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Alexandra Schilt: Good morning, and thank you for joining Else Nutrition's 2025 Third Quarter Financial Results and Business Update Conference Call. On the call with us today is Hamutal Yitzhak, Chief Executive Officer of Else Nutrition. The company issued a press release on November 14, containing its 2025 third quarter financial results, which is also posted on the company's website. If you have any questions after the call or would like any additional information about the company, please contact Crescendo Communications at (212) 671-1020. The company's management will now provide prepared remarks reviewing the financial and operational results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2025. Before we get started, we would like to remind everyone that today's call will contain forward-looking statements that are based on current assumptions and subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected, and the company undertakes no obligation to update these statements, except as required by law. Information about these risks and uncertainties are included in the company's filings as well as periodic filings with regulators in Canada and the United States, which you can find on SEDAR and Else Nutrition's website. With that, we will now turn the call over to Hamutal Yitzhak, Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead, Hamutal. Hamutal Yitzhak: Thank you, Alexandra, and good morning, everyone. The third quarter of 2025 represented a period of stabilization, focus and disciplined execution for Else Nutrition. We entered this quarter determined to build upon operational progress made earlier in the year, and I'm pleased to share that we delivered impressive results while continuing to position the company for sustainable profitable growth. The transformation we delivered is not subtle. It is meaningful, measurable and foundational to the future of this company. Let me begin with what matters most, the strength of our financial turnaround. In Q3, our gross margin surged to 34%, up from negative 9% a year ago and a negative 3.7% last quarter. This level of expansion reflects big structural improvements across manufacturing, supply chain and cost management. At the same time, we reduced operational expenses by 68% year-over-year, bringing them down to $1.15 million from $3.56 million. These reductions came from disciplined decision-making streamlined organizational processes and a firm commitment to focusing on value drivers. Perhaps most importantly, our monthly cash burn fell below $200,000, down from $1.15 million a year ago. That is one of the most significant improvements we've achieved as a company, and it speaks directly to the sustainability of our operations going forward. Revenue for the quarter was $1.66 million compared to $1.79 million in Q3 last year. And while revenue softened due to temporary out-of-stock issues, we saw no indication of weakened demand. In fact, demand for our powder plant-based nutrition portfolio and for our kids ready-to-drink products remain strong across both online and retail channels. These supply constraints were temporary, and we are already addressing them. We expect revenue to resume growth as inventories stabilize. These results give us confidence in our path towards cash flow breakeven between late 2026 and early '27. Behind these metrics is a tremendous amount of operational work. Throughout the quarter, our teams executed this with precision. We simplified the organization, strengthened forecasting and logistics, realigned roles and responsibilities and built more accountability across every part of the business. Else Nutrition is now operating as a leaner, more agile and far more efficient company than it was even 2 quarters ago. As we continue to reduce our manufacturing costs, both in the U.S. and in Europe, we believe that we can sustain our gross margin improvement through 2026 and beyond. As our financial and operational foundation strengthens, we are now in a better position to advance one of our largest long-term value drivers, our plant-based infant formula. The regulatory landscape in the U.S. is evolving in a way that strongly aligns with our mission and technology. The modernization of infant formula standards, including development tied to the financial year 2026 Agriculture Appropriations Bill and recommendations from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine signals a clear recognition of the need for innovation. We are preparing for the next clinical phase required to bring our infant formula to market. This process is rigorous, but we are committed to it. We believe that families deserve cleaner, dairy-free, scientifically sound infant nutrition and we intend to be a leader in shaping that category. At the same time, our strengthened financial position and operational momentum have accelerated interest from several international partners, including major global nutrition and food companies. We are in active discussions regarding commercial distribution, co-manufacturing and R&D collaborations. While these discussions are still early, they speak volumes about the credibility of our brand, the quality of our science and the potential scale of our product portfolio. Overall, Else Nutrition is becoming a stronger, more disciplined and more scalable company. We have stabilized the business, informed our cost structure, broadened our operational capacity and positioned the company for long-term sustainable growth. Looking ahead, our priorities are clear. We will continue expanding margins, driving operational efficiency, supporting clinical and regulatory progress, strengthening our commercial footprint and pursuing strategic partnerships that can accelerate scale globally. At this point, I'd like to address questions that came in from investors. Alexandra, please lead the Q&A session. Alexandra Schilt: Thank you, Hamutal. Our first question is, can you elaborate on your regulatory outlook heading into 2026? Hamutal Yitzhak: Sure. We remain encouraged by both legislative and scientific development. The U.S. market is moving towards modernized standards that better accommodate innovation and Else is well positioned to benefit. Our goal is to initiate the next phase of clinical trials in the near term, paving the way for plant-based and formula category. Alexandra Schilt: Thank you, Hamutal. Our next question is, how are you approaching partnerships and/or collaborations? Hamutal Yitzhak: Well, we continue to explore strategic partnerships that could expand global distribution, accelerate R&D and strengthen our operational footprint. These opportunities represent a validation of our IP and market positioning. Alexandra Schilt: Our next question is, can you explain the rationale and impact of Else Nutrition's recent 10-for-1 share consolidation? Hamutal Yitzhak: Of course, effective November 6, 2025, we implemented a 10-for-1 share consolidation to simplify our capital structure and support the continued viability of the company. All shareholder ownership remains fully proportionate, every 10 pre-consolidation shares now equal 1 post-consolidation share with no change to the total value of individual holdings. All outstanding options and warrants have been adjusted accordingly. This decision was not made lightly. After implementing extensive cost-saving measures and working to preserve the business, the consolidation became an essential part of our broader restructuring efforts. We appreciate investors' concern and remain committed to the company's long-term stability and strategy. Alexandra Schilt: Thank you, Hamutal. That does conclude the Q&A session. At this point, I'll turn it back over to you for closing remarks. Hamutal Yitzhak: Thank you, Alexandra. In closing, I want to thank our employees for their dedication and agility, our investors for their continued confidence and our consumers for believing in the Else's mission. We are building something meaningful, a new standard for clean, plant-based nutrition, and I am more confident than ever that Else Nutrition is on the right path to long-term success. We are excited about the road ahead, and we look forward to sharing further progress in the coming quarters. Thank you for joining us today and for your continued support. Operator: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's teleconference. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines at this time, and have a wonderful day.
Operator: Good morning, and welcome to the McGraw Hill, Inc., Fiscal Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call for the Quarter ended September 30, 2025. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, today's call is being recorded, and a written transcript will be made available in the Events and Presentations section of the company's Investor Relations website. A webcast replay of today's call will also be made available on the company's Investor Relations website. Following the prepared remarks, we will open the call for questions. I would now like to turn the call over to your host, Danielle Kloeblen, Treasurer and Senior Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead, Danielle. Danielle Kloeblen: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to McGraw-Hill's Fiscal Second Quarter 2026 Results. Joining me today are Simon Allen, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Bob Sallmann, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. During this call, we will be making forward-looking statements about the company. These statements are based on our current expectations and the current economic environment. Forward-looking statements, estimates and projections are inherently subject to significant economic, competitive, regulatory and other uncertainties and contingencies, many of which are beyond the control of management. These forward-looking statements are also subject to the cautionary statement that is included in our earnings release and the investor presentation. These are further detailed in our 10-Q and other filings with the SEC. Important assumptions and factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements are specified in our earnings release issued today as well as in our SEC filings. We will also refer to certain non-GAAP measures today. We believe that these measures provide useful supplemental data that, while not a substitute for GAAP measures, allow for greater transparency in the review of our financial and operational performance. In the earnings press release and the appendix of the investor presentation as well as supplemental files on the Investor Relations website, you can find a definition of these non-GAAP measures and reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP measures. For those who listen to the recording of this call, we remind you that the remarks made herein are as of today, November 12, 2025, and have not been subsequently updated. With that, I'll turn the call over to our Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Simon Allen. Simon Allen: Thank you, Danielle, and good morning, everyone. McGraw Hill continues to shape education through innovation and AI-driven technology that personalizes learning experiences at scale, driving deeper engagement and better outcomes. Fiscal second quarter results exceeded expectations, showcasing strength, resilience and the scale of our diverse portfolio, which serves the learning life cycle during the pivotal back-to-school season. This strength was underscored by fiscal Q2 revenue, which reached $669 million, our second best performance for this quarter in a decade despite a 2.8% year-over-year decline due to the anticipated smaller K-12 market. Reoccurring revenue grew 6.5% year-over-year to $422 million or 63% of total revenue, underscoring the strength of our subscription-based model. Digital revenue increased 7.6% year-over-year to $352 million, representing 53% of total revenue. In particular, our Higher Education business delivered exceptional results. Revenue expanded 14% year-over-year, while digital revenue grew 18.4% due to continued market share gains, Inclusive Access growth, enrollment favorability and realizing value-based pricing. Our trailing 12-month market share rose 160 basis points to 30% according to MPI data. The Evergreen content delivery model now available across more than 700 leading titles continues to resonate, reflected in a record high NPS score during the fall semester. The K-12 selling season met our expectations with continued solid performance despite the smaller market opportunity. Reoccurring revenue grew 3% year-over-year with share gains in Core Science, ELA and Math. Early momentum is building for ALEKS Adventure, our Supplemental Math offering for K3 students, positioning us for growth beyond the Core ahead of the major California Math opportunity in fiscal year 2027. We're already seeing positive early indicators for California Math with 2 large deals booked in fiscal year 2026. Our team also continued to deliver compelling profitability. Adjusted EBITDA reached $286 million in Q2, yielding a margin of 43%, up 60 basis points year-over-year. This reflects strong operating leverage and an expanding digital mix amid reinvestments that is enabling an exceptional pace of innovation. Our strategy, combined with our execution and forward visibility, gives us confidence to raise fiscal year 2026 guidance across the board, which Bob will detail shortly. At McGraw Hill, we focus on solutions that demonstrate proven efficacy. By integrating high-quality proprietary content with actionable student data and thoughtful pedagogy, we deliver meaningful learner outcomes. Having leveraged machine learning for over 2 decades, our AI philosophy centers on saving educators' time, strengthening student teacher relationships and personalizing learning. Our multilayered moat is built upon 3 elements. Firstly, our intellectual property. With 137 years of trusted content developed alongside our authors and more than 50 Nobel Laureates, our pedagogical-driven approach is held to the highest standards. Secondly, our proprietary data. We possess a deep understanding of the learning journey fueled by billions of student interactions across millions of digital users annually. Our solutions deliver structured learning progression through real-time insights and feedback built on evidence rather than prediction alone. And thirdly, our domain expertise. We have decades of experience helping educators and institutions integrate digital tools into curriculum. Our workforce, including former educators and technology experts, ensures solutions are grounded in pedagogy and structured learning methods that reflect classroom realities. Along with strong relationships, a trusted brand and a robust distribution network, this moat forms the foundation that allows us to deploy AI effectively across learning environments. While large language models serve as valuable information tools, education demands a structured learning progression supported by continuous student interaction and data to ensure true comprehension over memorization. Educators see us as a trusted partner, reflected in a recent survey we commissioned through Morning Consult with K-12 teachers and administrators ranking McGraw Hill as the education company using AI most effectively in its products. Helping teachers harness the power of AI to address specific student needs differentiates McGraw Hill from emerging AI-first entrants. Consider the student who is falling behind in math. Our AI-powered Supplemental solution, ALEKS, which spans K-12 through Higher Education, uses machine learning to pinpoint knowledge gaps and deliver targeted content. It helps improve pass rates by 20% according to a recent Clemson University case study. ALEKS Adventure is our recent addition for K3 Math, which is gaining traction. We are also optimistic about the global launch of ALEKS Calculus, unlocking $100 million in TAM. Now consider the fifth grade teacher struggling with administrative tasks and lesson plans. McGraw Hill Plus simplifies workloads and provides real-time insights into student proficiency, enabling targeted instruction. Available in math in 10 states with 2 more states coming online next fiscal year, we experienced a 67% increase in the number of districts that accessed McGraw Hill Plus this school year alone, along with rising utilization rates. ALEKS and McGraw Hill Plus are primed to expand in the multibillion-dollar Supplemental and Intervention market, where we hold only 5% share today. We remain very enthusiastic about Gen AI and continue embedding it into our solutions to enhance learning experiences and to support educators. AI Reader is a prime example of how we scaled a proven tool across our portfolio. Launched last spring, AI Reader encourages Higher Education students to actively engage with content until concepts are fully understood. 1 million students are engaging with the tool and 11 million learning interactions were generated in Q2 alone and accelerating. During back-to-school 2025, we expanded AI Reader, embedding the tool in 600-plus Connect titles as well as within our First Aid Forward solution for medical students. Additionally, we recently introduced 4 exciting new AI-powered solutions to enhance our portfolio. Firstly, Sharpen Advantage transforms our popular college student study app into an AI-powered enterprise solution focused on academic success through real-time faculty dashboards to track progress, address learning gaps and create personalized learning study experiences. Underpinned by our content, Sharpen Advantage offers a responsible alternative to generic chatbots institutions can trust, unlocking significant growth opportunities beyond our Core. Secondly, clinical reasoning leverages our evidence-based content and introduces virtual patient interactions to prepare medical students for real-world clinical care, positioning us for incremental digital growth. Thirdly, Writing Assistant provides real-time personalized feedback to students, fostering skill development through self-checking and self-correction. We recorded over 130,000 interactions across 877 unique school districts nationwide in October alone. Fourthly and finally, Teacher Assistant gives K-12 teachers instant planning support, reducing prep time. It's currently available for California Math with the nationwide rollout to follow. We believe our writing and teaching assistant capabilities will enhance market share and retention, particularly in the larger upcoming K-12 market opportunity. In closing, we believe that our momentum is undeniable. Our market share is growing, user engagement is accelerating and our reoccurring revenue mix is expanding. Our business remains resilient with no significant impact from tariffs or proposed federal education policy changes. As you know, the vast majority of funding comes at the state and local levels with an immaterial portion of K-12 budgets tied to course materials. Now I'll turn the call over to Bob to discuss our financial performance. Robert Sallmann: Thank you, Simon. Good morning, everyone. Our fiscal second quarter results demonstrate the strength, scale and diversity of our business. We are delivering on our financial priorities, which are disciplined execution, reinvestment to fuel growth and continued gross debt reduction. Now let's take a closer look at our fiscal Q2 financial performance. Total revenue reached $669 million, down 2.8% year-over-year due to the anticipated smaller K-12 market opportunity, which was largely offset by the strength in Higher Education. First half revenue declined just 0.5% to $1.2 billion. Reoccurring revenue increased 6.5% year-over-year to $422 million, representing 63% of our total revenue in the quarter, primarily driven by digital revenue growth of 7.6% to $352 million. Higher-margin digital contracts continue to enhance revenue quality and predictability. Our remaining performance obligation, or RPO, surpassed $1.9 billion at the end of the quarter, which provides valuable forward visibility. Gross profit margin increased nearly 150 basis points year-over-year to 79.2%, supported by efficient operations, favorable digital revenue mix and outperformance in Higher Education. Adjusted EBITDA was $286 million with a 43% margin, up 60 basis points year-over-year, driven by gross margin strength and disciplined expense management amid continued growth reinvestment. AI implementation is enhancing internal efficiency and customer experience, reducing K-12 order processing times by 27% and automating 25% of service checks while our AI-powered content creation tools delivered strong ROI, recouping its initial investment in a year with use cases expanding, which should unlock incremental margin expansion over time. Now let's dive into our business segments. In Q2, Higher Education revenue grew 14% year-over-year to $213 million in the quarter. On a year-to-date basis, revenue was $395 million, also up 14% year-over-year. Reoccurring revenue grew 13.8% to $162 million, while digital revenue expanded 18.4% to $186 million. This exceptional performance was led by market share gains of 160 basis points, reaching 30% on a trailing 12-month basis. Inclusive Access sales grew a notable 37% year-over-year. It represents over 50% of our Higher Education sales and has been adopted by nearly 2,000 campuses. The majority of Inclusive Access growth continues to come from existing customers adding new courses, demonstrating the effectiveness of cross-sell within accounts and significant expansion opportunities within the 82% of institutions served. This is supplemented by the annual onboarding of approximately 100 new universities into the program, which becomes more impactful to growth in the coming years. These new Inclusive Access relationships typically take at least 2 years to fully scale. In other words, based on recent performance, we expect the activations for accounts landed in fiscal year 2026 to increase by 15 to 20x by fiscal year 2028. This is key to supporting visibility into our future growth runway. And when combined with innovations such as Evergreen, we unlock more avenues to support retention and drive takeaway opportunities to enable incremental market share gains. This performance reflects our successful execution of investment initiatives in recent years. In addition, we captured benefits from healthy enrollment trends and value-based pricing realization. I am incredibly proud of the team's outstanding performance with their innovation and dedication yielding differentiated results. In K-12, revenue was $359 million in the quarter, down 11.2% year-over-year due to the anticipated smaller market opportunity and lapping of exceptional capture rates in the prior year. First half revenue was $630 million, down 7.3% versus prior year. Reoccurring revenue increased 2.8% to $216 million with RPO of $1.4 billion, supported by multiyear procurement cycles and upfront payments, which provide strong forward visibility and the foundation for our return to growth in K-12 in fiscal year 2027. We continue to outperform the market and retain our leadership position in Florida science. Our National Science program is driving share gains in other states, along with investments that have bolstered our go-to-market coverage, which reinforces our optimism moving forward. While the Supplemental and Intervention market is also smaller, our integration with the Core and early success with ALEKS Adventure is encouraging. Pilots generated strong momentum in South Carolina's Math adoption, showcasing share gains in the K5 market. It's worth reiterating, we anticipated the smaller market in fiscal year 2026 due to the predictable school purchasing cycles. Proposed federal education policy changes have had no material impact on our business as 90% of district revenue is funded by state and local budgets. We believe we are well positioned for fiscal year 2027 opportunities in California Math and Florida ELA, among others. And our nationwide Emerge! pilot is progressing well ahead of the large California ELA opportunity in fiscal year 2028. Global Professional revenue was $40 million in the quarter, relatively flat year-over-year, while reoccurring revenue grew 5.4% to $25 million. Strength in medical and engineering offset the exit of nonstrategic print with ongoing innovation such as the launch of clinical reasoning expected to drive incremental digital growth over time. Finally, International revenue decreased 8.8% year-over-year to $50 million in Q2, a relative improvement from the double-digit year-over-year decline in Q1. The decline in reoccurring revenue also narrowed sequentially year-over-year to 4.8%. Digital growth in select K-12 markets has partially offset softness in Canada and timing in Spain. Moving on to our balance sheet and cash flow. We ended Q2 with $463 million in cash and $913 million of liquidity with our revolving credit facility undrawn. Net leverage was 3.3x as of September 30. We generated $265 million in cash flow from operating activities in the quarter. Working capital was largely impacted by the K-12 market opportunity and prior year expense timing. In October, we prepaid $150 million in term loan principal following September's repricing that reduced our interest rate spread by 50 basis points. Year-to-date, we've prepaid $542 million in term loan debt, resulting in over $40 million in annualized cash interest savings. Our disciplined capital allocation strategy prioritizes reinvestment and debt reduction. We remain committed to a net leverage target of 2 to 2.5x and to strategic tuck-in M&A. We will pursue incremental debt reduction over the remainder of the fiscal year, leveraging cash flow from the business, which has been bolstered by cash tax savings from new tax legislation, and we'll remain opportunistic on the capital structure. Looking ahead, based on our strong first half performance, RPO visibility, sustained share gains and favorable enrollment trends, we are raising our full year guidance. We now anticipate total revenue for fiscal year 2026 in the range of $2.031 billion and $2.061 billion, reoccurring revenue ranging from $1.504 billion to $1.524 billion and adjusted EBITDA between $702 million and $722 million. Unlevered free cash flow is expected to slightly exceed the low end of the 50% to 100% adjusted EBITDA conversion range, while CapEx and product development as a percentage of revenue remains unchanged. Our Q2 tax provision was positively impacted by recent changes to federal tax policy and is expected to lower our fiscal year 2026 tax liability below the previous $30 million to $50 million range, both on a cash and GAAP basis. Finally, a few modeling items. We expect revenue seasonality trends in the back half of fiscal year 2026 to be relatively consistent with our historical average. Stock-based compensation expense is expected to be $1 million to $2 million in both the third and fourth quarters. Total interest savings are expected to be approximately $5 million in the second half of the fiscal year, and we expect approximately $6 million of debt extinguishment in Q3. For the fiscal year 2026, we expect our GAAP effective tax rate to be approximately 15% to 20% and our marginal non-GAAP cash income tax rate for the incremental changes to book income to be around 18%. We are proud of our performance and confident in our strategy. Higher Education's outperformance is notable, and we are well positioned for K-12 growth in fiscal year 2027 and beyond. Operator, let's open the call up for questions. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Your first question today comes from the line of Ryan MacDonald from Needham. Ryan MacDonald: On a great quarter. Simon, I wanted to start with Higher Ed. Clearly, an excellent performance within that segment of the business. Can you just kind of break down a little bit further for us sort of the mix of benefit from sort of enrollments? I think the data is showing about 2.4% enrollment growth for the current fall semester versus sort of execution and share gains? And then on the Inclusive Access component of that, impressive growth there. Can you just give us a sense of sort of the durability and runway for growth within Inclusive Access still? Simon Allen: Yes. Thank you, Ryan. It's good to hear from you, and thanks for a great question. And yes, we are incredibly pleased about our Higher Ed performance this quarter. I think 14% growth comes primarily in a big time way actually from taking market share. We've taken it from all our competitors. You mentioned the enrollment. I think enrollment is predicted right now. It's very early, but maybe 2%, 2.5%. We've grown massively more than that. And we're taking share from everybody. It's all around our execution. You've heard me say this so many times on these calls, but it really is true. The quality of our execution is why we win out. The product delivery, the fact that we understand what our customers need to see, how we can utilize AI and what we deliver and prove in a very efficacious way why we've done well. And then also our go-to-market teams are truly the best in the industry, in my view. And I think the performance justifies that comment when you look at, again, retention rates that are growing substantially through what we've done with our market share gains. All of the competitors that we're taking share from across every discipline on the college campus, we're seeing record NPS scores through this back-to-school period, and I think best of all, for us to now get to 30% market share. And if you remember, if you go back a decade, we were at barely 21%, 21.5%, Ryan. I mean it was way lower. We've grown now to 30%, 160 basis point growth year-on-year. And we're very proud of that. The last thing I'd say is that when we look at innovations like AI Reader, this is the product, if you remember, we launched a couple of quarters ago. And it's really proven a tremendous retention tool for us. We're seeing over -- it's actually -- I think we quoted 11 million interactions at the end of Q2. I can tell you through October, it's about 20 million now in terms of reader interactions. And we're just growing that month by month as students see the value and professors see the value of what that can give students to really help them in their class and help them succeed. So the last thing I'll say is, well, you mentioned Inclusive Access. Again, we've been telling our investors about that for the longest time. It's open to everybody. We recognize the value of it first. We continually grow every quarter our business through IA. It's a wonderful business model. And the land and expand that Bob talked about earlier is really true. This is where we're seeing the huge benefit of that. And I think when I look at the new solutions that we're creating with products like ALEKS Calculus, that's going to give us another $100 million in untapped TAM, what we've done with Sharpen and Sharpen Advantage as we look at building an institutional AI-driven product. We really are understanding what faculty want to see, how we can help them utilize AI for benefit and for absolute gain in student performance and outcomes. So let me -- Bob, let me pass on to you a bit because I know you love the Inclusive Access modeling when you look at the land and expand. So maybe you can help the final part of Ryan's question. Robert Sallmann: Sure thing. Thanks, Simon. Ryan, I also -- before I jump into that, I do want to highlight the National Student Clearinghouse data you quoted as preliminary, we've seen changes from that from our initial print to subsequent prints. So I just want to caution you that, that 2.4% you quoted is preliminary -- but within that, you should also note that the 2-year and community colleges has higher growth rates. We over-index there relative to the general market. So we're seeing enrollment slightly higher than that 2.4%, but it's worth noting that it is preliminary. And then jumping into the Inclusive Access model, we highlighted this, just the sustainability of that. We have added 100 new logos, new institutions annually. So clearly, there's a lot of runway for us to continue to land, but more impactful is that expansion. So as we land those institutions, we see 15 to 20x growth over the first couple of years. And then you'll get continuation of growth. So when we think about sustainability, lots of runway there. We're very excited about it, and we're looking forward to continuing to talk through that. Ryan MacDonald: Awesome. I really appreciate that. And maybe just a follow-up in terms of K-12. Kind of great to hear some of the commentary around California Math and in Florida as well. Can you just remind us what you're seeing with California Math and Florida ELA right now in terms of performance? And then how that -- or what sort of level of confidence that gives you as we go into, I think they call it year 1, but the second sort of tranche of that funding in fiscal '27? Simon Allen: Yes. Good question. And Ryan, apologies for the longest answer you've ever heard to Higher Ed. But thank you for bringing us into K-12, where we are equally excited about our potential. And you know and everyone knows that this year is a smaller year in K-12. What is really encouraging about FY '27 as we look ahead, and we're obviously not going to give any guidance just yet. We'll wait until the end of our fiscal year to do that. But what is really encouraging is the well-known fact of an additional $300 million TAM in that market. It's roughly 10% more in '27 than '26. And as you say, that's driven by California Math. It's also driven by Florida ELA and Texas Math. There are a bunch of different opportunities coming out for FY '27. Where we are encouraged is that we've already had good successes in California at the very earlier stages. And it's all about the suitability of our product. We have to make sure that as we create our material, we understand completely the state standards required. We make sure our pedagogical delivery of our products just fits at the right learning age range that is there. And then, of course, we're supplementing all of our Core material with McGraw Hill and of course, ALEKS that you know very well. So we're very, very bullish indeed about next year. Bob, do you have anything to add on specifically on California or Texas, for Ryan? Robert Sallmann: Yes. I think the one thing that we are excited about is being able to supplement in Supplemental/Intervention and having bundled solutions as we enter into that market. So again, as we think about that portion of our business, which represents about 15% of the K-12 revenue, we really see a nice opportunity to bundle those offerings as we walk into those opportunities next year. Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Henry Hayden from Rothschild. Henry Hayden: We've seen kind of lots of concern across the sector around AI disintermediation, and we were hoping just to get some incremental color on how you would describe the competitive moats around the business or kind of in other words, what uniquely differentiates McGraw Hill's capabilities from Gen AI native new entrants? Simon Allen: Henry, thank you for the question. And just lovely to hear a familiar accent. And it's a good question because -- when you think of the issue around AI, I think there's been an enormous amount that's been underappreciated. We're just not yet recognized about McGraw Hill and our abilities to really make a difference and see AI as a massive real tailwind for our business. And we're only in -- of course, this is our second quarter earnings call, so it's new to everybody. But my hope is over the coming quarters, people recognize the real value and strength that AI gives to our business. And again, the tailwind that we're seeing, and we're seeing it across the entire part of our entire structure. When you think about what we're doing in Higher Education, we've talked a great deal about our products around AI Reader. We've talked a lot about what we've done with Sharpen Advantage, when you think about the institutional opportunity. We've talked about the ability for clinical reasoning in our medical business. And that is a significant upside for when you think about potential students learning and what they need to understand when they're going through their medical programs. And then there's ALEKS, and you've known for years that we've worked with ALEKS for now well -- really over 2 decades. And when you think about the ability for machine learning now to focus on Generative AI delivery for our Adventure for K5 as well now at the other end for ALEKS Calculus, all of these factors give us a substantial confidence. And we're seeing that in our customer reactions. We're seeing it in our financial performance, as you've heard. We're seeing it from our customers saying to us, we are using Sharpen and it is helping our students. We are seeing a massive increase in student learning and spending time on your great platform with AI Reader. Medical students are benefiting from clinical reasoning. So these are functional, efficacious products that we deliver. And because of our moat, Henry, we've got the strength of our 137 years, the trusted position that we have in the education community and really the reliability that we provide our customers with that level of trust. And they want to work with us and they want to understand how we can enhance the materials the way they teach through AI integration. So again, a long answer, but it's important to me and to all of us that I think the world at large understands just how beneficial this is for McGraw Hill because we can absolutely improve learning outcomes the way we've integrated AI. Henry Hayden: Yes. It's very helpful. And then just as a follow-up to that, we've heard from some of your peers around kind of the increased cost to store and leverage data, which has been made AI ready. How would you think about the margin outlook as data becomes a more substantial part of your offering? Simon Allen: Good question. We're beginning to measure compute cost right now. In fact, we've done that for a while. Bob, I'll pass that one over to you if you've got some additional. I know we don't exactly give too much detail, but we do have an answer, I think, to Henry. Robert Sallmann: Yes. And Henry, as we think about AI, we ultimately see this as margin expansion over time. When we've talked about the use of Scribe, which reduces our cost in certain use cases by 60% and time to market by 50%, we're able to reduce our overall cost to build product. So as we think about that cost to serve AI, we're able to offset that by driving cost reductions in our product and platform development. So we ultimately see this as margin expansion over time. Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Stephen Sheldon from William Blair. Stephen Sheldon: Nice results here. Maybe I wanted to dig in a little bit more on the K-12 side. I guess, can you just provide some more color on underlying trends there and specifically how newer product traction is progressing relative to expectations as we think about ALEKS Adventure, MH Plus other things. And then just as we think about the benefit of some of these newer products, I know some are incremental revenue opportunities, but how much could they help you as you pursue some of these larger Core contracts? How much could these new product capabilities and bundling help with positioning to win those large contracts? Simon Allen: Yes, it's a good question. I'll kick off and then Bob, I'll pass to you as well to add any information that I've forgotten. But what I would say, Stephen, is that the -- and you mentioned a couple of them. The products that are making the big difference, ALEKS Adventure will give us new growth going forward. It's already beginning. It's been out about a year, give or take. McGraw Hill Plus, we've extended. It's been in 10 states. We've extended it and we're about to get into 2 more. Each one of those show substantial increase in teacher intervention and teacher activity. And the reason is that it's giving such a great level of data and detail on the student performance that teachers find very helpful. But a key part of your question is what does this do to the Core? Because you know that we're a very, very successful player in Core. The market opportunity is much bigger next year. But it isn't just that for us, the Supplemental/Intervention space where it's really 15% of our business, but we have less -- around 5% market share. That's where the real opportunity for growth comes. It's really building on the Core successes that we've enjoyed, building on with ALEKS with our Math Core adoptions, building on the ELA adoptions with Actively Learn and Achieve3000. These are the tools and then all of them integrating McGraw Hill Plus. These are the tools that give us great confidence for growth going forward to enable the market share growth to continue. Bob, you may have something else to say to that as well. Robert Sallmann: Yes. Let me add a little bit more color. So we have talked about in our prior quarter, winning in 8 of 9 markets. And so we've demonstrated that and what we're suggesting is that you'll see that over the next several years. And so what that means is while we're winning, we provide forward visibility in the next several years. These are multiyear contracts. One of the things I'll highlight is if you exclude the 3 large states, particularly Florida and Texas, where we had strong performance last year, if we exclude that and look at the remainder of the districts that we operate in, we're expanding share. We grew 200 bps. So we're winning at a greater rate. So we're winning across the market. A couple of other things that excites us. We've talked about being in 10 states for McGraw Hill Plus. Let me double-click on that and provide you some more insights as we talked about being in 10 states growing into 12, what does that really mean for our K-12 business? Again, McGraw Hill Plus is going to allow us to be very sticky over time. And so we look at it and 25% of our teachers using our Core Math products, Reveal, now have access to McGraw Hill Plus. That's nearly a 50% increase year-over-year. We've seen 4x increase in the unique users in McGraw Hill Plus year-over-year. And now we're serving over 10% districts have access to McGraw Hill Plus. So again, the importance of that is really driving that stickiness and retention over time. And then ultimately, the other big innovation we're driving is our new ELA product, Emerge! that will be coming into market, again, addressing California ELA in 2028. So again, really well positioned. The business performed and met our expectations in the period. We're really excited about how it positions us for a return to growth. Stephen Sheldon: Very helpful and good to hear. And then just as a follow-up, as we think about incremental spending plans, I guess, just given what you've seen so far this year, have your priorities changed at all where you're pushing the pedal more in certain areas of the business than others, especially as we think about product development and sales capacity across different segments. I guess just at a high level, where are you pushing the investment pedal more? Robert Sallmann: Yes. So first, let me -- at a high level, we're not going to be changing sort of the level of investment. We've highlighted that it's been 8% to 9% of our revenue. We'll continue to be at that level. Now of course, we reevaluate and redeploy where we're putting our dollars. And given some of the efficiencies that we are driving in product development, it's allowing us to accelerate the pace of investment in other areas such as some of the AI tools that we've recently released. Simon mentioned the 4 new products we brought to market. Again, the pace in which we're releasing things is allowing us to bring new products to market. But most critically, I just want to remind you that we do believe that all of this innovation will still allow us to continue to expand our margin. Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Steve Koenig from Macquarie Group. Steven Koenig: And I'll offer my congratulations as well on a really good quarter. First question would be, in thinking about your outlook for the second half, maybe preface this question by asking, how did you all do kind of relative to your internal expectations in the quarter? And in terms of raising that full year guide, how much of that is related to the Q2 performance? And how much of it is related to your outlook for the back half? And any changes in your method or assumptions on your guidance? Robert Sallmann: Sure. I'll take this one, Simon. With respect to our guide in the quarter, first, noting that Q2 is the most significant quarter for our business, it provides us visibility into both enrollments, share gains and otherwise. And most importantly, in our K-12 business, it provides us the RPO that gives us that clear visibility to the rest of the year. So when we put together our guide, I'll walk you through some of the BUs that how we're thinking about it, but it's also important to note that we've narrowed the guide from prior quarter to current, meaning the revenue guide we had from high to low $60 million range, we've now narrowed that to $30 million. And then on the reoccurring and EBITDA, we were at $40 million in the prior guide. We've taken that down and narrowed our guidance to $20 million. And again, that is driven by the fact that we've moved through that seasonally important Q2 and now have greater visibility. With respect to the portions of the business that met expectations, I would say that K-12 was certainly in line with our expectations. We noted that we were having share gains. Our products are well positioned. We anticipated some of those share gains that we delivered and the overall market size being smaller is coming to in line with expectations. Where we performed slightly better, and I'll highlight that would be in Higher Education. Obviously, the share gains, we're very pleased with the continued share gains and the magnitude of those share gains and enrollment was slightly higher. And again, we talked about it on Ryan's first question about what the Clearinghouse is providing. We see it slightly above that, which is providing us a little bit of a tailwind. When I walk through for the full year, I think it's important to recognize that we have seasonality in our business. So first half being seasonally important, second half is smaller. That will then translate into a lower EBITDA margin on the lower revenue base. And then ultimately, I also think it's important to recognize that, that seasonality from first half to second half will also present itself more like fiscal year 2024 than fiscal year 2025. And it's important that I highlight that so your modeling considerations thinking about Q3 and Q4 phasing as 2025 had an outsized performance in K-12. So really anchor yourself back to 2024. And I think then as we think about that overall guide, we are very pleased with how we positioned the business and it's built on the success that we've had in forward visibility. Steven Koenig: Terrific. And if I may get in one follow-up, maybe building on the earlier question about internal investment, maybe expanding that to ask for your color more generally on your thinking on capital allocation here moving forward? Robert Sallmann: Yes. Sure. The first place that we always invest in is our organic investments. Those will always provide us with the greatest ROI. And then we remain very committed to delevering and our target of 2 to 2.5x, and that's demonstrated our commitment to this by the $150 million we paid down in October. Based on cash flow and where we see the business, there will remain an opportunity for us to further delever in the remainder of the year. We also balance that with tuck-in M&A., and the funnel today is very full. We're looking at smaller opportunities that we consider make versus buy, expanding the addressable market. We look at these opportunities. And so we think that there's a chance for us to continue to explore that, but nothing transformational at this point is in the funnel. Operator: Your next question comes from the line of George Tong from Goldman Sachs. Keen Fai Tong: You highlighted a strong capture rate performance in K-12 so far this adoption cycle. Can you share what capture rates are so far this year and how they compare to last year at the same time? Robert Sallmann: Yes. George, we're not going to provide visibility exactly on what those capture rates are. As you recall, that's coming off of our internal sales force data. But I will highlight when we look at that market, it's 200 bps higher than prior year, which is in line with our expectations. Keen Fai Tong: Got it. That's helpful. And then you talked about strong visibility into the K-12 TAM years in advance. Based on what you see today, how much do you see the K-12 TAM growing in 2027? Robert Sallmann: Yes. So that -- we've highlighted that the overall market is $300 million that we see as growing. And again, we're really well positioned as we think about the largest opportunity being that California Math. We're excited about the opportunity for us. Simon, I'm not sure if there's anything else you want to add on that. Simon Allen: No, just exactly. And we've mentioned this earlier on, George, that the extent of the market growth next year is very encouraging for us. And you've seen it in prior years where the TAM is at a much higher level, we've done very well. And of course, we would expect to have the same level of growth and performance in the out years. And FY '26, as we've communicated very clearly, has always been a low year and you look at the '27, '28. And as you look forward, you can see the opportunity then, and we're excited about that looking ahead. Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Marvin Fong from BTIG. Marvin Fong: Congratulations as well on a great quarter. First question, I'd just like to follow up again on that enrollment data that we all are looking at. And I would like to attack it from the subject matter standpoint since that seems to be the other major change. Can you just talk about your -- do you over-index, under-index in subject matters like health and business are seeing strength, computer science a bit lower for understandable reasons. But anything in the subject matter trends that are beneficial to you? Robert Sallmann: Yes. It's a great insightful question. We certainly see that we have those disciplines that we see the highest growth rates, that is very favorable to us, business and other curriculum and science-related subject matter. So it does play out favorably to us. And again, I think that bodes well for how we're seeing our enrollment slightly higher than that 2.4% as advertised as a headline for undergraduate growth. Simon, I know you had something to add. Simon Allen: Yes, let me add a little bit to that because it's a good question, Marvin. We -- one of the big benefits, and I've been operating in, as you know, the Higher Ed sector for that will be 40 years in August. And the reason that we do so well is that we cover everywhere. So you look at the business economics disciplines, you look at the sciences, you look at math, you look at the humanities, social sciences, all of these areas, we're seeing growth across everything. And when you look at the tools that we create, AI Reader covers every single discipline, every title, every subject. You think about what we've done with Sharpen, we focus on every single subject again. And that's why it's the breadth and the scale that we have that give us so many advantages, particularly compared to some of the smaller start-up type companies. And that breadth of coverage is really -- it means that we're seeing very strong double-digit growth across all of those subject areas. Some are higher than others. But when we look ahead, it's the scale and the breadth of product that we have that gives us such a strong advantage. Marvin Fong: Fantastic. And a follow-up question, if I may. On international, we don't talk about it as much, but the trends are improving. You called out Spain as well as Canada, some moving parts there. Could you just kind of discuss what you're seeing there? And how should we be thinking about trends both in the back half and maybe even next year? Simon Allen: Yes. And it's a good one. I mean when you look at, as Bob indicated earlier, the decline, we expected to decline this year. And I think in areas like Spain, where we've got a good K-12 business, it has a similar cycle coincidentally this year to the U.S. So that's clearly a lower year for us in Spain. That's timing purely. Things will change next year. When I look at what's happening in Canada, we benefited from the enrollment surge in Canada over the last few years. And now, of course, enrollments in Canada have significantly reduced. But what I look at there more than anything is our market share growth. It's [Technical Difficulty] if the overall market is in decline, but how are we doing? And this is what makes me very happy because Canada, our share, we've grown over 3.5% this year. We're looking at about a 27%, 27.5% market share position in Canada. It was barely 15% in 2019 before COVID. So you're seeing really good growth in share, again, where the opportunity is for excellent product and great go-to-market. We succeed, and we've done that very well in Canada. We've also seen the upside in Latin America. We continue to do well there with our School and Higher Ed business. And also the GCC market in the Middle East is very, very strong for us. So it's a good position that we're in. We're looking forward to continuing growth as we go forward. And I think it's important that we focus on those markets where we know growth can occur. Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Toni Kaplan from Morgan Stanley. Toni Kaplan: I wanted to ask another question on Higher Ed. Really strong performance this quarter there. You talked about the share gains getting to 30%. And obviously, this is off the back of Evergreen being launched. And I imagine that, that is helping contribute to that stronger retention and perhaps salespeople being able to focus more on new business. And so I was wondering if the success you're seeing is related to that platform shift or if there are other -- is there anything content-wise or otherwise that is contributing to that as well? Just wanted to understand the sustainability essentially of the Higher Ed share gains? Simon Allen: That's a very insightful question, Toni. Thank you. I would say it's across the board is the reason that we're doing very, very well in Higher Ed. Yes, Evergreen, and that's unique to us, as you know, that we launched about a year ago. Now it's over 600 titles. We're seeing tremendous retention with that and faculty are just appreciating the ability to be kept completely up to date as they're thinking about their courses. And it's also new products that we launch. It's products that we're looking at with ALEKS Calculus, which is a tremendous additional TAM opportunity for us in Higher Education. What we've done with Sharpen at the consumer level, but then particularly now Sharpen Advantage at the institutional level gives us a great deal of excitement. Then there are new content. Of course, we always look at our authors in higher education, and we commission new content and new material. That's something we're very, very proud of. We have various new courses and titles that we launch and we release through our Connect platform. It's very, very significant. And I think the sustainability for us is proven by the last number of years of our growth in Higher Ed, up now, as you say, to that 30% market share. And we feel extremely bullish about our potential in Higher Ed, and we appreciate the question. Actually, it's a very good way to pose it. Toni Kaplan: Great. And then wanted to ask about pricing. Typically, I think you're getting more of your growth through share gains, maybe some from enrollment, et cetera, and price has been less of a factor. And so I think last quarter, you mentioned you were taking price increases at a higher rate than originally planned. I was hoping you could talk about if that's still the case and if you're seeing pushback from customers to that or with your new content and platforms, maybe they're not pushing back because of the value add that you're providing. And so I wanted to understand the pricing dynamics going forward? Robert Sallmann: Sure. Thanks, Toni. Yes, from a pricing dynamic, as we've mentioned before, we apply a value-based pricing model. You highlighted some of the value adds that we've been putting in place. We have not been seeing any pushback around our pricing. The price realization has been inflationary levels, which is now in line with what we planned for in the quarter. So we're realizing the price that we planned. Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Jeff Meuler from Baird. Jeffrey Meuler: How are you viewing the mix of K-12 opportunities in 2027 by state and subject? I guess, for you, do they play to your strength to an increasing degree at all? Simon Allen: Bob, I'll let you run into the detail there. But I mean, state by state, as you know, Jeff, we've got substantial opportunity as we look at FY '27. I don't know if we want to get within California, we've talked about that. We've talked about Texas and Florida ELA. Bob, I don't know if you want to get into any more detail. It may be a bit early as we think about that. I know you want to give guidance there as we get to the end of the fiscal year, but you may have comments to make? Robert Sallmann: No. And I think we -- in our prepared remarks, we highlighted the fact that we're preparing for the larger opportunities in ELA in '28 and then in '27 being Math. So we're well positioned to play to our strengths as we think about the market opportunities in the next several years. And again, from a subject mix, strengths reside in ELA and Math and our new Emerge! products. So we're well positioned, and I think that will benefit us over the next several years, that overall mix in the K-12 market. Jeffrey Meuler: Got it. And then lots of good AI anecdotes and how it's positively impacting your business and you continue to take share. On the emerging AI-first entrants that you mentioned, Simon, where are you predominantly seeing them? Is it more on the Supplemental or Intervention side? Or are they starting to come into the RFP process for Core curriculum or not? Simon Allen: Good one. I would say it's coming at the -- more at the RFP, yes, but I think increasingly, as we talk to teachers and we talk to school districts, that they understand the added value that we can provide through our Supplemental/Interventional tools. Some of them, though, are now requiring that they want that continuity. If they're using Reveal Math, let's look at a math tool that captures those students that may be underperforming. So of course, we have ALEKS. When we look at our ELA business with Emerge! that we just launched. And as we think about '27, '28 and beyond, that's when teachers are saying, "Well, listen, we need writing tools and writing instruction tools to aid in our ability to assess students." Then we provide what we've just launched with Writing Assistant. And I think it's now becoming an opportunity for us to really extend our potential with that growth by providing complete solutions, not just in the Core, but also in Supplemental. Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Faiza Alwy from Deutsche Bank. Faiza Alwy: A follow-up on the Higher Education segment. There are some concerns around future enrollment trends as we look ahead over the next, call it, 3 years because of what's been called the demographic cliff. And you alluded to just the fact that you've seen higher enrollment relative to what we might be hearing from the industry. So hoping you could expand a bit more around that, just taking a step back around where you have higher exposure and how you're thinking about just outside of the market share gains, how you're thinking about enrollment as we look ahead and how that might impact your business, whether you think there's opportunity for greater pricing in the future? Or just any color there would be helpful. Simon Allen: That's a good question, Faiza. And I know we're running low on time, but I'll start, Bob, and if there's any more you want to add. I would say, Faiza, that there is always pricing opportunity, of course. The enrollment issue is -- and I think the demographic cliff is somewhat overstated as it relates to our business because the average age of our student customer is in the mid- to late 20s. When you look at the amount of business we have at the community college level, those students are often very often in their 30s and 40s. So I would say we're less concerned about enrollment issues in that way. The key element for us is this TAM expansion in the products that we are now offering and the solutions that we provide. So we see growth that way. We don't see enrollment decline being a big issue for us because of the expansion and the market share opportunities that we've seen. And our ability to really serve customers, particularly with AI, that's what they genuinely need and they need our help. So we're seeing very strong growth. That will continue going forward. We need to keep innovating with new products, new solutions to enhance the TAM that we operate within. Robert Sallmann: And bottom line is we'll continue to grow regardless of enrollment. I think that's an important takeaway. Faiza Alwy: Understood. And then just a follow-up on the K-12 segment. You alluded to market share gains in that segment. And just to put a finer point on that, are you really referencing market share gains in Supplemental and Intervention? Or are you seeing market share gains in the Core relative to more established players? Robert Sallmann: My comment on the 200 basis points was largely around the Core. And keep in mind that, that represents 85% of our business. But we are seeing gains in Supplemental/Intervention, particularly as you think how we connect to the Core. And again, I just want to reiterate how well that positions us as we move into California Math into next year. Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Jeff Silber from BMO Capital Markets. Jeffrey Silber: I know it's late. I'll just ask one. I know you're not talking about fiscal '27 yet, but generally, what are you hearing about state budgets going into next year? Simon Allen: Jeff, it's a good question. And we're happy to run over. It's lovely to have so many questions. But we're hearing good things about state budgets. We're not concerned about decline. As you know, when you look at the budgeting process in K-12, it's very much a local and state-run activity. When you think about the overall percentage that -- of any budget, education budget that's given over to courseware and course materials, it's probably less than 1%. It's a tiny fraction of the overall number. So we're not seeing any concern around budgeting for next year and the years forward. And that's one of the reasons, one of the many that gives us so much confidence. Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Josh Chan from UBS. Joshua Chan: I'll keep it to one as well due to the time. I guess, could you talk about the runway that you see in Inclusive Access in Higher Ed and then kind of how that and share gains may both contribute to your kind of ongoing growth kind of beyond this year? Simon Allen: Yes. It's a great question. Bob, you go right ahead. You love Inclusive Access. It's become your favorite... Robert Sallmann: I do. I know we all do. Yes. And again, just that runway is significant for us in terms of Inclusive Access. And obviously, we're very impressed with the growth that we experienced in the quarter. But more importantly is that dynamic where we're adding 100 institutions per year, we're at 2,000. You can see long runway to continue to add over the years, more and more institutions and then that several year path where we continue to grow. So it is sustainable. It's going to continue to grow, long runway there, and we're excited about Inclusive Access. Operator: Your next question comes from the line of David Karnovsky from JPMorgan. David Karnovsky: Maybe just one on K-12. I think there's been some investor concern recently about federal funding and what impact that might have to the procurement process for Core or Supplemental. So maybe just can you speak to what you saw in the recent selling season or what you're hearing from districts on this? Robert Sallmann: Yes. The one thing I'll highlight is that we're not seeing any widespread delays or any changes in purchasing patterns. It's been consistent with our expectations. And I just want to highlight that we walked into the year with our expectation of share gain in overall market size, and it's played out as we've seen. So there are always pockets where districts are being cautious and controlled in their spend. That's no change, but we're not seeing anything widespread that would indicate that federal funding is an issue at the district level. Operator: And that concludes our question-and-answer session. I will now turn the call back over to Simon Allen for some final closing remarks. Simon Allen: Thank you, Rob, and thank you, everyone, for dialing in and bearing with us and allowing us to go over the hour. We do appreciate the questions. It makes our lives much more enjoyable. And I hope you get a sense from myself and from Bob and Danielle, whom you all speak to regularly, just how enthusiastic we are about our performance and how optimistic we are. It's a pleasure to beat and raise, and it's a lovely feeling to look at our performance and our market share growth across the businesses. And we really do feel very, very good about upcoming conversations with you. Thank you for your attention always, and thank you for your interest in McGraw Hill. We deeply appreciate your commitment to us, and we look forward to serving you and particularly our customers going forward. So thank you for dialing in, and we look forward to talking to you again in a few months. Bye-bye. Operator: This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.
Operator: Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Third Quarter 2025 Legence 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 speaker today, Son Vann. Please go ahead. Son Vann: Thank you, Daniel, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Legence Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. With me today are Jeff Sprau, our Chief Executive Officer; Stephen Butz, Chief Financial Officer; and Steve Hansen, Chief Operating Officer. This morning, we issued 2 press releases, one covering our third quarter results and the other on our pending acquisition of the Bowers Group. There are also separate slide presentations that accompany each release. All materials can be found on the Investor Relations section of our company's website, wearelegence.com. Before we begin, I want to remind you that comments made during this call contain certain forward-looking statements and are subject to risks and uncertainties, including those identified in our risk factors contained in our SEC filings. Our actual results could differ materially, and we undertake no obligation to update any such forward-looking statements. During this call, we will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures, which should not be considered in isolation from or as a substitute for measures prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. Please refer to our quarterly earnings presentation for reconciliations of these non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures. With that, let me turn the call over to Jeff. Jeffrey Sprau: Thank you, Son, and thanks, everyone, for joining today's inaugural quarterly earnings call as a public company. First off, I want to thank everyone involved with our successful IPO and express my gratitude to our new shareholders that have put their trust in Legence. Today, we'll discuss our record third quarter performance as well as our announcement to acquire the Bowers Group. One of the premier mechanical contractors in the Northern Virginia, D.C. area. Now for some on this call who may not be familiar with Legence, I want to give a brief overview of who we are. Legence is a leading provider of engineering, installation and maintenance services for mission-critical systems in buildings. We offer the full suite of building services from engineering and consulting to the implementation and maintenance of these complex systems. In essence, we are a design builder with national scale. This is a key differentiator. Most companies in our industry are either an engineering firm or a company that focuses solely on installation. We're different in that we provide both capabilities on a national scale. We focus on mission-critical, technically demanding MEP or mechanical electrical and plumbing systems. For mechanical, think HVAC. Electrical is self-explanatory. On plumbing, this also includes high-purity process piping, which is critical to the semiconductor, biotech, pharma and food and beverage industries and now extremely important to data centers as they transition to liquid-to-chip cooling systems. Another differentiator is the markets we serve. We skew towards high-growth industries, specifically data centers and technology and life science and health care, which accounts for over half of our revenue mix. We also service more stable target-rich markets such as education, state and local government, mixed-use and a few other industries. By serving a diverse mix of customers, we're able to transfer technical knowledge between end markets. Take, for example, our success with data centers. We leveraged our decades-long expertise in the semiconductor space and applied those same concepts to our direct liquid-to-chip cooling systems for the data centers that are being built today. This knowledge sharing is critical to our ability to evolve with ever-changing technical demand of our customers and our end market diversification positions us well for long-term success. Turning now to our financial results, which Stephen will discuss in detail. From my perspective and with gratitude to our amazing employees, we had an incredible record-setting quarter with year-over-year revenue growth of 26% EBITDA growth of 39% and backlog growth of 29%. Even more impressive is that this growth is all organic. EBITDA margins improved by over 100 basis points, driven by strong project execution, particularly with our fabrication work. Our book-to-bill ratio, which is a good indicator of our outlook, was also very strong at 1.5x. In this morning's press release, we also provided our initial guidance for revenue and adjusted EBITDA through 2026. Stephen will talk more on our guidance. This outlook reflects the strong momentum in our business, driven by the solid growth in our backlog. Shifting to our announcement that we've entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Bowers. We're really excited about this agreement to acquire one of the premier mechanical contractors in the Northern Virginia, D.C. metro area with over 40 years of expertise in mechanical and plumbing solutions for complex building systems. This region is well known as data center alley, where the largest installed base of data center capacity in the world resides. And Bowers is one of the leading mechanical contractors for the data center and high-performance computing market. Their strong reputation for safe operations and operational excellence aligns perfectly with our values. The integration of our teams will foster collaboration and knowledge sharing, enabling us to drive growth and ultimately deliver value for our clients and our shareholders. Now this transaction is compelling for a number of reasons. With Bowers, we are adding at scale, high-quality mechanical capabilities in the Northern Virginia region, complementing our existing electrical capabilities in the area. Bowers is one of the most well-regarded mechanical contractors in the region, and we have firsthand knowledge of their expertise from the many projects that we've partnered on. Bowers has some 1,700 employees, most of whom are highly skilled unionized crafts people. Similar to Legence, Bowers has a strong commitment to training, development and retention of top talent. Their leadership consists of seasoned veterans having an average of over 20 years' experience at Bowers. I've gotten to know the leadership better over the past few months, and I couldn't be more impressed by both their knowledge and experience. We both share a common desire to deliver at the highest level and capitalize on the extraordinary growth opportunities in front of us. Their leadership team is staying on board with Legence, adding to our deep bench. As previously discussed, the Northern Virginia, D.C. area has the most data center capacity globally, and Bowers has been at the center of this build-out since its first data center project for Amazon way back in 1999. The outlook for new construction of data center capacity remains strong in the region. In addition, the retrofit market is a significant area of opportunity given the massive and aging installed base of data centers. Roughly 1/4 of Bowers' data center revenues are from retrofit projects. Bowers also brings over 370,000 square feet of fabrication capacity strategically located in the D.C. area. Bowers has historically used this capacity for their internal project delivery needs. We now have the opportunity to utilize this capacity to serve customers along the East Coast, Southeast and Midwest as demand for modular fabrication and liquid-to-chip solutions continues to grow, especially from data center customers. I'm also very excited about the tremendous cross-selling potential that comes with ours. As previously discussed, their mechanical expertise is a great complement to our existing electrical solution capabilities in this key Mid-Atlantic region. Gaining access to their extensive fabrication resources creates an opportunity to serve a broader range of customers in different regions. Furthermore, by offering our engineering and consulting solutions to their client base, we see exciting opportunities to drive revenue growth for both organizations. Outside of Bowers, on October 1, we closed on 2 attractive tuck-in acquisitions, one on the engineering side and the other on the installation side. AZPE is an Arizona-based engineering firm with customers in the data center and manufacturing space, among others. Legence has partnered with them on several projects previously, and we know them well. IMD is a Colorado-based mechanical contractor, primarily serving the health care, manufacturing and education end markets in the Mountain West region. This is a good geography for technically demanding buildings where we've been looking to expand for some time. It also gives us another strategic and centrally located area to potentially expand our fabrication capacity. Both companies also have interesting cross-sell potential with our existing brands and are a great cultural fit. With that, let me turn the call over to Stephen to discuss our quarterly results and provide more transaction details on Bowers. Stephen Butz: Thank you, Jeff, and good morning, everyone. I also want to echo Jeff's appreciation for everyone's efforts in making the IPO such a success as well as preparing the company for this initial reporting cycle as a public company. For the remainder of the call, I'll begin with a review of third quarter 2025 results in comparison to third quarter of 2024. Following my review of our historical results, I'll make some brief comments about our current outlook, discuss our balance sheet and the improvements we've made to our leverage and close out with additional commentary on the Bowers acquisition before opening up to Q&A. Please note that we posted separate presentations pertaining to our quarterly results as well as information on Bowers on our IR website. During the third quarter of 2025, we generated revenue of $708 million, an increase of $147 million or 26% from the year ago quarter. 100% of this increase was organic, with both segments generating solid growth. Breaking down revenue growth at the segment level, starting with Engineering and Consulting. Segment revenue increased by 9.5% to $212 million. Both service lines grew from prior year levels. Engineering and Design Services increased by 11.3%, driven by strong growth in Life Sciences and Healthcare as well as state and local government end markets. Program and project management services grew by 7.6% from higher demand, primarily with hospitality and entertainment clients, driven by work at NBC Studios, one of our newer clients. Moving to Installation and Maintenance. Segment revenue of $496 million increased by an extremely robust 35% versus the year ago quarter. Again, this growth was entirely organic. Installation and fabrication services accounted for the majority of the segment growth, increasing by 41%. Much of the increase was in the data center and technology market, both with installation work and fabrication of liquid-to-chip cooling systems for data centers in Northern Virginia, Arizona, Iowa, Ohio and Georgia. This service line also saw strong growth in life sciences and health care market as we're working on several large hospital installation jobs and a large fabrication project for a pharmaceutical client. Maintenance and services also grew at a healthy rate of 12.3%, mainly from our data centers and technology and life sciences and health care clients with the growth skewed towards service break fix activity versus preventative maintenance. Consolidated gross profit for the third quarter 2025 increased by 25% to $148 million. Consolidated gross margin slipped by a very modest 20 basis points to 20.9%, mainly due to the overall revenue mix shift toward the Installation and Maintenance segment, which carries a lower gross margin profile than our Engineering and Consulting segment. This was partially offset by higher Installation and Maintenance segment margins. Delving further into margins at the segment level. Third quarter 2025 Engineering and Consulting gross margins of 31.7% declined from year ago margins of 33%, driven by a slightly higher percentage of subcontractor expenses and a lower margin in our engineering and design service line. This was partially offset by a modest revenue mix shift toward the engineering and design service line, which carries a higher margin than program and project management. For the Installation and Maintenance segment, gross margin improved by 140 basis points during the third quarter versus the year ago levels to 16.3%. The Installation and Fabrication service line margins benefited from exceptional project execution, particularly with our fabrication work for data center and technology clients. Turning to SG&A expense. Third quarter 2025 SG&A totaled $85.9 million compared to $67.2 million in the year ago quarter. Included in the third quarter 2025 SG&A is approximately $14.7 million of stock-based compensation. While we incurred $18.6 million in stock-based compensation in total during the quarter, $4 million is recorded in cost of sales. The overwhelming majority of the stock-based compensation, in fact, $18.1 million of the $18.6 million is related to our legacy profit interest that are marked to market each quarter and will ultimately be paid for by Legence Parent 1 and 2 and will never be borne by Legence Corp. So while this is recorded as an expense on Legence Corp.'s consolidated results as the compensation will ultimately go to our employees, Legence Corp. Class A shareholders do not bear the burden of this expense. The remainder of the increase in SG&A was primarily driven by higher professional fees related to our IPO. When backing out the same adjustments that impact SG&A on our non-GAAP adjusted EBITDA schedule, adjusted SG&A for the quarter of $66.7 million increased by 11% from $59.9 million in the year ago quarter and declined to 9.4% of revenue from 10.7% in the year ago quarter. That gets us to adjusted EBITDA for the third quarter of $88.8 million, an increase of 39% from prior year levels. Adjusted EBITDA margin for the third quarter of 2025 was 12.5%, approximately 110 basis points higher than year ago levels as we were able to contain adjusted SG&A growth to a slower rate than our overall revenue growth. Depreciation and amortization totaled $27.5 million in the third quarter, down $1.2 million from the year ago quarter with the decline primarily stemming from the runoff of contract backlog and intangible assets from prior acquisitions. Interest expense of $28.2 million for the third quarter increased by $4.5 million from a year ago, primarily due to the higher average debt balance than the year ago period, though it does include about 0.5 month of lower interest costs as a result of our debt repayment with the IPO proceeds. Turning to income tax. Our third quarter 2025 tax provision was $4.1 million. Because pretax income at the consolidated level was fairly close to breakeven for the quarter, this makes for a quarterly effective tax rate that isn't overly meaningful. We may have a similar dynamic in the fourth quarter. Looking ahead to 2026, the effective tax rate is likely to be more in line with our state and federal statutory rate of approximately 30%. Cash taxes for 2026 are estimated to be in the mid-$20 million range. This is before any payment related to the tax receivable agreement, or TRA, which likely won't have any payment requirement until late 2027 at the earliest and only if tax savings are actually realized. Switching gears to backlog. At the end of the third quarter, our consolidated backlog and awards totaled $3.1 billion, up sharply by 29% from the year ago levels, and our consolidated book-to-bill ratio was a very robust 1.5x for the quarter, certainly another highlight. This book-to-bill was particularly strong given our record revenue in the third quarter. Total backlog came mainly -- growth came mainly in the Installation and Maintenance segment, which grew by 46% to $2.2 billion. Engineering and Consulting backlog grew modestly, though I should point out that third quarters are usually a seasonally high period for the Engineering and Consulting revenue. Not surprisingly, the data center and technology end market was the key driver in backlog and awards growth, but we also saw some healthy gains in life sciences and health care as well as state and local government clients. Turning now to our guidance. As you saw in our earnings release, we are establishing fourth quarter 2025 and full year 2026 guidance for consolidated revenue and adjusted EBITDA. This guidance is for standalone Legence and excludes the impact of our pending acquisition of Bowers. For the fourth quarter, we expect stand-alone revenue of between $600 million and $630 million and adjusted EBITDA of between $60 million and $65 million. This compares to fourth quarter 2024 revenue of $548 million and adjusted EBITDA of $57 million. Our fourth quarter guidance reflects the seasonality we typically experience during this time of year. For the full year 2026, we expect to generate stand-alone revenue of between $2.65 billion and $2.85 billion and adjusted EBITDA of between $295 million and $315 million. Our 2026 guidance reflects the strong growth that we've experienced in backlog, but also a general trend of elongation in that backlog and awards on the I&M side. Growth in 2026 revenue will likely be a bit more skewed to the Installation and Maintenance segment following the trend in backlog growth. Just a few other housekeeping items to help with your modeling. Interest expense for the fourth quarter is expected to be in the $15 million range, with full year 2026 in the low to mid-$50 million range. Depreciation and amortization for the fourth quarter is expected to be in the mid- to high $20 million range, with full year '26 D&A in the low $100 million range. In terms of CapEx, fourth quarter is expected to approximate $20 million with the full year 2026 estimated to total in the low to mid-$50 million range. Approximately 2/3 of the 2026 CapEx forecast is for expansion, part of which is related to spending previously planned for 2025. but that has slipped into 2026. Now moving to our balance sheet, liquidity position and leverage. As previously disclosed, we utilized our net IPO proceeds of $780 million entirely for debt reduction, which reduced our total gross debt outstanding by nearly 50% to $836 million at the end of September. Strong operating results, coupled with improvements in working capital, led to our cash balance increasing to $176 million at the end of September, up from $98 million at the end of June. Liquidity at quarter end also included approximately $85 million of availability under our revolving credit facility. In late October, we successfully amended our term loan and revolving credit facilities. For the term loan, we extended maturities by 3 years to December 2031 and reduced our interest rate by 25 basis points, which will save us approximately $2 million in annual interest expense based on current debt levels. For the revolver, we extended maturities by 4 years to September 2030, increased the commitment amount from $90 million to $200 million and aligned pricing to match the term loan. Given the debt reduction, strong cash position and improved operating results, our net leverage ratio declined meaningfully at the end of the third quarter to 2.4x compared to 6.2x at the end of June and 3x pro forma for the IPO, which we believe demonstrates our ability to quickly delever. Now I'd like to make a few comments on Bowers. Bowers generated approximately $767 million of revenue and $72 million of EBITDA over the last 12 months ended September 30, 2025. For the full year 2026, we expect Bowers to generate revenue of between $825 million and $875 million and EBITDA of between $75 million and $85 million. Now please keep in mind that closing is expected sometime during the first quarter of 2026. So there may be a stub period of their financial results that won't be included as part of our results for 2026. Our base case expectation is that we close on February 1. This would imply incremental revenues of $725 million to $775 million and EBITDA of $67 million to $75 million for Legence, given the partial year impact. Our guidance for Bower's contribution is underpinned by their extremely strong backlog and awards, which totaled approximately $1.3 billion at the end of the third quarter and really provides attractive revenue visibility. Now moving on to the transaction consideration. The purchase price is approximately $475 million, consisting of $325 million in cash, $100 million of Legence common stock or approximately 2.55 million Class A shares and $50 million in deferred consideration to be paid at the end of 2026. The deferred payment can be in either cash or stock at our discretion. Legence will fund the cash portion of the purchase price through a combination of cash on hand, borrowings under our revolving credit facility and an anticipated $150 million upsizing to our term loan facility, which is supported by a firm commitment from our agent bank. Based on this funding approach, our pro forma net leverage at September 30 is just under 2.9x, and that's below the 3x at June 30, pro forma for the application of the IPO proceeds to repay debt. Given our outlook, supported by our growing backlog, we believe we can bring net leverage back down to where we ended the third quarter of just under 2.5x fairly quickly. Now on to the impact of Bowers to our business mix, starting with revenue. All of Bowers's activity will fall within our Installation and Maintenance segment. Approximately 86% of the revenues are generated from the installation and fabrication service line, with the remaining 14% in maintenance and service. While we still remain fairly balanced between our 2 segments, adding Bowers to our I&M segment shifts our gross profit mix to 60% I&M and 40% E&C from 52% to 48% on a stand-alone basis today. Looking at revenue by end market, approximately 70% of Bowers's revenue is derived from data center and technology clients. The other large end market is life sciences and health care, which accounts for 13% of the revenue mix. Adding Bowers further increases our presence in high-growth industries with mission-critical facilities. Our pro forma revenue contribution from data center and technology increases to 47% from 39% and Life Sciences and Healthcare will still comprise 17%. Education will remain a meaningful contributor to Legence at approximately 15% of pro forma revenue. In terms of revenue by building type, as you would imagine, their current position in data center markets, they skew a bit more toward new buildings at 57% of revenue. Adding Bowers would increase our revenue percentage from new buildings to over 40% from 36% at 9/30. Now I'd like to make a few brief remarks on the acquisitions of IMD and AZPE, which closed on October 1. Combined, we estimate these companies will generate a little over $20 million in revenue in full year 2025 and approximately $3 million to $4 million in EBITDA. So of course, our financial results will only include the fourth quarter impact. Total consideration of $22 million with 21% of this consisting of equity provides an attractive value proposition for our shareholders. In closing, our third quarter results were exceptionally strong, marked by robust organic growth in revenue and adjusted EBITDA. We believe these results demonstrate our operational efficiency, ability to capitalize on growth opportunities in key markets and to quickly delever, strengthening financial flexibility. The results and the robust growth in backlog and awards established a solid foundation for continued progress. Our pending acquisition of Bowers will add a significant lever of growth, immediate scale to our capabilities in the Northern Virginia and D.C. metro area, an area with the largest concentration of data center capacity in the world. It also brings a meaningful expansion of fabrication capacity, enabling us to better serve clients in the Midwest, East Coast and Southeast regions. The structure of our consideration for Bowers, together with our recent expansion -- extension on our term loan and upsize of our revolver underscores our commitment to maintain a strong balance sheet and preserve financial flexibility for continued growth. That concludes my prepared remarks. So we will now open the call for questions. Operator? Operator: [Operator Instructions]. Our first question comes from Adam Bubes with Goldman Sachs. Adam Bubes: Congrats on your first quarter. I think it's clear M&A will be a part of the growth strategy. And so just wondering if you could speak to what leverage you're comfortable with on sort of like a 2- to 3-year time horizon? And any way to size the pipeline of M&A opportunities you're actively working on? Stephen Butz: Yes, I'll take the first part of that. We came out at the IPO, as we mentioned, at 3x on a net basis, and we look to maintain the leverage ratio below that level going forward. And longer term, target something in the low 2x range. And you can see we can pretty -- we're pretty quickly able to get there. We're comfortable taking that back up to the high 2x range pro forma for Bowers. I think we'll work that back down again quickly. And it will ebb and flow a bit with acquisition opportunities, but we'll likely remain in that sort of range. Jeffrey Sprau: Yes. In terms of the pipeline, Adam, it's really a different story by segment. Certainly, in the E&C segment, which is a national business, full of a very fragmented market, I think we'll -- we have a very active pipeline, and we'll continue to pursue those acquisitions that probably trend more towards the tuck-in type. Certainly, we're interested in businesses where the employee base is really technically savvy in the markets that we play in, that has capacity and are in -- that bring with them a customer background that we may not possess in a given geography. Now on the I&M side, that is much more opportunistic. And as we've discussed previously, we really focus on those cities in the U.S. that have a high concentration of these high-growth industries. And so it's a bit harder to predict. Now to be fair, we'll be spending the next several months integrating Bowers into our organization. So I would not anticipate another Bowers level acquisition in the near term. But we're always on the lookout for those parts of the country that, again, have a high concentration of our customer base, where adding scale can have a meaningful impact on our results. Adam Bubes: Terrific. And then it looks like data center and technology growth accelerated pretty sharply sequentially. I think it was 23% growth last quarter, now up over 60%. What drove that sharp acceleration? Is that a particular project or 2? And what's the level of data center and technology growth embedded in 2026 outlook? Steve Hansen: Yes. I'll take the backlog growth. Really, it's multiple projects in different geographies, a mixture of installation work from a ground-up data center builds and modular construction technical cooling systems that we're shipping around the country, the increase in the need for that type of work and the technical nature of it is really driving some of that increased backlog we're seeing. And I'll hand it to Stephen on this. Stephen Butz: Yes. In terms of our forecast, the data center and technology end market has grown for Legence over the last several years at a 30% CAGR. And our outlook remains pretty consistent with that. We think that it's going to continue to grow at that rate for some time. And that's, of course, offset by us to a degree and baked into our guidance with other markets growing generally more in the single-digit range. Operator: [Operator Instructions]. Our next question comes from Julien Dumoulin-Smith with Jefferies. Julien Dumoulin-Smith: Congrats on the inaugural call here. And as you know, we're always focused on cash, so I wanted to kick things off on that front. And I wanted to focus on this working capital tailwind that you guys are talking about here from these contract liabilities. Can you walk us through what you're seeing in terms of further willingness from customers here to accept higher down payments? It's a fascinating trend. Obviously, the sector is evolving, and it seems like some of the negotiating trends are certainly heading in your direction as a tailwind. And then more to the point, is there negotiating power for you here to protect further project economics in other manners, right? Clearly, working capital is one manifestation of those terms. I'd love to hear. Stephen Butz: Yes. Great question, Julien. As we've talked about before, working capital management is something that the company really puts an increased focus of emphasis on this year and an area where we wanted to improve. And you can see that manifest itself in the third quarter results. Certainly, part of that is just faster collections as well as better management of the payables timing, and you can see that. But also, as you point out, negotiation of contract terms, contract liabilities, and we've seen some improvement there. Now of course, it varies by the service that we're providing and the end markets, as you know. And typically, when we're custom fabricating items, we tend to get more payments -- higher payments upfront than in other instances. And so I think that's driving that to a degree. Julien Dumoulin-Smith: Got it. And then my next one is just as a follow-up to the last question, if I can. How do you think about just where you are in the life cycle of M&A and acquisitions to continue to announce these kinds of transactions? I know that was never necessarily promised as part of the IPO process here, but how would you frame that conversation and set a cadence? In contrast to the conversation on leverage, just how would you set an expectation around where you are in conversations with folks? Jeffrey Sprau: Yes. I would say our pipeline of targets remains active and robust. And at any given time, we have several discussions ongoing. Like I mentioned previously, it's a little easier to sort of understand, I guess, velocity on the E&C side because those are going to be smaller tuck-in type acquisitions. So I would continue -- I would expect those to continue. It's just hard to pick or to peg rather the impact, as you saw last quarter, we had one E&C and I&M. And then again, on the I&M side, those generally, unless they're a tuck-in to a local geography, those are just bigger and harder to call. But I do know that we're going to be focusing like a laser in terms of making sure that everything goes smoothly with the Bowers integration. And so I would not expect anything of that magnitude along those lines in the near term. Operator: Our next question comes from Sabahat Khan with RBC. Sabahat Khan: Just following up on some of the commentary around the mix between the 2 markets. Obviously, this one is adding a bit more to the sort of the implementation side, the Bowers acquisition. How do you just think about the evolution of the revenue mix kind of 1, 2, 3 years out? Is there sort of a management perspective on getting it back to maybe what -- where you were sort of pre-IPO? Or is it where the opportunities show up, you'll just kind of follow where the market is headed? Just some perspective on how the overall end market mix within revenue and EBITDA could evolve over the next 2-, 3-year period? Stephen Butz: Yes. Good question. While we'd like to maintain a reasonable balance there, it is going to ebb and flow with M&A opportunities, also the growth in different end markets. And we do see a shift next year, certainly, as we discussed, more towards the I&M segment. As Jeff mentioned, on the M&A side, we tend to see more opportunities on the more fragmented engineering industry, right? And so over time, we'll probably tend to do more acquisitions on that side, which could bring it back closer toward a 50-50. But then again, if we have an opportunity to acquire really a leading I&M firm in a target market, that can swing it back the other direction to a degree as Bowers has. But we really like both segments and both businesses and the integration that we're driving there, the cross-selling opportunities. the revenue synergy as we bring these businesses into the fold. And so we're not certainly not going to shy away from attractive opportunities in either segment. Jeffrey Sprau: Yes. We have -- that's all true, Stephen. We have extreme conviction in being a life cycle provider. And to be able to do that, you have to have scale. You have to have scale on the implementation side and you have to have scale on the engineering of our professional services side. And so you're right. We don't have a goal. It's got to be 50-50 or 60-40 or 62-38, but we want to have national scale in both because we believe it's a differentiator. We believe it's better for the customer, and we believe there's tremendous cross-sell capability that are great tailwinds, further tailwinds for our future growth. Sabahat Khan: Great. And then maybe just as a follow-up, a bit more on the margin side, I guess, similar to the mix question. And obviously, on a mix or from a mix perspective, this transaction probably a bit diluted. But I guess this was immediate scale that the market probably wasn't expecting. So can you maybe just talk about the operating leverage benefits from adding this much revenue? And then second part, maybe just some of the synergies opportunities that you might realize from Bowers over the next 1, 2 years, both revenue and cost. Stephen Butz: Sure. The -- on the -- I'll start with the synergy side. There are puts and takes on the cost synergy side. Typically, when we're acquiring the smaller private business, even though this is a little bit bigger than the others, but we're typically going to focus on increasing the focus on cybersecurity, improving the strengthening finance and HR compliance in those areas. And so typically an area where we'll spend a bit more, at least in those early years. And then, of course, there are some other cost synergies, but they tend to offset. And so really, the revenue synergy is what's driven more value uplift in our acquisition strategy historically. And that's really what we see with Bowers as well. Now over the longer term, we do expect to get more benefit as we drive integration in these businesses and get some -- so as we get into 2027, 2028, we expect to see a little bit more economies of scale, but you just don't see that in the short term. Operator: Our next question comes from Brian Brophy with Stifel. Brian Brophy: Congrats on the very nice start here. Just had a question on installation gross margins. It looks like they were a little bit higher than what folks were expecting. And certainly, they were higher than a year ago. You touched on strong execution in the release. But just curious, any more color on what's driving the gross margins on the installation side. Was there anything more onetime in there like closeouts in the quarter? Or how should we be thinking about the sustainability of the margins we saw in the third quarter? Steve Hansen: Yes. I mean continued focus on operational excellence is part of our goal. I do think there was a mixture of some closeout timing as well as the mix on the manufacturing fabrication service line that is coming with a little bit higher margins. So we feel like we can continue to leverage that as we continue to even to Stephen's point, in the future, take some operating leverage to help to expand margins on that side of the business. Operator: Our next question comes from Michael Dudas with Vertical Research Partners. Michael Dudas: Maybe for Stephen or Jeff, as you look at the backlog, which is a very strong growth and you put out your 2026 guidance, maybe you could share a little bit about what visibility you typically have 6 to 12 months out in the current backlog and the conversion rates to revenue the following year. And there's been any change in the end market? Obviously, data center has been helpful, but any other areas that as you look into 2026, may be a bit more additive to the maybe potential backlog growth or the mix of revenues that you put forth? Stephen Butz: Yes. We probably have a little higher visibility into 2026 than we have in past years at this point in the year. And so our forecast is a little bit more skewed toward projects that are in backlog versus what we refer to internally as like go get jobs that we're going to secure during the year. Today, I would estimate of our $3.1 billion in backlog that just a little bit less than $2 billion. So $1.8 billion to $1.9 billion of that will burn in 2026. Of course, a good portion will burn in the fourth quarter as well. And then some extends into 2027 and 2028. But today, have a little bit higher visibility into the next year than we historically have. And certainly more visibility into 2027 than we would have had in past years. And what was the other part of your question? Steve Hansen: Different markets... Stephen Butz: Yes. Again, tremendous growth in the data center and technology space. We've also had some nice wins in the pharmaceutical side, life sciences. Education is still going to remain a key contributor, but... Jeffrey Sprau: And I think we remain bullish on onshoring and reshoring from a manufacturing perspective, be it biotech, be it semiconductor. And then the fact that energy efficiency is a major -- has a major impact on our clients' operating expenses. And to the extent that we can go into a building of any type and reduce their energy consumption by 10%, 20%, 30%, 40%, I would expect that to continue to be a meaningful component of our -- both our backlog as well as our opportunity pipeline. Operator: Our next question comes from Greg Lewis with BTIG. Gregory Lewis: I had a first one around next year's guidance. As we look at, I guess, trying to back in an applied margin, any kind of color you can give us around what's driving that incremental expansion and then where you potentially see opportunities for upside around that guidance? Stephen Butz: Sure. I think there's always mix shifts by service line and end market that are going to be a big driver in our forecast. And so we see within installation and -- Installation and Maintenance, we do see within the Installation and Fabrication service line, selling more of our higher-margin services. While we are going to be working on the typical large installation jobs, we're also now fabricating modules that we can ship to rural areas of the country where we won't be working on the full installation or the full scope, but we tend to generate a higher margin on those sort of custom fabricated projects. And so that's increasing in proportion to that overall service line. And so that could drive some margin accretion in the installation and maintenance space. Now somewhat offsetting that is a mix shift, as we talked about toward that segment, which is lower margin than our Engineering and Consulting segment. And so all that's sort of baked into our expectations for next year. Gregory Lewis: Okay. But for overall, do we see any -- I mean, as pricing, it seems like all these -- some of your business lines are starting to gain momentum. How -- it seems like there should be an opportunity to push pricing maybe in the technology, maybe in the life sciences. Is that kind of -- is that? Steve Hansen: Yes. I think I mean we're always looking for opportunity to push pricing. We do have a very technical customer base that is savvy on price and they push back. So we are a long play with our clients. If you kind of look at the tenure of our clients and long decades-long relationships. We've built that through the years of trust and not overreaching on pricing. So -- but we will always push. We want to walk that fine line of not losing that client relationship. Operator: Our next question comes from Oliver Davies with Rothschild & Co. Redburn. Oliver Davies: Two from me. So firstly, you mentioned that some of the fabrication CapEx had slipped to 2026. So can you provide an update there and the demand you're seeing for fabrication alongside the kind of incremental growth you assume in 2026? And then secondly, I mean, obviously, the sort of more traditional end markets continue to be soft. So is there anything sequentially to call out there or any signs of improving backdrop that you're seeing? Steve Hansen: Yes. I'll start with the CapEx slip. We're continuing to build out several hundred square feet of facilities in operation. And though we're using the square footage, we've got the leases tied down and we're in those buildings, just permit issues with local entities have kind of pushed us back on that build. And so it's really the tooling side that's pushed on the CapEx. And we do see continued opportunities not only in the data center market for modular construction, but in our life science and pharma industry as well as semiconductor, we're seeing those opportunities and taking advantage. Jeffrey Sprau: And I'd say on the additional markets, probably the biotech life sciences space has been soft for the last couple of years. We're seeing some of our leading indicators would be the amount of proposals that we have submitted to clients or have been requested by clients, that is starting to tick up as lab space and R&D and office space gets absorbed. So we expect that to continue that upward trend over the next several quarters. Operator: Our next question comes from Craig Irwin with ROTH MKM. Craig Irwin: So I was hoping you could maybe give us a little bit more color on the cross-selling opportunity through the Bowers Group. You have strong E&C capabilities in the region. Is this something that you think could come together relatively quickly? How long would it take for you to get back to the regular mix from the rest of the business of roughly 25% overlap in there? Any color you could offer to help us unpack the synergies on the cross-selling there? Steve Hansen: Yes. We're excited about the opportunity with Bowers. In that region, as you know, we also have electrical capabilities. We have E&C capabilities in that region. So really our full suite of offerings. It's not overnight. We've got to go and chase down those client bases where we can offer that full package and get them on board, but it is going to be a focus as we integrate and Jeff touched on it several times, we've really got to -- we're going to bite off that integration and get them in the mix and then really work hard on how we can go approach the market and push that. So high on our target list, I'd love to give you a time line, but... Jeffrey Sprau: Well, and I'd piggyback on that, Steve. We have a nice head start in that both companies know each other and have known each other for decades. And so there are relationships and most importantly, trust that already exist. And that is a nice head start to sort of springload some results. Stephen Butz: And I'll just pile on to that while our integration plan, obviously, there's a lot of granular tasks that we're looking to accomplish. Part of that also is high level and going in and educating the employees at Target on all the different services that Legion can bring to bear. And so we will do and we'll undertake that fairly early on. But as Steve mentioned, it still takes some time for that to bear fruit. Craig Irwin: Understood. Then I wanted to follow up with a question on the fabrication expansion. So you did mention the adjustment on the tooling CapEx as you build out increased capacity into '26. Does Bowers bring anything substantially different that maybe changes the urgency or necessity of some of the investments that you're making? Are there new capabilities that were not in existence on the Legence side? And how important is this expansion that you're working on for improved capture and increased share of business with several of these Tier 1 customers that you're pursuing? Steve Hansen: Yes. Bowers brings a lot to the table. They bring both 370,000 square feet plus of fabrication capability. New capabilities, really, we have shared capabilities. They bring the same thing to the table. They've got a high background in process piping as well as hydronics and everything else that tie to this. And it allows us to leverage that geography, right? Currently, most of our fabrication is done in the West and Southwest of the country. And now we have an East Coast presence where we can go to our clients and expand that footprint and reduce cost and shipping and different things like that, that will give us synergies. So we still -- it's still important for us to build out that other square footage that we're already on because it is important for us to drive capacity and be able to show our clients that we can take that workload, so -- which is supported by our backlog. Operator: Our next question comes from Derek Soderberg with Cantor Fitzgerald. Derek Soderberg: Can you quantify any impact from larger job size in the third quarter results? And when you look at backlog, can you just talk about the trend you're seeing in job size, which end markets are influencing that at all? And then I've got a quick follow-up. Stephen Butz: Yes. I can't quantify the impact specifically from large jobs. So what I'll say is we have -- as we pointed out over time, we are seeing an increasing proportion of our revenue coming from larger jobs. That said, our average job size is probably still skewed a bit lower than some of the other public peers as we do a lot of maintenance and service, a lot of quick hitting small jobs, a lot of retrofits as opposed to new construction. Though the growth in the data center and technology end market, which tends to be more new facilities today at larger job sizes, that is having an impact. And that impact drove some of the growth in the quarter, certainly, was driven by that end market, new buildings, new jobs. So yes, we think that's going to continue. So over time, we're bullish about the retrofit market for data centers. There's a lot of data centers that are probably getting long in the tooth. And so we think that at some point, there's going to be a shift in focus toward renovation of those types of facilities. Steve Hansen: Well, and I'd add on the health care, semiconductor markets, life science markets, these larger projects, those are projects that will stay and continue once they're done and do recurring revenue work there that is on a smaller scale. Derek Soderberg: Got it. That's helpful. And then as my follow-up, it sounds like there might be some upside to 2026 with some of the synergies. But just to clarify, to what extent was any sort of synergy embedded in the full year '26 guidance? Or were they really just a continuation of the stand-alone businesses? Stephen Butz: Yes. Again, we don't see cost synergy in the short run. So over 2026, we'd expect the cost synergies to be offset by some incremental costs as we talked about. And revenue synergies, we're typically not going to model that in because it does take some time, as Steve mentioned, for that to bear fruit. Though we have historically generated a significant uplift over time from cross-selling. Operator: And we do have time for one more question. Our final question comes from Miguel Marques with Bernstein. Miguel Marques: Stepping in for Chad Dillard. First question for me just is your I&M margins were obviously up to 16.3% this quarter. You guys mentioned better project execution. But is there any additional color you guys can offer on like what levers you pulled exactly? And if at all, how much of this was driven by like better favorable end market mix or size of projects? Stephen Butz: Yes, a little bit of all of the above. I mean it definitely just, as we mentioned, exceptional project execution, late-stage projects that become visible that we're going to generate a higher margin on those jobs as well as favorable closeouts. And in terms of the top line, we also had some equipment purchases and things of that nature that were more expected to come in, in the fourth quarter that actually came in, in the third. So that provides a little benefit to the quarter as well. But that's all baked into our fourth quarter guidance. Miguel Marques: Understood. And then just second on Bowers. It obviously appears as though modular capacity played a big factor in your guys' interest. I think you guys are at 500,000 square feet today, scaling up pretty soon. Bowers is just under you guys. But for one, I guess, how much of a role did this play in your thinking and expanding on that? Could you offer any color on how big the modular business is for you today? How fast is it growing? And I guess what Bowers can add to that? Jeffrey Sprau: Yes. On the Bowers front, it's interesting. We started talking to Bowers back way back in 2020, so over 5 years ago. And we were always really interested in them based on their history, based on their culture, based on their end markets. I would tell you that we didn't know exactly what their footprint was from a fabrication perspective until we got into diligence. And that was a nice sort of frosting on the cake, so to speak, as opposed to being the initial driver. And I'll throw it to Steve or Stephen in terms of the size of our fab business in general. Stephen Butz: Yes. And we don't disclose that separately. It's part of our installation and fabrication service line. But if you were to look at where are we just doing fabrication only, it's in the low to mid-teens percentage of revenue of that overall service line, where previously a year ago, it would have been in the single digit percentages. So it's growing nicely. Operator: This concludes the question-and-answer session. I would now like to turn it back to Son Vann for closing remarks. Son Vann: Thank you, everyone, for attending our call. A recording will be available on our website in a few hours. We look forward to updating you again on our next earnings call. Thanks again, and have a great day. Operator: This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.
Operator: Good morning, and welcome to Datavault AI's Third Quarter Conference Call. With us today are Nathaniel Bradley, CEO; and Brett Moyer, CFO. This call will contain forward-looking statements, which reflect management's current judgment, including certain of our expectations regarding fiscal year 2025 and 2026 financial performance. However, they are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. Risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially -- I do not have rest of the scripture, I do apologize. It's now my pleasure to turn the call over to management. Please proceed. Nathaniel Bradley: Yes, I am Nathaniel Bradley here. Thank you very much, everyone, for joining the call today. We put together a brief presentation. There's obviously the safe harbor there. So look, we had an incredible Q3. Our results really speak for themselves. Again, this is kind of loading both the performance of WiSA from a more scalable to a more scalable, more nimble business model around the WiSA technologies in our Acoustic division. And really a surge in our ADIO technology revenues and also the beginning of what becomes in our fourth quarter, an explosion around our flagship Datavault, our kind of pride and joy. The Datavault platform had incredible performance in our Q4, but Q3 was really a loading of that performance. And thanks to Jeff Jones and some of the key players on our team that we are able to marshal the technological resources and the integrations necessary to scale our systems globally. We're now in position with the Datavault platform here Q4. So aggressive revenue guidance for 2026. Really the highlight of this call is that based on the performance of Datavault and what we can see both in the WiSA, in the ADIO technology lines and our Acoustic divisions that we're going to aggressively advance our guidance. We're going to increase from a $50 million guidance in 2026 to a full $200 million minimum for next year. And that's just leading into that a process that's underway in terms of tokenizing real-world assets all over the world and some of the progress that we've made with our Acoustic division in the WiSA technology where we've really honed in that technology and see a very scalable future that includes robotics and includes using WiSA in signage and in other areas to deliver data over sound. And so we have a very scalable model moving forward that we're very excited about and very pleased to announce that we've increased our guidance quite substantially to $200 million by the end of 2026. And that's a process underway. It's hard to gauge in the fourth quarter how we're going to work through a lot of that growth and recognition and all the issues around our revenues in Q4. We do know that it's coming in droves, and we're managing that as a team. And so strategic investment in the financial flexibility, really, this was all triggered by the $150 million strategic equity that we received. This is a lifeblood of capital that unlocks our company inside the scale of our customers' operations. So we're expanding globally our footprint, and we've got a presence now in Zurich, in London, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong. And we really believe that, that footprint will support a scalable growth on a global basis. When you look at that forecast, it's really predicated on the strategic partnerships. We're very proud of Platinum partners of IBM. Of course, our NYIAX partners that have given us access to the NASDAQ Financial Framework, which is very special and Scilex, which will lead a biotech innovation using our technology that was kind of foundational to their investment in us, but also central to how we've marshaled some of our forces to meet their design and development needs and beginning, in fact, today, a force is rising there in biotech between Scilex and Datavault where we're developing an exchange that will be very special in biotech, in scientific research. So Burke Products also should be mentioned just giving us chops with the federal government and our ability to contract with the federal government. We have a sensor technology and an inaudible tone technology and a semiconductor product that Burke Products is working with our team, in particular, Sonia Choi and others on our team to develop. We have, of course, the RWA tokenization and our ability to tokenize really begins with our ability to really understand the attribution of many types of elements and resources. We're really specialized in understanding very deeply particular resources. We've just done an announcement in geothermal, but we'll be doing a great number of announcements in this area. And we've really specialized in tokenizing things that are very valuable all over the world. And so we're really excited about our RWA positioning. Our preeminent patent position and technology is really getting recognized on a global basis, and we're really excited about that. We have innovative technology and our partnership with IBM can't be overstated. It's really special what we have there in terms of engineering and sales throughput. We also have global execution through our headquarters now in Philadelphia and the locations that I mentioned, we're able to expand. If you look at really the patented technology that we have that's quite special, it's enhanced with partnerships and scalability, multibillion-dollar corporations that have put a stack together on our behalf that really is second to none. We've talked a lot about CLEAR and IBM, but Fiserv now and Houlihan Lokey coming to our aid in areas where we needed help around international attribution, around RWA, everything from sovereignty to governance to the underlying assets, and how they're treated. We have developed an American political exchange that we intend to launch into the midterm elections in November this coming 2026 November. And we have an international elements exchange that we've developed that's been central to our revenue and interesting from a standpoint of capturing an international attention and very strong use cases here in the United States, given the passage of the GENIUS Act and the passage of CLARITY Act, where we're able to see now the financial governance models that will allow us to have a New York-based exchange operation. We also have the information data exchange, which is the -- our ability to exchange information at a level where we believe companies can turn data into cash. And we're going to have a specialized biotech exchange with Scilex that will add to this cadre of exchanges, but these will be tokenomic exchanges that use a myriad of blockchain and AI tools for both yield management and product attribution. We, of course, can tokenize on any blockchain. We are agnostic to chain, but can select the proper chain for any initiative across these exchanges. And we're excited about that platform, of course. The -- just to give you kind of the use case around one of our exchanges, the Elements Exchange, which has a bit of a hot hand in terms of answering the call on a global basis. The International Elements Exchange allows for farming, mining, banking and manufacturing organizations to tokenize and realize a value. Again, our technology does really three things. It is a refinery that allows you to refine your data assets and identify them to objectify them. We have a Datavault where you can value your assets and you can use our agents that we've developed that are AI agents that are designed to score and value your data assets. And then when you are able to score and value them, the last piece is to exchange them. And of course, we have our exchanges. This Elements Exchange is focused on the elements of Earth and all of the products of Earth that are under earth in terms of being mined or that are forthcoming in crops or other manufacturing outputs, even geothermal as we announced today, where you have an energy output of earth. Our Elements Exchange will have a myriad of elements, it's a number of them. We have a focus around our Elements Exchange and how we make money on that exchange is our use of these elements to create objects that are traded on our exchange. We're focused on right now revenue drivers including commodities, agricultural and soft commodities, that's sugar and cotton. Commodities include gold and rare earth, pharma and genomics and biotech, our partnership with Scilex, our partnership with Brookhaven National Laboratory. We are focused around tokenizing, valuing and refining these objects and producing a revenues around these objects that is received on every tick of the trade on these exchanges. We operate exactly like the New York Stock Exchange or the NASDAQ. We are able to uplist companies' assets in the form of token, and we can trade them in between buyers and sellers in a brokered exchange that is secure and using world-class infrastructure, as I discussed. So we have the ability to do this in real estate as well. We have large RWA products in real estate, corporate data, including data in situations of banking, insurance and accounting, Tort law, a number of interesting data sets that are valuable and can be traded on our exchanges. We also have, of course, our NIL Exchange. And our international NIL Exchange will be making an enormous announcement about its rebranding, and we've targeted a corporation that has identified us and we've identified them, and we're going to make a big step forward and a big announcement in the near future around our sports NIL Exchange. We have also our focus around, of course, developing our quantum computing and high-performance computing capability. This is in combination, of course, with IBM, but it's also targeted around our London and New York and Hong Kong operations and also looking at using that technology infrastructure team and resource around our exchange resources as well as our ability to use that technology to optimize the output and the performance of our own company. We are focused on, of course, VerifyU, our credentialing technology, DVHolo, our ability to turn data into experience and to monetize experience on our exchanges. Our ability to use our NIL exchange with an enormous global brand recognized around the world across all professional sports and collegiate sports. And our ability to focus on our digital twin capability through our Twinstitute, our acquisition of API Media and our consolidation of CSI in the event space, our ability to have data from events to look at events around the world as creating data in their [ wake ] that is more valuable potentially than tickets themselves and the ability to optimize those events through data, the sales of merchandise, the development of connections to fans and the continuation of the revenue streams for our customers that engage our Acoustic division. ADIO which is data over sound; WiSA, which is the ability to control sound in high-definition and spatial environments and to broadcast wirelessly as synchronization that will have extreme value in robotics and into the future. We have, of course, the Sumerian crypto anchors and our ability to map the real world and bring data from adamant objects from real things to know when a file in a physical world is opened, to know when a statute is moved. Our Sumerian anchors are breakthrough technologies. We have, of course, our pipeline that's driven us to increase our guidance from $50 million to $200 million next year. This is driven by gold, diamonds, tin, Winsor Ruby deal we have in Africa. We just announced this morning a geothermal deal worth $8 million in tokenization that we believe we can recognize in our fourth quarter. We will then engage in a 5% revenue stream around geothermal energy, which we're excited to be a part of the Battery of America. We also have, of course, the contract discussions and projects that are underway in aluminum, titanium, tungsten, silver, copper, oil, natural gas, Boron, real estate. We have a number of opportunities around our X Club, which is an international Asian-focused club around XRP and our move forward there is exciting around these elements. We have our acquisition of API Media that's going to bring us into some high-powered activations and big-time events. The Kentucky Derby, PGA Tour. These are all events that we're excited to be part of, and we're part of it because of API Media. We have new leadership. We have new corporate governance and quality in our management because of that acquisition, and we're so excited to have that team on board with us in Philadelphia and New Jersey. We -- from here, have a guidance and updated our strategic guidance, is really around our launch of these exchanges. That's how we're going to drive revenue. That's how we're going to meet these expanded goals. It's difficult. It's not easy, but we didn't want a low bar for our team or for our management moving forward. We see this giant opportunity, and we've increased guidance accordingly. There's a lot of wood to chop, a lot of work to do. We're doing it. Scalable licensing models is our focus. We've upgraded our financial outlook, as I discussed, RWA and tokenomics, a world leader in that space with patents to prove it, underlying intellectual property that continues to grow, a big shout out to that team, Josh Paugh and now Jacob on that team that are developing patent resources for us on a daily basis including the opportunity to license the WiSA technologies on a scalable and global basis moving forward with partners that are second to none. So that sums up really our presentation today or my prepared remarks. We really appreciate the time and interest in our company. We're excited about what the future has to offer and happy holidays to everyone, and we give thanks to our shareholders and everybody involved in our company, moving and driving this forward. Thank you very much. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our first question today is coming from Ken Londoner from Endicott Partners. Ken Londoner: That was a comprehensive update. Can you give us some detail on the scope of contracts you're talking about regarding the tokenization of real-world assets? You mentioned quite a few, but what are sort of the big focuses for you going forward? Nathaniel Bradley: So really, the strategy there is driven by the quality of the assets that are being tokenized, gold, diamonds, silver. We're big believers in copper. Copper will have -- it's a conductive metal, of course. And as we rebuild around the world and build new infrastructure around the world, including data centers, copper, we believe, has a lot of value as do many other elements. We're kind of an open ear around the world. The cool thing is we've been invited to governors' mansions. We've been invited into really the governments of international countries and places that we're excited to go and listen and find where the most valuable assets reside and how we can help move those assets. We did open out of Zurich, the opportunity to have a Swiss exchange, and we're working through all the legalities and proper modalities for that. And we're not quick to work through all of that. We're careful to work through all of that. And once we do, we will launch there internationally here in the U.S., really from our Philadelphia headquarters. We intend to have these token exchanges all expand. So to answer your question quite succinctly, we're following the money. We're listening to our customers and following the most valuable assets, proprietors in those assets that are most valuable that we could -- our team would focus on tokenizing assets that we could tokenize this year and recognize revenue for this year and also then move into volume on our exchanges where we have revenue generated on every tick of the trade as do our clients. So we're focused on RWA that is most valuable. I think the announcement today with geothermal, if you look at our priorities, we've started there with one of our big priorities, geothermal. Operator: Next question today is coming from Jack Vander Aarde from Maxim Group. Jack Vander Aarde: Okay. Great. I appreciate the update. You covered quite a lot of ground there. Where do I start? The guidance is jumped off the page to me. So revenue guidance raised in 2025 to over $30 million and $200 million plus revenue for 2026. So maybe, Nate, I mean, this is really leveled up here, I mean, clearly. So maybe help us understand what's sort of locked in that 2026 guidance versus how much is kind of are you working towards locking in? Just so we have a sense of maybe stress testing that a little bit. Nathaniel Bradley: So look, I had to arm wrestle with many on my financial team, Brett Moyer, who deserves a lot of credit for unlocking this value in the first place. But the concept here is to really underpromise and overdeliver. I don't look at that 200 number and feel intimidated. I want my team to feel inspired and to be fired up about a mission that we jointly have together. But I also -- so I didn't want to have a low bar where we are simply overperforming by a function of living. I wanted us to have a goal as a team in our public guidance is obviously our public guidance. Internally, we aim high. And as a leader, we would aspire to be much greater than that number. Our competitors have numbers that are much greater, but they were much older and much more, I would say, bloated and stuck in their way. We have a very nimble AI strategy. We have the #1 partner in the world in IBM around our development, around our technology and the development of quantum systems, which are in near term, a concern for every operation that has any technological reach. So to stress test, the fourth quarter is to understand that this is our first go around. We're working with our auditors. We're working with sophisticated systems around the world. There are revenue recognition and other things to consider that we simply need to understand. So the fourth quarter is likely the steepest climb. It has a lot to do with our technological resources, putting a lot of pressure on that Georgia Development Center that we've begun to develop. We will be expanding that development to meet the demand of this international demand for tokenomics. We also have our new facility in Philadelphia, where we're bringing a team that worked disparately or worked from a Philadelphia location that was private, but many from their homes and from locations that were disparate, bringing our team together, there's a common coffee pot focus that I think when we bring our team together, these numbers start to be quite achievable. And I hope to readjust guidance because we don't want to have a situation where it's easy to achieve what we intend to achieve. We are rookie in terms of our first year on the NASDAQ as data evolves. We have exceptional pedigree technology from WiSA and a tenure on the NASDAQ that shows in our volume and the respect that we're getting worldwide. We're also garnering a number of government -- and you can see today very important projects that impact our world. So I want to thank you for your early guidance for seeing this so early and for having the strength to come out and call us at $3. And as we shoot past that guidance, I hope people recognize your prowess. And we appreciate you following our company for so long. Jack Vander Aarde: Great. No, and I appreciate that. Let's -- there's so much to queue on here, Nate. I just want to understand it and also make sure I'm also setting the expectations appropriately. So -- and if Brett's there as well, maybe that would be helpful, too. On the gross margin line, so if we just look kind of going forward, these are, I imagine, high-margin licensing agreements right now on paper. And I've yet to see it play out within the tokenization on your guys' income statement. So that's going to be a forward-looking thing. Can you just help maybe, help us -- help investors understand what are we going to look like on the gross margin line as these revenues would seem to be pretty large, especially relative to historical levels. I'll... Nathaniel Bradley: Yes, I'll let Brett answer that. But what I would tell you is that we do a great deal of work. If you look at the refinement of data, you might make 20 points on your best day on refinement. You're not looking to get your customer really into these large contracts of CapEx expenditure where you end up in these kind of slow-moving board-level type decisions. Instead, we have a low-cost approach to that. We like to refine on our customers' premises and give them a data refinery and essentially a vending machine for their data. The ability to buy and sell data from our Datavault on the exchange is our aim. So when you get to the exchange and our SaaS has traditional SaaS margins, which are great. But our exchange has exceptional margins, and those can flirt with upper 80s on the exchange. So it's Refinery Vault exchange. And as you walk through that -- those tires, I think you have varying degree of margin in the business. And then, of course, our Acoustic division takes on the more traditional cost of goods versus price of product type analysis. But Brett, with that, I'll turn it to you. Brett Moyer: Yes. So Jack, if you -- I think Nate framed it actually, right? So when you look at the businesses we're acquiring or have acquired, right, CSI, API and ultimately NYIAX, that creates probably the opportunity to do $35 million to $50 million next year. And that's going to be more traditional margins in the, call it, 35% to 45% range. But when you move to -- if you go back and look at the deals we've announced, they all have a component of licensing. So I would expect the rest of the revenue to be weighted higher to the $60 million range, right? So I think when you blend it all out, you're going to be in a 55%, 60% margin across the company. Jack Vander Aarde: Fantastic. Okay. Those are excellent margins. And then can I get an update there's so many moving parts here, obviously, because you guys are on fire. How do we -- how do I think about the balance sheet? So -- because the third quarter, it doesn't really do a justice, I don't believe. So we have a huge Bitcoin investment, it sounds like coming in from Scilex. There's been a lot more acquisitions that have closed subsequent to the quarter. So there's debt, there's fiat cash. Maybe if we could just boil it down, do we have a rough sense of what cash is and what the state of that investment is from Scilex? Brett Moyer: From Scilex? Yes, Nate, do you want me to answer this? Nathaniel Bradley: Yes, yes please. Jack Vander Aarde: Scilex, my apologies. Brett Moyer: All right. So let's take the investment from Scilex because that's $150 million. We got aid in just at the end of the close of the quarter, but that investment is locked down and documented. The only thing between us and having that on the balance sheet is the shareholder vote on November 24. We -- that is an Annual Shareholder Meeting. So we will have quorum, and we have voting agreements prior that we had signed at the time of signing the Scilex deal that amount to, I believe, more than 40 million yes votes. So we're highly confident that the majority of the votes cast will be -- will approve the increase authorized so we can close that $150 million on November 24 or 25, right? So when you think about the balance sheet, that's triggered -- that deal triggered a couple of reactions on the balance sheet. A, it means by the end of the year, you have $130 million plus of liquid assets, maybe $125 million because we're buying API. It also meant that the convertible debt that we had in Q3 triggered out and is off our balance sheet for good. So the only debt on the balance sheet currently is debt associated with the strategic acquisitions of CSI and Datavault Holdings now known as EOS Technologies. So I think you get to a pretty powerful and strong balance sheet as we report out the K at the end of the year. Jack Vander Aarde: Excellent. That's very helpful. Just one more follow-up to that. With the Bitcoin investment, let's say the shareholder vote is approved, so all $150 worth of Bitcoin is now in your possession. Are you going to be -- does that mean your -- how much of that is going to be kept in the form of Bitcoin versus how much of that is out the door to fund some of this stuff? Brett Moyer: Well, look, I think there's -- I think it's real important for investors to understand that when we took the 150 -- when we signed that financing deal, there are no treasury restrictions around it. So from management's perspective, Nate in my mind, that $150 million is the same as cash, except it has a little bit more volatility than cash, right? But fundamentally, we look at it as cash, so we don't look at having any pressure for multiple years to have to raise cash, raise any money for the company which is fundamentally changing, right, our platform... Jack Vander Aarde: Yes. So for all effective purposes, it's both working capital or it's an investment. It's kind of whatever you need it to be when it's in the door. Brett Moyer: Exactly. Operator: Our next question today is coming from Peter [ Ruggieri ] from a private investor. Unknown Attendee: I'm going to tell you a little bit about myself. I got involved originally as an investor in Sorrento, which owns Scilex, which owns Semnur. They're involved with Celularity, piece of Aardvark [indiscernible] involved, now Semnur or Scilex has put $150 million into Datavault which is new to me. And I have a lot of questions because with all this -- with like IPMC and a precision medicine globally with Robert Hariri with Celularity, you're running a whole platform globally with increasing medicine AI. It's a big thing. And I'm just astounded by the revenue guidance, by the way. I'm wondering what's the revenue contract backlog right now? Nathaniel Bradley: It's significant. It's one of the hardest things to get through and particularly internationally, just in terms of getting the company's chops up for that. And our Philadelphia headquarters is going to address legal and governance and many other things. Also, these exchanges are not simple in their constructs from a governance standpoint. And we have a very kind of governance-first model that served us very well. We get to be the iTunes in the space as opposed to the Napsters, if you will. So I'm excited about that. I think your question is regarding to the biotech space and Scilex investment or interest in us. Scilex is wildly accretive to our strategy. We had announced previously digital twinning and digital twins as a marketplace that we were interested in developing technology around and we have. And its really data into experience, data into hologram, data into model, data into experiential models where management teams don't struggle to understand the challenges or the data related to the challenges around them. They're able to actually experience that data and see the pathways before them more clearly. And that's kind of at the center of the Datavault which is experience around and that experience includes valuation and score because it had to be sustainable. So valuation and score. And one of the things that is common across these threads, but very specific in the biotech space is our work with the Brookhaven National Laboratory, which I believe Scilex was studied and saw our progress there and read our cooperative research and advancement agreement drafts that are now being considered at Brookhaven. We have the great privilege of working with supercomputers there in a supercomputer environment of people that we've come to trust and in fact, love that we are able to develop a system between our federal laboratories, our allies, so BAE over -- just over the pond and some of the collaborators we have here in the United States, whether it's General Dynamics, Raytheon or Boeing, our ability to take information and have rather than stovepipes and everybody not share their marbles that everybody can collaborate on a global basis for the advancement of technologies across a myriad of spaces, none more important, none more probably well-funded than biotech. And Scilex is a leader in that, the people there and the leaders, Dr. Henry Ji, certainly financially Stephen Ma, who's become a mentor to me. These are incredible people who have a great grasp over biotech science and biotech technologies. And we're proud to have that investment that allows us to build that platform and so much more. We're a platform of platforms. We're exchange of exchanges, the ability to launch exchange after exchange, our biotech exchange, which will have a great name. I know the name, I can't say it, but the biotech exchange will be a very special attribute. So to the size question about -- part of your question about size and why is this space so hot or why did we increase our guidance? It's only partially for the real-world asset of biotech that's in our guidance. And I think it's an explosive piece that maybe makes us to re-guide. But the biotech piece is incredibly exciting and has attribution and use case and utility across every medical science, oncology and heart, acute, post-acute. When you look at the healthcare space, it is not a market, it's the market. Everyone will engage with it at some point. And many of us on a daily basis, many more on acute management basis are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars per annum to address our health. And the kind of compound nature of that makes it not only an international crisis, but something that needs technology to address. And we're happy and proud to be part of the solution of creation of digital twins. And you could see scanning the human body and having a digital twin could aid you, just like it aids management in experiencing their data decisions. When you see your digital twin, it has the same effect. And healthcare is very exceptional. It's very well-funded, but also in crisis. So it's a unique combination. We're happy to be part of the solution. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our next question is coming from [ Tyrell Pruitt, ] a private investor. We reached end of our question-and-answer session. Ladies and gentlemen, this call contains forward-looking statements, which reflect management's current judgment, including certain of our expectations regarding fiscal year 2025 and 2026 financial performance. However, they are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. Risk factors that could cause our actual results to differ materially from our projections and forecasts are discussed in detail in our periodic filings with the SEC. That does conclude today's teleconference and webcast. We thank you for your participation today.
Operator: Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to StubHub's Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note that this conference call is being recorded today, November 13, 2025. I will now turn the call over to Clinton Hooks with StubHub. Clinton Hooks: Thank you for joining us to discuss StubHub's Third quarter 2025 results. For reference, our third quarter 2025 earnings release and presentation are available under the Quarterly Results section of our Investor Relations website at investors.stubhub.com. Before we begin, please note that today's discussion will include forward-looking statements within the meaning of federal securities laws. These statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from our expectations. We assume no responsibility for updating these statements. Therefore, please exercise caution in relying on them. For detailed risk factors, please refer to our SEC filings. We'll also discuss certain non-GAAP measures, which we believe are useful to investors for evaluating our performance. These measures should not be considered in isolation or as substitutes for GAAP results. Full reconciliations to GAAP measures are available in our earnings release. Unless otherwise noted, our profitability and EBITDA discussions today refer to non-GAAP adjusted EBITDA. Joining me today are Eric Baker, our Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; and Connie James, our Chief Financial Officer. They will provide opening remarks, then take questions. With that, I'll turn it over to Eric. Eric Baker: Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us for our first earnings call as a public company. I want to welcome all our investors, both those who supported us throughout our private journey and those who are new to the StubHub story. We're grateful for your trust and partnership, as we embark on this next chapter together. Today, I'll focus primarily on the progress we've made in establishing StubHub as a leading live event ticketing marketplace and on our strategic initiatives. I'll then hand it over to Connie to speak to our third quarter financial performance. While we won't be providing detailed 2026 guidance on today's call, we look forward to sharing our outlook during our next earnings call in early 2026. With that said, I want to begin by stepping back and discussing the business that we have built over the last 2 decades and share the long-term vision of where we are going, one that continues to be defined by a customer-focused and relentless drive to make live entertainment accessible to everyone everywhere. The past few years have been transformative for our business. We completed the StubHub acquisition, navigated the pandemic, fully rebuilt StubHub's technology stack, restored StubHub as the clear category leader and have now entered the public market. Our thesis for the acquisition was to restore StubHub's market leadership in North America and create a unified global ticketing marketplace. Our business today is the result of the successful execution of that thesis, and we are very proud of the asset that exists as a result. Today, StubHub operates what we believe is the largest global secondary ticketing marketplace for live event tickets, selling over 40 million tickets annually across more than 200 countries and territories from over 1 million sellers all over the world. Our many years of leadership in the resale market have created brands synonymous with the category, resulting in moats around our business and durable competitive advantage through customer loyalty and trust, organic traffic and superior acquisition and conversion. We maintain what we believe is the most comprehensive operations and supply chain capabilities in our category, the largest event catalog in the world and the capability to fulfill virtually any ticket across any category, all through a single global marketplace. Our business produces a huge data asset as tens of millions of people interact with our product services on what we believe is the largest floating price marketplace for live events in the world. This data on supply, demand, pricing, user behavior, etc., provides structural advantage through differentiated product innovation, marketing optimization and pricing intelligence. Finally, this is all built on a single, modern, globally deployed technology stack, allowing us to rapidly innovate across our product surface and nimbly deploy features using new technologies, something becoming increasingly important as AI development shapes the future of digital commerce. Our business has built a rare combination of best-in-class financial attributes that create exceptional value at scale with proven durability. First, we are growing rapidly with nearly 20% GMS growth over the last 12 months. Second, our marketplace models operated with enduring economics, consistent take rates and high margins. Third, we built a profitable customer acquisition engine that allows us to grow and take market share while generating profits through our performance marketing channels. Fourth, our asset-light business model and the natural flow generated by our marketplace dynamics result in exceptional cash conversion. Fifth, we've demonstrated remarkable resilience through economic cycles, consistently growing nearly every year since inception. And finally, we operate in a large and expanding core global secondary ticketing market with durable long-term tailwinds. In addition, we have opportunities for significant TAM expansion through accessing the broader ticketing ecosystem. We believe you would be hard-pressed to find many other companies to check these boxes. That said, we are most excited about leveraging these assets to realize our vision to become the global destination for consumers to access live entertainment. We believe that buyers want one destination where they can purchase any ticket for any event in their language and currency. Sellers want to optimize revenue and attendance through broad distribution and pricing intelligence. We believe we can service these needs by building a single product that puts the world's live entertainment at fans' fingertips and services their needs throughout their entire journey. This is not something that exists in our category today. This is a product and service that can only be built by applying technology and relentless customer focus to eliminate friction around the live event experience. Technology businesses innovating on behalf of consumers have reimagined access to many products and services, information, music, video, food, but not yet for live entertainment. This is exactly what StubHub is, a business with a core competency in technology development focused on applying its expertise to revolutionize the way consumers interact with live event commerce. With this context, we can turn to some of the topics I think are top of mind regarding recent developments in our operating environment. First, we wanted to discuss some recent developments in our core resale market. Restoring StubHub's market share in North America was the key tenet of our acquisition thesis. Following our acquisition of StubHub in 2020 and the completion of the technology migration in 2022, we have consistently gained share in the North American market, transforming StubHub from a business that was roughly comparable in size to the nearest competitor in 2022 to one that is now approximately 4x larger than that same competitor based on GMS and comparable metrics. This momentum in share gains and the subsequent positive impacts of relative share we observed led us to invest in accelerating this dynamic via disciplined customer acquisition and conversion levers, specifically take rates and performance marketing, which continued in the most recent quarter. I want to highlight one specific downstream impact of this share gain, our growing share of the point-of-sale market. In our market, the point-of-sale is a software product used by power sellers to manage the listing, pricing, distribution and fulfillment of their ticket portfolios. Sellers build their operational workflows around the software infrastructure, which becomes sticky as a result, like many enterprise software products. For many years, the technology was provided by one of our competitors, whose product had the majority share of the market. We recently launched our own product called ReachPro. As our relative market share of sales volume has increased, we've seen rapid adoption of our technology. We have benefited from a powerful network effect. As our marketplace captures a larger share of sellers' sales, these sellers are increasingly willing to migrate their operations to what we believe is our far superior technology, backed by our unmatched data and insights. In the secondary market, installation of ReachPro naturally produces higher relative market share. When sellers use our tool, they tend to index their behavior around our marketplace, ensuring competitive pricing and high standards of fulfillment, leading to structural advantage and benefits for our buyers. It also provides valuable data insights, which can be used to improve the quality of our products and a strategic product development surface to launch advertising products and innovate with features that will serve large sellers even at enterprise scale. Q3 was both our largest relative market share quarter to date and the largest quarter of new seller adoption for ReachPro. We believe we have line of sight into becoming the largest provider of this product in the medium term, a durable and strategic asset created in part via our relative market share investments. This brings us to the next topic, direct issuance, which we believe will be a major innovation to original issuance ticketing distribution that will promote competition and improve the fan experience while improving economics for ticket issuers. As I mentioned earlier, we believe buyers want a single platform that offers access to all the world's live entertainment. At the same time, sellers maximize revenue and attendance by accessing the broadest possible distribution with the smartest pricing intelligence. Our strategy to unlocking this value proposition is through what we call direct issuance. Generally speaking, there are 3 seller types in the market: individuals, power sellers and enterprise sellers. StubHub and viagogo began as platforms to service individual sellers, season ticket holders, concert goers whose plans change and so on. As liquidity of the market grew, market makers developed. Power sellers selling large quantities of tickets through the marketplace on a regular basis, and we ultimately developed products such as ReachPro to allow these sellers to manage the listing, pricing and fulfillment of tickets seamlessly. For our business, direct issuance simply refers to expanding the supply side of our platform once again to allow enterprise sellers, content rights holders like teams, arts and venues to access our marketplace through a frictionless technology-enabled experience as any individual or power seller does. We believe simultaneous multichannel or open distribution using data-backed pricing intelligence is the future of ticket distribution, as it will maximize value for fans and content. To be clear, this is a very different model to legacy primary ticketing companies. Primary ticketing company's core service is to provide access control to venues. And secondarily, they provide a retail web storefront with limited or no marketing. Content today, for the most part, sells an inventory through antiquated distribution methods. They often sell tickets, expiring products that drive huge economics exclusively through these access control providers. The result is an opaque market with huge inefficiency, narrow distribution, lack of pricing intelligence and ultimately, unsold seats and tremendous value loss for content, not to mention a lack of competition leading to a terrible experience for fans. We are not competing with this model, and we are not providing access control technology. We offer something new, the ability for content to access StubHub's distribution engine through a variety of options that does not require them to switch their access control provider. We make our distribution available to content rights holders with no exclusivity requirement, broadening their distribution and empowering them with robust data insights from our scaled floating price marketplace to make informed pricing and utilization decisions. This means content rights holders can access our marketplace, distribution, data and customers, in the same way individuals and power sellers can. They can list tickets multichannel across retail outlets at whatever price points they choose to optimize their utilization and yield, and we compete to sell inventory the same we do today. We're actively making investments to grow this business and demonstrate the benefits of open distribution's content and are excited about the progress we are making. We recently signed a partnership with Major League Baseball, a great example of one of the world's premier sports properties endorsing open distribution. MLB momentum has continued, and more teams are continuing to become sellers on StubHub, several of which are doing so without any additional economic incentive or protection from us. They're selling just as any other seller on our platform does. We have also had success with the music festival category, adding Peachtree Entertainment, one of the largest independent promoters in the Southeast, and LED Presents, an independent EDM promoter on the West Coast. These promoters combined put on dozens of events attended by hundreds of thousands of fans annually. We have also continued to add talent to lead this initiative. Shaun Stewart, who spent much of his career building supply chain for travel businesses such as Expedia and Airbnb, joined as VP of Direct Issuance. Shaun will be reporting to Raj Beri, who was instrumental in building Uber Eats' APAC business and recently joined StubHub as Chief Business Officer to oversee all global supply. Direct issuance represents an addressable market opportunity well in excess of $100 billion, a transformative growth vector that we believe will drive substantial long-term growth, value creation for our business and shareholders for years to come. The other business we are in the early stages of developing is advertising, which we believe can be a large and profitable business for us, as it has been for many other marketplaces. We are pursuing 2 advertising models initially. First, sponsored listings, where sellers can bid for premier placement on event pages to dramatically increase exposure. For any given event, we may be merchandising hundreds, even thousands of tickets on our event pages. These are expiring products, meaning that sellers receive nothing if the ticket does not sell. With the sponsored listing offering, sellers can bid for higher visibility among competing inventory, improving the likelihood of a buyer seeing and ultimately purchasing their ticket. Conversations with sellers on our platform have demonstrated tremendous interest and features such as sponsored listings as an additional and powerful tool for sellers on our marketplace. As ReachPro has gained users and market share, we've also established a ready-made distribution platform for sponsored listings, as we can build access to the feature directly into ReachPro's user workflow without the heavy lift of a sales force. The second advertising model is through more traditional corporate advertising partnerships with businesses in adjacent product categories that can be additive to the customer experience. One example of this is Booking.com. Event tourism is a rapidly growing category, and we know that many of our customers are purchasing tickets for events outside of where they live. Our partnership with Booking is a great example of how we can monetize post-purchase real estate in our product to deliver a travel offering to customers. And it is also a great example of a high-quality business, recognizing the value of our customer base and paying us for access. We believe this will extend to other categories adjacent to sports, music and live event attendance. We are very excited about the potential for advertising on our platform. Of course, as with everything we do, our #1 priority is ensuring that we do not adversely impact the customer experience. Therefore, introducing advertising thoughtfully and methodically remains our focus. We recognize investors are eager for more details on direct issuance and advertising. We intend to provide a more fulsome update on the long-term opportunity on our call early next year. To close, StubHub is a business that is growing fast at scale while generating profits and cash flow. StubHub is a global category leader with the data, technology and customer focus to continue capturing share of the global ticketing market. Indeed, we are very proud of all that we have accomplished to date. However, the real goal for us is to reimagine our market to create an unprecedented experience for fans and an asset of tremendous value in the process. That is what is really exciting. With that, I'll turn the call over to Connie to discuss our financial results. Constance James: Thanks, Eric. Before I discuss our third quarter financial performance, I'd like to share our financial philosophy that guides our decision-making, and ultimately, how we look to drive long-term shareholder value. To that end, the foundation of our value creation approach rests on 3 financial principles. First, we prioritize driving sustainable market share growth by strategically investing in our marketplace ecosystem. Second, we are committed to long-term margin expansion through operational discipline and the natural leverage in our marketplace model. Third, we focus relentlessly on cash flow generation. Our business model efficiently converts adjusted EBITDA into free cash flow, providing us the financial flexibility to reinvest in the business and optimize our capital structure. With that context, let's turn to our third quarter results, beginning with our key marketplace metrics, gross merchandise sales, or GMS. GMS represents the total economic value flowing through our platform and directly drives the network effects that make StubHub increasingly valuable to both buyers and sellers. Our GMS reached $2.4 billion in the third quarter, representing 11% growth from the prior year period. This performance demonstrates the fundamental strength of our marketplace even as we navigated the anticipated impact of the federally mandated all-in pricing in the United States earlier this year. As expected, the transition has reduced conversion rates as customers adjusted to the new pricing format. Based on our internal estimates previously disclosed, we believe the implementation of all-in pricing had an estimated 10% one-time impact on the size of the North American secondary ticketing market. We expect this transition effect will continue to influence year-over-year comparisons through May 2026 as we cycle through the full 12-month period following the May 2025 implementation date. Even with this temporary growth headwind, our results demonstrate the resilience of our business model and our ability to continue to gain market share in this dynamic environment. Beyond the impact of all-in pricing, we believe our GMS growth reflects a more fundamental trend, sustained share gains across the North America secondary ticketing market, where we continue to outpace overall market, as well as continued international expansion. When excluding the outsized impact of Taylor Swift's Eras Tour from the prior year period, our GMS grew 24% year-over-year with broad-based strength across our platform and categories. Revenue for the third quarter was $468 million, up 8% compared to last year. The performance was primarily driven by our GMS growth, offset by 2 factors worth highlighting. First, as Eric discussed earlier, we made the strategic decision to further invest in market share expansion, in part through a reduction in take rates, resulting in our revenue as a percentage of GMS declining slightly to 19% this period compared to 20% in the prior year period. This measured reduction in take rates reflects our deliberate approach to balancing near-term results with long-term market leadership. Second, we experienced a reduction in inventory revenue as we strategically phased out the use of minimum guarantees for direct issuance sellers. This move is aligned with our long-term marketplace strategy of building sustainable, scalable relationships with content rights holders. Unless otherwise noted, the following discussion of our results will be on an adjusted basis to exclude stock-based compensation and other one-time costs. Full reconciliations to GAAP figures are available in our press release. Our adjusted gross margin was 84% during the quarter, up from 82% last year. The improvement primarily reflects a reduction in ticket substitution and replacement costs. Adjusted sales and marketing expenses were $255 million or 54% of revenue compared to $221 million or 51% of revenue last year. The increase as a percentage of revenue was driven by the reduction in take rates to drive relative market share gains in the North America secondary market. Adjusted operations and support expenses were $17 million or 3.5% of revenue during the quarter compared to $16 million or 3.6% of revenue last year. Adjusted G&A was $52 million or 11% of revenue during the quarter compared to $62 million or 14% of revenue last year. As we look forward, we do anticipate a modest amount of investment in technology resources. On the profitability front, we delivered adjusted EBITDA of $67 million, representing 14% of revenue, up 21% compared to $56 million or 13% of revenue in the same period last year. Finally, I want to highlight a one-time item on the income statement. Our GAAP results for the quarter include a nonrecurring noncash expense of $1.4 billion related to stock-based compensation granted prior to our IPO. The expense was triggered by the completion of our IPO. Accounting standards require recognition of these previously granted rewards in the quarter when the IPO-related performance conditions are satisfied. To be clear, all stock-based compensation, including this one-time expense is excluded from our adjusted EBITDA calculations. Additionally, this accounting recognition has no impact on our cash flow or cash position as it represents a noncash expense. Turning to cash flow. Before diving into our performance, I want to provide some context on how we view operational cash generation in our business. Our marketplace model has inherent favorable cash flow characteristics. We collect cash from buyers at the time of purchase, but remit payments to sellers at a later date, often after the event occurs. These cash balances show up on our balance sheet as payments due to sellers. With this timing difference, we earn a yield on these proceed balances. To illustrate, on a trailing 12-month basis, you will see $41 million of interest income on our income statement. Additionally, we are asset-light with only $26 million of CapEx over the trailing 12-month period. We also benefit from over $1 billion of NOLs, resulting in minimal cash taxes in the medium term. Over the same trailing 12-month period, our cash tax amount was only $17 million. This allows us to consistently convert cash at a rate roughly 100% of our adjusted EBITDA. In relation to free cash flow, we measured on a trailing 12-month basis to reduce the lumpiness created by quarterly timing differences between when we collect cash from buyers and when we remit payments to sellers, which is impacted by seasonality and event mix. For the 12-month period ending September 30, free cash flow was $6 million, which included $120 million of net cash outflows due to the change in our payments due to buyers and sellers. This amount was impacted by an atypical concentration in seller proceed outflows occurring in the fourth quarter of '24 following the final leg of Taylor Swift's North American tour. Our trailing 12-month free cash flow also included $153 million in cash interest costs during the period. Excluding those items, we generated $279 million in free cash flow conversion of approximately 100% of TTM adjusted EBITDA. Taking a step back, I want to frame our results within the broader context of our 2025 objectives. This year, our priorities have been clear: to grow market share in North America, to expand internationally and to lay the groundwork for long-term TAM expansion through disciplined and focused investment. From the outset, we anticipated that 2025 would present a more challenging growth environment for our market. There were 2 notable, but temporary factors shaping this year's comparisons. First, we are lapping the unprecedented Taylor Swift Eras Tour; and second, the industry transitioned to all-in pricing, which took effect in May. In addition, we are lapping the historic Yankees-Dodgers World Series as well as an unusually high concentration of major on sales that occurred in last year's fourth quarter. This year, we are observing some shifts in the timing of these on sales. Several large tours that would typically go on sale in the fourth quarter occurred earlier in late September. It remains to be seen how this concert on-sale timing dynamic plays out in November and December. Even with these temporary market dynamics in 2025, we are executing well against the objectives within our control, driving strong operational performance and expanding our leading market share position. And as we look ahead to 2026, the Taylor Swift comparison will be behind us, and we will lap the implementation of all-in pricing in May. Fan demand for live events remains strong, and we're excited about what is shaping up to be another robust year for live entertainment. Let me now address our thoughts on guidance, as we navigate our early stages as a public company. We are focused on operating the business for long-term value creation. Of course, we want to provide our investors with transparency so they can track our progress and execution against our long-term goals. While we are not providing specific guidance today, we plan to share annual guidance for our 2026 expectations when we report our fourth quarter and full year 2025 results early next year. Turning to the balance sheet. Our capital structure philosophy centers on maintaining flexibility and optionality to position our business for long-term success. This approach guided our capital markets activity during the quarter, which was designed to enhance our financial strength by prioritizing a reduction in our leverage, something that will continue to be a key priority. During the quarter, we successfully executed 2 transactions that collectively raised approximately $1 billion. First, we raised $224 million through our Series O preferred equity, which will convert into common equity at the expiration of the lockup. Next, we completed our $800 million IPO, raising net proceeds of approximately $758 million after deducting underwriting discounts and commissions. The influx of capital provided us with the opportunity to significantly improve our balance sheet by reducing leverage and lowering our debt service costs while maintaining strong liquidity. Specifically, we reduced our total debt by approximately 30%, retiring $750 million of our U.S. dollar-denominated term loan, bringing our total debt down to $1.7 billion. As a result, we ended the quarter with $1.4 billion of cash and cash equivalents or $623 million, net of our payments due to sellers, and $1.1 billion of net debt. The ratio of our net debt to TTM adjusted EBITDA was 3.9x at quarter end. Importantly, the interest rates on our remaining term loans are hedged via interest rate swaps through February 2027, resulting in a fixed, blended interest rate of 5.8%. Over the last 12 months, our debt service cost between cash interest and required amortization was $174 million. Today, our annual debt service requirement is $99 million, a reduction of $75 million, or 43%. Given the excess cash amounts we are holding, we intend to make additional debt repayments in the near term, which will reduce this cost even further. We also increased our revolver capacity by $440 million during the quarter from $125 million to $565 million, expanding our available liquidity and ability to respond quickly to any short-term capital need. Our strengthened balance sheet not only supports disciplined growth, but also reduces the interest burden, directly enhancing free cash flow generation. This creates a virtuous cycle that enables continued disciplined investment in organic growth and further deleveraging, both of which remain central to our capital allocation priorities in the near and intermediate term. With that, we will now open the call to Q&A. Operator? Operator: [Operator Instructions] And our first question comes from the line of Doug Anmuth with JPMorgan. Constance James: Eric, during 2025, you've made some substantial investments in core resale market share and also direct issuance. Can you just talk about the returns you're seeing on those 2 areas of spending and whether you expect those to continue in '26? And then, I know there's some noise as Eric mentioned in the 4Q on sales versus last year, but just curious on the thought process in not providing a 4Q guide in that you're halfway through the quarter. Eric Baker: Sure. Thanks for the question, Doug. Appreciate it. So I think you had a few things in there in terms of what we've been doing with market share investment, how we think about that and how we think about the outlook for the business. Again, I think as we said in our opening remarks, we take a long-term approach, so we are not providing guidance, and we'll be talking about 2026 when we're on our next call. But with that being said, let me address some of the things that you brought up. So first is, as you noted and as we talked about, we had a real focus this year in investing to take market share and to do that in a very systematic way. And we've been extremely pleased with the results. I think we can see in this quarter that has just passed that, that has continued to pace. Our relative market share, I think, as I said, is about 4x. And I think everyone can see what has happened out there in the market in a great way. I think what's exciting about that, again, is that we're really creating permanent advantages in terms of how people are situated. One of the things I mentioned at the opening was around the point-of-sale system. And we've seen that what we've deployed in the point-of-sale system has rapidly been taking share ahead of schedule, moving us into a dominant position, which obviously feeds the data that we have, feeds the -- we get increased durable share as people use the POS to operate their business, and it provides a great backbone for our advertising business and sponsored listings. So we're very excited about all of that. I think Connie addressed, as we go and we look forward from where we sit, there's an extremely strong market for live events. It's as strong as ever. I think Connie addressed their shifts in terms of when on sales may happen. But as we look at it, everything is going at pace. Operator: And our next question comes from the line of Eric Sheridan with Goldman Sachs. Eric Sheridan: As we turn the page on 2025, curious how you're thinking about aligning marketing investments over the medium to long term? And what signals you're getting in terms of the receptivity to marketing investments to continue to grow the user base across all the array of offerings and products you're bringing to the market? Eric Baker: Great. Eric, thank you for the question. And I think some of that echoes what I also would follow up. And I think as Doug asked about some of the various investments, and I talked about market share, and we're seeing great traction and durability in that as we sort of see the flywheel is working, I think the other thing which we've talked about is, obviously, we're very excited about our direct issuance business. And what that for us really means open distribution. And to sort of recap what that is, is we really view it as, look, our mission backing up is that for fans. We want to give them easy access to the events they want to go to so they can access those live events and get there in a very easy, delightful fashion. We also want to assist content in making sure tickets don't go unsold, seats don't go empty, and they can maximize their revenue. And that's a real pressing issue for people. I think even Live Nation on their most recent call mentioned that 98% of their events do not sell out. And there's tons of tickets, obviously, don't sell. Sports has a similar dynamic, where they're trying to fill arenas. And so I think this ties into the direct issuance initiative, and to your question, which is that we have seen a tremendous receptivity, which is that in order to solve this issue that rights owners have in order to try and increase their revenue, increase throughput, get people into the arenas, they see the wealth of data and distribution we have, that has sort of led to, obviously, Major League Baseball, where we're seeing great receptivity from the teams. We talked about the festival channel, where we signed up Peachtree and LED, and we've been doing a great job with that. Tying that back to your question in terms of some of the marketing spend, we also talked about as we built that out, we've made the investment to prove it. And we see rights owners and people in the queue coming on board where it does not require any financial payment for them to access our open distribution. And so similar to how teams like the Dodgers have done that, when I was speaking with Shaun and Raj just last week in New York, and we were looking at the pipeline, the majority of the pipeline, as it's transitioning, does not involve any cash payment from us. And so we think this is going in an excellent direction and tracking the way we want to see it. Operator: And our next question comes from the line of Justin Post with Bank of America. Justin Post: Wondering if you could give us any visibility on the sponsored listing ad launch, when you're thinking the timing is and how quickly that could ramp? And then second, maybe talk more about the Major League Baseball deal, are you going to get direct tickets from the league? And are you seeing more productive discussions across multiple leagues? Eric Baker: Excellent. Justin, thank you for the question. Appreciate it. I think you're asking -- let me address some of the advertising generally, including sponsored listings, then I can talk about what you asked about MLB. So let's talk about advertising. And first, let me just frame it. The way we think of our opportunity in advertising is, first of all, doing things which are value-added for our consumer base to enhance that experience and doing it for other members in the ecosystem who are selling tickets. There's 2 flavors of that advertising. One is, again, where you have things like the Booking.com deal that we did, where we work with different potential partners so that post-purchase people, if you're traveling again, we have a huge international business. People travel for these events, you can book through Booking and so forth. And so that Booking has been a great proof point and a start to that. The second, which you mentioned, is sponsored listings. And so on sponsored listings, just to explain what that is, is basically that we have sellers on our platform, and these sellers are looking to sell their tickets. And as in many marketplaces, we put the ability for these people to pay to bump their listings to the top and sort of feature them. This is not reinventing the wheel. Here's what we're excited about and get to sort of why we're excited about the progress and the promise for it. We have 2 great aspects to it that are unique. One is that these people are selling a perishable item. So it expires, and then, it's not worth anything. So it's very important to get that in front of people. And most of the supply that we have on our platform is competing to try and get in front of customers. And so if you've got similarly priced supply, taking the sponsored listings avenue is very attractive to these people, and we think, will add a lot of value and be done in a way that works for the customer. The second thing I want to highlight is I talked about our point-of-sale system in terms of relative market share and how that's helped us lock people in. That creates a very easy conduit. The point of sale, again, is what these sellers are using to operate their business. So as they operate their business, as they list tickets, as they price tickets, right in that workflow, with one click, they will be able to opt for sponsored listing. This means that basically, that product is our sales force to tie in for it. So that's why we're very excited about the opportunity. What we're trying to do is make sure that we roll it out the right way for consumers, in the right way that it works smoothly for sellers. As we've said, that will be rolling out second half of Q4. We look forward to rolling that out. Lastly, real quickly, I think, Justin, you mentioned about MLB. Let me quickly just recap what is that deal, and then, I can talk about why we're excited about it and how it looks promising. What the deal is? MLB, at the corporate level, they will be taking advantage of direct issuance with tickets that they control for certain MLB events, which is exciting. They're also helping us facilitate signing additional teams, as we already work with, as people know, the Yankees, the Dodgers and others. That has already been extremely promising. We're really liking the pipeline on that. And again, as I alluded to, many of these teams are understanding they're not concerned with or focused on a payment. They see the value of open distribution inherently driving intrinsic value for them. So that's an exciting way that it ramps in a great economic situation for us. Thank you. Operator: And our next question comes from the line of Mark Mahaney with Evercore. Mark Stephen Mahaney: Eric, I just want to ask about the direct issuance market. And if you think about it in terms of low, medium, high-hanging fruit, if there's such an expression, where do you think the best opportunities are for StubHub in the next 2 to 3 years? Is it more international? Is it more U.S.? Is it more sports? Is it more live theater? Like what are the best opportunities to ramp up into this promising market? Eric Baker: Sure. Thank you, Mark. Appreciate it. Let me again say that what we are talking about doing for content is universal to all content. So when I talk -- talking with Shaun the other day, when you go in and you say, we have a solution where we can actually get you access to more data, more distribution, more people nonexclusively to help drive your revenue and fill seats, people are like, this is great. They're very receptive to it. Because remember, what content is trying to solve every day is increasing the revenue, increasing the attendance and doing that in a way that works for fans. And we -- obviously, that's what we've been doing for years and years. So it's really just about making that as easy as possible from a product and service solution. So that's a long way of saying we're seeing a very diverse pipeline across the board. There's obviously multiple sports leagues in the United States. But globally, we've said before, we worked with European soccer franchises. Festivals we work with, I cited 2, that are domestic, but there are many internationally that we're looking at working with. We talked about the increased ramp in MLB. So I think really, this is something that is attractive across the board. Let me leave you with one other thought, Mark, on this, is that another way to think about it, and we've said this, is that this is not something which is competing with primary ticketing. We are not trying to replace primary ticketing companies. You can imagine us partnering with primary ticketing companies in order to open up our distribution to them. And that being a very powerful way to access anything across the planet because, again, this is a $150 billion-plus market. So it is a huge ocean to fish in, and we're very excited about it. Operator: And our next question comes from the line of Brian Pitz with BMO Capital Markets. Brian Pitz: Maybe a broader question on how StubHub is thinking about the future of Agentic search and ticket buying. Maybe you could provide us your views on how agents will impact either future take rates or advertising revenue going forward as we are hearing more and more industry discussions around Agentic capabilities in live event ticketing? Eric Baker: Yes. No, thank you, Brian, and thank you for the question on AI, which is obviously a very exciting topic. And so let me open by just saying, in the immediate term, everything has been business as usual with consumers using the channels that they use, and that continues. That being said, as you say, and we're always thinking long term and how this works. And I'll tell you why we're excited about the opportunities and how we think it will play out. The first thing is that any time there's top-of-the-funnel ways to reach people in competitive ways with people giving you that access top of the funnel to reach people and compete, which is traditional Google search and other methods, we believe it's extremely powerful. We believe we're extremely well positioned, and what we're seeing is that when you're looking at where you send traffic and where the agent needs to go and how they need to, they're solving for the best solution for that consumer, which naturally goes back to who has that supply chain, who has the catalog, who can be relied on for the ticket, who has the best selection, et cetera. So as we build that, we see the same way it worked even in search and everything else. That's ultimately where you need to be. Now, I think over time, what we're very excited about, Brian, is there's going to be both paid and unpaid ways to take advantage of this. We think that as we see in our dialogues with many of these companies that we talk to all the time, there may be ways where there's a paid model for them to drive traffic, but again, always with a quality score and thinking that way. And there's ways that there will be unpaid as they show. But again, the key thing is that they're going to want to drive people to the best possible outcome for consumers that's going to deliver value, and that's what we're building. So we're excited about the opportunities. That's how we see it. Operator: And our next question comes from the line of Lloyd Walmsley with Mizuho. Lloyd Walmsley: You guys talked earlier about the headwind to growth from all-in pricing. And just wondering if you guys feel like you've carved some of that back already. Is it still running at sort of the low double-digit headwind rate? And do you feel like we're just -- we're sort of -- we just have to comp through it next year? And then secondly, if you could just comment on how meaningful you think World Cup could be next year? And any early indications you're seeing on that would be great. Eric Baker: Sure. Thank you for the questions, Lloyd. Let me on all-in pricing and then World Cup. And so let me straight on, I think, as we talked about before when we've discussed this and we talked about it, the all-in pricing is a 10% headwind, we believe, for 1 year. We'll lap it in May of '26, I think, as Connie said. So that is -- we don't see any deviance from that. That's what we see. That sort of is what it is. I do want to put that in context for people to understand one thing. We talk about running our business for the long term and that we're really trying to do right by the consumers and the content. And look, I want to put this in context, we also have explained to people, we lobbied for all-in pricing for multiple years. It's something that I think you can go to the SEC website, it's public record. It's not something -- and we were the only people, I think, in our sort of sector to do that. And the reason I bring that up is we did that knowing that there would be this hit. And we knew that in the short term, it's obviously arithmetic, Lloyd, it's 10%. But in the long term, it creates a much better experience for consumers, and it's going to behoove people like us who provide the best experience. Anyway, that's all on pricing. The World Cup, again, listen, we don't -- again, we're not quantifying going forward, but what -- here's what I can tell you. The World Cup has always been a tremendous event for even going back to the days of viagogo because our heritage is international. It's phenomenal in terms of resale, and it is a global event that's going to be North America with a ton of matches, which is arguably the biggest sports spectacle on planet Earth. So we are extremely excited about it and very much looking forward to it, and we'll see. Operator: And our next question comes from the line of John Blackledge with TD Cowen. John Blackledge: One question on take rates. Could you talk about take rates between the secondary market and the emerging direct issuance business? And do you expect them to be similar as the direct issuance bid scales? And secondly, just curious if you can unpack the 3Q '25 GMS growth between North America and international? Eric Baker: Thanks, John. I appreciate the question. So let me -- I believe you had a question about how do take rates, how do you think about then direct issuance and open distribution and some stuff around our international business. Let me frame some stuff and then maybe Connie will give whatever color we can as well. So I think the first thing is when we talk about the open distribution-direct issuance model, the very straightforward answer to you is the take rates are the same. As we sit here today and everything we've seen, the take rates are the same. That's just fact. I think to help understand, so I want people to understand what we're doing here and why that is, is sometimes people again say, well, doesn't a primary ticketing company have a different take rate? And again, I just want to be very clear, we're not running a primary ticketing access control system. What we're doing is providing a marketplace, providing distribution for people just like we do for fans, just like we do for power sellers, no different. That is why we are able to tell people that when they sell through us, we're charging through the marketplace in the same way. We're not charging them. So that's the answer to that question. I think in terms of U.S. international, I'll just give you in terms of high-level flavor, and we don't break it out. So that's just not to disappoint you there. International has been a rapidly growing business for us, we're very excited about. I think sometimes we don't do a good enough job of articulating to people viagogo, which obviously went on to acquire StubHub, was built internationally. We're in 200 countries. I will tell you, Asia and Latin America are particularly strong. And I will also tell you that if you listen to different event and concert schedules for 2026 and what everyone says in the industry, which we see is tours are going increasingly global, and they're increasingly in these different geographies. So we're very excited about that. Constance James: Yes. Nothing further to add, just to emphasize that international continues to be an area where we see consistent growth. We're also excited to have Raj on board, who's going to put some direct focus on international as well, which is super exciting. So great momentum across the board. Operator: And our next question comes from the line of Shweta Khajuria with Wolfe Research. Shweta Khajuria: The first one is on direct issuance. Could you please talk to how you're thinking about the number of teams that you expect to perhaps bring on onto the platform next year? And what level of visibility do you have in terms of the timeline? Anything you can comment on when do you need to sign them all by to benefit by the end of next year? So that's the first one. And the second one, any color on just the overall demand trends that you're seeing through the quarter through October and November that could help us out as to how we think about fourth quarter going forward? Eric Baker: Yes. No, Shweta, thank you for the question. I know I think in terms of -- let me talk generally, I think about. I can talk to you generally about DI and open distribution, how we think about that. And also certainly, how do we see sort of live event demand and what's going on? Obviously, as we've said, the way that we think, and we're not providing guidance at this time, and I'm sure we look forward to the next call and talking about next year then. With that context, what I would say is in direct issuance, again, the way we think about it is, again, I think to the question that Eric may have answered -- asked earlier, is that we really have this wide ocean, and it's in so many different compartments when we talk to Shaun and Raj that you've got different leagues, different festivals, different geographies. So it's very, very broad. And what we're finding is the applicability is pretty universal and that really what we need to do is have the product and service work for people the right way. What I would also tell you is that when you get the product and service done the right way, and remember, I want to make this very clear, we are not doing this where it's not exclusive to us. It's multi-listed on multiple platforms, and it fits into their workflow. It doesn't -- that means you don't have to sign up at some predetermined date. You don't have to make a long-term decision. It becomes an option that is in your workflow at any point in time to flip the switch and sell through the retail channel. That then becomes a beautiful thing because you're not bidding on RFPs years in advance and saying, I own this for X years. So that's -- thank you for asking the question. It's an important distinction. I think, in terms of just consumer demand and live events, again, and we don't -- not giving guidance and stuff, but I will take it this way, the demand for live events is phenomenal. We don't see anything with consumer demand that's any different. I think as Connie alluded to, as she spoke, we run a marketplace business and the timing of when things go on sale on the event catalog sometimes varies. And I've been doing this for 20, 25 years, my gosh. And it can move. Sometimes things go in the fourth quarter instead of first quarter, sometimes things go in the third quarter instead of the fourth quarter. That is a timing catalog question that has nothing to do with the robust demand that we see from consumers who love going to live events and continue to do so. Operator: And our next question comes from the line of Jason Helfstein with Oppenheimer. Jason Helfstein: I guess, I want to just maybe re-ask the Shweta's question just because we're getting asked this by a number of clients. So maybe, Connie, can you help us understand, I guess, how much pull forward did you see in 3Q that may kind of be affecting fourth quarter? And I guess, how meaningful is kind of the unfavorable World Series relative to last year? And then a second question that's been coming up, Ticketmaster, Live Nation, whatever, has been under increased pressure, I think, to try to rein in speculative sellers. Can you just talk about like how you manage the business around speculative selling? And just your broad thoughts about it. Is it something that like -- kind of it's something we should all be paying attention to or just in the scope of a very big business, it's just not meaningful? Constance James: Yes. Great. Thanks for the question. And happy to provide some color. As we mentioned, we knew going in to the fourth quarter that it would be a little bit of a tough comparison. We had the unique Taylor Swift comp as well as the World Series. And as I mentioned, we did see a little bit of timing shift in relation to September. To Eric's point, what we continue to focus on is the long term. We know that there can be timing shifts from time to time. What we continue to be focused on is capturing share. And in the third quarter, we were able to do just that. In fact, if you look at our market share, we were nearing 50%. So as we look at it, we think it's merely a timing issue more than anything else. And more broadly, I'd say the outlook for '26 continues to look really strong. And so if there's a little bit of timing, the good news is that we're well positioned to capture a significant portion of those on sales when they do come in. So hopefully, that gives you a little bit of color. In relation to speculative ticketing, et cetera, I'll pass it over to Eric to provide some color. Eric Baker: Yes. No, thanks for the question, Jason. I think sometimes when people talk about, I think, within speculative ticketing, there's a lot of people in the market that -- how do we make sure that we're guaranteeing people get tickets and that it happens in an authentic way. That's our business. That's what we do. So minimizing fraud and make sure these tickets get delivered. So for us, there's not -- it's business as usual and nothing to talk about there. Operator: And our final question comes from the line of Andrew Boone with Citizens. Brianna Diaz: This is Brianna on for Andrew Boone. Just can you share how users are currently interacting with the mobile app and how that may be different than on the web? And do you see an opportunity for the mobile app to evolve into a more comprehensive platform, whether that's through loyalty program or a different lever to drive better frequency and retention? Eric Baker: Thank you for the question. Appreciate it. I think the question about mobile app, on the first thing, just we don't break out for the purposes of what we report. I think though, as you allude, and I think what we are seeing and what you're sort of alluding to is that as we are getting more and more people coming back to us all the time, as we think about what we provide to make that experience easy to know who you are to -- even with these things where we're adding in things through Booking and other things to build a more complete product, that's really what we're striving to do. So as we continue to do that, we're certainly adding the building blocks for a complete product and making it easier and easier for people to know that they just have the first port of call to go to, which is StubHub, and that's what we're excited about. Thank you. Operator: And ladies and gentlemen, that concludes our question-and-answer session. I will now turn the call back over to Mr. Eric Baker for closing remarks. Eric Baker: Thank you, everyone, for joining us for our first earnings call as a public company. We very much appreciate it. As I said at the outset, both to those who have been along with us for our many-year journey and for those who are new to the story, thank you for taking the time. We look forward to speaking to you again in the future. Operator: And ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's call, and we thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.
Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and good evening. Thank you for joining Sohu.com Limited's Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After management's prepared remarks, there will be a question and answer session. Today's conference call is being recorded. If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this time. I'd now like to turn the conference over to your host for today's conference call, Huang Pu, Investor Relations Director of Sohu.com Limited. Please go ahead. Huang Pu: Thanks, Rebecca. Thank you for joining us to discuss Sohu.com Limited's third quarter 2025 results. On the call are Chairman and the Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Charles Zhang, CFO, and invest president of finance, Gemstone. Also, us, Chang will see with the Win Chen and the CFO Bin Wang. Before management begins their prepared remarks, I would like to remind you of the common safe harbor statement connection with today's conference call. Except for the information contained here, the matters discussed on this call may contain forward-looking statements. These statements are based on current plans, estimates, and projections, and therefore, should not place undue reliance on them. All risky statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties. We caution you that a number of important factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statements. For more information about the potential risks and uncertainties, please refer to the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the most recent annual report on Form 20-F. With that, I will now turn the call over to Dr. Charles Zhang. Charles, please proceed. Dr. Charles Zhang: Thanks, Huang Pu, and thank you, everyone, for joining our call. The 2025 marketing services revenues were in line with our guidance. Well, both our online game revenues and the bottom-line performance are benefiting from our continuous efforts in the gaming business and were well above our prior expectations. We recorded positive net income this quarter. For the social media platform, we continue to refine our products, integrate resources to better meet users' needs, and enhance their experiences. Meanwhile, leveraging our product metrics and distinctive events, we remain committed to generating and distributing diversified premium content and continuously energizing our platform. Our differentiated advantages and unique IP enabled us to further unlock monetization potential. For online games, both new and established titles delivered outstanding performance driven by our deep understanding of our needs and proven operational expertise. Before going through each business unit in more detail, let me first give you a quick overview of our financial performance. The 2025 total revenue is $180 million, up 19% year-over-year, and 43% quarter over quarter. Marketing services revenues are $14 million, down 27% year over year and 13% quarter over quarter. Online game revenues are $162 million, up 27% year-over-year and 53% quarter over quarter. GAAP net income attributable to Sohu.com Limited is $9 million, compared with a net loss of $60 million in 2024 and a net loss of $20 million in the second quarter of this year. Non-GAAP net income attributable to Sohu.com Limited was $9 million, compared to a net loss of $12 million in the third quarter of last year and a net loss of $20 million in the second quarter of this year. Now I'll go through our key businesses in more detail. For the Sohu platform, we continue to leverage cutting-edge technologies to optimize our products and promote deeper integration across our product metrics. This enabled us to further adapt to various narrows, improve operation efficiencies, and enhance users' experiences. At the same time, relying on the synergies between various online and offline events, we continue to stimulate the generation and dissemination of premium content and attract more users to our platform. In the quarter, we hosted a variety of events and activities to further build a vigorous social networking platform, providing users with abundant opportunities for online and offline communications. The 2025 autumn convention of social media influencers effectively promoted deeper communication among broadcasters across different verticals and significantly increased their vitality and retention on our platform. The ongoing 2025 Sohu Hip Hop Dancing Festival and other model competitions successfully ignited the passion of young people and further consolidated our influence in these areas. All these activities gained widespread recognition and popularity, continuously infusing a large amount of content and traffic into our platform. As a result, we were able to further expand the influence of Sohu and fostered a prosperous platform ecosystem. Additionally, we also held special theme activities like the Halloween American TV series party. Not only did we engage users with innovative content forms, but it also became a highlight of our social media's American TV series month, which brought audiences classic dramas such as Westworld and The Mandalorian. Meanwhile, we also launched multiple TV dramas, original drama, and short dramas during this quarter to attract and retain users. The original drama, The Rebirth, was well-received by audiences, attracting more users to our platform. Through our flagship IP, the physics class, and Charles's physics class, we continue to strengthen our differentiated competitive advantages and create monetization opportunities. With trust, we were able to reach a wider audience through discussions on popular science topics and hot events, bringing physics knowledge closer to the general public. This not only helped us generate unique and premium content, but also consistently unlocked monetization potentials. Together with the resources of Sohu's product metrics and our marketing capabilities, we actively adapted to market trends and provided advertisers with customized marketing solutions through a series of innovative campaigns and events, which are highly recognized by both audiences and advertisers. Next, turning to our gaming business, in 2025, we launched a new PC game, TLBB Return, based on a beloved early version of TLBB PC. The game features reduced grinding and pay-to-win pressure, offering players a lighter gaming experience. It helped us attract many former players, and its revenue performance has so far exceeded our expectations. For TLBB PC, we also launched game content for TLBB Vantage that recreated the classic design of the game, which evoked nostalgia among players. Players' enthusiasm was far beyond our expectations. With regular TLBB PC updates, we offered new gear and rewards for our promotional events and redesigned the cross-server clan wall gameplay, which boosted willingness to pay among higher-paying players. For mobile games, we launched an expansion pack for Legacy TLBB Mobile, which brought enhancements to the OEN clan's skills alongside a new storyline and engaging activities. Revenue for this game remained stable on a sequential basis. For the mobile TLBB Mobile, next quarter, we will continue to launch expansion packs and content updates for the TLBB series and other titles to further keep players engaged. Amid an increasingly competitive market, we remain committed to our top game strategy. We follow a user-centric philosophy and adhere to sound methodologies and a systematic R&D process to enhance efficiency and product success rates. As part of this strategy, we are taking concrete steps to unlock the potential of our TLBB IP. Meanwhile, building upon our core strengths in MMORPGs, we are working to diversify into new types of games, including card-based RPGs, sports games, and casual games, as well as expand our offerings for global markets. Now I'd like to give an update on the ongoing share repurchase program. As of November 13, 2025, Sohu.com Limited had repurchased 7.6 million ADS for an aggregate cost of approximately $97 million, accounting for two-thirds of the $150 million program. With that, I will now turn the call over to Joanna. Joanna Lv: Thank you, Charles. I will now walk you through the key financials of our major segments for 2025. All numbers are on a non-GAAP basis. You may find a reconciliation of non-GAAP to GAAP measures on our website. For the social media platform, quarterly revenues were $70 million, compared with $73 million in the same quarter last year. Quarterly operating loss was $71 million, compared with an operating loss of $72 million in the same quarter last year. For Changyou, quarterly revenue was $163 million, compared with $129 million in the same quarter last year. Quarterly operating profit was $88 million compared with operating profit of $62 million in the same quarter last year. For 2025, we expect marketing service revenues to be between $50 million and $60 million. This implies an annual decrease of 15% to 20% and a sequential increase of 10% to 18%. Online game revenue is expected to be between $130 million and $123 million. This implies an annual increase of 3% to 12% and a sequential decrease of 24% to 30%. Both non-GAAP and GAAP net loss attributable to Sohu.com Limited are expected to be between $25 million and $35 million. This reflects management's current and preliminary view, which is subject to substantial uncertainty. This concludes our prepared remarks. Operator, we would now like to open the call to questions. Operator: Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, please press 11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press 11 again. We will now take our first question from the line of Thomas Chong at Jefferies. Please go ahead. Thomas Chong: Hi. Good evening. Thanks, management, for taking my question. My first question is about the online game business. Given our online games performed very strongly in Q3, I'm just wondering how the quarter-to-date performance is so far? In particular, when I look into the guidance, it basically implies a sequential decline. So I'm not sure if we are a bit conservative in giving out Q4 gaming guidance. And on the other hand, when I look into our portal business, when I look into the advertising side, we are actually seeing quite a sequential rebound in terms of the advertising revenue. Can Charles, may I ask about how you think about the macro sentiment coming into Q4, as well as the trend for different categories? And based on the current visibility, how should we think about the brand advertising outlook in 2026? If there's any color on that? Thank you. Huang Pu: The performance of the fourth quarter so far is in line with our expectation. The strong third quarter results are primarily driven by the successful launch of a new game, TLBB Return. Meanwhile, the new servers of TLBB Vantage also performed very well, achieving historic highs. So the actual revenue of the third quarter exceeded our expectation a lot. The performance of the fourth quarter depends mainly on the performance of new TLBB Return and the content and activities that we will launch during the first quarter for TLBB PC, Legacy TLBB Mobile, etc. Thomas Chong: Okay. So I think the Q4 rebound... Thomas, you... Is the same? Yes? Above the Q4? Yeah. Yeah. I think since the user... The whole ad base is not that big. Right? So it kind of oscillates a little bit. It depends on some, like, some, you know, a pact signed late and allocated to this quarter but went to the next quarter. Right? So it's... But we do have some... First of all, the macroeconomic situation is not that good, you know, under pressure. And different sectors like auto and IT services continue to deteriorate. But as our new innovative marketing campaigns or services are unique, we are still able to attract some advertising. So we are going against the trend and basically stabilizing the advertising revenue on a small basis. Because in Q4, we have some good events creating opportunities to advertise. Thomas Chong: I see. Thank you, Charles. May I ask a follow-up question about AI? Like, can you comment on how AI is integrated within Sohu.com right now? And are we seeing better productivity, cost savings, or enhanced advertising monetization so far? Thank you. Dr. Charles Zhang: I think AI has more impact and usefulness or improvement in productivity on the gaming business. Right? For Sohu.com, we are not developing a large language model. Instead, we are using AI to improve the user experience. Like for our social media platform, AI can summarize video content and provide subtitles. Also, in our news app, there are AI-enhanced search and question-answering features. So we are basically using AI and different models to improve our existing media and social network services, rather than investing heavily in the hardcore large language model. Yaobin Wang: The application of AI is mainly applied in art design, code generation, and game planning creation. Dr. Charles Zhang: Thank you. Operator: Thank you. We will now take our next question from Alicia Yap at Citi. Please go ahead, Alicia. Alicia Yap: Hi. Yeah. Thank you. Good evening, management. Thanks for taking my questions. I have a couple of follow-ups. First, on the gaming, can management share with us what are the biggest surprises you learned from the TLBB Return version? And which one is the bigger driver in terms of the outperformance for this quarter? Is it the TLBB Vintage new server or the new game TLBB Return? And I understand you gave out the Q4 guidance. You mentioned this reflects the current situation. I wanted to know, is the Vintage server seeing a drop-off in users, or are the new titles TLBB Returns seeing a sequential decline in users and revenue? Any color on that for Q3 and Q4 would be helpful. And then, a second question for Charles on the macro situation. I think you mentioned auto, IT services, and the ad sentiment seems to be deteriorating. Are there any industry verticals or subsectors you see either improving sentiment or it being about the same as the last few quarters? Thank you. Huang Pu: The first surprise from TLBB Return is that the user spending is beyond our expectation. Because it was positioned as a gameplay that's more relaxing and requires less time. And demand for spending is also less. So, originally, we thought the users' paying wouldn't be very good. Dr. Charles Zhang: Yeah. Huang Pu: Second, the retention is very stable, better than our expectations. As for the contribution to revenue increase of the quarter, we do not disclose the specific numbers for individual games. So far, the user base for both TLBB Return and TLBB Vintage are very steady, but their revenues are trending down. That's because TLBB Vintage performed very well in the third quarter. In the fourth quarter, we plan to roll out fewer promotional activities. For TLBB Return, as it was newly launched in the third quarter, it will experience natural decline compared to the initial launch period because users tend to have a stronger willingness to pay when the game was initially launched. Dr. Charles Zhang: Okay. So your second question is about the macro situation, the sectors? Yeah. Overall, the ad market is under pressure. For example, in the auto industry, there's fierce competition as there are too many car companies. They need to promote their brands and sales to stand out. However, the profit margins are very low for them, so the ad budgets are thinning. With this situation, we have unique campaigns like a physics class and social network distribution, allowing us to get ad budgets. The auto industry is flat but still declining. We are also looking at consumer electronics. China's manufacturing base is strong with many new products, but these need marketing for the domestic market. Our innovative offerings, such as live streaming and social media distribution, allow us to get consumer electronics advertisers. So, despite the deteriorating market situation, we can get some advertising. Huang Pu: Okay. Thank you, Charles. Operator: Thank you. I am showing no further questions. And with that, we conclude our conference call today. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines.
Hendrik du Toit: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Ninety One interim results presentation for the half year to 30 September 2025. I will highlight the key numbers before moving to the business review. Kim McFarland, our Finance Director, will then present the financial review. I will then update you on recent developments and conclude before we take questions. Those of you participating through the webcast can submit questions during the presentations via the chat function at the bottom of your screen. Assets under management rose more than 19% over the past year. Flows turned around strongly. We recorded net inflows of GBP 4.3 billion for this half year, resulting in adjusted earnings per share growing by 15%. This net inflow number consists of GBP 2.4 billion of organic inflows and GBP 1.9 billion that came from the Sanlam U.K. transaction. The dividend per share increased to 6p per share and operating margins expanded to 32.1%. Staff shareholding grew to 32.7%. The people of Ninety One are fully aligned with all our other shareholders. I'm delighted to report that our business is growing again, in terms of revenues, earnings and assets under management. This is supported by investment returns and a significant turnaround in net inflows. We are sticking to our core strategy and investing in our existing growth drivers, while selectively backing new growth initiatives across our ecosystem. Investment performance remains competitive. The Sanlam relationship is delivering, and Ninety One is poised for further growth. We always show the long-term track record of Ninety One to remind everyone that we are about growth over time and not growth all the time. The business has been built over many years in a patient and predominantly organic way. Markets have been supportive of late, but we are clear that sustaining growth over time takes focus, rigorous execution, discipline and belief. We remain committed to our people-centric, capital-light and technology and AI-enabled business model. Market conditions have improved over the reporting period. The panic that followed Liberation Day is now history, and animal spirits are back supporting overall equity market levels. More interestingly, we are observing a new openness to diversification of institutional portfolios, which includes interest in emerging markets. This interest seems to be driven by the desire to diversify geographically as well as a recovery in relative returns. Given the high concentration levels in indices, we are also witnessing a renewed interest in active strategies. A little over 1 year ago, I reported to you in a world in which active long-only and emerging markets across the capital structure would deeply out of favor. Therefore, Ninety One was experiencing a third consecutive year of hostile business conditions. I'm delighted to report that these conditions have improved substantially over the past year. Despite the strong performance from emerging markets and the rise in financial asset prices generally, we are some way off historic levels of demand at this stage. As mentioned at the end of the previous reporting period, our industry continues to be extremely competitive. Clients are setting high standards and continue to be price sensitive. Fee pressure remains a challenge. It goes without saying that Ninety One is exposed to market levels and how financial assets are priced. A sharp decline in markets will affect revenue generation and new business volumes. More generally, the Internet era is being replaced by the AI era. This touches every industry, including our own. At Ninety One, we are embracing this and look forward to reporting progress in more detail in due course. In summary, conditions have improved, while competition remains relentless in this industry. Equity markets have done well over the past 3 years with headline indices close to doubling. Over the past 6 months, our clients continued to benefit from strong performance. Emerging markets in general have outperformed developed markets and the strength in South Africa further contributed to our assets under management and driving these through the threshold of GBP 150 billion and $200 million, respectively. In fixed income, we have also seen positive returns, even though developed market bonds have had a tough time. Ironically, this is where most of the inflows in our industry have been over the past few years. Emerging market bonds are doing much better, and we expect demand to grow in this space. This is an area in which Ninety One is one of the market leaders. Since our listing, investors showed little interest in emerging markets. We're now seeing a decline in the active outflows in equities and an improvement in the environment for specifically active equities. For the second half year in a row, we're seeing positive active fixed income inflows. But as you can see, we are still well below the long-term demand levels for emerging markets. Judged by recent client engagements, we expect demand to pick up in due course. This assumes a world in which risk assets remain attractive. The outflows that have been with us from 2022 have started to reverse in the second half of the 2025 financial year, and inflows have now accelerated into the first half of the 2026 financial year. In addition, we have added GBP 1.9 billion of Sanlam U.K. assets with the completion of the acquisition of Sanlam U.K. We also benefited from the strongest year since 2020 in terms of market and portfolio growth. We are mindful of the fact that markets do not usually go up in a straight line, and we remain vigilant on the cost front. These slides show organic net flows, excluding the Sanlam take on. We had substantial equity inflows largely in our competitive global equity offerings, and positive flow in all asset classes, except multi-asset. This related to our own performance and general client demand. We have addressed the situation by bringing in new leadership and renewed focus on the multi-asset part of our business. The majority of our client groups were positive for the half year given the pipeline. And given the pipeline, I'm hopeful that U.K. will show positive results for the full year and that South Africa will return to positive net flows for the second half as well. Investment performance has been solid over the period, and we can compete in the areas where we need to compete for net inflows. As always, a few strategies have done outstandingly well while there are also laggards. Overall, we have a competitive offering, which has the potential to generate ongoing net inflows and meet the high standards of our clients. I now hand over to Kim McFarland, our Finance Director, to take you through the financial results. Thanks, Kim. Kim McFarland: Thank you, Hendrik. I'm here to present a set of strong financial results for the period ended 30 September 2025. I would like to highlight that our core operating business has again produced a solid outcome. Management fees and adjusted operating expenses both increased by 3%, resulting in the core business recurring results increasing by 2% on the prior period to GBP 82 million. Management fees were at GBP 290.7 million. This is as a result of the increase in average AUM from GBP 126.7 billion to GBP 139.7 billion, alongside a decline in the average management fee rate to 41.5 bps. More on this later, but worth noting that the increased closing AUM positions Ninety One's revenues well for the next 6 months. Adjusted operating expenses of GBP 208.7 million includes the interest expense on the lease liabilities for our office premises and the full bonus accruals. It does exclude nonoperating costs. The business produced an adjusted operating profit of GBP 98.8 million, up 12% from the prior period. This increase is predominantly as a result of higher performance fees of GBP 4 million. Other income is negligible and there's mainly a number of fair value adjustments on seed investments. There were FX losses as a result of the stronger GBP to USD in the period. So the adjusted operating profit margin increased from 30.5% to 32.1%. And at the finals for 2025, we reported an adjusted operating profit margin of 31.2%. So let me explain further the decline in the average management fee rate. This is calculated as a monthly average and over the 6-month period has shown a slow decline. However, there was a market fall at the end of H1 2026, which we have analyzed. During the period, daily average AUM upon which the management fees are generated, consistently lagged monthly average AUM upon which the average management fee rate is calculated due to the manner in which markets moved markedly during the period. And this effectively overstated the average management fee rate decline by an estimate 0.8 bps. Calculated on a daily averaging basis, the actual daily average rate is closer to 42.3 bps. So closer to a fall in 1 bp over the 6-month period, which is higher than our historic guidance. There were further factors that are impacted on the fee rate in the period, which were a significant AUM increase in lower-than-average fee rate clients. The Sanlam U.K. take on being an example, although this impact was small. However, the take on of large mandates at lower-than-average fee rates has and will have a material impact on our management fee rate, an AUM decrease for higher than average fee rate clients. The U.K. OEIC being an example, and this would have had an estimate 0.5 bp negative impact. And at the same time, there were some downward fee adjustments for existing clients who generally compensated with additional assets. Ninety One's profit before tax after considering the list of nonoperating adjustments, adjusting net -- adjusted net interest income, the small share scheme, net expense, corporate-related professional fees and now the amortization of the intangible asset as a result of the U.K. Sanlam transaction increased by 10% to GBP 102.2 million. At the interim, the share scheme is generally a net expense. And this is largely reflecting the amortization impact from prior year credits where staff bonuses were allocated to Ninety One shares. At the year-end, we have a better understanding of the share scheme and the allocation of annual staff bonuses to Ninety One shares. Remember, we fully expensed the bonus payments within adjusted operating expenses, irrespective of how settled. IFRS requires the amortization of bonus-related share awards over 4 years, which is then included in the share scheme expense. The effective tax rate for the year was 25%, down from 26.3% in the prior period, and this was driven by higher earnings in lower tax jurisdictions. And in the prior period, there were a larger number of nondeductible expenses. So the above factors resulted in a profit after tax of GBP 76.7 million, up 11% from the prior period. And our adjusted EPS shows a 15% increase to 8.4p, more than the increase of adjusted operating profit of 12% due to the lower effective tax rate on the adjusted operating profit and a lower number of ordinary shares for the calculation of adjusted EPS. So this analysis summarizes the absolute movement in adjusted operating profit from H1 2025 to H1 2026. It clearly shows that management fees, performance fees and other income increased. These increases were partially offset by the increase in employee remuneration, but noting business expenses were actually lower by GBP 2.7 million than the prior period. This is the analysis of the movement in adjusted operating expenses. Adjusted operating expenses increased by 3% to GBP 208.7 million. Employee remuneration represented 64% of the total expense base. In the prior period, it was 62%, and increased by GBP 9.5 million to GBP 134.1 million. This was driven by an increase in fixed remuneration consistent with the increase in head count and annual inflation increases as well as an increase in variable remuneration in line with increased adjusted operating profit. Over 50% of employee remuneration remains variable and the resulting compensation ratio was 43.6%, up from 42.9% in the prior period. Business expenses decreased by 3% to GBP 74.6 million. We began to analyze the cost changes, at a high level, we've broken this down -- the movement down as follows: inflation-linked increases of GBP 1.4 million for those costs that are impacted by inflation. FX-linked impact was negative GBP 2 million. And there's been a pickup in technology spend of GBP 1.7 million, with other costs then decreasing by GBP 2.8 million. Technology now is the largest business expense. Previously, it was third-party administration. Looking ahead, we're expecting business expenses to be impacted by inflation, ongoing technology spend and the move into the new offices in Cape Town planned for January 2026. Post the Sanlam integration in South Africa, there will be a cost impact, which will be predominantly headcount driven. So increases to employee remuneration as well as the resulting general operating costs. This is showing the business expenses and total expenses as a percentage of average AUM in basis points over a 5.5-year period. The adjusted operating profit margin over the period is also reflected here. Irrespective of the movement in AUM, business expenses have marginally decreased over the period, even noting the continual investments in our core technology system. Total expenses as a percentage of average AUM hav,e, in fact, declined aided by the growth in the denominator. The adjusted operating profit margin has remained in the range of 31% to 35%, reflecting ongoing cost management with the underlying AUM growth. Ninety One's qualifying capital was GBP 316.3 million at the end of September 2025. In line with our dividend policy, the Board has proposed an interim dividend of 6p, this is an increase of 11%. After this dividend payment, there will be an estimated capital surplus of GBP 155.3 million. This will result in a capital coverage of 245%. During the period, we continued with our buybacks, and this resulted in another return of capital of GBP 20.4 million and a reduction of 14.1 million shares. We did, however, issued GBP 13.7 million of plc shares for the U.K. Sanlam transaction in the period. In line with our capital-light model, since listing over 5.5 years ago, we have returned close to 60% of our initial market capitalization to shareholders. So a few updates regarding the Sanlam transaction. All regulatory approvals have now been secured. The U.K. transaction completed on the 16th of June 2025, with the result of GBP 1.9 billion of AUM on boarded and Ninety One plc issuing 13.7 million shares. It's planned for the SA transaction to be completed by the end of the financial year, which results in expected total onboarded AUM of circa GBP 17 billion and revenue in line with what we previously reported. An additional 112 million shares will be issued when the SA transaction closes. Now reviewing the position for H1 2026. The adjusted EPS and operating margin were accretive. There was a slight dilution on the average fee rate, which I mentioned earlier. And also, as previously mentioned, we will be waiting the shares issued to Sanlam for the determination of the adjusted EPS for the interim and then for the final 2026 results. For the interest, this looks as follows. So shares in issue, excluding Sanlam U.K. is GBP 882.7 million, weighting of shares issued for the Sanlam U.K. is 13.7 million times by 107, the days since the transaction in the period, divided by 183, so the days in the total period, which gives you 8 million shares. So shares in issue for adjusted EPS calculation is 890.7 million. The actual number of shares and issue at end of September 2025 was 896.4 million. The intangible assets arising on the balance sheet for the Sanlam transaction will be amortized over 15 years. To note, this is tax deductible in the U.K. but not in South Africa. And so on that final technical point, I will now hand you back to Hendrik. Hendrik du Toit: Thank you, Kim. At Ninety One, we think long term and our commitment to our strategic pillars do not preclude us from constant improvement and development of our firm. Over the period, we've continued to invest in talent. We've broadened the top leadership team and evolved accountability throughout our firm. We ensured that our 3 core opportunities international public markets, Southern Africa and private markets are adequately resourced to compete effectively as market-facing units, supported by our 3 pillars of investments, client group and operations. And so as we go into the second half of the year, we have formed a dedicated international public markets team, which can focus on the commercial opportunity for a recovery in demand for active investment management especially in international and emerging market strategies. We have a focused and strong Southern African team to take a market-leading business to an entirely new level. Finally, we've reinforced our private markets team with fresh talent and additional senior leadership and asked them to accelerate progress in this growth market. We are backing new growth opportunities out of the recently established Ninety One Foundry. These include in-region presence and partnerships in key emerging markets, allowing us to become domestic competitors in certain regions and deepen our investment insight in these fast-evolving markets. For example, we opened 2 offices in the Middle East in the previous reporting period. We have now put additional resources in, and we are building an on-the-ground domestic business in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which includes a strong investment presence. In Asia, we're developing an exciting joint venture with a Singapore-based alternative investment firm with deep experience and relationships in the region and in particularly China. This will strengthen our investment capabilities in the region as well as positioning us to compete more effectively for capital flowing out of the region. We have established a digital finance unit with dedicated leadership to provide clients in certain markets with a far better experience than they traditionally have received from asset management firms. We've committed substantial resources to AI-related innovation which we will update you on further at the end of the year. I must stress that these developments are fully expensed through the cost line and are not consuming significant additional capital. Over the reporting period, we've made meaningful progress on the technology front, which includes a major systems migration. Now that this has been fully completed, significant resources have been freed up for further enhancements and innovation. These are the additional 3 areas of growth we're pursuing, which we believe will impact the way we run our business in years to come. What we're really trying to do is from strong foundations, build the active investment manager of the future. To become the active manager of the future, AI is key. At Ninety One, we approach AI on 3 levels: advocate, equip and use. So this is how we rate ourselves. We see quite high levels of adoption, we see reasonable levels of experimentation given the widely available AI tools to all our staff members, sort of 6 out of 10. Then our people have embraced it, and we are working hard to get our proprietary data organized for the effective deployment of AI across the firm. The proof of the pudding is in the transformational impact of AI. We have much to do on this front. The business is stronger than it was in the previous reporting period, supported by better business conditions and recovering demand. We plan to improve and modernize our business through disciplined investments in and adjacent to our core activities and markets. Emerging markets and the search for diversification are coming back into favor, which supports us. Active investing has a role to play in this world particularly within emerging markets and in the global equity opportunity set. The strategic clarity and simplicity of our business model enables us to seize the opportunity with pace and strength. In short, we see renewed opportunity for growth. Thank you very much. We can now move on to Q&A. We will take questions in the room first, and then will watch -- then we'll take questions from webcast viewers. [Operator Instructions] I think Angeliki, you had the hand up right in the beginning, so. Angeliki Bairaktari: This is Angeliki Bairaktari from JPMorgan. So your flows were much stronger than the previous semester, GBP 2.4 billion. And we -- you say in your presentation that you feel that active is back. Can you perhaps give us a little bit more color with regards to where you see that strength coming from I think you had APAC, Middle East and also equities. But if you can just give us a little bit more color on the pipeline that you're seeing for the next 6 to 12 months where you see the strength coming from? And that's my first question. And then maybe on the management fee margin outlook. There's a lot of moving parts there, relative to my expectations, the management fee margin followed more. I think we still have some dilutive impact to come from Sanlam once the further AUM gets onboarded on the platform. So how should we think about the run rate, management fee rate for next year perhaps? Hendrik du Toit: I think you've asked the real questions that we all need answers for. So I can give you color on what we see rather than a prediction, Angeliki. So firstly, the -- if I can go to the flow or the pipeline that we see. Firstly, the result is again emphasizing the strength of our diversity. We source capital from the same kind of client but in different regions around the world. They have slightly different perceptions on risk and on willingness to take risk at a point in time. And that's why we've seen equity up weightings from large clients in Asia. And that's really where we've seen it. In the rest of the world, particularly North America, where we've delivered some positive, we are seeing a significant search activity or investigating activity's about how to diversify's their portfolios. That flood's gate has not yet opened. We expect that given the sense that markets normalize over time, and we've come out of a long period of underperformance for the rest of the world relative to the U.S. And we know these things go into 10, 15-year cycles. There's a very good paper on our website about dollar cycles and dollar cycles and international investments seem to be highly correlated. You can go and read that. So -- but what we have seen in the last 6 months picking up from the previous 6 months, not the year ago, but the preceding half year is an intensity or intensification of client and search a client engagement and, call it, presearch engagement. What, of course, can change the flow picture is whether we, in this very competitive world win in the very final stage. I mean an example in the last 6 months, and it really hurts me to say it. But after eliminating all competitors, we came second for a sort of close to $5 billion mandate, one client that would have made this figure look a lot better. And so we are driven, and I think you should understand it Ninety One deals in the upper end of the institutional market. Small numbers of clients make a big difference. The fee on that depends on where they're already engaging with that client at scale, and therefore, the client gets a better deal and we price persistency as well. So clients that are persistent, and this is not price cutting, but clients that are persistent have proven themselves to be persistent over time, get a better deal than those who rent your capacity. And so sometimes, we would not do a deal, which we could do and create great inflows to make all of you happy because we know this client is a capacity renter. And they'll come for 3 years and then cause a problem for us when they go out again, whereas others deserve the respect of a value-for-money deal plus scale benefit. So it's very, very difficult to predict where we are. I think we still, with our underlying guidance of market fee pressure is around -- and I still think it's around the 1 where we are is 50% of our growth typically when we're in growth cycles is upweighting from existing clients, 50% is new. If those existing clients are the big ones, your fee goes lower, if they come from general market, mutual fund market, et cetera, your fees are a bit better. But I think over time, Ninety One is moving towards and increasingly institutional. So the breakdown in the addendum to the slide pack, the appendix where we show institutional versus adviser actually, we are trending towards a much more institutional business. And even in South Africa, where we have a strong advisory business, those advisory firms are getting bigger and bigger and behaving more like institutional multi-manager. So I think -- we're going through that lowering a fee process but hiring of what increasing of volume and therefore, increase operating margin but not necessarily on a fee basis. So I think the 1% we guide to is still the underlying fee compression in our industry. We might as of late, be hit by something a little more or less, but it depends. And it also depends on the growth of the alternatives business because that is a still and where I see the real fee pressure in our industry is actually on the alternatives business. I don't think the 2 and 20 models are going to hold because if clients look at their fee budgets, this is where. So what they're currently doing, just an interesting thing in private equity, private credit, et cetera. They pay the full fee, but then they do a deal on the side to co-invest for nothing. So what is the real effective fee of providing those services and your capabilities to a client for free. So I think about -- it would be a really interesting work -- a piece of work for you to do when you look at that side. So I think that's where the fee pressure is more than in ours, but we are preparing for a world where we have to be at least 1 basis point more efficient every year. And I can't tell you whether we're going to be at 40. Right now, I'll -- Kim, I think you've got the answer. We're running at a slightly higher fee level, maybe you can add here for me, then actually the number shown there. Kim McFarland: Yes. Well, I kind of explained that in my sort of daily -- I think I did that on the call this morning actually as well on the sort of daily, monthly factor. But I think you're sort of -- you're asking the question about looking ahead. And Hendrik is right, we are seeing pressure on the fees, both. You've got the standard 1 bp a year that we advise on. But when you're looking at both new mandates, but actually more so existing client mandates that are coming on board at lower rates and then giving us the asset to compensate. So hence, we're seeing the pickup in the AUM, but they are often negotiating at lower fee rates. So this is why we're definitely seeing more fee pressure. Hendrik du Toit: But for us, it is -- the value lies in embedding those relationships for the long term. And if you can do that, you have a higher-quality business. But what we're not doing is price-cutting to win volume. We don't going out there saying, "Hey, we're cheap". But this -- and I still believe, this market will settle down when nominal interest rates are on the rise again because actually, it's hard for a treasurer or someone to sign a check, when he earns it out of interest, it's easier. So I think there's a -- there is a link, which one day will prove statistically, but we can't give you an exact number now. The next step on the pipeline, we're seeing substantial opportunities against scale ones, so there won't be fee level enhancing ones, they'll probably be roughly where we are for the rest of the year that we should convert. What we don't know is where the unexpected redemptions or changes in strategy can happen with the client. And that's the problem when you deal with these large clients. They get a new CIO, they get staff changes and a new strategy comes in, you're being seen as okay, but not necessarily central to the strategy. So -- but I'm fairly comfortable that the visibility of the pipeline is better than it's been in recent reporting periods. Jonas Dohlen: Jonas Dohlen here from Deutsche Bank. Just one follow-up. Yes, just one follow-up on the fee margin. I was just wondering if that guidance now includes the Sanlam or if that's still on kind of the legacy assets on that 1 basis point... Hendrik du Toit: Sanlam is lower because it's a $20 billion deal. So it's lower, and it's largely fixed income assets. Jonas Dohlen: Yes. But on a group level, you expect 1 basis point... Hendrik du Toit: Yes, on an organic basis. So there's an organic basis and then there's the Sanlam transaction. And what I'm saying, the 1 basis point is the market pressure. If we were to ex Sanlam or if we were to get a big up weighting from a sovereign wealth fund where we already have a premium deal because they've got billions and billions with us, it's probably going to be below that fee level. If we win 500 million mandate chunks, it will be at or around or above that fee level. You see. So that's why I'm saying the market -- the institutional market pressure is roughly 100 basis -- or 100 basis points per year. The -- sorry, 1 basis point per year excuse me. 1 basis point per year. But the -- for us, Sanlam is a separate transaction and then obviously hugely accretive from a profitability point of view, and it depends then what kind of flow we get. Jonas Dohlen: Great. And then just on the tax rate as well. I think you mentioned... Hendrik du Toit: I don't understand... Jonas Dohlen: 25%. Kim McFarland: 25%. Correct. Jonas Dohlen: Being a reasonable number to go forward. I'm just wondering how to kind of square that circle. I mean you have a higher tax rate in South Africa, and that amortization part not being tax deductible as well? Kim McFarland: But we have tax in many other jurisdictions as well. So it's linking up the 2 of it. And -- you're right. When I'm looking at it, I'm looking for the next 6 months and the South African impact is only -- it's going to be in the results for a couple of months next year. I think looking ahead with the nondeductibility of the amortization piece, it will tick up a bit. Hendrik du Toit: Piers, you'll come back in new uniform. Piers Brown: Yes. Indeed, yes, it's Piers Brown from Investec. Hendrik du Toit: Very good. Piers Brown: So very happy about that. I might be greedy and actually, go for 3 questions. So the first one, yes, just back on to the fee rate conversations. So I guess, if you look at this from the perspective of the operating margin, you're -- I mean you printed 32%, which looks very good for the first half. If I take out the performance fees, you -- which I know is a slightly dubious calculation, but it looks like you're maybe sub-30%. But the question would be just on the fee rate outlook, do you think 30% is still the level you can protect? Hendrik du Toit: I think you have to compensate higher average assets under management, that compensates a bit because remember, the markets had a run close to the end, there was Liberation Day down than up. So your average AUM doesn't reflect your actual AUM. And you've got to look at where the sterling is strong or weak, which then deflates a big cost base. So I'm more comfortable than you. But you are right, there's -- the core revenues have not grown as much as they should have. So we don't run to a target actually. And therefore, it's not something we monitor daily. But I'm not at this stage, I'm comfortable that we're going to come back to you with a 25% operating margin, put it that way. Kim McFarland: I think that's too right. I think you've also got to recognize the fact that we're taking on the Sanlam assets, as I said, next year at a low cost. Hendrik du Toit: And I would remind everybody, we've bought I know we call the GBP 1.9 billion acquired growth, but we bought back those shares already. So if you think about it, it's just a mandate win, the big one is going to take a bit longer, but if we can do that, if we have the cash flows, then you know what, it's actually akin to an organic transaction. Piers Brown: Okay. Second one is just on the composition of flows. And sort of relating this into Sanlam, but I mean you've had GBP 1.3 billion of Africa outflows, offset by very strong inflows in Asia Pac. Is there anything in the Africa performance, which is maybe impacted by clients reallocating in advance of Sanlam or... Hendrik du Toit: No, no, it's not Sanlam. It's the -- South Africa is actually a very competitive market, and it's very transparent. When you know exactly what each competitor is doing and your cousin or your kid works at the competitor, you literally know what goes on. And so we had some performance pressure in 1 or 2 strategies, which didn't get -- the market goes quickly, moves quickly against you. We've had the back end of the so-called 2-pot system, which means money was released out of the pension system, where if you're a large provider, you have to suffer that. That is now gone. So that structural bit has left. And then, of course, there was the back end of the internationalization of the SA equity or SA investment market because the exchange controls were relaxed for international opportunities opened up for retirement funds. The Minister gave a big -- a few years -- 2 years ago, a big -- there was a big change in the -- what they call Regulation 28. And that means they could invest more. So there was a structural flow abroad. Typically, to new competitors rather than to someone already has a high wallet share with a client because it just makes sense for those clients. And actually, international passive was a big winner there where we don't compete. So I think those 2 forces are over, think on our investment side, we have all intends -- we intend to be very competitive, and we have recovered quite a lot in terms of competitiveness. So I think on all 3 factors, we're stronger in the second half than the first, but it is one of those markets where if you have a big share and you're not absolutely on top of it, the competitors come after you and we've got some very good competitors in that market. Piers Brown: Okay. Perfect. And just maybe a last one on capital. So 245% capital coverage ratio. I think you've sort of indicated 200% in the past is where you'd like to be. It doesn't feel like there's an awful lot of need for seed capital for some of the new initiatives. So the obvious question is, would you look to move closer to the [ 200% ]? Kim McFarland: We will -- I mean, as you noted, we've continued with buybacks in the actual period. We will continue to look for opportunities to use additional seed capital for buybacks when we're comfortable with the price, and obviously in agreement with the Board. Hendrik du Toit: If pricing is reasonable, we think reducing the denominator is always better than just paying out the cash. But we must look at where the market goes. And who knows, there may be opportunities. Any other questions? Investing definitely add value for money, you'll get your dividend. Varuni, are there any of online questions. Varuni Dharma: Yes. There are a few. First one is from Brian Thomas at Laurium Capital. Are you able to comment on the buyback program that was suspended during the half? Are there any metrics that you take into account in determining when you buy back stock that we should be mindful of? Hendrik du Toit: Before we answer that, there's -- Kim just reminds me, there is one thing in the Africa side. There was a 1 single client sort of -- and many clients pay out and eventually but reallocated away from us as well. So you should sort of have the impact of that number. And that's why I'm quite confident that it can turn around. Sorry, on the buyback, yes, we carefully -- we carefully look at value and value in the context of the industry and the context of what we see ahead because the one downside with buying back is if you overpay for your own stock. And therefore, it's always a consideration and a discussion with the Board. It's not an automatic buyback process. And -- but our industry has been so extremely -- I actually had benefit of last week in Paris when I went to watch the Rugby and I have to remind, I know the French listeners, it was a wonderful moment for South Africa and Paris. But in spite of referee against us, we're still -- but I actually went to watch the Rugby with someone who used to be one of the top financial analysts in the market about 25 years ago -- 20 years ago. And he's gone to private equity. He hadn't looked at valuations of asset managers. He was -- it's a bit like talking to someone who fell asleep 25 years ago because he was completely mind boggled by the relative valuation of asset managers against other financial firms particularly wealth today because in his time, it was exactly the opposite. We were the 20 multiple shops and the others were single digit. So I think broad -- and that reminded me again, that these cash flows, quality cash flows are still, in my opinion, or at least in our opinion, fairly cheap, which is why we have also been acquiring stock slowly and as a management team because we think the market is not appreciating the quality of the cash flows we generate. And so even though they don't -- may not grow as much organically there could be -- and there has been a re-rating of late. Now if the re-rating is too much, we will obviously step away. But our industry is still structurally very cheap compared to other cash flows of similar quality. I mean just close your eyes, 30%-plus operating margins is that's tech. Okay, what do you pay for tech? Palantir last when I looked at 185 PE multiple. So it's very different. And it's in that context that we think rather than in short 1 month, 1 week, 1 quarter valuation cycles. But there is a proper process, which Kim can talk to you about when she reports it again. Do you want to add something, Kim? Kim McFarland: Yes, that's fine. Hendrik du Toit: Any other questions? Varuni Dharma: Yes. Next question, Murray Winckler from Laurium again. Congratulations on returning to net inflows for the business. Headcount increased by 8%, which seems high. What should we expect going forward? Hendrik du Toit: Murray, well to done to you, by the way. You're one of those guys stealing business. We will have to come take it back. Just I mean that is one of the big questions. Can we get to a bigger -- a real efficiency for our business? That's about the digitization and the technology investment. But we should also remember that there was some preparation for -- although we're not taking on many people from Sanlam, there's a significant preparation for taking on a book of that size that -- and then there's also the improvement of our communication with end clients, which we had to invest in to make sure it's there. And again, technology over time will make that a lot easier but it was really important, and we've had challenges on -- with South Africa being on the gray list. We've had real challenges on dealing with our international funds into South Africa and our service capability had to just be much sharper, much better equipped to deal with it. And then we've also been building the private markets business, which is much more -- actually much more human intensive than certain public markets investment businesses. And that's about the reasons. I don't know Kim, are there any other ones that you pick up and you want to... Kim McFarland: I think that's right. I think the pickup in a lot of op staff on the IP platform in South Africa. Likewise, on the Sanlam. A lot of them are actually long-term contractors at this stage because I see it as a temporary thing. So I think the sort of more permanent headcount growth has been in private markets and within the actual business. So I think the question is what are we thinking about it looking forward? I'm not seeing an 8%. I wouldn't be looking at an 8% increase in headcount going forward, I think, would be my answer. Hendrik du Toit: And I think with a better use of technology, we could run the same quality service, leaner, that includes client acquisition, client service, investment processes, but it's very important to do these things very slowly over time. I'm not as bold as the big banks that say that they will run -- I mean, 2 of the big bank CEOs in Global Bank CEOs confirmed to me that they'll double their business over the next 5 years with the same staff levels. That has to be seen whether that's going to realize, but those are ambitious goals. I think we should have similar goals, but it's early stage saying it because the promise and the layer of technology is always there and then the delivery is slightly behind. And we've -- those of us who have worked in the markets a long time have realized that. But definitely don't budget for a 8% staff increase, Murray. That's not going to happen. Varuni Dharma: Next question from Jaime Gomes, Laurium Capital. Can you please explain the expected total onboarded AUM from Sanlam remaining the same as what it was this time last year, circa GBP 17 billion. Has the book experienced some outflows given the strong market performance over the last 12 months? Hendrik du Toit: The book is roughly -- it's the same number. There might be a little benefit rand to sterling exchange. So it might be a little more in sterling. But remember, it's a very fixed income, heavy book. There are also -- there could be a few wins associated as well, but we first got to deliver them. So we're very comfortable that the numbers will reflect what we told the market at least. Varuni Dharma: Next question from Hubert Lam. Can you give us an update on the alternatives business and new initiatives, including private credit? And he has a second question, which is, how should we think about further investments you need to make in AI and tech and what that means for your cost base? Hendrik du Toit: Hubert, nice to get a question from you. I know you have another meeting, so you're not here in person. I would say that my simple answer is private markets are hard. And I'm so glad we didn't buy an overpriced boutique to grow, which then doesn't grow, okay? Because the top guys dominate they've got such a strangle hold. And so that's my one point. I think we found niches which we can live in and defend and grow. And what we have actually done is put some of our -- to make sure they get the full support of the firm, put some of our top leadership very close to the private markets guys and they support them to get through and we build it around and particularly around our emerging markets positioning. Now what we know is the emerging markets haven't had huge flows as such. We think there will be appetite and there will be appetite coming. We modest net inflow have been consistently in that space. But we are building through our cost line, and it's fully reflected in our cost line, we are building capability to be actually -- to be fully competitive in our various areas. And I think our focus is private credit. And private credit and transition credit, and that is very clear, and we have built a market name and position there. So we would expect accelerating flows to follow. But those businesses take -- will take a while to impact -- to truly impact on the bigger Ninety One bottom line. If you model us, model us largely as a long-only business, long-only active business because that's still very dominant in terms of revenues and flows. Kim McFarland: Cost. Hendrik du Toit: And yes, but private market is costly to build. It's high fee, but costly, whereas public markets could be done very efficiently with slightly lower fee, and that's the sort of trade-off between the businesses. But we do see the merger. And so the partnership we announced in the joint venture we announced with in -- with the Singapore based, which we are about to announce because we'll probably -- will probably sign in the next few days, and that's why we haven't been long on detail because anything still -- things have to be -- until they're fully signed, you don't want to talk too much. But there, we have -- we're talking to a business which does long short and crossover between public and private. Now I think these universes are getting closer, and one just has to make sure you understand what happens to the other side of the liquidity fence rather than just staying in the curated even if you want to be a very good long-only business staying in the highly curated screen-based long-only part of life. You've actually got to get -- understand what entrepreneurs are doing and what's happening in the ever longer pre-IPO pipeline because we do know a lot more happens on that side of the fence now from venture right through to growth. And I think that's important for us. But as these things emerge, who knows what product constructs will look like, who knows what client appetite will look like. Clients today are still very organized in boxes between the so-called alternatives units, which is now quite frankly, mainstream and active long only, which is becoming increasingly alternative and passive. So they've got their different boxes. But as they start looking at the total portfolio approach, who knows how they are going to buy and that's what we need to be prepared for. Kim McFarland: And I think the question on uptick in technology spend or AI spend, which was the other one, I think Hendrik mentioned the fact that our big technology replatforming exercise did complete early this year. So those costs are now -- and the ongoing cost of that are actually largely built into our figures. AI has largely been a part of our operating cost line. So the gain, how you should think about it is really a continuation of what our cost base is right now. Hendrik du Toit: Yes. And we absorb in what is available or what can be bought. We don't go to bleeding edge development. The big thing is getting your data organized. And I mean it's been with -- that data story has been with me ever since I've been in this firm. Everyone said we have to organize our data better. But you can get so much more value if you are properly digitized as digital middle business models are showing, it is not trivial and that easy. But as a midsized business, if we can't get it right, nobody can get it right. So -- but we're spending resource and effort on it to make sure we can extract maximum value given the enhancements of the available tools. And they are genuinely moving very fast. And I think 5 years from now, we will be in an entirely different world, and we need to be ready for it. Any other questions, Varuni? Varuni Dharma: Yes, a couple. We have a couple of questions on buybacks. The first one from James Slabbert from Standard Bank. There was a slide on the existing capital stack in the business, would it be aggressive to model for annual buybacks far in excess of earnings remaining after the payout of dividends. I think you've touched on that. But -- so by modeling for buybacks in excess of earnings. And then whilst we're on buybacks, a question from Keenon Choonoo from Investec. Is there a preference between Ninety One Limited or PLCs when considering buybacks? Kim McFarland: So we look at both the plc and the limited lines as far as buybacks are concerned. In fact, we look at even PLCs on the JSE line when we look at buybacks. So we look at all three because there sometimes is a variation in price. So we look at all 3 -- effectively 3 lines, although there's obviously 2 shares to answer that question. As far as buybacks to ceding earnings, we look at buybacks from a capital position. So we -- it comes back to the question asked earlier by peers, you aim for a 200% capital position. We're in excess of that. So I'm rather looking at my capital position, understanding, yes, is there any seed? Is there any regulatory requirements. As you mentioned, there's not an awful lot of that at the moment, but we take that into consideration and at the same time, then look at opportunities for buyback based on surplus capital that we're holding on the balance sheet. Hendrik du Toit: Yes. But we -- what we don't do is this is a highly operationally leveraged business. It will only be an extreme that we will leverage the business. You remember, this is what sticks out asset managers. They go on leverage and then they get the fall in assets under management. They get outflows and the debt stays the same and the equity gets wiped out. So we will be very, very careful to ever go beyond what we can do out of our ongoing earnings or surplus capital. Some other industries, people get very brave. I think, yes, this is probably one of the reasons why we haven't bought the firm from the market yet, okay, because you don't leverage these businesses. . Varuni Dharma: Another question from James Slabbert for clarity on the 1 basis point fee margin compression. Would you apply that to the current fee rates that H1 2026 or the FY '25, so the year-end? Hendrik du Toit: I think we've already done this year, we've already done it. I mean we doubled it. So we think we could have a -- we're not 100% sure, but we could have a far lower decline in the second half, just given what's happened in flow dynamics, excluding the Sanlam. But -- and it's really a gut feel here. But that 100 basis points feels like the underlying trend in the market, not necessarily ours. And James, I wish we can't even forecast it to our Board where we're going to be -- it's very -- you've got a very hard job at doing that. I don't know whether Kim can give you any more wisdom except to say the trend is not up. Kim McFarland: Well, I think you're right. I think you're going to look at the most recent fee rate. And if it's in the half year, so you're taking half or 0.5 based on the most recent fee rate, but then you have to take into consideration, as we mentioned, the Sanlam assets coming on board, which will have a further impact and should we take on any large new mandates in the period. If we see those flows, there's likely to be further fee erosion, hopefully not, but there's likelihood. Hendrik du Toit: You see -- especially when you do the relationship deals, with a large insurance company or something like that. And they are genuinely sensitive because it hits their profit, but they can give you assurance about commitment, timing, i.e., embedded value or present value of the deal, that's different from when you get in the normal distributed pension market OCIOs most -- many of them are in -- or multi managers are different because you're not going to compete on price there at all. So it depends where the flow comes from. What we haven't seen, and I think that's the bit you should understand. We haven't seen the sort of -- I've hinted that there are opportunities to grow. But the good times aren't back yet. When you get into the good times and clients want to deploy fast and -- they just want to get the money out there. Then price sensitivity tends to take a backseat. At the moment, they have lots of time to deploy. They're thinking multiyear. They're not chasing markets. I think if you get up severe underperformance or you get -- and I don't think we're going to see it immediately, but if you get a big correction in the dollar, then that changes life. And that's the positive for us. But I don't want you to model that. Varuni Dharma: Last question from Herman [ Van Veltsa]. Do new clients favor fixed fees? Or do they tend to opt for performance fees? Hendrik du Toit: Herman, nice to hear from you again. Another old campaign. I wish clients wanted to give more performance fees because the way you could resolve this constant fee bickering and say, come on, pay us afterwards, pay us properly. But Interestingly, clients have typically been burned by performance fees because they end up paying more. And so they're reluctant to do that. They're also reluctant to go to the -- I mean, in mutual funds, where it's quite prevalent in South Africa, it's not actually encouraged in the rest of the world. ETFs are very difficult. You can't really do -- it's difficult to do, whereas institutional owners don't want to go and pay the big check and ask their Board to pay a large check to a manager unless it's in the alternative bucket. Now again, if those buckets fade and different kind of people contract with us, we could possibly push more performance fees. We think it's a way to align well, although buy-side analysts or sell-side analysts would say it's lower quality of earnings. But I think we could make more profit. They're very happy to do that when they buy Millennium or Citadel. But for some reason, there is a reluctance in our space because that's just what it is. So we would be quite open because we know, over time, 80% of our offerings beat the benchmark. So it's in our favor. But -- it's not the reality today. So I wouldn't model for much bigger performance fee component in our business. I'd roughly keep it similar, noting that a period of good performance, we will own more performance fees. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, and I'll see you after second half, and I hope the positive -- the positive hence, have realized, but it's up to the market. Thank you. Kim McFarland: Thank you. Hendrik du Toit: Thank you very much, guys.
Operator: Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by for the Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call for XPeng Inc. [Operator Instructions] Today's conference call is being recorded. I will now turn the call over to your host, Mr. Alex Xie, Head of Investor Relations and Capital Markets of the company. Please go ahead, Alex. Alex Xie: Thank you. Hello, everyone, and welcome to XPeng's Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. Our financial and operating results were issued by Newswire services earlier today and available online. You can also view the earnings press release by visiting the IR section of our website at ir.xiaopeng.com. Participants on today's call from management team will include Co-Founder, Chairman and CEO, Mr. He Xiaopeng; Vice Chairman and President, Dr. Brian Gu; Vice President of Corporate Finance and VW Projects, Mr. Charles Zhang; Vice President of Finance and Accounting, Mr. James Wu; and myself. Management will begin with prepared remarks, and the call will conclude with a Q&A session. A webcast replay of this conference call will be available on the IR section of our website. Before we continue, please note that today's discussion will contain forward-looking statements made under the safe harbor provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties. As such, the company's results may be materially different from the views expressed today. Further information regarding these and other risks and uncertainties is included in the relevant public filings of the company as filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The company does not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, except as required under applicable law. Please also note that XPeng's earnings press release and this conference call include the disclosure of unaudited GAAP financial measures as well as unaudited non-GAAP financial measures. XPeng's earnings press release contains a reconciliation of the unaudited non-GAAP measures to the unaudited GAAP measures. I will now turn the call over to our Co-Founder, Chairman and CEO, Mr. He Xiaopeng. Please go ahead. He Xiaopeng: [Interpreted] Hello, everyone. In Q3 2025, XPeng reported record sales -- record results in key operating metrics with new highs in deliveries, revenue, gross margin and cash reserves. Vehicle deliveries for the quarter totaled 116,007 units, a 149% increase year-over-year. The all-new XPeng P7 launched recently quickly became one of the top 3 BEV sedans priced between RMB 200,000 to RMB 300,000 boosting monthly deliveries to over 40,000 units starting in September. Additionally, the company's gross margin exceeded 20% for the first time in Q3, and we reduced our net loss further. Our goal is to achieve breakeven for the company in the fourth quarter. These continuous operational improvements strengthen our focus on physical AI R&D, supporting the targeted mass production of our VLA 2.0 model, Robotaxi and humanoid robot in 2026. As AI models advance and become increasingly integrated with real-world data, machines are slowly gaining the ability to interact, communicate, transform and create within our physical environment. This development is reshaping the future of mobility and daily life. Over the past 11 years, XPeng has dedicated itself to building full stack technologies in-house evolving from software-defined vehicles to the emerging realm of physical AI. We understand that vehicles and humanoid robot, the 2 primarily applications of physical AI, share a homogeneous physical world model, SoCs and infrastructure, allowing for rapid iteration and evolution. Excitingly, new capabilities are continuously emerging from our physical AI technology stack. Over the next decade, my goal is to make XPeng a leading global company in embodied intelligence. Focused on physical AI applications, we're developing an extensive portfolio of technologies, products and supporting business ecosystem. Besides providing AI-powered vehicles to consumers worldwide, we aim to deploy pre-installed mass-produced Robotaxi on a large scale and achieve the mass production of humanoid robots. We believe that an open and dynamic ecosystem is crucial to unlocking the full potential of physical AI for humanity. To achieve this, we plan to open source our physical world model, launch Robotaxi services in partnership with mobility platforms and relieve our humanoid robot SDK. This approach will expand the physical AI application ecosystem through collaborations with business and technology partners and accelerate the value creation process. I'm also glad to report that as we introduce the one vehicle, dual energy product cycle for AI vehicles, we'll expand our scale and increase our NEV market share through a wider product range. On November 6, we launched presales for the XPeng X9 Super Extended-Range EV, an industry frontrunner in extended-range vehicles equipped with a 5C rate high-capacity LFP battery and a total range of up to 1,602 kilometers. It is the world's first large 7 seater to offer the longest range, highest AI computing power, smallest turning radius and most efficient space utilization in its category. We see super extended-range EVs as crucial for accelerating the shift from ICE vehicles to NEVs. Since presales began for the X9 Super EREV, we've experienced unprecedented interest, especially in northern regions and inland cities of China, attracting many customers who previously hesitated to switch to BEV models. To date, preorders for this model are nearly 3x higher than the presale of the previous X9. On a like-for-like basis, the X9 Super EREV will officially launch on November 20 with deliveries starting immediately afterwards. I anticipate reaching a new delivery record in December. We plan to introduce 3 super extended-range products in Q1 2026 focusing on alleviating key challenges for our EREV users by offering long, pure electric range and quicker 5C supercharging, thereby capturing more of the EREV market. We have put in more R&D expenses in 2025. As a result in 2026, we'll also launch 4 new one vehicle, dual energy models, including our first product launch in some key market segments. These innovative products will help us establish a presence in these markets and build leading products like the MONA M03. I'm confident that the 7 one vehicle, dual energy models with super extended-range technology debuting next year will greatly increase our total addressable market or TAM and provide significant sales growth opportunities. On the global business front, we maintained strong sales growth and established a solid foundation for long-term expansion through our localized approach. In September 2025, our monthly overseas deliveries exceeded 5,000 units for the first time, a 79% increase year-over-year. During the third quarter, we grew our global presence with 56 new overseas stores, expanding our sales and service network to 52 countries and regions worldwide. Additionally, our first European localized production facility at Magna plant in Graz, Austria, officially commenced operations with the initial batch of XPeng G6 and G9 rolling off the line. Simultaneously, XPeng's R&D center in Munich, Germany, officially began functioning, helping us better understand overseas customer needs and accelerate technological advancement and product launches. In 2026, we plan to introduce 3 new overseas models, including popular mid- to small SUVs that meet the diverse preferences of global consumers. Our strong focus on investing in AI large models, computing infrastructure and data set is driving the continuous emergence of advanced capabilities from our physical world model. Our upcoming VLA 2.0 model, which has 10x more parameters than its predecessors will substantially enhance safety and user experience in intelligent driving. From my own recent driving experience during very complicated and complex road conditions, we experienced very impressive and unparalleled driving experience from the intelligent VLA model. So starting from late December, we will initiate a co-creation program with our early adopters. In the early quarter of 2026, we aim to deploy the VLA 2.0 model across the entire Ultra lineup. I see the mass production of VLA 2.0 as a major breakthrough in physical AI models, offering a significant generational leap in user experience and attracting more people to choose XPeng for its leading intelligent driving technology. Going forward, XPeng will open source it's VLA 2.0 model to global commercial partners, aiming to provide industry-leading advanced driver assistance experience to a wider audience. Volkswagen will be the initial launch customer for the VLA 2.0 model. Additionally, XPeng's Turing AI SoC has earned a formal sourcing designation from Volkswagen with codeveloped vehicles expected to start mass production early next year. Revenue from licensing our technology to external partnerships will be reinvested into our R&D, mainly to support iteration and upgrades of the Turing SoC and VLA models. This fosters a positive cycle of innovation and commercialization. We invite more automakers and Tier 1 manufacturers to collaborate with us on the Turing SoC and VLA 2.0, working together to promote the adoption of advanced intelligent technologies in both Chinese and global markets. Traditionally, end-to-end models were able to maybe reach advanced Level 2 at its best; however, the rise of physical world model is speeding up the arrival of true autonomous driving. I believe that only pre-installed mass-produced Robotaxis with a strong ability to generalize can achieve widespread adoption and create a sustainable business model. In 2026, XPeng plans to launch 3 Robotaxi models. Our technology stack for Robotaxi does not depend on high-definition maps or LiDAR. This approach enables us to address current industry's challenges, including high cost, operational limitations and poor generalization, allowing for an efficient and scalable deployment worldwide. We intend to begin pilot operations of XPeng Robotaxi in China in 2026, continuously improving both software and hardware of Robotaxi while building an operational ecosystem. I believe that a collaborative ecosystem where all industry stakeholders' benefit is key to scaling rapidly. Therefore, we plan to open our SDK to our partners, and Amap will be the first ecosystem partner for XPeng Robotaxi. We also invite more companies in the mobility sector to explore Robotaxi collaboration opportunities with us. Our humanoid robots adopt a technology road map driven by physical world model. With full support from our vehicle and powertrain R&D teams, we unveiled our next-generation IRON robot at the latest XPeng Tech Day. The IRON's human-like posture and agile gait surprised and deeply moved many XPeng fans and also highlighted the great commercial potential of humanoid robots. Currently, IRON demonstrates only a very small fraction of its capabilities. In Q2 2026, we plan to achieve full capability integration through cross-domain innovation aiming for performance and user experience for far surpass current market offerings. Our target is to begin mass production of advanced humanoid robots by the end of 2026. Once produced, IRON will be first deployed in commercial scenarios, providing services like tour guiding, retail assistance and patrols. By the end of next year, I hope IRON will be working alongside us at XPeng stores, campuses and factories as our new team members. Additionally, XPeng Robotics will open its SDK to global developers, inviting partners from various industries to collaborate on secondary development. This will enable IRON to be trained and to evolve across diverse and long-tail real-world well scenarios, unlocking broader application possibilities. From a long-term perspective, I believe the market potential for humanoid robots will exceed that of automobiles. Once a new generation of robots reaches the inflection point just as China's EV industry did with electrification, we expect explosive growth ahead. I envision that by 2030, XPeng robots could sell over 1 million units annually. With the launch of our one vehicle, dual energy product cycle, I expect total deliveries in the fourth quarter to reach between 125,000 and 132,000 units reflecting a year-over-year growth of 36.6% to 44.3%. We project fourth quarter revenue to be roughly between RMB 21.5 billion to RMB 23 billion, up 33.5% to 42.8% from the previous year. XPeng's AI-driven vehicle business is in the early stages of rapid expansion in terms of scale and market shares, while Robotaxi and humanoid robot programs are swiftly moving forward and towards mass production. I'm confident that XPeng will establish itself as a leader in physical AI, both in China and globally, delivering greater value for our customers and shareholders worldwide. Thank you, everyone. With that, I'll now turn the call over to our VP of Finance, Mr. James, who will discuss our financial performance for the third quarter of 2025. Jiaming Wu: Thank you, Xiaopeng. Now let me provide a brief overview of our financial results for the third quarter of 2025. I'll reference RMB only in my discussion today, unless otherwise stated. Our total revenues were RMB 20.38 billion for the third quarter of 2025, an increase of 101.8% year-over-year and an increase of 11.5% quarter-over-quarter. Revenues from vehicle sales were RMB 18.05 billion for the third quarter of 2025, an increase of 105.3% year-over-year and an increase of 6.9% quarter-over-quarter. The year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter increases were mainly attributable to higher deliveries from newly launched vehicle models. Revenues from services and others were RMB 2.33 billion for the third quarter of 2025, representing an increase of 78.1% year-over-year and an increase of 67.3% quarter-over-quarter. The year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter increases were primarily attributable to the increased revenues from after sales services and technical R&D services rendered to the Volkswagen Group due to the successful achievement of certain key milestones in the current quarter. Gross margin was 20.1% for the third quarter of 2025, compared with 15.3% for the same period of 2024 and 17.3% for the second quarter of 2025. Vehicle margin was 13.1% for the third quarter of 2025, compared with 8.6% for the same period of 2024 and 14.3% for the second quarter of 2025. The year-over-year increase was primarily attributable to the ongoing cost reduction, while the quarter-over-quarter decrease was due to targeted promotion to clear outgoing inventory during product transition. R&D expenses were RMB 2.43 billion for the third quarter of 2025, representing an increase of 48.7% year-over-year and an increase of 10.1% quarter-over-quarter. The year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter increases were mainly due to higher expenses related to the development of new vehicle models and technologies, as the company expanded its product portfolio to support future growth. SG&A expenses were RMB 2.49 billion for the third quarter of 2025, representing an increase of 52.6% year-over-year and an increase of 15% quarter-over-quarter. The year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter increases were primarily due to higher commission to the franchised stores, driven by higher sales volume as well as higher marketing and advertising expenses. As a result of the foregoing loss from operations was RMB 0.75 billion for the third quarter of 2025, compared with RMB 1.85 billion year-over-year and RMB 0.93 billion quarter-over-quarter. Net loss was RMB 0.38 billion for the third quarter of 2025 compared with RMB 1.81 billion year-over-year and RMB 0.48 billion quarter-over-quarter. As of September 30, 2025, our company had cash and cash equivalents, restricted cash, short-term investments and time deposits in total of RMB 48.33 billion. To be mindful of the length of the earnings call, I will encourage listeners to refer to our earnings press release for more details on our third quarter 2025 financial results. This concludes our prepared remarks. We'll now open the call to questions. Operator, please go ahead. Operator: [Operator Instructions] For the benefit of all participants on today's call, if you wish to ask your question to management in Chinese, please immediately repeat your question in English. [Operator Instructions]The first question today comes from Tim Hsiao with Morgan Stanley. Tim Hsiao: [Foreign Language] So my first question is about the physical AI because in the past, the competitive advantages of other companies were reflected in several aspects like cost, brand and channels. Just wondering if the management could elaborate a bit more about what aspects XPeng's long-term competitive advantage in physical AI will be demonstrated? And how will the company continuously enhance its strength in these areas? That's my first question. He Xiaopeng: [Interpreted] I think this is definitely a big question. The traditional way for automakers to make money is completely different from the new physical AI model generated kind of business format. They come from different DNAs. Traditionally, older traditional automakers focus on their own positioning and also about how they target their user segments and then everything boils down to their integration of Tier 1 suppliers and all the other different parts of the supply chain. However, when it comes to a physical AI-generated model, the definition is different. We determine what the -- we -- everything boils down to the definition of the future tech. It involves full-stack technology capability and also custom integration. For example, the launch of our IRON robot is a great example of that. So that's why different DNA is going to generate different products and different growth momentum. In the future, I believe that cars will be a new format of robotics, and it's going to actually come to the real life in the coming 5 to 10 years as the next generation of robotics in our life. So traditionally, the integration of supply chain is completely different from what we are looking at right now, which is the physical AI technology integration across different domains and involves software, hardware and infrastructure upgrades, which will lead to a completely new set of products. As a result, traditionally, software were only a small percentage of traditional car development, whereas right now, it takes up a large part of new product development. And I believe that when you look at our future developments, we are actually going to see more and more physical AI components in the future for car development over 50%, and we are going to see that very, very soon. Thank you. Tim Hsiao: [Foreign Language] My second question is about revenue from the collaboration with Volkswagen. So first of all, congratulations on the project wins of Turing chips at Volkswagen. So may I know from which quarters the related revenue will start to kick in? And how should we think about the trend of the revenue contribution from the collaboration with Volkswagen in December quarter and the full year 2026? That's my second question. Charles Zhang: Tim, this is Charles. So in Q3, we delivered a few key development milestones on time. So you probably have seen that the revenue from the technology collaboration increased significantly quarter-over-quarter. And we continue to see that there are a few key development milestones to be delivered in Q4. So we believe that the revenue from technical collaboration in Q4 will be expected at a comparable level we see in Q3 2025. And then regarding your question on the Turing SoC. Yes, we were -- our Turing SoC was selected by Volkswagen for the 2 B class vehicles we're jointly developing. And we have already started to supply the Turing SoC to some of the -- our partners, the preproduction and verification vehicles. So therefore, the revenue -- we would expect that the revenue from Turing SoC will start to be recognized in Q4 and probably in the small amount. But however, as our jointly developed vehicle SOP from early next year, and we would expect the revenue from the Turing SoC will ramp up with the sales volume of the 2 vehicles we jointly developed. In terms of the revenue from the technical collaboration in 2026, and we expect that as long as we can deliver the key milestones that are scheduled in 2026, we would expect that the revenue -- the technical -- the revenue from the technical collaboration for the full year 2026 would be comparable to that of the revenue we recognized in 2025. So I think looking back, we have demonstrated that we can -- well, we delivered the revenue from commercialization of our technology for 7 consecutive quarters. And I think we believe that there are still opportunities we would like to explore to commercialize our technology and also as our CEO, Xiaopeng, mentioned, and we will reinvest such revenue from the licensing or technical collaboration back into our R&D. Thank you, Tim. Operator: Next question comes from Nick Lai with JPMorgan. Y.C. Lai: [Foreign Language] My first question is -- my 2 questions is actually related to humanoid robot strategy and ambition in the longer term. At a recent Technology Day, XPeng demonstrated our first humanoid robot IRON which worked really like human. And can you talk about our technology road map and compare with the comparable peers? And where is our competitive advantage comparing with the peers in the medium and longer term? That's my first question. He Xiaopeng: [Interpreted] Thank you. Because there are so many robotics companies in the market, to be honest, the technological and product development road map and strategy of XPeng's robotics is moving forward as we expect, according to our own plan. We have paid really little attention to any other differences in the robotics industry to other companies before we launch our own products. Now when we look at XPeng, for example, our product philosophy is highly theoretical. You can actually -- well, it's highly human-like. That is the goal of developing our own humanoid robot. What's interesting about our product is that we realize that when we incorporate muscles and very bionic skin on to our robots, we actually attracted a lot of people to dare to hug him. And this is very, very exciting because traditional robots really were not that attractive and appealing for human beings to give them a hug. In addition to that, we also would like to mention that in the future, I believe that across many aspects of lifeline work, we are going to see more and more robots that is working alongside us. So for the current generation of XPeng robots, last time that we launched it, it was actually the seventh generation, and we are going to begin mass production of the eighth generation of our humanoid robots. In fact, when we look at some of the available robotics in the market, I believe that a lot of them are between generation 3 and 5, which is mainly being driven by joints and all the operation of different hardware. And when you look at the operation of hardware and software, you can see that the available products in the market look very similar in the way that they walk and they move. And these kind of robots, I believe, are very, very hard or difficult to commercialize in the end. So in the future generations of our robot, we actually have been thinking about what kind of technological route we should be used, and we have fully integrated actually hardware and software driven by integrated AI. So this time, you can see that the robot that we showed to the market is based on our full-stack R&D capability and cross-domain integration. I believe that XPeng Motors has many advantages when it comes to our robotics and humanoid robot development. For example, our physical AI resources have a synergy effect with our AI cars. For example, we actually are considering may be producing higher than car grade performance for our humanoid robots. And also our thinking logic on how to conduct business and mass production of our humanoid robot is largely driven by our knowledge and industry know-how in the EV industry. For example, when we build the future sales and marketing layout and globalization, there's a lot of synergistic effects that we can enjoy from the existing layout with our car sales. Also I believe when it comes to the future robotics development, some company will still -- some of the players will come from auto-making industry. And I believe that XPeng will definitely have a first-mover advantage in this regard because of the data, the SoCs and the capability that we have. Thank you. Y.C. Lai: [Foreign Language] My second question is also related to humanoid robot long-term strategy and operations. And from here to commercialization, what are the key critical milestones that we should be mindful? And from now towards the end of '26, can you remind us what the capacity and expected scale of our human robot operations? And also in terms of use case, by, say, 2030, you mentioned that 2030 we target to deliver 1 million units, can you also talk about the use case in the longer term? He Xiaopeng: [Interpreted] Thank you. To be honest, IRON's mass production is probably the most challenging kind of vehicle or products I've ever worked on at XPeng Motors, if I have to make the comparison between mass-producing IRONs and other cars because there's still a lot of challenges. For example, our ultimate goal is for it to be easily trained with human language so that it can really help us in various ways, and there's a lot of room for improvement there when it comes to capability integration. For example, if this robot can walk or run in various safe postures that requires a lot of integration of capability as well. For example, it needs to have all the joints embedded in management and also full coupling of different wiring, et cetera. Also, if we need to allow it to have more generalized kind of dexterous hand movements, well, it will also require a lot of hand-based VLA, which we believe by beginning of next year will be integrated. We also need to allow it to have that kind of communication and language-based communication capability between the robot and humans. So that also will come from, for example, a lot of VLM and VLT, which is the small brain and large brain kind of modeling capability. But what I'm really excited to share here is that we will start entering the 1.0 stage of our new generation of mass-produced models next month. I believe that in the next 10 months, we'll be able to actually promote the robot development in an orderly manner during mass production. And I think that's the first part of my answer. Thank you. I think the ramp-up in robot production capacity is much simpler compared to cars. However, the commercialization of robots is indeed very, very challenging. It requires us to look for really new heights of technology and ultimately achieving more capabilities. Therefore, we hope to initially implement in several commercial scenarios included tour guiding, shopping or retail assistance, et cetera. In 2026, we hope that we actually can see a lot of our own robots working alongside us at our XPeng stores, campuses for the first stage of field testing. At the same time, we are also opening our SDK to more of our partners so that our partners can easily and simply buy our robots and train them for commercialization purposes. If your question is about future possibilities of scenario application, I think it's going to be even more than you think. For example, for commercialized robots, maybe you can switch their arms and allow them to go into the industrial production scenarios. And when will the robots go into our household setting? I think maybe 5 years' time, we still have a big chance of achieving that. And I hope that through opening our SDK, we can allow more kind of partners to help us tackle those diverse and long-tail scenarios of application so that we can all enjoy a better robotic future and build a better ecosystem. Thank you. Operator: The next question comes from Ming from Bank of America. Ming-Hsun Lee: [Foreign Language] Why does XPeng choose to launch Robotaxi service in 2026? Could you share your technology inflection point or how fast you lower your cost? And compared to other Robotaxi companies in China, what is XPeng's technology path or business model? What is your advantages? He Xiaopeng: [Interpreted] Thank you, Ming, for your question. I think that within our R&D strategy, there are 2 key aspects, which are full-stack self-development and also cross-domain integration. I believe that in 2026, we will be actually seeing a collection of inflection points within our own development system. For example, we are going to be able to launch our current models into the Robotaxi configuration of fleets, which, by that time, we believe that the inflection point will arrive. At the same time, our VRM models will continue to offer new capabilities for our future vehicles to be more robotic-like. In addition to that, our current second-generation VLA can actually train our intelligent driving Ultra cars and also in the future, maybe also train our mass version of cars using the same kind of large model, too. In other words, we have our cross-domain capability based on our robotic development, which really can solve a lot of Robotaxi current limitations, for example, the high cost of production and also the limitation of the mobility destinations. For example, current Robotaxi now cannot really handle very complicated and complex road conditions and also in residential areas that has a lot of unpredicted scenarios and also a lot of them currently require LiDAR for their perception capability and so on. So in 2026, we hope that by commercializing fully shared L4 capability in our Robotaxi. We actually can have the dual development of the driverless L4 model together with an assisted driving L4 model. With the launch of both method or road map in the future, I think very soon, it will be proven that XPeng has actually a better commercial logic thinking compared to other Robotaxi companies and that will give us a great competitive advantage. Thank you. Ming-Hsun Lee: [Foreign Language] So how does the management team think about the commercialization of your Robotaxi business? Especially in the future, what is your planned milestone, for example, like in terms of the number of fleet? Or when will you plan to roll out in different cities or overseas market? And also currently, you already have a cooperation with Gaode, Amap, and could you elaborate more about your cooperation? And in the future, do we expand -- do you plan to cooperate with small partners like other ride-hailing companies? He Xiaopeng: [Interpreted] Thank you. Actually, next year, XPeng is going to launch 3 different types of Robotaxi models at different price points to support different mobility purposes and demands. In the next phase of development, I believe, with the premise of regulatory approval, our priority is to really get everything running smoothly, when it comes to the whole technological and operation and business model. So in that scenario, we hope to work with more and more business partner in the ecosystem. For example, Amap will be a great partner. They are going to give us more development support when it comes to traffic and also payment and operation and services, et cetera. That really set us apart from a lot of the autonomous driving OEMs. And I believe that in the future, for different countries and regions and different steps of development, we are going to actually launch more partnership with different service providers across different lanes. And for XPeng, what we need to do is that we are building our toolbox really well, and we're opening up our interface capability so that we can work more with our ecosystem partners in the future across different countries and cities. And so once we really get everything up and running commercially in different environments, we can then quickly build our ecosystem. This is one of our considerations. Thank you. Operator: The next question comes from Tina Hou with Goldman Sachs. Tina Hou: [Foreign Language] Let me translate my first question. So first, I would like to understand, over the next 1 to 3 years, do we have a rough revenue estimate or breakdown for our new businesses, including Robotaxi, humanoid robot as well as eVTOL? Gui Hongdi: Tina, it's Brian. First of all, I would say that for these future development areas, we do not provide any numerical guidance at the moment. Clearly, all those 3 areas, we anticipate volume, scale level production and operations in the next 12 months. For example, the Land Aircraft Carrier from our flying car company is aimed to be delivered to end customers before the end of next year, will be in volume, also scale, which I would say, in the thousands of range. But the other 2, for example, the humanoid robot as well as autonomous driving Robotaxi, as we just discussed earlier, next year will be actually a year we'll see a lot of operational testing as well as scaling up process to make them ready for large quantity production and use. So I would say the contribution from next year will probably be limited. But I think the volume we'll expect to ramp up rapidly once the model and the stability of these products is proven in the use, consumer end as well as application end. So the long-term goal of having 1 million per year humanoid robots sort of sales by 2030 is our long-term goal. And that is something that we have good confidence given we see the quick ramp-up in terms of technology as well as multiple application areas in home, in offices, in factory settings. So with all these future areas, we believe the potential is immense. So at this moment, unfortunately, I cannot give you the exact breakdown as well as precise cost estimates because these are still, I would say, evolving. But I think the overall trend is very exciting for us. Tina Hou: [Foreign Language] So my second question is regarding our passenger vehicles. So wondering if we can get more details on the new models, their segment as well as price segment, both in the domestic market as well as overseas and also do we have a volume target for 2026? Charles Zhang: Tina, it's Charles here. I think we believe that one chassis, dual powertrain vehicles present very attractive opportunities. It is also one of our strategic initiatives to expand the volume and the TAM of our -- each of our vehicles. So I think on November 20, we are launching the X9 with pricing, that will be our first, we call it the Super EREV product to be launched. And then you probably also have noticed that we have -- we already have 3 existing vehicles, Super Electric model, already registered with regulators, and we plan to launch those 3 products in early 2026. As Xiaopeng also mentioned that we have 4 vehicles -- 4 new vehicles when we launch, it will be equipped with both BEV as well as EREV powertrain options. And those 4 new vehicles are positioned in the different various segment -- various pricing segments we're in. And we believe that, that will continue to enhance our product portfolio in each of the price segments we're targeting. So in terms of the growth into next year, and we believe that the huge -- the one chassis, dual powertrain vehicle models, the 7 models will significantly drive our growth next year. And also another growth driver we have seen is that the international market will continue to be a major growth driver for us. With our current products available in the international market, we have already hit 5,000 per month for September and also October, the 2 consecutive months already. And of the 7 new vehicles we're launching next year, 3 of them -- at least 3 of them will go to international market. And so we are confident that the international market volume will continue to be a very important growth driver for us into 2026. Operator: The next question comes from Pingyue Wu with Citic. Pingyue Wu: [Foreign Language] I have 2 questions. And my first question is about the new EREV model. And what do we think about the growth potential of our new EREV models in 2026? And my second question is about the humanoid robots. And how do we think about the fuel economy of the humanoid robots since we have implemented some new technologies, for example, the solid-state batteries and et cetera. And in terms of the affordability, will IRON robot be affordable for family, say, like RMB 200,000 or even less? He Xiaopeng: [Interpreted] First of all, regarding the first question, I think what's interesting that we discover from the sales figures that we gather from -- since the launch of X9 was that the targeted customers and also the actual users of BEV and EREV are quite different. So we believe that we can expect to actually see several times of quarter-over-quarter growth when the new version of X9 actually get delivered, and actually different customer groups, when they purchase BEV versus EREV, they are using the cars across different scenarios as well. And specifically, what I want to share is that, obviously, BEV and EREV users in different sizes or scale of cars are also different. In larger vehicles, the percentage of EREV adoption is higher, whereas for Class A vehicles, especially smaller passenger vehicles, BEV ratio is actually higher. So I think we'll have to wait for more numbers to show maybe by Q4 and also Q1 next year before we actually can give you a more concrete answer. Thank you. And the second part of your question, regarding the pricing affordability of robotics, I think, first of all, the pricing logic is very different between cars and robots. When we look at the BOM cost of our Gen 6 and Gen 7 robots, they remain very high last year. But by first half of this year, when we were preparing for true mass production, we actually have enough reasons for us to actually believe the future retail sales price of the robotics -- of the robots can be very similar to car prices. And the second point that I want to mention here is that the traditional way of pricing a car is weight-based. It involves how many kind of iron and lithium and all kinds of elements included and components included in making a car, whereas robots, it's very different because the percentage of software in a robot is over 50% since day 1, whereas the number is only 10% to 20% for a lot of cars. In other ways, you have to put in a lot of cost to train the software and the model, and you need to have the overall capability to do a lot of integration and also domain controller as well. For example, you need to be able to combine all 4 SoCs into a super domain controller so that you can make them as light as possible and as affordable as possible. And these remain very challenging for many industry players. In other words, we really have high hopes for our future when it comes to robotics development. Hopefully, we are going to -- we expect to handle a limited amount of SKU integration, not as many SKU as when you're making a car. And we also will try our best to make the pricing of robots as affordable as possible. So it really can truly help and empower thousands of households in the future. Thank you. Operator: The next question comes from Xiaoyi Lei with Jefferies. Xiaoyi Lei: [Foreign Language] I have just one question. Could you please provide an update on the progress of our overseas localized production for next year? And additionally, how do we plan to leverage our smart driving capabilities to drive the sales growth in international markets? Gui Hongdi: It's Brian, again. Just to address your question on overseas plan for next year. You're right, we actually initiated our local production this half -- second half of this year with first factory in Indonesia and also the -- another factory production facility with partnership with Magna in Austria. Those, I think, is slowly ramping up the capacity. So we anticipate the volume for next year's production in these 2 plants will continue to rise and support our overall sort of overseas growth. I think in the Europe, we are looking at the tens of thousands in terms of numbers of vehicle locally produced there. And in Indonesia, I think probably a smaller, but also a sizable number, high thousands is something that we want to achieve. Looking beyond those 2 plants, we continue to look at additional opportunities to have local capabilities in other markets as well as building local supply chain capabilities to support the localization in these key regions. So we will be increasing our local content, increasing our local stores materials and also looking for further localization strategy to be implemented. So that's something I think is ongoing. I think it's a must do for a company has global ambitions. Looking at the global product sales next year, I think, as Charles mentioned, we're looking for higher growth in the international markets compared to our domestic market. We're also looking for higher contribution economically from those markets. So I would say in the next year or the year beyond, we're looking at a faster growing, higher profit contribution for our international businesses. Operator: Since there are no further questions, I'd like to turn the call back over to the company for any closing remarks. Alex Xie: Thank you once again for joining us today. If you have further questions, please feel free to contact XPeng's Investor Relations through the contact information provided on our website or the Piacente Financial Communications. Operator: This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you. [Portions of this transcript that are marked [Interpreted] were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]
Operator: Hello, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by for JinkoSolar Holding Co., Ltd. Second and Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After management's prepared remarks, there will be a question and answer session. As a reminder, today's conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the meeting over to your host for today's call, Ms. Stella Wang. JinkoSolar's Investor Relations. Please proceed, Stella. Stella Wang: Thank you, operator. Thank you, everyone, for joining us today for JinkoSolar's second and third quarter 2025 earnings conference call. The company's results were released earlier today and are available on the company's IR website at www.jinkosolar.com as well as on newswire services. We have also provided a supplemental presentation for today's earnings call, which can also be found on the IR website. On the call today from JinkoSolar are Mr. Li Xiande, Chairman and CEO of JinkoSolar Holding Co., Ltd., Mr. Gener Miao, Chief Marketing Officer of JinkoSolar Holding Co., Ltd., and Mr. Charlie Cao, CFO of JinkoSolar Holding Co., Ltd. Mr. Li will discuss JinkoSolar's business operations and company highlights, followed by Mr. Miao, who will talk about the sales and marketing, and Mr. Cao will go through the financials. They will all be available to answer your questions during the Q&A session that follows. Please note that today's discussion will contain forward-looking statements made under the Safe Harbor provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties. As such, our future results may be materially different from the views expressed today. Further information regarding this and other risks is included in JinkoSolar's public filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. JinkoSolar does not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements except as required under applicable law. Now it's my pleasure to introduce Mr. Li Xiande, Chairman and CEO of JinkoSolar Holdings. Mr. Li Xiande will speak in Mandarin, and I will translate his comments in English. Please go ahead, Mr. Li. Li Xiande: In the first three quarters of 2025, our global module shipments totaled 61.9 gigawatts, once again ranking number one worldwide. Driven by our outstanding product performance and a strong presence in high-value overseas markets, gross margin improved sequentially for two consecutive quarters to 2.9% in the second quarter and 7.3% in the third quarter. Net loss continued to narrow sequentially. We are pleased to see that our intensive efforts devoted to storage R&D in the past two years started to bear fruit gradually. In the first three quarters, our cumulative energy storage system (ESS) shipments exceeded 3.3 gigawatt-hours, increasing significantly for two consecutive quarters. This, combined with the rising share of overseas markets, has helped the profitability of our energy storage business improve noticeably. Considering that energy storage products have the process of installation, commissioning, and acceptance, there will be a lag in revenue recognition in our financial statements. We are confident that as economies of scale accelerate and competitiveness continues to improve, our energy storage business will more than double next year. Its revenue contribution is expected to rise significantly and it serves as a key driver of our overall gross margin expansion. In the second and third quarters, we continued to keep moderate utilization rates at a reasonable level. Since the third quarter, prices of polysilicon wafers and cells have all risen, and module prices showed some upward trends. Given that bidding rules in all provinces are still in the implementation phase, central and state-owned enterprises need some time to recalculate their IRR returns and adjust their business model for any project. It is expected that demand will take some time to release. However, we have seen some positive signals in the raw material segment. Supported by rising raw material prices, module prices in overseas markets have also increased. The upgrade of the world's high-power production capacity has become important for accelerating the industry's high-quality development. This technical upgrade also meets end-task demand for high-power products to achieve more reliable investment returns. As an industry pioneer to upgrade existing telecom capacity through technology enhancements, we made steady progress in high-power products upgrade in the third quarter. We have already delivered some high-power products carrying a premium of 1 to 2 US cents per watt compared to their conventional products. As the upgrade of the third-generation products with a maximum power of 670 watts is completed, we expect the shipment proportion of high-power products to increase quarter over quarter next year, accounting for 60% or above in 2026. Since market-based electricity reform has removed the mandatory energy storage requirements, China's energy storage industry is accelerating its market-oriented development. There is an increasing gap between peak and off-peak electricity prices, and the implementation of policies such as capacity pricing and capacity compensation means independent energy storage projects in multiple provinces can achieve sound economic returns. Driven by both improving economics and global energy transition, demand is increasing in Europe, Asia Pacific, the Middle East, and Latin America. In the US, the rapid expansion of AI data centers has led to an unprecedented surge in electricity demand, straining domestic electricity supply. Solar plus storage has therefore emerged as a safer and more easily deployed solution. We expect the global demand for energy storage to experience explosive growth driven by increasing renewable energy penetration and its declining storage cost. This once again validates our strategic decision to invest in the energy storage business in line with industry trends, and it has helped us build a long-term competitive advantage. As a leading enterprise in the PV sector, we possess long-established advantages in channels, brand reputation, and customer resources, enabling us to provide a localized one-stop solar plus storage solution. On the manufacturing side, we currently have 12 gigawatt-hours of pack capacity and 5 gigawatt-hours of battery cell capacity, and continuously improve product performance through self-developed technological breakthroughs. On the market side, we focus on high-margin overseas markets, particularly utility-scale and industrial and commercial projects. Although the lead time for reserve cycles is relatively long, demand remains strong, providing stable growth momentum for the company's energy storage business. In summary, the global supply chain is recovering, so the balance between supply and demand is gradually improving. As technological upgrades accelerate the industry's high-quality development, the market share of high-power and high-value products will continue to expand and become a dominant force in market pricing. As market competition, particularly in project bidding, increasingly favors leading enterprises that demonstrate strong technological capabilities and long-term reliability, resources such as bank financing are also concentrating towards leading enterprises, further strengthening their market share. With strong technological capabilities, long-term reliability, and global diversification of our energy storage business, we are well-positioned to further strengthen our competitiveness and benefit from the industry's next upward cycle. The 15th Five-Year Plan proposed accelerating the decarbonization of both the energy supply and the consumption sectors. The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and the National Energy Administration (NEA) have also recently issued guidance on promoting renewable energy integration and power system regulation, further emphasizing the critical role of energy storage in the construction of a new energy system. We expect that these measures will further strengthen the competitiveness of China's renewable energy sector and steer the industry back onto a healthy and rational development path. Looking forward to the fourth quarter and the full year, we will continue to actively respond to the industry's call for rational development by maintaining sustainable production levels and focusing on upgrading and transforming high-efficiency capacity. At the same time, we will proactively adapt to changes in overseas policies to ensure sustainable supply for our customers. We will keep strengthening our competitive advantages in technology and global operations, achieving a balance between scale and profitability while consolidating our industry-leading position. We expect total shipments, including solar modules, cells, and wafers, to be between 85 gigawatts to 100 gigawatts for the full year of 2025, and ESS shipments to be 6 gigawatt-hours for the full year of 2025. Gener Miao: Total shipments were 21.5 gigawatts in the third quarter, with module shipments up 9.93%. By the end of the third quarter, we became the first module manufacturer in the industry to achieve cumulative global module shipments of 370 gigawatts, with total cumulative shipments of the Titanium Series surpassing 200 gigawatts, the best-selling module series in history. In terms of geographic mix, in the third quarter, we focused on higher-value overseas markets, with shipments accounting for over 65%, achieving strong growth in Asia Pacific, emerging markets, and Europe. Shipments to the US were nearly 1.3 gigawatts, doubling against the backdrop of electricity market reform. Customer demand for high-power products continues to rise. Our high-power Titanium 3.0 series, with its high bifaciality rate of 85% and excellent low-light performance, can generate stable electricity during long, dark, and cloudy weather, effectively extending power generation hours. At the same time, in a market environment with increasing volatility in electricity prices, the outstanding power generation performance of Titanium 3.0 enables more power generation during peak price periods in the morning and evening, creating higher yield and more reliable returns for clients. According to our outdoor field test data, in Chengdu, China, under low-light conditions such as dawn and dusk, Titanium achieves a 7.2% gain compared to PERC products. And in Kagoshima, Japan, Titanium shows a 10.79% gain over PERC products in low-light conditions. In the third quarter, we delivered some high-power products that carried a 1 to 2 US cents premium compared to conventional products. We expect that our highest power, the Titanium 3.0 product with max 670 watts, will be produced on a large scale next year, further strengthening our competitiveness on the product side. We once again topped the PV Tech 2025 module test and reliability report with a triple-A rating, thanks to our solid operational capability, outstanding technological innovation, and strong recognition from global customers. As one of the few enterprises to continuously maintain top-tier creditworthiness and technological strength in the global PV industry, in the latest release of the BNEF energy storage tier-one list for Q4 2025, we were recognized as a tier-one energy storage provider for the seventh consecutive quarter. Our continuous efforts in sustainable development have also earned international recognition repeatedly. In the recent MSCI ESG, we were upgraded to an A rating, maintaining our position in the top tier of ESG performers in the global PV industry. Additionally, our S&P CSA score continued to improve from 2024, rising significantly to 78, far ahead of the industry. On the demand side, we expect the global PV demand to slightly contract in 2026. In China, due to the improvement, implementation of policy reform 136, the pace of carrying out the 15th Five-Year Plan, as well as industry self-discipline and anti-evolution measures, demand is expected to slightly decrease year over year in 2026. Markets outside China are generally expected to remain healthy. In the mid to long term, the urgent power demand from AI data centers, combined with most countries' commitment to reduce carbon emissions, will drive growth in the global deployment of clean energy and new grid infrastructure over the next three to five years. The Information Office of the State Council recently released the white paper on China's action on carbon peaking and carbon neutrality, which emphasizes that energy storage is a key support for building a new type of power system and an adequate base for actively developing the renewable energy plus energy storage solution. In the United States, we are already seeing some tech giants deploying co-located or nearby solar plus storage at their data centers to meet rapidly growing electricity needs. We believe renewable energy plus energy storage has become an inevitable and accelerating trend. We remain optimistic about our long-term prospects in the US market. Although trade policies impose certain constraints on the manufacturing side, we have taken proactive measures and made early strategic deployments, adjusting our manufacturing and supply chain in response to policy changes to provide US customers with long-term stable and reliable solutions. We are confident that leveraging our advantage in technology innovation, high-power products, and global network, we can continue to satisfy our global clients' demand for clean, safe, high-efficiency, and reliable integrated solar and storage solutions. We will also continue to improve our competitiveness in global markets. Charlie Cao: Thank you, Gener. We are pleased that our focus on high-performance products and high-value markets, as well as our efforts in cost and expenses control, have delivered steadily improved financial results. Gross profit margin turned positive in the second quarter and continued to improve by 4.4 percentage points in the third quarter. Net loss and adjusted net loss narrowed sequentially for two consecutive quarters. Operating cash flow was $340 million in the third quarter, improving significantly quarter over quarter. Operating cash flow is expected to be positive for the full year 2025. Moving to the details in the third quarter, total revenue was $2.27 billion, down 10% sequentially and 34% year over year. The sequential decrease was mainly due to a decrease in solar module shipments, and the year-over-year decrease was primarily due to a decrease in the average selling price of solar modules. Gross margin was 7.3%. The sequential improvement was mainly due to a lower unit cost of products sold, and the year-over-year decrease was mainly due to a decrease in ASP of solar modules. Total operating expenses were $363 million, up 36% sequentially and down 32% year over year. The sequential increase was due to an increase in the impairment of long-lived assets, while the year-over-year decrease was mainly due to a decrease in shipping costs as our solar module shipments decreased and the average freight rate declined during the third quarter this year. Total operating expenses accounted for 16% of total revenues, compared to 10.6% in the second quarter and 15.4% in the third quarter last year. Operating loss margin was 8.7%, compared with an operating loss margin of 10.7% in the second quarter this year and an operating profit margin of 0.3% in the second quarter last year. Moving to the balance sheet, at the end of the third quarter, our cash and cash equivalents were $3.3 billion, compared with $3.4 billion at the end of the second quarter and $3.2 billion at the end of 2024. Days sales outstanding were 105 days, compared with 97 days in the second quarter. Inventory turnover days were 90 days, compared with 66 days in the second quarter this year. At the end of the third quarter, total debt was $6.4 billion, compared to $6.7 billion at the end of the second quarter. Net debt was $3.1 billion, compared with $3.3 billion at the end of the second quarter this year. Debt conditions improved sequentially. Let me go into more details of the second quarter. Total revenue was $2.51 billion, up 30% sequentially and down 25% year over year. The sequential increase was primarily due to an increase in solar module shipments, while the year-over-year decrease was mainly due to a decrease in ASP of solar modules. Gross margin was 2.9%. The sequential improvement was mainly due to a lower unit cost of products sold, while the year-over-year decrease was mainly due to a decrease in ASP of modules. Total operating expenses were $266 million, down 24% sequentially and 15% year over year. The sequential decrease was mainly due to the reduced expected credit loss expense in the second quarter, while the year-over-year decrease was mainly due to a decrease in the impairment of long-lived assets, reduced expected credit loss expenses, and decreased shipping costs as the average freight rate declined during the second quarter this year. Total operating expenses accounted for 10.6% of total revenues, compared to 18.1% in the first quarter of 2025 and 16.9% in the second quarter of 2024. Operating loss margin was 7.7%, compared to 20.7% in the first quarter this year and 4.7% in the second quarter last year. Moving to the balance sheet, at the end of the second quarter, our cash and cash equivalents were $3.4 billion, compared with $3.77 billion at the end of the first quarter this year and $1.9 billion at the end of the second quarter last year. Days sales outstanding were 97 days, compared with 111 days in the first quarter this year. Inventory turnover days were 66 days, compared to 84 days in the first quarter. Our operating efficiency is improving. At the end of the second quarter, total debt was $6.7 billion, compared to $6.4 billion at the end of the first quarter. Net debt was $3.3 billion, compared to $2.6 billion at the end of the first quarter this year. Stella Wang: This concludes our prepared remarks. Charlie Cao: We are now happy to take your questions. Operator, please proceed. Operator: Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press 1 on your telephone, and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press 2. If you're on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. Your first question comes from Philip Shen with ROTH Capital Partners. Philip Shen: Hi, everyone. Thank you for taking my questions. First one is on your gross margins. Can you share some color on what you see as the difference between yours and Canadian Solar? They reported recently 15%. You guys have Q3 gross margins at about 7%. And what was the main driver you think for that underperformance? And then can you provide some color on the storage and solar gross margin difference? And then finally, what do you think margins look like for Q4? Charlie Cao: Thanks, Philip. And I think compared to our peer, particularly Canadian Solar, the gross margin difference is, you know, the different revenue contribution from the energy storage business. But if you look at Jinko, you know, quarter by quarter, we did improve gross margin dramatically. It's coming from the majority, you know, the module business. But for the energy storage sectors, we did want to have a, you know, very, very positive update. I think in the prepared remarks of Chairman Li, we think, you know, our energy storage business is really for the, you know, dramatic growth in next year, 2026. And we are expecting significant revenue contributions and gross margin expansions. You know, the storage is really, you know, in supply shortage. And this year, we shipped around 6 gigawatt-hours, you know, shipments. And next year, we expect to double, at least double. And in terms of the revenue recognition, it's a little bit different because, you know, the revenue is recognized, you know, for the shipments. With the final acceptance, it's a little bit delayed one quarter to two quarters. And for the energy storage business, the gross margin is at a decent level. We expect at least 15% to 20% gross margin. And, you know, looking forward, particularly for the ESS business out of China, we target 70% to 80%, you know, ESS business next year. And in terms of revenue contribution from the energy storage business, we expect 10% to 15%. I mean, you know, the rough revenue from ESS business compared to the total revenues of Jinko next year. So it's a very, you know, we are actually, we think our business is shifting from purely module business to module plus ESS next year. Philip Shen: Great, Charlie. Thank you very much for the color. And can you share also a little bit more color on your view? You've given us some color on the storage market. You shared that next year could be six gigawatt-hours. What might the geographic shipment mix be for 2026? And how much to the US, how much to China, and then maybe Europe and others? Thanks. Charlie Cao: Yes, yes. This year is six gigawatt-hours, and next year is double, okay? That is the total volume. In terms of geographical distributions, non-China, roughly think 70% to 80%, including the United States. And in the United States, we are in discussions with a lot of potential customers and developing, and we believe, you know, step by step, we are getting more and more orders from the US. We have a strong pipeline, particularly, I think, from Europe, Latin America, and Asia Pacific. Philip Shen: Got it. Okay. Great. Thank you. Shifting over to one more question here. On the foreign entity of concern for the US, FIEC. Can you help us understand you plan to have a big business shipping US, sorry, shipping solar modules to the US. Now you plan to ship batteries also to the US. Can you help us understand how you plan to comply with foreign entity of concern requirements for the US market? Thanks. Charlie Cao: Yes. Looking for the next year, we don't believe there's a lot of negative impact from the FIEC, let's say, OVBB, you know, compliance. We do see a lot of, you know, safe harbor projects, particularly for the solar plus some storage, you know, projects. And we committed, you know, to long term, and, you know, we, I think we really shape our supply chain, you know, globally, and including, and we are exploring options for our, you know, solar module facilities in Florida. And we think, you know, from the long term, there is going to be, you know, demand for both FIEC and non-FIEC. And we are in the, you know, if there is some kind of development, particularly for, you know, transforming our solar module facilities in the United States to the long FIEC entities, and we will let the investor know. But we have been in the process of discussion with potential investors. Philip Shen: Got it. Okay. Thank you, Charlie. I'll pass it on. Operator: Your next question comes from Alan Lau with Jefferies. Alan Lau: Hello? This is Alan from Jefferies. Thanks for taking my question. So my first question is about the ESS business. I would like to know if there's any discussion with any of the AI data centers or, yeah, our hyperscaler clients. And what type of demand are they requiring? Like, are they more like two to four hours of proof capability compatible demand, or it's more like even longer hours of storage with five? Thank you. Charlie Cao: Yeah. We're seeing the AI-driven data center, you know, is going to put a lot of demands for the global electricity from long term. And our ESS team is in discussion with potential and pipelines, you know, for the AI data center, including the US, Europe, and including China. But it's still, you know, it's in progress, and we believe we are able to reach a significant milestone early next year. Alan Lau: I see. Clear. Thanks. So in relation to the geographical breakdown, we'd like to know if the gross margin of ESS is similar across the regions, or it should be higher in Europe or the US. Like, how do you see the margins in different regions that you operate? Charlie Cao: Oh, you mean, yes, it's margin, you know, different regions, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We, you know, it's depending on different markets. And China is still a little bit low, but I think it's recovering a little bit. You know? Yes. This is very competitive in China. Europe and the US is, you know, it's still, we think that it is still a decent gross margin. So, you know? And the Middle East is a little bit low, and I think China and the Middle East is, yes, yes. The pricing, you know, the competitiveness, and the margin is relatively low to under ratings. But we think, you know, it's still very healthy. And, you know, business and in the next two years. Alan Lau: Yep. Would like to know on the cost side of ESS because I've noticed that the upstream raw materials are all the cost of raw materials like freezing, or searching, any plans to lock in any raw materials, or how are your view on different raw materials like batteries or, like, even more upstream battery materials like lithium carbonate, etcetera. Charlie Cao: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We, you know, because the strong demand is a material, it's unlikely in the upper work, and firstly, we have five gigawatts, you know, and battery cell capacities. And which put us at a relative advantage. And the second one, we partner with the key materials and, you know, suppliers. And the second one, we, you know, when negotiating contracts, we did anticipate, you know, some kind of material cost, you know, upwards. So it's a combination. I think it's a little bit challenging, but we think we can manage and how to minimize the impact of the material, you know, the pricing. Alan Lau: I see. I think my next question is about the speed length. On the solar module market. So how do you see the demand growth next year for maybe both solar and ESS? What is the growth rate you see? Charlie Cao: Yes. For the demand side, we should look separately for both PV and ESS. Right? So for the PV side, I think we are in a conservative way. We are expecting more or less flat year in 2026 versus 2025. So the main reason is because China demand, you know, we believe it will have a drop compared with 2025. Which, because the weight of China demand is so high in the global demand. So even with the other markets booming or other markets' growth, we still expect the total demand of the globe in the PV industry for next year will be more or less flat year. However, when we look into the ESS, it is in a different scenario. Right? So with more and more renewable installed, the grid needs more security for the ESS contribution. Certainly, we are seeing a sharp increase for the ESS side. That's why from the ESS, we are still keeping an optimistic opinion or expectation for next year's installation. If we need to quantify that, we think it will be at least a 25% increase for the ESS year over year. Alan Lau: I see. Thanks, Gener. Like to know what type of installation in China you are looking at? Like, because there are even numbers flowing around, like, are you looking at low 200 or even below 200 gigawatts in China. Charlie Cao: I am not that conservative for China because when recently, I visited a lot of our distributors and even installers in China, in all the different provinces, I think most of them still keep an optimistic view for next year. So that having said all those, I believe that it will be around, let's say, module-wise, it will be around mid-200. Let's say, around 250. About. And if we look into the grid connection number, it should be somewhere around 23%. Right? It's yours. And I think the October and in the process to get money out of China. And after regulatory approval. And we have paid the, you know, withholding tax, and we expect to get the money by the end of this month. And very soon. And for the shareholder, you know, the shareholder returns and we commit at least $100 million a year, and we had to pay a dividend early this year. And we start we bought some shares, certain shares. And I think last quarter, you know, in the middle of this year. And after the window, you know, after earning lease and we plan to repurchase this year throughout the end of the year. Alan Lau: Is that, like how much shares have been purchased or, like, how like, will the company look to basically buy all the remaining amount in the buyback program in the remaining one month? Charlie Cao: Yes. And I think we, you know, we plan to use the right, the monetization issues and the key, you know, funding and which is available, and it's around $78 million. So we, I think, depending on how the market moves, we definitely will repurchase the shares by the end of this year. And roughly, I think, this year, you know, $100 million, and we had to go dividend, I think, $70 million. So that's our, you know, the base plan. Alan Lau: That's clear. We will send you. Yes. It's a year-over-year plan, and next year, it's roughly the same plan. Charlie Cao: I see that plan. Thank you. Thanks, Charlie. Operator: Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Next question comes from Rajiv Chaudhri with Sensorra Capital. Rajiv Chaudhri: My first question is regarding your guidance for module shipments for the fourth quarter. It's a very big range, 18 to 33 gigawatts. And you're essentially kept to the same range that you gave for the full year back in the early part of the year. But now we are halfway through the fourth quarter. Could you help us narrow down what the range would be for Q4 for module shipments? Charlie Cao: Yeah. I think we will close to the lower end of the range. I think because of the regulatory requirement, we have to keep that range as before. But from the operational level, we believe the lower end of the range is more, let's say, realistic. Rajiv Chaudhri: I see. So related to that, what do you think the global shipments of modules would be for the industry as a whole in 2025? Charlie Cao: Well, we technically believe from the product-wise, we are looking at roughly 700 gigawatts. That's the high-level numbers we are estimating for the whole industry. Rajiv Chaudhri: And do you believe that 700 gigawatts would have been shipped out by the industry as well, or that was just the production? Charlie Cao: Well, I think it's more realized to a production closer to the production side, but because every company has slightly different ways to calculate or announce their shipment numbers. So that's why it's difficult to figure out what's the real shipment number. But production-wise, I think the number is more realistic. Rajiv Chaudhri: I see. Okay. So moving on to another relating to CapEx. Could you give us the CapEx target for 2025 and also for 2026? Charlie Cao: It's roughly 5 billion RMB this year and next year. And by next year, we didn't have any, you know, plan to, you know, expand, you know, capacity, and it's kind of upgraded to a next-generation top kind of technology. And it's going to have significant, you know, high-end, high-power output. Solar modules, as we are able to provide to our customers, you know, next year, roughly 60%. Right. We hope we go some, you know, with price premium and relatively good margin contributions. Next year, quarter over quarter, as a capacity for the high-end, you know, upgrade high-end module capacity will be released quarter by quarter. Rajiv Chaudhri: So Charlie, just to be clear, this year, the CapEx is RMB 5 billion. And next year, it will be flat at RMB 5 billion? Charlie Cao: Yeah. Roughly. Roughly. But next year is I'll talk about this year is roughly payment of outstanding, you know, amount, you know, 5 billion. And next year, we are doing the upgrade. We are doing the upgrade existing capacities and to the next high level, you know, top-down capacity. And we foresee a lot of strong demands and with higher module price and higher gross margin contributions. Rajiv Chaudhri: So you made a very interesting point that operating cash flow will be positive in 2025. It looks like you will be generating operating cash flow positive in 2026 as well. And maybe substantially higher than 2025 because the gross margin will be higher. Is that a correct assessment? Charlie Cao: Yes. That's right. That's right. And, you know, we talked about firstly, I think the catalyst is the first one is ESS storage business next year. We are looking to, you know, 10% to 15% revenue contributions from ESS with decent gross margin and positive net profit release. The second one is the module business. We have, I think, the most advanced top con, you know, upgrade capacities in the industries. And developed by ourselves for the technology, and which will roughly have 60% shipment of the modules coming from the next generation Jinko developed. Top con capacities with higher, you know, gross margins. And the second one, we think from the high-level standards in the industry, anti-evolutions, you know, taking effect step by step. And the capacity will accelerate, you know, phase out and leading by the, you know, a top of on top of that industry-leading self-discipline, you know, control production volume, and reasonable, you know, pricing based on the cost will take, you know, further, I think, enforcement. So combined together, I think the industry is reaching the low point that is recovering step by step. And we think we are getting ready for the, you know, from the market and product perspective. And the plus, are shifting solar plus ESS story and the business. So the basic funding year, we are, you know, we are confident that we are able to, you know, navigate the cycles and in turn to positive earnings. That's kind of the, you know, the best plan next year. Rajiv Chaudhri: So should we no. You talked about the premium products and the fact that they've got premium pricing. But on the cost side, will your cost for these premium products still be lower than the cost for the standard products this year? In other words, do the costs keep going down even as the price goes up? Charlie Cao: Yes. Yeah. Initially, by design, the cost is a little bit higher, but they are very, very small. You know, incremental cost. And by the way, our R&D team continues to, you know, dive into the details and to try to, you know, further improve the cost. But back to your question, I think the, you know, the high-end product cost is very, very small incremental, you know, cost increase. At the beginning. But we believe over, you know, over time, you know, our R&D team with our operational teams will continue to improve the cost. Rajiv Chaudhri: Final question, Charlie. On market share, in the past, in 2023 and '24, your global market share had gone up to somewhere between 15% to 16% of the global market. This year, it is down a little bit. I guess, because you have restrained production because of the pricing. Should we expect that your market share next year will go up again and maybe go up a lot more than 16% because the industry itself is consolidating? So and what do you think the range for next year module shipments could be? Charlie Cao: The consolidated market share after consolidation of, you know, the industry consolidation and the phase-out of capacity, the industry, you know, turns into the kind of normal situation. It's for sure, it's very good for tier-one companies. If you look at it long term, we are confident and we will continue to penetrate the market share. And next year is still, I think, you know, from the top-down approach, you know, and I think China will continue to, you know, launch, you know, implement the anti-involution policies. We don't expect significant, you know, shipments increase, you know, for the module bands. But, yes, it's a different story. Rajiv Chaudhri: I see. Okay. Thank you very much. Charlie Cao: Welcome. Operator: Your next question comes from Philip Shen with ROTH Capital Partners. Philip Shen: Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my follow-up question. One of the check-in with check back in with you on in terms of Q4 margin outlook. What kind of solar module ASP could we see in Q4? And then what kind of margin for the overall quarter that we see? Charlie Cao: We expect relatively stable Q4 versus Q3. But ESS business is contributing more revenues, and we estimate our ESS business in the fourth quarter is going to reach positive profitability levels. But the contribution is not significant, but next year is a different story. Right? We have talked about it. And for the module business, we expect, you know, relatively stable. Philip Shen: Okay. Got it. Thanks. And then can you talk about module ASPs for Q1 and Q2 of next year? And then also the trajectory for margins, you know, as you blend in more battery. Thanks. Charlie Cao: Yes. Phil, I think it's difficult to share those numbers or estimations right now because you know what is happening. It's like some of the key markets are still, you know, there are, you know, some key or some important policy is upcoming. For example, you know, the US, the guidance of the FIEC or material assistance or even upcoming 232. Which will significantly impact the market prices. Like in China, you know, there's anti-involution policies, and there's even more rumors coming out regarding the polysilicon. Even to the other part of the manufacturing value chain as well. So those changes could significantly change the market price overnight. That's why we believe it's still too early to share our estimation on the prices for next year. Philip Shen: Okay, Gener. That makes sense. You talked about the rumors on Poly. Can you give us a little bit more color on that? Thanks. Gener Miao: I don't have too much more to share based on there's a lot of rumors on the market or on the Internet. So I don't know what you're referring to. Philip Shen: Yeah. I was just you mentioned it, so I thought I would try to see if there's more color. Gener Miao: No. We are not part of the game, so I don't have too much to share with everyone. But thank you for your question. Philip Shen: Yep. No problem. Okay. Thank you, guys. I'll pass it on. Operator: Your next question comes from Brian Lee with Goldman Sachs. Tyler Bisset: Hey, guys, this is Tyler Bisset on for Brian. Thanks for taking our question. Just quick housekeeping questions. Can you share what was D&A and CapEx in Q2 and Q3? Charlie Cao: You mean the absolute number or percentage. Right? Hello? Hello? Tyler Bisset: Yeah. I'm sorry. Like, the actual number. Charlie Cao: I think it's a financial statement. You gotta check out, you know, the financial statements, the R&D, and the, you know, operating expenses and that we have disclosed quarter by quarter. So what would be your, you know, key question you want to explore? It D&A. And CapEx in February and March, like the absolute numbers. Charlie Cao: You mean the depreciation or CapEx? Tyler Bisset: Sorry. Depreciation. Alright. And then separately CapEx. Charlie Cao: Okay. Depreciation by quarter, I think, roughly, you know? And I think $300 million a quarter. And the CapEx, I think, is the first half year. We, you know, spend roughly 2 billion RMB. Operator: That is our last and that does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.
Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to Full Truck Alliance Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mao Mao, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead. Mao Mao: Thank you, operator. Please note that today's discussion will contain forward-looking statements relating to the company's future performance, which are intended to qualify for the safe harbor for liability, as established by the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. Such statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, assumptions and other factors. Some of these risks are beyond the company's control and could cause actual results to differ materially from those mentioned in today's press release and discussion. A general discussion of the risk factors that could affect FTA's business and financial results is included in certain filings of the company with the SEC. The company does not undertake any obligation to update these forward-looking information, except as required by law. During today's call, management will also discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures for comparison purpose only. For a definition of non-GAAP financial measures and a reconciliation of GAAP to the financial results, please see the earnings release issued earlier today. Joining us on the call from FTA's senior management are Mr. Hui Zhang, our Founder, Chairman and CEO; and Mr. Simon Cai, our Chief Financing and Investment Officer. Management will begin with prepared remarks, and the call will conclude with a Q&A session. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. In addition, a webcast play of this call will be available on FTA's Investor Relations website at ir.fulltruckalliance.com. I will now turn the call over to our Founder, Chairman and CEO, Mr. Zhang, please go ahead, sir. Hui Zhang: Hello everyone. Thank you for joining us today for our third quarter 2025 earnings conference call. In the third quarter, FTA continued to reduce logistics costs and enhance efficiency across the road freight industry by leveraging digital and intelligent technologies, amid a complex and evolving macro environment. Anchored by our core “user-centric” ethos, we strengthened our user protection mechanisms, enhanced our platform ecosystem, and further elevated the overall experience for both shippers and truckers. Our ongoing enhancements to transaction efficiency and service quality drove total fulfilled orders to 63.4 million, a year-over-year increase of 22.3%. This continued growth underscores the industry’s accelerating transformation from traditional offline logistics transactions to digital and intelligent logistics solutions. Furthermore, we consistently improved operating metrics across three key areas during the quarter: user operations, ecosystem development, and technology enablement. For shipper users, we further expanded our brand visibility and drove targeted user acquisition of SME shippers, while refining the user experience across different cargo categories and freight scenarios. As a result, average monthly active shippers reached 3.35 million in the third quarter, up 17.6% year over year. The number of shipper members grew significantly year over year, reflecting rising user engagement and stickiness. In addition, fulfilled orders contributed by direct shippers increased to 54%, demonstrating ongoing optimization of our user structure. In terms of trucker ecosystem, we continued to promote and enhance our trucker credit rating and membership program to incentivize high-quality service and elevate trucker benefits. These initiatives boosted capacity and increased reliability of truckers, driving the overall fulfillment rate to 40.6%, an increase of approximately 6 percentage points year over year. Simultaneously, we reinforced our trucker protection framework to better safeguard their rights and interests. By the end of the quarter, the number of active truckers fulfilling orders over the past 12 months reached 4.48 million, marking another historical high. On technology, we accelerated full-chain AI deployment across the platform, leveraging our extensive scenario-based logistics data to address critical pain points in freight matching. Moreover, the successful acquisition of Giga.AI, previously known as Plus PRC, significantly bolstered our AI capabilities and technological foundation, positioning us for sustained innovation and operational excellence. Our robust operational performance this quarter translated into healthy financial results. Total revenues reached RMB 3.36 billion, representing a year-over-year increase of 10.8%. Transaction service revenues grew 39.0% year over year to RMB 1.46 billion, accounting for 43% of total revenues and reflecting continued optimization of our revenue mix. Non-GAAP adjusted operating income reached RMB 849.1 million, while non-GAAP adjusted net income reached RMB 988.1 million. Looking ahead, FTA will continue to penetrate the road freight markets and cultivate a resilient and sustainable ecosystem for both shippers and truckers, driving the industry’s digital and intelligent transformation and empowering enterprises with greater logistic competitiveness through continuous technological innovation. Thank you all once again. Now, I’ll pass the call over to Simon, who will provide an update on our third quarter’s business progress and financial results. Simon Cai: Thank you, Mr. Zhang, and thank you all for joining today's earnings conference call. I will now provide an overview of our operational highlights and financial results for the third quarter of 2025, starting with our operational performance. During the quarter, we sustained solid growth momentum with continued improvements in key operating metrics highlighting the strength and resilience of our business model. Despite challenging macro conditions and adverse weather such as typhoons and certain regions that temporarily disrupted freight demand during the quarter, we continued to deliver strong order volume growth. Total fulfilled orders once again significantly outperformed the broader freight industry, reaching RMB 63.4 million in the third quarter representing a year-over-year increase of 22.3%. The steady growth in fulfilled orders was driven by the healthy engagement of our shipper users and the ongoing enhancement of our fulfillment service infrastructure leading to improvements in both scale and service quality. In the third quarter, our overall fulfillment rate reached 40.6%, increasing by more than 6 percentage points from the prior year period. Specifically, the average fulfillment rate of mid and low frequency shippers reached nearly 60% and their contribution to total fulfilled orders increased to 54%. The positive outcomes are the result of our ongoing optimization in shipper structure, which further strengthens the reliability and sustainability of our ecosystem. These achievements underscore the effectiveness of our long-standing refined operations strategy, laying a solid foundation for the platform's long-term high-quality growth. Turning to user growth. Average monthly active shippers reached 3.35 million in the third quarter, increasing by 17.6% year-over-year. Our shipper membership program continued to gain traction with over 370,000 active members in the 288 membership program during the quarter, representing a significant year-over-year increase. In the meantime, 12-month rolling retention rate for shipper members held steady at around 80%, underscoring the strong appeal of our services and the high stickiness of our user base. In addition, the number of active truckers fulfilling orders over the past 12 months hit a new record, increasing to 4.48 million in the third quarter, while the next month retention -- next month's retention rate for the truckers who responded to orders was consistently above 85%. We're delighted to see that our trucker users continue to demonstrate strong platform loyalty. During the quarter, we also continued to enhance our trucker infrastructure by expanding the breadth and the depth of the right protection program, which helped improve truckers' order acceptance rate and experience. For example, supported by targeted incentive programs and diversified protection mechanisms, the number of trucker members continue to grow. These trucker members have significantly higher order acceptance rate as compared to nonmembers, creating a positive flywheel of user engagement, other growth and platform stickiness. Now turning to monetization. Building on a solid foundation of steady growth in order volume, we continue to explore and unlock monetization opportunities. These efforts enabled us to deliver another quarter of robust top line performance despite strategic changes to some noncore business such as freight brokerage, backed by significant improvements in operating leverage. As a result, transaction service revenue grew 39% year-over-year to RMB 1.46 billion. To further break down, monetized order penetration rate reached 88.6%, up nearly 6 percentage points from the prior year period, and average monetization per order increased to RMB 25.9 from RMB 24.4 in the prior year period. These improvements stem from our deepened understanding of high-value users and our ability to meet their increasingly diversified needs through upgraded services and tailored incentive programs. At the same time, our growing scale enable us to drive down unit operating costs, leading to enhanced monetization efficiency and profitability while maintaining fair trucker earnings and strong order fulfillment. Looking ahead, we remain keenly focused on further unlocking the monetization potential of high-value users, leveraging our intelligent freight matching system and flexible subsidy strategies. In addition, our refined and tiered membership system enables us to cultivate and empower our core transportation capacity, further reinforcing a virtuous cycle of user growth, operating excellence and profitability improvements. We're confident that we are well positioned to achieve our full year targets and deliver long-term sustainable value to our platform and stakeholders. Now I'd like to provide a brief overview of our 2025 3rd quarter financial results. Our total net revenues in the third quarter were RMB 3,358.2 million representing a 10.8% increase year-over-year, primarily attributable to an increase in revenues from freight matching services. Net revenues from freight matching services including service fees from freight brokerage models, membership fees from listing models and commissions for transaction service were RMB 2,797.6 million in the third quarter representing an increase of 9.6% year-over-year, primarily due to the record increase in transaction service revenues. Revenues from the freight brokerage service in the third quarter were RMB 1,094.3 million, compared to RMB 1,280.9 million in the same period of 2024, primarily attributable to a decrease in transaction volume and partially offset by an increase in service fee rate. Revenues from freight listing services in the third quarter were RMB 247.1 million, up 10.6% year-on-year, primarily due to the falling number of total paying members. Revenue from the transaction service in the third quarter were RMB 1,456.1 million, up 39% year-over-year, primarily driven by increase in other volume penetration rate and per other transaction services. Revenues from value-added services in the third quarter were RMB 560.7 million, up 16.9% year-over-year. The increase was primarily due to growing demand for credit solutions. Third quarter cost of revenues was RMB 1,605.2 billion compared with RMB 1,364.9 million in the same period of 2022, primarily due to increases in VAT-related tax charges and other tax costs, net of grants from government authorities. These tax-related costs net of government ground totaled RMB 1,427.2 million compared with RMB 1,221.6 million in the same period of 2024, primarily due to an increase in tax costs net of government grounds related to the company's freight brokerage service. Our sales and marketing expenses in the third quarter were RMB 438.8 million, compared with RMB 412.5 million in the same period of 2024. The increase was primarily due to further investments in enhancing user ecosystem construction and protecting user rights and interests. General and administrative expenses in the third quarter were RMB 161.6 million compared with RMB 222.9 million in the same period of 2024. The decrease was primarily due to lower share-based compensation expenses. R&D expenses in the third quarter were RMB 233.3 million compared with RMB 195.1 million in the same period of 2024. The increase was primarily due to the inclusion of Giga.AI previously known as Plus PRC's R& -- Plus PRC's R&D costs. Following the completion of our further investment in Giga.AI on July 9, 2025, and its subsequent consolidation into our financial results. Income from operations in the third quarter was RMB 776.3 million, an increase of 1.9 percentage from RMB 762 million in the same period of 2024. Net income in the third quarter was RMB 921 million compared with RMB 1,121.9 million in the same period of 2024. Under non-GAAP measures, our adjusted operating income in the third quarter was RMB 849.1 million compared with RMB 884.5 million in the same period of 2024. Our adjusted net income in the third quarter was RMB 988.1 million compared with RMB 1,241.2 million in the same period of 2024. Basic and diluted net income per ADS were RMB 0.87 in the third quarter compared with RMB 1.06 in the same period of 2024. Non-GAAP adjusted basic net income per ADS was RMB 0.94 in the third quarter of 2025 compared with RMB 1.18 in the same period of 2024. Non-GAAP adjusted diluted net income per ADS was RMB 0.96 in the third quarter of 2024 compared with RMB 1.17 in the same period of 2024. As of September 30, 2025, the company had cash and cash equivalents, restricted cash, short-term investments, long-term time deposits and wealth management products with maturities over 1 year of RMB 31.1 billion in total compared with RMB 29.2 billion as of December 31, 2024. For our fourth quarter 2025 business outlook, we expect our total revenues to be between RMB 3.08 billion and RMB 3.18 billion compared with RMB 3.16 billion -- RMB 3.17 billion in the same period of 2024. Excluding freight brokerage service, net revenues are expected to range from RMB 2.18 billion to RMB 2.28 billion, representing an estimated year-over-year growth rate of 17.1% to 22.5%. These forecasts are based on the company's current and preliminary views on the market and operational conditions, which are subject to change and cannot be predicted with reasonable accuracy as of the date hereof. That concludes our prepared remarks. We would now like to open the call to Q&A. Operator, please go ahead. Operator [Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Ronald Keung from Goldman Sachs. Ronald Keung Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. [Foreign Language] I want to ask about field orders that had still maintained very solid growth momentum, increasing 22%. So what were the main growth drivers? And can you share the outlook for the fourth quarter and next year? Simon Cai: Yes. Thank you, Ronald. Our fulfilled others continue to outgrow the broader market in the past quarter due to key 3 factors. First, solid user acquisition provided a strong foundation for growth with deeper brand penetration along SMEs and steady improvements in the market's acceptance of online freight matching models, the number of newly registered shippers continue to grow organically. In addition, we continue to focus on proactively reaching potential users through key touch points via highly efficient marketing channels, including app stores and high-traffic offline placements such as high-speed railway stations. As a result, the first order conversion rate of new users improved substantially year-over-year. Secondly, higher engagement from existing users, coupled with ongoing product optimization, continue to enhance our matching efficiency. During the quarter, human frequency among shipper members further improved year-on-year, demonstrating strong customer loyalty and stickiness. On the trucker side, we introduced the new cargo zone, which highlights newly posted high-quality orders and help truckers secure attractive opportunities more efficiently and driving improved performance in matching and fulfillment. On the shipper side, we further streamlined the order posting interface by removing or reducing unrelated entries and product sections. These initiatives made the other placement process more intuitive and efficient, significantly improved user experience and effectively boosted repeat order intent. Third, the new uses new business continued to drive incremental other incremental growth momentum supported by improving service quality and growing user base, both our lesson truckload and interested businesses continue to deliver robust growth in the third quarter. As these 2 businesses continue to mature and improving operational efficiency, we expect that on top of the solid growth in our core food truckload business, they will further satisfy the diversified needs from both our new and existing shippers and supporting our long-term order volume growth. Looking ahead, we remain confident in our platform's order volume growth momentum. Despite ongoing macro uncertainties, our dominant position and rising digitalization penetration has driven deeper engagement among SME shippers and maintain stable member retention and enhanced matching efficiency consistently, all supporting sustained order growth. At the same time, we will continue to optimize our user ecosystem by strengthening qualification reviews and credit rating systems to attract and retain highly credible, highly active users and laying a solid foundation for our high-quality order growth. Thank you. Operator Your next question comes from Eddy Wang from Morgan Stanley. Eddy Wang Morgan Stanley [Foreign Language] In the third quarter, the number of the monthly active shippers reached 3.35 million, representing a year-over-year increase of 17.6%. What are the major drivers behind the growth? Simon Cai: Thank you, Eddy. In the third quarter, the number of monthly active shippers continue to grow very steadily, supported by more efficient multichannel user acquisition and organic growth driven by referrals. These drivers not only grew our user base but also helped to strengthen the overall engagement and quality of our active users. First, our highly efficient multichannel user acquisition efforts continue to drive steady growth in shipper users. We implemented a dual approach combining brand exposure and targeted conversion. We improved online acquisition efficiency by strengthening App Store campaign management and optimized keyword search while refining download page design and user conversion funnels. Off-line wise, we expanded advertising in high-traffic areas such as high-speed real stations, subway business districts and key commercial hubs. We also leveraged the scenario-based outreach channels, such as truck stickers to reach SMEs with actual shipping needs. This integrated online and offline approach not only enhance brand awareness, but also effectively attracted high potential shippers laying a solid foundation for sustained user growth. Second, word-of-mouth referrals continue to serve as the primary driver of organic shipper growth. Unlike consumer-facing businesses, most shippers are small- and medium-sized business whose decisions are driven mostly by trust, often requiring longer commercial cycles, but resulting in higher retention and repeat purchase rates. During the quarter, we continued to invest in service reliability, capacity assurance and fulfillment experience optimization, further strengthening user trust. As a result, word-of-mouth referrals from existing shippers became the most efficient channel for user acquisition. Notably, new shippers acquired through referrals tend to be of higher quality with stronger fulfillment rates and long-term engagement as compared with other acquisition channels while coming at lower acquisition costs. Looking ahead, we will continue to pursue a dual engine growth strategy, combining brand-led acquisition and referral-driven expansion. On 1 hand, we'll continue to optimize our marketing strategy to improve acquisition, efficiency and brand penetration within target user groups. On the other hand, we will -- user satisfaction by improving service quality and strengthening protection mechanisms, reinforcing trust and professionalism within the shipper community. These initiatives will support high-quality sustained growth across the shipper ecosystem supporting our long-term growth. Thank you. Operator Your next question comes from Brian Gong from Citi. Brian Gong Citigroup Inc. [Foreign Language] I have a quick question on ecosystem improvement on trucker side. Can you give an update on key divestments of trucker members in the third? Simon Cai: Thank you, Brian. As of the end of September, our active trucker members continue to grow steadily, reaching almost 1 million members achieving further growth compared with the previous quarter. Structurally, roughly 30% of trucker MAUs in the long-haul segments or membership subscribers and contribute to over 40% of the volume in the long haul segment. This state underscores the higher engagement and stronger stickiness of our trucker members who have become the core pillar of our capacity network. During the quarter, we continued to upgrade our trucker membership tiering system. The current framework focuses on 3 key dimensions for truckers, cost reduction, fulfillment enhancement and risk protection. Our commission coupons helped truckers effectively reduce service costs during order fulfillment and our premium cargo bidding cards increased truckers' visibility and ranking priority in matching with high-quality shipments. We also relaunched the freight payment protection program, expanding its coverage scope, which further strengthened truck trust and security doing transactions directly addressing many of the fundamental operation needs. Overall, the trucker membership program has become a key driver in securing high-quality trucker capacity and improving fulfillment efficiency on the platform. Looking ahead, as we further expand membership benefits and refine incentive programs, we expect trucker programs to contribute to a growing share of our total transportation capacity and building a stronger and more sustained -- sustainable foundation for continued order growth and fulfillment stability. Thank you. Operator Your next question comes from Yuan Liao from Citic. Yuan Liao: [Foreign Language] Under the current policy environment of innovation, so how has the company implement any measures to align with these policy objectives and offer enhanced protection of our benefits to shippers and truckers? Simon Cai: Under the current policy environment of an anti evolution, the -- so we basically -- against the overall background of anti evolution and promoting high-quality growth, our strategic directions remain clear. We will continue to pursue sustainable high-quality growth through ecosystem refinement, structural optimization and user protection enhancement. First, we remain committed to enhancing ecosystem integrity with a key focus on advancing healthier user protocols by implementing ID verification and fulfillment credit scoring as well as refining user tiering. We enhanced the value of user accounts and increased switching costs which in turn accelerates the exit of low-quality users. At the same time, we have shifted the focus of our credit rating system for both shippers and truckers or frequency of transaction to quality of their behaviors. This system evaluates metrics such as fulfillment rates, positive feedback rate and complaint rate, reinforcing both through rewards and disciplinary measures to guide users towards higher standards and stronger trust fostering a healthier platform ecosystem. Second, we have focused on emphasizing fair pricing and healthy competition on our platform. For example, to prevent malicious pricing competition, we employ algorithms to identify and block abnormally low prices in real time, removing or restricting orders that fall significantly outside reasonable market price ranges. Additionally, we incorporated a price rationality weighting into our order matching, prioritizing the pairing of high-quality freight with reliable truckers. This approach protects truckers' earnings and enhance shippers fulfillment certainty. Together, these measures provide a robust technological foundation to healthy market behaviors between truckers and shippers. At the same time, we achieved notable progress in strengthening user protection and trust. Our upgraded comprehensive protection program currently provides full coverage for key risks for both user groups, including fleet payment defaults, empty runs and cargo damages to address truckers top concerns of timely freight settlement, we have implemented a guaranteed compensation account that provides trucker members with expedited reimbursement for freight, empty runs and cancellations, ensuring prompt payment and minimizing trust barriers throughout the fulfillment process. Overall, we are building a more sustainable efficient and transparent freight ecosystem by continuously optimizing user -- our user base, fulfillment certainty and matching and protection framework. Our focus on high-quality growth is reflected not only in a healthier user base but also in continuous improvements in our service quality and governance. Looking ahead, we will continue to focus on improving user trust, operational efficiency and fulfillment quality driving development sustained development of the freight industry and laying solid foundation for our growth. Operator Your next question comes from Wenjie Zhang from CICC. Wenjie Zhang China International Capital Corporation Limited [Foreign Language] My question is regarding freight brokerage business. I wonder what's the rate of progress of the business since the pricing adjustment in August? Could you give an update on user retention and profitability for in these changes? Simon Cai: Yes. Thank you. The business generally performed better than we expected. So in the third quarter, our freight brokerage business transition to a higher service fee rate, steadily and the overall performance was good. Following the expected gradual removal of tax rebates and increasing service fee rates to between 10% to 11%. User behavior showed healthy structural improvement. From a user perspective, churn from shippers in the third quarter was primarily concentrated among those who demanded frequent VAT invoicing service only and contributed to limited value to the platform beyond invoicing fees. Conversely, retention rates among shippers with small and medium value VAT invoices remained above 80%, significantly exceeding our expectations. These users are generally less price sensitive and care more about the convenience of freight matching and fulfillment certainty, which kept their engagement rates stable following the policy adjustments. Currently, invoicing plus freight matching orders represent over 70% of the total orders in our freight brokerage services, highlighting the growth importance of our matching service and the strong alignment between this business and the platform's core capabilities. At the same time, we are closely monitoring user retention and structural shifts in our user base, with a particular focus on the long run stability of small- and medium-sized shippers and ongoing conversions of new users, ensuring that the benefits of these structural optimizations are sustained and reinforced. From a financial standpoint, the freight brokerage business primarily aimed to increase stickiness by enhancing shipper experience and platform engagement rather than a major profit contributors. Although this is emphasis on invoicing results in relatively low margins and a limited impact on our overall profit, it still plays a strategic role in strengthening our user engagement and refining more order fulfillment. Looking ahead, we will continue to focus on improving the experience for small and medium-sized shippers, gradually expanding contribution from high-quality users and ensuring that the freight brokerage business delivered sustainable performance under the new policy. Operator Your next question that comes from Ritchie Sun from HSBC. Ritchie Sun HSBC Global Investment Research [Foreign Language] In the third quarter, revenue from freight listing reached RMB 247 million, up 10.6% year-on-year. So what were the main growth drivers? And how do you feel the user payment conversion trends going forward? Simon Cai: Thank you, revenues from -- our freight listing service continued to grow steadily in the past quarter, primarily driven by growth in paying users and the ongoing optimization of the membership structure. As of September 2025, the number of shipper members on our platform reached 1.27 million. The majority of the incremental growth came from the 288 membership program, which was launched last year. This program was designed to meet the needs of small and medium-sized business owners new to our platform by lowering the entry barrier and offering benefits such as freight rate, coupons and other placement tracking. The program significantly improved membership conversion and user satisfaction. Looking at the membership mix, while 688 memberships achieved steady year-over-year growth in this quarter, the 288 membership showed the most robust growth across free membership tiering with active members increasing by more than 300% compared with the same period last year. The strong growth not only broadened our user base, but also strengthen the platform payment rate. Notably, the number of high-frequency shippers under the RMB 1688 tier continue to decline, reflecting a structural shift in our shipper base. This change reflects the platform's ongoing optimization and matching efficiency and fulfillment guarantees, which are gradually replacing traditional agent roles and further encoding the quality of our user ecosystem. Turning to user conversion. Our latest data shows that around 20% of the users who reach the limit of their 288 membership chose to upgrade to the RMB 688 tier. These results are aligned with our initial expectation when designing the program and underscore the effectiveness of our tiered membership system. Our membership business has established a healthy growth cycle that attracts users, low-entry barriers ratings and with area experience and drives upgrades through tiered benefits. This model enables long-term and steady penetration among direct shippers and supports the high-quality growth of the overall business. In addition, retention among existing members remains robust, demonstrating solid user stickiness. As of the end of the third quarter, our 12-month rolling retention rate for shipper members held steady at around 80%, consistent with prior quarters. This validates our ongoing optimization in member experience and reflects strong recognition from shippers from our platform's reliable fulfillment capabilities and responsive service. We expect the 288 and 688 memberships to continue driving growth in freight listing service revenue. Meanwhile, as the platform continues in-house features such as fulfillment protection and shipment tracking and payment conversion rates are expected to trend up steadily. We will continue to optimize our membership program and benefits aiming to further strengthen long-term user retention and lifetime value. Thank you. Operator Thank you. That concludes the question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to management for any additional or closing comments. Mao Mao Head of Investor Relations Thank you all for joining us today. If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact us at Full Truck Alliance directly or TPG Investor Relations. Have a good day. Operator That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.
Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by for So-Young's Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After management gives their prepared remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. As a reminder, today's conference call is being recorded. I will now like to turn the meeting over to your host for today's call, Ms. Mona Qiao. Please proceed, Mona. Mona Qiao: Thank you, operator, and thank you, everyone, for joining So-Young's Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. Joining me today on the call is Mr. Xing Jin, our Founder, Chairman and CEO; and Mr. Nick Zhao, CFO. Before we begin, please refer to the safe harbor statement in our earnings release, which applies today's call, and we will be making forward-looking statements. Please also note that we will discuss non-GAAP measures today, which are more thoroughly explained and reconciled to the most comparable measures reported under GAAP in our earnings release on our Investor Relations website and filings with SEC. At this time, I'd like to turn the call over to Mr. Xing Jin. Xing Jin: [Interpreted] Hello, everyone, and welcome to today's earnings call. In Q3, we continued to advance the strategic build-out of our branded aesthetic centers business, while deepening the foundation of its development and operating systems. Our long-term investments in the aesthetic center businesses are increasingly translating to a stable operating results. Total revenue for the quarter was RMB 387 million, including RMB 184 million from the aesthetic center business, up 305% year-over-year and approximately 8% above the high end of our guidance. This performance also fueled our year-over-year top line growth momentum. This quarter, net loss attributable to So-Young increased, mainly due to a sequential decrease of RMB 31 million in revenue from business other than the aesthetic center business. We remain confident that these revenues will stabilize in Q4. Since launching So-Young's clinic live medical aesthetic chain last year, we have continuously enhanced its standardization at digital management while improving central level efficiency and service quality. After 1 year, our brand now operates the largest number of centers nationwide among live medical aesthetic chains with a total number of 42 centers as of today, including 41 directly operating centers and 1 franchise center. We remain on track to reach our year-end target 50 centers. As of September 30, cumulative service visits exceeded 600,000, ranking among mass market chain brand in China in terms of service volume. Going forward, we will continue to expand our aesthetic center network in a disciplined manner and drive healthy sustainable growth through a higher standard system and deeper brand equity. Now let me walk you through our Q3 operational highlights. On the branded aesthetic center business builds upon the strong growth momentum. In Q3, revenue reached RMB 184 million, up 26% quarter-on-quarter and 305% year-over-year, further solidifying its role as the core of our business. As of September 30, So-Young clinic operates 39 centers across 10 cities. Operational efficiency continued to improve with 20 centers achieving center level profitability in Q3, including all 14 mature centers. In addition, 29 centers generated positive operating cash flow during the quarter. The scale of users and service volumes are also expanding. As of September 30, total number of active users of So-Young clinic exceeded 130,000. Total number of verified treatment visit surpassed 89,800 in the quarter, up 33% quarter-over-quarter and 280% year-over-year with total number of verified aesthetic treatment performed surpassed 194,700, up 26% quarter-on-quarter and 296% year-over-year. New customers continued to grow driven by word of mouth, referrals since our customer acquisition efficiency remains industry-leading levels. Our per capital sales remains at a low level and decreased quarter-on-quarter. In Q3, the proportion of new customers acquired via referrals rose to 46%. We also deepened cooperation with platforms such as Meituan, further improving brand exposure and user conversion through targeted advertising and content selling. New customers from public domain channels increased 38% quarter-on-quarter with continued optimization and public domain customer acquisition costs. We have upgraded our membership system during the quarter. So tiered operations benefits, incentives and personalized services, we increased user retention and customer lifetime value. In Q3, core members defined as user at level 3 and above grew by over 10,000, up 40% quarter-over-quarter. These core members continued a high double-digit percentage of revenue and nearly 70% quarterly repurchase rate. Customer satisfaction score remain at a high level of 4.99 out of 5. Our user structure continues to evolve to higher loyalty and repeat purchases. We continue to refine our blockbuster products, focusing on premium products with repeat purchase rates at word-of-mouth. In Q3, we optimized our blockbuster product portfolio and double down on refined operations for key offerings. By the end of September, we preannounced the launch of Miracle PLLA version 3, which delivered robust presales performance with over 1,300 orders completed within 2 days. Under a one order per customer limit. For energy-based device treatments as they exclusive distributor of BBL treatment in China, we made BBL, our highest penetration blockbuster offerings in Q3, and we will continue to drive its growth in Q4. Overall, revenue contributions from blockbuster products rose to over 30%. And this core offerings continue to unlock growth momentum, we are opening greater room for synergies with supply chain. As our business expands, we continue to prioritize health care quality and procedural compliance. In Q3, we fully upgraded our quality control framework, building a 60% client framework, including our clients, risk control supervision, internal audit, medical service delivery and information security department. This reinforces traceability across the medical service process. In Q3, we completed 55 centers inspections and emergency drills. By the end of third quarter, our physician team exceeded 150 ranking first by count among live medical aesthetic chamber-wise nationwide. All doctors have completed internships or training at public hospitals and passed our unified training and assessment, ensuring a consistent and reliable medical service experience across every center. Our business practices received recognition from mainstream media. In October, People's Daily online published a special commentary noting that So-Young is starting an example for the rational development of the industry through disciplined operations, transparent pricing and compliance management. We believe the industry landscape is shifting from marketing-driven to trust driven, we will continue to uphold transparency standardization and inclusive access to build a service system that truly puts customer at ease. We continued to strengthen our medical aesthetic supply chain. In Q3, shipments of Elasty exceeded 59,800 units, up above 63% quarter-over-quarter. Due to the combined impact of seasonal factors and industry prosperity in Q3, revenue of POP declined by RMB 80 million quarter-over-quarter. GMV for verified medical aesthetic services was around RMB 260 million with per capita in center GTV rate up 6% year-over-year. We continue to optimize the content recommendation and traffic distribution mechanisms to improve conversion efficiency. Looking ahead, we will continue pursuing our long-term goal of 1,000 centers, expanding buildout in core cities and commercial hub while further elevating standardized and digital management to raise the bar for service delivery and user experience. We believe our durable competitive advantage comes from long-term commitment and accumulated trust. We will drive the live medical aesthetic industry towards maturity with more measured pace and more professional capabilities creating long-term value for shareholders. Now I'll hand over to our CFO, Nick, who will walk through the financial results followed by the Q&A session. Hui Zhao: Hello. This is Nick. Please note that all amounts are quoted in RMB. Please also refer to our earnings release for detailed information of our comparative financial performances on a year-over-year basis. Total revenues during the quarter were RMB 386.7 million, up 4% year-over-year primarily due to our business expansion of the branded aesthetic center. Aesthetic treatment services revenues reached RMB 183.6 million showing a 304.6% year-over-year, once again exceeding the high end of our guidance. This was primarily driven by the robust business expansion of our branded aesthetic centers. Information and reservation services revenues were RMB 117.2 million, down 34.5% year-over-year, primarily due to a decrease in the number of medical service providers subscribing to information services on our platform. Revenues from sales of medical products and maintenance services were RMB 67 million, down 25% year-over-year primarily due to a decrease in the order volume of medical equipment. Revenues from other services were RMB 18.9 million, down 67.6% year-over-year, primarily due to a decrease in revenues from So-Young Prime. Cost of revenues were RMB 203.8 million, up 43.4% year-over-year, primarily due to the business expansion of our branded aesthetic centers. Within cost of revenues, Cost of aesthetic treatment services were RMB 140.1 million, up 333.2% year-over-year, primarily due to the business expansion of our branded aesthetic centers. Cost of information and reservation services were RMB 12.9 million, down 44.7% year-over-year, which was in line with the decrease in revenue generated from information and reservation services. Cost of medical products sold and maintenance services were RMB 35.6 million, down 18.3% year-over-year, primarily due to a decrease in costs associated with the sales of medical equipment. Cost of other services were RMB 15.2 million, down 64.6% year-over-year, primarily due to a decrease in costs associated with So-Young Prime. Total operating expenses were RMB 255.6 million, up 13.6% year-over-year. Sales and marketing expenses were RMB 130.7 million, up 13.8% year-over-year primarily due to the increase in expenses associated with the branding and user acquisition activities for our aesthetic centers. G&A expenses were RMB 88.6 million, up 26.7% year-over-year and 12.4% quarter-over-quarter, primarily due to the onetime accrual of approximately RMB 5.8 million year-end bonuses and the business expansion of our branded aesthetic centers. R&D expenses were RMB 36.3 million, down 9.6% year-over-year and up 16.5% quarter-over-quarter. The year-over-year decrease was primarily due to improved staff efficiency, while the sequential increase was due to the onetime accrual of approximately RMB 3.6 million year-end bonuses and the continued investment in Miracle Laser products, particularly in clinical trials. Income tax expenses were RMB 1.1 million compared with RMB 2.1 million in the same period of 2024. Net loss attributable to So-Young International Inc. was RMB 64.3 million compared with net income attributable to So-Young International, Inc. of RMB 20.3 million during the same period last year. Non-GAAP net loss attributable to So-Young International, Inc. was RMB 61.6 million compared with non-GAAP net income attributable to So-Young International Inc. of RMB 22.2 million during the same period of 2024. Basic and diluted losses per ADS attributable to ordinary shareholders were RMB 0.64 and RMB 0.64, respectively, compared with basic and diluted earnings per ADS attributable to ordinary shareholders of RMB 0.2 and RMB 0.2, respectively, during the same period of 2024. As of September 30, 2025, our cash and cash equivalents, restricted cash and term deposits and short-term investments were RMB 942.8 million, primarily due to an increase of investment in branded aesthetic centers. Looking ahead to the fourth quarter of 2025, we expect treatment services revenues to be between RMB 216 million and RMB 226 million, representing a 165.8% to 178.1% increase from the same period in 2024. This outlook reflects our confidence in the strong growth momentum of our branded aesthetics center business. As we near the 50 center milestone, we have also seen continued improvement in center level profitability and operating cash flow, demonstrating our model's scalability and operational efficiency. Going forward, we will pursue disciplined expansion while maintaining our focus on operational excellence and cost optimization to drive sustainable and quality growth. These efforts will reinforce the financial resilience of our aesthetic center business and create enduring value for our shareholders. This concludes our key remarks. I will now turn over the call to the operator and open the call for QA. Thank you. Operator: [Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Hai Jingpang with CITIC Securities. Hai Jingpang: [Foreign Language] So okay, let me briefly translate myself. This is Hai Jingpang from CITIC Securities. So first of all, congratulations on the company's continued rapid expansion of the chain clinics. So could you share more about the openings plans for next year, including your original strategy and expected pace for the new clinic openings by quarter? Xing Jin: [Interpreted] By the end of 2025, we will reach 50 centers. Our goal is to lay a solid foundation, focusing on improving customer acquisition efficiency and growing user base. As the business scales, we will enter a new stage of development, relying more on digitalization and AI capabilities to replicate service processes. This will drive breakthroughs in the bottlenecks, the industry often faces providing support for a broader build-out in the following up stage. The number of new centers to be opened next year will remain consistent with previous plans and will not be less than 35. We will keep the overall pace of center opening balanced, progressing on a quarterly basis to ensure every new center quickly enters the operation phase following its establishment. Our focus will remain on fourth-tier cities since they have strong demand and high repurchase rate potential, which will help us quickly build up regional density and amplify brand equity. At the same time, we will also systematically establish a presence in second-tier cities with a mature consumer base to validate our model and game experience for long-term expansion. Operator: The next question comes from Stacy Chen with Haitong International. Stacy Chen: [Foreign Language] I will translate myself. First of all, congratulation to the management for achieving such rapid growth even during the off-season quarters. I noted that you have released the core member data this quarter. So could you explain more about the membership system for the aesthetic center business and how we conduct the membership operations? Xing Jin: [Interpreted] The membership system is core to aesthetic centers operations each time, a user companies visit, a record is created, which helps us build a clear tiered membership system from Level 1 to 8 and identify high-value users with more committed and ongoing engagement. Level 3 and above are defined as core members. They have higher center visit frequency and greater flexibility to select additional services with annual spending 2.5x higher than the average, making them the good driver for aesthetic center. During Q3, they contributed a high double-digit percentage of our aesthetic center business revenue with a repurchase rate of nearly 70%. We provide tiered benefit and service touch points based on individual user consumption patterns, which ensures they continuously perceive brand value and received positive reinforcement, further bolstering repeat purchase rates. In Q3, our membership operations made solid progress. Users with verified business increased by nearly 40,000, up 36% quarter-on-quarter, including over 10,000 new core members up 40% quarter-over-quarter. Additionally, we've also enhanced repeat customer value operations, specifically repeat customer revenue reached RMB 120 million in Q3, up 32% quarter-over-quarter, accounting for 65% of aesthetic treatment service revenues, verified treatment visits from repeat customers surged over 4 times year-over-year to 50,000, while ARPU also increased. These metrics all exceeded our targets. Going forward, we will continue -- we will focus on conversion of highway active users and extending the life circle of high-value users. Operator: The next question comes from Nelson Cheung with Citi. We will move on to James Wong with GS Securities. James Wong: [Foreign Language] My question for company is how is the Miracle PLLA 3.0 are starting since its end of September launch and what is new compared to the previous version and what's the plan for promoting it? Xing Jin: [Interpreted] Miracle PLLA version 3 was an important upgrade on the supply chain. In China's medical aesthetic market, PLLA is still mostly used as an injectable for shipping. Before launching, we conducted research in South Korea and found that the medical practice there adopt a more standardized and safer skin booster technique after multiple rounds of testing, we launched [indiscernible] in terms of products, its ultra microsphere comes with 5 key features, including ultra smoot ultra solid, ultra fine, ultra pure and ultra active across safety results and longevity, these features make the product the best fit for [indiscernible]. Moreover, with a overall performance upgraded Miracle PLLA version 3 is also more competitively priced offering consumers a high-quality yet value-for-money experience. Regarding the promotion, we made upgrade based on the market landscape and user pain points, to capture user mind share, we adopted [indiscernible] a miracle more suitable for skin boosters and introduced the concept of ultra microspheres to take the lead in the segment. We also released 2 versions Miracle PLLA version 3 and Version 3 Pro to address different users' needs and budgets, thereby lowering the decision threshold for users. The first batch of 5,000 units was fully sold out within a short time. The mass arrival is expected in late November. We will continue to drive market penetration rate for Miracle PLLA version 3, converting users more efficiently and increasing ARPU and user loyalty. Market feedback shows that Miracle PLLA version 3 is receiving a high attention. We implemented an online purchase limit of 1 purchase per user. From these purchases, we can say that about 56% of users paid the Pro version priced at RMB 4,999, reflecting the trust they place in our brand and product. In the next year or 2, the PLLA that we have been working on upstream is expected to receive approval for launch, which should reduce procurement cost by several times. Overall, Miracle PLLA version 3 is not just a product upgrade, it's an important part of supply chain construction and blockbuster strategy. We will adopt the same approach for future categories. We will continue to deepen the vertical integration of our supply chain, further enhanced safety and continuously convert upstream manufacturers into long-term supply customers. Simultaneously, we will leverage our advantage in marketing products, doctors and channels to differentiated areas and solid our brand moat. Operator: The next question comes from Nelson Cheung with Citi. Nelson Cheung: [Foreign Language] Congratulations on a solid quarter. With the expanding aesthetic center count, how do we ensure the safety and compliance of the entire chain system? And how is the internal quality control mechanism work? Xing Jin: [Interpreted] Safety is our top priority. We have built a 6-pillar complaint framework covering compliance, risk control, supervision, internal audit, medical service delivery and information security department, and we will continue to make this framework more refined and systematic. We adhere to high standards and resource. On the treatment side, we only offer safe, mature medical aesthetic treatment with clear mechanism and solid user feedback to avoid potential risks. On the personnel side, we implement regular doctors' qualification assessments with an acceptance rate of around 10%. All doctors are also required to complete preemployment training and regular emergency drills to ensure the highest professional service and emergency response capabilities. Medical service delivery, we implement a tiered diagnosis that matches treatment with doctors based on their qualification levels. We conduct regular online and offline inspections as part of our quality control, ensuring reliable medical service across all centers. If there is any user feedback or dispute, we handle it at headquarters with crisis response team composed of key departments, including user experience, PR, GR and legal. Currently, our average response time is under 2 hours with issue resolution completed within 2 days. The compliance rate is below 1%. Going forward, we will continue to uphold the highest standards of safety and compliance with digital and AI tools. We aim to further enhance cost control efficiency and ensure consistent medical service quality and user safety across all centers as the business continues to grow rapidly. Operator: The next question comes from Jenny Xu with CICC. Jenny Xu: [Foreign Language] I will repeat it in English. So how does the management view the potential for improving the profitability of the aesthetic center business in the future? Xing Jin: [Interpreted] We believe the first priority now is to expand our user base and ensuring improvement of operating profit as it scales. As the operating model gradually matures, we are confident profitability will improve. On the cost side, we continue to optimize the structure of our customer acquisition channels, including referrals from existing customers and both public and private domain traffic continuously consolidating our advantage in customer acquisition costs. In addition, there is a significant room to lower the consumable costs. For instance, we recently upgraded Miracle PLLA from Version 2 to Version 3 as the new products, it will strengthen our bargaining power with upstream partners and further optimize our cost framework. In the future, with the gradual realization of digitalization, AI and economics of scale, the fixed cost in data operations will be further diluted. On the revenue side, as users increasingly prioritize resource and professionals, they are willing to spend on premium treatment, coupled with offering long-term high quality medical aesthetic products, operations of the existing [indiscernible] trajectory, leveraging our blockbuster product strategy, treatment volume have gradually concentrated on a strong number of SKUs, with the revenue share of blockbuster products increasing. The top 9 products contributed over 30% of revenue in Q3. This lays a solid foundation to further improve our profit margins through proprietary customized products. Once the number of aesthetic centers and verified treatment visits reach a central level, we will focus on housing the LTV of core members, further driving profit margin. Therefore, we believe there is great potential for the profitability of the aesthetic center business to increase from its current base. Operator: The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation, and you may now disconnect.
Operator: Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the J&J Snack Foods fourth quarter 2025 conference call. At this time, all 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'll 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 that today's conference is being recorded. I'd now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Reed Anderson with ICR. Please go ahead. Reed Anderson: Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining the J&J Snack Foods Fiscal 2025 Fourth Quarter Conference Call. Before getting started, let me take a minute to read the safe harbor language. This call contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements made on this call that do not relate to matters of historical facts should be considered forward-looking statements, including statements regarding management's plans, strategies, goals, expectations, and objectives as well as our anticipated financial performance. Operator: This includes, without limitation, Reed Anderson: our expectations with respect to the success of our cost savings initiatives, and customer demand improvements in the sales channels in which we operate. These statements are neither promises nor guarantees and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other important factors that may cause results, performance, or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance, achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Risk factors and other items discussed in our annual report on Form 10-Ks and our other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated by the forward-looking statements made on the call today. Any such forward-looking statements represent management's estimates as of the date of this call today, 11/17/2025. While we may elect to update forward-looking statements at some point in the future, we disclaim any obligation to do so even if subsequent events cause expectations to change. In addition, we may also reference certain non-GAAP measures on the call today, including adjusted EBITDA, adjusted operating income, or adjusted earnings per share. All of which are reconciled to the nearest GAAP measure on the company's earnings press release, which can be found on our Investor Relations website. Joining me on the call today is Dan Fachner, our Chief Executive Officer along with Shawn Munsell, our Chief Financial Officer. Following management's prepared remarks, we will open the call for a question and answer session. With that, now like to turn the call over to Mr. Fachner. Please go ahead, Dan. Dan Fachner: Good morning. I am pleased with our fourth quarter results. Despite a challenging backdrop during the summer, we delivered adjusted EBITDA of $57.4 million on sales of $410.2 million, down 3.9% on sales versus the prior year. As anticipated, over half of the sales decline was associated with our frozen beverage business, as we lapped strong volumes from the Inside Out 2 movie last year. Pretzel sales in both retail and food service rose in the quarter, reflecting progress on key initiatives to drive growth through innovation. Pretzel growth helped to offset some declines in frozen novelties, that we are addressing through marketing, trade spend, and innovation. For the full year, adjusted EBITDA was $180.9 million while net sales increased 0.5% to $1.58 billion. Although 2025 was a more challenging year, I'm encouraged by our operational execution in the second half, which puts us in a strong position moving forward. Some bright spots for fiscal 2025 include we achieved record sales, and adjusted EBITDA in fiscal Q3. We modernized our flagship Super Pretzel product with a recipe enhancement, and fresh packaging. The effort to reinvigorate our pretzel business led to a 2.7% pretzel sales increase in 2025 driven by a strong second half performance with sales up 8% compared to the prior year. The rollout of Dippin' Dots to theaters was substantially completed with a presence now in almost 1,600 theaters. Dippin' Dots Sundays were launched at retail with great success, adding approximately $5 million to the top line. We optimized our frozen beverage distribution and service network, which reduced expenses by 2% in the fourth quarter. Now I'll talk through some initiatives underpinning our optimism for fiscal 2026. To start, we have initiated a business transformation program which we are calling Project Apollo. That will generate sustainable efficiencies and cost savings across the enterprise. Some key elements are already underway and we expect the program to deliver at least $20 million of annualized operating income once all the initiatives are implemented in 2026. The initial focus of Project Apollo is consolidation of our manufacturing network. During the fourth quarter, and early in 2026, we announced the closure of three facilities, Holly Ridge, North Carolina, Atlanta, Georgia, and Colton, California. Production from these facilities will either be consolidated into other facilities or discontinued as part of an ongoing portfolio optimization. The closures reflect the next logical step in the evolution of our manufacturing footprint and are enabled by the investments we have made in our plants to modernize and expand capacity for core products and to build out our regional distribution centers. We expect annualized savings associated with the plant closures of approximately $15 million which should be materially complete in 2026. We are also undertaking various initiatives within our distribution system that will generate approximately $3 million of annualized savings. The remaining net savings from Project Apollo are associated with various administrative initiatives we expect to realize most of the annualized freight and administrative related savings by 2026. The initiatives I have just outlined represent the first phase of Apollo. We are working on a second phase that is focused on generating within the plants further efficiencies following the completion of the consolidation work. We are also developing a robust roadmap for modernizing our system and tech infrastructures to streamline additional corporate processes and sharpen the quality of our data analytics. We'll be sharing more as the next phase of the project work is finalized. I am energized that the projects we have identified will generate durable structural savings and will do so relatively quickly in fiscal 2026. I'm encouraged by the impact that these actions are having on our early performance so far in Q1. Our operating teams are focused on the closures and seamless redeployment of production within our network to prevent any disruption to customer orders. I'm also excited about several commercial and innovation initiatives that are being rolled out for our fiscal 2026. Starting with the commercial activities. We will commence shipping churros to a major QSR later in fiscal Q1 as part of a limited time offer program. We expect the program to be successful given it is such a great fit with this customer and believe there is potential to be converted to a permanent volume. We are completing the rollout of ICEE machines for a large and growing convenience store operator in the Southwest, the frozen beverage test with a major West Coast QSR operator is nearly complete and we are encouraged by the results. And the handheld capacity outage should be remedied by the start of our second quarter. With respect to innovation, we have several exciting launches around the corner for fiscal 2026 with most of these products available to consumers beginning the fiscal second quarter. These innovation items underscore the quality, and breadth of our iconic brands. Our new protein pretzel for retail will be available for consumers as a four-pack of large pretzels with 10 grams of protein or a smaller mini pretzel with seven grams of protein per serving. We are rolling out Super Pretzel pizza sticks, and queso sticks which are smaller pretzel bites with tasty fillings. On the frozen novelty front, we are introducing Luigi's Mini Pops which feature exciting flavor profiles and better-for-you attributes such as hydration, and immunity support. We are extending our popular Pet Street brand, Dogsters, to include a new mini ice cream sandwich. Regarding Dippin' Dots innovation, I am pleased to announce that we will be launching Dippin' Dots in its original form for resale. This represents another major growth milestone for the brand. Additionally, we are introducing two new flavors to the Dippin' Dots retail sundae lineup, taking the flavor total to four. The outlook for theater also is encouraging. As the industry continues closing the gap, to the pre-COVID environment. Box office sales for the period that aligns to our fiscal 2025 up 10% versus the prior year. Industry sources are projecting North America box office sales that aligns with our fiscal 2026 to increase by 9% supported by a great lineup of movies that includes Wicked for Good, Zootopia 2, and Spider-Man, A Brand New Day. The lineup for our fiscal first half looks particularly promising as compared to last year's slate. With $106 million in cash and no debt, our financial position remains strong. And we continue to take a balanced approach to capital allocation across three areas: investing in our business to drive growth and operational efficiency, strategic acquisitions, and returning capital to shareholders through dividends, and share repurchases. Given the current trends of our business, and outlook for fiscal 2026, including the benefits we expect to realize from Project Apollo, we expect to increase our focus on share repurchase activity as we see compelling value in our shares. Share repurchases totaled $3 million in the quarter, and we intend to accelerate our pace significantly during the current quarter. I'll now turn the call over to Shawn to discuss the quarter and full year results in a little more detail. Shawn? Shawn Munsell: Thanks, Dan. And good morning, everyone. Before I discuss the results, I'd like to note that we no longer allocate all corporate expenses to segment results. Starting with the fourth quarter, as Dan indicated, we are pleased with our Q4 performance. This methodology change has been applied to our historical results, with some expenses now captured as unallocated corporate expense. We believe we are well positioned early in fiscal 2026. 1.1% to $259.3 million as volume softness more than offset price increases. Soft pretzel sales increased 3.6% marking consecutive quarters of year-over-year sales growth. Bavarian pretzel sales continue to lead the growth. Pretzel dollar share increased 1% in the quarter. Frozen novelties declined 5.1% driven primarily by transition between Luigi's and ICEE branded products. We expect volumes to normalize over time. Churro volume declines primarily reflect the wind down of last year's LTO, with a major QSR customer. Retail segment net sales declined 8.1% primarily driven by lower frozen novelty volumes, partly offset by higher pretzel volume. We are taking action to support our frozen novelty business with shopper marketing and trade spend. And we see improving trends in the recent four-week data. Dogsters continues to stand out of the portfolio with sales and units up in the quarter and we anticipate additional distribution in 2026. Handheld sales declines reflect the temporary capacity constraints from the fire at our North Carolina facility last year. Soft pretzel sales increased 9% continuing the momentum from the third quarter. Frozen Beverage segment sales declined 8.3% attributed to lower beverage volume in the quarter. Foreign exchange translation did not have a significant impact on segment results in Q4. Beverage volume declined primarily due to lower theater sales. As we lapped the success of the Inside Out 2 movie last year. Box office sales for our fiscal fourth quarter are estimated to have declined approximately 11%. As I mentioned earlier, we expect the theater industry to continue its rebound in 2026, and we're encouraged by the solid lineup of movies that we expect will be popular with our target consumers. Consolidated gross profit was $130.2 million compared to $135.5 million last year. While gross margin was 31.7% compared to 31.8% last year. Gross margin in frozen beverage declined given the lower mix of beverage revenue in the quarter. Tariff costs added approximately 35 basis points to cost of goods. These unfavorable impacts were partly offset by insurance proceeds for business interruption costs, related to our handheld capacity constraints. And early plant consolidation savings in the quarter. Operating expenses increased 24% to $118.8 million or 29% of sales. Which included $24.8 million of nonrecurring charges primarily related to Project Apollo plant closures. Plant closure charges predominantly reflect noncash asset write downs and write offs totaling approximately $21 million. We expect additional plant closure and other nonrecurring costs associated with our business transformation project of $3 million to $5 million in fiscal 2026. Marketing expenses were $32.6 million or 4.8% higher than in the prior year driven by increased spending on new sponsorships and other promotional activities. Distribution expenses for the quarter declined 8.3% on lower volume and steady efficiency gains. The efficiency gains were driven by fewer internal transfers and better truck utilization. Distribution as a percentage of sales declined to 10.3%, compared to 10.8% in the prior year. Administrative expenses were $19.1 million, an increase of 5.1% from the prior year primarily associated with higher compensation expenses. Adjusted operating income was $37.7 million as compared to $42 million in the prior year. Adjusted EBITDA for the fourth quarter was $57.4 million versus $59.7 million last year. The effective tax rate for the quarter was 4.8%, compared to 26.8% in the prior year. Adjusted earnings per diluted share were $1.58 versus $1.60 last year. The significantly lower effective tax rate in the quarter primarily reflects a change in estimate on our blended state tax rate and the corresponding impact on the valuation of our net deferred tax liabilities. Our balance sheet and liquidity position remains strong with approximately $106 million in cash and no long-term debt as of quarter end. We had approximately $210 million of borrowing capacity under our revolving credit agreement. Let me briefly touch on full year results. Sales increased 0.5% to $1.58 billion as price increases helped to offset lower volume. Growth in foodservice, which was up 1.6%, was partially offset by declines in retail, including from lower handheld sales related to the capacity constraints. While frozen beverage was essentially flat. Unfavorable foreign exchange rates for fiscal 2025 reduced the top line by approximately 40 basis points. Adjusted operating income was $108.2 million as compared to $130.4 million in the prior year. Adjusted EBITDA for the fiscal year was $180.9 million versus $200.1 million last year. Adjusted earnings per diluted share were $4.27 versus $4.93 last year. That concludes our prepared remarks, and we are now ready to take your questions. Dan Fachner: Operator? Operator: Star 11 on your telephone. And wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press 11 again. Dan Fachner: Our first question comes from Jon Andersen with William Blair. Jon Andersen: Hey, good morning. Dan, Shawn. Thanks for the question. Dan Fachner: Good morning, Jon. Jon Andersen: Hey. I wanted to start by getting you to mention the portfolio optimization work that is going on. And that's one of the reasons why the closure of the three facilities, you know, you were able to do that while kind of moving production on production that you're going to keep. Can you talk about the impact of that portfolio optimization on sales both kind of in quarter but then how to think about that perhaps going forward as we look to kind of 2026 and what impact that might have on the top line. We'll start there. Dan Fachner: Sure, Jon. Thank you. That's one of the things that we've been talking about for a while, especially as it relates to our bakery group of optimizing that portfolio. And then as you look at our plans and the consolidation that we've been working on with the plants, it just made sense that during this timing that we'd be able to optimize the portfolio that we have and be able to consolidate some of these plants. The total impact of that, if you think about our business growing in that mid-single-digit rate year over year, might be a one, one and a half percent impact on that overall sales. But we're, you know, we're kind of bullish. It's the play that we called a couple years ago as we continue to build efficiencies inside our system and put in some new plants or new lines within our plants. And then rebuild the distribution system now allows us to be able to go back and optimize. And we're really excited about that work that's being done. Shawn Munsell: Yep. And in terms of timing, Jon, you know, think about that as being kind of near that full run rate sometime in Q2. Jon Andersen: Okay. Helpful. And maybe stepping back even a little bit more, but I know you don't provide specific guidance. But as we exit '25 and think about '26 at this point, there are quite a few moving parts, some of which should be tailwinds. And some of which might be a bit of a headwind, but headwinds for the right reason in terms of the portfolio work. Can you talk at all about just kind of the macro environment? Dan Fachner: And you know, kind of try and combine that to the extension to can't can with some of the internal initiatives. To give us some sense of how you're thinking about '26, both from a maybe a top line perspective, but also a margin standpoint because with the transformation work that's happening, I think some of the pricing that you've been able to implement and may implement to offset commodity costs. There's a lot of different ways that we could go with this. So just want to get your any commentary you could provide forward-looking around that. Thank you. Yeah. The macro environment, if I started there first, we still think that there's a consumer sentiment that is cautious. Alright? And so, we're gonna continue to watch that, especially as it relates to our retail side of our business. But we're really, really feeling some good momentum as we exit '25 and enter into '26 with some of the great things that we have going on. The plant closure benefits that we already talked about, some tremendous innovation. The teams are doing a really, really good job with that. And we feel positive as we move into 2026 and some even early results in Q1. And we think the theater industry is bouncing back some. So we feel good about the overall business as we move into it. You know, we think back at '25 and know, we think of some of the challenges that we faced there. And you kind of you can kind of tally it up to just a few primary factors. We had that big churro LTO that we're not facing anymore. We had some unfavorable foreign exchange impact. We had the chocolate cost inflation. Most of that hit us in the first half of the year. But when you really look at the second half of the year, you know, the second half EBITDA was just shy of what we delivered the second half of '24. So for all those reasons and the Apollo that we're doing, we're really we're a little bullish on 2026 as we turn that page. Shawn Munsell: Yeah. That's helpful. You'll see those closure benefits relatively quickly in the P&L. We just announced the closure of that third facility. So consider by the time you get to the second quarter, we should be at or very near that full run rate. Jon Andersen: And Shawn, on that, you mentioned the full run rate. Do you mean on the plant closures or on the kind of the Shawn Munsell: Yeah. That's right. So on the plant closure component, the $15 million, we should be very near that full annualized run rate come the second quarter. And then the rest of those savings, you know, think about that, you know, sort of layering in in the third and the fourth quarter for the balance of the year. Jon Andersen: Excellent. Super helpful. Just one more question. You talked about maybe a little bit of a near-term or short mid-term adjustment to your capital allocation approach with a greater focus on share repurchase. Can you talk about, you know, just kind of ongoing how you how you kind of evaluate that? And what kind of acceleration or step up we might anticipate there to the extent that you can. Comment on it. Thank you. Shawn Munsell: Yeah. So, yeah, for sure. And, you know, we said in the prepared remarks that, you know, we're we intend to accelerate our stock buybacks here in the quarter when the window opens. Just for context, and I'm not you know, I'm not implying that this is the amount by which we're we're gonna execute. But, you know, we've got about $42 million remaining on the authorization that we implemented earlier this year. We did buy back about $3 million worth of stock in the quarter. But notably, we pulled back a little bit on that. Dan Fachner: You know, there was some M&A in the pipeline, and we thought that it would be a prudent thing for us to do. But we'll be buying back some stock this quarter. Jon Andersen: Oh, maybe I have to follow-up on that one. You just mentioned M&A in the pipeline. Can you comment at all on that? Should we be thinking about some near-term actions there? Dan Fachner: I wouldn't go that far, Jon. We were looking at a couple different things that just caught our attention. And so at the period of time where we had the window open to be able to buy some stock back, we were just trying to take a conservative approach there. But I would not go as far as to see anything imminent on the M&A front. Jon Andersen: Okay. Thanks. And looking forward to a strong '26 behind these initiatives. Thanks. Dan Fachner: Great. Thank you. Yep. Thanks. Operator: Our next question comes from Scott Marks with Jefferies. Scott Marks: Good morning, Scott. Dan Fachner: Good morning. Scott Marks: Hey. Good morning, guys. Thanks so much for taking the questions. Wanted to ask first about this efficiency initiative. You mentioned Project Apollo, and then you mentioned kind of a second phase where you're looking at some more automation and efficiencies within the existing or remaining facilities. Just wondering if you can share some more color on that and how we should be thinking about the timeline for that, maybe expected benefits. Thanks. Shawn Munsell: Yeah. Sure. So the way I think about that is probably gonna be later '26, but, you know, more likely 2027. And I'd say that that's gonna be a combination of just, you know, automation and process improvement. You know, once we get the consolidation work behind us, you think about it as just making those plants more efficient. You've got some plants that are gonna be taking on, you know, new production. So for 2027, it's, you know, for '26, it's, you know, optimize the network. And then 2027, kind of optimize further within the four walls of each of those plants. Scott Marks: That's helpful. Appreciate that. And then, next question for me. You touched on some challenges in the frozen novelty business within retail. Wondering if you can kind of share any color on what's been happening there and how we should be thinking about the stabilization of some of those. Dan Fachner: Yeah. We touched on that at the end of last quarter. That's just a segment where the consumer probably has hit the hardest. And really saw those, most of that impact in July. The teams have been working really hard at greater marketing and trade spend within that category, and we're starting to see it come back. And we think that will continue to come back over this next year. We're actually feel like we've corrected the things that we needed to correct and I'm really pleased. I met with that retail team this last week, and they're doing a nice job. And I think we'll see that come back over this year. But it is an area where I think, just a consumer sentiment where you'll see the biggest summertime. So if you challenges. So don't forget that, you know, it's frozen novelties. It's this July, it's hard to make those back up in the back half of the quarter. But the teams are working hard at getting the right trade spend as it relates to those. Shawn Munsell: And again, it was in the prepared remarks, but we've got a great pipeline of frozen novelty innovation planned for '26 that's right just around the corner. So we're excited about that. And, you know, going back to your prior question, Scott, I failed to mention that I didn't want to imply that, you know, sort of, like, all the additional automation is gonna be in 27. If you look at the closure of the Colton plant and the consolidation into a nearby plant in California, that was taking what was basically production through manual process and converting it to almost fully automated process at the plant that it's being shifted to. Scott Marks: Got it. Appreciate the follow-up there. I'll pass it on. Thank you. Shawn Munsell: Yep. Thanks. Thank you, Scott. Operator: Press 11 on your touch tone phone. Our next question comes from the line of Todd Brooks with The Benchmark Company. Todd Brooks: Hey. Good morning, Todd. Dan Fachner: Good to talk. Todd Brooks: To you about. Dan Fachner: Few questions kind of feeding off some of the things that we've heard earlier. Todd Brooks: Shawn, can we talk about I think we were talking about the consolidation or the rationalization of some of the bakery products and dinging a revenue algorithm by maybe 100 to 150 basis points? Shawn Munsell: In fiscal twenty six. Can you walk us through, like, where does the algorithm stand now for a baseline level? Does still start in that mid single digit place and we back off to Todd Brooks: Yeah. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. That's exactly right, Todd. Shawn Munsell: Okay. Great. And then the rationalization in Bakery, when like, how does that fall during the year? When should we see kind of the biggest drag from the 100 to 150 basis Todd Brooks: Yes. You'll start seeing it in the second quarter. Shawn Munsell: Okay. Great. Todd Brooks: Secondly, Dan, you've ripped through a list of exciting commercial opportunities for fiscal twenty twenty six. Can you maybe drill down a little bit on the two or three you think are the biggest needle movers and maybe status and timing. Dan Fachner: Yeah. We're really pleased just in total with pipeline that we have going through. Through the system. And have some some really nice opportunities. You know, we have the LTO with a with the churros with a big customer that ran an LTO last year, and it's a perfect fit with this customer that we know is gonna is gonna do well. And we have anticipations that it does so well that maybe it sticks also. So really excited about that particular one. On the frozen beverage side, we're in the midst of rolling out a large c store. In the in the Southwest that has the potential to continue to grow as their you know, that they're striving to be the third largest c store in the country. Also have talked a few times about a test that we have with the QSR in the frozen beverage in the West Coast. Just continues to do really, really well. We're in the third phase of testing now kind of bringing that to an end and having live conversations about how we might roll that out in this year. So really encouraged by the things that we have going on. You know, the last thing I touched on was just that handheld that we were up against with the fire last year in August. And now are just about as we hit the second quarter should have that capacity caught up and see the benefits from that in 2026 as well. Teams are doing a great job. Lot of really good opportunities, and pipeline is as strong as I've seen in a while. Todd Brooks: Okay. Great. Thanks. And the final one for me. Shawn, is there a way to kind of frame up And and I ask about kind of gross margin potential for the business. But obviously, you've identified savings from Apollo one. You've identified a framework for what Apollo two will consist of for maybe a plant efficiency and automation standpoint kind of post Apollo maybe. Can can you talk to what you think the the gross margin potential for the business is? Thanks. Shawn Munsell: Yeah, I'd say that we're still committed improving the gross margin. Getting up above 30% on an annualized basis, toward the mid thirties, let's call it. And you can do the math and see that, you know, that you know, just that the $15 million of plant consolidation savings, you know, all that's gonna roll through your gross margin. Obviously, there's some OpEx savings associated with this leg of Apollo, but, you know, that's that's not gonna get you all the way there. Obviously, but it's gonna help to close the gap. And I would think that we're just gonna keep kind of chunking away at that over the next few years. You know, through, you know, through Project Apollo and, you know, growing the business. The one thing we didn't talk about is the extent to which we can continue to grow the top line as we have historically. And start seeing some leveraging impacts as we, you know, both at the at the plant level and with respect to OpEx. Todd Brooks: Okay. And just a follow-up on that. Thoughts on CapEx in '26 based on the work that you're doing? Shawn Munsell: I would say about in line with fiscal twenty five, but we're working to trim that. Todd Brooks: Okay. Perfect. Thank you both. Shawn Munsell: Yep. Thank you, Todd. Operator: That concludes today's question and answer session. I'd like to turn the call back to Dan Fachner for closing remarks. Dan Fachner: Thank you, operator. In closing, I want to emphasize that while fiscal twenty twenty five presented its challenges, we built significant momentum in early fiscal twenty twenty six through our strategic initiatives and operational improvements. Our innovation pipeline is robust and should drive sustainable growth in key categories while Project Apollo enables meaningful efficiency improvements. With a strong balance sheet, including $106 million in cash and no debt, we're well positioned to invest in growth opportunities, while returning capital to shareholders through share repurchases. Thank you for your continued support, and we look forward to updating you on our progress throughout fiscal twenty twenty six. Thank you very much. Reed Anderson: This concludes today's conference call. Operator: Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.
Operator: Good day, everyone, and welcome to the Arbe Robotics Ltd. Third Quarter 2025 Results Conference Call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. Following management's formal presentation, instructions will be given for the Q&A session. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. You should have all received by now the company's press release. If you have not, please check with the company's website at www.arberobotics.com or call EK Global Investor Relations. I would now like to turn the floor over to Mr. Kenny Green from EK Global Investor Relations. Mr. Green, would you like to begin? Kenny Green: Thank you, Operator. Good day to all of you, and welcome to Arbe Robotics Ltd.'s conference call to discuss the results of the third quarter of 2025. Before we begin, I would like to remind our listeners that certain information provided on this call may contain forward-looking statements, and the Safe Harbor statements outlined in today's press release also pertain to this call. If you have not received a copy of the release, please view it in the Investor Relations section of the company's website. Today, we are joined by Kobi Marenko, Arbe Robotics Ltd.'s Co-Founder and CEO, who will begin the call with a business update. Then we will turn the call over to Karine Pinto-Flomenboim, CFO, who will review the financials. Finally, we will open the call to our listeners for the question and answer session. And with that, I'd like to turn the call over to Kobi Marenko. Please go ahead. Kobi Marenko: Thank you, Kenny. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us to discuss our results and recent business developments. I'll begin with an update on the most important aspect of our current activities: our strategic progress with OEMs. We are pleased with the solid strategic progress made in the third quarter. As you know, our main goal is to secure design wins with OEMs and become the radar technology provider and core enabler of their ADAS and autonomous driving programs. While it is a long process, we are moving forward and making solid progress each and every quarter. We believe that we are well-positioned and in the lead to be selected as the key enabler for an eyes-off, hands-off automated driving program for a serial retail vehicle by one of the major European OEMs in the near future, and we hope to share further information as soon as we hear. Additionally, another premium European OEM is conducting data collection for a Level 3 program using radars based on Arbe Robotics Ltd.'s chipset. We continue to make strong progress with other OEMs as well. A top Japanese OEM ordered our radar kit for its Level 4 development activities and approved the expansion of the project it initiated last year based on our chipset, including predevelopment activities. I also want to add that in terms of our highly strategic non-OEM collaborations, a global leader in artificial intelligence computing has ordered radar development kits for its full stack of autonomous driving software development, marking a strong validation from one of the most influential players shaping the future of autonomous driving technology as well as AI in general. Global economic shifts are causing some OEMs to postpone new model launches and lengthen their decision timelines for autonomous driving solutions. Despite this, Arbe Robotics Ltd.'s market position continues to grow stronger. We remain encouraged by the steady progress we have achieved throughout 2025, and as the year comes to a close. Based on what we see now, we believe we are well-positioned to secure the key European OEM program I discussed earlier in the short term and additional three program wins within the next three quarters. Our initiatives are aligned with the path to OEM selection, and we continue to expect that Arbe Robotics Ltd.'s radar technology will serve as a key enabler for 2028 passenger vehicle platforms. We expect the initial revenues will begin in 2027 with a ramp-up in 2028 as our chipsets are used in high-volume production. Thanks to our strong balance sheet, we delivered $52 million in net cash, and we have the runway to support all programs as our revenue reaches the ramp-up stage. With regard to our focus on non-automotive projects, we are seeing increasing global demand in the defense sector. We are currently supplying radar systems for defense pilot programs and evaluation projects. Last quarter, we announced a new defense client. In addition, in the third quarter, we expanded into the maritime domain since our Tier 1 supplier for non-automotive applications announced an order from Watches for radar systems powered by our chipset. These systems will support collision prevention for boats in all weather and lighting conditions. Boating represents another promising new vertical for our radar technology. During the quarter, we won two prestigious automotive technology industry awards: the JUST Auto Excellence Award for leading technology in the perception category and the Auto Tech Breakthrough Award for sensor technology solution of the year 2025. Both awards are proof of Arbe Robotics Ltd.'s contribution to the automotive industry and leading technological advantages, which are bringing unparalleled safety for drivers and advancing ADAS and autonomous driving. Before closing, I want to welcome Chris Van den Elzen to our Board of Directors. Chris brings over thirty years of experience in the automotive industry, working with both OEMs and Tier 1s as former Vice President of Magna International and Executive Vice President of Veoneer, and brings us strong business experience and deep technological expertise, and I'm sure he will be a very valuable asset. In closing, Arbe Robotics Ltd. is well-positioned to benefit from current industry trends as the market transitions to high-resolution radar. Now I would like to turn it over to our CFO, Karine, to go over the financials. Karine Pinto-Flomenboim: Thank you, Kobi, and hello, everyone. Let me review our financial results for the third quarter of 2025 in more detail. Revenue for the third quarter of 2025 totaled $300,000 compared to $100,000 in Q3 2024. As of September 30, 2025, backlog stood at $200,000. Gross profit for Q3 2025 was negative $200,000 compared to negative $300,000 in the same period last year. The improved change in profitability related to revenue mix. Turning to operating expenses, total operating expenses for Q3 2025 were $11.3 million, down from $12.2 million in Q3 2024. The decrease in operating expenses was primarily due to lower share-based compensation expenses resulting from the full vesting of prior grants and to the reduced volume of new grants, which was the result of new grants being in the form of bonus liability. The decrease in operating expenses was partially offset by an unfavorable foreign exchange impact and higher labor costs. Operating loss for the third quarter of 2025 was $11.5 million compared to a $12.4 million loss in 2024. Adjusted EBITDA, a non-GAAP measurement, which excludes expenses for non-cash share-based compensation and for non-recurring items, was a loss of $9.2 million in 2025 compared to a loss of $8.2 million in 2024. We believe that this non-GAAP measurement is important in management's evaluation of our use of cash and in planning and evaluating our cash requirements for the coming period. Net loss in the third quarter of 2025 was $11 million compared to a net loss of $12.6 million in 2024. As of September 30, 2025, Arbe Robotics Ltd. held $52.6 million in cash and cash equivalents and short-term bank deposits. Turning to our outlook, while global economic shifts are leading some OEMs to delay new model launches and extend decision timelines for advanced driver assistance systems, Arbe Robotics Ltd.'s market position continues to strengthen. We are actively expanding engagements with leading OEMs, progressing through advanced RFQ stages, and building a solid foundation for large-scale adoption. Our goal remains to secure four design wins with OEMs in the coming three quarters. For 2025, revenues are expected to be in the range of $1 million to $2 million. The change to our revenue expectation reflects shifts of certain NRE programs. However, adjusted EBITDA expectations remain unchanged at a loss of $29 million to $35 million. I want to stress that Arbe Robotics Ltd. enters 2026 with a significantly strengthened balance sheet with over $52 million in net cash, supporting continued execution of our long-term strategic and growth plan. Now we will be happy to take your questions. Operator? Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we'll begin the question and answer session. Our first question today comes from Suji Desilva from ROTH Capital. Please go ahead with your question. Suji Desilva: Hi, Kobi. Hi, Karine. First question on the guidance for four design wins. Curious if that's four separate OEMs. And second of all, the specific guidance of the next three quarters, I'm curious what's driving the near-term visibility there? Kobi Marenko: So yes, it's four different OEMs. And basically, we know that for sure there are decisions that should be taken in the next three quarters. We believe that we will be able to win at least four of them. Suji Desilva: Okay, Kobi. Very helpful. Thanks. You said at least four. Okay. And then the customer programs, do you have a sense whether these model wins or opportunities are for certain premium models or across the board platforms or mainstream? Any color on the penetration you would expect if you secure these wins will be helpful? Kobi Marenko: We believe that all of the programs will start with premium cars. But with the volumes as time goes by and the years go by, this will go to non-premium models as well. We see it from the numbers. So we're starting, of course, in very high-end. And it's going to still, it won't be in entry-level vehicles, but it will be in high-end and let's say the top cars. Suji Desilva: That's helpful, Kobi. And then last question maybe for Karine. The calendar 2025 full-year guide implies a wide Q4 range here. I'm wondering what the factors are to swing it from the low end to the high end? Karine Pinto-Flomenboim: Thanks. Sorry, can you repeat the question? Suji Desilva: Sure. Your full '25 revenue guidance of $1 million to $2 million implies a fairly wide Q4 range of outcomes. I'm wondering what might swing it to the high versus low end? Is that product shipments or revenue coming in? Any color there would be helpful. Karine Pinto-Flomenboim: Understood. So as we mentioned, we have some NRE shifts, and based on the decision that is made by our customers, the sooner the decision will be made, the sooner in Q4, then we will be able to push those NRE revenues rather than push them outside to 2026. So this is what's driving mainly the tweak between the low to the high end. Suji Desilva: Okay. Thanks, Kobi. Thanks, Karine. Operator: And our next question comes from George Gianarikas from Canaccord. Please go ahead with your question. George Gianarikas: Hi, everyone. Thank you for taking my questions. Maybe just to give us a little bit more insight into how these conversations are going with the OEMs and the puts and takes, things that are happening that you see as positive, and maybe some of the reasons you're seeing for the push out in decision making? Thank you. Kobi Marenko: So I think, first of all, I think that the dialogues are going well. And we see more and more OEMs buying radars and using them in order to collect data and to train their algorithms for full self-driving. What we see now, I think with all of the OEMs, there was at the beginning of the year, there was, I believe, decisions were postponed because they didn't know what the tariff will look like and what influence it will have. And this is what caused, I think, at least two quarters of delay. Right now, there is a clear path to decisions. And I think that from now on, we will see decisions are taken, will be taken. There is price pressure from the OEMs on every component in the system. And I think because of that, we have a huge advantage because our high-end radar is almost in the price of low-end radar today in the car, and we will be able, from the beginning, to design our system for a price that is affordable, and now we see the benefit of it. George Gianarikas: Thank you. And maybe just, I know it's early, but I'd like to understand how you think we should think about 2026 and 2027, maybe, and just sort of the way we should model the ramp in your revenue, OpEx, cash burn, just so we can have sort of a sense of a new model over the next couple of years? Thank you. Kobi Marenko: So I think '26, most of our revenues will come from non-automotive, which we see right now a great ramp-up from this business. As I mentioned, from almost every vertical that we are touching, we see orders and repeated orders from different sectors, from yachts, from small cities, all of that are bringing more and more orders, and we believe that next year we should expect a nice amount of revenues from non-automotive. The second part of it is the ramp-up of revenues from China from hiring. We still don't have the final visibility on the exact month that it will start, but we believe that we will see some revenues from common vessels in China as well. Karine Pinto-Flomenboim: Just to complete for your understanding of the OpEx, so as Kobi mentioned, next year will be non-automotive. Our current OpEx structure supports those revenues. And also going towards '27, so we assume a stable level of OpEx not increasing too much, and towards the ramp-up of the automotive, we will see a ramp-up, of course, in headcount, mainly customer base, to support this ramp-up. Kobi Marenko: Thank you. Operator: And ladies and gentlemen, with that, we'll be ending today's question and answer session. I'd like to turn the floor back over to Mr. Marenko for any closing remarks. Kobi Marenko: On behalf of the management of Arbe Robotics Ltd., I would like to thank our shareholders for your continued interest and long-term support of our business. Our employees and partners, your continued dedication is deeply appreciated. In the coming months, we will be meeting with investors and presenting at various investor conferences, which we have announced, and we hope to see some of you there. If you're interested in meeting or speaking with us, feel free to reach out to our Investor Relations team. You can contact us at investors@arberobotics.com to schedule a meeting. And with that, we end our call. Have a good day. Operator: And ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's conference call and presentation. We do thank you for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.
Operator: Hello, and welcome to Freightos' Q3 2025 Earnings Conference Call. A press release with detailed financial results was released earlier today and is available on the Investor Relations section of our website, freighters.com/investors. My name is Anat Earon-Heilborn, and I'm joined today by Dr. Zvi Schreiber, the CEO of Freightos; and Pablo Pinillos, CFO. Following the prepared remarks, we'll open the call for questions. We are sharing slides during the call and using video, so we recommend using Zoom on a computer rather than dialing in by phone. The slides as well as a recording of this earnings call will be available on our website shortly after the call. Please be aware that today's discussion contains forward-looking statements, which are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially due to various risk factors. Please refer to today's press release and our SEC filings for more information on risk factors and other factors, which could impact forward-looking statements. Copies of these reports are available online. In discussing the results of our operations, we'll be providing and referring to certain non-IFRS financial measures. You can find reconciliations to the most directly comparable IFRS financial measures along with additional information regarding those non-IFRS financial measures in the press release on our website at freightos.com/investors. The company undertakes no obligation to update any information discussed in this call at any time. Before we begin, I'd like to note our upcoming investor events. In December, Freightos will participate in the AGP Electric Vehicle and Transportation Conference and [indiscernible] year-end investor conference. In February, the company will participate in the Oppenheimer Emerging Growth Conference. Links to webcast when applicable and other event updates can be found on our website. Today's earnings call will begin with an overview of Q3 performance and overall progress by Zvi. Next, Pablo will present the financial results and the guidance for Q4 and full year 2025. We'll conclude with Q&A. Questions can be submitted in writing during the call by using the Q&A feature in Zoom. Zvi, please go ahead. Zvi Schreiber: Thanks, Anat, and welcome, everyone. And today, I'll cover 3 topics. I'll start with the quarter's highlights and what they mean. Next, I'll discuss the product and network progress that will power our next phase of growth. Lastly, I'll share how the digital transformation of ocean carriers is creating a significant midterm opportunity for Freightos, particularly as we expand our multimodal capabilities. First, let's start with the quarter. In Q3, we processed 429,000 transactions, up 27% year-on-year. It's our 23rd consecutive quarter of record transactions. Unique buyer users were about 20,600, and the number of carriers with more than 5 bookings from our platform during the quarter increased to 77%. Most major airlines are already connected to our platform. So new airline additions are often regional or niche airlines at this point. We're focused on expanding airline coverage in Asia and expect further global expansion as smaller carriers look to leverage our digital channel. These metrics tell a consistent, more buyers and more sellers are using Freightos more frequently, driving short-term revenue growth and long-term scalability of our business. This gives us both breadth and depth on the platform, more opportunities to monetize transactions and to deepen relationships with higher frequency users. Now, let's put this performance in context of the market. During Q3, air cargo volumes increased 4% compared to Q3 2024, reflecting growth in many markets, even as transpacific e-commerce volumes faced headwinds from tariffs and changes to U.S. import regulations. According to our Freightos' Index, FCX, average global air cargo rates decreased 6% compared to Q3 last year. The bigger picture in the freight market, given tariffs and macro uncertainty, is that of volatility and nervousness. Such conditions make speed, transparency and automation in logistics more important. When customers need to move faster and make decisions with less friction, they turn to digital platforms. This is helpful to our Platform segment, but the market nervousness is unhelpful for selling solutions. Now, let's discuss product and network progress. We're excited to highlight our strategic partnership with Visa and [indiscernible], announced by Visa a couple of weeks ago. This collaboration enables us to provide freight forwarders and importers and exporters with access to modern financing solutions through our platform. The partnership integrates Visa's global commercial solution expertise with transcard's payment orchestration technology, creating a more efficient payment experience for our users. The fact that a global leader like Visa has chosen to partner with Freightos demonstrates the significant potential they see in the $600 billion international freight markets and the role that we, Freightos, play in it. Next, we launched and commercially validated our new multimodal rate management and quoting SaaS product, WebCargo Rate & Quote ocean. In Q3, we completed a rollout at our first multinational freight forwarder customer and proved that the workflow quoting air and ocean in 1 product works well in practice. Unifying air and ocean quoting allows freight forwarders to give a superior service to their customers, the importers and exporters. But the real transition towards digital booking happens when that workflow is supported by bookable carrier inventory. For Ocean, that bookable inventory depends on carriers digitalizing more meaningfully, so we can connect them to our platform. I'll expand on that in a moment. A notable early adopter of this product, the new multimodal solution, is Nippon Express, a top 5 global freight forwarder. Nippon Express expanded its use of Freightos this quarter, moving from our own usage to a multimodal deployment across much of its global network. This expansion increased their annual commitment to Freightos by multiples. Given that 90% of goods are transported by ocean, we expect to see many more upsells from air to ocean. Other successes in our Solutions segment this quarter included a number of renewals and targeted scope expansions. For example, we closed an upsell of our terminals rates benchmarking capabilities to a global mining company, expanded Procure tendering functionality with a top 5 pharma company and extended our terminal data contracts with a major electronics customer. That said, we had anticipated even stronger solutions revenue growth than the 30% year-on-year we delivered this quarter. As we mentioned earlier in the year, due to tariffs and the current macro environment, enterprise SaaS deals have had longer sales cycles. So in the meantime, we're strengthening commercial execution. Michael recently joined Freightos as Chief Revenue Officer. Michael brings deep experience scaling digital logistics and enterprise sales, most recently as VP at Premion and previously as SVP of Sales for Intermodal at Project 44 and other B2B companies. He has a proven track record of building commercial relationships across carriers, forwarders and shippers, which will help us further scale multimodal adoption and our enterprise deployments. Michael will ensure Freightos has world-class sales and customer success capabilities with value-based selling to both enterprises and small and medium-sized businesses worldwide, optimizing our LTV to CAC ratio. Now, we talked about our updated software solution for quoting Ocean, but what about ocean booking transactions on our platform. This, of course, requires ocean carriers to make capacity pricing in booking, available digitally, through APIs. We discussed One Ocean Carrier integration success on our last call. And in Q3, we made progress with 2 more integrations, which we expect to go live in the coming quarters. Each integration brings more capacity into our system in an automated form, helping forwarders better source and decide on shipping options in real time. We're now among the first platforms receiving rates from several major global ocean carriers. And our launch of a next-generation ocean rate management solution is, of course, synergistic with our platform finally making progress integrating to ocean liners. With ocean representing approximately 3x the GBV of air cargo, the potential is significant, but we do expect adoption to follow a measured pace, as the conservative industry works through its transformation. We anticipate meaningful revenue contribution in the midterm, not in the immediate future as this transition continues to unfold. Of course, platform growth is not limited to new carriers. Once a carrier is launched on Freightos, we can continue to grow in different geographies. We can add more advanced services, like expanding from general air cargo to temperature control services, expanding from spot bookings or one-offs to handling bookings against negotiated contracts. So these are the operational and commercial priorities that drove our Q3 progress. Pablo will now walk through the financials and explain how these milestones translate into revenue, margin and cash. Pablo? Pablo Pinillos: Thank you, Zvi, and good morning, everyone. I will now go through how the quarter's operating progress translated to the P&L, cover cash and liquidity and then walk through our near-term outlook and priorities. Revenue for the quarter was $7.7 million, up 24% year-over-year. Platform revenue was $2.6 million, up 15% year-on-year, and Solutions revenue was $5.1 million, up 30% year-on-year. As Zvi we said, Solutions and Platforms support each other. The way solutions drive bookings is practical and proven. Our mission-critical SaaS solutions become embedded in a customer's day-to-day operations. Our customers centralized pricing and workflow on freighters and makes it far easier for them to go and then convert those quotes into bookings. Our data supports that dynamic, forwarders that adopt our tools tend to grow transaction volume materially over time. Looking to our cohort data, we see 3 to 4x growth in transaction volumes for cohorts over their initial 2 years using our platform. Put it simple, solutions creates the stickiness that enables more frequent platform bookings because we're still early in the industry's transition to platform model, solutions today represents the majority of our revenue. Over the long term, we target Platform revenue to scale faster and ultimately outpace solutions revenue. Now, let's take a closer look at Platform revenue. You will notice that platform transaction volume and GBV are growing faster than our platform revenue. This is purely due to our business mix. Take rates are not going down in any segment. Our WebCargo platform, which connects freight forwarders with carriers, consistently grows at a faster rate than Freightos.com, which serves importers and exporters. WebCargo operates mainly on a fixed fee model with a lower implied take rate compared to Freightos.com higher take rate structure. As the fastest-growing web cargo continues to outpace Freightos.com, the aggregate revenue platform naturally grows more slowly than transactions volume. Our carrier cohort analysis reinforced this, carriers run quickly after integration, producing a strong booking growth, but much of that early volume is under relatively low fixed fees. So it doesn't translate into proportional transaction revenue immediately. Gross margins were strong this quarter. On an IFRS basis, gross margin improved from 65% a year ago to 69.1% in Q3 this year. And our non-IFRS gross margin rose from 72.7% to 74.8%. That improvement reflects the inherent operating leverage in our model as we continue scaling. We are seeing benefits from automation efforts in customer services, which allow us to handle more transactions with our proportional increases in personnel or infrastructure costs. Looking ahead, restructuring our hosting agreements and infrastructure improvements represents our next significant opportunity to enhance margins. While we have made good progress optimizing our infrastructure costs, there is still more efficiencies to capture. Adjusted EBITDA improved to negative $2.6 million in Q3 2025 versus negative $2.8 million in Q3 last year. That improvement reflects revenue growth, a stronger gross margin and disciplined cost management. Those operational gains were, however, partially offset by continued currency impact, a stronger euro on cycle versus the U.S. dollar, reduced the gain in adjusted EBITDA compared to our operating performance. Our hedging program limited the impact on the cash, so the translation effect shows in the P&L more than in the cash balance. We closed the quarter with **$30.6 million in cash and short-term bank deposits**, a position that supports our continued measured investments in product and commercial execution, while we scale the business to breakeven. Looking ahead, we remain focused on the levers that will narrow losses and drive durable profitability. The overall plan remains the same, keep growing revenue and margins while keeping OpEx close to constant. Our new CRO is already laser focused on cost-efficient growth. With these concrete actions, we continue to plan to reach adjusted EBITDA breakeven in Q4 2026. For the fourth quarter of 2025, we anticipate continued year-on-year growth across transactions, GBV and revenue. Adjusted EBITDA will likely continue to be impacted by foreign exchange headwinds. This means that for the full year, we now expect a more modest year-on-year improvement in adjusted EBITDA than what we have projected at the beginning of the year. Despite successfully reducing our total cost by almost 5% this quarter and 3% year-to-date compared to our budget in a constant currency basis, exchange rate fluctuations have created an unfavorable impact that has significantly reduced these cost savings. A secondary factor relates to our revenue composition, while we remain on track to meet our revenue guidance despite a challenging year on the logistics industries, the mix between our revenue streams differs from our initial expectations. We are finishing the year with a slightly better performance of platform revenue relative to solutions revenue than what we had planned, which we attribute to the longer sales cycles, as Zvi has mentioned it earlier. Since solutions typically generate higher margins, this shift in mix has modestly impacted our overall profitability. Nevertheless, we are pleased that our cash spend remain on track throughout the year. We expect to end the year with cash and equivalents of approximately $27 million, reflecting on cash burn of about $10 million for 2025 compared with $15 million in 2024. We remain focused on the fundamentals, growing revenue while maintaining disciplined cost management and operational efficiency. Based on these fundamentals, we continue to expect reaching breakeven adjusted EBITDA by Q4 2026. Anat Earon-Heilborn: Our first question will come from the line of Jason Helfstein. Jason Helfstein: So when I look at the contribution margin, it's basically year-to-date, it doubled year-over-year, so clearly, you're seeing efficiency and the sales cycle. I think your OpEx, excluding sales and marketing, is up 9% against revenue up, I don't know, some 27% or 29%. And obviously, you called out the pressure of the FX. So you're doing everything you can do. I guess the question is, and you've now told us you're going to -- the plan is breakeven EBITDA by the end of next year. So I guess, is there anything you could do to grow faster organically or inorganically? And I guess, how much of the gating factor growth at this point is kind of the path to breakeven EBITDA and managing the cash balance? And then I have 1 quick follow-up. Zvi Schreiber: Yes. Thanks, Jason. Well, that was a complicated question. So I'm thinking where to start from. The -- look, it's a constant balance. I mean, even now as we finalize our budget for next year, it's a constant balance between growth and breakeven. And we very much want to grow and break even by the end of next year. And so it's a balance between them. For sure, yes, we're doing what we can. Thank you for calling out. We have done a lot of work on efficiency. In fact, if you look back a bit, we've grown in the last -- 2 years, I think revenue has grown 40-something percent and the team hasn't grown at all. So we're certainly becoming more productive the whole time. And beyond that, we are, of course, now with AI, there may be further opportunities for efficiency. So we've been doing that the sort of the hard way, and now, there may be other ways to become more efficient. And Pablo mentioned, we're already seeing some improvements in the customer support using AI. So we're going to continue pushing on that side as well. And then, it's just the balance between how much do you want to spend in sales and marketing to grow, but also to break even. And we'll -- we're finalizing a budget, which will allow us to grow as fast as we can without compromising the target of breakeven. Jason Helfstein: And then just to follow up. I mean, where do you feel like we are with kind of the tariffs volatility? Like are we at a point where now you feel like you're seeing kind of normal shipping volumes? And I don't say normal, like the volatility has slowed down. Like are their patterns now that makes sense? Or it still feels like the ecosystem is still working through the kind of week-to-week changes around certain products and certain tariffs, et cetera? And I don't know if you want to call out China specifically, but any color how it's impacting your kind of thinking, your forecasting of the business. Zvi Schreiber: Yes. It's a bit of both. I mean, certainly, there is not as much uncertainty as there was in April or something like that. But even so I just saw today a headline that President Trump canceled certain tariffs on food. And so it's still -- a, there's still some uncertainty, and you never know what you're going to -- what's going to happen tomorrow. And secondly, even if there's no uncertainty, the tariffs are higher, and that certainly creates some friction for imports to the United States. So in the market data, I presented actually that the overall global trade is up on the year, but trade with the U.S., if I'm not mistaken, was down a bit. So it's still an issue. The uncertainty is still an issue, the tariffs themselves still creates some friction, but it's not at the levels that it were and people are at least to some extent adjusting to the new normal. Like I said in my remarks, it affects us more. We don't feel it's affected. On the platform side, it can be good as well as bad because uncertainty drives the need for marketplaces and finding new opportunities to ship in different ways or from different sources. But solutions, yes, although things have somewhat stabilized, people are still -- freight forwarders, importers and exporters are still more nervous than they used to be to write big checks. We're now busy talking to customers about their plans for next year and getting a feel for whether things can get back to normal. But it was harder to get a big contract signed this year for sure, although we did several, but it was harder than expected, yes. Anat Earon-Heilborn: Next question from the line of George Sutton. George Sutton: I wondered if we could just talk about penetration. You mentioned a lot of the growth will come from -- at least on the air cargo side, from just growing your penetration with the carriers. Can we talk about where we stand in terms of penetration? Any sort of cohort type analysis that you could suggest? Zvi Schreiber: Yes. If you look at -- it sort of -- it varies quite a bit by geography. Our penetration in the European market from a supply perspective is very high. We've got virtually every airline in Europe turned on to the platform, at least for a lot of the capacity, not always for all their capacity. But in Europe, we have a very significant penetration. We have a very nice proportion of the freight forwarders in Europe. I don't know have exact numbers to hand. I don't know exact numbers at all because there isn't a very reliable list, but very significant in the U.S., we're growing nicely, but it's still smaller penetration. And in Asia, we reckon we're still sort of -- whether you look at supply or demand, we're still in the single digits of penetration. That's still a huge amount to do there. George Sutton: So I wondered if you could explain the Visa link and how that might impact your opportunity? And just give us a sense of how it was occurring prior to that or separate from that. Zvi Schreiber: George, you said Visa? George Sutton: Yes. Zvi Schreiber: Yes. Good. So 1 of our initiatives with airlines, both to add more value and to get -- to monetize more to get a better take rate with the airlines is handling payments. That's still a minority of the transactions, the vast majority of transactions on our platform or with airlines. And in most cases, the freight forwarder books on our platform and then pays through an off-line system. But we have a growing platform value add, where we handle the payments. And up to now, we've been doing that with other financial partners or through our own sort of bank accounts in certain cases, depending each country with its regulation, et cetera. Now, with Visa, obviously, we have a partner who's a worldwide name and who has credit lines and other sort of financial technology that we just don't have. So we definitely think that this will enhance our payment solution a lot, and we hope to see payments growing. And over time, really bringing up our average take rates with the airlines, which as you know is one of the issues is we have this fantastic amount of airline revenue being generated from our system. The monetization is still modest. Payments is definitely a way we increase that. and the partnership with Visa is a key way that we make our payments more attractive. George Sutton: Last question for Ocean [indiscernible] midterm growth opportunity, but maybe how you define midterm? Zvi Schreiber: George, you were pretty cut off there, but I think I got the question. George Sutton: I'm just curious how you're defining midterm growth relative to the ocean carriers. Zvi Schreiber: Okay. Yes, very good. That's what I thought you said. So how do I define midterm? Let's say only meaningfully contributing to revenue in 2028. Next year, I don't think Pablo is even going to budget at all for -- there'll be some, but I don't think there's -- it will be even in the budget, 2027. It will start growing. I think it's only in 2028 that we get significant revenue from that aspect. But, of course, just to remind you, and we've discussed this before, George, but once you become the leading platform, that can be a -- that can hold for decades. So this is a very strong long-term opportunity. Pablo Pinillos: Yes, to double down on what you just said, and we will provide guidance for 2026, whenever we provide, but we will probably won't assume revenue for oceans bookings in 2026 at all, and really, really, really probably a small 2027. Any significant will come in 2028, as you said. Zvi Schreiber: But on the solutions side, we did start to see -- I mentioned the deal with Nippon Express and a couple of others where I didn't give names, we will see a nice contribution from solutions to ocean in already in 2026. Anat Earon-Heilborn: Okay. I'm going to read a question from the chat. So as you've stated earlier that platform revenue will be driving the revenue in the future, what target do you have for the take rate by the end of 2026? Zvi Schreiber: Pablo, you want to take that or do you want me to comment? Pablo Pinillos: No, I can start. So we are finalizing the plan for next year. And of course, the -- we will be driving plan to increase the take rate. It will all depend, as we've been saying about the mix, the business mix and how the growth in the WebCargo platform versus the Freightos.com, and within that mix, what are the fasting growth carriers that will drive that mix. Right now, we are in the middle of addressing all of that, and -- but for sure, the take rate will not decline year-on-year, and we are expecting that to grow. Anat Earon-Heilborn: Next question is why is revenue growth slowing down in Q4 despite the addition of carriers and forwarders? How much do you expect FX headwind to affect the revenue? And if the FX stays at the same level as Q4, would it delay the timing of breakeven point? Pablo Pinillos: Let me take this, Zvi. So this, again, for us, is the slowdown in Q4 revenues is related to slower revenue -- solution revenues coming in that we have seen a slightly delayed in being able to close business. It's important to say as well that the -- most of our revenue in Solutions revenue is recurring with a small piece of nonrecurring revenue, and the decline of Q4 that we see is specifically related to a competition of one of development that finished in Q3 that when we did plan, we expected to -- that the Solutions revenue will overcome that decline. But so far, we are -- due to the delays, we are not able to foresee that in the future. And the second question is, if FX stays at the same level as Q4, it won't -- from our point of view, it doesn't mean that it will delay our breakeven in 2026. As a guiding principle, we're going to manage expenses as needed to breakeven in Q4 2026 even if the Solutions revenue, it doesn't accelerate in the future. Zvi Schreiber: And I think Pablo, the FX is mainly affecting us on the expense side, right? Our revenue is mostly dollars and less affected by FX. Pablo Pinillos: Yes. But if the FX maintains the same in a 12-month cycle, everything at the end compensates. Zvi Schreiber: Yes, because we'll budget for next year based on the exchange rates that we know now. And just to emphasize a point that Pablo made, the -- our solutions revenue is mostly recurring. And recurring revenue for solutions will be up, we believe, in Q4, not by as much as we hope for the reasons we discussed, but it will be up. And if you see a dip, it will be just, as Pablo said, because of a nonrecurring project, which has recently come to an end. Anat Earon-Heilborn: Okay. The next question, I think we answered part of it, but the second part -- of the first part, so you recently launched WebCargo Rate & Quote integrating Air and Ocean quoting into a single multi-model platform. What early traction have you seen with major forwarders? And how quickly do you expect Ocean to scale relative to Air in terms of transactions and platform revenue? So I think we answered to George about the second part, but maybe we can talk about the traction with forwarders? Zvi Schreiber: Yes. So I want to separate when it comes to Ocean, which is obviously a major part of how we grow in the next few years. I want to separate Platform and Solutions. Platform, as we said, we are connecting 1 by 1 to some very big ocean carriers, which is exciting progress, but we're not yet at critical mass. We're not expecting for at least a few months to see real volume on the platform side. But Solutions, we mentioned Nippon Express, we mentioned a couple of others. I can also mention that we've just started selling ocean to some of our small forwarders. And so we expect to see good traction on the Solutions side. With Ocean, we have -- the great thing is it's existing customers. So we have 4,000 freight forwarders roughly using our solution for air using our software for air. And so it's just going back to the same freight forwarders and saying now we've got a modern solution to ocean, you can do air and ocean in 1 platform in a beautiful modern software. And so we expect that to be a major part of how we grow solutions revenue next year. Anat Earon-Heilborn: Okay. Our next question is about revenue share with partners. If partners like Meg cap Aviation bring 13 carriers to Freightos platform, what would make a benefit from the partnership? Would get the revenue share from this partnership? Zvi Schreiber: It's not -- yes, interesting question. It's not really a revenue share scenario because they are resellers of the carriers. They're a general sales agent or whatever arrangement they have. So from our perspective, they're a carrier. They may be a virtual carrier, but we treat them as a carrier. They pay us a fee for bringing them a booking. And then, what's between them and the airline is between them and the airlines. So they're not a channel in that respect. They may be a reseller of the airline. But as far as we're concerned, they're a carrier or a virtual carrier. They're the ones selling the capacity on our platform. Anat Earon-Heilborn: Okay. Our last question, I believe. Could you please say how much proportion is recurring and nonrecurring among the solutions revenue? Zvi Schreiber: I don't think we give numbers, but Pablo, I think it's fair to say that a very big majority is recurring of our solutions revenue, right? Pablo Pinillos: Nonrecurring, it doesn't get up to 5%. Zvi Schreiber: Yes. We only mentioned it this quarter because there was a big part of the nonrecurring came to an end. And that's actually not -- it's not our business model to do nonrecurring. We do it sometimes because we have to help the customer -- if we need to help the customer with a project and help them adopt our software, we do it sometimes. And we had 1 big project, which just came to an end on the nonrecurring, but yes, as Pablo said, that's not our model. Our model is selling SaaS and data subscriptions, and it's almost all recurring. Anat Earon-Heilborn: Okay. That was the end of the questions. Thanks, everyone, for joining. Have a good day. Zvi Schreiber: Thanks. Pablo Pinillos: Thank you.
Operator: Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Elders Limited FY '25 Results Investor Briefing. [Operator Instructions]. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Mark Allison CEO and Managing Director. Please go ahead. Mark Allison: Thank you very much, and welcome to all for the Elders' full year results presentation for the FY '25 financial year. And thank you for joining Paul and myself for the session today. As an overview, the full year results today are solid on a year-to-year basis with EBIT up 12%, transformational projects on track, positive progress on leverage and strong cash generation. Throughout the year, Elders has demonstrated solid operational and financial resilience in the face of mixed seasonal conditions. Our diversified portfolio through its national geographic footprint and multiproduct and service offering played a key role in mitigating the dry conditions across key agricultural regions and the increased competitive activity in our retail business. Stronger activity in livestock and real estate and high financial discipline also supported the solid result. On the transformational project front, we've also made good progress on Wave 2 of our SysMod project with all states rolled out and bedded down by the end of this calendar year. We are also well progressed in the final components of this project with Wave 3, and the completion phase, Wave 4, advancing in full on time. Focusing now on the areas out of our control. The FY '25 season has been a problematic year from a seasonal viewpoint, with a drier than average and late start to the winter crop across Southern Australia, with credit to our highly diversified business model, this is offset by our agency business, our real estate services business, our financial services and our feed and processing services businesses. Rural products has seen some limitation with very dry conditions in Southern Australia and Western Australia. In this context, the performance of Elders with its clear and consistent strategy, multiple diversifications, high financial discipline, hard-working and committed team and enduring customer anchor as the most trusted brand in Australian agriculture on an unprompted basis has remained resilient. This result is strong in safety, sustainability and cash flow with the full year outcome approaching the midpoint of the EBIT guidance range provided earlier this year. Moving now to the Delta Agribusiness acquisition, which completed on November 3. This acquisition is fully aligned with the Elders acquisition rationale that delivered Titan Ag, AIRR and many other bolt-on acquisitions to Elders, with pre-synergies EPS accretion, enhancement of our technical and AgTech expertise and offerings, strengthening of our geographical diversification, particularly in New South Wales and Northwest Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia, building on our crop protection and animal health regulatory package portfolio to drive our backward integration strategy, providing an additional platform for retail segmentation, allowing greater customer centricity and providing further coverage for our real estate and financial service offerings. Moving on to the FY '26 outlook. We are very optimistic on the broad outlook for Australian agriculture at a seasonal and commodity level with the return to average conditions. In addition, we welcome Delta Agribusiness to our portfolio as a platform for significant growth. The outlook and fundamentals for livestock remains sound, with prices for sheep and cattle forecast to be supported by strong international demand against the backdrop of tightening supply. The combination of a positive seasonal and commodity outlook also provides a great backdrop for continued growth of our -- in our real estate and financial services businesses. It's worth noting at this point that our first 6 weeks of trading for FY '26 is tracking some 30% up on last year for the same time on an apples-to-apples basis. So this is without the inclusion of Delta that's come in on November 3. Our approach for today is that I'll provide an overview of the results. Paul will go to the detail of our financial performance, and I'll then provide an update of our outlook and growth and transformational initiatives as we deliver the final year of our Fourth Eight Point Plan. With this overview, I will now commence with the FY '25 full results presentation. So if we can move along to the next slide. The approach, as you see with the -- it's worth noting in the appendix that there's further detail and transparency on sensitivities, business model, et cetera. So why it's worth looking at. So kicking off on the executive overview on the slide committed to improving our safety performance. So from a safety viewpoint, at the core backward-looking metric of lost time injuries, there have been 6 lost time injuries this year, which is an increase from last year. Quite a disappointing result, predominantly in the livestock area. And so we have been able to significant reduce -- significantly reduce injuries across our manual handling and our rural products area. But a disappointing result. We continue to aim for zero injuries to anyone. I think it is worth noting that at the start of the Eight Point Plan process, there were 34 lost time injuries. So we've made significant progress over the Fourth Eight Point Plans, and the lost time injury frequency and the total recordable injury frequency, and you can see the trend on the second slide, are significantly below equivalent industry benchmark. Moving to the next slide, just a quick snapshot of the financial performance. You can see the underlying EBIT, some 12% up on last year. Our return on capital of 11.3%, holding stable and maintained strong cash conversion and the dividend per share payout. And moving to the next slide. So Paul will clearly go into the detail on the financials. Moving to the next slide, and this is over the Eight Point Plan years. And you can see significant return as committed in Eight Point Plan 1, 2 and 3. At the beginning of -- prior to Eight Point Plan -- the Fourth Eight Point Plan, we took the decision to invest heavily in our transformational projects. And there's some $100 million of cost and capital being spent through this period in order to drive our systems modernization project, our automated wool project and also our Crop Protection formulation project. So we knew that, that would drag on our cost of capital and resources and focus through that period, but critical transformational projects that we're at the process of completing, with the formulation process complete, the automated wool project complete and with SysMod running into Wave 3 and 4, which are the final 2 waves through next year. Moving to the next slide. And some of the work we're doing across -- with our people and communities. It's worth noting, again, 186 years of Elders in Australian -- regional rural Australia and agriculture. Unprompted remain the most trusted brands throughout all of these areas and with significant activity across -- with multiple activities across the business. From a safety viewpoint, very clear focus on safety from an engagement enablement viewpoint, as you can see, quite high engagement enablement, as have been for many years, and also a very high focus on safety throughout our people. Moving to the next slide. And just a quick look at the work we do from a sustainable responsible future viewpoint. Many of you are aware of our alignment across many environment, people and community projects and the work we've done with our sustainability report. And you'll note the very strong and aligned partnership with the Royal Flying Doctors. So from our viewpoint, this is who we are. This is core to our DNA, and we'll continue to invest and be highly engaged with our communities around Australia. Moving to sustainability. And our progress against the emissions targets with the next slide. And you can see the trend towards the emission targets we've set. We'll continue to work through these. As many of you will also be aware, there's been a reviewed methodology on emissions calculations from livestock. So we're working through that. But I think the point to note is that we're well on track. And if you take the time to read the sustainability report, I think you'll be very impressed with the progress we're making right across the board in this area. Moving to the next slide. And this is really to emphasize one of the changes that we've made this year. Historically, we've been diversified by product and service, and we've talked about that in our business model, and it's in the business model that appears in the appendix of this pack. But you'll see right through the supply chain from crop protection, through the wholesale with the Elders Rural Service, Delta Agribusiness and then real estate and feed and processing, there's a very solid diversification component that comes out of the business. And if you look through all the key investment drivers, and I think Paul will comment on many of these, very strong EPS growth, diversification. The industry fundamentals are looking very good. And I think it's one of the points that you'll hear us make a few times that we're at the stage now where we've moved through our transformational projects and the big cost of capital resource investment, and we've got an outlook of positive commodity conditions and also seasonal conditions. So we feel very, very optimistic about the next 3 to 5 years as we run through all of these. And finally, just as a quick recap before we jump into the deep dive into the financials. The next slide, just to recap on Delta Agribusiness that joined the group on the 3rd of November, a great business, well run, very complementary from a geographical viewpoint, and it fills many gaps that we did have, very strong in its technical expertise, which also complements Elders significantly. We're looking at $12 million of synergies at EBIT level over a 3-year period in the original business case. Now given that the ACCC have put on a 12-month delay, we're discussing around the Delta Board on how we can fast track this with regard to backward integration given the strong foundation of Four Seasons' brands or products at the moment. So that's a very positive opportunity to fast track those synergies, targeting greater than 15% post synergies from an ROC viewpoint and very much aligned to Elders -- across our approach to the business. And as we've said a number of times, as divisions, all the divisions are stand-alone. So with that, I'll pass over to Paul to go through the financials, and then I'll come back towards the end on strategy and outlook. Paul Rossiter: Yes. Thanks, Mark, and welcome, everybody. I'll commence on Slide 14 of the pack, which summarizes progress against key financial objectives. Highlights include: double-digit growth in our agency real estate and feed and processing businesses; below inflation cost growth when adjusted for acquisition and transformation; strong momentum in SysMod, as Mark referenced, with all states now live on Wave 2 retail, and Wave 3 livestock to commence rollout in early 2026; product and geographic diversification, mitigating the impact of dry conditions in Southern states; Delta Ag acquisition to further enhance our geographic diversification from FY '26 and strengthen our technical capability in ag tech and precision agriculture; leverage to return to target in FY '26 through a renewed focus on capital allocation and client profitability. I'll now turn to Slide 15, which displays Elders' 5-year financial performance. I note the following progress from FY '24. Sales revenue increased $70.4 million, or 2.2% despite mixed seasonal conditions supported both by acquisition and organic growth. Gross margin increased 7.4%, up $47 million compared to the prior corresponding period or PCP. Comparatively, costs increased 6.2%, noting this includes the impact from acquisition and is therefore not comparable to inflation. Costs will be further discussed later in the presentation. Underlying EBIT increased $15.5 million compared to PCP, but has declined over the 5-year period, with FY '25 impacted by dry conditions. Moving to Slide 16 now, which contrasts FY '25 against PCP. In addition, this slide details the impact on key financial metrics from capital held on September 30 in preparation for the completion of the Delta Ag acquisition, which occurred on November 3. Elders has delivered a resilient result with the following highlights evident. Sales revenue, up $70.4 million despite dry conditions in some key cropping regions, which thankfully ended in June. Gross margin increased $47 million, to $684.6 million, up 7% year-on-year, with growth achieved across most products. Underlying EBIT increased $15.5 million, to $143.5 million, supported by a strong turnaround in agency services and continued growth in real estate. Return on capital was steady at 11.3%, notwithstanding the mixed seasonal conditions and systems modernization CapEx weighing on this metric as the capital outlay proceeds benefits. Improving this metric in FY '26 is a key priority. Cash conversion was broadly in line with expectations with a favorable outlook for FY '26. Net debt increased $20.5 million, to $457.3 million, excluding capital held for the Delta completion, broadly in line with sales growth and the impact of higher cattle prices. I'll discuss these key metrics further as we move through the pack. Moving to Slide 17, which displays Elders' gross margin diversification, a key defense against seasonal variability. As noted, gross margin increased $47 million, to $684.6 million, with growth across most products more than offsetting the impact on crop protection from dry conditions. The key drivers of this result include agency gross margin up $27.1 million, or 22%, following a strong recovery in livestock prices and increased cattle volumes. The outlook for agency services remains positive, driven by strong international demand for protein as well as some destocking in drier regions, limiting supply and supporting prices. Real estate services gross margin increased $22.5 million, or 27.2% with property management, residential, broadacre and commercial all improved on PCP, supported by both acquisition and organic growth. Feed and processing was another highlight with gross margin up $4.1 million or 23.8% due to productivity and efficiency benefits from the new feed mill commissioned in August 2024. Financial services gross margin increased $2.3 million, or 4.2%, supported by continued growth in our new broker model alongside improvement in the livestock warranty product. An increase in on-balance sheet lending was also achieved, partially because of the increased cattle prices. Collectively, the increase in gross margin across these products more than offset the reduced earnings from the exit of the Rural Bank exclusivity agreement in FY '24. Wholesale products delivered a steady result, notwithstanding lower crop protection sales from those dry regions. Growth in the above products significantly outweighed the negative impact from crop protection, which will be discussed further on the following slide. Moving to Slide 18, which analyzes product performance. This slide demonstrates the importance of our product and geographic diversification. The waterfall forward efficiency chart shows the extent of dry conditions, especially in South Australia and Western Victoria, which negatively impacted Elders' retail business with sales, gross margin percent and client confidence, all impacted. Fortunately, seasonal conditions improved from late June which caused for optimism for a recovery in these regions in FY '26. Turning now to Slide 19 to discuss costs, which increased $11.4 million, or 2.2% when adjusted for acquisitions and the impact of transformation. Part of this increase resulted from the inclusion of Elders Wool in base costs from transformation in FY '24, which added an additional $3 million, or 0.6% to base costs. Given this change in categorization, holding base costs below inflation was a pleasing outcome. Turning now to Slide 20 to discuss return on capital, which was steady in FY '24 despite mixed seasonal conditions. When adjusted for the impact of acquisitions and transformational projects, return on capital is 12.7%. Lifting return on capital is a priority for FY '26 through a renewed focus on capital allocation, client profitability and delivery of SysMod benefits. In terms of capital allocation, Mark will speak to the potential divestment of the Killara Feedlot in the strategy and outlook section. Moving now to Slide 21. And working capital, where we see an increase of $68 million from FY '24, mostly driven by higher cattle prices, which increased working capital in feed and processing and financial services. Resale inventory increased $12 million from FY '24, a pleasing result given the late start to winter crop in key cropping regions, which caused an uplift in carryover inventory. This carryover inventory is forecast to clear in the first half of FY '26. On to Slide 22. And cash flow, where we see an operating cash inflow of $117.9 million, a pleasing result considering the late start to winter crop, which pushed some receivables to the fourth quarter. The outlook for operating cash flow and cash conversion in FY '26 is positive with a focus on client profitability to result in some receivables being transitioned to third-party lenders away from Elders' balance sheet. I note that the physical payment of company tax for Elders Limited will recommence in 2026. We'll now move to Slide 23 to provide a detailed update on net debt and leverage. The waterfall charts display a normalized net debt and leverage position, adjusting for the benefit of capital held at balance date in preparation for the completion of Delta Ag. Breaking down the movement in net debt, we see an increase from $436.8 million at the end of FY '24, to $457.3 million at balance date, acknowledging this includes the benefit of $50 million of equity retained for flexibility in acquisitions, approximately 40% of which was deployed in FY '25. I note that the majority of net debt pertains to client receivables, which is self-liquidating in nature. Excluding receivables funded through debtor securitization, Elders' core debt is $161.9 million. Turning to leverage. We see a reduction from 3.1x at the end of FY '24, to 2.9x, normalized for Delta funds held. A return to our target range of 1.5 to 2x is forecast in FY '26 from a renewed focus on capital allocation and client profitability and increased referral of client loans to third-party lenders given trade receivables comprise almost 2/3 of net debt. I note that the return to target leverage is underpinned by but not dependent on the potential sale of Killara Feedlot. I'll now move to Slide 24, where we see significant headroom across banking covenants, noting that these calculations do not require adjustment for the capital held for the completion of Delta Ag. I also note that our bank leverage covenant excludes receivables funded through debtor securitization given their self-liquidating nature. I'll now move to Slide 25, which provides a macro overview of key growth pillars over the coming years. This slide has been included to demonstrate significant growth opportunities and focus areas over the coming years and is not meant to be exhaustive. Regarding systems modernization, Elders has now commenced the final wave of its SysMod program, which once completed, will provide Elders Rural Services with a modern technology platform in Microsoft Dynamics, which itself is evolving at pace. Delivering a return of at least 15% on the program spend is both a high priority and significant growth pillar in the coming years. The acquisition of Delta Ag represents a significant milestone for Elders, increasing points of presence and geographic diversification while enhancing Elders' technical expertise in ag tech and precision agriculture. Accelerating synergies from backward integration in crop protection and animal health are key priorities for FY '26, as Mark noted. The divisional structure is aimed at improving focus and accountability within significant business units. By way of example, real estate services gross margin has grown $45.6 million, or 77% since FY '23, but market share remains less than 5% nationally. We believe the divisional model will help accelerate growth in this and other business units. Acquisition will remain a growth pillar alongside organic growth, provided acquisition prospects meet our financial and values criteria. Finally, the new Elders' brokerage business is noted as a growth pillar, given success to date with our brokered loan book exceeding $1.3 billion from a near standing start in FY '24. Gross margin from loan brokerage has increased from $0.9 million in FY '23, to $6.1 million in FY '25 at a CAGR of 160% with our network of brokers expanded further in recent months. This concludes the financial section of the presentation. I'll pass back to Mark now, who will provide an update on strategy and outlook. Mark Allison: Thanks, Paul. And really leading off from Paul's comments on the divisional structure, just going to Slide 27 as we look at the Fourth Eight Point Plan. And historically, we've expressed the Eight Point Plan in terms of the diversification of our products and services. And we're now looking at the Eight Point Plan in terms of the 6 divisions of Elders and how that diversification across the matrix of products and services adds further to our ability to work through difficult seasonal conditions. So when you look at the -- this is the final year of the Fourth Eight Point Plan, we've had the ambition of 5% to 10% growth in EBIT and EPS through the cycles over an Eight Point Plan. Clearly, as we -- at above 15% return on capital. Clearly, as we come into a taxpaying state in the next financial year, the EPS growth ambition will need to be adjusted accordingly. But -- and we've emphasized the impact that the transformational part of our agenda over these 3 years has had from a cost of capital and resource on the business. But we're setting us up now for a very solid platform with all the transformational projects coming to a close as we go forward for the next 3 to 5 years. Going on to the next slide. And we -- our view and our move to go to a divisional structure, effective the beginning of FY '26, was really around the fact that each of these areas of the businesses had largely been run as either stand-alone or with a particular focus and emphasis through the governing Board or management team. So as we've laid them out, we've laid them out in order of supply chain, starting with Elders Crop Protection. very experienced managers right across all of the divisions. So Elders Crop Protection with Nick Fazekas. This includes our Titan Crop Protection business and our formulation businesses in Eastern Australia and Western Australia with AgriToll and Eureka. And it's a specialist crop protection business as per Nufarm, Adama, et cetera, et cetera. Then we move the next step along the supply chain to our wholesale business, with Peter Lourey. And this has -- I think you're all aware of AIRR, with multiple touch points and membership base throughout Australia for the AIRR business, and its highly efficient and effective warehouse network throughout Australia. Next, as we go to retail, we have Elders Rural Services, which has a complete offering of retail products, agency products, real estate, financial, et cetera, right across the board. And that business at the moment, since the split of divisions, I've been acting as the divisional CEO for ERS. And very shortly, we'll have an upgrade to that appointment, and we'll announce that in the next few weeks. The next business, again, Gerard Hines running Delta Agri business, very experienced and competent manager and co-founder of the business and with an excellent executive team. So the Delta Agri business doesn't have -- sorry, has a much greater focus on cropping technical service with some additional services -- products and services, but very well run, and looking forward to a period of strong growth and profitability across the board. Elders Real Estate. So Tom Russo had previously run the product of real estate before he ran the Elders network. And so we thought it was appropriate for him to take control of the separate dedicated division. The idea here is that Elders Real Estate has grown significantly, and we'll talk about the growth profile, some slides coming up. Tom is a highly experienced professional in this area, across a number of areas as well, has been the guardian of the expansion of the property management component of Elders Real Estate and also our entry into commercial real estate, which we kicked off a big time in Tasmania. So lots of growth opportunity there, highly dedicated manager and executive team and pretty exciting. And then feed and processing, that, we talked about with Andrew Talbot, another highly experienced manager with a great team. He's grown the profitability of feed and processing fivefold since the First Eight Point Plan, have done an excellent job. The record profitability of this division this year is based on a number of the investments we've made historically with feed mill, center-pivot irrigation, shading, a bunch of investments that have enhanced well [indiscernible] productivity. And it's a very, very well-run business in the portfolio. The consideration we've had with feed and processing is actually if you look across that supply chain, feed and processing is a different business to the others. And our thinking is that it's been highly successful. It's grown significantly. We've invested significant capital and got good returns as we saw with record profitability this year. But we've reflected on whether feed and processing would do much better and go to the next level with under natural ownership. And so that's the reason we're considering a divestment of the feed and processing division. And if the moons align and there's an appropriate shareholder value-creating proposition put in front of us, we'll consider it strongly. And I'll just reiterate Paul's earlier comment that our pathway to back on leverage and to a lesser extent -- well, actually, on leverage is the key metric we're thinking about, is not dependent on the divestment of feed and processing. So if the exercise comes up with options that are not to enhance the shareholder value, then obviously, we're very happy, and it's a great business and a great team to be in the Elders Group. So moving to the next slide. And if we look at the modernizing of the platform, we've talked about SysMod. We gave a commitment from a transparency viewpoint to disclose each of the cost of capital components of each of the waves as the Board approved business cases, so when it was formally approved. And we've done that. But you can see -- and if we include Wave 1, there's some $100 million to $110 million investment over this period. And this is the period in that slide that we talked about upfront, where from '22 -- FY '22, where we have had considerable transformational investment. Now with all of these investments, as we've seen with Killara on the capital investment there, there is a lag. And so the benefits of these investments are coming through now, in FY '26. And as we close off SysMod at the end of FY -- calendar FY '26, we look forward to those investments coming through into the future. And I think it's worth noting that this does really set Elders up with a contemporary platform where we can take advantage of multiple AI opportunities that historically we haven't been able to. So just looking to the next slide and running through each of the waves and the different components of the waves. That's really for information. But as I mentioned, the plan is that we'll complete these. We're still running in full on time, which I know sounds amazing for an IT project, but we're still running in full on time, and it's -- we're looking for the finish line as we run out next year. Okay. Now moving to the next couple of slides. In the next 2 slides, we've wanted to showcase a couple of products and services just to put more of a spotlight on them. And for this presentation, we picked financial services and real estate, which we had covered in the half year. But really to emphasize, in terms of the balance of our portfolio, products and services, we've now -- clearly, we've strengthened our position across the whole supply chain and real products, from Elders Crop Protection, to wholesale, to retail, all the way through and technical service. And in our portfolio, we're looking at really strengthening and rebalancing our financial services, all capital and real estate. So the characteristics of both of these services, as we look at them, and it fits nicely in our portfolio management, a high return on capital. We have a relatively low market share in both, financial services and in real estate. The brand is important. So unprompted most trusted brand in Australian -- regional, rural Australian agriculture. So the Elders brand is critical. There's excellent market outlook in both areas. And obviously, there are links to livestock outlook and general commodity outlook, but a strong outlook, and it really does help us balance the portfolio. So just a quick a quick look at financial services. And you can see, in line with Paul's comments, solid growth, replacing the Rural Bank exclusivity agreement and growing in a capital-light manner. So -- and we can go to questions on that in detail. The next slide on real estate. Very, very similar profile. And I think the gems that are probably not as obvious for everyone. One is the product -- sorry, the property management business. We have some 20,000 properties that we're managing now across Australia, which is a very solid and reliable flow for us and also our entry into the commercial real estate only in regional, rural Australia. So very, very positive platforms. And in terms of portfolio balance, a bit -- quite nuanced, and this is how we run Elders as you -- many of you are very aware. So then going to the forecast and outlook across all of the areas on the next slide with -- without going through each one of them, and [indiscernible] each one of them on the next slide. You can see our thinking is that we've had a period of difficult market conditions and significant transformational investment. We've come through that period. We've lagged benefits from the transformational investment. Right now, we're confronted with the next 3 to 5 years, we're looking at completion of the transformational projects, the commodity outlook and the seasonal outlook being average to positive and our ability to really hone in division by division to grow, to drive the capital out, as Paul mentioned, from a leverage viewpoint and to enhance the business for strong growth against the backdrop of average to good seasons. So it feels very positive. For the first 6 weeks, as I mentioned, of this trading year, FY '26, apples-with-apples. So with that, Delta included, we're up some 30% on the previous year. So very early days. But I think it does fall into the -- our thinking and how we've been talking about our outlook for FY '26 going forward. So with that, I think I'll open up for questions. So we'll just leave that slide on the screen, and we'll open up for questions. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from James Ferrier from Canaccord Genuity. James Ferrier: First question I wanted to ask you about was just on your view on livestock volumes in the year ahead, just in the context of the volumes that were achieved in FY '25 as a baseline, herd sizes as they stand right now. I mean everyone can see the livestock prices, but what's your view on volumes in the year ahead? Paul Rossiter: Yes. Thanks for the question, James. And it is one where there is a little bit of uncertainty going forward, I think particularly in sheep volumes. And just for those who don't know, we saw certainly higher cattle volumes in FY '25, up about 13%. Sheep volumes were down about 8.1%. So we do see that rebuild coming through SA and Western Vic, and that's likely to drag on sheep volumes into FY '26. Cattle is a little bit different just because of the geographical footprint. But it is one to watch. But what we do expect is that if volumes do taper off in sheep, we expect prices to offset because the international thematic for Australian protein remains very strong. And so we just see that price being flowing through the supply chain. James Ferrier: Yes. That makes sense. Second question, on Slide 17. We can see there that crop protection gross profit declined 9% on PCP. What was the volume of product associated with that $129 million of gross profit? Paul Rossiter: Yes, I don't have a volume number to hand, James. So I'll see if I can cover that post. But I will speak to the impact of dry conditions. So we did note a roughly $12 million impact from SA and Vic, [ Riv ] at the half. We saw that continue into the second half, mostly in Q3. We think the impact was roughly $19 million volumes. Yes, we're certainly up in Northern New South Wales, obviously down in SA and Vic, but I don't have the net numbers here. Mark Allison: I think, James, the story is on margin compression as you've seen with other businesses and the sales that we experienced particularly in the dryer areas. James Ferrier: Yes. Okay. Understood. And last one from me and probably one for Paul again. Just some thoughts on D&A, CapEx, interest and tax for the year ahead. Paul Rossiter: Yes. Look, depreciation, well, will increase given the completion of Wave 2 and the commencement of the continued amortization of SysMod CapEx. In terms of CapEx outlook, once again, in FY '26, it is dominated by SysMod. Some of Wave 4 will fall into FY '27, as you can see on the SysMod slide. So it's a bit uncertain, but we think -- I'd say, sort of $20 million to $25 million will fall from SysMod into FY '26 and perhaps another $5 million to $10 million outside of that. In terms of tax, so we will pay a small amount of tax, about $1 million following the submission of the FY '25 tax return. So it will be in February 2026, and then we'll pay effectively pay-as-you-go company tax thereafter. I think your question may be referring to the statutory tax rate, which fell in FY '25. That was pertaining to a tax credit related to prior period for R&D. So that's likely to be nonrecurring. Operator: Your next question comes from Richard Barwick from CLSA. Richard Barwick: Can I just double check, when you're talking SysMod -- and obviously, it looks like some benefits from an EBIT perspective are expected in FY '26. Are you able to put some numbers around that? And then equally, what you would see as the non-underlying OpEx impact from SysMod in '26? Paul Rossiter: Okay. So yes, thanks for the question, Richard. So in terms of benefits, the major tranche of benefits is through an uplift in retail margins. And we see that coming from better control of discounting and better categorization of clients. And just for context, a 1% uplift in retail gross margin percent is about $22 million. So 0.5% uplift there gets us fairly close to the benefits required. The other benefits we see coming from uplift in sales, and that comes from better client data over time, but probably longer dated than the retail margin benefits. In terms of non-underlying OpEx for FY '26, so if we work on roughly 60% CapEx, 40% non-underlying OpEx, over that sort of $20 million to $25 million in FY '25. Richard Barwick: Okay. And my other question is to do with the -- there's quite a sizable impairment of goodwill obviously captured within this FY '25 result. Can you just give us a little bit more background exactly what that related to, please? Paul Rossiter: Yes. So there's a couple of businesses that we impaired, both which were reported on during FY '25. So one was Currin Co, where we lost a number of agents in Victoria. The other was Esperance Rural. Yes, we had, I suppose, an unsuccessful transition post earnout. Mark Allison: I think, Richard, it's -- one of the learnings is that, as you know, we've been highly successful with our acquisition -- bolt-on acquisition template in keeping the vendors in the business. And when we do our post-implementation reviews post earnout, it's been 95% plus positive. And we've identified in the last 12 months, whether it's through tougher conditions or whatever the driver is, that the 2 years post earnout is now an area that we need to really focus on in terms of potential loss of staff as we saw with -- actually, it was longer than 2 years with Currin Co, where the vendor leaves the business, the earnout is completed. Historically, we've seen that in business as usual within ERS. And we've now established a project a couple of months ago to identify how we ensure that we don't get a repetition of that situation because it had been a very high success rate of post earnout of keeping the people. Richard Barwick: And well, I guess it's -- the obvious question is, what are the risks? I mean, obviously, you've got something in place here to try and to mitigate it, which would suggest you are a bit concerned that this could repeat with some -- because I mean you made a lot of acquisitions in the last few years. Yes, how do we think about that risk? Mark Allison: Yes. Well, I think the -- a couple of points, is that if there is -- like something in the order of 100 bolt-on acquisitions, and we've had 2 or 3 like this. Clearly, the Currin Co was a larger one. If you like a sense of Shakespearean irony, the Esperance rural supply defection was to Delta. I'm sure you enjoy that. But the -- I think the materiality of it has dropped off because we aren't pursuing the same sort of strategy on bolt-on acquisitions that we had, as you're aware, given that the rural product supply chain is pretty complete and also given that the ACCC regime is hard to unscramble to do business. The -- our sense is that, that won't be where we'll be getting our growth from. It will be more organic. But I think the issue is that post earnout, the -- and we have time. We have 2 or 3 years each time. We have to have the business as usual hooks and retentions in place for these people. Because as you know, in regional, rural Australia, the personal relationship goes a long way. Operator: Your next question comes from Ben Wedd from Macquarie. Ben Wedd: Maybe just turning to your question -- your comments around capital allocation there and particularly with the potentially moving some of the receivables into third-party lenders there. I'd just be interested in sort of, I guess, any timeframes you can give around that and how that sort of looks from an operational standpoint. Paul Rossiter: Yes. Thanks, Ben. Look, it is something -- and I think the way that I'd explain it firstly is that we are taking a return on capital approach. So where we're not seeing, I suppose, a deep relationship with clients that warrants the use of Elders' balance sheet, then we'll look to obviously do that business with the client that use third-party financiers. So we do see this as certainly something that has commenced already. It's a process that's commenced. And that will roll through FY '26 and beyond. But it won't be something that we seek to do hurriedly either. So it will be an incremental thing over a number of years with a significant start in FY '26, particularly in the fin services and seasonal finance areas. Ben Wedd: Yes. Got it. And then maybe just any comments you can sort of give us around Delta's sort of performance over the last 12 months as it might compare to Elders as well in some of those key categories like ag chem and other cropping areas. Paul Rossiter: Yes. Thanks, Ben. So I mean, just a couple of comments. I think the first thing to note is that Delta's financial year is June 30, and their footprint was very exposed to dry conditions that occurred in FY '25. So I think there are a couple of key distinctions between Delta and Elders. The other being, Elders obviously had an offset in livestock agency that doesn't exist to the same extent in Delta. Yes, so the Delta result was impacted certainly more than Elders by the dry conditions. Trading, since it started raining in July in Delta has been above -- certainly above PCP. So yes, that business is operating very well. Operator: Your next question comes from Evan Karatzas from UBS. Evan Karatzas: Maybe just to follow up on that one then, so sort of the ASIC accounts for Delta. So the EBITDA went from sort of the $53 million to $40 million. Can you sort of just give a bit more information around if you expect that original FY '24 earnings to be realized assuming, I guess, normal conditions? And then anything you can say around the synergy benefit we should expect in '26 for Delta as well? Mark Allison: Yes. I think the key point for us is that what we experienced as the turnaround from these dry conditions was outside the Delta financial year. And so that's what we've experienced ourselves. Just as a note, prior to going to the next phase on the acquisition a few months ago, we -- so Paul, myself and the Chair of the time, Ian Wilton, sat down with the Delta management team to go through their FY '25 results, just to give ourselves comfort that our proposition and thesis on the acquisition remained on track. And after the presentations, discussions, I think, Paul, it's fair to say that we felt very, very comfortable. In terms of your question on the synergies, I think it's a key point for us. We've already had meetings with the team, with [ Jarred ] and Matt and Chris and the team around the synergies. We had planned for 12-month -- sorry, a 3-year development of the -- or extraction of the $12 million synergies. Our belief is that given the timing, given the November 3 timing and the proximity to the FY '26 winter crop that we do have time to do a lot of the work that we wouldn't have been able to do if it had been in the same period the previous year. So our sense is that we can fast track those synergies and bring them through. And as you know, they're largely crop protection. They're largely providing different crop protection supply chains out of Titan into the Four Seasons brand. And with Steve Hines, the person who runs that business within Delta, there's great alignment with Nick Fazekas, who runs the overall crop protection business. So we've established the governance structure, the Board structure, et cetera, around Delta and all the divisions. And again, I feel pretty comfortable and optimistic that we will get -- we will optimize the synergies in FY '26. Evan Karatzas: Okay. And just final question. Just with the debt position, can you provide a number of -- to sort of normalize it if you remove the reduction in carryover inventory in SA, Vic and removing or transitioning some of the select client loans from Elders' balance sheet to third parties, just so we can sort of look for an adjusted or a like-for-like debt position, please? Paul Rossiter: Yes. Look, just very high level and back of envelope, I would say the carryover inventory, I've put a number of around $30 million on that, which we expect to be resolved in the first half. In terms of -- I'll put another bucket in there, Evan, in terms of overdue debtors, we think there's a $20 million to $25 million opportunity there. You may have noted that we have had a $10 million increase in 90-day plus receivables. That is 2 clients -- 2 large clients, that we expect to be resolved in FY '26. So we feel that we're at a peak in terms of overdue receivables as well. And then you've got -- in terms of client receivables or client loans, seasonal finance and loans, I've put a number of sort of around -- a target of around $50 million across financial services and seasonal finance. Evan Karatzas: Okay. That's super helpful. Maybe just a quick one, I'll just sneak it in. The 1Q comments you made, do we assume you're up 30%? Do we assume we're sort of back close to that? I think you previously mentioned, like, a through cycle 1Q average EBIT was around $37 million. Is that sort of where we're, I don't know, trending towards or run rating towards? Paul Rossiter: Yes. And I think the -- in terms of tailwinds in the business, Evan -- so I think the -- certainly, livestock prices are up relative to year-on-year. I'd say that tailwind will moderate the further we get through the financial year. Obviously, livestock prices increased throughout FY '25. But I think in terms of the Q1, it goes back a couple of years, when we gave that number, obviously noting that's not audited. But yes, it's a fair comment. Operator: Your next question comes from Paul Jensz from PAC Partners. Paul Jensz: Just one at the top, Mark, if I can. You talk about the 5% market share you have in the wider farm input space. Can you see some additions to your business or the Elders business? Or is it a case of organic growth from where you are to get a larger part of that pie? Mark Allison: Yes. Thanks, Paul. So when you say the larger rural products, are you referring to finance? Paul Jensz: Right across the board. You had a chart there with the Delta acquisition where you're a small part of a very big pie in farm inputs. and you've got the new structure that you have. I'm just wondering where to from here if you're just such a small part of the pie? Mark Allison: Okay. Yes. So that broader pie includes fuel, like all the finance, et cetera, et cetera. So a whole heap of services that we're not in. So I think our focus with -- well, I think it's -- the focus that Delta has had for a long time, will continue on, where it's a service-based customer-centric approach across the board. Delta is very small in Queensland and -- but ERS is also not that strong in Queensland. So there are geographical gaps, but it will largely be sticking to the knitting of what each of the divisions does best. And in that -- in the case of Delta, although it's got some broader offers, the focus is around that very technical rural products-based customer centricity. Paul Jensz: And that's across the broader Elders business as well, if I look at the new structure that you have? It's really just sticking to the core business? You don't see another bolt-on there? Mark Allison: No, I don't think so. I think our view is that the -- any deviations, slight deviations from where we are now, we've talked about in the Elders Real Estate business, it's around strengthening our commercial real estate in regional rural Australia area, continuing to build on our property management business, which is a really solid good business. I think in ERS, there's a lot of -- in the traditional pink-shirted DRS front end, there's a lot of efficiency. Because we've just put SysMod through ERS, they've got the front-end point of sale across all the branches across Australia. So it's really around all the efficiencies that we promised and controls. And again, customer understanding that Paul talked to in terms of data, that ERS hasn't been doing in the past. In terms of Elders Crop Protection, I think the focus will be some -- a little more on integration because the formulation businesses run stand-alone to the traditional Titan business. So we'll slowly move around integration there on systems. And then feed and processing, really, we're looking at ways of expanding efficiency with acquiring extra land with some increased backgrounding, many of the efficiency programs that we've had previously. So across each division -- and I guess it goes to the point of why having focused divisions makes so much sense. Because each of them have their own nuance, their own focus, and it allows the management teams to really drive the efficiency and profitability. Paul Jensz: Okay. And then if I -- just a second question, if I can, if I build the building blocks towards, let's say, 2027, '28 numbers that consensus have, it doesn't seem to be a lot of, I suppose, underlying organic growth if you do the SysMod 250 staff that came across with the bolt-ons, Delta and the small free kit you get from '25, some of the earnings come into '26. So I'm interested in that organic growth number because I don't think consensus has got a big number in there for it and neither do I at the moment. Mark Allison: Yes. Well, I'm not sure how the -- what the assumptions are on the models. But I do know from a -- I mean, if backward integration is organic growth, and we certainly see it that way, the backward integration opportunity for ERS still has 10-or-so percent to go of the available generic portfolio and the -- just in crop protection and in Delta, there's probably 40% to go. So I think from us doing things that we control, not relying on market conditions, there's a lot of -- and then you've got also the benefits, the lag benefits of the transformational projects. But yes, your observation is probably right, Paul. Paul Jensz: And the final one, I thought others would ask this question, Mark, but I'll do it. The press -- I love talking about management transition, Mark, and your term comes up at the end of next year. I'm interested in whether you could return fire with what the press, like, talking with management change. Mark Allison: Yes. No, I thought the comment in the Australian was relatively accurate. I said when we refreshed the Board and I stayed -- I decided to stay, I said the earliest that I'd leave would be at the end of this Eight Point Plan, so that's September next year. And that's still the case. And it's not a term in the contract. It's an ongoing contract. So basically, my position has been that as a minimum, I'll stay to the end of the Eight Point Plan. Operator: Your next question comes from John Campbell from Jefferies. John Campbell: Firstly, just for clarity, what's the dollar value of adjustments that you've made to arrive at adjusted EBIT? Paul Rossiter: So you're -- in the investor presentation, John? John Campbell: Yes. Yes, it just said $143 million, just for clarity. So I know what we're adjusting. Paul Rossiter: Okay. I might just come back offline on that. So we do have -- we've got a list in the annual report, but yes, I'll come back on that offline. John Campbell: Yes. I can see where you've got that in the accounts. I just wasn't 100% sure which is included in your adjustment calculations. But I think we've got a call on this afternoon, Paul, so we can maybe touch base then. And just Mark, around -- and you sort of touched on it, but I presume with the improving seasonal conditions in the Southern regions that impacted in FY '25, in terms of that competitive intensity in crop protection that you've been talking about, I presume you see FY '26, so that sort of level of intensity and price competition and the like abating over the course of '26? Mark Allison: Yes. I think there are probably 2 components that leads us to think that way. One of them is around the seasonal conditions, as you just mentioned. And the second one is the stabilization of COGS out of Chinese factories. So the idea of lower priced cost of goods coming into Australia and then driving market price down, that doesn't seem to be where it was. Earlier, I think 6 months ago, we were concerned that tariffs on Chinese crop protection into North America may drive dumping of product in Australia and therefore, further drive prices down. If you're caught with high-cost inventory, you're obviously going to be screwed from a margin viewpoint. But our sense is that it's stabilized. And regardless, even a stabilized normal season environment, Australia has the lowest crop protection prices for all around the world. And it's not uncommon for multinational companies to divert product from Australia to Europe because they can make so much more money out of the same active ingredient. John Campbell: Okay. So that all augurs pretty well for crop protection for '26? Mark Allison: It looks like -- yes, as I said, I think we're pretty optimistic, both commodity season and the back of the transformational projects. Operator: Your next question comes from Mark Topy from Select Equities. Mark Topy: I just wanted to ask a question around the property side, the retail, the growth and both in the gross margin and the sort of volumes and some expectation around that and maybe some breakdown between what's organic and what's been achieved by acquisition because you clearly got a very strong growth rate. Can you give us some sense of how that looks going forward now? Paul Rossiter: Yes. Thanks, Mark. So just for clarity, so that was for real estate services. Mark Topy: Yes. Paul Rossiter: Yes, yes. So look, we -- in terms of growth, we see roughly the split between acquisition and organic, about 60% acquisition in F '25, 40% organic. I do note that one of the significant benefits from the acquisition of Knight Frank was to substantially grow our commercial real estate business. It also introduced a valuations business to the group as well. So when we think about real estate growth, it is across residential properties under management, broadacre, commercial and now valuations. So there's a few strings to the bow there. I'd also just make a comment in regards to broadacre. It did grow, but very fractionally in F '25, that part of the book was held back by the dry conditions in South Australia and Victoria. We do expect sort of pent-up vendor demand as those regions improve. Mark Topy: Right. Just thinking about the Tasmania market, kind of, say, how much growth opportunity do you see in that market going forward? Mark Allison: Yes. I think with Tasmania per se, I think it's -- it would be incremental growth. But I think the big benefit of that acquisition, which is the old Knight Frank business, is the commercial real estate knowledge, networks, et cetera, in the Mainland. And we're already seeing that is very, very important. So there are many contacts and insights that we didn't have on commercial real estate that we've gained from that business that is really helpful in our approach to Mainland expansion in commercial real estate. Mark Topy: Great. And just on the Delta side then, can you just talk to the systems and system harmonization in terms of what's being done in the Elders and whether any CapEx might be required if you like to harmonize Delta in line with Elders? Mark Allison: Yes. So the SysMod project is predominantly Elders'. And our approach at the end of Wave 4 when we switched off the AS400, and we're completely on Microsoft Dynamics 360 -- 365, sorry, we might have got a discount. Definitely not. So from that point forward, each of the acquisitions or each of the other divisions, whether that be AIRR, Elders Crop Protection or Delta, will be business case-based. So if there's a business case from the Delta Board around aligning, enhancing systems, then it will be treated on a return on capital business case basis. And we want to take it to business as usual because it's not just an ideological, everything has to be on the same system. This is all around return to shareholders. And all the systems that they're all operating on are fine. Mark Topy: They're all fine. Okay. I was going to say. And then in terms of -- I know you want to accelerate the Delta, but in terms of any risk areas, in terms of that integration, I noticed, for instance, they've got -- they're using different property managers. Do you perceive any sort of issues in migrating Delta across to Elders in that regard? Mark Allison: No. Well, I mean, it's all going to stay the same. So there's -- in terms of backup and stuff, which I think you're talking about. So we've got a mandatory integration. We've got a [ might ], and then there's a light touch component of it. Each of those are being developed with project teams between the businesses. So the -- our view is that it's a well-run business. It's got good management. It's got a strong Board governance to set the direction, and we'll be making the right decisions for the right reasons rather than any kind of ideological control-based decision. Of course, the mandatories around safety, financial transparency, regulatory compliance and so they're mandatories, as you'd expect. Operator: Unfortunately, that does conclude our time for questions. I'll now hand back to Mr. Allison for closing remarks. Mark Allison: Okay. Well, thank you very much to everyone. I did note that we have a couple more in the queue. So apologies to those. Paul and I have a back-to-back with all Elders staff. So 2,000 or 3,000 people will be waiting on the line for 5 minutes. So we've had to call it there. So for those that we haven't been able to talk to, we look forward to talking to you in our one-to-one sessions. But I appreciate everyone coming in, and thank you very much. Operator: That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.
Operator: Good morning, and welcome to Aramark's Fourth Quarter and Full Year Fiscal 2025 Earnings Results Conference Call. My name is Kevin, and I'll be your operator for today's call. At this time, I'd like to inform you this conference is being recorded for rebroadcast. And that all participants are in a listen only mode. We will open the conference call for questions at the conclusion of the company's remarks. please proceed. I will now turn the call over to Felise Kissell, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations and Corporate Development. Ms. Kissell, please proceed. Felise Kissell: Thank you, and welcome to Aramark's earnings conference call and webcast. This morning, we will be hearing from our CEO, John Zillmer; as well as CFO, Jim Tarangelo. As always, there are accompanying slides for this call that can be viewed through the webcast and are also available on the IR website for easy access. Our notice regarding forward-looking statements is included in our press release. During this call, we will be making comments that are forward-looking. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied as a result of various risks, uncertainties and important factors, including those discussed in the Risk Factors MD&A and other sections of our annual report on Form 10-K and SEC filings. We will be discussing certain non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of these items to U.S. GAAP can be found in our press release and IR website. With that, I will now turn the call over to John. John Zillmer: Thanks, Felise, and thanks to all of you for joining us. On today's call, Jim and I will review our fourth quarter and full year results including the strategic, financial and operational milestones accomplished in fiscal '25. We've built upon our historically strong consistent performance and advanced a number of initiatives that position us well for the years ahead, which will be discussed in more detail. First and foremost, we take delivering on our commitments very seriously, and it's important to understand that as we onboard an unprecedented level of new business, we took the appropriate time to work closely with certain large clients in preparing for a seamless transition to Aramark becoming their new hospitality partner. In some cases, this led to a shift in the timing of new account openings, which impacted revenue in the fourth quarter. With many of these sites now up and running, we are well positioned for strong revenue performance in the quarters ahead. We are more resolved than ever to meet and even exceed the high yet very attainable bar we set for ourselves. This past year has represented many consequential firsts for the company, all of which contribute to the strong growth trajectory for the businesses, including annualized gross new wins of $1.6 billion, which is 12% higher than fiscal '24 and reflects the largest contract awarded in FSS U.S. history and the second largest globally. An industry-leading client retention rate of 96.3%, with many lines of business and countries in the portfolio above this retention level. All combined, resulting in net new of 5.6%. Over $1 billion of new purchasing spend added for a second consecutive year in our supply chain GPO network. And lastly, achieving a leverage ratio of 3.25x, a number we haven't seen since prior to when Aramark went private in 2007. Our new business pipeline across the organization is significant, including first-time outsourcing opportunities, and we are already off to another strong start at this early stage of the fiscal year. This includes adding Blue Origin, Pennsylvania's Eastern Public Schools, the Welsh Rugby Union as well as expanding our services for Airbus. I have great confidence in the company's continued ability to achieve net new of 4% to 5% of prior year revenue, with retention levels exceeding 95% in fiscal '26 and beyond. And when we over-deliver on this metric, we reward our teams appropriately, as was the case particularly in the fourth quarter, reflected in additional incentive-based compensation from net new business, an objective representing 40% of the company's incentive plan for leaders across the organization. Moving to our results in the quarter. Aramark's organic revenue increased 14%, largely from net new business and base business growth. Excluding the 53rd week, organic revenue was toward the higher end of our long-term growth model. FSS U.S. grew organic revenue 14% in the fourth quarter. Again, excluding the 53rd week, organic revenue was up mid-single digits, led by Workplace Experience and Refreshments continuing its pace of record net new business, Collegiate Hospitality with strong retention rates, meal plan optimization success, and benefiting from higher student enrollments, particularly from our portfolio of academic institutions in the popular South and Southeast. And Healthcare reporting its best performance in over 2 years. Our Healthcare+ business was recently named #1 in Best Places to Work by Modern Healthcare for our commitment to a people-first culture and operational excellence across the industry. While we are encouraged with our roster of high-performing teams as the MLB playoffs approached, the outcome was not what we anticipated with the majority of our teams ultimately falling out of playoff contention. We've now entered the NFL, NBA and NHL seasons where fan attendance has been strong to date. Leveraging our expertise in professional sports, Aramark's Collegiate Sports business is experiencing double-digit revenue growth with per capita rates up 14% year-over-year, driven by increased concession spending and expanded premium services. I also want to commend our employees in the Destinations business, who worked closely with the National Park Service to assist during and following the devastating Dragon Bravo fire in the Grand Canyons North Rim. We had been operating the historic Grand Canyon Lodge, which was severely damaged. While it's still early, we are supporting the recovery and rebuilding efforts in the region and are optimistic about what's ahead for their visitor experience at the North Rim. We continue to expand our enterprise-wide capabilities and collaboration, which resulted in our new multiyear agreement with the University of Pennsylvania Health System, the largest contract win ever in the U.S. from one of the most prestigious medical systems in the world. We are proud to put our understanding of sophisticated and complex health care systems to work in new settings. We will be providing patients in retail food, environmental services and patient transportation, alongside an integrated call center to support these operations at sites across a nearly 4,000-bed, 7 hospital system. Among our many technologies offered at Penn Medicine will be an AI-driven patient menu platform that configures patient meals based on diagnosis and dietary requirements, in addition to proven robotic applications for both environmental services and meal preparation. Our proprietary AIWX platform will be used to map staffing and other needs, as well as our Quick Eats micro markets and mobile ordering platforms. We look forward to launching operations early in calendar '26 and are working closely with Penn Medicine to identify other opportunities to further grow the partnership. Additional clients added to the U.S. portfolio in the fourth quarter included Chicago's DePaul University in Collegiate Hospitality, where we'll begin operating next semester. Discover, following the acquisition by Capital One, also a client, as well as expanding our hospitality services into top-tier law firms within Workplace Experience. Now on to International. Once again, International delivered consistent double-digit organic revenue growth increasing 14% in the fourth quarter, with approximately 3% growth coming from the 53rd week, led by substantial new business, high retention and strong base business growth. All geographic regions contributed to this performance, with particular strength in the U.K., Canada, Ireland, Spain and Latin America. Toward the end of the quarter, International experienced its highest revenue ever for a single 1-day event when the NFL's Pittsburgh Steelers played the Minnesota Vikings at Croke Park Stadium in Dublin, Ireland, all Aramark clients. We also just had great success at Olympic Stadium in Berlin, Germany with another NFL match-up as the league's fan base continues to quickly grow in Europe. International was awarded new clients in the fourth quarter across sectors and geographies. This included expanding our growing presence in the UEFA Champions League and Bundesliga with the addition of Bayern Leverkusen Football Club in Germany, the health care network of Hospital Italiano in Argentina, energy exploration and developer, ENAP, in Chile, and mining leader, IAMGOLD, in Canada. Looking forward, we expect International to maintain its strong business momentum, delivering on a growth agenda focused on culture, team, capabilities and process. Turning to global supply chain. Avendra International added another $1 billion of new purchasing spend in its GPO network this past fiscal year, primarily from travel and leisure, health care, senior living and education. The supply chain team is also leveraging enhanced technology capabilities to optimize client compliance and contract productivity. We're making the appropriate investments to build upon our strong analytics and client mobile chatbot platforms. These powerful tools put the answers our frontline clients need in the palm of their hand and continue to deliver back-end efficiencies in our supply chain operations. We are now deploying these solutions globally. We are expanding our international footprint and supply chain, and the Quantum acquisition has fit well into the portfolio, contributing accretive growth to both Europe and Latin America. Inflation levels have been as expected, and we currently estimate inflation around the 3% range heading into the new fiscal year as we continue to effectively manage the broader macro environment. Our teams are closely monitoring any changes in the marketplace and will leverage our extensive capabilities to support our clients. Before turning the call over to Jim, I want to reiterate that our teams across the company are hard at work and focused on accelerating performance, and we are already seeing success entering the new fiscal year in leveraging enterprise-wide capabilities, starting operations for a record number of new clients, maintaining our client retention momentum, optimizing global supply chain strategies and, lastly, pursuing substantial growth opportunities. Jim? James Tarangelo: Thanks, John, and good morning, everyone. We reported another year of commendable operational performance on both the top and bottom line, a testament to the capabilities of our business model. We are experiencing unprecedented levels of success in key leading indicators of performance, annualized gross new wins and client retention, which provide us the momentum to deliver our expected growth in fiscal '26 and even beyond. I want to now provide some insights into our fiscal '25 financial performance before reviewing our expectations for the upcoming fiscal year. As John reviewed, fourth quarter organic revenue was up 14%. The growth was driven by new business, high retention levels, increased base business and the benefit of the 53rd week which contributed approximately 7%, more than offsetting a shift in the timing of new account openings. For the full fiscal year, we reported revenue on a GAAP basis of $18.5 billion, up 6% compared to the prior year, with approximately 1% of foreign currency impact. Organic revenue grew 7% versus the prior year, again from net new business, base business and 2% from the 53rd week. And as you know, also reflects the company's portfolio exits in Facilities in the prior year. Adjusted operating income for the quarter was $289 million, and grew 6% on a constant currency basis, led by higher revenue levels, leveraging technology capabilities, particularly in supply chain, and above-unit cost discipline. The increase more than offset higher incentive-based compensation of $25 million recorded in the quarter associated with achieving record net new business. As a reminder, our growth-oriented model is structured with 40% of our incentive-based compensation tied to an annualized net new business metric. Throughout the fiscal year, we accrued this compensation based on expected performance. The Penn Medicine win in the fourth quarter, in particular, resulted in a maximum payout under the incentive plan for this metric. Additionally, we did have higher prescription claims in the quarter along with some new business start-up costs in Higher Ed and Collegiate Sports, areas of attractive growth for the company. Excluding these expense items in the quarter, AOI margin would have been higher by 70 basis points. The company has taken decisive actions to decrease future medical expenses related to elective lifestyle prescription, specifically GLP-1 coverage. For fiscal '25, AOI was $981 million, up 12% on a constant currency basis, which represented AOI margin expansion of nearly 25 basis points. This growth was led by our operating levers and the estimated contribution from the 53rd week of approximately 2%. Which more than offset the additional incentive-based compensation I just mentioned, affecting AOI growth by 3% or 20 basis points. Turning to the business segments. The U.S. reported AOI growth of 2% during the quarter. Growth was due to higher revenue levels, enhanced technology capabilities and effective cost management. AOI growth in the quarter more than offset the higher expenses associated with incentive-based compensation, medical and some new business start-up costs already mentioned. We also took the opportunity to make some strategic reinvestments within Destinations, which included property development, digital marketing optimization and other enhancements to drive the guest experience. To a lesser extent, we did feel some effect from our MLB teams falling out of playoff contention. The International segment experienced AOI growth of 31% during the fourth quarter and 21% for the full year, both on a constant currency basis. AOI margin for the year improved by more than 40 basis points. AOI growth and margin expansion was led by higher revenue, effective cost management and supply chain efficiencies. For the fourth quarter, adjusted EPS was $0.57, up 6% on a constant currency basis. For the full year, adjusted EPS was $1.82, an increase of almost 20% and on a constant currency basis. The additional incentive-based compensation impacted adjusted EPS by $0.07 in both the fourth quarter and full year. On a GAAP basis, Aramark reported consolidated operating income of $218 million and EPS of $0.33 in the fourth quarter. And for fiscal '25, operating income was $792 million and EPS was $1.22. This included severance charges from restructuring initiatives to further optimize operations as well as a noncash asset write-down in the fourth quarter associated with a minority interest investment made in the previous fiscal year. Moving to cash flow. Consistent with our normal seasonality of the business, the fourth quarter generated a significant cash inflow, which contributed to our strong cash flow for the full year. Net cash provided by operating activities in fiscal '25 was $921 million, and free cash flow was $454 million. Our free cash flow grew by more than 40% compared to the prior year period from higher cash from operations and favorable working capital, particularly from improved collections. Our cash flow performance and higher earnings resulted in our consolidated leverage ratio improving to 3.25x at the end of September, down from 3.4x a year ago and represent the company's lowest level in nearly 20 years. We closed the fiscal year with more than $2.4 billion of cash availability. This provides us with the continued flexibility to execute on our capital allocation priorities, which effectively optimizes investing in the business, reducing leverage below 3x and increasing the quarterly dividend, which was just increased by 14%, while repurchasing stock utilizing excess cash generation. I'll now wrap up with our outlook for fiscal '26. Based on our current expectations, we anticipate the following full year performance. Organic revenue of $19.45 billion to $19.85 billion, representing growth of 7% to 9%. AOI of $1.1 billion to $1.15 billion, an increase of 12% to 17%. Adjusted EPS in the range of $2.18 to $2.28, reflecting growth of 20% to 25%. And a leverage ratio below 3x. One point to keep in mind on the quarterly cadence for fiscal '26. There is a slight calendar shift from the 53rd week in fiscal '25, which has no effect on the full year fiscal '26 numbers, with more detail in the analyst modeling section of our earnings slides. In summary, we remain resolved in driving our strategies to capitalize on the significant growth opportunities for the business centered on strong revenue growth and through new business wins, high client retention rates and base business growth. At the same time, we expect to continue accelerating our profitability from our multiple operating levers, including differentiated supply chain capabilities and disciplined cost management, enhancing our efficiencies and scale across the business. With a resilient business model and a clear path forward, we are well positioned to deliver long-term value for our shareholders. We believe the future of the company is extremely bright, and we're energized about the opportunities ahead. Thank you for your time this morning. John? John Zillmer: Thank thank you, Jim. With fiscal '26 now underway, we look ahead with great confidence. Our efforts are centered on building a high-performing, sustainable business focused on providing exceptional hospitality services to our clients. I want to reiterate that we are committed to creating significant value for our shareholders and are taking the appropriate actions to realize this unwavering objective. And operator, we'll now open the call for questions. Operator: Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. If you have a question, please press star then 11 on your touch tone phone. If you're using a speakerphone, you may need to pick up the handset first before pressing the numbers. In order to accommodate participants in the question queue, please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. Remove yourself from the queue, please press star 11. Our first question comes from Ian Zaffino with Oppenheimer. Ian Zaffino: Very impressive on the new win side. I mean, I guess this kind of just speaks to the culture of the company, retentions going up. And I guess this is just a culmination of a very kind of client-focused culture here. Glad you're taking the time to spend time with the clients to do so. But the question would be, when we're thinking about these new account openings, can you maybe just delve a little bit more into the shift in timing? Was this in particular sectors or areas? Do you think it will continue? Any economic related factors that you didn't mention? Or any kind of other color there would be helpful. John Zillmer: You bet. Yes. First of all, it was the calendar shift or the opening shift, if you will, really occurred in multiple businesses, Corrections, Workplace Experience and Healthcare, all had kind of late-breaking opportunities for openings, which were deferred into calendar -- into fiscal '26. Without going into specifics, the impact was significant in the quarter, but it was appropriate from a timing perspective to make sure that we could open effectively. And frankly, it was also appropriate for the timing of the client. It was really ultimately their decision with respect to the opening timing. So yes, it was significant. It's not typical. Generally, we -- when we sell accounts, we tend to open them in the year that we sell them. This was a result of a number of different opportunities, all of which were terrific for the company. And we're very excited about the overall results. As you know, we sold nearly $1 billion of new business -- of net new business this year, on a gross basis, $1.6 billion. So just a fantastic performance by the entire team delivering on the new business objectives, and with the retention rate exceeding 96.3%, just ends up being a great trajectory for '26. Ian Zaffino: Right. And since you mentioned new business, congratulations on this Penn deal, and this will bring me into my next question. Maybe you could talk about 2026 cadence here. Maybe talk about that UPenn contract, how that kind of ramps throughout the year. Do you have any other deals baked in to the guidance or how are you thinking about deals? And then also, just as you talk about cadence, just maybe day count, playoff lapping, which might mean maybe a better back half of the year. But any other color you can kind of give. John Zillmer: Sure. With respect to Penn specifically, Penn will begin -- we'll begin operating at Penn in February. That will be staged over the course of several months as we open up the operations in the individual locations over multiple cities and multiple institutions. So it is a very exciting process. As you know, much of it was self-operated, so we're converting self-op, we're converting some competitors' operations as well. So a very complex opening. So taking the time to do it effectively, I feel absolutely committed to delivering on the performance for Penn and, frankly, to taking the time to do it right for Aramark as well. So in typical fashion, we have significant new business expectations for next year as well, but really don't have any cadence, if you will, on those opportunities. Our pipeline is very robust and very strong. We've had very strong early successes. As I mentioned, the Welsh Rugby Union and others, DePaul University opening as well. So the cadence, I think, is going to be more normal next year than it happened this year. So all in all, very strong results, and we're very pleased. Operator: Our next question comes from Toni Kaplan with Morgan Stanley. Toni Kaplan: I wanted to start with a question on margins. Just wanted to understand with the new wins that you got this year, I know there's this cost dynamic where sometimes there is a ramp in higher costs when you ramp up on those contracts. And so I just wanted to understand the cost trajectory there. And then also, if you could talk about any AI initiatives or other efficiency initiatives that should contribute to '26 margins? James Tarangelo: Yes. So we've had really good progress right on margins. I mean, from 4.6% to 5.1% to 5.3% this year. And if you look at the midpoint of the guidance I think for next year, to be at about 5.7%. So sort of consistent 30 to 40 basis points of margin appreciation has been generated. So yes, we do have some -- obviously, with the large wins coming in next year, that will be associated with maybe some incremental start-up costs. But I think we're able to offset that with the continued productivity we're seeing in our supply chain, in particular, leveraging AI in supply chain and across other functional areas. And then continuing to scale our overhead. We have very good visibility with respect to our corporate costs and SG&A. We're able to take on this business really with not adding much in the way of new above-unit overhead costs. So I think we're fit for purpose and able to take this on and still continue to leverage the operating levers that have been working well for us over the past couple of years. John Zillmer: Yes. And Toni, I would just add, normalized opening costs are baked into our projection and into the guidance. So we don't anticipate opening costs impacting our guidance negatively next year. If we continue to see accelerating performance in terms of net new, that ramp does occur. But as Jim said, we're basically able to offset those cost increases through efficiency, through productivity, through SG&A leverage and through supply chain dynamics. So we're very comfortable with the continued margin accretion as we continue to grow the company. Toni Kaplan: Great. And then you mentioned the double-digit growth in Collegiate Sports, which is great. And just want to ask about the pipeline there and particularly how the progress is going with converting some of the education contracts, either sports to education as well or education to sports, et cetera, that would be great. John Zillmer: Sure, you bet. We have taken the opportunity. We do engage both the Collegiate Hospitality and the Sports & Entertainment teams collectively when we pursue those opportunities. As you'll remember, we added Arizona State's system this year. As we grew the relationship there, we added the sports. That's being run by our Sports & Entertainment team. And Oklahoma, that's being run by our Sports & Entertainment team. We are pursuing several large university athletic programs right now. They're currently underway and that we have engaged the S&E team on those opportunities. So we run them based on what we think the needs of the business are, particularly if there's alcohol involved. Our S&E team has extraordinary capabilities with respect to the delivery and the appropriate management of alcohol systems in university environments. And so we engage both sides of the organization to do it. And we are seeing significant opportunities for growth there and major institutions that are currently self-operated and looking for support and help and also some competitors who are currently out for bid as well. So it's a great marketplace and we intend to -- we're the #1 company in that space and we continue to be focus aggressively on pursuing growing it. Operator: Our next question comes from Leo Carrington with Citi. Leo Carrington: If I could ask a follow-up on that Penn Medicine deal. What's the implications in terms of the potential for further hospital groups to follow suit and consolidate and outsource their catering? What can you tell us about the rest of that subsector, if you like? And then secondly, on the B&I segment, the organic growth, even excluding the 53rd week, was quite a sharp acceleration. My understanding is this is the most consolidated segment. So can you elaborate on what is driving your market share growth here in terms of your capability? John Zillmer: Sure. I think both great questions. First of all, on the health care systems, yes, there are significant new opportunities that we're pursuing in health care for self-op conversion, large systems adopting strategies like Penn did to go ahead and find ways to become more effective and to reduce their overall cost of operation. And we're able to deliver very significant benefits to the institution as a result of both our supply chain capabilities as well as our systems that we're bringing to bear across their enterprise. And so the solutions that we offered to Penn are very, very transferable to other institutions, and we think the opportunity there is very large. So in this particular case, Penn is such a wonderful institution and has such a stellar reputation that we do believe other systems will follow their lead in terms of consolidation and systemization, and we're already pursuing new opportunities in that regard. With respect to B&I, Workplace Experience group, our team has just done a fantastic job growing that business, pursuing opportunities, competitive opportunities, and as you noted, continue to grow share across the organization. I think it's a function of both our capabilities, our different brand offerings, if you will, under the Workplace Experience umbrella, and frankly, just overall performance. Our team is delivering at a very high level. Our customers recognize that, our potential new clients recognize that. And so we've been able to grow that share in a number of niches where we haven't historically competed. So we're very excited. It's got -- it has great leadership, and we're very confident in its future growth opportunities as well. James Tarangelo: Yes. And John, I would just add that it also includes our refreshment services, coffee service and micro market, which is also growing very rapidly, very consistently. Both Workplace Experience, Refreshment Services, high levels of retention, high levels of net new as a result of the branding and success they've had with clients that John just mentioned. So we're seeing it from really all parts of that organization. Operator: Our next question comes from Andrew Steinerman with JPMorgan. Andrew Steinerman: It's Andrew. When you talk about base business growth, I'm pretty sure you're talking about both price increases and other base business growth like cross-selling. And so with that, in mind, could you just go through the organic revenue drivers between net new price increases and other base growth both in the fiscal '26 guide as well as '25 just completed? James Tarangelo: Yes, I'll take that. So yes, in terms of the components of growth for fiscal '25, the base business growth was consist of volume and price. And pricing generally has been at about 3%, and so base business sort of 3.5% in '25. Net new contribution, that's the in-year contribution, about 1.5%, and then the 53rd week added about 2%. That gets you to the 7% for fiscal '25. And in terms of the outlook for '26, we'd expect to gain about 3% to 4% base business growth, roughly 3% or so coming from price. And then again, given the strong levels of retention and record new, be in the 4% to 5% range on net new contribution in fiscal '26. And this is on an apples -- on a 52-week comparison to the prior year. That gets you to the guide of 7% to 9%. Operator: Our next question comes from Jaafar Mestari with BNP Paribas. Jaafar Mestari: I had just a follow-up on this net new business contribution in '26 in the year. Given where you ended at the end of '25 and given some of your KPIs in terms of new signings and retention being very much forward-looking, why is the outlook for '26 not a bit stronger in terms of the contribution in that year? The 5.6% wasn't reflected in '25 because of the timing of some of those signings and the ramp-up, should we now expect it to be reflected in '26 fully? James Tarangelo: Yes. So there's a couple. So as we -- so Penn Medicine, remember, it's an annualized number, and Penn Medicine, for example, the largest one, is starting early in the year and will ramp up throughout the course of fiscal '26. And then the Oakland A's is another large win that will have more of an impact into the following fiscal year. So that's why there's some -- there's always a bit of timing between the annualized and in-year realization of those revenue. Jaafar Mestari: That's clear. And then one follow-up on the margins. You're right, obviously, that the guidance in '26 will mean that the margin improvement year-over-year will be between 30 bps and 40 bps. But that's using as a starting point '25 with some of the items you flagged, including the exceptional sales team compensation in Q4. And so a similar question here, if we don't expect those to reoccur -- if they reoccur, fantastic, it's something you've signed a lot. But if we don't expect those to reoccur, shouldn't the margin in '26 normalize a touch for those and then grow 30 to 40 bps on a normalized basis? James Tarangelo: Yes. If you look at the range of outcomes, so I think if you sort of the low end and high end of the range, right, sort of 5.6% to 5.8%, and as I mentioned, 5.7% in the middle. So the range of outcomes is wider. So correct, those items, if you don't -- if they repeat, it's a good problem to have. But sort of, yes, if you normalize fiscal '25 and you're in the 5.4%, 5.5% neighborhood. The other factor is, given the large ramp-up of these accounts, there will be some additional start-up costs in '26 that is baked into the guidance. You can think about that as sort of maybe 10 basis points as part of that. Jaafar Mestari: It's baked in. And then just last point, very quickly. You've updated us on health care opportunities where you're saying you're still working on some material opportunities. Another area where you've been talking about some potential big wins to come was Corrections. Any update here? Is the decision-making process in that segment just very slow? John Zillmer: Yes. We actually had some significant Corrections new wins, some of which did actually get recorded as wins in the net new and are ramping up now. So we are continuing to pursue additional state systems and it continues to be one of our largest opportunities for self-op conversion. And so we think the pace of that business's growth will continue, both on the correctional feeding side as well as the commissary side of the business as well. So still a very significant total addressable market available to us to pursue and very confident in that team and its approach to the business and its ability to generate top line growth. Operator: Our next question comes from Neil Tyler with Rothschild and Co. Neil Tyler: I'm just interested in the restructuring measures that you've initiated in the International business. Can you talk a little bit about the thought process and maybe operational metrics that prompted you to initiate restructuring in a business that seems to be growing very healthily? And then secondly, perhaps when you're talking -- when you refer to the postponement or sort of slightly delayed startup of some of the operations, can you talk a little bit -- give us a little bit of a sort of context or description around what sort of factors need to be considered when you decide to slow down the start-up of operations in a contract? Maybe give us some anecdotal evidence or anecdotal sort of description of why that might be the case. John Zillmer: Yes. It's really more client-driven than it is Aramark-driven. Clients have time frames that they have -- that they're working under, and in particular, they're dealing with multiple constituents. One of those opportunities, for example, using Penn as an example of an account that we anticipated potentially opening earlier, they had to work through a number of different decision processes. They needed to inform their employees, they needed to work through union relationships. And so really, we tend to respond to our clients' needs and our customers' needs more than ours with respect to timing. And that was also very significantly evident in a couple of those correctional opportunities where decisions were deferred by states and in a couple of opportunities in the Workplace Experience group where we had a large client we were already serving that was making a decision to displace a competitor that was also a customer of theirs. So as I said, more often than not, these deferrals tend to be related to customer timing, not Aramark timing. And we just had a number of them occur that affected our fourth quarter this year. James Tarangelo: Yes. And on the restructuring in the International, again, the backdrop here, this -- the International group has had a long track record of success, multiple quarters, multiple years of up double-digit growth. So this is a business we're happy to invest where we need to, to make sure we're well positioned to achieve our financial targets and streamline the business a little bit. So it's geared toward streamlining some SG&A and optimizing some SG&A. As you know, it's fairly expensive to do that in certain parts of Europe. So that was a piece of it. Optimizing a little bit in mining in South America to position us for the coming year. And then there is a final piece that was related to some real estate consolidation as well, some of the bolt-on deals that we did presented an opportunity to bring those together more efficiently. Neil Tyler: Got it. And then just going back to the first question just so I have it clear in my mind. When we think about the slight growth shortfall relative to the sort of lower end of your guidance that occurred in the fourth quarter, is it fair to characterize the majority of that as being down to contract timing as opposed to sort of the comp effect of things like the MLB playoffs and the like? John Zillmer: Yes. I think that was certainly the most significant part of it. The MLB impact was secondary. The closure of the Grand Canyon was certainly secondary to that. So there are a couple of items. Rather than giving you a laundry list of every reason, the one that I would really focus on is that, opening deferral mechanism and timing of that. But the other 2 impact items were also part of that fourth quarter. Operator: Our next question comes from Jasper Bibb with Truist Securities. Jasper Bibb: I wanted to ask if you could give us a bit more detail on the organic run rate into fiscal '26, maybe using what organic growth looked like in October or September excluding the 53rd week? James Tarangelo: Yes. Thanks, Jasper. Yes, so the cadence in '26, so just a couple of points here, I said that the 53rd week will have an impact on the cadence, as I mentioned in my comments, on '26. So essentially, we have a strong operating week in higher ed and K-12, in particular. That sort of gets absorbed into fiscal '25 with that extra week. So with that, you could think about losing a few days in Q1 that will come back in Q2. So first half growth will be kind of consistent with our run rate. But I think the first quarter, think that sort of minus 3%, 3.5% versus the run rate that will be captured back in the second quarter. So that's the cadence I wanted to note. But we're exiting with good speed, good run rate here as we exited here in Q4, and good momentum as we expected in October and the outlook for Q1. So it's running according to track, but I just did want to note there's some timing of -- due to the 53rd week that will have no impact on the full year, just quarterly. Jasper Bibb: Maybe give us a bit more detail on the quarterly cadence of margin. I imagine with the contract ramps, you might be a little lower in the first half than is seasonally normal and stronger in the back half. Is that a fair interpretation? Or any other detail you can give us on what that will look like? James Tarangelo: Yes. I think that's fair. But again, the larger driver on the margins will be the same thing. It's the drop-through on the revenue in Q1 versus Q2. So the first half will look normal. But given less revenue in Q1, there will be a margin impact on Q1 as well, but it will even out in the -- for the full first half. Operator: Our next question comes from Andrew Wittmann with Baird. Andrew J. Wittmann: I think the last question is actually a really important question. And I understand that you commented on percentages here, Jim, for the revenue first quarter down 3% to 3.5%, bigger -- sounded like bigger impact to margins just because you don't get the fixed cost leverage. Did you want to -- did you want to be even more precise on that one? I think we can all do math, but did you want to give revenue and EBIT kind of numbers for 1Q? I just feel like it's a big enough change. And then I think as we -- given kind of the last couple of quarters how numbers have been kind of moving around a lot, it might be even better to give actual numbers for 1Q. I know that's a big ask, but I just think it's important here. James Tarangelo: Yes. Again, I think what I would just say there, if you think about the first half versus second half, and if you sort of again adjusting for the 53rd week, and I'll just give a sort of ballpark, if you're sort of running at sort of 7% to 8% in the first half, a little bit higher, in the second half, right, I mentioned about a 3% impact in Q1, you could think of that coming off of the 7% to 8% roughly, and then that will be captured back in Q2, just to give you a little bit of sense. But again, I don't want to be too specific, but that gives you a sense of some of the movements. Andrew J. Wittmann: Okay. And then, John, maybe have you comment a little bit more on the pipeline. Obviously, it's been robust. Can you give a little bit more there, kind of what you're seeing, how the size of the pipeline compares today versus maybe this time last year? I think that would be kind of helpful to just build some mental model for all of us around how the top line might unfold this year. John Zillmer: Yes. I would say the pipeline continues to be very robust. And at least as good as last year at this point. So we continually build on those pipeline of opportunities and we continue to add new markets and new niches that we're pursuing aggressively to go ahead and expand our total addressable market, adding sectors, in particular, if you think about Workplace Experience, really aggressively pursuing new opportunities in the legal world, if you will, in top-tier law firms. If you look in International, pursuing new mining initiatives, new remote camp initiatives. So we continue to build the pipeline with lots of new opportunities, and it continues to be very robust. So I would say there's really no fundamental change year-over-year other than we're continuing to invest in the growth of the enterprise. We expect it to continue. Very encouraged by the strong results this year. And also, again, encouraged by the very strong retention rate and the discipline inside the organization. And so all in all, I think it leads to fundamentally a very strong trajectory going into '26. And as Jim described, we'll have our seasonal kind of normal impacts on a quarter-to-quarter basis. But overall, I think our full year guidance is absolutely achievable and, yes, very comfortable with the ranges that we've talked about. Operator: Our next question comes from Shlomo Rosenbaum with Stifel. Shlomo Rosenbaum: Can you just talk -- just getting back a little bit more to those contracts that didn't start quite as expected in the fourth quarter. Can you just talk a little bit more about whether there were carry costs that were incurred as part of that? And for some of those contracts, does that continue into the first quarter in terms of impacting margin? Or just trying to have a better understanding as to the impact financially. And then frankly, the visibility that you have in terms of managing your business towards those things. And then I have a follow-up. John Zillmer: Yes. I would say, yes, there is a little bit of ramp-up in starting costs, particularly for those accounts that have already opened in the first quarter on the correction side and in some of those other businesses. So yes, we were preparing to open them and incurring costs in the fourth quarter in terms of the run rate opening costs, if you will. So there is some -- a little bit of an impact there that dribbles into the fourth quarter or into the first quarter, I would guess. But I wouldn't characterize it as overly significant. So I think all in all, the -- I would point you to 2 big items. Obviously, the medical costs last year were a significant impact on the total earnings of the company, both the medical claims cost as well as GLP-1s. And we have taken very decisive action with respect to the GLP-1 impact and which will go into effect in the -- in January and which will significantly reduce our costs year-over-year from that perspective. So if you look at the 2 big impact items in the quarter, there are medical costs and the higher incentive compensation. I'll take those higher incentive costs every year if I can achieve those kinds of numbers, and drive permanently the growth trajectory of this organization by outperforming on new growth, I'll do it every time. And I feel very good about that. And I love the fact that I've got to pay the people of this organization for delivering on those results. The GLP-1s, we've taken care of that; that won't be an issue. So if I really look at year-over-year, the earnings miss in the quarter, I would be focusing on those items as opposed to the other details in the business. That's really where the fundamental miss was. Shlomo Rosenbaum: Okay. And then one of the things when you started years ago and you and I talked about the focus on retention, and you've done -- you really moved the retention up significantly. And I was wondering, are we looking at retention right now as a steady state? Or hey, it was kind of unusually high, we're usually looking for like around the 95%, but we had some big contracts that really skewed those numbers? Or is the bar just moving higher because of the operational changes that you've made within the business in terms of getting ahead of some of those contracts, better servicing the contracts, better in [indiscernible]? As we sit here next year, are we going to talk about 96% plus again or we should think that, hey, annually, you want to expect 95% and, if you can outperform, you outperform? John Zillmer: Well, I think I would love to be sitting here next year talking about 96% or higher again. We have very high expectations for our people. We hold them accountable. And so it's our expectation that we're going to get better, not worse. Part of that is both performance, part of it is negotiation. Part of it is continuing to find ways to extend agreements with clients and customers proactively. So this is a process we are fully engaged in all the time. And so I would love to sit here and say next year, we'd love to hit 97%. I don't know if that's possible. But we're going to be striving to that and we're going to do the best that we possibly can. And so yes, 95% should be a floor. It should never be -- it should never fall below that. And frankly, we have high expectations that we can do better. And we're raising the bar for our people all the time. Operator: Our next question comes from Josh Chan with UBS. Joshua Chan: On that retention point, I know that some years, it's never easy, but some years, it's easier than others to retain business just because of the cadence of what comes up for renewals. Could you just like remind us what's happening in 2026 compared to '25 in terms of what of your contracts may be rebid or have to come up for renewal? John Zillmer: Yes. I would say it's pretty much a normal year, a normal expectation. Some of the businesses that have more cyclical contract renewals like K-12, like Corrections will have their normal cadence. And those are the ones that are really impacted and have different impact items -- or different cadences year-over-year. I would say, we're very well positioned this year from a retention perspective. Last year, going into the year, we had Arizona State was our largest Higher Education contract. It was going out for bid for the first time in over 20 years because the State of Arizona dictated that it needed to. We retained that business and grew it. So that was a very exciting result. But I would characterize '26 as kind of a normal year, really no high-impact items one way or the other. So we continue to be focused on delivering at a very high level from a retention perspective. Joshua Chan: And then I think, Jim, you talked a little bit about the impact in Q1 from the calendar shift. I guess does Q1 not also have the Major League Baseball dynamic as well? And maybe could you just kind of put a finer point on whether that will have a material impact also on the growth rate, just so that everybody can be baselining off of the right numbers? James Tarangelo: Josh, you're correct, there's less. You only had the Phillies advanced to less playoff games in '26 versus '25 Q1. But having said that, the overall strong retention and net new coming to the year should offset that. So I would say, more of a normal cadence aside from that. So a little downward pressure from playoffs, but offset by other areas of growth in the business. So the main factor I would say in Q1 is just simply the calendar shift. Operator: Our next question comes from Stephanie Moore with Jefferies. Stephanie Benjamin Moore: Maybe touching on a more of a higher-level question. I'd love to get your thoughts as you look at -- reflect back on fiscal '25 and you look towards fiscal '26. Just what you're seeing from an overall in-sourcing versus outsourcing trend, how '25 compared to maybe prior years? And then in the same vein, if you could touch on just the competitive landscape, especially given maybe some more changes with one of your competitors as of late. John Zillmer: Yes, I would say the level of first-time outsourcing continues to be in an elevated state. And in particular, for us this year, the single biggest impact item was the Penn contract and the fact that they were moving to first-time outsourcing in a number of those operations. But we continue to see elevated outsourcing in a number of the segments, in particular, Higher Education, particularly in their sports side and university athletic departments really seriously considering outsourcing as a strategic alternative, particularly as they cope with the realities of the NIL environment and their need for funding. So I continue to see a very, very strong marketplace, a very strong opportunity set, if you will, across a range of sectors. It's not limited to just one; it's in multiple sectors where that first-time outsourcing continues. And we're enjoying very significant success. As an organization, we have grown our share this year. We've had a very significant performance against self-op and against our competitors as well. And we just focus on those opportunities one at a time. We believe we focus on the strength of our operations and on our client relationships and we sell from a position of quality and consistency and program. And we've been very successful doing that against all elements of the market. So we're very pleased with our overall results, but we are striving to do better day in and day out, and we'll continue to compete aggressively on quality and capability and client relationship. And that's how we win. Operator: I'm not showing any further questions at this time. I'd like to turn the call back over to Mr. Zillmer for closing remarks. John Zillmer: So again, thank you all for your support of the organization. We're very pleased with the overall performance, most especially with the net new and with retention this year. Really very strong finish to the year. We're very excited about our prospects for 2026 and the future ahead for the company and for our shareholders. Thank you. Operator: Thank you for participating. This does conclude today's conference call. You may now disconnect, and have a wonderful day.
Operator: Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Elders Limited FY '25 Results Investor Briefing. [Operator Instructions]. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Mark Allison CEO and Managing Director. Please go ahead. Mark Allison: Thank you very much, and welcome to all for the Elders' full year results presentation for the FY '25 financial year. And thank you for joining Paul and myself for the session today. As an overview, the full year results today are solid on a year-to-year basis with EBIT up 12%, transformational projects on track, positive progress on leverage and strong cash generation. Throughout the year, Elders has demonstrated solid operational and financial resilience in the face of mixed seasonal conditions. Our diversified portfolio through its national geographic footprint and multiproduct and service offering played a key role in mitigating the dry conditions across key agricultural regions and the increased competitive activity in our retail business. Stronger activity in livestock and real estate and high financial discipline also supported the solid result. On the transformational project front, we've also made good progress on Wave 2 of our SysMod project with all states rolled out and bedded down by the end of this calendar year. We are also well progressed in the final components of this project with Wave 3, and the completion phase, Wave 4, advancing in full on time. Focusing now on the areas out of our control. The FY '25 season has been a problematic year from a seasonal viewpoint, with a drier than average and late start to the winter crop across Southern Australia, with credit to our highly diversified business model, this is offset by our agency business, our real estate services business, our financial services and our feed and processing services businesses. Rural products has seen some limitation with very dry conditions in Southern Australia and Western Australia. In this context, the performance of Elders with its clear and consistent strategy, multiple diversifications, high financial discipline, hard-working and committed team and enduring customer anchor as the most trusted brand in Australian agriculture on an unprompted basis has remained resilient. This result is strong in safety, sustainability and cash flow with the full year outcome approaching the midpoint of the EBIT guidance range provided earlier this year. Moving now to the Delta Agribusiness acquisition, which completed on November 3. This acquisition is fully aligned with the Elders acquisition rationale that delivered Titan Ag, AIRR and many other bolt-on acquisitions to Elders, with pre-synergies EPS accretion, enhancement of our technical and AgTech expertise and offerings, strengthening of our geographical diversification, particularly in New South Wales and Northwest Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia, building on our crop protection and animal health regulatory package portfolio to drive our backward integration strategy, providing an additional platform for retail segmentation, allowing greater customer centricity and providing further coverage for our real estate and financial service offerings. Moving on to the FY '26 outlook. We are very optimistic on the broad outlook for Australian agriculture at a seasonal and commodity level with the return to average conditions. In addition, we welcome Delta Agribusiness to our portfolio as a platform for significant growth. The outlook and fundamentals for livestock remains sound, with prices for sheep and cattle forecast to be supported by strong international demand against the backdrop of tightening supply. The combination of a positive seasonal and commodity outlook also provides a great backdrop for continued growth of our -- in our real estate and financial services businesses. It's worth noting at this point that our first 6 weeks of trading for FY '26 is tracking some 30% up on last year for the same time on an apples-to-apples basis. So this is without the inclusion of Delta that's come in on November 3. Our approach for today is that I'll provide an overview of the results. Paul will go to the detail of our financial performance, and I'll then provide an update of our outlook and growth and transformational initiatives as we deliver the final year of our Fourth Eight Point Plan. With this overview, I will now commence with the FY '25 full results presentation. So if we can move along to the next slide. The approach, as you see with the -- it's worth noting in the appendix that there's further detail and transparency on sensitivities, business model, et cetera. So why it's worth looking at. So kicking off on the executive overview on the slide committed to improving our safety performance. So from a safety viewpoint, at the core backward-looking metric of lost time injuries, there have been 6 lost time injuries this year, which is an increase from last year. Quite a disappointing result, predominantly in the livestock area. And so we have been able to significant reduce -- significantly reduce injuries across our manual handling and our rural products area. But a disappointing result. We continue to aim for zero injuries to anyone. I think it is worth noting that at the start of the Eight Point Plan process, there were 34 lost time injuries. So we've made significant progress over the Fourth Eight Point Plans, and the lost time injury frequency and the total recordable injury frequency, and you can see the trend on the second slide, are significantly below equivalent industry benchmark. Moving to the next slide, just a quick snapshot of the financial performance. You can see the underlying EBIT, some 12% up on last year. Our return on capital of 11.3%, holding stable and maintained strong cash conversion and the dividend per share payout. And moving to the next slide. So Paul will clearly go into the detail on the financials. Moving to the next slide, and this is over the Eight Point Plan years. And you can see significant return as committed in Eight Point Plan 1, 2 and 3. At the beginning of -- prior to Eight Point Plan -- the Fourth Eight Point Plan, we took the decision to invest heavily in our transformational projects. And there's some $100 million of cost and capital being spent through this period in order to drive our systems modernization project, our automated wool project and also our Crop Protection formulation project. So we knew that, that would drag on our cost of capital and resources and focus through that period, but critical transformational projects that we're at the process of completing, with the formulation process complete, the automated wool project complete and with SysMod running into Wave 3 and 4, which are the final 2 waves through next year. Moving to the next slide. And some of the work we're doing across -- with our people and communities. It's worth noting, again, 186 years of Elders in Australian -- regional rural Australia and agriculture. Unprompted remain the most trusted brands throughout all of these areas and with significant activity across -- with multiple activities across the business. From a safety viewpoint, very clear focus on safety from an engagement enablement viewpoint, as you can see, quite high engagement enablement, as have been for many years, and also a very high focus on safety throughout our people. Moving to the next slide. And just a quick look at the work we do from a sustainable responsible future viewpoint. Many of you are aware of our alignment across many environment, people and community projects and the work we've done with our sustainability report. And you'll note the very strong and aligned partnership with the Royal Flying Doctors. So from our viewpoint, this is who we are. This is core to our DNA, and we'll continue to invest and be highly engaged with our communities around Australia. Moving to sustainability. And our progress against the emissions targets with the next slide. And you can see the trend towards the emission targets we've set. We'll continue to work through these. As many of you will also be aware, there's been a reviewed methodology on emissions calculations from livestock. So we're working through that. But I think the point to note is that we're well on track. And if you take the time to read the sustainability report, I think you'll be very impressed with the progress we're making right across the board in this area. Moving to the next slide. And this is really to emphasize one of the changes that we've made this year. Historically, we've been diversified by product and service, and we've talked about that in our business model, and it's in the business model that appears in the appendix of this pack. But you'll see right through the supply chain from crop protection, through the wholesale with the Elders Rural Service, Delta Agribusiness and then real estate and feed and processing, there's a very solid diversification component that comes out of the business. And if you look through all the key investment drivers, and I think Paul will comment on many of these, very strong EPS growth, diversification. The industry fundamentals are looking very good. And I think it's one of the points that you'll hear us make a few times that we're at the stage now where we've moved through our transformational projects and the big cost of capital resource investment, and we've got an outlook of positive commodity conditions and also seasonal conditions. So we feel very, very optimistic about the next 3 to 5 years as we run through all of these. And finally, just as a quick recap before we jump into the deep dive into the financials. The next slide, just to recap on Delta Agribusiness that joined the group on the 3rd of November, a great business, well run, very complementary from a geographical viewpoint, and it fills many gaps that we did have, very strong in its technical expertise, which also complements Elders significantly. We're looking at $12 million of synergies at EBIT level over a 3-year period in the original business case. Now given that the ACCC have put on a 12-month delay, we're discussing around the Delta Board on how we can fast track this with regard to backward integration given the strong foundation of Four Seasons' brands or products at the moment. So that's a very positive opportunity to fast track those synergies, targeting greater than 15% post synergies from an ROC viewpoint and very much aligned to Elders -- across our approach to the business. And as we've said a number of times, as divisions, all the divisions are stand-alone. So with that, I'll pass over to Paul to go through the financials, and then I'll come back towards the end on strategy and outlook. Paul Rossiter: Yes. Thanks, Mark, and welcome, everybody. I'll commence on Slide 14 of the pack, which summarizes progress against key financial objectives. Highlights include: double-digit growth in our agency real estate and feed and processing businesses; below inflation cost growth when adjusted for acquisition and transformation; strong momentum in SysMod, as Mark referenced, with all states now live on Wave 2 retail, and Wave 3 livestock to commence rollout in early 2026; product and geographic diversification, mitigating the impact of dry conditions in Southern states; Delta Ag acquisition to further enhance our geographic diversification from FY '26 and strengthen our technical capability in ag tech and precision agriculture; leverage to return to target in FY '26 through a renewed focus on capital allocation and client profitability. I'll now turn to Slide 15, which displays Elders' 5-year financial performance. I note the following progress from FY '24. Sales revenue increased $70.4 million, or 2.2% despite mixed seasonal conditions supported both by acquisition and organic growth. Gross margin increased 7.4%, up $47 million compared to the prior corresponding period or PCP. Comparatively, costs increased 6.2%, noting this includes the impact from acquisition and is therefore not comparable to inflation. Costs will be further discussed later in the presentation. Underlying EBIT increased $15.5 million compared to PCP, but has declined over the 5-year period, with FY '25 impacted by dry conditions. Moving to Slide 16 now, which contrasts FY '25 against PCP. In addition, this slide details the impact on key financial metrics from capital held on September 30 in preparation for the completion of the Delta Ag acquisition, which occurred on November 3. Elders has delivered a resilient result with the following highlights evident. Sales revenue, up $70.4 million despite dry conditions in some key cropping regions, which thankfully ended in June. Gross margin increased $47 million, to $684.6 million, up 7% year-on-year, with growth achieved across most products. Underlying EBIT increased $15.5 million, to $143.5 million, supported by a strong turnaround in agency services and continued growth in real estate. Return on capital was steady at 11.3%, notwithstanding the mixed seasonal conditions and systems modernization CapEx weighing on this metric as the capital outlay proceeds benefits. Improving this metric in FY '26 is a key priority. Cash conversion was broadly in line with expectations with a favorable outlook for FY '26. Net debt increased $20.5 million, to $457.3 million, excluding capital held for the Delta completion, broadly in line with sales growth and the impact of higher cattle prices. I'll discuss these key metrics further as we move through the pack. Moving to Slide 17, which displays Elders' gross margin diversification, a key defense against seasonal variability. As noted, gross margin increased $47 million, to $684.6 million, with growth across most products more than offsetting the impact on crop protection from dry conditions. The key drivers of this result include agency gross margin up $27.1 million, or 22%, following a strong recovery in livestock prices and increased cattle volumes. The outlook for agency services remains positive, driven by strong international demand for protein as well as some destocking in drier regions, limiting supply and supporting prices. Real estate services gross margin increased $22.5 million, or 27.2% with property management, residential, broadacre and commercial all improved on PCP, supported by both acquisition and organic growth. Feed and processing was another highlight with gross margin up $4.1 million or 23.8% due to productivity and efficiency benefits from the new feed mill commissioned in August 2024. Financial services gross margin increased $2.3 million, or 4.2%, supported by continued growth in our new broker model alongside improvement in the livestock warranty product. An increase in on-balance sheet lending was also achieved, partially because of the increased cattle prices. Collectively, the increase in gross margin across these products more than offset the reduced earnings from the exit of the Rural Bank exclusivity agreement in FY '24. Wholesale products delivered a steady result, notwithstanding lower crop protection sales from those dry regions. Growth in the above products significantly outweighed the negative impact from crop protection, which will be discussed further on the following slide. Moving to Slide 18, which analyzes product performance. This slide demonstrates the importance of our product and geographic diversification. The waterfall forward efficiency chart shows the extent of dry conditions, especially in South Australia and Western Victoria, which negatively impacted Elders' retail business with sales, gross margin percent and client confidence, all impacted. Fortunately, seasonal conditions improved from late June which caused for optimism for a recovery in these regions in FY '26. Turning now to Slide 19 to discuss costs, which increased $11.4 million, or 2.2% when adjusted for acquisitions and the impact of transformation. Part of this increase resulted from the inclusion of Elders Wool in base costs from transformation in FY '24, which added an additional $3 million, or 0.6% to base costs. Given this change in categorization, holding base costs below inflation was a pleasing outcome. Turning now to Slide 20 to discuss return on capital, which was steady in FY '24 despite mixed seasonal conditions. When adjusted for the impact of acquisitions and transformational projects, return on capital is 12.7%. Lifting return on capital is a priority for FY '26 through a renewed focus on capital allocation, client profitability and delivery of SysMod benefits. In terms of capital allocation, Mark will speak to the potential divestment of the Killara Feedlot in the strategy and outlook section. Moving now to Slide 21. And working capital, where we see an increase of $68 million from FY '24, mostly driven by higher cattle prices, which increased working capital in feed and processing and financial services. Resale inventory increased $12 million from FY '24, a pleasing result given the late start to winter crop in key cropping regions, which caused an uplift in carryover inventory. This carryover inventory is forecast to clear in the first half of FY '26. On to Slide 22. And cash flow, where we see an operating cash inflow of $117.9 million, a pleasing result considering the late start to winter crop, which pushed some receivables to the fourth quarter. The outlook for operating cash flow and cash conversion in FY '26 is positive with a focus on client profitability to result in some receivables being transitioned to third-party lenders away from Elders' balance sheet. I note that the physical payment of company tax for Elders Limited will recommence in 2026. We'll now move to Slide 23 to provide a detailed update on net debt and leverage. The waterfall charts display a normalized net debt and leverage position, adjusting for the benefit of capital held at balance date in preparation for the completion of Delta Ag. Breaking down the movement in net debt, we see an increase from $436.8 million at the end of FY '24, to $457.3 million at balance date, acknowledging this includes the benefit of $50 million of equity retained for flexibility in acquisitions, approximately 40% of which was deployed in FY '25. I note that the majority of net debt pertains to client receivables, which is self-liquidating in nature. Excluding receivables funded through debtor securitization, Elders' core debt is $161.9 million. Turning to leverage. We see a reduction from 3.1x at the end of FY '24, to 2.9x, normalized for Delta funds held. A return to our target range of 1.5 to 2x is forecast in FY '26 from a renewed focus on capital allocation and client profitability and increased referral of client loans to third-party lenders given trade receivables comprise almost 2/3 of net debt. I note that the return to target leverage is underpinned by but not dependent on the potential sale of Killara Feedlot. I'll now move to Slide 24, where we see significant headroom across banking covenants, noting that these calculations do not require adjustment for the capital held for the completion of Delta Ag. I also note that our bank leverage covenant excludes receivables funded through debtor securitization given their self-liquidating nature. I'll now move to Slide 25, which provides a macro overview of key growth pillars over the coming years. This slide has been included to demonstrate significant growth opportunities and focus areas over the coming years and is not meant to be exhaustive. Regarding systems modernization, Elders has now commenced the final wave of its SysMod program, which once completed, will provide Elders Rural Services with a modern technology platform in Microsoft Dynamics, which itself is evolving at pace. Delivering a return of at least 15% on the program spend is both a high priority and significant growth pillar in the coming years. The acquisition of Delta Ag represents a significant milestone for Elders, increasing points of presence and geographic diversification while enhancing Elders' technical expertise in ag tech and precision agriculture. Accelerating synergies from backward integration in crop protection and animal health are key priorities for FY '26, as Mark noted. The divisional structure is aimed at improving focus and accountability within significant business units. By way of example, real estate services gross margin has grown $45.6 million, or 77% since FY '23, but market share remains less than 5% nationally. We believe the divisional model will help accelerate growth in this and other business units. Acquisition will remain a growth pillar alongside organic growth, provided acquisition prospects meet our financial and values criteria. Finally, the new Elders' brokerage business is noted as a growth pillar, given success to date with our brokered loan book exceeding $1.3 billion from a near standing start in FY '24. Gross margin from loan brokerage has increased from $0.9 million in FY '23, to $6.1 million in FY '25 at a CAGR of 160% with our network of brokers expanded further in recent months. This concludes the financial section of the presentation. I'll pass back to Mark now, who will provide an update on strategy and outlook. Mark Allison: Thanks, Paul. And really leading off from Paul's comments on the divisional structure, just going to Slide 27 as we look at the Fourth Eight Point Plan. And historically, we've expressed the Eight Point Plan in terms of the diversification of our products and services. And we're now looking at the Eight Point Plan in terms of the 6 divisions of Elders and how that diversification across the matrix of products and services adds further to our ability to work through difficult seasonal conditions. So when you look at the -- this is the final year of the Fourth Eight Point Plan, we've had the ambition of 5% to 10% growth in EBIT and EPS through the cycles over an Eight Point Plan. Clearly, as we -- at above 15% return on capital. Clearly, as we come into a taxpaying state in the next financial year, the EPS growth ambition will need to be adjusted accordingly. But -- and we've emphasized the impact that the transformational part of our agenda over these 3 years has had from a cost of capital and resource on the business. But we're setting us up now for a very solid platform with all the transformational projects coming to a close as we go forward for the next 3 to 5 years. Going on to the next slide. And we -- our view and our move to go to a divisional structure, effective the beginning of FY '26, was really around the fact that each of these areas of the businesses had largely been run as either stand-alone or with a particular focus and emphasis through the governing Board or management team. So as we've laid them out, we've laid them out in order of supply chain, starting with Elders Crop Protection. very experienced managers right across all of the divisions. So Elders Crop Protection with Nick Fazekas. This includes our Titan Crop Protection business and our formulation businesses in Eastern Australia and Western Australia with AgriToll and Eureka. And it's a specialist crop protection business as per Nufarm, Adama, et cetera, et cetera. Then we move the next step along the supply chain to our wholesale business, with Peter Lourey. And this has -- I think you're all aware of AIRR, with multiple touch points and membership base throughout Australia for the AIRR business, and its highly efficient and effective warehouse network throughout Australia. Next, as we go to retail, we have Elders Rural Services, which has a complete offering of retail products, agency products, real estate, financial, et cetera, right across the board. And that business at the moment, since the split of divisions, I've been acting as the divisional CEO for ERS. And very shortly, we'll have an upgrade to that appointment, and we'll announce that in the next few weeks. The next business, again, Gerard Hines running Delta Agri business, very experienced and competent manager and co-founder of the business and with an excellent executive team. So the Delta Agri business doesn't have -- sorry, has a much greater focus on cropping technical service with some additional services -- products and services, but very well run, and looking forward to a period of strong growth and profitability across the board. Elders Real Estate. So Tom Russo had previously run the product of real estate before he ran the Elders network. And so we thought it was appropriate for him to take control of the separate dedicated division. The idea here is that Elders Real Estate has grown significantly, and we'll talk about the growth profile, some slides coming up. Tom is a highly experienced professional in this area, across a number of areas as well, has been the guardian of the expansion of the property management component of Elders Real Estate and also our entry into commercial real estate, which we kicked off a big time in Tasmania. So lots of growth opportunity there, highly dedicated manager and executive team and pretty exciting. And then feed and processing, that, we talked about with Andrew Talbot, another highly experienced manager with a great team. He's grown the profitability of feed and processing fivefold since the First Eight Point Plan, have done an excellent job. The record profitability of this division this year is based on a number of the investments we've made historically with feed mill, center-pivot irrigation, shading, a bunch of investments that have enhanced well [indiscernible] productivity. And it's a very, very well-run business in the portfolio. The consideration we've had with feed and processing is actually if you look across that supply chain, feed and processing is a different business to the others. And our thinking is that it's been highly successful. It's grown significantly. We've invested significant capital and got good returns as we saw with record profitability this year. But we've reflected on whether feed and processing would do much better and go to the next level with under natural ownership. And so that's the reason we're considering a divestment of the feed and processing division. And if the moons align and there's an appropriate shareholder value-creating proposition put in front of us, we'll consider it strongly. And I'll just reiterate Paul's earlier comment that our pathway to back on leverage and to a lesser extent -- well, actually, on leverage is the key metric we're thinking about, is not dependent on the divestment of feed and processing. So if the exercise comes up with options that are not to enhance the shareholder value, then obviously, we're very happy, and it's a great business and a great team to be in the Elders Group. So moving to the next slide. And if we look at the modernizing of the platform, we've talked about SysMod. We gave a commitment from a transparency viewpoint to disclose each of the cost of capital components of each of the waves as the Board approved business cases, so when it was formally approved. And we've done that. But you can see -- and if we include Wave 1, there's some $100 million to $110 million investment over this period. And this is the period in that slide that we talked about upfront, where from '22 -- FY '22, where we have had considerable transformational investment. Now with all of these investments, as we've seen with Killara on the capital investment there, there is a lag. And so the benefits of these investments are coming through now, in FY '26. And as we close off SysMod at the end of FY -- calendar FY '26, we look forward to those investments coming through into the future. And I think it's worth noting that this does really set Elders up with a contemporary platform where we can take advantage of multiple AI opportunities that historically we haven't been able to. So just looking to the next slide and running through each of the waves and the different components of the waves. That's really for information. But as I mentioned, the plan is that we'll complete these. We're still running in full on time, which I know sounds amazing for an IT project, but we're still running in full on time, and it's -- we're looking for the finish line as we run out next year. Okay. Now moving to the next couple of slides. In the next 2 slides, we've wanted to showcase a couple of products and services just to put more of a spotlight on them. And for this presentation, we picked financial services and real estate, which we had covered in the half year. But really to emphasize, in terms of the balance of our portfolio, products and services, we've now -- clearly, we've strengthened our position across the whole supply chain and real products, from Elders Crop Protection, to wholesale, to retail, all the way through and technical service. And in our portfolio, we're looking at really strengthening and rebalancing our financial services, all capital and real estate. So the characteristics of both of these services, as we look at them, and it fits nicely in our portfolio management, a high return on capital. We have a relatively low market share in both, financial services and in real estate. The brand is important. So unprompted most trusted brand in Australian -- regional, rural Australian agriculture. So the Elders brand is critical. There's excellent market outlook in both areas. And obviously, there are links to livestock outlook and general commodity outlook, but a strong outlook, and it really does help us balance the portfolio. So just a quick a quick look at financial services. And you can see, in line with Paul's comments, solid growth, replacing the Rural Bank exclusivity agreement and growing in a capital-light manner. So -- and we can go to questions on that in detail. The next slide on real estate. Very, very similar profile. And I think the gems that are probably not as obvious for everyone. One is the product -- sorry, the property management business. We have some 20,000 properties that we're managing now across Australia, which is a very solid and reliable flow for us and also our entry into the commercial real estate only in regional, rural Australia. So very, very positive platforms. And in terms of portfolio balance, a bit -- quite nuanced, and this is how we run Elders as you -- many of you are very aware. So then going to the forecast and outlook across all of the areas on the next slide with -- without going through each one of them, and [indiscernible] each one of them on the next slide. You can see our thinking is that we've had a period of difficult market conditions and significant transformational investment. We've come through that period. We've lagged benefits from the transformational investment. Right now, we're confronted with the next 3 to 5 years, we're looking at completion of the transformational projects, the commodity outlook and the seasonal outlook being average to positive and our ability to really hone in division by division to grow, to drive the capital out, as Paul mentioned, from a leverage viewpoint and to enhance the business for strong growth against the backdrop of average to good seasons. So it feels very positive. For the first 6 weeks, as I mentioned, of this trading year, FY '26, apples-with-apples. So with that, Delta included, we're up some 30% on the previous year. So very early days. But I think it does fall into the -- our thinking and how we've been talking about our outlook for FY '26 going forward. So with that, I think I'll open up for questions. So we'll just leave that slide on the screen, and we'll open up for questions. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from James Ferrier from Canaccord Genuity. James Ferrier: First question I wanted to ask you about was just on your view on livestock volumes in the year ahead, just in the context of the volumes that were achieved in FY '25 as a baseline, herd sizes as they stand right now. I mean everyone can see the livestock prices, but what's your view on volumes in the year ahead? Paul Rossiter: Yes. Thanks for the question, James. And it is one where there is a little bit of uncertainty going forward, I think particularly in sheep volumes. And just for those who don't know, we saw certainly higher cattle volumes in FY '25, up about 13%. Sheep volumes were down about 8.1%. So we do see that rebuild coming through SA and Western Vic, and that's likely to drag on sheep volumes into FY '26. Cattle is a little bit different just because of the geographical footprint. But it is one to watch. But what we do expect is that if volumes do taper off in sheep, we expect prices to offset because the international thematic for Australian protein remains very strong. And so we just see that price being flowing through the supply chain. James Ferrier: Yes. That makes sense. Second question, on Slide 17. We can see there that crop protection gross profit declined 9% on PCP. What was the volume of product associated with that $129 million of gross profit? Paul Rossiter: Yes, I don't have a volume number to hand, James. So I'll see if I can cover that post. But I will speak to the impact of dry conditions. So we did note a roughly $12 million impact from SA and Vic, [ Riv ] at the half. We saw that continue into the second half, mostly in Q3. We think the impact was roughly $19 million volumes. Yes, we're certainly up in Northern New South Wales, obviously down in SA and Vic, but I don't have the net numbers here. Mark Allison: I think, James, the story is on margin compression as you've seen with other businesses and the sales that we experienced particularly in the dryer areas. James Ferrier: Yes. Okay. Understood. And last one from me and probably one for Paul again. Just some thoughts on D&A, CapEx, interest and tax for the year ahead. Paul Rossiter: Yes. Look, depreciation, well, will increase given the completion of Wave 2 and the commencement of the continued amortization of SysMod CapEx. In terms of CapEx outlook, once again, in FY '26, it is dominated by SysMod. Some of Wave 4 will fall into FY '27, as you can see on the SysMod slide. So it's a bit uncertain, but we think -- I'd say, sort of $20 million to $25 million will fall from SysMod into FY '26 and perhaps another $5 million to $10 million outside of that. In terms of tax, so we will pay a small amount of tax, about $1 million following the submission of the FY '25 tax return. So it will be in February 2026, and then we'll pay effectively pay-as-you-go company tax thereafter. I think your question may be referring to the statutory tax rate, which fell in FY '25. That was pertaining to a tax credit related to prior period for R&D. So that's likely to be nonrecurring. Operator: Your next question comes from Richard Barwick from CLSA. Richard Barwick: Can I just double check, when you're talking SysMod -- and obviously, it looks like some benefits from an EBIT perspective are expected in FY '26. Are you able to put some numbers around that? And then equally, what you would see as the non-underlying OpEx impact from SysMod in '26? Paul Rossiter: Okay. So yes, thanks for the question, Richard. So in terms of benefits, the major tranche of benefits is through an uplift in retail margins. And we see that coming from better control of discounting and better categorization of clients. And just for context, a 1% uplift in retail gross margin percent is about $22 million. So 0.5% uplift there gets us fairly close to the benefits required. The other benefits we see coming from uplift in sales, and that comes from better client data over time, but probably longer dated than the retail margin benefits. In terms of non-underlying OpEx for FY '26, so if we work on roughly 60% CapEx, 40% non-underlying OpEx, over that sort of $20 million to $25 million in FY '25. Richard Barwick: Okay. And my other question is to do with the -- there's quite a sizable impairment of goodwill obviously captured within this FY '25 result. Can you just give us a little bit more background exactly what that related to, please? Paul Rossiter: Yes. So there's a couple of businesses that we impaired, both which were reported on during FY '25. So one was Currin Co, where we lost a number of agents in Victoria. The other was Esperance Rural. Yes, we had, I suppose, an unsuccessful transition post earnout. Mark Allison: I think, Richard, it's -- one of the learnings is that, as you know, we've been highly successful with our acquisition -- bolt-on acquisition template in keeping the vendors in the business. And when we do our post-implementation reviews post earnout, it's been 95% plus positive. And we've identified in the last 12 months, whether it's through tougher conditions or whatever the driver is, that the 2 years post earnout is now an area that we need to really focus on in terms of potential loss of staff as we saw with -- actually, it was longer than 2 years with Currin Co, where the vendor leaves the business, the earnout is completed. Historically, we've seen that in business as usual within ERS. And we've now established a project a couple of months ago to identify how we ensure that we don't get a repetition of that situation because it had been a very high success rate of post earnout of keeping the people. Richard Barwick: And well, I guess it's -- the obvious question is, what are the risks? I mean, obviously, you've got something in place here to try and to mitigate it, which would suggest you are a bit concerned that this could repeat with some -- because I mean you made a lot of acquisitions in the last few years. Yes, how do we think about that risk? Mark Allison: Yes. Well, I think the -- a couple of points, is that if there is -- like something in the order of 100 bolt-on acquisitions, and we've had 2 or 3 like this. Clearly, the Currin Co was a larger one. If you like a sense of Shakespearean irony, the Esperance rural supply defection was to Delta. I'm sure you enjoy that. But the -- I think the materiality of it has dropped off because we aren't pursuing the same sort of strategy on bolt-on acquisitions that we had, as you're aware, given that the rural product supply chain is pretty complete and also given that the ACCC regime is hard to unscramble to do business. The -- our sense is that, that won't be where we'll be getting our growth from. It will be more organic. But I think the issue is that post earnout, the -- and we have time. We have 2 or 3 years each time. We have to have the business as usual hooks and retentions in place for these people. Because as you know, in regional, rural Australia, the personal relationship goes a long way. Operator: Your next question comes from Ben Wedd from Macquarie. Ben Wedd: Maybe just turning to your question -- your comments around capital allocation there and particularly with the potentially moving some of the receivables into third-party lenders there. I'd just be interested in sort of, I guess, any timeframes you can give around that and how that sort of looks from an operational standpoint. Paul Rossiter: Yes. Thanks, Ben. Look, it is something -- and I think the way that I'd explain it firstly is that we are taking a return on capital approach. So where we're not seeing, I suppose, a deep relationship with clients that warrants the use of Elders' balance sheet, then we'll look to obviously do that business with the client that use third-party financiers. So we do see this as certainly something that has commenced already. It's a process that's commenced. And that will roll through FY '26 and beyond. But it won't be something that we seek to do hurriedly either. So it will be an incremental thing over a number of years with a significant start in FY '26, particularly in the fin services and seasonal finance areas. Ben Wedd: Yes. Got it. And then maybe just any comments you can sort of give us around Delta's sort of performance over the last 12 months as it might compare to Elders as well in some of those key categories like ag chem and other cropping areas. Paul Rossiter: Yes. Thanks, Ben. So I mean, just a couple of comments. I think the first thing to note is that Delta's financial year is June 30, and their footprint was very exposed to dry conditions that occurred in FY '25. So I think there are a couple of key distinctions between Delta and Elders. The other being, Elders obviously had an offset in livestock agency that doesn't exist to the same extent in Delta. Yes, so the Delta result was impacted certainly more than Elders by the dry conditions. Trading, since it started raining in July in Delta has been above -- certainly above PCP. So yes, that business is operating very well. Operator: Your next question comes from Evan Karatzas from UBS. Evan Karatzas: Maybe just to follow up on that one then, so sort of the ASIC accounts for Delta. So the EBITDA went from sort of the $53 million to $40 million. Can you sort of just give a bit more information around if you expect that original FY '24 earnings to be realized assuming, I guess, normal conditions? And then anything you can say around the synergy benefit we should expect in '26 for Delta as well? Mark Allison: Yes. I think the key point for us is that what we experienced as the turnaround from these dry conditions was outside the Delta financial year. And so that's what we've experienced ourselves. Just as a note, prior to going to the next phase on the acquisition a few months ago, we -- so Paul, myself and the Chair of the time, Ian Wilton, sat down with the Delta management team to go through their FY '25 results, just to give ourselves comfort that our proposition and thesis on the acquisition remained on track. And after the presentations, discussions, I think, Paul, it's fair to say that we felt very, very comfortable. In terms of your question on the synergies, I think it's a key point for us. We've already had meetings with the team, with [ Jarred ] and Matt and Chris and the team around the synergies. We had planned for 12-month -- sorry, a 3-year development of the -- or extraction of the $12 million synergies. Our belief is that given the timing, given the November 3 timing and the proximity to the FY '26 winter crop that we do have time to do a lot of the work that we wouldn't have been able to do if it had been in the same period the previous year. So our sense is that we can fast track those synergies and bring them through. And as you know, they're largely crop protection. They're largely providing different crop protection supply chains out of Titan into the Four Seasons brand. And with Steve Hines, the person who runs that business within Delta, there's great alignment with Nick Fazekas, who runs the overall crop protection business. So we've established the governance structure, the Board structure, et cetera, around Delta and all the divisions. And again, I feel pretty comfortable and optimistic that we will get -- we will optimize the synergies in FY '26. Evan Karatzas: Okay. And just final question. Just with the debt position, can you provide a number of -- to sort of normalize it if you remove the reduction in carryover inventory in SA, Vic and removing or transitioning some of the select client loans from Elders' balance sheet to third parties, just so we can sort of look for an adjusted or a like-for-like debt position, please? Paul Rossiter: Yes. Look, just very high level and back of envelope, I would say the carryover inventory, I've put a number of around $30 million on that, which we expect to be resolved in the first half. In terms of -- I'll put another bucket in there, Evan, in terms of overdue debtors, we think there's a $20 million to $25 million opportunity there. You may have noted that we have had a $10 million increase in 90-day plus receivables. That is 2 clients -- 2 large clients, that we expect to be resolved in FY '26. So we feel that we're at a peak in terms of overdue receivables as well. And then you've got -- in terms of client receivables or client loans, seasonal finance and loans, I've put a number of sort of around -- a target of around $50 million across financial services and seasonal finance. Evan Karatzas: Okay. That's super helpful. Maybe just a quick one, I'll just sneak it in. The 1Q comments you made, do we assume you're up 30%? Do we assume we're sort of back close to that? I think you previously mentioned, like, a through cycle 1Q average EBIT was around $37 million. Is that sort of where we're, I don't know, trending towards or run rating towards? Paul Rossiter: Yes. And I think the -- in terms of tailwinds in the business, Evan -- so I think the -- certainly, livestock prices are up relative to year-on-year. I'd say that tailwind will moderate the further we get through the financial year. Obviously, livestock prices increased throughout FY '25. But I think in terms of the Q1, it goes back a couple of years, when we gave that number, obviously noting that's not audited. But yes, it's a fair comment. Operator: Your next question comes from Paul Jensz from PAC Partners. Paul Jensz: Just one at the top, Mark, if I can. You talk about the 5% market share you have in the wider farm input space. Can you see some additions to your business or the Elders business? Or is it a case of organic growth from where you are to get a larger part of that pie? Mark Allison: Yes. Thanks, Paul. So when you say the larger rural products, are you referring to finance? Paul Jensz: Right across the board. You had a chart there with the Delta acquisition where you're a small part of a very big pie in farm inputs. and you've got the new structure that you have. I'm just wondering where to from here if you're just such a small part of the pie? Mark Allison: Okay. Yes. So that broader pie includes fuel, like all the finance, et cetera, et cetera. So a whole heap of services that we're not in. So I think our focus with -- well, I think it's -- the focus that Delta has had for a long time, will continue on, where it's a service-based customer-centric approach across the board. Delta is very small in Queensland and -- but ERS is also not that strong in Queensland. So there are geographical gaps, but it will largely be sticking to the knitting of what each of the divisions does best. And in that -- in the case of Delta, although it's got some broader offers, the focus is around that very technical rural products-based customer centricity. Paul Jensz: And that's across the broader Elders business as well, if I look at the new structure that you have? It's really just sticking to the core business? You don't see another bolt-on there? Mark Allison: No, I don't think so. I think our view is that the -- any deviations, slight deviations from where we are now, we've talked about in the Elders Real Estate business, it's around strengthening our commercial real estate in regional rural Australia area, continuing to build on our property management business, which is a really solid good business. I think in ERS, there's a lot of -- in the traditional pink-shirted DRS front end, there's a lot of efficiency. Because we've just put SysMod through ERS, they've got the front-end point of sale across all the branches across Australia. So it's really around all the efficiencies that we promised and controls. And again, customer understanding that Paul talked to in terms of data, that ERS hasn't been doing in the past. In terms of Elders Crop Protection, I think the focus will be some -- a little more on integration because the formulation businesses run stand-alone to the traditional Titan business. So we'll slowly move around integration there on systems. And then feed and processing, really, we're looking at ways of expanding efficiency with acquiring extra land with some increased backgrounding, many of the efficiency programs that we've had previously. So across each division -- and I guess it goes to the point of why having focused divisions makes so much sense. Because each of them have their own nuance, their own focus, and it allows the management teams to really drive the efficiency and profitability. Paul Jensz: Okay. And then if I -- just a second question, if I can, if I build the building blocks towards, let's say, 2027, '28 numbers that consensus have, it doesn't seem to be a lot of, I suppose, underlying organic growth if you do the SysMod 250 staff that came across with the bolt-ons, Delta and the small free kit you get from '25, some of the earnings come into '26. So I'm interested in that organic growth number because I don't think consensus has got a big number in there for it and neither do I at the moment. Mark Allison: Yes. Well, I'm not sure how the -- what the assumptions are on the models. But I do know from a -- I mean, if backward integration is organic growth, and we certainly see it that way, the backward integration opportunity for ERS still has 10-or-so percent to go of the available generic portfolio and the -- just in crop protection and in Delta, there's probably 40% to go. So I think from us doing things that we control, not relying on market conditions, there's a lot of -- and then you've got also the benefits, the lag benefits of the transformational projects. But yes, your observation is probably right, Paul. Paul Jensz: And the final one, I thought others would ask this question, Mark, but I'll do it. The press -- I love talking about management transition, Mark, and your term comes up at the end of next year. I'm interested in whether you could return fire with what the press, like, talking with management change. Mark Allison: Yes. No, I thought the comment in the Australian was relatively accurate. I said when we refreshed the Board and I stayed -- I decided to stay, I said the earliest that I'd leave would be at the end of this Eight Point Plan, so that's September next year. And that's still the case. And it's not a term in the contract. It's an ongoing contract. So basically, my position has been that as a minimum, I'll stay to the end of the Eight Point Plan. Operator: Your next question comes from John Campbell from Jefferies. John Campbell: Firstly, just for clarity, what's the dollar value of adjustments that you've made to arrive at adjusted EBIT? Paul Rossiter: So you're -- in the investor presentation, John? John Campbell: Yes. Yes, it just said $143 million, just for clarity. So I know what we're adjusting. Paul Rossiter: Okay. I might just come back offline on that. So we do have -- we've got a list in the annual report, but yes, I'll come back on that offline. John Campbell: Yes. I can see where you've got that in the accounts. I just wasn't 100% sure which is included in your adjustment calculations. But I think we've got a call on this afternoon, Paul, so we can maybe touch base then. And just Mark, around -- and you sort of touched on it, but I presume with the improving seasonal conditions in the Southern regions that impacted in FY '25, in terms of that competitive intensity in crop protection that you've been talking about, I presume you see FY '26, so that sort of level of intensity and price competition and the like abating over the course of '26? Mark Allison: Yes. I think there are probably 2 components that leads us to think that way. One of them is around the seasonal conditions, as you just mentioned. And the second one is the stabilization of COGS out of Chinese factories. So the idea of lower priced cost of goods coming into Australia and then driving market price down, that doesn't seem to be where it was. Earlier, I think 6 months ago, we were concerned that tariffs on Chinese crop protection into North America may drive dumping of product in Australia and therefore, further drive prices down. If you're caught with high-cost inventory, you're obviously going to be screwed from a margin viewpoint. But our sense is that it's stabilized. And regardless, even a stabilized normal season environment, Australia has the lowest crop protection prices for all around the world. And it's not uncommon for multinational companies to divert product from Australia to Europe because they can make so much more money out of the same active ingredient. John Campbell: Okay. So that all augurs pretty well for crop protection for '26? Mark Allison: It looks like -- yes, as I said, I think we're pretty optimistic, both commodity season and the back of the transformational projects. Operator: Your next question comes from Mark Topy from Select Equities. Mark Topy: I just wanted to ask a question around the property side, the retail, the growth and both in the gross margin and the sort of volumes and some expectation around that and maybe some breakdown between what's organic and what's been achieved by acquisition because you clearly got a very strong growth rate. Can you give us some sense of how that looks going forward now? Paul Rossiter: Yes. Thanks, Mark. So just for clarity, so that was for real estate services. Mark Topy: Yes. Paul Rossiter: Yes, yes. So look, we -- in terms of growth, we see roughly the split between acquisition and organic, about 60% acquisition in F '25, 40% organic. I do note that one of the significant benefits from the acquisition of Knight Frank was to substantially grow our commercial real estate business. It also introduced a valuations business to the group as well. So when we think about real estate growth, it is across residential properties under management, broadacre, commercial and now valuations. So there's a few strings to the bow there. I'd also just make a comment in regards to broadacre. It did grow, but very fractionally in F '25, that part of the book was held back by the dry conditions in South Australia and Victoria. We do expect sort of pent-up vendor demand as those regions improve. Mark Topy: Right. Just thinking about the Tasmania market, kind of, say, how much growth opportunity do you see in that market going forward? Mark Allison: Yes. I think with Tasmania per se, I think it's -- it would be incremental growth. But I think the big benefit of that acquisition, which is the old Knight Frank business, is the commercial real estate knowledge, networks, et cetera, in the Mainland. And we're already seeing that is very, very important. So there are many contacts and insights that we didn't have on commercial real estate that we've gained from that business that is really helpful in our approach to Mainland expansion in commercial real estate. Mark Topy: Great. And just on the Delta side then, can you just talk to the systems and system harmonization in terms of what's being done in the Elders and whether any CapEx might be required if you like to harmonize Delta in line with Elders? Mark Allison: Yes. So the SysMod project is predominantly Elders'. And our approach at the end of Wave 4 when we switched off the AS400, and we're completely on Microsoft Dynamics 360 -- 365, sorry, we might have got a discount. Definitely not. So from that point forward, each of the acquisitions or each of the other divisions, whether that be AIRR, Elders Crop Protection or Delta, will be business case-based. So if there's a business case from the Delta Board around aligning, enhancing systems, then it will be treated on a return on capital business case basis. And we want to take it to business as usual because it's not just an ideological, everything has to be on the same system. This is all around return to shareholders. And all the systems that they're all operating on are fine. Mark Topy: They're all fine. Okay. I was going to say. And then in terms of -- I know you want to accelerate the Delta, but in terms of any risk areas, in terms of that integration, I noticed, for instance, they've got -- they're using different property managers. Do you perceive any sort of issues in migrating Delta across to Elders in that regard? Mark Allison: No. Well, I mean, it's all going to stay the same. So there's -- in terms of backup and stuff, which I think you're talking about. So we've got a mandatory integration. We've got a [ might ], and then there's a light touch component of it. Each of those are being developed with project teams between the businesses. So the -- our view is that it's a well-run business. It's got good management. It's got a strong Board governance to set the direction, and we'll be making the right decisions for the right reasons rather than any kind of ideological control-based decision. Of course, the mandatories around safety, financial transparency, regulatory compliance and so they're mandatories, as you'd expect. Operator: Unfortunately, that does conclude our time for questions. I'll now hand back to Mr. Allison for closing remarks. Mark Allison: Okay. Well, thank you very much to everyone. I did note that we have a couple more in the queue. So apologies to those. Paul and I have a back-to-back with all Elders staff. So 2,000 or 3,000 people will be waiting on the line for 5 minutes. So we've had to call it there. So for those that we haven't been able to talk to, we look forward to talking to you in our one-to-one sessions. But I appreciate everyone coming in, and thank you very much. Operator: That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.
Operator: Good day, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Niu Technologies Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, we are recording today's call. If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this time. Now I will turn the call over to Ms. Kristal Li, Investor Relations Manager of Niu Technologies. Ms. Li, please go ahead. Kristal Li: Thank you, operator. Hello, everyone. Welcome to today's conference call to discuss Niu Technologies results for the third quarter 2025. The earnings press release, corporate presentation and financial spreadsheets have been posted on our Investor Relations website. This call is being webcast from company's IR site as well, and a replay of the call will be available soon. Please note, today's discussion will contain forward-looking statements made under the safe harbor provision of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements involve risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other factors. The company's actual results may be materially different from those expressed today. Further information regarding the risk factors is included in company's public filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company does not assume any obligation and update any forward-looking statements, except as required by law. Our earnings press release and this call included discussion of certain non-GAAP financial measures. The press release contains a definition of non-GAAP financial measures and the reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP financial results. On the call with me today are our CEO, Dr. Yan Li; and CFO, Ms. Wenjuan Zhou. Now let me turn the call over to CEO, Yan. Yan Li: Thank you, Kristal. Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. In Q3, we delivered solid and sustained progress across all key strategic priorities, supported by disciplined execution in product innovation, channel expansion and brand elevation. Our results reflect the continued growth of our core China business and early signs of transition in our overseas operations, laying a strong foundation for the next phase of growth. For the third quarter of 2025, the total sales volume reached 465,000 units, representing a strong 49.1% year-over-year increase. This growth was driven primarily by exceptional performance in China, where sales rose to 451,000 units, up 74% year-over-year, supported by our strengthened product portfolio and effective channel expansion. Overseas volume reached 14,000 units, declining year-over-year, mainly due to weakness in the micromobility sector. Our total revenue grew 65% year-over-year to RMB 1.69 billion, accompanied by gross margin expansion to 21.8%, up 8.0 percentage points from the prior year or 1.7 percentage points sequentially. This improvement was driven by a favorable shift in the China product mix with increased contribution from higher-value models. Notably, sales of models priced above RMB 8,000 accounted for over 10% of China sales. Net profit for the quarter was RMB 81.69 million, extending the profitability momentum established in Q2. This improvement reflects daily efficiencies from higher volume and our continued focus on operational excellence. Those results underscore our ability to execute with discipline and resilience amid evolving market dynamics. We remain confident in our long-term strategy and the progress achieved this quarter provides a strong foundation for sustainable growth. China remained our primary growth engine in Q3 with unit sales rising 74% year-over-year to 451,000 units. A key driver was the channel inventory buildup ahead of implementation of the new national standard for electric bicycles, which provided a substantial short-term boost. This performance was also supported by successful product launches, strong brand-driven demand and steady channel expansion. The momentum built through 2024 and into 2025 reflects our refined strategy, enhanced competitiveness and growing consumer preference for Niu. In Q3, the China electric bicycle market entered a critical transition phase under the new national standard. While production of noncompliant models ceased after August 31, retail sales of existing inventories are permitted until November 30, 2025. This prompted distributors and retailers to build inventories in July and August, effectively pulling forward demand from October and November and created a temporary sales boost in Q3. Now to prepare for this regulatory shift, we emphasized on 3 actions: upgrading the existing high-end electric bicycle models to capture the short-term demand, rolling out the new electric motorcycles unaffected by this regulation to target lower-tier cities and redesigning and retuning our entire electric bicycle lineup to fully comply with the new standard for the rollout in Q4 2025 and Q1 2026. First, to capture is premium electric bicycle demand surge under the old standard, we launched the upgraded flagship models, the NXT Ultra 2025 and FXT Ultra 2025 version, each priced at RMB 11,999. The NXT Ultra 2025 introduced 10 major upgrades with 77% of core components redesigned to elevate the benchmark standards across safety, power intelligence. The FXT Ultra 2025 featured a futuristic performance-driven design on the same technology platform as the NXT Ultra equipped with automotive-graded millimeter-wave radar and dual-channel ABS setting a new safety benchmark for the segment. Together, those Ultra models contribute 8% of total Q3 sales, effectively serving high-end demand during this regulatory transition. Electric motorcycles are more prevalent in the lower-tier cities, Tier 3 and below due to a more relaxed regulations. This segment has historically been underserved in our portfolio and the channel footprint, making it a key growth priority for us. As highlighted in the previous earnings calls, expanding presence in lower-tier cities is a core strategy reflected in our store expansion and strengthened product line. In Q2, we completed a full N-Series motorcycle portfolio covering mainstream price points from entry-level NS at RMB 3,000 above and NL at RMB 4,000 and NXL at RMB 6,000 to the performance oriented NX just under RMB 10,000. Starting Q3, we extended the strategy to the F-Series, broadened the price band and enhanced the performance to value offerings. Now despite Q3 being a channel stocking period focused on electric bicycles, our enhanced motorcycle portfolio supported a healthy 14% revenue contribution from motorcycle sales. We expect this share to increase in the coming quarters. A key milestone in Q3 was the successful launch of FX Windstorm version on September 28. Known for its sharp distinctive styling that resonates strongly with Gen Z riders, the FX Windstorm reinforced F-Series' positioning as a performance powerhouse. Priced at RMB 4,799, it targets the RMB 4,000 segments at its first high-speed motorcycle for the young riders, equipped with 3,000 mass motor reinforced frame and a full-size TFT display and 4% disc brakes. It delivered performance comparable to model price above RMB 10,000, including mile 80-kilometer power top speed and 0 to 50 kilometer power in 4.7 seconds. The FX Windstorm was instant success with 14,000 units sold in the first 5 hours and generated RMB 68 million in GMV and ranked #1 on Douyin, Tmall, JD.com and Kuaishou in GMV and popularity. This success validates our strategic expansion into the electric motorcycles and create strong momentum for upcoming launches such as FS targeting the entry-level users. Now alongside the high-end electric bicycle motorcycles, we dedicated significant R&D resources to the new standard compliant electric bicycles. The updated regulation requires substantial redesigns from the limit usage of plastics to form factors. We now plan a full rollout of compliant products beginning in late November and extending through Q1 2026. The portfolio will include the renewed and new series offerings and also introduce new series designed to reach product consumer segments, including products optimized for female riders. Beyond the new product development, we continue to invest in core technologies, including the smart riding system, powertrain innovation and R&D platformization to enhance efficiency and capabilities. Our smart riding under AI efforts focus on 3 areas: expanding the foundational safety technologies such as ABS and millimeter-wave radar, developing assisted riding features for premium models such as the 2-way throttle and [indiscernible] Assist and building intelligent ecosystem to broader third-party integrations. Through partnership with Apple and Oracle with other industry leaders, we expand the cross-device connectivity, including the off-bike safety alert and Apple Wallet T access, enhancing overall user experience. In the powertrain system, we advanced several next-generation initiatives through a deeper motor controller R&D and the close collaboration with our battery partners. Our efforts focus on 2 key objectives: delivering higher peak current output for stronger acceleration and a fine-tune overall system efficiency to extend lower riding range under the diverse conditions. The NXT FX Ultra and FX Windstorm are the strong example of this R&D achievement. The enhanced powertrain architecture enables 0 to 25 kilometer power acceleration in just 1.92 seconds, setting a new benchmark for urban performance. For the FX Windstorm, the upgraded 3 kilowatts high-efficiency motor and optimized controller delivered top speed of 80 kilometer per hour while maintaining stable power delivery, improved thermal performance and consistent power output even during the extended high-speed riding. Those advancements not only elevate writings performance, but also form a foundation for the new generation of new powertrain platform that will scale across future product lines. Now lastly, our product-based R&D strategy continues to deliver a meaningful operational benefit. In Q3, it accelerated product iteration, strengthened manufacturing consistency and increased economy of scale. The improvement supported smooth delivery of 450,000 units, surpassing our previous peak by roughly about 20%, while enhancing margins through shared components and module design cross product lines. Now in Q3, we continued elevating the new brand and deepen engagement with our core audiences, particularly in premium consumers and Gen Z riders, our approach integrated lifestyle campaign, product launches and target digital engagement to strengthen brand equity and drive conversion. We acted on a series of youth-focused lifestyle campaigns, the Summer Ride and Splash campaign embedded new into the outdoor leisure experience such as lake diving and quick hiking across major cities generated 130 million impressions across online and offline channels. Following the FX Windstorm launch, we hosted large-scale test ride events in Chengdu and Chongqing engaged riders in real mountain environment. This created authentic word of mouth within the key user segment to provide valuable feedback. Our launch event continued to highlight news technology leadership. The June 17, Du Ultra flagship launch generated about 20,000 units sold in 5 hours with GMV exceeding RMB 228 million. The FX Windstorm launch delivered 14,000 units sold in 5 hours and 93% positive ratings, resonating strong with the Gen Z and delivery riders. Now strength in both offline and online channels as of Q3 Niu surpassed 4,500 stores nationwide with 238 net new stores added in Q3 and 800 year-to-date. Nearly half of new stores were in the lower-tier cities, supporting deeper market penetration. Our digital ecosystem also scaled rapidly. Niu now managed 9 official flagship accounts supported by 1,062 dealers operated accounts. In Q3, the network generated 30,000-plus live streams, 69,000 content pieces and [indiscernible] million impressions. The online sales representing close to 70% of our total work. We also expanded on to a new e-commerce platform Meituan, piloted with 10% stores generating RMB 40 million to RMB 50 million in monthly sales. We plan to expand store coverage and motorcycles next. On Kuaishou local services, over 2,200 stores have joined and FX Windstorm ABS launched ranked #2 nationally, reinforce our brand resonance among Gen Z riders in the lower-tier market. Now turning to our overseas market. Q3 unfolded as expected transitional quarter as we continue to optimize operation and preparing for our next growth cycle. The overseas sales volume reached 14,000 units with decline in micromobility, offset by encouraging progress in electric motorcycle. Despite Q3 being a seasonal low for European 2-wheeler demand, our electric motorcycle sales reached approximately 2,500 units, up 160% year-over-year. The self-operated sales accounted for 76% of total. We further accelerate our self-operated dealer network expansion. Dealers in those direct distributor regions grow from 120 at the start of the year to 289 in Q3, exceeding our initial target of 250. This reflects the strong brand recognition, product competitiveness and the growing retailer confidence in direct distribution model. With channel foundations now established, we will shift from capability building towards product rollout and deeper channel market penetration. The product lineup unveiled at EICMA position us strongly for multiyear growth. At EICMA, the largest 2-wheeler show in Milan, we showcased our international product road map, expanding from smart e-scooters to broader electric mobility portfolios. Highlights included 2026 NQi X-series with Google Map integration, featuring 125-kilometer per hour NQiX 1000 launching Q3 2026, the all-new FQiX Series for working commuters in L1e and L3e version for Q3 2026, the expanded XQi Series, including the 110-kilometer per hour XQi 500 Street version for second half of 2026. And lastly, the Concept 06, forward-looking 155-kilometer per hour platform featuring AI assisted intelligence, advanced safety. The new NQi 500 was awarded Top Award 2025 by German leading motorcycle media outlet 1000 PS, a strong validation of our product excellence. Our micromobility volume reached to 11,900 units, down 77% year-over-year, reflecting market headwinds in the U.S., Europe and Asia. Europe saw intensified price competition, while the U.S. shifted towards a lower price model due to tariff dynamics. In Q3, we intentionally reduced promotion and shipment to avoid overstocking and protect margin during a period of pricing pressure and supply chain transition. Given the current inventory levels in Europe and the U.S., we expect the structural adjustment to continue for the next couple of quarters. Now look ahead, we'll continue executing our strategy of driving fast growth in the China market and scaling our international electric 2-wheeler business while strategically adjusting the micromobility operation. We expect China to remain our primary growth driver of strong execution across the first 3 quarters. We break out product each quarter, demonstrating our capability in product definition, channel activation and brand influence. However, we expect some uncertainty and softening in Q4 this year due to the timing of the new standard implementation. The retailers are preloading inventory in Q3, shifting some demand from Q4. And a new standard compliant product will ramp up from late November through Q1 2026, shifting part of the Q4 demand into Q1 2026. Combined, those factors will likely result in a relative flat year-over-year volume in Q4. We expect growth to reaccelerate in Q1 2026 as the regulatory transition completed and the market stabilized. The fourth new standard electric bicycle lineup, along with 300 to 400 new stores additions in Q4 will support a strong momentum into 2026. Now turning into the overseas market. For electric 2-wheelers, we expect strong year-over-year growth in Q4, supported by ongoing expansion of direct distribution network. The new product introduced at EICMA will fuel the multiyear growth starting in 2026. In micromobility, we will continue prioritizing profitability or skills in Q4, reducing promotions that focus on clearing existing inventories. This will lead to a lower Q4 volume. We expect the adjustment to conclude in first half of 2026 with margin return to the normal level second half of 2026. Now with that, let me turn the call to Fion. Wenjuan Zhou: Thank you, Yan, and hello, everyone. Please note that our press release contains all the figures and comparisons you need, and we have also uploaded cell format figures to our IR website for your easy reference. As I review our financial results, I'm referring to the third quarter figures unless I say otherwise. And all mandatory figures are in RMB if not specified. As Yan just mentioned, our total sales volume for the third quarter was 466,000 units, up 49% compared to the same period of last year. Among this, 451,000 units sold in China and the remaining 14,000 units overseas. Nearly 50% of our sales volume in China came from our top 3 models this quarter and the number of franchise stores in China was 4,542 at the end of third quarter. Total revenue for the third quarter amounted to RMB 1.69 billion, an increase of RMB 670 million or 65% compared to the same period of last year, and the result came in slightly ahead of our guidance, primarily due to the robust sales volume growth in China during the peak season in third quarter. China revenues were RMB 1.62 billion, increased at 84% year-over-year and accounting for 95% of total revenues. Of this, the scooter revenue were RMB 1.48 billion, and this growth was primarily driven by a 74% increase in sales volume and coupled with a higher ASP. China scooter ASP was RMB 3,283, representing a nearly 7% year-over-year growth and remaining largely stable compared to the previous quarter. And this growth was primarily driven by a favorable shift in our product mix. In Q3, our top seller NT with a retail price range from RMB 3,699 to RMB 4,599 continue to perform well. In the meantime, complemented by a strong contribution from the new products like the [NLT] and NXT range from RMB 3,899 to RMB 6,299. Collectively, these 3 top sellers accounted for nearly 50% of our total sales volume this quarter. Overseas revenue was RMB 77 million, representing 5% of total revenue. Scooter revenues, including electric motorcycles and mopeds, kick scooters and e-bikes amounted to RMB 67 million, down from RMB 130 million in the same period of last year, and this decline was driven by decreases in sales volume and ASP of kick scooters. Overseas scooter ASP increased 90% year-over-year and 41% quarter-over-quarter to RMB 4,648 and driven by a greater proportion of revenue coming from the higher-priced electronic motorcycles and mopads. Revenue from accessories, spare parts and services were RMB 145 million, representing 8.6% of total revenue and a 51% increase compared to the same period of last year due to the increase in spare parts sales in China. Gross margin this quarter -- gross profit this quarter exceeded RMB 370 million, marking a significant improvement compared to RMB 142 million during the same period of last year and RMB 252 million last quarter. The gross margin was 21.8%, 8 ppt higher than the same period of last year and 1.7 ppt higher than the previous quarter, marking our best quarterly gross margin performance this year. And this improvement was driven by the ongoing cost reduction initiatives and the economy of scale from higher sales volume in China market. Operating expenses for the third quarter were RMB 297 million, increase of 48% compared to the same period of last year and the OpEx ratio down to 17.5% dropped from 19.6% in the same period of last year and 21.1% in the previous quarter. Selling and marketing expenses rose by RMB 87 million year-over-year to RMB 215 million, primarily driven by higher spending on marketing and online promotion campaigns in China. Selling and marketing expenses representing 12.7% of revenue compared to 12.5% in the same period of last year and down from 16.1% last quarter. R&D expenses increased by RMB 13 million year-over-year to RMB 43 million, primarily due to the higher staff costs and share-based compensation. R&D expenses representing 2.6% of revenue compared to 3% in the same period of last year and down from 3.5% last quarter. G&A expenses decreased by RMB 4 million year-over-year to RMB 39 million, mainly due to the improved cash collection from account receivable, which resulted in the reversal of bad debt provisions and G&A expenses representing 2.3% of revenue, down significantly from 4.2% in the same period of last year, while up from 1.5% last quarter as the company benefited largely from foreign currency exchange gains in the previous quarter. The net income was RMB 82 million with a net margin of 4.8% on the GAAP accounting compared to a net loss of RMB 41 million for the same period of last year and net income of RMB 5.9 million for last quarter. The non-GAAP net income was RMB 88 million. And turning to our balance sheet and cash flow. We ended the quarter with RMB 1.8 billion versus RMB 1.1 billion last year-end in cash, restricted cash, term deposits and short-term investments. And our operating cash inflow amounted to RMB 433 million. The CapEx amounted to RMB 73 million, reflecting an increase of RMB 32 million compared to the same period of last year. And this can be attributed primarily to an increase in the opening of new stores and modules cost in China. And now let's turn to guidance. We expect the fourth quarter revenue to be in the range of RMB 737 million to RMB 901 million, representing a year-over-year change of minus 10% to plus 10%. And please be aware that this outlook is based on the information available as of the date and reflects the company's current and preliminary expectations, which is subject to change due to uncertainties relating to various factors. And with that, we'll now open the call for any questions that you may have for us. Operator, please go ahead. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Seeing no more questions in the queue, let me turn the call back to Mr. Li for closing remarks. Yan Li: Thank you, operator, and thank you all for participating on today's call and for your support. We appreciate your interest and look forward to reporting to you again next quarter on our progress. Thank you. Operator: This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect. Speakers, please stand by.
Operator: Hello, and thank you for standing by. My name is Bella, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to SUNAtion Energy Third Quarter 2025 Financial Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the conference over to Devin Sullivan, Managing Director of Equity Group. You may begin. Devin Sullivan: Thank you, Bella. Thank you, everyone, for joining us today for SUNAtion's 2025 Third Quarter Financial Results Conference Call. Our speakers for today are Scott Maskin, Chief Executive Officer; and James Brennan, Chief Financial Officer. Mr. Maskin will open with prepared remarks followed by a question-and-answer session. Before we get started, I'd like to remind everyone that prospects of SUNAtion Energy are subject to uncertainties and risks. Remarks on today's call may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Act of 1934. The company intends that such forward-looking statements be subject to the safe harbor provisions provided by the foregoing sections. These forward-looking statements are based largely on the expectations or forecasts of future events can be affected by inaccurate assumptions and are subject to various business risks and known and unknown uncertainties, a number of which are beyond the control of management. Therefore, actual results could differ materially from the forward-looking statements contained during this call. The company cannot predict or determine after the fact what factors would cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated by the forward-looking statements or other statements. Participants should consider statements that include the words believes, expects, anticipates, intends, estimates, plans, projects, should or other expressions that are predictions of or indicate future events or trends to be uncertain and forward-looking. We caution investors not to place undue reliance upon any such forward-looking statements. The company does not undertake to publicly update or revise forward-looking statements, whether because of new information, future events or otherwise. Additional information respecting factors that could materially affect the company and its operations are contained in the company's filings with the SEC, including its Form 10-K and in subsequent filings, which can be found on the SEC's website at www.sec.gov. With that, I'd now like to turn the call over to Scott Maskin, CEO of SUNAtion Energy. Scott, please go ahead. Scott Maskin: Thank you, Devin, and good morning, everybody. Happy Monday. Thank you all for joining me today. This is a call that I've truly been looking forward to for quite some time. Since Jim and I took the helm of SUNAtion about 18 months ago, it felt at times like steering through unpredictable conditions, keeping steady, staying focused and making sure everyone on the team understood where we were headed and why. Now I won't tell you things have calmed down. They absolutely have not. As we look ahead to 2026, there's still a lot of movement in the industry and uncertainty. But the difference is that we're no longer reacting, we're leading. We've got structure, direction and a team that's completely aligned on the mission. And this quarter represents a turning point. For the first time in a long while, our results, our work reflect the impact of our hard work, the discipline and the cultural rebuilding that's taken place inside this organization. If I had to sum up Q3 in one phrase, it's this. We delivered it on our promises. Sales rose, costs came down, margins improved and profitability strengthened. Our capital structure is squeaky clean, and our balance sheet is the strongest it's been in years. That didn't happen by chance. It took tough calls, long hours and people who refused to give up, but it proves what happens when we stay focused and we execute. While many in our industry have struggled to find direction, SUNAtion has moved forward, stronger, leaner and ready for what's next. Those of us who've been in solar for a while know the ride never really smooths out. The One Big Beautiful Bill and the upcoming sunset of Section 25D have created new challenges and new opportunities, and our team is handled both with focus and professionalism. The rush to complete residential installations before the end of 2025 has been intense, and our teams in New York and Hawaii have been extraordinary and really stepped up to the plate. These are 2 of the most expensive energy markets in the country, and our people have helped homeowners take control of both their power and their costs. Residential sales in those markets were up 54% year-over-year in Q3. I want to say that again. Residential sales in those markets were up 54% year-over-year in Q3. And we expect that momentum to continue right through the year-end. At the same time, we're not focused on this surge. We're preparing for what comes after. We've been developing new financing options and lease-to-own programs that will carry us not just in 2026, but far beyond, tried and true approaches that have been part of SUNAtion's success story for more than 2 decades. On the commercial side, we're continuing to see steady demand from institutions and municipalities across Long Island and downstate New York. High energy costs and the longer runway for federal tax credits have supported a solid project pipeline, and we're executing efficiently. Our advantage continues to be our diversification in our people, our markets and our services. And it's what gives us balance and stability moving forward. We stand unique by offering residential solar and storage, commercial solar, roofing and our ever-growing expanding service division. We intend to expand into the energy-efficient HVAC market and stand-alone roofing, while we've doubled down on our service and O&M side, helping both our long-term customers and those left without support when their original installers disappeared. We're also evaluating strategic M&A opportunities that make sense, ones that bring scale, efficiency or exposure to fast-growing sectors like AI, crypto and data centers. These are reshaping how power is used, and we're positioning SUNAtion to play a meaningful role in the future. Through all of this, one thing hasn't changed. We stay calm, focused and deliberate. Running a business much like happening a ship isn't about avoiding rough conditions. It's about knowing your course, trusting you crew and making steady progress no matter what's ahead. Every day, I'm driven by 3 things: our team who show up with great purpose, our customers who trust us to deliver on the promise of solar and of course, our shareholders whose patients and confidence were determined to reward. SUNAtion is stronger than it's been in a long time. We understand the challenges ahead, but we also see tremendous opportunity in front of us. We've built a company that can adapt, grow and lead through whatever comes next. And I'll close with this. God willing, the market will begin to acknowledge and reward our efforts, our resilience and the results that this incredible team has delivered for you in Q3. Thank you all for your time and trust and your continued confidence in SUNAtion. With that, I'll turn it over to our COO, CFO and my steady co-captain, Jim Brennan, who will take us through the numbers. Jim? James Brennan: Thank you, Scott, and good morning, everyone. I appreciate you joining us today and especially those on the West Coast that are joining us at 6:00 a.m. We are joined today by Kristin Hlavka, SUNAtion's Chief Accounting Officer and Corporate Treasurer; as well as Mitch Sommer, SUNAtion's Corporate Controller. We filed our 10-Q on November 7 and issued our earnings release on Monday, November 10. As we reflect on our performance for the third quarter, I am pleased to report that the actions that we have taken have delivered significant improvements throughout the business as we promised. We ended the third quarter in the strongest financial position in recent history through in-depth planning, disciplined execution and sharp focus on operational efficiencies by the regional leadership teams in both New York and Hawaii. We strengthened our balance sheet, expanded our margins and improved profitability. These much improved results our direct outcome of the hard work of the entire team and the commitment to deliver value to our shareholders in the midst of a rapidly evolving market environment. We are on track to report strong results in the current fourth quarter and have reiterated our 2025 full year financial guidance for higher total sales and a return to positive adjusted EBITDA as compared to full year 2024. On to the review of our Q3 2025 results. Total Q3 sales rose by 29% to $19 million from $14.7 million last year. Sales at SUNAtion in New York and Hawaii rose by 22% and 47%, respectively, with residential sales rising 54% and service sales increasing by 72%. This was driven by an accelerated pace of system installations prior to the expiration of the federal tax credits on December 31, 2025. Although commercial sales declined by $1.7 million, we expect continued stability in this sector as businesses and institutions such as churches and schools continue to take advantage of the longer runway that the One Big Beautiful Bill has offered. Inherently, the commercial sector is more complex and nuanced than residential. So these projects tend to take more time to develop and install. On a consolidated basis, overall kilowatts installed on residential projects increased by 52% in the third quarter of 2025. Revenue per installation increased by 25%. Consolidated gross margins improved to $7.2 million or 38% of sales from gross margin of $5.2 million or 35.6% of sales driven by higher residential margins. SUNAtion New York's gross margin improved to 40.7% from 37.9%, while Hawaii's gross margin increased to 32.1% from 29.5%. We continue to effectively manage costs throughout our organization, while total operating expenses rose $7.5 million from $6.8 million as a percentage of sales, the total operating expenses declined to 39.3% from 46.5%, and we expect the total operating expenses in 2025 to be lower than 2024. Interest expense in the third quarter of 2025 declined to $143,000 from a whopping $812,000 last year, reflecting the continuing benefits of paying off the expense of debt earlier this year. We continue to expect our annual interest expense to decline by approximately $2 million for 2025 as compared to 2024. We operated just below breakeven for the quarter with a net loss of approximately $393,000, which is a $2.9 million improvement from a net loss of $3.3 million in last year's third quarter. Taking all of this into account, Q3 adjusted EBITDA improved to a positive $898,000 from an adjusted EBITDA loss of $1 million in last year's third quarter. With respect to the balance sheet, cash and cash equivalents rose to $5.4 million on September 30, which is our largest or highest cash level since 2022. Our total debt decreased by over $11 million, falling to $7.9 million compared to $19.1 million at the end of 2024. This total debt included an earn-out consideration of $1 million. Other areas of improvement this year through September 30 include accounts payable improved $7.3 million from $8 million on December 31, 2024. Current liabilities improved to $19.0 million from $27.2 million on December 31, 2024. And lastly, shareholders' equity improved to $21.7 million from $8.5 million on December 31, 2024. Based on these Q3 results, solar projects pipeline and general business environment, we are reiterating our guidance for 2025 as follows: Total sales are expected to rise to between $65 million and $70 million, a projected increase of 14% or 23% from total sales of $56.9 million in 2024. Adjusted EBITDA is expected to improve to between $500,000 and $700,000 from an adjusted EBITDA loss in 2024. Before turning things back to Scott, I want to again thank the entire SUNAtion team, both in Hawaii and New York for their hard work and dedication. This process has not been easy. Over the past 6 months, our financial health has improved dramatically. Sales are up, costs are down, profits are higher and our financial position is strong. It's no secret that our industry is in a state of transition and that the challenges we all face are significant, but that's okay. We are embracing these challenges as an opportunity to redefine SUNAtion as a whole and the value we can deliver to our shareholders. The global demand for energy is accelerating, and SUNAtion has over 2 decades of experience in delivering clean, sustainable solar energy. As we look ahead to 2026, we will continue to address these opportunities from a renewed and we believe, sustainable position of financial strength. We are optimistic about our future and look forward to keeping you apprised of any news and progress. I want to thank you for your time, and we'll now turn things back to the most handsomest guy in solar, Scott Maskin. Scott Maskin: Thanks, Jim. We're taking calls now, guys. All right. Fire away. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Julien Dumoulin-Smith with Jefferies. Hannah Velásquez: Hannah Velásquez on for Julien. I had a quick question or rather, yes, just an update on 25D expiration. Curious to see what you all are seeing out there in the market in terms of any pull-forward effect? And then also any reactions to the advent or I suppose the introduction of this new concept prepaid lease plus loan bundle. I think you alluded to it on your call. But any additional detail you can provide there in terms of if it's viable as a replacement of 25D and if you would consider pursuing it? Scott Maskin: Sure. Thanks for the time today. So listen, 25D has certainly -- the sunset of that tax credit certainly has a meaningful impact especially in markets like New York and Hawaii with high cost of kilowatt hour. We've traditionally been loan markets. We have done some leasing. And there's been a lot of different tools that are out there. So what I would say is that we're driving to the end of the year, pull forward, yes, there's a ton of people that sat on the fence for a long time, they got off the fence. And they're just -- I mean, there's a lot of angry else out there that were on the fence for too long, and we just simply could not get them installed. I mean my teams in both states are running 6 days a week plus to get this work done. That being said, I believe that there are some significant advances in a lot of different financing tools other than just traditional leasing and loans. So I think a lot is going to evolve as more information comes out on FIAC. When I look at our markets, we could still make a d*** fine financial model for a loan and for owning it. So I don't think it's going to slow things. I think that we're in the in a trough right now of people that rush to move forward and then when they could and they're in pause mode. And then what's going to happen is we'll figure out ways to get them back on the fence through some of these other tools. I think they're all going to be viable. I think that people that are coming out with new and unique financing options are really making sure that their eyes are dotted and their Ts are crossed on the tax side of it. And that's been -- I'd say that's been slower than the anticipated process. Did that answer your question? Hannah Velásquez: Yes, that was perfect. And then maybe just as a follow-up there. So we're hearing with 25D expiring, you're having new entrants, I suppose, in the competitive market, maybe more so on the TPO side. But can you just double-click in terms of what you're seeing out there? Are you seeing new TPOs enter trying to take advantage of the shift towards the leasing market? I know Tesla also joined the space. And so just what are you seeing from a competitive perspective? Scott Maskin: When you mentioned the T word, never count Elon Musk out for anything. He's got the bag -- the sheet that he can upend this entire industry on a moment's notice. But I think that as somebody who's been involved for 20-some-odd years, I have seen so many players, financial players kind of circle and circle and they take advantage of opportunities when they're there and then some get smacked down and then they reinvent themselves and they come back. I mean this all boils down to capital and available capital and available tax equity, right? So my understanding in the market, raising capital in solar is difficult right now. It doesn't mean that it's nonexistent, but I think that there's going to be a little bit of a lull. People still want solar, but the players, they -- some of them rename themselves, some of them retreat and then come back. I mean, I'm mindful of how SunPower -- and I'll say that SunPower exited bankrupt and now they're coming back in as a player. So -- and acquiring companies and stuff. I look at some other companies that were in the LMI market that just couldn't get the capital and imploded, right? So it's just like a big -- it's kind of a big vortex, a big circle. But ultimately, everybody comes back to the top, the same players that are involved in the space are the same players that keep rising. They may rename themselves. And listen, we're going to go back. Again, all that needs to happen as the cost of energy continues to rise, it makes every decision even easier and more palatable. James Brennan: I would add to that, that some of the newer tools that are becoming available based on some of the financial wizards in this market, prepaid leases, synthetic cash, you name it, there's a lot of buzzwords circulating around. But I love it. As long as we have the ability to deliver to these customers some sort of approach that works for them, even though the recent stupidity in Washington got at 100% wrong, we are pivoting to continue to survive. There are -- as Scott mentioned, there are companies in the industry that won't. The reality is New York and Hawaii are not alone with expensive power. Some of the target acquisition markets that we're looking at have even more expensive power than Long Island, which is hard to believe. But those folks are predicting higher revenue this year than -- next year than 2025 because their math continues to work in a purchase to own market even in the absence of the 30% federal ITC. Hannah Velásquez: Okay. And if I could just have one more follow-up question. On that point, maybe on a consolidated basis, how are you thinking about market growth in 2026? I mean you hear the consultants all over the place, right, talking about a 10% decline, best-case scenario and then up to a 20% to 30% decline all in just given 25D expiring. And as like a secondary question there, what's the latest you're hearing on FIAC? James Brennan: So the first part of your question was about 2026 guidance, and I'm not prepared to give that today. We do predict a lower-than-normal Q1, although as I say those words, I was recently pleasantly surprised from the New York team that they've already booked nearly 100 deals for January, which was surprising given the new set of circumstances that we're dealing with. And -- but by the way, that's the normal cycle of our business. Q1 and Q2 are always low in both New York and Hawaii for different reasons. And then Q3 and Q4, just like this year in 2025, Q3 and Q4 were cranking so much so that we're having trouble keeping up with all the work. And so I suspect that a very similar model will follow in 2026 as well. And Scott, do you want to... Scott Maskin: Yes. Just on FIAC, it's still happening, right? Every day, there's a change. Every day somebody is coming out with different -- securing different equipment, different ABLs and stuff like that. I don't think that anybody can securely say this is where it's going to be on January 1. It's just the guidance is just -- it's too fuzzy. I think that we will adapt. We will find products and cash is king also. Those with strong balance sheets are going to be able to get equipment and others are going to implode. And I just want to touch on what Jim said. I have often and the thesis of SUNAtion has always been a regional company. When the analysts say 10% decline, 40% decline, 50%, it's really unfair because you look at some -- you look at California, who's just a gut punch after gut punch. But last year, they blew it out of the door, right? Like with the exit of NEM 3. But North Carolina is growing. Massachusetts is growing. So it's hyper-regional markets and hyper-regional. I've always said we're very -- we're exposed by utilities and state politics. So find me a state that is really pro-energy, find me a state that's going to see a growth of data centers and AI. And I'll show you a state that it's going to grow revenue base because of cost of power is going to be so high. Operator: At this time, I would like to turn the call back over to Devin Sullivan. Devin Sullivan: Thank you, Bella. We do have a couple of questions from SUNAtion stakeholders that I'd like to ask on their behalf. And the first one to the management team is, what is your long-term vision for SUNAtion following the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act? Scott Maskin: Thanks, Devin. And to whoever that shareholder is, thank you. I think harping on the diversification of SUNAtion as one of our strengths, maybe it's our greatest strength. For my shareholders and for our company, we see a rush to the end of the year. We're figuring out a lot of things for 2026 and moving forward. But we see the commercial industry really growing. We see the service industry growing. Residential is going to figure itself out. We've been through these cycles before. So I'm not too -- there's a lot of confidence. Sometimes things like this are also a good gut check. Where can we be better? Where can we be more efficient? And take advantage of that thing. And that's not just with OpEx. That's not just with employees and stuff like that. I mean over time, you kind of float and you look at your software stack and you look at all kinds of things that you spend money on as you're growing, growing and growing. And sometimes it's a good exercise to retool and reshape the company so that you can come back. It's almost like going into the corner of a price line so that you can come out punching after somebody flashes water on you. So I'm not concerned, overly concerned about '26 and '27 because we're in a good spot for it. We have a lot of different revenue streams. There's a lot of different opportunities out there to add revenue to the company, to the listing, to SUNAtion as a whole that may be in the energy field, maybe not, right? So those are the things that give me a lot of confidence moving forward into 2026 and 2027. And at 62 years old, I need those pearls to keep me going. James Brennan: Devin, I would add to that answer that just for clarification, revenue diversification has been our strength for a long time. The companies that we've seen that have failed over time are ones that have a single source of revenue, and you can name them off the top of your head, I'm sure. In our case, we went out of our way to have 6 or 7, hopefully, even more sources of revenue. So we have a residential revenue stream, commercial service, roofing. We actually do electrical work for some of our solar customers. We have community solar. And in the future, hopefully, if the moons align, we'll add HVAC and some high-efficiency HVAC tools that and so on. So that -- because as Scott mentioned, we'll see in the future a time where another part of our revenue stream slows down. That's fine. That's part of the cycle that we all live through, but we'll have a backfill from other revenue streams. Just like in 2025, the commercial team had lower-than-expected revenue. But I doubt that will be the discussion in 2026 because there's a ton of work that those folks are cranking through right now. Devin Sullivan: And actually, Jim, that's a good segue into our final question is, can you -- how would you describe the market for commercial in 2026? Scott Maskin: Yes. So I'll start with that one. I see that we've -- in New York, we positioned ourselves very well with national developers. We've always taken the approach that it's great to originate your own work. But I make money when trucks roll. Our shareholders win when trucks roll and money comes in. So I don't really care who sells the job, but we're really good at executing on those things. Because of that diversification with the national developers, we're seeing a big inrush in schools, institutional type things. And we're really, really well suited to execute on that kind of stuff. I'm not saying that traditional rooftop solar on an industrial building is going to go away. But we have a very strong pipeline, and that's going to be a major focus for us moving forward because, listen, that's kind of where the sweet spot is in the industry right now also at least until through 2027. So that's -- there's nothing d*** the torpedo's is full speed ahead on that kind of stuff. James Brennan: Devin, I would just add to that, that because we do a lot of work for these large national developers, and we do a pretty d*** good job at delivering on those projects, we are now getting asked or actually, we've been throughout the year being asked to do work in other states. So we historically have had an acquisition view on growth into new markets. But this is an organic view just simply because the commercial team does a good job of delivering. And then the next thing you know that national developer wants us to go into a different state because they have another project. And so that will definitely be some growth into next year that we'll see on the commercial side. Devin Sullivan: Thank you, both. That is our final question. So I'll turn things back over to Scott for closing comments. Scott Maskin: Well, thanks for everybody that spent a beautiful sunny Monday morning with us. Customers are happy. They're making money today because the sun is out in New York and soon Hawaii. I want to wish everybody a happy holiday season. Let's not forget what's important as we move forward, revenue and shareholders and business is important, but family first, and that's how we treat our business. So I wanted to thank everybody time and the confidence. And man, am I looking forward to that end of year report, okay? So thanks, Devin. Thanks, team. Operator: All right, ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's conference call. Thank you all for joining, and you may now disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.
Operator: Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Trip.com Group Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I'd now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Michelle Qi, Senior IR Director. Please go ahead. Michelle Qi: Thank you. Thank you, all. Good morning, and welcome to Trip.com Group's Third Quarter of 2025 Earnings Conference Call. Joining me today on the call are Mr. James Liang, Executive Chairman of the Board; Ms. Jane Sun, Chief Executive Officer; and Ms. Cindy Wang, Chief Financial Officer. During this call, we will discuss our future outlook and performance, which are forward-looking statements made under the safe harbor provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties. As such, our results may be materially different from the views expressed today. A number of potential risks and uncertainties are outlined in Trip.com Group's public filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Trip.com Group does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, except as required under applicable law. James, Jane and Cindy will share our strategy and business updates, operating highlights and financial performance for the third quarter of 2025 as well as outlook for the rest of the year. After the prepared remarks, we will have a Q&A session. With that, I will turn the call over to James. James, please. James Liang: Thank you, Michelle, and thanks, everyone, for joining us on this call today. Travel is thriving and the travel spirit shows no signs of slowing down. In the third quarter, travel demand surged across markets, led by vibrant domestic travel in China and a steady rise in outbound journey. Travelers are exploring with confidence seeking authentic experiences in new horizons, a reflection of their enduring passion for discovery. This growing enthusiasm is mirrored in the performance of our AI-powered tools such as Trip.Planner, whose recent upgrade has fueled a 180% year-over-year surge in unique visits. Inbound travel continues to play a vital role in fostering international exchange, trade and innovation, generating meaningful economic and cultural benefits. Expanded visa-free entry policies and broader coverage of the 240-hour transit visa exemption have made it easier than ever to visit, bringing the goal of raising inbound travel revenue to 1% to 2% of GDP increasingly within reach. As part of our inbound initiative, Trip.com Group launched Taste of China, an immersive dining experience that allows international visitors to explore Chinese culture through its rich culinary tradition. We remain optimistic about the future of travel. By leveraging AI innovation and delivering world-class service, we continue to make travel easier, more personalized and more enjoyable for every traveler. With that, I will turn the call over to Jane for operational highlights. Jane Sun: Thank you, Jane. Good morning, everyone. As a quick overview, our net revenue in Q3 increased by 16% year-over-year, reflecting strong demand across segments during peak travel season. Travel consumption remained robust throughout the summer and the National Day holiday with both domestic and international travel markets showing healthy momentum. This performance underscores travelers' growing desire for diverse, immersive and high quality experiences. Outbound travel continued to post solid growth in Q3 with our outbound hotel and air bookings growing by close to 20% from last year and reaching about 140% of 2019 volume. Japan, South Korea and Southeast Asian destinations remain the most popular choices, supported by their proximity and visa convenience. At the same time, travelers' radius of exploration continued to expand as more people sought new adventures and richer cultural experiences. This trend was particularly evident during the Golden Week, which was 1 day longer than last year and sparked stronger demand for long-haul trip. During the holiday, outbound hotel and air bookings surged by around 30% year-over-over reflecting sustained travel enthusiasm. Europe stood out as a key growth region driven by increased flight capacity and travelers appetite for in-depth experiences. Bookings to Iceland and Norway more than doubled year-over-year. Spain, Italy and Germany also grew by approximately 70%. These trends show that travelers are increasingly willing to invest in high-quality travel experiences highlighting strong consumption power and continued confidence in outbound travel. Domestic travel also remained vibrant fueled by travelers' passion for new and immersive experiences. From cultural discovery to outdoor exploration, the growing diversity of travel demand continues to drive solid market growth. Major cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu and Xi'an remained the top choices for their accessibility and offering. Remote regions, including [indiscernible] and Lhasa also grew by nearly 30% as more travelers ventured West to discover unspoiled landscape and rich heritage. At the same time smaller cities are emerging as new favorites for urban residents seeking peace and renewal. Their local charms and slower pace offer refreshing escape from everyday life. Inbound travel continues to connect the world, bringing travelers from across the globe to experience oriental culture, spark innovation and drive trade. The Asia Pacific region remains the largest source of inbound travelers, with Europe and the U.S. also seeing strong growth. In Q3, inbound travel bookings on our platform grew by over 100%, reflecting robust international demand. Building on the success of relay over tours in Beijing and Shanghai, we recently launched a free layover experience for travelers at Hong Kong International Airport. Transit travelers with 7 hours or more can book in advance on the Trip.com app or website or on-site at the airport to explore Hong Kong's highlights. For those seeking a deeper adventure, premium tours provide access to landmarks, such as Lantau Island and Victoria Peak. We are making it easier than ever for international visitors to plan, book and enjoy these experiences, aiming to become the go-to platform and trusted hub for travelers from around the world. On the international front, Trip.com Group continued to deliver strong performance. International bookings on our platform grew by around 60% year-over-year. The Asia Pacific region remains the largest contributor, rising over 50% in Q3. Across all regions, Mobile continues to be a key growth driver, now accounting for over 70% of total bookings. Travelers increasingly rely on our app for one stop on the go experience managing flights, hotels and tours seamlessly combined with high service standards and hassle-free bookings. We offer users great convenience and excellent value, fueling continued growth across markets. As travel demand expands across borders, it is also diversified across generation. With spending power 3x that of younger travelers, affluent and active seniors are eager to explore and spend on quality travel, reshaping the market from price competition towards a true value creation. In Q3 the number of Old Friends Club members and their total GMV rising over 70%. Trip.com Group is tailoring more products and services for this growing segment. We launched our first Old Friends Club flagship store in Shanghai to connect with senior travelers face-to-face and introduced themed trips designed around their interest. We also formed a dedicated service team of [ chief ] mom and dad officers friendly travel buddies who travel alongside the seniors, offering support and thoughtful care for their needs. Younger travelers are also shaping new trends in travel, seeking experiences that go beyond the ordinary. In Q3, revenue from this segment grew by triple digit propelled by the rising craze for concerts and live experiences. To meet the growing demand, Trip.com Group announced multiyear strategic partnerships with the world's leading live entertainment company. The collaboration allows fans to plan entertainment trip seamlessly combining exclusive presale access to shows with flights, hotels and curated local experiences to our platform, as entertainment becomes an increasingly powerful driver of travel, these partnerships help fans follow the artists they love while supporting regional tourism and enhancing destination appeal across Asia. We are also strengthening event booking capabilities through our partnership with Cityline Group, covering Hong Kong and Macau. Users can now effortlessly collect tickets via Cityline extensive self-service kiosk network by connecting online bookings with offline ticketing, the partnership delivers a smooth, hassle-free experience for travelers enjoying large-scale events. Trip.com Group remains deeply committed to nurturing the broader travel ecosystem and supporting local economic development by promoting travel products around concerts, festivals, and major sports events. We inspire more travelers to explore these destinations, driving overnight stays and spending and turning seasonal excitement into lasting economic impact for local communities. At the same time, we continue to tailor products and services to meet diverse traveler needs. For example, offering Muslim-friendly options, highlighting smart toilets for Japanese users and providing foreign currency exchange for inbound visitors. To further empower partners and elevate service standards across the industry, Trip.com Group is harnessing technology and AI to help the entire travel ecosystem move forward. Hotels can now overcome language barriers with our AI communication tools that respond to guest inquiries in real time. Our AI content generator and training tools also empower hoteliers to produce engaging content and sharpen their digital skills, helping them connect with international guests and with our updated hotel scoring and page ranking algorithms, we encourage hotels to focus on what truly matters, genuine service and lasting guest satisfaction instead of chasing ratings or ranking. Together, these efforts help partners stay competitive in a fast-changing landscape and create richer, smoother and more seamless travel experiences for travelers around the world. Travel is a fundamental part of the human experience, and we remain confident in the industry's long-term growth. We will continue to enhance our services and empower the broader ecosystem, driving sustainable growth across the travel industry and the wider economy. With that, I will now turn the call over to Cindy. Xiaofan Wang: Thanks, Jane. Good morning, everyone. For the third quarter of 2025, Trip.com Group reported a net revenue of RMB 18.3 billion, representing a 16% increase from the same period last year and a 24% increase from the previous quarter, reflecting robust travel demand throughout the summer and the Golden Week holiday. Accommodation reservation revenue for the third quarter was RMB 8.0 billion representing an 18% increase year-over-year and a 29% increase quarter-over-quarter. This was mainly driven by strong momentum in outbound and international hotel bookings along with sustained strength in domestic demand. Transportation ticketing revenue for the third quarter was RMB 6.3 billion, representing a 12% increase year-over-year and a 17% increase quarter-over-quarter. International air bookings showed robust growth with outbound air bookings continuing to outpace the market. Packaged tour revenue for the third quarter was RMB 1.6 billion, representing a 3% increase year-over-year and a 49% increase quarter-over-quarter, primarily driven by the expansion of our international offerings, our destination services delivered strong growth with international markets continuing to drive overall expansion. Corporate travel revenue for the third quarter was RMB 756 million representing a 15% increase year-over-year and a 9% increase quarter-over-quarter. This was driven by more companies adopting our managed corporate travel services. Excluding share-based compensation charges, adjusted product development expenses for the third quarter increased by 12% year-over-year. Adjusted G&A expenses for the third quarter increased by 6% year-over-year. These were mainly due to increase in personnel-related expenses. Adjusted sales and marketing expenses for the third quarter increased by 26% from the previous quarter and increased by 23% from the same period last year. The sequential increase was primarily driven by broader marketing investments with incremental spend allocated to our international expansion. Adjusted EBITDA was RMB 6.3 billion for the third quarter compared with RMB 5.7 billion in period last year and RMB 4.9 billion (sic) [ RMB 4.8 billion ] in the previous quarter. Diluted earnings per ordinary share and per ADS were RMB 28.61 or USD 4.02 million for the third quarter of 2025. Excluding share-based compensation charges, and fair value changes of equity securities investments and exchangeable senior notes, non-GAAP diluted earnings per ordinary share and per ADS were RMB 27.56 or USD 3.87 million for the third quarter. Diluted earnings per ordinary share and per ADS for the quarter were elevated primarily due to a onetime gain from the divestment of one of our overseas investments. As of September 30, 2025, the balance of cash and cash equivalents, restricted cash short-term investment, held-to-maturity time deposits and financial products was and RMB 107.7 billion or USD 15.1 billion. Looking ahead, we are confident in the continued strength of our business and future opportunities. Our disciplined approach to investment and execution will remain central as we focus on sustainable growth and long-term value creation. With that, operator, please open the line for questions. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Joyce Ju from Bank of America. Joyce Ju: James, Jane, Cindy and Michelle, congratulations on another strong quarter. AI is clearly top of the mind for the market and a key pillar of Trip.com's strategy. Can management please elaborate on where do you see AI heading on your platforms, specifically, how do you view the trajectory for AI agents? Do you see them going mainstream? James Liang: Thank you for the question. AI is a central pillar of Trip.com's strategy, and we are committed to unlocking its full potential for the travel industry. We believe we are at the forefront of this transformation. On the user side, we are shifting more touch points to AI-driven tools continuously iterating our AI plus content ecosystem. Our AI agent, TripGenie, is now used in over 200 countries and regions, with users growing over 200% year-over-year in the first half of 2025. We are also refining the balance between advanced AI search and conventional search to better serve user intent. For hotels, search results now evolve from standardized information to real-time recommendations tailored to individual preferences. On the operational side, AI helps detect issues and provide intelligent solutions for complex cases. This enhances employee productivity, improves customer service efficiency, increases satisfaction and conversion rates and can help reduce cancellations through smarter, more responsive service. Looking ahead, we see AI as a tremendous opportunity to make travel more accessible, reliable and enjoyable. Trip.com is committed to investing in AI to enhance every step of the traveler's journey. By combining cutting-edge technology with 26 years of travel expertise, we ensure seamless experiences that go beyond AI alone. We will continue to explore how AI can make every step of the traveler's journey better and enrich the travel experience. Ultimately, travel is about exploration and experience, and we are focused on delivering the best for our customers today and in the future. Operator: We will now take our next question from Alex Yao from JPMorgan. . Alex Yao: I would like to ask some of the near-term consumer behavior and also travel trends during national holiday and also mid-autumn festival. In addition, I think when the current geopolitical tension between Japan and China, can you talk about Japan's revenue contribution to our company and also the financial impact that you could expect over the next, let's say, couple of quarters? Jane Sun: Sure. I'd be happy to take this question, Alex. So first of all, for the National Holiday, combined with midterm holiday, we have seen very strong trend. The trend we call is 3Ls, which is long stay, long distance and long tail. Because it's a longer holiday, most people go long haul, which is the strength for Trip.com. And also because people are going so far away, we are able to promote many long-tail travel destinations for sophisticated travelers, and the stay is longer. So if you look at the industry, the domestic market posted a very healthy single-digit growth. Cross-border, it was even stronger. The international capacity recovered even further compared to previous quarter at around 88% pre-COVID level. If you look at our platform, our long-haul, long stay drives strong growth, both domestically and internationally. For outbound hotel and air bookings, it jumped to more than 30% year-over-year growth. And also for inbound travel, we surged by more than 100% year-over-year for Golden Week holidays. So we are very positive for these holiday seasons. Regarding Japan, I think as long as consumers have the buying power, they will travel to different travel destinations. What we've seen a couple of factors impacting traveler's behavior. First of all, the travel destination needs to be safe and welcoming. Secondly, the visa application needs to be eased. Thirdly, the direct flight also is a very important consideration for travelers. So over the years, we have seen -- if certain destination is impacted, travelers as long as they have time, they have money, they can choose different travel destinations to go to. So overall, on our platform, we haven't seen major impact so far, yes. Operator: We will now take our next question from Thomas Chong from Jefferies. Thomas Chong: And congratulations on a strong set of results. My question is about how have hotel and air ticket price trend recently? And what's the outlook for next year? Xiaofan Wang: In Q3, the year-on-year decline in hotel and air ticket prices narrowed to the low single digits. During the Golden Week, both domestic hotel and airfares trended higher, reflecting strong travel demand before easing sequentially after the holiday on the supply side, domestic hotel capacity continues to expand at a mid- to high single-digit pace year-over-year, which is likely to keep some pressure on room prices going forward. Internationally, flight capacity has now recovered to about 88% of 2019 levels. As a result, cross-border air ticket prices have softened compared with last year but remain above pre-pandemic levels while hotel prices have stayed largely stable. Operator: We will now take our next question from Yang Liu from Morgan Stanley. Yang Liu: Congratulations on the solid results first. I have one question that -- yes, could you please hear me? . Michelle Qi: Yes, we can. Yang Liu: My question is that could management share some insight on the recent consumer sentiment and more importantly, your early thoughts for the coming year? Jane Sun: So we have seen the travel industry remain very strong. People's desire to explore the world continues to grow across culture, reflecting travelers' design for good products. In terms of the leisure travel, it has stayed robust supported by extra holidays this year. Our platform, long-haul trips show strong momentum. Outbound hotel and flights rose over 30%, with Europe emerging as a key driving force. Domestically, travelers are also seeking deeper and more immersive experiences and explore less known destinations. Year-to-date, per capital spending on our platform remains in line with last year. For business travelers, it has remained stable. We continue to attract new corporate clients with average business travel spending on our platform has increased year-over-year, supported by Chinese companies expanding its global footprint. Looking forward in 2026 at Trip.com Group we view challenges as opportunities to strengthen our foundation. Our focus remains on enhancing our product, service and to better meet the evolving needs of our global travelers. For international business, our strategy at Trip.com has proven to be very effective driving rapid market share gain outside of domestic market in recent quarter. We will also continue to invest globally, particularly across Asia Pacific to accelerate our growth and expand our presence. Domestically, we are focusing on capturing more demand and providing excellent services to our customers. In particular, we tap into the great opportunity for inbound travel and silver generation and young travelers. We aim to deep the collaboration with our partners when we bring inbound customers to domestic market, it drives huge job opportunities. and also drives huge incremental opportunities for our hotel partners, flight partners, destination partners, rental cars, et cetera. So we are very positive for the growth in 2026. Operator: Our next question comes from John Choi from Daiwa. John Choi: Congratulations on another great quarter. Just quickly, with new strategies from your industry peers in the China market, what kind of impact could this have on your business going forward? Jane Sun: Sure. First of all, I think the travel market brings joy and happiness to people. Secondly, we invest heavily in our technology and AI, try to improve the efficiency for the whole industry, that will benefit all the players in the market. And thirdly, as you can see, we have a couple of offerings, which is very much liked by the consumers. First of all, we provide one-stop total solution. So when you make a reservation for flight, customers automatically will book a nice hotel with us, and we offer airport transfer. We also have a trusted list for destinations -- for attractions. And when you are traveling, if you run into any issues, for example, if a certain area has a tsunami or earthquake or if there is a war happened during your trip within 2 minutes, our team will reach out to the customers in the destination, making sure they are moved to the safe area. The very next day, if our customers choose to fly back to their home countries, we will make prioritized arrangement for our customers. So that capacity and ability to help the customers in destination, pre-trip, post-trip give the confidence for our consumers that when they travel with Trip.com, they have peace in mind. So we continuously improve our customer service level to make sure we offer the best product, best technology and best service to our customers. And we'll continuously do that. I think as long as we make the right investment in this area, our customers will trust our team for our service and product. We will continue to grow. Operator: Our next question comes from Wei Xiong from UBS. Wei Xiong: Sure. Congrats on a solid quarter. On the international side, it's encouraging to see Trip.com continue to maintain strong growth in the third quarter. So could management maybe share more on our international performance and any regional operational highlights? Jane Sun: Sure. In Q3, booking on Trip.com increased by around 60% year-over-year, with APAC growing more than 50%, demonstrating robust growth despite macroeconomic uncertainties. In particular, Asia Pacific remains our operational focus and the largest contributor for our international business growth. Through localizing our products and tailor our marketing strategy, our brand recognition and market presence continue to strengthen across key markets. Trip.com was named as the Best Online Travel Agency in Asia at 2025 Travel Weekly Asia Readers' Choice Award. We are now a leading OTA in several key markets. reflecting our growing and solid footprint. For the new markets, emerging markets such as Middle East and Europe also show encouraging momentum signaling expanding global opportunities. For inbound booking, we surged more than 100% year-over-year in Q3 by continuously innovating our offerings such as half-day tour [ at The Bund ] or at the Great Wall and Taste of China immersive dining experiences we reinforced our position as the pioneer in inbound travel market. So our international business will continue to grow, and we will make strong investment in this field. Operator: We will now take our next question from Brian Gong from Citi. Brian Gong: James, Jane, Cindy and Michelle, congratulations on a solid quarter. My question is regarding the inbound travel. You just mentioned, which is the fastest-growing segment for Trip.com. Could you provide updates on your inbound business and the key catalysts for the growth ahead? Jane Sun: Sure. When we surveyed the inbound customers, we got very positive feedback. People told us the country is very safe, particularly for women travelers. They can run, they can jog in the middle of the night, where they cannot do even in some major cities in their home countries. People are very friendly, very hospitable, the food is delicious, the history is very rich and the infrastructure is very new and effective. And on top of it, they find affordable luxury in inbound travel. By paying USD 100, USD 200, they can stay in a very nice 5-star hotel with excellent services. So that gives a very good foundation for us to build upon these preconditions. And also the free visa gave more than 60 countries, convenience for these people to come for inbound travel. And also the extension for in transit travel from 3 days to 10 days also make it easier for business travelers to come. So we see great opportunity to capitalize on these opportunities. And from our end, because our inventory in China is the most comprehensive one. And our service is also very good. And we offer multi-language services when a customer come in, we offer 24-hour service. if you call our call center within 30 seconds, a live person will answer the call to help them to solve the issues on the ground. And we remain very alert when they enter into the country. So all that combined together, which enable us to drive the volume for inbound travel very strongly, and we will continuously do so. By winning these inbound customers into the country. We also offer very good job opportunities for young people. We also bring new revenue opportunities for our hotel partners for our airline partners for the local tour operators for major travel destination partners and also for famous landmarks attractions. So overall, I think we bring happiness for the consumers who are traveling inbound. We also bring great job opportunities for young people as well as great opportunities for our partners for inbound travelers. So a very positive move in this field. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Wei Fang from Mizuho. Wei Fang: James, Jane, Cindy and Michelle, congrats on the good numbers. I think I heard there were additional marketing spend allocated to the international business, right, in the quarter? I was wondering, can management give us some more updates on your Trip.com's marketing progress in the quarter? And what's your plan for the next quarter and beyond like 2026? Jane Sun: Sure. Our marketing strategy on Trip.com delivered solid results in Q3. The scalable nature of our business is not directly improving marketing efficiency in our key targeted markets. In Q3, our mega sale in major markets, such as Korea, Thailand, Malaysia reached historical heights for the quarter. Internally, we also empower our execution team to set ROI targets aligned with long-term growth objectives. This approach drives motivation and ensure disciplined control over the key levers of marketing efficiency. Looking ahead, upcoming global holidays will continue to execute our signature campaigns using a proven play book while staying agile to capitalize on the emerging market trends by combining these opportunities with our long-term strategy, we aim to accelerate revenue growth and strengthen our market position, including expanding our organic mobile use base. Operator: Our next question comes from Parash Jain from HSBC. Parash Jain: I have a question more on the recent dynamics in the global market and how they will impact your business. And the dynamics on 2 fronts. Firstly, on probably with your deeper penetration in the region, as you rightly mentioned, are you seeing intensifying competition with the global OTAs like Agoda? And my second question is, I mean, another trend we have noticed is where Google is pushing the paid search instead of SEOs, and does it impact your metasearch platform? Jane Sun: Sure. Thanks for your question. Asia Pacific market offers huge potential representing around 60% of world's total population and benefiting from a strong economic growth rate. The middle income population is rising very fast and the GDP growth in this region is the fastest compared to the rest of the world. The region combined rich -- very rich travel resources from majestic nature to vibrant cities with a fragmented market and relatively low online penetration, highlighting opportunities for consolidation and digital expansion. So we invest heavily to expand into this market. These market dynamics create a very favorable environment for online travel companies. We focus on delivering one-stop total solution for our customers, with localized product and exceptional customer service for APAC travelers worldwide. Our globalization strategy involves the insights from each market, driving significant growth in our presence by taking the dynamic and market-specific approach we are confident in our continuous growth trajectory. Thank you. Operator: Our next question comes from Simon Cheung from Goldman Sachs. Simon Cheung: James, Jane, Cindy and Michelle, I just have one quick question. So I think you touched on when you discussed about your packaged tour business. One of the segments that I'm interested in your destination service business and the so-called experience markets. Wondering whether you can share some thoughts about your long-term positioning and the opportunity over there, especially given -- reported there's some IPO going on in that segment? Jane Sun: Sure. Destination service business is quite small compared to the overall pie. We expect our group to deliver around [ RMB 5 billion ] in GMV for destination service which represents only 2% to 3% of our total GMV. We drive our volume and the growth is more than 130% Trip.com growth year-to-date, and the rising demand from the APAC is strong. We cover about 300,000 offering worldwide, and we continuously cover more and more products in our platform. For us, our strength is one stop travel platform covering activity, attraction, transportation to better match users' demand and enhance overall travel experience. Leverage our large APAC user base, along with the loyalty program and AI tool, we're deepening engagement and driving repeated booking. Over the next 3 to 5 years, our focus is broadening product covering and market share. So for us, the [indiscernible] destination service is free because our customers already make the air flight and hotel bookings. So we don't need to spend money to acquire these customers. So the acquisition of these customers is free. And on top of it, we don't intend to make any money for destination marketing because it's very small. It's mainly to enhance users experience and making sure our customers love our product, love our platform. So we intend to expand aggressively in this field aiming to increase the loyalty and customer satisfaction to better serve our customers on the flight hotel. So the one-stop ecosystem gives us the advantage from a traffic acquisition also take away the pressure for making profit for this very small segment. Operator: Our next question comes from Ellie Jiang from Macquarie. Ellie Jiang: Congrats on the solid print. I have a question on the cost side. The operating expenditure came in at slightly lower end of expectations during the third quarter. How should we think about the outlook for the coming quarter, fourth quarter as well as for 2026? Xiaofan Wang: We continue to manage our investments with discipline on sales and marketing side, we adjust spending based on each market's maturity and the characteristics of different channels. As a result, the overall expense mix may in line with business priorities. On the personnel front, as more markets grow rapidly, we are expanding our global presence while maintaining high standards for new hires to ensure strong marginal cost efficiency. The quarter-over-quarter increase in operating expenses mainly reflected seasonal factors in China. With the global holiday season approaching, we plan to step up marketing investments as planned. while the marketing ratio may rise sequentially, it will vary year-over-year depending on regional and channel mix. Over the longer term, we remain focused on improving efficiency by growing direct mobile traffic enhancing cross-selling and strengthening customer loyalty. Operator: We will now take our last question from the line of Qiuting Wang from CICC. Qiuting Wang: My question is about Trip.com's margin as our international business grows rapidly, how should we expand margin out of Trip.com next year and in the longer term? Xiaofan Wang: It is still too early to provide specific commentary on the margin outlook for 2026. In general, we view margin as a natural result of a dynamic business mix. and ongoing improvements in operating efficiency across each business segment. In the long run, we do not see any structural limitations to our profit margins, supported by our innovative strategies global expansion and forward-looking investments, our margins could be comparable to both of our international peers. Operator: We have now come to the end of the question-and-answer session. Thank you all very much for your questions. I'll now turn the conference back to Michelle for closing comments. Michelle Qi: Thank you. Thank you, everyone, for joining us today. You can find the transcript and webcast of today's call on investors.trip.com. We look forward to speaking with you on our fourth quarter of 2025 earnings call. Thank you, and have a good day. Jane Sun: Thank you very much. See you next quarter. . Operator: Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect your lines.