, fully in line with our commitment to shareholder returns and value creation. In the next slides, we will go deeper into each of these areas and provide further details on the key drivers behind these results. Let's move to Slide 4 to talk about hydrology and the progress of our battery energy storage project. Let me begin with our hydro generation. Hydro generation during the quarter remained broadly in line with last year's levels, as shown on the left-hand side of the slide. For 2026, we are forecasting hydro generation at 10.7 terawatt hours. This assumption is based on a conservative view on hydrology, fully consistent with the average evolution observed over the last 13 years that allows us to confirm our 2026 guidance. This is the case, even though the probability of an El Nino event has increased in recent weeks, with potential impacts mainly expected in the second half of the year. This level of performance is supported by our well-diversified hydro portfolio, together with continuous operational optimization. Moving now to gas activities. On gas sourcing, we have signed contracts with Argentine gas suppliers with a longer tenure compared to previous years. These contracts secure firm volumes at more competitive prices, providing stable supply until April 2027. In parallel, in the context of high gas prices and the more flexible demand outlook for our thermal fleets, we concluded a negotiation related to our long-term LNG agreement. This approach is well aligned with our view of a gradual ramp-up of battery storage in the coming years, supported by a solid and reliable gas supply from Argentina. Finally, let me focus on battery storage. We continue to strengthen our generation portfolio through the development of battery energy storage systems. These investments will increase the flexibility of our portfolio and support the long-term resilience of our generation mix. In addition, they will continue to optimize our sourcing strategy. In this context, approximately 450 megawatts of new battery capacity are currently under development and will gradually start operations from [ 12-'27 ] ahead, in line with our planned investment schedule. Now let's move to Slide 5, where we will review our generation portfolio and the energy balance. Let me start with our generation portfolio. We entered 2026 with a solid and well-diversified portfolio. In fact, our total net installed capacity stands at 8.9 gigawatts, of which 78% comes from renewable energy sources and BESS. Therefore, this structure enhances flexibility and supports a balanced and resilient energy mix. Moving now to our energy balance. During the first quarter of 2026, net production remained stable compared to the same period last year. This performance reflects the flexibility of our generation portfolio. Higher contributions from wind, solar and efficient natural gas combined cycles more than compensated for the slightly lower hydro generation. Physical energy sales amounted to 7.5 terawatt hours, fully in line with the level recorded in the first quarter of last year. This confirms the stability of our commercial positioning, supported by our diversified sourcing mix. On energy purchases during the quarter, we maintained a similar purchasing mix compared to last year. This included 1.3 terawatt hours of net spot market purchases and 0.8 terawatt hours sourced from third parties. And now I would like to take a moment to share with you some key topics related to the distribution business, which we will cover on the next slide. Let me start with the tariff review shown on the left-hand side of the slide. We are in the 2024-2028 distribution tariff review process. In January of this year, the regulator released the second version of the technical report. The remaining technical steps are expected to lead a final tariff determination in the second half of 2026. Overall, the review is progressing in line with the regulatory timetable. Turning now to the VAD 2020-'24. The settlement of the outstanding debt with distribution companies, which was originally scheduled to begin earlier, has been postponed to July 2026. For Enel Distribucion, the amount to be received is around USD 65 million, while at the distribution sector level, the total amount involved is approximately USD 900 million. We remain confident that the process will progress toward the prompt resolution, considering its relevance for the sector and the need for orderly completion. Turning to distribution reform. We continue to see constructive and positive engagement from stakeholders, together with the growing and broad consensus on the need to further evolve and modernize the distribution framework in Chile. This is particularly important in the context of electrification and considering the long-term nature of distribution investments. Finally, a few words on grids and execution. We continue to reinforce specific parts of the network, while at the same time expanding digitalization and remote control solutions across the network. These actions allow us to restore service faster, improving customer experience, and strengthen the flexibility and resilience of our networks. Overall, execution and distribution remains solid, with a clear and continued focus on service quality. And with that, I will now hand over the presentation to Simone. Simone Conticelli: Many thanks, Gianluca, and good morning, everyone. I will begin my presentation with an overview of our key results for the period. As shown on the slide, during the first quarter of 2026, EBITDA reached $423 million, with a 16% increase compared to the same period of last year. The improvement was mainly driven by a better integrated margin performance. First quarter net income amounted to $162 million, representing a 7% decrease compared to the result of first quarter 2025, mainly due to higher depreciation following the commissioning of the new renewable plants and lower capitalization of interest. Finally, first quarter FFO reached $122 million, representing a 12% increase compared to the same period last year. The improvement is due to a combination of several factors, which will be commented on the following slides. And now let's move to the next slide to talk about the investment made during the quarter. First quarter investment amounting to $111 million were mainly allocated to the development of BESS project, increasing the value of our power plant fleet, and the reinforcement of our distribution network. Let's review the allocation in more detail. 41% or $46 million were invested in renewable and storage. 31% or $34 million supported thermal power projects. 20% or $31 million was directed toward grids investments. In the renewable segment, we have focused our effort on the development of BESS project, as announced in our strategic plan, on the enhancement of hydro capacity performance, and on the improvement of fleet availability. In the thermal segment, the priority has been the maintenance and performance enhancement of the power plant fleet. Finally, regarding grids, the focus remain on the resilience program to strengthen the distribution network and ensure service continuity under adverse weather condition. Passing to the nature of investment. First, asset management CapEx totaled $58 million, accounting for 52% of the total CapEx. The main activities have been the maintenance of Atacama, Quintero and San Isidro CCGT, the maintenance of renewable fleet aimed at ensuring plant availability, and some activities for the corrective maintenance and digitalization of grids. Second, development CapEx amounted to $40 million, mainly invested in batteries development, which represented 75% of total, and digital meters and grids remote control equipment. Finally, customer CapEx totaled $13 million, mainly invested in low and medium voltage connection project and initiative to support load increase. Let's now go on to the next slide, which provide a closer look at the EBITDA performance. In the first quarter of 2026, our EBITDA reached $423 million. The increase of $58 million compared to the same period of 2025 is mainly explained by the following factors. Starting with the integrated business, we recorded an increase of $67 million, mainly due to, first, lower natural gas costs that reduce the variable production cost of our thermal power plants and the spot energy purchase costs. And second, the positive impact of the optimization of gas sourcing, which allowed us to improve LNG and Argentine gas supply for our thermal fleet, extracting value from our gas contracts portfolio, as previously commented by Gianluca. These positive impacts were partially offset by the termination of certain high-priced regulated contracts and higher provision related to energy and transmission charges adjustments booked in 2025. Going to grids. We recorded a decrease of 18%, mainly due to the positive impact of issuance provision on 2025 and the impact of the higher O&M expenses associated with the anticipation of the 2026 winter plant activities, partially offset by a higher contribution from complementary distribution activities, mainly related to the new customer connections. Now let's move to the next slide to review the net income evolution. Net income amounted to $162 million in the first quarter of 2026. The difference compared to the first quarter 2025 is mainly due to the $58 million improvement in EBITDA, thanks to the more efficient sourcing, partially offset by higher depreciation and amortization, mainly related to the commissioning of new renewable capacity in the generation business and higher financial expenses, partially due to lower interest capitalization in the generation business. And now passing to the next slide, let's analyze the FFO composition for the first 3 months of 2026. In the first quarter 2026, FFO reached $122 million as a result of the following factors: first, EBITDA totaled $423 million, as previously explained; second, the increase of net working capital amounted to $161 million, mainly due to seasonality of energy payments and gas optimization agreement, for which the payment was registered in April; third, financial expenses amounted to $93 million, also including the settlement of hedging derivatives; finally, income tax expense payments amounted to $48 million, mainly related to generation business. Passing to the comparison with the results of the first quarter of 2025, the 2026 FFO was $13 million higher, mainly thanks to the EBITDA increase for $58 million, the lower increase of net working capital for $27 million, mostly due to lower CapEx payment related to the new development capacity, the positive effect of energy payment scheduling, partially offset by the increase of account receivable following the LNG agreement settled in April, the higher financial expenses for $62 million, and the higher income taxes for $9 million, reflecting higher monthly payment tax rates. Now let's take a look at our liquidity and leverage position. Gross debt amounted to $3.9 billion as of March 2026, remaining broadly flat compared to December 2025. The slight increase reflects the seasonal cash and working capital requirements, which were temporarily funded through a $50 million drawdown on the CAF credit line, partially offset by a $9 million reduction in IFRS 16 lease liability. The average term of our debt maturity reached 5.4 years by March 2026 versus the 5.8 years seen in December 2025, and the portion at a fixed rate was 85% of the total debt. The average cost of our debt reached 4.9% as of March 2026, in line with December 2025 figures. Regarding liquidity, we are in a comfortable position to support our capital needs for the upcoming months and cope with next year maturities. As of March 2026, we have available committed credit lines for $640 million and cash equivalent for $454 million. So thank you all for your attention, and now I will pass the floor to Gianluca for the closing remarks. Gianluca Palumbo: To conclude, our resilient and diversified business model supported solid and stable results in the first quarter of 2026, even in a volatile operating environment. A well-balanced portfolio combined with disciplined execution continues to provide resilience, allowing us to navigate changes in market and climate conditions with confidence. Second, electrification is clearly emerging as a key driver of demand growth in Chile. This trend is supported by structural developments across mining, industry, transport and electromobility. In this context, we remain closely engaged and well-positioned to support the country's electrification process, leveraging our integrated offering of clean energy, infrastructure and services. At the same time, we continue to closely monitor regulatory developments and their potential impacts. Finally, our solid financial position and flexible business model continue to support the execution of our investment plan and our ability to meet financial commitments. This financial strength allows us to continue investing in renewables and battery storage while maintaining financial discipline and delivering sustainable returns to our shareholders. Now let me hand it over to Isabela for the Q&A session. Isabela Klemes: Thank you very much, Simone and Gianluca. We now start the Q&A. As a reminding, we are receiving questions from our chat on the application. So I will start now, Gianluca and Simone, with the first question. We actually received this question from several analysts, including Andrew McCarthy from LarrainVial. I will do the questions, okay? So the first one is, congrats on the results. Apart from the gas valorization agreement, which is a positive one-off in your results, could you please indicate which other one-off negatives you have incurred in your first quarter 2026 figures? Basically, I'm interested in knowing the recurring EBITDA booked in the first quarter 2026. Actually, on the same, we also received a question regarding what we have mentioned in the EBITDA, regarding the provisions recorded in the first quarter 2026 related to energy and transmission charges. Simone? Simone Conticelli: So thank you for the question. So you are right, in this quarter, we have more than one nonrecurrent effect. The first one is the impact of the agreement with Shell. That is a positive impact, but then was partially offset by some problem with the transmission line that impacted in our efficiency. And on the other side, this impact can be around $50 million, and then around $60 million of adjustment coming from the previous year. The main part from 2023, it was related to an adjustment of the ancillary services booked in this year after quite a long discussion with the system, we finally take the final decision, and this has an impact of minus $30 million. So to make a synthesis, if you normalize all these nonrecurrent effect, our results is around $360 million, $370 million for the quarter. Isabela Klemes: Okay. So we are receiving several questions. Let me go to the second one. So the second one is coming from Javier Suarez from Mediobanca. Javier has several questions that I will split here. So the first one is, can you update on the key factors on the ongoing negotiations with regulator of the distribution regulatory framework? And also on the same page on distribution, he also is asking why, in other words, what is the reasons for the postponement of the settlement to July 2026 relating to VAD 2020-2024? Gianluca, this is yours. Gianluca Palumbo: Yes. Okay. So let me start for the first part. On the distribution regulatory framework, the VAD 2024-2028 process is still ongoing, so the methodology remains based on the reference model company with a regulated real post-tax WACC, as you know, of 6%. We believe there is still room for improvement in the CNE proposal, and we are actively participating with the distribution association in the observation and the discrepancy process. The final technical report is expected by June 2026, and the tariff decree in early 2027. So regarding the postponement of the VAD 2020-2024 settlement, the estimated impact is around USD 765 million. The recovery mechanism was defined by the SEC in February 2026, but collection was postponed by 3 months. So in this moment, our current planning assumption is collection from July 2026, while the Ministry of Energy is also evaluating alternative mechanisms, including potential debt factoring. Isabela Klemes: Now, another question from Javier. The other question from Javier, Simone, this is for you. Can you give more details on the profitability of the BESS project in Chile in terms of IRR? Simone Conticelli: Yes, thanks for the question. First of all, let me make a initial comment saying that Enel is developing new BESS, following the strategical goal to balance our portfolio. So first of all, we see this BESS project like an improvement of our portfolio and a way to have some energy shift that can result in a better match between the demand and the production curve. But looking at the BESS project as a stand-alone project, what we can say is that we launch this kind of project only if the return is at least 300 basis points above our WACC. Also that we make also some stress test trying to change the market condition to see the resilience of this kind of project also to some more stressed and critical scenarios. Isabela Klemes: So move on. The other question is coming from Fernan Gonzalez. This is also for you, Simone, from BTG Pactual. So the question is: why did energy purchase cost in the generation segment increase so much if volumes were similar with last year and its spot prices were significantly below the first quarter 2025 levels, even in the non-solar hours? Simone? Simone Conticelli: Okay. So in such a way, we answer at the beginning indirectly to this question, because this negative impact from adjustment from the past, entered as sourcing cost, and so You are looking also at the impact of this negative adjustment. Isabela Klemes: So moving on, we're receiving a lot of questions. So the next one is coming from Andrew McCarthy, another question from Andrew from LarrainVial. Good morning. Energy losses in the distribution segment continued to deteriorate during the first quarter 2026. Can you comment on what is driving that, how you expect to evolve, and what can be done to reverse the trend? Gianluca. Gianluca Palumbo: Okay. Thank you for your question. Energy losses increased mainly due to tariff adjustments and some change in customer behavior, which have led to a rise in not technical losses, such as the debt. So in the first quarter, losses were also impacted by lower than expected demand and a more competitive market environment. That said, our loss levels remain below the regional averages, and we have a clear plan to reserve the trend. So we are strengthening our loss reduction strategy through this plan. So first of all, improved inspection targeting using better analytics. Second, expansion of micro and macro metering, so this is an action to help the balance -- micro balance. Increased field action and controls, considering the better analysis that we will do. And finally, enhanced coordination with authorities to address illegal connection. That is one of the problem that we have. So looking forward, we expect losses to gradually decline, targeting around 5.7% by 2028, supported by these operational and technological improvements. That is very important for us. Isabela Klemes: I'm checking here other questions. Okay. So the other question is coming from Felipe Flores from Banchile Citi. The question is: my question is related to the capital increase in distribution. Will this be subscribed by Enel fully using cash? How does the company plan to finance it, or it's already covered? How much would take to recover the money? So Gianluca, if you can give some color on the capital increase. Gianluca Palumbo: Yes, of course. Okay. The capital increase is intended to strengthen Enel Distribucion financial position, and it's expected to be supported by controlling shareholders in line with its long-term commitment to the business. So from a financial perspective, it will be covered through group level financial resources, ensuring obviously efficiency and flexibility. So in terms of returns, this is not a short-term recovery investment. It supports the long-term sustainability of the business through improved financial structure, lower financial costs and maybe it's very clear, the ability to execute the investment plan under regulatory framework. This is the last question that I can add in this case. Okay. Isabela Klemes: I'm checking here. We have receiving another question. Some of them, we have already talked about that is related the capital increase and also on the postponement on the VAD, so I'm continue checking here. Another one was a question also, Gianluca, regarding the VAD 2020-2024, that potentially is going to be a new pack. But Gianluca has already answered this. That is one of the proposals that could be done in order to have the payment on the VAD. So let me -- just a second. Okay. So we have other questions that is coming from Juan Felipe Becerra, that is relating -- he can -- he ask Simone, if you can give more details on the gas optimization contract on Shell. We have already included, but if you can check also. Now, he has another question. Does this optimization imply lower contracted volumes or changing pricing terms with Shell? And regarding the 3 BESS projects highlighting the presentation, can you provide more details on the expected time line for each project to reach COD and enter in EGP capacity? Simone? Simone Conticelli: So let's start talking about the Shell agreement. This is an agreement that has the goal to optimize our portfolio. As you know, we have a very valuable portfolio of gas contracts. Part of the contracts is for GNL. Part of this contract is for gas from Argentina. What I want to stress is that the total amount of volume of gas that we can manage is higher of our needs, even stressing the needs of our power plant during a dry year. So what we have done in this agreement is try to rebalance the amount of the GNL contract to make coherent our portfolio. And we did it in a very right moment in such ways, so we have also positive impact on 2026 results. On the other side, talking about the BESS. Isabela Klemes: Yes. This is go to Gianluca. Gianluca Palumbo: So regarding the 3 BESS, to complement, the answer, regarding the 3 BESS projects highlighted in the presentation, let me know that, we could you provide more detail on expected time line. So in this case... Isabela Klemes: Yes. So the question, Gianluca, was regarding the BESS. What we are expecting the COD on the BESS side. Also what Gianluca was saying that we are expecting -- it's included in our business plan that we have recently presented. And Gianluca, if you want, now your mic is up. Gianluca Palumbo: Okay. I understand. Isabela Klemes: Going back again. Thank you. Gianluca Palumbo: Okay, okay, okay. During 2025, we focused on engineering, permitting and project preparation. With the regulatory framework now in place, we are starting construction in 2026 and expecting the COD during the third and the fourth quarter of 2027. So our strategy also included additional BESS investment, like we presented in the last Capital Markets Day, in 2027 and 2028, reinforcing storage as a core pillar of our portfolio. So we will continue to closely monitor market conditions, maintain flexible approach, focus on profitability and value creation. This is our pillar in our optimization of our portfolio. Isabela Klemes: Another question is coming from Jay Samani from Scotiabank. This is for you, Simone. SO where do you see Enel Chile next avenues for growth, given that lower demand from unregulated customers? He's mentioned about the termination of the PPA -- regulated PPAs. How is Enel Chile position itself for long-term? And can we expect the company to maintain the current earnings level for growth? He's asking about our business plan. Simone Conticelli: So can you repeat me the first part of the question, please? Isabela Klemes: Yes. Jay is asking you, where do you see that Enel Chile is going? What are the strengths of our plan? He's also mentioned that we see -- we have seen the results, not the reduction of the regulated PPAs, so he's asking what we are seeing the long-=term? So we are seeing more regulated customer coming on, new auctions, and how we are positioning ourselves in the long-term? Simone Conticelli: Okay. Enel will confirm its strategy. In this moment, clear we see a reduction in the volumes of regulated contract, but this is related in how the auction now will rise in the market. What we have to stress is that we want the full last to auction also at a valuable price on the market. So we have a very good portfolio in term of price in the short-term. Also, we can stress the fact that the pricing of our portfolio, the average price in the next 3-year, we will maintain the same value, even if the price on the market is going down. And for the full following year, we will keep on looking to a good mix among short-term opportunity and also long-term contract. That can be new regulated auction, but also, long-term contract with the big customer. Isabela Klemes: We have a last question that is coming from Isabella from Bank of America. So she's asking: what is the minimal cash position you are operationally comfortable with? You currently have a cash position of around $454 million. Do you plan on using your credit lines this year, or will you refinance your short-term debt? Simone Conticelli: So thanks for the question. You know that our business has a strong seasonality with some needs in terms of financing in the first and in the second quarter, and then -- and higher cash production in the second half. We have an internal model to define the comfortable minimal cash position to cover the net working capital needs. And then for the future financial needs, we plan to refinance using a long-term financing that in this moment is under negotiation. Isabela Klemes: We do not have any more questions coming here from the chat. So any other doubts that you may have, the Investor Relations team will be fully available to execute other calls and to go into more details. Thank you very much for connecting today. Have a nice holiday. Thank you. Operator: And this concludes our conference. Thank you for participating, and you may now disconnect.
Operator: Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the National Australia Bank First Half 2026 Results Presentation. Go ahead, please. Sally Mihell: Good morning, and thank you for joining us today for NAB's Half Year 2026 results. I'm Sally Mihell, the Head of Investor Relations. I would like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land from which I join you today, the Gadigal peoples of the Eora Nation. I'd like to pay respect to the elders past and present and to the elders of the traditional lands from which you join us. Presenting today will be Andrew Irvine, our Group CEO; and Inder Singh, our Group CFO. We are also joined in the room by members of NAB's executive team. Following the presentations, there will be an opportunity for analysts and investors to ask questions. I'll now hand to Andrew. Andrew Irvine: Thank you, Sally, and good morning, everyone. I'd also like to welcome Inder, who is presenting his first set of results for NAB. NAB's half year 2026 results benefited from good momentum across our business, supported by stable margins. We also benefited this half from strong broad-based credit growth in a supportive economic environment. The outbreak of conflict in the Middle East have created more volatile environment, which we do expect to continue for some time. In light of this, we have improved the strength and resilience of our balance sheet to support our customers. Our customer-centric strategy becomes even more important in the current environment, and we continue to execute this strategy with both focus and discipline. This is helping us deliver better customer experiences, which in turn drives improved customer advocacy. To achieve our ambition to be the most customer-centric company in Australia and New Zealand, we must continue to modernize our technology to build a simple, fast and resilient bank. On this, we are making good progress with more to come. We have 3 business priorities, which aim to deliver stronger returns over time, growing business banking, driving deposit growth and strengthening proprietary home lending. Again, we have continued to make good progress against each of these priorities, and I will discuss them in more detail shortly. Looking ahead, while the near-term outlook is more challenging, we are well positioned to navigate this uncertainty with stronger balance sheet settings and good underlying momentum across our business. Cash earnings this half were impacted by changes to our software capitalization policy to reflect the rapidly changing technology environment. Excluding the impact of this large notable item, our cash earnings increased 2.3%. This was mainly driven by a 6.4% improvement in underlying profit ex notables, offset by higher credit impairment charges. Revenue growth of 3.1% reflects stronger markets and treasury income and volume growth. Total costs, excluding the impact of the notable item were down slightly. Our cash return on equity, excluding the impact of the large notable item this half was 11.6%. This is slightly higher than fiscal year '25. We have declared an interim dividend of $0.85, and this represents 72.5% of cash earnings, excluding notable items, which is in line with our target payout policy of between 65% and 75%. Disciplined execution by each of our divisions has contributed to our strong underlying performance in the half. Business and Private Banking has had a very strong half with a 5.4% increase in underlying profit. The business has good momentum in lending and deposits with a stable margin outcome. I'm particularly pleased with the 10.8% growth in transaction account balances, which reflects our consistent focus on deepening customer relationships. This performance is a strong demonstration of the quality of our business in Private Bank in a very competitive environment. Corporate and Institutional Banking delivered underlying profit growth of 1.7%. A disciplined approach to both lending and deposits has helped deliver a 15.2% return on equity. Business credit growth this half was 6.9%, reflecting strong system growth together with good momentum in corporate lending and higher customer drawdowns in the month of March. Personal Banking has also had a very good half with underlying profit of 3.7%. The focus on strengthening proprietary home lending and growing deposits whilst managing margins has been a key driver, and I'll talk more about these shortly. Finally, in New Zealand, BNZ delivered flat underlying profits in what is a very challenging economic environment. Our continued focus on growing personal deposits has supported good market share growth this half. The ongoing conflict in the Middle East is challenging customers through both higher fuel costs and supply disruptions. These issues, together with inflationary pressures and higher interest rates are likely to create real cash flow stress for some customers. While the vast majority of our customers are well positioned to manage these impacts, some will need further support. At our heart, NAB is a relationship bank. Our relationships with customers are particularly important in these times, and our business bankers are on the front foot contacting customers to discuss their circumstances. Support provided includes increased limits to working capital facilities and overdrafts to manage liquidity issues. We have also provided some zero interest loans to customers as part of the government's economic resilience program. Consumer sentiment has deteriorated sharply. However, overall, our retail customers enter this period with strong buffers. Across our home loan book, offset and redraw balances have grown by 9% in the last 12 months. In addition, 80% of our customers did not reduce their home loan repayments in 2025 when cash rates fell by 50 basis points. This will help those customers absorb an increase in interest rates from here. In light of the more challenging environment and the ongoing volatility, we have taken proactive steps to increase the resilience of our balance sheet settings. The March common equity Tier 1 capital ratio of 11.65% is modestly lower over the half, reflecting both strong volume growth and market volatility impacts. To further strengthen capital, a 1.5% discount will be applied to our first half dividend reinvestment plan, and we expect to partially underwrite the DRP participation. These actions will raise a total of approximately $1.8 billion and increase our group CET1 ratio by approximately 40 basis points to a pro forma ratio of 12.05%. Forward-looking collective provisions have also been increased by $300 million to a total of $1.93 billion. This includes an increase in our economic adjustment as well as increased overlays in sectors more likely to be impacted by fuel supply and fuel cost issues. Our total provisioning to credit risk-weighted assets has increased to 1.6% and collective provisioning to credit risk-weighted assets has increased to 1.35%. Liquidity and funding metrics remain well above regulatory minimums. The duration and intensity of the current disruption to liquid fuels markets and associated impact on the economy remain highly uncertain. I'm confident the actions we've taken to improve the strength and resilience of our balance sheet will better enable us to continue to deliver the strategic priorities while supporting our customers through this more challenging period. The next slide outlines our strategy based on our ambition to be the most customer-centric company in Australia and New Zealand. To execute this strategy, we are being disciplined and consistent in our focus on doing a few things well at both scale and at speed to power exceptional customer experiences. Our ambition to improve customer advocacy is anchored in a core belief that this will deliver deeper customer relationships together with improved retention and referrals. This, in turn, should lead to higher growth and sustainable returns over time. NAB customer voices is the foundation of our strategic focus on customers. This program, which we have been progressively rolling out over the last 18 months, enables us to more systematically measure, capture and respond to customer feedback. We continue to see the benefits, including significantly reducing the time required to open a simple business transaction account. While there is more work to do, these improvements will help support our strategic focus on growing our core deposits. I'm very pleased to say that the progress to date has been recognized with NAB being awarded the Roy Morgan Customer Satisfaction Award for the Major Bank of the Year in 2025. To put this in context, the last time NAB won this award was in 2012. This is a tremendous achievement, which recognizes the efforts of all our colleagues to improve customer experiences. In addition, we now have positive NPS across all our 4 segments for the very first time. Our medium and large business NPS has improved by 16 points over 12 months and is ranked equal first of the major banks. Over the same period, both mass consumer and micro and small business improved by 5 points with NAB now ranked equal second. Six months ago, you'll remember, I highlighted the focus on improving NPS in high net worth and mass affluent. Here, too, our NPS has improved by 14 points, and our ranking has moved from fourth to third. The mass affluent segment and our premier banking strategy remains a key focus in our Personal Banking division. And in this segment, we are now ranked second. While we certainly have more to do, our strategic focus on customer advocacy is working and can be a key differentiator for our bank. Becoming a simpler, faster and more resilient bank is an ongoing journey and is embedded in how we run NAB. Simplifying the bank is key to our transformation. This means reducing the number of products we offer, eliminating duplication and simplifying our processes. Since fiscal '22, we have cut the number of products we have by 27% with an ambition to get this down by 50%. Being faster means improving the speed of delivery to customers by improving the productivity of bankers and support teams. This will increasingly be enabled through the use of AI to support routine tasks and allow colleagues to focus on higher-value work and to improve products and systems. Improved resilience is also being delivered through the continued modernization of our core technology programs. The progressive migration to modern cloud-based platforms and decommissioning of legacy systems will continue to keep our customers safe and improve the availability of our services. By becoming simpler, faster and more resilient, we aim to deliver stronger operating leverage, simple real-time banking that our customers love, lower operational risk and sustainable returns to shareholders over time. Upgrades to our bank's technology infrastructure foundations are now largely complete. This includes multi-cloud infrastructure and the build and migration to a modern data platform. The next phase is the progressive modernization of our core product and servicing platforms, and this work is now well underway. This slide highlights 2 of these platforms, our real-time payments platform and our transaction switch. In the first half, we completed the migration of all payments to our cloud-based real-time payments engine. A modern payments platform has been key to the development of innovative payment solutions such as Amazon PayTo. Our transaction switch processes 15 million card and acquiring transactions every day across a range of channels. A new transaction switch has now been installed in the cloud, and we have commenced building the capability to enable card processing and authorization. The migration of all credit and debit card transactions is expected to be completed in FY '27 with merchant acquiring to follow. Our new Group Executive Digital Data and AI, Pete Steel, joined us in November, and Pete's deep experience is helping us prioritize where we invest in a rapidly changing technology environment. AI opportunities, including investments to date are broadly aligned to 3 strategic outcomes. Growth opportunities will be supported by banker AI and customer AI solutions that will help drive and deliver more personalized services to our customers at both scale and enable our bankers to spend more time with our customers. Productivity opportunities will be supported by AI tools that can undertake routine tasks and increase the speed of delivery. We have already rolled out AI tools to over 7,000 software engineers, which has, in turn, helped improve our change cycle delivery time and significantly increased developer productivity. We are also providing colleagues with access to AI tools to help them build the skills they will need in the future. As this technology evolves quickly, it is important we embed the appropriate risk controls and governance frameworks to keep our customer data safe and ensure transparency of any AI decisions that are taken. NAB has 3 clear business priorities, which will help drive stronger sustainable returns. The first is continued growth in business banking. Our aim is to be the clear market leader in business and private banking and to pursue disciplined growth in corporate and institutional banking. The second is to continue to drive deposit growth with a focus on at-call transaction accounts. We are investing in innovative payment solutions for business and improved propositions for our target retail segments, including mass affluent and youth. And the third is to strengthen our proprietary home lending. Here, we've implemented a number of initiatives to help grow the share of lending through our proprietary channels. This will help manage margins and improve returns on our home lending portfolio. I will now speak to each of these priorities in more detail. We are proud to support Australian businesses through our 2 business banking divisions, which combined make us the largest business lender in Australia. We have a 22% share of total business lending and a 28% share of lending to small- and medium-sized businesses. Sound underlying business activity has supported strong business credit growth at a system level over the 12 months to March. As the largest business lender in Australia, we've continued to see good opportunities to grow. Total business lending GLAs across both Business and Private Banking and Corporate and Institutional Banking increased by 11.5% in the 12 months to March to $306 billion. This is our strongest annual growth in 3 years and was supported by above-system lending growth in Australian business lending. Business and Private Banking is the clear market leader in SME banking. This is NAB's heartland, and we know it well. Our relationship-led approach increasingly enabled by digital, data and analytics capabilities continues to deliver good growth, and our pipeline remains strong. A focus on digitizing our customers' simple needs and removing work from our bankers is allowing bankers to spend more time with our customers. This includes the continued deployment and development of our business lending platform with over 80% of lending applications in the first half submitted digitally. Competition in this segment has undoubtedly increased, but our scale, our deep expertise and the quality of our bankers enables us to compete from a position of strength. In recent halves, despite strong competitive intensity, we have consistently grown business lending at above system rates while maintaining a stable divisional margin. A holistic approach to retaining high-performing bankers has helped keep turnover rates low. Turning to our second priority of driving deposit growth. We continue to see strong growth in transaction and at-call accounts across both our Personal and Business Banking divisions. Over the first half, Business and Private Banking and Personal Banking grew at-call deposit account balances by $14 billion, but which exceeded the growth in lending balances across these divisions. In Personal Banking, our investment in branch transformations and increasing engagement with customers has supported a 30% increase in new transaction account openings over the last 2 years. In Business and Private Banking, a continued focus on deepening customer relationships and investments to streamline account opening processes has in turn supported a 31% increase in new transaction account openings over 2 years. The good growth in at-call deposits across the group this half has also meant we had correspondingly less appetite for larger term deposits. This is reflected in the decline in total deposits in our Corporate and Institutional Banking division. NAB's home lending strategy aims to serve our customers well in the channel of their choice through the delivery of a seamless customer and broker experience. A focus on strengthening our proprietary franchise has seen us grow our share of drawdowns by proprietary channels from 41.4% to 47.7% in the first half. And in the month of March, 50% of our drawdowns were through proprietary channels, a key milestone for our bank. This progress has been supported by investments to improve banker productivity, including an increasing contribution from new bankers appointed in FY '25 to uplift capability. Having a strong and growing proprietary home lending business also means we can adopt a more targeted approach to broker distribution. Brokers are an important distribution channel, and we are deepening relationships with value brokers to drive growth in priority segments. The successful execution of this strategy is delivering above system growth with improved home lending returns. I'll now pass to Inder, who will take you through the financial results in more detail. Inder Singh: Great. Well, thank you, Andrew, and good morning all. I'll focus on our financial performance as measured on a half-on-half basis compared to the period ending September '25. And to give you the best view of underlying trends, I will exclude the impact of the large notable item that we booked in the first half of 2026. Slide 22 provides an overview of our earnings performance. Underlying profit rose 6.4%. Revenue was higher, boosted by improved markets and treasury income and costs were slightly lower. Cash earnings grew 2.3% with underlying profit growth partly offset by higher credit impairment charges. We referenced these higher credit charges in our pre-announcement, and they include a $300 million top-up to forward-looking provisions to reflect potential downside risk from the Middle East conflict. Statutory profit declined 18%, primarily as a result of the large notable item, partly offset by the gain on disposal of our remaining 20% stake in MLC Life. Before we get into operating trends, I will provide some additional detail on the large notable item. This is set out on Slide 23. As Andrew mentioned, we have implemented changes to our software capitalization policy to more closely align to an environment of rapid technological change. This has involved a reduction in the useful life of capitalized software assets and an increase in the capitalization threshold from $5 million to $20 million. There has also been a change in the nature of assets capitalized. For example, we will no longer capitalize certain risk and regulatory spend. These changes have resulted in a one-off accelerated amortization charge of $1.35 billion, which has been booked through the operating expense line in the first half. These changes are expected to also have impacts moving forward. Firstly, the one-off accelerated amortization charge reduces our software capitalization balance by $1.35 billion, resulting in lower associated amortization charges going forward. Secondly, the remaining software capitalization balance of $2.2 billion will be amortized over a shorter period. These 2 impacts are expected to be broadly offsetting in the second half of 2026. Finally, moving forward, a higher proportion of investment spend will be expensed with the OpEx ratio forecast to be approximately 50% in the second half of 2026. Following these changes, we would expect additions to our capitalized software balance to be more closely aligned to amortization over time. Turning now to Slide 24. Revenue rose 3.1%, mainly reflecting volume growth and a strong markets and treasury outcome. The depreciation of the New Zealand dollar had a negative $81 million impact on half-on-half revenue growth. Markets and Treasury income increased $147 million over the first half. The key driver here was NAB risk management income, which benefited from improved outcomes in our treasury liquids portfolio, specifically the non-repeat of the realized losses on bonds that we experienced in the second half of 2025. Customer risk management income also rose over the half, driven by some larger deals in C&IB. The revenue impact of a more broad-based increase in customer hedging activity was relatively limited due to the shorter average tenor of these trades. Excluding Markets and Treasury, revenue rose 1.8%, primarily driven by volume growth, which contributed $167 million. As Andrew mentioned, this was another period of strong lending performance with growth aligned to our strategic priorities. We saw good growth across our business banking franchises of B&PB and C&IB, along with housing growth supported by improved proprietary home lending flows. Margins were broadly stable, and I'll discuss these in more detail shortly. Fees and commissions rose $16 million, benefiting from higher capital markets fees. Moving to Slide 25. Net interest margin increased 3 basis points over the half. Excluding Markets and Treasury and the benefit of lower liquids, both of which are largely revenue neutral, NIM was stable this half with lower lending margins, mostly offset by higher earnings on our deposit replicating portfolio. Lending margin reduced by 4 basis points. Within this, Australian home lending contributed 2 basis points to margin compression with half of that related to competitive pressures, and this trend is broadly in line with prior periods. The timing difference between cash -- changes in cash rates and customer lending rates added a further 2 basis points of compression as we move from the benefit of 2 cash rate reductions in the prior half to a drag from 2 cash rate increases in the current half. This compression was partly offset by small positive impacts. Australian business lending contributed 2 basis points to NIM compression with 1 basis point each from B&PB and C&IB. In B&PB, this impact reflects a fairly consistent level of competition with prior periods. In C&IB, we have seen a pickup in competition and also a small change in our business mix. Funding costs were neutral this period with fairly stable spreads. Deposits added 1 basis point to NIM, reflecting a series of small movements, which I'll walk through in turn. Firstly, mix contributed 1 basis point with stronger relative growth in lower cost transaction account balances over the period and a lower proportion of savings accounts earning bonus rates due to product refinements in ubank. Secondly, deposit costs contributed a benefit this period of 1 basis point related to TDs. And lastly, we saw a 1 basis point drag related to the $5 billion increase in the size of our deposit replicating portfolio, which reduced the level of unhedged low-rate deposit balances. It is important to note that this impact was largely offset by a higher earned benefit from the replicating portfolio as shown in the next block on this chart. The 3 basis point replicating portfolio benefit to NIM shown on the chart relates entirely to our 5-year deposit hedge. This benefit was higher than our original guidance of 2 basis points with the extra basis point driven by the $5 billion top-up to the hedge I referenced earlier. Turning to some considerations for NIM in the second half. Replicating portfolio returns are estimated at approximately 5 basis points. This is based on swap rates as at March 2026. This increase in contribution from the first half reflects the full period impact of the $5 billion top-up to our deposit hedge plus higher swap rates impacting both deposit and capital hedges. This is a key area through which we are seeing the benefit from the rising rate environment. Our strong deposit growth this period has reduced our sensitivity to changes in the Bills/OIS spread. An 8 basis point move in this spread is now equivalent to a 1 basis point impact on NIM. Now moving to Slide 26. Operating expenses declined 0.5% over the period, excluding the large notable item. This includes a $38 million benefit relating to the depreciation of the New Zealand dollar. Salary-related growth was $58 million. The majority of this reflects the impact of pay rises from 1 January under the Australian enterprise agreement. Volume-related costs rose $52 million. The key driver was additional bankers across all of our customer-facing divisions, with the largest uplift in Personal Banking, including increases as part of our strategy to strengthen proprietary home lending. Technology and investment spend rose $51 million. The main drivers were higher technology spend related to cybersecurity and fraud prevention, increased cloud consumption, technology modernization and higher software and data costs. Investment spend was modestly lower, consistent with the usual seasonal trends between half years. Productivity savings were $199 million, achieved through continued process improvement and simplification, operational and technology efficiencies and changes in the composition of our workforce. Other costs were up $16 million this half with a number of moving parts. Key items included lower remediation costs, offset by higher performance-based compensation. Looking ahead, our considerations for FY '26 OpEx remain largely unchanged. We expect year-on-year cost growth to be below the prior year comparative of 4.6%. Investment spend is expected to be approximately $1.8 billion with around 50% of second half spend expensed through the P&L. This reflects our changed software capitalization policy. Depreciation and amortization is expected to be higher year-on-year, reflecting the timing of asset deployments. Payroll review and remediation remains ongoing, and we note that $7 million of additional charges were booked in the first half of 2026. We continue to target productivity savings of greater than $450 million for the full financial year. Now turning to asset quality trends on Slide 27. We entered the 2026 financial year on the back of several quarters of improving Australian economic trends. Cash rates were declining, normal GDP was rising to around trend levels and unemployment remained low. However, with an absence of productivity improvements, it became evident in the second quarter that the economy was hitting capacity constraints with building inflationary pressures. This prompted the Reserve Bank to tighten cash rates in February and March with an expectation of further cash rate increases and slowing activity. Then in early March, an escalation of the Middle East conflict resulted in a sudden and sharp increase in fuel costs, some supply challenges and a heightened level of uncertainty and market volatility. Against this backdrop and with the typical lags we see between a change in economic conditions and the performance of our book, it wasn't surprising to see improved underlying asset quality outcomes in the first quarter of 2026. The default but not impaired ratio declined 8 basis points, supported by broad-based improvements across both our Australian mortgages and B&PB business lending portfolios. However, as we move through the second quarter, these improving trends started to moderate. And whilst Q2 represents only one data point, we are monitoring this very closely. As you're aware, the impaired asset ratio can be lumpy, and we have historically seen this ratio increase towards the later stages of an asset quality cycle. The 4 basis point increase this half was primarily driven by a small number of C&IB customers. This was similar to what we saw in the second half of 2025. It is very difficult to forecast half-on-half movements. But given the economic outlook, this impaired asset ratio could remain elevated over the coming months. The credit impairment charge for the first half was $706 million. This equates to 18 basis points of gross loans and advances. This was $221 million higher than the second half of 2025, reflecting the $300 million top-up to forward-looking provisions, partly offset by lower individual charges and a write-back in the underlying collective provision. IAP of $541 million included broadly stable charges for unsecured personal lending, modestly lower charges for B&PB business lending in New Zealand and higher charges in C&IB related to single name exposures. The underlying collective write-backs of $135 million were primarily driven by the release of provisions held for customers transferred to individually assessed, ratings upgrades for a small number of C&IB customers and data refinements, partially offset by lending growth. The $300 million top-up to forward-looking provisions reflects increased stress in the outlook to the Middle East conflict, which I'll discuss in more detail. Turning now to Slide 28. B&PB business lending asset quality trends are broadly consistent with the group profile I discussed on the prior slide, showing an improvement through the first quarter, but stabilizing in the second quarter. This has seen B&PB's business lending NPL ratio declined 22 basis points over the half with stable to improving trends across most sectors. While our book is well diversified and highly secured, there is clearly downside risk to asset quality over the coming months. As Andrew highlighted earlier, our large network of relationship bankers is proactively reaching out to customers to understand the impact of the Middle East conflict on their businesses and discuss support options. During these uncertain and challenging times, our scale and our long history of banking SME customers is really important. We have worked through many cycles, and we know this business and our customers well. I'll now turn to provisioning on Slide 29. Total provisions increased $221 million over the first half and now represent 1.7x our base case scenario and equate to 1.68% of credit risk-weighted assets. Individually assessed provisions have increased $91 million to $1.3 billion, reflecting new and increased provisions related to C&IB customers, partly offset by write-offs in B&PB. Collective provisions increased $130 million to 1.35% of credit risk-weighted assets. Forward-looking collective provisions rose $300 million to reflect the impact of potential stress related to the Middle East conflict. This includes changes in our base case economic assumptions, a 2.5% increase in the downside scenario weighting to 45% and a net increase in target sector forward-looking adjustments of $148 million. These increased FLAs relate to sectors expected to be most impacted by fuel costs and supply issues, including agriculture, transport and storage, manufacturing, construction and commercial real estate. Underlying collective provision reduced by $170 million with $35 million of that related to FX movements and the remainder driven by items I referenced in my asset quality remarks on Slide 27. Moving now to capital on Slide 30. Our group CET1 ratio declined 5 basis points to 11.65% as of the end of March 2026. This reflected volume growth and market-related impacts across credit provisioning, IRRBB risk-weighted assets and net FX translation. Our Level 1 ratio ended the period at 11.53%. Both this and the Level 2 ratio are above our operating target of greater than 11.25% and well above the regulatory minimum of 10.5%. I'll now walk through the key moving parts of the Level 2 CET1 ratio as shown on the chart on the screen. Cash earnings added 81 basis points, partly offset by 59 basis points for payment of the 2025 final dividend. Credit risk-weighted asset movements reduced the CET1 ratio by 24 basis points, mainly reflecting strong business lending growth. The other RWA bucket includes a range of impacts, which overall have reduced the CET1 ratio by 9 basis points. These include: firstly, a 10 basis point reduction related to increased swap rates impacting the embedded loss component of IRRBB risk-weighted assets; and secondly, a 6 basis point benefit from the removal of the standardized floor adjustment in the period, which resulted from RWA movements in the second quarter. Net FX translation was a drag of 8 basis points relating mainly to the depreciation of the New Zealand dollar. Offsetting these impacts was an 11 basis point benefit from the sale of our remaining 20% stake in MLC Life during the half. As we outlined in our pre-announcement, the first half DRP will include a 1.5% discount, and we expect to partially underwrite this DRP. In combination, these initiatives will raise approximately $1.8 billion or 40 basis points of CET1 capital, taking our pro forma ratio to 12.05%. Going forward, we remain focused on disciplined capital allocation to support profitable growth and drive sustainable shareholder outcomes. There is no change to our operating target of greater than 11.25% or our dividend payout policy of 65% to 75% of cash earnings. Liquidity and funding are set out on Slide 31. The quarterly LCR ratio is 3 basis points lower over the half at 132% and NSFR was stable at 116%. Both ratios are well above the minimum requirement. We continue to manage funding and liquidity prudently, and our balance sheet is well positioned for periods of market volatility. Our term funding issuance is well progressed. We issued $19.6 billion over the first 6 months of the year, supporting repayment of maturities in the period. Over the course of the financial year '26, issuance is expected to be broadly in line with prior years at around $36 billion. I'll hand now back to Andrew. Andrew Irvine: Thank you, Inder. Look, as Inder mentioned, the impact of inflationary pressures and a tightening rate cycle, which emerged at the end of 2025 has been compounded by the outbreak of the Middle East conflict and the associated impacts on both fuel supply and fuel prices. This has made for a far more uncertain and challenging outlook, and it's not surprising that both consumer and business confidence levels have declined sharply. While activity indicators have held up very well to date, elevated uncertainty and cost pressures are expected to slow economic growth. Business credit, which was growing at an annualized system rate of around 10% in the first half is expected to moderate in the second half. That said, the longer-term outlook for business investment continues to be very positive, supported by key structural drivers, including ongoing investment in infrastructure, in property, in energy transition and in supply chain resilience. Looking ahead to the second half, the actions taken to strengthen our balance sheet position us well to manage the uncertain outlook and to continue to support our customers. NAB enters this period with good underlying momentum in our business. The consistent execution of our strategy to deliver improved customer advocacy, supported by a focus on being simpler, faster and more resilient. We continue to progressively modernize our core tech platforms, and we are developing our strategy to deliver value through AI solutions. Everyone at NAB is focused on delivering progress in our 3 key priorities of growing business banking, driving deposit growth and strengthening proprietary home lending. And there is no change to our disciplined approach to managing costs and driving productivity, which creates the capacity for ongoing investment. I remain confident in the long-term outlook for our business. We have the right business mix and strategy to deliver sustainable returns to shareholders. Thank you again for your time, and I'll now hand back to Sally for Q&A. Sally Mihell: Thank you, Andrew. We'll now take questions from analysts and investors. When it's your turn, the operator will introduce you. Can I please ask that you limit yourself to one question and we'll come back to you if time permits. Please go ahead, operator. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Your first question today comes from Richard Wiles from Morgan Stanley. Richard Wiles: I just had one question about the credit quality trends in the Personal Bank. You said that there was an increase in pre-provision profit, but that was offset by higher impairment charges relating to the unsecured retail portfolio. Can you quantify those losses relating to cards and personal loans? And maybe comment on why this is happening against the backdrop of a strong labor market and whether you expect trends in consumer unsecured losses to get worse from here? Inder Singh: Yes. Look, good question. I think what we're flagging is a modest uptick. We are seeing a little bit of seasonality playing through that in the second quarter tends to be a little lighter from a repayments point of view. And the second issue is we're just seeing some transitory impacts just from the migration of the Citi book, which we're looking into. So we don't think this speaks to a major change in the outlook for unsecured, but those are the couple of items that are driving that trend. Richard Wiles: Okay. So Inder in the half, it was really just seasonality that drove the uptick rather than anything more alarming. Inder Singh: Yes, that's right, Richard. And also just a couple of transitioning items with the Citi book, which we'll be able to give you a further update on in the next update. Operator: Your next question comes from Andrew Lyons from Jefferies. Andrew Lyons: A related question, but focusing more on the commercial portfolios. Your IP charge was again elevated at 14 bps of total loans in the half, which particularly appears high versus what peers have been reporting over the last couple of halves. And you'd again put it down to business mix in the stage of the cycle. Andrew, maybe a question for you. Just in light of this relative returns drag and with the benefit of hindsight, are you happy that over the last couple of years, you've got the risk settings right across your domestic business portfolios, that's both Business and Private Bank and C&IB. Andrew Irvine: Andrew, I think we do. We're very confident that we earn through any losses that we might have in our commercial segments and portfolio. It's also important to note that the quality of the book in -- domestically actually improved in both the first quarter and the second quarter of the half. What we're flagging is that we had a very small number of international exposures that we took an individual provision for. But I think when we look at the domestic portfolio, most metrics actually improved half-on-half. Operator: Your next question comes from Victor German from Macquarie. Victor German: I just wanted to maybe quickly touch on capital. Like peers, you've done a very impressive job over recent years, optimizing your risk-weighted assets. And looking ahead, I'd be interested in your views on the likely implication of potentially deteriorating credit quality on risk-weighted assets. In your 1 half results, you effectively approached, you increased provision or you increased your provision by $300 million and also risk-weighted assets -- sorry, I should say, overlays by 8 basis points. So I'd just be interested in how you think investors should think about this potential risk-weighted asset inflation if credit quality does deteriorate and whether this relationship that you kind of put out in this result is a good guide for how we should think about it? Andrew Irvine: Maybe I'll have a first crack at that one, Inder, and then you can follow up if I missed anything. I'd say, first and foremost, it's going to be hard, I think, to predict what capital will do in the second half. We -- some things for consideration for you, we do expect credit growth to moderate from very elevated levels in the first half. So that on the balance will be a positive, but we have to also look at well, what happens and if there's any PD migration to the negative over the course of the half that may drive credit risk-weighted assets. So we'll have to see what those headwinds and tailwinds do on a net basis. But we did take an increased CP going into this because I think the fact is we don't really know how this is going to transpire. And I think we all need to be quite humble with our forecasting accuracy right now. This crisis in the Middle East seems to be continuing on, and we just don't know what the duration and intensity of the crisis is. So we wanted to be prudent going into this so that we could continue to participate in credit growth and to support our customers. So I think we'll have to see how this plays out in terms of what happens to the numbers as we go. I don't know, Inder. Inder Singh: Yes. Maybe just to give you one data point, Victor, on your question about RWA trajectory. One way to think about it is if you look at our base case economic projections from here, which call for a moderation of GDP growth and a slight uptick in unemployment. If that actually plays through, we would expect our risk-weighted assets to increase by around $3 billion over the next 12 to 18 months. Clearly, this is going to be progressive, right? So -- and as Andrew mentioned, there's going to be a series of other dynamics around the broader capital piece that will play through as well. Operator: Your next question comes from Jonathan Mott from Barrenjoey. Jonathan Mott: Andrew, I wanted to go back to your comments on the slowdown in credit growth. Obviously, the business environment has been fantastic for the last couple of years now and reaching 10% growth in the business bank is a great number. You also said that the pipeline still looks okay. I wanted to get your views on what you're seeing in that pipeline. Have you actually started to see agricultural customers pull back yet? Have you seen that pipeline weaken just in the last couple of weeks given the volatility? Is it actually flowing through at the coal phase? Or is it just your expectation that credit growth will slow? Andrew Irvine: Yes. Look, I'd say we're still seeing a material bifurcation between conditions and confidence. And so when you look at the actual numbers on a week-to-week basis, you're not yet seeing any material slowdown in application volume and how those apps are flowing through to settlement and the pipeline continues to remain very robust. So if you look at the numbers, and you were not aware that there were a crisis going on, you wouldn't see anything to be worried about, frankly. But at the same time, when we talk to our customers, you can hear from them that confidence has dipped and they're talking about taking actions to safeguard their business and to moderate their growth settings. So that is a bifurcation and a disconnect, frankly, that we're seeing that really hasn't kind of unraveled yet. So our expectation is that we'll see a softening, but the truth is we don't see it yet in our numbers. Jonathan Mott: Great. So is it just too early? Andrew Irvine: Yes. Look, I'm quite surprised, frankly, that we haven't seen any reduction, but that's where we're at. So I think it is too early. Operator: Your next question comes from Ed Henning from CLSA. Ed Henning: Can I just ask a question on the margin. If you give us a little bit more just the outlook and what you're thinking there. If I kind of run through a few things. What was the rate lag impact in the first half? You saw also on the home loan side, you saw fixed rate lending increase a little bit. Was that a headwind? And do you see that as a continuing headwind going forward? On the mix, you talked about the benefit coming through on the deposit side. Can you just talk about do you anticipate a mix benefit still to come through? Or are you starting to see some shift to TDs that will be a bit adverse on that? And if there are any changes in competition as well, please? Andrew Irvine: Inder, do you want to take that? Inder Singh: Yes. Look, obviously, we are cognizant of all of those moving parts. Clearly, we don't provide specific NIM guidance. But if you look at the impact of rate increases, we obviously had 2 rate increases in this half compared to 2 rate decreases in the last half. But if we look forward and we only get, say, 1 rate increase, we think the rate lag impact is probably 0.5 basis points or thereabouts in terms of NIM. I think the impact in terms of fixed doesn't really play into that materially, to be honest. In terms of deposit mix, look, it's difficult to sort of forecast. We've obviously got strong momentum in a number of parts of the business around transaction accounts, and Andrew spoke to that, both in terms of B&PB and also within the personal bank. And we'll manage the overall mix in terms of how we express appetite for TDs based on how we see the momentum playing through, but we're pretty pleased with the first half momentum. Andrew Irvine: And we haven't yet seen any migration to yield-bearing deposits in the mix. Is there a potential for that to happen as rates increase and the value to customers of capturing yield is greater. But to date, we haven't really seen that migration. Operator: Your next question comes from Andrew Triggs from JPMorgan. Andrew Triggs: Just a question on a capital again. With the RBNZ changes being finalized and coming up in, I think, the 1st of October, can you just talk to the benefit from those changes and its interplay with the pro-cyclicality capital you talked about, noting that you are fairly marginal on the standardized for now? And just with that sort of tighter capital position, just your priority areas for growth and where might you think even if credit growth does moderate a little bit, do you think you need to pull back on certain areas like institutional to make sure you have sufficient capital for the emerging economic environment? Inder Singh: Yes. Good question. I might take the first element of that, and then Andrew can talk a bit about the priorities for growth. In terms of the New Zealand regulatory changes, I think 2 main areas of impact. One is that you'll see the gap between Level 2 and Level 1 close out a little bit, mainly because we have some internally funded Tier 2 in the New Zealand sub that gets a deduction at the top of the house. So you'll see that narrow. I think secondly, probably a combination of the New Zealand changes and what APRA has proposed here, we should see the standardized floor really become less of an issue for us moving forward. And so our focus really is on the advanced impacts as we expect that standardized floor, which has been a bit tight in the last couple of periods to be less of an issue moving forward. Andrew, do you want to cover the priority areas for growth? Andrew Irvine: Yes. I think, look, when I talk to shareholders, they want us to continue to participate in high-quality loan growth, predominantly in our business banking franchise, but also to the extent we can get it in home lending where there are opportunities to grow share above our cost of capital. I think we're going to continue to look at areas where we're not earning a sufficient return on our capital and continue to tighten the settings to minimize that leakage really. We've done that, I think, really well across our portfolios, but there's still more that we can do there. We're conscious. We want to be a bank that's generating capital over the course of time, and we know that, that's been hard for us over the last little while. Some of that explained by the fact that we had very marked and elevated loan growth. And we have confidence that over time that we will generate positive capital in a normalized market environment. Andrew Triggs: Thanks, Andrew. So can I read that you'd be happy to have a zero discount DRP attached to the full year dividend if shareholders were happy for you to grow. Inder Singh: Yes. I mean, look, I think the other thing to bear in mind is that, obviously, the strong growth that we've experienced is going to translate into higher earnings. So as we look forward, we're also mindful of earnings per share growth. Our payout ratio in this half is 72.5%. That's at the upper end of the 65% to 75%. So should we see good opportunities to continue to grow the business strongly, we can manage, I guess, the pace of the EPS growth versus DPS growth, i.e., DPS growth may lag a little bit, right? Because if we continue to see good opportunities to invest shareholder capital, we will do that. If the payout ratio lags a little bit, that's perfectly fine. Operator: Your next question comes from John Storey from UBS. John Storey: I've just got a question for you, Andrew. It's obviously the second rate hiking cycle that you've seen in Australia. I just wanted to get your sense if you think the market, in your opinion, is just underestimating the earnings durability of the business and private bank in particular. Obviously, a very strong set of results, but I appreciate it's backward looking, but interested to get your views on how you characterize today versus what you've seen and gone through over the last few years. Andrew Irvine: Yes. Look, it's -- again, I would say that the ability to project into the future now is more uncertain than it normally would be because of the macroeconomic volatility. And how that's going to play out for businesses. The Reserve Bank has been clear that they needed to tighten demand because there was a situation in our economy where demand was outstripping supply. That's why they've raised the interest rate by a couple of 25-point increases, and we expect there'll be one more. I think what's hard to then predict is how much supply has been taken out by the migration of spend to fuel, but that's real for many of our customers, particularly in areas like agriculture, manufacturing, transportation, retail trade. So what I will say is that our customers, by and large, enter this period in a strong cash position. Deposit at the bank are up meaningfully and most of our customers have relatively lower leverage and strong cash buffers to, I think, withstand the cycle. And there'll be opportunities for many of them to grow and take advantage of any dislocation. So look, I think we just have to stay close to our customers as we go here, which we intend to do. But it's really, really difficult, I would say, to project out right now because of that uncertainty in the day-to-day nature of things. Operator: Your next question comes from Tom Strong from Citi. Your next question will be from Matt Dunger from Bank of America. Matthew Dunger: I wondered if I could ask about cost growth, significant change to the capitalization policy. And you've been delivering significant productivity, guiding still to cost growth over 4%. Andrew, you've called out the moderating lending growth expectations. Does over 4% cost growth remain acceptable in this environment? Just wondering if you've changed your thoughts at all given the change to software policy? Andrew Irvine: Yes. Look, we're not, at this point, looking to change guidance to the market in terms of our expense commitments. But you can be sure that as a management team, we are looking at our cost base and the expenses that we have and that over time, you always need to cut your cost according to what's happening in the revenue environment. And so to the extent there's a possibility that revenues come under any pressure, we would obviously be looking at what happens over time to our cost growth. It's important, though, to remember that there's lots of areas of cost that our customers value and our shareholders value. So we have to delineate between those costs that drive outcomes and costs where we can drive productivity. And I do think the new solutions emerging around AI are going to be helpful for us in that regard as a bank. Anything Inder you would add? Inder Singh: Yes. No, I think just to reaffirm, Andrew, I mean, over time, our aspiration as a management team has to be to aim for positive jaws going forward. We have to be cognizant about the fact that we need to balance the underlying level of inflation in the cost base with the need to invest to support growth in the right areas to make sure we continue to modernize the bank's infrastructure, continue to improve the experience of our customers. So it's something that is very active in our thinking as we get into the planning process for the next couple of years going forward. Operator: Your next question comes from Matthew Wilson from Jarden. Matthew Wilson: Matthew Wilson, Jarden. Just on the software capitalization that Matt Dunger referred to. This is the third time in 7 years you've written off capitalized software. That's $2.9 billion or $600 million per annum, which has effectively understated your cost base by around 8%. When you look at your peers in this space, ANZ's best of breed, they expense 80% of their investment spend. They've got the same tech environment that you confront. You're now only at 50%. I don't think you've gone hard enough. Andrew Irvine: That's an interesting point of view, Matt. I think we're right in the middle of peers now with the new settings and we'll have to continue to watch. I do think there is a macro trend here that over time, the value of software assets is likely diminishing as AI advances and the ability to build software or replicate software faster and cheaper emerges. So this is probably something we're going to have to continue to look at, not just as a bank, but as an industry. But I think for now, our settings are in the middle of peers. And I think as a Board and as a management team, we were happy with where we've come to. Matthew Wilson: This was an opportunity to sort of at least equalize the best of peers and get ahead of the trend that you clearly understand. Andrew Irvine: Yes. Look, we'll note your point. And I think the point that we've had 3 of these in the last 7 years is far from ideal. So -- it's certainly something that we should be looking at. Clearly, we weren't in the right starting position 7 years ago as a bank in this area. Operator: Your next question comes from Brendan Sproules from Goldman Sachs. Brendan Sproules: Brendan from Goldman Sachs. I just want to refer to you to Slide 28, where you show us the NPLs by sector. You noted today in the presentation that overall asset quality had been improving as the economy picked up and rates were cut over the last 12 months. Could you maybe just talk about a couple of sectors here that over the last 12 months have actually been deteriorating, Obviously, agri, forestry and fishing as well as transport and storage. And these are the most impacted, obviously, by the energy pricing dislocations. So can you maybe talk about why these things have been deteriorating while the rest of the economy has been improving? Andrew Irvine: Yes. I might call on Shaun Dooley, the bank's Chief Risk Officer, to come and just address that question. Shaun, if you don't mind. Shaun Dooley: Shaun Dooley speaking. So thank you, Brendan, for the question and you're drawing attention to Slide 28 there. So I think what we're seeing in agri, forestry and fishing is probably a couple of single name exposures that have probably had their own idiosyncratic issues associated with their particular businesses. Some of it has been weather-related, some of it has been supply chain related as well. So that being said, the portfolio remains a pretty strong portfolio. Its performance over a long period of time has been strong. It's well diversified and it's industry that we know well, and we have deep specialization, both in terms of bankers and credit people. In terms of the transport and storage, as you said, there's some issues associated with probably supply chain input costs into that. And that has been a sector, particularly in the transport side of it, where we've probably experienced more challenges in that part of the portfolio. But I think the main takeaway from this slide is the improving performance across the majority of the sectors that we're dealing with in business and private bank. And you'll see the same thing deeper in the pack around the whole portfolio as well. Brendan Sproules: And I have a second question on the performance of the Corporate Institutional Bank in the half. I'm referring to Page 44 of the 4D. You've had very strong lending growth, almost 7% in the half and almost 13.5% over the year. But we're actually seeing very weak lending and deposit income growth. Can you maybe talk to some of the drivers of why that's the case and whether -- particularly as we're entering probably a period of a slowdown, how you expect that to change over the next 6 to 12 months? Inder Singh: Yes. Look, I mean, overall, I'd say, looking at the returns that the C&IB business is producing at around 15%, we're very pleased with the progress that we're making. I think clearly, we've seen some impairment charges come through, which we've referenced in Andrew's remarks. I think on net interest margin, it's probably fair to say that we've seen a little bit of NIM compression in the half. You'll pick that up as you get through the back pack of the slides. NIM half-on-half is off about 14 basis points, which I think contributes about 1 basis point in lending compression at the company level. But really, what's driven that on the deposit side is we've seen the cut in U.S. dollar cash rates impacting the deposit book. That's been about 3 basis points. We've also lost the benefit of the custody business that we had, which we've now exited that had given us probably about a 2 basis point headwind on the deposit margin. So deposit margin is off a bit. On the lending side, we are seeing a little bit of heightened competition, as I referenced in my remarks albeit the returns remain very strong. We've also had a bit more of a skew towards growing the Australian corporate book where we've got good momentum. We've now built better capability in areas like transaction banking. So the overall relationship ROE is very strong. But look, it's a fair point that in the half, the asset growth and the income growth has probably not kept pace, but we expect that to improve a little bit into the second half. Andrew Irvine: One other point I would make is that I think in the month of March, there was material drawdown activity in the top end of town, likely due to concerns at the time regarding the Middle East crisis. And given that, that was at the end of the period, we probably didn't get the full benefit of earned income in those -- in that asset growth. But were that to continue, that would normalize and align, I think, over the continuity of time. Operator: Your next question comes from Brian Johnson from MST. Brian Johnson: Just I've got a question just as far as the capital, which is kind of summarized on Slide 30. If we have a look at NAV historically, you've kind of committed to the 65% to 75% payout ratio and neutralizing the dividend reinvestment. The one disappointing aspect I really think of this result, which was effectively pre-flagged is the DRP issuance. Could we just get some comment -- and the other thing I suppose I'd flag is the 11.65% to 12.05% pro forma, that's assuming you raise the money from the dividend reinvestment, but it actually doesn't take out the dividend itself. So if we were to go through all of that, it comes back to about 11.47%, which is a surplus, I think, above the minimum of about $980 million. Can we just get a feeling on, is that enough surplus capital that we should be confident you can resume neutralizing the DRP? Or has -- or because of the overlays, has the capital intensity effectively permanently gapped up to the point where you can't neutralize the DRP going forward? Inder Singh: Quite a lot in that question, Brian. Maybe if I start with. Brian Johnson: It's one question with 20 hidden there, Inder. Inder Singh: No, I appreciate it, Brian. On the -- if you look at the dividend that you are looking through the pro forma, we can argue for a long time as to how you roll forward the capital position. But if you start with 11.65%, by the time we pay the dividend, we would have probably accreted that by another 30 to 40 basis points of earnings, Brian. So by the 1st of July, if you wanted to pro forma it at that point, you could say, take the dividend off, give us the credit back for the DRP and the underwrite. So 60 basis points of dividend comes off, 40 basis points of the benefits from the DRP actions come back on. So we could spend a long time going around the houses on this, but we're sort of seeing the capital position probably being in the high 11s and the low 12s as you roll through the earnings through the course of the year. I think your broader question is a good one, which is how do we think about the sustainability of balancing growth, the dividend where it's at, et cetera. And look, it's unfortunate on the overlays that we've had 2 significant overlays on our RWAs in this half and the previous half. Obviously, we don't expect that to be a sustaining trend. We've had a series of recalibrations to do on our models, which we are progressing through. So we obviously aspire to have strong models with limited overlays of this type of nature going forward. But as I referenced earlier, I think if we can translate the balance sheet growth to earnings growth, we should see the earnings per share grow over time. We have the opportunity to be able to fund higher credit growth by managing down the speed with which the DPS grows at, right? So you should be able to accrete capital going forward. So at the moment, we feel pretty good looking at the second half that we don't need to put a discount on the DRP. But we're just going to have to execute well, Brian, make sure we're allocating capital sensibly. We're driving the right volume margin trade-off that we're investing in the right places and driving value from that, managing our costs and driving efficiencies. So I think it's as much about the capital generation levers more broadly and how we execute against those. But stock of capital is in a strong position, and we feel good about the second half. Brian Johnson: So Inder -- but am I right in thinking the formal kind of guidance, if you'd like to call it that on the DRP neutralization no longer exists? Inder Singh: No, we're not seeing any changes to any of the capital policy settings. We are basically saying here's a series of actions that we're going to take in relation to the first half. Operator: Your next question comes from Tom Strong from Citi. Thomas Strong: Can you hear me okay? Andrew Irvine: Yes. Thomas Strong: Perfect. Just a question on productivity, if I can. I mean if we go back 12 months ago to the first half '25 results, you did about $130 million of productivity for $420 million for the full year. Now you've had quite a strong half this half in terms of $200 million of productivity. So to what extent is the bottom end of that greater than $450 million of productivity guidance? And to what extent is that conservative given the hard work you've put through in the first half? Inder Singh: Well, look, I'd say we have fairly meaningful targets. The $450 million plus is an ambitious target. We are making good progress through it through the course of the first half. As you picked up from the various comments we've made during this briefing, we've got a real focus on making sure we can drive operating -- positive operating jaws as we look forward on a multiyear basis. We've got work to do to continue to not just deliver the current targets, but continue to build on those over the coming years. So -- and we're looking at all options in terms of what we can do around deploying tools to continue to enhance that. Andrew Irvine: But you can be sure we're running hard as a management team in this area. And if we can beat that number, we will. Operator: There are no further questions at this time. I'll now hand back over to the team for any closing remarks. Sally Mihell: Thank you. I'd like to thank everyone for joining us today. If you do have any follow-up questions, the Investor Relations team will be available to help. Thank you.
Kylie Bundrock: Good morning, everyone. I'm Kylie Bundrock, ANZ's Group General Manager, Investor Relations and M&A. Thank you for joining us for the presentation of our first half 2026 financial results which are being presented from ANZ's offices in Melbourne and stand on the lands of the Wurundjeri people. On behalf of the ANZ team, I pay my respects to elders past and present and also extend my respects to any Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people joining us for today's presentation. Our results materials were lodged this morning with the ASX and are also available on the ANZ website in the shareholder center. A replay of this results presentation session, including Q&A, will be available on our website shortly after this session concludes. The results presentation materials and the presentation being broadcast today contain forward-looking statements or opinions. And in that regard, I'll draw your attention to the disclaimer in the front of the results slide pack. Our CEO, Nuno Matos; and CFO, Farhan Faruqui, will present for around 45 minutes, after which I'll go over the procedure for Q&A before moving to questions. Ahead of that, a reminder that if you would like to ask questions, you can only do that via the phone. And so over to you, Nuno. Nuno Goncalo de Macedo E de Almeida Matos: Thanks, Kylie. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us. It's almost a year since I joined ANZ as CEO, and this has been a period of significant change for our bank. During this time, we launched a refreshed strategy, ANZ 2030, including the definition of our strategic pillars and initiatives, clear guidance of our major financial metrics, and we outlined our 5 immediate priorities. In parallel, we made good progress in clarifying our dividend outlook as well as strengthening our capital position and increasing our collective provisions and coverage ratio. These changes have resulted in better managed, more sustainable business, which is delivering stronger financial results. While we are early in our transformation, we are already more focused on our customers, simpler, more resilient and have materially improved value for our shareholders. Before turning to performance, I will take a moment to reflect on the external environment. As Australia's most international bank, we have a front-row seat to global developments. The real impact of this crisis remains ahead of us with the physical flow of critical commodities from the Middle East being key. While we have made a small downward adjustment to our global GDP forecast, at this stage, we'll still see the global economy growing at around 3.2% this year. In Australia, consumer and business confidence is materially weaker. However, spending and business conditions have only impacted modestly so far and employment growth is stable. This supports our central expectation that Australia will avoid a recession, although the situation is extremely dynamic, and we are prepared for a range of outcomes. The longer the flow of oil is constrained, the greater the chance the crisis shifts from being primarily an inflation challenge to more of a supply and growth challenge with greater economic impact. Turning to our customers. Generally, corporates have been taking prudent steps by shoring up liquidity, prioritizing optionality in their treasury management and perhaps most importantly, improving supply chain resilience. For large corporates in sectors which are most impacted such as transport, energy and construction, we are starting to see an increase in working capital needs, reflecting higher input costs, longer shipping routes and buffers for future disruption. Unlike other recent disruptions, capital markets have remained open, reducing the need for customers to solely draw on bank lending lines. While our business banking customers in Australia and New Zealand generally entered this period well prepared, for smaller businesses, particularly in the impacted sectors, higher operating costs are placing pressure on margins and cash flow. We are supporting our business customers through this time, including by offering 0 interest loans through the Australian government's $1 billion economic resilience program, where we are already seeing strong demand. Turning to our retail customers. Households in both Australia and New Zealand entered this period with high saving buffers, and we have not seen any material increase in hardship applications. However, in recent weeks, consumers have needed to sharply increase spending on transport, leaving them with less discretionary spending. We will continue to monitor emerging pressures and support our customers with appropriate assistance. The impact of the current crisis on ANZ's credit, capital and liquidity position has been minimal as of today. Our business is strong and structured to allow us to adapt to periods of uncertainty. First, we have very limited direct exposure to the Middle East at less than 0.5% of our total group exposure, and we are focused on high-quality investment-grade counterparties. Second, we have a strong balance sheet and continue to have good access to funding markets with limited increases in funding costs. As one of the world's most highly rated banks, we remain an attractive destination for global debt investors and depositors. And third, we are seeing the benefits of actions taken to transform the profile of ANZ's portfolio over the last decade. This includes prioritizing capital-light flow business over lending, while 83% of our wholesale portfolio is investment grade as reflected in our continuing low loss rates. That said, the situation is dynamic and the longer it continues, the greater the impact. Reflecting this raised risk in the external environment, we have taken a Collective Provision charge of $126 million this half, with our provision coverage ratio up 4 basis points to 1.22% in the half and up 9 basis points since March 2025. Now turning to our performance for the half. Our return on tangible equity was 11.6%, an improvement of 161 basis points. In parallel, our balance sheet and capital positions remains strong with common equity Tier 1 at 12.39% at the end of March, having improved 36 basis points from September. We proposed an interim dividend of $0.83 per share and increased the franking rate to 75% from 70%, reflecting our improved performance in the Australian geography. Our capital levels are appropriate. As a result, we will not apply a discount to the dividend reinvestment plan for the interim dividend, which will now be neutralized. When we launched the ANZ 2030 strategy last October, we were clear that this is a 2-phase strategy. The first phase across FY '26 and '27, it's about delivering on immediate priorities at pace in order to get the basics right, including a substantial improvement in productivity and initial investment for growth. In the second phase, beyond '27, we will realize the benefits of those strong foundations to drive outperformance. In each phase, we expect to improve returns and deliver value. We are now 1/4 of the way through the first stage and already showing tangible progress. We are also investing in capabilities now to execute the second phase which will differentiate ANZ from our peers while significantly improving our customer experience and the strength of our human and digital channels. As I said, at our Strategy Day, we have 5 immediate priorities, and we committed to regular updates on our progress. First, our new leadership team and our culture reset. Last year, we announced 4 new executives who are now firmly embedded in their new roles. Most recently, we appointed Tammy Medard as the Group Executive Business and Private Bank. And just last week, we took another important step, launching our new corporate values aligned to our purpose and our strategy. These values are not a slogan or catch phrase. They are action-oriented values, which will guide our people to deliver best outcomes for our customers and shareholders safely and consistently and at pace. At Strategy Day, we committed to a safe and secure migration of Suncorp Bank customers to ANZ by June 2027. This program of work was reset in October 2025. At the end of March, we have delivered 34% of this program, and our plan is to get to 57% by the end of this financial year. We remain on track to complete the migration by June '27. During the half, we strengthened the program operating model to support timely decision-making and delivery with clearer accountabilities and enhanced executive oversight. We also made progress building and testing the product solutions required for the integration as well as the core data solution and new end-to-end testing environment. Through this process, we will meet all of our federal and Queensland government commitments. At Strategy Day, we also committed to delivering a single customer front end by September 2027. Again, this program of work was reset in October '25. By March, we completed 13% of all this work and expect to have completed 45% by the end of this financial year. We remain on track for full delivery by September '27. Once complete, we'll serve individuals and small business customers with a single ANZ digital platform and brand. This will bring together the ANZ Plus experience with a broader products and functionality of ANZ existing retail and business platforms. We have made significant progress on our fourth immediate priority, simplifying the bank and reducing duplication. We reduced costs by 9% half-on-half, excluding significant items. And as a result, our cost-to-income ratio reduced to 49.4%, down from 54.6% in the previous half. When launching the strategy, we said we expected the impact of the initial productivity improvements to yield pretax gross cost savings of around $800 million in FY '26. We have realized 49% of the identified productivity savings, and we are on track to deliver in excess of this in the full year. Farhan will provide more detail. By the end of April, 78% of our announced 3,500 employee exits had occurred as well as more than 1,000 managed services consultant departures. Fifth, we are making good progress on our nonfinancial risk management uplift and remain on track to deliver our root cause remediation plan approved by APRA last September. This is a comprehensive framework that details the activities of our enterprise-wide PACT program standing for people, accountability, customers and trust. Today, we have released the second report by Promontory, the independent reviewer appointed to access this progress and regulatory reports -- and regular report, sorry, to APRA and the Board on the execution of the RCRP. All reports are and will continue to be available in full on our website. We are now through the setup phase of the PACT program and on track to largely complete the design phase this year. Last September, we also announced that ANZ had established an ASIC matters resolution program within our federal retail end markets to deliver improvements across a number of areas. This work is progressing and constructive engagement with our regulators on these important matters continues. I will now turn to the strategic initiatives across our divisions with a focus on the customer first pillar. This includes progress in laying the foundations for the second phase of our strategy to accelerate growth and outperform the market beyond 2027. In Australia Retail, excluding Suncorp Bank, we have 6.5 million customers and 11.6% of the market view us as their main financial institution. Our strategic NPS was stable at 2.9, and we remain an uncomfortable #4 of the majors. Total deposits grew 2% with 1% growth in transact and save. Home lending grew 1% at 0.36x system in the half. Having improved service and assessment levels in our home loan business, we increased momentum throughout the half to 0.85x system in March. We expect to be around system or at system in April and in the second half. This will be further supported by us having joined the first homebuyers guarantee scheme. Under our ANZ 2030 Customer First strategy, we are laying foundations for growth through deep propositions for attractive customer segments, including migrants and mass affluent, strengthened proprietary origination and elevated channel experience. Early progress on our customer proposition enhancements includes enabling New Zealand customers relocating to Australia to open accounts before arrival and launching competitive digital international money transfers to meet core migrant and affluent needs. Alongside this, we are upgrading our physical and digital channels, including the delivery of the single customer front end in 2027, the ongoing modernization of our call center platform and ATM fleet and a branch refresh across our network. In our Business and Private Bank, which has 580,000 customers, excluding Suncorp, MFI share was steady at 16.4%. Business Bank save and transact deposits and lending grew by 2% with lending continuing to lag the market. NPS for the division was down to minus 0.4%, again, an uncomfortable fourth position. Our transformation is focused on improving customer experience and accelerating growth. In contrast, the private bankperforming -- the Private Bank is performing quite well. Deposits increased by 6%, investment funds under management were up 8% and lending rose 17%. We were recognized with 4 awards by Euromoney, including Australia's Best Private Bank. Under our ANZ 2030 strategy, the transformation of the business bank will be driven by building a frontline that matches our ambition in size and quality and ensuring we have the right platform for the right customers while leveraging our strong private bank foundations. In short, our ambition is to have more business bankers who are highly skilled with better tools. In this regard, on the front line, our initial focus is on upskilling our business bankers with our upgraded Banker Academy ready for its first major intake. In this half, we have equipped them with better tools, having launched agenting AI-enabled capabilities in our CRM. With the right foundations in place, we remain committed to increasing business bankers by close to 50% by 2030. On platforms, we are accelerating the delivery of the single customer front end for small business customers. And for our larger business bank customers, we are releasing a new set of improvements to Transactive Global to make it simpler and more agile for this segment. For Private Bank, we recently completed a strategic review of our products, services, people and platforms, and we are moving forward in accelerating this business. Suncorp Bank NPS and MFI continued to perform well with a stable customer base of 1.26 million. We look forward to bringing these customers into the ANZ franchise by June '27, delivering benefits of scale and experience to both our customers and our shareholders. Our institutional business continued to deliver strong and consistent earnings with 2 highlights: 8% growth in operational deposits and 8% growth in market revenues, both FX adjusted half-on-half. Our institutional business is relationship-led with a unique international network and unified digital platform. We have a clear strategy focused on transaction banking services delivered through market-leading platforms, a capital-light profile and target customer acquisition. We are seeing the benefits of this strategy. Around 1/4 of our strong operational deposit growth has been driven by new clients across target sectors, including financial institutions. Our customers benefited from our continued improvements to our Transactive Global platform as well as data and insights from our markets platforms, which is helping them manage risk during a period of financial market volatility. In institutional, we have been clear that we focus on supporting our customers in lending in the context of a holistic relationship while balancing risks and returns. Finally, we recently announced an agreement to acquire Worldline's share in our merchant acquiring joint venture, moving us to full ownership. This will allow us to regain control of the merchant customer relationship and ensure it is consistent with our strategy to be a leading payments and transaction bank. In New Zealand, ANZ remains the largest bank with 2.7 million personal and business banking customers. Refreshed customer propositions helped increase personal and business MFI share to 33.3% and 31.6%, respectively, at the end of March. On the other hand, our NPS for both personal and business remains a challenge to be addressed. Save and transact deposits grew in the first half by 4%, in line with the market. In New Zealand, we gained share in total deposits and lending across personal and business and agri with the only exception being home lending. To build on our existing scale, we are replatforming for the future to bring the customer experience in line with our leadership position, refreshing our customer propositions and investing in business bankers. The replatforming rollout is well underway with the successful migration of customer records to our new modern banking platform completed in the first half. Now before I hand to Farhan, I would like to leave you with 3 key messages. Our transformation is running at pace, and we are making good progress in executing our 5 immediate priorities safely, sustainably and on time. In parallel, we are investing in line with our ANZ 2030 strategic initiatives to deliver for our customers, accelerate growth and outperform the market beyond 2027. And importantly, we are already delivering materially better returns for shareholders. With that, I will hand over to Farhan. Thank you. Farhan Faruqui: Thank you, Nuno, and good morning to everyone joining us today. We are 6 months into Phase 1 of our ANZ 2030 strategy, and we have made solid progress this half. As I noted at the end of last half, our focus is on sustainably improving our performance, and that means simplifying our organization to drive more efficient outcomes, maintaining a strong balance sheet and capital position, and improving returns for our investors. We have delivered on each of these with progress across all our key financial metrics. Return on tangible equity increased by 161 basis points to 11.6%. CET1 capital ratio increased by 36 basis points to 12.39%. Cost-to-income ratio improved by 519 basis points to 49.4% and revenue to risk-weighted assets increased 15 basis points to 4.88%. Importantly, our performance delivered value for our shareholders with a total shareholder return of 10.7% in the half. Dividends were maintained at $0.83 per share and the franking rate increased from 70% to 75%. As a result of our strong capital position at the end of this half, we will now not be undertaking a second discounted DRP and the interim DRP will be neutralized. In the first half of '26, the group delivered a cash profit after tax of $3.8 billion. Excluding the significant items announced in the prior half, cash profit increased by 14% and profit before provisions increased 12% half-on-half. I want to particularly call out the FX movements, which were more pronounced in this half. As previously reported, we hedge a large portion of our non-Australian dollar earnings. And over this half, these hedges helped offset the adverse FX translation impact. In revenue, we had a negative translation impact of $205 million and a hedge benefit of $19 million -- sorry, of $99 million in other operating income. In expenses, we benefited from a positive translation impact of $107 million. Therefore, at a profit before provisions level, the net FX impact was fully neutralized by our hedging strategy. I'll now step through the key drivers of results, starting with revenue. Our half-on-half comments will be based on comparisons to second half '25 financials, excluding significant items. Revenue was flat in the half. However, on a constant currency basis and excluding the hedge benefit, group revenue increased 1%. On this basis, net interest income was broadly flat. Deposit volume growth and margin management were offset by lending revenue. In addition, lending volume growth was softer in the half, particularly in Australia Home Lending and the Business Bank. Other operating income ex Markets increased by 2% and Markets delivered another solid result with revenue growth at 8%. I will talk more to deposits and lending volume as well as markets income shortly. Now moving to margins. Headline margin was 1 basis point lower in the half, while margin ex Markets was up 2 basis points, reflecting our disciplined approach to margin management. I'll walk through the key factors that impacted NIM this half. Number one, we continued to optimize deposit pricing, offsetting the impact of rate cuts in offshore markets in the half, delivering an overall flat margin outcome for deposit pricing. Asset and funding mix added 2 basis points with growth in save and transact deposits as well as overall deposit growth outpacing lending growth. Three, our replicating portfolios added 2 basis points, benefiting from higher rates and our decision to modestly lengthen the duration of the portfolio. And four, timing impacts from RBA rate changes as well as continued Australia home loan pricing competition drove a 3 basis point asset pricing reduction in the half. When adjusted for temporary factors, we exited March with group NIM consistent with the overall first half average of 1.53%. In terms of outlook, we remain disciplined in our execution. Looking forward, we face both tailwinds and headwinds. We anticipate that higher term rates in our house view of further RBA and RBNZ cash rate increases will be supportive to NIM. In particular, a further 7 basis points of tailwind to NIM from replicating portfolio earnings is expected over the next 12 to 18 months. However, sustained levels of competition and customers shifting to term deposits as rates increase presents potential margin headwinds. Based on these factors and noting that margin outcomes may vary from quarter-to-quarter, we see a bias to the upside in NIM ex Markets in the next half. Moving to the balance sheet. Ex Markets customer deposits grew by $11 billion in the half, and the performance was stronger on a constant currency basis with deposits up $20 billion. Volumes grew in all divisions with the exception of Suncorp Bank, where deposits were broadly flat. Core to our strategy is deepening customer relationships and improving the quality of our deposit base. With this focus, we grew our save and transact deposits by $16 billion on a constant currency basis this half, delivering a positive mix shift. Operational deposit growth of 8% on a constant currency basis was a particular highlight in our payments and cash management business. On the same basis, these deposits have grown 28% over the past 2 years as we continue to prioritize serving the transactional banking needs of our institutional clients. While deposit growth and mix were positive this half, Australia retail deposit growth remained below system and remains a focus, as Nuno has highlighted. Turning to lending. On a constant currency basis, customer loans and advances increased by $16 billion in the half, with all divisions contributing to the growth. In Australia retail, home loans grew $5 billion, reflecting below system housing growth. As Nuno has said, we expect to be at or around system in April and in the second half. Growth across Business Bank was mixed and below the broader market. This business is in transformation, and we are investing to accelerate growth. In New Zealand, business and agri lending grew at 1.1x system and home lending grew 0.8x system in a highly competitive market, characterized by a record level of customer switching and migration to lower-margin fixed rate lending. In institutional, growth this half was in shorter tenure supply chain trade finance. This was pronounced particularly towards the end of this quarter as customers started to secure their supply chain inventories given the current geopolitical environment. Turning to markets. The business again delivered consistent high-quality earnings with income of $1.1 billion, up 8% this half and up 7% on the prior first half on a constant currency basis. This outcome reflects increased customer activity across key products. FX, rates and commodities income all increased compared with the same period last year. In FX and rates, customer demand for structured products increased as customers sought to mitigate downside risks in this environment. In commodities, demand for gold underpinned performance this half. These positive contributions were partly offset by lower franchise credit income due to wider credit spreads. Balance sheet revenues also grew, driven by higher liquid asset volumes and improved yields. The result was further supported by geographic diversification with 72% of markets income generated outside of Australia, providing an important and resilient source of earnings diversification for the group. Looking ahead, our markets business remains well placed to continue to support our customers as they navigate volatile markets. That said, in periods of extreme volatility in financial markets, customers tend to step back from risk management activity and adopt a wait-and-see approach. This could be a headwind in a prolonged Middle East conflict. Now turning to expenses. At the full year results last year, we outlined actions to remove duplication and simplify the organization. We delivered a 9% half-on-half reduction in operating expenses and 8% on a constant currency basis. This reflects a substantive shift in how we manage cost and drive operational efficiency across the organization, representing a structural reset of our cost base. Specifically, 78% of the 3,500 FTE reductions have exited the group as at April 30. More than 1,000 managed service contractors were exited at the start of the financial year. We also optimized third-party spend by consolidating and rationalizing our vendor base, reducing total vendors by [ 80%. ] We exited noncore businesses and activities at pace. These exits reduced complexity and lowered costs in the half. Together, these actions are delivering a step change in cost discipline and realizing approximately $392 million of productivity in the first half. Suncorp Bank synergies contributed a further $29 million of first half productivity, primarily from the removal of duplicative project spend. Investment spend overall was lower this half, reflecting both the seasonal phasing of spend and stopping initiatives not aligned with our strategy. We will remain within our full year investment envelope of approximately $1.5 billion. Our expense rate for investment continues to be a sector-leading approximately 80%. At the full year results, we outlined an expectation that FY '26 costs would be down approximately 3% from the $11.85 billion baseline, which reflects the FY '25 cost base adjusted for significant items. Our productivity program is now on track to deliver an estimated $875 million of savings this year, up from our previous target of $800 million. In addition, we expect an FX translation benefit of $210 million this year if FX rates remain consistent with the first half average. As a result of our recent agreement to acquire Worldline shares in the ANZ Worldline Merchant Acquiring joint venture, we will consolidate the expense base of the business post regulatory approvals. We remain confident that this expense impact can be absorbed within our overall outlook. Taken together, we are updating our expense outlook. We now expect costs to be down approximately 5% in FY '26 from our FY '25 cost base adjusted for significant items of $11.85 billion. Let me turn now to portfolio quality. We recorded an individual provision charge for the half of $148 million, including $79 million for our wholesale and small business exposures. This resulted in an annualized individual provision loss rate of 4 basis points, which has now remained stable for 3 consecutive halves and is well below our long-run loss rate of 11 basis points. Our low individual provisions are the product of portfolio derisking over several years to strengthen our asset quality. We have been monitoring developments in the Middle East, where we have limited exposure, less than 0.5% of total group exposure. This exposure is focused on investment-grade government-related entities, central banks, sovereign wealth funds and sovereign-backed corporates. We believe these customers are well placed to withstand stress, and we continue to support them. Our institutional portfolio continues to be high quality with over 92% of our institutional exposure investment grade. Importantly, nearly 2/3 of this exposure is to financial institutions and sovereigns where we've had near 0 basis points loss experience since the GFC. For Business and Private Bank, we continue to focus on ensuring strong levels of collateral coverage with 83% of exposure being fully covered by collateral and a loss rate of 13 basis points in the half, down from 20 basis points in the second half '25. Our Australian mortgage customers' delinquencies decreased 3 basis points in the half to 83 basis points, and our mortgage customers continue to show resilience with 88% of accounts ahead on repayments and approximately 70% of our customers holding savings buffers of 3 months or more. Similarly, our New Zealand mortgage portfolio delinquencies decreased by 6 basis points in the half, down to 80 basis points. Now while we have not seen a material increase in customer requests for hardship relief, we are very conscious of the stress from higher interest rates and cost of living pressures. We are closely monitoring and providing support for our customers against this evolving macroeconomic backdrop. Now moving to collective provisions, where we considered the Middle East conflict and took a balanced view at the end of March. Transmission to the broader economy is still at an early stage, and our portfolio is strong, but there are clearly risks to both the domestic and global economies, especially if the conflict is not resolved in the near term. We have reflected this view by increasing the weighting to our severe scenario by 2.5%. This increased our collective provision charge by $175 million. Over the half, we also made adjustments to our overlays and together with portfolio growth, credit quality improvements and model changes, our resultant collective provision charge for the half was $126 million. Overall, the collective provision balance has increased to $4.45 billion, lifting coverage by 4 basis points to 1.22% of credit risk-weighted assets. This new collective provision balance represents a post-COVID high in coverage levels, with the collective provision balance now around $2.5 billion above our base case scenario and $65 million above our downside scenario. In reviewing the adequacy of our settings, we also considered, one, our scenario weights are now skewed 52.5% to our 2 downside scenarios, reflecting the current volatile geopolitical environment. Two, existing collective provision balance levels cover 13x the individual provision losses taken in FY '25 and 20x based on the average of individual provision losses taken since FY '23. This is well above peers. Three, the continued resilience of our high-quality onshore and offshore portfolios as evident by consistently low individual provision loss rates. Overall, these settings reflect an appropriate approach, and we will continue to actively review our provision balance as conditions evolve. Now turning to capital. As I noted earlier, we have taken decisive action to strengthen our capital position, and this is reflected in our CET1 ratio increasing to 12.39% as at March. The dividend remained stable at $0.83 per share and franking increases from 70% to 75%. This higher franking reflects the improving performance of the Australian geography. At FY '25 results, we had announced the potential to discount the first half '26 interim dividend subject to our capital position and needs at the time. As I mentioned, this discount will now not occur and the DRP will be neutralized. This is reflective of our improved capital position, including the benefit of higher participation in the full year '25 discounted DRP and clarity on the direction of the RBNZ capital changes. It is also our intention to continue to neutralize future DRPs. With a stable dividend and improving profit, the payout ratio has reduced to 66% and is now broadly in our target range of 60% to 65%. Our payout ratio at this level retains capital for the underlying growth capacity to deliver on our ANZ 2030 strategy. We welcome the announcements in recent months from both the RBNZ and APRA regarding capital settings and capital reviews and agree that these will encourage better capital management and importantly, better alignment between risk settings and capital allocation. Notwithstanding some of the recent volatility in the markets and a modest increase in funding costs, we have continued to have good access to funding markets and a strong liquidity position. Key funding and liquidity metrics remain well above regulatory minimums. However, uncertainty is heightened, and this is an area we will continue to monitor closely. In closing, I wanted to reiterate the financial targets we have set for ourselves, including the upward revision to our productivity target for FY '26. Phase 1 is progressing as intended, and the delivery is now evident in the numbers, improved returns, higher efficiency and strong balance sheet settings while continuing to invest in the franchise. As conditions evolve, including ongoing geopolitical uncertainty, we will continue to actively manage our balance sheet and risk settings and support customers as needed. Our priorities and targets under ANZ 2030 remain very clear. We will continue to report transparently at every result, and we will be held to account on delivery. Thank you, and I'll now pass to Kylie for Q&A. Kylie Bundrock: Thanks, Farhan. [Operator Instructions] I will now hand to the operator for questions. Thanks, Darcy. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Andrew Lyons with Jefferies. Andrew Lyons: Just 2 questions. Just firstly, on your capital position. Slide 63 highlights that the risk impacts were a tailwind for your core equity Tier 1 ratio via lower credit risk-weighted assets in 1H '26 as it has been in recent halves. However, I'd just be keen to sort of understand the sensitivity of your capital ratios to a deterioration in the macro economy. So can you maybe just talk to if the macro economy plays out per your base case assumptions that you use in your ECL modeling. How do you expect the risk impact within your credit risk-weighted assets to play out over the next couple of years? And maybe I can hazard to ask what it would look like in the downside scenario as well. Farhan Faruqui: Yes. No, thanks for that question, Andrew. Look, I think we are actually -- from a base case scenario standpoint, we have -- and I don't have the numbers for the next 2 years or so, Andrew, but I can tell you that over the next 6 months or so, we have an estimated -- if you were to move to the base case, we would have an estimated $3 billion increase in RWA, which would basically equate to approximately 9 basis points of capital. If we -- I don't have a downside scenario assumption, but I would imagine, obviously, it will be much higher than $3 billion. Andrew Lyons: Yes. Okay. No, that's really helpful. And then just a question around your mortgage lending. APRA data yesterday highlighted that you are clearly closing the gap to system in your mortgage lending. I guess 2 parts to the question. Firstly, how should we think about the NIM implications of reinvigorating growth both from the perspective of more aggressive mortgage pricing, but also the need to fund that higher level of growth? And then also, historically, your systems have impeded your ability to manage a big recovery in volumes. Can I perhaps just ask to date how effectively your systems responded to higher volumes that are now coming ANZ's way? Nuno Goncalo de Macedo E de Almeida Matos: Sure. So this is a topic that we addressed in the last quarters, and we talked about it at length. And I think now we are seeing the results of our first actions in this regard. The first thing I would say is we are not targeting mortgage growth just from a growth perspective. We want to grow in a profitable manner. That's the first thing we want to say. So in terms of the levers we've been working on it, pricing has been one that clearly we paid a lot of attention. We moved from competing at structural discounts into competing using pricing as another lever tactically when it makes sense, means we use discounts for a specific segment that we believe is more profitable than others. We don't do discounts across the board. We're not anymore the cheapest in the market. We changed our competitive stance. And we will keep it that way for the future because, again, as we've been saying, we are targeting sustainable and profitable growth. We also continue to manage aggressively our processes and improving the way we underwrite the way we process loans. And in that regard, as we said, we had significant improvements in this half. We had issues with our loan processing team in last years. That's basically done. That's digested. We have now the right size of a team. We are now in SLAs in market SLAs for basically all products and that's why we feel confident now to regain market flow. As you can see in October -- sorry, in March, we are very close. And in the second half, starting in April, we should be at market or around markets. But we are not only relying on process improvements. We are also improving significantly the quality of our distribution. And that means our proprietary origination teams, we are very much focused on productivity, and that's already a plus in this half. We're able to produce more tickets per individual per lender in our mortgage business. And the way we interact with brokers was also significantly upgraded in terms of times and in terms of experience. But we are also touching the product lever. For example, in the half, we're able to, in record time, launch, and we were lagging to be honest, we were able to launch our first homebuyer proposition. We entered the scheme. This is an important scheme. It represents roughly almost 10% of the market, so we should be there. So we are touching all the levers, product, distribution, processes and pricing, and we are getting out of only competing based on pricing, as we've been saying. With that, the production that we are bringing to our balance sheet from the market, it's accretive, and we are comfortable that it will not hurt our margins in the future. Operator: Your next question comes from Ed Henning with CLSA. Ed Henning: I have a first one on margin, a second one on costs. Just the first one on margin, I just confirm, Farhan, what you said on the call is the exit margin was the same as the half, but there's an upward bias. And the upward bias just on the replicating portfolio with the headwinds on competition and stuff a little bit more muted than what you're seeing currently in the environment on the replicating portfolio? Farhan Faruqui: Yes. So thanks, Ed. The -- I talked about the bias to the upside in the next half. It is driven to a great extent by replicating portfolio. As I said, we have a 7 basis point tailwind in the next 12 to 18 months on replicating portfolio, but a majority of that actually comes through in the next half. So that actually is supportive to NIM as well as obviously, the fact that we have more rate hikes baked into our current house view from both RBA and RBNZ. So I think overall, we feel that we are likely to see more upside on NIM than we are to see anything else from a headwind perspective. Nuno Goncalo de Macedo E de Almeida Matos: But -- and just to complement what Farhan is saying, the reason Farhan is saying is the bias up and it's not the full up, obviously, is that we have impacts on both sides, right? Clearly, with higher rates, customers will migrate to lower margin products on the funding side. So you would expect that both consumers and small business would migrate to, for example, term deposits. And we also have potential in our offshore business, U.S. rates coming down with a new -- let's say, with the new environment on the Fed. So there are undoubtedly very important tailwinds, but it's not just on one side. There's others also on the other side, but it's a net up. That's what we think. Farhan Faruqui: Yes. And I would just add to that, that some of those headwinds are starting to -- the green shoots of that are starting to show up. So we are starting to see a little bit of activity towards switching into, say, term deposits, et cetera, away from save and transact. Ed Henning: Okay. That's great. And just a second question on costs, just to clarify the increase in the savings coming through for '26. Is that additional productivity savings that's not a bring forward of any Suncorp synergies there? And now also with your guidance improved to down 5% this year, previously, you were indicating likely that '27 will be down again from '26. Does that still hold? Or is that a bit more of a challenge? And obviously, you've got -- you've talked about growing your bankers and stuff, and it depends on your timing around that as well. Nuno Goncalo de Macedo E de Almeida Matos: Yes. So let me recap where we are here and reminding you what we guide on this topic. We guide $800 million savings this year. And then net of inflation that equated to a 3% reduction on costs. We are now guiding to a 5% reduction on cost for '26. And that means $875 million of savings, not anymore $800 million plus the FX -- sorry, yes, the FX translation on cost line. So if you want the 5%, it's a simple math of the previous 3% plus 1.8% impact of FX translation plus an additional 0.2% of savings, which is around $75 million. We also would like to remind that we acquired the stake in Worldline, which makes us now the -- let's say, the full -- we have now full ownership, and that includes, so we are going to absorb on those 5%, we are going to absorb the additional costs that we will have by consolidating the Worldline company in our books. So it's a 5%, if you want is 3%, 1.8% of FX, additional 0.2% of savings and no additions on the Worldline. On your question of '27, I want to remind you, we did not guide '27. So we did not disclose any guidance in '27. What I can tell you is that we are not moving forward '27 savings to '26 is not about that. It's to continue to make the company more and more productive. And as we continue to be highly focused on finding those efficiencies, we are not exiting in taking them, and we continue to commit to the mid-40s cost to income by 2028. Farhan Faruqui: Yes. I would just to answer a little bit of your question, so in addition to what Nuno said about not moving forward to synergies from '27, we're also not -- we're also reporting, as you know, at the Suncorp synergies separately. So the $875 million, the new guided number does not include the Suncorp synergies that we're producing, which is separately tracked. And I mentioned that in this half was $29 million. So the $875 million does not represent any moving forward of Suncorp synergy benefits. Operator: Your next question comes from Tom Strong with Citi. Thomas Strong: Firstly, perhaps just on the progress of the Suncorp migration and the delivery of the customer front end. I mean you're further in front on the migration side. But can you just put a bit more color around the next 12 months around where the material points of financial risk are and technology delivery. So we've got a bit more of a better idea of what to expect and an ability to hold this to account over the next year? Nuno Goncalo de Macedo E de Almeida Matos: Well, I believe you have -- we have announced for those 2 projects clear time lines in terms of where do we expect that to be concluded. And I repeat, September '27 for the single customer front end, which means why is this so important? It means that by then, we'll have 8 million customers, retail and small business customers in one single platform, one single brand from what we have today, which are many, right? So it's not a small thing. It's a big thing. We reset the program in October, September '25 when we came to the market with our new strategy, and we start measuring all the tasks we have to do from that date until September '27, we start measuring them. Obviously, the program started. We have many things that we are leveraging on top from the past. So it's not that we are starting from 0, obviously. But we reset the program and we said whatever we have to do from September '25 on, we have a book of work, and we are now measuring that execution. We are at 13% in March '26. And we are very clear that we want to be at 45% by the end of this year. So I think you can take that as a clear pace. Basically, the project will be almost half done 1 year before the finish line. On Suncorp integration, we are at 34% again of the reset book resetting the clock at 0 in October '25. A lot of work had been done before. But again, we calculated the remaining book of work, and we started from that at 0, 34% at March '26. We expect to be at 57% at September '26. So you will -- we will be publishing every quarter, by the way, in Q3, when we launch -- when we'll publish to the market, we will publish again those percentages. And you will be -- every quarter, you will have a very clear definition on where we are. These programs are not long term anymore. They are next year. It's going to be very easy for you to test if we are on time or not. From a financial perspective, from an investment perspective, we have clear definition of the let's say, required investment. And we are -- again, this is not long term. We are very convinced that there won't be any material deviations from the numbers we have in our investment planning. Farhan Faruqui: And just to add to that as well, Tom, no deviation. All of those investment asks for both Suncorp Bank integration as well as the single customer front end are fully baked into our 5% reduction in total cost for '26. Thomas Strong: Okay. That's very clear. And just a second question, if I can. As the Suncorp customers have migrated and we move to a single customer front end, can you just talk about any sort of pricing decisions you'll have to make? I mean if I look at Suncorp customers today get a slightly sharper mortgage rate and a little bit better in terms of TDs and savings. Does this move to a single front end so you need to harmonize some of those different product pricing between the ANZ and Suncorp brands? Nuno Goncalo de Macedo E de Almeida Matos: Yes, undoubtedly, our competitive ambition is to have one face to the market, one face in terms of one product suite, one brand and to have a very simple offer to customers. Now when we say customers, we should talk about segments of customers, which means we might have a specific proposition for segment A, don't read that at Suncorp and then other proposition for segment B and so on and so forth. So yes, there will be inevitably a certain level of harmonization. We don't believe that it will impact at all our competitive position vis-a-vis Suncorp customers. Operator: Your next question comes from John Storey with UBS. John Storey: Just 2 questions from my side. Obviously, there's a big focus on ANZ lifting its revenues over the next few years. I'd be interested if you could just provide a little bit more detail just on the revenue trends that you've seen quarter-on-quarter. It looks to us like operating income is down roughly about 1.9%. Maybe a little bit more detail just on that split between NII and noninterest income would be useful. Nuno Goncalo de Macedo E de Almeida Matos: Sure. Well, we are absolutely committed and a lot of our attention is dedicated to make sure that growth is part of this journey. And that was very clear when we published the ANZ 2030 strategy. Now I would say we want to deliver profitable growth. We are not focused on inflating our balance sheet just to show growth and hurt our shareholders and our returns. When we started this journey some months ago, we read quite well our starting point. We read quite well our business capabilities, and we were very clear on which divisions were performing well and which divisions were not performing well. And which geographies were performing well and which ones were performing less well. We also were very clear about -- we took into account our risk management perspectives and capabilities and our regulatory stance. And we read well our returns, our capital levels and our dividend outlook. We took all that into account. And I believe that we set a very clear strategy to address ANZ from a short-term and long-term perspective, right? We communicated 2 phases. In the first phase, which we -- if you want, we make it tangible by always reporting on our 5 immediate priorities. Those are foundational elements. It's important that we understand that without those elements, the company will not be able to run as fast as it can in a sustainable manner, and we are thinking long term for this company. We want this company to be in a fantastic position to run fast in a sustainable manner. And that's '26 and '27, as we said, right? Beyond '27, we expect to grow and outperform the market in a profitable manner, in an accretive manner. And that's based in improving the customer experience, especially in retail and business banking, in improving our propositions, in strengthening materially our capacity to distribute our products, both from a digital and human perspective and to really focus on being a service bank. We are not a lender only. We are a 360 bank that want to be with customers every single day, and that's transaction banking, right? We also said that we would deliver returns improvement -- improved returns in each phase of our strategy in both phases as we are seeing. But the profile of that improvement is different from -- between Phase 1 and Phase 2. In Phase 1, the one we are now, I think you can observe significant improvements in how we are managing productivity and results are coming out of it. Cost management discipline, structure discipline, organizational design discipline, significant improvements in margin management and in return management and in capital management, which means we want to generate organic capital. We want to be sustainable and accretive. We want to set the way we compete in our own merits, not on pricing only. And we want and we need to increase significantly the way we manage risk. That's all going on. Now silently, but decisively, we are investing in order to be credible in our commitment to accelerate growth beyond '27. And that means improving customer experience, especially on the 2 divisions we said, which undoubtedly are our biggest opportunities, if you want. We are building propositions, especially for the segments we announced, affluent and migrants, which will be launched in due time, even though we are already delivering some tactical improvements. We are, as we speak, replatforming our call center, improving the quality of our ATMs, launching a single customer front end, so important in 2027. In wholesale, we continue silently to improve our digital transaction banking platforms, not only in Australia, not only in New Zealand, but also in our international network. What I'm saying is, at the same time, we put the company in good order and we set the foundations. At the same time, in parallel, we are improving our capabilities. So undoubtedly, our revenues will improve, but they have to be accretive. They have to deliver good returns. That's our ambition, and that's our commitment. And I think, to be honest, the consensus of the market is agreeing with us. That's what -- that's where the consensus is, is a company that needs to transform itself in order to grow faster. What I can assure you is that we are obsessed with that, but we will not do it without having the right foundations. It's better for shareholders to do it this way. Farhan Faruqui: I can just add, if you like, just on the quarter-on-quarter comment, would you like me to answer that now? John Storey: Fine, I'll take it with you, maybe chat a bit later. I just got another one, just quickly on the collective provision, right? I mean Slide 73 and 74. It looks to -- sort of looks to me like you've basically taken effectively a charge of kind of $200 million, right? Obviously, the economic overlays and the reweightings, as you called out, a big driver of that. But if you look at actually how the model spits it out in terms of where the provision actually sits from a divisional perspective, it looks like it actually kicks a lot of it out actually into the Aussie Retail and institutional divisions. I just wanted to ask like why would you not take a more subjective view on increasing the overlays possibly into the business and the Private Banking division, right? Farhan Faruqui: So no, thanks for that. Look, I think we've -- again, I mean, this has been -- there are some overlays that we've also taken, which we haven't described in great detail. But there are on general macro uncertainty, obviously. There is no trend or any particular impacts that we're starting to see in our Business and Private Bank. And there are also offsetting impacts because where we add some provisions, we also have had reductions to offset the increase in the scenarios as well. So there's been a bit of pluses and minuses. I'm happy to walk you through it in more detail, John, when we speak later. But it's not that we chose not to take in Business and Private Bank. All divisions were impacted by the shift in scenario weights, but there were offsetting impacts, which had different outcomes for each division. Operator: Your next question comes from Matthew Wilson with Jarden. Matthew Wilson: First question, how will the pace of the business banking transformation to accelerate growth and lift returns be impacted by the current macro uncertainty that you sort of outlined, given that segment is front and center of the impact, does it create opportunity? How do you avoid adverse selection and the 50% new bankers? What is that in absolute terms? And where will they come from? Nuno Goncalo de Macedo E de Almeida Matos: Yes. Important topic undoubtedly. The transformation of a business, it's about building capabilities, right? So in that regard, the question could be, does that -- do we deviate from our initial plan vis-a-vis the cycle that we might be facing. I wouldn't think so, meaning having to build a new digital front end, what we are doing, it's something that we will do it in any case, right? And we are not going to reduce the pace of our digital capabilities in business banking, be it on the small business side, which is single customer front end or as we've been saying, or building transact -- bringing Transactive Global, which is our institutional platform into the business banking bigger customers in that segment. Those 2 platforms will continue to be upgraded. One built, the other upgraded continuously. We are actually launching in the second half, a very important release of improvements for business banking customers from Transactive Global as an example. So that does not change. In terms of the bankers, and this is an important element, we need on our bankers force, sales force, we need to do 3 things. We need more. Undoubtedly, we are underweight versus the industry for a size of our ambition. That's no doubt about it. So the 50% increase stands. We might fine-tune it according to the cycle to your point, but stands by 2030. We need better banks -- better bankers, and that means train them and skill -- making sure they have the right skills to a different level. And the launch of our Banker Academy, the new Banker Academy is a reality, and we are going to start having intakes in that academy. We need to significantly have better bankers to face customer needs and the competition. And we need to equip them better with CRM tools. The fact that we, in this half, launched a new CRM platform for them with the Agentic AI was a big milestone. So I would say, in terms of infrastructure capabilities, no change at all. We are fully committed to improve the platforms, to improve the CRM tools, to improve their skills. In terms of how fast do we go on the 50%, of course, the cycle might inform you if you should go faster or not. It's too soon to say. At this point in time, our appetite has not changed a bit. So we are committed to accelerate, if possible, anything we can do in that segment. Matthew Wilson: That's very clear. And just one final one. In your sort of opening remarks in the press release, you mentioned that there's been no material change in the overall borrowing behavior of your customers. If deterioration did materialize in the next 6 to 12 months, as is usually the case when that happens, you see a sort of rapid drawdown of facilities. Is that the sort of leading indicator that you're pointing to? If we did see a pickup in system corporate credit growth due to that, then that would be telling us that things are getting a bit tougher in reality. Nuno Goncalo de Macedo E de Almeida Matos: Undoubtedly, that's one, okay? That's a very important indicator when companies start to draw in their liquidity lines. That's one undoubtedly. But to be honest, there are also other indicators that we should be looking into it. Traffic on our highways, on our streets, that's a very important indicator. Discretionary consumer spending, a very important indicator. So there are some leading indicators that we are also looking into it and many others, to be honest. But that one is a very important one. To be honest, so far, yes, there are some cases, but it's still very, very shy. But again, this crisis is still at the beginning, to be honest. These are weeks. It takes some time to really unfold. Hopefully, we will not, but we can't rule out a more nasty environment undoubtedly. Farhan Faruqui: But just to add to that point as well, Matt, as we look forward and particularly when we talk about capital, we have stressed our capital to see if there was a more elevated level of corporate borrowing, what would be the impact from a risk-weighted asset perspective and capital consumption standpoint so that we can be comfortable that we can continue to accommodate the DRP as well as dividends going forward. Operator: Your next question comes from Andrew Triggs with JPMorgan. Andrew Triggs: First question, please. You talked quite a bit about your mortgage growth ambitions into the middle of this year. Can you touch a little bit more on both the Business Banking and Institutional division side of things on the -- sorry, on the latter, noting that the volumes were soft in the half, and it looks like that was more about the Australian division rather than currency impacts that tends to be the division which is harder to forecast in terms of loan growth. Nuno Goncalo de Macedo E de Almeida Matos: Sure. First, I would like to remind or to highlight again what our strategic stands, okay? We see ourselves as a transaction bank, meaning we want to serve customers holistically. We want to be with them on a day-to-day basis, which means we want to be their main bank for their accounts, for their payments, for their FX, for their 360 needs, which include obviously lending. But we are not a lending-driven organization, just to be clear. We are a customer-driven organization, certainly in wholesale. In terms of the second half and obviously not guiding too much, we would say, first, it's uncertain because the cycle is just unfolding at this point in time. But both in institutional and in Business Banking, on the deposit side, the behavior was good or at market. In Business Banking, we feel we grew in deposit side with markets. And in institutional, we feel that it was a good performance. On the lending side, I would expect to accelerate. Now caveats, the cycle. The cycle will inform us if this element I just quote, it's possible, reasonable, doable, et cetera, or desirable. But at this point in time, we think it will be better. In Institutional, I want to be very clear. We don't target lending growth, okay? We remain very flexible. We target customer 360 relationships, and we target flexibility and lending is a part of that relationship. This is very, very important from a return perspective. We want an institutional business that is profitable and is customer focused. Andrew Triggs: And just in terms of the credit quality looking forward, obviously, you have a very strong weighting towards institutional, which is very high-grade customer base. Can you just talk a little bit more about some of the, I guess, the more energy-exposed sectors within that portfolio and how resilient those customers are, especially given they have, I guess, better access to capital markets and the like versus SME customers? Nuno Goncalo de Macedo E de Almeida Matos: Sure. I will give you 2 or 3 data and then Farhan, you can add for that. Our institutional portfolio is 83% investment grade globally. Our international network, it's 91% investment grade. So it's a very robust portfolio. It's a portfolio that has been year after year for almost a decade showed extremely low loss profile. And this is not, in our opinion, a coincidence. This is the result of a decade of strategic shift from a lending-driven business to a customer-driven business focused on transaction banking on customers that really value ANZ because of its regional presence in Asia Pacific and its global presence as a capital provider. So it's consistent -- and we don't expect to change. But obviously, the cycle is here to test us. With that, Farhan, would you like to add some additional elements? Farhan Faruqui: Yes. Look, I think, Andrew, I mean, I think Nuno covered it quite well. I mean we talked about some of the statistics, and I think it's worth just repeating them just to make sure that we are all consistent. But as Nuno said, over 90% of our international exposure is investment grade and is largely driven by high-grade corporates as well as large financial institutions and sovereign exposures. So it's a very well-secured portfolio from that perspective and has shown resilience, as Nuno pointed out, over the years. 92% of all of institutional is investment grade, if you look at it from an ex Markets perspective. Our loss rate has been very low. And if you look at our -- some of the exposures that we've had to our multiple companies, including energy, these energy companies are generally very high-grade companies who operate in the global space and have not shown signs of stress. So of course, this is an area which we continue to watch. But given the level of coverage that we have from a provisioning point of view in institutional as well as overall for the group and the high quality of the portfolio that we carry in institutional, we feel pretty comfortable with where we are in terms of our provisioning level. Operator: Your next question comes from Brian Johnson with MST. Brian Johnson: And just congratulations on the cultural reset that we've seen at ANZ. There's a lot to be admired. Against the backdrop of that, I just had 2 questions, if I may. The first one is just on the New Zealand dollar hedge. When I have a look at Page 70 of the 4D, it seems to be declining. When does it basically run out? And when would you be calling out if the New Zealand dollar continues to be where it is, when would you be specifically thinking that this would cause a negative delta in the reported earnings? Is it FY '27? Or is it the second half of FY '27? Farhan Faruqui: Thanks, Brian. As you can see in the hedge balances that we have right now in New Zealand dollars, we have about just over $2.5 billion of existing hedges at about NZD 1.10. Assuming the FX rate stays exactly where it is today, we expect to see continued benefits coming through in '27 as well, slightly less than what we've seen in '26 or what we will see in '26, but they will continue through '27, and we would expect that all things held equal, if rates don't change, then if there is any headwind, that would happen closer to the second half of '28. Brian Johnson: So, Just -- Farhan, just having a look at Page 70 of the release, we can see that it looks like you're actually reducing the size of that hedge. Like a year ago, it was NZD 3.2 billion -- it was NZD 3.1 billion at September '25. Total hedges were NZD 3.2 billion. It's now down to NZD 2.5 billion. You're hedging the statutory earnings, doesn't -- just the quantum of it, doesn't that actually imply that it starts to bite in the second half of '27? Farhan Faruqui: We have modestly reduced New Zealand dollar hedges at these levels right now, Brian, but our estimation is that we're in good shape for the next 12 to 18 months, which should take us closer to the end of '27. And then we'll start to see some headwinds coming in '28, a function of what the rates are at the time. But we expect closer to the second half of '28 for any material headwind. Nuno Goncalo de Macedo E de Almeida Matos: And what is important to say, Brian, is that our strategy to hedge our FX exposure of New Zealand dollars and U.S. dollars has not changed. So we continue to hedge. We obviously have a dynamic approach to -- depending on the levels of New Zealand dollars, but the strategy to hedge continues, has not changed. Farhan Faruqui: As well as U.S. dollars. Brian Johnson: Okay. The second one is that if I have a look at the slides at the back on asset quality, for example, if I have a look at Slide 83 in what I think is pretty small text, it says that you've got $1.4 billion of commercial property lending in Asia outside of China. That seems to me like quite a big number, particularly given that the disruption that we're seeing in the Middle East probably has a disproportionate impact in basically Asia as opposed, for example, to Europe. When we have a look at the slide on the long-run loss rate, it seems to me that basically COVID -- the GST wasn't a big event in Australia. COVID, we had massive government intervention. The last time we've really seen a cycle in Australia was 1992. But I'm just wondering, with your downside scenarios and your severe downside scenarios, can we get a little bit more granularity on when you are assuming the Middle East Gulf opens up? For example, there's reports that it may not be open until the end of August, and that's one of the more optimistic assessments. There are ones that are much longer. Could you just give us a little bit more granularity? Because when we have a look at your ECL provisioning today, based on what we've seen from NAB and Westpac, it looks that have preguided on this, it looks to be a little bit light relative to peers. And I just want to assess whether there's a risk when we're coming back at year-end that we see further top-ups. Farhan Faruqui: There's a lot in that, Brian. So I'm going to try and see how best I can address that, and I'm happy to have obviously a longer conversation later in the afternoon. But look, when we looked at -- let me start first step back and look at the broader collective provision levels. As we consider that collective provision balance and the change and the shift to the downside to the severe scenarios from downside by an additional 2.5%, we took a fair bit into context. We obviously wanted to -- we took a balanced view in terms of where the Middle East conflict is going to take us. Obviously, there is no ability to forecast when exactly it will end. But the shift from downside to severe of 2.5% was a reflection of the potential that this war could continue for a period of time. The second part that we considered was that we are still 52.5% weighted to the downside, which reflects the fact that we have a cautious view of the next few months as this war situation plays out. The third, of course, was the fact that we have a strong coverage, as I mentioned, even in high stress periods, I mentioned the last 1 year and the last 3 years where we've had 13 and 20x coverage on individual provision losses. But even if you were to go back to all the way back to GFC, even in the high stress years, we've had close to 5x coverage. So it has -- we've had -- our portfolio derisking has actually stood the test of time over the years where our individual provision losses have been well and truly covered by our collective provision balance. So as we took all of those things into account, we felt that the shift and the change that we've made, which, by the way, is equivalent to the percentage shift that our peer banks have done in terms of 4 basis points of collective provision coverage is consistent with what the others have done. But that having been said, I think it's important, Brian, that we're not -- this is a -- obviously, this scenario will continue to play out. And we are obviously very closely monitoring how the situation evolves, and we'll continue to ensure that our provisions are appropriate in the settings based on -- and the settings are appropriate based on how the situation evolves. So I think at this point, our view, as we said earlier, even on a 100% downside scenario, as I mentioned, we have $65 million higher collective provision levels if we go to 100% downside. And we'll continue to monitor that as well. Our portfolio quality, we've talked about the lowest loss rates for the last few years relative to our peers, very stable loss rates over the last 3 halves and a very different portfolio, if you like, relative to our peers. So it's very hard to make that peer comparison given our portfolio and given the derisking that we've done over the years. Brian Johnson: I suppose the issue is though, Farhan, it wasn't that long ago that you used to disclose the long-run loss rate and it's less than a year ago, it was 18 basis points. Farhan Faruqui: Sure. And Brian, we did update. We did update that. Brian Johnson: And It's kind of disappeared now. Farhan Faruqui: Well, it's not disappeared. What we've done is we've basically tried to reflect the current portfolio that we have and applied the loss rate to that portfolio mix. So when we apply that -- when we apply long-run loss rates to our current portfolio mix, our long-run loss rate will be about 11 basis points. We are currently at 4. Operator: Your next question comes from Carlos Cacho with Macquarie. Carlos Cacho: First, I just wanted to ask about kind of mortgage growth. You talked about targeted growth in certain segments. Can you give us a bit more detail where you're targeting? If I look on Slide 9, it does look like at the moment, pretty much all your recent growth has been driven by investors and in particular, IO, where from what we hear from brokers, you're well below peers in that pricing. Is that the primary segment you're going after the investor segment, just given, I guess, slightly higher margins. And so it's maybe a little bit more accretive to compete aggressively on price there? Nuno Goncalo de Macedo E de Almeida Matos: We are going to segments in general. Obviously, we are targeting the whole market. But we price statically, as we said at the beginning, to segments that we believe are more profitable when you take into account returns and risk, obviously. And that enable us to avoid a previous stance where we were at discount for the whole market. So yes, we have been much more considerate at the time of choosing where we apply some additional, if you want, relaxation in pricing. But in general, especially in the bigger segments, talking about the owner-occupied LTVs below 80%, we are either the second or the third among the 5, and we feel comfortable to be in that position. Carlos Cacho: And then just following up on Tom's question about kind of aligning products with the Sun migration and specifically looking at potential margin impacts. At the moment, your ANZ Progress Saver pays a rate that's 130 bps below the equivalent Suncorp product. If you were to align the rates on that, it would appear like it's a pretty significant margin headwind, potentially as high as 4 or 5 basis points. How do you think about that? Are we looking at potentially having another deposit product to avoid that margin headwind? Is that a gradual process? Or does that kick in when the Suncorp customers migrate? It just -- it would be good to understand how your thinking is about aligning those products where there are pretty material differences in the rates or the types of products they offer. Nuno Goncalo de Macedo E de Almeida Matos: Sure. An important question undoubtedly. As I said, we will have, and we can talk about Suncorp, if we talk about Plus. We will have one set of products under one single brand, a simple set of products. But that does not mean that we have only one product on each family. We will have several savings products and several potential TD products, obviously, and so on and so forth. So the way we are going to migrate those products into our family, we'll have to apply to this principle. We don't expect to have material impact due to the fact that at this point in time, we have 3 different platforms with 3 different products because we feel that they represent different customer needs and different customer profiles. Carlos Cacho: So essentially, there will be 3 Bonus Saver products, 3 Online Saver products once we have the new single customer front end is what it sounds like. Nuno Goncalo de Macedo E de Almeida Matos: We will manage that accordingly. And again, customers choose the products they want, right? And we are obviously going to simplify and harmonize with time, but that does not mean that we'll have one single offer for everybody from the start. Operator: Your next question comes from Jonathan Mott with Barrenjoey. Jonathan Mott: I just have one question. And sort of sitting back and thinking about the 2030 strategy since it was announced back in September to where we are today, it's pretty clear that the costs are going really well. You're doing a great job on simplifying the business. But the one thing that's really changed has been the cash rate environment and the bond yield environment. And obviously been very beneficial to industry margins. And the industry revenue seeing the other bank results and updates and preannouncements coming out, looks like it's the strongest revenue environment we've seen in a very, very long time. Yet when we look at ANZ, the revenue this half was flat. So I understand the need to get productivity, you need to get the Phase 1 right before you get to Phase 2, and you will see the revenue benefit then, but your revenue share is really suffering through this process. So my question is, if you look back and think about it, was that something of a mistake that you've lost out on so much revenue relative to your peers? And do you really need to use some of the higher interest rate benefit coming through to get that revenue moving again? Nuno Goncalo de Macedo E de Almeida Matos: Listen, I think I already answered that question very clearly. So I'm not so sure if I should repeat it or not, but I will with pleasure. Jonathan Mott: Yes. It's just the revenue environment is very different to when you made these decisions. And we can understand the process that you're going through. But really, the opportunity for revenue is very, very large at the moment. It's the longer it takes to get there, it's costing you more money. Nuno Goncalo de Macedo E de Almeida Matos: Yes, I couldn't agree more with you. So I'm going to repeat what I said. We have read the situation of the company 6 months ago or if you want 12 months ago, we did a very clear review of where we were as a company. And we looked into the business capabilities we had, especially where we were lagging the markets in retail and business banking. At the same time, we are making sure we take advantage of our engines that are already in good shape, talking about institutional and New Zealand. We also read our stance in terms of risk management and our regulatory obligations. And if you recall, we were returning very close to cost of capital and our capital was below 12%. And there was debate about our dividend sustainability, right? So we have to face reality. We have to face a starting point. And then we draw a strategy and hopefully, we executed with precision. We were absolutely clear on that strategy, right? We said at the beginning, the levers will be productivity, cost management, structure, margin management, capital management, risk management, return management. I think we have been delivering on it. In parallel, we also said that we are building the capabilities in order to be able to compete in a profitable manner. And this is very important. We are not here to write tickets to our balance sheet, if they are not profitable, if they're not accretive. Shareholders don't pay us for that. Shareholders pay if we write good business, profitable that allow us then to share with them the benefits of that business. And that comes with time and with patience, with a long-term view, really thinking about shareholders and not trying to impress in the short term. That's what we are doing with a lot of conviction, with a lot of discipline, but with a lot of patience. So yes, we could discount and go back to our old model of competition and get more tickets. That wouldn't help shareholders. Frankly, it might not even help customers because it would distract us of the most important thing. We want to compete on our merits, better experience to customers, better propositions to customers, better channels that are able to do their job more effectively and a bank that is not a lender, a bank that is with customers every single day and does fantastic service on their accounts, on their payments, on their effects, on capital-light products and also lend with confidence. That takes its own time. And we will not deviate from that. And I think that's for the best interest of the shareholders, as I think it's obvious already. Thank you. Operator: Your next question comes from Richard Wiles with Morgan Stanley. Richard Wiles: I just have one question as well. Farhan, you talked about the group margin being biased to the upside in the second half of '26. Could you talk about the outlook for margins in the Institutional division and also in New Zealand, please? Farhan Faruqui: Sure. I think -- thanks, Richard, for that question. I think it is going to be slightly different outcomes for different divisions. I think that the potential beneficiary of the tailwinds that we have are probably more business and private bank. I think New Zealand, we expect would start to stabilize in the second half. Obviously, it had the impact of the significant negative -- sorry, significant rate reductions -- sorry, significant rate changes over the course of the last half, but we expect to start to see them stabilize. I think Institutional will remain under pressure in terms of the U.S. dollar rates that we talked about as well as potentially competition, both in lending and in deposits. So we think that business banking would improve. The New Zealand business will stabilize. And I think overall, with the gives and takes, I think the retail business probably has more tailwind as well versus the headwinds. So that's sort of the divisional view. But overall, from a group perspective, Richard, we expect that it will be in the upside. Now as Nuno said, there are other factors which move things around a little bit, but it's a bias to the upside. Richard Wiles: Okay. Could I just follow up on the institutional? I think in the half just gone, the margin ex markets in Institutional was broadly flat despite the headwind that you would have had from the falling U.S. dollar rates. The U.S. is on hold at the moment. I mean it's unclear what they'll do on rates. But certainly, after this week's announcement, there's -- it looks like the prospect of rate cuts has been pushed out. So given the stable margin in the last quarter, why aren't you more positive on the outlook for the Institutional margin? Farhan Faruqui: No, I'm always very confident of the fact that Mark and his team managed the institutional margins very well. I was just pointing out the fact that should there be any U.S. dollar rate reductions, then that would obviously put pressure on institutional margins. Of course, if that environment doesn't materialize, then we think there is a very good possibility that institutional margins remain stable, maybe slightly up. Operator: Your next question comes from Matt Dunger of Bank of America. Matthew Dunger: If I could ask on the Institutional business delivering the vast majority of group deposit growth in the half, and you called out a strong result on operational call. Clearly, you're not leaving with balance sheet on the lending side. So what's happening at the customer level? Where are you winning new flows? And do you think you can sustain this momentum? Nuno Goncalo de Macedo E de Almeida Matos: Yes, good question. Well, undoubtedly, our performance in the -- has been for quite some time on the transactional banking side, has been, I would say, very remarkable for quite some years. And we have been growing deposits, operational deposits at double-digit rates for some time. And that's on top of, on one hand, our focus on that type of business and on the consistent investment we have made on having leading platforms for payments, for FX and for markets. So there is a clear strategic rationale for these results. On the lending side, it's fair to say that we have been cautious, and we have been very mindful of returns. We also know that transaction banking and capital finance, they go hand on hand. We know that very well. So we stand very much ready to support our customers. And we are absolutely willing to put more capital into work in this segment, undoubtedly. It's also fair to say the following. One of our major sources of growth in Institutional has been with financial institutional customers, which, as you know, are customers that are less demanding on finance. They are much more demanding on markets business and then on transactional banking. The fact that we have been growing a lot in financial institutions allow us to be less dependent on capital deployment, that this is also a strategic direction that we took. So on one hand, the type of customers we have been banking are more capital-light and we have been growing. And on the other hand, we are return conscious. But above all, we are absolutely, absolutely ready to deploy more capital, certainly now that our capital levels are at a healthy level in this segment, we want to. But what we will not do is to go into a capital deployment bridge as to -- if you want to show up in our balance sheet that has limited value, as I think we know. Thank you. Matthew Dunger: Could I just follow up with the franking rising to 75%, your lending growth has been targeted towards Australia. So just wondering how important it is to sustain this, obviously, raising the franking positive for your retail shareholder base? Nuno Goncalo de Macedo E de Almeida Matos: Yes. I can talk about that and then Farhan, if you want to add something. But our strategy, as we announced it 6 months ago, our strategy is naturally franking accretive, right? Remember, we clearly said we have 2 divisions that are performing well, Institutional and New Zealand. Those divisions -- well, one is -- New Zealand is outside, obviously, Australia. And in Institutional, there is a part outside of Australia. And then we said our biggest opportunity, our biggest gap in terms of capabilities and obviously, in terms of results is retail Australia, Business Banking Australia. So as we close the gap in these 2 business, which is, again, fair to say initial phase more on the productivity side, second phase, more on the revenue side. Those 2 business will become more important on the mix of business of ANZ, which is accretive to franking. So this is to say this 70% to 75% we expect to absolutely be sustainable. And obviously, this is in the best interest of shareholders. If you want, when we announced an $0.83 dividend and we upgrade franking from $0.70 to $0.75, that actually equates to a $0.02 increase on the net dividend for those type of shareholders. Farhan, do you want to... Farhan Faruqui: Yes. I think you've covered it really well, Nuno. I would just say, as you know well, Matt, that obviously, our franking is an outcome of our strategy, not the other way around. And as Nuno said, our strategy is very franking accretive by definition because it is very much focused on the Australian geography. In fact, our entire 2030 strategy is predicated on the fact that not only will we continue to extend the lead in our businesses in New Zealand and Institutional, but we will have a substantial uplift in our businesses in Australia Retail and Australia Business and Private Bank. So therefore, we obviously are expecting to see franking to continue to increase, as I said, it's in line with our strategy. The other point, which we've said before several times, as you know well, is that we have no incentive to keep any franking benefits on our balance sheet. Our intention is to try and distribute as much of the franking as possible because it doesn't benefit us, but it is a significant benefit in the hands of our shareholders. And we want to make sure that we continue to enhance that value for them as we go forward. Operator: Your next question comes from Brendan Sproules with Goldman Sachs. Brendan Sproules: Brendan from Goldman Sachs. I just want to follow on, on Slide 54 around the revenue momentum within the Institutional division. Obviously, over the last 4 halves, you've had pretty flat revenue growth from a customer franchise perspective, particularly in the non-lending space despite the fact your operational deposits are kind of up 20%, I think, since September 2024. To what extent is rate rises important to really get the revenue growing in this business, particularly now that you're not as focused on lending as you may have been in the past? And then I have a second question. Nuno Goncalo de Macedo E de Almeida Matos: Good. Thanks, Brendan. So obviously, for a transactional banking business, not surprisingly, the rate levels are important. That's very clear, and it is what it is. Having said that, this is a very capital-light business and the fact that we have been growing volumes at a very good pace, above market, it means that the sustainability of that flow, that capital-light flow is very strong, right? And it's on top of great capabilities. On the lending side, we don't target lending institutional, but again, it's very much part of our offer. We just don't deploy capital without a clear rationale for deploying capital, right? And it's within a customer relationship, which means it's within a symmetrical and mutual benefit relationship with our customers. And I believe the fact that we are, by far, the leading institutional bank in Australia and New Zealand tells you that customers really value the way we serve them and we operate with them. So yes, rates are important, taking into account that our replicating portfolio takes a lot of that volatility. So the same way we were hurt when rates start to go down in the last half, it's fair to say that we will benefit going forward. But above all, what we are looking in this business, it's sustainability in a capital-light business. And that's one of the ways to make sure that an Institutional business is profitable, right? And it's profitable in a sustained manner and is not dependent so much on cycles of credit, on credit spreads, on credit demand and potential losses. So we are much more comfortable in being the bank of the day-to-day of companies in a 360 manner, even though, as you said, we will have some fluctuation on rates, but I prefer a fluctuation on rates in a capital-light business than a fluctuation on credit cycles, to be honest. Farhan Faruqui: If I can just add one other point to that Nuno is absolutely right, these businesses are, by definition, leverage to the upside on rates. But there is the other element of the fact that Nuno mentioned volumes, but we also very carefully manage and monitor the cost per dollar of FUM in this business because effectively, at the end of the day, we're seeking returns. And those returns from the cash management business drive a number of things. They drive what the cost of dollar per FUM is even if rates aren't going up. We monitor volume, obviously, but also it is a very important feeder product or very much of an integral product to the broader businesses that clients do, whether it's on trade, whether it's on markets flow business, including FX, et cetera, which are intricately linked to payments and cash management. So it's -- it is a very central part of the ecosystem of what we do with our customers, which is the point that Nuno has made around transaction banking and services being center of plate for our customers in institutional. So it has a number of other value drivers, which don't necessarily always show up in just fees and commission, for example. Brendan Sproules: Maybe if I could just follow on from that. I'm just trying to sort of understand where Institutional sits in the longer-term 2030 vision. Obviously, a 13% return on tangible equity is your group target. Currently, Institutional is your largest contributor from a revenue perspective. It's 30% and its return on tangible equity is 14%. It's been pretty constant. Just given what you outlined there, am I imagining that this will still be your biggest contributing division when we get to 2030? And because of the capital-light nature of how you want to run this business that we can expect that return on tangible equity to grow and be a major contributor to the group's overall target of 13%? Nuno Goncalo de Macedo E de Almeida Matos: Yes. Important matter, which is the mix of business and how the mix of business will evolve with the strategy. As you know, we didn't guide on mix of business in that regard. Having said that, what I think it's disclosable is the fact that Institutional is a business where we are a leader, right? We are a leader in Australia, in New Zealand, and we are a highly competitive franchise, especially in Asia Pacific. Leadership has a benefit. It always -- you always over-index in returns when you are the leader, right? So this is a jewel we have. It's a significant part of our business. We want to make sure that, that business continues to be the leader. In that regard, you should not expect a significant reduction of the mix -- in the mix of ANZ in Institutional. Also in that regard, we want to make sure that Institutional remains a very profitable part of our franchise. We don't want to, again, depend on credit. But -- and this is an important element for the cycle, the fact that we have good levels of capital in a cycle where credit spreads potentially will improve, we stand ready to benefit from the improvement of credit spreads because, again, we are a capital finance provider. So Institutional will remain very important. We will remain a leader in the market we just mentioned. It will continue to be a capital-light business. We don't expect degradation of returns, but there will be obviously cycles. I think with that, you have an idea where we want to stay with this business by 2030. Operator: There are no further questions at this time. I'll now hand back for any closing remarks. Nuno Goncalo de Macedo E de Almeida Matos: All right. Thank you, Darcy, and thank you, everyone, for joining us today. Before we wrap up, I would like to reiterate our 3 key messages. First, our transformation is running at pace, and we are making good progress in executing our 5 immediate priorities safely, sustainably and on time. Second, in parallel, we are investing in line with our ANZ 2030 strategic initiatives to deliver to our customers, to accelerate growth and to outperform the market beyond '27. And very important, we are already delivering materially better returns for shareholders. I look forward to consistently updating you on our progress. Thank you so much.
Joahnna Soriano: Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us today, and welcome to Ayala Land's First Quarter 2026 Briefing. Let me begin by introducing our panel. Meean Dy, President and CEO; Jed Quimpo, CFO and Treasurer; Mariana Zobel De Ayala, Group Head for Leasing and Hospitality. We're also joined today by members of our Management Committee; Mike Jugo, Head of the Premium Residential Business Group; Robert Lao, Head of Strategic Growth, New Ventures and Central Land Acquisition; Darwin Salipsip, Group Head of Construction Management; Raquel Cruz, Head of the Core Residential Business Group; and Isa Sagun, Chief Human Resource Officer. We likewise acknowledge the presence of our broader management team. Please note that the press release and presentation materials are available on our Investor Relations website at ir.ayalaland.com.ph. For any questions we may not be able to address during the briefing, we will respond via e-mail at the soonest possible time. At this point, I'd like to turn it over to our CFO, Jed, for his presentation. Thank you. Jose Eduardo Quimpo: Thank you, Joe. Good afternoon, everyone. I will be presenting Ayala Land's first quarter 2026 performance to be followed by key messages by our -- from our President and CEO. First on the headline numbers. Ayala Land registered total revenue of PHP 37.5 billion for the first quarter of 2026 and generated net income of PHP 5.4 billion, down 14% and 23%, respectively, versus same period in 2025 as a result of continuing headwinds faced by our property development business, which was partially mitigated by the strong performance of our leasing and the hospitality business. We invested a total of PHP 23 billion in capital expenditures, in line with our original 2026 plans, with a notable increase in investments in leasing assets as we continue to execute our pivot to leasing to balance the business profile. Net gearing remains strong at 0.81:1, well within our debt guardrails and debt covenants. In terms of revenue breakdown, revenues from our Property Development business registered PHP 20.3 billion, down 27% versus prior year as our Residential business segment, which registered total revenues of PHP 17.4 billion, continued to face market sentiment headwinds and uncertainties. Similarly, our Estate lot segments composed of commercial and industrial lots for sale, which registered PHP 2.9 billion in revenues, is also down versus same period last year, wherein we saw strong commercial lot bookings in quarter 1 2025. On the other hand, our portfolio of Leasing and Hospitality businesses was solid, growing by 9% versus the same period last year. Excluding the impact of our sale of our 50% share in Alabang Commercial Center, our Leasing and Hospitality business on a like-for-like basis grew by 12%. Shopping centers registered revenues of PHP 5.8 billion, up 2% versus prior year on the back of the reinvention of our flagship malls and improved merchant sales. Our Office business delivered flat revenues at PHP 3 billion as contractual escalations was offset slightly by higher vacancy and the resulting sale of the office space owned by Alabang Commercial Center. Our Hospitality business grew by 30%, registering PHP 3.4 billion in revenues, driven by both increased capacity from our newly renovated assets and the recently acquired New World Hotel. Finally, our industrial real estate business grew by 23% at PHP 0.4 billion with significant improvements in occupancies versus prior year. We've also seen growth in our services businesses as a whole. While our net construction or construction revenues from non-Ayala Land clients was slightly down at PHP 2.4 billion, we saw an increase in our property management and retail electricity sales to third-parties, which was up 21% to PHP 0.9 billion. Interest and other income likewise increased to PHP 1.2 billion, up 34% from increases in interest income and marketing and management fees. To our income statement. As mentioned, the company registered a total of PHP 37.5 billion in revenues for the first quarter of 2026. Total expenses amounted to PHP 29.2 billion, minus 12% versus prior year. This is on the back of lower real estate expenses, which was down 16%, but was partially offset by increase in general, administrative expenses. Interest, financing and other charges were stable, up by just 1%. Earnings before tax amounted to PHP 8.2 billion, down 21% versus prior year. After provision for income tax and taking out noncontrolling interest, net income attributable to ALI equity holders amounted to PHP 5.4 billion. Our GAE ratio stood at 7%, slightly up versus same period last year, but our EBIT margin was stable at 35% as we saw increased contribution of leasing business to our overall revenue mix. Let me now move on to our operating results. Notwithstanding market environment, our sales team delivered a total of PHP 28.2 billion of property development sales for the first quarter of 2026. This is just 8% lower versus prior quarter and equivalent to monthly sales of PHP 9.4 billion. Notable as well was that this was delivered despite having no new launches in the quarter. Our sales mix was fairly similar versus prior periods, wherein close to 60% was for Premium Residential, just under 30% in Core Residential and the balance in Estate Lots. Deep diving on our Residential business. Residential sales take-up in the first quarter registered at PHP 24.4 billion, down 22% versus prior year, but steady on a quarter-on-quarter basis. Sales mix between Premium and Core segment is broadly similar to prior periods at a ratio of 2/3 to 1/3, respectively. Within our product offerings, we have seen a notable quarter-on-quarter improvement in sale of horizontal products. And by location, our regional products now account for more than half of our quarterly sales. Buyer profile is likewise broadly the same, with over 70% being sold to local Filipinos, over 15% to overseas Filipinos and the balance to other nationalities. The decline versus same period last year is broadly the same across all 3 segments. Moving on to our Leasing business, first, starting with our shopping centers. As mentioned, our shopping centers delivered a 2% revenue increase versus same period last year. On a like-for-like basis, however, meaning excluding our 50% stake in Alabang Commercial Corporation, the portfolio grew by 8%. Our shopping centers business continued to demonstrate improving lease out. This, plus the delivery of additional gross leasable area this 2026, marks a banner year for the business. In the first quarter of 2026, we opened Phase 1 of Ayala Malls Arca South. We are on track to deliver an additional 190,000 square meters of GLA this year as well as complete the reinventions of our flagship malls by the middle of the year. Our Office business continues to have healthy occupancy versus industry, with a pipeline focus on areas with low vacancy. Lease-out rate was slightly down at 88% versus 90% same period last year due to the additional capacity, which opened late 2025. This year, we will open another 70,000 square meters of office GLA, all of which will be located within our estates, which is our key differentiator. Beyond 2026, we have a pipeline of 250,000 square meters of GLA, which will be located in major CBDs such as Makati, BGC, Quezon City and Cebu. Our hospitality business of hotels and resorts delivered improved occupancy across all our formats. In addition, newly renovated assets are driving both higher capacity and higher room rates. Occupancy for hotels registered at 72%, while resorts occupancy was at 71%, a significant improvement from a year ago. We are likewise on track for the completion of Mandarin Oriental for quarter 4, 2026. Finally, our industrial real estate business saw improvements in lease-out rates. Both dry and cold storage facilities are at mid to high 80%. For 2026, we look to bring on board additional 9,000 pallet positions of cold storage in Cebu. We invested a total of PHP 23 billion for the first quarter, in line with our original CapEx plan, with notable increase in our investments in Leasing and Hospitality, which increased by 53% versus same period last year. Investments in Leasing and Hospitality now account for more than 1/4 of our total capital expenditure. We expect this share to continue to increase for the rest of the year. In terms of our debt profile, we maintained over 80% of our debt contracted long-term, and we've managed to keep our borrowing cost stable at 5.5%. Of our PHP 25 billion of debt maturities this year, we've already refinanced over PHP 15 billion in the first quarter and with the balance of just under PHP 10 billion to be refinanced this second quarter as planned. We continue to prudently manage our yearly maturity levels, ensuring that maturities are at 10% of our total debt on the average. The weighted average maturity of our debt portfolio as of end of first quarter is 4.1 years. This we expect to lengthen by end of 2026 as we convert short-term debt into long-term debt for the remainder of the year. Our balance sheet remains solid, with net gearing ratio of 0.81:1, well within our guardrails and debt covenants. Given current conditions, we have increased our cash and cash equivalents position to PHP 21 billion. We ended the first quarter with over PHP 1 trillion in assets, PHP 17.5 billion more than the end December 2025 levels. While our net debt increased in Q1, we view this as temporary, and we continue to aspire for minimal incremental increase in debt for the full year 2026, with cash generated from operations and proceeds from our portfolio management. Our debt service coverage ratio continues to be more than adequate, with current ratio more than 1.5x and our interest rate coverage ratio comfortably way above 4x. In summary, despite market headwinds in property development, Ayala Land delivered PHP 37.5 billion in revenues and net income of PHP 5.4 billion. We continue to invest in the business totaling PHP 23 billion of CapEx with a notable increase in leasing asset. Balance sheet remains strong with net gearing of 0.81:1. This ends my presentation. Thank you for listening, and let me turn over the floor now to Meean. Anna Maria Margarita Dy: Thank you, Jed, and good afternoon to everyone. Our strategy for 2026 is clear and deliberate: to ensure that capital discipline and balance sheet strength are maintained; to expand our Leasing and Hospitality platform; and to maintain stability in our Property Development business. We are growing by strengthening our recurring income base while pacing our Residential business to ensure we can deliver with certainty. The Middle East conflict is an external shock that is challenging the domestic macro environment. But this context also makes Ayala Land's strengths clearer, high-quality assets, balance sheet discipline, the ability to keep executing where demand and conviction remain strong and a Leasing and Hospitality platform that is becoming a larger contributor to earnings and cash flow. We are becoming a more balanced Ayala Land with greater resilience and flexibility to manage the cycles. For 2026, we are targeting minimal incremental debt with capital expenditures largely funded through internally generated cash. In the first quarter, net debt increased by PHP 16 billion, but we expect this to moderate by year-end as residential unit turnovers progress and our leasing assets continue to stabilize and generate steady cash flow. We have recalibrated our CapEx to approximately PHP 50 billion from our original guidance of PHP 70 billion to PHP 80 billion. Our balance sheet remains robust with an asset base of approximately PHP 1 trillion or around 3 times our debt level, and our interest coverage ratio remains above 4x, giving us flexibility to manage the cycle while preserving capacity for long-term growth. Three years ago, we made a deliberate strategic decision to increase the contribution of our Leasing and Hospitality businesses. That strategy is now beginning to show in our results at a time when resilience matters most. Leasing revenue grew 9% for the quarter. And excluding the effect of Alabang Town Center sale, growth would have been 12%. This reflects the strength of a diversified recurring income platform across malls, hotels, offices, industrial leasing and estate-based assets. Of note, these activities are meaningfully shifting Ayala Land's earnings profile. Leasing and Hospitality now account for 34% of Ayala Land's revenues, up from 23% in 2019, and it is on track to grow at double-digit rates and to account for majority of our EBITDA over the medium term. In malls, we are encouraged that growth is not coming only from new space. Foot traffic and same mall sales are up 6% year-on-year and 10% year-on-year, respectively. supported by our renovations and merchant replacement programs across both flagship and core malls. These improvements illustrate how we are making our existing assets more relevant, more productive and positioning them to capture a larger share of the consumer wallet. We expect this momentum to continue. 2026 will be a banner year for our retail platform with 200,000 square meters of additional mall GLA. This is the largest expansion of leasing assets in Ayala Land's history with additional GLA at Ayala Malls Arca South, Nuvali and Evo City as well as the opening of Ayala Malls Gatewalk in Mandaue, Cebu. Hospitality is becoming a more material contributor to Ayala Land. In the first quarter, the portfolio posted 30% year-on-year revenue growth and is now comparable in size to our Office business. This growth reflects improved RevPAR across both hotels and resorts, supported by renovations across 5 hotels and Lagen Island Resort as well as the addition of New World Makati Hotel. We also look forward to the opening of Mandarin Oriental in the fourth quarter of this year. Our Office business remains stable, while Industrial Leasing continues to show good progress with healthy occupancy levels and lease rates. These businesses give us additional stability within the recurring income portfolio and help balance the consumer-facing elements of Leasing and Hospitality. Between 2026 and 2030, we expect to grow our leasing portfolio by 1.2 million square meters of GLA, representing 35% increase from our current portfolio. We are excited not only by the footprint expansion, but by the quality of the assets, the strength of their locations and their relevance to the markets they will serve. Substantially all of these assets will be located within our very own estates. In Property Development, residential presales for Q1 were down 22% and revenue were down 27%, reflecting weaker buyer sentiment and macroeconomic uncertainty. We started the year with a launch target of PHP 30 billion. Given current conditions, we are reviewing launches carefully. As the operating environment becomes clearer, we remain optimistic that we can proceed with selected horizontal launches by the second half of the year. The uncertainties around cost and execution drove us to cancel our Avida Katipunan Heights and pause our Laurean project. These were well-received projects in strong locations, but because construction had not yet begun, we had the ability to act early, minimize disruption, and we will revisit opportunities when cost visibility and market conditions improve. We have a busy year ahead in Property Development. First, we have PHP 130 billion worth of inventory that we will monetize. This gives us the depth to maintain market leadership while being more selective on new launches. Proceeds will be used prudently to preserve balance sheet strength, fund priority investments and return capital to shareholders where appropriate. Second, we will deliver 13,000 residential units in 40 projects to our buyers this year. These are in the final stages of completion and are being turned over in tranches. This supports cash flow, fulfills commitments to buyers and demonstrates that Ayala Land remains very much in execution mode. Our PHP 28 billion stock buyback program ended in early 2026, and the Board has approved a new PHP 10 billion buyback program. This gives us the flexibility to act when there is a meaningful disconnect between the market price in Ayala Land's underlying asset base, earnings profile and long-term growth prospects. And as we monetize assets and generate cash, we will continue to balance reinvestment in priority growth opportunities with returning capital to shareholders, either through special dividends or share buybacks. Our plans for Leasing and Hospitality remain firmly on track. If anything, the current environment reinforces why this strategy matters. In Property Development, we are taking a prudent stance in the near term, but the long-term fundamentals remain intact. The Philippines remains a young, urbanizing consumption-led market, supporting long-term demand for homes, workplaces, retail, hospitality, logistics and mixed-use estates, precisely the areas where Ayala Land has built its strongest capabilities. We will continue to manage capital and cash flow carefully, supported by a strong balance sheet and a diversified portfolio of assets. At the same time, Ayala Land remains very much in execution mode, delivering homes, opening new malls, reinvesting in existing assets, welcoming new hotel guests and supporting the communities where we operate. With our estates as our platform, we are positioning the company to be a stronger, more balanced and more resilient business. Thank you. Joahnna Soriano: [Operator Instructions] The first question is from [indiscernible] of Maybank. [Audio Gap] Unknown Analyst: Yes. Can you hear me? Joahnna Soriano: Yes. Unknown Analyst: I'd like to ask a question on residential. The revenues were down, I believe, 21% for -- specifically for residential. Can you provide more color on why this is? Are these cancellations or maybe part of unbooked revenues? Because I believe you still have like PHP 150 billion, PHP 160 billion worth of unbooked revenues. How much of these are non completions? Jose Eduardo Quimpo: Jed here. Thanks for the question. If I was to look at the revenue profile on the residential for first quarter 2026, the primary driver of the decline is on new bookings. So it's really a sales-driven decline. Two -- As you know, there are 2 aspects of revenue bookings. The first one is from sales and the other one is from POC. The POC is fairly predictable because that's to a certain extent driven by our ability to deliver. So primary driver is in new bookings. In terms of your question on cancellation, cancellations as impact to overall revenues is less than 8%. So we're still tracking, at least for the first quarter, very similar numbers in terms of cancellation impact as the full year 2025. Unknown Analyst: The other question is on the malls. The same mall revenue growth or same mall sales growth is about 10%. And I believe the malls grew rental revenues slightly below that. Can you give us an idea on how is that possible? Is it because of the lower rent on the new malls? Mariana Zobel De Ayala: So -- correct. So you mentioned that the sales is 10% and the revenues are 8%. We have a large number of our merchants also on fixed revenue. So the tracking of sales to revenue doesn't always follow as cleanly as we'd like. That being said, we had -- we saw incredible growth across particularly some of our maturing assets as we call them. Specifically, One Ayala, we saw grew 33% year-on-year, Manila Bay over 20% year-on-year. Vermosa over 100%. So we're really happy with how those newer malls are maturing. Unknown Analyst: Sorry, just one last question on residential. So based from the CapEx targets for this year, is it safe to assume that there are minimal or no launches on residential to be expected this year? Anna Maria Margarita Dy: I think like I mentioned, what we're looking at are horizontal launches on the second half of the year. That's maybe one segment that we will review, but we'd like to have the second quarter, I guess, to assess that. Joahnna Soriano: Go ahead [indiscernible]. Unknown Analyst: Okay. Can you hear me now? Joahnna Soriano: Yes. We can hear you. Anna Maria Margarita Dy: Yes. We can hear you. Unknown Analyst: Okay. My question is on -- it was mentioned by Meean earlier on the canceling the Katipunan project. Does that mean that you are pursuing and for Laurean? It's -- this is the first -- this is my first question. Anna Maria Margarita Dy: Yes. For Katipunan, we canceled the project. So the difference is Katipunan was launched just a few weeks before the war actually erupted. So we were in a much earlier phase of the selling period. So that we canceled. For Laurean, we launched this sometime in September last year, and we said that we would pause that project. And by pause, we mean that we're putting all selling and development on hold for now. And we will revisit it at -- maybe at some point in time when the environment is clearer. We're thinking maybe middle of next year is when we will take a look at it again. Unknown Analyst: Okay. My next question is again on the Resi side. I wanted also -- I had just heard Jed just kind of mentioned that the 22% decline in revenues is really a function of sales recognition and also the progress of the residential units that -- during the quarter. Can you provide us with clarity on whether you're going to see the same trend in the coming quarters? Or does this seem like it's part of the -- is it going to be lumpy in the succeeding quarters? Or -- yes, I just wanted to understand. Anna Maria Margarita Dy: Just to clarify, the first -- the decline in the revenue was, I think, as Jed explained, it's really because of the lower sales and not so much because of any slowdown in completion. So it's really driven by slower take-up in the first quarter. Now as to what we're seeing for the rest of the year, again, I think it's very difficult to make that call right now. I think we'll need the next quarter to see how things will pan out with this disruption that we're facing ahead of us. Unknown Analyst: Okay. I guess the last question will be on the progress of the leasing assets that are going to come in the second half. How is it looking so far? Any updates on that would be appreciated. Mariana Zobel De Ayala: Yes. So we have about 216,000 square meters of mall assets to come online, and they are in full swing. Actually, in the case of Arca, we opened the first phase, so just about 18,000 square meters in February. And we're really looking forward to a number of expansion openings in Greenbelt in TriNoma and then towards the end of the year in Evo City, Nuvali and then finally in Gatewalk, which is in Mandaue, in Cebu. So we are on track. Joahnna Soriano: We have several questions here from Jelline of JPMorgan. First is how much of the 200k mall GLA is currently leased out? Mariana Zobel De Ayala: I don't have that exact number for you. Let me get it. But basically, our rule of thumb is 6 months before opening, we should be at 80% leased out to be able to ensure we can hit healthy occupancy at opening. Joahnna Soriano: And then for offices, she has 2 questions. The first is, what's the level of preleasing commitment? And what drove the considerable dip in office revenues on a quarter-on-quarter basis, considering the low GLA contribution of ACC? Mariana Zobel De Ayala: Yes. So we actually had 6,000 square meters of Teleperformance, which is a building we have here in Makati, and that contract ended. We've actually since leased it out, but unfortunately, there's a dip for this particular quarter, but we expect for that to pick up by the end of the year. In terms of our new openings, for Evo City, we have -- about 40% of our GLA has warm and active prospects. And for Gatewalk, which is later on in the year, about 20% of our GLA has warm and active prospects. Joahnna Soriano: We also have a question on Resi. Can you please comment on your Resi GPM trend in the first quarter of 2026? How do you expect cost to trend for the rest of the year? Anna Maria Margarita Dy: First question was what? Sorry. Second question was cost. Joahnna Soriano: Yes. The first question is, can you please comment on Resi GPM trends in the first quarter? Anna Maria Margarita Dy: I think so far, we've been holding the margin -- the margins for all our projects. So the projects that we have are in later stages of completion. So we're not -- we're a little bit insulated from cost effects because of this Middle East crisis. Joahnna Soriano: The second one is on cost. How do we expect that to trend for the rest of the year? Anna Maria Margarita Dy: As far as construction cost, I think we're more or less still within our budgeted contingency. So we should be okay. Again, it's because we are in the later stages of construction. I think where we would see more significant or meaningful impact are in projects that we are about to start. So we see different numbers. I think the Philippine Construction Association, PCA, seeing anything from 10% to 30% at this point. So those are for brand new starts. But for now, we're really focused on the delivery of 40 projects, which are in later stages of development. So for now, I think we are managing the effects. Joahnna Soriano: Our next question is from Wendy of Uni Capital. Wendy Estacio-Cruz: Can you hear me? Joahnna Soriano: Yes. Wendy Estacio-Cruz: For my first question, I might have missed it, but on the reported sales from the Laurean, how much has been recognized or booked or remaining as reservations as of the first quarter of 2026? Is it included in the total? Or has it been canceled already? Anna Maria Margarita Dy: The booking is very small because there's hardly any percentage of completion. You wouldn't see it actually in our P&L. Wendy Estacio-Cruz: How about in the total sales reservation for the first quarter? Anna Maria Margarita Dy: It's been taken out. Wendy Estacio-Cruz: Okay. When it comes to the buyers' behavior, are there buyers that have opted for refunds or reallocating within the portfolio? Or have you seen any signs of them waiting to go with your brands, for example? Jose Eduardo Quimpo: So when the discussions are going on so far with the buyers of Laurean, those that have done sales take-up, so as you know, we provided them various options, options ranging from staying with the project and discussing with us. We look at it again on or before April 2027, moving to Ayala Land product -- to another Ayala Land product or to those that want their money back, that's also available. So those are evolving discussions at this stage. I don't have the specifics in terms of where they're trading to or all of that. As you might appreciate, it's an important discussion that we need to take with them and it's something that is still ongoing. Our objective is to make sure that the relationship with the buyers continue to remain strong, and we [indiscernible] to whichever of these 3 choices they want. Anna Maria Margarita Dy: Might be too early right now to say. I think these are -- we'll need to give the buyers time to decide on this. Wendy Estacio-Cruz: All right. And for my last question on the input cost. I know in consolidated figures, a lot of cost pressures from raw materials have been pricing. But do you see any -- or can you pinpoint which construction or raw material is like putting the most pressure on the OpEx, like steel, imported raw materials or whatsoever? Anna Maria Margarita Dy: I think you'll -- those are probably not in the OpEx line. You'll probably see it more as part of our cost of goods. So diesel, for example, will affect costs of anything that's excavation or land development, anything imported because shipping costs would also have been elevated. But you'll probably see that more in the cost of goods sold. Joahnna Soriano: Our next question is from Al Hamil of Adram. [AudioGap] We'll move on to Sean. [Audio Gap] We'll get back to you, Sean. We'll proceed first with Carl Sy of Regis. Carl Stanley Sy: Let me just check if you can hear me. Joahnna Soriano: Yes, we can hear you, Carl. Carl Stanley Sy: So I'll start off with some items related to the first quarter performance. So among them, of course, ACC was sold in 2025. And in order to get a better gauge of the profit part in first quarter '26, could you tell us how much ACC contributed in the first quarter '25? Jose Eduardo Quimpo: I can get that to you, Carl. But basically, that would be the differential between the plus 2% and the plus 8% on the shopping center. Now the important thing there, Carl, is, as you know, ACC is a consolidated entity. So while you recognize it at the full line at the top, at the bottom part when you compute the noncontrolling interest, that's when you take out the other 50%. So I think it has 2 different impacts, both from a top line and ultimately at the bottom line. Carl Stanley Sy: Okay. And then if you happen to have -- already for the first quarter '26? Anna Maria Margarita Dy: Sorry, could you repeat that, Carl? Carl Stanley Sy: The unbooked revenue -- unbooked residential revenue? Anna Maria Margarita Dy: About PHP 98 billion, right? About PHP 98 billion. Carl Stanley Sy: Got it. And then I'll ask about the mall business a little bit this time. So same mall sales growth is 10%. And you did mention that some of the malls actually showed very strong performance like One Ayala and Manila Bay. But I'm curious about the malls that were actually redeveloped, how are they performing and -- relative to previous year and relative to your own expectations? Mariana Zobel De Ayala: Yes. So our flagship malls are up 12% year-on-year. So we're quite happy with how that's progressing, especially considering that we've only really completed construction for Ayala Center in TriNoma . We're still closing out on Glorietta and Greenbelt. Carl Stanley Sy: Sorry, you mean that's plus 12%, including the ones that have not completed redevelopment yet? Mariana Zobel De Ayala: Yes. Carl Stanley Sy: Okay. Got it. And then regarding the Iran conflict, you mentioned that CapEx will come down to PHP 50 billion from the previous target of PHP 70 billion to PHP 80 billion. So may I ask what projects or what spending are you cutting? Where are you getting from? Anna Maria Margarita Dy: So we will need to prioritize projects that are going to be turned over this year and next year and malls that are opening this year and next year. Carl Stanley Sy: Okay. Is it fair to say maybe you're cutting land banking project? Anna Maria Margarita Dy: Well, we've been cutting that back for a few years now. So that will continue, yes, Carl. Carl Stanley Sy: Okay. And then you mentioned also about construction costs rising by some estimates, 10% to 30%. But in addition to that, I'm curious if there are other disruptions, supply chain disruptions such as it's taking longer to get particular materials? Is it harder to get labor or any other disruptions? Anna Maria Margarita Dy: Yes, I think that's something that we anticipated, particularly for projects that are in very early stages of construction, which is partly why -- largely why we decided to put Laurean on pause. But the projects that we are really focusing on now are in later stages of construction or later stages of completion, and we should have less impact from supply chain disturbances for those projects. But for projects that we would start, yes, we would anticipate such disruption. Jose Eduardo Quimpo: Carl, maybe to just close out your earlier question. For the first quarter of 2025, Alabang Town Center had PHP 298 million in revenues. That's the retail side, and the office had PHP 43 million in revenues. Joahnna Soriano: So our next question is from Sean. I'll just read it out loud. The first one is, can you share the breakdown of inventory between premium and core now that Katipunan is canceled and Laurean has been paused? Jose Eduardo Quimpo: Yes. So total inventory is PHP 150.3 billion. That's sales value. That still includes the paused project of Laurean. If I was to break down the PHP 150.3 billion, about -- just under 80% is in the premium category and just over 20% is in the core category. Joahnna Soriano: He's also asking about our RFO level. Jose Eduardo Quimpo: Our RFO as of end of first quarter 2026 is about PHP 18 billion, just a bit over PHP 18 billion. Joahnna Soriano: Our next question is from Al. Will the pause of Laurean have a P&L impact or just cash flow? Jose Eduardo Quimpo: As mentioned by our CEO, it's a very minimal P&L impact for us because it's a project that has barely started. So yes, there will be some cash flow impact. But as you know, in terms of pay terms, only a percentage of the sales value is actually on hand with Ayala Land. And as I mentioned earlier, we're offering buyers 3 options. So cash flow impact will ultimately be managed because of the quantum. And then the second one, of course, is if they choose another Ayala Land product, then clearly cash flow impact is negligible for us. Joahnna Soriano: In relation to that question, we also have a question from Russ Toribio of Bank of America. Any update on the treatment of the commissions we paid or have been paid in relation to Laurean? Anna Maria Margarita Dy: So we will expense that. Joahnna Soriano: Our next question is from Liam of [indiscernible] Securities. Unknown Analyst: So my question is more on forward-looking. First is on the BSP's recent key policy rate hike to 4.5%. I just want to hear from you how this might impact your sales take up this year? And if possible, can you share with us the buyer's profile in terms of investors over end users, both for horizontal and vertical projects? That's my first question. Anna Maria Margarita Dy: So impact on sales take-up. So typically, well, clearly, increasing in interest rates is discourage, particularly in the core segment where 90%, I would say, of our buyers would be taking up a mortgage. In the Premium segment, that's a much smaller number. So there's a little less, I guess, sensitivity to mortgage rates. As to the split of investors and end users, I would say maybe 50-50 on the Premium segment. But particularly on the Premium segment, investors here are probably ones who are looking for capital appreciation more than yield. So it's a different profile of buyer -- of an investor buyer, particularly in the Premium segment. Joahnna Soriano: I think your answer was choppy during the RFO question. Just to repeat what Jed said, it's at PHP 18.8 billion. Unknown Analyst: All right. I would like to revert first -- back to my first question because the context of that is that BSP has been instituting interest rate easing since 2024, yet rates didn't really reflect that. So will there be a change in mortgage rates do you think, considering that they have recently increased the key policy rate to 4.5%? Jose Eduardo Quimpo: I think a real better person -- or the real better part is to answer that would be the banks, right? From a property developer perspective, you are absolutely correct. We went through a period of an easing cycle. It was over 200 basis points in reduction in policy rates, and that did not have a perfect transmission to the mortgage rates. Best mortgage rates, and I was just tracking it, is at 6.5% for 5 years. So clearly, the transmission on the policy rate reduction did not re down to mortgage rates. Now that we seem to be on a path towards increasing policy rates, it's also, I suppose, hard to say that it will be a perfect transmission on the way up. So far, at least as of -- so far as of our last recording, the 6.5% good rate for 5-year mortgage is still holding. I understand there's a next policy meeting around middle of the year and so we'll see how that goes. My only last comment to that, Liam, is I suppose it also depends on what the risk the banks are seeing in terms of their credit quality. I think those 2 play key aspects for us. Joahnna Soriano: Any other questions? I think we have a question here from Paul [indiscernible]. Unknown Analyst: First of all, am I audible? Joahnna Soriano: Yes, you are. We can hear you. Unknown Analyst: So I have 2 questions. So first on the margins. I understood the residential margins were already raised earlier. Can you provide us the percentage of margins on the Residential segment, particularly between horizontal and vertical as of end first quarter? Jose Eduardo Quimpo: Horizontal 45%, vertical 38%. Unknown Analyst: Sorry, how much is vertical? Jose Eduardo Quimpo: 38%. Unknown Analyst: Okay. Got it. And my last question is on lot sales. So what's your outlook on -- what's the management's plan on lot sales? Because I understood that it is down by 53%. This is coming from 90%, if I'm not mistaken, increase during the fourth quarter? Anna Maria Margarita Dy: So lot sales are really lumpy because these are -- some of these lot sales are large in terms of value. I think similarly to the residential, we'll really have to wait and see in the second quarter as to how the market for the lot sales will be. There are a couple of deals that we are currently working on. We have a good pipeline, but I would think that we would need to see how things are in the second quarter before we can make a call on that. Unknown Analyst: Liam, did you have any additional questions raised? Okay. Here's Liam's questions. Is the 21% drop in Resi sales indicative of full year trend? How has mall foot traffic changed between January, February versus March with the onset of the ME conflict? Jose Eduardo Quimpo: Yes. Maybe I'll take the question on the Resi one. So as our CEO mentioned, it's just a bit too early to make a full year call. The Middle East crisis is, what, 40-something days old. Clearly, to give guidance today would be an erroneous or likely an uninformed guidance. So what I would say is that we continue to observe the market. We believe we can have a better call at this as we see how it impacts our second quarter. We look to continue to deliver sales. The quantum targeting, I think that's something that we're trying to look at. On...? Mariana Zobel De Ayala: March was actually a strong month from a foot traffic standpoint. Jan and February are generally seasonally lower times. So I don't think yet we've kind of seen the impact through March. Joahnna Soriano: The next question is from Diane from Papa Securities. Are there cancellations or more projects that will be canceled other than what has already been disclosed? Anna Maria Margarita Dy: So the answer is no. The reason is both these projects, Laurean and Katipunan, have not yet started construction. All our other projects are in flight. Joahnna Soriano: Any additional questions from the floor or from the chat box, please feel free to type it in. Liam, did you have any additional questions? Go ahead, Jelline. Jelline can you hear us? Jelline Gaza: Can you hear me? Joahnna Soriano: We can hear you. Jelline Gaza: Can you hear me? Okay. Yes, I just have a clarification on a comment made earlier wherein it was mentioned that the Laurean presales have been reflected in the first quarter presales. Can I confirm that the entirety of the PHP 9 billion to PHP 10 billion has been reversed and reflected in the PHP 24 billion? And in such case, could you disclose the like-for-like movement in presales without Laurean? Jose Eduardo Quimpo: Jelline, thanks for the question. There's 2 -- So the -- as mentioned in the presentation earlier, we are talking about 2 projects, Katipunan, which we canceled. And by virtue of the canceling, we took that out on the sales take-up number. The second one is Laurean, which is on pause. A project on pause is still part of the sales take-up. So Laurean is also -- sales of Laurean are still part of first quarter 2026 numbers. Jelline Gaza: Okay. So no reversals. Okay. Jose Eduardo Quimpo: Yes, ma'am. Joahnna Soriano: We have a question here from [indiscernible] from China Bank regarding development. What drove the core market take-up growth on a quarter-on-quarter basis? How has RFO take-up progressed? Jose Eduardo Quimpo: I guess, I suppose the key answer on core market take-up growth is concentrated sales. As you know, we haven't really been launching anything significant on the core market for quite a while now. So our sales teams are continuing to focus to move inventory. As I mentioned earlier, our core inventory is now just less than 20% or just about 20% of our remaining inventory. So that seems to be at a good bright spot for us in terms of very early indications of what could be something that we could bring out to the market. In terms of RFO progress, again, that's something we've extremely shown discipline on. You've seen us actually being able to bring down our RFO to less than 10% of our total inventory. That is still and will continue to be the game plan. Our sales teams are focusing on -- likewise on RFO sales to ensure that from a capital management basis, these units are appropriately remonetized so that we can get back into the game. Joahnna Soriano: We have a question here from Derene. Back in February, before the Iran war, the launches this year was announced to be at PHP 30 billion, roughly half of what it was in 2025. May we know what the figure is now? Just to reiterate what our CEO said earlier, we did not provide a specific absolute amount, but we did say that in the second half of this year, we will be revisiting the potential or the possibility of launching horizontal projects. We have your question from [indiscernible] from Security Bank. Just want to understand the sales trend and reservation sales. Would you have any monthly trend in this? How are the take-up trends since February to April, given the onset of the Middle East conflict? And what's the current strategy to push more sales over the short term? Anna Maria Margarita Dy: So typically, the way sales work is the third month of the quarter is the strongest. That's just the way sales works for various reasons. And in the first quarter, because that's also the time where we had the crisis, I guess, happened, March didn't pull it through for the first quarter. So I don't think it -- we can tell you what it is on a quarter-on-quarter basis because sales behaves differently. It's usually the third month of the quarter where really -- it is typically the strongest month. But because of the crisis last quarter, March did not pull it through for us. Joahnna Soriano: One last question from Al Hamil. Is your group planning to be more aggressive in monetizing land bank to help cash flow? Anna Maria Margarita Dy: I think we've been quite aggressive in using our land bank. In the past -- I think in the past 2 years, we've been -- or 3 years almost, we've been using about 800 hectares for our own use. So we've been quite aggressive in terms of launching our horizontal projects. So that's usually the biggest user of our land bank. We will be -- we will continue to be very active in managing our portfolio. That includes land bank as well as some of our other assets. And this is really to, I guess, ensure that we are repositioning our asset base to something that is more, I guess, near term versus longer term, moving away from noncore and going into more core assets. Joahnna Soriano: That is the last question. We apologize again for the quality of the audio. We will be sharing a transcript of the call this afternoon. Okay. So that concludes our briefing on Ayala Land's performance for the first quarter of 2026. Again, if you have any further questions, please feel free to reach out to the team directly. And again, a recording of the briefing will be made available on our website at ir.ayalaland.com.ph. Once again, thank you, everyone, and have a good rest of the afternoon.
Operator: Welcome to Rato's Q1 Earnings Call 2026. [Operator Instructions] Now I will hand the conference over to CEO, Gustaf Salford; and CFO and IR, Anna Vilogorac. Please go ahead. Gustaf Salford: Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I will begin with a brief overview of the quarter, and then Anna will go through the financials in more detail. Overall, we delivered solid growth in what continues to be a mixed market environment. Net sales increased by 3.4% and adjusted EBITA came in at SEK 460 million (sic) [ SEK 417 million, ] corresponding to a margin of 9.3% and EBITA growth of 21%. Adjusted earnings per share was SEK 0.67, an increase of 81% compared to last year. We had a strong start of the year in our industrial product companies. Diab and HL Display both posted healthy growth. On the industrial services side, the quarter was more challenging. Both Knightec Group and Aleido faced softer demand and tougher market conditions. Our results for the quarter was negatively impacted by 2 main factors: First, lower volumes and gross margins among our technical consulting businesses. And secondly, at Speed, we continue to invest in automation to increase capacity and efficiency over time, which temporarily affected profitability as we absorb these investments. During the quarter, we also launched our strategy, Ratos 2030. The strategy reflects a clear direction. Ratos is returning to its roots as a focused long-term investment company, owning both majority and minority stakes in Nordic companies. For the '26, '28 period, we have 3 strategic objectives, and I'll walk through each one and highlight what we delivered in the first quarter to support them. Firstly, we're building a more focused Ratos. In Q1, we launched a new strategy, provided greater clarity on the portfolio, as you also can see in our Q1 report, and also exited Expin Group, steps that reinforce our focus and where we allocate our time and capital. Secondly, we are driving profitable and capital-efficient growth through organic initiatives and add-on acquisitions. And in the first quarter, we saw significant orders for Aibel, TFS and Presis Infra. We delivered organic growth, and we generated a robust earnings contribution. We also completed HL Display's add-on acquisition of Deinzer, which supports both growth and value creation in that business. Thirdly, we'll further develop our ways of working as a company. And during Q1, we increased our external presence on portfolio company Boards, including the appointment of Daniel Kjørberg Siraj as Chair of the Board for Presis Infra. We have clarified how we categorize our portfolio and where we'll focus going forward. The purpose is to create a clear and more transparent structure for how we manage the companies and how we track progress against our financial targets. At a high level, we now distinguish between core and noncore companies. Our core portfolio is where we will concentrate ownership attention and capital to drive profitable capital-efficient growth over time. And if we now turn to our companies and especially the companies in the industrial products, we saw that performance developed well this quarter, especially for Diab and HL Display, and all companies delivered organic growth. Diab delivered a strong 16% organic growth in the quarter, supported by increased demand from defense customers and profitability improved on the back of the higher volumes combined with lower depreciation. We also saw a strong development in return on capital employed. HL Display reported 4% organic growth, and we saw positive sales development in North America. And as mentioned earlier, the acquisition of Deinzer was completed during the quarter, strengthening our offering and supporting further growth going forward. LEDiL delivered 1% organic growth, driven by the indoor business, while outdoor business continue to face a more subdued market environment. Turning to our industrial services companies, the quarter was more challenging, reflecting a cautious market environment and low utilization in parts of our consulting businesses. Aleido reported a negative minus 4% organic growth and the market remained cautious and utilization was lower, which affected performance. At the same time, we continue to strengthen our offering, and we were awarded a contract to deliver a new AI-based platform solution, which is an encouraging step as we build capabilities for the future. Knightec delivered a negative minus 2% organic growth. We saw utilization challenging, driven by uncertain market conditions where customers continue to be cautious with new project starts. Speed grew 12% organically, supported by continued momentum in our logistics solutions and new customers. And profitability was impacted during the quarter as we progressed automation projects that are investments we believe, are important to improve capacity and efficiency over time and prepare for growth and margin improvements. TFS delivered 18% organic growth, primarily driven by an increased share of pass-through revenues, while service revenues were down. Importantly, we received a major order of approximately SEK 350 million, supporting a stronger development of the business going forward. Moving to our infrastructure companies. Presis Infra delivered 2% organic growth in the quarter and profitability was somewhat lower, mainly driven by product mix and timing effects but we continue to see a robust order backlog, which supports good visibility for the coming quarters. And now moving on to our minority holdings. Starting with Aibel, the company was awarded a major framework agreement with Equinor. The agreement has a fixed duration of 5 years with options for extension. The total value is estimated at around NOK 20 billion over the fixed period, an important win that supports long-term developments. For Sentia, the share price has increased by more than 40% since the listing in June 2025. We also expect to receive a dividend from Sentia in Q2 of approximately NOK 220 million, corresponding to Ratos share. And lastly, a brief update on our noncore consumer companies. KVD delivered minus 3% organic growth impacted by lower used car volumes. At the same time, Forsbergs Fritidscenter performed well with a strong order backlog and solid sales and results. Oase Outdoors reported 12% organic growth, and the business unit built inventory ahead of the peak season in the second quarter, which is consistent with normal seasonal preparations. And Plantasjen delivered 4% organic growth, with growth in both the Swedish and the Norwegian markets, and the profitability was impacted a bit by product mix and higher energy costs during the quarter. And with that, I would like to hand it over to Anna for the financials. Anna Vilogorac: Thank you, Gustaf. And without further ado, let us dig into some more details. So really on the positive side, this quarter, again, a second quarter in a row now, we displayed positive organic growth, just above 3%. But also if we look at the 12 months rolling trend, this also now is in a positive trajectory. Also another quite positive item in this quarter is that our EBITA improved by 21%. This is from a meaningful impact of the Sentia contribution, and we will come into more details for that. But just as a reminder that Sentia was not a part of this. The Sentia holding was not part of our Q1 2025 numbers. So here, we will break down the net sales and adjusted EBITA in different components, starting with the organic one. As mentioned, 3% organic growth Unfortunately, it was a negative contribution on our EBIT. And this stems predominantly from 2 components. One is being Speed, for which we do see this automation investments, which we are taking through the P&L. And the other one is Knightec Group, which actually had organic decline. And here, we see a high drop through straight to our bottom line. Moving into M&A component, which actually was margin accretive. We do see Deinzer effect, even though it was small, it was just 1 out of 3 months. Whilst the other 2 were actually some disposals and acquisitions within Presis Infra, out of which that disposal actually was loss-making. Hence, a really strong contribution from the M&A side, which we do not expect to see in the coming quarters. Moving into FX. As seen in the previous couple of quarters, we still do see negative impact on the top line stemming from both U.S. and euro, SEK strengthening towards these currencies. On the EBITA side, on the other hand, it was quite neutral. Even though we should remember that our global companies, Diab and HL Display actually did see quite a negative impact on their EBIT from FX predominantly strengthening towards U.S. dollar and euro. And here, we can clearly see that meaningful Sentia contribution, which is 150 basis points accretive to our margin. Also, what surprised us positively was Aibel. We are moving towards a year for which we based on the projects that we have, do expect Aibel to come in lower in revenues in 2026 versus 2025. On the other hand, we did see good project execution in Q1 and hence, a bit more in revenue recognition for the quarter, supporting us positively in the bridge. And here, we have now increased our transparency. So we are reporting company by company in our interim report. So bear with me, it's a lot of moving parts here. And I would just make a couple of comments. I would say, again, industrial products is doing really well, both HL Display and Diab. And again, remembering that we do have a currency headwind in both of these companies, which is quite significant and still a very good contribution to the EBITA. We also see this highly negative impact in Knightec Group and Speed. For TFS, just one comment worth making here. We see a healthy top line growth, plus 31% in net sales bridge. However, a negative contribution to EBITA. And as Gustaf mentioned, we see good growth in so-called pass-through revenues. What that is, is us providing third-party services to our customers for which we are not getting any EBITA contribution for. Our service business is actually down and hence then lower profitability stemming from that. When it comes to consumer companies, KVD, Plantasjen, Oase Outdoors, as you can see, not a lot of movements in there, quite neutral for the full quarter. And again, our peak season is in Q2. So that's something to look forward to. And one last comment is that we saw a positive effect coming from the corporate line, has -- it's a twofold explanation. One is that we have dismantled the business area level. Hence, we are running at the lower cost rate currently. And the other part is actually coming from lower transaction costs this time around versus previous year. Looking at net working capital, I would say stability is name of this game. If we look at both absolute and relative terms compared with last year, we are quite flat. When it comes to sequential development, we do see inventories as a preparation for the peak season in Q2 for many of our companies. Inventories are up quite significantly on a sequential basis, but they were offset by other receivables and payables. Hence, the net working capital in absolute terms was quite close from the level we saw in Q4, and that effect in other receivables, payables has to do with us preparing for our dividend payment. Looking at the cash, I would say that this is probably the thing that we are least happy about in this quarter for Q1, it has to do with a couple of differences. And we do have the comparison difficulties versus the same period last year as Q1 in 2025 did, of course, include Sentia, and also, there were some reconstruction effects from Plantasjen in that number. But quarter isolated, I would say, some normal behavior when it comes to net working capital buildup for some companies. We also had some timing issues when it comes to our industrial services companies. And on top of that, we did get a negative effect from our currency loan hedges. And that had to do predominantly by Norwegian krona strengthening in the quarter versus SEK. Looking at the LTM trend. However, as you can see, it is a quite healthy cash conversion. Net debt, quite similar from previous quarters when it comes to leverage, 1.6x. We see, again, normal seasonal pattern for which the Q1 is a step-up, not least due to the cash situation I just described, versus previous year, it's a slight decline in overall net debt. And again, we are at the lower end of our targeted range of 1.5 to 2.5x. And just as a reminder, we do not include our shareholding in Sentia in these numbers. If we would just theoretically and mathematically include those, our leverage would be 0.3x, hence, indicating a very stable and solid financial position, which gives us a lot of maneuverability going forward. Looking at return on capital employed, which is one of our external financial targets. If we first turn to the golden line, we see definitely an impact of us disposing or listing Sentia. As you might remember, Sentia, as a construction company, it's more volatile when it comes to cash flow and net working capital. Hence, we have become much more stable when it comes to those metrics. On the other hand, we did have quite nice return on capital employed, and that's the effect you can see from Q1 and onwards that it's declining. But I would rather us comparing like-for-like, which is then the bottom line. And as you can see, the trajectory is positive. We are, of course, still not happy, and our ambition is to do even more. But this time around, it is nice to see that it's actually moving in the right direction. And last, but what it all boils down to is, of course, the EPS. I think also, it's nice to see that we have EPS accretion throughout the P&L. And if we first turn to the left-hand side graph, this is based on group total. That is how we historically looked. And we see a very healthy EPS growth from Q1 last year to Q1 this year, more than 80% growth. But also if we look at the LTM line, that's also a 16% improvement, which is great to see. And then if we look at the table on the right-hand side, here, we've tried to do it like-for-like just so you understand where this improvement is coming from. So this is based on continuing operations. And again, adjusted EBIT, a double-digit improvement. Net financial items, we also see a double-digit improvement as we have lower financing costs. And looking at taxes, another item actually highly supported this quarter around. Even though I just want to warn you, you shouldn't see this tax rate of 10% as a normalized tax rate. I would say our effective tax rate is estimated to be somewhere between 17% and 19%. So unusually low tax rate for the quarter, has to do with not least Diab growing and having good profits in countries where we have a large tax losses carry forward. So all in all, it's a substantial EPS improvement, and this is a testament of value creation this year versus past year. And with that, I would like to hand over to Gustaf to take us through a summary. Gustaf Salford: Thank you so much, Anna. And if I try to summarize this quarter, it's really about that we launched our new strategy, Ratos 2030. And we also had updated financial targets released for the period 2026 to 2028. It's all aimed at supported increased shareholder value through clear focused and a disciplined capital allocation. Operationally, we delivered organic growth and improved results supported by strong performance in our industrial product companies, where momentum in business like Diab and HL Display helped offset the more mixed market environment elsewhere in the portfolio. And looking ahead, our focus is really to keep driving improvements, execute on the strategy and support the portfolio with the right initiatives so we can sustain profitable, capital efficient growth through Q2 and onwards. And with that, I would like to say thank you, and we are happy to take any questions. Operator: [Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Henric Hintze from ABG Sundal Collier. Henric Hintze: This is Henric Hintze with ABG. So first of all, I would like to ask on Speed, the automation projects you have ongoing there. When exactly do you expect these to reverse from contributing negatively to contributing positively? And what sort of EBITA recovery should we expect there? Gustaf Salford: Henric, I'll start with that question. So the Speed automation is ongoing. It's an impressive project where we are driving a lot of automation in the warehouses. So we will work with that during the spring here. And then during the autumn, it is expected to go live, so to say, and have the positive impact on margins and the productivity for some of our key clients going forward. And then exact financial impact, you will see that in the coming year and onwards, I would say. So that is the operational and financial plan for the Speed automation. Henric Hintze: Okay. And also on Knightec. So clearly, automotive is one of the main drivers of the weakness we see there. How are you sort of approaching this? Is there any reason to believe that there will be a recovery in the near term? Or are you to trying to reduce the number of consultants? Or is it somehow possible to divert them to other sectors? So how are you thinking about that? Gustaf Salford: Yes. I think if you look at the Knightec, and maybe if you include Aleido as well, of course, there is an impact on cars and trucks. That has been a bit more difficult market in terms of project starts, and what Knightec do is really product development and R&D initiatives and so on. So it's very important with new projects. However, we are very well positioned when it comes back, the demand for those products and projects. And as well, we have the defense customers, we see very strong demand at the moment. So I think we have the competence, we have the expertise to be well positioned when the demand comes back. And of course, short term, we are mitigating the current impact from the weaker markets by looking at utilization and looking at the efficiency of the teams and the cost levels and so on to manage this business cycle. But it's also important to say that it's very important that we keep the right expertise to drive growth going forward. And we have a kind of positive outlook for technical consulting companies. But at the moment, it's more a challenging market condition. Henric Hintze: Okay, very good. And maybe finally, could you just specify exactly what the restructuring charges you had in the quarter were for? Anna Vilogorac: Of course, I would say you have -- the biggest one is actually HL Display. They normally consolidate their footprint as they do a lot of M&A. That is a one large one. And then we had a small total overall impact from Expin Group, but that was a smaller one, minus SEK 4 million. The other one is minus SEK 21 million. Operator: The next question comes from Björn Olsson from SEB. Bjorn Olsson: First, just a follow-up on Henric's question on Knightec. So I interpret this that you'll keep your sort of being overstaffed, waiting for demand to return. How long -- I mean given the uncertain outlook in general, for how many quarters do you think that plan could hold before you actually start to take actions? I mean your margin is down 300 bps year-on-year. So sort of for how long should we expect that to continue until you take action? Gustaf Salford: Yes. Thank you, Björn. I mean on that question, I think it's important to say that we come from a year last year of lower cost and efficiencies. So that is something we have been driving for the last year. And we continue to do so because for the company, it's important to mitigate the effect of the lower demand. And then it's impossible to say exactly how many quarters, of course, this situation will continue on the demand side. But we are mitigating the effects. We are looking at efficiencies. I wouldn't say we're overstaffed, but it is important to keep the right experts and expertise in order when the demand comes back. So I cannot say exactly what quarter we expect it to come back. But we are mitigating the effect of the lower demand in Knightec. Bjorn Olsson: Okay. On Plantasjen, it seems that the momentum was somewhat picking up in Q1, although with a sort of margin negative product mix. Could you give any flavor of how Q2 seems to be developed this far? Gustaf Salford: Yes. If we look at the first quarter for Plantasjen, I think all of us experienced a quite cold February and there was higher energy costs and so on that impacted the margins. But it's very positive to see that the top line were growing, then the product mix was a bit impacted in the quarter. That was a product mix of a bit lower products also linked to the colder February. However, looking at this quarter, that is, of course, very important, it's spring. And that's when you primarily go to Plantasjen. And I think we have a -- we are optimistic about the Q2 numbers. And I see good activity when I go around and visiting different Plantasjen stores here in Sweden. And I think it's important to say that it was both in Norway and Sweden that we saw growth in Q1. Anna Vilogorac: And just reminding, Björn, that April last year was actually a very good month for Plantasjen. So perhaps from that reason as well, quite difficult for us to judge from April. So it's going to kind of come down to May and June, unfortunately. But again, it's our biggest quarter. This is where everything kind of ties in for Plantasjen. So very important quarter ahead. Bjorn Olsson: Makes sense. So I guess, me and my colleagues will do some secret shopping for the months to come. Anna Vilogorac: Please do. Gustaf Salford: Absolutely. Highly recommended. Bjorn Olsson: And finally, just on your balance sheet. I mean as you report, you are in the lower end of your net debt target and since you don't plan to do any major platform acquisitions either in the near term, have you had any like second thoughts on buybacks? Anna Vilogorac: Of course, again, it's a discussion that is being had at the Board level, of course. So we are constantly evaluating how to allocate capital in the best way possible. We also hope that we'll get additional M&A throughout the year. Again, companies such as Diab, such as HL Display, such as Presis Infra. There is a lot to be done there. So nothing on the table are decided yet, but of course, all of these initiatives or capital allocation possibilities are on the table and being discussed. Operator: The next question comes from Georg Attling from Pareto Securities. Georg Attling: Gustaf and Anna, just a few questions from me. One on a more high level. I'm wondering what effects you've seen from, let's call it, the geopolitical unrest both here in Q1 and also if you've seen anything during the start of Q2? Gustaf Salford: Yes. Thank you, Georg. So Ratos, we are primarily exposed to, I would say, Sweden and Norway when it comes to our revenues. But of course, many of our companies have international operations as well. I kind of -- we haven't been impacted in Q1 really. And you can almost say for the Norwegian stock exchange and also for Aibel, they are, in a way, supported by this geopolitical unrest. And for the rest of our companies, we haven't seen any real impact on supply chains or anything like that because most of our goods were already delivered or in warehouses during Q1. Q2, I don't expect it to impact us significantly. Again, we have the goods we need in order to deliver on the spring season in our companies and as well that only if you take the technical consulting side, it's primarily more on project starts for larger industrial companies that's impacting those volumes. So I would say a very, very limited impact on Ratos both in Q1 and Q2. Anna Vilogorac: And maybe just to add, Georg. Of course, for HL Display and Diab being this international companies, we do hear transport surcharges or raw material inflation. We have initiated, of course, our processes in order to push those kind of price increases towards our customers. So, so far in Q1, no financial impact. And then, of course, going forward, we will try to handle it as best as we can by pushing it to our customers. That's the plan. And I think both companies acted quite early in this. So we don't expect any substantial negative impact on our results. Georg Attling: That's clear. And just a follow-up on that with regards to technical consultants. If you could describe Q1, did you see that demand was higher at the start of the quarter and then declined in conjunction with this geopolitical tension rising? Or has it been sort of subdued throughout the entire quarter? Gustaf Salford: I don't think we have experienced any difference in the demand between the month. I haven't picked that up, no. Georg Attling: Okay. Just a final question on -- also on Plantasjen. Obviously, no margin expansion year-over-year here this quarter, partly attributed to mix, as you described. But when we look ahead on this sort of top line level, have you done what's possible or sort of picked the low-hanging fruit in terms of margins? Or is it more that can be done even without higher volumes? Gustaf Salford: I think you have a great leverage in the Plantasjen business model, if you get the volumes now during the spring. So that's key. And going into the second quarter now with 2 quarters of growth in the business, that's a great momentum to have. And we don't expect this high energy prices that we had in the beginning of the year, especially February, to impact Q2 in any meaningful way. So we're set up to get leverage from the volume we now see in the spring and the Q2 season. Anna Vilogorac: And maybe just one comment, Georg. So for 2025, I would say we believe that we could do 6% to 7% EBITA margin. And then, of course, we had that very cold May. So Q2 was not as good as anticipated. So we landed just below 5%. I would say, cost-wise, we're on the similar level. And the question is whether we can get a bit more top line. Otherwise, you should probably see it as 2025 numbers. That's where we are if we don't get that additional volume now in Q2. Georg Attling: That's clear. Just a follow-up on that also. I mean we've seen the NOK really rallying here in the past few months. How will that affect Plantasjen's profitability? Do you have a similar amount of costs in NOK as well? Or will that be positive for the margin? Anna Vilogorac: I would say so that we do have quite an extensive or large business also in Norway. So I would say we don't perceive any large impact from NOK strengthening versus SEK. We saw a slight positive now in this quarter, both on the top line and a little bit of bottom line, if that gives you an idea. Operator: [Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Emil Nystedt from Kepler Cheuvreux. Emil Nystedt: It's Emil from Kepler Cheuvreux. I have a couple of questions. First, I was wondering about TFS, where you had quite high pass-through revenue in the quarter. Should we view Q1 as an isolated data point here? Or can we expect continued high pass-through revenues moving forward? And then also, if you could please give us some color on the SEK 350 million order intake and how the underlying business is doing. Gustaf Salford: Yes. Thank you, Emil. If we start with past-through items, this is kind of industry standard that you have significant past-through items for the clinical trials. So that's not something strange. In the quarter, it was a higher proportion compared to the average ratio. And then you see this impact on the margins directly. The service revenue, as we call it, what TFS is getting the margins from, declined in the quarter. So therefore, it's so important to see that we now get this very significant order of SEK 350 million that will be part of driving growth for TFS going forward. And as you know, the CRO business is a high margin, low capital employed type of business. So getting growth into that business is key for value creation for Ratos and of course, also for TFS. And I look positively on the industry that the biotech funding is more coming back, and there will be more clinical trials in the areas where TFS is operating. And with that, the ratio of pass-through items should then also go down on average compared to what you saw in this quarter. On the significant deal, we cannot disclose the customer name. But I can say, it's a great customer. It's a very good deal that will be supporting TFS' growth going forward. Anna Vilogorac: So just to give a bit color. So pass-through revenues in the same period last year was 1/3, and it's almost 50% in Q1 2026. So it's a huge increase. And that is because of the phases that these different studies are in. So in certain years, it can be quite high. And in other years, it is more insignificant. Emil Nystedt: And then secondly, on Diab, plus 16% organic growth here in the quarter. How much order backlog visibility do you have in Diab today? And is the current demand level and margin sustainable through the rest of 2026, do you think? Anna Vilogorac: A couple of different points. The visibility that we have is 2 to 3 months, so not that high, unfortunately. So that is what we see. Normally, I would say it is difficult to estimate how sustainable, let's call it, defense volumes are. They can come and go in different periods. And then also you need to remember in this EBITA and margin increase that we do have an impact from lower depreciations as we did write-off fixed assets associated with wind in July last year. So of course, this kind of steep incremental improvement, we do not expect that to continue onwards. So that's something to bear in mind for the rest of the year. On the other hand, we do still see solid markets across the board. Maybe marine segment is not the best one. But apart from that, we stand on several different segments and see a healthy development. But this kind of very exponential improvement should not be penciled in into the future. Let's put it like that. Operator: There are no more questions at this time. So I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments. Gustaf Salford: Thank you, and thank you for your questions. So if we look at Q1, it was really a robust quarter for Ratos with a new strategy launched and improved operational performance with organic growth and margin improvement. So we are really looking forward to continuing to deliver during our important second quarter and fiscal year 2026 and beyond. And with that, I would like to thank you for listening, and have a great day. Thank you.
Operator: It is now the scheduled time. We will begin the Kansai Electric Power Company Fiscal 2025 Financial Report and Fiscal 2026 Management Plan Investor Briefing. Please allow me to introduce our participants. Mr. Mori, CEO. Nozomu Mori: This is Mori. Thank you very much. Operator: Mr. Tanaka, Executive Vice President. Tanaka Toru: My name is Tanaka. Thank you very much. Mr. Kikuoka, Executive Officer, Office of Accounting and Finance. Masafumi Kikuoka: Hello. Thank you. Operator: First, CEO, Mori, will give his presentation first. Nozomu Mori: So I'm going to start my presentation. This is Mori. Thank you very much for joining us today for our company briefing. Yesterday, we announced our results for fiscal year 2025. We posted consolidated revenue of JPY 4,056.6 billion and recurring profit of JPY 518.5 billion. This represents a decrease in both revenue and profit from FY '24. For FY '25, the dividend remains unchanged from the revised forecast announced at the second quarter. We will pay an annual dividend of JPY 75 per share. Looking ahead to fiscal year 2026, we expect a recurring profit of JPY 290 billion. This represents a decrease of JPY 228.5 billion. The main factors for profit declines are foreign exchange movement, fuel price fluctuations, lower nuclear capacity factor and higher costs. These include inflation-driven expenses and increased maintenance and construction costs. Although earnings conditions remain challenging, we will continue steady investment. This includes maintenance investment for safe and stable supply and disciplined growth investment for the future. For FY 2026, we plan to -- an annual dividend of JPY 80 per share. This is an increase of JPY 5 from FY '25. Last October, we presented the status of our new management plan. Since then, we have engaged in dialogue with shareholders and investors, incorporating the feedback we received with further discussions. Yesterday, we announced Kansai Electric Power Group Management Plan 2026. Looking towards 2040, our group aims to prioritize safety above all, lead Japan's energy sector and go beyond Kansai Electric Power to provide a vital platform for a sustainable society. The environment surrounding us is changing rapidly. Geopolitical risks, inflation, rising interest rates and the population decline are progressing simultaneously. At the same time, DX and AI are transforming industries. Power demand is also likely to increase over the medium to long term. In such an era, a vital platform for sustainable society is essential to support the Japan's growth in people's daily lives. At the core of it is energy. While decarbonization remains a major trend, we believe that energy security, stable and secure supply is now more critical than ever. While achieving S+3E simultaneously is a fundamental prerequisite. elevating its delivery to meet the demand will support Japan's sustainable growth. In addition to energy and transmission distribution, we will expand into ICT, real estate and new businesses to provide a vital platform for sustainable society. Beyond the Kansai and Electric Power, we will deliver new value to customers and society in a timely manner. As one group, we will advance the strengthened KX Kanden Transformation towards 2040 and realize our vision for 2040. We will implement disciplined investments totaling JPY 15 trillion on a cumulative basis by 2040. Across the group, we aim to secure a ROIC WACC spread of 100 to 150 basis points. We will also take immediate action to strengthen balance sheet management, human capital and supply chains. The next 3 years are period to accelerate growth towards our vision. Continuous investment is essential for businesses that provide a vital platform for sustainable society. While building new facilities takes time, 2040 is not a distant future. Although earnings conditions remain challenging from where we are, we will, with a long-term perspective, steadily move forward with investments for safe and stable supply as well as disciplined growth investment. For that, we will generate over JPY 380 billion in cash through asset recycling, including the divestment of our shareholdings. This will enable us to balance investments to shareholder returns. From FY '26, we will revise our shareholder return policy. We will target a consolidated payout ratio of 25% to 35% and to maintain or increase dividends. More than JPY 270 billion is to be returned over the next 3 years. We aim to achieve key targets, including ROE of over 8% on a 3-year average. Together with our diverse stakeholders, we will create new value, share empathy and growth and achieve sustainable enhancement of corporate value. That concludes my presentation. Operator: Next, Mr. Kikuoka, General Manager of Accounting, will explain the details of the financial results. Please refer to the materials in front of you or the projector. Masafumi Kikuoka: This is Kikuoka. I will provide supplementary explanations regarding fiscal 2025 fiscal results. Please go to Page 4. We have generally achieved the financial targets for fiscal 2025 set out in our midterm management plan. Page 5. The projected figures for fiscal 2026 based on earnings forecast for each of the financial goals outlined in the Management Plan 2026 are shown in the table below. Please go to Page 8. Track record of growth investments for fiscal 2025 totaled approximately JPY 185 billion. Although the actual results fell short of projected JPY 300 billion, this was the result of thoroughly reviewing each project and making investment decisions with the aim of achieving the expected returns. Please go to Page 14. These are major factors for fiscal 2025. Retail electricity sales volume amounted to 116.3 billion kilowatt hour, an increase of 800 million kilowatt hours. Electricity sales volume to other companies decreased by 4.6 billion kilowatt hour. Nuclear capacity factor decreased by 4.4% to 84.1%. Two lines below is Japan CIF crude oil price, which decreased by $11.0 per barrel to $71.4 per barrel. Exchange rate was JPY 151 to $1, appreciation of JPY 2. Please go to Page 15. Ordinary profit by segment increased year-on-year on all segments, except the Energy segment. I will explain only about the Energy segment on the next page. Please go to Page 16. Profit decreased by JPY 33.9 billion year-on-year to JPY 377.3 billion for Energy segment. This is due to negative impact resulting from a decline in nuclear capacity factor and increases in other expenses and maintenance costs despite the positive impact of increased profits from lower fuel prices. Please go to Page 2022 -- Page 22. This shows the financial forecast. Major factors on fuel prices incorporate the situation in the Middle East. Page 23. We expect consolidated ordinary profit for fiscal 2026 to be JPY 290 billion, a decrease of JPY 228.5 billion. The main factors affecting this are decrease in nuclear capacity factor due to prolonged large-scale maintenance works. increase in fuel costs due to the Middle East situation. The third is due to factors such as inflation and an increase in maintenance work. We anticipate an increase in corporate maintenance costs in Energy and T&D segments. While the situation in the Middle East remains unpredictable, if fuel prices rise more than anticipated, our fiscal year 2026 results will be further impacted by time lag-related losses. We will, therefore, closely monitor the situation and update our outlook as necessary. This concludes my part. Operator: Thank you. Next, Executive Vice President, Tanaka, will explain the management business -- management plan 2026. Please take a look at the Kansai Electric Power Group Management Plan 2026 or the trajectory in the front. Tanaka Toru: So I am Tanaka. I will provide additional details on the management plan 2026. Page 24. This page shows the cumulative capital allocation from fiscal '26 to '28. 2040. So this is placed as a Merck mile. This is not the endpoint. So this is a vision we have towards 2040. And there's no time to wait when it comes to investment for advanced KX Kanden Transformation toward 2040. We'd like to grow together with the Japanese industry. We are serious. And therefore, please allow us to accelerate investments so that we can grow alongside Japanese industry. To that end, of course, we will pursue upside in the operating cash flow. But on top of that, we plan to generate cash through asset replacement and steadily execute a total of JPY 2.5 trillion of investments over 3 years, JPY 1.5 trillion for maintenance investments to ensure safe and stable supply and JPY 1.0 trillion for growth investments. Naturally, we have no intention to make investments with that spread. We want to secure appropriate level of spread. And therefore, we would like to make disciplined investment that carefully assess profitability and business risks. we need to make investment to be able to secure this level of spread. And as for shareholder returns in the coming 3 years, we would like to provide shareholder returns of at least JPY 270 billion over the next 3 years, and we'll strive to maintain or increase dividends. Please go to Page 25. This is about asset recycling initiatives. So we cannot be optimistic. And therefore, we will do asset recycling and generate cash. And this is how we want to go about in our real estate business, I talked about this in the IR Day last December. We would like to increase the proportion of assets subject to asset recycling and aim to recycle more than JPY 550 billion in assets over the next 3 years. And we are thinking overseas JPY 50 billion and others, and we do believe that we will be able to achieve that. So holds JPY 300 billion. And on the 27th on Monday, we announced the notice of tendering shares and the tender offer for own shares by Kinden Corporation. This was a homework for us that we had held, and we have been talking about this constantly, and we have made this announcement for the shares we own, we will look at the market situation in the coming 3 years. We plan to divest at least JPY 380 billion, including Kinden shares this time. Please go to Page 26. This shows the illustrative impact of growth investments. I believe you can see the differences in the characteristics of each business, particularly the time it takes for profits to materialize. And in domestic energy sector, where projects have long durations, it takes 20 years or so to recover. And there's real estate and ICT below where you can recover in a short period of time. So by combining them, we would like to achieve growth. Furthermore, for domestic energy sector whose duration is long, we would like to choose the appropriate financing instead of just focusing on corporate financing, we will be engaged in joint development and capital recycling to accelerate profit generation and improve capital efficiency. And this was a short presentation, but this is all for me. That concludes our explanation. Operator: We will now take questions. First, we will take questions from participants in the room and then from those joining via Zoom. When asking a question please first state your company name and your name. Now we would like to take questions from participants at the venue. Can you raise your hand? Norimasa Shinya: I am Shinya of Mizuho Securities. I have 2 or 3 questions, please one by one. So on Page 5 of the financial results presentation, you are showing your guidance for this fiscal year and your management plan KPI. The President has been saying the next -- the 3-year is going to be a challenging period. You have been repeating that. So you have been given us some level of warning. But in terms of recurring ordinary income, the numbers look more challenged than what I had expected. So for the net profit and ROE of 8% and more, by looking at, I think that you are expecting to book some of the profit from the sales of assets to achieve a net profit. But in terms of ordinary profit, the target seems to be rather challenging. So after the adjustment of time lag, your profit is going to be lower on a 3-year average. So I would like to ask what your -- the assumption is and background is. And towards the later part of the management plan, outside of the non-energy -- sorry, nonenergy businesses, for real estate and ICT, you are showing some aggressive ambitious target for profit for international real estate and communication, you are showing us an ambitious profit target. But it seems as if you are taking a rather cautious approach for your energy business, your power generation and the sales in T&D. By looking at the ROIC target, I don't think your target is that bad. But for the next 3 years, mainly in your energy business, it seems -- I get the impression you are expecting rather challenging business environment. And I think you do have some assumptions for the capacity -- nuclear capacity factor, too, but can you share what your thoughts are? Nozomu Mori: Thank you for the question. Yes, as you mentioned, I have been saying we will be facing some more challenges in our businesses. And this time, if we are going to put that in our language, this comes to the guidance we are showing you now. If I look at the details of various factors, we could not really we -- naturally, we came to this kind of conclusion. Of course, I personally wanted to show higher profit target. But as we are seeing the decline in nuclear capacity factor, and we are seeing the increase in the energy cost now and with the higher inflation, maintenance kind of works we are implementing now the cost for them are having more negative impact to our profit than we had initially expected. So including those factors, we are now showing you the outlook. However, we will be taking necessary measures to achieve growth in the future. So even though we will try to make our business structure more lean, we will be focusing more on balance sheet, and we will be focusing on generating more cash. So we will do our best to make improvement as much as possible. And as time goes by, by looking at how -- what kind of progress we will see, if there are revisions or changes needed, we will adjust our plans. But as of now, with certain assumptions, we are showing you the outlook. Tanaka Toru: So I can add some more information about some of the numbers. Can you look at Page 23. So this is a comparison against the 2025. As shown here, from 2026 over the next 3 years, as we will have the 7 nuclear reactors, we will try to improve nuclear capacity factor to improve our profitability. We will implement the work for next 3 years. So it will be -- we will have a concentration of the maintenance work. And for the foreign exchange adjustment, prices, it is still uncertain what will happen to the Middle East situation. But until the fuel cost stabilizes, JPY 66 billion for FY '26, we will need to assume that kind of impact. But once it stabilizes, most of that will be seen in time lag. So we should be able to collect that in FY '27. And other than that, as Mori-san mentioned, there will be an increase in other cost items and the maintenance-related cost. As you can imagine, we are seeing impact from inflation. But as for our nuclear business, the maintenance work will be a rather long period. So we -- as we implement the thorough maintenance work, we are going to enhance our maintenance. So there will be an increase in the volume of maintenance work. And for our thermal plants. So for coal and LNG, thermal plants, in order to avoid long-term shutdown, operational shutdown, we are also going to enhance our maintenance work, too. So as of these cost increases, of course, there will be some impact from inflation, but we are going to make sure that there will be enough maintenance work done over the next 3 years. And for our T&D business, including our expenses, there will be some impact from higher inflation, but there will be a replacement of a tower. When we were achieving the high economic growth, there was a concentration of construction. So there will be a certain level of CapEx included there. So we will just make a steady progress to implement these plans that those are all included in our CapEx plans. Norimasa Shinya: And my second question is as you are going to face some difficulty over the next 3 years. So that means when do you -- when do you think will be the time where you can pursue to improve your profit or grow your profit? So I think you will be preparing yourself to improve your profitability later on, and there will be a JPY 2.5 trillion of investment, including replacement and growth investment altogether. So including the returns coming from those investments, you will be going back to your profitability and try to further improve your -- the improvement -- your profitability with the investment, when do you think that can happen? So on Page 25, your -- the management plan, I think Tanaka-san had explained about this. So the profitability and the returns from the investment in each sector, I think you are giving us some hint of what kind of returns you are expecting. But beyond medium-term plan in 2028 or '29 to '30 with the higher capacity utilization, you are going to see an increase in the profit. And in the early 2030s, you will -- are you expecting to benefit from the returns from the investment? Is that the kind of time frame you have in mind? When do you -- or does Mori-san think when you can achieve the growth in your profit? Nozomu Mori: Thank you for the question. So for the next 3 years, in terms of the profit, the numbers will look quite challenging. So if we look at the numbers, they look -- remain sluggish. We call it a plateau situation internally. And we may say these numbers are not meeting your expectation. But beyond next 3 years, we will start to generate more return with the better turnover. As for large-scale power generation investment that will take place further out in the future. But there will be some of the investment that can generate the more profit before that. So we will start to make investment for those over the next 3 years. As there are so many centred factors, next 3 years can be the only visibility we can show. But beyond the next 3 years, we are expecting to present some returns from these investments. From the past, everybody has been asking us what our normalized profit level is. So our intention is to bring our profit level back to a normalized level that should happen over the next 3 years. Norimasa Shinya: And my third question is about the dividend and shareholder returns. I understand the profit situation is challenging. But as of your dividend, you may send us clear message and you are expecting to increase your dividend per share. So do I understand you're more catered toward increasing your dividend? You are saying you will either maintain or increase dividend, but what is your intention? Nozomu Mori: Yes, what you said is correct. So the profit we can -- profit outlook we can show is as it is. But in order to achieve our vision for the future and as we as we try to get understanding from our shareholders of what we are going to do to achieve that. So now we are going to increase our dividend per share to JPY 80. We think it's appropriate to increase our dividend per share to JPY 80. There are different perspectives. But as of our dividend policy, we have been presenting our policies. And if we think about our policy, we would like to show JPY 80 per share to be a start line. Operator: Next, Yamazaki-san, please. Shinichi Yamazaki: My name is Yamazaki from Nomura Securities. And I have 2 questions I would like to ask you. First, that investment timing, this time, you are planning to make JPY 1 trillion of investment for growth. Is this evenly distributed? Or is it -- is there going to be more weight on the latter years? Is it going to increase year after year? And also, the asset replacement initiative. And you will be taking initiatives here to generate more cash. And what is the timing you're assuming? Asset replacement, asset recycle, you will be doing that in the beginning and then generate cash and then make investments later. That's what I assume. But how should I think about the timing? So this is my first question. Nozomu Mori: So I would like to give a response. As for the timing or the schedule of investment, the forecast of investment, already for thermal power replacement, this is a large-scale investment that is required. And we have already started taking initiatives here. We are doing this already in Aramco. And after that, there will be another replacement. And so large-scale growth investment will start one by one. And nuclear power as of now, we need to change the steamer. We are doing a major investment, and this is a maintenance investment that we need. And this is the current needs. Going forward, the investment in power source, we have multiple ones coming up, and that's what we are assuming. Therefore, in that sense, it's very big in the beginning, too, but it will increase and that trend will continue. And as for asset recycle, so it's not a question of which comes first. But at each timing, we will do what we can. So we will capture the best timing to do the asset recycle. So there is a Kinden case as well this time. And including this, we will take the opportunity. And it's not that we have the order in place already in our mind, but we will take the opportunity as they arise. And as for the investment amount, it's significant amount. Thinking about gas turbine alone, it's like for multiple hundreds of billions of yen. So with difference in a few months, it could go into the next fiscal year or so. And that has happened in the past as well. So it's not something that we can control in a stable manner. There's inflation as well. So we are thinking 3 to 4 years' time span. Otherwise, it's very difficult. It's difficult for us to say specifically which year we will be making investment. As for overseas energy business, there's bidding, and it's a few tens of billions of yen. So we have no intention to not be able to secure a spread. So of course, there has been cases where we had to give up in participating and that may happen in the future as well. So I think it's very difficult for us to be able to control cash every year for taking that policy shareholding. If we are negotiated or discussed with the counterpart or even if we are not, we will -- our shareholders that own within the 3 years. So this is where we have better control. The debt financing, it's a significant amount as shown in that chart. And that may be erasing everything. So this is my answer, but did this answer your question? So in terms of the level for the coming 3 years, growth investment, maintenance investment. So there's not much fluctuation between the 3 different years. We are assuming similar level of investments for the coming 3 years, roughly. Shinichi Yamazaki: And my second question is -- so Shinya-san just asked the question and expenses and maintenance costs are increasing. So putting aside maintenance, there's impact coming from inflation. I think it's the same for every company. And against such a backdrop, passing on the price, what are the measures you are going to take in some of the companies, they are doing it in a different form, but they're reviewing the electricity fee, and they are trying to cover that inflation with that. So if the profitability is difficult, is challenging in the coming 3 years, maybe you need to take such actions. And what is your thought on the inflation? And also, this is an issue that has existed from before, but Iranian situation. And because of that, the regulatory price seeming as a result, every few years, some issue like this happens. So what are your thoughts? Maybe you need to make improvements or revise prices. So what is your thought on this topic? Nozomu Mori: So impact of inflation. First of all, we need to analyze the impact of inflation. We have a rough image, but we need to understand much more in detail to be able to decide what we can do. So we'd like to continue to reduce costs with whatever we can and also the services we are offering in many ways, including value add by delivering value to customers, we will be the one to be chosen by customers. And I think it's difficult -- important for us to create such a cycle. And so we do believe that we will be able to increase profits as a result and price hike. So this is a regulated price. And understand that this is being deliberated in the National Committee. So of course, demand is very important. But putting that aside, this temporary measure by when this should be -- price hike should be implemented. This should be -- continue to be deliberated with the liberalization, the system is established and this price is remaining still. So at some point in time, discussion should be held thoroughly. And the policy should be decided by the government, I think, at some point in time. Operator: Next, please. Shusaku Nishikawa: Nishikawa of Daiwa Securities, asking 2 questions. So my question is extension of what Yamazaki-san mentioned. So I understand there's a regulated charges and you are not able to increase the price for low voltage, but for high voltage and the auto high voltage, the Kyushu Electric Power is already increasing it. And because you have the high mix of the nuclear power, and that's the situation with the Kyushu nuclear power and you're also facing inflation. So including the standard the menu, I do understand you are planning to increase the prices for the high voltage or the ultra-high voltage the charges to improve your margin. I should not be using the word price increases, but rebalancing the charges for the high voltage and ultra-high voltage. What kind of measures are you expecting to implement? And what kind of improvement can I expect? I talked about the Kyushu Electric Power, but when we look at the total electric power and true electric power, they are also talking about the shrinkage of a slight time lag on top of the high voltage in the ultra-high voltage. And because we are talking about slight time lag, we cannot ignore it because it should have certain impact to your accounting numbers. So the time lag to pass through the fuel surcharges adjustment. So are you thinking of revising that? Nozomu Mori: So for liberated the prices, each KEPCO companies are developing the schemes so that they can address the changes of the business environment. I understand that. But how we are going to set liberated price. we do need to have a good way to think about those prices. We cannot really specify what directions we will head to. But I think it's important as we will monitor what the other KEPCO companies do, we will compare our -- where we stand, and we will try to determine what kind of choices we should take. And please allow me, I cannot say when and what we will do. Shusaku Nishikawa: And my another question is the ROE of 8% that we are showing for your management plan. Can you tell me why you set that price and how committed you are and you are now saying 8% of ROE or more for 3-year average. Why did you determine 8% should be the 3-year average? What kind of discussion did you have? And you are saying the 3-year average of 8% or more. So are you saying after 3 years, the average should be 8%? Or are you aiming to achieve more than 8% every year? Or on a cumulative basis, if you are not able to achieve 8% ROE because of your profit level, by looking at your shareholder return policy, I don't think you will have other options to improve your ROE. So should I understand that you are going to implement some other capital measures or policies and that you are committed to achieve 8% ROE as a 3-year average? Nozomu Mori: For our target, if you are asking if we -- this is a committed target. As we are facing various uncertainties, so many uncertain factors, I cannot say we are committed to achieve this target. What we are saying is this is an aimed target. We will take on our challenges to get there. We wanted to present our intention with this target. Including our capital policies, we will try to improve our profit first to achieve our ROE target. That will be the basic principle. But we will always consider taking some kind of the measures in our capital policy to improve our ROE. So when we think about the next 3 years, we don't -- I said that we only have intention to accelerate our investment, and we will sell our Kinden shares and strategic shareholdings. Even with that, we need to accelerate our investment. And on top of that, we don't think there will be a case that we will lose our debt capacity. So we are not going to think about changing our -- the equity side. But if we don't have any opportunities to make investment, and then we will think about what we need to do because we need to be aware of our share price, too. But the fact that we prepared this plan this time, with the investment we will implement, we are going to achieve growth in the future. So by lifting our profit, we aim to achieve ROE of 8%. And you're asking me why 8%? I thought 8% will be the minimum level that everybody or investors and shareholders can be satisfied. This is the kind of investment discussions we have. Operator: Any other questions? Kamichika-san, please. Koji Kamichika: My name is Kamichika from SMBC Nikko. I have 2 questions. First, about the profit for -- during the 3 years. I'd like to deep dive into this. Profit-wise, you mentioned it's in a plateau. But on the other hand, you would like to aim for higher. And you also mentioned that. What kind of upside can we expect from the capital market? So could you elaborate on this? So from before, rebalancing is an option maybe? And other than that, what kind of potential upside could there be? This is my first question. And on top of that, and related to this, ROE, 8% in order to achieve this and also net profit, JPY 270 billion in average. So looking at equity capital, equity ratio, maybe your ROE is not enough, is not the level you can achieve, I think. So could you explain this? Nozomu Mori: First of all, basically, we want to improve our profitability. This is something we have been doing, and this will become more important going forward. First, what we can do right away is to reduce cost and improve efficiency of our business operation. So we'd like to be able to generate higher profits. As was mentioned earlier, the passing on the cost increase to the price, this is not something we are thinking of. Rather than that, we would like to make efforts ourselves to improve profitability. And the specifics, could you add anything? Tanaka Toru: So after calculation, maybe it's not sufficient. So I understand what you're saying. We understand that. But still, we'd like to aim for ROE 8%. And we'd like to accumulate profits to be able to achieve ROE of 8%. And Nishikawa-san's question earlier or it's related to what President Mori has mentioned. In the coming 3 years, we don't have the intention to stay in a plateau and just wait -- sit and wait. So T&D, ICT, real estate, energy, all the businesses for the investors as well as debt investors as well. We'd like to make the businesses investable. That's what we are keeping in mind. And based on that concept, we'd like to take action. So this is the prerequisite for growth, I think. This is abstract answer, and it's very difficult for me to say anything concrete. But we'd like to make our business investable and this is our intention. Koji Kamichika: I have one more question. This is about the forecast for next year, Page 23 of financial results. So minus JPY 16 billion decrease in electricity sales. Could you explain about this? So it's negative. So maybe competition is severe. But in the previous page, so total electricity sales is expected to increase. So what is the breakdown of negative JPY 16 billion? How should I understand the image of the breakdown? Tanaka Toru: So I would like to talk about the numbers. As Kamichika-san mentioned, Page 22, please take a look at Page 22. Retail is minus 2 and impact of temperature, fiscal 2025 comparing to that, it's minus 1.4 billion kilowatt hour decline and increase due to customer acquisition, it's positive -- increased by JPY 1.5 billion and also inspection time lag, negative JPY 200 million, and that is the result. So that is the intention. And also sales to other companies, it's plus JPY 108. It's a significant increase. And we have discussed about this internally, but it's difficult to explain the details because of competition. But JPX transaction value is expected to increase going forward and that is where the increase is coming from. But in terms of profit and loss, Page 23, retail decline in hour, that is generating impact. Operator: Are there any other questions? Reiji Ogino: I am from Morgan Stanley, Ogino Reiji. So I have the 3 questions. So for 2040, just like what the energy agency plan that shows, I don't think it's trustworthy because you cannot really foresee what will happen by 2040. I understand it's the same situation for you. I didn't expect this medium management plan to be such a long duration period. So we -- what we need is to see what your vision is for 2030 rather. You are now saying you're in the plateau situation. If we assume the plateau situation will continue for 3 years beyond the plateau, after you normalized the profit level going down. And without your growth investment, you can expect your profit to go back. But then you can -- if you say your profit will be in the plateau situation for 3 years. So by 2030, I understand there will be several years where you will need to implement some investment works for the nuclear power plant. And then if you are showing us what your assumption will be for 2030 and if you can present your expected ROE for 2030, I will have a better understanding of what I am about to ask. So you're saying next several years, you're going to face challenges as you are in the plateau. And you said 15 years later, you are going to improve your profit. I don't think that is trustworthy or that's meaningful. Nozomu Mori: So if we have a vision for 2030, we will be sharing that today. But after going through various internal discussions, and we also discussed what we are going to achieve, and then we are presenting what we have concluded. And so as we look at what we will do in the future, we decided to show what our vision for 2040 will be. And if you are not satisfied with that, we can only share what our outlook is for the next 3 years. Reiji Ogino: I don't think that's sufficient. So because you are now in the plateau situation, and we don't really know what will happen after that we are not sure if you're okay. So if you're going to see the recovery after you get out of the plateau, you are not saying at what level of the increase you are going to see, and you are saying that is the right way of presenting your outlook. I'm not saying that this is right. No, if you -- can you show the number by the time you announce your first half results, your -- this should be your task to do your analysis, okay. So as a company, you should be despising information. So you should be sharing what your -- the results of the analysis is for investors. It's not really a task of the sell-side analyst. Nozomu Mori: So as Ogino-san said, what you are saying and what other investors and shareholders are saying really they are meaningful to us, we do listen to what everybody is saying. Reiji Ogino: So what I am asking is, please show us as a reference what your outlook for 2030 is and what you are going to do to get there over the next 3 years? That is my first request. And my -- the second part of the question is your outlook for the next 3 years. So in your management plan, you said you're going to use your cash for investment and the shareholdings and the Kinden share. Even without your growth investment, these are things you should be doing. That should be the message of the equity market. But I get the impression you are going to do this because you are going to implement the growth investment. Even without the growth investment, the equity market thinks you should do that because there could be an issue of a parent subsidiary, the listing companies -- listed companies, okay. So for the next 3 years, can you share what your assumption is for next 3 years? Especially ours for the next 3 years, what is your assumption? And in case of a 3-year medium-term plan, if you assume crude oil price to be $70 or if you can share the assumption for foreign exchanges, if you are going to share the outlook for next 3 years, not the average, but I will be -- I will appreciate if you can show us in breakdown. So on average, if average is going to be JPY 780. And this time, the recurring profit will be at JPY 20. And this year, it's going to be JPY 340 and the average will be JPY 270. It seems like you will see your -- the ordinary profit to decline over time. Because you are in the plateau situation, this is the kind of image you're going to show. That's okay. But for the next 3 years, against this platform plateau situation, as you will implement certain growth investment, under normal situation, you will see your recurring ordinary income to decline, but you will be making an effort to achieve a certain growth. Apart from the rebalancing, I would like to hear what you're going to do to improve your ordinary income level for the next 3 years. So I would like to receive here your assumptions and the sensitivity for 3 years and for next -- for this fiscal year. And my third question, I don't really want to get into details. But for energy business, for power generation and retail, I would like to see the breakdown what the situation is for each businesses, either on the power generation side or on the retail side, what kind of challenges you are identifying and what kind of measures you are taking to improve that? I want to see that. I understand core business of energy is important for you. So for power generation and retail, I would like to see more the quantitative data for that. Okay. Nozomu Mori: So for assumption, we can share some assumptions. So from Secretariat, we can communicate what the assumption is. So we understand under the Iranian situation over the next 3 years, on the note says we are not including the Iranian situation or the situation in the Middle East. So without that, we are assuming some of the assumptions. Reiji Ogino: Is that the kind of document that you can share on the website? Nozomu Mori: No, we can only share it on Q&A. Reiji Ogino: I don't really want you to share this information to all the non-Japanese investors from me. So can you share that information on the website? Nozomu Mori: No. We are able to share the information. If necessary, we can provide the information through separate and individual communication. Reiji Ogino: And for power generation and the retail business breakdown. Nozomu Mori: We understand we should be aware of that perspective too. Internally, we are taking those approach, implementing our businesses. And for our results for FY '25 and our forecast for '26, internally, we are doing analysis of what kind of progresses we are making. And how much we can disclose is something we need to discuss, but we do have our internal analysis already. Operator: Are there any other questions? Okay. The third row, person sitting in the middle, in the third row. Unknown Analyst: My name is [Tanata] and 2 questions. First, your capital equity ratio. In fiscal 2026, you are forecasting 37% equity ratio. And related to that, the midterm plan, when I look at the numbers, net profit forecast and assuming the debt, I believe the capital equity ratio is expected to increase. So from mid-30%, there might be some deviation and difference. And how are you going to control your equity? So you have described about doing buyback as well. Are you going to take a more aggressive measures? Nozomu Mori: First of all, for this question, for equity ratio, we have a relatively high equity ratio. And this is to prepare for future investments. Whether it will be maintained at a high level, we don't. That might not be the case. And naturally, buyback, it's not that we are eliminating the possibility of buyback. This is something we are thinking of as one of the options. But as I have been -- we have been mentioning from before, we have significant amount of investment for growth and maintenance. So we will use both equity and debt to make investments. That is our stance. Unknown Analyst: My second question is related to Page 24 of the midterm plan, this capital allocation chart, operating cash flow and asset recycle, this is cash in and cash out is shareholder returns. And based on that, so passing on the cost increase and profitability increase is upside. So upside from the cash out is the shareholder returns. And is that the right way to look at things or each. Nozomu Mori: So higher or it might be blurry at the bottom. And growth investment, maintenance. Investment, we are assuming JPY 1.5 trillion, JPY 1 trillion. And as the bar graph is made blurry. It's not that there's already a lineup of growth investments and that we have things decided already. Each, there might be some changes, some might increase or decrease for each one of them. So it's not necessarily the case that our operating cash flow increase will lead to increase in shareholder returns. So we have discussed about sharing the details of everything. So JPY 270 billion or more of shareholder returns, it is described in the second page. And we want to make efforts to increase shareholder returns. And operating cash flow, when it increases, would it be reflected straight away into shareholder returns, but I would think I want to reduce debt. because the free cash flow is very bad. So we need to strike a balance. Operator: Do we have any other questions from participants at the venue? We are going to take questions from participants on Zoom. Unknown Analyst: So a couple of questions. So the first, on Slide 22 of the annual results. So I just wondered how have you managed to reduce your earnings sensitivity to changes in the oil price? And do those assumptions still hold even in such a volatile market as today. So I think it's JPY 0.2 billion earnings impact per dollar. Is that still valid even with oil at $100 per barrel? Nozomu Mori: So Kikuoka will be answering to your question. So the impact from this as when we see the fuel cost to increase with the time lag, there will be a fuel adjustment. And there will be -- we do the calculation based on the 2 factors. So as we are showing that we believe this can be the sensitivity we can achieve. Masafumi Kikuoka: Therefore. At this moment, if I can add some information, even though we have seen a deterioration of the situation in Middle East in early March. So in the month of February and March, if we take the average of the future price, we use that as the annual assumption. So to answer your question, going forward, if the situation continues to deteriorate or the deteriorated situation prolongs, negative impact of JPY 0.2 billion can be adjusted or changed going forward. And did I answer to your question? Unknown Analyst: Yes. Just following on that. Are you very much more hedged than you were before? Masafumi Kikuoka: Yes, I would like to answer to your question. So how much we hedge. We do not have an answer to give you the details. But because we have the fuel adjustment of the system, so for the fuel required for power generation, we are not making a major change in our policy to change our hedging. Unknown Analyst: And some of them related to mid-term to that of 2026? So just looking at the 2026 from the period was reasonable? What was the policies behind the allocation to investment and this is more one-off or more and more investments? Masafumi Kikuoka: So for each of the businesses, the amount of investment allocation, policy of allocation. We don't really start our process by thinking about the allocation, but we will try to identify the investment opportunity, which will allow us to achieve the growth. So over the next 3 years, we came to the conclusion this will be the amount of investment for each region. It's not like we prioritize at a certain business segment, but in order to maximize our profit, we determine what the growth investment opportunities will be. Tanaka Toru: And if I can add some more, when we determine the allocation, that is a critical part of our management. So over the last several years, before we prepared this plan, we have been focusing on our discussion. Mori-san said profit is, of course, what we need to achieve. But we also need to consider what the spread will be at the total group level, what the level of spread we can achieve at the ROIC level or ROE level as we have gone through the various discussions of what the spread we can achieve by using project financing or co-development project scheme. Basically, we are showing the ROIC number as the ROIC we will achieve by just engaging in our business on our own. But obviously, we can like sell our asset to REIT or they will take the various actions, and we will make necessary adjustment to achieve our target. So Mori is answering to your question. Nozomu Mori: I said that the profit, and so that's important. But as Tanaka has mentioned, we need to evaluate our returns from various measures. So on Page 45 of the appendix. So the policy of the allocation, Tanaka-san always said we will just thoroughly and aggressively as discussed. We did have a very detailed discussions. So we will not simply look at the ROIC and WACC, but we will look at the expected growth and the business-related the risks and how much time will require to generate return. By looking at the various aspects, we will also determine what the investment should be prioritized. And we will need to continue to brush up these plans. We understand that's important. Unknown Analyst: One final question. So just in relation to those midterm targets to what extent do they do it with new nuclear and your transactions with new investments or is that the additional environmental for 2026? Masafumi Kikuoka: Yes, your understanding is correct. It is included. Unknown Analyst: Congratulations to Tanaka-san on your promotion. Operator: Do we have any other questions? So there seems to be no more questions from anybody on Zoom or in the venue. And therefore, with this, we would like to close the briefing for today. Thank you very much.
Operator: Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the first quarter 2026 Hess Midstream LP conference call. My name is Kevin, and I will be your operator for today. At this time, participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speakers' presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please be advised today’s conference is being recorded for replay purposes. I would now like to turn the conference over to Jennifer Gordon, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please proceed. Jennifer Gordon: Thank you, Kevin. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for participating in our first quarter earnings conference call. Our earnings release was issued this morning and appears on our website hessmidstream.com. Today’s conference call contains projections and other forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. These statements are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ from those expressed or implied in such statements. These risks include those set forth in the Risk Factors section of Hess Midstream LP’s filings with the SEC. Also on today’s conference call, we may discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of the differences between these non-GAAP financial measures and the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures can be found in the earnings release. With me today are Jonathan Stein, Chief Executive Officer, and Michael J. Chadwick, Chief Financial Officer. I will now turn the call over to Jonathan Stein. Jonathan Stein: Thanks, Jennifer. Welcome, everyone, to our first quarter 2026 earnings call. Today, I will discuss our first quarter performance and outlook for the remainder of the year. And then I will hand the call over to Mike to review our financials. In the first quarter, we continued to execute our operational priorities and deliver our financial strategy. We delivered solid operational performance and achieved our guidance, which included the impact of severe winter weather in January and February. In March, we completed an accretive $60 million share and unit repurchase from the public and our sponsor. Lastly, we increased our distribution 2%, or approximately 8% on an annualized basis for Class A shares. This increase included our targeted 5% annual increase for Class A shares and a distribution level increase following our repurchase that maintains our total distributed cash on a lower share and unit count. Turning to our results, during the quarter, throughput volumes averaged 430 million cubic feet per day for gas processing, 119,000 barrels of oil per day for crude terminaling, and 115,000 barrels of water per day for water gathering. In line with our guidance, throughput volumes were down compared to the fourth quarter, primarily due to severe winter weather in January and February, partially offset by recovery in March as well as capture of additional third-party gas volume. Consistent with our annual guidance, we continue to expect volumes to grow the rest of the year, excluding the impact of planned maintenance at the Tioga Gas Plant in the second quarter that is expected to reduce volumes by 5 million to 10 million cubic feet per day for the quarter. Turning to Hess Midstream LP’s capital program, in the first quarter, we safely brought online the second of two new compressor stations after completing it in 2025. In the first quarter, capital expenditures were $10 million, seasonally lower than 2025 as severe winter weather restricted activity levels. We expect our capital spend to be seasonally higher in the second and third quarters as we continue to execute our program, including completion of greenfield high-pressure gathering pipeline infrastructure that we started in 2025. However, with the second compressor station online, and reflecting Chevron’s move to longer laterals, which reduces well connect CapEx for Hess Midstream LP, we have now reduced our 2026 estimated capital expenditures by a third to approximately $100 million. As a result of this reduction, and together with the deferral of cash taxes, we are increasing our 2026 adjusted free cash flow guidance to $910 million to $960 million, reflecting a 20% increase year over year at the midpoint. Hess Midstream LP remains a leader in shareholder cash returns with one of the highest free cash flow yields across our peer set. In summary, we remain focused on executing safe and reliable operations while leveraging our historical investment in existing infrastructure to continue generating significant adjusted free cash flow, allowing us to provide returns to our shareholders through growing distributions and incremental share repurchases while simultaneously continuing to reduce our debt leverage. With that, I will hand the call over to Mike to review our financial performance for the first quarter and guidance. Michael J. Chadwick: Thanks, Jonathan, and good morning, everyone. Today, I will discuss our financial results for the first quarter of 2026 and provide an update on our second quarter financial guidance and outlook for 2026. Turning to our results, for the first quarter of 2026, net income was $158 million compared to approximately $168 million in the fourth quarter of 2025. Adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter of 2026 was $300 million compared with $309 million in the fourth quarter. The decrease was primarily due to lower revenues, primarily caused by severe winter weather in January and February. Total revenues, including pass-through revenues, decreased by approximately $15 million, resulting in segment revenue changes as follows: gathering revenues decreased by approximately $14 million, processing revenues decreased by approximately $6 million, while terminaling revenues increased by approximately $5 million. Total costs and expenses, excluding depreciation and amortization, pass-through costs, and net of our proportional share of LM4 earnings, decreased by approximately $6 million, primarily from lower seasonal maintenance and lower third-party offloads, resulting in adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter of 2026 of $300 million. Our gross adjusted EBITDA margin for the first quarter of 2026 was maintained at approximately 83%, above our 75% target, highlighting our continued strong operating leverage. First quarter 2026 capital expenditures were approximately $10 million, significantly lower than in 2025 as severe winter weather limited activity. Net interest, excluding amortization of deferred finance costs, was approximately $53 million, resulting in adjusted free cash flow of $237 million, an increase of 14% from the fourth quarter of 2025. We had a drawn balance of $343 million on our revolving credit facility at the end of the first quarter of 2026. For the second quarter of 2026, we expect net income to be $150 million to $160 million and adjusted EBITDA to be approximately flat with the first quarter at $295 million to $305 million, which includes the impact of planned second quarter maintenance at the Tioga Gas Plant. We expect adjusted free cash flow in the second quarter of 2026 to decrease relative to the first quarter of 2026 as capital expenditures in the second quarter are projected to be seasonally higher than the first quarter. As we said on our fourth quarter call, we expect second half volumes to be higher than the first half, helping to drive higher EBITDA in the second half of the year. For the full year 2026, we continue to expect net income of between $650 million and $700 million, and adjusted EBITDA of between $1.225 billion and $1.275 billion, approximately flat at the midpoint compared with 2025. As Jonathan mentioned, our cash position is strong and notable among our peer set. We now expect full year 2026 capital expenditures of approximately $105 million and expect to generate adjusted free cash flow of between $910 million and $960 million and excess adjusted free cash flow of approximately $280 million after fully funding our targeted 5% annual distribution growth, which we expect to use for incremental shareholder returns and debt repayment. As mentioned, we no longer expect to pay $15 million of cash taxes in 2026 and do not expect to pay material cash taxes until after 2028, following the recent interim guidance from the IRS on the application of the corporate alternative minimum tax. In March, we executed an accretive $60 million share repurchase transaction from both the sponsor and the public, and as the year progresses, we will continue to evaluate additional opportunities for incremental returns of capital. This concludes my remarks. We will be happy to answer any questions. I will now turn the call over to the operator. Operator: We will now open the call for questions. Ladies and gentlemen, if you have a question or a comment at this time, please press star 11 on your telephone. If your question has been answered and you wish to remove yourself from the queue, please press star 11 again. Our first question comes from Jeremy Tonet with JPMorgan Securities. Your line is open. Analyst: Good morning, everyone. This is Francina on for Jeremy. Thank you so much for taking questions. I just wanted to zoom in a bit more on the change to CapEx here and what this means for well connect turn-in-line activity for the year and whether there are any read-throughs or changes to growth expectations for year-end or into 2027 that we can derive from this. Thank you. Jonathan Stein: Hi. Thanks for the question. If you look at what has been happening with CapEx for us really since the end of last year, we have been reducing CapEx as we are approaching the end of our infrastructure buildout, which has been years in the making as we continue to build out our strategic footprint in the Bakken. CapEx was low in the first quarter due to restricted activity from the weather as well as seasonal dynamics. That is normal for the first quarter, and we do expect that to be the low point of the year and then pick up as we continue to build out over the next few quarters, including, as I mentioned, completing our greenfield high-pressure gathering pipeline infrastructure we started last year and expect to complete this year. So nothing is changing strategically. The downsizing of our guidance this year from $150 million to $100 million is really right-sizing our CapEx to account for upstream efficiencies like longer laterals, which, as I discussed, can reduce well connect CapEx for us. That is very positive. If we reflect on this, it is an extraordinary business model. With lower CapEx, we are generating significant free cash flow that supports our 5% targeted distribution growth as well as incremental return of capital to our shareholders, like the share repurchase we did this quarter, while simultaneously being able to do debt repayment. Analyst: Thank you. That is helpful. I would also like to touch on the third-party outlook and whether you have had any changes to that since the Middle East conflict has been ensuing. Thank you. Jonathan Stein: Sure. In terms of third parties, nothing in terms of major macro changes. We did have some additional third-party volume in the first quarter, as I mentioned. That was some additional throughput from other midstream providers that really highlights the optionality we have in our system that allows flexibility for others to utilize it during operational challenges they have. We are still targeting 10% third-party volumes, and that is incorporated into our guidance. Any additional third-party volumes would be upside. I am not seeing anything dramatic, just the normal third parties coming to utilize optionality in our system, but no major changes due to the macro environment at this point. Operator: One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from John Mackay with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open. John Mackay: Hey, team. Thank you for the time. Last call, you spent some time talking about a bit of evolution on the balance sheet side, thinking about lower leverage over time. I am just wondering, we are a quarter later now. Have you had time to refine that and be able to put out a longer-term leverage target relative to the distribution growth and maybe some buyback cadence you have talked about? Michael J. Chadwick: Yeah, I can talk to that, and thanks, John, for the question. There is no change to our return of capital approach that we outlined in our December guidance note or as we talked about in our fourth quarter call in February. We do plan to use a portion of our free cash flow, after distributions, to pay down debt. It is a conservative financial strategy that is consistent with the volume profile and Chevron’s target for about 200,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day plateau production in the Bakken. We will still have a balanced strategy that includes incremental return of capital beyond our 5% annual distribution growth, and we plan to have a stronger balance sheet as a result. All of that is underpinned by the MVCs that we have out to 2028, which continue to provide significant downside protection. We are still aiming for about $1 billion of free cash flow after distributions through 2028. Every distribution increase or share buyback is approved by our board, and we plan to use that free cash flow for incremental return of capital and paying down our debt. So no change there. John Mackay: Alright. I appreciate that. Second one, apologize, it is a little bit in the weeds, but terminals revenue was really strong in the quarter. Is there any kind of one-off in there, or is this new implied rate the go-forward we should think of? Michael J. Chadwick: I think you are reading that right. There is an element of implied rates in terminals. As you recall, it is a cost-of-service rate that gets adjusted every year for our expectation of OpEx, CapEx, and any volumes that drive a targeted return. That is part of the reason you are seeing stronger performance there. It is a tariff adjustment. John Mackay: Do you mind just reminding us of the structure of that contract going forward? Thank you. Michael J. Chadwick: That goes through to 2033, and it is rebalanced every year as part of a calculation that aims to return a specific mid-teen return, and it is based on anticipated volumes, CapEx, and OpEx in order to serve that and to generate that return. The tariffs will flex up and down. If we have lower volumes anticipated, then the tariff will go up. If we have lower CapEx, for example, then the tariff will go down. And that is through to 2033. John Mackay: Alright. Thank you very much. Operator: One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Doug Irwin with Citi. Your line is open. Doug Irwin: I am just trying to pick up on the second quarter guidance you gave here. I think my math, just looking at the full-year midpoint, implies something around 8% growth in the second half of the year. Can you talk about some of the drivers you see contributing to growth in the second half and where there might be risks to the upside or downside from here? Jonathan Stein: Sure. Let me start. On the volume side, as we said, the first quarter is the low point in terms of volume. We do have planned maintenance at the Tioga Gas Plant in the second quarter, which takes out 5 million to 10 million cubic feet per day. Absent that, we would have seen some additional growth into the second quarter. As the year progresses, Chevron continues to do longer laterals, so you will start to see that pick up as those completions are finished later in the year and more wells come online. That will drive additional volumes as we continue to grow through the year. There is no change to our overall guidance, and yes, about 8% on an EBITDA basis increase in the second half is about right. It will be driven by the cadence of volumes as we come off the low point due to weather, get through the maintenance in the second quarter, and then see continued volume growth from there. Doug Irwin: Understood. My second is on the broader growth outlook beyond 2026. We have Chevron messaging plateauing volumes in the Bakken around that 200,000 barrels of oil equivalent level, but you seem to keep squeezing out more free cash flow from the business. Is there any appetite to pursue inorganic opportunities or other ways to put some of that free cash flow to work? Or should we expect buybacks and debt repayment to be the primary focus from here? Jonathan Stein: Let me start, then I will turn it over to Mike to talk about capital allocation. It is a good opportunity to reflect that there have been a lot of changes around us over the past year or two, and here we are nine to ten months after the acquisition of Hess by Chevron. So much at Hess Midstream LP remains the same. Chevron is targeting approximately 200,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day while continuing to optimize the development plan. That plan underpins our volume guidance and EBITDA growth. Remember that EBITDA growth is driven by inflation escalators and reduction in CapEx. Chevron continues to bring lessons from other basins to the Bakken, like longer laterals, workover optimization, and increased chemicals to improve productivity. We are also benefiting from that. Longer laterals, for example, make wells more economic by decreasing the breakeven and, as I mentioned, reduce our well connect requirements as fewer wells are needed. That is really the driver of the free cash flow. Our financial strategy continues to be the same: 5% distribution growth can be achieved even at MVC levels, with significant free cash flow. With all that has changed around us, we continue to have visibility, consistency, shareholder returns, and balance sheet strength—our hallmarks. In terms of bolt-on opportunities, we have always said we will look at those, but the bar remains high relative to our existing business model, which continues to be really differentiated relative to others in the sector. I will turn it over to Mike. Michael J. Chadwick: Thanks, Jonathan. What I would add is that as we think about our debt-to-EBITDA leverage, we do not have a specific target in mind, but we will naturally see our current roughly 3.0x debt leverage drop as we continue to grow EBITDA without increasing the absolute level of debt. Using a portion of our free cash flow after distributions for debt repayment will delever us further. With our current guidance out to 2028 and our ambition to continue shareholder return of capital, the math would not support us getting below about 2.5x leverage by 2028. That gives you a range for where we expect leverage to sit in the longer term through 2028. As Jonathan said, steady as she goes: we are in a good cash position and look forward to rolling out the next three years with coverage from our MVCs and transparency to our throughput, driven by Chevron’s targeted 200,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day plan of production. Doug Irwin: Got it. Thanks for the time. Operator: One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Praneeth Satish with Wells Fargo. Your line is open. Praneeth Satish: Good morning. Thank you. Beyond drilling and completion efficiencies that Chevron has highlighted in the Bakken, are there any other longer-term costs or structural opportunities or changes that you and Chevron are working toward that could show up in your business? Maybe put differently, as your capital intensity comes down, are there scenarios where some of those savings flow back to Chevron through alternative commercial structures or anything like that? Jonathan Stein: In terms of efficiencies and optimization, those are really win-wins. I gave the example of longer laterals, which reduce the breakeven, increase the number of wells that are economic to drill, and reduce our capital, making it more efficient overall. In terms of the contract structure, just a reminder: 85% of revenues are fixed fee. That continues, together with the cost-of-service structures I mentioned for terminaling and water gathering, through 2033—another eight years including this year. That contract structure provides Hess Midstream LP with visibility and consistency—two of our hallmarks. Before 2033, there is no contractual mechanism to renegotiate the contract. There are also governance guardrails, including the need for special approval that includes at least one of the independent directors, to prevent any unilateral action by Chevron, in addition to the normal conflicts committee process for any proposed contract changes. Right now, we are focused on working with Chevron to optimize operationally to continue to help develop the Bakken in the most optimized way possible. Praneeth Satish: Got it. That makes sense. Seems like a win-win here. Maybe just a clarifying question on terminals. You mentioned it is a cost-of-service contract and it stepped up this quarter. It was quite a large step up when we translate that to EBITDA. To be clear, is the first quarter run rate something we can assume for the balance of the year? Michael J. Chadwick: It is based on both the tariffs and the throughputs we had. The first quarter was a bit impacted by weather, and we will see how that plays out when we get into more stable territory in the second and third quarters and the rest of the year. A part of the strength is the step-up in the tariffs because of the cost-of-service formula. I would not extrapolate the first quarter completely, but that dynamic will be a factor. Jonathan Stein: The only thing I would add on terminaling is that, as Mike explained, rates are set by the formula, but you can see more third parties. Terminaling can have some variation quarter to quarter because it is a place where people can come in on a short-term basis, so to speak, or with short-term arrangements. Operator: Thank you. At this time, there are no further questions. This concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.
Operator: Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Krystal Biotech First Quarter 2026 Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your host, Stephane Paquette, Vice President of Corporate Development. Please begin. Stephane Paquette: Good morning, and thank you all for joining today's call. Earlier today, we released our financial results for the first quarter of 2026. The press release is available on our website at www.krystalbio.com. We also filed our earnings 8-K and 10-Q with the SEC earlier today. Joining me today will be Krish Krishnan, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; Suma Krishnan, President of Research and Development; Laurent Goux, Executive Vice President and General Manager for Europe; Christine Wilson, Senior Vice President and Head of U.S. Commercial; and Kate Romano, Chief Accounting Officer. This conference call will and our responses to questions may contain forward-looking statements. You are cautioned not to rely on these forward-looking statements, which are based on current expectations using the information available as of the date of this call and are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that may cause the company's actual results to differ materially from those projected. A description of these risks, uncertainties and other factors can be found in our SEC filings. With that, I will turn the call over to Krish. Krish Krishnan: Good morning. It's now been 10 years since we founded Krystal. And in that time, we have worked to change the lives of depatients globally for the better, while building a durable, fully integrated company with the financial strength to continue delivering value for both patients and shareholders. We have done this with discipline. We've not accessed the capital market since 2022. 2022 is 6 years from when the company was founded. We maintained a strong balance sheet, and we continued to generate meaningful operating leverage. Yet more importantly, somewhat ironically, we believe the next 12 to 24 months represent 1 of the most exciting periods in Krystal's history. We are positioned for 2 registrational readouts this year and 2 more next year. I sincerely want to thank our employees for their dedication and execution that have brought us to this point. Now turning to VYJUVEK. We delivered another quarter of global revenue growth with net revenue of $116.4 million in the Q. This brings cumulative net VYJUVEK?revenue since launch to more than $846 million. We are particularly pleased with this performance, which represents a 9% sequential growth versus 4Q 2025 despite a higher-than-usual level of insurance changes, which happens, by the way, not just to us, but many biotech commercial companies in 1Q. Gross margin was 95%, and we delivered our 11th consecutive quarter of positive EPS. Outside the U.S., we're still early in the VYJUVEK launch in Europe and Japan, and I'm pleased with the progress overseas. We're also working to add 2 additional major European markets, Italy and Spain later this year. Laurent and Christine will provide more detail on VYJUVEK?commercial dynamics and the opportunity ahead in a moment. FDA has now granted platform technology designations to both KB407 for CF and KB111 for Hailey-Hailey. This is in addition to receiving the same designation for our NK program, KB801 last year. These designations have a profound implication for Krystal. At the program level, these designations allow us to streamline our interactions with the agency and our development plans. We've already seen the benefits with KB801 as the designation allowed us to rapidly advance KB801 into a registrational study. The platform implications are also powerful. These designations bring a compounding advantage. Each developmental milestone on our pipeline strengthens our collective regulatory data set and reduces development risk, cost and time for the next program we bring to the clinic. This advantage is presently unique to Krystal and 1 we intend to leverage to its full potential. You'll hear more about our development plans from Suma. I'll now turn it over to the team to provide details on the commercial launch and the clinical pipeline. Laurent? Laurent Goux: Thank You, Krish. We are very encouraged by the progress we are seeing outside the United States, where VYJUVEK?is beginning to establish itself as an important treatment option for DEB patients in key international markets. When we think about the international launch, the story is not just 1 of geographic expansion. It is a story of building trust across cultures with physicians, with treatment centers, with payers and ultimately with the entire EB community who have been waiting for new options. There are nuances in every country we launch and sometimes within a country by region. That said, across Europe and Japan, we have seen strong word of mouth and increasing engagement from key centers, that is raising awareness of VYJUVEK?and helping translate physician interest into real patient demand. Importantly, our prescriber base continues to broaden. This gives more patients the opportunity to stop treatment closer to home, while also creating a more durable and resilient foundation for the launch. We estimate that more than 140 DDEB patients have been prescribed by VYJUVEK? across Germany, Japan and France. We believe this reflects both strong execution by our international team and growing physician confidence in VYJUVEK in the early launch market. This early momentum is also beginning to show financials. European market plus Japan contributed to $28.9 million in net revenue, demonstrating the meaningful role these regions can play in the growth of VYJUVEK over time. Looking ahead, our focus is clear. We are working to deepen penetration in our current launch markets, secure positive access and reimbursement outcomes and expand it to additional major European markets. In Germany and France, pricing negotiations remain ongoing. We continue to expect a decision in Germany in the second half of 2026. In France, we continue to expect the decision in 2027, which would further support broader access and reimbursement stability. We are also advancing discussions with reimbursement authorities in Italy and are actively preparing for potential launch in the second half of 2026 during the outcome of those negotiations. And in Spain, I'm pleased to report that our discussions with authorities have accelerated. Based on our latest interactions, we now see a potential opportunity to launch in Spain in the second half of the year. again, pending the outcome of negotiations. In the interim, we are also responding to opportunities to stop patients on VYJUVEK? through early reimbursement access pathways. Overall, we are very encouraged by the early tractions we are seeing internationally. The launch is progressing market by market, physician by physician and patient by patient. We remain focused on disciplined execution of our global commercialization strategy and on bringing VYJUVEK to more DDEB patients around the world. I will now hand the call of to Christine to share updates on VYJUVEK? launch in the U.S. Christine? Christine Wilson: Thank you, Laurent. Our team has been making great progress in recent months, building on our leadership position and delivering transformational outcomes for patients across the United States. Strong sales force execution is expanding our community reach and allowing us to meet patients wherever they seek care, whether that is at the center of accidents with a pediatric, dermatologist or in the family practice office in the community. By bridging this gap, we have now been able to secure over 695 reimbursement approvals for DDEB patients nationwide. Even as access teams were navigating a higher volume of insurance. Upstream demand metrics are even better, with over 60 new prescribers in the first quarter and were 570 unique prescribers since launch, underpinning a strong pain approval outlook for the rest of the year. Net adviser back revenues for the United States were $87.5 million for the quarter. Revenues were impacted by insurance switchovers in the quarter, which are now behind us, as well as the start-stop treatment cadence characteristics of a patient population shifting towards maintenance treat regimen. With VYJUVEK now on the market in the United States for nearly 3 years, a growing number of patients have been able to achieve dramatic and transformational wound closure outcomes. Patients have been able to take control of their disease and their lives, opening up new opportunities and autonomy never before possible. These quality of life gains made possible by the robust efficacy and safety profile of VYJUVEK are deeply motivating and the foundation for the long-term trust-based relationships we are building with the DDEB patient community. These improvements are also a natural and anticipated evolution of the launch as patient motivation and support needs shift to reflect their newfound autonomy. This is where the flexibility of VYJUVEK?administration and last year's label updates are especially valuable providing patients with the option to self-administer or receive nurse support care when they want it. To this end, we have launched patient support initiatives to communicate and educate around recent VYJUVEK?label updates, which provide greater administration flexibility and help DDEB patients and families conveniently integrate VYJUVEK?into lifelong [indiscernible] routines as part of their standard of care. Our goal is to establish long-term relationships with VYJUVEK?patients, ensuring ongoing connectivity and ease of use throughout their lifelong treatment journey. Skin cells do turnover and wounds eventually reopen, particularly as patients get more active. As patients transition into these start and stop phases, we are focused on enabling timely access to VYJUVEK?whenever it is needed. This focus is driving continued assessment of our infrastructure to better support patients where they are in their journey and to further enhance the ease of delivering VYJUVEK?across the United States. At the recent American Academy of Dermatology Conference, key opinion leaders underscored their appreciation for VYJUVEK and the positive outcomes achieved by their treated patients. In a patient population where prior to VYJUVEK?approval, there were no treatment options beyond palatialon care. VYJUVEK?represents a meaningful advancement and fueling an increased focus on the long-term clinical and quality of life benefits that might come with long-term VYJUVEK?therapy. As we progress on our launch, we are excited about the opportunity ahead. There are still hundreds of known diagnosed patients we hope to bring to therapy and many more not yet identified that we believe could benefit from VYJUVEK. By driving new patient starts and maximizing convenience for patients already on therapy, we see an opportunity to deliver significant growth in the years ahead. With that, I'll turn the call over to Suma to share the leads on our development pipeline. Suma? Suma Krishnan: Thank you, Christine, and good morning, everyone. I am excited to share that we are faced with 2 registrational study readouts expected later this year and 2 more in 2027. And with respect to the ophthalmology registrational readouts this year, we are excited to announce we completed enrollment in our registrational study, evaluating KB803 for the treatment and prevention of corneal abrasions in DDEB patients, with a total of 16 patients were enrolled in the study. IOLITE is randomized, intrapatient double-blind, decentralized placebo-controlled study with crossover design in which patients are randomized 1:1 to receive KB803, 3 times weekly for 12 weeks followed by placebo, 3 times weekly for 12 weeks or vice versa. The primary efficacy endpoint, the change from baseline in the average number of days per month with symptoms will be assessed at 24 weeks putting us on a path for a readout in the fourth quarter of this year. This is an exciting milestone for our team and the many DDEB patients suffering from ocular complications of this terrible disease. Our second registrational study evaluating KB801 for the treatment of neurotropic keratitis is also progressing well. Our focus here is operational supporting our trial sites, expanding our network and driving enrollment. This is an 8-week study. We expect to enroll 60 patients and are on track for a data readout later this year. We are moving quickly on our broader pipeline as well, including the initiation of 2 open-label studies, evaluating repeat dose KB807 and KB111, which we expect to read out later this year. Based on FDA interactions, we are initiating an open-label single-arm study to evaluate safety of repeat dose KB407 for 24 weeks in 5 patients with CF who are ineligible for do not tolerate or do not benefit from modular therapy. So dosing is expected to start later this month. With strong backing from the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, the CFF, we expect to complete enrollment in the study later this quarter and report data by end of the year. Then concurrently, we are working closely with the FDA and the CFF on an innovative registrational study design and systical analysis plan that may include prospectively collected natural Histidata from the CFF to supplement placebo-controlled data for evaluation of KB407 treatment effect. We will chair the design and associated statistical analysis plan of the registrational study following alignment with the FDA, which we expect in second half of 2026. We expect the registrational study to commence in first half of 2027. Strong patient and KOL engagement is also helping us move quickly on our KB111 program for the treatment of Hailey-Hailey disease. We are making steady progress on our HD severity scale and expect to complete both the development and validation in the first half of this year. We also plan to initiate an open-label safety KYANITE-1 to evaluate KB111 for 12 weeks in 7 patients with HHD. We expect to dose the first patient in the [indiscernible] later this month, and submit our registrational study design to FDA in the second half of the year. Based on the current time line, we expect the registrational study to start in 2027, and then we have our KB408 program for AATD lung disease and our KB707 program for non-small cell cancer, both are advancing steadily in the clinic and on track for data updates later this year, including in the case of KB707, a data update at ASCO next month. Altogether, this sets up for 6 potential readouts before year-end, including 2 registrational study readouts. With that, I'll hand the call over to Kate. Kathryn Romano: Thank you, Suma and good morning, everyone. I'll now provide some highlights from our Q1 financial results reported in our press release and 10-Q filing earlier today. Net revenue from global sales of VYJUVEK was $116.4 million for the first quarter, which included sales from our commercial launches in Europe and Japan. This marked growth as compared to the prior quarter of 9% and was a 32% increase compared to the first quarter of 2025. Cost of goods sold for the quarter was $6.3 million compared to $5 million in the prior year's first quarter. Gross margin for the quarter was 95%, slightly up from 94% in 1Q 2025. We are seeing the benefits of manufacturing process improvements related to our U.S.-approved product and are actively working to achieve similar efficiencies for our other markets. R&D expenses for the quarter were $15.3 million compared to $14.3 million in the prior year's first quarter. This was driven mainly by payroll, materials and support costs for production runs across several product candidates. G&A expenses were $41 million compared to $32.6 million in the prior year. This $8.4 million increase was primarily due to increased head count and related compensation expense as well as higher legal consulting and launch for costs for VYJUVEK globally. Operating expenses for the quarter included noncash stock-based compensation of $13.6 million compared to $13.5 million in the first quarter of last year. The guidance we previously issued relating to non-GAAP operating expenses remains unchanged. We anticipate approximately $175 million to $195 million in non-GAAP R&D and SG&A expenses for the full year of 2026. Net income for the quarter was $55.9 million, which represented $1.91 per basic and $1.83 per diluted share. We are pleased to report growth as compared to the prior year's first quarter's net income of $35.7 million and EPS of $1.24 per basic and $1.20 per diluted share. And finally, we continue to build on our strong cash position now exceeding $1 billion in combined cash and investments, which positions us well to support our pipeline and global commercial efforts. And with that, I'd like to turn the call back over to Krish. Krish Krishnan: Thanks, Kate. I want to circle back and underscore our excitement in the global VYJUVEK launch trajectory. While there are nuances to a launch in every country, for example, prescription renewal frequency in Japan in the first year, mandatory first physician visit and ongoing pricing negotiations in Europe or the start-stop paradigm in the U.S. that we're now starting to see 3 years into launch. But taken as a whole, all these geographies, the resilience in our launch dramatically increased the number of patients able to benefit from VYJUVEK and strengthens our conviction in the long-term growth outlook. Country level fluctuations quarter-to-quarter are inevitable but mitigated by the diversification that geographic expansion brings. I am pleased that VYJUVEK?continues to work well for patients living with DDEB, which, as you all know, is a devastating and debilitating disease. We're hearing meaningful stories from patients and families globally whose lives have improved, including patients who are now able to participate in activities they have never imagined before. Many are also able to pause weekly administration and return to treatment when wounds recur. We're deeply humbled to play a role in helping these patients and their families as they navigate a lifelong journey with this disease. And on the pipeline, we have multiple data readouts coming later this year, including 2 registrational readouts in DI, initial repeat dose data from KB407 in CF and KB111 in Hailey-Hailey?disease, along with data update for KB707 in NSCLC and KB408 in AATD. So it's turning out to be a really busy clinical and a commercial year for Krystal Biotech. Overall, we're set up for an exciting 2026. Thank you and May the 4th be with you. Operator? Operator: [Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Roger Song with Jefferies. Jiale Song: Great. Maybe just 2 questions, 1 related to the commercial and then the pipeline. For the commercial looking at the 10-Q, so you have a U.S. 87.5% and then Europe 20.7%, Japan 8.1% seems a very strong launch ex U.S. How should we think about the growth trajectory in the U.S. for the rest of the 2026 and then how this strong trend in ex U.S., Europe and Japan will continue for the rest of the year? I know long term, I totally hear you for the outlook, how about the 2025? And then just quickly on the pipeline. On the CF 24-week data, what would be the endpoint for that data readout? And then what will be the [indiscernible] decision before you start a pivotal? Krish Krishnan: Thanks for your question, both super relevant. Yes, on the commercial and the U.S. As you can see from the reimbursement approvals, the top line demand continues to grow very nicely. I know we've previously said there's maybe about 1,200 identified patients and we're steadily marching towards that and even hope to get to that $720 million number by next quarter, right? So we're at 60% market share. And so the top line is growing well. What is a bit difficult to predict is the start-to-stop paradigm on a Q-by-Q basis. But the point I made in the call in my script was, look, people are pretty -- patients are really happy with that experience on VYJUVEK. We've seen many instances of patients stopping and coming back on drug, which is what we had always wanted this to be that's the tail on the drug. But on a Q-by-Q basis, it's really tough to predict the ups and downs. So you can have a down 1Q up the second Q. But overall, we expect the trend to be appointed in the positive direction. Christine Wilson: Yes, Christine, if I may add, we're continuing to launch support programs that really educate them on the label updates that will help these patients continue to integrate this into their daily life as we look to establish lifelong partnerships with these patients and support their ongoing trajectory with VYJUVEK?as they start and stop through natural wound healing. Suma Krishnan: I can take the CF question. No, I know. I got it. Yes. And so as you guys are aware, we finished the single-dose study in these patients. And clearly, we were able to establish molecular correction, and as we discussed in our last call, we are obviously working collaboratively with the CFF Foundation and the FDA. We met with the agency. I mean, the agency is convinced with our expression data. And I mean, they seem to agree that we do see nice positive expression. The only feedback that we got from the agency is, obviously, we don't have safety regarding repeat dose administration that was not established. So in order to satisfy that requirement, we set up this interim 5 patient study to establish safety in repeat dose administration safety in these patient population. Obviously, in the interim, we are in discussion -- actively in discussion with the agency and the CFF Foundation. On the design of the registrational trial, I mean, obviously, we are proposing some sort of innovative trial design. And I think we have -- working with the CFF, we have really come up with a very good -- we feel confident in our study design. And we hope to sit with the agency and basically get their confidence on this design, so we can start the registrational trial early next year. Krish Krishnan: And Roger, I was looking at the question. You had a comment about global trajectory. That's the point I wanted to emphasize. We feel really good about the direction of the global trajectory launch. And the individual ones, especially in mature markets like the U.S. are tough to predict up and down. It's also difficult on a quarterly basis to think about as Japan up versus France versus Germany. But really, we feel really good about the overall global trajectory launch in 2020. Operator: Your next question is from Alec Stranahan with Bank of America. Unknown Analyst: This is Matthew on for Alex. First, on KB803, assuming positive data in the fourth quarter of this year, can you maybe speak to how we should think about the potential launch trajectory vis-a-vis VYJUVEK?in terms of overlap with existing prescribers patients, reimbursement or site of care dynamics. And then maybe 1 on Hailey-Hailey?. I guess in terms of the data that we should expect later this year and sort of why the registration was pushed out to 2027. Just any commentary on that would be helpful. Krish Krishnan: Great. On KB803, look, you should expect a really positive launch trajectory because now that we have identified these patients, we have a good sense of who these patients are, the whole supply chain mechanism of getting the drug to a patient's home, when needed, self-administration versus needing a nurse store administer like all the things in the launch have been ironed out with JV -- with VV. And so should the drug get approved and so the label have a really strong profile. We expect the launch to be really positive. It's tough for me to quantify to what extent about. It affects about 50% of the RD population according to publications, and maybe 10% to 15% of the dominant population, and there are evidences of many more patients having lesions in the eye, but it is positioned as somewhat like a prophylactic, and so we expect the launch to be really good. So the drug get approved. Christine Wilson: I can take Hailey-Hailey. Yes. Hailey-Hailey, again, this is a disease that nobody has ever embarked upon. So there was a little bit of learning and understanding, and this is where we have -- we talk to the agency, we came to an agreement on a patient-reported outcome scale. So the agency wanted us to basically validate the scale. So we are in the process of validating the scale, which should be done shortly. But in the process of validating the scale, we were able to really reach out and we have a lot of patients technically reached out and to participate in this scale. So now we have a repository of these patients where we are actually like our mini natural history sort of database, we collect the data on these patients as we are validating the scale, and we have a lot of interest from these patients to participate in the trial. But again, since we don't have any clinical data, I think the best approach for us was to do a small Phase I study, where we have 5 to 6 patients. I mean we're already the patients in our system, the scales are being validated and to just collect both safety dosing regimen and also some sort of the scale validation to really validate because before we want to go into the registration trial, we want to be really comfortable with our skills, really understand the disease. So we position ourselves for success. So that's the goal. So I think the Phase I study in this handful of patients will allow us to really evaluate this patient population, the timing of the evaluation and the robustness of the scale. So I think all of this will be completely established by end of the year. And then we expect to get into the registration trial early. And I think the study should go pretty quickly because we have the patient population. I mean, as I said, as we with the validation of the scale, establishing these patients, we have been genetically testing them. So I think once we have this the registrational style should be pretty fast because, again, this is a decentralized study, the patient reported outcome editions, the drug is shipped to the relations house. So because of the decentralized nature and the CRO outcome of the endpoint, we expect once the registration trial that this trial could pretty much be fully enrolled pretty rapidly. Operator: Your next question is from Joe Pantginis with H.C. Wainright. Joseph Pantginis: So Chris, at the end of your prepared comments, you started to highlight some of the key factors or differences with regard to ex U.S. launch of VYJUVEK. I was hoping to get a little more color on that. So do you see any key education steps that are needed for ex U.S. doctors versus U.S.? What are some of the key negotiation points besides, say, pricing or any other factors you'd like to highlight that might be different from the U.S. launch. Krish Krishnan: Thanks, Joe. Look, given that Europe launched after the U.S. a lot of physicians in Europe, especially like Germany, France, the countries we're going after Italy, Spain are aware of the significant benefit that VYJUVEK has been affording to patients in the U.S. So in terms of bringing them up to speed, teaching them about the disease, the benefits of VYJUVEK and how it works and the application, it's been a lot easier relative to the U.S. in terms of physician education and getting them up to speed, and that's true in Japan, too. In -- so that part, like we feel really good about what the physicians think about VYJUVEK?so and so. It's kind of helped us accelerate launches in both Spain and Italy, given the voice of the physicians in these countries. With respect to negotiations, look, that's a tough question. that beyond the nature of the drug itself, which is very powerful, the clinical benefits are great. There are also political factors that come into negotiations in these countries. They have budgets for rare diseases. But today, the negotiations have been progressing well. We've been able to make a good compelling benefit. We'll obviously know the outcome first in Germany, second half of this year, followed by maybe Italy ahead of that. So we'll have a couple of European benchmarks, which will probably dictate the direction of the French and U.K. and subsequent Spanish pricing. But all in all, given what we were able to do in Japan, given the benefits of the drug, we feel really good about making the compelling value proposition. The question always is what are the macroeconomic factors in these countries that could potentially influence our pricing. Operator: Your next question for today is from Ritu Baral with TD Cowen. Ritu Baral: I've got 1 on VYJUVEK?and then a couple on CF. Krish, we have been hearing just of sort of insurance friction around the stop-start drug holidays that insurance companies are sort of coming down on patients whether it's requirements for documentation of reopened wounds or things like that and how insurance companies are sort of monitoring whether wounds are closed or not. So if you could elaborate just on insurance dynamics around stop and start and reauthorization of coverage? And then I've got a couple on CF. Krish Krishnan: Yes. Thanks, Ritu. I mean we have had -- I mean, from since the launch, we've had no issues with access to date, whether that's in terms of reimbursement, reauthorization, start and stop effect. The start and stop decisions are obviously made by the patient in consultation with their physician. But once they're ready to start, we've had no delays with respect to getting them back on drug at all. So it's been really smooth. Fingers crossed. Ritu Baral: Okay. And then on CF, you mentioned that the patients, the patients include those that do not tolerate modulators or do not benefit from modulators. Are there sort of prescribed definitions around either liver enzyme elevations or sweat chloride changes either longer retreatment periods that the FDA wanted. If so, why? And would it be possible to get functional data from these 4-week patients ahead of pivotal? Suma Krishnan: So Ritu, I'll answer that question. Yes, we are enrolling patients that are now and that are modulator intolerant. With regards to sweat chloride, I mean, I don't think there is any marker because we are nebulizing the drug, it directly goes into the lung, and that's where the action is. So we don't have systemic levels of measurements. But yes, we are -- I mean, we have a lot of now patients ready to go on this trial in our -- the study that where we are evaluating repeat dose. So we are evaluating patients who are ineligible for modulation. Either they don't tolerate it or they cannot take these drugs. So with regarding to your second question, we never did a repeat dose administration. As was a single dose. When you see 4 dose of applications, this is something that we discussed with the agency. -- because when we made the first batch titers, I mean, the dose was not enough to deliver all of it in 1 sitting. I mean, obviously, now we have manufacturing and we have doses that can be done as a single administration. So we discussed with the agency and the agency recommended that we divide the dose over 4 days. So it was not immediately with day 1, day 2, day 3, day 4, but they're still considered as a single dose. And the entire dose is now was between 4 days. But if you look at the study that we are proposing, it's the same dose as a single administration as a single dose, but as a repeat administration. So now we are going -- so this has never been done -- so we're going to do it weekly, the same dose, but once a day, weekly over the entire 6-month period, and we will evaluate Obviously, safety is going to be is the primary endpoint of the study. We will look at -- we will also evaluate obviously, we will be measuring FEV1. We will look at patients reported out PRO scales to see that benefit. So we are going to look at all of that in an expiatory fashion because more data that will help us so the better for us as we embark upon our base registration trial. Operator: Your next question is from Yigal Nochomovitz with Citi. Yigal Nochomovitz: Just a few on Europe. Could you just comment as to whether you've entered the second 6 months of the accrual phase in Germany, and then with regard to Spain and Italy, could you clarify whether this is going to be a pricing first model where there's no accrual? Or will it be an accrual model where you'll launch and then negotiate similar to Germany and France? And then I have 1 other 1 on KB-803. Krish Krishnan: Yes, Lauren you want to start. Laurent Goux: Yes. So maybe to start with the second question on the pricing model. in Italy and Spain. What we expect is definitive reimbursement in those countries. So it will not be advanced, like the 1 in France or Germany currently. And with regard to the German situation, yes, we've entered with within the second 6 months of the launch. So that's the first semester where we start accruing for future potential pricing. Yigal Nochomovitz: Okay. And then on 803, I'm just curious if you could comment on the natural history run-in data. Those are tracking with expectations? And if you have any comments on the diary, the blinded symptom diaries in terms of compliance with logging that during the trial? Christine Wilson: Sure. I mean we -- as you know, we do have a natural -- it's the same diary that -- I mean, the same information or data that we are collecting in the natural history study. Once they qualify to be in the main study, at that point, we have a database where it's blinded, randomized the patients I mean the drug is randomized and the patients that are signed to either placebo or drug. And they have -- so then they start a new diary, which is, I mean, a complete different database always blinded. So the patient is blinded, the physician is blinded, we have blinded it except the pharmacy that ships the drug to the patients where they do the randomization and the blinding. So it's a completely blinded system, which is completely maintained. And then the patient is just still the diary on a weekly basis, just like the natural history. So they have the practice and experience. Obviously, the clinical operations team will help them answer or address any questions they have, or we have, I mean the external CRO that is managing the diary, if there is a patient that's missing information, then we can cross them to say make sure you feel so the data can be is there's nothing no missing information. So it's a completely blinded system. Operator: Your next question for today is from Bill Maughan with Clear Street. Bill Maughan: So you mentioned in the press release that your 803 trial is powered to detect at least a 25% reduction in symptom days. How conservative would you describe that bar as being? And might we see something meaningfully -- a meaningfully larger separation and I guess, how much does that delta matter in terms of supporting commercialization down the road? Christine Wilson: I mean, again, I think any improvement in these patients because, I mean, it's such a debilitating disease. And once they have 1 of these abrasions or symptoms, it can be pretty rough on these patients, because they can open the eyes, they can be decommissioned for 3 days. And in addition to all of the other comorbidities that they have to experience. So I think from a any improvement, I think, is a benefit to these patients. The good thing is we have this natural history study that we have been collecting over a year. So we have a ton of data that -- so as we embark upon this study will have some flexibility to even use some of this natural history as we do the analysis. So again, I think any improvement that the prospectively collected natural history, I mean a lot of the I mean, reasons that you see the agencies have issues with external control of using them as controllers because many of that data is not prospectively collected. In our case, we have over 100 patients in this natural is very prospectively collected, which simulates exactly what they're going to do in the clinical. So I think we can leverage that data to -- in the analysis as we move forward. Bill Maughan: And then with a large cash balance and growing, I guess, how are you looking at capital allocation right now? Krish Krishnan: Yes. Yes, a regular question for me. I'll say a couple of things, like right now, we are in a growth out, both in terms of commercial growth in the world and in terms of our pipeline. We're not planning on licensing or buying and I've said that before in different forms. So once we have visibility into the future of our pipeline, especially on the drugs that address large markets, KB408, the oncology, the aesthetics, and then when we have some visibility into the launch of our next drug, that would be a great timing to think about share buyback. Operator: Your next question is from Gavin Clark-Gartner with Evercore ISI. Gavin Clark-Gartner: Krish, I didn't know you were Star Wars fan. Anyways, on KB 803, I just wanted to double click on the powering a little bit. So for the 16 patients that you enrolled in the study from a natural history runner, what was the average symptom is at baseline? And what was the standard deviation that you saw in the natural history portion? And then on the powering side, you noted the study is 90% powered for a 25% reduction and symptom is -- at what point does the study become 50% powered? Like what's the minimum detectable benefit you think you could tease out in this trial? I mean, obviously, we looked at our natural history data extensively, and we know the pattern, right? I mean we know there are patients that have the severity of the disease. I mean, you can see from our natural history are a subset of patients that these abrasions are pretty frequent, right, and really over 1-year period. So the benefit we have is because of this [indiscernible], we could select those patients. So we can see a difference from a drug effect. I mean, so that was very important to us. So if you look at the patients, we have the patients that are enrolled into the 16 patients that we have meet that criteria. So hopefully, I mean, because of that, the drug effect should become evident. And I think based on that, we were -- that's how we powered it. We were able to see, okay, 25% difference with what is the least amount of difference we need to see statistical significance, what is the sample size. And again, with the crossover design where patients -- the same patient gets either drug or placebo -- we that also improve our sample size and increases the chances. So all of that was taken into account to calculate the sample size and the powering for the stent. Operator: Your next question is from [ Joshua Sodo ] with William Blair. Unknown Analyst: Congrats on the quarter. This is Josh on from Sami and Logan. I have questions on VYJUVEK?. The first is ever since the company gave home administration in the U.S. at the end of Q4. I was wondering what has been the impact of that on either if that has been the driver in the decrease of start-stop dynamic? Or nation adds in the U.S. The second question was on the ex U.S. launch. I was wondering if pricing in Spain is going to be similar compared to other European territories and how many patients does the company estimate can address the territory. Christine Wilson: Thank you for the question. In terms of the label updates in the home administration, it's been received incredibly well, both by patients and physicians as it really offers the opportunity for patients to integrate this differently. So we have seen a subset of patients who maybe didn't initiate therapy early on because they weren't comfortable with the nurse coming to their home, and now they have that flexibility and that choice. We've also seen a subset of patients that have transitioned from home nursing into self-administration. And if you think about our goal of being able to create a scenario where this fits comfortably into their daily routines. The label updates that have allowed that flexibility, and we've seen some really positive impact of that, both from patients receptivity to VYJUVEK?and supporting their stop and start on therapy, but also the way physicians are thinking about initiating therapy for their patients. Krish Krishnan: Laurent, do you want to talk on the international question. Laurent Goux: Yes. So if I understood the question, it was related to Spain, specifically. And the first 1 was about the pricing in Spain. We do have a pricing corridor reflecting the value of Vivek. And so we do expect Spain to be within this pricing corridor. But of course, negotiations are ongoing. So difficult to speculate at this stage. And the number of patients in Spain, we would think, we would look at it as an equivalent prevalence to the other European countries. So there are no difference in prevalence versus the other European countries. Operator: Thank you. We have reached the end of the question-and-answer session and today's conference call. You may disconnect your phone lines at this time, and have a wonderful day. Thank you for your participation.
Operator: Welcome to Twist Biosciences 2026 Second Quarter Financial Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Also note, this call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Angela Bitting, SVP of Corporate Affairs. Please go ahead. Angela Bitting: Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone. I would like to thank you for joining us for Twist Biosciences conference call to review our fiscal 2026 second quarter financial results and business progress. We issued our financial results press release before the market, and it is available at our website at www.twistbiocience.com. With me on the call today tare Dr. Emily Leproust, CEO and Co-Founder of Twist. Adam Laponis, CFO of Twist; and Dr. Patrick Finn, President and COO of Twist. Today, we will discuss our business progress, financial and operational performance as well as growth opportunities. We will then open the call for questions. We ask that you limit your questions to only one, and then requeue as a courtesy to others on the call. This call is being recorded. The audio portion will be archived in the Investors section of our website and will be available for 2 weeks. During today's presentation, we will make forward-looking statements in the meaning of the U.S. federal securities laws. Forward-looking statements generally relate to future events or future financial or operating performance. Our expectations and beliefs regarding these matters may not materialize, and actual results and financial periods are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. These risks include those set forth in the press release we issued earlier today as well as those more fully described in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The forward-looking statements in this presentation are based on information available as of the date hereof, and we disclaim any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, except as required by law. We'll also discuss adjusted EBITDA, a financial measure that does not conform with generally accepted accounting principles. Information may be calculated differently than similar not update presented by other companies. When reported, a reconciliation between GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures will be included in our earnings documents, which can be found on the Investors section of our website. With that, I will now turn the call over to our CEO and Co-Founder, Emily Leproust. Emily Leproust: Thank you, Angela, and good morning, everyone. Twist delivered another strong quarter and extended our track record of consistent execution, posting our 13th quarter of sequential revenue growth. We have outperformed the broader license tools market with a model that scales efficiently and drive increasing value creation. Twist core technology advantage is a semiconductor-based D&A platform that provides a structural advantage in cost, scale and speed that feeds into every product and service we offer. This same platform also enables a highly efficient new product introduction engine, allowing us to rapidly translate customer demand into scalable offerings and continuously expand our portfolio. . As we increase volume on the silicon chip, we expand our wallet share, accelerate product innovation and further strengthen our competitive advantage. The model works exactly as designed. We have delivered sustained revenue growth, expanded margin above 50%, invested strategically to drive continued return on that investment, and we remain firmly on track to achieve adjusted EBITDA breakeven in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2026. Focusing our results for the second quarter of fiscal 2026, we grew total revenue to $110.7 million, up more than 19% year-over-year. DNA synthesis and Protein Solutions grew 28%, powered by continued strength in AI-enabled drug discovery, NGS applications grew 12% year-over-year and 9% sequentially. Diving deeper into DNA synthesis and Protein Solutions, we continue to see robust growth. Last month, Amazon Web Services announced Twist as a wet lab partner for Amazon BioDiscovery it's AI-powered drug discovery application. This is an exciting validation of our DNA synthesis, protein solutions and biologics capabilities. In advance of the launch, Twist has been working with AWS team for several months providing web lab services for the applications scientific launch partners, including Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and the GRAIL Lab adjuncts of Kim Senior City. The objective for researchers using Amazon BioDiscovery is to deploy AI models to design and optimize antibody candidates faster. We are here to support them with products and services that accelerate that pathway. I think in close contact with our customers. We identified this emerging category of AI near early and invested ahead of the market acceleration with increasing adoption across pharma, drylab and big tech companies. Importantly and on balance, the growth of AI enabled discoveries complements our work with customers pursuing traditional discovery, which remains a robust area of our business. With our lesser approach, our customers for DNA synthesis and Protein solutions are all working through the same fundamental design build test learn cycle. What differs is how they execute against that framework. There is no 1 side fold model. Edge program is tailored to the customer scientific resources and stage of discovery, but remains constant across every engagement is the foundation Twist silicon platform, which enables cost-effective synthesis of hundreds of thousands of unique sequences in parallel. That unique and [indiscernible] capability is what makes speed at scale possible, no matter where the customer enters the workflow. No 2 orders are identical, so we see consistent patterns in how these campaigns are structured. On Slide 6, to give you some context. One example is our work with Memorial Sloan Ketterings and Amazon, where the team ordered approximately 100,000 specific DNA sequences as a pool labor. This approach is highly efficient and precisely because of how our platform is built. [indiscernible] DNA can be manufactured electively rather than individually clone and processed, driving on cost of sequence dramatically. And Twist is a unique provider, we can deliver hundreds of thousands of specific sequences pooled at speed and scale. Once there is a pool DNA, either twist out a customer then screens that labor to identify promising candidates selects the most relevant sequences and advance those into individual synthesis, protein expression and characterization. Through interative cycles, this process yields a validated antibody leads. The second model involves customers ordering hundreds to thousands of fragrance and executing downstream workflow internally. Here again, Twist platform delivers an edge in the ability to synthesize diverse sequence sets quickly and at accessible costs, meaning customer connect for broader design spaces. In these cases, customers [ indiscernible] fragment to clinogenes, express proteins and perform characterization assays within their own laboratories. Others choose to start further downstream, purchasing clonal genes or antibodies and binding proteins, such as ITG SCIB, DHH and others to focus their internal efforts on functional characterization and validation. Even at this entry point, the advantage Twist can stream, the parallel synthesis capabilities underpinning our platform and show the sequences they receive reflect the speed at scale that alternative cannot match. And we have a growing segment of customers we reliant with as an end-to-end partner. In these engagements, we entered the DNA synthesis cloning construction, protein expression and characterization. Our platform's ability to run large complex sequence sets in paralell, accelerates every stage of that workflow, and we deliver high-quality extent data that enables customers to focus on critical analysis, decision-making and iterative design. We also have a number of customers who give us a biological target and ask us to do all of the work through in vivo, in vitro and our AI/ML discovery approaches. Across all of these models, cost scales with the scope and complexity of the workflow, ranging from smaller exploratory programs to multimillion dollar discovery efforts. Our role is to provide flexibility across the spectrum. Because our platform was purpose-built for parallel census is at scale, we can make customers where they are, whether they need a pool libraries of hundreds of thousands of sequences or a fully managed core program. We support them their research advances. On Slide 7, you'll see our portfolio for DNA Synthesis and Protein Solutions, serving customers across the vertical continuum. Building on our success in serving therapeutic disco customers in February, we licensed the body-byspecific platform to expand our capabilities in this rapidly growing modality. We will enable high super discovery in bispecifics, an area that is strictly been limited by scale. We have already received our first orders for this platform with a robust funnel looking forward. Moving to Slide 8 and NGS. Growth reaccelerated in the second quarter. Our NGS Trus business remains a durable and growing part of the portfolio with particular offense in oncology diagnostics. We operate at a critical part in the workflow between the sample and the sequencer, where our products support precision and customization as cap. Our target enrichment and be preparation solutions delivered the uniformity and on-target performance required for high-sensitivity applications. This is especially relevent in the continuum of cancer care on Slide 9 where we are seeing increasing adoption in commercial diagnostic tests, including issuance molecular or minimal residual disease, or MRD. The applications demand extremely high accuracy and possibility, faster times and our chemistry is well aligned to these requirements. Specifically, on Slide 10, has MRD testing transitions from early clinical adoption into scale deployment across oncology diagnostics the technical and operational requirements become significantly more demanding. These assays are pushing the limit of sensitivity, also requiring detection of Viant at extremely low allele frequencies. That places a premium on panel design as well as the entire flow to ensure uniform coverage and reposability across run. In this environment, success is on the ability to deliver highly customized target regional panels library preparation enabled by novel and lines as well as the buffer BCDRUMIs and other components optimized for specific indications and evolving clinical needs. Equally important is speed. As these steps move into broader clinical workflows, laboratories and diagnostic developers this rapid or on panel design synthesis enrollment to support asset development panels and commercial scale up. At West, we combine high throughput DNA synthesis with precision, prop design and manufacturing at scale, enabling fast real delivery of customer panels with consistent on car statistics. That allows our customers to move quickly from development realization commercialization without compromise on data quite and importantly, securing and future-proofing the supply chain. For bespoke, our tumor-informed MRD panels, like all of our NGS panels, this is a consumable-driven workflow that scales with stale volume, supporting recurring revenue as these applications extend. This time, I'd like to turn the call over to Paddy to expand further on our growth initiatives around the product offering. Patrick Finn: Thank you, Emily. Happy to our fiscal year, the results are strong, and we believe the road ahead is stronger. Everything we do in protein solutions and AI-enabled discovery runs on 1 foundation, our DNA synthesis platform. It's a structural advantage for cost, scale and speed, full stop. And we continue to advance and strengthen this platform to enhance customer experience even more. Today, we accept the vast majority of daily sequences as we know we can manufacture them. We have an algorithm embedded in our e-commerce system to inform a customer immediately if they have uploaded a sequence that may be difficult to manufacture. Dissipation improves the user experience for customers as some sequences present manufacturing challenges, repeat regions, Herpen extreme GC content. Three years ago, we accepted about 96% of clonal genes. I could manufacture about 97.5% of clonal genes and about 98% of DNA sequences more broadly including oligo pools, DNA libraries, gene fragments. Today, we accept about 97% of clonal genes and can manufacture approximately 98.5% of clonal genes and about 99% of DNA requests more broadly. That's not theoretical capabilities. That's production reality at scale. We routinely deliver clonal genes and fragments up to 5,000 base fares, all the gaps up to 300 basis, novelex-gene fronts up to 500 base payers across a wide range of formats. If a customer can design it, we are increasingly able to make it. Even as the acceptance rate for DNA sequences remains very high, we recognize that in a single sequence in a larger set does not meet acceptance criteria, customers may choose to route the full set elsewhere. This dynamic highlights a clear opportunity. Continued improvements in acceptance rates can unlock incremental share gains and expand total order capture. On Slide 11, you'll see that we announced this morning that we will soon take a full range of sequences across length and complexity, driving towards accepting approximately 99.5% of chloro genes and 99.9% of all D&A products more broadly. With constant drive to improve sets us apart and importantly, more sequences accepted means more orders won and we intend to win them. And that matters because this is not a standardized market. Every customer is different. Every order is different. -- breadth drives share gain. It's that simple. In contrast to Twist, the competitive landscape has a pattern, niche players narrow offerings limited reach. That is not how customers operate and it is not how this market has won. We employ a different approach. We anchored our strategy around end applications where performance, scale and execution are the only metrics that matter. Customers do not want to stitch together multiple vendors. They want 1 partner who can deliver consistently across the workflow. That is where Twist is differentiated. We offer both depth and breadth across the biological continuum from perasynthesis through proteins, biologics and NGS. We support customers increasingly across the entire life cycle of their programs. is how we continue to take share, expand wallet and reinforce our position to leading platforms, serving therapeutics, diagnostics, industrial, academic and government markets. With that, I'll turn it over to Adam to discuss the financials for the quarter. Adam Laponis: Thank you, . Turning to Slide 12. Q2 is another quarter of consistent execution against the financial model we've laid out. Revenue grew 19.3% year-over-year to $110.7 million, our 13th consecutive quarter of sequential growth. Gross margin expanded to 51.6% versus the prior year, an improvement of approximately 200 basis points, and we remain firmly on track for adjusted EBITDA breakeven in Q4. Let me walk you through the details. On Slide 13, you'll see DNA synthesis and Protein Solutions revenue increased to $53.3 million, growth of 28% year-over-year. On Slide 14, we show NGS applications revenue for the second quarter grew to approximately $57.4 million compared to $51.1 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2025, an increase of 12% year-over-year and up 9% sequentially, driven by growth in top accounts. For the quarter, revenue from our top 10 NGS applications customers accounted for approximately 39% and of NGS applications revenue. We serve 627 NGS applications customers in the quarter with 174 having adopted our products. Looking geographically on Slide 15. Americas revenue increased to approximately $64.3 million in the second quarter compared to $55.2 million in the same period of fiscal 2025. Growth of 17% year-over-year. EMEA revenue rose to $37.3 million in the second quarter versus $30.6 million in the same period of fiscal 2025, growth of 22% year-over-year. APAC revenue increased to $9.1 million in the second quarter compared to $7 million in the same period of fiscal '25, an increase of 30% year-over-year. APAC accounted for 8% of our revenue in the second quarter. China continues to be a relatively small portion of our revenue at approximately 1% of total revenue for the second quarter of fiscal 2020. Looking at revenue by industry on Slide 16. I Therapeutics revenue rose to $40.8 million for the second quarter of 2026 compared to $26.3 million in the same period of fiscal '25, growth of 55% and reflecting the increased uptake of our products by large pharma and biotech customers in their efforts on therapeutic discovery and including AI-enabled discovery. Diagnostics revenue was $40 million for the second quarter of '26, compared to $35 million in the same period of fiscal 2025, an increase of 14%. Diagnostics revenue grew 13% versus Q1 of fiscal '26 based on strong growth from top accounts. Industry and applied revenue was $5.8 million in the second quarter '26 compared to $7 million in the same period of fiscal 2025. Academic research and government revenue was $12.8 million for the second quarter of '26 compared to $12.5 million in the same period of fiscal '25, an increase of 3%. And Sequential growth was 5% versus prior quarter, driven by strength in U.S. accounts. Global Supply Partner revenue was $11.4 million in the second quarter of 2026, compared to $12 million in the same period of fiscal 2025, primarily due to order timing. Moving down the P&L on Slide 15. Our gross margin for the second quarter increased to 51.6%, an improvement of 2 margin points versus the same period of fiscal '25. Market expansion was driven by strong revenue growth and moderated sequentially as we continue to invest in new product offerings and manufacturing capacity that we expect will result in future margin gains as we accelerate growth and implement continuous process improvement. Operating expenses, excluding cost of revenues and litigation settlement costs were $95.8 million for the quarter compared to $87.6 million in the prior year. The increase reflects deliberate investment in our commercial organization and digital infrastructure to support the growth trajectory we are delivering, particularly the 55% growth in therapeutics. These are revenue-generating investments with a clear line of sight to return. We are managing these investments with discipline. In April, we reduced 36 positions to reallocate resources to our highest return opportunities. Combined with additional cost initiatives underway, we expect these actions to contribute to sequential OpEx improvement of $6 million in Q4 of fiscal '26. Looking at our progress on our path to profitability. For the second quarter of fiscal 2026, adjusted EBITDA was a loss of approximately $13.3 million, an improvement of approximately $1.5 million versus the second quarter of fiscal '25. We have dramatically narrowed that loss through a combination of revenue growth, gross margin expansion and operating expense discipline. We expect the actions we've taken, combined with continued revenue momentum to fully deliver on our targets for Q4. We reached an agreement in principle regarding the securities class action for approximately $17.1 million. In fiscal Q2, we booked $7.2 million for litigation settlement costs net recoveries as we expect the additional costs to be covered by our insurance. We view this as a positive resolution allowing management to remain fully focused on execution. We ended Q2 with $171.7 million in cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments versus $197.9 million as of December 31, 2025. The Sequential change reflects $17.6 million in operating cash usage, $7.9 million in CapEx as we continue to invest in manufacturing automation and $5 million in cash for the Invenra license and equity event. On Slide 18, turning to guidance. For fiscal 2026, we expect total revenue of $442 million to $447 million, growth of approximately 17% to 19%. We -- for Q3 of fiscal 2016, we expect total revenue of $114 million to $115 million, growth of approximately 19% year-over-year at the midpoint. As previously discussed, we expect NGS to be the driver of sequential growth in H2 and return to 20% by Q4. We remain confident in our trajectory and continue to forecast reaching adjusted EBITDA breakeven for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2026. With that, I'll turn the call back over to Emily. Emily Leproust: Thank you, Ed. On Slide 19, as we look ahead, we remain focused on delivering consistent measurable growth designed to scale over time. We see strong momentum across the port fill with continued growth in denseness and protein solutions, increasing adoption in AI-enabled discovery and a return to growth in NGS. We serve large and expanding markets where our platform is increasingly relevant. At the same time, our operating model continues to perform as expected. We have delivered 13th consecutive quarters of sequential revenue growth, expanding gross margins above 50% and maintain a clear path to adjusted EBITDA breakeven in fiscal 2026. What opens this performance is the stability of our platform. As volume increases, we expand or improve efficiency and generate operating leverage across the business. Our ability to serve a wide range of customer workflows from early discovery through clinical and diagnostic applications provides both resilience and opportunity to capture more value over time. Across the business, we invest with discipline we high return opportunities allocate capital deliberately underlying investments with clear growth drivers. We execute with focus and urgency to drive durable growth and build the company with increasing strategic resent and long-term value creation. With that, we're happy to take your questions. Operator? Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Mac Etoch with Stephens. Steven Etoch: Maybe just to start, could you just discuss how AI-driven workflows performed in the quarter relative to your internal expectations? And how the change in the outlook for both of the segments is really contributing to the change in the updated fiscal guidance from here? . Emily Leproust: Yes. Thanks for the question. Obviously, we're very excited with the performance of the SPS growing 28% year-over-year. And for the therapics category, we cracked the $40 million for the quarter. A lot of companies in the drug discovery field, they tap out at $50 million a year. And now we're way past that. We're almost there every quarter. So obviously, there is the trend throughout the menu. What we see is that customers don't want 1 thing -- and so the NPI engine that we built that creates a lot of options for people to enter as it's been a great driver. And obviously, AI-driven drug discovery has been a big help in that area. It just increases the number of sequences that people want to look at. If we look sequence before, now with AI, they can get thousands. And so it just increases the overall value of the deals. And a lot of companies don't have the capacity to analyze that number of antibodies. And so it enables us to upscale upsell to data and cell coradiation. So overall, the entire menu is doing well, but hydro discovery has definitely been great sales in -- great wins in our sales. Operator: Our next question comes from Vijay Kumar with Evercore ISI. . Vijay Kumar: Congrats on a nice friend. Maybe on the prior question rate related to -- when I look at the up 55% in the second quarter. That's an acceleration from Q1 growth levels. How much of this acceleration was driven by AI-related programs. I think in the past, memory called data characterization genes versus traditional biopharma and when you look at back half, is this 50% kind of growth sustainable when you look at your order book and backlog? Emily Leproust: That's a great question. Definitely, AI has been a source of strength. Again, the nice thing as people develop more sequences, which have levels of DNA, we can make if they want a pool library of EHS, we can make it if they want. Even for biospecific now we can improve. We can make the flavor of the SG&A on pool. So that's -- so the entry point of whatever they want that broad menu, they're useful. -- but with AI, as I mentioned earlier, there is more need for data characterization. And what has happened is maybe in 2025, there was excitement definitely on our side. But that excitement came from very few number of accounts and now that we are many quarters into this, now it's dozens of accounts that are driving the growth, right? It's not just a few. And so we can see that is repeatable with the existing account, but we're able to bring more and more people into the fold. And then sometimes, we can enter through AI-driven with discovery, but a lot of those companies are doing both AI-driven drug discovery and traditional drug discovery and the fact that we have a full menu enables us to grow in all areas. So overall, is broad-based. Going forward, we are not guiding per product groups. I think there's very good growth potential within the business. And we doubled, the raise is double the beat, right? So obviously, there's a lot of confidence. But that confidence is broad-based. And we also share some strong confidence for our NGS business. So the business is reaping. The sales team is confident customers are happy. So we just have to do it again. Operator: Our next question comes from Doug Schenkel with Wolf Research. Douglas Schenkel: I want to just cover 2 topics, the academic and government end market and then gross margin. So in A&G, what are you seeing? Are things stabilizing or improving? Just want to get a sense for how things are trending. And are you still running the academic promotion on express genes and kind of building off of that, when do we start to lap the headwinds on price per gene from express gene fragments. I think that's this summer? So I just want to be mindful of that as we're updating our models. And then a quick 1 on gross margin. Gross margin was down nominally sequentially and a little bit light of our model and street models. That just may be in the noise, but wanted to see if there's anything to call out there. Emily Leproust: Okay. Yes. So maybe I'll take the first question and Adam will cover the second one. Yes, on academic, definitely that end market is suffering from funding pressures. Our approach is to take market share. And so academic the -- when funding is a pressure, they are very cautious because they are dollars. And so especially, that market is basically shrinking right now. So the fact that we are growing and growing sequentially is definitely a good thing. It shows that our product offering resonates more than the competition. And so right now, we are very happy to extend the premium discount for what that enables economic people to get [indiscernible] genes at the price of standard lens. And so they get a great value on the DNA they're seeing from us. They're getting great speed. It enables them to go faster and get better at their next brand and knowing that those brands are very competitive. So I think our discount is very well received by those customers. And definitely, the growth there is smaller than for industry segment. but we are taking market share. Adam, you want to cover the gross margin question? Adam Laponis: No, absolutely. Welcome, everyone. And Q2 definitely reflects a deliberate investment, specifically for IgG and characterization for a discovery projects. as well as our digital capabilities. We remain confident in our 52% or better guide for the year. And this investment is really around adding capacity of people to support the accelerated demand. We see a huge ROI on it. And we also see the path to continuously making improvements on those efforts in new products and returning to a 75% to 80% average drop through on incremental revenue to gross margin, as we move forward and automate workflows. Operator: Our next question comes from Luke Sergott with Barclays. Luke Sergott: Just a couple here. I want to follow up on Doug's question there. When you -- Adam, when you're talking about the gross margin improvement and the kind of the automated workflows, like what -- you guys have just built out the new facility. It's pretty state-of-the-art from what you had previously. So talk about further investment or how much more you guys can continue to push that automated workflow. And then I wanted to follow up and ask more on the data characterization of the AI projects. You guys talked about $25 million in bookings in 4Q coming from some of these AI projects. How much of the revenue in the first 6 months of the year has been converted from that? Or like is that still a majority on the comp? Emily Leproust: Thanks for the question. So maybe I start with the first one, and you guys are really good to squeezing 2 questions into 1, but [indiscernible]. So on the first one, as you [indiscernible] at the front end and the back end, right? So the front end is a shift. That's where we make the oligos, -- that's where we get the massive advantage. And then after the vials are made, depending on the flavor, it goes to different back-end. So in general, the back end for our GSPS is a different back end for NGS. And then in the [indiscernible] solution, we first make a fragment and then some stop there, they get shipped. Then we make clonal genes, some stop there, make a chip, and then we make IgG expressions and stop the bigger chip and then some of the agility gets characterized. And so as you can imagine, as we add flavor, we have to add a little bit of automation to add capacity for that new flavor. So it's not a tremendous amount of CapEx. I mean it's significant, but compared to building a new fab from scratch, it's not comparable. And so that's the strategy we've been using is showing the demand from customers and adding a little bit of automation on the back end on the branch that's needed. So that's one. And then the other thing we've done is we've been automating the automation. And so for those of you that come to our Investor Day you'll see that the giant room, we are now in that 1 room, we've been able to automate the automation and now we we'll be able to have multiple times the capacity that we used to have in that room. In terms of your second question around the $25 million of orders that we had last year, those have all been shipped now -- most of that was finished by Q1 and very little impact of that in Q2. As you remember, one thing that that's a key differentiation from us is the speed at which we deliver data. And so some data -- most of the data is delivered 15 to 20 days after we receive the sequence. It's a quick turnaround to book the reps. Operator: Our next question comes from Subbu Nambi, Guggenheim. Subhalaxmi Nambi: You increased your full year revenue guidance by more than the magnitude of the Q2 beat. Any specific area or areas which drove the increase, essentially, I'm asking for coverage. Luke Sergott: Yes. No. What we talked about in the back half, while sequentially, most of the improvements are going to come from NGS -- if you look at the full year guide, you can see that, that implies that the DSPS is really the strength of the raise in the back half. So if you are modeling it out, sequentially, we don't expect anything to go backwards in terms of DSPS. We only expect continued increases in the overall revenue, but at a more modest rate. And again, it really is dependent upon the pace of us getting new customers into the DSS side and the ability to potentially exceed those expectations will -- is an area of opportunity for us. . Operator: Our next question comes from Matt Larew with William Blair. Matthew Larew: I wanted to ask on the complex DNA offering. So what's the time line at which you expect to deliver products sort of in line with the capabilities you described today, what lengths do you expect to be able to get up to in terms of manufacturing? And do you have any sense or could you give us a sense or what the missed opportunity has been a story. You referenced, I think in some cases, losing a whole order because you couldn't make a sequence. So what kind of additional opportunity does this unlock by adding these new capabilities? Patrick Finn: Matt, it's Paddy here. Thanks for the question. We're pretty excited about the product. I think you could hear from my comments, retinal we accept the vast majority of sequences that come our way across all of the portfolio. And there is a few percentage business or a few percentage points in sequence we don't take, which we see some instances where the customer wants to take that total order somewhere else. The trends that emerging nucleic acid therapeutics and plant engineering and, of course, AI, they have some special needs or special requirements arriving then the sequence complexity. . And so true to auction, we're focused on the customer experience. Our goal is to create a one-stop shop when you leverage our DNA synthesis platform that can print really high-quality DNA. And just as a reminder, up to approximately $1 billion per ,that gives us super quality, speed and economics of scale, including for complex sequence. And so now with a little bit more optimization throughout the entire workflow, it's going to deliver products best-in-class. So broad sequence acceptance really strong, predictable and transparent performance when you're on the Twist platform to its reliability. Our platforms industry aligned, it's faster, cheaper, strong best-in-class customer us-- sorry, e-comm user experience, then you've got Twist customer service and support, so that's trained scientists to understand the customer's experiment there to help the customer through any of their challenges. So there's a lot to like with the offering. And we're looking forward to scaling in the coming few quarters. So we're talking about early access start with a sort of classic to make a few customers happy and learn as we grow and you'll continue to see the capability of ramp up as we go through the quarters. Operator: Our next question comes from Catherine Schulte with Baird. Catherine Ramsey: Maybe on the margin side, still on target to hit adjusted EBITDA breakeven in the fourth quarter. you've been very prescriptive about gross margin incrementals. I guess as you hit that milestone, how should we think about leverage beyond that point and maybe EBITDA margin incrementals going forward? . Adam Laponis: Thank you for the question. In terms of where we are today or laser-focused on making sure we cross the adjusted EBITDA positive here while also, at the same time, ensuring the maximum acceleration of revenue growth. So it's really titrating that investment in such a way that we maximize growth rates. As we go forward, we have optionality. We talked about that before. We'll talk about it more in the future. But we're steward to the market, and we understand that our continued path of not going backwards is very important to us and also ensuring that we continue to sustain the accelerated levels of growth. So those will be the 2 focus areas. And I think we'll spend some more time talking about that at our Investor Day here coming up. Operator: Our next question comes from Puneet Souda with Leerink Partners. Unknown Analyst: You have Michael on for Puneet. Congrats on the quarter. I was hoping to get some color on the jeans. So I saw a strong growth in the physical gene shift. Last quarter, you talked about 58% for characterization. I was wondering if you could offer any color on the contribution of gene per productization this quarter? And if you could offer any insight to us on how much of this ad demand is driven by more model building versus the incorporation of AI into your ongoing drug discovery, lead generation work at pharma? Emily Leproust: Thank you. Great question. We did not share the numbers today. We were trying to straddle the fine line between being as transparent to indisposable and not keeping the competition too much. I'm sure some of them are on the line today. Now what we can say is that it's more, right? So there definitely growth in many genes where internally to generate data that was sold. So definitely, to be definitely the growth there. And the second -- there was a second question. . Unknown Analyst: Yes. It was around the ability to how much of the growth is coming from making the model . Emily Leproust: I'm sorry, on the number. Yes, very interesting, actually, -- we're seeing a lot of customers that have shifted while the beginning was bidding model. I think by now, most of them or a lot of them are now turning the crank. And so when they turn to crank, what we see is that the orders maybe each order may be a little bit smaller. So billion model is a big bolus upfront, it's a little bit smaller, but it's more of it. And so we are very pleased to see that people are returning -- and yes, it's working as expected. It's working well. . Operator: Our next question comes from Brendan Smith with TD Cowen. Brendan Smith: Maybe just to put a pin in the AI or just questioning here fully. I guess, looking at that $25 million from last year, do you have a sense or can you tell us what kind of run rate you're looking at now for like '26, maybe just with the first half on your belt. And I guess related to that, and within those revenues, I guess, can you give us a sense what the relative breakdown between revs from oligos versus IgG versus analytical data? Just kind of wondering really how much is the area mostly done, kind of further down that funnel or really where they're shaking out? Patrick Finn: I can start with a little bit of color around how to think about where we're going. If you think about the therapeutics segment as a whole, obviously, the AI discovery is falling in there. And if you look at the outsized growth versus the average of the business, that delta is predominantly AI discovery work. I will say, at times, it's hard to know exactly whether it's a discovery or class of work. We don't always know exactly the number as well as whether it's training or building the models. But pretty strong confidence that the vast majority of at growth in therapeutic advance scope. I want to hand it to a second half. Operator: Our next question comes from Tom DeBourcy with Nephron Research. Tom DeBourcy: Diagnostics as a whole and the double-digit growth and also double-digit sequential growth as sort of you had, I guess, projected before. Just as you think about the rest of the year, do you see incremental sequential growth through Q3, Q4? Just thinking about diagnostics customers and their contribution to NGS. Emily Leproust: Thank you, Tom. Yes, definitely, we are seeing growth. I think we in Q4, we're experiencing at least 1% growth in NGS alone. And it's a good reminder. We talked a lot on the call of our DNA synthesis and protein solution and AI discovery, we love it all. At the same time, it's a good reminder that dollar growth in NGS or dollar growth in DNA synthesis and Protein solution is very similar to us. And so what we are optimizing for as a management team. for revenue growth for the entire business. gross margin above 50% and getting to adjusted EBITDA breakeven. And so -- and the portfolio of panels that is the library prep that we built in the NGS application group enables us to sustain great growth. We are liquid biopsy customers, our MRD customers ramping and adopting. And so we are very definitely very confident in that part of the business. And we are very much looking forward to return growth -- they were not so long ago, it was flipped where we had 28-ish percent growth in NGS and 12% growth in DNA synthesis and protein solutions, it's going to flip-flop back and forth. But at the end of the day, what matters to us is the entire business out growth in float into the life science tools industry hopefully, we are unique in the kind of growth that we are being able to post, not just this quarter, but by now certain quarters in a row. So [ $110.7 million ] this quarter and not so long ago, we had $19 million for the entire year, right? So we'll keep doing it. And I think the future is very bright. Operator: Thank you. There are no further questions. At this time, I'd like to turn the call back over to Emily Leproust for closing remarks. Emily Leproust: As we wrap up, we look forward to continuing the competition in person at our Investor Day on May 21 in Oregon. This will be an incredible opportunity to go deeper into the drivers behind our performance cleared directly from our customer in Twist across therapy discovery NGS workload and participate in a tool that brings our platform to life. We will also have the chance to engage with members of our management team as we discuss how we are scaling the platform, expanding into new applications and driving long-term value creation. See you there. Thank you. Operator: Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect. Good day.
Operator: Good morning. My name is Didi, and I will be your conference call facilitator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to The Marzetti Company's fiscal year 2026 Third Quarter Conference Call. Conducting today's call will be David A. Ciesinski, President and CEO, and Thomas K. Pigott, CFO. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers have completed their prepared remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press 11 on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press 11 again. Thank you. And now, to begin the conference call, here is Dale N. Ganobsik, Vice President of Corporate Finance and Investor Relations for The Marzetti Company. Dale N. Ganobsik: Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for The Marzetti Company's fiscal year 2026 third quarter conference call. Our discussion this morning may include forward-looking statements which are subject to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially, and the company undertakes no obligation to update these statements based upon subsequent events. A detailed discussion of these risks and uncertainties is contained in the company's filings with the SEC. Also note that the audio replay of this call will be archived and available later today on our website at investors.myzetacompany.com. For today's call, David A. Ciesinski, our President and CEO, will begin with an update on our Bachan's acquisition that was successfully completed on Friday, May 1, along with a business update and highlights for the quarter. Thomas K. Pigott, our CFO, will then provide an overview of the financial results. David A. Ciesinski will then share some comments regarding our current strategy and outlook. At the conclusion of our prepared remarks, we will be happy to respond to any of your questions. Once again, we appreciate your participation this morning. I will now turn the call over to The Marzetti Company's President and CEO, David A. Ciesinski. David? David A. Ciesinski: Thanks, Dale, and good morning, everyone. It is a pleasure to be here with you today as we review our third quarter results for fiscal year 2026. I would like to start today's call by providing you with some insights specific to our acquisition of Bachan's, the fast-growing Japanese American barbecue sauce brand known for its delicious, authentic, clean label products. I am happy to share that, in advance of last week's closing of the transaction, we have been collaborating closely with the Bachan's team on our future plans for the business. Everything we have learned has made us even more convinced about what a great addition this is to our family of brands. Since our announcement, the Bachan's business has continued on a path of strong growth, with Circana data for the quarter ending March 31 showing sales growth of over 25% and TDPs up over 50%. This growth has resulted in share gains for Bachan's in the barbecue sauce category, positioning them as one of the leading retail brands. Consumers love both the brand and the products, as evidenced by its broad usage across a wide variety of proteins, food types, and meal occasions. We believe this brand has tremendous potential and is the perfect fit for our sauce portfolio. Our thoughtful plans for the Bachan's integration are fully on track. They will remain based in California, with their very strong team retained to lead the business. We are also delighted that Bachan's founder, Justin Gill, has agreed to continue working with us on product development and marketing strategy. At the same time, we are developing plans to provide this team with the opportunity to draw from The Marzetti Company's resources, including our go-to-market capabilities, culinary expertise, procurement capabilities, and supply chain expertise, to support both their continued growth and cost synergies. Over time, we anticipate additional opportunities for Bachan's to more fully leverage The Marzetti Company's supply chain network. We believe our light-touch integration approach will allow Bachan's to continue its strong growth trajectory, and we look forward to a bright future with the Bachan's team. This acquisition strategically expands our portfolio of leading sauces, dressings, and dip brands that now represent two-thirds of our consolidated net sales. It also specifically strengthens our portfolio of sauces, which alone account for nearly 40% of our consolidated net sales. In the era of M&A and GLP-1s, we believe consumers will continue to seek flavor enhancements for their meals. We believe our deep culinary expertise and focused scale in these categories positions us well to support the continued growth of Bachan's as well as our other brands. Moving on to The Marzetti Company's results for our fiscal third quarter, which ended March 31, consolidated net sales declined 1% to $453 million. Excluding non-core sales attributed to the temporary supply agreement (TSA), adjusted net sales decreased 0.9% to $452 million. Despite the lower sales, we were pleased to report record third quarter gross profit of $107.2 million, an increase of 1.2%, driven by our cost savings programs. In our Retail segment, net sales declined 3.2% while volume, measured in pounds shipped, declined 5.6%. Our category-leading frozen bread brands were a bright spot, as sales of our New York Bakery frozen garlic bread products continued to grow and increased market share, while sales of our Sister Schubert's dinner rolls benefited from the pull-forward of demand due to the earlier Easter holiday. These sales gains were more than offset by the impacts of category softness and reduced sales into the club channel. We have initiatives in place with our club channel partners to pursue future growth for both our Chick-fil-A sauces and Olive Garden dressings. Circana scanner data for the quarter ending March 31 showed sales of our core brands and licensed items up 0.2%. In the frozen garlic bread category, our category-leading New York Bakery brand grew sales 4.4%, adding 260 basis points of market share for a category-leading share of 46.7%. In the frozen dinner roll category, our own Sister Schubert's brand and our licensed Texas Roadhouse brand combined to grow 10.1% for a category-leading market share of 61%. In the shelf-stable sauces and condiments category, sales of our licensed Chick-fil-A sauces grew 4.4%, resulting in a 5 basis point increase in share. In the crouton category, our branded croutons added 40 basis points of market share for a category-leading 28.5%. In the Foodservice segment, excluding the non-core TSA impact, net sales increased 1.8%, while volume, measured in pounds shipped, improved 0.8%. In addition to the benefit of inflationary pricing, the increase in Foodservice segment net sales reflects increased demand from several of our core national chain restaurant customers. We were pleased to report record third quarter gross profit of $107 million, with reported gross margin expanding by 50 basis points. Our focus on supply chain productivity, value engineering, and revenue management all remain core elements to further improve our margins and financial performance. I will now turn the call over to Thomas K. Pigott, our CFO, for his commentary on our third quarter results. Tom? Thomas K. Pigott: Thanks, Dave. Overall, the company delivered improved gross profit performance despite a modest decline in revenue. In addition, investments were made to support future growth. Third quarter consolidated net sales decreased by 1% to $453.4 million. The revenue performance was primarily driven by a decline in core volume and product mix of 120 basis points. This decline was partially offset by net pricing, which was accretive by approximately 30 basis points. Despite the decline in revenue, consolidated gross profit increased by $1.3 million, or 1.2%, versus the prior-year quarter to $107.2 million, and reported gross margin expanded by 50 basis points. The gross profit growth was driven by our productivity program, where we benefited from cost savings across a number of areas, including procurement, manufacturing, value engineering, and distribution. This quarter marked the eleventh straight quarter of gross margin improvement versus the prior year. This accomplishment is a reflection of the many cost savings initiatives, network restructuring programs, revenue growth management projects, and the ongoing pricing net of commodities management program that the company has successfully implemented. Selling, general, and administrative expenses grew $5.4 million, or 9.5%. The increase was primarily driven by a net increase in acquisition-related costs, higher IT expenses, and personnel-related costs as we invested to support continued growth. Consolidated reported operating income decreased $3.3 million. The gross profit growth was offset by the higher investments made in SG&A. Our effective tax rate in the quarter was 23.3% versus 20.7% in the prior-year quarter. We estimate our tax rate for 2026 to be 23%. Third quarter diluted earnings per share decreased $0.14, or 9.4%, to $1.35, driven by the reduced operating income and higher tax rate. Turning to the balance sheet and cash flow, the company had strong cash flow generation during the quarter, and year-to-date operating cash flow is up over $55 million versus the prior year. Year-to-date payments for property additions totaled $54.6 million. For the full year of fiscal 2026, we are forecasting total capital expenditures of $80 million. We will continue to invest in both cost savings projects and other manufacturing improvements, as well as the Atlanta facility we acquired to support future growth. In addition to investing in the business, we also returned funds to shareholders. Our quarterly cash dividend of $1 per share, paid on March 31, represented a 5% increase from the prior year's amount. Our enduring streak of annual dividend increases stands at 63 years. As we have completed three quarters of the year, we are pleased to report growth across a number of metrics in a difficult operating environment. Reported and adjusted net sales increased 2.2% and 0.9%, respectively. Reported and adjusted gross margin reflected increases of 40 and 80 basis points, respectively. Reported operating income was flat, while adjusted operating income increased 1%. In addition, operating cash flow grew by 32%. We finished the quarter with a debt-free balance sheet and over $218 million in cash. As was previously announced, we closed on the $400 million acquisition of Bachan's on May 1. The transaction was funded by a $200 million term loan and cash on the balance sheet. The interest rate on the debt is currently less than 5%. The company's strong cash-generating capabilities and low debt levels put us in a position to continue to invest for growth and return funds to our shareholders. To wrap up my commentary, our results demonstrate strong execution across a number of areas, and we continue to invest to support the future growth of our business and return funds to our shareholders. I will now turn it back over to Dave for his closing remarks. Thank you. David A. Ciesinski: Thanks, Tom. Going forward, The Marzetti Company will continue to leverage the combined strength of our team, our operating strategy, and our balance sheet in support of the three simple pillars for our growth plan: one, accelerate core business growth; two, simplify our supply chain to reduce our cost and grow our margins; and three, expand our core with focused M&A and strategic licensing. As we look ahead to The Marzetti Company's fiscal fourth quarter, in addition to the incremental sales attributed to the Bachan's acquisition, we expect Retail sales will benefit from new product introductions, including Marzetti Protein Ranch dressing and veggie dips, a new Olive Garden Zesty Italian dressing flavor, and the addition of a larger size bottle for the popular Chick-fil-A Avocado Lime Ranch dressing. In the Foodservice segment, we anticipate continued growth from select customers in our mix of national chain restaurant accounts. Specific to the contribution of the Bachan's business, as part of The Marzetti Company for two-thirds of our fiscal fourth quarter, we would guide to a net sales run-rate moderately above the $87 million that the business reported in calendar year 2025, with an operating margin similar to The Marzetti Company's current level. Like many of you, we continue to monitor external factors, including U.S. economic performance and consumer behavior that may impact the demand for our products. With respect to input costs, in the aggregate, we anticipate that inflation will continue to tick up during the months ahead, and we will continue to carefully monitor the macroeconomic impact of the Iran war. We believe our commodity risk management program will serve us well in these volatile times. Specific to soybean oil prices, we believe we have sufficient coverage in place to mitigate the near-term impact of the price run-up and, moreover, to implement relevant pricing. In closing, I would like to thank The Marzetti Company team for all their hard work this past quarter and their ongoing commitment to grow our business. I would also like to reiterate to Justin Gill and the entire Bachan's team how excited we are about the opportunities for future growth and shared success. This concludes our prepared remarks for today. We will now open the call for questions. Operator? Operator: Thank you. At this time, I would like to remind everyone to press 11 to ask a question. One moment please. Our first question comes from James Ronald Salera of Stephens. Your line is open. James Ronald Salera: Hi, guys. Good morning. Thanks for taking our question. Dave, you almost read my mind in your prepared comments there. I wanted to start on soybean oil, so it is very convenient that is the last thing that you mentioned. Can you give us a sense for the duration of the coverage in place right now? I know there are a lot of moving pieces, but it is an important input that we get questions from investors about. As you are doing demand forecasting and procurement planning for 2027, how does the recent run-up impact the mix and the margin outlook? David A. Ciesinski: Jim, I would be happy to share that with you. We have what I would call intermediate-term coverage that takes us through essentially the end of the summer on board and basis, which should be more than enough time for us to be able to get into the marketplace and implement pricing. Our Retail team is in the throes of putting those plans together right now, and in the case of private label, we have already begun to see the market start to move within the last few weeks. We feel like we are in a much better position as it pertains to that than we were in 2022, the last time we saw a spike. On the Foodservice business, as you recall, it is a mark-to-market process where we have some of our national account customers that have taken positions, some that are a little closer nearby, but independent of that, the pricing differential is passed through. For you and others that track us, the key watch is our coverage on Retail, and we feel like we are in a strong position relative to where we were in 2022. James Ronald Salera: Great. I was hoping you could help us size up how you are thinking about the protein launch. The protein-forward new products have been very hot with consumers. If I recall correctly, I think your produce dressing business is around $150 million inclusive of Chick-fil-A on a retail sales basis. Given that, I would imagine this would maybe pull some people that are not historical consumers in that category into the category. How should we think about that business scaling? David A. Ciesinski: We would be happy to. This was a fast launch. It is in the marketplace now and continuing to build distribution, and we attacked it in two places. One was produce dressing. You are right, the overall category is about $525 million, of which we have about a $140–$150 million business. We launched a ranch protein SKU that is in the marketplace that we are watching carefully. Then we also launched it in cups, a 75-millimeter dip cup, and we launched the product in dips as well. What we are seeing so far is that the product in the portable cup seems to be performing the best. To help you size it, the dips category is about $200 million. If you remember, we have about a 75% or stronger share there. We see opportunity in both places, and for this launch we will be an agile innovator, making sure we nail the right size format. Our supposition is this is perfect for kids and adults on the go, so the dip cup in particular seems interesting to us. James Ronald Salera: Great. I appreciate the thoughts. I will hop back in the queue. David A. Ciesinski: Of course. Thank you. Operator: Our next question comes from Alton Kemp Stump of Loop Capital. Your line is open. Alton Kemp Stump: Great. Thanks, guys. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. First, sell-through data was once again very strong for both your frozen dinner rolls and for Chick-fil-A, yet overall Retail segment sales were down. What were the key areas of weakness as you look at your just over 5% volume decline in the quarter in Retail? David A. Ciesinski: I will point to three things. One is January and February weather resulted in the Northeast being particularly hard hit. The second is category softness in both produce dressings as well as pourable dressings, where the category is down about five points. The third is that we are lapping the pipeline build of both Chick-fil-A into the club channel and Texas Roadhouse rolls. Those three things combined drove the volume decline. In terms of surprises versus our expectations, weather is difficult to plan for. Regarding the launch of our Roadhouse rolls, velocities in Walmart continue to be particularly strong. It has taken us a little bit longer to build the quality of distribution that we want in Retail, so those velocities are lagging a little bit outside of Walmart. But overall, I would ladder back to January/February weather, roughly five-point category softness in produce and refrigerated dressings, and lapping that prior pipeline build. The executional component we are focused on is continuing to drive improved velocities on Roadhouse in Retail in particular. Alton Kemp Stump: Got it. Thank you, Dave. And on Bachan's, you used the phrase “moderately above” for modeling sales, now that it has closed for the last two months of the current quarter. But Circana data was over 25% during the first quarter. Are you being conservative, or is there any reason to think there should be any slowdown in the current growth profile? David A. Ciesinski: I would look at it strategically. It is an amazing product with an authentic founder story, great ingredients, and strong consumer connection. It has been growing in strong double digits in both velocity and distribution, and we expect that to continue. As we work through the next handful of quarters, they have new item launches and other activities in the queue, so it may not be perfectly linear, but we are extremely bullish on the growth of the brand. As a proof point, in the recent Circana period, Bachan's became a top brand in barbecue sauce, behind the leaders and ahead of others like Kraft and Kinder’s in that period. Velocities continue to be extremely high, satisfying both retailers and us. Longer term, on Net Promoter Score, the brand connects and scores more strongly than almost any other brand out there. We closed the transaction on Friday; I am flying out tomorrow with the leader of our Retail team to spend a couple of days with them celebrating the close. We have been working with their leadership to put together their AOP for our fiscal year that will be forthcoming, and they could not be more excited about the opportunity to work with our culinary and product development teams. We are very bullish. And yes, we are probably a little conservative in what we put out there, and we will see as we progress. Alton Kemp Stump: Got it. Great. Thanks for all the color. I appreciate it, Dave and Tom. I will hop back in the queue. David A. Ciesinski: Our pleasure. Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Todd Morrison Brooks of Benchmark. Your line is open. Todd Morrison Brooks: Hey, thanks. Good morning, and congrats on getting the Bachan's deal across the finish line. Two questions. First, you called out some friction in the club channel. Can you walk through details behind that? Is that related to the new SKU introductions on the Olive Garden side around Zesty? How do you work that out and restore momentum in the club channel? David A. Ciesinski: Good eye, but that is not the cause. The new item is really the response. Within club, there were two points of noise. One, we are lapping a launch of Chick-fil-A sauce last year, so we had a big pipeline build in the period. We went out with a two-pack of 20-ounce Chick-fil-A sauce. Sell-through was strong; however, buyers did not come back as quickly. When we did the math, we realized we were selling consumers about a year’s worth of supply of Chick-fil-A sauce. In conversations with the buyers at club, what we have elected to do is come back with a three-pack: two smaller originals and one Polynesian sauce, and that is shipping into the marketplace now. The other thing that happened is that, as you recall, we have been in club with our Olive Garden dressing for quite a long time with the exact same offering. A couple of Costco regions, not Sam’s, elected to move us from full-time distribution to more of a rotation. In response, we have retooled the offering to a multipack with the Original plus the Zesty, which we are bringing to the marketplace. We are working with our club partners to innovate and ensure that the offering is relevant. The Zesty is part of the response. Todd Morrison Brooks: Great. Thanks, Dave. And then within frozen bread, how should we think about Easter shift impacts with the two-week earlier Easter this year versus prior as we fine-tune modeling for the upcoming quarter? David A. Ciesinski: While Tom and Dale can give you specific information on Sister Schubert’s, I will offer a quick update on New York Texas Toast, which continues to be our evergreen legacy brand growth story. It was up several points in the period, behind both the strength of our gluten-free item, which in sales value is now pushing $20 million, and our value size of sticks, which continues to grow in the high single-digit, if not double-digit, range. That brand continues to grow almost independent of economic circumstances. The category is down about 1.5%, but we are delivering not only share gains, but actual sales gains. Increasingly, the category seems to be closing in on more of a two-brand set: our brand and private label at select retailers. Thomas K. Pigott: On the Retail segment, we benefited only about 30 basis points from the earlier Easter, really driven by Sister Schubert’s in terms of the revenue impact, maybe slightly less than what we had anticipated when we talked to you at the prior quarter. Todd Morrison Brooks: And on Texas Roadhouse rolls, you mentioned strong performance at Walmart. You needed Retail distribution the way you want it to really accelerate that roll. At one point, you thought that was an extendable category with different flavor SKUs. Do we need to get the Retail distribution in place before we start to see extensions, or how do we stage those? David A. Ciesinski: When we originally launched the item into Walmart, it was in a 10-count displayable case, and the velocities were so fast we were having a hard time keeping it on the shelf. At the request of our partner, we shifted to a 20-count case. That case was not display-ready. That worked fine for Walmart, where awareness and repeat were already strong, but as we pivoted into Retail, having a case that was not display-ready resulted in suboptimal merchandising on the shelf. The team has been working for the last three to four months on strengthening the display of that item, and we feel like we are starting to make progress. For the remainder of this fiscal year and into next, you can expect more effort on strengthening display and getting it where we want it on shelf. As it pertains to extending the platform into new flavors, those plans are already in place, and we should have some news shortly. We continue to believe it is not only viable, but we have great confidence in it. Todd Morrison Brooks: Great. Thank you all. David A. Ciesinski: Our pleasure. Thanks. Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Scott Michael Marks of Jefferies. Your line is open. Scott Michael Marks: Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks for taking our questions. First, I wanted to ask about the Foodservice side. Can you help us understand some of the puts and takes there, how the businesses are doing within the Chick-fil-A operator as well as some of the other bigger customers, and how we should think about that going forward? David A. Ciesinski: Foodservice had a solid quarter where volume and sales were both up. If you look at the whole industry, it is essentially flat versus three months ago. Pulling that apart, in national accounts it bifurcates into concepts that are emerging as continuous winners and those that are struggling. Within our portfolio, we have a handful of performers that continue to do well. One of those is Chick-fil-A, doing well on their base business and behind several of their LTOs, which we have been fortunate enough to support. Taco Bell has also continued to emerge as a winner even in this economic environment. We have a handful of others that we are continuing to win with. On the other side, concepts that cannot lead with price or have an offering that is not connecting with consumers are struggling. Net-net, for our national accounts, which are 75% of our Foodservice business, we were able to grow, really led by Chick-fil-A and other winners, offset partially by some others. On our branded piece of the business, that was flattish and would have been up more were it not for our exit of a very low-margin breadstick business. Overall, in a competitive environment, we continue to do well. Part of it is we sell sauces, which continue to be where our partners look to differentiate their menus, and part is we are fortunate to have partners with big, strong concepts performing best in this environment. Scott Michael Marks: Appreciate the color. Second, you made comments about higher personnel and IT. You have also been testing different advertising concepts within Retail. Can you give us an update on those initiatives and the extra costs you called out, where those investments are going, and the kind of growth you are looking for because of them? Thomas K. Pigott: On the IT side, after we put in SAP, a number of legacy systems needed to be replaced and were no longer supported by vendors. There was also opportunity to add systems for more sophistication. For example, on the Foodservice side, the trade system we put in helps on the branded business to improve trade optimization, and that has been a key contributor to improved P&L performance in Retail on a year-to-date basis. Then there are other legacy systems we have had to replace that are not as value-added, but necessary to sustain the business and growth. From an IT standpoint, a lot of that spending is now behind us. As we plan future years, we are not putting as much emphasis on that. Going forward, in Q4 you will see, even with Bachan's, just a modest increase in SG&A in line with inflation. As we plan for the next fiscal year, we are in the same mode in terms of SG&A spend. Where we see good marketing spend opportunities to support growth in Bachan's and other brands, we will continue to invest, but that is our overall profile. Scott Michael Marks: Appreciate the color. One quick technical question: you called out earlier that Bachan's operating margin is the same as The Marzetti Company. Is that referring specifically to the Retail segment, or total company? Thomas K. Pigott: That is total operating margin. Again, we are being a little conservative at the onset. As we get into it, we know they are an invest-to-grow brand, so there is a higher level of marketing spend as they expand into markets and build awareness. It is a fantastic brand and a top brand in barbecue sauce, but awareness is relatively low. Their operating margins are slightly below our existing Retail due to the level of investment to sustain growth and build it out. At the gross margin level, Bachan's is nicely margin-accretive to the business. As we get into next quarter's call, we will have completed the planning process with the team and will have more to share. Everything we see in terms of their performance gives us comfort in our business model for what we can achieve with that acquisition. Scott Michael Marks: Okay. Appreciate the clarification. Thanks very much. I will pass it on. Operator: Thank you. As a reminder, if you have a question, please press 11. If there are no further questions, we will now turn the call back to Mr. Ciesinski for his closing comments. David A. Ciesinski: Thank you, operator. Before we end the call, I want to make a couple of short comments about the strategic disposition of the company and where we are heading. I believe that the acquisition of Bachan's is an opportune time to take a step back and take an inventory of where we have been, where we are, and where we look to go. Over the last ten years, if you have looked at the evolution of our company, we started as a company focused on driving our legacy brands and then added to that with our restaurant brand licenses. Over the last seven years, we have built out our Retail business by leaning into the growth of those licensed restaurant brands. As we sit today, it is about $550 million or so of Circana sales and about $350 million more than that of net sales, and it has been an important driver of our growth story. At the same time, we have leveraged our strong balance sheet to make key investments in our infrastructure, retiring old lines and putting in high-speed, more efficient lines, and putting in place scalable IT infrastructure. What Bachan's marks for us is not only the acquisition of a phenomenal brand and the opportunity to work with tremendously talented people, but the first of what we believe will be more acquisitions in an area that we are calling authentic flavors. Ten years ago, growth was driven by legacy brands—Marzetti, Sister Schubert’s, and New York. The more recent period has been driven by that plus restaurant brands. As we go forward, we are excited to add a whole new growth leg to our story: authentic flavors. Our aspirations are to continue to innovate, market, and grow against our legacy brands and our restaurant licensed brands, and also to use our end-to-end focused scale—from culinary to product development through the supply chain—to help highly relevant brands like Bachan's achieve their full potential in the marketplace. As we learn more about Bachan's and get successfully underway, we will look for other opportunities to leverage our balance sheet and find other authentic flavors where those brands and teams can come and take their business to the next level. Over the next ten years, this gives us a platform for a more balanced pathway to grow in Retail and in Foodservice. Thank you for your time today. We look forward to being with you in August. Operator, have a great rest of the day. Operator: Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating, and you may now disconnect.
Operator: Good morning, and welcome to the Axsome Therapeutics First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. My name is Kevin, and I'll be your operator for today's call. [Operator Instructions]. Please note, this call is being recorded. I will now turn the call over to Ashley Dong, Senior Director of Investor Relations. Ashley, please go ahead. Ashley Dong: Thank you. Good morning, and thank you for joining Axsome First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. With us today are Dr. Herriot Tabuteau, our Chief Executive Officer; Nick Pizzie, our Chief Financial Officer; and Ari Maizel, our Chief Commercial Officer, who will begin our call with prepared remarks. Mark Jacobson, our Chief Operating Officer, and Hunter Murdock, our General Counsel will available for Q&A. Please note that today's discussion includes forward-looking statements regarding our financial performance commercial strategy and operational plans, including research, development and regulatory activities. These statements are based on current expectations and assumptions and are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially. Please refer to our SEC filings, including quarterly and annual reports for a description of these and other risks. You are cautioned not to rely on these forward-looking statements, which are made only as of today, and the company disclaims any obligation to update such statements. And with that, I'll hand it over to Herriot. Herriot Tabuteau: Thank you, Ashley, and good morning, everyone. In the first quarter of Axsome delivered strong year-over-year growth and execution across the business. This performance was driven by our commercial products and the advancement and expansion of our R&D pipeline, which is now composed of 6 innovative potentially first-in-class or best-in-class product candidates. Starting with our Commercial business. Total revenue for our 3 marketed products was $191 million, representing year-over-year growth of 57%, driven by AUVELITY and SUNOSI with contribution from SYMBRAVO. Building on the strong clinical profile of our marketed products in the quarter, we substantially expanded the sales force for AUVELITY, finalized plans for the expansion of the SYMBRAVO sales force and increased covered lives and quality of coverage for all of our marketed products. These initiatives will support continued strong revenue growth of the base business this year and beyond. Last week, we received FDA approval of AUVELITY for the treatment of agitation associated with Alzheimer's disease, an indication which received FDA breakthrough therapy designation and priority review. This approval introduces a first-in-class treatment option for this highly prevalent debilitating and critically underserved neuropsychiatric condition. As such, it marks an important milestone for the millions of patients living with Alzheimer's disease, their families and their caregivers. AUVELITY has now been approved in two indications that received FDA breakthrough therapy designation and were granted FDA priority review. The approval in Alzheimer's disease agitation combined with the health of the MDD business and the recent augmentation of the AUVELITY commercial infrastructure provide us with a clear line of sight to AUVELITY's market potential. Ari, will provide an update to our peak sales estimate for the AUVELITY franchise based on these developments. The approval in Alzheimer's disease agitation is a testament to our research and development productivity. Since the start of this year, we have continued to advance and expand the rest of our industry-leading pipeline with a focus on developing first-in-class and best-in-class products. On the regulatory front, following the FDA approval of AUVELITY last week, we are pleased to share that we have submitted our NDA for AXS-12 for the treatment of cataplexy and narcolepsy. Clinically, our ongoing trials continue to progress, and we will be starting multiple Phase III trials within the next few months. Finally, we recently expanded our pipeline further with the addition of AXS-20 a potentially first-in-class 3 Phase III PDE10A inhibitor for Schizophrenia and Tourette syndrome. I will discuss each of these developments in detail later in the call. All in all, Axsome is advancing the commercialization of 3 differentiated marketed medicines across 4 highly prevalent indications as well as an innovative pipeline of potentially first-in-class and best-in-class medicines that includes 6 product candidates targeting 10 different highly burdensome conditions in psychiatry and neurology. Looking ahead, Axsome is well positioned to realize robust growth driven by execution across our commercial portfolio, the long-term AUVELITY in Alzheimer's disease agitation and the advancement of the rest of our neuroscience pipeline. With that, I'll hand the call over to Nick to review our financial results for the quarter. Nick Pizzie: Thanks, Herriot, and good morning, everyone. Our financial performance in the first quarter was strong with our 3 commercial products delivering continued double-digit revenue growth. Total revenue for the quarter was $191.2 million, a 57% increase compared to the first quarter of '25. We expect revenue growth to continue in 2026. AUVELITY achieved net product revenue of $153.2 million in the quarter, up 59% compared to the first quarter of 2025. SUNOSI net product revenue for the quarter was $33.9 million, a 34% increase compared to the first quarter of 2025. SUNOSI revenue consisted of $32.6 million in net product sales and $1.3 million in royalty revenue associated with SUNOSI sales in out-licensed territories. Net sales for SYMBRAVO were $4.1 million in the quarter. Auvelity and Sunosi gross net discounts for the first quarter of 2026 were both in the low to mid-50s range. We anticipate the gross to net discounts for both products to improve throughout the year, consistent with prior year trends. SYMBRAVO gross net discount in the quarter was in the high 70% range, and we continue to expect it to remain elevated over the near term as access continues to evolve and awareness continues to build. Turning now to expenses. Total cost of revenue were $14.7 million compared to $9.8 million for the first quarter of 2025. Our research and development expenses were $52.7 million in the quarter compared to $44.8 million for the first quarter of 2025. The increase in R&D spend primarily reflects a onetime acquisition-related expense booked in the quarter. Our selling, general and administrative expenses were $185 million for the quarter compared to $120.8 million for the first quarter of 2025. The increase was primarily driven by the acceleration of prelaunch activities for AUVELITY in Alzheimer's disease agitation and commercialization activities for AUVELITY, which included the national direct-to-consumer advertising campaign and sales force expansion, along with commercial activities for SYMBRAVO. Net loss for the quarter was $64.5 million or $1.26 per share compared to a net loss of $59.4 million or $1.22 per share for the first quarter of 2025, a $64.5 million net loss in the quarter includes $23.4 million in stock-based compensation expense. Our balance sheet remains strong. We ended the first quarter with $305 million in cash and cash equivalents compared to $323 million as of the end of last year. Our overall financial performance reflects continued top line revenue growth and improving operating leverage driven by disciplined commercial execution. We anticipate that our current cash balance is sufficient to fund our operations into cash flow positivity based on our current operating plan. And with that, I'd like to turn the call over to over now to Ari, who will provide additional details on the key drivers behind our medicines and the broader commercial performance of the business. Ari Maizel: Thank you, Nick. The first quarter of 2026 was a pivotal period for Axsome's brands, reflected in ongoing demand for our medicines, meaningful improvements in payer coverage and sales force expansion activities. Our promotional efforts across HCP and patient audiences, combined with a broadening commercial infrastructure will support Axsome sales objectives throughout 2026. Starting with AUVELITY. More than 223,000 prescriptions were written in the quarter, representing 35% year-over-year growth and remaining consistent with the prior quarter. By comparison, the antidepressant market grew 1% year-over-year and declined by 1% compared to Q4 of 2025. AUVELITY performance in the quarter was highlighted by a continued shift towards earlier line use, with first-line, first-switch prescriptions increasing to 56% of overall demand. Primary care adoption also expanded in the quarter, now representing 35% of total AUVELITY prescribers. These trends reflect meaningful improvements in market access over the last 2 years, broadened awareness of the brand, driven by our national direct-to-consumer campaign and our concentrated effort in expanding use among primary care providers, a key driver of earlier line utilization and an important foundation to support early trial in connection with the upcoming Alzheimer's disease agitation launch. Additionally, more than 5,500 new prescribers were activated in the quarter, bringing the total number of unique prescribers for AUVELITY since launch to approximately 60,000. We continue to make important progress with formulary access for AUVELITY. Commercial coverage is at 78%, and alongside Medicare and Medicaid coverage at 100%, total coverage is now at 86% of all lives across channels, establishing a strong foundation of access for AUVELITY in advance of the launch in Alzheimer's disease agitation. We expect both the quantity and quality of coverage to continue to expand and improve. AUVELITY's growth to date in the depression market continues to reflect its compelling clinical profile highlighted by rapid and durable symptom improvement and a distinctly favorable safety and tolerability profile. Last week's FDA approval of AUVELITY as a treatment for agitation associated with dementia due to Alzheimer's disease is a significant advancement for patients and a major milestone for the brand. We are very pleased with the product label, which provides compelling clinical information regarding AUVELITY's impact on agitation for Alzheimer's patients. AUVELITY is a first-in-class treatment for this patient population, demonstrating rapid and durable symptom improvement with a favorable safety and tolerability profile. AUVELITY is the only approved treatment for Alzheimer's disease agitation with efficacy on symptom relapse demonstrated in long-term trials. In a short-term study, the most common adverse reactions were dizziness and dyspepsia and only 1.3% of patients discontinued treatment due to an adverse reaction, the same rate as placebo. In market research, HCP's rate AUVELITY's clinical profile in Alzheimer's disease agitation as highly compelling from both an efficacy and safety perspective with clear potential for first-line use in appropriate patients. We are expanding the AUVELITY sales team to approximately 630 representatives, enabling Axsome to reach 68,000 HCP targets across primary care, psychiatry, neurology and geriatric specialists to treat both MDD and Alzheimer's agitation patients across community and long-term care settings. Our expansion efforts are substantially complete, positioning us well for the commercial launch in June. We believe AUVELITY has the potential to play a significant role in the treatment of Alzheimer's agitation, and together with the MDD indication, further broadens its use across serious neuropsychiatric conditions. AUVELITY's expanded sales force and strong foundation of coverage position the brand to drive growth across both indications throughout the second half of 2026. Taking into account the recent label expansion in Alzheimer's disease agitation, the clinical profile in this indication, the health and the trajectory of the MDD business and recent investments in our sales infrastructure, we are now able to update our peak sales outlook for the product. We now believe AUVELITY has the potential to generate at least $8 billion in annual revenue at peak, with approximately equal contribution from each indication. Over the extended life of the product, we see a clear path to achieving this growth potential, supported by the underlying fundamentals of the business as we continue to scale. Turning now to SYMBRAVO. More than 17,000 total prescriptions were written in the quarter, representing 36% growth versus Q4 2025. More than 5,000 new patients started SYMBRAVO treatment in the quarter. Neurology specialists accounted for approximately 60% of total [indiscernible] in the quarter with primary care representing approximately 32%, an increase from 20% in the first quarter of launch. While headache specialists will remain a critical prescriber segment for SYMBRAVO, the increase in primary care prescribing is an encouraging signal of SYMBRAVO's potential, and reinforces the early experience with SYMBRAVO as a safe and tolerable acute migraine treatment that provides fast migraine pain improvement sustained through 24 and 48 hours. Based on SYMBRAVO's growth within its launch year, increasing demand for education of the only branded multi-mechanistic acute migraine treatment in the market, we are increasing the SYMBRAVO sales team by approximately 50 representatives. Our expanded SYMBRAVO sales force of 150 representatives will support broader reach in the primary care market while deepening engagement with headache specialists and neurologists throughout the country. We are also pleased to announce a major commercial payer contract for SYMBRAVO effective this month, securing coverage for approximately 17 million lives. The agreement reflects SYMBRAVO's compelling clinical profile and its potential to address the needs of patients with inadequate response to [indiscernible]. Overall payer coverage for SYMBRAVO is approximately 57% representing 56% in the commercial channel and 57% in government channels. We expect coverage for SYMBRAVO to expand and evolve throughout 2026. And finally, in Q1, approximately 54,000 SUNOSI prescriptions were written, representing 16% year-over-year growth and a 3% decline sequentially. By comparison, the wake-promoting agent market grew 1% year-over-year and declined by 5% versus Q4 of 2025. Nearly 500 new clinicians prescribed SUNOSI in the quarter, bringing the total cumulative prescriber base to more than 16,500 since launch. Payer coverage for SUNOSI remained steady at approximately 83% of lives covered across channels. Overall, the first quarter of 2026 was marked by significant progress across Axsome's Commercial business, including strong demand for our products, key advancements in market access, launch preparations for AUVELITY in Alzheimer's disease agitation and disciplined organizational growth designed to maximize the potential of our singular CNS portfolio. Looking ahead, Axsome is well positioned to deliver on our commercial objectives across our innovative portfolio through the balance of the year. We look forward to sharing our continued progress with you over the coming months. I will now turn the call back to Herriot to discuss our singular CNS pipeline. Herriot Tabuteau: Thank you, Ari. I will now touch on reason developments and upcoming milestones for the rest of our pipeline. Starting with AXS-12, as I mentioned, we recently submitted our NDA for AXS-12 for the treatment of cataplexy in patients with narcolepsy. Narcolepsy is a rare and debilitating neurological condition that affects approximately 185,000 people in the U.S. We are excited by potential of AXS-12 to provide a new and differentiated treatment option to patients living with narcolepsy. We look forward to announcing the FDA's decision on the acceptance of the filing. Beyond AXS-12 in Narcolepsy, we are also developing the full suite of clinical programs in our leading neuroscience pipeline. Starting with AXS-05, we are on track to initiate a pivotal Phase II/III trial in smoking cessation, this quarter. Moving on to Solriamfetol. Our Phase III programs for the molecule continue to progress. These include ADHD, Binge eating disorde, MDD with symptoms of excessive daytime sleepiness and excessive sleepiness in shift work disorder. For ADHD, we are on track to initiate 2 pediatric Phase III trials, 1 in children and 1 in adolescence of this quarter. For MDD, we recently initiated the CLARITY study a Phase III, double-blind, placebo-controlled randomized withdrawal trial. In the trial, patients who achieved a sustained response during the open-label period will be randomized to continue solriamfetol or switch to placebo. The primary end-point of that trial is time to relapse with depressive symptoms. For Binge-eating disorder, our ENGAGE Phase III double-blind randomized controlled trial is progressing, and we anticipate top line results in the second half of this year. Finally, for Shift Work Disorder, the Phase III trial continues to enroll with top line results anticipated in 2027. Turning now to AXS-14, our novel, highly selective and potent norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor for fibromyalgia. Enrollment is ongoing in the FORWARD Phase III trial. We look forward to sharing updates on this program as the study progresses. OFS 17, our novel oral selective GABAA-pen for epilepsy, pep-transfer and Phase II trial enabling activities are well underway. Lastly, we recently acquired AXS-20, or balipodect, a potentially first-in-class oral potent selective PDE10A inhibitor. We plan to develop AXS-20 for the treatment of Schizophrenia and for Tourette syndrome. We plan to initiate Phase III trial enabling activities for AXS-20 in Schizophrenia later this year. I will now turn the call back to Ashley for Q&A. Ashley Dong: Thank you, Herriot. Operator, please open the line for Q&A. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our first question today is coming from Ash Verma, from UBS. Ashwani Verma: Congratulations again on all the progress. So I know it was the second day of Q&A. But maybe just on ADA, are you thinking about the LTC market in the long run? I mean, clearly, right now, 40% of these patients reside in LTC but the current prescriber mix is really PCP. But when you think about the long run, how much of -- for this -- for you to completely extract value out of this market? How much of a focus does LTC need to become in the long run? Ari Maizel: Thanks for question this is, Ari. Our sales team of approximately 630 representatives, we'll call them both community and long-term care facilities. And so for us, it's important to be present and to educate prescribers and care partners within both facilities or both settings of care. Ultimately, it's a concentrated market that allows for efficient promotional activities. And we expect that it will go over time as the brand ramps. But we believe the community and long-term care are both very important for this market and look forward to sharing some updates as we get going with the launch. Ashwani Verma: Got it. And can I ask a quick follow-up? So just on the ADA indication, I know that you're using this unique 30 mg dextromethorphan dose in the titration pack, which you haven't used for this launch. Is this supplied in the channels already? Or does this, in any way, become like a bottleneck for the whole launch at this point? Mark Jacobson: As a reminder, we'll be launching next month. And Ari touched on the items that that are being finalized right now for a launch. Do you want to recap those again, Ari? Ari Maizel: Yes. I mean we're finalizing our sales and marketing resources and training our sales force on the new indication. The titration dose will be available at the time of commercial launch. Operator: Next question is coming from Marc Goodman from Leerink. Marc Goodman: Those are pretty big peak sales numbers. Can you help us just understand like why did you feel like you had to raise them today? And second, you just talk about what went into the forecasting there and $4 billion in each indication? Ari Maizel: Thanks, Marc. While the FDA approval of AUVELITY and Alzheimer's disease agitation provides greater certainty regarding the long-term sales potential of the product, and as you know, Alzheimer's disease is a large and growing market, 7 million patients, of which 76% are impacted by agitation symptoms. And of course, there are only 2 approved agents on the market. So when we review our proprietary market research on HCP perceptions, potential use of the product, taken together with the clarity around the final label, it really provides confidence that AUVELITY will be used as a frontline treatment in Alzheimer's agitation and we've seen growing uses frontline treatment and MDD. Our -- the foundation of market access that we built, along with growing adoption in primary care, which, of course, is a critical provider segment in the Alzheimer's space. I think these things taken together with our MDD penetration and growth trajectory and the increased sales force to support both indications give us confidence in the potential to achieve our updated peak sales estimate for AUVELITY. Operator: Next question is coming from Andrew Tsai from Jefferies. Lin Tsai: I have a bigger picture question, now with AUVELITY approved in Alzheimer's agitation, how does that embolden you guys to pursue even more indications, I'd imagine you can directly go to Phase III with AUVELITY for other indications? And this drug has a long tail, too. So maybe talk about when you might learn more about indication expansion of opportunities? Or is that it with AUVELITY? Mark Jacobson: Andrew, the -- we did touch on the next indication that we've been working on for some of that smoking cessation. So stay tuned for updates there. And the next step with that program is initiating the Phase II/III pivotal trial. So we'll have updates there soon. And the product is very interesting given the -- that it targets MDA and sigma-1 receptors, high potential applicability to other neuropsychiatric conditions and that's something that the team is obviously exploring. But right now, next formal step is moving to smoking cessation trial initiation. Lin Tsai: Great. And then as a follow-up, with your new PDE10 asset that's starting Phase III-enabling studies this year, can you talk about the efficacy safety profile why it did not necessarily hit [indiscernible] in Phase II and why you think you can produce a different outcome in Phase III and correct me if I'm wrong, but I think schizophrenia studies could be relatively fast. So could it be possible we get data maybe 2028? Herriot Tabuteau: Sure. Thanks for the question on balipodect. With regards to the efficacy, there was a Phase II trial, which you mentioned, which was done in schizophrenia. This was a randomized double-line [ theme-controlled ] trial. And the -- when we looked at the data there was clear separation, the magnitude of treatment effect, for balipodect was on the high end when you look at historical treatments for schizophrenia. Now because of the size of the study, obviously, it was not powered for statistical significance. But despite that, there was a very clear trend, and there was statistical significance on various measures, including, for example, global measures. So clinicians were able to see, the highly significant improvements in schizophrenia, and there were also on other measures, which were positive. For example, the rates of discontinuations due to lack of efficacy, a wide gap with half of patients who weren't placebo discontinued the lack of efficacy versus in the low double digits for balipodect. So clearly, there was a very strong signal there. And when you look at the safety profile, it is very distinct, obviously, from [indiscernible]. So very excited about this potentially first-in-class treatment. And as it relates to timing of starting a Phase III trial, this is a Phase III-ready asset. What we need to do is to restart manufacturing of clinical supplies. So the Phase III enabling activities are ongoing this year, and we would anticipate, we are targeting potentially starting a Phase III trial around the end of the year. Operator: Next question is coming from Ami Fadia from Needham & Company. Ami Fadia: Firstly, on SYMBRAVO, can you give us some more details around where you're seeing utilization and how you see the drug evolves with sort of this expanding payer coverage? How do you see the evolution of gross to net and also utilization as the year progresses? And then with regards to AUVELITY, just to follow-up to a previous comment. You think about the IP runway you have. How are you thinking about sort of really expanding the number of engagements where you explore this product ahead of the IP runway and the IRA. So could we expect to see you look at multiple other indications? Or will it be sort of more sequential? Ari Maizel: Thanks, Ami. I'll start with the SYMBRAVO question. We've been really pleased that SYMBRAVO has found its way into the treatment paradigm for many headache specialists, and what we're seeing is approximately 60% of uses in the first and second line setting. The feedback that we get from HCPs is that SYMBRAVO has been particularly effective for patients with inadequate or partial response to triptanes, and we expect those patients to be the primary focus moving forward. Obviously, the market access win that we're announcing today is an important step for long-term patient access. We think it will have a positive impact on GTN in the future. But the focus of the team is to continue to expand access for patients, which will help to drive reductions in GTN over time. But for the short term, we expect to continue to be elevated as we build our access. Herriot Tabuteau: Great. And as it relates to the question on new indications or additional indications for AUVELITY, given the IP runway, you are correct. We're in a very favorable position given that there is a very long exclusivity runway for AUVELITY and also the fact that the product is commercialized, we are not resource constrained as it relates to potentially developing for other indications. The other interesting thing about the product, which Mark touched upon is that it's unique pharmacology which is applicable to a number of potential CNS indications. So we have very clear ideas as you can imagine, internally, around what these additional indications are. And we want to make sure that we move in a very measured way. And if there is something that is worth doing, we think it's worth doing quickly. And so stay tuned as it relates to other potential indications, which could further increase the value of the product long term. Operator: Next question is coming from Jason Gerberry from Bank of America. Jason Gerberry: Another follow-up question on the PDE10, my understanding was that I think Axsome and acquiring this asset plan to push dose relative to what was studied by Takeda to get their receptor occupancy. So wondering if you can speak to that dynamic, how high you'd be looking to push dose and confidence that the support of data, give you a safe dose strength to interrogate? And then as my follow-up, are there any signs or indications that antipsychotic use in nursing homes is coming down at all in the wake of the March OIG report that was dubbed, I think, inappropriate use of antipsychotics in nursing homes. So just curious if you have any insights as you [indiscernible] for your own ADA launch? Herriot Tabuteau: Yes. Thanks for the question. With regards to the PDE10 inhibitor, we have not discussed dosing that relates to the product. However, the dose that was studied was effective, had the number of subjects per arm than what you would have -- what you would have seen in the [indiscernible] Phase III trial in schizophrenia. Clearly, it would have reached statistical significance. Ari Maizel: Yes. And regarding your question on antipsychotic use, there hasn't been an immediate drop in antipsychotics in an overall substantial way. I think the news is still relatively new. But what I will say is that the awareness of that report and the sensitivity on using antipsychotics with this patient population is very high among providers and family members. So we think that provides a good foundation for the AUVELITY launch in the Alzheimer's disease agitation space, and expect there to be continued focus on antipsychotic use moving forward. Operator: Our next question today is coming from Ram Selvaraju from H.C Wainwright. Raghuram Selvaraju: Firstly, on the commercial side, I was wondering if you could provide us with some additional details regarding the deployment of the field sales force the degree to which sales reps currently promote more than 1 product or are dedicated to promoting a single product within your commercial product range and how you expect this to evolve going forward? In other words, to what extent do you expect to deploy sales representatives dedicated to a specific product in a specific indication versus having them promote more than 1 product at a time and to what extent this strategy will be reflected going forward in the deployment of the commercial sales force? And then with respect to clinical development directions, I was wondering if you could comment generally perhaps on your interest in muscarinic receptor modulation, particularly as this pertains to both the neuropsychiatric and cognitive dysfunction dementia fields. And if you could also give us a sense with respect to balipodect, where you expect the specific safety advantages of this product to lie within the neuropsychiatric indications that you expect to target? Ari Maizel: Yes, I'll start with the deployment of sales force question. So up to this point, we largely had our sales teams focused on one specific brand. Part of that is related to the unique specialist audiences that are particularly important in the launch phase. And so for AUVELITY that's psychiatry, for SYMBRAVO headache specialists and neurologists and for SUNOSI, sleep specialists. With the Alzheimer's agitation launch, because of the high degree of overlap, in call points for MDD and ADA. That team will be supporting and promoting both indications. But in terms of long-term potential or vision for the team, as you know, our portfolio on our pipeline is unique in that there are many shared call points for certain therapeutic areas. And so that's something we'll continue to evaluate, and we'll share as we make some progress moving forward. Herriot Tabuteau: Great. As it relates to the pipeline questions with regards to your question on muscarinic receptor modulation, that mechanism of action does not fall into our current pipeline, so we don't have much to add there. And as it relates to balipodect and the potential safety advantages, just as a reminder, this is a PDE10A-inhibitor. And so it works by regulating cyclic-AMP and cyclic-GMP levels, downstream from D1 and D2 receptors. So the potential safety advantage and this has been shown in preclinical studies as well as in clinical studies is one of the advantages is that what has not been seen or changes in the glucose levels of prolactin levels. So as you know, with ease of antipsychotics, one of the major side effects has to do with metabolic side effects. And so we have seen preclinically as well as clinically that this could be a major benefit with cAMP and balipodect. Operator: Next question is coming from David Amsellem from Piper Sandler. David Amsellem: So just two for me. With the significant expansion of the commercial infrastructure, what's your appetite for the acquisition of a market-ready or commercial stage asset? I know you focused on expanding the pipeline, but you have a lot of infrastructure now that you can leverage. So maybe talk to that? And then secondly, a question on [ reboxetine ], and how you're thinking about the underlying commercial opportunity in the landscape where you're going to have Orexin-2 receptor agonist as options in this population? Herriot Tabuteau: In terms of being able to acquire a marketed product, we have done that in the past, and we did that with SUNOSI, which was our first acquisition. Having said that, we have such a rich portfolio marketed assets, new indications and also a very late-stage pipeline that we have enough to focus on to drive longer and as well as the near-term value. So short-term and near-term value inflections and long-term sustainable value creation. With regards to the Orexin-2 agonist, so if you look at narcolepsy, this is an orphan indication, but a large one 185,000 patients, and what we see is that there's a lot of heterogeneity in this patient population. There's a lot of polypharmacy, not every drug works. Also, there is a lot of side effect liability with the current treatments. And each treatment will have a different side effect profiles. So -- the -- what we like about our product, about AXS-12, a couple of things. One, it works very quickly. So we have an onset of action, which is at 1 week. And currently, all the other products on the market take a lot longer about 1 month to work. Secondly, the efficacy that we've seen is durable. So we have data up to 6 months, and all of that efficacy comes with a very favorable side effect profile and a first-in-class mechanism of action for narcolepsy. Lastly, with regards to some of the other ancillary symptoms of narcolepsy. The data does show that AXS-12 has the potential to also beneficially affect EBS as well as cognition. So we're very excited by the potential to provide a new treatment option to patients. Operator: Our next question today is coming from Yatin Suneja from Guggenheim Partners. Yatin Suneja: Congrats on all the success and progress. Just a question on ADA. Actually, two questions. One is how should we think about sort of guidance at what point you think you might be able to establish guidance if that's even possible? Two, if we we're all trying to model the ADA RAM curve. Obviously, when you launch AUVELITY in MDD, I think awareness was not there. So how much more -- like how should we think about the early launch in MDD? And how do we sort of model it for ADA? Any guidance there would be really helpful. Nick Pizzie: Sure. Jatin, this is Nick, as it relates to guidance, first of all, we gave guidance, right? We have peak sales guidance out there of at least $8 billion for AUVELITY, $300 million to $500 million for SUNOSI and $500 million to $1 billion for SYMBRAVO. So that's our peak peak sales guidance. And obviously, a lot of fluidity now with the expansion, with the approval, with market access continuing to grow and evolve. So at this point, there's just -- there's many variables out there from a short-term perspective. So we want to see how they evolve, and then we can take a look at potential guidance down the road. Ari Maizel: And regarding the ADA ramp, obviously, it's very challenging to predict exactly how any launch will ramp over time. As you mentioned, the AUVELITY in MDD, on one hand, is an [indiscernible] even though a different marketplace and same product and obviously, we're optimistic because there's greater awareness, better market access, a larger sales team. On the other hand, there's one analog in this market with Rexulti. And although the clinical profiles are very different, it does give some sense of uptake in the settings of care, which we'll be entering. So I think we'll learn more as we get into the launch, and we'll be able to share those details of what we're observing. Operator: Next question is coming from Sean Laaman from Morgan Stanley. Sean Laaman: AXS-12, I'm just wondering what is sort of price and payer discussions, if any, have been like? And what's the kind of investment you think you need to make to ensure that this drug has a success given there is such hot debate on the Orexin-2 agonist and the large market potential there. Ari Maizel: Yes. Thanks, Sean, for the question. Obviously, we've been engaged with payers on early education around the clinical trial programs in the data, we have not specifically engaged in pricing discussions. So I'll have to defer to a later time to share some of those details. But there is genuine interest in new narcolepsy products for the reasons Herriot stated earlier, which is that -- there's significant inadequate response, treatment switching and polypharmacy. And so payers are very mindful of ensuring that treatment options that are available have strong efficacy, safety, and tolerability. In terms of the investment required, we'll have more to share as we get closer to a potential approval. But as we've mentioned previously, we have established a sleep team for SUNOSI that is in market today. And obviously, there is a near perfect overlap in terms of ACV targets for SUNOSI and AXS-12, if approved. Nick Pizzie: Yes. Maybe just a little bit further on to Ari's comments from a financial perspective, you would consider -- you would think of orphan drug pricing. From top line, as Ari shared, we already have the infrastructure set up with the sleep team, and the marketing team from sleep. So what we would anticipate that a lot of synergies with AXS-12 in the current infrastructure and improving -- continuing to improve the operating leverage within the P&L. Sean Laaman: How excited are you about that product? It doesn't seem to get a whole heap of airplay amongst the investor discussions. So how excited are you about it? Ari Maizel: Very excited. We are very excited. The feedback we're getting from KOLs and early market research is is really strong. And because these patients are very difficult to treat and are frankly dissatisfied with existing treatment options. We believe there will be significant room for AXS-12 to make a significant impact in this marketplace. Operator: Next question today is coming from David Hoang from Deutsche Bank. David Hoang: Congrats on all the recent progress. So first, I wanted to come back to the peak sales number they you put out there for AUVELITY. If I heard you correctly, I think you said 50-50 for the MDD versus ADA indications. And so the MDD number strikes me as a large one, and I'm just wondering if you look at other kind of other antidepressants or comparable products in the market to help you get to that number? And then maybe a follow-up there is, does that contemplate evolving competition in the field over the next few years, let's say? And for example, do you see psychodelic therapies as competitors to AUVELITY? Ari Maizel: Yes. Thanks, David. I think, obviously, we're -- we take a look at market analogs, but they don't fully drive our decisions, which is largely based on our internal research and analysis. And what we're seeing in terms of adoption rates, penetration, the improvements in our commercial infrastructure related to sales force and market access and now the additional data in Alzheimer's disease agitation. In some ways, AUVELITY stands on its own in this marketplace because of its novelty in terms of mechanism of action as well as the clinical profile that it delivers when compared to other treatment options. And so we're confident in the potential that we shared earlier today, and look forward to sharing some additional updates as we grow the brand, particularly as we get into the Alzheimer's disease agitation launch, which is a really important milestone for the brand. Operator: Next question is coming from Myles Minter from William Blair. Myles Minter: Congrats on the quarter. First of all just on the ENGAGE study of solriamfetol and Binge-eating disorder. How are you thinking about what you'd like to see from an efficacy standpoint there? Should we be looking at the [indiscernible] data set of about 1.5-day reduction in binge-eating days over that weak period, so that it will be about 18 to 20 days over your 12 weeks in ENGAGE. That's the first one. And then on AXS-14, very curious as to the randomized withdrawal nature of the trial that you're conducting in fibromyalgia, that seems great from a probability success standpoint. Just reading some recent guidance from the FDA, I think that they make statement that it's not necessarily a robust comparative from the safety aspects of that drug. Was there any sort of conversations that you're already over the hurdle per se on the safety data requirements for AXS-14 with the previous data from Pfizer that you don't have to do any additional studies beyond this one? Herriot Tabuteau: Thanks for the questions. As it relates to the Binge-eating disorder study, it's hard to say what we're looking for. Obviously, we powered the study to detect a treatment difference. One of the limitations of making predictions is that currently, there's only one product that's approved. So not very many studies have been done, in binge-eating disorders. So that's exciting. And we look forward to the data readout to see what we see. Obviously, what we're looking for is a positive study. So we're looking for a statistically significant improvement with our drug versus placebo. As it relates to AXS-14, we are very excited about the clinical trial, which we've launched. With regards to the safety data, just as a reminder, 2 randomized double-blind placebo controlled trials have been conducted. And both of those were positive. These were very large studies. And also, there were 2 long-term safety trials with hundreds of patients treated out to at least a year. So plenty of randomized as well as the long-term safety data with AXS-14. Operator: The next question is coming from Matthew Hershenhorn from Oppenheimer. Matthew Hershenhorn: Congrats again on the ADA approval. We were wondering just about your overall BD strategy following the recent deals for AXS-17 and balipodect especially in terms of additional capacity and other areas you'd like to add to. Do you consider psychedelics or neuroplastigens as a potential complement to your psychiatry portfolio? And if the recent policy and regulatory dynamics as well as some strategic interest for those inform your thinking there at all? I really appreciate it. Herriot Tabuteau: Thanks for the question. We don't, as you know, comment specifically on the business development. But what we can share is that we think very carefully and we're very selective as to what we add. Now we don't really need to add anything anymore. We have the pipeline right now, which is very deep and very broad and late stage. And so we did announced at least 2 recent business development transactions, which provide us 2 new NCEs with novel first-in-class mechanisms of actions. And then that complements on the rest of our pipeline. So we've demonstrated our ability to generate what we believe will be an inflection in the base business already. And then also, we are ensuring that that inflection will be sustained with the current pipeline that we have. Operator: Next question is coming from Ben Burnett from Wells Fargo. Benjamin Burnett: I want to ask just a question about the CLARITY solriamfetol study. Is that -- so to randomize withdrawal study, maybe give a little color as to why that design was chosen? And I guess if it's positive, would you expect to have to do a parallel study after that? Herriot Tabuteau: Thanks for the question. So we do anticipate that we would need 2 positive trials. That's the standard for any approval from any indication at the FDA, and in terms of the reason for the randomized [indiscernible] design, one of the challenges with neuropsychiatric indications and depression in particular is by dosing response. So how do you deal with that? So in the prior studies in the prior study, which we conducted with solriamfetol in this indication. What we saw in the active arm was clearly a very renounced antidepressive effect. So -- what we wanted to make sure is that we're able to tease out and really demonstrate that this is a drug effect. And while minimizing the impact of the placebo response. So that's the rationale behind the selection of that study design. Benjamin Burnett: Okay. And can I also ask just like long term, how are you thinking about profitability? And does the increased conviction in AUVELITY and what that could do from a sales perspective? Does -- I guess does profitability start to become a goal for the company? Or is the focus kind of more on sort of revenue growth? Nick Pizzie: Right now, our focus continues to be on revenue growth. So I think if you have to put things in priority order, revenue growth is number one. Then getting the cash flow positivity is two, and then profitability shortly thereafter. Operator: Our next question is coming from Greg Suvannavejh from Mizhuo. Graig Suvannavejh: Congrats on all of the progress and especially the ADA agitation approval. I've got questions on AUVELITY, and I'm curious if you could provide some color around how we should think about this year's quarterly sequential growth given seasonality dynamics given that while ability is still growing year-over-year in MDD. As you get to bigger numbers, it starts slowing down, but then you've got the ADA launch. So I guess do you anticipate year-over-year growth in 2026 be perhaps bigger than you saw in 2025? And then just a follow-up on AUVELITY, just given ADA approval. Can you tell us how you're thinking about IRA implications and how we should think about as you add more Medicare patients, how we should think about including that in our models or not in terms of any impact there? Herriot Tabuteau: I'll start with the first question around quarterly sequencing. We haven't guided specifically on sales ramp over the course of the year. But as you know, Q1 is a quarter in which market seasonality comes into effect. But we believe it's transitory in nature, as evidenced by the early demand trends that we're seeing in Q2. Nick Pizzie: And then maybe just a little bit on the IRA, Greg. At the earliest IRA negotiations will not impact AUVELITY until 2031. Obviously, assuming Ability meets the requirements for negotiation of being a top spin Part D product. And it is important to note that the $8 billion that we shared today contemplates any type of IRA impact. Operator: The next question is coming from Brian Skorney from Baird. Unknown Analyst: This is Charlie on for Brian. So just kind of following up on an earlier question, Curious how you're thinking about positioning SUNOSI ahead of potential Orexin agonist launch later this year as well as with your expansion of the sales force there and wrapping up the expansion of the Auvelity sales force, how should we think about kind of the ramp of SG&A spend throughout 2026? Nick Pizzie: Maybe I'll take the SG&A question first. So SG&A increased this quarter. Primarily for four reasons. First off, we typically do see a bit of phasing of higher spend in SG&A in Q1 versus the rest of the year just on the underlying business. Secondly, we accelerated the marketing spend in preparation of approval of ADA to make sure that the infrastructure was established and ready to launch in June. So we're moving along there very nicely. Thirdly, the field force expansion was actually faster than we anticipated. So we're pleased with with where we are in preparation for a June launch. And fourth, we actually continue to have DTC spend for AUVELITY in MDD. So as we think about the rest of the year, we would anticipate SG&A will likely increase in Q2, but at a slower rate than what we've seen from Q4 to Q1 and likely level out shortly thereafter. But it's -- importantly, it's we should note that we expect to see continued operating leverage in the P&L as top line revenue growth is anticipated to outpace the growth that we expect to see in operating expenses. Ari Maizel: Yes. And regarding your question on AXS-12. Obviously, it's a great time for treatment developments in the narcolepsy space and we're very excited about the potential for AXS-12 to enter this marketplace, without sharing specifics around the Orexin, I would just say that we're very pleased with the Phase III clinical trial results. Herriot mentioned earlier, significant reduction in weekly cataplexy attacks, as early as week 1, very safe and tolerable [indiscernible] benefits across a variety of secondary end points including excessive daytime sleepiness and cognition. So we think there's a real opportunity for AXS-12 to make a difference for patients, and we'll look forward to news regarding the submission. Operator: Next question today is coming from Madison El-Saadi from B. Riley Securities. Madison Wynne El-Saadi: Congrats on progress. A couple related to AUVELITY. Our understanding is that long-term care formulary additions or gated by these quarterly reviews that facilities have. And so just given everything we know in terms of payer coverage, sales force expansion, the general profile of the landscape Curious if there could be a bolus of ADA agitation patients? And then just as a follow-up, I guess, over the next, say, call it, 12 months, how many prescribers do you expect may prescribe ability for both depression and for AD agitation? Ari Maizel: Yes. Thanks for the question, Madison. Regarding LTC bolus, I think it's difficult to predict exactly, but our team has been actively engaged with payers and LTC organizations to ensure patient access for AUVELITY. So we'll have more to share once we get into the commercial launch. And in terms of MDD and ADA prescribing, I think it's important to note, and I think we shared this on our call last Friday, that we'll be calling on roughly 68,000 HCPs with our expanded sales team, and approximately half of those targets are considered high-volume treaters of both Alzheimer's disease agitation and major depressive disorder. So I think that gives you some sense of the potential for ability to be used across both indications within a single prescriber or clinicians practice. Operator: Next question is coming from Rudy Li from Wolfe Research. Guofang Li: Just a quick follow-up to your long-term guidance of ADA in AUVELITY sales. How should we think about the uptake maybe for the relatively near term, maybe in the next 2, 3 years, just additional color like on your key assumptions and what's going to give you confidence with the trajectory to ADA peak sales? And secondly, just can you talk about your OUS development plan for AUVELITY, since now we already secured 2 indications in the U. S. Ari Maizel: Yes, and thanks for the question. When you think about uptake in the next 2 to 3 years, obviously, there will be a lot to learn over the next several months as we see our expanded sales force in the market for both indications. And obviously, Alzheimer's agitation indication will be new since we launch, and so it's hard to share specifics on what we expect the uptake to be, but we have seen strong growth in new patient starts and new rider activation, within NDV, which we expect to continue, and there will be another increase relative to the Alzheimer's agitation market, which share some common targets with MDD, but there are some distinct targets that we're adding to the call plan for this year. So I think we'll have more to share as we get into the Alzheimer's agitation launch, but -- the update to the peak sales estimate was guided by our internal analysis and ultimately the final label for agitation, which gives us confidence that in both indications, it will be increasing first frontline use of the product. Herriot Tabuteau: As it relates to OUS, our primary focus is on executing a launch in ADA and successful commercialization in the U.S. while identifying the ideal partner ex U.S. So as we said in the past, our plans, our partner ex U.S. and our primary focus is to ensure that we find a partner that shares our vision for the drug in its future. Operator: We reached the end of our question-and-answer session. I'd like to turn the floor back over for any further closing comments. Herriot Tabuteau: Thank you, operator. Axsome today represents a singular CNS platform. with our differentiated marketed products and a broad pipeline of potentially first-in-class and best-in-class treatments targeting unmet medical needs in psychiatry and neurology we are well positioned to deliver substantial long-term value for patients and shareholders. We look forward to providing updates on our progress throughout the balance of the year. Thank you, everyone, for joining us this morning. Have a great day. Operator: Thank you. That does conclude today's teleconference and webcast. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and have a wonderful day. We thank you for your participation today.
Operator: Good morning, and welcome to the Superior Group of Companies First Quarter 2026 Conference Call. With us today are Michael Benstock, Chief Executive Officer; and Mike Koempel, President and Chief Financial Officer; Jake Himelstein, President of the company's Branded Products segment will join today's call for the Q&A session. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. This call may contain forward-looking statements regarding the company's plans, initiatives and strategies and the anticipated financial performance of the company, including, but not limited to, sales and profitability. Such statements are based on management's current expectations, projections, estimates and assumptions. Words such as expect, believe, anticipate, think, outlook, hope and variations of such words and similar expressions identify such forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that may cause future results to differ materially from those suggested by the forward-looking statements. Such risks and uncertainties are further disclosed in the company's periodic filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including, but not limited to, the company's most recent annual report on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. Shareholders, potential investors and other readers are urged to consider these factors carefully in evaluating the forward-looking statements made herein and are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements. The company does not undertake to update the forward-looking statements except as required by law. And now I'll turn the call over to Michael Benstock. Michael Benstock: Thank you, operator. Good morning, and thanks, everyone, for joining us. We had a good start to the year. First quarter revenue was up 3%, gross margin rate improved by 30 basis points. SG&A came down as a percent of sales by nearly a full point, and EBITDA increased to $4.8 million from $3.5 million last year. EPS was $0.06 compared to a $0.05 loss in the first quarter of 2025. What I'm pleased with is that the improvement didn't come from just one place. We saw progress across the business, and that tells us the work we're doing is starting to show up in a meaningful way. The environment is still uncertain, including the added uncertainty around the Iran conflict, but we're staying focused on execution, and we're encouraged by what we're seeing. Overall, the company is in a strong position. We have a broad business mix, good customer relationships and supply chain flexibility. Those are all important in a market like this, and that gives us confidence in our underlying strategies. Starting with branded products, which is our largest segment, revenue grew 5% year-over-year for the second quarter in a row, driven by volume gains within existing customer accounts. We also improved gross margin and held SG&A near 27% of sales, which helped EBITDA grow nicely versus last year. Our pipeline and backlog remains strong, and we'll keep investing in sales technology to support growth in this part of the business. Moving to health care apparel, I want to welcome Chris Hein, who recently joined us as President of that segment. Chris has deep multichannel apparel experience and a strong history of building successful teams and driving results. We're excited to have him with us and look forward to what he brings to the business. In Healthcare Apparel, revenue grew 5% versus last year's first quarter. That was driven by volume growth in existing wholesale accounts and continued progress in direct-to-consumer. Mike will discuss in more detail our lower EBITDA for the quarter. We continue to see good potential in the segment and are focused on improving execution from here with new strategies and leadership in place. Turning to Contact Centers. Revenue was down 8% versus the first quarter of 2025, mainly because of prior year client attrition. On the other hand, revenue did improve sequentially from the fourth quarter, helped by existing customer expansion. The opportunity pipeline is still at a historical high. And with easier comparisons ahead, we're focused on converting the pipeline into year-over-year growth. We also made real progress on the cost side with SG&A down more than 200 basis points as a percent of sales compared to the year ago quarter. This reflects the benefits of last year's cost reduction work, including our continued focus on implementing AI and other technologies. As a result, Contact Centers EBITDA was down only slightly year-over-year, but the margin rate improved, which should help profitability going forward. We also maintained a strong balance sheet, which gives us the flexibility to keep investing where it makes sense while also repurchasing shares when we see the opportunity. So overall, this was a solid start to the year. We're encouraged by the progress we've made, and we think the work underway across the business is putting us in a better position as we move through the year. With that, Mike will walk you through the first quarter financial results, and then we'll open it up for questions. Michael Koempel: Thank you, Michael, and thanks, everyone, for joining us today. We grew consolidated revenue by 3% in the first quarter to $141 million. As we have mentioned before, our business is typically back-half weighted with sequential improvement through the year, and that's reflected in our 2026 guidance. Looking at the segments, Branded Products, our largest segment, grew 5% year-over-year to $91 million. Healthcare Apparel, our second largest segment, also grew revenue by 5% to $29 million. Contact Centers revenue declined 8% year-over-year as anticipated to $22 million, but we did see improvement sequentially from the fourth quarter, and we expect that to continue as the year goes on. Our pipelines remain solid, and we're continuing to invest in sales talent and marketing to support future growth. We expect all 3 segments to contribute to our growth trajectory in 2026. Our gross margin rate improved 30 basis points on a consolidated basis to 37.1% for the first quarter. Branded Products posted a gross margin of 34.1%, consistent with the fourth quarter but up 210 basis points from last year due to a weaker margin related to customer mix in the year ago period. The Healthcare Apparel gross margin rate was down 160 basis points to 35.6% mainly because of growth with lower-margin customers. The Contact Center's gross margin was 52.2%, down 140 basis points due to higher labor costs. SG&A as a percent of sales improved to 35.8% in the first quarter compared to 36.5% last year. Total SG&A expense for the quarter was $50 million including $1 million in severance costs and was essentially flat year-over-year despite our pipeline growth. Our resulting first quarter EBITDA was $4.8 million, up from $3.5 million a year ago, with EBITDA margin improving 80 basis points to 3.4%. Net interest expense came in a little over $900,000 for the quarter, down from more than $1.2 million last year driven by our improved net debt position and a lower weighted average interest rate. All the factors that I just mentioned contributed to net income of about $800,000 in the first quarter versus a net loss of about $800,000 in the year ago period. Therefore, diluted EPS was $0.06 compared to a $0.05 loss per share last year. On the balance sheet, we remain in strong shape with $23 million of cash and cash equivalents at the end of March. We generated more than $9 million of operating cash flow in the quarter on top of the $20 million we produced in 2025. Between cash on hand and availability under our revolver we have sufficient liquidity to support the business and return capital to shareholders. During the quarter, we paid $2 million in dividends and repurchased $700,000 worth of stock. We ended March with $9.4 million still available under our share repurchase authorization. To close, based on the solid start to the year, we're maintaining our full year guidance. We expect 2026 net sales of $572 million to $585 million and diluted EPS of $0.54 to $0.66. That would be meaningful improvement versus the $0.46 we generated last year. And as a reminder, we still expect results to be weighted toward the back half, similar to previous years, both for revenue and EPS. With that, operator, Michael, Jake and I will be happy to take your questions. Operator: [Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Michael Kupinski with NOBLE Capital Markets. Michael Kupinski: Yes. First of all, congratulations on your good start to 2026. A couple of questions. I was just wondering in terms of just looking at Branded Products, given that we -- this is kind of an interesting economy where we're starting to see some layoffs, particularly in the restaurant industry. I was just wondering if you can talk a little bit about your weight towards that sector? I know you have a few customers in that industry. If you could just talk a little bit about what you're seeing in terms of shifts in customer ordering behavior, things of that nature. Any signs of segments that are showing some strongest demand versus some that might not be in terms of softening and so forth. If you could just kind of give us some flavor of what you're seeing in branded products. Jake Himelstein: Michael, this is Jake Himelstein, Happy to answer that. We have a pretty diversified customer base. We are across a bunch of different industries. We don't have any concentration in any given industry. Certainly, right, the macro environment is a bit choppy. But our activity remains really healthy. Our focus has been really execution-oriented this quarter. We've converted a lot of our RFP pipeline. We're ramping up new sales reps that we brought on and focused on growing existing accounts. There's areas certainly where things are softer, things are a little bit busier across clients, but it is so diversified across different industries that were pretty insulated to any given company or industry having layoffs or weaker sales. So our pipeline has been really, really strong. Our RFP pipeline at the close of the first quarter was the strongest it's been in memory. And some of these opportunities will close out in the second quarter and beyond. So we're looking forward to seeing some of that activity come through in the rest of the year. Michael Kupinski: Yes. And on the contact center, it's good to see that sequential quarterly improvement there. Are we kind of like now kind of now that the pipeline is looking like it's improved now, are we likely to see further sequential quarterly improvement out of the Contact Centers? Michael Koempel: Michael, this is Mike. Yes, that is, in fact, the case. We've seen the pipeline, just like Jake mentioned in branded products and contact centers is also very strong. It has been. We've really been working on conversion of that pipeline, and we have seen conversion up during the quarter. And so as I mentioned in my prepared remarks, we do expect sequential improvement. I mentioned that we did expect the comparison in the first quarter to be challenging. So that's not a surprise. But as I mentioned, we did have sequential improvement from the fourth quarter. So we're moving in the right direction. I'd say again, I'd say we're cautiously optimistic as we move forward. And also the comps as we move forward, get easier as well. So we would expect to see growth in the back half of the year for contact centers. Michael Kupinski: Got you. And then last question, I know I let others ask questions. I know in the past, you had mentioned that you felt like content centers looked like there were opportunities to make some acquisitions there. I was just wondering if you could just talk a little bit about the M&A environment, if there are other opportunities that have opened up to make acquisitions in other areas? Are you still focused on the contact centers at this point? Michael Benstock: Michael, this is Michael Benstock. Yes. It's a very rich environment. There is a flurry of M&A activity happening across the entire industry, a consolidation of sorts of people who have embraced technology and people haven't. And the smaller centers are finding it very difficult to compete with the larger centers with respect to the investments they need to make in AI and other automation. We, of course, were early adopters of a lot of AI. So we're small, but we're mighty. And I believe we're a great candidate for other centers to smaller centers to join us. At any given time, we're looking at a few opportunities. We're going to make sure it's the right one in the right geography and gets us to the right place. It's never been a richer environment, sometimes that may be complicated because you have so many choices, but you should expect to see some movement on our part and keep in the next year or so. Keep in mind that we also are very disposed to having a center in a lower-cost environment. And so it's a combination of a couple of things that we're looking for that in particular. Operator: The next question comes from Jim Sidoti from Sidoti & Company. James Sidoti: So I just wanted to talk a little bit about Healthcare Apparel. I think you said you have a new leader for that division. You saw good top line growth there. Has there been a change in the strategy or some of the initiatives there? Michael Koempel: Jim, this is Mike. There will be some shift of the strategy. Chris just joined us about late March. So as you can imagine, he's very early in terms of getting up to speed with the business. So [ Crystal ] is evaluating the business. And again, we would expect some changes in strategy as we move forward, and we'll certainly share more about that as he gets deeper into the business. James Sidoti: And branded products really kind of what the led the charge growth 5%, 200 basis point expansion in gross margin. Is this the start of a trend? Jake Himelstein: I certainly hope so. Jim, this is Jake. We'd like to think that things are trending well, and it was a good first quarter, and we're starting to see the right things happening, right? we talked before about RFP activity being really strong and first quarter margins were strong, consistent with Q4 and up from Q1 last year due to some customer mix. But yes, it's been really strong, and we're happy with the efforts we're taking. Michael Benstock: Let me just make one and add to that. For the last 6 years, we've been operating in this crazy uncertain environment, starting with a pandemic. And we've had to pivot so many times, whether it was supply chain issues, it was a pandemic. It was -- and it slightness over and over again, it was tariffs. It's all these other -- it's almost like we've gotten really great now operating in with all this uncertainty and maybe uncertainty is the new norm gen. And I think we're very, very good at operating during uncertain times better than a lot of our competition. So we're welcoming the fact that there is uncertainty because we think we're better than other people in this environment. So time will tell. James Sidoti: And then the last one for me. On the tariffs, some other companies have reported they started to file for refunds. Is that something you're doing? And is that material for you? Michael Koempel: Jim, we initiated the refund process like a lot of companies for certain applicable tariffs, not all tariffs qualified under what I would call this initial round of applications. So the filing process has begun, but there's still a lot of uncertainty in terms of if and when we receive the refunds that we have applied for the timeline for filing refunds for those tariffs that didn't initially qualify a second phase, if you will, hasn't been defined or determined. So still a lot of uncertainty. I mean, we're certainly hopeful that we can successfully collect the refunds and we're going to -- we're obviously monitoring the situation very closely, and we'll do everything we can to collect. And we'll share more about that as we, again, get deeper into the year and have more certainty as to what that could look like. Operator: The next question comes from Keegan Cox with D.A. Davidson. Keegan Tierney Cox: I just wanted to ask kind of where EPS came in versus your expectations. And I'm wondering if we can get any help on how we should expect it to flow through for the rest of the year. Michael Koempel: EPS came in a little bit higher than we had expected. The -- there was, to some extent, some timing associated both on the revenue side within branded products. We had some revenue that came in earlier than we had originally planned. So that's going to be just, again, a timing shift between quarters to some extent. And then expenses were also favorable as well. Some of that is true reduction. Some of it is, again, going to be a shift between quarters. Again, like we had mentioned in our prepared remarks, we still expect a similar trend of progression of EPS growing throughout the year, still being back half weighted. Again, we're encouraged by the start, but it's only $0.06, then we have a lot more EPS to deliver the rest of the year. So that's why we feel comfortable with our guidance and again, expect to build with the back half to represent the majority of our earnings for the year. Keegan Tierney Cox: Got it. And my follow-up goes back to what Michael was talking about with the uncertainty you've seen in the past 6 years. Obviously, the Strait of Hormuz, I have to ask if you guys are feeling any impact from higher oil costs, any impact from like freight surcharges or the like? Michael Benstock: We just had our team in China where we buy a lot of raw materials and that's the largest -- it's a very large portion of our costs. Certainly, we've all seen logistic costs rise. And we've also seen that. But it wouldn't have impacted first quarter. Our inventory on the shelf was -- has been on the shelf long before the Strait of Hormuz were closed. But there's going to be continued pressure. And we're working with our vendors to mitigate as much of that as possible. It's not enough that we would materially change our outlook for the year, but we're going to continue to monitor it. And we're putting in a lot of effort into our sourcing strategies as this pricing environment evolves. So stay tuned. Right now, I think we're in a pretty good position compared to our competition. And we'll have to adjust pricing as time goes on, if it has any kind of impact on us. Operator: This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Michael Benstock for any closing remarks. Michael Benstock: Thank you, operator, and thanks, everyone, for joining our call. As usual, we appreciate your interest in Superior Group Companies. We will keep you updated as we move through the year. Please don't hesitate to reach out with any additional questions, and we look forward to seeing many of you during the upcoming conference circuit. Operator: The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.
Operator: Good morning, and welcome to the Cogent Communications Holdings First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded, and it will be available for replay at www.cogentco.com. A transcript of this conference call will be posted on Cogent's website when it becomes available. Cogent's summary of financial and operational results attached to its press release can be downloaded from the Cogent website. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Dave Schaeffer, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Cogent Communications Holdings. David Schaeffer: Thank you, and good morning to all. Welcome to our first quarter 2026 earnings call. I'm Dave Schaeffer, Cogent's CEO. Joined with me on today's call is Tad Weed, our Chief Financial Officer. A few key events and other significant matters in the quarter. I want to recognize some of the key achievements that we have made in the quarter. We have stated in previous calls, we intend to monetize 24 of our Sprint data centers that we acquired either via outright sale or leasing the acquired space on a wholesale basis. We have entered into a nonbinding LOI for the sale of 10 of these data centers. The counterparty has essentially completed its due diligence. Based on the status of this transaction, we expect closing to be early this summer. We continue to have multiple parties interested in other former Sprint data centers. Now while we are working on refinancing our 2027 $750 million unsecured notes, which become due in June of 2027. At this time, we can make the following statement regarding the refinancing of our 2027 notes, and I'm going to ask Tad to read this statement. Thaddeus Weed: Thank you, Dave, and good morning to everyone. The statement is as follows. The company and a limited number of holders of our 2032 $600 million secured notes who collectively hold more than a majority of the outstanding principal amount of our 2032 notes have reached a verbal agreement on a consent to amend the indenture for 2032 notes and that process is underway. If and once finally documented, the amendment will increase our ability under the indenture to incur pari-passu or junior lien secured debt and include several credit enhancements for our 2032 notes. If and when the consent to the amendment is final, we will file an 8-K announcing the same and forgo our previously announced secured debt realignment plan. Please note that this discussion does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any security nor is it a solicitation of consent from any holders of our 2032 notes. Back to you, Dave. David Schaeffer: Thanks, Tad. We intend our refinancing to be complete after the expiration of our make-whole period which ends June 15, 2026. Once -- and if this transaction closes, our debt maturities will be as followed. Our current $600 million secured notes will mature in June of 2032. Our anticipated $750 million of secured notes will mature in [ 2033 ], $206 million of our secured ABS IPv4 notes mature in May of 2029. $174.4 million of our secured IPv4 notes mature in April of 2030. Whereas $629 million of IRU finance leases or capital leases have various maturities extending through 2046. A couple of comments on our wavelength sales. At quarter end, we're offering wavelength services in 1,107 locations at either 10 gig, 100 gig or 400 gig capability. Our provisioning interval is approximately 30 days and continues to improve. Our wavelength revenues for the quarter were $13.6 million, an increase of 90.8% on a year-over-year basis and a sequential improvement of 12.3%. Our wavelength customer connections increased year-over-year by 71.2% and increased sequentially by 9.6% to 2,263. As of the end of the quarter, we have sold Wavelength services in 581 unique locations, and we have sold those services to a total of 492 unique customers. We intend to continue to focus on capturing 25% of the North American long-haul market. As of today, we have captured approximately 3% of that [indiscernible]. Now our EBITDA on a year-over-year basis, our EBITDA is adjusted for the quarter increased by $1.4 million, and our EBITDA as adjusted margin for the quarter increased year-over-year by 150 basis points. Our EBITDA as adjusted for the quarter decreased sequentially by $6.6 million to $70.2 million and our EBITDA as adjusted margin for the quarter was 29.3%. Seasonally, our SG&A expenses increased in the first quarter as compared to the fourth quarter. These changes are caused by annual CPI increases in salary, impact of payroll taxes in the U.S. the timing of employee vacations, our annual audit fees and our sales meeting. Our SG&A increased from the fourth quarter of 2025 to the first quarter of 2026, by $7.1 million or 11%. By comparison, our SG&A increased by $10.6 million or 19% on from the fourth quarter of 2024 to the first quarter of 2025. This seasonal pattern is normal for Cogent. We have a refined capital allocation strategy that is focused on delevering. We have committed the proceeds of the sale of our initial data centers that were formerly Sprint facilities to Cogent Communications Group, our borrowing entity, which will accelerate delevering at that entity. Our total gross debt is adjusted for amounts from T-Mobile for the last 12 months on an EBITDA as adjusted basis for 7.4x EBITDA. Our net debt ratio was 6.79x at quarter's end. Our IP Leasing revenues increased 4% to $18 million and increased by 25% on a year-over-year basis. Our average price per IP address was stable at $0.40. We have titled to approximately $37.8 million IPv4 addresses and have leased out approximately $15 million of these addresses as of today. At quarter's end, we are providing services in 1,744 carrier-neutral data centers and 185 Cogent data centers. This footprint of data centers represents approximately 17 gigawatts of installed power. The Cogent data centers have approximately 211 megawatts of installed power and approximately 1.2 million square feet of floor space. While our revenue growth for Q1 2026 was negative, the decline in revenues from acquired Sprint customers is moderating. We anticipate a long-term average revenue growth rate of 6% to 8% and EBITDA margin expansion of approximately 200 basis points per year. Our revenue and EBITDA guidance targets are intended to be multiyear and are not intended to be quarterly or annual specific items. Now I'd like to turn the call back to Tad to read our safe harbor language, provide some additional detail, and then I will provide some summary remarks and open the floor for questions and answers. Thaddeus Weed: Thank you, Dave. This earnings conference call includes forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based on our current intent, beliefs and expectations. These forward-looking statements and all other statements that may be made on this call that are not historical facts are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ materially. Please refer to our SEC filings for more information on the factors that could cause actual results to differ. Cogent undertakes no obligation to update or revise our forward-looking statements. If we use non-GAAP financial measures during this call, you will find these reconciled to the corresponding GAAP measurement in our earnings release that are posted on our website at cogentco.com. Summary of results. Comments on our revenue mix since the Sprint closing, which as reminder, was May 1, 2023, so the first full quarter with Sprint combined with Cogent was the third quarter of 2023. Despite revenue decreases, we have been able to increase our margins, our increases in gross margin and our EBITDA margin have been driven by cost reductions and a rotation to our more profitable on-net products. Comparing our revenue by connection type from the third quarter of 2023, again, the first full quarter when we were combined with Sprint to this quarter illustrates the material change to the composition of our revenues and the strength of our underlying Cogent classic business. Our on-net revenues were 47% of our total revenues in the third quarter of 2023. Our total on-net revenues including wavelength on net revenues, increased from 47% to 62% of total revenues this quarter. Our less profitable off-net revenues were 48% of our total revenues in the third quarter of 2023, and our off-net revenues have decreased to 37% of our total revenues this quarter. Lastly, our noncore revenues were 5% of our total revenues in the third quarter of '23, and our noncore revenues have decreased to $1 million and were approximately 0.5% of our total revenues this quarter. Our total revenue for the quarter was $239.2 million. Our total revenue for the quarter declined sequentially by $1.3 million or by 0.6%. The decrease was a slight improvement from the $1.4 million sequential quarterly decline last quarter. USF tax revenues had a negative impact on our sequential revenue results of $0.3 million and a negative impact year-over-year $0.7 million. For the quarter and sequentially, our on-net revenues, including on-net wave revenues increased by $2.8 million. Our less profitable off-net revenues declined by $3.9 million. Our noncore revenues decreased by $12.2 million. Our wavelength revenues, which is entirely on-net, increased by 1.5%. Our gross margin percentage for the quarter increased year-over-year by 150 basis points to 46.1% from continued cost reduction and product optimization, including our focus on on-net products. Some comments on revenue by class. We analyze and classify our revenues into 4 network connection types and 3 customer types. Our 4 network connection types are on-net, off-net, wavelengths and noncore. Our 3 customer types or NetCentric, corporate and enterprise customers. The substantial changes in the acquired Sprint wireline revenue base have masked the underlying performance of our Cogent classic business. Our consolidated revenue declines have been largely attributed to the reduction in the acquired Sprint wireline corporate and enterprise noncore and off-net revenues. At closing, the Sprint wireline revenues were 42% of our total revenues. That percentage has declined from 42% to only 16% of our total revenues this quarter. We acquired Sprint wireline with a revenue run rate of $118 million per quarter. This acquired revenue base has decreased from $118 million to $39 million this quarter run rate. That represents a $79 million reduction in quarterly revenue related to the acquired Sprint revenue base or a 67% decline since deal closing. At deal closing, our Cogent Classic revenue run rate was $155 million per quarter, and that run rate has increased by 28% from $155 million to almost $200 million, $198 million for this quarter. Our total corporate business represented 42.3% of our revenues this quarter. Our quarterly corporate revenues decreased by 8.7% year-over-year and sequentially by 1.7%. The Sprint wireline corporate revenue customers represented 30% of our total corporate revenues at closing of the acquisition, and those Sprint acquired corporate customers now represent only 10% of our total corporate revenues. The Sprint Wireline acquired corporate customer base has decreased from a run rate of $39 million per quarter at closing to a current run rate of only $8 million for this quarter, an approximate 80% declining. Our total NetCentric business continues to increase and to benefit from the benefit from the growth in video traffic, activity related to artificial intelligence, streaming, IPv4 leasing and wavelength sales. Our NetCentric business represented 44.2% of our revenues this quarter. Our quarterly NetCentric revenues increased by 14.2% year-over-year and sequentially by 2.3%. The Sprint wireline NetCentric customers represented 21% of our total NetCentric customer revenues at the closing of the acquisition. Those Sprint Wireline acquired NetCentric customers now represent only 6% of our total NetCentric revenues. The Sprint wireline acquired NetCentric customer base has decreased from a run rate of $19 million per quarter at closing to a run rate this quarter of only $8 million and approximately 60% decline, 58% actually. Enterprise business. Our total enterprise business represented 13.5% of our revenues this quarter. Our quarterly enterprise revenue decreased by 26% year-over-year and sequentially by 5.7%, primarily due to a reduction in the acquired Sprint Wireline enterprise off-net revenue. The Sprint wireline enterprise customers represented virtually all of our enterprise revenues of the closing of the acquisition and the Sprint Wireline acquired Enterprise revenue base has decreased from a run rate of $60 million per quarter at closing to a current run rate of $23 million, a 62% decline. Revenue and customer connections by network type. We serve our on-net customers in 3,605 total on-net buildings. Our total on-net revenue, including on-net wavelength, was $149.2 million for the quarter. That's a year-over-year increase of 9.1% and a sequential increase of 1.9%. Our less profitable off-net revenues was $89 million for the quarter, a year-over-year decrease of 17% and a sequential decrease of 4.2%. Our off-net revenue results are impacted by the migration of certain off-net customers to on-net and the continued grooming and termination of low-margin off-net contracts, virtually all of the decline from the Sprint wireline acquired customers. Our average price per megabit for our installed base decreased sequentially to $0.12 from $0.14 last quarter and was $0.20 for the first quarter of last year, and our average price per megabit of new contracts for the quarter was $0.07 compared to $0.06 last quarter, so a slight increase and $0.10 in the first quarter of last year. Our ARPU for the quarter were as follows: our on-net IP ARPU was $514, our off-net IP ARPU was $1,219, our wavelength ARPU was $2,093, our IPv4 ARPU was $0.40 per address. Churn rates. Our on-net churn rate was stable and our off-net churn rate actually slightly improved from last quarter. Our on-net unit churn monthly rate was 1.2%, the same as last quarter. Our off-net churn rate is primarily driven by the reduction in the acquired Sprint customer base, and it was 1.7%, moderation from 1.9% last quarter. Our wavelength monthly churn rate is less than 0.5%. Traffic. Our year-over-year IP network traffic growth continued for the quarter. Our IP network traffic for the quarter increased sequentially by 4% and increased year-over-year at an accelerated rate to 14% this quarter compared to the same quarter last year. Sales rep productivity. Our sales rep productivity was 4.1% this quarter, the same as last quarter and compared to our long-term average of 4.8%. FX. Our revenue earned outside of the United States, about 21% of our revenues this quarter. Based on the average euro Canadian conversion USD rates, so far this quarter, we estimate that the FX conversion impact on sequential quarterly revenues will not be material and the impact on year-over-year would be a positive of approximately $1 million. Our revenues and customer base are not highly concentrated. Our top 25 customers represented 16% of our revenues in the quarter. CapEx. Our capital expenditures were $46.2 million in this quarter. We have experienced multiple equipment price increases from vendors due to supply chain constraints so far this year. Our principal payments on capital leases were $13.4 million this quarter. Debt and debt ratios. Our total gross debt at par, including $629 million of finance lease IRU obligations, was $2.4 billion at quarter end, and our net debt total net of our cash our $181.7 million due from T-Mobile was $2 billion. Our leverage ratio, as calculated under our more restrictive unsecured $750 million 2027 notes indentures that we plan on refinancing was 6.1% our secured leverage ratio was 3.79%. Our fixed coverage ratio was 2.29%. The definition of consolidated cash flow under our $600 million secured 2032 notes indenture includes cash payments under our IP Transit Service agreement with T-Mobile in the determination of consolidated cash flow. Our anticipated $750 million secured notes indenture will include the same definition of consolidated cash flow, again, including cash payments under IP Transit agreement. Our leverage ratio, as calculated under our $600 million Secure 2032 notes indenture was 4.66%. Our secured leverage ratio was 2.9% and our fixed coverage ratio was 3%. Lastly, on bad debt and day sales. Our days sales was 31 days at quarter end. Our bad debt expense was less than 0.5% of our revenues for the quarter. And with that, I will turn the call back over to Dave. David Schaeffer: Okay. Thanks, Tad. I would like to highlight a couple of strengths of our network, our customer base and our sales force. We are direct beneficiaries of increased demand for over-the-top video, AI activity and streaming video trends. At quarter's end, we were able to sell wave services in 1,107 data centers across North America with a reduced provisioning interval of approximately 30 days. We are selling Wavelength services as of quarter end to 492 unique customers and 581 unique data center locations. At quarter-end, we are selling IP services globally in a total of 1,929 data centers. At quarter end, we are directly connected to 7,630 networks. 22 of these networks represent settlement-free peers, 7,608 of those networks are Cogent transit customers. We remain very focused on our sales force productivity and managing out underperforming reps. Our sales force turnover rate was 4.8% per month for the quarter, below our historical average of 5.7% per month. At quarter end, we have a total quota-bearing sales force of 568 reps. This includes 285 professionals focused on the NetCentric market, 269 sales professionals focused on the corporate market and 14 sales professionals focused on the enterprise market. We've made significant progress in several areas. We're improving our margins and growing our EBITDA due to our diligence in cost reduction and our focus on selling more profitable on net services. In the first quarter of 2026, 83% of our sales were on-net services. This increased the percentage of our total base to 62% of all services being on-net. We have a clear path to refinance our 2027 $750 million unsecured notes with secured $750 million notes. We are actively working to continue to monetize former Sprint facilities, and we are looking to grow EBITDA, which will further accelerate our delevering and allow us to reaccelerate our return of capital program to equity. We're optimistic about our wavelength services business. Our wavelength services are differentiated in quality of service, breadth of footprint, uniqueness of routes and efficiency and provisioning. Our on-net services, both IP and wavelength, offer unparalleled value to customers. We offer superior services for all of our products, a broad footprint in revenue rich locations, expedited provisioning and disruptive pricing. In summary, we win on value. Now I'd like to open the floor for questions. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Greg Williams from TD Cowen. Gregory Williams: Great. Dave, the first one just on EBITDA. It was a touch light versus the Street in our estimates. You mentioned that obviously, you have the seasonal cost, payroll taxes, CPI, et cetera, and it's up $7.1 million quarter-over-quarter. How much of that $7.1 million was the seasonal cost? And maybe talk to the cost takeout progress. Essentially, I'm just trying to figure out the EBITDA cadence next quarter and the balance of the year. Are you still looking for 200 bps of expansion or I think you said greater than 200 bps this year? And then the second question is just on that data center sales process. You mentioned the 10 data centers you're looking to close this summer. Any color would be helpful in terms of valuation price per megawatt. Is it coming close to the $10 million a megawatt? Maybe just generally characterize them versus the other 14? Are they better, same, worse, larger, smaller? Any help. David Schaeffer: Thanks for both questions, Greg. So first of all, in terms of EBITDA margin expansion, we historically experienced a reduction in EBITDA margin and an increase in SG&A expenses in the first quarter. This pattern has been in place for 20 years as Cogent has been a public company. The increase this quarter was approximately $7.1 million. The vast majority of that increase will go away, and we expect to be able to resume our sequential increase in EBITDA margins as well as our year-over-year expansion. And while we will probably not repeat the roughly 800 basis points of improvement last year, meaning 2025 over 2024, we do expect to be over our multiyear guidance of 200 basis points on a year-over-year basis. With regard to the 10 data centers, the aggregate proceeds are substantially more than the $144 million. These 10 represent a pretty good average across the 24 data centers that we are looking to divest of. It does not include our largest data center or our smallest data center that we are looking to sell. We also have a number of other parties conducting due diligence on multiple other data centers. We are focused on getting this transaction completed early summer. And then using those proceeds to be able to rapidly delever at the Cogent group level. Just to remind investors, the data centers are held at Cogent Infrastructure, which is not a borrower under our high-yield indentures. We have committed and we'll continue to commit to contribute the proceeds of these 10 data centers that are being divested of to the borrower group and then use that money to rapidly delever both on a gross and net basis. Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Sebastiano Petti from JPMorgan. Sebastiano Petti: Dave, I think last quarter, we talked about hitting an inflection point where the growth in the organic business would offset the spread declines, but despite favorable currency, I guess, sequentially here, the business did contract. I mean, just help us think about any onetime anomalies in the business? How should we think about the top line trajectory from here? I think Tad talked about it being neutral on a constant currency basis as we think about the second quarter. And then any update on the Wave installs just slowed a little bit sequentially here. Is this related at all to the supply constraints that Tad talked about in his prepared remarks? And I guess relatedly or just to kind of confirm the 25% market share target in waves, is that still anticipated by May 2028? Or should we anticipate the timeline has been extended because it didn't seem you were specific in your prepared remarks. David Schaeffer: Yes, sure. So the inflection in revenue was related almost exclusively to several large enterprise customers churning a portion of their off-net revenues. While those were not anticipated, those revenues were out of contract and on a month-to-month basis. The core Cogent business and the on-net business in totality grew both sequentially and year-over-year. Our primary focus is on growing on-net revenues, 83% of all revenues sold in the quarter were on-net, and that will help us increase our aggregate profitability and our free cash flow and EBITDA. The wavelength install rate was not impacted by our supply constraints, but it was impacted by supply chain constraints of our customers. We have not, as of yet, began to force build wavelength services. I think this is part of the way we've been able to grow both the number of locations and number of customers that we sell to. The supply chain constraints did hit Cogent in terms of capital equipment from plugable optics to normal sequential capital installs across our network. All of our major vendors have had price increases. Actually, our primary vendor had 4 price increases in the 4 -- in the first 4 months of the year. This is counter to a pattern of prices for technology declining. On wavelength installs, we have seen a variety of customers pushing out their acceptance of wavelengths. We actually provisioned more wavelengths in the quarter than we did in the previous quarter, but the customers did not accept them. That decision to push out acceptance is being driven by constraints. We have seen constraints of power availability in data centers. We've seen customers actually change wavelength termination points to avoid a constraint in one data center in a market moving to another data center. There are equipment constraints from plugable optics on the customer side to the ability to have GPUs installed to accept wavelengths. And probably something that should be obvious that people forget is while there is a rapid acceleration of capital for AI training and there have been literally hundreds of billions of dollars annually of announced investments and trillions of dollars in total, almost all of those announcements are not yet online. And in many cases, customers order wavelengths to facilities that are not yet either fully powered or fully constructed. We do think that will ease. With regard to our ability to gain market share, we have gone from 0% market in 2 years to 3% of the market. Our goal remains to hit 25% of the intercity long-haul market. We feel that is very reasonable based both on the number of locations and the diversity of the customer base. While we are hopeful that we can reach that by mid '28, that is just a little over 2 years from now, and these equipment supply constraints may, in fact, impact that, we are not in a position to make that determination. Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Chris Schoell from UBS. Christopher Schoell: You mentioned the equipment prices stepping up from vendors due to the supply chain constraints. But is there anything else causing CapEx to come in higher than that $25 million per quarter run rate you previously spoke to? And should we assume this level of capital spending will persist in the near term? And then maybe just one on the sales force. It appears that head count has been stepping down consistently. What is the main driver there? And do you believe you can still hit your revenue targets with a lower headcount? David Schaeffer: Yes. Thanks for both questions, Chris. So first of all, on equipment pricing, I think there have been 2 primary drivers that are forcing vendors to raise pricing. The first is the acute shortage of DRAM. And since DRAM is utilized both in optical transport and routing equipment that is causing our vendors to experience a higher cost of goods sold. The second has been a shift in buying patterns. So historically, service providers represented the vast majority of equipment purchases. Those equipment purchases have become concentrated in a handful of hyperscalers that have exerted very strong pressures on gross margins for our vendors. In order to offset that margin pressure, our vendors have increased prices on service providers while offering the aggressive discounts for volume to hyperscalers. We don't have enough data to know how all or how material these trends will be going forward, we do expect our capital intensity to continue to moderate. However, these increases in pricing were not anticipated and are not in line with historical trends. This is the first time in Cogent's 26-year history that we've seen the prices of our key technologies increase, not decrease. We do think these are not permanent, but we don't have enough data to fully answer that with conviction. With regard to headcount, we have tried to manage out unproductive reps. And we have consolidated some teams in order to better affect training. We do believe we will see an acceleration and rep productivity, while on a unit basis, it remained flat, on a dollar of revenue acquired basis, it actually improved materially both sequentially and year-over-year. We expect to see an improvement in rep productivity, both on a unit basis and dollar of revenue acquired. We also are continuing to hire reps and believe that the vast majority of the housekeeping that we have done is behind us now, and we should be at a point where the sales force will stabilize and then begin to resume growth as there is adequate addressable market for our services to allow us to support a larger number of sales reps across all of our products, but holding reps accountable to productivity targets is critical to our ability to hit our margin objectives. Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Ana Goshko from Bank of America. Ana Goshko: So Dave, a few questions, follow-ups. So just on the timing of the data center sales, so you're still at a letter of intent and you said that you expect to close the sale early summer. So that seems like a pretty fast turnaround. I think in the past, you had said it might even take like several quarters to close the deal from the actual agreement. So a few things. When do you expect that the actual sale agreement will be finalized? And when that happens, will you press release or 8-K that for us with the dollar amount? And then, yes, I just want to confirm, when you say early summer, what does that really mean in terms of July or late June? David Schaeffer: Yes. So first of all, the counterparty has been actively completing its diligence with a battery of consultants. They have spent several million dollars on that diligence and it all has been confirmatory. And they have indicated that they would like to accelerate the closing once we have a final purchase and sale agreement in place, they have agreed to shorten the period of time from their LOI expiring to closing. We expect that to be in early summer which would mean probably June or early July at the latest. We will announce the economics and the locations in an 8-K once the deal has been put under a binding agreement with a nonrefundable deposit, and we will disclose the name of the counterparty as well as the exact proceeds. And finally, we have committed that those proceeds will be contributed to Cogent Group, the borrower and that those proceeds will be earmarked for net delevering. And in some cases, a portion of those proceeds will also be used for gross delevering. Ana Goshko: Okay. So just to put that maybe in kind of simpler terms. So are you saying a portion of the proceeds will go to pay down debt, but not all of them? David Schaeffer: So we have committed to a group of bondholders that the vast majority of the proceeds will go to buy back debt but we did not commit to a number that equals the purchase price. We just committed to a number that is a significant percentage of what the final purchase price would be since we did not disclose that information to the bondholders as it is nonpublic at this time. Ana Goshko: Okay. And then just another follow-up on this. So you had said that you plan to refi the unsecured with the new secured the full $750 million after the call price drop in June 15. So have you thought about if these proceeds are going to be coming in so soon, why do you need to do the full $750 million? Could you do a smaller deal and then just use the proceeds to pay down a portion of the bonds that are due in '27, the unsecured? David Schaeffer: So the answer is we can do that. But with our current $600 million secured debt trading at a discount to par, we want to try to capture some of that discontinuity and buy back the current $600 million secured until they trade closer to par. And then at that point, the additional capital that we have could be used to result in a smaller new issuance. But today, the current secured debt is trading at a material discount. Ana Goshko: Okay. And then finally, just a quick follow-up on the business model. So on the cost side, you had previously talked about there being $10 million of annual synergies left from the Sprint acquisition, then also that there were integration costs of about $3 million a month that should be rolling off this year. So if I put that all together, it's roughly maybe like $45 million of annualized cost saves that you could theoretically or hopefully, in practice achieve this year. Just wanted an update on where you stand and what that outlook for the actual cost reductions looks like this year? David Schaeffer: So we have achieved a small portion of that $10 million in remaining synergies. And just to remind you, we actually increased that target after we had already achieved the initial targets that we had laid out. The remaining integration work is continuing. That number was running as high as $5 million a month or $60 million a year. Today, it is slightly below $3 million a month, and we expect both of those areas of savings to be complete by year-end. We have not disclosed the exact pacing throughout 2026. But all of these roughly $45 million in costs will disappear in 2027. Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Frank Louthan from Raymond James. Frank Louthan: On the wavelength, what's the average size wave that you're selling now currently? And then on -- were there any dark fiber or IPv4 address sales that helped contribute to revenue or EBITDA this quarter? David Schaeffer: Frank, thanks for the questions. I'm going to actually take those in reverse order. There were no dark fiber sales in the quarter, while there was some IPv4 unit activity. Actually, the number of IP addresses leased went down slightly sequentially but the revenue went up. It is a combination of selling at higher prices and continuing to raise prices on legacy orders. We do anticipate continued growth in our IPv4 business. We do not forecast any dark fiber sales. We treat those on an episodic basis and do that only to date with parties as a way to help them out of a bind if we have a route that is particularly critical to their operations. Many -- or to date, the handful of dark fiber sales that we've done have been 2 counterparties where we have been a customer of theirs buying dark fiber for a number of years. With regard to Wave sales, the vast majority of our waves have been 100 gig waves. We are seeing an increase in the number of 400 gig waves and a significant decrease in the 10-gig wave. I think an average number would be somewhat misleading. I think looking at that on a model basis is the best way to do that. And roughly about 75% of our sales have been 100 gig waves. Frank Louthan: Yes. That's kind of how I was thinking about it. So 75% of 100 gig waves, what was that last quarter? And of that 25%, are they substantially 400 gig wave? Is that the way to think about it? How much is that 400 gig wave growing as a percentage of your new sales? David Schaeffer: Yes. So the 100 gig percentage has remained relatively constant. I think it was 78% the quarter before. And of the remaining 25%, there definitely has been a shift away from 10 gig sales and a shift towards 400 gig sales with today, over 10% of sales being 400 gig sales. Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Walter Piecyk from LightShed Partners. Walter Piecyk: Dave, on these data center sales that are coming up, I guess just getting back to Ana's question. Is there anything that forces the buyer to act by a certain period of time? Otherwise, is there a risk that they understand the dynamics of your the refi coming up on the $750 million in June of next year and try and push that out as a leverage point to impact price. Can you just give us a little bit more on those terms as well as what is it that you had to consent pay off, whatever it is on the 2032 noteholders to get them? I think you were saying to effectively enable the refi in the '27, I don't necessarily understand that connection if you could put a little bit more color on that. David Schaeffer: Yes. Sure, Walt. So first of all, we entered into a letter of intent that has exclusivity for the intended buyer on these data centers. That period of exclusivity ends, those -- some of those facilities have backup agreements that are ready to spring into force if the exclusivity period is allowed to lapse. So there is a significant amount of pressure on the buyer to inoculate themselves from a counter offer. Secondly, they have spent in excess of $3 million on diligence, and they are in the process of rounding out their management team to absorb these facilities. So we believe they are going to move forward, but the biggest lever that we have is a counteroffer that would spring in if their exclusivity period lapse. They have indicated to us that they actually want to shorten the window from the expiration of that exclusivity period to closing. And that's what gave us confidence and our decision to announce early summer rather than later in the summer. To pivot to your second question about the current 32 note bondholders, while we have every right under our indentures to do the IRU realignment that we disclosed on our last earnings call, in discussions with many of those bondholders they preferred a more traditional way of giving us the flexibility to increase our secured leverage. While we have a substantial amount of capacity for additional leverage, we were constrained by the 4x net leverage limitation that's embedded in the 32 notes, and it will be their decision to increase that to allow us to fully refinance the $750 million with a single unitary secured issue. And in doing that, they would then be in a position to see us not realign the IRUs and keep those with their associated debt and the borrower group. Walter Piecyk: And do you anticipate -- if all goes well, you sell the data centers ahead as you told Ana, take down secured, refi the $750 million, what type of rate do you anticipate? I think you're paying 7%on that now, same rate low or higher? David Schaeffer: Yes. We are paying 7% on the current unsecured bonds. Our current secured bonds are trading at just around 8% today. I believe our new issue will most likely price off of the trading of those bonds and will be somewhat similar. We'll have both a new issue concession. That's typically about an 8-point and it could have a small variance based on duration. If we sell the data centers use a portion of the proceeds to buy back bonds, it is likely that the current secured bonds will trade asymptotically to par, which is 6.5% and then it would allow us to finance probably at a similar rate. While I can't predict the exact trading off the bonds, the sequencing of completing the data center diligence period, converting into a binding agreement, announcing it along with the announcement that Tad mentioned around the exact mechanics of our agreement with the majority of the bondholders and then earmarking the exact amount of dollars that will go to repurchasing bonds of the current 32. And then to Ana's point, maybe a portion of that money maybe held in advance and just allow us to refinance a slightly smaller amount of money than the $750 million, that's outstanding. But all of this is designed to drive down our cost of borrowing and make our new bonds similar to where our existing bonds are, which I think is an achievement considering the aggregate increased cost of capital since those bonds were issued. Walter Piecyk: I mean my guess is operational performance like sequential revenue growth and wavelengths growth will probably have a bigger impact on where the secured debt trades relative to some asset sales relative to a much larger debt load. But I guess what would be helpful is understanding why would unsecured trade at parity was secured? David Schaeffer: Well, today, the unsecured actually trade at a discount to secure. Our current unsecured trade at roughly 7.1 and our secured trade at about 8.1. Walter Piecyk: Why do you think that is? David Schaeffer: I think it's primarily duration. Walter Piecyk: Okay. But then the rate market will obviously have an impact. Just one last in terms of understanding cash burn. The CapEx, I think you said last year or 2026, not excluding capital lease obviously, should have been about $100 million for this year, a big cutdown for the variety of reasons that you guys have talked about. You were at $46 million for the first quarter. Is it just going to drop off a cliff in future quarters? Or should the CapEx run rate maybe be higher than the $100 million that you talked about? David Schaeffer: Yes, Walt. So our CapEx on a Q1 '25 to Q1 '26 dropped by about $13 million. So it dropped from roughly $59 million to $46 million. Walter Piecyk: But up sequentially. David Schaeffer: Well, typically, declines in fourth quarter and steps up in Q1, again, like our SG&A. We do anticipate our CapEx coming down on a year-over-year basis. But as I mentioned and Tad mentioned in the prepared remarks, we have been shocked by the fact that our equipment vendors have actually raised prices, which is highly unusual in a technology business. We think those may be over. And if they are, we'll be much closer to the $100 million number. If there are future increases in equipment that will push up our costs, primarily for plugable optics, which are probably the largest single item that we spend capital on. Walter Piecyk: Okay. Just one last follow-up, Dave. Just again, going back to the Ana's question. She's obviously as a data analyst a lot smarter about this stuff than I am. What -- I guess if it's trading at a discount today, right, and you're like, oh, if it's a par when it's time to refi, like why bother then with the secured note if it's at par, then take a smaller unsecured note out. I mean, shouldn't that.. David Schaeffer: That may be the case, Walt. That's why I said we will look to capture discontinuity while the current secures are trading at a discount. Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Tim Horan from Oppenheimer. Timothy Horan: I think, Dave, on the data center sale, the binding sale agreement, does that have to occur like a month before the final close? Or can you give us some color around that? And can you talk about a little bit more color where you are with selling the other data centers roughly will be the same price? And when do you think you'll be able to kind of have a letter of intent? David Schaeffer: Yes. Thanks for the question, Tim. So first of all, the period between contract signing and closing has actually been shortened at the purchasers request. Normally, you would have a window of up to 90 days from binding agreement to sale. This is substantially shorter than that, and that's what gives us confidence that we will end up closing this in early summer. And then in terms of the other data centers, we are in discussions with multiple counterparties, some for just one facility, some for several, some are in kind of a backup position to the current party and we've informed them of the likelihood that the current party is moving forward. We have tried to focus our data center resources on getting this initial 10 centers over the finish line. And then for the remaining 14 we will hopefully be in a position to work more expeditiously to getting some of those deals move along, but we've really tried to keep resources focused on getting this deal closed. Timothy Horan: And then, Dave, on the wavelength side, could you give us your best guess then on when you think you can hit 25% share? And can you just talk about the dynamics of where you are winning share? Is this -- is this new builds? Is it when contracts expire? Is it moves? Or is it because they're increasing from 10 meg to 100? Any more color would be great. David Schaeffer: Yes. So first of all, it's kind of all of the above in terms of our wins. We are winning existing waves with customers that are frustrated with their current supplier. We are winning waves from customers who are increasing their throughput. We are winning waves due to locations shifting and the breadth of our footprint. And we are winning brand new builds, particularly from hyperscalers and [indiscernible] clouds which are new to the market. With regard to getting to a 25% market share, we feel very confident that we will achieve that level. Doing it in a little over 2 years, does become harder as we see the current rate of installs not being accepted by customers. We are working as diligently as we can to install if customers are ready to accept. I think we'll need another quarter or 2 to be able to definitively answer that question. But we do see a significant pent-up demand for the locations, the routes and the price points that we are offering. Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Nick Del Deo from MoffettNathanson. Nicholas Del Deo: Turning back to CapEx. Just to be clear, was all the increase this quarter versus what you've guided to attributable to higher prices? Or were there more units of equipment you purchased or inventory build, anything like that going on? David Schaeffer: Yes. So as I mentioned in Walt's answer, our CapEx was down $13 million on a year-over-year basis. It's -- that was probably about half of the level of reduction that we would have anticipated and would have been kind of on plan. I would say that the majority of the overruns came from price increases, but there was also some preordering of equipment that we're concerned about delivery schedules on. And we have probably increased our forward purchases almost double what we would normally do as shipping windows have stretched from normally somewhere between 60 and 90 days. we actually have one vendor today quoting 15 months for deliveries on key items, another vendor quoting 9 to 12 months. And these were items that historically would ship in 2 to 3 months. So we are also preordering just based on these elongated shipment windows. But I would say the majority of the increase came from price increases to date. Nicholas Del Deo: Okay. That's helpful. And then separately on the corporate front, we see from various data providers that leasing in certain metro areas in the U.S. has ticked up quite noticeably as vacancy rates are coming down and whatnot. I'm wondering if you're seeing improving corporate sales trends in those markets? And if so, what that might suggest about corporate growth prospectively? David Schaeffer: Yes. So our footprint is heavily concentrated in Class A buildings, which tend to be the first building to recover leasing activity. However, the aggregate vacancy rate and our footprint still remains about triple what it had been historically pre-COVID. So while it is improving, it is improving at a slow pace. Our corporate organic business is growing at around 4% to 5% annually. The decline in corporate has been almost exclusively an off-net and almost exclusively former Sprint customers. Our aggregate Cogent revenue in the 3 years since deal closing has grown at 28%. That results in about an 8% compounded growth rate that has obviously helped by wavelength sales and IPv4 leasing, but we have seen an improvement in corporate on-net growth we have not seen a significant improvement in corporate off-net even for Cogent sales, and we are continuing to see a decline in off-net Sprint corporate as well as an even more accelerated rate of decline in Sprint Enterprise, which is now Cogent Enterprise and is roughly 88% off-net. Operator: And there are no further questions. I will now turn the call back over to Dave Schaeffer for closing remarks. David Schaeffer: Hey, thank you all very much. We appreciate everyone taking the interest in Cogent, and we look forward to seeing you at some conferences soon. Take care all. We'll talk soon. Thanks. Bye-bye. Operator: This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.
Operator: Greetings, and welcome to the RLJ Lodging Trust First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, John Paul Austin, Director of Investor Relations. Thank you, sir. You may begin. John Paul Austin: Thank you, operator. Good morning, and welcome to RLJ Lodging Trust 2026 First Quarter Earnings Call. On today's call, Leslie Hale, our President and Chief Executive Officer, will discuss key highlights for the quarter. Nikhil Bhalla, our Chief Financial Officer, will discuss the company's financial results. Tom Bardenett, our Chief Operating Officer, will also be available for Q&A. Forward-looking statements made on this call are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties that may lead the company's actual results to differ materially from what has been communicated. Factors that may impact the results of the company can be found in the company's 10-Q and other reports filed with the SEC. The company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements. Also, as we discuss certain non-GAAP measures, it may be helpful to review the reconciliations to GAAP located in our press release. Finally, please refer to our schedule of supplemental information, which includes pro forma operating results for our current hotel portfolio. I'll now turn the call over to Leslie. Leslie D. Hale: Thanks, John Paul. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. We are encouraged to see the lodging industry off to a strong start this year, benefiting from the underlying strength of fundamentals, with the acceleration of business transient demand being a key driver. We are particularly pleased with our first quarter results as our urban-centric portfolio outperformed the industry. Our favorable footprint with exposure to many top-performing markets such as Northern California and South Florida, among others, allowed us to capture the broad-based momentum in all segments of demand along with the ramp from our recent high impact renovations and conversion, driving solid results ahead of our expectations. During the first quarter, we achieved RevPAR growth of 4.8%. The outperforming the industry by 100 basis points. We delivered robust non-room revenue growth, which exceeded our RevPAR performance by more than 300 basis points, and we drove high single-digit year-over-year EBITDA growth and margin expansion. We also advanced our conversion pipeline and addressed all of our maturities through 2029. Our solid first quarter performance demonstrates the momentum in our urban markets and the growth embedded in our portfolio, while the ongoing execution of our capital allocation and balance sheet initiatives, position us to continue to drive out-performance relative to the industry and create long-term shareholder value. Turning to our operating results. Our first quarter RevPAR growth of 4.8% was balanced between occupancy and ADR gains. Trends improved sequentially throughout the quarter, with RevPAR, February and March, achieving healthy year-over-year growth of 6% and 9%, respectively, following January's RevPAR decline. Both February and March were aided by a robust calendar of events as well as the favorable timing of holidays, which bolster demand. We were pleased to see this positive momentum carry into April. Our urban markets have been consistently performing well, disproportionately benefiting from positive trends across all demand segments. We were pleased to see our urban footprint outperform the broader industry urban markets, with a number of our markets delivered high single-digit RevPAR growth. Notably, Northern California achieved outstanding RevPAR growth of 27%, benefiting not only from the Super Bowl and the favorable shift of the [ RNA ] conference to March this year but also from the continued expansion of the AI industry, which is driving significant corporate investment and business travel demand broadly across this market in addition to a better overall environment. New York City was another noteworthy market during the quarter with our properties achieving over 8% RevPAR growth, driven by healthy corporate and leisure-transient demand, a favorable events lineup and the ramp of our high occupancy renovations that we completed last year. As it relates to segmentation, business travel saw robust growth during the first quarter, with our business-transient revenues growing by 9%, which was largely demand driven, with room nights increasing by nearly 700 basis points. The momentum in Business Travel accelerated throughout the quarter, underpinned by strong growth in business investment, driven by AI-related spending as well as record corporate profits. This is specifically fueling the ongoing strength in sectors such as technology, finance, aerospace and life sciences, which is amplifying overall BT demand. Leisure trends were strong across our portfolio with revenues growing by 5%. Demand remained resilient, and we were encouraged to see rate growth of 3%. The Leisure segment benefited from a compressed spring break as well as elevated demand at a number of our hotels as winter storms across the country drove additional leisure travel during peak season. Our Urban Leisure once again saw stronger [indiscernible] performance as the hotels and live-workplace [indiscernible] are capturing robust demand around sports, concerts, dining, festivals and entertainment. Importantly, our geographically diversified portfolio continues to benefit year after year from the rotation of signature events within our footprint. Relative to our group segment, even with difficult comparisons from the inauguration in D.C. and the Austin Convention Center, booking trends remained healthy, evidenced by our end the quarter, for the quarter revenue pace increasing by 900 basis points and ADR increased by 3% over last year. We were especially pleased to see a meaningful pickup in group bookings for the second quarter, which saw pace improved by 400 basis points. We are encouraged by the increasing share of corporate bookings within our group mix, which has positive implications for ADR and out-of-room spend. Our portfolio also generated outsized non-room revenue growth of 8.2%. Once again, underscoring the momentum behind our ROI initiatives and the investments we have made in expanding ancillary revenue channels. These initiatives allowed us to increase our total revenues by 5.4%. This top line growth, combined with disciplined cost management and a lean operating model, contributed to our significant EBITDA out-performance relative to our initial expectations and our margins expanding by 45 basis points over the prior year. Now turning to capital allocation. Our transformative renovations from last year as well as our completed conversion are delivering tangible results and contributed meaningfully to our outperformance relative to the industry. This is demonstrated by our 4 major renovations at high occupancy hotels completed last year, achieving 9% RevPAR and 10% EBITDA growth during the quarter. Conversions continues to deliver solid results, with our 7 complete conversions generating EBITDA growth of 16%. Additionally, we made further progress towards our Renaissance Pittsburgh conversion, and we remain on track to relaunch the property under Marriott's Autograph Collection this summer. We advanced preparation of our conversion of the Wyndham Boston Hotel, which will join Hilton's Tapestry Collection, and we are on pace to begin construction later this year, and we look forward to announcing our next conversion in coming quarter. Collectively, these capital allocation initiatives supported by our strong balance sheet, position us for multiple years of growth in 2026 and beyond. Looking ahead, we recognize that the macro environment remains uncertain, driven by an evolving geopolitical backdrop, which is giving rise to shorter booking windows and limiting visibility beyond the near term. To date, however, we have not observed a noticeable impact on our results. Our first quarter out-performance on both the top and bottom line is encouraging, and we believe the setup continues to favor urban markets for the remainder of the year, supported by sustained strength in Business Transient and robust [indiscernible] for urban leisure experiences, trends that should disproportionately benefit our portfolio. Overall, we had already anticipated these healthy trends in our original guidance for the remainder of the year. However, given the current uncertainty, we will continue to monitor any shifts in demand. Our outlook assumes, the continuing broad-based strength in BT, supported by healthy corporate profits and growth across a number of industries, reinforcing our view that the recovery in this segment has further room to grow. The resiliency of leisure demand and expectations for continued rate growth as we approach the peak summer travel season, especially in our urban markets, which have an extensive lineup of events, sports, concerts and entertainment, a positive group pace for the remainder of the year, with ADR demonstrating pricing power and our expectations that even with a shortened booking window, we will continue to see strong, in the quarter, for the quarter bookings, a favorable footprint to capture upcoming catalysts including the World Cup and America's 250th anniversary. The ongoing momentum in Northern California across all demand segments, further validating the sustainability of this market's recovery, continued growth of non-room revenues from our ROI initiatives as well as tailwinds from the ramp of our 4 significant renovations completed last year and our recently completed conversions which are well positioned to drive multiple years of growth. Our strong results are a direct outcome of the strategic repositioning of our portfolio over the past several years, through asset recycling, targeted acquisition and high impact conversion. As we look ahead, we remain cautiously optimistic about the long-term durability of the demand trends we are seeing and believe our well-positioned portfolio will support continued strong relative performance and the creation of long-term value for our shareholders. With that, I will turn the call over to Nikhil. Nikhil Bhalla: Thanks, Leslie. To start, our comparable numbers include our 92 hotels owned at the end of the first quarter. Our reported corporate adjusted EBITDA and AFFO include operating results from all sold hotels during RLJ's ownership period. Our first quarter results came in ahead of our expectations, with occupancy increasing by 2.6% to 70.8%, average daily rate increasing by 2.1% to $210 and our RevPAR of $149, increasing by 4.8% versus the prior year. Fundamentals strengthened throughout the quarter following January's 1.9% RevPAR decline with growth accelerating to a robust 6.1% in February and 8.9% in March. These healthy trends carried into April, which achieved preliminary RevPAR growth of approximately 4%. During the quarter, we saw meaningful strength within our urban markets, which achieved 4.4% RevPAR growth, outperforming STR's comparable markets by 110 basis points. This growth was broad-based and balanced between approximately a 2-point increase in occupancy and a 2-point increase in ADR. Our strong urban portfolio performance was bolstered by double-digit RevPAR growth in markets such as South Florida, which grew RevPAR by approximately 10% and Houston and Denver which each achieved 14% RevPAR growth. Additionally, demonstrating that our portfolio benefits from 7-days a week demand, both weekdays and weekends saw mid-single-digit RevPAR growth. Our urban markets benefited from improvements in all segments of demand, notably business travel, the acceleration in BT demand that we are seeing has positive implications for the momentum in out-of-room spend which was evident in the robust growth of 8.2% in our non-room revenues that we saw during the first quarter. We were especially pleased to see the strong revenue growth come on the heels of the robust 7.2% growth we achieved during the prior quarter. Our non-room revenues generate strong margins, which improved by 130 basis points during the quarter, underscoring the success of our ROI initiatives aimed at profitably growing food and beverage, re-concepting underutilized spaces and growing other ancillary revenues. Overall, non-room revenue growth led our first quarter total revenues to grow by 60 basis points ahead of our RevPAR growth. Turning to bottom line results. Total operating expenses were up 2.1% on a per occupied room basis, underscoring the benefits of our lean operating model and our disciplined approach to managing costs, which allowed for a strong flow to the bottom line. Although energy expenses were elevated due to the winter storms as well as disruption in the energy markets due to the war, these were more than offset by improvements in fixed costs driven by a double-digit decline in property insurance due to a favorable renewal last year and other cost control initiatives. During the first quarter, our portfolio achieved hotel EBITDA of $89.9 million representing year-over-year growth of $6.1 million or 7.2% and hotel EBITDA margins of 26.4%, which expanded by 45 basis points over the prior year. These results translated to adjusted EBITDA of $80.9 million and adjusted FFO per diluted share of $0.33 for the first quarter. With respect to our balance sheet, as previously announced, during the first quarter, we executed a series of refinancing transactions, which expanded our undrawn capacity by $500 million and created additional flexibility. We intend to use the additional capacity created by these refinancings to pay off our $500 million senior notes that mature on July 1 this year. Following this payoff, we will have no maturity due until 2029 and our weighted average maturity will be over 4 years. Our balance sheet remains well positioned with over $950 million of liquidity, including undrawn capacity of $600 million on our corporate revolver, 84 of our 92 hotels unencumbered by debt, an attractive weighted average interest rate of 4.6% and 75% of debt either fixed or hedged. We ended the first quarter with $2.2 billion of debt. In addition to proactively addressing our maturities, we continue to demonstrate our steadfast commitment to returning capital to shareholders by paying an attractive and well-covered quarterly dividend of $0.15 per share. Now turning to our full year outlook. We are pleased with the strong start to the year. At the same time, we remain mindful of the uncertainty in the overall macro environment. We have incorporated our strong first quarter out-performance into our revised guidance while keeping our expectations for the remainder of the year unchanged from our prior outlook. For 2026, we now expect comparable RevPAR growth to range between 1.5% and 3.5%, comparable hotel EBITDA between $356 million and $380 million, corporate adjusted EBITDA between $324 million and $348 million and adjusted FFO per diluted share to be between $1.29 and $1.45. Our outlook assumes no additional acquisitions, dispositions or balance sheet activity beyond what has been completed today. We continue to estimate capital expenditures will be in the range of $80 million to $90 million. Cash G&A will be in the range of $32.5 million to $33.5 million and expect net interest expense will be in the range of $101 million to $103 million. We also expect total revenue growth will continue to outpace RevPAR growth due to the success of our initiatives to drive out-of-room spend. With respect to the cadence for the rest of the year, our view of the second quarter has not changed. However, in light of our strong first quarter results, our adjusted EBITDA contribution for the second quarter will be slightly lower than last year, with the balance of the contribution in the back half of the year. Finally, please refer to our press release from this morning for additional details on our outlook and to our schedule of supplemental information which will include comparable 2026 and 2025 quarterly operating results for our 92 hotel portfolio. Thank you, and this concludes our prepared remarks. We will now open the line for Q&A. Operator? Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Michael Bellisario with Baird. Michael Bellisario: Leslie, can you add a little bit to your commentary on the accelerating business demand you mentioned, but it seems to be offset a little bit by a shorter booking window. Did I hear that correctly? And is that shorter booking window -- is that broad-based or specific to a customer segment? Leslie D. Hale: So I would say on BT, Mike, my comment about the booking window is really more so on on group and on leisure. I think as it relates to BT, the acceleration we saw was broad-based. We're continuing to see national accounts grow, which is our highest rated customers. The sectors in tech and aerospace and life sciences continue to be the sectors that we're seeing the strength at. And that's really a function of strong corporate profits, it's business investment, really sort of driving and aligning with what we're seeing. So our midweek trends remain strong relative there. On the booking window side, what we've seen is that group is booking shorter. As I mentioned on the call or in the quarter for the quarter pace first quarter was strong. We actually saw 22% of our bookings in the quarter for the quarter. And while it's been short, it's still been materializing. And so that gives us comfort as it relates to group. And then on the leisure side, we've actually seen booking window elongate, and so we've seen the opposite relative to group. Michael Bellisario: Got it. That's helpful. And then just sort of on the same lines, just on the out-of-room spending. How much of that is you're taking price versus an increase in volume? And does that pick up really being driven by business travel? Leslie D. Hale: It's definitely business travel is playing a key role. And it's not just business transient, its also a business group. Business Group has increased to more than 50% of our overall group mix that bodes well for out-of-room for F&B orders while in their group meetings. And it's in general, as BT continues to increase, they do more in spending in the hotel as well. I'll let Tom add some color. Thomas Bardenett: So Mike, what we're seeing underneath the F&B hood is we have banquets growing what Leslie was stating about group, we're seeing a much more significant amount of corporate group come -- and with that, banquet goes right along with that. And then when we think about our ROI initiatives, we spent quite a bit of money on making sure that we have a beverage-centric thoughtful food and beverage approach so our lounge up around 12%. And then when we think about AV room rental, when we look at our meeting space and our atrium as well as where we've put some capital. Those continue to be enhancing our ability on the F&B, which allows us to increase margin by about 50 basis points. Below that, because of the drive to market still being healthy in the first quarter, we had parking revenues up. And then lastly, I would say where we've been spending a lot of time is watching the consumer behavior in and around our lobby and where we have been enhancing, we've kind of taken that select service margin expansion -- excuse me, market expansion to our full-service hotels as well. And so that grab-and-go consumer trends, total revenues, enhancing by people looking for something in a hurry on the way to the airport and having an opportunity grab that in addition to what we talked about with F&B and parking has really enhanced our profitability on non-room revenue. Leslie D. Hale: Yes. And Mike, I'll just add what's kind of in our pipeline that kind of bolt on to some of Tom's comments around the thoughtful F&B and how we've approached it. We've talked about on previous calls how we've been really focused on having F&B that attracts guests that are outside the hotel. We did that at Mills House and Mandalay and Nashville, and we still have Pittsburgh and Boston in the pipeline. And just to put some numbers around that, our total revenues for our conversions were up 8% in aggregate. And that's really a function of our ROI investment and demonstrating how thoughtful we've been around the out-of-room spend. Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Austin Wurschmidt with KeyBanc. Austin Wurschmidt: Leslie, you highlighted some high-level details about the outlook across various segments. Could you just walk through the cadence of RevPAR growth guidance over the balance of the year and maybe how some of those building blocks between segments are expected to play out at this point? Leslie D. Hale: Yes. Sure. So Austin, what I would say is that clearly, Q1 came in better than we expected. But that our view for second quarter really hasn't changed. The trends that we're seeing right now are coming in line with our expectations. We mentioned in our prepared remarks that April was up around 4%. We know that Easter was going to move up in the month. And so we're seeing strength in business and group filling in that space has been moved up. May within that quarter is going to be a softest month because of the tough comps. And then as you know, June is going to benefit from the World Cup. And then what I would say is that within that month -- within the second quarter, group pace was already pacing ahead of 2025. And then we really have no change to the -- our perspective on the back half of the year, again, third quarter benefiting from World Cup. We expect third quarter benefit more than [indiscernible] quarter from the World Cup because there's a higher demand for the later-stage games. And then you layer in the 250th anniversary on top of an existing holiday and obviously, sales force, fourth quarter, we'll see a lapping of the shutdown, government shutdown. But that's going to be offset by the election. So this setup was already anticipated in our original guidance. And what we're seeing today is in line with our expectations. In particular, I would also just sort of say, as it relates to World Cup, it's still early, but we are encouraged by what we're seeing we were very thoughtful in how we approach our perspective around building our blocks and on World Cup. For example, we were really thoughtful about focusing on blocks related to teams, media and sponsors, and we wanted to have really strong revenue management, and focusing on length of stay and making sure that we were disciplined about rate. So today, what we're seeing is that those blocks that we anticipated are actually picking up because we were thoughtful and we're getting deposits around teams and media -- and then as it relates to transient, what we're seeing today is promising. It's early -- but around game day, we are seeing ADR come in line with our expectations. I think that the World Cup and when you look at high occupancy market, it's really a rate game in markets like L.A., New York and Miami. But overall, these trends we're seeing are in line with our expectations and our original assumptions that we had in our guidance. Austin Wurschmidt: That's helpful detail on World Cup. Just switching for a comment you had on leisure and the elongated booking window. Just wondering how much of that you think is sort of sensitivity to change in airfare given what's happened with energy costs? And how does that inform your view on sort of pace as you look out within this segment and what that could look like just given the resiliency in the consumer? Leslie D. Hale: I think that the elongated booking window, some of it may be related to airfare, but I actually think it's around the strength of demand that people are recognizing and they may want to not be able to get the the room that they wanted. And so they're recognizing they need to book a little bit earlier. As we mentioned before, a lot of these special events are happening on top of timings that were already -- windows that already had high occupancy. And so I think that's affecting psychology of the consumer today. I would also say that a lot of our leisure again, urban leisure is seeing urban entertainment ramp up around the lifestyle consumer. And so as a result, i think they're trying to get ahead of what they saw in the first quarter around leisure travel. And so I think that's what's causing it to elongate. Could there be some airline implication in that, for sure. But I think that's part of it. Thomas Bardenett: The other thing I would add, Austin, to what we're seeing is there's a shift going on in regards to the ability to drive rate with leisure. If you recall last year was primarily demand and there was rate sensitivity. Right now, we're seeing growth in both midweek as well as weekend demand. And then we're also seeing growth in rate. And so we're pricing ourselves appropriately based on that 7-day heart of demand. and these events that are taking place that our footprint is pretty diversified, as you know. So when a special event moves from one location to another, whether it was, let's say, the NBA All-Star game that went from San Francisco to L.A., we get the benefit of that because of our diversified portfolio. Same thing with Super Bowl. It was in New Orleans last year, San Francisco this year. So we're able to capture a lot of those instead of anomalies, they're just moving around the country where we're able to capitalize based on our diversification and our footprint. Leslie D. Hale: And I think Tom's point around rate is another example of the consumer not being price sensitive and which is why I was suggesting that it's more around them seeing the strength of demand. Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Tyler Batory with Oppenheimer. Tyler Batory: And congrats on the strong results here and some really good execution. Just a follow-up on Austin's question. Can you put a finer point on how you define leisure travel? I'm not sure if World Cup-related travel -- if that's all leisure. I'm assuming there might be a portion of that, that group and maybe even business travel too? Thomas Bardenett: Yes. I'll give you an example since you asked about World Cup. So when Leslie was speaking about the difference between group and leisure, group would be the team, the media, the sponsors where we've actually locked in blocks and have deposits. What's still to come and what we're finding on the transient pace, specifically in the last 3 to 4 weeks, is around the game days, ticket sales, searches around where do I want to stay. You're going to book your airfare, you're going to make sure that you've got travel and then you're going to look at hotels. So what we're seeing is the ADR growth around that, that would be leisure around World Cup. Same thing with 250th anniversary. We do have activation. There is marketing programs around the 4 cities, which are New York, Philadelphia, D.C., as well as Boston. And when we see that, you're also seeing now more demand coming in that will all be pretty much leisure-related based on how we code when people are booking from the outside in. Tyler Batory: Okay. Switching gears to capital allocation. You rank order your priorities right now. I'm curious if capital recycling is something that might look a little more interesting? Just given your fundamental outlook. Leslie D. Hale: Sure, Tyler. What I would say is that we're constructive on the transaction market. And as we become more active with dispositions, we will be balanced between taking advantage of the dislocation in our stock, maintaining a strong balance sheet and executing on our conversion strategies. We strive to execute buybacks on a leverage-neutral basis. And so when we use disposition proceeds, that allows us to do that. And obviously, we didn't have any dispositions in Q1. Relative to our conversions, our results are very tangible. As I mentioned before, total revenues for our 7 completed conversions are up 8%, and our EBITDA was up 16% in the quarter. And this is a direct result of the investment we're making in the ROI as we recycle assets, you're going to see us be balanced and that would include activity on the buyback side. Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Gregory Miller with Truist. Gregory Miller: I'd like to ask a couple of questions on specific markets. And maybe to start off, could you provide your thoughts about how Louisville is performing this year and expectations for the rest of the year? Particularly on the convention group rent. Thomas Bardenett: Sure, Greg. As you know, we have our Marriott as well as a Residence in Louisville, and the Marriott is connected to the Convention Center. What we're finding at our Marriott is that it's had back-to-back significant growth years. We just came off of Kentucky Derby, which was another major success for us. And what we're finding is agriculture, some of the type of accounts that go to Louisville that are attracted to Louisville are all Midwest based, if you will. It competes with Nashville, competes with other regional locations. And so we get the benefit of that because we're connected to the Convention Center. And a long time ago, probably about 5, 6 years ago, when they added additional space, they really change the way we can sell our hotel where we can actually have 2 conventions at the same time because of the exhibit space they added right across the street, which is connected. In addition to that, we were looking at the beginning of the year pretty strong results in regards to what we're seeing on the pace side. We're also -- because of the size of the asset, we look out to '27 and '28 in we're very encouraged in regards of what the pace looks like going forward for this asset. And what I would say is the big top accounts that come into Louisville like Healthcare, Humana, the University of Louisville continues to spend and look to add research. And so we're seeing our top accounts come back into the city as well. So feel very strong about where we're positioned. And then the Residence Inn also does very well being just a couple of blocks away from our Marriott with overflow when we have those types of groups. Gregory Miller: Thanks, Tom. Shifting gears, I'd like to ask you about another market with some changes to their convention pace, and that's Austin. And now we were past the 1-year mark since the temporary closure of the Austin Convention Center for its renovation. Could you provide an update on how your downtown hotel is performing and sort of expectations for the rest of the year in that market as well? Thomas Bardenett: And again, we're adjacent to the convention center for two of our assets, as you know. And then we have one other asset that's right by the state capital near University of Texas. To your point, the closure occurred in March of 2025 right after the South by Southwest and the new construction is underway in regards to the convention center. I think what we're most excited about with Austin is it's going to double the size on the square footage, and more importantly, it's going to have the ability to host over 1,200 exhibits. And that's really important when you think about association business. For instance, Austin, which is the 11th largest city in the country, had the 59th largest convention center. So now it's going to be more appropriately aligned with the space and the size of what's needed. As an example, Greg, 50% of the leads in the past couldn't even be accommodated based on the space that we didn't have. In addition to the convention center, we're excited about the fact that Austin continues to grow. People want to live there. The airport expansion is going to have more flights and 20 more gates will be aligned with the convention center opening, that's going to bring 22 million passengers up over 30 million passengers, which is going to be a highlight in regards to the more demand that's going to come in because of that convention center. But in the interim, to your point, we are focused on self-contained group business at our two assets adjacent to the center. There's been great campaign on marketing and dollars that are allowing us to offer incentives to groups, not only for our hotels, but for the city because of the opening right now that we have for the next few years, then the double trade that we have over by the capital, that was renovated about a year ago, so the property looks great. It's getting really nice ramp from University of Texas as well as being adjacent to the capital. So this year, the first quarter had the legislation. And so every other year, as we did the renovation to make sure that we benefited from that that will happen in 2027. Leslie D. Hale: The only thing I would add is that based on all the good nuggets that Tom laid out, we are expecting Austin to be positive for the remainder of the year. Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Ken Billingsley with Compass Point. Kenneth Billingsley: Two quick questions. One, just a follow-up. You said second quarter adjusted EBITDA is expected to be below last year. Is that just primarily on room count being down? Leslie D. Hale: It's a function of Q1 being stronger than our original expectations. And so last quarter, we had guided that Q2 would be in line with last year's contribution, and now it's going to be slightly below because Q1 is stronger. Kenneth Billingsley: Okay. And the other question I have is could you just talk about Pittsburgh, the draft occurred? And had record numbers. Can you just talk about how that translated into your expectations and maybe the results of what developed out of Pittsburgh? Thomas Bardenett: Yes. I'm glad you were paying attention. The draft was a great event for us. We have three assets in Pittsburgh, if you, Ken, you're aware that Leslie earlier stated about our opportunity to convert a renaissance to an autograph. And that is downtown looking over Three Rivers in the ball field where the pirates play as well as [ Hinzfield ]. So the draft was closer to the [ Heinz field ] this year, outdoor arena, but the activation was all in and around the convention center and as well as our location there. Not only... Operator: Your conference will resume momentarily. Once again, ladies and gentlemen, please continue to hold. Your conference will resume momentarily. Thomas Bardenett: Can you hear us, operator? Operator: Yes, you are live. Thomas Bardenett: So we were just finishing up Pittsburgh, and I wanted to make sure you heard the last piece, which was -- we're excited about what's happening, but the NFL Draft was very successful this year and our 3 assets saw significant demand due to that. So I'll go back to the operator for future questions. Operator: Mr. Billingsley, does that complete your question? Kenneth Billingsley: It does. Leslie D. Hale: And then Ken, I just want to make sure that on your prior question that you were talking about contribution for second quarter. That's what we were referring to in our prepared remarks Its contribution for the year. Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Floris Van Dijkum with Ladenburg Thalman. Floris Gerbrand Van Dijkum: Question on the capital allocation, getting back to the capital allocation. Could you maybe just remind us of your -- what you spent on your renovations, what the EBITDA return or yield is on those renovations today as we stand? And also, what -- you mentioned two more projects that you're going to announce later on this year. What's sort of the aggregate amount that we could expect RLJ to invest in repositioning assets and relative to the sort of the maintenance CapEx? Leslie D. Hale: Yes. I would say that, in general, Floris, that we gave an item of $80 million to $90 million of capital spend for 2026, and the vast majority of that is focused on ROI-related renovations from there. We generally target high double-digit returns on general investments and on our ROI conversions originally seeing north of 40% returns on the incremental capital that we're putting in the assets in order to effectuate these -- the conversion. Thomas Bardenett: We mentioned one additional conversion that will be announced. I just want to correct you on that in regards to later this year. Floris Gerbrand Van Dijkum: Got it. And so -- but the 40% is what we should be expecting from the Wyndham Boston conversion? Or is that just for the Renaissance in that's going to become the Marriott Autograph in Pittsburgh? Leslie D. Hale: So what we've talked about with Boston is that we think that there is a 40% upside in the EBITDA on that asset. Again, keep in mind that on some of these conversions, in the case of [indiscernible], we doubled the EBITDA on that asset. Boston is in that category of how strong we think the asset will perform in a post-converted state. Floris Gerbrand Van Dijkum: And then the -- how -- you did mention the dispositions, obviously, as well. And I suspect if the disposition market were to pick up a little bit later this year. Would that cause you to accelerate some of your re-positionings as well? Or is that still the buybacks, obviously being another potential source? But 40% returns are just tough to beat that anywhere else. I mean why wouldn't you lean into that even more? Leslie D. Hale: Yes. I think what we've said before, Floris, is that we try to strive to have 2 conversions per year. Our conversion cadence is influenced by when franchise agreements expire and other elements that have a back up at about 2 per year. We're on that pace. We're going to be announcing our next conversion on our next earnings call. And so I think that when we look at when the franchises becomes available and when it makes sense from a seasonality perspective, -- for example, we wanted to wait until after World Cup for Boston. So we're trying to be strategic and thoughtful about when we execute the conversion. Floris Gerbrand Van Dijkum: And maybe last question, just a follow-on. The actual demand from -- everybody's been talking about the fact that there's going to be last-minute bookings presumably to watch the World Cup. Can you talk maybe about some of the -- you mentioned some of the FIFA bookings that you've already done. Do you have any teams or anything like that, staying in your hotels? Or what tangible information, can you give us on the potential upside it sounds like from the World Cup on your expectations? Leslie D. Hale: Yes. As I mentioned before, Floris is that it's early, but we're encouraged because we were very thoughtful about making sure that the types of blocks we took, we're focused on teams and media. We're starting to see those blocks pick up and we started to receive deposit. I'll let Tom give some color on that. And then as it relates to the transient demand, what I said is that what we're seeing is very promising, but it's really early, and that we expect most of the benefit to really come in rate because these are happening in high occupancy markets for us. And the market I was talking about was L.A., New York and Miami. Thomas Bardenett: And just to give you a little color on the group side, it's interesting, Floris, when groups teams stay with you, they actually encourage fans to stay where the team stay. So that's a positive and we actually have locked-in deposits for teams in 3 of those 9 markets that we have. So we're really encouraged that not only will you have teams, but you'll have fans that will want to stay with the teams. We're also encouraged, as Leslie talked about, on the transient pace, when you think about the leisure side and where ticket sales as well as how we're doing length of stay, so we're seeing ADR increasing in those time frames when people are going to have the most amount of demand and then making sure that we're providing the opportunity to take other business outside of those games, whether it's group or BT to make sure that we're layering in the process of making sure we take advantage of not only the special event, but other demand as it comes because those are high occupancy locations that Leslie mentioned earlier. So it's a busy time of year. In addition to 250th anniversary will be over that same time frame. So we're really doubling down on strategy. Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Chris Woronka with Deutsche Bank. Chris Woronka: I was hoping we could spend a minute talking about kind of the Silicon Valley market. You talked about with growth in AI, I think you guys have probably 4 or 5 hotels in that area, proper. You mentioned you saw nice [indiscernible] in the first quarter. Kind of curious what's embedded in your outlook for the rest of the year? And you -- may sound like a silly question now that you worry at all, are you seeing the froth kind of that area had some extremely high RevPAR growth back in 1999 and 2000 as i recall. So any thoughts on your outlook beyond the current quarter? Leslie D. Hale: Yes. I mean we are very encouraged by what we're seeing in San Francisco area, the Northern California market for us broadly. Clearly, the recovery is well underway. As we mentioned before, all of our assets were up 27%, in the first quarter. Clearly, it was benefiting from Super Bowl and some major conventions in [indiscernible] and JPMorgan. But I would also say more broadly, and this goes to your Silicon Valley comment, BT is very much in full swing, given the fact that you have a better overall environment, you have better local advocacy with good policy. You talked about the AI investment. We're seeing clearly return to office trends and record office leasing. And so the BT momentum is strong, and we're also starting to see pricing power return. Let Tom add some comments. Thomas Bardenett: Yes. The campaign that they're really behind in San Francisco is "Believe in San Francisco". And when you think about what Leslie was talking about, it's happening locally from a community as well politically where Bart Ridership is up, foot traffic is increasing in CBD. When you think about what's happening around [indiscernible], they got a healthy pace for '27, '28 and the type of conventions that are coming, our association, corporate medical and then most importantly, high tech to your point. Just as an example, to give you an idea on growth, Databricks in 2023 had about 11,000 room nights. And in 2026, they're going to have 25,000 room nights. So you can see there's an evolution happening because venture capital money is all coming to San Francisco. And it's basically when you think about where the city is thriving, it's also spilling out the Silicon Valley and the outlying areas, where we have a bigger footprint, as you know, where we have some airport hotels as well as Silicon Valley and CBD. So we're encouraged with what's happening, and we're trying to make sure that we're capturing all the different types of demand that's now coming there with the last catalyst hopefully being international, we are seeing some growth coming from Mexico, U.K., India, and China will be the last step, hopefully, where we can see that start to come back as it's still a significant amount of spend that comes to San Francisco. Chris Woronka: Okay. Super helpful. And then just another question on conversion. When you guys talked about planned conversions, can we generally assume that that refers to the Wyndham that you still have on converted or either a few independents and things affiliated with non-Marriott, Hilton, Hyatt brands? Just hoping to get a little bit of clarification. Leslie D. Hale: Yes. I mean we have -- we've published in our management presentation a list of potential conversions in our portfolio. We're obviously looking at the Wyndhams', but we're also looking at current assets as the franchise agreements expire to see what else -- what other lifestyle brands are available that makes sense for that physical asset. So it's not just all Wyndham assets, it's other assets within our portfolio where the franchise agreement may be expiring. Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Chris Darling with Green Street. Chris Darling: Just a couple of quick follow-ups for me. First, Leslie, you mentioned being constructive on asset sales. Hoping you could just give an update on the broader transaction market, whether you've seen anything change on the margin given a more favorable RevPAR backdrop rather that's pricing, depth of the bidding tent, anything else? Leslie D. Hale: Yes, sure, Chris. For sure, the transaction market has improved. Obviously, it's still not as robust as it was in the past, but it's definitely approved in general. And what I would say the key driver of that is really the debt market. There are so many debt providers today as people have tried to play sort of the credit trade, if you will. It's creating competition and it's helping spreads tighten. So even though the Fed has not cut rates because there's competition among providers, we've seen spreads tightened. And so that's allowing buyers potential buyers to still underwrite lower interest expense. And then you layer on better fundamentals, which is giving potential buyers confidence in the ability to underwrite. So I think that's just a better overall sentiment relative to the transaction environment. I think owner operators continue to be the primary buyer, but we're seeing the buying pool span, single assets are still more prevalent, but you could see some small portfolios start to emerge later this year. But in general, I would just say that the transaction market has improved. Chris Darling: Okay. I appreciate those thoughts. And then just to put a finer point on the guidance discussion. If I look at the midpoint of the revised hotel EBITDA range, it suggests a modest decline, I think, for the rest of the year. Hoping you could frame this outlook. And in particular, I'm thinking about the third quarter, where, at least in theory, I think you'd be lapping an easier comp. So maybe just a discussion of some of the puts and takes that maybe I'm not totally thinking about. Leslie D. Hale: Well, I would say, in general, don't forget that we had a tax credit in last year. So when you look over -- look year-over-year, we actually have EBITDA growth. And even without that, we still at the midpoint, are having EBITDA growth. What was the second part of your question related to third quarter? Chris Darling: Well, I think last year, you had a particularly tough year-over-year growth percentage in 3Q '25. And so I would think in theory, it might be an easier comp this year. And that's where I wanted to get a little bit of context. Leslie D. Hale: Yes. I would say that in the third quarter, as I mentioned before, that we do expect the third quarter to benefit from World Cup. It is also going to benefit from the 250th Anniversary, which is on top of 4th of July weekend, and then we also have Salesforce that we were benefiting from in the third quarter. Operator: We have no further questions at this time. Ms. Hale, I'd like to turn the floor back over to you for closing comments. Leslie D. Hale: Thank you all for your interest today and joining our call. We look forward to connecting with you at our upcoming conferences. And I hope all of you have some summer travel planned over the next few months. And have a good day. Thanks, everybody. Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation, and have a wonderful day.
Operator: Good day, everyone, and welcome to the Pinnacle West Capital Corporation 2026 First Quarter Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are placed on a listen-only mode. If you have any questions or comments during the presentation, you may press star 1 on your phone to enter the question queue at any time. We will open the floor for your questions and comments after the presentation. It is now my pleasure to hand the floor over to your host, Amanda Ho. Ma'am, the floor is yours. Amanda Ho: Thank you, Matthew. I would like to thank everyone for participating in this conference call and webcast to review our first quarter earnings, recent developments, and operating performance. Our speakers today will be our Chairman, President and CEO, Theodore N. Geisler, and our CFO, Andrew D. Cooper. Jose Esparza, SVP of Public Policy, is also here with us. First, I need to cover a few details with you. The slides that we will be using are available on our investor relations website along with our earnings release and related information. Today’s comments and our slides contain forward-looking statements based on current expectations, and actual results may differ materially from expectations. Our first quarter 2026 Form 10-Q was filed this morning. Please refer to that document for forward-looking statements cautionary language, as well as the Risk Factors and MD&A section, which identify risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in our disclosures. A replay of this call will be available shortly on our website for the next 30 days. It will also be available by telephone through 05/11/2026. I will now turn the call over to Ted. Theodore N. Geisler: Thank you, Amanda, and thank you all for joining us today. We are off to a solid start in 2026, delivering first quarter earnings that support the financial guidance we provided in February. Before Andrew reviews the quarter in more detail, I will highlight several operational, customer, and regulatory developments that underscore the momentum across our business. Arizona’s diverse economy continues to expand at a strong and sustained pace, reinforcing the state’s position as a national leader in semiconductor and advanced manufacturing. We are proud to support TSMC’s accelerated expansion in Arizona and are working closely with the company on the infrastructure needed to power their growth. With its second fab complete, TSMC expects to begin volume production of 3-nanometer chips in the second half of next year. Construction is underway on the company’s third fabrication facility, and TSMC has also begun construction on its fourth fab and first advanced packaging facility, with those facilities expected to come online by 2029. Importantly, the momentum extends well beyond TSMC. Activity across the semiconductor supply chain continues to intensify throughout the region, with key suppliers rapidly establishing and expanding their local footprints to support accelerated production timelines. United Integrated Services Corp, Sunlit Chemicals, and Mournstera have all purchased land in North Phoenix. At the same time, engineering firms, clean room specialists, electromechanical integrators, and equipment suppliers are increasing staffing levels and scaling operations across the Valley. These investments demonstrate strong confidence in Arizona’s economy and reinforce the sustained growth we are seeing across our service territory. Turning to operations. Our focus remains on delivering top-tier reliability, strengthening grid resilience, and investing in the infrastructure and technology needed to serve our customers safely and efficiently. Across the company, we are using automation and advanced analytics to improve decision making and execution. For example, we are applying machine learning tools to better anticipate equipment performance, prioritize asset maintenance, identify outage restoration more accurately, and strengthen situational awareness during periods of elevated wildfire or weather risk. These capabilities are helping our teams act faster, target investments more effectively, and continue improving reliability for our customers. We continue making solid progress on our generation and transmission investment plans. Construction is now underway at our Red Hawk expansion project, which will add eight combustion turbines and approximately 400 megawatts of reliable natural gas capacity to the system. We are also advancing the Desert Sun project, where we have secured major equipment reservations and continued to progress through early development activities, including siting and permitting. On resource procurement, we recently received proposals in response to the all-source RFP issued later last year, which targeted new resources beginning service between 2029 and 2031. We are evaluating those bids now and working with counterparties to determine the best-fit projects for our system and customers. We expect to make final awards later this year. As we plan for long-term growth, we are also focused on near-term summer preparedness. Palo Verde Unit 2 is in the final days of its planned refueling outage and expected to return to service soon. With all three units operating, Palo Verde will continue providing round-the-clock reliable and affordable energy to help meet our summer demand. We are prepared to serve our customers safely, reliably, and affordably during the months ahead when they depend on us the most. We continue to strengthen our customer-centric culture with employees focused on delivering reliable service, minimizing outages, and providing a seamless experience across phone, field, and digital channels. In the first quarter, APS delivered strong results in the Escalent customer relationship model, ranking in the first or second quartile across all core KPIs. APS also ranked in the first quartile through J.D. Power and was highlighted nationally as a top performer in customer awareness and participation in products and services, earning the highest awareness score in the country for available customer programs. Lastly, our rate case remains on track. We have completed multiple rounds of written testimony, and the hearing is scheduled to begin on May 18. We look forward to working with the Commission and intervenors in a timely and constructive manner. In summary, we are executing our plan, delivering operational excellence to our customers, investing in grid expansion to serve Arizona’s rapid growth, and improving investment recovery to reduce regulatory lag while ensuring affordability for customers. With that, I will turn the call over to Andrew. Andrew D. Cooper: Thank you, Ted, and thanks again to everyone for joining us today. This morning, we reported our first quarter 2026 financial results. I will review those results and provide additional details on sales and financial guidance. For 2026, we reported earnings of $0.27 per share compared to a loss of $0.04 per share for 2025. Higher transmission revenue, favorable weather, higher sales and usage, and lower O&M were the primary benefits this quarter. These positives were slightly offset by increased financing costs, a smaller contribution from our Eldorado investment than last year, and higher depreciation and amortization. Transmission revenues contributed 16¢ of benefit this quarter. This reflects our continued focus on heightened transmission investments to support our growing customer base. Expect a strong benefit in this area throughout the year, in line with our annual guidance. Weather also provided a meaningful benefit this quarter, primarily driven by the warm weather we experienced later in the quarter. Although we saw less heating load in January and February due to a mild winter, according to the National Weather Service, March was the hottest on record, with nine days at or above 100 degrees. The resulting impact was a benefit of 13¢ attributable to weather in the first quarter due to an increase in residential and commercial cooling degree days. We continue to see a consistent ongoing influx of customers into our region, as customer growth for the quarter was again strong at 2.2%, near the high end of our annual customer growth guidance. Our weather-normalized sales growth was 9.4% for the quarter, driven by strong C&I growth of 14.6% and residential growth of 1.8%. We had a one-time adjustment to sales growth during last year’s first quarter, and if we take that into consideration, we would still have experienced strong weather-normalized sales growth at 7.4% during Q1 of this year. We are not changing our annual sales growth guidance of 4% to 6% at this point, but it is a strong start to the year. This trend of customer and sales growth reinforces our need for investments in our system to ensure reliable service for our customers. On the expense side, O&M saw a significant decrease in the first quarter compared to last year. This was mostly driven by lower planned outage expenses and a reduction to Commission-required energy efficiency programs. We continue to have a strong focus on cost management, and we are maintaining our goal of declining O&M per megawatt-hour. Interest expense was higher this quarter compared to the first quarter of last year, driven by higher debt balances from issuances. Our year-over-year benefit from our Eldorado investment was smaller, driving a slight drag. Finally, our depreciation and amortization expense for the quarter increased slightly as the placement of additional plant in service was partially offset by the retirement of Cholla. Turning to the balance sheet. We recently had positive conversations with all three credit rating agencies, resulting in the maintenance of our current ratings and stable outlooks. We are focused on sustaining solid ratings and metrics to the benefit of our customers as we continue to work with the Commission and stakeholders on reducing regulatory lag through our pending rate case. Our guidance for financing remains unchanged. We are pleased to announce that all of our equity funding needs for 2026 have been completed, and we are opportunistically working towards future year needs. We now have nearly $850 million of priced equity available to us for future issuance under equity forwards, including more than $350 million priced during the first quarter. We continue to utilize a mix of debt and equity sources to maintain our balanced capital structure. We are reaffirming all other aspects of our financial guidance and look forward to reliably serving our customers as we continue executing our strategy throughout the year. This concludes our prepared remarks. I will now turn the call back over to the operator for questions. Operator: Certainly. Everyone, at this time we will be conducting a question-and-answer session. If you have any questions or comments, please press 1 on your phone at this time. We do ask that while posing your question, please pick up your handset if you are listening on speakerphone to provide optimum sound quality. Once again, if you have any questions or comments, please press 1 on your phone. Your first question is coming from Shahriar Perruza from Wells Fargo. Your line is live. Analyst: Good morning, everyone. It is actually Alex on for Shar. Thanks for taking our questions. So just on the long-term sales growth, that 5% to 7% you have out there through 2030, you are obviously seeing a lot of growth in your service territory and in the pipeline as well. You saw 7% growth just this past quarter. Can you talk a little bit about how sticky this outlook is? Can we see this trend continue going forward? Is there anything that you see that could potentially allow you to revisit this outlook as opportunities continue to materialize? And then just pivoting, on the EPS and the rate base CAGR, as we look out, say, 2029 and beyond, any updated views on how we should be thinking about the delta between the two? Is that 200 basis points the right figure, or could you see those two converge over time given all the opportunities and growth that you are seeing? Andrew D. Cooper: Good morning. As you noted, we did have sales growth this quarter that, even adjusting for the adjustment from the first quarter of last year, was almost 7.5%. That was driven by the continued ramp-up of our extra-high load factor customers, and we have a number of them that are all in different stages of their ramp. Last year, we were able to increase our long-term sales growth guidance through 2030 up to that 5% to 7%. What you saw in the first quarter here looked more like the top end of our range for the long term, relative to what we expect for this year, which is 4% to 6%. You are seeing long-term trends begin to manifest around the diversity of customers we have. We are about to get rolling on Fab 2 at TSMC, as Ted mentioned, and we continue to see sustained customer additions to our service territory, which for the quarter were in the top half of our customer growth range. Fundamentally, that long-term runway around the diverse sales growth in the service territory is something we see continuing. We will continue to revisit because that sales growth rate is driven by the customers that are committed today—the roughly 4.5 gigawatts of customers that we have committed to. There is a large backlog of customers in our queue, and as we continue to work the capital plan and the ability to serve those customers, we will look for opportunities to invest and see sales growth beyond our base plan. For now, we feel comfortable with the 5% to 7% long term and the 4% to 6% for this year. Regarding EPS versus rate base CAGR and the roughly 200 basis point delta, we will have to revisit all of this at the conclusion of the rate case. Our capital investment opportunity will be informed by the ability to narrow regulatory lag, which in and of itself will help narrow that gap between what we spend and how it drops to the bottom line, as well as some potential for bilateral contracting opportunities with some of our large-load customers. Our expectation is to continue to push those customers to support some of the upfront funding, which will allow us over the course of the contract to front-end load some of the funding and reduce the need for external funding. As we continue to have better and more predictable cash flow conversion, it gives us an opportunity to fund more from retained earnings. We will continue to look at that while also looking at the capital opportunity to reinvest in the system. Operator: Your next question is coming from Julien Dumoulin-Smith from Jefferies. Your line is live. Julien Patrick Dumoulin-Smith: Hey, team. Good morning. Nicely done. What a way to start the year. Maybe just to kick things off from a timing perspective: what could we see on the August 3 IRP filing, and how do you think about that refresh cycle? What kind of clues could we get to kick off the summer ahead of any broader post–rate case update? And related to timing, what are the gating items for this subscription model contract effort you are trying to get off the ground? When could contracts be signed—is that something we could see this summer? Do you think about that materializing? Theodore N. Geisler: Appreciate the question. The IRP will be a meaningful update. The team is finalizing the analysis and the report now, and we will work with stakeholders on engaging in different review components ahead of the official filing later this summer. The IRP analysis will include our latest long-term thinking in terms of sales growth within the service territory across all three sectors: residential, small to medium-sized business, and industrial growth. Importantly, it will include all of the extra-high load factor growth that we have committed to, but it will not include anything that we have not contracted for yet, which will remain as upside. We have done a lot of work over the past six to twelve months to analyze over the next ten to fifteen years how residential growth trends with distributed generation and energy efficiency, how the long-term ramp rates will play out for the committed 4.5 gigawatts of extra-high load factor growth, and the resources needed to support that. Within the near-term action plan window of the IRP, it will show some specific projects that have already been announced. Beyond that, it will show buckets of generation and transmission needed. As we carry forward the capital plan—either at the conclusion of this rate case or into the beginning of next year—that capital plan should support the resource and transmission needs outlined in the IRP based on the committed growth included in the analysis. On the subscription model, we continue to be in active negotiations with counterparties on various projects. It is too early to tell how those may conclude, but as soon as they do, we would expect to be filing agreements with the Commission, and we are still on track to get those filed this year. Julien Patrick Dumoulin-Smith: Got it. Thank you. And if I can needle a bit: APS’s rebuttal moved several mechanics closer to what the UNF guys have on their gas template. How should we think about the cadence of that 200 basis points? Is a 50 basis point ROE gap by 2029 still the goal, or is there potential to move that forward? Theodore N. Geisler: Yes. We still believe that our rebuttal position—and our ability to continue to manage regulatory lag going forward—is consistent with our position at this point. Management’s goal is to be able to consistently earn within that 50 basis points, given there is some element of structural lag that will continue to exist. The latest thinking on design elements for formula rate, as well as assuming a constructive outcome in the rate case revenue requirement, would allow us to do so by 2029 and going forward. Operator: Your next question is coming from Richard Sunderland from Truist Securities. Your line is live. Richard Sunderland: Good morning. Picking up on the subscription model commentary, can you frame whether interest has shifted at all relative to expectations three to six months ago? Any flavor you can give around those conversations would be helpful, given limited insight from the outside. Theodore N. Geisler: The interest is still robust within the service territory. Our overall queue size remains elevated, hovering just under 20 gigawatts of uncommitted demand. How much of that is duplicative projects or interest versus projects ready to execute is to be determined, but the interest in viable projects for us to contract is meeting our original expectations. These contracts are complex. They involve details around investments and execution of both transmission and generation, ensuring that the rates are carefully calculated to make sure growth pays for growth, that the financing needs are met, and that both the utility is protecting its customers for reliability and affordability and the counterparty gets what they need in terms of timing and resource adequacy. It takes time to work through these negotiations, but they are making progress. We are pleased with how the subscription model was received by the market. We are not at the point yet of filing them with the Commission, but it is trending in that direction. Richard Sunderland: Switching gears, about a month ago the Governor’s energy task force delivered a report. There was a lot in there, including new nuclear. What do you have an eye to out of that report—anything to highlight on the nuclear front or more broadly? Theodore N. Geisler: We appreciated working with the Governor, several agencies within the state, and other stakeholders to create awareness of the energy needs to power Arizona’s growth and how to think about those needs at a macro level. It was a robust set of discussions culminating in a directional report that identified several key factors. One, the state plans to invest in and support new gas infrastructure to power growth reliably, showing widespread support for the gas pipeline infrastructure needed. Two, the state will continue to benefit from a diverse set of resources, anchored by around-the-clock dispatchable generation while also benefiting from our robust solar irradiance. And longer term, the state has always been a leader in reliable and affordable nuclear generation, and both the utilities and the state believe that is a technology worth paying attention to and being open to support in the future when it makes sense from an affordability and licensing/permitting standpoint. We have said before, specific to nuclear, that we are not in a position to put the utility balance sheet at risk. To the extent we have large customers interested in seeing new nuclear and willing to help support the financing, as the operator of the largest producing nuclear plant in the country, we would be very open to those discussions at that time. Operator: Your next question is coming from Paul Patterson from Glenrock Associates. Your line is live. Paul Patterson: Good morning. On the prepared remarks, you mentioned how much you have taken care of in terms of equity, but you also mentioned looking for additional opportunities. Could you elaborate a little on your thinking there? Andrew D. Cooper: Sure. We have continued to try to de-risk the equity plan. We have a three-year equity plan through 2028. Admittedly, that is the base case plan without expectations that could come from the formula rate or bilateral subscription-type agreements; it is the base of what we need with the CapEx plan we have in place today. Through various equity forward transactions, we have accumulated almost $850 million of equity to put to work. Our stated need for this year is $650 million of equity, so we have nearly another $200 million that we have achieved through our ATM program to help meet future-year needs as well. We will continue to look at the equity needs against the rate case and our cash flow situation. For the base needs—roughly $1.0 billion to $1.2 billion of new money from 2026 through 2028—we have already begun to eat into that number by several hundred million dollars. We are trying to de-risk and do so opportunistically as we go along. Operator: Your next question is coming from Ryan Levine from Citi. Your line is live. Ryan Michael Levine: Good morning. In light of Commissioner Meyer’s testimony in D.C. recently, what is the thought process around converting retired coal to gas generation, and the potential for federal permitting reform to impact the company? Theodore N. Geisler: We continuously look at when it makes sense to revisit using some of our retired generation sites. At this point, the Cholla site is the only one that would fall into that category. Analysis was done back in 2015 on the need to retire that site as a coal facility, but ever since then we have continuously done analysis to determine when it makes sense for our customers to potentially convert it to gas, use the site for new gas generation, or even other technology in the future. That analysis is ongoing. As demand rises in our service territory, natural gas continues to be an affordable resource for us. As the cost of new gas generation has increased recently due to supply chain demands, gas conversion continues to look even more affordable. If and when it makes sense for us to convert on behalf of our customers, we will make that clear, begin those investments, and put it in our plans for the future. Ryan Michael Levine: Regarding potential federal permitting reform to impact the company, any color there? Theodore N. Geisler: At this point, there is nothing specific we can directly tie to where reform could benefit us. We agree with Chair Myers that the broader need for streamlining federal permitting has never been more present than now, given the significant infrastructure needs to power growing markets within our country—Arizona among the top. Whether it be transmission siting or gas pipeline infrastructure, any help driving efficiencies and expediting federal permitting will allow us to implement infrastructure quicker and serve customer demand quicker. We support opportunities to look at those reforms, but it is too early to tell in terms of any specific opportunities that will benefit our infrastructure plans. We are not counting on changes to reform to execute our plan and we remain on track with our infrastructure investment opportunities. Ryan Michael Levine: On the ongoing study around converting to a gas plant, is there any timeline for when that study will conclude? Would that be concurrent with the subscription negotiations targeting the end of this year? Theodore N. Geisler: The best opportunity to continue to look at that is as we conclude our analysis leading up to this IRP filing. That will include a wholesale look at our generation mix to serve growth, and as part of that, continued renewed analysis on any potential for gas conversion or new gas generation at the Cholla site. Operator: Your next question is coming from Anthony Crowdell from Mizuho. Your line is live. Anthony Crowdell: Good morning, team. On Slide 18, you showed committed load and then the uncommitted load. Twenty gigawatts is uncommitted. What are the factors or timing for when we can maybe move that 20 gigawatts into the 4.5 gigawatts? Do you see a conversion through 2026 or timing of conversion? Theodore N. Geisler: The subscription model offering we came out with last year and the negotiations currently underway with counterparties would reflect some elements of that 20 gigawatts potentially moving over to the committed customer bucket. That process is underway now. As we approach opportunities to file special rate agreements with our Commission, that is the opportunity to create more visibility into how much of that 20 gigawatts may shift over based on this initial subscription offering. As we continue to work forward in our plan for new transmission and generation infrastructure, that will give us visibility into what the next iteration of the subscription model could look like to offer back to that queue. Our goal is to submit those contracts to the Commission for review this year, which is when we will have greater visibility. In addition, our IRP will provide our latest analysis on organic load growth—non–extra-high load factor growth inclusive of residential and small to medium-sized business—and likely provide visibility into what we are thinking beyond just the 20-gigawatt queue over the next ten to fifteen years. Anthony Crowdell: For APS, I believe you have a large-load tariff that may reevaluate the cost to serve these large-load customers on some cadence. When you talk to potential large-load customers that may come onto your system, do they have comments or preferences? Are they agnostic to the different types of large-load tariff that exist—the APS offering versus other utilities? Theodore N. Geisler: We have an existing extra-high load factor tariff, and as part of this rate case we have proposed updating that tariff to reflect the current supply-demand environment and ensure it is priced so that growth pays for growth. Generally, these large customers accept the responsibility of paying for the cost associated with serving their growth. Looking ahead, customers will have two options. The standard offering is to continue to take service from that XHLF tariff, recognizing it will be priced based on actual cost of service. To the extent they want an accelerated offering through the subscription model—where they contribute to financing infrastructure or potentially help accelerate providing key equipment—we can enter into a special contract to be submitted to the Commission for review and approval. Either way, pricing—whether through tariff or subscription model—needs to pay for the entire cost of service. That is a commitment we have made to our Commission and our other customers. Anthony Crowdell: Have they shown a bias for or against it, or are they agnostic? Theodore N. Geisler: There is general support. We need to defend the pricing and ensure customers have visibility into it. As we engage with counterparties on incremental infrastructure needed to serve them—incremental transmission and incremental generation—these are truly new builds. There is no more capacity on the existing system to take advantage of, so it is all new construction. As a result, the price looks different than it did when you were taking benefit from legacy infrastructure already installed. It is important that we are transparent about what it takes to serve them. There is general acceptance that this is the reality of today’s operating environment and what it will take to reliably connect in the Phoenix market. While prices are meaningfully different than years ago when there was excess grid capacity available, demand interest from our visibility has not changed at all. Operator: Your next question is coming from Steve D’Ambrizi from RBC Capital. Your line is live. Stephen D'Ambrisi: Thanks very much for taking my question, and congratulations on the strong start. Following up on questions about the subscription model, I believe the Phase 2 offering was initially sized at up to 1.2 gigawatts. What drove that sizing? Is it more reflective of the near-term opportunity within the 20 gigawatts, or is it a function of available capacity at Desert Sun or gas capacity? How should we think about the pace of potential incremental additions? Theodore N. Geisler: You are correct that the initial sizing was driven by the infrastructure we had identified as being available for a subscription offering. That reflected the available generation and transmission we had visibility to in the timeframe the subscription counterparties were interested in—in large part from Desert Sun and the transmission to coincide with it. That will be a continuous evaluation. Think of it less as a fixed amount of capacity and more as a process: we evaluate how much of our organic load growth will require infrastructure for existing customers—residential and small to medium-sized business—and then how much incremental infrastructure we can build to offer above and beyond that to the subscription queue. We then contract for that availability. When we went to the subscription queue, we started with that 1.0 to 1.2 gigawatt offering and continued conversations with counterparties on their interest—whether one counterparty or multiple. That also opens the door for other counterparties that may have access to key equipment to add additional capacity. The premise is: first, we create the opportunity to add incremental infrastructure above and beyond organic load requirements; then we offer that to the queue, engage in negotiations, finalize awarded capacity, and then repeat the process with new infrastructure opportunities we create for future availability. Operator: Your next question is coming from Travis Miller from Morningstar. Your line is live. Travis Miller: Hello, everyone. Thank you. Question on the transmission side: the revenue and earnings contribution for this quarter, and thinking about the year and future years—was there anything in the quarter that made this uniquely large, or is this the type of trajectory we should see again this year and then following along the upward-sloping line of transmission investment? Andrew D. Cooper: As mentioned in the prepared remarks, our transmission investment has continued to increase to serve growing load. If you go back five years, we have doubled and then doubled again the amount we are spending annually in terms of transmission CapEx. For our system, that starts down at 69 kV, so it is a substantial amount of local-area infrastructure as well. What you are seeing—also reflected in last year’s results—is a continued step function upward in the results of the transmission investments we have been making. It takes time for that investment to show through to the bottom line, and that is what you are beginning to see year over year as we engage in more and larger projects, and that will continue upward. It also shows the benefit of a formula rate—having gradual increases and contemporaneous recovery to reduce lag. It is also a rate that allows us to pass back wholesale revenue to our retail customers and has kept some transmission rate increases pretty stable over the years, producing the right results for customers as we continue to grow. Travis Miller: On those transmission earnings, how weather sensitive are those? Or are those completely decoupled through the formula rate? Andrew D. Cooper: It is trued up and intended to earn our return on those investments. Theodore N. Geisler: Keep in mind it has a balancing account, and a meaningful amount of that transmission revenue is also paid by wholesale customers, which offsets the cost to retail customers. It has an annual true-up. The transmission driver is really more a reflection of our growing capital investments within the transmission system to support reliability and growth than it is weather or any other factor. Andrew D. Cooper: What you are seeing right now is the impact of the rates we put into effect in the middle of last year, and there will be new rates that go into effect in 2026. The quarter is consistent with the full-year guidance we gave for the transmission segment. Travis Miller: One high-level on the renewable energy standard repeal—any impact? Your thoughts on that process? Theodore N. Geisler: No impact expected. The Commission took a logical approach: the utility is already exceeding the original goals set forth in that renewable energy standard, driven by general market interest and demand, as well as the amount of growth that has spurred significant investment in utility-scale solar and battery storage projects across the service territory to date. Having an outdated policy standard that we are already exceeding did not make much sense. From here, we view it to be market driven. On updates to the demand-side management energy efficiency standard, this was an opportunity for the Commission to review which programs have the greatest value and impact for customers and which have less. We think they appropriately right-sized programs to focus on those with the greatest value while also passing on roughly a 1% rate decrease to all customers. It preserves the value of these programs while creating an affordability opportunity. Operator: That completes our Q&A session. Everyone, this concludes today’s event. You may disconnect at this time, and have a wonderful day. Thank you for your participation.
Operator: Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Q1 2026 L.B. Foster Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Lisa Durante, Director of Financial Reporting and Investor Relations. Please go ahead. Lisa Durante: Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to L.B. Foster's First Quarter of 2026 Earnings Call. My name is Lisa Durante, the company's Director of Financial Reporting and Investor Relations. Our President and CEO, John Kasel; and our Chief Financial Officer, Bill Thalman, will be presenting our first quarter operating results, market outlook and business developments this morning. We'll start the call with John providing his perspective on the company's first quarter performance. Bill will then review the company's first quarter financial results. John will provide perspective on market developments and company outlook in his closing comments. We will then open up the session for questions. Today's slide presentation, along with our earnings release and financial disclosures were posted on our website this morning and can be accessed on our Investor Relations page at lbfoster.com. Our comments this morning will follow the slides in the earnings presentation. Some statements we are making are forward-looking and represent our current view of our markets and business today. These forward-looking statements reflect our opinions only as of the date of this presentation, and we undertake no obligation to revise or publicly release the results of any revisions to these statements in light of new information, except as required by securities laws. For more detailed risks, uncertainties and assumptions relating to our forward-looking statements, please see the disclosures in our earnings release and presentation. We will also discuss non-GAAP financial metrics and encourage you to carefully read our disclosures and reconciliation tables provided within today's earnings release and presentation as you consider these metrics. So with that, let me turn the call over to John. John Kasel: Thanks, Lisa, and hello, everybody. Thanks for joining us today for our first quarter earnings call. I'll begin with Slide 5, covering the key drivers for our results of the quarter. As you can see from our earnings release, we carried positive momentum generated at the end of last year into the first quarter, delivering strong results across the board. The robust sales growth in Q1 was as expected, up 23.9% over last year. The growth was highest in the Rail Group, which was up 38.4% over last year, with all business units delivering significant improvements. Sales for Infrastructure segment were also up 5.9%, driven by continuing demand in our precast concrete business. The strong sales growth translated into a significant improvement in profitability, with EBITDA up 183% over last year. The improved profitability was realized within our margins with gross profit up 27.5% and gross margins improving 60 basis points to 21.2% -- we also continue to leverage our operating structure with SG&A as a percent of sales declining 240 basis points compared to last year. Our normal working capital cycle increased total debt $16.9 million during the quarter as we prepared to support our customers' construction season. Our disciplined capital allocation approach reduced total debt $22.8 million compared to last year. Coupled with significant improvement in profitability in the quarter, our gross leverage was cut in half from 2.5x last year to 1.2x at quarter end. So in summary, we're really pleased with the strong start to the year, and we remain optimistic about our prospects for continued progress in 2026. I'll cover the market outlook and our financial guidance for the year after Bill runs through the financial details for the quarter. Over to you, Bill. William Thalman: Thanks, John; and good morning, everyone. I'll begin my comments on Slide 7, covering the consolidated results for the first quarter. Reconciliations for non-GAAP information and other financial details are included in the appendix of the presentation. Net sales for the quarter were $121.1 million, up 23.9% over last year, primarily due to the strong growth in the Rail segment. As a reminder, last year's sales in Rail were weaker than normal due to a pause in government funding programs that delayed customer project work. As John mentioned, the consolidated gross profit was up 27.5% in the quarter, with gross margins improving 60 basis points to 21.2%. Both segments realized double-digit increases in gross profit in the quarter, highlighting the broad improvement realized in our results. I'll provide more color on segment sales and margins later in the presentation. SG&A expenses totaling $23 million were up $2.1 million or 9.9% compared to last year. The primary driver was higher employment costs, including a $1.2 million increase in incentive compensation expense with the improved results in Q1 compared to last year. This year's incentive expense also includes $0.7 million in accelerated stock compensation expense associated with annual incentive plan grants awarded to retirement-eligible employees. Despite the higher expenses year-over-year, the SG&A percent of sales improved 240 basis points to 19%. EBITDA was $5.2 million, up 183% versus last year, driven by the sales growth and improved gross profit. First quarter cash flow improved over last year with operating cash flow favorable $15.7 million on improved profitability and lower working capital needs. And lastly, consolidated orders and backlog were both lower compared to last year, 4.7% and 11.7%, respectively. I'll cover segment-specific drivers later in the presentation. The financial profile of our results on Slide 8 highlights the seasonality in the business over the last 3 years. We're entering the construction season for our customers, which typically translates to higher sales and profitability during our second and third quarters. Last year, first quarter sales were unusually low due to a pause in government funding impacting rail demand early in the year. These delays were resolved throughout 2025, resulting in an unusually strong fourth quarter last year. So while 2025 looks relatively normal compared to the averages, the quarterly splits last year were far from normal. This year's first quarter results represent a typical level of demand, and we expect the phasing of business to follow a more normal pattern in 2026. I'll cover the segment specific performance on the next couple of slides, starting with Rail on Slide #9. First quarter revenues were $74.8 million, up 38.4% compared to last year's soft start, primarily in Rail Products. The improvement was strongest for Rail Products with sales up 40.8% due to higher demand for rail distribution and transit products. Global Friction Management sales were up 39.5%, as this growth platform continues to perform well. Technology Services & Solutions sales were also up 29.1% due to short-term project work in our U.K. business. Rail margins of 21.6% were down 70 basis points, driven primarily by unfavorable sales mix with the higher Rail distribution volumes this year. Turning to Rail orders and backlog. Q1 orders were down 3.2% due to lower orders for Friction Management after a very strong level attained last year. Rail Product and TS&S orders were relatively flat compared to last year. And the Rail backlog was up 11.3% due to a large multiyear order secured in our U.K. business late last year. Turning to Infrastructure Solutions on Slide 10. Net sales increased $2.6 million or 5.9%. The improvement was realized in Precast Concrete with sales up 17.2%, highlighting the strong demand that continues in this growth platform. Steel Products sales declined $2.3 million, primarily due to lower bridge form volumes. Infrastructure gross profit increased $1.4 million with the margins up 200 basis points to 20.6%. The improvements were realized in Precast Concrete driven by higher sales volumes and favorable sales mix, coupled with improved manufacturing execution. I'll mention here that one cost driver we're starting to see elevate is fuel charges within our freight costs. This was not a big impact in Q1, but something we're working on mitigating starting here in Q2. Infrastructure orders declined $4.4 million due to lower intake for Pipeline Coatings after a very strong level in last year's first quarter. Partially offsetting were Precast Concrete orders up $2.3 million or 5.5%. Infrastructure backlog totaling $107.4 million is down $38 million versus last year. About $30 million of the decline was in Steel Products with $19 million due to the Summit Pipeline Coating order cancellation in Q3 last year. Precast Concrete backlog was also lower $8 million with reduced open orders for CXT buildings. I'll provide some additional color on segment orders and backlog at the end of my review. I'll next cover liquidity and leverage metrics on Slide 11. The chart reflects the ongoing improvement in our management of net debt and leverage. Net debt of $55.7 million was down $24.2 million compared to last year, with the gross leverage ratio cut in half to 1.2x, driven by improved profitability and lower working capital levels. Our capital-light business model has translated into significant cash generation over the last several years. As a reminder, we wrapped up the $8 million per year Union Pacific settlement payments at the end of 2024. Excluding these payments, we generated about $85 million in free cash flow over the last 3 years or approximately $28 million per year on average. We also have about $75 million in federal NOLs available, which should continue to minimize cash taxes for the next several years. We utilize a systematic disciplined approach to deploying capital across our priorities, which I'll now cover on Slide 12. Managing our debt and leverage at reasonable levels remains our top capital allocation priority. At the end of the first quarter, the gross leverage ratio per our revolving credit agreement was just under 1.2x, well within our target range of 1x to 1.5x. Seasonal working capital needs are expected to increase debt further in the second quarter, but we should stay around our target leverage range and remain favorable compared to last year. Capital spending in the first quarter totaled $3 million or 2.4% of sales. We have several targeted organic growth programs within our Precast Concrete business that we expect will increase the 2026 CapEx rate to 2.7% of sales approximately. We've also systematically repurchased our stock over the last 3 years with just over 1 million shares repurchased since early 2023, representing 9.3% of the outstanding shares. We did not make any open market repurchases in the first quarter after buying about 582,000 shares in 2025. We have $28.7 million authorized to spend on buybacks over the next 2 years, which represents approximately 9% of the shares stock value outstanding at today's valuation. As always, we will remain disciplined and conservative in our approach to this important capital allocation priority. And finally, we continue to evaluate tuck-in acquisitions to add breadth to our growth platforms, primarily in the Precast Concrete market space. I'll wrap up my comments with some additional color on order rates and backlog on Slides 13 and 14. We've mentioned in the past that order rates tend to be choppy for our business given the project nature of the work we support for our customers. Generally, orders received are fulfilled within a year with only about 10% of the open backlog relating to projects expected to extend beyond a year. On a consolidated basis, the trailing 12-month book-to-bill ratio at the end of the quarter was 0.95:1, down from both last year's first quarter and the end of 2025. The decline versus last year was driven by the lower ratio in Infrastructure at 0.84:1, driven primarily by the Summit order cancellation and softer Pipeline Coating order intake impacting Steel Products. Rail order rates overall remain positive with the trailing 12-month ratio at 1.03:1, although down from the end of 2025 after the strong finish last year. And lastly, the consolidated backlog reflected on Slide 14 totaled $209.6 million, down $27.6 million from last year, with the decline realized in Infrastructure stemming primarily from lower Pipeline Coating open orders, including the impact of the Summit order cancellation. We're focused on building our backlog across the business during the second quarter to set up a strong second half of the year. John will cover some additional backlog details and developments in his closing remarks. I'll wrap up here by saying we're very pleased with the start of 2026 and remain optimistic about the prospects for further progress this year. Thanks for the time this morning. I'll now hand it back to John for his closing remarks. Back to you, John. John Kasel: Thanks, Bill. I'll begin my closing remarks on Slide 16, reviewing developments in our key end markets. Starting with Rail, Bill highlighted that the significant growth realized in Q1 was due to a return to normal customer demand levels after last year's slow start. The federal government programs that fund our customers' repair and maintenance projects remain active with no significant disruptions evident as of today. This should provide a favorable demand tailwind in the U.S. for our Rail Products for the foreseeable future. Friction Management had another phenomenal quarter with 39.5% sales growth to start the year. This is on top of 42% growth in the fourth quarter last year and 19% growth for all of 2025. We continue to invest our commercial and technology capabilities for this important growth platform, and we're targeting further domestic market penetration as well as geographic expansion into Western Europe. The total track monitoring product line was somewhat flat in the first quarter, but commercialization of our Rockfall monitoring product line is expected to provide lift in volumes as the year progresses. All in all, we expect a more normal year in demand for the Rail segment in 2026, which would be a significant improvement over last year. Turning to Infrastructure. The end market developments remain favorable as well. Precast Concrete sales were up 17% in Q1 after 20% growth in 2025. As expected, the backlog at the end of the quarter was a bit lower for the CXT buildings product line, which had a record year in 2025. However, civil construction activity remains robust, which is bolstering demand for Precast Concrete products, helping to mitigate the lower building volumes. We're also seeing demand for our Envirokeeper water management solution continue to increase, and we're making capital investments to support further growth of this product line. So all in all, we're off to a great start for Precast and expect growth to continue as 2026 unfolds. Turning to Steel Products. Market conditions continue to improve, driven primarily by the recovery of oil and gas investments and favorable impact on our Protective Coatings product lines. Steel Products sales declined slightly in the first quarter due to softer demand for our bridge forms, while Protective Coatings were essentially flat in Q1 after nearly 43% growth in 2025. Bill mentioned the Infrastructure backlog was down primarily to the Summit order cancellation that was communicated last year, coupled with lower bookings for Protective Coatings. But it's important to note that bidding activity remains robust, and we believe the market recovery for domestic energy and pipeline investments will translate into improving Protective Coatings backlog. In summary, we believe we're well positioned for continuing growth across our key end markets and product lines with ongoing emphasis on our growth platforms, noting that the volatile geopolitical environment has not had a significant impact to date on our end markets or demand of our products. Of course, we'll continue to monitor conditions and adjust as necessary. So in conclusion, we're off to a great start in 2026, which allows us to reaffirm our financial guidance, which I'll cover in my closing remarks now on Slide 17. I'll start by highlighting again the significant progress we made through 2025. I'm very proud with our team's accomplishments and the strong start to 2026 highlights the favorable momentum we've generated in the business. The year-over-year growth and profitability expansion achieved in our first quarter results was primarily driven by a recovery to normal demand conditions for our Rail business. One way to look at the favorable momentum in our results is our trailing 12 months metrics with sales of $563.4 million and adjusted EBITDA of $42.4 million. Both metrics are already at or near the midpoints of our 2026 full year guidance. So as long as quotation activity remains strong and backlog builds in line with expectations, we should be well positioned to deliver a strong year of growth in 2026. So in closing, we're reaffirming our full year financial guidance for now, and we'll revisit our outlook after the second quarter. Thank you for your time and continuing interest in L.B. Foster. I'll turn it back to the operator for the Q&A session. Operator: [Operator Instructions] And our first question will be coming from Liam Burke of B. Riley Securities. Liam Burke: John, I mean in your prepared comments, you talked about Friction Management, which is a great driver of growth and margin. How difficult is it to take the North American model and move it over to European markets? John Kasel: Well, that's -- well, first of all, thanks for joining us today, Liam. And we've been working on that actually for the last 5 years of getting that acceptance, not just here in North America, but getting the excitement of this product over specifically in Western Europe, and we're going through Germany to make that happen. So we started working directly with the largest German transit authority over there, getting acceptance and accreditation of the product, and we're looking for continued interest as well as actual orders and sales happening this year -- end of this year as well as going to next year. So it is a slower adoption, if you will, because of the brand recognition is primarily North America, but they're picking up on the excitement, especially in the transit space over there because it's just adding so much value. They're seeing the value. And the world is -- as far as friction management is relatively small. And so we're pretty excited about what we have right now and the ability to continue to grow that. Liam Burke: Great. Bill, you had negative operating cash flow for the quarter, which is perfectly normal for seasonality purposes. But on a year-over-year basis, as you point out in your comments, it was significantly better. What contributed to that improvement? William Thalman: Yes. A few things, Liam. The profitability of the business overall, first of all, was much better. And then working capital needs this quarter were also a bit lower. And then the incentive arrangements for the company were a bit higher last year than they were this year just in terms of the payouts. So we would expect, where our working capital is at the moment, we will start to build further through the second quarter as we start to get ready for the growth expectations we see through the balance of the year. But just timing of some of the [indiscernible] a lot of time thinking about and addressing our U.K. business and the working capital deployed over there. So the model actually requires less working capital, and that's part of the benefit that we saw in Q1. Liam Burke: So just a quick follow-up, and I'll turn it over. Do you see any change in your overall working capital metrics or is it just normal quarter-to-quarter seasonality? William Thalman: I would say, overall, we are running at a lower working capital need overall on an average as a percentage of sales. Operator: [Operator Instructions]. Our next question will be coming from Julio Romero of Sidoti & Company. Julio Romero: Bill, you mentioned that fuel costs within freight -- fuel charges within freight costs for Infrastructure Solutions are starting to creep up, not a big surprise there given the macro front. But can you highlight if higher fuel and freight costs are isolated to just the Infrastructure Solutions segment or is it the broader portfolio? And then also how you're navigating these costs? And are there other -- are there any other rising input costs that are worth highlighting? William Thalman: Yes. So maybe just to start with the fuel costs. Certainly, that would be within our inbound and outbound freight cost structure. Obviously, with the current market conditions, that's been an escalating cost that we're seeing across the portfolio. It's the most significant for sure, within Infrastructure, just given the delivery costs associated with the Precast Products being a heavier overall tare weight. But we've had different programs that we're implementing in terms of pricing where we can to mitigate those costs. Just like any other company, that's something that we're looking to pass on. It wasn't a significant driver in Q1, but certainly starting to see it here in Q2, and we're managing that cost with pricing actions where we can. And then I guess to follow up on your other question, in terms of other escalating costs, nothing of significance at this point that we would point to. Julio Romero: Okay. Very helpful there. You highlighted you're seeing some early signs that the actions taken in the U.K. Rail business are translating into improvements. Is that business becoming less of a drag? Was it less of a drag to your pretax profit here in the first quarter than it was in the fourth quarter? And what kind of sequential improvement in that business is kind of embedded in the 2026 outlook? John Kasel: Yes. So our actions are definitely taking hold. We made a number of structural changes over there as well as focus on what business that we have and more importantly, what we want to do over there, and so we're seeing the benefits of that. And when Bill was mentioning the working capital as far as the amount of working capital as a percent of sales, that's a big part of our improvement year-over-year. So we're very pleased with where we're at right now, and we'll continue to make sure that we stay in front of what it is. But it's a big part of our company. It's a big part of Rail. When we talk about the year-over-year improvement and the improvement of profitability, that's where the technology innovation is. And when earlier question by Liam, that's a big part of our continued growth that we're doing, specifically in Friction Management, and that's kind of our gateway to make that happen. So we're -- we've been taking quite a bit of action, and we're going to stay focused to make sure that it's where we want it to be. But we are pleased with the first quarter results and coming out of where we ended last year. Julio Romero: Excellent. And then last one for me would just be if you could touch on the inorganic growth pipeline for Precast Products and any other market penetration initiatives you currently have underway within Precast Products? John Kasel: Well, first of all, we really focus on organic. I just want to make sure we really hammer that. We got a lot of really good exciting things going on, and that's where we're taking our capital. Bill mentioned we spent $3 million of capital in the quarter, 2.4% of sales. We talked about spending 2.7% as far as the year. That's where we're spending our money because we got great growth, organic growth programs going on right now, specifically in the Infrastructure business and namely in Concrete. And of course, we have our filter related to other inorganic opportunities where it makes sense. We will -- we continue to look at bolt-on type operations and that we will be able to add additional product lines or geographic expansion for us. And they're out there, and we're working through options or opportunities right now. But first and foremost, we're executing on what we have in front of us, and that's some nice growth here organically in those specific businesses. So we're pleased with results to date. Operator: And I would now like to turn the call back to John Kasel for closing remarks. John Kasel: Well, thank you, operator. Thank you for joining us today. And I'd like to close with 2 points maybe that didn't come up today in the call or specifically as it relates to the quarter. And Bill mentioned that our order rates are choppy and the project work and that's true that you see in our sales, sometimes it [indiscernible] as we close the quarter, we had a very strong April for order intake about 15% was added to our backlog in the month of April across the entire company. So we talked a lot about momentum in Q4. We had a strong finish to the year. And we're here telling you now that momentum is carried in Q1. [indiscernible] concerns are not with us today. We have plenty of work to be able to achieve what we want to get done this year, and we're seeing that uplift happening across the company [indiscernible] and of course, bidding activity is extremely strong as well. The last point I'd like to leave with you is our ability to pull this off and do it well. And I'd just like to call out the Infrastructure Group, Precast and our Steel Products side, that performed the entire quarter with 0 injuries in our company. And I think that's just a great testament to not just the fact that we're here now 124 years, but we're here really curating a culture of safety and performance and really a commitment to our employees of doing it right. And the Infrastructure Group, led by Bob Ness, has done just a tremendous job of doing it right each and every day and keeping our employees safe and getting our products to our customer. So -- and we'll continue to work on that, and we'll continue to strive into a wonderful second quarter. So we're looking forward to catch up with you at the end of Q2, and I wish everybody a wonderful start to May. Take care. We'll talk to you next time. Operator: And this concludes today's program. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.
Operator: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the ADC Therapeutics Q1 2026 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] This call is being recorded on Monday, May 4, 2026. I would now like to turn the conference over to Nicole Riley, Head of Investor Relations and Corporate Communications. Please go ahead. Nicole Riley: Thank you, operator. Today, we issued a press release announcing our first quarter 2026 financial results and business updates. This release and the slides we will use in today's presentation are available on the Investors section of the ADC Therapeutics website. I'm joined on today's call by our Chief Executive Officer, Ameet Mallik, who will discuss our operational performance and recent business highlights, followed by our Chief Financial Officer, Pepe Carmona, who will review our first quarter 2026 financial results. We will then open the call to questions. Before we begin, I would like to remind listeners that some of the statements made during this conference call will contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are subject to certain known and unknown risks and uncertainties, and actual results, performance and achievements could differ materially. They are identified and described in the accompanying slide presentation and in the company's filings with the SEC, including Form 10-K, 10-Q and 8-K. ADC Therapeutics is providing this information as of today's date and does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained in this conference call as a result of new information, future events or circumstances, except as required by law. The company cautions investors not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. Today's presentation also includes non-GAAP financial reporting. These non-GAAP measures should be considered in addition to and not in isolation or as a substitute for the information prepared in accordance with GAAP. You should refer to the company's first quarter 2026 earnings release for information and reconciliation of historical non-GAAP measures to the comparable GAAP financial measures. I will now turn the call over to our CEO, Ameet Mallik. Ameet? Ameet Mallik: Thank you, Nicole. We continue to make good progress in the first quarter of 2026 as we advance towards multiple important milestones for ZYNLONTA over the remainder of the year, beginning with the expected LOTIS-5 top line readout in the second quarter. From a commercial perspective, we continue to focus on execution and delivering on our commercial strategy, maintaining ZYNLONTA as a differentiated treatment option for third-line plus DLBCL patients. First quarter net product revenues were $20.0 million as compared to the prior year's first quarter net product revenues of $17.4 million. The increase was driven primarily by normal quarter-to-quarter variability in customer ordering with underlying demand broadly stable. Looking toward the second line plus setting where we believe the largest growth opportunity lies. For LOTIS-5, our Phase III confirmatory trial of ZYNLONTA plus rituximab, we expect to share top line data before the end of June, potentially bringing us another step closer to providing this combination to significantly more patients. While this time line is rapidly approaching, I do want to highlight that we are currently still blinded to the data. Turning to LOTIS-7. We expect to complete enrollment of approximately 100 patients at the selected dose level of ZYNLONTA plus glofitamab in the second quarter with full data anticipated by year-end. In indolent lymphomas, we continue to anticipate data publication between the end of 2026 and mid-2027 from the multicenter investigator-initiated trials ZYNLONTA in combination with rituximab to treat relapsed or refractory follicular lymphoma and of ZYNLONTA as a monotherapy to treat relapsed or refractory marginal zone lymphoma. We continue to pay close attention in the quarter to managing our cost base and optimizing our balance sheet. On a non-GAAP basis, we've reduced our total operating expenses by 13% versus Q1 2025, and we ended the first quarter of 2026 with a healthy cash balance of $231 million. This maintains our expected cash runway at least into 2028, enabling us to deliver against our strategy. We are building off the well-established role of ZYNLONTA as a single-agent therapy in third line plus DLBCL where ZYNLONTA has a profile of rapid, deep and durable efficacy, as well as manageable safety with simple and convenient administration. We believe the relative stability we've seen in net product revenues over multiple quarters demonstrates that ZYNLONTA has a clear place in this market. This is just a starting point as we believe in the potential for ZYNLONTA to reach significantly more patients by expanding use into earlier lines of therapy in DLBCL and into indolent lymphomas. The data we've seen across these settings so far have been consistently encouraging with the potential to be highly differentiating. Through expansion into these settings in DLBCL and into indolent lymphomas, we are confident that ZYNLONTA has the potential to reach peak annual revenues of $600 million to $1 billion in the U.S., assuming both compendia listing and regulatory approval. The upcoming LOTIS-5 trial readout, if positive, we'll begin to unlock the value of our life cycle management efforts with ZYNLONTA. Taken together with the upcoming data expected from LOTIS-7 and the indolent lymphoma studies, we expect to accelerate our revenue growth trajectory starting in 2027. Now I would like to turn the call over to Pepe Carmona, our CFO, who will discuss financial results for the first quarter. Pepe? Jose Carmona: Thank you, Ameet. On the financial front, ZYNLONTA net product revenues in the first quarter of 2026 were $20 million as compared to $17.4 million in the same quarter in 2025. Licensing revenues and royalties were lower this year due to $5 million milestone we received from our partner in the prior year period. Cost of product sales increased by $1.6 million to $3.6 million for the 3 months ended March 31, 2026. This increase reflects a shift in the allocation of certain personnel costs due to a change in focus from research and development activities to commercial manufacturing activities. Total operating expenses were $46.1 million for the first quarter. On a non-GAAP basis, total adjusted operating expenses were $42.9 million for the quarter. Total adjusted operating expenses were down by 13% over the prior year period, primarily driven by lower R&D expenses. As Ameet noted, when managing our costs carefully, and we remain disciplined in our capital allocation towards potential value creation while driving efficiency. On a GAAP basis, we reported a net loss of $33 million for the first quarter of 2026 or $0.21 per basic and diluted share as compared to a net loss of $38.6 million or $0.36 per basic and diluted share for the same period in 2025. On a non-GAAP basis, the adjusted net loss was $19.7 million for the first quarter of 2026, as compared to a net loss of $24 million for the same period in 2025. The lower net loss on both GAAP and non-GAAP basis was primarily due to reduced R&D expenses. The year-over-year reductions on a per share basis were additionally impacted by the higher number of weighted average shares outstanding. You can find the reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP measures for the first quarter in the compounding financial tables of the press release issued earlier today and in the appendix of this presentation. At the end of the first quarter, we had cash and cash equivalents of $231 million as compared to $261.3 million as of December 31, 2025. This provides us with an expected cash runway at least into 2028. Turning to upcoming milestones. We expect to have multiple data catalysts during the remainder of 2026 across the ZYNLONTA program. First, we expect to share the top line data for LOTIS-5 before the end of June with publication of full results anticipated by the year-end. As Ameet noted, we're currently blinded to the data. Until the top line data has been presented, we will remain in a blackout period, which means we may need to cancel our participation in any conferences as well as meetings with investors and analysts. Assuming the results are positive, we plan to submit a supplemental biologics license application to the FDA by year-end, with potential publication and compendia inclusion in the first half of 2027 and confirmatory approval to follow thereafter. With LOTIS-7, we are on track to complete enrollment in the second quarter. We plan to share the next update with full data at a medical meeting by the end of 2026. In addition, assuming positive results, we plan to pursue compendia inclusion as well as assess our regulatory strategy. With indolent lymphomas, we expect the lead investigator to share additional data at medical conferences between the end of 2026 and mid-2027, and we plan to assess regulatory and competing strategies once sufficient data are available. I will now turn the call back over to Ameet. Ameet Mallik: Thank you, Pepe. To close, I am pleased with our start to 2026. We have achieved solid commercial performance while maintaining our strict capital discipline as we look forward to multiple anticipated value-creating catalysts, beginning with the expected LOTIS-5 readout. We are excited about delivering on our strategy and confident we can drive significant potential long-term growth starting in 2027. We can now open the line for questions. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Maury Raycroft with Jefferies. Maurice Raycroft: Congrats on the progress. You mentioned on the call that you remain blinded to the data. Can you clarify if the database is locked at this point and when you reach the 262 events? And from a process standpoint, can you say what's happening currently? And what are the drivers that will allow you to unblind the data? Ameet Mallik: Yes. Thanks for the question. So what I can tell you is we're on track to be able to read the data. So the -- we're completely blinded to the data side. I don't know any information yet. But as soon as the database gets locked and we do the statistical analysis, we'll then be able to disclose top line data. So we're not at that point yet. But we are on track to basically to share the data this quarter. Maurice Raycroft: Got it. Okay. And for when you reach the 262 events, is there anything more on that you're saying? From a timing perspective? Ameet Mallik: Yes, we're not commenting on exactly where we're going to the events. But what I can tell you is we're on track to hit the -- to basically to get to the top line results this quarter in the second quarter. Maurice Raycroft: Okay. Understood. Maybe one other quick question. Just following the site level interventions you implemented to address the early dropout in censoring, do you have any perspective potentially from the IDMC to provide any indication that sensoring rates improved after those changes? I guess any -- any more color on that could be helpful. Ameet Mallik: I can't comment further. What I can tell you is the last IDMC look, which is from a safety standpoint, was last fall. And again, that recommendation wants to proceed as it is. There's been -- any other looks from the IDMC at the data. Operator: Next question comes from Michael Schmidt with Guggenheim. Michael Schmidt: I have a couple. Maybe first commercially, the $20 million in 1Q, it's about 15% growth annually. I know you mentioned ordering pattern, but it just seems more growth than we've seen in recent quarters. And just curious if there's anything else going on in terms of driving more volume perhaps in the approved indication in the market? And then the other question I just had on LOTIS-5, so great to hear that the data is still on track for this quarter. Could you just comment on how much of the result, you'll be able to disclose in the top line announcement? Will you be able to share things like median PFS or perhaps asset ratios, et cetera, in the top line release? Ameet Mallik: Yes. Thanks, Michael. So first, on sales, as you recall, Q3 was quite low and the Q4 was quite strong. So we had $16.8 million, the $22.3 million, now we're at $20 million. I think it's too soon to call a change in trend, to be honest right now. But I think what we're seeing is definitely very good execution. We're happy that we've been able to maintain our share despite a very competitive environment. And there is quarter-to-quarter variability as we saw in the Q3 was one of the lowest quarters in the Q4 is one of the higher quarters in the last couple of years. But I think after 2 quarters in that $20-plus million range, it's encouraging, but too soon to call the trend. So I think if this continues, that may cause us to sort of change where we think the range is going to be. But I think at this point, just given the variability that we've seen in the last couple of years, I think -- we think it's -- we're still in the range of normal demand within the content of custom order variability. With regards to LOTIS-5, we plan to share all the relevant information on the primary endpoints, of course, the median PFS, hazard ratio, any information that we have on key secondary endpoints as well as top line safety data. So we do want to make sure that the disclosure is clear with the information that we have and well understood what the result is. At the same time, a lot of sub analyses and other things that are typically less relevant for top line results, but critical for, let's say, a medical conference or publication. Those would be details that would come later in the year. Operator: Your next question comes from Eric Schmidt with Cantor. Eric Schmidt: A couple of questions for me also on LOTIS-5. First, with regard to procedures. Do I take that base comments to mean that you're now entering the quiet period? Is that starting after today? Ameet Mallik: We started actually a quiet period, we have to do earnings, of course, but we haven't been engaging with analyst or investors since April 1. So for the whole quarter until we disclose the data. Eric Schmidt: And then Ameet, on the information that you'll be able to disclose with regard to the top line data for LOTIS-5 this quarter. Will we get some thoughts on how survival is trending? I know the trial's primary endpoint is PFS and you're well powered there. But wondering if you'll be able to provide color on OS trends. And then if you know at this point, how many OS events or how mature the OS data might be at the time of the PFS top line look? Ameet Mallik: Yes. So in addition to TFS, which obviously will be mature, we will give the information that we have on overall survival. So whether it's mature or it's a trend, we will provide the information that we have on overall survival as well as the other key secondary endpoints as well like response rate, duration of response. So we plan to share all the information we have. I can't comment right now on how many events we have with regards to overall survival. But what I can tell you is it will be -- with whatever information we have, we will make a part of the disclosure. Eric Schmidt: And then maybe just one modeling it for Pepe. The change that we saw from personnel from R&D into cost of goods. Is that an ongoing transition? Are we expecting COGS to be inflated in subsequent quarters as well? Jose Carmona: It is going to continue throughout all quarters from now on. So it's a reallocation of those expenses into cost of goods, and we capitalize on time inventory, but the cost of goods are going to increase because of this fixed cost and now it's getting allocated. Operator: [Operator Instructions]. Your next question comes from Sudan Loganathan with Stephens. Sudan Loganathan: My first one, I wanted to ask what -- what you believe the immediate impacts post the LOTIS-5 top line results in the second quarter could be, for instance, if it is positive, good PFS readout, how this may change of ZYNLONTA is prescribed reviewed in the second half of this year, even prior to complete listing? And then secondly, I just wanted to ask, even push over to the IITs, how does that add some incremental value over the next year or 2? Ameet Mallik: Sure. Yes. So once we get to the top line readout, assuming it's positive, we then would work to kind of go down too fast. One is to prepare the sBLA submission that typically 4 to 5 months, we expect to have that certainly before the end of this year. And then that could lead to our approval thereafter next year. And then in addition, we plan to submit to a medical congress and publication by the end of this year. to share the full details as a result, that would be the basis that we would submit to compendia. So we expect that we could get compendia inclusion sometime in the first part of next year and then an approval sometime thereafter in 2027. So we don't expect any revenue impact this year. We expect this year to be largely in line with what the previous years are and only see revenue trajectory increase next year as we'll only start promoting the product once we have a formal approval sometime around the middle of next year. And your second question was around the IITs, correct? Sudan Loganathan: Yes. Yes. Ameet Mallik: Okay. So with the IITs, we have both marginal zone and follicular lymphoma IITs. Both of those -- let's call it the data on the full study will be disclosed sometime between the end of this year and the middle of next year. We expect publications to happen around that same time and then to be submitted for compendia inclusion after that. In addition, we're evaluating the regulatory approach for , but we would taking in lymphomas when we move forward in parallel. Operator: There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call over to Ameet Mallik for closing remarks. Ameet Mallik: Thank you all for joining the call today and for your continued support. We look forward to keeping you updated on our progress and look forward to speaking to you soon. Operator, you may now end the call. Thank you. Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes your conference call for today. We thank you for participating and ask that you please disconnect your lines.
Operator: Good day, and welcome to the First Quarter 2026 Paymentus Holdings, Inc. Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, please press star 11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, press star 11 again. Please be advised that today’s conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker, David Hanover, Investor Relations. Please go ahead. David Hanover: Thank you, Operator. Good afternoon. Welcome, and thank you for joining the webcast to review our first quarter 2026 results. Our earnings release documents are available on the Investor Relations section of paymentus.com. They include the earnings presentation that we will reference during this webcast. This webcast is being recorded. I hope everyone has had a chance to review those documents. Our founder and CEO, Dushyant Sharma, will make some opening remarks before Sanjay Kalra discusses the details of the first quarter and our guidance. Following our prepared remarks, we will take questions. Let me remind you we will make forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, and we will refer to non-GAAP financial measures during this webcast. Forward-looking statements are based on management’s current expectations and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Factors that may cause our actual results to differ materially from expectations are detailed in our earnings materials and in our SEC filings, which are available on both the SEC’s website and our website. Information about non-GAAP financial measures, including reconciliations to U.S. GAAP, can also be found in our earnings materials available on the website. With that, I would like to turn the webcast over to Dushyant Sharma. Dushyant, thanks. Dushyant Sharma: Thank you, David. We are off to a tremendous start in 2026, with record revenue and strong growth exceeding our CAGR model across all key metrics. We believe these results underscore the durability and long-term growth potential of our business model. That strength is driven by our platform, our ecosystem, our expertise and scale, and our quality of service with support, security, availability, and compliance frameworks, along with a broad and continuously evolving innovation framework. In addition to our very strong financial results, we also announced an important product launch today that we believe will transform how service providers interact with their customers. Today’s agenda will proceed as follows. First, I will provide a brief overview of our results. Sanjay will then provide a detailed financial review and discuss our outlook. I will then come back and discuss the strategic product announcement we have made today. We will then answer any questions. Let me start with financial highlights as shown on Slide 3. First quarter revenue was a record $358.4 million, an increase of 30.2% year over year. Contribution profit was $109.7 million, up 25.2% year over year. Adjusted EBITDA was a record $42.4 million in the quarter, representing 41.5% growth year over year and a 38.7% margin. Once again, a majority of our year-over-year growth in contribution profit fell to our bottom line. We exceeded the Rule of 40 for the quarter again, coming in at 64 versus 61 in Q4. This reflects our team’s solid execution and our focus on delivering consistent revenue growth alongside high-quality earnings. These results are exciting for multiple reasons. First, they speak to our vertical diversification and our enhanced pricing strategy over the years, whereby the impact of the elevated energy price index on our numbers has been materially reduced. Second, as we have shared in the past, we operate on a two-fiscal-year horizon. Therefore, this outperformance is not just about one quarter. It gives us confidence and additional visibility for the rest of the year, and when combined with our backlog and bookings, we are also feeling good about 2027 visibility. Now on to our business results on Slide 4. We continued our strong momentum in the first quarter with robust bookings and a very substantial pipeline. We also continue to expand and diversify our customer base by signing new clients in several industry verticals, including utilities, insurance, telecommunications, government agencies, property management, consumer finance, banking, education, and health care. Complementing this, we signed channel partners in the education and telecommunications verticals. Onboarding our substantial backlog remains a priority for us, and our team continues to demonstrate solid execution. We also saw better-than-expected seasonal performance in the first quarter, largely from the large cohort of new customers that we added in the second half of last year. In addition, during the first quarter, we onboarded clients throughout multiple verticals, including utilities, consumer finance, government agencies, telecommunications, banking, insurance, and education. With that, I will turn it over to Sanjay to review our financial results in more detail. Thanks, Sanjay. Sanjay Kalra: Thank you, Dushyant, and thank you all for joining us today. Before I discuss our first quarter results and outlook, I would like to remind everyone that the financial results I will be referring to include non-GAAP financial measures. Our Q1 press release and earnings presentation include reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to their corresponding GAAP measures. Both are available on our website. Turning to Slide 5, we delivered a strong start to the year with first quarter results that came in much stronger than we had anticipated, driven by higher transaction activity from both new and existing billers. This helped drive strong double-digit growth for revenue, contribution profit, and adjusted EBITDA. Combined with our strong bookings, sizable backlog, and strong pipeline at quarter-end, this supports our positive outlook for 2026. Our first quarter 2026 results included revenue of $358.4 million, contribution profit of $109.7 million, and adjusted EBITDA of $42.4 million. On a Rule of 40 basis, we came in at 64, which we consider a solid result and a record for the company. We are encouraged by this achievement, especially given the macro backdrop we are operating in. We also saw a sequential acceleration in the year-over-year growth rate for the number of transactions, revenue, and contribution profit despite tough year-over-year comps and a challenging macroeconomic environment. Moreover, the sequential growth rate we saw for all three of these metrics in Q1 was greater than the sequential growth rate we saw during the same period last year. Simply put, both our annual and sequential growth rates accelerated in Q1 2026, boosting our confidence for the full-year 2026 outlook. These strong results also enabled us to once again exit the quarter with a much stronger cash position and gave us the flexibility to allocate capital with a continued focus on longer-term growth, which also contributed to robust bookings. Now let us review our first quarter financials in more detail. As I mentioned earlier, first quarter 2026 revenue was $358.4 million, up 30.2% year over year. This growth was largely driven by the launch of new billers over the past year, as well as increased same-store sales from existing billers. We also processed a higher number of transactions during the first quarter, reaching 203.4 million, up 17.4% year over year. Our average revenue per transaction increased by approximately 11% to $1.76 in the first quarter compared to $1.59 in the prior-year period, continuing a robust trend of double-digit annual growth in revenue per transaction over the past seven quarters. This was mainly due to the biller mix, or more specifically, the large enterprise billers that we launched during 2025 with higher average payment amounts. The first quarter guidance we previously provided did consider some of the anticipated upside from large enterprise accounts, but as you can see, results still exceeded our expectations. First quarter 2026 contribution profit increased to $109.7 million, up 25.2% year over year. This increase reflected the launch of new billers and higher transactions from existing billers. Contribution margin was 30.6% for the first quarter, compared to 31.8% in the prior-year period. The year-over-year reduction reflects the increased mix of large, high-volume enterprise billers in our growing customer base. This change in contribution margin was largely offset by a year-over-year reduction in operating expense margin, which resulted in a record adjusted EBITDA margin of 38.7%. This is consistent with our continued focus on profitability. Contribution profit per transaction for the quarter was $0.54, an improvement from $0.51 in the prior-year period, demonstrating our ability to expand market share without sacrificing comparable contribution profit per transaction. As we have noted before, variables that are outside of our control, such as an increase in average payment amount or changes in the payment mix, can affect contribution profit on a quarter-to-quarter basis. Therefore, we treat this as a secondary metric, while our gross revenue and adjusted EBITDA remain primary metrics for us. First quarter 2026 adjusted gross profit was $92.4 million, up 27.3% year over year and ahead of our contribution profit growth rate as we achieve operational economies of scale. As we anticipated, first quarter 2026 non-GAAP operating expenses increased 16.3% year over year to $53.0 million. This increase was primarily due to higher sales and marketing expenses. You may notice our OpEx year-over-year growth rate increased this past quarter. This is a positive leading indicator for our business, as it means we are aggressively converting our substantial pipeline to bookings. We expect to make similar investments throughout the year as we continue to execute our go-to-market strategy, calibrate operating expenses with contribution profit expansion, and deploy our growing cash balance to support further organic growth. These expectations are already incorporated into our guidance, which I will review shortly. First quarter 2026 non-GAAP net income was $26.9 million, or $0.21 per share, compared to non-GAAP net income of $17.6 million, or $0.14 per share, in the prior-year period, reflecting an annual EPS growth rate of 50%. This EPS incorporates a non-GAAP tax rate of 25%, which is based on our current expectation of our long-term projected tax rate and is reflected in our 2026 guidance. First quarter 2026 adjusted EBITDA increased 41.5% to $42.4 million, compared to $30.0 million in the prior-year period. Adjusted EBITDA also represented a record 38.7% of contribution profit, an annual improvement of 450 basis points compared to 34.2% in the prior-year period. Our incremental adjusted EBITDA margin was approximately 56%. Related to this, once again we exceeded the Rule of 40 for the quarter, coming in at 64, a record. Now I will discuss our balance sheet and liquidity position on Slide 6. We ended the first quarter with total cash and cash equivalents of $342.1 million, compared to $324.5 million at the end of 2025. The $17.6 million sequential increase was primarily comprised of $30.5 million of cash generated from operations, partially offset by $9.4 million used in investing activities, primarily for capitalized software, and $3.3 million spent in net settlement of employee RSUs. The company does not have any debt. Free cash flow generated during the quarter was $20.9 million. This was primarily driven by strong adjusted EBITDA, offset by investments in working capital, primarily in accounts receivable. Driving organic growth continues to be our primary focus. That said, our strong cash position enables us to maintain financial flexibility to keep room for working capital investments as we scale. In addition, our ample liquidity allows us to explore attractive M&A opportunities that may arise in order to expand our growth prospects. Our days sales outstanding at the end of the first quarter was 29, comparable to 28 days at the end of the prior quarter and much better than our expected range. Working capital at the end of the first quarter was $365.4 million, an increase of approximately 6.7% sequentially. We had 129.3 million diluted shares outstanding during the first quarter, pretty much comparable to the prior quarter. Now I will turn to Slide 7 to discuss our second quarter and full-year 2026 raised guidance for revenue, contribution profit, and adjusted EBITDA. Before discussing full-year guidance, I want to mention that we are continuing to follow the same prudent approach to guidance that we have followed for the past three years, which has proven to be successful for us. For Q2 2026, we expect revenue in the range of $340 million to $350 million, contribution profit in the range of $108 million to $111 million, and adjusted EBITDA in the range of $38 million to $40 million. On a Rule of 40 basis for 2026, our guidance implies a range of 51 to 55. For the full year 2026, we now expect revenue in the range of $1.425 billion to $1.440 billion, an increase of 2.3% from the midpoint of our previous guidance. This guidance now represents 19.7% annual growth at the midpoint and 20.4% annual growth at the high end. Contribution profit in the range of $450 million to $457 million, up 1.5% from the midpoint of our previous guidance and now representing 17.4% annual growth at the midpoint and 18.3% annual growth at the high end. Adjusted EBITDA in the range of $165 million to $172 million, up 4% from the midpoint of our previous guidance and now representing 22.6% annual growth at the midpoint and 25.2% annual growth at the high end, and a non-GAAP tax rate of 25%. On a Rule of 40 basis, our guidance implies a range of 53 to 56 for the full year 2026. During our past few earnings calls, we provided long-term growth targets for both revenue and adjusted EBITDA—our two primary financial metrics. We stated that our goal was to grow revenue at approximately 20% and grow adjusted EBITDA between 20% and 30%. The full-year updated 2026 guidance range we have provided today reflects the expected achievement of these long-term targets. In summary, we are very pleased with our strong start to 2026, reflecting the continued momentum we have shown across the past several quarters. During this time, we have consistently demonstrated our ability to generate profitable growth. This enabled us to end the first quarter with a substantial backlog and pipeline. Given our solid footing and strong visibility, we continue to believe we are well-positioned for further growth in 2026 and beyond. Thank you for your attention. I will now turn it back to Dushyant for final remarks before we open up the call for questions. Dushyant Sharma: Thanks, Sanjay. After seeing the impact of our state-of-the-art platform and ecosystem on the broader service economy, we find ourselves at an exciting juncture similar to what we experienced at our inception. As we look at the economy broadly, we realized that almost all investments in commerce have gone toward product or retail commerce, with a focus on how to sell more to customers and have them check out quickly. This product commerce paradigm is also retrofitted in service commerce, which at its core is not transactional but instead relational. This mismatched paradigm has led service commerce to lag behind, as enterprises spend millions of dollars on a myriad of mismatched components and tools. At Paymentus Holdings, Inc., we realized that to truly solve the issue, we needed to bring about a paradigm shift with a full-stack, purpose-built, AI-native platform with service-native components. Even before our IPO, employing our proactive thinking, we wanted to make sure that we not only built a platform with full-stack components, but also incorporated AI, which we knew would become mainstream. Additionally, we knew we would need to seek patent protection on all major components, thereby creating a long-term moat and ecosystem. In line with that, today we announced that we are establishing a new category—AI-native service commerce—where every service interaction becomes intelligent, secure, and outcome-driven. As you can see from Slide 9, there are three key gaps in service commerce. First, there is no native payment method that preserves the service provider–customer relationship and identity. Second, static service and transactional documents must become intelligent and interactive. Third, there is a lack of intelligent orchestration across fragmented systems. To address these three pain points, as you can see on Slide 10, we have created a new paradigm called Billio that has four key components, all of which have been patented. First is Bill Wallet, a purpose-built digital wallet designed specifically for bill and service payments. Unlike traditional retail wallets that store cards for one-time purchases, Bill Wallet establishes a persistent, secure relationship identity between the customer and service provider, linking accounts, service relationships, and payment credentials into a unified layer. Bill Wallet is designed to reduce time to complete a payment by approximately 75% and to work across all dimensions—agentic, digital, social, physical, and vocal. Second, Billio transforms static bills, invoices, and statements into intelligent, interactive experiences. Billio enables consumers to understand charges, resolve issues, and take actions directly within the document itself. Third, AI 360 is an AI-based integration, orchestration, and data intelligence framework that powers both Billio and Bill Wallet and enables systems to automatically interpret, connect, and operate across disparate data sources. AI 360 also provides data visualization and business intelligence capabilities, replacing third-party BI tools. Fourth, all interactions are secured through Paymentus Holdings, Inc.’s patented PCI-compliant secure service framework, which we believe will ensure end-to-end protection, trust, and compliance across every service interaction and payment flow. Putting this in context, in the past we have mentioned the opportunity to monetize interchange in the outer years. By design, the interchange cost we incur today is big and getting bigger as we scale. To us, that represents an incremental, untapped TAM. Additionally, with the advent of generative and agentic AI, the industry is predictably moving in our direction and has opened up opportunities far beyond payments with our existing and prospective clients and users of our platform across all of our current and prospective verticals. Let me discuss both in detail. Bill Wallet is an IPN-native wallet, purpose-built for bill payments and service commerce. As a result of Bill Wallet, a customer visiting their insurance company’s website can complete their premium payment in seconds rather than minutes with their Bill Wallet ID. We believe that Bill Wallet will also significantly improve security and reduce fraud, whether the interaction takes place through an agent, in a self-driven car, via wearable technology, or any other traditional self-service or assistive channels. It is also intended to work well in a physical context. For example, at a government or utility walk-in center, a customer can pay their bill simply by providing the Bill Wallet ID—no card swipe, no manual entry, no POS terminals. This establishes a new paradigm for service commerce, away from the retail commerce paradigm. We believe this will result in a massive improvement in convenience, speed, and security, and also create a more direct link between service providers and their customers. As Bill Wallet scales in the next several years, we also intend for it to include native funding capabilities, enabling us to participate in interchange economics while increasing transaction frequency and depth of engagement for our clients. Bill Wallet works in all aspects of the service economy—B2C and B2B. Let me now discuss early success. As you know, we reported that in December 2025, users on our platform numbered 53 million, which we believe represents approximately 40% of U.S. households and possibly businesses. Out of that customer base, we have made Bill Wallet available to a mere fraction of our end-user base, but across various cities—early 100 thousand users across more than 1 thousand cities—with a very high conversion rate and no marketing spend. Not a single dollar of marketing from Paymentus Holdings, Inc. We believe these results speak to the pervasive nature of our platform, the power of the network effect, and the ease of use—unlocking an additional dimension to the durability and profitability of our longer-term growth algorithm. After seeing this early success, we are getting increasingly excited about exploring how Bill Wallet can be fully rolled out over the next several years. In addition, we recognized years ago that with the advent of AI, service documents like policies, bills, invoices, and other transactional documents such as bank, credit card, loyalty, or mutual fund statements must evolve to become more intelligent. As a result, we patented our technology called Billio that transforms traditional bills, invoices, and statements into AI-powered interactive experiences. With Billio, a utility customer can simply ask, “Why is my water bill higher this month?” Or a customer can interact with any other Bill Wallet and Billio-enabled service provider—such as a plumbing or HVAC service provider—and automatically schedule a visit and pay for it in advance, based on rules set by the user. Or a customer can interact with the Billio-powered mutual fund statement and ask why their portfolio returns are trending lower than the indexes. Billio is designed to answer, resolve, and execute, eliminating friction, driving faster payments, and reducing support costs for billers and other service providers. Billio is also a full-stack service commerce platform, and with the help of Bill Wallet, it has the potential to transform legacy websites into multimodal Billio sites, potentially ending the era of retail paradigm–based old-school portals and replacing them with secure, interactive, and agentic Billio sites. Once a customer is recognized using Bill Wallet, the entire Billio-enabled website is hyper-personalized, and payment can be made—but more importantly, many questions can be asked and answered—whether the interaction is from your car, your personal agent, wearable technology, or any other traditional mainstream channels, such as your computer or mobile phone. These are not just patents, but rather families of patents. All patent families referenced have granted patents in the U.S. and some international jurisdictions, with additional patent applications pending in domestic and many major international markets. As exciting as the depth and breadth of our further expanded moat is with our patent families, we want investors to know that this success is not an accident. We have a carefully crafted business strategy executed over the past several years, emanating from our mindset that the proverbial technological puck will be at a specific place in the future, and we want to take full advantage of it. We believe this strategy will augment our already very strong growth algorithm, further helping Paymentus Holdings, Inc. attain its goal of becoming a multibillion-dollar business and ensuring that our efforts are patent protected so that our customers, our partners, our employees, and of course, our investors are able to enjoy the benefit of their trust in Paymentus Holdings, Inc. That concludes our prepared remarks. We will now open the call for questions. Operator: Thank you. Due to time restraints, we ask that you please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. To ask a question, please press star 11. To withdraw your question, press star 11 again. Our first question will come from the line of Madison Suhr with Raymond James. Your line is open. Madison Suhr: Hey, good afternoon, guys. I wanted to start on the new AI product. I really appreciate all the color around the technology, but was hoping you could also provide a little more detail on the economics. Do you expect any differences in gross or contribution dollars per transaction in the near term? And then longer term, does this open up Paymentus Holdings, Inc. to other revenue opportunities outside of the traditional per-transaction model? Dushyant Sharma: The revenue opportunities, yes—let me start with that—but not necessarily outside the transaction model. As we have shared previously, our pay-per-use and success-based pricing model has withstood the test of time and, in our view, is further validated with the advent of AI as the world moves toward pay-per-use models. Our approach remains the same: we want to offer more to our clients, and as they achieve success in reducing their cost to serve and improving their end-user experience, we participate in those economies and benefit. We plan to remain in a consumption-based model. Our clients love that model. They can clearly understand where the success is, what the success KPIs are, and how Paymentus Holdings, Inc. will get paid. It does open up opportunities. If you think about the paradigm change of the service economy, as we scale over the years to come, Paymentus Holdings, Inc. will not only provide a total service platform; users should be able to do almost anything with it related to their service providers—for example, schedule a service, ask a question like “My hot water heater is not working—can you schedule someone to come in and take a look?”—and that could include a payment transaction as well. In terms of the gross and net, the long-term strategy here is to convert interchange expense into interchange revenue, and we believe Bill Wallet and Billio will play a big role in that. Sanjay Kalra: And if I may just add, Madison, on any near-term impacts: we remain committed to our model—top line to grow approximately 20% annually and bottom line between 20% and 30%. As you have seen from our past performance, we remain committed to deliver this model with operating leverage. In the near term, there should be no significant impacts here, but especially over the longer term, as Dushyant described, we are going to get much better than where we are today. Thank you. Madison Suhr: Awesome—thanks for that. Then, Sanjay, just a quick follow-up on free cash flow. It was down a little bit year over year. I understand the dynamics with working capital, but when do you expect some of that to normalize? And any color you are willing to share on free cash flow expectations for the full year? Sanjay Kalra: Sure, Madison. In Q1, free cash flow is down compared to last year, and that is primarily working capital, as you correctly pointed out. If you look at our accounts receivable balance itself, we put around $15 million into working capital. Last year in Q1, we actually extracted around $19 million to $20 million from working capital. So that swing itself is about $35 million. Apples to apples, if the working capital position was exactly the same, our free cash flow would have been more than $50 million in the quarter. That said, working capital is very timing dependent and, within the year, very much temporary. It could come back either in Q2 or Q3. We are navigating our way to capture the market at a very good pace, and at times customers get implemented later in the quarter versus the beginning, and that creates timing differences, which dissipate over one or two quarters. We feel very good about where the business is progressing. All the working capital is in very good shape. Rather than focusing on free cash flow in isolation, the right way to understand our business—given the pace—is to look at total working capital increasing. As I noted in prepared remarks, working capital is up more than 6% sequentially. Whether it is in cash or accounts receivable, both are very good. In fact, the DSO of 29 days versus 28 days is pretty awesome—much better than our model, which dictates ~32 days. We feel very bullish about free cash flow for the full year. Last year, we generated around $125 million. This year—while we do not guide for cash flow—we are marching on the same path, except for temporary working capital adjustments. We think we are on the same path or better than last year. Operator: One moment for our next question. That will come from the line of Dave Koning with Baird. Your line is open. Dave Koning: Hey, guys. Thanks so much. Great job. My first question: the economics of the wallet. I think it is kind of the Paymentus trifecta—if I load $1 thousand every month, first, you get float revenue. Secondly, I make payments out of that, and you get to keep the debit interchange instead of paying it out, as you mentioned. And then thirdly, I think you would get the nonregulated debit economics because you are not a large issuer. So there are three nice combinations of economics, it seems, in my view. Am I getting that right? Dushyant Sharma: Yes, that is part of the strategy—though not immediate—but that is where we are marching toward. There are other options as well. Bill Wallet is an IP-native instrument, and we will also potentially open it up as a network play. And there are fees coming from our clients for the services we are providing them, with Bill Wallet as part of that. Dave Koning: Great to hear. Then when I look at the cadence of revenue through the year, Q2 typically is up sequentially in contribution profit. This year, you are guiding to flat. Is that related to fuel? And maybe talk a little bit about fuel/energy prices and how that is impacting numbers. Sanjay Kalra: Sure, Dave. There are two pieces here. On Q2 guidance, there is seasonality in the business, as you would have observed from the past few years. Generally, we guide a little lower than Q1 because we do not know how seasonality will play, and the seasonality of government billers affects Q2. Although it could be similar to Q1 revenue or maybe slightly higher as well if all things come in the right path, we have just onboarded a lot of large enterprise customers recently—some in Q1 and some in the second half of last year. We really want to have a full-year history to forecast accurately, so we take a prudent approach. That prudence is why you see modest softness in Q2 compared to Q1, and that flows through to the bottom line as well. Regarding energy prices, delivering 25% contribution profit growth in Q1 when energy prices are in the news daily is telling. As we have captured more of the market over many years, we have seen vertical diversification, and our enhanced pricing strategy has helped reduce the impact of the elevated energy price index on our numbers. Even within utilities, only a small subsector is affected. It has not fully dissipated, but as we have scaled, it has lost relevance and materiality. Our prudent guidance methodology already captures any modest impact. Operator: One moment for our next question. That will come from the line of Analyst with Wedbush Securities. Your line is open. Analyst: Hey, good evening, guys. Congrats on a great quarter. I have two questions. First, more color on the AI-native service commerce platform you launched. You gave a lot of color around the strategy, but can you talk about what is specifically in the pipeline for this product in the year? Is there any inclusion of revenue coming from this cohort in 2026, or is it strictly in 2027 and beyond? And can you talk about the ramp of this AI-driven cohort moving forward? Dushyant Sharma: This will be a transactional model, and our goal remains to capture as many of the transactions for a given customer as possible. It applies to all of our existing and prospective customers. The goal is to build momentum using the patented technology by moving customers away from the retail-commerce paradigm to the service-native paradigm. That will take time because of the installed base. What we are seeing—and expect to continue—is momentum in market capture. If I summarize the strategy into two parallel streams: stream one is evangelize the marketplace with the new paradigm so more customers sign up with Paymentus Holdings, Inc.; stream two, right behind that, is monetize the transactions differently than historically. It was very important to have patent protection on all this. We are not counting anything in 2026 from it, other than continued market momentum. We are feeling good about 2027, given our momentum and bookings. Analyst: Got it. Thank you for the color. And, Sanjay, on the full-year revenue guidance—you basically had a $20 million beat in Q1 but raised the midpoint by about $30 million, implying a stronger back half with strong bookings and backlog. What is holding you back from a larger full-year 2026 raise? Is it conservatism, or onboarding timelines? And similarly on the Rule of 40—about 65% this quarter, guiding to 51% to 55% for the full year—can you break that down? Sanjay Kalra: Since the past three years, we have followed a consistent methodology for guidance, which is dominated by prudence. You answered it in your question—prudence prevails. We remain cautious about what is coming. We want to deliver; we do not want to count chickens before they hatch. The business is very good, the pipeline is encouraging, bookings are strong, and our vertical diversification is healthy. We are bringing in a lot of Fortune 500 companies. We feel very good about 2026 and outer years. Our renewal rates are very strong, and our customer contracts are longer-term, giving us more visibility—now six quarters or so—into 2027 as well. Dushyant Sharma: If I may add, the reason we are prudent is to create long-term shareholder value. You can erode value faster than you can build it by being irresponsible in guidance. We want a smooth road for executing a thoughtful strategy. It takes discipline. It is far easier to pound our chest than to deliver. Our interest is to create long-term shareholder value by having prudent guidance with very aggressive execution behind it, and not create a noisy environment. Operator: One moment for our next question. That will come from the line of Analyst on for Darrin Peller with Wolfe. Your line is open. Analyst: Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question. Quickly on your new products, Billio and Bill Wallet: do these products change who you compete against? Are there any incumbents we should think about? And overall, have you noticed any changes in the credit environment recently? Dushyant Sharma: We are excited about where we are headed. The market is moving in our direction, and it has taken us years to get to this point—not a reaction to a wave of AI press releases. We wanted to create long-term value and a long-term competitive moat for our investors and, more importantly, for our customers. After disrupting the bill payment world—when we started, banks had the majority of payments and are now down significantly, primarily because of the model we championed—we believe trends under pressure accelerate in our favor. You will see more momentum as time goes by, and we have prepared the company for this so our investors, partners, customers, and employees benefit from thoughtful and innovative execution. Analyst: Thanks. One quick follow-up: on go-forward focus verticals, does utilities still remain at the top? Which verticals will contribute most to this new AI-centric model? Dushyant Sharma: Utilities will remain a key vertical for us. It is among the most complex and sophisticated at large scale. We had to be really good to drive more value for utilities and their customers. As noted in our prepared remarks, we are signing customers across all our verticals. Our goal is to go through a household’s and a business’s bills, look at all the bills they have, and start making markets in each of those—then capture more and more transactions in each market using the new service-commerce paradigm powered by Billio. Operator: One moment for our next question. Our next question will come from the line of Tien-Tsin Huang with JPMorgan. Your line is open. Tien-Tsin Huang: Hope you can hear me—I am at the airport here. Good results. On Billio and Bill Wallet, to clarify, will you be managing the Bill Wallet ID, and is the ID distributed through consumer service providers? Subscription payments are important. In an agent world, who would wear the risk? I know that is a big debate on the agent side, and I think subscription payments could be a big part of this. Dushyant Sharma: Our approach is that any technology or service that distances service providers from their own customers will not last. Paymentus Holdings, Inc.’s approach with Bill Wallet—regardless of channel or mode of interaction—allows service providers to have a direct relationship with their end users. That is our goal, and that is what we have built. Unlike traditional retail-centric wallets, billers/service providers set the rules for identity—how they identify and authenticate their own customers. Bill Wallet enables that across channels—intelligent glasses, car interfaces, phone, etc. Tien-Tsin Huang: Understood. So the wearing of the risk band in the agent example—that would be borne by Paymentus Holdings, Inc. given how you described it? Dushyant Sharma: In some ways, yes; in other ways, it would be arranged between us and our clients. Tien-Tsin Huang: Understood. More to talk about—ambitious and makes sense given the network you have built. One quick follow-up: Sanjay, you mentioned seasonal impact in terms of the upside for the quarter. Can you clarify that? What seasonal impact was there, if any, that surprised you? Sanjay Kalra: The impact is modest. On the high end for Q2, our guidance is approximately 2% softer than Q1, primarily because prudence prevails and seasonality of government billers is a part of it. We also need to experience the full-year cycle of new large billers implemented in 2025. These factors in combination are creating small modest softness in Q2 compared to Q1. Operator: One moment for our next question. That will come from the line of Will Nance with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open. Will Nance: Thank you for taking the question. On the wallet product, can you talk about distribution and how to incentivize adoption by consumers over time? How do you think about marketing required to drive adoption given the competitive wallet landscape? Dushyant Sharma: The simplicity and time savings for end customers are compelling. In the small fraction of our base where we launched, conversion rates were high, and we did not spend any marketing dollars. The scale of our platform and ecosystem is already pervasive, and that will play a big role. Our focus is the technological advantage as the key reason to sign up: “I do not want to remember where to log in or how to find information—can I just use my Bill Wallet ID?” That is why patent protection was important. We will also create other incentives within the wallet for repeated use. Will Nance: Appreciate that. And on energy prices—can you remind us what fundamentally changed about the enhanced approach to pricing adopted several years ago? Do contracts automatically reprice with higher average ticket sizes? What mechanism has reduced the exposure within the utilities vertical? And secondarily, how much has the utilities vertical declined as a percentage of total over the last three or four years? Dushyant Sharma: On pricing, you are right that in some cases it is auto-priced—as the average payment amount changes with inflation, our pricing changes with it. We have also moved customers to different pricing models that are favorable to both customers and to us. Previously, we had the ability to change pricing but later in the process; now it is more proactive. In the remaining cohort where there is still some immaterial impact, we have regular meetings with clients to discuss impacts and readjust pricing. We are simply more proactive than before. As for utilities as a percentage of revenue, traditionally it has been higher than 50%, but it is now a little less than 50%—still substantial, but the pricing model evolution means we are not seeing a material impact from energy prices. Only a small subset of utilities is modestly impacted, and overall it is immaterial for us now. Operator: One moment for our next question. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star 11. Our next question will come from the line of Craig Maurer with FBN Partners. Your line is open. Craig Maurer: Hi, thanks for taking the question. What is your take on the acquisition of Kubra by Repay, and how might that change the competitive dynamics in the space? Dushyant Sharma: Kubra has been around for a long period of time—we know Kubra and Repay well. From our perspective, the market has been moving in our direction, and we are excited about that. Customers and prospects know where the innovations are coming from and who is taking the approach seriously. We are very excited about our business and wish competitors the best. Operator: Thank you. I am showing no further questions in the queue at this time. I would now like to turn the call back over to Mr. Sharma for any closing remarks. Dushyant Sharma: Thank you so much, everyone. We really appreciate the opportunity to speak with you. Have a great day. Thank you. Operator: This concludes today’s program. Thank you all for participating. You may now disconnect.
Operator: Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Ichor Holdings, Ltd.'s First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Instructions will be given at that time. As a reminder, this call is being recorded. I would now like to introduce your host for today's conference, Claire E. McAdams, Investor Relations for Ichor Holdings, Ltd. Please go ahead. Claire E. McAdams: Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining today's First Quarter 2026 conference call. As you read our earnings press release and as you listen to this conference call, please recognize that both contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond our control and which could cause actual results to differ materially from such statements. These risks and uncertainties include those spelled out in our earnings press release, those described in our annual report on Form 10-K for fiscal year 2025 and those described in subsequent filings with the SEC. You should consider all forward-looking statements in light of those and other risks and uncertainties. Additionally, we will be providing certain non-GAAP financial measures during this conference call. Our earnings press release and the financial supplement posted to our IR website each provide a reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures to their most comparable GAAP financial measures. On the call with me today are Philip Barros, our CEO, and Gregory F. Swyt, our CFO. Phil will begin with an update on our business, and then Greg will provide additional details about our results and guidance. After the prepared remarks, we will open the line for questions. I will now turn the call over to Philip Barros. Phil? Philip Barros: Thank you, Claire, and welcome, everyone, to our Q1 earnings call. Just a few months into a multiyear growth cycle, and we are already delivering upside to our outlook and demonstrating strong earnings leverage. Q1 revenues of $256 million came in at the upper end of our expectations, up 15% from Q4. Gross margins of 12.8% also approached the high end of our guidance, enabling us to more than triple our operating income versus Q4 and deliver our highest earnings per share in three years. The early investments we made in ramping labor headcount and prepositioning inventory are paying off. These are enabling Ichor Holdings, Ltd. to deliver strong execution for our customers to achieve growth towards the high end of our demand forecast. Demand across our core markets has further strengthened since our last earnings call. Our visibility now extends deeper into 2026. Within this very robust demand environment, we expect Ichor Holdings, Ltd. to be a top performer both in terms of growth and earnings leverage. Our Q2 forecast now reflects unconstrained demand exceeding $300 million. This is one of the steepest ramps witnessed in Ichor Holdings, Ltd.'s history, representing growth well over 30% in just two quarters. Not only that, but with stronger visibility since our last earnings call, we continue to expect every quarter in 2026 will be a growth quarter for Ichor Holdings, Ltd. We entered the year with increased momentum and a clear strategy. Our higher confidence today reflects Ichor Holdings, Ltd.'s critical role within the WFE industry and strong progress towards our strategic objectives. The technology transitions and strategic capacity expansions underway, largely in support of AI hyperscaling, favor etch and deposition applications, which favors Ichor Holdings, Ltd. A great example of this is the 30% increase in the number of process steps required to produce leading edge logic with gate-all-around architectures. Increased investments in gate-all-around technology are significant tailwinds for Ichor Holdings, Ltd.'s growth. Our objective is to gain share through this cycle and the steps we have taken to preposition inventory and ramp labor headcount will allow us to continue to perform for our customers, and this is how we will win. Turning to an update on our strategic initiatives we introduced last quarter. Q2 is shaping up to be a major step forward in our global footprint realignment. As a reminder, this initiative is aimed at driving three primary benefits. First, we are structurally eliminating the margin challenges we faced previously in order to drive stronger cross-cycle performance and greater predictability in our business. Second, we are enabling more efficient, scalable, high-volume manufacturing of our Ichor Holdings, Ltd.-branded products, which will get us to our cost targets for these components. Third, by driving a higher level of Ichor Holdings, Ltd. content within the systems we build, we will deliver significant improvements in gross margin flow-through and earnings leverage as revenues ramp. We have made strong progress, and I am proud of the team, especially given the scale of the ramp we are operating in. Just a few months into the year, and we have already installed and qualified half of the plant equipment moves, which is ahead of schedule. We are now performing all manufacturing steps for a substrate product line within the same four walls within Mexico. These are the types of efficiency gains that will structurally improve our product margins and drive higher gross margin flow-through within the gas panel manufacturing business. In our valve product line, in Q1, we achieved full customer qualification to manufacture in Mexico. This significantly expands our capacity for this product line, enabling us to source internally and cut our dependence on outside suppliers. We will continue to ramp up capacity through Q2 and expect to be at full production as we exit the quarter. The success and speed of both the moves and qualifications gives us the confidence to reinitiate valve qualifications at one of our major customers, which we had placed on hold due to capacity constraints. As we exit Q2, we will begin to see the gross margin impacts of our footprint realignment, with these moves enabling increased levels of proprietary Ichor Holdings, Ltd. content in the gas panels we make. As we move through the remainder of the year, we will be ramping Malaysia, which will drive a richer mix of machining revenues. Driving higher volumes of machining revenues and completing cost reduction in our footprint realignment are the final two steps in achieving our near-term gross margin targets of at least 15%. As a reminder, while we complete the ramp up of Mexico, we are temporarily increasing external supply to ensure strong, consistent delivery in our integration business. Taking all of this into account, today, we are guiding Q2 revenues of approximately $300 million, plus or minus $10 million, and sequential improvement in gross margin from Q1 to an expected range of 13% to 14%. Beyond Q2, we continue to expect approximately 100 basis points per quarter in gross margin expansion as we complete our transitions into the second half. This level of gross margin expansion continues to support our expectation that gross profit dollars will grow around twice the rate of revenues as we move through the second half. To close, we have made significant progress on our strategic initiatives, and all within a backdrop of rapidly growing demand. We remain confident that Ichor Holdings, Ltd. is well positioned to capitalize on the ramp and deliver strong earnings leverage through this cycle. With that, I will now hand it off to Greg. Gregory F. Swyt: Thanks, Phil. Before I begin, I would like to emphasize that the P&L metrics discussed today are non-GAAP measures. These measures exclude the impact of share-based compensation, amortization of acquired intangible assets, nonrecurring charges, and discrete tax items and adjustments. There is a useful financial supplement available on the investor section of our website that summarizes our GAAP and non-GAAP financial results, as well as a summary of the balance sheet and cash flow information for the last several quarters. First quarter revenues of $256.1 million came in at the upper end of our guidance range, up 15% sequentially, reflecting continued demand momentum and strong execution as volumes ramped through the quarter. Gross margin increased to 12.8%, up 110 basis points sequentially and 30 basis points above the midpoint of guidance, driven primarily by incremental factory leverage on the higher revenue levels in our integration business. Operating expenses in the quarter were aligned with our forecast at $24.1 million. As a result, operating income for Q1 more than tripled compared to Q4, to $8.7 million or 3.4% of revenue, demonstrating meaningful operating leverage as volumes ramped. With both interest and tax aligned with expectations, earnings for the quarter were near the high end of guidance at $0.15 per diluted share based on 35.3 million diluted shares outstanding. Positive cash flow generation from the P&L increased significantly in the quarter, with EBITDA of nearly $14 million. In the early stages of what we expect will be a sustained multiyear ramp, we are making incremental investments in inventory in support of our customers. As a result, cash from operations was a use of $2.9 million. Capital expenditures for the quarter were $7.1 million. We are managing our CapEx investments towards approximately 3% of revenue, so we would expect this CapEx level to trend up modestly as we move into the second half of the year. Which brings us to the balance sheet. Given our current levels of investments in inventory and CapEx, cash and equivalents totaled $89.1 million at the end of the quarter, a decrease of $9.2 million from Q4. DSOs increased modestly to 33 days, and inventory turns improved to 3.7, reflecting improved throughput as volumes increased. Total debt at quarter end was $122 million and our net debt coverage ratio stands at 1.6. Now turning to our guidance for 2026. As Phil mentioned, we are anticipating a steeper revenue ramp for Q2 compared to our expectations a quarter ago. We anticipate revenues in the range of $290 million to $310 million, which at the midpoint represents sequential growth of 17% and a year-over-year increase in revenue volumes of 25%. Our gross margin guidance for Q2 is a range of 13% to 14%, and as Phil noted earlier, we continue to expect gross margin improvement of 100 basis points per quarter through 2026. Our guidance for operating expenses this year is largely unchanged from last quarter. We continue to drive disciplined cost management across the organization in support of higher revenue volumes, and we are managing to a target of only 5% to 6% OpEx growth for the full year. This reflects a relatively consistent run rate of approximately $25 million beginning in Q2, slightly up from Q1's level as a result of higher variable compensation forecast on the improved outlook for the year. The midpoint of our guidance for revenues, gross margin, and operating expenses in the current quarter indicate the highest level of operating income reported since fiscal 2022 and an increase of nearly 80% from Q1, reinforcing the strong earnings leverage expected as we continue to ramp revenues. Our expectations for interest and tax this year are unchanged since last quarter. We anticipate approximately $2 million per quarter in total interest and other income and expense, and our assumed effective tax rate continues to be in the range of 20% to 25%. Finally, our EPS range for Q2 of $0.25 to $0.35 reflects our expectation for a diluted share count of 35.5 million shares. In summary, Q1 reflects improving profitability, strong operating leverage, and disciplined cost control as volumes accelerate, and we believe we are well positioned for continued progress through the remainder of 2026. Operator, we are now ready for questions. Please open the line. Operator: We will now open the call for questions. Thank you. We will now be conducting a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, you may press star 2 if you would like to remove your question from the queue. The first question is from Brian Edward Chin from Stifel. Please go ahead. Brian Edward Chin: Hi there. Good afternoon. Thanks for letting us ask a couple of questions. First question, impressive job in terms of the sequential growth in Q1 and then the outlook. You maintain sort of mid to high teens sequential ramp at this point. Phil, maybe can you walk us through some of the puts and takes in the second half of the year in terms of ramping Malaysia, in terms of product mix, and how that distills down to what level you can sustain sequential growth into the back half of the year? Philip Barros: Yeah. If you follow our customers, they are forecasting, say, a 25% growth year-on-year. We are going to project that at this point in terms of how much we think we are going to grow for 2026 over 2025. What I would say is at this point last quarter, I would have guided [inaudible] for Q2, and now we are guiding $290 million to $310 million. So as you can imagine, we are seeing a lot of growth, a lot of movement, and a lot of puts and takes, if you will. We are seeing a lot of movement in our forecast, and I would say my visibility today is stronger than it was a quarter ago, and it will be stronger, I believe, a quarter from now than it is today. Brian Edward Chin: Great, that is helpful. Then thinking about the gross margin progression in the back half of the year, when you think about the 100 basis points in Q3 and 100 basis points in Q4, can you walk through how much of that is volume-related and how much is mix inclusive of increased vertical content? Philip Barros: In terms of percentages, I would say, in general, think of our gross margin growth as coming from events as much as from volume. I talked about the global footprint realignment. That is a big driver of our cost savings as well as our margin accretion as we move through the year. So I would say they are pretty close to equally weighted in terms of gross margin impact. Volume leverage is about 50% of it, and our cost reductions are about 50% of it. Operator: The next question is from Craig Andrew Ellis from B. Riley Securities. Please go ahead. Craig Andrew Ellis: Yes, thanks for taking the questions, and congratulations on the good results and guidance. Phil, I wanted to start with more of a qualitative question on where Brian left off. So it was the beginning of the year when you outlined a four-point plan to really drive much better gross margins to 15%, and it sure seems like the business is solidly on track for that. But can you talk about how happy you are with where you see the business executing in the different company-controllable areas that you are focused on? Where are you happier, and where do you need to get better performance to be really confident in that 100 basis points per quarter in the back half of the year? Philip Barros: I would say that, in general, I am very happy with the progress the team is making. We are on track, if not ahead of schedule, in most of the initiatives. That is tough to do in this type of environment, obviously, as we are ramping up revenues at the same time as doing a strategic transformation. It is very impressive for me to see the team really execute at this level. If you looked at where I had risk in terms of the transformation in the Q1 time frame, it was getting customer qualifications in Mexico, and it was getting e-beam welding up and running in Mexico. Both of those are behind us. So I am in a much more confident position than I would have said about a quarter ago. Craig Andrew Ellis: That is really helpful. And then just looking ahead to what sounds like a really strong view for the second half of the year, and I think most everybody is really constructive for robust calendar 2027 year-on-year growth. Can you talk about your comfort with capacity upside beyond the level that you are guiding to in the second quarter so we can get comfortable that as demand continues to improve, Ichor Holdings, Ltd. is going to be able to meet that demand? Philip Barros: I would say that the two major drivers or pacers for our output right now would be supply chain, number one, and labor headcount, number two. We are well positioned brick-and-mortar-wise and clean room-wise and infrastructure-wise, which to me are the long-lead items. From a supply chain standpoint, we have boots on the ground; there are always multiple suppliers that pop up in these types of ramp periods. We have boots on the ground as well as increased inventory levels in certain areas where we saw risk, so I feel pretty good about that. In terms of ramping up headcount, we are well along the path. I feel very good about where we are in terms of headcount as well. In terms of brick and mortar, headroom, and room for us to grow, we could more than double what we did last year. I am not worried there. Once again, it is going to be headcount and supply chain that will pace us going forward. Thank you. Operator: The next question is from Christian David Schwab from Craig-Hallum Capital Group. Please go ahead. Christian David Schwab: Great, thanks for taking my question. Just a follow-up on that last statement. In aggregate, do you believe that you have the potential, if the end-market demand remains robust as expected in a multiyear basis, to have roughly $1.8 billion to $2 billion in revenue capacity on a yearly basis given your global realignment in manufacturing? Did I hear that correctly? And congrats on the gross margin progression expected throughout the course of the year. As you increase your branded or vertically integrated products into your end boxes, do you have yet an aspirational goal of where you would like to end gross margins at the end of 2027? And lastly, after such a very strong start in the first half of the year, with 17% sequential growth guidance at the midpoint from March to June, would you expect double-digit sequential growth as we go forward, or would you assume that could potentially be more high single digit? Philip Barros: From a brick-and-mortar and fixtures-and-equipment standpoint, we have some areas where we need to make investments. There is some equipment in the second half of the year that we are going to be positioning to grow to those types of levels, but the long-lead items like clean room, overhead, building space, brick and mortar—we are in a very good position there, especially with our new facility in Malaysia that we turned on last quarter. We have not drawn out the model to the end of 2027 at this point. It is a little bit early to do that. As we enter 2026, it is a little early to guide 2027 because a lot of that is going to be volume-driven as you know. I do expect 2027 to be a growth year, but even with that, I am going to be a little bit shy on guiding 2027 at this point. We could see double-digit growth in the second half in total. At this point, it is going to be our supply chain that is really going to gate us in terms of revenue growth. I am a little bit cautious on the second half until we have good visibility there. But we are executing really well. That is why we are seeing a very big pickup in Q2. We are not leaving a lot of revenue behind; we are not rolling a lot of revenue from quarter to quarter. That is going to show a growth profile that kind of leads our customers because we deliver before our customers receive. Operator: The next question is from Charles Shi from Needham & Company. Please go ahead. Charles Shi: Hi, thanks for taking my question, Phil and Greg. First, congrats on the very strong Q2 guide. A lot of people are going to ask you what your max capacity is right now. I think you previously mentioned potentially getting to 20% gross margin at $400 million per quarter. To me, that implies maybe $1.6 billion capacity. I do not know if you need incremental CapEx to get to that, but what is the thought on getting beyond $1.6 billion capacity? What would be the next milestone, and how much CapEx do you think you are going to need? And is it fair to say that to get to $1.6 billion, the capacity is already in place, and it is more about above $2 billion that you are going to need more equipment? Philip Barros: Let me be clear that we believe we have enough brick-and-mortar capacity today to go well above $22 billion. After that, it becomes very driven by equipment. If you look at the Ichor Holdings, Ltd.-branded products, there is a lot of equipment required to build those. That would be the one area where we would need to invest CapEx. That is what we have alluded to when we said it is going to be second-half CapEx heavy. That is coming in as we fill out the machining capability within Malaysia. But as Greg talked about during his prepared remarks, we are really driving towards about 3% of revenue CapEx. Gregory F. Swyt: For this year? For this year. Philip Barros: In order to keep the 35% to 75% Ichor Holdings, Ltd.-branded content within a $1.6 billion run rate, we need a little more equipment. From a brick and mortar, overhead, and clean room perspective, we are well positioned for that to be around $2 billion. Charles Shi: Got it. May I ask about the demand signal? When you talk about Q2, you are talking about unconstrained demand already above $300 million. What kind of visibility do you have right now? How much are hard commits already from your customers? How many quarters can you see that, and where do you see the end of your visibility as we speak right now? Philip Barros: I always say that we have good visibility for about six months. We have hard PO coverage for about a full quarter and about six months of great visibility. Our customers give us soft guidance past that. Right now, as they have signaled to you, they are signaling growth into 2027. So we are preparing ourselves to capitalize on that growth into 2027. Charles Shi: Last question from me. I noticed from the financial supplement the revenue from Europe was a little bit light in the quarter. With that data point, what is the latest you see on the lithography side of the business, and what is the expectation this year in terms of growth? Philip Barros: Etch and dep are growing faster; they are kind of leading the league right now, so they are ahead of the litho business. We talked last quarter about how our customer has some level of inventory they need to burn through. We do see them burning through that inventory in Q3. We start to see a pickup in the fourth quarter. So it is a little bit of a headwind in Q3 and a tailwind in Q4. That is more about the level of inventory they are holding versus anything to do with their business in particular. Operator: Next question is from Krish Sankar from TD Cowen. Please go ahead. Robert Mertens: Hi, this is Rob Mertens on the line for Krish. Thanks for taking my questions and congrats on the strong quarter and guidance. First, I will piggyback on Charles’ question and ask if there are any changes in your view in terms of silicon carbide demand or from aerospace and defense customers compared to a quarter ago. And then, on the strength you are seeing from your largest customers, you mentioned visibility has improved and that sales should grow sequentially through the back half of the year. Would you expect the mix to shift toward more of your high-margin components and in-sourced products through the back half, or could there be some near-term impact due to the high growth of the gas panels this year? Philip Barros: Aerospace and defense are growing very well. Unfortunately, conflicts drive increased need for defense spending, so we are seeing some impacts of that. Our commercial space business is also growing. A lot of the R&D work that we were doing for that commercial space business is now converting into hard POs, so we are seeing strong growth through this quarter. Silicon carbide is pretty light; we are not seeing a major return in that as we speak today. It has been steadily down since last year. Regarding mix, the reason we will see growth in gross margin sequentially from quarter to quarter is that we are going to be able to ramp up and fulfill more of our own internal sourced parts, a higher percentage of those. As we move into the second half of the year, I expect to fulfill more of our Ichor Holdings, Ltd.-branded products within the gas boxes that we build. That will be a good tailwind as we get into the second half of the year. That is predicated on ramping up our global footprint realignment and what we are doing in Mexico and Malaysia, which we expect to be fully running in the second half of the year. Operator: The next question is from Edward Yang from Oppenheimer. Please go ahead. Edward Yang: Phil, thanks for the time. The first question is more of a clarification. Did you say that you expect 2026 year-over-year revenue growth of 25%? If that is the case, that would imply a bit less than double-digit growth in the second half, but just wanted to clarify that. And given that the industry is supply constrained, are you pretty much set in terms of your 2026 growth outlook, or are there still bottlenecking opportunities that could provide you revenue upside? And finally, on your innovation pipeline, could you speak to any new product or module wins beyond upcycle opportunities? Philip Barros: We are definitely looking at double-digit sequential growth in the second half of the year for sure. There are definitely bottlenecking opportunities that can give us revenue upside. We are seeing some constraints and some noise in the supply chain as we move from Q1 into Q2, but we have a good handle on it. We are well positioned in terms of inventory in order for us to execute, and we have been executing at a high level for our customers. On innovation, we are making great progress in flow control. A ramp like this is the perfect opportunity to get qualified. Some of the constraints we are running into happen to be in the flow control space. There is an open window for us to capture share, and we need to be ready and available for that window of opportunity. Operator: There are no further questions at this time. I would like to turn the floor back over to Philip Barros for closing comments. Philip Barros: Thank you, operator, and thank you, everyone, for joining our call today. I want to once again thank our employees who are taking on this ramp and the strategic transformation all at the same time, executing at a very high level. I have complete faith in the team's ability to execute and could not be more proud to be leading this team along this journey. You can feel the momentum and the energy within Ichor Holdings, Ltd. I look forward to our next update on our Q2 call in August. In the meantime, please reach out to Claire to arrange any follow-up requests for meetings. Operator, you may conclude the call. Operator: Thank you. This concludes today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.
Operator: Thank you for standing by. My name is Angela, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Sonos, Inc. second quarter fiscal 2026 conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number 1 on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star 1 again. Thank you. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. James Baglanis, head of corporate finance. You may begin. James Baglanis: Good afternoon, and welcome to Sonos, Inc.'s second quarter fiscal 2026 earnings conference call. I am James Baglanis, and with me today are Sonos, Inc.'s CEO, Tom Conrad, CFO, Saori Casey, and chief legal officer, Eddie Lazarus. Before I hand it over to Tom, I would like to remind everyone that today's discussion will include forward-looking statements regarding future events and our future financial performance. These statements reflect our views as of today only and should not be considered as our views of any subsequent date. These statements are also subject to material risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the expectations in the forward-looking statements. A discussion of these risk factors is fully detailed under the caption Risk Factors in our filings with the SEC. During this call, we will also refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. For information regarding our non-GAAP financials, and a reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP measures, please refer to today's press release regarding our second quarter fiscal 2026 results posted to the investor relations portion of our website, investors.sonos.com. After the call concludes, we will upload our revised supplemental earnings presentation, including our guidance, as well as the conference call transcript to the IR website. I will now turn the call over to Tom. Tom Conrad: Good afternoon, everyone, and thanks for joining us. At the start of fiscal 2026, we said we expected to return Sonos, Inc. to growth this year. Through the first half, that is exactly what we have done. We delivered $282 million of revenue in Q2, up about 8% year over year and near the top end of our guidance range. Gross profit dollars grew double digits on a GAAP basis and adjusted EBITDA came in above the midpoint of our range. Saori will take you through the details in a moment. These are strong quarterly results; what matters more is the broader picture. Across the first half and now looking into the second, we have changed the trajectory of the business. After a challenging period, Sonos, Inc. is beginning to grow again, and we are seeing our progress show up across the company. First half revenue was up 2% and adjusted EBITDA improved meaningfully year over year. At the center of that progress is a simple idea: The Sonos, Inc. system is the product. Each device we add and each improvement we make increases the value of the whole system, compounding over time as customers expand across rooms and use cases. That system-level value and the way it builds over time is what differentiates us in the category. On our Q1 call, I outlined five dimensions we are focused on to drive durable growth: product innovation, customer advocacy, more intentional marketing, geo expansion, and tapping emerging demand trends. Together, these form the engine that drives both new household growth and expansion within our installed base. We are starting to see the results of that work in the business. The product pipeline is delivering, growth markets are performing well, and the system is more reliable than it has been in years. This is helping restore customer advocacy. Taken together, this has new customers entering and existing customers expanding into the system. I want to spend a moment on our newest product, Sonos Play. It launched just as the quarter closed, so its contribution to Q2 was de minimis. But the early reviews tell us something important about where we are as a company. Gizmodo called it a comeback. The Wall Street Journal described it as the Goldilocks speaker. The Verge called it a great way into the Sonos, Inc. world. Bloomberg said, back on track. Reviewers around the world agree: crisp and beautiful sound, unmatched versatility, beautiful craftsmanship. In short, Sonos, Inc. doing what Sonos, Inc. does best. These glowing reviews were written independently across a host of markets and geographies as the launch embargo lifted. This remarkable consistency reflects both the quality of the product and the clarity of the story around it. Over the past year, the product team has rebuilt the foundation and now Colleen and our marketing teams are sharpening how we show up as a system. And you can see that work landing here. If you step back, Play illustrates three of our five growth dimensions working in concert. First, product innovation. This is differentiated hardware and software designed not as a standalone object but as an entry point into the system and a reason to expand it. Second, marketing. The consistency of the global press narrative reflects a clearer and more coherent system story. And third, customer advocacy. When reviewers start using words like comeback and back on track, that shift in tone is consistent with improving customer sentiment and the progress we have been making. Aero 100 SL, which launched alongside Play, nicely complements the work Play is doing for us. With a simplified design and a $189 price point, it lowers the barrier to entry for the Sonos, Inc. system. We have already seen that pricing changes on Era 100 have driven new customer growth over multiple quarters and Era 100 SL should build directly on that momentum. We have more than 53 million connected devices across more than 17 million homes. As we have described before, the opportunity within that base is substantial; moving from roughly 4.5 devices per multiproduct household to 6 represents about $5 billion in incremental revenue before even considering new household growth. Converting single product households adds another $7 billion. We continue to see behaviors that underpin our model. Customers are entering through accessible products and expanding across rooms and use cases over time, and now we have two new ways to enter the Sonos, Inc. system and more reasons for existing customers to expand inside and outside their homes. Turning to our operations, I want to take a moment to introduce a meaningful addition to our leadership team. Frank Barbieri is joining Sonos, Inc. as Chief Operating Officer. Frank brings over 25 years of experience building and scaling consumer businesses, most recently leading Walmart's omnichannel consumer content, media, and gaming operations across both stores and ecommerce—one of the largest entertainment portfolios in U.S. retail. I have known Frank for nearly 20 years, and his combination of commercial depth, operational discipline, and genuine passion for consumer products makes him exactly the right person to join our team. As COO, Frank will take responsibility for partnerships, direct consumer relationships across DTC, CRM, and customer experience, as well as revenue systems and IT. This is a meaningful concentration of operational capability under an experienced leader, and I expect it to show up in how we execute against the growth agenda I have been describing. All in all, we are carrying real momentum into the second half. Play has launched to strong early reception. Aero 100 SL looks to be the right product for a moment when many potential customers are focused on value. We have AMP Multi coming this fall as a much-anticipated product for our professional installer channel. More broadly, our pipeline remains healthy across not just hardware, but also software, with a continued focus on deepening the system experience. In our growth markets, which I noted as a fourth important lever for our business, we have now seen multiple consecutive quarters of strong performance. Sonos, Inc. Play's warm reception by international press reinforces the vast opportunity in front of us. We continue to see our expansion markets as important contributors to our growth that will pay off more and more for us over time. On our last earnings call, I suggested that we would grow more in the second half of the year than in the first. I am pleased to say that we performed somewhat better than expected in the first half, and my view that the second half will be stronger yet remains unchanged. Amid this optimism, I want to highlight one challenge. Looking to the second half and beyond, we are managing the headwind of higher memory costs that are putting downward pressure on our gross margin. As you know, the semiconductor industry is in the middle of a transition from DDR4 to DDR5 and high bandwidth memory, driven by AI and data center demand. That is tightening supply for the DDR4 chips we use and increasing costs across consumer electronics. Our global operations team has been focused since early 2025 on securing sufficient supply to support our manufacturing demands. This means pursuing supply through multiple channels. We are also leveraging our engineering expertise to optimize memory requirements across current and future designs, all without compromising product performance or customer experience. With regard to the effect of higher memory prices, we have a variety of levers to mitigate the impact. Our focus is on managing the headwind thoughtfully without losing sight of the larger opportunity to drive top-line growth alongside increased profitability. On the topic of tariffs, we will be filing for a refund of prior duties paid under IEEPA now that the U.S. Customs and Border Protection has launched phase one of CAPE. While the timing is uncertain, the benefit could be as large as $40 million, which would be another meaningful offset to the higher memory costs. So while memory headwinds are real, we are managing them from a position of preparation and expertise. Let me close with this. We have moved through a phase of stabilization. What comes next is building durable growth. We are at an important point, and the signals are showing up across product, markets, and customer behavior. The product pipeline is active again. Growth markets are showing strong performance. The system is stronger, more reliable, and easier to understand. Our progress on the dimensions we discussed today—new products, more effective marketing, geo expansion, and a return to customer advocacy—is beginning to deliver growth. But the opportunity to grow into emerging adjacencies is what I find most compelling. AI is already transforming how we operate internally, from the way we build software to how we execute marketing to how I run the company. The external opportunity is vast: 17 million households and 53 million connected devices, voice-enabled and present room by room. This is an installed base with significant value. And as more people look for experiences that do not depend on pulling out their phone, that value only grows. We are building towards something larger here, and while I am not ready to lay out the full picture today, there is considerably more to this story, and I look forward to sharing it with you in time. With that, I will turn it over to Saori. Saori Casey: Thank you, Tom. Hi, everyone. We closed out 2026 on a high note with revenue growth of 2% thanks to our strong Q2 results. This return to growth was accompanied by disciplined execution, with 7% and 6% growth in GAAP and non-GAAP gross profit dollars, respectively. GAAP operating expenses decreased by 16%, and non-GAAP operating expenses decreased by 10%. The combination of gross profit dollar growth and operating expense reduction resulted in adjusted EBITDA growing 48%, representing margin improvement of 510 basis points. Q2 results overall came in strong against our expectations, marking our seventh consecutive quarter of executing against our commitments. Revenue grew 8% year over year to $282 million, near the high end of our guidance range, driven by APAC and EMEA growing 25% and 21%, respectively, while Americas grew 2% year over year. Our growth markets delivered double-digit growth, further validating our view that this will be a key driver of our growth in the years to come. Foreign exchange contributed 4 points to our year-over-year growth. On a constant currency basis, APAC grew 18%, EMEA grew 9%, and Americas grew 1%. On a product basis, we saw continued strength in the demand for AR10100, as well as strong performance of ArcUltra. As a reminder, both Play and Era 100 SL had negligible contribution to Q2 revenue given the timing of their launch. GAAP gross profit of $125 million grew 10% year over year while non-GAAP gross profit of $130 million grew 6%. The growth was driven by higher revenue and FX favorability, partially offset by higher memory costs. GAAP gross margin was 44.3% and non-GAAP gross margin was 46%. Higher memory costs were approximately a 200 basis point headwind to gross margin, whereas tariffs, like last quarter, were offset by our mitigation. Q2 GAAP operating expenses of $150 million decreased 11% year over year, primarily due to the significant restructuring costs associated with last year's reduction in force, while non-GAAP operating expenses of $137 million were mostly flat to prior year and a bit below the midpoint of our guidance range. Stock-based compensation was $14.9 million, down 36% year over year. Adjusted EBITDA was positive $2 million, above the midpoint of our guidance range, increasing $3 million from negative $1 million last year. This is an important milestone, as this was our first Q2 with positive adjusted EBITDA in the past four years. Non-GAAP earnings per share of negative $0.02 was up from negative $0.18 last year. We spent $40 million on share repurchases in Q2 to buy back 2.5 million shares, reducing our share count by 2.1%, which leaves us with $65 million remaining on our current share repurchase authorization. Our balance sheet remains strong, as our net cash balance ended the quarter at $249 million, which includes $40 million of marketable securities. Our period-end inventory balance of $161 million was up 16% year over year, driven by new product launches and tariff costs, partially offset by workdown of component inventory. Inventory consists of $144 million of finished goods and $17 million of components. Q2 free cash flow was negative $70 million, consistent with typical Q2 seasonality. CapEx was $5 million, down from $6 million last year. Turning to our guidance, the Q3 outlook we are providing today reflects the trends that we have observed quarter to date and are our best estimates. We expect Q3 revenue to be in the range of $355 million to $375 million, representing growth of 3% to 9% year over year, up 6% at the midpoint. Our guidance represents modest year-over-year acceleration from Q2 on a constant currency basis, as we expect FX to have a negligible contribution to growth in Q3. Please note that there will be no revenue contribution from AMP Multi in Q3, which is slated to launch in the fall. We see continued momentum into Q4, delivering full-year growth consistent with what we have communicated over the past two quarters. We expect Q3 GAAP gross margin to be in the range of 42% to 44.5%, with non-GAAP gross margin approximately 150 basis points higher than GAAP. Both are roughly flat year over year at the midpoint. Our guidance implies mid-single-digit growth in gross profit dollars at the midpoint, in line with the revenue growth. Please note our gross margin guidance range embeds an approximately 400 basis point year-over-year headwind from higher memory costs in Q3. We also do not expect to receive any tariff refunds during Q3, roughly 200 basis points more headwind than Q2. We are not guiding beyond Q3 at this time. But to provide some color, we currently expect memory cost inflation to rise from Q3, which is likely to pressure gross margin in Q4. As a result, we currently expect both GAAP and non-GAAP gross margin for 2026 to be somewhat lower than 2025, which was 43.5% on a GAAP basis and 44.9% on a non-GAAP basis. As Tom mentioned, we are actively working on a variety of mitigation actions to navigate this industry headwind. We are focused on managing this challenge thoughtfully and without losing sight of the larger opportunity to drive top-line growth and increase profitability. While any tariff refunds received in the future would likely be a benefit to gross margin, that second-half commentary I just outlined does not incorporate any such benefit given uncertainty around timing. We expect Q3 GAAP operating expenses to be in the range of $150 million to $160 million. We expect non-GAAP operating expenses to be lower than GAAP by approximately $18 million, implying non-GAAP operating expenses stay roughly flat to Q2 at the midpoint. Looking beyond Q3, please note that our quarter-to-quarter results may vary in part due to timing of our product launches. Bringing it all together, we expect Q3 adjusted EBITDA to be in the range of $20 million to $48 million, representing a margin of 5.6% to 12.7%. Our performance in the first half proves that we have built momentum. This was our third consecutive semiannual period of revenue growth improvement, and we expect to sustain this momentum into the second half of this year, making fiscal 2026 the year that Sonos, Inc. returned to top-line growth. Looking beyond fiscal 2026, our focus remains on delivering durable top-line growth, while balancing continued profitability improvements and disciplined reinvestment. To that end, through the adoption of AI, we are starting to see significant improvements in our team's productivity across a variety of functions, including software engineering, IT, accounting, customer support, and many more. We believe we are just beginning to scratch the surface of harnessing the potential of AI to continue to improve our efficiency and accelerate our business. After the call, we will update our earnings slides to reflect our Q3 guidance and the second-half commentary. With that, I would like to turn the call over for questions. Operator: We will now open the call for questions. If you have dialed in and would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad to raise your hand and join the queue. If you would like to withdraw your question, simply press star 1 again. If you are called upon to ask your question and are listening by a loudspeaker on your device, please pick up your handset and ensure that your phone is not on mute when asking your question. Your first question comes from the line of Steve Frankel with Wilson Black. Your line is now open. Steve Frankel: Good afternoon, and thank you. Tom, I know you are reticent to talk about this AI monetization strategy, but maybe just at a high level, give us some thoughts on is this a plot to try to create a recurring revenue business or is this a bounty-led, advertising-driven business like Roku started with? How should we think about monetization from AI services for third parties? Tom Conrad: Hi, Steve. Thank you for joining the call. You know, just to frame this out at the highest level, as I said on the call, there are sort of two different pieces of how AI is intersecting the business, of course. It is just profoundly transforming how we operate inside the company—how we build software, how we market, how I personally run the business. But Sonos, Inc. is really, I think, uniquely positioned with respect to how we can integrate AI technology into consumers' lives. A lot of other companies are asking how do we move AI off of phones and computers, bringing these experiences into people's lives in new and seamless ways. And at Sonos, Inc., we already have that path: 17 million households, 53 million connected devices that are voice-enabled, present as you navigate through your life room by room. That is really a head start that nobody else can buy. And as much as I would like to get into the specifics of the product roadmap and the business models that will underpin our expansion into those adjacencies, I think it is premature to get into those details today. Steve Frankel: Okay. No. I cannot blame you for trying. So on the memory issue, clearly understand the rising cost pressure. But where are you in ensuring that you have adequate supply given the new product ramp in the back half of the year? Are you comfortable that you have enough product at your disposal? Tom Conrad: Yes. We are feeling really good about supply. Our global operations team started doing the hard work of securing sufficient supply through multiple channels going back as early as the beginning of 2025. And so, as you see us guiding to 6% growth at the midpoint for Q3, we are obviously confident that we are going to have sufficient supply to meet the growing demand for Sonos, Inc.'s products. So while these macro headwinds that get thrown at you are always an interesting challenge, I really do feel like we are operating from a place of both preparation and strength. James Baglanis: Okay. Steve Frankel: And then lastly, congratulations on the 100 SL. Do you see this as an attempt to get to an even lower price point to grow the installed base, or is this a device without a voice agent? Is that something that either appeals to a different class of customers or makes sense in a multiunit house where you do not need every Sonos, Inc. product to have a voice agent inside of it? What is the theory there? Tom Conrad: Yes. I mean, Aero 100 SL is a really exciting product, I think, because it is so well matched to the moment when consumers are really shopping for value while at the same time Sonos, Inc. is looking to accelerate the acquisition of new households. And so having a product that, at its MSRP, can sell at only $189, I think, is just a really great addition to the line. I think the thing to note about what we have done with Aero 100 SL is that this is a sort of no-compromises, cost-optimized product from top to bottom. So not just removing the microphones and the speech capabilities. We have done all kinds of interesting work to bring our cost down on this product. Just to give you an example, most of our products are painted, and on Aero 100 SL we have been able to use color injection molding so we do not have the extra expense of paint, with no noticeable change to the product's fit and finish. The global operations team at Sonos, Inc. continues to do an incredible job of finding ways to deliver the same premium experience we have at lower and lower price points. And you certainly touched on all of the dimensions that are at play when you think about a product without microphones. Of course, there are consumers who prefer to not have microphones as part of the offering. Of course, there are customers who are highly price sensitive who prefer to save the money. And there are rooms and use cases—from surround satellites to secondary rooms in the home—where you might not want to have a microphone. So, really exciting product for us. It is kind of the quiet sibling to Sonos Play, which has received such glowing reviews from the press, but we are really excited about what it will do in terms of our strategy to bring Sonos, Inc. to more and more households. Steve Frankel: Great. Thank you. I will jump back into the queue. Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Eric Woodring with Morgan Stanley. Analyst: Hi. This is Ralph Earl on behalf of Eric. Good evening, and thank you very much for taking my question. Could you just walk us through some of the scenarios or the moving parts that get you to the high end and the low end of your Q3 gross margin guidance range? And then I will just have one follow-up after that. Thank you. Saori Casey: Yes. Thank you for your question. We can walk through the Q3 guidance. We guided to 42% to 44.5%, a range comprised of, certainly, the memory cost headwind. Let me start sequentially. Sequentially, we have the memory headwind that we talked about—an additional 200 basis points—on top of the 200 basis points that we experienced in Q2. Offsetting that, we do grow our revenues sequentially, so we have leverage that is going in our favor. And then, on a sequential basis, we will have tariffs at the new lower rate of 10%, so tariffs will also be a tailwind for us, helping offset some of the memory impact. Then there are other moving parts, as you say, of mix of our products and the timing at which we sell our products and at what promotion during the course of the quarter, and those are some moving parts that will get us to different parts of the range we just gave out. On a year-over-year basis, memory is a 400 basis point headwind versus last year. And then we have tariffs that we were experiencing, but due to the mitigation actions that we had taken, we will end up being net slightly positive, given the reduction to the tariff rate. Then our ongoing cost-saving efforts, as well as leverage, will be a partial offset to this 400 basis points of memory headwind that we are experiencing. Analyst: Okay. Great. Thank you for that. And my second question here would be, I know you target consumers interested in your premium experiences among other categories, so I was just wondering if you could share with us whether you are seeing any changes in demand, particularly considering ongoing geopolitical conflicts today that might have impacts on how consumers are thinking about where they are putting their dollars? Thank you. Tom Conrad: I would just say that we are really excited about the demand picture for Sonos, Inc. in the market. Certainly that is what is driving our growth as we go into the second half. We are also really proud of the way that we have expanded the portfolio to take advantage of the value-conscious customer with launches like Aero 100 SL and even Sonos Play, which has such a flexible set of use cases that it can solve for. You just get a tremendous amount of value in that product as a single product. So obviously, we continue to keep an eye on the macro, but I am feeling good about where demand is for Sonos, Inc. Analyst: Great. Thank you so much. Really helpful. Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Brent Thill with Jefferies. Your line is now open. Brent Thill: Thanks. Tom, just on the “second half gets stronger” thesis, maybe if you can underscore what you are most excited about—what are the stepping stones for that continued improvement? Tom Conrad: Well, we are certainly excited to have Sonos Play and Aero 100 SL in the market. And I think we are really starting to see the growth dimensions that I have been talking about on the call start to stack together. So, product innovation through our new product offerings, more intentional marketing telling the system story of Sonos, Inc., thanks to the great work that our new CMO, Colleen DeCourcy, is doing. We are many quarters into strong performance for our geo expansion investments. And then finally, we are, I think, starting to see the tailwind of a return of customer advocacy after a period of repair and stabilization. The best way to see that externally is the way the press is talking about our new generation of products—really talking about it being a kind of comeback moment for Sonos, Inc. Brent Thill: And I know you have made some changes in the marketing group. I am curious—maybe it is too early to see so far from our side—but what steps, in terms of the improvement in awareness build, are you starting to take, or are you hearing that is starting to resonate even stronger now? Tom Conrad: Yes. So, Colleen has been with us for about six months now, and she is putting together a marketing organization that is really aligned with our system strategy, and building the muscle of being able to tell a full-funnel brand story—from base awareness through consideration and purchase—and it is just really exciting to see her both build that team and the early work that is coming from that momentum. Brent Thill: Thanks. Operator: Star 1 on your telephone keypad. Thank you. There are no further questions. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.