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Operator: Greetings, and welcome to the Lightwave Logic's Q4 and Full Year 2025 Financial Results and Business Update Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note, this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to your host, Ryan Coleman with Investor Relations. Please go ahead. Ryan Coleman: Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us today for Lightwave Logic's Fourth Quarter and Full Year Financial Results and Business Update Call. I'm joined on today's call by Lightwave Logic's President and Chief Executive Officer, Yves LeMaitre. Please note that this call is in listen-only mode for the duration of the call, and that a replay will be posted to the company's website shortly after the call concludes. Some of the matters we'll discuss on this call, including statements and our business outlook, are forward-looking, and as such, this call speaks only as of today, March 5, 2026. Such statements may be considered forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The matters discussed on this call are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties, and these risks and uncertainties could cause actual operating results to differ materially from those expressed in the call. A more detailed description of the risks our company faces is more fully described by the company under the caption Risk Factors included in our most recent Form 10-K and 10-Q. As always, Lightwave Logic assumes no obligation to update the information presented on this conference call. And lastly, you are cautioned that any time-sensitive information may no longer be accurate at the time of replay listening or transcript reading. So with that, I'll turn the call over to Yves. Yves LeMaitre: Thank you, Ryan. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us. Let me start with a note of appreciation to our shareholders. Thank you for your continued confidence and long-term commitment. We are building something transformative that requires patience and conviction. To our employees and partners, 2025 was a year of real execution. The progress we made in material science, reliability engineering, foundry integration and customer advancement reflects extraordinary discipline and focus. We are building the company in the right way. 2025 was not a promotional and marketing year. It was an execution year. We moved aggressively from research validation towards structure commercialization. Our Perkinamine electro-optic polymer platform continued to demonstrate high-speed bandwidth, low drive voltage, compact device footprint and compatibility with the silicon photonics and semiconductor ecosystem. The importance of this last point is often underestimated. Our belief is that tomorrow's winning photonic technologies for AI networking must fully integrate within the semiconductor foundry, packaging and testing infrastructure. So we strengthened our reliability data sets, most notably around the challenges faced by previous generation of polymers, primarily temperature stability and photo-oxidation. We advanced our back-end of line process integration with novel solutions for electro-optic polymer deposition and encapsulation that are fully aligned with the semiconductor fab infrastructure, tools and processes. We deepened our engagement with foundry ecosystem with multiple committed programs by major foundries to add or improve their PDK related to front-end silicon photonics chip design and manufacturing. This was especially important for Lightwave Logic to enable new customer design wins for customers who have already selected their preferred foundry. Our design win cycle matured meaningfully. We have now 3 programs advanced to Stage 3, prototype to final product in 2025, and we recently added a fourth Fortune Global 500 customer to that list in 2026. Approximately 15 additional engagements are progressing through Stage 1 and Stage 2, and we are hopeful that some of our recent success with new foundries will help accelerate the transition to Stage 3. We are not trying to [ invent ] a market. We are well positioned inside the market that is scaling rapidly. But before we dive into an update of our customer engagements and the market, I'd like to briefly review our select financial results. Now for the full year 2025, revenue was approximately $237,000, primarily from licensing and nonrecurring engineering compared to $96,000 in 2024. Net loss was approximately $20.3 million or a loss of $0.16 per share, an improvement from $22.5 million or a loss of $0.19 per share in 2024. Our R&D investment was approximately $11.5 million compared to $16.8 million in the prior year, and our G&A expense was approximately $9.5 million compared to $6.4 million in the prior year. In December of 2025, we completed a public offering, raising approximately $32.8 million in net proceeds through the issuance of 11.6 million shares of common stock. The transaction strengthens our balance sheet and contributed to our year-end cash position of approximately $69 million, roughly double the $34.9 million we had at the end of third quarter. In January of 2026, we exercised the over-allotment portion of the offering, adding another $4.9 million in cash. So based on our operating plan, we believe we are funded beyond December of 2027. We are managing capital deliberately. Every dollar is allocated towards commercialization readiness. Now let's move to the customers. The customers' programs deepened in 2025. Stage 3 engagements currently involve primarily wafer level tape-outs, followed by chip processing and testing with possibly iterative design optimization. This is where real technical programs conversion into commercial agreements begins. We are supporting customers inside foundry environments, not just in isolated R&D settings. Regarding specific customer updates, one of our Tier 1 customers is focused initially on 1.6 terabit per second transceivers operating at 200G per lane. In January, we launched a full wafer tape-out with them at a new silicon photonics foundry and expect chips to come back in Q2 2026 for processing and testing. Another Tier 1 customer is seeking a next-generation material suitable for CPO packaging that can operate at higher temperature to enable new packaging processes. We launched this program in 2025, and it is a key priority for our chemistry design team in 2026. In parallel, we're also planning a foundry run over the next few months with that customer to validate the custom modulator chip design required for CPO. Our third and most recently announced Tier 1 customer will design and build silicon photonic chips with embedded modulators at a state-of-the-art silicon photonics foundry, where it will be the first implementation of EO polymer modulators. Finally, our long-time customer and partner, Polariton continues their steady path to bringing Plasmonics to commercialization. Plasmonics is an exciting new technology that has the potential to accelerate the path to 800 gigabits per second modulation. Our focus there is to support their prototyping efforts and device packaging reliability programs. We have made excellent progress in 2025 in terms of customer acquisition, and our goal is to continue that in 2026. As previously disclosed, 2026 revenue is expected to be driven primarily by material supply and NRE activity. Volume production and licensing revenues are not anticipated until 2027 at the earliest. That time line is deliberate. Qualification cycles in this industry are rigorous as they should be, given the performance and reliability requirements of these applications. We are taking a disciplined approach, working through the necessary validation and integration steps to ensure long-term success. Our focus is on building durable, repeatable revenue streams supported by qualification and design wins, not pursuing short-term or opportunistic revenue. Let's step back to the industry context. According to LightCounting Research in 2018, the share of silicon photonics in the optical transceiver market was 10%. It jumped to 33% in 2024 and for the first time, is expected to be the dominant technology in 2026. Silicon photonics is winning the integration platform battle for hyperscale and AI networking. Why? Because of CMOS compatibility, including for advanced packaging, because of providing a scalable foundry infrastructure, because it is aligned with the ecosystem, because of the supply chain maturity and the cost efficiency. Alternative technologies such as [ 35 ] materials or lithium niobate remain relevant, but the ecosystem center of gravity and momentum are clearly with silicon photonics. Our strategy is simple. We enhance silicon photonics. We do not compete against it. Electro-optic polymers allow silicon photonics to reach higher bandwidth with lower power per bit. This is precisely what AI infrastructure requires. As you know, at Lightwave Logic, we operate as a fabless material and IP platform. Scale comes first to foundries for the front-end silicon photonics chip production. Throughout 2025, we worked diligently at expanding the number of foundries that are able to process the modulator structures required for electro-optic polymer reference design. This was a gating factor in enabling customers already committed to certain foundries. Earlier this week, SilTerra, a pioneer in silicon photonics foundry services, announced the availability of a high-speed modulator platform based on EO polymer through the process design kit, or PDK, from Luceda Photonics. SilTerra, Lightwave Logic and Luceda Photonics successfully completed a wafer tape-out earlier in 2026. Device characterization and performance validation are expected in mid-2026. With SilTerra, GlobalFoundries and 2 other unnamed partners, we now have agreement in place with 4 major foundries with wafer runs either underway or scheduled for the first half of 2026. An additional 3 foundries are under consideration, and we intend to onboard them as our process engineering resources become available. Regarding our back-end processes currently performed in Denver, Colorado, we initiated a production ramp-up program in 2025, focused on supporting multiple wafer size and improving yield, cycle time and equipment efficiency. We are also identifying industrial partners to potentially outsource this portion of the manufacturing process for future high-volume production. This is a result of manufacturing discipline. We are preparing for scalable integration, not boutique deployments. Now let's talk about the market. According to LightCounting's January 2026 report, Ethernet optical transceivers of 100G and above and CPO reached approximately $16.5 billion in revenue in 2025. The market is projected to reach approximately $26 billion in 2026. This corresponds to a 60% growth rate for both '25 and '26. AI clusters are expected to consume roughly 80% of Ethernet transceivers and CPO through 2031. This is not incremental growth. This is a structural shift in terms of infrastructure expansion. The speed road map is also accelerating. 1.6 terabit per second transceivers revenue are expected to reach USD 1 billion in 2026 and 3.2 terabits per second optics volume production will begin in 2028. CPO or co-packaged optics is also moving into early deployment. NVIDIA has announced its first CPO products last year with InfiniBand products entering the market in the first half of 2026 and Ethernet in the second half of 2026. Vendors are now targeting approximately 5 picojoules per bit at 200G per lane. Power efficiency is becoming the gating constraint. Shrinking size is now critical, in particular for CPO. The ability to easily incorporate photonics materials into semiconductor packages is a must. This is exactly where polymer-enabled modulation matters. Growth might moderate beyond '26 and '27, but the base level of optical demand remains structurally higher than pre-AI cycle. This is a multiyear expansion. As a result, our Perkinamine polymer ramp strategy is disciplined. 2026 focuses on expanded qualification test, material supply scaling, yield and performance improvement, materials characterization data set expansion. If design wins conversion to production occurs, 2027 would represent the earliest meaningful volume phase. So to prepare, we are scaling polymer synthesis capacity, strengthening our process controls, enhancing our supply chain readiness and refining our production economics. We are preparing for scale responsibly. Technology alone does not create durable companies, operational discipline does. So in 2025, we maintain effective internal controls, we strengthened our IP protection, we built deeper systems integration expertise. We are building the company infrastructure required to support long-term licensing and material supply at scale. Our 2026 priorities are clear: number one, advance Stage 3 programs towards qualification milestones and Stage 4; number two, convert technical engagements into structured commercial agreements; number three, broaden and strengthen the electro-optic polymer-ready silicon foundry ecosystem; number four, continue performance optimization at 200G, 400G per lane and beyond; number five, prepare operationally for a 2027 production ramp transition. Execution, conversion, scale readiness. AI infrastructure is not slowing. Bandwidth requirements are not slowing. Power constraints are tightening. Silicon photonics is scaling and it needs better modulators. This is where Lightwave Logic fits. 2025 strengthened our foundation, 2026 is about disciplined execution. We remain confident in the AI opportunity before us and committed to building long-term shareholder value. Let me turn the call back to Ryan to moderate our Q&A session. Ryan Coleman: Thanks, Yves. When we announced this call, we invited investors to submit their questions ahead of time. We'd like to thank those investors who took the time to do so, and we appreciate your continued engagement on these calls. Our first question is, company presentations for nearly the past 12 months have indicated that the back end of line process is ready for transfer to a foundry. What specific milestones remain to complete the technology transfer and is transfer dependent on PIC completion with Stage 3 partners and progression to Stage 4? Also, has Lightwave Logic achieved acceptable yields with its wafer scale pulling and encapsulation of modulators? Yves LeMaitre: Yes. Thanks, Ryan. Good question. As I indicated earlier, we intend to proceed with our back end of line process and capacity expansion in Denver to support prototyping and final product qualification. We're also continuing process development in Denver to match the semiconductor industry road map, including migration to, for instance, large or larger wafer sizes. In parallel, we intend in 2026 to bring 1 or 2 external foundry partners to bring high-volume manufacturing scale to our back-end of line process. Ryan Coleman: And our second question, are you able to provide guidance on production volume requirements for 2026? And can you comfortably meet that requirement? Yves LeMaitre: Yes, we are planning for success. So we have made aggressive assumptions related to our ability to win share in 2027 and 2028 in order to determine the volume production of Perkinamine as well as the floor capacity, the number of technicians and the production equipment that will be required at our facility in Englewood, Colorado, close to Denver. My experience in the AI data center market shows that immediately after closing a design win, the ability to ramp-up production is so critical. So you do not want to be caught flat-footed when the time comes for a significant increase of polymer production. We have a good model of yield capacity and equipment required to achieve our production target in 2027. Ryan Coleman: And our next question, can shareholders expect to see an EOP modulator-based pluggable transceiver prototype completed this year? Yves LeMaitre: Well, obviously, our customers are working diligently at bringing silicon photonics PICs to the market in the form of photonics engines for transceivers or CPO. We participate to these programs of suppliers of materials and PDK, but we do not control the full transceiver program. So we will continue to update you on our progress towards Stage 4 throughout 2026. Ryan Coleman: And regarding the products we are working on with Tier 1 partners, when a product is finalized or rolled out, do we expect to see joint press releases? Or how can shareholders expect to be updated regarding their progression? Yves LeMaitre: Well, as we did hopefully today, I mean, we will provide visibility to our shareholders on our progress through quarterly financial and business update calls like the one today. Now when it comes to endorsement of Lightwave Logic by customers, it is in the hand of our customers, and they will decide if and when to issue press release or public announcement. Ryan Coleman: And our last question, regarding the SilTerra announcement, what specific performance metrics will be validated for the mid-2026 device characterization? Were there any limitations or yield constraints identified during the early 2026 tape-out? And can you talk about the announcement and how it fits into your broader foundry strategy? Yves LeMaitre: Yes. Thanks for that question. I mean this tape-out is a really important milestone that will validate both a number of key design and performance parameters for 200G and 400G modulators, but it will also confirm or help confirm optimal foundry process and equipment capabilities. And most of the test results for this specific tape-out at SilTerra are expected by mid-2026. Ryan Coleman: Thanks, Yves, and thank you again to everyone who sent questions. I'd like to turn the call back over to our operator to conclude this conference call. Operator: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation. This does conclude today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines, and have a wonderful day.
Operator: Good morning, and thank you for joining the Pine Cliff Energy Fourth Quarter and Year-end Results Conference Call. Today, we will open with remarks from President and CEO, Phil Hodge. Mr. Hodge is joined today by Terry McNeill, Chief Operating Officer; Kristopher Zack, Chief Financial Officer; Austin Nieuwdorp, Vice President, Finance; and Dan Keenan, Vice President, Exploitation. Questions for the management team can be registered on the webcast. Prior to starting, we'd like to remind participants that this call may contain comments on or discussion of forward-looking information. As such, we refer participants to the cautionary statements on forward-looking information included in the presentation on our website, www.pinecliffenergy.com. With that, we'll turn the call to Mr. Phil Hodge, President and CEO. Philip Hodge: Thanks, Chris. Thanks for those joining in and for those who will be listening on the replay that will be on our website. As we've been doing on these webcasts in the past, our intent is not to reread the President's message or the press release that you've already got access to. Many of you already received my quarterly e-mail also that went out last night, which focuses a bit more on the macro, how we see the environment. We received several questions last night, and so I think we'll work through those. But if you've got any other questions, please send them along as we're speaking, and we'll be happy to address them. Philip Hodge: One of the -- probably the most questions I got last night and this morning have been just looking for a little bit more clarity on our Glauc well that we drilled, and we totally understand the curiosity around that because we haven't done any drilling for a couple of years. Everybody is well aware of how much we think of that area and that we're very positive and that we've actually increased the number of Glauc locations that we have in that area to now be in 22 net locations. And for a company of our size, that's significant because these locations are highly valued. That being said, anyone who's been following Pine Cliff or has been a shareholder of ours for some time knows that we're not a neon light type of company, as I sometimes refer to it. We're not going to be out there with the 24-hour type IP rates. We want to make sure we're giving the market a very clear picture of the well. Maybe what I'll do is I'll hand this over to Terry and let him give you a bit more detail on the well. But again, we're not intending to give a lot of production information until we know that we have a more consistent production in history. Terry McNeill: Thanks, Phil. Good morning, folks. Yes, with regards to the well itself, execution went well, drilled ahead of schedule. Overall costs came in consistent with our expectation. The well has been on production for almost 2 weeks now, and it's still in very, very early cleanup. So really hasn't reached a stabilized rate. We're quite encouraged by the early results, but it's really too soon to draw any firm conclusions on any long-term productivity or performance. So we keep an eye on it regularly. And that's probably the best update we can give at this time. Philip Hodge: Thanks, Terry. Yes, our intent will be to -- once we do have a consistent longer-term production history to be able to update the market at that time. But as Terry said, we're quite encouraged by it. And so -- but we just don't want to be in a case where we're giving out information that's either positive or negative on the results. It's just too early, it's too early to say. One question we did get last night was around the infrastructure spend in Q4 around that well. So the 4-23 well is the Glauc well that we drilled in December and brought on in mid-February. At the time, we also put in a sales pipeline and other infrastructure that not only assisted getting the production from that well on but also will be able to be utilized for other wells in the area. So we're pretty happy with where the costs came in at. We're essentially on budget for what we expected to do in that area for both the well and the infrastructure, and are well set up for -- as we look at the back half of this year, I mean, we've got right -- our intent would be to go back to drilling in the Central Alberta area and the Glauconite wells later this year. But we haven't -- like we say, the flexibility that we have is something that's, I think, an advantage. Pricing is -- in AECO is starting to strengthen here over the last couple of weeks. That's a good thing. We'll see how that plays out through the summer. Our plan would be, if we are going to drill and that's our intent, we will be looking at kind of Q3, Q4 as to when we go back to the Sundre area. One of the questions I got, we've had several questions around the data center update. And so again, those of you that follow the Pine Cliff story know that we announced, we are, I think, the first natural gas producer to announce an arrangement with a data center in our Central Alberta. That has not -- I mean, we're -- let me back up. We are a gas provider for all of these types of projects. And so in that situation, that group that we're dealing with seems to be very close to finishing their financing. But it is not within our control as to -- for them to get the final financing put in place so that they can launch construction on the site. There, to date, has been no construction started on the site, but we're still encouraged that, that's going to happen here in the next couple of quarters. And so that's still something that we're working very closely on. In the meantime, we've had a lot of interest on other sites that we've got in the Province of Alberta and even in Saskatchewan about data centers and about power generation in general for various uses. We continue to talk to all groups about this. I mean our goal is really to try to get a premium price for the molecules that we produce. And how that gets -- how we do that and where it gets used and how it gets used, that's all part of these discussions because it kind of varies among the parties. But it's -- our goal would be to -- for the same production that we have today to be able to get a more premium pricing on it. And so those, we will -- as projects get put in place, we'll update the market. The fact that we've got as many groups interested in some of the sites that we have, which are, we think, are very conducive to these types of projects where they've got good natural gas, they've got fiber availability in several of the sites we own the land. So therefore, it could be co-located with our existing industrial facilities. So there's a lot of reasons why we think that this is an area that has got potential for Pine Cliff. But it's a slow -- everybody is figuring out the regulatory process. Everybody is -- again, a lot of these groups are getting their financing put in place. The Province of Alberta has announced that they want to attract $100 billion of data center development to the province, which is great. And there's been a lot of announcements. I referred to a lot of them in my e-mail that you would have received last night, if you're on the e-mail list. But there's only so many projects that actually have started construction. And again, that's not surprising. These are, in many cases, multibillion dollar type projects. And so there's a lot of steps that need to be done before they're actually going to break ground. That said, it's quite encouraging on how much activity there is in this area. Another question received, got a couple of people ask me about kind of what's the impact of the European situation and with the Iran war. Right now, all of the natural gas that can come out of North America really is already allocated. In other words, the LNG capacity, that's what prohibits us from sending more gas over to Europe when there's clearly a strong demand right now for gas in Europe. Pricing has gone back over $12 an Mcf, whereas here in Canada, it's at $2 an Mcf. That arbitrage really can't get closed without more LNG export capacity. And there's lots of -- as many of you know, Canada, the LNG Canada is now well on its way to getting its Phase 1, reaching its capacity of 2 Bcf a day. That's great. Hopefully, we'll see a positive investment decision on Phase 2 sometime in '26. That will take it to, hopefully, at 4 Bcf a day. There's other projects underway. But in the really short term, there's really nothing that the North American producers or the North American LNG can do to send this -- to send more gas to Europe. So I think the issue that the Europeans are having is right now with the Strait of Hormuz shut in, a lot of LNG that's coming out of Qatar, a lot of other -- the supply chain for LNG has been disrupted. And therefore, there's a concern that they're not going to be able to put gas into storage, not so much for this winter because we're already kind of through this winter. It's about getting ready for next winter because they had a fairly cold winter. And so their storage was depleted. And now if they don't -- aren't able to fill it, there's going to be a real panic on -- for natural gas in Europe for next year. And you can see that already. There were some headlines this morning about Putin threatening that he could cut off natural gas to Europe if they don't allow oil and natural gas exports, if there's any kind of embargo put on Russia. That's a significant threat because the European nations still use a lot of Russian gas. They don't use as much as they did before, but they still use a lot of Russian gas. So there's a lot of dynamics. What it does do is that -- and there was a piece that came out this morning, just looked at the chart about how many new LNG projects have been announced. You'll see in our presentation, all the LNG projects that are under -- that are currently in operation and those ones under construction. Well, there's another wedge on top of that, which is new announced production and future capacity builds on LNG. That would take it to well beyond 40 Bcf a day coming out of North America, which is a massive number. Today, that number is around 20 Bcf a day. And that's been a huge increase from where it's at. So I think all of this global dynamic pricing really does have an impact on the future viability of more LNG projects coming on because you're getting -- this is why our Prime Minister is traveling around the globe right now. It's also why we're seeing more and more requests for Canadian energy around the LNG. So the one thing I would say about the impact of the war, I mean when we saw oil prices, the spot price is $78, $79 this morning. You'll see in our financial statements that about every dollar increase in WTI equates to about a $1.4 million increase in annual cash flow to us. So we are Pine Cliff even though we are 80% gas. That move in WTI moving oil prices does have an impact on our cash flow statements of a pretty material nature. I think the only other question that I kind of got from last night was just on our hedging. I think our hedging is pretty well set out. Kris has done a good job of -- and it's in our press release. You can see that we're fairly well hedged going into '26, protecting the summer prices. But also, like I say, locking in some pretty -- some prices that we're pretty comfortable going forward. I don't know, Kris, if you want to comment just generally on how we kind of look at hedging going forward? Kristopher Zack: I would just only add that we'll continue to hedge where possible to continue to protect our cash against near-term volatility. So again, just to reiterate what's in the press release, 37% of our gross natural gas production is hedged at an average price of around $3.19 for 2026 and around 31% of our crude oil production at around USD 63.45. Philip Hodge: Thanks, Kris. So I think that covered all the major questions that we've received either this morning or last night. I mean, you've always got access to us if anybody wants to talk further. It's been a challenging quarter because it's Q4. As you saw in the numbers, it was actually pretty good. AECO was moving up nicely. That has a big impact. We're obviously highly correlated to AECO price moves. Q1, AECO was -- it came down, and the reasons for that was primarily because of the warm weather in Western Canada, but also the LNG Canada delays because there were some technical issues. But as that ramps back up, as we head into the back half of this year, where we're going to hopefully see LNG Canada back to kind of get to their capacity around 2 Bcf a day. There's a lot of reasons for us to be positive. And our goal will be to continue to kind of allocate capital to the best we can, to both continue to lower our debt, which is something that we think that just makes us more flexible going forward for potential opportunities, but also to continue to finance the drilling program because we think having that such strong locations that can deliver such positive returns, that's something we should be allocating capital towards. And all in the backdrop of all of that, we continue to keep the dividend rolling. I mean very proud of the fact that a company of Pine Cliff's size has been able to pay over $100 million of dividends, which is almost $0.30 a share since we started the program in summer of -- sorry, summer of '22. So okay. Well, if there's no further questions, we won't take any other time away from you. Thank you very much for your attention and for your ongoing interest in Pine Cliff. Have a good day.
Operator: Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the Baytex Energy Corp Fourth Quarter 2025 Financial and Operating Results Conference Call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode, and the conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the conference over to Brian Ector, Senior Vice President, Capital Markets and Investor Relations. Please go ahead. Brian Ector: Thank you, Ashida. Good morning, and welcome to Baytex's fourth quarter full year 2025 results conference call. Joining me today are Eric Greager, our CEO; Chad Lundberg, our President and COO; and Chad Kalmakoff, our CFO. Before we begin, please note that our discussion today contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable securities laws, I refer you to the advisories regarding forward-looking statements, oil and gas information and non-GAAP financial and capital management measures in yesterday's press release. On the call today, we will also be discussing the evaluation of our reserves at year-end 2025. These evaluations have been prepared in accordance with Canadian disclosure standards, which are not comparable in all respects between the United States or other disclosure standards. Our remarks regarding reserves are also forward-looking statements. All dollar amounts referenced in our remarks are in Canadian dollars unless otherwise specified. And after our prepared remarks, we will open the call for questions from analysts, webcast participants can also submit questions online. So with that, let me turn the call over to Eric. Eric Greager: Thanks, Brian. Good morning, everyone. 2025 was a defining year for Baytex. With the closing of the Eagle Ford sale in December, we successfully completed the repositioning of this company into a focused, high-return Canadian oil producer. This is our first call since that milestone and a significant upshift in the trajectory. Baytex is a technically driven organization with an industry-leading balance sheet by exiting the year in a net cash position, we have established a premier platform built for discipline, long-term value creation. We are entering 2026 with a clear strategy and the financial flexibility to navigate any market environment. With this strategic pivot now complete, it is the right time to formalize our leadership transition. As we announced yesterday, Chad Lundberg will succeed me as CEO following our AGM in May. Chad has been a valuable partner to me and to this organization and his promotion is the result of a deliberate structured succession process to help ensure our positive momentum remain interrupted. I have complete confidence in Chad's leadership and ability to drive our next chapter. I'm proud of the foundation we've built together. Baytex is in excellent shape, and I look forward to its continued success under Chad's leadership. I now turn the call over to Chad Lundberg for his remarks and a detailed operational overview. Chad Lundberg: Thank you, Eric. I appreciate the Board's confidence, and I'm excited to lead Baytex and our team into the next chapter. My focus as we move forward is simple. We remain committed to technical leadership and disciplined capital allocation to create value. We will continue to build our business by prioritizing our heavy oil and Duvernay assets with an enhanced focus on exploration and new play development, all of which is underpinned by a balance sheet that is in great shape and we will prioritize a competitive return through a combination of organic growth, share buybacks and dividends. Let's turn to our operational performance. In 2025, our Canadian portfolio delivered annual production of 65,500 BOE per day, which, excluding dispositions, represented 6% organic growth year-over-year. We invested $548 million in Canada in a highly efficient capital program and delivered solid reserves growth, low F&D costs and healthy recycle ratios across all reserve categories. Our Pembina Duvernay and heavy oil development contributed significantly to this performance and continued a strong track record of value creation. This demonstrates the long-term resiliency and sustainability of our business. Importantly, we have significant running room across our portfolio and are excited about our business going forward. First, let's talk about the Duvernay. We have assembled a 91,500 net acres and identified approximately 210 drilling locations. 2025 was a breakthrough year. We validated the resource potential, reduced well costs on a per foot basis and improved our characterization of the play. We grew production to 10,600 BOE per day in the fourth quarter, a 46% increase over Q4 2024. We are now transitioning to full commercialization with plans to bring 12 wells on stream this year, a 50% increase over 2025. We currently have 1 rig drilling a 4-well pad on our southern acreage. Completion operations are scheduled for the second quarter with the wells expected on stream by midyear and the remaining 2 pads in the third and fourth quarters. Shifting to heavy oil, we continue to see strong, predictable performance across the portfolio. Our heavy oil assets comprise 750,000 net acres and 1,100 drilling locations, supporting 12 years of drilling at our current pace of development. In total, we expect to bring 91 heavy oil wells on stream in 2026. We are pleased with the expansion of our Northeast Alberta acreage, where we are currently targeting 7 discrete horizons in the Mannville stack. Recent success includes 2 multilateral wells in the Sparky and a 5-well pad in the upper Waseca. Our 2026 program will also see increased exploration activity, including stratigraphic tests, step-out wells and 3D seismic to expand our development inventory and test new play concepts across our extensive heavy oil fairway. In addition, we are advancing 2 waterflood pilots Peavine blending the attractive capital efficiencies of multilateral primary development with the potential for enhanced recovery and moderated decline rates. Thank you to our teams for executing safely through 2025 and into 2026. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Chad Kalmakoff to discuss our financial results. Chad Kalmakoff: Thanks, Chad, and good morning, everyone. Our 2025 financial results demonstrates the cash-generating power of our Canadian assets and the transformative impact of the Eagle Ford divestiture. For the full year, we generated $1.5 billion in adjusted funds flow and $275 million in free cash flow. In the fourth quarter, we delivered $262 million of adjusted funds flow and $76 million in free cash flow, which included $35 million of nonrecurring expenses related to the Eagle Ford disposition. This was achieved despite a softer commodity backdrop with WTI averaging USD 59 per barrel during the quarter. The 2025 net loss of $604 million reflects the nonrecurring loss on the Eagle Ford disposition, a deferred tax expense related to the restructuring from the sale and $148 million impairment on our Viking assets. These noncash adjustments have no impact on our cash flow generation outlook for 2026. Turning to the balance sheet. We exited 2025 in the strongest financial position in Baytex's history. We eliminated our net debt and ended the year with $857 million in cash less bonds and our $750 million credit facility fully undrawn. We remain committed to returning a significant portion of the Eagle Ford proceeds to our shareholders and believe the NCIB program is the most efficient approach. Since reinitiating our buyback program in late December, we have repurchased 30 million shares, nearly 4% of the company for $141 million. Our current NCIB remains active through June, and we intend to launch a renewed NCIB in July. As we monitor the broader macro environment, we continue to assess the pace and mechanism of our buybacks to ensure we're maximizing the long-term value for our shareholders. We have considered an SIB or substantial issuer bid, but at this time, we believe we can meet our shareholder commitments through our NCIBs in 2026, while maintaining our annual dividend of $0.09 per share. I'll now turn the call back to Eric for closing remarks. Eric Greager: Thanks, Chad. To build on those points, this focused, high-return Canadian company is the next chapter for Baytex. For 2026, our operations are on track and our annual guidance of 67,000 to 69,000 BOE per day remains unchanged from December, with the high end of that range representing 5% organic growth year-over-year. We have significant inventory depth and optionality across our portfolio to support our current plan and potentially accelerate growth beyond these levels. I'm proud of the trajectory we've established. We are now positioned to demonstrate the true potential of this Canadian portfolio. Operator, let's open the call for a line of questions. Operator: [Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Menno Hulshof with TD Cowen. Menno Hulshof: Congrats to both of you on the transition. Yes, I'll just start with the question on the growth outlook. You're currently guiding 3% to 5% for 2026. But if we assume that oil prices remain elevated for longer than expected. Is there a scenario where growth exceeds the top end of the current range. And then has your overall thought process in terms of high-level deliverables for 2027 changed at all within the last several weeks. Chad Lundberg: Thanks, Menno. It's Chad. I'll take a crack at answering your question. So on growth, yes, I mean, we've guided to a capital program of $550 million to $625 million, delivering 67,000 to 69,000 barrels a day which represents 3% to 5% production growth. We're actively monitoring the macro kind of picture and situation right now and we would expect to make any decisions on increased growth at the breakup time frame. We certainly have the optionality within the portfolio depth and quality to go a little bit harder this year and to your point, into 2027. As I said, that will come. We'll look at that through breakup and make the decisions accordingly. Maybe just a little bit of an example of where we could look to expand the program. So potentially another pad in the Duvernay that may look like a drill that gets ducked into next year and completed or continued expansion in that Northeast Alberta Fairway where we utilized the 2 drill rigs that are drilling there today and potentially continue with that second rig. We could also pivot, though, just, again, an example of the depth of the inventory, pivot up into Peace River, where we've got some of the exploration work happening and elect to allocate capital up into that region as well. So lots of optionality currently on our radar. We're not moving it too fast, but those will come kind of decisions through breakup. Menno Hulshof: Terrific. And then maybe I guess my second question relates to your opening comments on some of the comments that you made on the Peavine waterflood opportunity. Like how material could that be? How do you plan to tackle this relative to some of your peers who are already well down that track? And what could that look like over the next -- in terms of deliverables, what could that look like over the next, call it, 12 to 18 months? Chad Lundberg: So we're deploying 2 pilot projects this year. One is into the kind of part of the play that we've been actively drilling to this point. So you can expect that we produce barrels out of the well that's going to be converted ultimately into an injector. What we're looking for there is just how fast can we fill it up to then pressure support the entire system around it to ultimately drive a lower decline and more barrels out of the ground. The second pilot is in a new development area where we're actually drilling the producers and the injectors simultaneously with each other, and we'll turn them on together at the same time. So what's all this mean? I mean, certainly, the waterflood has been doing great things for our industry. We're not sure what happens with our rock. That's why we've committed to pilots at this point in time. As a reminder, our primary development is very strong, holding 48 of the top 50 wells in the play, and that's really part and parcel to the incremental pressure that we have in situ in the rock itself. So there's various factors that are maybe unique to our situation that are potentially different from others. If you extrapolate that out though to the big picture, we're pretty excited for what it could do if it were to work with respect to base declines and driving more oil out of the ground. What does that mean for the future in the next 18 months? I think we're going to work very hard to try and understand this through kind of end of the year and into the budget process. And then how does that translate into our program next year? It could mean incremental waterflood injector activity in 2027. It could mean leaving gaps in our drilling program in between primary producers for the future. And we're just going to have to wait and see Menno where we go. Menno Hulshof: Can you remind me, I should know this, but when is the last time Baytex dabbled in waterfloods, if at all? Chad Lundberg: Yes. So I mean waterflood is not new to Baytex at all. We've actually been at it for 2 decades. Waterflood and then also polymer floods. It just depends on the quality of rock and then oil that we're working with. But you could think about it this way Menno, approximately 10% of our heavy oil production so 43,000 barrels a day is waterflood derived production. So not new to the story, and it's not foreign to us. We've got technical capacity and teams to really, we think, advance this forward. Operator: That's all the questions we have from the phone lines. I would like to turn the conference back over to Brian Ector for any questions received online. Please go ahead. Brian Ector: Yes, there are a few questions coming through the webcast. I'll try and run through those with you here, Chad. Menno spoke to sort of the current WTI price environment and optionality and growth. But another question comes in around, I think it's referencing sort of breakeven prices. Is there a WTI price that we would sort of pause the growth scenario, Chad? Chad Lundberg: Well, we set the budget out 3% to 5% centered at $60 oil, guiding to the high side, more than 5% at $65. And certainly, the flexibility is we've built the program to pull that back below $60 oil. I think that's how we think about our growth. And again, we're just really observing the macro climate right now. Obviously, it's incredibly dynamic. And we're taking it in and not going to make any knee-jerk moves. But I would remind that we have the optionality and flexibility to move harder if so desired. Brian Ector: Another question on the operations around our cost of production. And just can you speak to the capital efficiencies, meaning that you see in the business generally chat and steps we can take to continue to work on the cost of production and efficiencies overall. Chad Lundberg: Yes. Brian, I think that gets into how we've laid out the budget for 2026. We've started a sustaining capital at $435 million, add the $50 million in growth, $50 million in infrastructure and then $50 million in exploration. I think when you look into each one of those buckets, they are designed to improve capital efficiency. So I'll just give an example in the Duvernay. The infrastructure spending is at a higher and elevated pace for the next 3 years and then falls off post 3 years to a much lower rate. That flows right through to capital efficiencies and excess free cash flow to the shareholder. If you look in our investor pack, we've done again centered on the Duvernay, a pretty good job of delineating the asset, improving the characterization and then also reducing cash costs. Specifically, in 2024, we improved by 11% on the characterization and then equally so, dropped our capital costs by 11%. So both of those flows straight through to capital efficiency. Maybe just a little bit on the heavy oil program, touched on the $50 million that's allocated to exploration. This is absolutely intended to enhance and lengthen our inventory position. And I think some of the wells that we released through Q4 of last year, up in the Sparky in the southern area, some of our upper Waseca wells as we step through that Northeast Alberta area and the 7 different layers in the Mannville stack, we're pretty excited about what it's doing for capital efficiency. I would make this motherhood statement, though, to end the conversation. We're not done. This is something that we do as a company. This is something that our teams are tremendously good at, and this is a huge focus and priority of mine as I step into this role, and we move forward into the future from here. Brian Ector: Chad. Let's shift gears to a couple of questions and conversations around the net cash balance sheet that we have. It's around $800 million and Chad just I know we've talked a little bit about the NCIB in the prepared remarks, but how did we see allocating that $800 million going forward? Chad Lundberg: So we've been pretty clear that a good portion of that is going to be returned to the shareholders by way of buyback. Chad Kalmakoff in his prepared remarks, talked about the NCIB as the preferred vehicle over an SIB at this point in time. But we've also been very clear about utilizing some of the proceeds for greenfield, tuck-in, land acquisition, bolt-on style activity in our key and core focus areas. We're still committed to that. Brian Ector: Maybe along those lines then, Chad, just when you look at buybacks, how would we evaluate kind of the market price, the value and where we see value in the buyback program itself. Chad Lundberg: Yes. So I would start here about this company is going to be all about value going forward and an intense focus on how we deliver that value. When we evaluate the buyback specifically, I think there's 3 things we look at. One is the macro commodity environment. And so we'd like to think about really acting countercyclically and respecting where we're at in the cycle. The second though is just how are we trading relative to our peers. And so as we evaluate that, it looks like we have a good potential to grow with respect to how our peers are trading today. And then lastly, and equally as important is just the intrinsic value of the business. We're constantly running models at different price scenarios, with different enhancements that we can put on top of the plan, speaking to the optionality that we have in the deep portfolio set in front of us. And that would inform us on an intrinsic value that all 3 of those combined would anchor the conversation for how we proceed forward with buybacks. I guess when we look at those altogether today, it would still signal that we are focused on the buybacks and continuing forward from here. Brian Ector: Excellent. One question I turn over to Chad Kalmakoff, our CFO. Chad, can you just talk to our -- the existing hedges in place, maybe WTI and WCS, what the policy will look like going forward? Chad Kalmakoff: Sure. We have hedges in place kind of through the back half of last year, collared structures put for us at 60. Through the transaction, we maintain those. So we'd be roughly, I'll call it, 60% hedged on TI Q1 and about 50% -- 45% to 50% hedged in Q2. Nothing has changed policy wise. I think we always talked in the past about a strong balance sheet is the best hedge you can have. So going forward, I think we obviously have a very pristine balance sheet. I wouldn't expect us to be looking to hedge WTI contracts really in the future, given the balance sheet we have today. That being said, I think we can still look at hedging WCS contracts. We're 45% to 50% hedged on WCS this year at about $13. We still think that's an important piece of business to keep hedging to kind of prevent any financial impact from major blowouts. So summary, WTI, those will be rolling off here at the end of June. I wouldn't expect us to be that active in the hedging market on WTI, maybe in specific circumstances continue to kind of hedge differentials. Brian Ector: Okay, great. I think that's going to wrap up the large portion of questions coming in from the webcast. I would like to thank everyone for joining us. For those who submitted webcast questions that we didn't get to address, please reach out to our Investor Relations team and we'll follow up directly. Thanks again for your time today. And have a great day. Operator: This concludes today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating, and have a pleasant day.
Joseph Hudson: Good morning, everyone. Nice to see everybody. Great. So good morning, and welcome to Ibstock's 2025 Full Year Results Presentation. Joining me today is Simon Bedford, our interim CFO. So turning to the agenda. After I provide an overview and market context, Simon will walk us through the financials and cover divisional performance. I'll then focus on how we're thinking about shareholder value creation, specifically through the lens of five strategic drivers. Having covered the summary and outlook, Simon and I will then be very happy to answer your questions. So turning first to the overview. As you'll know, 2025 was a tough year. We started well with strong volume growth in the first half coming mainly from new build residential demand. Market uncertainty in the second half resulted in progressively tougher conditions. Revenues for the group increased by 2% to GBP 372 million with EBITDA at GBP 71 million, in line with the guidance issued in Q4 '25, but a reduction of around 10% versus '24. Despite the challenges in the market, this is a business that does not stand still, and I'm proud of the progress our teams have made at our major investment projects at Atlas and Nostell, both of which are now coming to their conclusion. At the same time, we've taken decisive action on costs and flex capacity where needed. We've also remained disciplined in how we allocate capital. In Q4, we made the decision to dispose of our Forticrete roofing sites and we now completed a number of land disposals releasing about GBP 30 million of capital. With major CapEx program largely complete, volume recovery and continued opportunities to release capital from our land bank will lead to an acceleration in free cash flow, and this will provide optionality on growth opportunities and shareholder returns as we move forward. Before handing over to Simon and to provide a bit more context on our financial results, I'd like to recap on how our markets developed in 2025. As we entered 2025 with market momentum continuing from Q3 in '24, we took steps to reactivate network capacity to meet the recovering demand. It was promising double-digit growth volume in the first 2 quarters, followed by a deceleration to 4% growth in quarter 3 and as you can see from the chart, the final 3 months were challenging with brick volumes actually falling to 2% year-on-year. Ultimately, with the initial momentum proving a false dawn, our capacity moved ahead of demand and looking back, I acknowledge that we went too early on this. Given the progressively tougher market demand dynamics in the third quarter, we readjusted capacity and acted on costs, which will position us better for the near term. Overall, in 2025, the total brick market grew 6% to 1.83 billion. And encouragingly, our market share was ahead of the market and ahead of the prior year. And with that context, let me now hand you over to Simon to go through the financials. Simon Bedford: Thanks, Joe, and good morning. Turning to cover the financial summary with Joe having already covered detail on our revenue and adjusted EBITDA performance. I will focus on three key metrics. Looking first at our EBITDA margin, this is reduced by 260 basis points to 19.1% as a result of inflationary pressure and increased cost as capacity is reactivated in clay. In addition, we experienced adverse product mix with lower volumes in higher-margin concrete categories of rail and infrastructure. EBITDA margin improved in H2 to around 20% as incremental costs from bringing capacity back tapered and also decisive cost management starts to kick in. Now considering the balance sheet strength, although leverage has increased marginally from a year ago to 2x, net debt of GBP 120 million has reduced both marginally from last year and significantly from the June position despite the trading environment. This is a result of our disciplined approach on to capital allocation and a focus on priority markets, generating around GBP 30 million of proceeds through the disposal of noncore assets. Return on capital employed at 5.8% remains well below our targeted level and reflects recent capital invested in both core and diversified platforms combined with earnings that continue to be impacted by markets well below normalized levels. With the recovery in market demand, combined with anticipated returns from our growth investments, we expect return on capital employed to revert to our targeted level of at least 20% over the medium term. Finally, the Board has recommended a final dividend of 1.5p, bringing the total dividend to 3p, which is a payout ratio of 53%, in line with the prior year. We set out on this slide, group revenues compared to the comparative figures in 2024. Group revenue for the year was up 2% to GBP 372.1 million. Within this context, clay revenues increased by 5% to GBP 260 million, driven by strong new build growth in H1 with H2 flat year-on-year. However, these numbers mask the contrast between the quarters as the year progressed, which I won't go through again. However, we also saw regional variation with growth more concentrated in Midlands and the North with the London and Southeast markets more subdued. Futures delivered revenues of GBP 9 million compared to GBP 10 million in the prior period as a result of our glass reinforced concrete business being closed in Q1 2025. Concrete revenue of GBP 117 million was 5% below the comparative period, largely as a result of the weakness in the U.K. rail infrastructure market. Turning to cover the divisional financial performance in more detail, starting with the clay division. As already seen, the clay division delivered a resilient performance against a tough market backdrop. We saw growth in wire cut bricks, which are favored in new build housing markets whilst demand for soft mud bricks, which are more exposed to RMI and specification markets and more concentrated in the Southeast and London regions was more muted. A more competitive environment constrained pricing, which, together with a negative shift in sales mix led to average pricing slightly below the comparative period. We took the decision to reactivate parts of the clay factory network during the first half of 2025. And whilst this has led to higher-than-expected incremental costs in the period, we saw these costs taper in the second half. This, combined with the cost actions taken, meant margins improved in H2. The facade product categories within Ibstock Futures move forward with broad-based growth across the portfolio. We expect EBITDA to build from 2027 after a year of ramp-up in 2026 as our major investment in Nostell start to deliver positive returns. Turning to cover concrete. Here, revenues decreased by 5% to GBP 112 million. Overall, residential new build sales volumes were tempered by lower growth in the RMI market and falling infrastructure sales volumes, as the U.K. rail infrastructure markets continue to be impacted by control period spending constraints. Similar to clay, we saw strong volume growth in many of the residential product categories in H1, partly offset by lower infrastructure volumes. In H2, market uncertainty resulted in progressively tougher conditions with flooring and infrastructure categories particularly affected. Sales pricing in the residential categories mirrored the market dynamics seen in the clay brick division. It is important to note that spending in the U.K. rail network has reduced to historically low levels. We have seen some pickup recently, but this constitutes a high-margin part of the concrete division, adversely impacting both mix and profitability. Whilst EBITDA margins remain well below historic levels achieved within our concrete business, as markets recover, we believe the division is well positioned to benefit with strong growth in both volumes and margin over the medium term. Moving now to cover cash flow performance. Inventory levels grew as demand weakened in the second half of the year, resulting in a net working capital outflow of around GBP 14 million. Capital expenditure was in line with last year with GBP 21 million our growth projects and around GBP 24 million of sustaining spend, with major capital expenditure programs largely complete, we expect total CapEx to fall to around GBP 25 million to GBP 30 million in 2026. It is important to note that the noncore disposals of around GBP 30 million proceeds are treated as exceptional and are therefore not included in the adjusted free cash flow. Moving to the balance sheet. Net debt reduced marginally to GBP 120 million by year-end, resulting in a leverage of 2x up on the prior year. The group has GBP 225 million of committed borrowings comprising the GBP 100 million private placement loan notes and GBP 125 million revolving credit facility, which we successfully refinanced in Q4 at improved terms. These borrowings contain leverage covenants of no more than greater than 3x tested semiannually. Based on the covenant definition, leverage at the 31st of December 2025 totaled 1.7x and the group had over GBP 100 million of available liquidity. I will now outline the refinements we've made to our capital allocation framework to better reflect our choices for excess cash after considering balance sheet strength, organic investment considerations and dividends. This shows the balance choice between inorganic investment and shareholder returns in accordance with our strategic and financial investment criteria and they are, of course, not mutually exclusive. With our major capital expenditure program is now largely complete, a high cash drop-through on incremental volumes and strategic options, which Joe will discuss later, this will provide significant optionality with respect to excess cash and capital allocation. For those looking for the technical guidance for 2026, this is now included in the appendix, with Joe covering how we will see 2026 developing in the summary and outlook section. And with that, Joe, I'll hand back to you. Joseph Hudson: Thanks, Simon. So turning now to our market drivers and strategic progress. As set out on the screen, we see continuing shareholder value creation being built around these five clear strategic levers. You can see here that our leadership in our core markets remains key and has significant bearing on our financial performance. However, crucially, the remaining four levers are more within our control and are already driving progress through new market sectors, product innovation, operational efficiencies and the strategic value embedded in our land and clay reserves. . This unique balance gives us resilience today and will be important to underpinning our midterm targets. I'll now walk through each in turn. With a 200-year heritage, we enjoy a leadership position in our core markets, and over recent years, we've been -- we've deliberately brought our brands, people and capabilities together under a single unified Ibstock. That wasn't a branding exercise. It was about how we show up for our customers. Today, that leadership position allows us to support customers across clay, concrete and specialist building products alongside our design and technical services supporting national and regional housebuilders, the RM&I market and increasingly infrastructure and nonresidential applications. I've talked in the past about engaging with customers across multiple categories, and that shift has picked up momentum in the last 18 months as both national and regional customers have seen the breadth of our offer and our technical capabilities. Looking ahead, we also see a clear opportunities to grow in the 10% infrastructure and other sectors where our capabilities, assets and relationships position us well. That sector represents a significant share of the overall construction market where we are underrepresented today. And it's a space that lends itself to innovation and new products and new solutions. I'll give more details on this later. Before I come on to the other areas, let's look at those core markets and what we're seeing on the ground. At a structural level, the long-term fundamentals that underpin demand in these housing and RMI markets remain firmly intact. The U.K. continues to face a significant housing shortage, household formations have been outstripping housebuilding for years, and we have an aging housing stock that requires ongoing investment and renewal. Demand for social and affordable housing remains strong, supported by promising new funding allocations. Against that backdrop, we're starting to see some more supportive signals emerging. Inflation is easing from its peak and expected mortgage rates cuts should over time, help improve confidence. Government reforms and planning initiatives are also welcome steps. However, the pace of delivery and affordability, especially for the first-time buyer on major issues. We're set to have a third year below 150,000 housing starts way off the run rate of getting to 1.5 million homes. Even where starts are improving, build-out rates remain firmly controlled, housebuilders are prioritizing cash and aligning build programs to sales rates. As a result, we continue to take a cautious view in the near term with industry forecasts, including those from the CPA pointing to a continued subdued market conditions over the short term, and that remains consistent with what we're seeing. However, the market will turn at some point. And importantly, we don't need to get to 300,000 housing starts to see a material improvement for our business. As a reminder, the U.K. brick fully installed capacity is around 2.1 billion. So even when we get close to this range, which equates to around 107,000 housing starts, we'll see a big improvement in industry utilization levels. This slide shows why we're well placed to capture volume recovery by looking at our clay capacity evolution. As you can see on the slide, we break out the total network into three components: volumes manufactured in the period, further active capacity available, that's incremental volumes available through higher push rates or increasing shift patterns. And finally, an active capacity where capacity is mothballed or idled. As we've outlined, the progressively tougher market conditions we saw in 2025 meant we build inventory and therefore, in 2026, we'll be actively managing production and inventory. This will give a margin headwind, but benefits overall cash flow generation. We've done that by adjusting soft mud capacity at our Leicester sites, which have much more operational flexibility. However, our active clay network gives us the ability to ramp up by more than 20% with very low cost additions and therefore, compelling drop-through to the bottom line. With this network and stock levels, we're very well positioned to capture the upside as the market conditions improve. Outside of our core market exposure, there's significant medium-term opportunity in other construction market sectors. If stock is increasingly aligning with three growth market sectors, infrastructure, social and affordable housing and mid- to high-rise buildings that require cladding remediation. We're doing this by developing tailored sector solutions, broadening both our existing and new product ranges and working directly with the contractors delivering these major projects. The challenge is well understood the U.K. is under-invested in recent years in schools, hospitals and public sector buildings. And that's why the government's 10-year infrastructure strategy includes an identified GBP 725 billion pipeline, covering work in departments such as the MOD, Department of Education and Ministry of Justice. Now that's not just theoretical opportunity for us. Over the last 12 months, we've undertaken additional product testing and assurance to enable delivery into these programs. That includes testing new products for the MOD's GBP 3 billion a year work program as well as other key public sector customers including the GBP 15 billion schools capital investment program. Around half of the GBP 39 billion in social housing is expected to be delivered through Homes England. Housing associations are partnering with developers to unlock wider scheme, and we're already seeing this translate into activity. For example, we've received initial orders on our regeneration project in Birmingham a GBP 1 billion long-term master plan that will ultimately deliver about 3,500 homes. In addition, challenges around the cladding remediation and the Building Safety Act requirements are creating new opportunities where Ibstock is exceptionally well positioned. Our high-quality, high-performing products in both our established ranges as well as the new innovations coming through at Nostell directly support safe, compliant and even more sustainable construction. With that context, let me move on to our new product development pipeline and investment and how that positions us for future growth. You can see on the screen that over the last 8 years, an increasing proportion of our revenue now comes from new and sustainable products. This creates real value for our customers and helps sustain our margins. By working closely with our key customers, it's important to understand their strategic priorities, whether it's speed of build, low carbon, design flexibility or efficiency, and we focus our innovation on helping them to deliver against those aims. Alongside our major strategic projects, we continue to strengthen and modernize our core clay and concrete product ranges through continuous product development and performance improvements. Today, I'll just focus on the Nostell redevelopment and on FastWall, which you'll have seen in the opening video. FastWall has been designed to support both existing and new markets. For existing customers, particularly housebuilders investing in panelized construction and timber frame, it delivers higher productivity and reduced weight, both critical drivers for customers adopting modern methods of construction. Alongside FastWall, our new ceramic facade facility at Nostell is creating a further wave of innovation, delivering new facade solutions with a greatly expanded architectural range and almost unlimited design flexibility. It's the first facility of its kind to bring all of these things together in one place and initial customer interest has been really positive. We see these solutions as complementary, not competing with our core products. If there are skill gaps to meet the challenges of growing construction targets, this will be part of the answer. To fully appreciate it, you have to really see it in operation, and we look forward to hosting another factory event similar to the one we did in Atlas last year, and we'll share more details about that soon. Moving now to focus on our factory estate. Over the last 8 years, as already alluded to, we have invested more than GBP 325 million across our clay and concrete manufacturing network, creating a safer, more automated, more efficient and lower-cost estate. The Atlas factory is the latest of these investments, and we'll add 105 million bricks per year at full capacity, strengthening reliability, reducing cost and delivering the same high-quality, high-performing but more sustainable products, the way that we manufacture today. In addition, we've -- having done two capital investments projects in our Concrete division recently, we see further options to invest in process automation to reduce cost. These projects are relatively capital light with quick payback. Our new multiyear operational excellence program is also well underway at our pilot factory at Aldridge and will drive further competitive advantage, improving operational performance and strengthen our ability to service our customers. More efficient, modernized asset base positions us for higher margins, stronger cash generation and greater operating leverage as the market recovers. You'll see me reference this later as the network efficiencies are a key underpin for our midterm targets. Moving on now to look at our fifth strategy lever, which delivers further optionality in centers on our land and clay reserves. To give some context, we manage over 2,700 acres of land across the U.K., spanning our factory estate, clay quarries and significant natural estate. From an Ibstock perspective, a large part of this asset base is not fully utilized. We then have options to drive value through three complementary routes. Firstly, Calcined clay commercialization. This is now a proven low carbon cementitious replacement capable of materially reducing embodied carbon when used in blended cements and in concrete. And you'll know we've been exploring the commercialization of Calcined clay at scale turning an existing asset into a strategic growth option. I'm pleased to confirm that commercial discussions with a preferred partner to get to an agreement is well advanced, and we expect to share a further update on this at the half year. Secondly, as noted before, our disciplined land disposal program will ensure capital is released where land is no longer supports long-term strategic or operational priorities. To that end, we expect to generate GBP 20 million to GBP 30 million in the next 3 to 5 years. And thirdly, the expansion of our existing land-based income streams. Our land already generates material long-term revenue alongside core manufacturing with land-based income from quarry restoration through landfill delivering approximately GBP 2 million to GBP 3 million per year. This demonstrates the commercial value of well-managed nonoperational land. Taken together, these three routes create a diversified platform for value creation. So to conclude, these five leaders together define our value creation strategy. And while market conditions will continue to influence near-term performance, the actions were taken across these levers are firmly within our control. In 2026, we are focused on the execution of our customer experience work, expanding into new market segments, progressing operational excellence, including pilot at our Aldridge site, fully commissioning Nostell and finalizing our Calcined clay project. So bringing that all together, as you can see on this slide, we have the potential for significant earnings growth over the coming years. As I've said, to a large extent, this will be driven by market recovery, but it will also be supported by our market independent initiatives, including the points we've made today. We remain confident that our revenue target of GBP 600 million when markets recover to historic levels is achievable. This should drive margins up from 19% today to 28% in the future. The dynamics -- these dynamics should ensure a strong earnings growth in the years ahead. And as Simon has said earlier, the improved cash flow from improved earnings, the strategic land disposal program and lower capital investment will provide more optionality for value creation for shareholders. So finally, looking at the -- taking a look at the outlook. After a weather-impacted start to 2026, near-term demand remains challenging. We expect modest year-on-year volume growth in H2 2026, with volume recovery in new build and RMI markets dependent on activity gaining momentum in the spring. Price increases implemented in February 2026 should enable us to offset anticipated cost inflation for the year. Although the timing of the market recovery is uncertain, we're confident that the long-term market fundamentals are intact. Therefore, with a well-invested, lower cost, more efficient and sustainable network, we expect to benefit from meaningful operational leverage and cash generation across the business. And with that said, Simon and I will be happy to take your questions. If you could state your name and institution before asking the questions. Aynsley Lammin: Aynsley Lammin from Investec. Just two for me, please. On the production and kind of management and stock level management for this year, maybe if you could elaborate on that a bit more where stock levels are, where you'd like them to be? And would you be kind of thinking of mothball in any plants? Or is it just stopping production and therefore, that's why you get the kind of margin headwind? And then secondly, I guess just on the energy side, I think it's sort of 80% hedged. When does that become a concern if [indiscernible] continue and natural gas prices remain elevated, you have to be pretty confident for the next 6 to 8 months of time. Joseph Hudson: Yes. Yes. Look, we will be managing stock this year quite carefully. We're not anticipating to mothball any other sites at this stage. We've got -- part of the reason for the, the sort of headwind on the margins is the overhead recovery. We've got more shutdowns, so you just don't get the leverage, but we produced around 40 million to 50 million bricks more than we needed at the end of last year. So we're going to manage that carefully this year. Obviously, we've got stockyards, they are limited as well. So -- we've done this. Obviously, we've had a bit of a partner of this in the last few years, so we sort of know how to do things, and I think we're well positioned. The main thing is if the market comes back faster, we can respond very, very quickly. Energy, do you want to take energy Simon? Simon Bedford: Yes. So in terms of energy, we've said in the statement, we're about 80% hedged. That is actually more front-end loaded. So the first 3 quarters were hedged higher than that. So really, we're more exposed in Q4. We don't see at the moment, an issue with that, and we have other options when we actually get to Q4. Priyal Mulji: Priyal Woolf here from Jefferies. I've just got two questions. Firstly, you talked about price increases, I think, from February. I think one of the issues we've had in previous years is different players going at different times and sort of having to reverse on that. Do you have any color on whether the magnitude and the timing across the market has been fairly consistent so far this year? And then the second question is just the whole shift from soft mud to wire cut last year. Do you think that's done? Or is there sort of more to go as an incremental headwind? Joseph Hudson: Good. Yes. I think we're a better place this year for sure, on pricing. Last year it was difficult. People went at different times. And frankly, it didn't stick. This year most of the industry went in February, 1. And we think that there's been a lot more discipline in that approach. So we're confident that we can cover inflation this year with our price increases around sort of 3%-ish margins. And then soft wood, wire cut dynamics. I mean, obviously, as you had greater new build residential growth last year and more subdued RMI, it was a mix shift. So we're probably about -- the industry is about 70% wire cut, 30% soft mud. We're obviously have a greater weighting towards soft mud ourselves. I don't think that's a long-term structural change. I think it's largely because of the fact that the RMI market subdued and the southeastern London are very, very weak. So I think -- as I said earlier on, you've got an industry that only -- can only -- when it's -- when all the mothballed capacity is back on, you can only produce 2.1 billion bricks anyway. So all of the brick capacity will be used soft mud and wire cut in the U.K. Clyde Lewis: Clyde Lewis with Peel Hunt. I think I've got four. So apologies. I'll do them one at a time. Could you update us as to where you think sort of merchant levels are in terms of sort of brick stocks? Second one, again, it can useful to get an update on imports as to what you're seeing on that front? Third was on, I suppose, stock futures and slips within that as to how you're seeing the market develop for those products, and particularly the slips, how much activity is going on there with architects and designers in particular? And then the last one was on rail. Obviously, a tough year last year. How does the rail outlook look for 2026? Joseph Hudson: I'll let you take the rail one. So merchant stocks at the moment, I think, are quite healthy. Merchants -- most merchants that we talk to are managing their balance sheet carefully, and they know they can call on stocks from the manufacturers when needed. So I'd say they're not overstocked. There's a normalized stock level at the moment, but certainly not stocking up at this stage. Imports last year were about 350 million. So they actually -- if our markets, we went ahead by about 8%. The imports went ahead by a little bit more than that. But actually, if you look at import brick levels, they're quite consistent. They're about 19%. I think they went to about 22% in 2022, but they've been about 18% to 19% consistently. We do need imported bricks when the market comes back. And I think a lot of importers including a major player here has a mothballed bit of capacity and has got a pan-European strategy. So we're bringing a bit more of the bricks in still. And obviously, they're still quite sticky. They want to maintain our position. And there's not much going on in Europe. So they've been a little bit more competitive last year. I think we're excited about the growth in slip systems, ceramic facade systems. It's still coming from a low base. So it's still -- but it's -- the CAGR is very good. The growth is very good. Whether it's mechanical rain screen buildings, high-rise going up, whether it's panelized construction volumetrics with bricks going on the outside or whether it's some of the stuff like FastWall, we alluded to there on, there's a lot more change in that. We see our own -- this year, we expect about a 40% uplift in our volumes. And in 2 to 3 years' time, we expect that to triple. I think the -- this year at Nostell, obviously, we're commissioning the factory. There's a longer lead time for these products because they're specified in their systems. So they have to be tested and there's a specification period from the time it's signed up by the developer and the architect to when actually the project gets delivered. It's not like a brick just going off the yard. So there's a bit of a lead time there, which is probably about, I'd say, 8 to 12 months, but we're excited about it. That's why we invested in it. We think it's not going to like cannibalize our core business. We think this is the -- these products are going to be what brings additionality to get you to the higher build rates that we need to do given the skill shortages. So we think there's room for both the cavity wall and traditional building as well as some of these new systems, but we're very excited. And the infrastructure sector as well, is very excited by them. They're very open to -- they're more open to sort of faster change. So we're working with a lot of the big contractors infrastructure people. Rail? Simon Bedford: Yes. And if I just pick up rail, so we've suffered with rail volumes over the last few years, we reached the historical low level in 2025. We have seen recent data points which suggest that is actually turning, and therefore, we would expect some growth in 2026. It's off a low base, but it is also a high-margin business for the concrete business. Robert Chantry: Rob Chantry, Berenberg. Just three questions from me. I guess, firstly, on the concrete business. Could you just give us an update on the weighting towards the different subdivisions within that and that the margin profile, i.e., kind of what are we actually taking a view on the next 2 to 3 years around what's going to drive the recovery there? And secondly, affordable housing. I know a lot of the contracts have talked about building up big mixed-use development pipelines looking at affordable housing as a huge driver in the next few years and some of the contractors this week, last week saying it -- it's been quite slow, but it's starting to pick up. Just what's your kind of on the ground experience of affordable housing build rate dynamics. And then thirdly, obviously, the Southeast London market has been exceptionally weak in terms of new starts and volume, a lot of discussion around gateway, other planning type of regulation. Can you -- again, can you give us some on the ground insight around quite the bottleneck there from your point of view and if that is looking to be released at any point? Joseph Hudson: Good. I mean our concrete business has got quite diversified. As you know, we divested the roofing business. That was a relatively small part and lower market share. But we have leading positions in most of our other categories. So we have walling stone, which is a reconstituted sort of natural stone that goes into a lot of areas, reasonably good margins there, double-digit margins. We've got leading fencing and building business, landscaping business with very, very good margins. We've got the rail business, which obviously has rail and infrastructure business, which has suffered, but again, it's very high margins with leading positions. What else have we got, Simon? Simon Bedford: I think that covers it. Joseph Hudson: That's the main focus of it. We think that -- and we've got a large flooring business. Flooring is -- we've got about 25% market share of the flooring business. So we think that when you put the concrete business with some of the brick business, we're seeing a lot more uptake from especially contractors and people interested in these big infrastructure projects, schools, prisons, hospitals because we can do hollowcore floors, we can do the walls. We can do lots of retaining walls, applications like that. So it's quite complementary as well, our concrete business. Affordable housing, I mean, everyone is talking about this GBP 39 billion and it being back-end loaded. There was some news at the beginning of this year around funding allocations of about GBP 2 billion. That's promising. We're doing a lot of work with housing associations themselves and getting quite close to them. It is going to take time, but we will see some -- I mean, if you look at the stats this year, public housing has got a sort of a slightly higher growth rate than the private house building. So we're seeing some momentum there already. But it's -- again, how much, how quick, it's not going to go crazy this year. But I will -- I do think that the sustained improvement in social housing in the U.K. is much needed and is going to create a much flatter sort of less oscillation in cyclicality for us. The Southeast in London, I think there are a lot of things that are causing issues around the Southeast in London. The main one is affordability and building safety. I think the building safety regulator has got a much more proactive approach. They're releasing projects much faster now, and I think that will start to unwind much faster this year. But affordability is a big issue. If you think about buying a house in London and the Southeast compared to other parts of the country, there's a real issue there. And I think that's where we need some support. I think it will get a little bit better this year, but I don't think it's going to improve until we see some support for the first-time buyer. Benjamin Pfannes-Varrow: Ben Varrow from RBC. I'll do three as well, please. First on guidance, in terms of volumes. I understand that's H2 weighted, I guess, what gives you confidence in that at the moment and the sort of spring selling season picking up? Second is on Forticrete the disposal there. Can you give a bit more color on if there's anything else in the portfolio that could go the same way, infrastructure, just so I understand correctly. Is that mainly then focused on the concrete side of the business? And do you need any investment there? And how big could that be for the group? Joseph Hudson: Good. Do you want to do the guidance one? Simon Bedford: Yes. So just talk about volumes. So with the weather impacted first couple of months, we're sort of seeing the first half of the year to be more in line with the H2 2025 volumes. So that would mean slightly down on the comparative period, H1 '25. And then more growth in H2 2026. And based on the spring selling season, the elements, which give us confidence is affordability metrics are looking better. Inflation is stabilizing, and we could look at further interest rate cuts. And that gives us confidence that the macro look better. And then some of the housebuilders are giving more positive updates on what the site visits are, how that's looking. So we have confidence based on the sort of demand dynamics in quarter 2 the spring period, getting better, and therefore, growth will be realized in the second half of the year. Joseph Hudson: Yes. And I think if you look at last year, I mean, we had this wonderful consumer confidence crisis with what's going to happen to tax, what's going to happen to the budget. The budget was pushed out I think that the budget was a bit of a clearing event, and I think you'll see more clarity going forward unless we get further noise from that side. So I think there'll be more confidence and people will be building a bit more this year. But it will take some time because the second half of last year affects the first half of this year, in particular, but I think you'll start to see improving build rates. Let's see what the spring selling season does. Look, we do -- we always look at capital allocation and what a business needs in terms of capital going forward. Our Forticrete business was a very good business, but we've had some performance challenges that I gave them some time to look at. And on low volumes where it was at the moment, we felt that with someone else who could be a better custodian of that business, it's relatively low market share, and we want to have positions where we have high market share, leading #1 or #2 positions. So we felt it was the right thing to do. And there's not really anything else that we're thinking about right now at the moment other than land disposals, as I've mentioned. And then on the infrastructure stuff, it's not just concrete. Actually, when you look at it's concrete, it's the facades and it's bricks. So when we're going to talk to contractors, they're looking at the whole package now, and that's what's quite exciting about it. So it's not just that. The construction infrastructure market is about GBP 35 billion, GBP 40 billion in this country. So it's something that we really need to be more aggressive. And I'd like to see that donor 10% going to 20% very soon. Alastair? Alastair Stewart: Alastair Stewart, from Progressive. A couple of related questions. First of all, you displayed refreshing candor, if I might say so, for a CEO and personally acknowledging you moved too quickly last year. In terms of this year, irrespective of -- you're saying you're able to ramp up capacity. Is there a psychological -- once bitten twice shy feeling. You're going to have to wait longer to see positives from the house builder before moving today. So that's question one. And question two, related to that, on Slide 17, the production volumes and active capacity available, how quickly would it take to turn that gray into blue should the market pick up more convincingly? Joseph Hudson: Good. Thanks, Alastair. I thought all CEOs were very candid. Alastair Stewart: No, no. Some of them [indiscernible] Joseph Hudson: Okay. Look, I think you have to -- you have to be honest, and we're dealing with a very tough market situations. And I think we've got a lot of trust from shareholders in this community, and you've got to be open about things. I think look, you saw the graphs here. So you saw the movements. And then you saw -- so I would have done it change my mind. I think we made the decision we felt was right at the time. And of course, I'll be very cautious about bringing new capacity back and new cost back, especially with this market. But the good thing is that gray area, we can convert that very quickly. Even the blue area on that graph, which is 65% utilization, that's got shutdowns in it, yes. We can -- if the market comes back, we can produce a lot more, and also, we've got plenty of stock on the ground. So the industry levels at the moment, there are about 550 million bricks, which is not massive, but it's healthy, and we've got a healthy share of that. So we can deploy that stock very quickly, which will be great for free cash flow generation. So we'll eat into the stock first, then we'll reduce shutdowns and then we'll bring on a bit more capacity. Unknown Analyst: Max from [indiscernible] Asset Management. Just a regional outlook. So you see London and the South is potentially being weaker in 2026 than the rest of the country. Is that correct? Joseph Hudson: London and the Southeast have been weaker from a residential housing point of view for some time. I think, as I mentioned earlier on, there are some reasons for that. Some of them are building safety, but the main one is affordability. I think it will get better. But I think until we saw at the affordability issue. That's both for buying and for costs for builders to build with land and things like Section 106, it will stay behind other areas in terms of growth. But I think it will improve a little bit this year. Unknown Analyst: So the outlook for RMI then is slightly weaker than residential construction. Is that also correct? Because I'm looking at your U.K. well, at the market U.K. construction forecast. Joseph Hudson: Yes. I mean we go on what the BNS say, we go on what the CPA says. So at this stage, it looks like it's a bit of a decline this year of about 1% on RMI markets. Unknown Analyst: What do you think is causing that on the RMI side? Is it the interest rate? Joseph Hudson: RMI is really around consumer confidence. So let's go to Stephen. Stephen Rawlinson: Stephen Rawlinson from Applied Value. Two for me if you don't mind. Firstly, with regard to reach market, could you just talk us through the way in which the channels to size are altering and how that might play through in the next few years to particular reference to our margins, i.e., what's going through merchants, what's actually going direct to site and the implications for margin that might have happened over the last few years and are present in these numbers, but may potentially how they may progress in the future. And the second question is with regard to brick slips, off-site construction. Do you anticipate that you'll be doing that yourselves and is an industry emerging, you believe can absorb the capacity that you're creating for the slips production such that actually there will be -- you'll be able to satisfy that demand. How is that going to play out? Is that something that's going to be at your cost on your sites? Or is there an industry merging the satisfactory from your point of view to actually absorb the capacity you've created? Joseph Hudson: Yes, good. So our routes to market. Look, I think with infrastructure, there's definitely people are coming to talk to us because they want looking at the whole package. So I think you might see a little bit of a shift in more direct relationships with contractors than we have in the past. But the merchant industry, for example, creates a great sort of service for the U.K. because it stocks and it takes credit risk and it redistributes breaks book. So we think there's a real value in that route to market in that supply chain. We've got great partnerships with merchants. We've got great margin with brick specialists, and we've got direct relationships with housebuilders. There's no doubt more people want to talk to us directly because they're seeing now as we've been marketing all of our product capabilities, not just bricks, oh, well, we'd like to have all of this as a package, please. And that's where we see probably more direct relationships going forward. But we have to think about cost to serve as well. So we're not going to have a myriad of millions of relationships we've got and got to think about that. And then the whole ceramic facades there's a whole ecosystem there where you've got installers, you've got contractors, subcontractors. We won't be doing that in store ourselves. We want to provide the product and the solutions that go into -- with the installers, the developers and the contractors. We're not going to start installing ourselves. That's not our core business. It's not something I'd get into. We don't know enough about the risk factors and all outside of the market. But they are waiting to see -- this Nostell factory, they're waiting to see it because they've never seen it before. So that's why it's going to pick up momentum, and we've got the capability to really make a big Change, I think, in MMC in the U.K. with our factory. Christen Hjorth: Christen Hjorth from Deutsche Bank. Two, hopefully, pretty quick ones. Just on net debt, you normally see that the increase as you move to the half 1 stage with working capital investment, but it sounds like you're quite well invested in inventory. So just a sense of what we should expect in terms of net debt as we move through H1? And then second, I was following up on the volume phasing piece. What's your current thinking around the EBITDA phasing H1, H2 because there's a few moving parts in terms of capacity and things like that. So those are the two for me, please. Simon Bedford: Okay. So in terms of net debt, we would see a normal seasonal working capital build, but less so in inventory. It will be more debtors related as we have more sales in those periods versus like in November, December last year. So we see that. And then in terms of EBITDA, yes, I think we're going to be more weighted to the second half. We've got production shutdowns and producing less inventory in the first half of the year, which gives us that margin headwind. So we're thinking about our weighting probably being between 40% and 45% in the first half of the year. Harry Dow: Harry Dow from Rothschild & Co. I think just two questions, if possible. So first on the concrete business, how should we think about the operating leverage as that kind of volumes recover maybe for railway comes back. I think the drop-through this year is quite high in terms of , I think we lost GBP 5 million of revenue and then GBP 5 million EBITDA. So maybe also just what happened in 2025 for such a high drop-through maybe. And then just also just a comment on other operating costs, so sort of expected wages inflation or distribution costs, things like that? Joseph Hudson: Yes. I think operating leverage in the rail business has quite a big bearing on our margins and that moving forward will really help margin improvement this year. Concrete is a little bit different to clay. Clay, you've got high fixed costs, and the deal concretes more of a batch. You've got more flexibility with it. So really, it's around volumes and it's around margin in specific categories, and that's why we believe there's reasonable momentum in concrete this year. Other costs, Simon, do you want to talk about that? Simon Bedford: Yes. So our major cost really is around labor. So we'd expect a low single-digit sort of impact around that, which is in line with the industry and the wider positions. And then in terms of variable costs, we'd expect a similar number. We'll wait to see how things like oil pans out, how is that working? How that feeds through to say haulage costs, but I think we've got a little while to see how that's actually going to pan through. Charlie Campbell: Charlie Campbell, with Stifel. Just one. You haven't really mentioned planning as a potential opportunity this year. Clearly, there is hope that after 2 years, we -- the planning system has started to free up a bit. Just wondering what your view on that is and whether you've noticed any change in the rate of site openings maybe in the last few months or projections in the next few months? Joseph Hudson: Yes. Planning is still not great, if I'm honest. I think what is promising is that there's a focus on it. And what I think where we have seen improvements is if there's a decision on a large site, the decision -- there are people coming from above saying, let's do it. But we still have a long -- too long a time gap from planning permission to build out rates. It's really taking too long. So I think it's an opportunity. It's an opportunity. There's definitely proactivity from the government getting involved to make decisions about it, but it's not going to -- we haven't seen any major changes in terms of site openings in the last few months. . Okay. Do we have any questions from the Ita? No? Operator: No. I think all the questions have been covered in the room. So Joe, I'll hand back to you for any closing remarks. . Joseph Hudson: Good. So thanks, everyone. Look, it's very -- it's a crazy time in the world. It's a difficult market that we're navigating carefully. But this is a real high-quality business, 200 years old, and we will get some recoveries soon, and when it comes, we're really well positioned, and I'm excited about that, and I'm looking forward to it greatly. But really good to see you, and we can have a chat afterwards. But thanks very much for coming today.
Joseph Hudson: Good morning, everyone. Nice to see everybody. Great. So good morning, and welcome to Ibstock's 2025 Full Year Results Presentation. Joining me today is Simon Bedford, our interim CFO. So turning to the agenda. After I provide an overview and market context, Simon will walk us through the financials and cover divisional performance. I'll then focus on how we're thinking about shareholder value creation, specifically through the lens of five strategic drivers. Having covered the summary and outlook, Simon and I will then be very happy to answer your questions. So turning first to the overview. As you'll know, 2025 was a tough year. We started well with strong volume growth in the first half coming mainly from new build residential demand. Market uncertainty in the second half resulted in progressively tougher conditions. Revenues for the group increased by 2% to GBP 372 million with EBITDA at GBP 71 million, in line with the guidance issued in Q4 '25, but a reduction of around 10% versus '24. Despite the challenges in the market, this is a business that does not stand still, and I'm proud of the progress our teams have made at our major investment projects at Atlas and Nostell, both of which are now coming to their conclusion. At the same time, we've taken decisive action on costs and flex capacity where needed. We've also remained disciplined in how we allocate capital. In Q4, we made the decision to dispose of our Forticrete roofing sites and we now completed a number of land disposals releasing about GBP 30 million of capital. With major CapEx program largely complete, volume recovery and continued opportunities to release capital from our land bank will lead to an acceleration in free cash flow, and this will provide optionality on growth opportunities and shareholder returns as we move forward. Before handing over to Simon and to provide a bit more context on our financial results, I'd like to recap on how our markets developed in 2025. As we entered 2025 with market momentum continuing from Q3 in '24, we took steps to reactivate network capacity to meet the recovering demand. It was promising double-digit growth volume in the first 2 quarters, followed by a deceleration to 4% growth in quarter 3 and as you can see from the chart, the final 3 months were challenging with brick volumes actually falling to 2% year-on-year. Ultimately, with the initial momentum proving a false dawn, our capacity moved ahead of demand and looking back, I acknowledge that we went too early on this. Given the progressively tougher market demand dynamics in the third quarter, we readjusted capacity and acted on costs, which will position us better for the near term. Overall, in 2025, the total brick market grew 6% to 1.83 billion. And encouragingly, our market share was ahead of the market and ahead of the prior year. And with that context, let me now hand you over to Simon to go through the financials. Simon Bedford: Thanks, Joe, and good morning. Turning to cover the financial summary with Joe having already covered detail on our revenue and adjusted EBITDA performance. I will focus on three key metrics. Looking first at our EBITDA margin, this is reduced by 260 basis points to 19.1% as a result of inflationary pressure and increased cost as capacity is reactivated in clay. In addition, we experienced adverse product mix with lower volumes in higher-margin concrete categories of rail and infrastructure. EBITDA margin improved in H2 to around 20% as incremental costs from bringing capacity back tapered and also decisive cost management starts to kick in. Now considering the balance sheet strength, although leverage has increased marginally from a year ago to 2x, net debt of GBP 120 million has reduced both marginally from last year and significantly from the June position despite the trading environment. This is a result of our disciplined approach on to capital allocation and a focus on priority markets, generating around GBP 30 million of proceeds through the disposal of noncore assets. Return on capital employed at 5.8% remains well below our targeted level and reflects recent capital invested in both core and diversified platforms combined with earnings that continue to be impacted by markets well below normalized levels. With the recovery in market demand, combined with anticipated returns from our growth investments, we expect return on capital employed to revert to our targeted level of at least 20% over the medium term. Finally, the Board has recommended a final dividend of 1.5p, bringing the total dividend to 3p, which is a payout ratio of 53%, in line with the prior year. We set out on this slide, group revenues compared to the comparative figures in 2024. Group revenue for the year was up 2% to GBP 372.1 million. Within this context, clay revenues increased by 5% to GBP 260 million, driven by strong new build growth in H1 with H2 flat year-on-year. However, these numbers mask the contrast between the quarters as the year progressed, which I won't go through again. However, we also saw regional variation with growth more concentrated in Midlands and the North with the London and Southeast markets more subdued. Futures delivered revenues of GBP 9 million compared to GBP 10 million in the prior period as a result of our glass reinforced concrete business being closed in Q1 2025. Concrete revenue of GBP 117 million was 5% below the comparative period, largely as a result of the weakness in the U.K. rail infrastructure market. Turning to cover the divisional financial performance in more detail, starting with the clay division. As already seen, the clay division delivered a resilient performance against a tough market backdrop. We saw growth in wire cut bricks, which are favored in new build housing markets whilst demand for soft mud bricks, which are more exposed to RMI and specification markets and more concentrated in the Southeast and London regions was more muted. A more competitive environment constrained pricing, which, together with a negative shift in sales mix led to average pricing slightly below the comparative period. We took the decision to reactivate parts of the clay factory network during the first half of 2025. And whilst this has led to higher-than-expected incremental costs in the period, we saw these costs taper in the second half. This, combined with the cost actions taken, meant margins improved in H2. The facade product categories within Ibstock Futures move forward with broad-based growth across the portfolio. We expect EBITDA to build from 2027 after a year of ramp-up in 2026 as our major investment in Nostell start to deliver positive returns. Turning to cover concrete. Here, revenues decreased by 5% to GBP 112 million. Overall, residential new build sales volumes were tempered by lower growth in the RMI market and falling infrastructure sales volumes, as the U.K. rail infrastructure markets continue to be impacted by control period spending constraints. Similar to clay, we saw strong volume growth in many of the residential product categories in H1, partly offset by lower infrastructure volumes. In H2, market uncertainty resulted in progressively tougher conditions with flooring and infrastructure categories particularly affected. Sales pricing in the residential categories mirrored the market dynamics seen in the clay brick division. It is important to note that spending in the U.K. rail network has reduced to historically low levels. We have seen some pickup recently, but this constitutes a high-margin part of the concrete division, adversely impacting both mix and profitability. Whilst EBITDA margins remain well below historic levels achieved within our concrete business, as markets recover, we believe the division is well positioned to benefit with strong growth in both volumes and margin over the medium term. Moving now to cover cash flow performance. Inventory levels grew as demand weakened in the second half of the year, resulting in a net working capital outflow of around GBP 14 million. Capital expenditure was in line with last year with GBP 21 million our growth projects and around GBP 24 million of sustaining spend, with major capital expenditure programs largely complete, we expect total CapEx to fall to around GBP 25 million to GBP 30 million in 2026. It is important to note that the noncore disposals of around GBP 30 million proceeds are treated as exceptional and are therefore not included in the adjusted free cash flow. Moving to the balance sheet. Net debt reduced marginally to GBP 120 million by year-end, resulting in a leverage of 2x up on the prior year. The group has GBP 225 million of committed borrowings comprising the GBP 100 million private placement loan notes and GBP 125 million revolving credit facility, which we successfully refinanced in Q4 at improved terms. These borrowings contain leverage covenants of no more than greater than 3x tested semiannually. Based on the covenant definition, leverage at the 31st of December 2025 totaled 1.7x and the group had over GBP 100 million of available liquidity. I will now outline the refinements we've made to our capital allocation framework to better reflect our choices for excess cash after considering balance sheet strength, organic investment considerations and dividends. This shows the balance choice between inorganic investment and shareholder returns in accordance with our strategic and financial investment criteria and they are, of course, not mutually exclusive. With our major capital expenditure program is now largely complete, a high cash drop-through on incremental volumes and strategic options, which Joe will discuss later, this will provide significant optionality with respect to excess cash and capital allocation. For those looking for the technical guidance for 2026, this is now included in the appendix, with Joe covering how we will see 2026 developing in the summary and outlook section. And with that, Joe, I'll hand back to you. Joseph Hudson: Thanks, Simon. So turning now to our market drivers and strategic progress. As set out on the screen, we see continuing shareholder value creation being built around these five clear strategic levers. You can see here that our leadership in our core markets remains key and has significant bearing on our financial performance. However, crucially, the remaining four levers are more within our control and are already driving progress through new market sectors, product innovation, operational efficiencies and the strategic value embedded in our land and clay reserves. . This unique balance gives us resilience today and will be important to underpinning our midterm targets. I'll now walk through each in turn. With a 200-year heritage, we enjoy a leadership position in our core markets, and over recent years, we've been -- we've deliberately brought our brands, people and capabilities together under a single unified Ibstock. That wasn't a branding exercise. It was about how we show up for our customers. Today, that leadership position allows us to support customers across clay, concrete and specialist building products alongside our design and technical services supporting national and regional housebuilders, the RM&I market and increasingly infrastructure and nonresidential applications. I've talked in the past about engaging with customers across multiple categories, and that shift has picked up momentum in the last 18 months as both national and regional customers have seen the breadth of our offer and our technical capabilities. Looking ahead, we also see a clear opportunities to grow in the 10% infrastructure and other sectors where our capabilities, assets and relationships position us well. That sector represents a significant share of the overall construction market where we are underrepresented today. And it's a space that lends itself to innovation and new products and new solutions. I'll give more details on this later. Before I come on to the other areas, let's look at those core markets and what we're seeing on the ground. At a structural level, the long-term fundamentals that underpin demand in these housing and RMI markets remain firmly intact. The U.K. continues to face a significant housing shortage, household formations have been outstripping housebuilding for years, and we have an aging housing stock that requires ongoing investment and renewal. Demand for social and affordable housing remains strong, supported by promising new funding allocations. Against that backdrop, we're starting to see some more supportive signals emerging. Inflation is easing from its peak and expected mortgage rates cuts should over time, help improve confidence. Government reforms and planning initiatives are also welcome steps. However, the pace of delivery and affordability, especially for the first-time buyer on major issues. We're set to have a third year below 150,000 housing starts way off the run rate of getting to 1.5 million homes. Even where starts are improving, build-out rates remain firmly controlled, housebuilders are prioritizing cash and aligning build programs to sales rates. As a result, we continue to take a cautious view in the near term with industry forecasts, including those from the CPA pointing to a continued subdued market conditions over the short term, and that remains consistent with what we're seeing. However, the market will turn at some point. And importantly, we don't need to get to 300,000 housing starts to see a material improvement for our business. As a reminder, the U.K. brick fully installed capacity is around 2.1 billion. So even when we get close to this range, which equates to around 107,000 housing starts, we'll see a big improvement in industry utilization levels. This slide shows why we're well placed to capture volume recovery by looking at our clay capacity evolution. As you can see on the slide, we break out the total network into three components: volumes manufactured in the period, further active capacity available, that's incremental volumes available through higher push rates or increasing shift patterns. And finally, an active capacity where capacity is mothballed or idled. As we've outlined, the progressively tougher market conditions we saw in 2025 meant we build inventory and therefore, in 2026, we'll be actively managing production and inventory. This will give a margin headwind, but benefits overall cash flow generation. We've done that by adjusting soft mud capacity at our Leicester sites, which have much more operational flexibility. However, our active clay network gives us the ability to ramp up by more than 20% with very low cost additions and therefore, compelling drop-through to the bottom line. With this network and stock levels, we're very well positioned to capture the upside as the market conditions improve. Outside of our core market exposure, there's significant medium-term opportunity in other construction market sectors. If stock is increasingly aligning with three growth market sectors, infrastructure, social and affordable housing and mid- to high-rise buildings that require cladding remediation. We're doing this by developing tailored sector solutions, broadening both our existing and new product ranges and working directly with the contractors delivering these major projects. The challenge is well understood the U.K. is under-invested in recent years in schools, hospitals and public sector buildings. And that's why the government's 10-year infrastructure strategy includes an identified GBP 725 billion pipeline, covering work in departments such as the MOD, Department of Education and Ministry of Justice. Now that's not just theoretical opportunity for us. Over the last 12 months, we've undertaken additional product testing and assurance to enable delivery into these programs. That includes testing new products for the MOD's GBP 3 billion a year work program as well as other key public sector customers including the GBP 15 billion schools capital investment program. Around half of the GBP 39 billion in social housing is expected to be delivered through Homes England. Housing associations are partnering with developers to unlock wider scheme, and we're already seeing this translate into activity. For example, we've received initial orders on our regeneration project in Birmingham a GBP 1 billion long-term master plan that will ultimately deliver about 3,500 homes. In addition, challenges around the cladding remediation and the Building Safety Act requirements are creating new opportunities where Ibstock is exceptionally well positioned. Our high-quality, high-performing products in both our established ranges as well as the new innovations coming through at Nostell directly support safe, compliant and even more sustainable construction. With that context, let me move on to our new product development pipeline and investment and how that positions us for future growth. You can see on the screen that over the last 8 years, an increasing proportion of our revenue now comes from new and sustainable products. This creates real value for our customers and helps sustain our margins. By working closely with our key customers, it's important to understand their strategic priorities, whether it's speed of build, low carbon, design flexibility or efficiency, and we focus our innovation on helping them to deliver against those aims. Alongside our major strategic projects, we continue to strengthen and modernize our core clay and concrete product ranges through continuous product development and performance improvements. Today, I'll just focus on the Nostell redevelopment and on FastWall, which you'll have seen in the opening video. FastWall has been designed to support both existing and new markets. For existing customers, particularly housebuilders investing in panelized construction and timber frame, it delivers higher productivity and reduced weight, both critical drivers for customers adopting modern methods of construction. Alongside FastWall, our new ceramic facade facility at Nostell is creating a further wave of innovation, delivering new facade solutions with a greatly expanded architectural range and almost unlimited design flexibility. It's the first facility of its kind to bring all of these things together in one place and initial customer interest has been really positive. We see these solutions as complementary, not competing with our core products. If there are skill gaps to meet the challenges of growing construction targets, this will be part of the answer. To fully appreciate it, you have to really see it in operation, and we look forward to hosting another factory event similar to the one we did in Atlas last year, and we'll share more details about that soon. Moving now to focus on our factory estate. Over the last 8 years, as already alluded to, we have invested more than GBP 325 million across our clay and concrete manufacturing network, creating a safer, more automated, more efficient and lower-cost estate. The Atlas factory is the latest of these investments, and we'll add 105 million bricks per year at full capacity, strengthening reliability, reducing cost and delivering the same high-quality, high-performing but more sustainable products, the way that we manufacture today. In addition, we've -- having done two capital investments projects in our Concrete division recently, we see further options to invest in process automation to reduce cost. These projects are relatively capital light with quick payback. Our new multiyear operational excellence program is also well underway at our pilot factory at Aldridge and will drive further competitive advantage, improving operational performance and strengthen our ability to service our customers. More efficient, modernized asset base positions us for higher margins, stronger cash generation and greater operating leverage as the market recovers. You'll see me reference this later as the network efficiencies are a key underpin for our midterm targets. Moving on now to look at our fifth strategy lever, which delivers further optionality in centers on our land and clay reserves. To give some context, we manage over 2,700 acres of land across the U.K., spanning our factory estate, clay quarries and significant natural estate. From an Ibstock perspective, a large part of this asset base is not fully utilized. We then have options to drive value through three complementary routes. Firstly, Calcined clay commercialization. This is now a proven low carbon cementitious replacement capable of materially reducing embodied carbon when used in blended cements and in concrete. And you'll know we've been exploring the commercialization of Calcined clay at scale turning an existing asset into a strategic growth option. I'm pleased to confirm that commercial discussions with a preferred partner to get to an agreement is well advanced, and we expect to share a further update on this at the half year. Secondly, as noted before, our disciplined land disposal program will ensure capital is released where land is no longer supports long-term strategic or operational priorities. To that end, we expect to generate GBP 20 million to GBP 30 million in the next 3 to 5 years. And thirdly, the expansion of our existing land-based income streams. Our land already generates material long-term revenue alongside core manufacturing with land-based income from quarry restoration through landfill delivering approximately GBP 2 million to GBP 3 million per year. This demonstrates the commercial value of well-managed nonoperational land. Taken together, these three routes create a diversified platform for value creation. So to conclude, these five leaders together define our value creation strategy. And while market conditions will continue to influence near-term performance, the actions were taken across these levers are firmly within our control. In 2026, we are focused on the execution of our customer experience work, expanding into new market segments, progressing operational excellence, including pilot at our Aldridge site, fully commissioning Nostell and finalizing our Calcined clay project. So bringing that all together, as you can see on this slide, we have the potential for significant earnings growth over the coming years. As I've said, to a large extent, this will be driven by market recovery, but it will also be supported by our market independent initiatives, including the points we've made today. We remain confident that our revenue target of GBP 600 million when markets recover to historic levels is achievable. This should drive margins up from 19% today to 28% in the future. The dynamics -- these dynamics should ensure a strong earnings growth in the years ahead. And as Simon has said earlier, the improved cash flow from improved earnings, the strategic land disposal program and lower capital investment will provide more optionality for value creation for shareholders. So finally, looking at the -- taking a look at the outlook. After a weather-impacted start to 2026, near-term demand remains challenging. We expect modest year-on-year volume growth in H2 2026, with volume recovery in new build and RMI markets dependent on activity gaining momentum in the spring. Price increases implemented in February 2026 should enable us to offset anticipated cost inflation for the year. Although the timing of the market recovery is uncertain, we're confident that the long-term market fundamentals are intact. Therefore, with a well-invested, lower cost, more efficient and sustainable network, we expect to benefit from meaningful operational leverage and cash generation across the business. And with that said, Simon and I will be happy to take your questions. If you could state your name and institution before asking the questions. Aynsley Lammin: Aynsley Lammin from Investec. Just two for me, please. On the production and kind of management and stock level management for this year, maybe if you could elaborate on that a bit more where stock levels are, where you'd like them to be? And would you be kind of thinking of mothball in any plants? Or is it just stopping production and therefore, that's why you get the kind of margin headwind? And then secondly, I guess just on the energy side, I think it's sort of 80% hedged. When does that become a concern if [indiscernible] continue and natural gas prices remain elevated, you have to be pretty confident for the next 6 to 8 months of time. Joseph Hudson: Yes. Yes. Look, we will be managing stock this year quite carefully. We're not anticipating to mothball any other sites at this stage. We've got -- part of the reason for the, the sort of headwind on the margins is the overhead recovery. We've got more shutdowns, so you just don't get the leverage, but we produced around 40 million to 50 million bricks more than we needed at the end of last year. So we're going to manage that carefully this year. Obviously, we've got stockyards, they are limited as well. So -- we've done this. Obviously, we've had a bit of a partner of this in the last few years, so we sort of know how to do things, and I think we're well positioned. The main thing is if the market comes back faster, we can respond very, very quickly. Energy, do you want to take energy Simon? Simon Bedford: Yes. So in terms of energy, we've said in the statement, we're about 80% hedged. That is actually more front-end loaded. So the first 3 quarters were hedged higher than that. So really, we're more exposed in Q4. We don't see at the moment, an issue with that, and we have other options when we actually get to Q4. Priyal Mulji: Priyal Woolf here from Jefferies. I've just got two questions. Firstly, you talked about price increases, I think, from February. I think one of the issues we've had in previous years is different players going at different times and sort of having to reverse on that. Do you have any color on whether the magnitude and the timing across the market has been fairly consistent so far this year? And then the second question is just the whole shift from soft mud to wire cut last year. Do you think that's done? Or is there sort of more to go as an incremental headwind? Joseph Hudson: Good. Yes. I think we're a better place this year for sure, on pricing. Last year it was difficult. People went at different times. And frankly, it didn't stick. This year most of the industry went in February, 1. And we think that there's been a lot more discipline in that approach. So we're confident that we can cover inflation this year with our price increases around sort of 3%-ish margins. And then soft wood, wire cut dynamics. I mean, obviously, as you had greater new build residential growth last year and more subdued RMI, it was a mix shift. So we're probably about -- the industry is about 70% wire cut, 30% soft mud. We're obviously have a greater weighting towards soft mud ourselves. I don't think that's a long-term structural change. I think it's largely because of the fact that the RMI market subdued and the southeastern London are very, very weak. So I think -- as I said earlier on, you've got an industry that only -- can only -- when it's -- when all the mothballed capacity is back on, you can only produce 2.1 billion bricks anyway. So all of the brick capacity will be used soft mud and wire cut in the U.K. Clyde Lewis: Clyde Lewis with Peel Hunt. I think I've got four. So apologies. I'll do them one at a time. Could you update us as to where you think sort of merchant levels are in terms of sort of brick stocks? Second one, again, it can useful to get an update on imports as to what you're seeing on that front? Third was on, I suppose, stock futures and slips within that as to how you're seeing the market develop for those products, and particularly the slips, how much activity is going on there with architects and designers in particular? And then the last one was on rail. Obviously, a tough year last year. How does the rail outlook look for 2026? Joseph Hudson: I'll let you take the rail one. So merchant stocks at the moment, I think, are quite healthy. Merchants -- most merchants that we talk to are managing their balance sheet carefully, and they know they can call on stocks from the manufacturers when needed. So I'd say they're not overstocked. There's a normalized stock level at the moment, but certainly not stocking up at this stage. Imports last year were about 350 million. So they actually -- if our markets, we went ahead by about 8%. The imports went ahead by a little bit more than that. But actually, if you look at import brick levels, they're quite consistent. They're about 19%. I think they went to about 22% in 2022, but they've been about 18% to 19% consistently. We do need imported bricks when the market comes back. And I think a lot of importers including a major player here has a mothballed bit of capacity and has got a pan-European strategy. So we're bringing a bit more of the bricks in still. And obviously, they're still quite sticky. They want to maintain our position. And there's not much going on in Europe. So they've been a little bit more competitive last year. I think we're excited about the growth in slip systems, ceramic facade systems. It's still coming from a low base. So it's still -- but it's -- the CAGR is very good. The growth is very good. Whether it's mechanical rain screen buildings, high-rise going up, whether it's panelized construction volumetrics with bricks going on the outside or whether it's some of the stuff like FastWall, we alluded to there on, there's a lot more change in that. We see our own -- this year, we expect about a 40% uplift in our volumes. And in 2 to 3 years' time, we expect that to triple. I think the -- this year at Nostell, obviously, we're commissioning the factory. There's a longer lead time for these products because they're specified in their systems. So they have to be tested and there's a specification period from the time it's signed up by the developer and the architect to when actually the project gets delivered. It's not like a brick just going off the yard. So there's a bit of a lead time there, which is probably about, I'd say, 8 to 12 months, but we're excited about it. That's why we invested in it. We think it's not going to like cannibalize our core business. We think this is the -- these products are going to be what brings additionality to get you to the higher build rates that we need to do given the skill shortages. So we think there's room for both the cavity wall and traditional building as well as some of these new systems, but we're very excited. And the infrastructure sector as well, is very excited by them. They're very open to -- they're more open to sort of faster change. So we're working with a lot of the big contractors infrastructure people. Rail? Simon Bedford: Yes. And if I just pick up rail, so we've suffered with rail volumes over the last few years, we reached the historical low level in 2025. We have seen recent data points which suggest that is actually turning, and therefore, we would expect some growth in 2026. It's off a low base, but it is also a high-margin business for the concrete business. Robert Chantry: Rob Chantry, Berenberg. Just three questions from me. I guess, firstly, on the concrete business. Could you just give us an update on the weighting towards the different subdivisions within that and that the margin profile, i.e., kind of what are we actually taking a view on the next 2 to 3 years around what's going to drive the recovery there? And secondly, affordable housing. I know a lot of the contracts have talked about building up big mixed-use development pipelines looking at affordable housing as a huge driver in the next few years and some of the contractors this week, last week saying it -- it's been quite slow, but it's starting to pick up. Just what's your kind of on the ground experience of affordable housing build rate dynamics. And then thirdly, obviously, the Southeast London market has been exceptionally weak in terms of new starts and volume, a lot of discussion around gateway, other planning type of regulation. Can you -- again, can you give us some on the ground insight around quite the bottleneck there from your point of view and if that is looking to be released at any point? Joseph Hudson: Good. I mean our concrete business has got quite diversified. As you know, we divested the roofing business. That was a relatively small part and lower market share. But we have leading positions in most of our other categories. So we have walling stone, which is a reconstituted sort of natural stone that goes into a lot of areas, reasonably good margins there, double-digit margins. We've got leading fencing and building business, landscaping business with very, very good margins. We've got the rail business, which obviously has rail and infrastructure business, which has suffered, but again, it's very high margins with leading positions. What else have we got, Simon? Simon Bedford: I think that covers it. Joseph Hudson: That's the main focus of it. We think that -- and we've got a large flooring business. Flooring is -- we've got about 25% market share of the flooring business. So we think that when you put the concrete business with some of the brick business, we're seeing a lot more uptake from especially contractors and people interested in these big infrastructure projects, schools, prisons, hospitals because we can do hollowcore floors, we can do the walls. We can do lots of retaining walls, applications like that. So it's quite complementary as well, our concrete business. Affordable housing, I mean, everyone is talking about this GBP 39 billion and it being back-end loaded. There was some news at the beginning of this year around funding allocations of about GBP 2 billion. That's promising. We're doing a lot of work with housing associations themselves and getting quite close to them. It is going to take time, but we will see some -- I mean, if you look at the stats this year, public housing has got a sort of a slightly higher growth rate than the private house building. So we're seeing some momentum there already. But it's -- again, how much, how quick, it's not going to go crazy this year. But I will -- I do think that the sustained improvement in social housing in the U.K. is much needed and is going to create a much flatter sort of less oscillation in cyclicality for us. The Southeast in London, I think there are a lot of things that are causing issues around the Southeast in London. The main one is affordability and building safety. I think the building safety regulator has got a much more proactive approach. They're releasing projects much faster now, and I think that will start to unwind much faster this year. But affordability is a big issue. If you think about buying a house in London and the Southeast compared to other parts of the country, there's a real issue there. And I think that's where we need some support. I think it will get a little bit better this year, but I don't think it's going to improve until we see some support for the first-time buyer. Benjamin Pfannes-Varrow: Ben Varrow from RBC. I'll do three as well, please. First on guidance, in terms of volumes. I understand that's H2 weighted, I guess, what gives you confidence in that at the moment and the sort of spring selling season picking up? Second is on Forticrete the disposal there. Can you give a bit more color on if there's anything else in the portfolio that could go the same way, infrastructure, just so I understand correctly. Is that mainly then focused on the concrete side of the business? And do you need any investment there? And how big could that be for the group? Joseph Hudson: Good. Do you want to do the guidance one? Simon Bedford: Yes. So just talk about volumes. So with the weather impacted first couple of months, we're sort of seeing the first half of the year to be more in line with the H2 2025 volumes. So that would mean slightly down on the comparative period, H1 '25. And then more growth in H2 2026. And based on the spring selling season, the elements, which give us confidence is affordability metrics are looking better. Inflation is stabilizing, and we could look at further interest rate cuts. And that gives us confidence that the macro look better. And then some of the housebuilders are giving more positive updates on what the site visits are, how that's looking. So we have confidence based on the sort of demand dynamics in quarter 2 the spring period, getting better, and therefore, growth will be realized in the second half of the year. Joseph Hudson: Yes. And I think if you look at last year, I mean, we had this wonderful consumer confidence crisis with what's going to happen to tax, what's going to happen to the budget. The budget was pushed out I think that the budget was a bit of a clearing event, and I think you'll see more clarity going forward unless we get further noise from that side. So I think there'll be more confidence and people will be building a bit more this year. But it will take some time because the second half of last year affects the first half of this year, in particular, but I think you'll start to see improving build rates. Let's see what the spring selling season does. Look, we do -- we always look at capital allocation and what a business needs in terms of capital going forward. Our Forticrete business was a very good business, but we've had some performance challenges that I gave them some time to look at. And on low volumes where it was at the moment, we felt that with someone else who could be a better custodian of that business, it's relatively low market share, and we want to have positions where we have high market share, leading #1 or #2 positions. So we felt it was the right thing to do. And there's not really anything else that we're thinking about right now at the moment other than land disposals, as I've mentioned. And then on the infrastructure stuff, it's not just concrete. Actually, when you look at it's concrete, it's the facades and it's bricks. So when we're going to talk to contractors, they're looking at the whole package now, and that's what's quite exciting about it. So it's not just that. The construction infrastructure market is about GBP 35 billion, GBP 40 billion in this country. So it's something that we really need to be more aggressive. And I'd like to see that donor 10% going to 20% very soon. Alastair? Alastair Stewart: Alastair Stewart, from Progressive. A couple of related questions. First of all, you displayed refreshing candor, if I might say so, for a CEO and personally acknowledging you moved too quickly last year. In terms of this year, irrespective of -- you're saying you're able to ramp up capacity. Is there a psychological -- once bitten twice shy feeling. You're going to have to wait longer to see positives from the house builder before moving today. So that's question one. And question two, related to that, on Slide 17, the production volumes and active capacity available, how quickly would it take to turn that gray into blue should the market pick up more convincingly? Joseph Hudson: Good. Thanks, Alastair. I thought all CEOs were very candid. Alastair Stewart: No, no. Some of them [indiscernible] Joseph Hudson: Okay. Look, I think you have to -- you have to be honest, and we're dealing with a very tough market situations. And I think we've got a lot of trust from shareholders in this community, and you've got to be open about things. I think look, you saw the graphs here. So you saw the movements. And then you saw -- so I would have done it change my mind. I think we made the decision we felt was right at the time. And of course, I'll be very cautious about bringing new capacity back and new cost back, especially with this market. But the good thing is that gray area, we can convert that very quickly. Even the blue area on that graph, which is 65% utilization, that's got shutdowns in it, yes. We can -- if the market comes back, we can produce a lot more, and also, we've got plenty of stock on the ground. So the industry levels at the moment, there are about 550 million bricks, which is not massive, but it's healthy, and we've got a healthy share of that. So we can deploy that stock very quickly, which will be great for free cash flow generation. So we'll eat into the stock first, then we'll reduce shutdowns and then we'll bring on a bit more capacity. Unknown Analyst: Max from [indiscernible] Asset Management. Just a regional outlook. So you see London and the South is potentially being weaker in 2026 than the rest of the country. Is that correct? Joseph Hudson: London and the Southeast have been weaker from a residential housing point of view for some time. I think, as I mentioned earlier on, there are some reasons for that. Some of them are building safety, but the main one is affordability. I think it will get better. But I think until we saw at the affordability issue. That's both for buying and for costs for builders to build with land and things like Section 106, it will stay behind other areas in terms of growth. But I think it will improve a little bit this year. Unknown Analyst: So the outlook for RMI then is slightly weaker than residential construction. Is that also correct? Because I'm looking at your U.K. well, at the market U.K. construction forecast. Joseph Hudson: Yes. I mean we go on what the BNS say, we go on what the CPA says. So at this stage, it looks like it's a bit of a decline this year of about 1% on RMI markets. Unknown Analyst: What do you think is causing that on the RMI side? Is it the interest rate? Joseph Hudson: RMI is really around consumer confidence. So let's go to Stephen. Stephen Rawlinson: Stephen Rawlinson from Applied Value. Two for me if you don't mind. Firstly, with regard to reach market, could you just talk us through the way in which the channels to size are altering and how that might play through in the next few years to particular reference to our margins, i.e., what's going through merchants, what's actually going direct to site and the implications for margin that might have happened over the last few years and are present in these numbers, but may potentially how they may progress in the future. And the second question is with regard to brick slips, off-site construction. Do you anticipate that you'll be doing that yourselves and is an industry emerging, you believe can absorb the capacity that you're creating for the slips production such that actually there will be -- you'll be able to satisfy that demand. How is that going to play out? Is that something that's going to be at your cost on your sites? Or is there an industry merging the satisfactory from your point of view to actually absorb the capacity you've created? Joseph Hudson: Yes, good. So our routes to market. Look, I think with infrastructure, there's definitely people are coming to talk to us because they want looking at the whole package. So I think you might see a little bit of a shift in more direct relationships with contractors than we have in the past. But the merchant industry, for example, creates a great sort of service for the U.K. because it stocks and it takes credit risk and it redistributes breaks book. So we think there's a real value in that route to market in that supply chain. We've got great partnerships with merchants. We've got great margin with brick specialists, and we've got direct relationships with housebuilders. There's no doubt more people want to talk to us directly because they're seeing now as we've been marketing all of our product capabilities, not just bricks, oh, well, we'd like to have all of this as a package, please. And that's where we see probably more direct relationships going forward. But we have to think about cost to serve as well. So we're not going to have a myriad of millions of relationships we've got and got to think about that. And then the whole ceramic facades there's a whole ecosystem there where you've got installers, you've got contractors, subcontractors. We won't be doing that in store ourselves. We want to provide the product and the solutions that go into -- with the installers, the developers and the contractors. We're not going to start installing ourselves. That's not our core business. It's not something I'd get into. We don't know enough about the risk factors and all outside of the market. But they are waiting to see -- this Nostell factory, they're waiting to see it because they've never seen it before. So that's why it's going to pick up momentum, and we've got the capability to really make a big Change, I think, in MMC in the U.K. with our factory. Christen Hjorth: Christen Hjorth from Deutsche Bank. Two, hopefully, pretty quick ones. Just on net debt, you normally see that the increase as you move to the half 1 stage with working capital investment, but it sounds like you're quite well invested in inventory. So just a sense of what we should expect in terms of net debt as we move through H1? And then second, I was following up on the volume phasing piece. What's your current thinking around the EBITDA phasing H1, H2 because there's a few moving parts in terms of capacity and things like that. So those are the two for me, please. Simon Bedford: Okay. So in terms of net debt, we would see a normal seasonal working capital build, but less so in inventory. It will be more debtors related as we have more sales in those periods versus like in November, December last year. So we see that. And then in terms of EBITDA, yes, I think we're going to be more weighted to the second half. We've got production shutdowns and producing less inventory in the first half of the year, which gives us that margin headwind. So we're thinking about our weighting probably being between 40% and 45% in the first half of the year. Harry Dow: Harry Dow from Rothschild & Co. I think just two questions, if possible. So first on the concrete business, how should we think about the operating leverage as that kind of volumes recover maybe for railway comes back. I think the drop-through this year is quite high in terms of , I think we lost GBP 5 million of revenue and then GBP 5 million EBITDA. So maybe also just what happened in 2025 for such a high drop-through maybe. And then just also just a comment on other operating costs, so sort of expected wages inflation or distribution costs, things like that? Joseph Hudson: Yes. I think operating leverage in the rail business has quite a big bearing on our margins and that moving forward will really help margin improvement this year. Concrete is a little bit different to clay. Clay, you've got high fixed costs, and the deal concretes more of a batch. You've got more flexibility with it. So really, it's around volumes and it's around margin in specific categories, and that's why we believe there's reasonable momentum in concrete this year. Other costs, Simon, do you want to talk about that? Simon Bedford: Yes. So our major cost really is around labor. So we'd expect a low single-digit sort of impact around that, which is in line with the industry and the wider positions. And then in terms of variable costs, we'd expect a similar number. We'll wait to see how things like oil pans out, how is that working? How that feeds through to say haulage costs, but I think we've got a little while to see how that's actually going to pan through. Charlie Campbell: Charlie Campbell, with Stifel. Just one. You haven't really mentioned planning as a potential opportunity this year. Clearly, there is hope that after 2 years, we -- the planning system has started to free up a bit. Just wondering what your view on that is and whether you've noticed any change in the rate of site openings maybe in the last few months or projections in the next few months? Joseph Hudson: Yes. Planning is still not great, if I'm honest. I think what is promising is that there's a focus on it. And what I think where we have seen improvements is if there's a decision on a large site, the decision -- there are people coming from above saying, let's do it. But we still have a long -- too long a time gap from planning permission to build out rates. It's really taking too long. So I think it's an opportunity. It's an opportunity. There's definitely proactivity from the government getting involved to make decisions about it, but it's not going to -- we haven't seen any major changes in terms of site openings in the last few months. . Okay. Do we have any questions from the Ita? No? Operator: No. I think all the questions have been covered in the room. So Joe, I'll hand back to you for any closing remarks. . Joseph Hudson: Good. So thanks, everyone. Look, it's very -- it's a crazy time in the world. It's a difficult market that we're navigating carefully. But this is a real high-quality business, 200 years old, and we will get some recoveries soon, and when it comes, we're really well positioned, and I'm excited about that, and I'm looking forward to it greatly. But really good to see you, and we can have a chat afterwards. But thanks very much for coming today.
Milena Mondini: Good morning, everyone, and welcome, and thank you for joining us as we review Admiral 2025 year-end results. Today, we'll be announcing another remarkable year of financial results and strategic progress. So I will start with the key highlights before handing over to Geraint on the financials and to Alistair on U.K. Insurance and Costi on Europe. I will then come back to reflect on what we have achieved over the last 5 years and finally explain how the evolution of our strategy position us to create even more value in the years ahead. So let's start with the main achievement for 2025. We delivered a record profit of GBP 958 million. This was up 16% year-on-year, reflecting disciplined execution and growth across the group. 2025 also marked exciting progress across data, technology and AI and the evolution of our motor proposition, including the acquisition of Flock subject to regulatory approval. Today, we'll also outline the evolution of our group strategy. This strategy builds on a very strong platform, but more diversified customer base and the competitive advantage we already have to deliver higher long-term value for all our stakeholders. We will also cover our new capital distribution framework, including share buybacks. Geraint will take you through that later. So more in detail. As already mentioned, 2025 was a year of record. Our customer base increased 7%, while we continue delivering strong customer outcomes with the group Net Promoter Score over 50. Group profit reached a new high, driven by record U.K. Motor profit, passing now the bar of GBP 1 billion, following another record year in 2024. This was achieved in a challenging market environment, thanks to positive evolution of recent years and continued underwriting discipline across the cycle. Importantly, this was not just a U.K. Motor story. All parts of the group contributed. In the U.K., Other Personal Lines, Admiral Money combined delivered a profit of GBP 88 million. Europe also performed strongly with a fast return to profitability in Italy and great results in France, which Costi will cover shortly. 2025 was also a year of strong shareholder returns, supported by a 7% increase in dividend per share, a very strong capital position with a solvency ratio of 193% and another stellar return on equity of 53%. Beyond the financial results, 2025 marked an acceleration in our strategic progress. We are pleased with our rapid advancement on artificial intelligence, particularly with the value delivered by machine learning models and the new gen AI center of excellence to scale priority use case, train our people and provide them with the right tools. We are managing more than 150 gen AI initiatives across the group, including support to over 4,000 colleagues, some agentic models with promising initial results and more potential to come. Selling more product to our existing customers remains a key growth driver with our multi-risk customers now exceeding GBP 1.6 million. Across Europe, we continue to evolve our broker propositions with stronger segmentation and more customized offering, driving better margin, as Costi will explain later. We also continue to innovate in Motor. An example is our partnership with Octopus that positions us well in the fast-growing salary-sacrifice scheme for electric vehicles with a tailored risk-based proposition aligned with our ambition to support customers in making greener choices. And in Admiral Money, completing our first forward flow deal was an important milestone as it opened up a more capital-efficient growth path and support higher returns and lower volatility. On M&A, the integration of More Than is now fully completed and contributed positively. Elephant disposal is also completed. And finally, early this year, we announced our intention to acquire Flock, a company we had invested in since 2024. Flock offers a telemetry-based fleet proposition with an effective feedback loop to improve safety and performance. It's an excellent strategic fit with our U.K. Motor expertise with promising underwriting and claim synergies and it's closely aligned with our joint ambition to improve safety on the roads. And by combining Admiral data ambition to Admiral's strength with Flock technology, we see an opportunity to develop a differentiated fleet business in an underserved market. So in summary, 2025 was a record year for Admiral with strong profits, customer growth and progress in technology and strategy. Now before handing over to Geraint, I want to take a moment because this will be the last time that you joined me on stage to present results. And I think it's fair to say that the strength and discipline of the performance for about 2 years are a good reflection of his leadership, his judgment and his consistency over the last 12 years as CFO, a period during which Admiral tripled its turnover and grew profit from GBP 350 million to almost GBP 1 billion. And please join me to congratulate Rachel who is here with us today and will succeed to Geraint, bringing deep knowledge of Admiral, a strong track record within the group and a great skill set for the role. So thank you, Geraint, and congratulations, Rachel. Geraint Jones: Thank you. Good morning, everyone. 12 years of not being conduct. One last time, let me talk you through the main drivers of an excellent 2025 result. Lots of positives, lots of good milestones. I'll cover the U.K. Motor loss ratios, the dividend, strong capital position. And as Milena mentioned, I'll talk you through the change in the approach to capital return that we've announced today. To start with though, let's look at the component parts of the group profits and the main ratios. The group combined ratio was very positive again at 80%. That was 3 points higher than 2024, though the impact of Ogden accounted for around 2 points of that difference. So in reality, only a very small change. And that, in turn, has made up of a slightly improved expense ratio and a slightly higher loss ratio. The latter as expected, due to the higher loss ratio 2025, underwriting year in the U.K. Motor having an impact. On to the results then. In U.K. Insurance, overall profit was GBP 1.1 billion. That's GBP 110 million higher than 2024, including Ogden, or GBP 180 million higher if Ogden is excluded, very big increase. The U.K. Motor results, I'll cover shortly, but the result there was a record profit, just over GBP 1 billion. And we're very pleased with a really strong year for the U.K. Other Personal Lines, Home insurance, Travel and Pet insurance, all profitable, strong growth. And the combined profit there was GBP 62 million, was nearly triple of 2024's result. In Europe, we're reporting a much better results, improving by nearly GBP 30 million versus 2024. We see growth in higher profits in France, small loss in Spain, impacted by new reinsurance arrangements and a recovery to profit in Italy. Good to see that happen so swiftly. And worth reminding that we continue to hold prudent booked reserves in Europe in the upper end of our range and the best estimates are also conservative. Admiral Money had a great year. Profit was double 2024's, benefiting firstly from good growth in the balance sheet. But also, as we talked about at the 2025 half year from profit generated from selling some back book loans in the first half and selling newly originated loans, which don't hit Admiral's balance sheet. That will be a continuing, we think, attractive feature of the Admiral Money business model. We continue to see good margins on the unsecured loans business, which makes up the big majority of the balances, but the results from car finance, which was relaunched in late 2024, are also encouraging. Credit loss experience remains very solid, and we hold an appropriately prudent provision for losses. There are some other comments on the page, which cover the movement in the share scheme costs and the other line, and you've got the usual extra information in the back of the pack. All in all, group profit was up 16% or 28% if you exclude the impact of Ogden on both years. Let's take a look at the very impressive U.K. Motor results. So this is a summarized income statement plus some of the key ratios and some commentary. Both years include the impact of the Ogden discount rate change. And so some of those year-on-year comparisons, you see look a little less stronger than they really are. We show the pounds and the percentage impact of Ogden in the table and starting with the top line. Customer numbers increased by 2% year-on-year, 50,000 added in the first half and around 80,000 in the second half, so 1% increases half-on-half. As Alistair will talk a bit more about later, we reduced our prices in H1 last year, and hence, average premiums have fallen. And so despite our bigger portfolio, turnover was down by 7% as the team took a disciplined approach in the competitive U.K. market and reflecting the claims trends that we were seeing. As a result of the reduced premiums and continued claims inflation, the current year loss ratio for '25 is 3 points higher than '24. And of course, we also don't see quite the same positive impact of Ogden in '25 than we did last year. And those 2 items are the main drivers of the higher combined ratio you see at the bottom, which is as we expected. The underwriting results improved by around GBP 40 million with higher earned premiums and a much lower reinsurance charge offsetting the higher net claims cost. You'll remember that we had much more limited quota share recovery assets coming into 2025, and we see a similar picture as we exit 2025 too. Net investment income was higher, up to a record level due mainly to higher invested assets at a similar rate of return. Profit commission was notably higher as we started now to recognize income on the high profitability 2024 underwriting year, though we still haven't yet recognized income on '21 to '23 or on 2025. We do expect to see revenue coming through on '21 and '25 very soon. I already mentioned the main drivers of the higher combined ratio we see at the bottom. But within that mix, reserve releases were 10% year-on-year, basically the same like-for-like. Next up, we'll take a quick look at the main U.K. Motor loss ratios, which, as always, are a key driver of this result. The chart shows the U.K. Motor discounted book loss ratios and there are generally positive and consistent messages to report here. We can see -- we see continued strong improvements in '23 and especially on '24 over the last year. 2024 is clearly a very good margin year on a very large premium base. In 2025, we see burn cost inflation around mid-single digits level and that's a small improvement in H2 versus where we saw things at the half year point. The first discounted booked loss ratio for '25 is at 78%. That's 7 points up versus '24 at its equivalent point. And that's again basically in line with our expectation. On an undiscounted basis, 2025 is 85% compared to 77% for '24. Now we expect '25 will be a good profitable year. You can see it looks healthy on the chart at the 12-month point, and it should develop positively from here, though obviously won't end as profitably as 2024. We maintained very high reserve strength. It's very close to the maximum percentile, and we expect that will reduce a bit further in 2026 towards the middle of our range. Overall, on claims, positive experience in line with our expectations, usual trends and there's more information in the back of the document. Moving now to look at the capital position. So this is the bridge of the solvency ratio from half year to full year '25. There's a couple of observations. Firstly, the capital generation in the second half is largely offset by the final dividend. And secondly, due mainly to pretty flat revenue in '25 versus '24, we see a much smaller change in the capital requirement in '25 than we did in '24 and particularly in the second half. And then the change in the capital requirements and the other items in the middle almost cancel each other out, leaving the group with a healthy -- very healthy, almost flat ratio of 193%. Short update on the internal model. Lots of hard work by our team, as usual, over the past few months since we last updated you. We now expect to make our application for approval shortly. Post approval, we'll target solvency coverage in the 150% to 170% range, probably at the upper end, in part to give us flexibility for smaller M&A opportunities. We'll give more information on the post-model approval capital position at the appropriate time. Speaking of M&A briefly, Milena mentioned earlier, the Flock acquisition. As we said in the press release, if that gets regulatory approval and completes in the second quarter, we estimate the impact on solvency will be a bit less than 10 percentage points and is, therefore, largely absorbed by the strong position. Next up is the dividend. So these are the details of the dividends, split between interim and final. And for 2024, we call out the impact of the Ogden change, which was obviously significant on the dividend for last year. The proposed final dividend is 90p per share. That brings the total for the year to 205p, over GBP 620 million, and that's 7% higher than 2024. The difference in the payout ratios year-on-year is due to us starting to use capital to purchase shares for the share schemes, which we said back in August would start in the second half of '25. You'll remember that historically, we issued new shares each year for those share schemes rather than purchased in the market, but we haven't done that since 2023. In the fourth quarter last year, the trust bought about 1 million shares for just over GBP 30 million. And the capital that we use for dividend and the share scheme purchases equated to basically the same percentage of earnings across both years, close to the 90% level. And in 2026, we expect the trust will buy around 3 million shares. Next up, we'll cover the change in the capital return approach. On the left, we show a summary of our capital allocation framework. Milena will talk a bit more about Point 1 later, which covers how we allocate capital to our businesses. And we're generally comfortable that around 10% of earnings is a fair guide of what we need to retain to fund and invest in growth. And that's meant an average dividend payout over the last 5 or 6 years of 90%. Step 2, we know the importance of strong cash returns to our shareholders. So the ordinary dividend remains at 65% of earnings. Step 3, as just mentioned, we purchased shares for the share plans. And final -- and Step 4, not finally, using some surplus capital is an option for funding M&A. And then that leaves the surplus capital and that's what's changing today. Historically, as you know, we've returned this to shareholders in the form of special dividends. But from the interim 2026 dividend, we'll change that Step 5 to be either buyback and cancel shares or pay a special dividend depending on what the Board believes is the best option. For 2026, subject to regulatory approval, we expect to buy shares at the interim and final dividend dates. The 90% guidance we've given out over the past few years to cover the ordinary plus the special or buyback plus the share schemes purchase should generally hold moving forward. And then one final slide for me to sum up. Looking back on 2025, clearly, it was a really strong year, record profits, record returns to shareholders, lots of positive results and developments across the group. For U.K., the Personal Lines and Admiral Money, great results, strong and swift turnaround in Europe, progress on the internal model, very pleasing stuff. And looking ahead, a few comments on what we might expect in 2026. On growth, in summary, we plan to grow everywhere. That's obviously subject to how the markets develop, in particular, when prices in U.K. Motor start to increase. For turnover, I'd expect a bit more growth in '26 than we saw in '25. And in general, of course, we expect faster growth from the newer businesses, U.K., the Personal Lines, Admiral Money and Europe. And then a few comments in respect to the group profit. Firstly, obviously, we will see more of an impact of the less profitable '25 underwriting year feeding into the 2026 results, but we will still benefit from good releases and profit commission coming through on 2024 and '23 and some of the earlier years too. Secondly, we project continued improvements in the results in aggregate for the newer businesses that we talked about. And finally, we expect group profit in '26 to be quite flat versus '25 after a really very strong last couple of years where profits have more than doubled. And all those comments, of course, subject to the usual caveats on markets, geopolitics, war and weather. That's it from me. I will hand you to Alistair now to talk to us about U.K. Insurance. Alistair Hargreaves: Thank you, Geraint. Good morning. I'm very pleased to take you through an excellent set of U.K. Insurance results. 2025 has been a record year across all our lines of business, underpinned by disciplined execution, customer centricity and strong operational delivery. Starting with the headlines. Customer numbers reached 9.6 million, up 9% year-on-year, with strong contributions from Motor, Household, Travel and Pet. We delivered GBP 5 billion of turnover and GBP 1.1 billion of profit, passing the GBP 1 billion profit milestone for the first time. We continue to deliver competitive prices, great service and good customer outcomes, which is recognized in customer feedback. We remain #1 in Trustpilot and achieve an NPS over 55. Importantly, 1.6 million customers now hold 2 or more products with us, a 14% increase year-on-year. Customers buying more products gives us better data to improve risk selection for all products. is a driver of our retention advantage in Motor and growth in new lines of business. Overall, an efficient source of growth that contributes to improved expense ratios. Recent announcements are leading to a more predictable regulatory landscape. Outcomes from the Motor insurance task force and premium finance review were in line with expectations, and the Home and Travel claims handling review is now complete, and we have no significant concerns. Let's turn to the Motor market. Starting with claims trends, frequency was largely flat following the marked decline we saw in 2024, and severity has returned to more normal mid-single-digit levels. Our expectation is that these trends continue, but the current macro environment introduces some uncertainty. The graph on the left shows a dark line for claims burn costs. Claims burn costs increased steeply through 2022 and then continue to increase but more modestly. The light line for market average premiums shows a lagging response to claims costs, increasing rapidly in 2023, outpacing claims costs and then declining. Both lines are indexed to 2021, and you see they cross in 2025 as increases in claims costs now exceed increases in premiums over the period. Let's focus on recent market prices. On the right, you see prices continue to decline through the second half of 2025, though at a slower rate than in the first half. We estimate average premiums declined by around 10% in 2025, broadly in line with movements reflected in ABI data. Since the start of '26, market prices are relatively flat with some differences in strategy between market participants. Market prices need to increase imminently. EY forecasts a Motor market combined ratio of 111% for 2026. This is on an earned basis, and EY assumed price increases through 2026. So delays in market price increases will put more pressure on this 2026 market combined ratio. Turning to Admiral U.K. Motor. In 2025, we focused on disciplined cycle management and maintaining our strong advantage in pricing, claims and customer retention. In 2025, we reduced rates by around half as much as the market. All the decreases were in H1. In H2, our prices were broadly flat. The left-hand graph shows that this led to a decline in new business market share in the second half of '25. Lower new business was more than offset by strong retention, resulting in modest policy growth, though lower average premiums resulted in a drop in turnover. In '26, we started increasing premiums with low single-digit increases at the start of the year to reflect the claims outlook and maintain good written margins. Taking a longer view, our disciplined approach results in varying growth through the cycle, but maximizes value and growth over the medium term. The graph on the right shows our year-on-year vehicle growth rate in blue, in yellow is our written loss ratio. Our loss ratio is consistently better than the market, but still fluctuates within a range due to the cycle. We respond quickly to claims trends, even if it results in slower growth in the short term. It then enables us to grow quickly when loss ratios are low, for example, by 15% in 2024. Since the start of 2020, our vehicles covered has grown at a CAGR of 5% and with an average combined ratio advantage of around 20% versus the market. We continue to invest in strengthening our pricing, claims and claims capabilities, including embracing predictive AI and gen AI, which Milena will talk more about. Electric vehicles is a great example of our pricing and claims focus. We lead in this growing segment. We're very competitive whilst delivering comparable loss ratios to high levels of reparability. Our overall approach is to be disciplined and grow when the time is right, whilst focusing on driving advantage in pricing, claims and customer retention. We're confident this will result in growth and maximizing value over the medium term. Let's move to our other U.K. Insurance lines where we've had an outstanding year. We welcomed 650,000 new customers, year-on-year growth of 21% and tripled profits across Household, Travel and Pet. In Household, market premiums softened further and subsidence claims were elevated in the second half of the year. Our own pricing remained more disciplined than the market and weather-adjusted loss ratios improved by about 2 percentage points. This, combined with top line growth meant that although prior year reserve releases normalize from the 2024 exceptional levels, we still delivered a record Household profit. The More Than integration is complete with around 380,000 Home and Pet customers transferred successfully. This has accelerated growth and enhanced capability, particularly in Pet. Travel grew customers by 29% and continued its positive profit trajectory. Pet grew even faster and reached breakeven just 3 years after launch. All 3 lines are now profitable with clear momentum and strong positions across their markets. So -- I'm going on too fast. So in summary, in 2025, we've delivered record profits. But in addition, Motor remains disciplined and well positioned ahead of the market. Pricing increases expected in 2026. Household, Travel and Pet are performing extremely well with growing scale and margin and customer satisfaction and retention are excellent with more customers choosing to buy more products from us. We enter 2026 with confidence that we'll continue to deliver sustainable profitable growth over the medium term. Milena will talk more about this shortly. Now I'll hand over to Costi for Europe. Costantino Moretti: Thank you, Al, and good morning, everyone. For our European operations, 2025 has been a year of consolidation. We have directed our efforts towards strengthening the operational core across our 3 markets, focusing on the fundamentals of discipline and optimization. It has been a positive period where we have made good progress on our strategy, providing a positive contribution to the group's ongoing diversification efforts. Moving to the financial results. The headline for the year is a return to combined profitability across the region. The business delivered GBP 39 million Motor profit on a wall account basis, of which GBP 11 million is the Admiral's share. Going back to the business performance, we closed 2025 with a good combined ratio of 94%. While this represents a significant year-on-year improvement of over 10 points, it is important to look at the individual market dynamics. In Italy, with ConTe, we have reached a small profit which is a GBP 30 million recovery from the previous year. This significant recovery was driven by strong actions taken on the expenses and a deliberate and disciplined pruning of the portfolio. We made the conscious decision to prioritize technical margins over volumes, leading to an expected vehicle in force reduction. With the business now on a more stable footing, we are in a position to look towards growth, always keeping the focus on its underwriting quality. Moving to Spain, where Admiral Seguros' reported results includes about GBP 8 million of one-off accounting impact related to a change in the reinsurance structure. Going forward, we have established new multiyear and large reinsurance arrangements at the European level with our historical partners. Effective from 2026, these agreements aim to improve capital efficiency and provide greater stability to our results. Excluding this specific item, the Spanish business is nearly breakeven. This is supported by the direct business, which provides a positive contribution to the results. While our diversification initiatives with ING Bank and brokers are showing very encouraging improvements while scaling up. Closing with France, where L'olivier has had a very strong year. We achieved double-digit growth in both turnover and profit with results reaching GBP 16 million profit and we surpassed 0.5 million customers. This performance demonstrates that L'olivier is successfully applying the Admiral model, maintaining a strong combined ratio advantage versus the market while driving growth through digital channels. Let's move to review our strategic progress, starting from the shift in distribution. We have focused heavily on our new brokers proposition in Italy and Spain. As the business mix indicates, we have moved away from an initial test and learn proposition towards this new one, which focuses on building long-term relationships with the intermediaries and also targets better risk segments and higher-margin business in line with our expectations. The early metrics from this shift are positive and provide a solid foundation. We are seeing solid improvement compared to our order book across all the key metrics like higher income per policy, lower frequency and lower cost per claim. And these improved fundamentals have contributed to a 9-point reduction in the overall loss ratio. While there is still more work to do, we expect these benefits to continue as more growth will come and the new proposition mature. In France, we are continuing to diversify through our household insurance product. We now cover over 100,000 risks, a 25% increase versus last year, which provides a meaningful second pillar to our French operation. Regarding efficiency, we have managed to steadily reduce the European motor expense ratio by 7 points since 2022. This has been a necessary step to remain competitive. And even in Italy, despite the reduction in turnover, we improved the expense ratio by 1 point through automation and more streamlined digital customer experience. These operational improvements are also supported by our new common data platform, which is now operational across the 3 countries. This asset allows us to deploy data futures and machine learning models across border with greater technical agility and quality, which is essential for maintaining our edge in a rapidly evolving market. To wrap up, we're very pleased by the progress made this year. Our European operations have reached combined profitability, giving us confidence in their future contribution to group's broader diversification strategy. Our objective moving forward is to leverage this stability to increase our scale and enhance our earnings. We have the right expertise, a solid data and technological framework and a disciplined path ahead. Thank you. I'll now hand over to Milena to talk more about the group strategy. Milena Mondini: Thank you, Costi. So as you just heard, 2025 was an excellent year across the group. Now I would like to take a moment and step back with you and see what we have accomplished over the last 5 years. In 2020, we announced our 5-year group strategy based on 3 pillars: business diversification, Admiral 2.0 and Motor evolution. And today, we're extremely proud of what we achieved in this time frame. First, remarkable growth with turnover up nearly 90% and group risk and profit almost 60%. We returned overall GBP 3.2 billion to our shareholders. Second, we diversified the group with more than 50% of customers now coming from other lines of business or geographies and contributing close to GBP 100 million of profit. In addition, we developed new business such as Pet insurance in the U.K., Commercial insurance in the U.K. also, Household insurance in France and we extend our addressable target market with U.K. Commercial Insurance as just mentioned in B2B2C, in B2B and B2B2C in Europe by opening up the broker distribution channel. Third, we refocus our portfolio. We exit all of our price comparison sites and the U.S. insurance business to concentrate on the growth great opportunities we have in U.K. and in Continental Europe. The acquisition of More Than and of Flock are instrumental to strengthen our product diversification in the U.K. Fourth, we overachieved our Admiral 2.0 ambition. With cloud migration, new data platform, tech stack renewal, hybrid working, scaled agile delivery, predictive AI excellence at scale and the announcement of our multiproduct offer. Fifth, we made further progress in our Motor proposition, including market leadership in EV, as Alistair mentioned, growing telematic product, fast-growing subscription model and short-term insurance with our brand for the youngest Veygo. Last but most important, throughout this period, we maintained our historical and quite unique strength. More than 20-point combined ratio advantage versus market in our core business, a unique 30-point delta return on equity versus market, a group NPS above 50 and the legendary Great Place to Work status. So back to nowadays where this leave us. Our current market presents very significant growth opportunities. They are large, attractive, growing with a combined size of around GBP 130 billion. And today, our market share across many of these markets remains relatively modest, and this leaves us substantial headroom to grow. We're continuing evolving our offering to unlock further opportunity in lending with the first forward flow deal and a new car finance product in Europe, extending our distribution and product lines. Commercial Insurance and SME are also good opportunity to provide strong proposition to a large underserved market, experiencing similar trends to Personal Lines 20 years ago with more digitalization, pricing sophistication and automation, where we can deploy our competitive advantage. Organic growth in all these segments will be driven by market-leading expertise in price comparison site and digital distribution, channels that are growing faster than the rest of the market. Cross-selling and higher retention and increasing economies of scale; and fourth, automation and synergies across the group. Our plan is based on organic growth, but we will consider opportunities for selective accretive acquisitions to accelerate diversification. Importantly, the diversification also reduced over time our exposure to any single market cycle, making Admiral more resilient in time. So having delivered on our strategy, we now look forward starting with the market context that is fast evolving, but also presenting very interesting opportunities and tailwinds. The U.K. market cycle in Motor is expected to turn and the regulatory environment is expected to be more predictable as Alistair commented before. Market consolidation could create more rational dynamics overall. More importantly, the rapid evolution of AI and gen AI represents a major opportunity for us. Predictive AI is becoming the key driver of underwriting differentiation. And we already have 12 points of loss ratio advantage versus market and this is a big driver of it. Gen AI and automation offer efficiency potential of up to 30% in the long term for customer service area and may also disrupt distribution and proposition in the long run. What is interesting to us is also the potential to accelerate the transition to direct distribution in markets where direct has more room to grow. Another major trend is the advancement of car technology, another key pillar of our strategy since 2020 Motor evolution. In the short to medium term, the most impactful change will be the shift to electric vehicles, expected to reach around 80% of new car sales by 2030, where we already have underwriting and market share leadership, as Alistair commented before. This is followed by an increased penetration of advanced safety systems. These technologies have a positive impact on collision frequency, but this has been so far more than offset by an increase in severity. As for EV, our scale and sophisticated prices approach results in a competitive advantage. In the long run, we expect autonomous vehicles, now in their infancy, to grow in share and reach a point where frequency decrease will not be anymore offset by severity. For this to happen, we need to see technology, customer appetite, regulation, infrastructure, all to further develop across countries. It will take anyhow long time to scale with higher level autonomy expected to represent around 4% of the car park by 2035, and the overall market premiums expected to be continuing to grow for at least 20 years, supported by number of cars on the road and the mix. We remain very close to this evolution, having, for example, underwritten Wayve, an autonomous vehicles player in the U.K. since 2018. As AI and mobility trends evolve, our view is that the key winning factor will remain sophisticated data-driven decision-making, scale and a lot of good quality data at scale, an entrepreneurial mindset consistently looking for opportunity to innovate and cost efficiency. And those are all areas where Admiral has a structural advantage, including 8-point expense ratio delta versus market. So overall, we are strongly positioned to leverage those key trends. Now let me introduce our evolved strategy framework. First of all, this is not a discontinuity in our strategy. It's an inflection point where we start compounding what we have already built, a more diversified business, stronger platforms and proven competitive advantage. The focus is now making those trends to reinforce each other and more deliberately over time. I think about this strategy with a set of reinforcing layers, each layer supports the next and within each layer, the benefit compound as the business grows. The other layer of our strategy is where we compound performance. Our first pillar is scaled selectively and profitably. And this is about translating diversification into sustainable growth and accelerate margin in our newer lines of business as they mature. The middle layer is where we compound capabilities. Our second pillar is future-proof our competitive advantage and it is about leveraging on the strong capability we have built in data and technology and the multiproduct benefits to improve customer lifetime value and our structural edge. At the core, at the center, we are compounding our foundations. Our third pillar is amplify the Admiral DNA, and this is to ensure that our culture, our talent, the innovation and the impact continue to evolve, providing stability and long-term direction and resilience as we grow. So the pillars are interconnected. Stronger foundation are a driver of stronger capability and in turn, these are enabler of stronger performance. Let me now walk you through each of these pillars in more detail and explain what we intend to prioritize and what we aim to deliver for each. So first pillar, scaling selectively and profitably. We have a clear ambition to continue to scale all our business while increasing margins in our newer lines. In U.K. Motor, we'll continue to grow as we have done in every cycle since Admiral was founded with discipline and at the right time, as Alistair illustrated earlier. We'll continue to invest to maintain our market-leading margins. In other lines of business, U.K. Personal Lines, Admiral Money and Europe, we will continue to grow and at a faster pace of Motor on average, generating greater economy of scale and higher margins. A key focus will be transferring our underwriting and claims trends from U.K. Motor into other products and geography as well as creating more cost synergies across the group and leverage the benefit of multi-risk ownership. Overall, we expect to deliver strong revenue growth everywhere, including reaching top 3 position in Other Insurance Personal Lines in the U.K. and substantially higher margin for those business combined, more than doubling profit by 2028 and more profitable growth thereafter. Finally, we will continue to develop our new and still small U.K. Commercial Insurance business, building a stronger SME proposition and growing commercial motor starting with the integration of Flock. Now let's move to the capabilities that are the key enabler of the growth ambition that we just discussed. It's a virtuous circle that starts from our structural strength in data, customer focus and speed with the objective to increase customer lifetime value. And with higher customer lifetime value, we create optionality, the flexibility to reinvest in these capabilities or to invest and grow or to retain margins. On the left side of the slide, we see how this focus translate into better underwriting results and efficiency. We'll continue to extend our advanced predictive AI capability, increasing both the quality and the velocity of pricing across all the lines of business and geography beyond motor. We'll also increasingly leverage on connected vehicle data and predictive AI beyond underwriting into customer-based management. This model -- this predictive AI model already delivered over GBP 100 million of incremental loss ratio value, and we expect this to continue over time. At the same time, we see good potential from generative AI to improve customer engagement, to increase productivity in technology and service area, and in particular, to improve speed of settlement that is great for customer and in addition, correlates with lower cost of claims. It's a win-win. Combined with further automation and continued cost discipline, we expect more than GBP 100 million of annual efficiency benefit by 2028. That as I said before, we may decide to reinvest in existing capability. On the right side of the slide, we look at our customers. We are strengthening a mobile-first digital end-to-end experience, multiproduct ownership and retention, which is already above market and will further benefit from multiproduct customers retaining around 5 points better than the rest. Lower expense ratio, higher retention and multiproduct ownership are key driver of higher customer lifetime value. As mentioned, this creates optionality, but also a more resilience to long-term market trends, margin pressures and volatility. So moving to the third pillar, amplifying Admiral DNA. This is what makes Admiral Admiral and different. It's our culture, it's our approach and it's something we are deeply proud of. As the environment evolves, we are focused on ensuring that our DNA evolves too, starting with our people through reskilling, developing internal talent and strengthening diversity and mobility across the group. We had this year so many examples of senior leader moving across different area and geography, including the new CEO of Veygo and new Head of Claims, new Group Data Officer, new Head of Data and Tech in Europe. And this internal mobility allow us to get different perspective and cross-fertilization from one side, but also continuity and cultural fit from the other. Another strong feature of Admiral culture is relentless curiosity and innovation, and we'll continue to evolve our products and innovate for our customers. We focus on offering competitive price, inclusive product, affordable product, including for nonstandard risks. Safety and sustainability are central in our product proposition, whether through fleet safety proposition like Flock or through EV electric vehicle leadership or initiatives around flood prevention. We also want to increase our positive impact on communities, investing around 1% of profit into community initiatives with focus on employability and climate resilience. We are proud of the 45,000 volunteering hours delivered by our colleague in 2025 and remain committed to our net zero ambition by 2040. So that was the third pillar of our strategy. Our strategy is also supported by a simple and disciplined capital management framework that is designed to increase value over time. So how we allocate capital to our operation? In U.K. Insurance, we focus on optimizing returns over the medium term. As we've always done, targeting consistently high return on equity with no structural capital constraints. In other lines, we invest to support growth and margin expansions where financial orders are met or expected to be met in the near term. In newer hires, like commercial, for example, we allocate capital to R&D and early-stage investment while requiring a clear right to win and scalability in the medium to long term. A key structural advantage is our capital-efficient reinsurance model and this is a competitive advantage that is quite difficult to replicate as it stands as it is built over more than 20 years of strong track record. Geraint already talked you through the other steps of our framework, including the introduction of buyback as additional way to return surplus to our shareholders. Selective M&A remains an opportunistic tool to accelerate growth, especially on Other Personal Lines in the U.K. and in Europe, only where our financial hurdles are met. So in this slide, next slide, we bring all of it together. Our strategy and capital management framework designed to deliver strong value for our customers and shareholders. We already delivered strong earnings growth, exceptional return and resilience through the cycle with a 7.6% EPS CAGR over the last 5 years. Looking forward, our ambition is to sustain and build on that performance by scaling what already works, disciplined growing U.K. Motor, faster growth and margin expansions in other lines and continued optionality from capability improvements. Our model is quite unique in the sector, delivering at the same time, strong returns, growth and exceptional capital efficiency. Importantly, this is about quality of growth as much as quantity, retaining our competitive advantage, our capital discipline and our culture that underpins them. In short, we believe we can continue to deliver higher returns sustainably while staying true to what makes Admiral different. So conclusion, to sum up, 2025 was a record year for Admiral, record profits, record dividends and strong customer growth delivered through discipline in U.K. Motor and increasingly diversified contribution across the group. Second, we have fully delivered our 2020-2025 strategy. Admiral today is resilient and more diversified with proven competitive advantage that are difficult to replicate. Third, looking ahead to 2026, while U.K. Motor market remains competitive, we expect price to increase. Admiral is well positioned to perform strongly and remain disciplined and resilient through the cycle. Fourth, we have evolved our strategy to compound those trends, not change direction, but raising ambition while staying disciplined. We have strengthened our capital management framework, adding buybacks alongside dividends while maintaining a very strong balance sheet and flexibility to invest. We remain confident on our trajectory, on our ability to leverage market trends and continue to deliver even greater value to our customers and to our shareholders for the long term. Thank you very much for listening. And now we're ready to take questions. Milena Mondini: [Operator Instructions] I think, first one, I saw it. Darius Satkauskas: Darius Satkauskas with KBW. The first question is sort of a statement and a question. I appreciate the update to the capital return policy introduction of opportunistic buyback. I think one of the challenges with having an opportunistic buyback rather than the program is that when you do it, it's great. When you don't, it sort of signals in the market that management is saying the shares may be expensive. How are you going to deal with that challenge? And are there any hurdle rates you'd like to point for us to sort of gauge how you think about when we should expect buyback and when not? And the second question is, your Flock acquisition, where do you think you are in positioning for the potential liability shift to Commercial from Personal among your competitors? And who do you think is going to determine the win in the future? Is there a risk that a company like Allianz with a huge balance sheet simply takes the entire market in Commercial Insurance? Or do you think Admiral can appropriately compete 10 years down the line, 20 years down the line? Milena Mondini: Geraint, do you want to take the first one, I'll take the second? Geraint Jones: Yes. So buybacks, it will be based on what the Board assesses is the right thing to do to try and deliver the max return for shareholders over the medium to long term. I don't, certainly for the foreseeable future, expect it to be dip in, dip out. We'd expect to be doing it for 2026, and we'll give -- we -- the company will give an update on that at least annually, I suspect, as we move forward. But yes, I hear your point on opportunistic versus steady. Milena Mondini: So your second question is about Flock and Commercial Insurance. So there are a few reasons why we're interested in this market. It's attractive as stand-alone market, but it's also a market where we see we can deploy a lot of our strength. And the fleet market is very competitive. So you do need to be a very good underwriter. Our claims and pricing strength can be transferred across nicely. But we also think it's a market that is -- it will be disrupted. And that's why we didn't want to really enter in the traditional way, but just focus on a proposition that we think is fit for the future, is the type of business that's going to grow in the future. So it's telemetry based. There's a lot of data from -- a lot of driving data, a sector in which we already have developed strong components to very large and growing telematic portfolio in Personal Lines. It's an interesting proposition because there is a strong feedback loop to driver to increase safety, to increase performance. And I would say it's also a building block for car of the future. The more the car become -- embed safety features and become autonomous, the more this type of skill set, data-driven pricing and underwriting and the feedback loop is important. So for us, it's a very interesting way to create and to develop a business that is interesting per se, but is also a way into the future. And I think it's a competitive market. We need to do it in the right way and with a proposition that is future fit. That's our ambition there. And we think the mix of Flock skill, technology and proposition, an Admiral amount of data, strength in pricing, data-driven pricing sophisticated telematic and also very strong claims management really can create something unique. Sorry, I'm going to go in order one. Ivan Bokhmat: It's Ivan Bokhmat from Barclays. My first question would be on the strategy into 2030. I just want to clarify, perhaps, did I interpret it correctly. So the slide that shows your 8% CAGR in the past 5 years, you're saying that you're trying to achieve that same growth into 2030. So as a statement, maybe you could just confirm that. And secondly, on the trajectory of those earnings, as far as I understand, for 2026, you're talking about flattish numbers and then it would imply more of a hockey stick trajectory in later years. So perhaps you could just talk a little bit about how this trajectory might look like, where the acceleration will come and maybe specifically on the U.K. Motor, that cyclical target where you would grow 5% through the cycle over time, when will that time frame apply in this particular case? And maybe one final small question. The partial internal model, the -- if you apply imminently, do you think you will get the regulatory approval by year-end? And what does it mean for some extra capital decisions? Milena Mondini: Yes. So I think what we're seeing here is 3 things. As you know, we normally don't give very precise guidance on long-term or medium-term earnings. But what we're saying is that there are 2 very clear revenue for growth and profitable growth in the future. Our core market, that is U.K. Motor, is a market where we have a market-leading business, we expect to continue to grow across the cycle. We'll continue to do at the right time and with the right choice and the discipline around pricing. But we'll continue, as we've done in every single cycle since Admiral was founded. We'll continue to grow our U.K. business from a larger base and retaining very, very strong margin. We also have another leg that is our other lines of business, Personal Lines and U.K. Insurance, Europe and Money, and we're planning to grow across all of them indistinctively and also increase margin for those business combined. So if you take those 2 things together, we expect to increase shareholders' returns over time without having necessarily put a specific date because there will still be some cyclicality. But the other preservation is with increased contribution from other lines, although there will still be market model cyclically to impact our results. We think we are gradually, over time, reducing the dependence on a single cycle. So that's the key message. Geraint Jones: Internal model? On the internal model, we do expect to submit our application for approval very soon. The time line for review of that is not fixed. And as you can imagine, it's not a short read. So I think we'd update on the outcome of that at the appropriate time rather than comment on how long we expect it to take. If and when it's approved, you can be sure we'll be trying to use it around the business to optimize and things like that. And again, we'll talk about that at the right time. Milena Mondini: Sorry, you mentioned something also about the shape. And as I was saying, there is still crack in the market. So as Geraint suggested, we do see a different path across the next few years. So we'll grow through the cycle. But next year may have a different impact on our growth ambition than the year after that. So that's -- but that's very normal. That's what we have done in the past, as you've seen in the slide that Alistair projected. We tend to grow when it's the right time when underwriting margin are healthier and will continue to do so. Sorry... Benjamin Cohen: Ben Cohen at RBC. I just wanted to ask a few things on the U.K. Motor business. Firstly, would your central assumption be that you would be able to match claims inflation through the course of '26? And could you make a comment as to what you've seen in the market reaction as you've tried to put through or you have put through some price increases at the beginning of the year? And the third element, could you just remind us what happened to claims inflation in Motor kind of post the Ukraine, Russia invasion, just to maybe give some sort of comparison with maybe where we are now in terms of the situation in the Middle East? Milena Mondini: Al, take it the first and I'll, sorry... Alistair Hargreaves: Yes, sure. So in terms of managing through the cycle in 2026, we're expecting claims inflation, as I mentioned, to be towards more normal levels, so mid-single digits. We'll be looking at that. We'll be looking at elasticity within the market. We'll be thinking about average premiums and continuing to price with discipline. As you saw in 2025, we did that and we've -- as Geraint said, we're very happy with the profitability on that yet. It's not as strong as '24, but it's still strong. So that will be the same approach that we'll take to 2026. As Milena said, reiterated, we think that's the right approach to optimizing both value and growth over the medium term. So far, in terms of market at the start of this year, we're seeing different strategies from different players. But broadly speaking, I'd say that market premiums have been relatively flat. But as I say, we've started to increase our prices at the start of the year. In terms of claims inflation post the Russia invasion, there was a lot of disruption to the supply chain and that was one of the impacts that caused higher parts, vehicle inflation as well as supply chain constraints. We don't think it's a direct parallel to what we're seeing at the moment. In terms of the disruption that we're seeing at the moment is more about oil and fuel prices not directly related. But I think as you're inferring, it increases supply chain or the geopolitical instability increases the risk of that. So that's something we'll be watching very carefully through our supply chain. William Hardcastle: Will Hardcastle, UBS. First of all, I'm going to embarrass you, Geraint. Thanks very much for your help over the years. There's been some journey in the current role. I've always really enjoyed our interactions, some of them quite lively. But you've always been really helpful. So good luck for future endeavors, including the Admiral roles. Next, on to the questions, I'll ask you the tough ones now. You booked 2025 under -- undiscounted booked loss ratio at the 78% or 85% undiscounted. That's an average number. So I'm assuming the exit was slightly worse, given the shape of the pricing last year. I guess prepricing in excess of inflation, pre-percentile shifts, how roughly, where is the starting point essentially for that '26? How much worse than the 85% should we be thinking? And then moving on to something a bit bigger picture, doubling of the non-U.K. Motor business. It's quite non-Admiral to give a target like this. I'm sort of intrigued as to the logic, the thinking behind being -- it must imply a lot of confidence behind it. Does it imply any slowdown at all of top line and sort of extraction of the benefits you put through? Or is this just a better hope and a direction of Travel from here? Alistair Hargreaves: I'll take the first one. So the first one was about the exit loss ratio. So as you pointed out, the undiscounted booked loss ratio is at 85%. It's not -- it's higher, obviously, than '24 that was an exceptional year, but it's not unusual if you look back at previous years, hence, the comments about good profitability. As I said, we managed rates through the year, paying very close eye on claims trends. And in the second half, we were flat. And I think that means that the exit loss ratio was slightly higher than the overall, but not significantly so. And as I also mentioned, as we started in '26, we made some adjustments to price to make sure that our starting point in '26 was in the right place. Milena Mondini: The second point is about confidence about the other line of business. It's a mix of 2 things. First of all, is the momentum. If you look at where we are, momentum and maturity, if you want, of some of our other lines of business, we have fantastic 2025, doubling profit in Admiral Money, strong recovery in Europe and return to profitability with confidence in the prospect and the future. And other lines of insurance in the U.K. also deliver a stellar year. I think we are reaching a maturity in those areas that allow us to continue to grow and increase margin over time. And it's also, I would say, a reflection of our strategy because the strategy is also very much about compounding. And so what I mean is that we have a few things -- we're focusing a lot on is our proposition to multi customers, very important because customers with more risk have better retention, have better loss ratio and better NPS, tend to be happier and stick longer with better results and also better experience for them. So I think there is momentum in terms of the multi -- our journey to multi-products are probably later than some other player in the market because historically, we were very much a U.K. Motor story. But as this business grow, there's a lot of potential there. That's a very interesting opportunity, but also transferring some of the strength in Predictive AI, for example, across all the business is also another big driver of value. And so if you merge those 2 things, plus economy of scale, plus potential benefit, we do see a momentum that will allow us to both continue growing and deliver more profit. And so I think it's really very much a reflection of our strategy and a bit of the switch of focus from growing individual business that are stand-alone interesting to really compound the benefit. So it's just meant to be that over time. We'll continue to be disciplined. So we follow cyclicality. There's cyclicality in the U.K. Household market that will take into account, but we do think we can achieve both growth and higher margins. Thomas Bateman: Thomas Bateman from Mediobanca. Just a quick question on the reserving. I was surprised to see the PYD quite low, but then the risk adjustment percentile come down. Could you just explain now how that's working? And the second question is actually a follow-up to Will's on -- I guess, on Europe. I take your comment of Spain is breakeven now, but I guess you have been working on that for a while and there is more confidence there. And you alluded to AI platforms, et cetera. Have you been able to launch on any of those AI platforms, either in the U.K. or in Europe yet? Milena Mondini: So do you want to take the risk adjustment? Costi maybe briefly comment on the confidence in Europe and Spain, and I will pick up maybe on the AI. Geraint Jones: Actually, Tom, if you split out the Ogden impact on last year and compare year-on-year, you get the same percentage. So a fairly strong level of releases coming through year-on-year. The percentile was really ever so slightly down. I wouldn't say that we'd notably dropped the risk adjustment strength. So it's a very strong set of reserves and continued pretty consistent releases coming through basically in line, I think, with what we've guided in that kind of 10-ish range over the past couple of years. Costantino Moretti: So on Europe and then on the AI point, so basically, yes, as Milena mentioned, there is a good level of confidence. It's a large opportunity where we are making very good progress on several fronts. And what is giving to us the confidence is that we are keep trading at very good margins on the direct business and we are seeing very good progress coming from the distribution-diversification initiatives, which will help us to target much larger opportunities. And so once also those initiatives will turn into profitable ones in the medium term, we expect our overall margins to expand. In addition to that, we expect a more efficient reinsurance agreements to provide benefit in the medium to longer term. Clearly, there is also an element about the competitiveness on the expense side on the efficiency. And we're also there making good progress, and we are testing also some more advanced gen AI tools and models. On this front, it's more early days, but early signs are very promising. Milena Mondini: I think more in general on AI, there is a lot of opportunities. And a lot of that is focused on improving efficiency internally. It's about improving automation, increasing speed of servicing the customer and so forth. I guess your question was more referred to the distribution element. So how customers interact and choose insurance. And if you think about Admiral from very early stage, we've always been a bit of a forefront of disruption and distribution, and we were among the first direct player in the market in the U.K. We were the first to have an Internet-only brand, Elephant, let's call it in U.K. We're the first one to embed price comparison site with confused.com and so forth. So it's obviously something that, as you may imagine, we're very close -- we're working very close to price comparison site as they may embed more gen AI technology in their way of interacting to customer and distribution and adapting our website. We also have interesting pilot in part of the business, like gen AI embed chatbot in Veygo and other initiative across the group. So something we're very, very close. Now if you ask me, do you think this is going to be a very big disruption in U.K. Motor in the short term? I personally don't think is the case. I think there will be a different way of interacting with the customer. But the value proposition to a customer, how much you can save by shopping on price comparison site on Motor insurance is huge. It's hundreds of pounds sometimes. So I don't think it's going to be the first market where we see a lot of change. I think it's early to say. Everything is very nascent at this stage, but I think there are markets where this could be an acceleration to direct and that could be the one where customers are more used to speak with an intermediary, for example. So it can be commercial lines, it can be Europe where direct is not picked. But at this stage, it's very early to say. As for us, we try to be close to everything and work and progress on all the fronts at the same time. I think we had 1, 2 and 3, yes. Carl Lofthagen: Carl Lofthagen from Berenberg. Just the first one on the U.K. Home book. I think we've seen kind of continued expense ratio improvement as you've gained scale and you're now running the business at a combined ratio in sort of the mid-80s. Is that sort of the level that you're sort of happy with? Or are you willing to trade some margin to take market share as you've kind of said you want to be a top 3 player? And then the second question is just a clarification on the share count development. I think if I just look at the basic share count, which decreased by GBP 5 million from GBP 306 million to GBP 301 million in H2, but diluted went up GBP 1 million. Presumably, the shares you're buying back for the share scheme shouldn't impact the share count. Just I guess for modeling purposes, I mean, how should we kind of think about that, excluding sort of any sort of additional buybacks, et cetera? Milena Mondini: Sorry, Al, you take the first. Geraint will take the second. Alistair Hargreaves: So on the Household expense ratio, we've had an advantage in terms of expense ratio for Household for some time. But as you highlight, it's an area of focus. As the book grows and we get more renewals to customers, that helps in terms of expense ratio, but we're also focused on driving improvements. For example, Milena talked about how we can use gen AI for both customer experience and efficiency. So those are areas of focus. In terms of the combined ratio range, we think about Household similar to Motor, where it's about optimizing for value over the medium term. But as you're alluding to, we're a bit more biased towards growth on Household than margin. But we -- I think the 80% is good. I think we talked a bit about a range when we did the deep dive, so we're not sort of sticking to a specific target. But we'll do that in optimizing for value and growth over the medium term. Geraint Jones: On share count, Carl, if you look at the -- in the back of our accounts on Note 12, you got the update the number of shares that were in issue every year. It's been GBP 306 million odd for a couple of years since we stopped diluting for the share plans. The GBP 301 million is actually the number that's used in the EPS, and that excludes some of those shares that are held in the trust. The share purchases per share plans won't adjust the number of shares that were an issue, obviously. They will go to employees. The share buyback and cancel, obviously, that will reduce the number of shares in issue. So the purchase for the share plans doesn't change the number of shares. Buybacks obviously will. Derald Goh: It's Derald Goh from Jefferies. Two big picture questions, if I may, please. So the 4% sort of EV -- sorry, AV penetration rate by 2035, that's an interesting number. I'm just keen to hear what are the main variables that might sway that number. Essentially how prudent is that 4%? And maybe if you could also say what were your projections 10 years ago? How does that compare to what you had 10 years ago, let's say? And then secondly, going back to distribution, you mentioned there's potential to disrupt there. Maybe could you speak to your past experiences? I know you've been trying to push PCWs outside the U.K. Some places are more successful than others. What might be different this time that would allow you to be more successful with whether it's AI or changes in customer behaviors and what not? Milena Mondini: Sure. I think I'll take the first and second, but Costi, if you want to add anything on distribution outside U.K., it would be great. So EV, this is referred to this is referred to relatively common forecasts that have been out like the World Economic Forum and a lot of other organization. And I think the number is quite aligned. You may look at car sales in terms of car park is 4% because there is quite a lag time from new sales to fit into car park. The average -- the median age of a car in U.K. is 16 and probably the average is 11 years. So it takes time as the new model gets released. I think you're absolutely right. So it's still very much of an estimate, and there are a lot of influencing factors. You need to get, first of all, regulation in place, infrastructure in place, technology and investment in place and customer appetite in place. So there are a lot of things that can contribute and can go both direction. If we don't see the simultaneous development of all these 4 areas, it's difficult to imagine a world in which people will really freely just use autonomous vehicles car on the roads. So I cannot tell if it's prudent or not. But I would say this is really the majority of the -- I think everybody agrees that it takes some time, both because there are some hurdles and because there is time for the car park to evolve. And I think also take the chance to remind that this is about L3+. L3 basically means when the driver can take the highs off of the wheel, but still need to get in, in 10 seconds. So it's not really full benefit of EV in terms of, for example, liability shift and so forth. Anyway, it's very nascent now. So you asked me how this was versus 10 years ago? I think this is a story that we see in all the technology disruption. If I go back 10 years, this was supposed to be earlier. And so what happened is that this projection tend to shift. If you ask me how it was compared to a few years back, like maybe 3, 4? What I would say is not very different, but we see a slightly later adoption, but probably faster. It very often happen with every technology now that it takes longer, longer, longer, but then it can be more. So it's difficult to say, honestly. It's very, very early stage, and the U.K. is a bit behind the U.S. in terms of regulation and so forth. Second question was on distribution. I don't know, Costi, do you want to kick it off on? Costantino Moretti: Yes. On distribution, the -- well, the European markets, as you know, are very different. When we started our businesses a few years ago, I think direct was about 5%. Now on average, it's getting closer to 20% -- between 15% and 20%, so direct is still growing. And therefore, if a more AI-driven disruption would happen, we could say that being a leading player in those markets that will put us in a nice place. At the same time, price comparisons, you're right. We try to educate the market and to push more digital growth to accelerate. It didn't happen at the speed we expected. And at the moment, as I said, direct is still growing, price comparisons are doing nicely, but not at a supe- fast speed. At the same time, traditional are still a very important channel, which predominantly is the main channel, which is linked why we decided a while ago to start to diversify the distribution and on how to win and how we can be confident basically because the right to wins are exactly the same of direct. So risk selection, customer experience and lean operations. And the moment you demonstrate that you can replicate those, then you can win in that market and our results that are coming through are making us confident more and more that we can achieve this. Andreas de Groot van Embden: Andreas van Embden, Peel Hunt. Two questions, please. First one is on ancillary sales. I saw that the average sort of revenue per vehicle in the U.K. has come down from GBP 76 to GBP 71. Just wondered what your outlook is for this in '26 and '27, particularly not only on the installment income because I assume you've lowered your APRs, which has brought down the average premium per policy there or per vehicle there. But also on the other ancillary sales, whether you're seeing any pressure on those fees and commissions? And on -- the second question is on price velocity. I think you mentioned that. I just wondered what would you exactly meant by that in the U.K. and whether extending it means changing pricing more. I don't know whether you do intraday pricing or not in the U.K. But whether -- with that velocity, by how much could you extend it? And how important is that to maintain your competitive position, particularly through PCWs in the U.K. as the market becomes more competitive? Alistair Hargreaves: So it's Al. I'll take the first one. As you mentioned, the main driver of the change in the revenue is premium finance. It's worth noting that there's 2 impacts there. So we did reduce our APR through 2025, in line with the cost of funds. But also, we saw our average premiums coming down through the year. So that also impacts on the other revenue per vehicle. So in terms of our APRs, they're very competitive at the moment, not necessarily anticipating any changes, but we'll continue to assess for fair value on that product. In terms of average premiums, as we've said, we're expecting the market to turn and that will lead to -- and we're increasing our premium, so that will flow through as well. I don't think there's anything else of significant note to call out on other revenue. Milena Mondini: So on the price velocity, I think if we step back just a few years back, a lot of the pricing was done through SaaS or XL, and we could put price change in production overnight, we can have a meeting. If you all ask me, I'll let Geraint decide and make change almost overnight. That is still the case. And I think it's an advantage. And I think it's really rooted in the culture and the closeness of the management team to price into claims trend and that relevance that we give to loss ratio all around Admiral. But our pricing is more and more based on machine learning and predictive AI models. And this, of course, is not something that you change overnight because it's more complex, require more technology, the process to upgrade and renew the model just takes longer. And we've done a fantastic -- like a lot of work in the last year or 2 to really bring this time from ideation to change in production much shorter and shorter. I think there is still a bit we can go for. And so we're very close and we have a strong capability, more than 120 models in place, GBP 100 million of loss ratio incremental value. So we start from a good point. But I think there is more we can go to increase this even more. But the biggest opportunity in my mind is to extend this also more and to extend these trends more into other lines of business. So that's where I see the excitement. And to do that, we appointed this year a new group CDO. She did a great job in Europe to set up a new data platform. She just -- she's coming over and she came over actually a couple of months ago, and she's going to help to increase even more this ability. So I think we're really in a very strong position, but want to go. We're very keen to be as fast as we can. Operator: [Operator Instructions] We will now go to the question. And the question comes from the line of Vash Gosalia from Goldman Sachs. Vash Gosalia: Hopefully you can hear me. First of all, apologies for not being there in person. I have 2 questions, please. The first one is just on something you mentioned on your 2026 profitability. So if I heard you correctly, you said you plan to move to the middle of your confidence interval through 2026. And you've obviously also said you expect flattish profitability. So can I read that as your earnings in 2026 actually being supported by PYD just to offset some of the weakness in U.K. Motor? And any sort of color as to how or why that might be different would be really helpful. And the second question, a slightly longer term or big picture question. So you've obviously sort of alluded to you having a lot of sort of advantage on the cost ratio front. And you can obviously leverage AI and gen AI to improve that. But I'm just trying to think if the technology essentially democratizes the use of AI, wouldn't that allow your competitors to actually gain advantage quicker and narrow the gap to you? So any sort of color or comment on that would be helpful as well. Milena Mondini: Will you take the first? Geraint Jones: Yes. So we would expect to start to release our -- reduce our risk adjustment percentile from its current near max level towards the middle of the range during 2026. I would reject your assertion of weak U.K. Motor. I think U.K. Motor profitability for '25 is strong, but slightly less strong than the extremely strong 2024. So we think there's good profitability to come on 2025. And obviously, that starts to feed into the accounts in 2026. PYD and reserve releases are a constant feature of our income statement and profitability. But you are right to expect as we reduce the risk adjustment to some extent, obviously, that contributes to profitability in 2026 versus 2025. And if you do the mix, flat profitability, but higher profits from other lines of business means slightly lower profits from U.K. Motor, but from a very high start point. So I think -- Vash, I think that was the nature of the question, right? Vash Gosalia: Yes. I mean -- and apologies if I said like weak profitability. I meant more direction-wise. But yes, you've answered my question. Geraint Jones: No offense taken. Milena Mondini: On the second point, it's a very good question. It's a very good question. I think every technological evolution, data evolution and if you think about digitalization, automation, migration to cloud, more and more like technology, it becomes more and more a commodity itself, but the way technology is implemented is very differentiating and it becomes more so as we move along. And so a big decision on AI is how you do it. A big driver are how much this is adopted. So you can deploy gen AI tool to have all the organization, but how much is adopted, how is adopted is a massive driver of how much efficiency benefit you can drive. I think we start in a great situation because we tend to have a very strong culture, very transparent and people with good expertise that are really, really keen to do what is right for the business. Governance is another differentiating factor, how you govern what you put in place and how you make sure that it's solid, is stable, how make sure that the model learn over time. I think an appetite for innovation, bottom up as well as top-down is also very important. So I think a lot of the element that plays here are a culture and also the ability to do it faster, better and cheaper than others. And it's still early to say, but I think we are well positioned to achieve that. We have a last question. Shanti Kang: It's Shanti from Bank of America. You just touched a bit earlier when we talked about the internal model and how that could give you a bit of flexion for M&A. Historically, I guess, you guys have partnered with names via Pioneer or you've had a relationship with the existing names before you would kind of move forward with an M&A transaction. What kind of skill sets or regions, if you were looking at that, would you be thinking of? Milena Mondini: It's the last question. Do you want to take it? Geraint Jones: It sounds like I've explained this badly. I wasn't really referring to the internal model coming in, giving us more firepower for M&A necessarily. I understand the point of the question, but I think funding small M&A to retain profitability is one of the options I would talk about. I know you should cover where M&A might play a part of it. Milena Mondini: Yes. So as I said, our plan -- our history of successful organic growth, and we're excited about the plan we have on growing organically. We will look into opportunity mainly to accelerate diversification, I would say. So as we've done with Flock as we've done with More Than, we'll look at accelerated diversification in other lines of business in insurance in the U.K. or in Europe where we need more scale. But we stay open, look and see, but also very, very focused on our organic growth plan and consider different option on how to eventually tackle the challenge. Thank you very much. Thank you for your question, and thank you for your time. And we'll be around a few minutes if that can help. Thanks a lot.
Operator: Hello, and thank you for standing by. My name is Regina, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Riley Exploration Permian, Inc. Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Earnings Release and Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the conference over to Philip Riley, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead. Philip Riley: Good morning. Welcome to our conference call covering our fourth quarter 2025 and full year 2025 results. I'm Philip Riley, CFO. Joining me today are Bobby Riley, Chairman and CEO; and John Suter, COO. Yesterday, we published a variety of materials, which can be found on our website under the Investors section. These materials in today's conference call contains certain projections and other forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in these statements. We'll also reference certain non-GAAP measures. The reconciliations to the appropriate GAAP measures can be found in our supplemental disclosure on our website. I'll now turn the call over to Bobby. Bobby Riley: Thank you, Philip. 2025 was a transformation year for Riley Permian and we look forward to discussing our fourth quarter results and our 2026 plan this morning. Over the course of the year, we made significant progress across several strategic initiatives, positioning us for long-term value creation. Through our Silverback acquisition, which closed in July, we enhanced depth and duration of our undeveloped inventory in our portfolio. Combined with our previous acquisitions in New Mexico and our legacy Champions position, we have 7 to 8 years of high cash on cash return undeveloped inventory. In December, we sold our interest in our New Mexico Midstream project to Targa, a best-in-class Fortune 500 midstream infrastructure company with a premier integrated asset network for $123 million in cash, plus $60 million in future potential earnouts. The project will provide flow assurance for our New Mexico gas production and enable us more robust development of our New Mexico assets as originally intended. This transaction eliminates all liabilities and future construction costs associated with the project, allowing us to focus more capital into the drill bit and less into infrastructure. The project is underway and Targa expects the project to be operational in the second half of 2026. We reduced our debt by $120 million during the fourth quarter, reinforcing our financial flexibility and positioning the company to accelerate development in 2026. The disciplined groundwork late in 2025, portfolio expansion, infrastructure build-out and balance sheet improvement sets the stage for more active and value-enhancing development program in 2026 and the years ahead. We authorized a stock repurchase program of up to $100 million of currently outstanding shares of the company's common stock and began repurchasing outstanding shares in January of this year. We repurchased approximately 152,000 shares at a weighted average price of $26.54. The decision for accelerated growth is not in response to the recent increase in oil price levels, but rather the result of Riley Permian's multiyear positioning and our long-term view on value creation. For 2026, we forecast over 20% year-over-year oil volume growth. While we are excited about this growth potential, we will remain flexible and ready to moderate activity and spend appropriately should oil price environment deteriorate. I would like to thank our entire team for the success and transformation we realized in 2025. We're positioned for an exciting 2026 and beyond thanks to our strong financial position and asset base. With that, I'll turn the call over to John Suter, our COO, for operational highlights, followed by Philip Reilly, our CFO, and who will review financial performance. John Suter: Thank you, Bobby, and good morning. I'll briefly cover fourth quarter and full year results followed by 2026 development plans. Beginning with the fourth quarter, our development activity was focused in Texas. Activity levels match the ranges we provided in guidance with more drilling and completions than new wells turned to sales. wells drilled, but not turned to sales during the fourth quarter should come online over the first and second quarters of 2026. Oil production increased by more than 1,700 barrels of oil per day or 9% quarter-over-quarter. This was primarily from improving volumes from the new wells brought online earlier in 2025 that continued to increase as well as from the 3 new wells turned to sales during the fourth quarter. Comparing the fourth quarter of 2025 to 2024 and oil production increased by 26%. As for the full year 2025, I'd like to begin by highlighting another year of excellence in safety here at Riley Permian. We achieved a total recordable incident rate of 0 in 2025. We also achieved 95% safe days, a metric requiring no recordable incidents vehicle accidents or spills over 10 barrels. Full year oil production increased by 15% year-over-year while total equivalent production increased by 29%. The overwhelming majority of our full year production increase was from pre 2025 development with modest contributions from 2025 new wells and smaller contributions from the Silverback acquisition for the second half of the year, including the benefits of workover volumes as discussed last quarter. Full year development activity counts were relatively modest compared to 2024 levels as we reduced activity midyear last year, following the oil price decline and our Silverback acquisition. In total, we drilled 18 net wells in 2025 or 28% fewer than in 2024 and turned to sales 16.3 net wells or 23% fewer than in 2024. I highlight these metrics for a couple of reasons. First, we achieved impressive organic volume growth with relatively limited activity. This is a testament to our high-quality drilling portfolio. Volumes from the acquisition accounted for only 8% of total annual volumes. Second, this reinforces what Bobby discussed on framing our 2026 plans for significant increased activity relative to the lower activity in 2025 and readiness positioning with midstream and water takeaway projects. In Texas, we essentially held over 11,000 barrels of oil per day of oil production flat year-over-year with only 10 net wells turned to sales again, demonstrating the productivity and efficiency of our wells. In New Mexico, production has been more consistent and reliable. Since commissioning the expansion of the compressor station in December, we've been able to send more gas to the high-pressure system, increasing uptime and unburdening the low-pressure system by which the remainder of our gas is gathered. Overall, New Mexico oil production grew by 74% and or over 2,500 barrels of oil per day year-over-year, benefiting from just 6.3 net wells turned to sales and from the Silverback volumes. New Mexico represents a growing share of our total company oil production from 23% of the total in 2024 to 34% in 2025. That trend will continue into 2026 and beyond. The Silverback acquisition continues to surpass by case expectations, producing at a 65% higher oil rate at year-end than anticipated. This is primarily due to strategic workovers, including wellbore cleanouts, artificial lift optimization and return to production operations. As for drilling and completion operations, we're down 25% in cost per lateral foot in Red Lake year-over-year. Similar results were achieved in Texas with a 15% cost reduction per lateral foot in 2025. Both achievements were driven primarily by a focus on pad drilling and increase in time spent drilling and completion and optimization. It should be noted that while completion optimization helped on the cost reduction side, we're also seeing it result in an increase in productivity in both our Texas and New Mexico wells with both sets of wells generally beating internal forecasts. We're also optimistic about future optimization that could further drive costs down. including increasing completed lateral length and testing new completion methodology in New Mexico. Let's now discuss our plans for 2026. Our current plans call for significant increases in activity and volume with activity and spending being more concentrated during the first half of the year, while volumes may grow each successive quarter. On a full year basis, we're essentially running slightly more than an equivalent continuous 1-rig program. In actuality, we have 2 rigs running for approximately 3 months through May, back down to 1 rig for the summer, down to 0 potentially for the fall before picking 1 up again later in the year. We picked up the second drilling rig last month that began drilling in New Mexico to complement the rig already running in Texas that was put in service October of last year. This 2-rig program allows us the ability to continue to grow our Texas production base while also setting the stage for more New Mexico asset development when the long-haul high-pressure line to Targa is completed in Q3. We'll begin to build volumes, striving to meet our volume commitment payouts as per the terms of the sale of the midstream asset in Q4 2025. Both rigs have relatively short contract terms, allowing us to be flexible in the event market conditions change rapidly. We currently forecast drilling 46 to 53 gross wells, which may correspond to approximately 37% to 43% on a net basis. Net completions and wells turned to sales may be slightly higher as we have a small inventory of DUCs to draw from as I referenced during my commentary on fourth quarter activity. New wells turned to sales will focus in Texas during the first half of the year and transition to New Mexico for the second half. This is predicated on the Mexico gas infrastructure being completed and ready by that time, as Bobby described. Additionally, we've been working with partners to secure sufficient water disposal for this development plan. This will increase operating expenses, which we see impacted later in the year while we're also tackling initiatives elsewhere to offset this increase. Philip, I'll now turn the call back to you. Philip Riley: Thank you, John. I'll also cover both fourth quarter and full year 2025 results with a few additional notes on 2026 guidance. The company's financial results for the fourth quarter were favorable to all guidance levels. Fourth quarter prices after hedges were lower quarter-over-quarter across all 3 commodities, though total hedge revenue decreased by only $3.8 million or 3% quarter-over-quarter, benefiting from $8 million of positive hedge settlements. We experienced negative natural gas and NGL revenues after basis and fees. Like many other Permian operators who have reported this earnings cycle, pipeline maintenance constrained Permian gas egress and pressured Waha pricing during the quarter. We're monitoring the regional infrastructure build-out, which is forecast to improve by next year, absent delays. We have a material amount of Waha basis hedged next year at minus $1 to Henry Hub, which combined with higher index pricing and higher forecasted volumes, has the potential to translate to material positive revenue starting in 2027. Core cash operating costs being LOE, production taxes and G&A before stock compensation, decreased in total by 13% quarter-over-quarter. LOE also decreased by 13% quarter-over-quarter or by 21% on a dollar per BOE basis with cost savings across many categories. Workover expenses were the largest contributor coming off the third quarter with higher workover activity immediately following the Silverback closing. We hope to continue realizing some aspects of the cost savings, while other aspects were unique to the quarter and may not recur going forward. G&A before stock compensation decreased by 20% and G&A inclusive of stock compensation decreased by 18%, partly on account of coming off of an unusually high third quarter. A few items caused third quarter G&A to be materially higher, including the impact of a transition services agreement with Silverback immediately following the close, which was completed by the fourth quarter. Net income increased by $69 million quarter-over-quarter, benefiting from nonrecurring items such as the $72 million gain from the midstream sale and from $20 million of higher hedging gains, which were mostly noncash and partially offset by $16 million of higher income tax expense due to the midstream sale gain. Adjusted EBITDAX increased 3% quarter-over-quarter to $66 million as $5.8 million of lower costs more than offset lower hedge revenue, increasing margin from 59% to 63%. Cash flow from operations increased 2% quarter-over-quarter. Accrual capital expenditures for the quarter were $50 million, compared to $18 million in the third quarter. The CapEx increase represented a return to more normalized upstream activity compared to an exceptionally low level in the third quarter and an increase in midstream capital spend which is ultimately reimbursed with midstream sale. In aggregate, capital expenditures were at the low end of our fourth quarter guidance range, primarily due to a few new drills and smaller infrastructure projects that were deferred to 2026. We converted 27% of operating cash flow to $17 million of upstream free cash flow and $1 million of total free cash flow. Note, the proceeds of the midstream sale did not flow through total free cash flow, while the CapEx does reduce free cash flow. I'll point out again that the midstream CapEx was reimbursed as part of the sale so the free cash flow metric has a bit lower utility this quarter. Debt decreased by $120 million quarter-over-quarter due to proceeds from the midstream sale resulting in a fourth quarter 2025 balance of $255 million. As of 12/31, our credit facility was 28% utilized based on a $400 million borrowing base. Trailing debt to EBITDAX leverage was 1.0x on an as-reported EBITDAX basis or 0.9x on a pro forma basis, including first half 2025 Silverback EBITDAX. On a full year basis, to EBITDAX and free cash flow decreased by only 8% year-over-year despite 15% lower oil prices. Total free cash flow was 31% lower year-over-year driven by lower prices and higher midstream spend, which, of course, is nonrecurring. We allocated 41% of total free cash flow to dividends, up from 26% in 2024 as dividends increased and free cash flow declined. We had a very active year of acquisitions and divestitures, as you can see on our cash flow statement. Silverback is represented as the $118 million business combination. The $2.2 million of acquisitions of oil and gas properties represents a small acquisition of minerals underneath our New Mexico properties that we completed earlier in the year. We also had a good amount of success in 2025 with our land ground game reflected in a $1.3 million acquisition and effectively $3 million of new leasehold embedded in CapEx, which is labeled as the additions to oil and natural gas properties on the cash flow statement. In total, we estimate that we replaced about 2/3 of our completed locations from 2025 via new land, corresponding to a very attractive cost of entry of less than $300,000 per net undeveloped location. Moving on to 2026. We currently forecast a capital plan of $200 million, corresponding to the activity that Bobby and John described. As of today, we forecast more than 2/3 of the capital spent in the first half of the year, at least on an accrual basis with a particularly large second quarter, then falling in each of the third and fourth quarters while oil volumes may rise through the year given the lag effect of investments converting to production. We see this investment benefiting not only this year, but providing a tailwind to 2027 as well. In our investor presentation, we provide a 2-year outlook, illustrating 2026 and 2027 spending and production levels. Overall, we forecast a materially higher allocation rate of cash flow to CapEx this year. Of course, we'll monitor markets and aim to stay flexible throughout the year and will protect the dividend in lower price environments. We entered 2026 well hedged, partially on account of the midstream capital commitment we're occurring until mid-December and partially on account of universal calls for an oil surplus and weak pricing. And we've done some hedging over the past week. As of March 2, we had approximately 70% of forecasted oil volumes at midpoint guidance hedged at a weighted average downside price of approximately $60 per barrel with 36% of those hedges structured as collars, preserving upside participation. Thank you all for your support and attention. Operator, you may now turn it over for questions. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our first question will come from the line of Derrick Whitfield with Texas Capital. Derrick Whitfield: Congrats on a strong year-end and also thanks for providing a multi-period outlook as well. Regarding 2026 and 2027, while I understand there could be off brands at a lower price environment. Could you help us shape production cadence for the year under the status quo plan as the implied average oil production for Q2 through Q4 is about 10% above the Street at present. And then additionally, as we kind of think about capital efficiency over this period of investment throughout 20 would you expect it to improve in 227 as you optimize D&C designs get for Repsineti? And as you back out some of the DUC impacts 2026. Philip Riley: Yes, sure, Derrick. This is Philip. So you're going to see the production increase each quarter this year. And I guess to clarify, you're going to see a dip in quarter 1 is what we're forecasting. John could follow here with a little more color. But we experienced some downtime and some deferred production this quarter. We had some shut-ins from our legacy midstream partner, which caused a little bit of a dip there in the first quarter, but then we hope to achieve a nice ramp in the second quarter and third quarter and fourth quarter. I hope that answered the first question. I'll go to the second and then pass to John. On '27, yes, depending on how you define capital efficiency, we've got a few different metrics. But yes, you could find that next year is more efficient and that's just the function of the delayed aspect of the investment converting to the production dim. So we hope to achieve another increase next year. It may not be the 25% increase like we hope to get this year, but maybe it's 10% or so based on, frankly, kind of flattish CapEx is what we're showing for now. 2027 is a long way, of course, but we did put that in there. I'm glad you appreciate it because it does show that kind of lag effect benefit there. John, do you want to say anything else on kind of the Red Lake shut-in? John Suter: Yes, sure. Yes, like Philip said, we did have some downtime in the -- due to some of the heavy weather freezing temperatures and then like you said, some issues with our pipeline. But all the more reason why we're really looking forward to Q3 when we'll have our new pipeline in place. We're excited about that. Like we -- several of us mentioned that there'll be heavy champions activity in the first half of the year. And then we're we kind of reduced in the third quarter and then in the fourth quarter, we're shifting to New Mexico again, we need that trunk line in place from Targa, and that's on schedule to happen. And so really excited about that. We'll start ramping up our completions still won't get the full impact of it in Q4 because a lot of things are being completed then and we'll have to dewater a little bit, but all the better for '27 as we should be able to start drilling more efficiently in Denver in New Mexico and completing those wells as we go. So should be more efficient without having to wait on some water infrastructure and some gas takeaway like we are this year. Derrick Whitfield: Great. And John, maybe staying with you, in your prepared remarks, you mentioned completion optimization. Could you elaborate on some of the notes that you're turning for completion optimization or D&C optimization? And what you're seeing in well performance versus past designs. John Suter: Sure. Well, we -- again, we've been mostly in champions. We're trying to do zipper fracs on pad drilling, zipper fracs on everything we do. We kind of think we found the optimal recipe there. We've reduced from say, 700 to 800 pounds per foot down to 250 to 300 pounds per foot of sand. And so that's a big change over time. goes against what we hear in the shale world. So we're getting a big cost savings from that. We also have found that 2040 works better than 40 70, which is often more readily used. But we've also -- the other thing is we've reduced our clusters, but still are using the same amount of sand, but we've -- it reduces our water volume and of course, less pump time, which is a cost benefit. In Mexico, there is upside there that we have tested a little bit. We plan to test more in 2026. The hepatic layer of the blindary is very similar to the San Andres over in Texas. And we would like to test more cross-link fracs there. We've done it once in 2025, I believe, and we've seen good outcome, but we have a lot more testing to do, but it could provide a significant financial benefit somewhere between $0.5 million plus per well. So we're excited to do some more testing there. Again, once we have that pipeline, we'll have the freedom to do a little bit larger scale drilling. Derrick Whitfield: Maybe, John, just to clarify on the optimization. It sounds like it's more cost and you're getting similar performance. Is that the right way to characterize it. John Suter: I would say in champions, that's probably true, albeit our wells are outperforming our general type curves right now. Some of that is due to, again, more child wells are being drilled in champions because again, we're later in the development stage there. those wells tend to reach peak oil faster. So that's another reason that's causing that in Champions. Operator: Our next question will come from the line of Neal Dingmann with William Blair. Neal Dingmann: Great update. Phil, maybe a question for you or Bob or John. Just again sticking with that Slide 10. I've always loved the flexibility. Again, it certainly seems like in past years, it hasn't been 1 rig that you've needed to have very material production growth that I'm just wondering, given now today in shoot, we're almost now back to $80 oil. How flexible is this plan? And I know a lot of larger companies, I would say, hey, we're just going to target flat and target free cash flow growth. But again, given your returns that you show on other slides, would you think about trying to capture this oil upside and even potentially grow quicker than just maybe talk about the flexibility of the plan, I guess, is the best way to ask it. John Suter: Yes. I might diverse some of that to Bobby for a longer-term view of that of increasing. But certainly, we're talking about drilling, what 45 to low 50s gross wells. The beauty of of our wells being so shallow that compared to the Delaware is that we can knock well out from spud to TD, maybe 4 or 5 days, certainly a week by the time you get everything wrapped up and then doing pad drilling, it's really quick sliding to the next one. So 1 rig can effectively drill let's just say, upper 40s to low 50s wells per year if you're able to not do a lot of regional moving. So it would not take much in deployment to be able to really drill quite a few wells. So we have the capability. I may star that back to Bobby to see what he thinks about drilling at a higher oil price. Bobby Riley: Thank you, Neal, for the comments you made. I'm going to say we're probably not in a position today to be reactive to a $5 increase or $4 increase in the price of oil. I think we have a solid plan laid out for 2026 with a pretty significant D&C capital spend that really we're looking into '27 and beyond and how that going to affect this company in any price environment, whether it be $55 or $85. We have the ability with the flexibility like John mentioned, we could either shut these rigs down if we needed to or keep the rig running for the entire year. We have that option ahead of us. It's just too early to immature to really say what we would do at this point. Neal Dingmann: Yes, that makes sense, Bobby, and love the flexibility. Second question, Phil, you know I can't help but ask on the powers. Obviously, there's positive on that. I know I was looking at Slide 16, you guys talked about, I think, now even on the second project, it's in the final stage. Could you talk maybe just update on that, where that second project sits? And have you considered even adding more power beyond project #2 because, again, obviously, I'm a fan of this. And again, I think as the market would love just to hear any more plans to be on Project 2. Philip Riley: Sure. Thanks. Yes. So the second project is this merchant project we have in ERCOT in which we take our lower-cost gas and convert that to electrons to sell to the ERCOT grid that project itself has 4 sites, and the first of the 4 sites is in the final stages of commissioning. With ERCOT that has a kind of 4-week process where you're testing with ERCOT demonstrating your ability and competency to reliably deliver that power we're getting ready for that. And then we should be in a position to enter effectively the day-ahead trading, which is the kind of power that we plan to provide and offer for the grid. It's not a long-term thing, but it's something that we then think is flexible. You can react. We -- our partner has a very active trading desk there that you can look at the dynamics, both gas and power and make decisions on that kind of basis. Ultimately, this is for it's for a few things, but one of the primary things is, frankly, to try to improve effective netbacks on our gas. Now that may not show up on our revenue, like I mentioned on our negative revenue we experienced in the fourth quarter. But basically, it's taking that same inherent energy that's embedded in that molecule, right, and turning it into something that maybe the market would value more. We'll see. We're excited for it. We think it can make some sense. We've seen some other companies sign up to do something like that as they also have challenges with in-basin gas realizations. As for doing more, man, how much has changed with power in the last 2 years, right? We announced this. And so what I'd say is, I mean, I think we'd like to see how this goes. These are very, very small sites, 10-megawatt compared to the gigawatt type of sites you're seeing now. Gigawatt plants and data centers are massive operations, incredibly capital intense. You got the hyperscalers now right, committed to what, $600 billion of CapEx combined with them. And then that's all the way up to the President, right? We said, okay, you guys now need to be in charge of your own power. So we're talking big, big, big scale. And then at the same time, that tends with that arena of infrastructure CapEx and investors tends to push down returns. And so I think for now, we're being cautious and we're waiting to see. We're opportunistic. I mean that's usually the way we treat things. I encourage you to think about it as like opportunistic projects. We did one with midstream. This is another type of project like that is how we're thinking about it for now. Neal Dingmann: Philip, again, fantastic deal also on the midstream project. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our next question will come from the line of Nicholas Pope with Roth Capital. Nicholas Pope: There were some comments made about the New Mexico operations that I guess, in the fourth quarter, maybe even earlier in the third quarter, when the compressor system came online kind of helped boost production on top of artificial lift just downhole work on the wells that have really kind of yielded some real nice results there and kind of maintaining the production levels without a lot of drilling. I was curious like where -- I guess where that New Mexico side kind of is with your taking over operations and kind of some of that field production level optimization right now? And maybe is there -- do you all think you are fairly kind of through kind of integration of all those assets? Or do you think maybe there's more of that kind of quick hit, low-hanging fruit type production work that you got going to New Mexico? John Suter: Yes. I would say related to the fourth quarter, some of the -- there was a couple of early pads that we've drilled that were just outstanding performance, we're really excited about that we've done some testing on. Certainly, we have integrated the Silverback acquisition that's on the west side of our of the Red Lake asset we originally had. We have worked on a lot of integration there. We've combined our workforces got down to 1 office kind of benefited for some water handling optimization, reducing some costs again, just numerous things. But we do have that, I would say, fully integrated -- there has been some strong work overperformance, which is what we've concentrated on in the early stages of this. We found a lot of low-hanging fruit there wellbore cleanouts, -- we've been switching from some of their artificial lift methods, even from ESP to large pumping units and doing it earlier in their life, and we're saving up to $20,000 a month per installation as we've been able to find those. So we're kind of working through those that's what's been a big contributor to -- like I mentioned, just kind of the outperformance in the first 6 months of Silverback was fantastic, kind of keeping it way flatter than we thought we would, and it's from the strong workover performance. Nicholas Pope: Got it. And do you think there's -- I mean, are you still finding these opportunities in that area? I mean do you think -- I mean, it didn't seem like there was a big uptick in LOE in the fourth quarter despite kind of the positive number. So I was just curious, like, is that still ongoing? Is there still pretty hurdle ground there to optimize? John Suter: Yes, it is. There's certainly quite a few wells. I can't remember how many horizontals they had maybe 3-ish, if I remember right, I met a lot of verticals. But again, we're just prioritizing seeing what's the most effective way to start -- and then, yes, just working through just blocking and tackling with some of these wells, we've been able to restore to near initial production. So again, it's something that there's not hundreds of them. but we're certainly taking care of them, and that's allowing us to keep that steady and holding that while we develop our what we call kind of our Artesia West on our main Red Lake asset that we've had. So we'll kind of do this in phases from an inside-out approach as we are trying to be effective with Targa's infrastructure. They'll be laying to support this. But we're excited about the large number of upside type things there are here. Nicholas Pope: That's great. One housekeeping item. The divestiture they all made that non-Jukum County assets. Was there any production associated with that small divestiture. Bobby Riley: No, it's a very, very small amount. That was a legacy asset that we brought in. I think progress, if you can go in public, I don't know what the number will 200 barrels Yes, a couple of hundred barrels. Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Noel Parks with Tuohy Brothers. Noel Parks: Just wanted to ask a couple. I think I sort of caught everything from the various moving parts that you were talking about reserves and costs for the reserves for the year. But I -- just -- is there anything about the balance of in the costs incurred between what shows up as under the acquisition side versus the development side? Because the development CapEx is sequentially lower -- well, lower year-over-year by a good bit, of course. And just doing my calculation, it just looked like the 1-year drill bit F&D came out especially low, which is a good thing. But I just wondered if there was anything sort of unusual about the bookings this year, bringing new areas onto the books and I'm sure reallocating CapEx with the SEC 5-year rule and so forth. So any insight on that would be helpful. Philip Riley: Okay. Noel, I'll take a stab and follow up with you if you need to. The direct answer is that there's nothing nuanced or new going on with regard to how we're booking. I think it's primarily the fact of what Jon described, we had lower activity in '25. Go back to April, May, Liberation Day, prices fall. At the same time, we captured that acquisition, and we try to preserve capital for that. had a little bit of competition for the allocation given the midstream. So we work through the year like that. We're able to grow organically with modest activity like he described, 16.3 net wells put online. So I think a lot of it is that, combined with the cost savings on D&C. And so that probably translates to what you're seeing in the cash flow statement. When I convert that to reserves. I think we had about $13 a barrel cost to add proved developed reserves on a per barrel basis, not per barrel of oil. And so that was a positive, I think, roughly flat with last year. On reserves, just service announcement for everybody, we aim to take a pretty conservative philosophy of booking. I don't know that we booked a single PUD with Silverback, for example, just being the public company with the SEC in the 5-year rule, as you mentioned, we just find it's easier to book as you go at the kind of minimum. So we focus on predeveloped probably more so than total approved. John Suter: Yes, I think that's right, Philip, just with our relatively conservative pace, you could book most of champions as a PUD if you wanted to all but the very Eastern exterior wells, but we've chosen not to do that. New Mexico, until we start drilling more, then we'll be able to expand our PUD base as we start developing more, but we've been limited again with gas takeaway, water takeaway that now has been fixed. We do pad drilling and so that hurt you from being able to go out and drill 6 different areas instead of 6 wells on the same pad, you can certainly book more PUDs if you do that. But I would agree with Philip where we've taken a pretty conservative stance here, but we have a lot of optionality in the future to improve that. Noel Parks: Great. That does fill in a couple of gaps I had in my understanding. So that's great. And I was thinking just on the question before you were talking about the really nice low-hanging fruit that you have from maintenance, maintenance tasks, workovers, making wellbore cleanups and so forth. And I do recall just, I think, talking about both of your significant pieces of New Mexico acquisitions, especially with the most recent one, Silverback that the assets being in the hands of folks who really were coming from more of a private equity sort of financing background as opposed to being sort of just your typical operators. As you look around the other vintages of entries into the base in the conventional plays that various parties have done over the last 5-plus years or so. do you anticipate similarly -- I don't know if I call them neglected, but just similar packages out there that have low-hanging fruit that's similar I do recall you saying in the past that the issue is that there isn't really enough upside in a lot of what's been available. But I just wondered if deal something like some back is something that maybe over the next few years, you could replicate easily. John Suter: Yes. That's -- there's a lot of different things in there. I think various companies just focus their capital on different things, whether they're trying to drill and flip or if they want to develop it as a legacy asset. I do think our team is particularly good at it. I will say that of recognizing it and then acting on it. But that being said, various companies deal with that in different ways. I think that we can find a lot of fruit in most assets. But again, we bought Silver back for the most part for all of the drilling opportunity. The -- it's a ton of acreage, right along trend in the Yeso play. That's why we bought it. all of this other stuff with production optimization is just bonus in my book. Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Jeff Robertson with Water Tower Research. Jeffrey Robertson: Bobby, you talked about restarting the share repurchase program. Can you just talk about how that plan fits into your overall capital allocation with dividends, debt reduction potential for acquisitions? Bobby Riley: Yes. Thanks for the question, Jeff. It basically is just another tool in our tool test to where we look for being opportunistic. If we feel like the share price, which we do is undervalued, it may be behooves to continue more aggressively in a share buyback. Obviously, in these accelerated prices, the returns we get on the drill bit are extremely great for us. So that may not lend to buy back at that particular time. But the fact that we're flexible and can spend our money either to stock buyback or development that's where we want to be. You saw from the comments and from the falls, I think we averaged the buyback around $26.50 a share or something like that. When the share price is out, I'm definitely buying. So I don't know if I answered your question, but basically, it's there and it's ready when we need it. And if we feel like the return is better on the share buyback than drilling, then that's what we're going to do. Jeffrey Robertson: John, in your comments, I think you said -- or maybe, Philip, you said you replaced 2/3 of the 2025 drilled locations for -- I wrote down less than $300,000 per location. Can you provide any color as to where those locations fit in the chart you have on Slide 5, where you talk about locations by return on investment. And then secondly to that, do you have a goal or an objective to how many locations you would like to replace that you'll drill in the 26 program? Philip Riley: I will attempt to answer that. Yes. So the locations, I'd say, they fall in kind of the middle of the 2 to 3x DRI. You're looking at just referencing Page 5 of our presentation, right third, we've got a chart in there. The lower tier there just for the benefit is a small section kind of on the perimeters of Red Lake, but most of our stuff is great, and we're excited about it. This that we got was we think nice down the fairway type of locations, just under a dozen there. So we're thrilled to do that. This might be a Bobby answer, but I'll attempt it. Look, our goal is to would replace as much as we can. If we could replace 100%, then that's fantastic, right? And in a depletion business, you've got to have something like that, to some degree, the closer you can get to 1x or 100%, that's great. So we're thrilled with 60% last year. Now of course, it was easier coming off of putting on 18 wells versus 40, but we're always out there looking for things. You've seen us have an active A&D track record so far. We'll do the best we can. Bobby Riley: Yes. Let me add a little bit to that. we're focusing this year with our land group where we kind of restructured it to 1 of our key focus is going to be what we call the ground game, which is this is not going out and buy a competitor. This is actually just digging in and adding acreage in and around our existing footprint. And the goal would be to replace 100% of what we drill every year or more. And I think we have that opportunity in New Mexico. We're executing a few of those opportunities in our legacy Yokee this month as we speak. We're a little bit more limited there on where we think the rock creates opportunity than we are in New Mexico. But that's 1 of our big focuses this year is going to be what we call the ground game and executing that. replacing our drilling inventory at least 100% with the bolt-ons. Jeffrey Robertson: And Philip, you all Riley signed an agreement with WaterBridge, which I believe takes effect in September of 2026. Will that agreement with respect to saltwater disposal, lower your cost? Will it just improve efficiencies in the Red Lake area? Or how do you -- how should -- how do you characterize that the benefit of that. John Suter: Yes. This is John. It's going to increase our cost. But what it does is it allows for full-scale development the rest of the way for this field. So it's -- we did an agreement, I would say, at industry standard rates, and we're really pleased with it. But more than any kind of minor efficiency, it's just like the target is for gas. It's to allow full field development without having to worry if there's any capacity somewhere. Philip Riley: And let me just add on in that what we hope to achieve is that we're managing the costs over time and that we achieve, at the same time, as some of those water bridge costs are impacting us, we get overall efficiencies just with the scale as a larger percentage of the Red Lake production becomes horizontal, which is much higher margin, lower cost versus right now, you've got some component of that that's just, frankly, the vertical that was holding the land, it's how we got it from a seller, right? John Suter: Right. And we do have a lot of undedicated acreage at this point. So we still have flexibility for future options as well. Jeffrey Robertson: And lastly, Philip, you spoke about hedges for 2026. Given the shape of the curve today where you've got for 2027 prices, I think your oil are in the mid-60s. Can you just provide any color on how you're thinking about hedging in a volatile market. Philip Riley: Yes. So we talk about it approximately 27 times a day and then think about it through the night. We've been through years of volatility, right? We're trying to position ourselves and protect the program ahead. Our philosophy historically is when we've got higher capital obligations and debt loads, then we might benefit from the hedging. We had that as of December. We don't now. But since you hedge in advance, absent liquidating some of those, we have those on the books and I mentioned this in my prepared remarks, we also entered the year with everybody calling for a surplus and $50 or $55 WTI. So we're happy with where we are. We be happy to write a check to the hedge counterparties if oil is at 70% for many months. We're not holding our breath, and we don't need that to execute on our plan. Like I said, 2/3 of the hedges this year are in the form of swaps with the balance in collars, the callers kind of have a range of weighted average, call it, 58 to 72%. And so we feel good about that. There's plenty of room in there to make some margin. We -- last thing I'll say is we remember what it was like coming out of COVID in 2020 or coming out in 2021 with the prices rising, and we enjoyed that seeing the daylight and getting that, but we have to be careful to hedge too much as we monitor the cost environment and John's group has to react to potentially changing service costs. Now I think we're in a different environment, and we don't hope to see the same type of of inflation across the board like we did then, which I think was also related to the Fed printing money and so forth. But anyway, that's kind of a long answer of saying we're quite hedged. We feel fine about it. We've got a lot of volumes to work with. We can always do more. We could do less, but feeling good on the setup for now. Bobby Riley: Jeff, let me -- this is Bobby. Let me follow up, just to give you a little bit more color on your question on our kind of our ground game and our inventory. One of the things that we're doing here with our subsurface team is really looking at the way our completions in New Mexico through microseismic through different tracer surveys to where we optimize what our wine rack looks like, so to speak. I mean, right now, we have a very conservative approach of about 5 wells, 3 in 1 bench and 2 and another bench. But we're kind of going to where we're going to add a whole another bench in the San Andres and some of our acreage and then modifying possibly by adding a well or 2 per section in the wine rack that we have right now. So that's going to organically increase our well count considerably. When we get to finalizing that. I don't I do know there will be an increase. I don't know just how impactful it will be, but it will move the needle there. John Suter: Yes. And that spacing you were mentioning is 320. Jeffrey Robertson: Yes. Okay. Those would be locations added on existing acreage. So there's really no incremental cost. Bobby Riley: No incremental cost in the acreage, that's correct. Operator: This concludes the question-and-answer session and our call today. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.
Operator: Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Endeavour Mining's Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Results Webcast. [Operator Instructions] Today's conference call is being recorded, and a transcript of the call will be available on Endeavour's website tomorrow. I would now like to hand the call over to Endeavour's Vice President of Investor Relations, Jack Garman. Please go ahead. Jack Garman: Hello, everyone, and welcome to Endeavour's Q4 and Full Year 2025 Results Webcast. Before we start, please note our usual disclaimer. On the call today, I'm delighted to be joined by Ian Cockerill, Chief Executive Officer; Guy Young, Chief Financial Officer; and Djaria Traore, Executive Vice President of Operations and ESG. Today's call will follow our usual format. Ian will first go through the highlights of the quarter and the year, Guy will present the financials, and Djaria will walk through our operating results by mine before handing back to Ian for his closing remarks. We'll then open the line up for questions. With that, I'll now hand over to Ian. Ian Cockerill: Thank you, Jack, and hello to everyone who's joining us on the call today. Now 2025 was an outstanding year for Endeavour, in which we delivered a strong operational performance and record financial results. Over the course of the year, we produced 1.2 million ounces at an all-in sustaining cost of $1,433 per ounce. We achieved the top half of our production guidance with costs in line with the guided range on a royalty adjusted basis, and our safety record remained sector-leading. Our strong operational performance, coupled with higher gold prices, translated directly into free cash flow. We generated a record $1.2 billion of free cash flow, and that's equivalent to over $955 for every ounce of gold that we produced. This cash generation enabled us to quickly deleverage our balance sheet to just 0.07x net debt to EBITDA by year-end, which is well below our through-the-cycle target of 0.5x, positioning us to significantly increase shareholder returns and invest in our exciting organic growth pipeline. For 2025, we returned a record $435 million to shareholders, and that's equivalent to $360 for every ounce of gold that we produced and 93% above our minimum commitment for the year. That's truly a sector-leading return. And looking forward, we are already increasing returns with a commitment to over $1 billion minimum dividend over the next 3 years that we expect to supplement assuming current gold prices with at least another $1 billion of additional dividends and share buybacks. Importantly, shareholders are not the only stakeholders benefiting from our strong performance. We also contributed $2.8 billion to our host countries, and that includes $919 million of direct contributions to our host governments, and we significantly increased our in-country procurement spend, reiterating our commitment to our in-country partners and strengthening the resilience of our business. As we transition into a phase of increased focus on organic growth, we continue to advance the Assafou feasibility study towards completion, which is expected in a few weeks, and the key environmental and exploitation permits have already been approved, and that significantly derisks our time line to first gold, which is targeted to H2 2028. Our exploration program discovered 1.5 million ounces this year at Assafou, Sabodala and Ity. And while we didn't fully replenish reserves, we are strengthening our exploration pipeline to ensure that we sustainably replace reserves, resources and production depletion as part of our 5-year exploration program as well as adding new high-return growth projects into our pipeline. We started 2026 with a strong operating momentum, and we will remain disciplined as we accelerate organic growth and shareholder returns, delivering on our strategic objectives. On Slide 7, in 2025, we show how we increased production by 10% year-over-year, driven by the full year contribution from our Sabodala-Massawa BIOX plant and the Lafigué projects. More importantly, at a realized gold price of $3,244 an ounce, our all-in sustaining margin expanded dramatically to $1,811 per ounce. That's up 60%, 6-0 percent from 2024. Our track record of achieving guidance speaks for itself, and we were pleased to extend that track record in 2025. That means we've now achieved or beaten guidance 12x over the last 13 years. That demonstrates our operational excellence and the high quality of our diversified portfolio. Looking at the year ahead on Slide 9. Group production is forecast to remain relatively stable as increased production at our Sabodala-Massawa mine will be partially offset by a planned lower production at our Houndé and Lafigué mines, which are entering a short phase of lower grades associated with higher stripping activity. All-in sustaining costs are expected to increase primarily due to the cost impact of this phase at Houndé and Lafigué. We'll also see the impact of the increase in Côte d'Ivoire sliding scale royalty rates from 6% to 8% and a weaker dollar-euro ForEx assumption for the year. Nevertheless, we'll continue to generate exceptional margins, and we expect to see cost improvements from 2027 as Houndé and then Lafigué complete their current phases of stripping and transition back into higher-grade material. As shown on Slide 10, we're firmly on track to achieve our 2030 production target of 1.5 million ounces, representing a 27% organic growth from this year. This growth will be driven by the targeted addition of production from Assafou [indiscernible] growth that will be coming from Sabodala-Massawa. At Sabodala-Massawa, we continue to drive improvements in BIOX's throughput and recovery rates. And in the second half of the year, we are starting some underground development to support high-grade underground ore through the CIL plant. Importantly, we expect to achieve this growth while improving all-in sustaining costs, positioning us again in the lower quartile by 2030. Our production growth last year, combined with strong gold prices supported record operating cash flow and record free cash flow of $1.2 billion in 2025. So that's equivalent to $955 of free cash flow for every ounce of gold produced, and we'll continue to maximize cash flow for every ounce of gold we produce. We're chasing margins and not just chasing ounces. This strong cash flow helped rapidly deleverage our balance sheet that Guy will walk us through shortly. The free cash flow outlook for '26 is strong with us well positioned relative to our gold peers due to stable production and CapEx year-on-year. The completion of our hedging program and improved gold prices. Importantly, the gold mining sector is still good value for money relative to other sectors. On Slide 13, for the year, we returned a record $435 million to shareholders, as I said, $360 for every ounce that we produced. Now since we started paying shareholder returns 5 years ago, we have returned $1.6 billion or 83% above our minimum commitment, and we have increased dividends per share and total returns per ounce produced every year, a trend we expect to continue in this higher gold price environment. As shown on Slide 16, our '25 returns compared very favorably with our peers, both on a per ounce basis as well as in terms of yield. While the gold sector has not historically delivered an attractive yield compared to other sectors, we see that changing, and we want to maintain -- to remain a sector leader so that we're not just attractive for gold investors, but appeal to a wider investment base that seeks reliable yield in a macro landscape of rate declines. In January, we announced our updated shareholder return program for '26 through '28. We will return a minimum of $1 billion dividend over '26-'28, and that's based on the assumption of a gold price of $3,000 per ounce and similar to our previous program, at higher gold prices, we'll supplement that minimum. As I mentioned, we've paid 83% above the minimum over the past 5 years, and we'll do that -- and with gold prices where they currently are, we expect total returns to more than double our minimum commitment over the next 3 years. Moving on to growth and our flagship Assafou project on Slide 18. We're progressing very well, and the project remains on track with key environmental and exploration permits now approved, and that significantly derisks the project pipeline. The feasibility study mine plan is expected to be well aligned with the pre-feasibility study plan and the feasibility study will incorporate higher CapEx due to optimizations following additional grade control drilling results, a more scalable processing plant design that can be expanded in future and an extended road and power line diversion, which is aligned with both community and government requirements, which will bring slightly higher initial capital costs. More detail on the feasibility study will be released at the end of this quarter as we formally announce the results of our feasibility study in a separate stand-alone presentation. On Slide 19, I wanted to highlight some resource expansion and permit consolidation that we have been busy with at Assafou and across the wider belt. We increased measured and indicated resources by 13%, largely thanks to the maiden resource at Pala Trend 3, which is the first satellite target that we've defined at Endeavour. Now while the resource is initially quite small, it is less than 2 kilometers away from Assafou. It's over 1.5 grams per tonne of oxide material that starts from surface. So it supports significantly increased operating flexibility at Assafou, and we expect it to be the first of many satellite resources that will ultimately support the upside at Assafou. Our strategic partner, Koulou Gold, has also successfully acquired the permit to the south of Assafou in addition to their permit to the East, helping to consolidate this highly prospective underexplored belt. Exploration has been our most significant value creator over the last 10 years. We have now discovered more than 22 million ounces of measured and indicated resource for a discovery cost of less than $25 per ounce, including discoveries of the cornerstone Lafigué and Assafou deposits. This year, we discovered 1.5 million ounces at Assafou, Sabodala-Massawa and Ity, which only partially offset the production depletion and model optimizations that took place across the balance of our portfolio. Over the next 5 years, we are targeting the discovery of between 12 million to 15 million ounces of measured, indicated and inferred resource. That target comprises 6 million to 9 million ounces at our existing operations to replace production depletion and up to 6 million ounces from greenfield resources, including the potential discovery of up to 2 or 3 new projects focused on strengthening and diversifying our long-term greenfield pipeline. As outlined on Slide 22, despite Endeavour's strong performance and strong outlook that is underpinned by substantial organic growth, we still have a compelling value proposition, not only amongst gold peers, but across most other sectors as well. As we continue to deliver consistently, invest in sector-leading organic growth and deliver sector-leading returns while retaining our disciplined approach to capital allocation, we expect to unlock even more value. As a long-term partner in West Africa, our resilience is underpinned by our ability to continue to deliver value to all our stakeholders. In 2025 alone, we contributed $2.8 billion to host economies, including $919 million in payments to host governments in the form of taxes, royalties and dividends and $270 million in wages and $1.6 billion on procurement at in-country. We also maintained our strong ESG track record, which is a reflection of our consistent commitment to excellence in ESG, and this is best shown in our impact over the last 5 years. Since 2021, we've delivered more than $11 billion in total economic contribution, including $3.3 billion to host governments and $6.6 billion in local procurement. Beyond this economic contribution, we have made tangible impacts to local livelihoods through our social investments, including providing 55,000 people with access to quality health care, 38,000 children with educational support and nearly 10,000 people with economic development opportunities. Generating shared value that benefits all our stakeholders is key to sustaining our success, and I encourage you to view our sustainability report that we've published today. And with that introduction, please let me hand you over to Guy, who will take you through the financials in more details. Over to you, Guy. Guy Young: Thank you, Ian, and hello, everyone. As Ian mentioned, 2025 was an exceptional year financially for Endeavour with record results across all key metrics. We produced 1.2 million ounces at an all-in sustaining cost of $1,433 per ounce, or $1,305 per ounce when adjusted for gold price-driven royalties. With a realized gold price of $3,244 per ounce, we generated record adjusted EBITDA of $2.3 billion, up 75% year-over-year and adjusted net earnings of $782 million, up 244% year-over-year. Free cash flow reached another record $1.2 billion, up 269% from 2024. Turning to Slide 25. For the fourth quarter specifically, production increased by 34,000 ounces to 298,000 ounces due to higher grades across the portfolio, in line with the mine sequence. Our all-in sustaining margin also increased to $2,225 per ounce, a $547 increase compared to the prior quarter due to improved gold prices. On Slide 26, we can see that the improved gold price translated into a 46% increase in adjusted EBITDA for Q4 as we generated $681 million with our adjusted EBITDA margin also increasing quarter-on-quarter. The higher EBITDA naturally drove an improvement in operating cash flow, as shown on Slide 27. Our operating cash flow in Q4 was up 97% from Q3 to $609 million, benefiting from the higher Q4 production, higher realized gold prices and seasonally lower tax -- sorry, cash taxes. The operating cash flow bridge on Slide 28 shows the key drivers of the $300 million increase from Q3 to Q4. The realized gold price increased by $626 per ounce, which added $208 million of operating cash flow. Gold sales increased by 44,000 ounces, contributing a further $156 million. Cash operating expenses were up $177 million due to increased production, increased royalties due to gold prices and increased royalty rates in Côte d'Ivoire. Income taxes paid decreased by $44 million due to the seasonality of cash tax payments and the typically lower payments in Q4. And working capital improved by $69 million as the buildup of inventories and VAT receivables slowed and was offset by a slight increase in payables at the end of the year. I highlighted that we were expecting to see improvements in our working capital last quarter. And pleasingly, Q4 was a significant improvement over Q3. This year, we're expecting this to improve further. We expect to further reduce inventory as we start drawing down on stockpiles at Lafigué and Houndé as we will be relying on stockpiles to support the mill feed during H1 as we concentrate on stripping at both sites, in line with mining sequence. And we expect our VAT receivables to also improve as the timing of the VAT recovery cycle normalizes in Côte d'Ivoire and Senegal. And in Burkina Faso, we will continue to convert our VAT receivables into marketable debt instruments and sell them on the open market. Free cash flow in Q4 reached a record $476 million, up 187% from Q3, driven by the stronger production, higher gold prices and lower seasonal taxes. For the full year, free cash flow was $1.156 billion, up 269% from 2024, marking a significant inflection in our cash generation capability following the completion of our last growth phase. It is pleasing to be converting strong operational performance into free cash flow, and we are effectively and efficiently upstreaming that cash to support our increasing shareholder returns. Last year, with great support from our host nations within the West African Economic Union and the Central Bank of West African State, we successfully upstreamed $1.2 billion, leveraging our annual cash upstreaming model, which serves us and our in-country stakeholders very well as it provides early visibility on cash movements, foreign exchange requirements and minority interest dividend and withholding tax quantum. Moving on to Slide 30. The change in net debt bridge on the slide shows how we are able to rapidly deleverage the balance sheet. We started Q3 with net debt of $453 million and generated operating cash flow of $609 million. After investing activities of $133 million and financing activities, including dividends and buybacks of $181 million, we ended the quarter with net debt of just $158 million. This represents a comfortable leverage level of only 0.07x, down from 0.21x at the end of Q3 and well below our through-the-cycle target of 0.5x. We reduced our net debt by $574 million and also reduced our gross debt by $511 million last year, leaving us with over $1.1 billion of liquidity available through our cash on hand and our undrawn RCF. Finally, turning to earnings on Slide 31. I won't go through every line item, but just a few of the highlights. We generated $665 million of earnings from mine operations for Q4. We recorded $193 million of impairments, largely across exploration properties, including, in particular, Bantou, Nabanga and Kalana, as we don't expect to do any exploration work in the near term and don't see potential for Endeavour type assets at any of these properties. Other expenses increased to $44 million. This does include $37 million of incremental royalties for 2025 at our Ity and Lafigué mines in Côte d'Ivoire, where the royalty rates for 2025 were retroactively increased from 6% to 8%. The net losses on financial instruments of $62 million were mainly due to realized losses on gold collars, partially offset by unrealized gains on marketable securities. Last year, the tail end of our hedging program created a significant headwind to our earnings and our free cash flow. Given the strong gold price environment in particular, pleasingly, this year, we are fully unhedged and expect to realize the full benefits of this favorable gold price environment. During the quarter, we recognized a $52 million deferred tax recovery in the quarter as deferred tax liabilities decreased following the impairment of our exploration properties, which I referenced earlier. And adjusted net earnings reached $293 million or $0.93 per share for the quarter. Thank you, and I'd like to hand you over to Djaria. Djaria Traore: Thank you, Guy, and hello, everyone. Before discussing our operating results, I want to start with safety, which remains our top priority. I'm pleased to report that we've maintained our industry-leading safety performance in 2025 with a long-term injury frequency rate of just 0.07, which position us as one of the safest operators in the gold mining sector. Before turning to the mine-by-mine review, I wanted to touch on our reserve and resource evolution. During 2025, our P&P reserve decreased by 10% or 1.8 million ounces to 16.6 million ounces, driven by 1.4 million ounces of production depletion and the optimizations of several of our reserve models to incorporate updated cost assumptions. The decrease was partially offset by an increase in reserves gold price from $1,500 per ounce to $1,900 per ounce. However, we have not realized the full benefit of this increase as we have not yet updated the pit shells at Sabodala-Massawa and Ity mines. And the full benefit of the higher gold prices is expected to be realized next year when these pit shells are updated. M&I resources also decreased slightly by 4% or 1.1 million ounces to 25 million ounces, which is due to 1.6 million ounces of depletion and resource model optimizations, which was partially offset by 1.5 million ounces of discoveries at Assafou, Sabodala-Massawa and Ity. As part of our new exploration strategy, we are focused on replacing production depletion at our existing assets, while adding up to 6 million ounces of resources at new greenfield projects to support our long-term growth -- organic growth. On Slide 35, you can see an overview of our portfolio performance and the 2026 outlook. In 2025, we've achieved a production growth across Sabodala-Massawa, Mana and Lafigué, while production was lower at Houndé and Ity mines. Looking ahead to 2026, we expect further production growth at Sabodala-Massawa due to continued improvement through the BIOX plant. This increase will be offset by lower production at Houndé and Lafigué, where, as Ian mentioned earlier, we will be mining and processing lower grades and prioritizing waste stripping. All-in sustaining costs are expected to increase this year, largely due to an increased focus on waste stripping at Houndé and Lafigué, which will lead to the processing of lower grade ore and a reliance on stockpiles to supplement the feed. In addition to that, the higher royalty rates in Côte d'Ivoire and the lower USD euro ForEx has driven our all-in sustaining cost guidance higher. We expect costs to start to improve next year as this phase of stripping is completed at Houndé and Lafigué. On a longer term, we are tracking well towards our 1.5 million ounces target by 2030. And as we incorporate higher grade at Sabodala-Massawa, Houndé and Assafou in the coming years, we expect to be in the first cost quartile when we got to that 1.5 million ounces target. On Slide 36, with Sabodala-Massawa, we've delivered a strong performance in 2025, achieving the top half of our production guidance range with costs within the guidance range on a royalty adjusted basis. Production increased 20% year-on-year as the BIOX plant had a full year of production. We expect to see further increases this year as the BIOX throughput continues to increase, targeting 15% above design nameplate, while recoveries continue to improve towards the 85% target. At the same time, we are starting to develop the Golouma underground deposit to incorporate the high-grade non-refractory underground ore into the mine plan from 2027, and that's supporting a continued production growth and cost improvement. Moving to Houndé on Slide 37, where we've achieved near the top end of our production guidance range last year with cost beating guidance on a royalty adjusted basis. The strong performance was largely due to higher grade from the Kari Pump pit. As Ian mentioned earlier, Houndé will focus on waste stripping at the Vindaloo deposit this year. And as a result, we will be mining lower grade and drawing down on stockpile to supplement the mine ore feed, which result in a slightly lower production and higher costs. As stripping advances, we expect to see grade and costs improve through the year and notably into next year 2027. Longer term, we are excited by the underground potential at Houndé, and we expect to declare a maiden resource for the large high-grade Vindaloo Deep deposit during H1 this year. At Ity on Slide 38, we've achieved the top half of our production guidance with costs in line with the range, supported by strong mill throughput that has benefited from the use of supplemented mobile crushers. Production is expected to be stable year-on-year, while costs will be higher due to a slight increase in sustaining capital related to waste stripping at Ity, Zia and the Le Plaque pit. but as well as the increase in sliding scale royalty rates in Côte d'Ivoire from 6% to 8%. At Mana on Slide 39, as expected at Mana, the accelerated development rates improved access to higher grade underground stopes, supporting a stronger production in the later part of last year. As a result, we've achieved the top half of our production guidance, while costs were above the top end of the range, reflecting an increased development and costs, which were associated with the contractor changeover. This year, production at Mana is expected to be stable as underpinned by improved development rates from our consolidated single contractor underground mining model, coupled with a small volume of open pit feed in the mine plan. These 2 elements are expected to support an improved throughput year-on-year, which will largely offset the impact of slightly lower grade in the mine sequence. We are continuing to work on improving cost at Mana, prioritizing improvement in grid connection, power stability as well as underground mining productivity. Finally, turning to Lafigué on Slide 40. We've achieved our production guidance with -- above the top end of the range due to higher mining volumes required to support the improved processing throughput rate as the plant continued to deliver well above design nameplate. For 2026, similar to Houndé, Lafigué will be prioritizing stripping activities to improve access to higher-grade ore. The mill feed will be supplemented with lower grade stockpile material, which combined with the increase in sliding scale rates of royalty in Côte d'Ivoire is expected to result in slightly production and higher costs year-on-year. Thank you, everyone. I'm now handing back to Ian for the closing remarks. Ian Cockerill: Thank you, Djaria. Now as we look ahead, we're extremely well positioned to continue creating value for all of our stakeholders. Given our strong operational outlook and high gold prices, we expect to generate very strong free cash flow, which given our low leverage will be used to deliver sector-leading organic growth and sector-leading shareholder returns. So thank you for listening. And now let me hand you back to the operator, and let's open up for Q&A. Thank you. Operator: [Operator Instructions] And we take our first question, and it comes from the line of Alain Gabriel from Morgan Stanley. Alain Gabriel: Ian, I have a couple of questions. First, can you confirm on your capital allocation that you are thinking about $1 billion of supplemental buybacks and special dividends above and beyond the minimum $1 billion that you have set? And if so, what are the next milestones, time lines and signposts to unlocking these additional returns? Is it the AGM? Is it the Q1 results? How should we be thinking about it? That's my first question. Ian Cockerill: Okay. Thanks, Alain. Yes, look, just for clarity, we said that the $1 billion over 3 years is the minimum that we'll be sort of targeting to hand out to shareholders. That assumes the maintaining a minimum gold price of $3,000 an ounce. What I was saying is that if you take current spot prices, the very real prospect of an additional $1 billion, and that will be made up of supplementary cash dividends as well as buybacks. And the buybacks will continue on an opportunistic basis, and they will form part of that additional $1 billion. Alain Gabriel: On that question, on the second part of your question -- of your answer, is it -- should we wait for the AGM for an authorization for the next leg of the buyback? Or what are the next milestones that we should be waiting for? Ian Cockerill: No, sorry. Yes, I should have been a little bit clearer there. No, look, I mean, we've already decided there's not a fixed number in terms of buybacks. It is going to be opportunistic. It will follow what we have done previously. Buybacks form part of the broader capital allocation framework, prioritizing where we get best return on our investment. And as and when we see the opportunity to affect a buyback and get the sort of returns that we're looking for, they will happen automatically. So there's no further sort of approvals needed because in principle, it's already been agreed that we should be doing it. Guy Young: Sorry, Alain. I was just going to add, I don't think you should expect that at the AGM, we'll come out and revise the shareholder returns program per se. Your first clear indication is going to be probably at the time that we're declaring the next dividend. So we're effectively saying we see our way clear at these gold prices. But what we will be waiting for is effectively a period in which, for example, the first half, we've earned that cash, and therefore, we will look to distribute to shareholders, and that would be the dividend declaration. But we're not looking to revise the shareholder returns program through the period. Alain Gabriel: Very clear. And my second question is on Assafou. I think, Ian, in your presentation as well, you touched on the cost being slightly higher than initially anticipated, but also the size of the project resources is also expanding, continues to expand. Can you give us some preliminary hints or indications as to the scale of the increase in CapEx? And given what you've learned in the last few months on production and profile -- the production profile and the economics, anything that you can give us in advance of the full feasibility study that you expect to release before the end of the quarter? Ian Cockerill: Yes. No, look, I'm not going to be sort of specific. The increases are not out of the ordinary. They are linked as much to changes in scope for the project, some subtle design changes. We've picked up on, say, for instance, Lafigué because obviously, Assafou is very much the fundamental design is predicated on what we have at Lafigué. But also on what we've learned at Lafigué, what went well, what didn't go so well and having looked globally at other projects using sort of HPGRs and making sure that for instance, our comminution circuits are fit for purpose, robust and are going to work well. So there is modest increases. I mean, escalation is there. I think everyone is seeing cost creep on these things. So we will be in a position by the end of this month to have finalized the numbers, but it would be premature to give you the sort of even an indication at this stage. But the number will be going up, but not dramatically. Operator: And the next question comes from the line of Ovais Habib from Scotiabank. Ovais Habib: Congrats on a solid year. Just a couple of quick questions from me. You already answered the question on Assafou CapEx, so that's all good. But just moving on to -- and keeping on Assafou, maybe talking about Pala Trend 3. It looks like good oxide resource there, good grades there. Will this be included in the DFS? And if not, would it be safe to assume that these ounces will come into the mine plan in the front end of the mine life? Ian Cockerill: Yes, Ovais, look, again, just for clarity, no, they will -- Pala Trend 3 ounces are not included in the feasibility study. But because it's -- as we said, it's very, very close to the actual mine and to the plant, it's oxide material. It's there almost as should we call it, an emergency backup. So it just gives you greater sort of mining optionality and flexibility. But we're seeing even more sort of resource in and around and in close proximity to the plant. So it's the upside over and above the basic mine plan, it's more than just Pala Trend 3. There are other satellite deposits in close proximity to the plant that will ultimately be included and will form part of the natural, should we call it, evolution and expansion of this plant as we get it up and running, as we debottleneck, as we start to probably operate beyond the 5 million tonnes, we don't need to include them in the feasibility study, but they will form, I think, a natural sort of upside to the project and probably will be in the early part of the project because it's so convenient to get it close by. Ovais Habib: And just again, as you were talking about those other satellite targets that you guys are probably targeting, I mean, is this Sonia targeting those areas right now in the 2026 drilling program? Or is this more going to be more once production starts, then you'll continue doing more exploration around the area? Ian Cockerill: We haven't really stopped from the time that we started doing all the exploration drilling around there, Ovais. So it's not as if we've got to start doing it. These are projects that have already been identified. Some of them we've done some initial scout drilling, some more advanced than others. I think what I'm really basically trying to say is that this is -- it's a permissive area. There's lots of opportunity, and it forms a natural sort of extension to the existing broader regional program in and around Assafou. Ovais Habib: Perfect. And I don't know if Sonia is online, but just wanted to see if -- where she is most excited about this 2026 exploration program. Ian Cockerill: Look, she's not here at the moment. But what I can tell you is that we've been doing a lot of very interesting work at Sabodala. We've been applying a lot of -- doing some lot of AI work on that permit. We've identified a significant number of targets, applying this technique over our existing deposits. It identified 99% of the deposits that we already know about. So the fact that we've got a very interesting number of new projects gives me a lot of hope that we'll be finding some more stuff. Effectively, what we've done, Ovais, is we started to join the dots because we -- as you know, we've got lots of deposits in and around. But our knowledge and understanding of how they all interconnect has been somewhat disjointed. We're starting to fill in the gaps in our knowledge. So we're very excited for '26 about what's there. And then we're going to take this technique and this technology. We're applying it to Ity South as well as Ity Maine. And we'll also apply it on our East Star joint venture in Kazakhstan, where we've got a massive area. So using this technology to help us zero in on target areas as opposed to just trying to cover the whole area makes a huge amount of sense. So lots of prospect. The other area more immediately is Vindaloo Deeps at Houndé. Now we are very, very close to sort of publishing the results of that study. It wasn't quite ready in time for this year's declaration. But there's going to be not far short of 1 million ounces going into resource at Vindaloo Deeps, that's high grade, good quality. I know that, Djaria, I can't wait to get our hands on that. Ovais Habib: Sounds good. And my last question, just moving on to Sabodala. Djaria mentioned that you're developing Golouma to come into production in 2027. Are there any other satellites that could come into production in the near term to improve the oxide production oxide production? Djaria Traore: Thank you, Ovais. I think, yes, as you mentioned, we will be starting -- I think we're currently busy finalizing the commercial decisions, which contractors select for Sabodala. So that should be done sometime by the end of quarter 1, so that we can start mobilizing equipment into H2 of this year. We expect that next year we'll be in and around development to start seeing the first ounces sometimes in 2028, really, which is really the high-grade ore that we needed for the CIL plant. We are working very closely with Sonia, obviously, to see, as Ian just mentioned, what are the other targets that we can see in and around Sabodala-Massawa. So I'm sure that the next call, we'll be able to start giving you some hints in that as well. Operator: And now we're going to take our next question. And the question comes from the line of Fahad Tariq from Jefferies. Fahad Tariq: Apologies if I missed this. Can you walk through the thought process of using $3,000 an ounce gold to set 2026 guidance? Ian Cockerill: It was simply a question of choose a number. The classical approach that we have taken historically is that we give forward guidance on our dividend program. We select a number and then based against our anticipated production and cost profile, we know what our cash generation should be. We're comfortable in guaranteeing that sort of number. And then over and above that, that's when we say there will be supplemental returns as well. So 3,000 was just chosen as a number. We could have taken another number, but we felt comfortable with 3,000 over the next 3 years. And it's an indication to investors if you've got that sort of gold price environment, that's what you should anticipate should be coming your way in the form of dividends as a guaranteed. Fahad Tariq: Okay. And then maybe just -- my question is more on just setting the cost guidance in particular. Maybe let me ask a different way. If I think about the year-over-year increase in the AISC guidance from 2025-2026, how much of that would be the higher royalty structure versus the increased waste stripping at Houndé and Lafigué? I'm just trying to get a sense of how AISC could potentially come down in 2027 once the stripping is complete? Guy Young: Let me try and answer. The 3,000, is obviously relatively conservative in terms of current spot prices. But we do like to use fairly conservative gold pricing for budget purposes and cost control in the first instance. When it comes to, I think, the second part of your question, which was '25-'26, if you take a look at the overall cost per ounce increase, roughly 15% of that is made up of royalty rate increases and foreign exchange. The remainder is effectively down to the mine sequencing, which includes a proportion of stripping activities at Houndé and Lafigué, which we mentioned, as well as the cost of stockpile drawdown. And those 2 factors combined constitute about 85% of that cost increase. Operator: And the next question comes from the line of Marina Calero Ródenas from RBC Capital Markets. Marina Calero Ródenas: I have a couple of questions. The first one is on your reserves. You mentioned that Ity and Sabodala are -- don't have the reserves calculated using the $1,900 per ounce price. I was wondering if you could give us a bit more details about that? And how will your group reserves look like if those prices were used across the entire portfolio? Ian Cockerill: Sorry, Marina, I didn't get -- it's a bit garbled. Could you repeat the question again, please? Marina Calero Ródenas: Is now better? Can you hear me now? Ian Cockerill: Yes. Yes, that sounds much better. Marina Calero Ródenas: Okay. Sorry about that. I was just asking you about your 2025 reserve statement. I noticed that you're not using the $1,900 price for Sabodala and Ity. So I was just wondering if you could give us a bit more color about that and how your group reserves will look like if the same prices were used across the entire portfolio. Ian Cockerill: Yes. Sorry. Now I understand the question. Look, I think what we have to recognize is that last year, there was a massive dislocation on gold prices. For us to get to produce truly accurate answers about reserves, you actually have to change pit shells, the pit shells also have to align. It's not just a question of changing the prices. And to be honest, we just -- for the 2 mines that you mentioned, at Sabodala and Ity, we just didn't have a chance to do the changes in the pit shells. They will take place later on this year. What I -- and from that, we'll see what changes have taken place. What we are seeing, though, and this is a very sort of generic statement rather than anything specific about these 2 operations. is that the intrinsic quality of our reserve base and the relatively flat grade tonnage curves that we've got from our operations means that major changes in the gold price doesn't necessarily have a significant impact on our reserves either going up or going down. But we still need to do the proper engineering with the correct price pit shells, and we simply just didn't get around -- didn't have the time to get around to doing it for those 2 specific mines, but it will be done later this year. And then as we update in the middle of the year, we'll see those changes coming through as we'll see also the updates coming through from Houndé, which we'll be able to produce fully [ queue feed ] resource and reserve statements there from Houndé as well. Marina Calero Ródenas: Just another question on costs. Can you comment on the main inflationary pressures that you're seeing? And maybe as an extension of that, why is the sensitivity of your all-in sustaining cost, if any, to the oil price? Guy Young: Sure. So on the first one, in terms of inflationary pressures, we've got somewhere in the region of 2/3 to 3/4 of our costs are effectively local denominated costs in [ CFA or XOF ]. That local currency is pegged to the euro. And as a result, we see relatively benign inflation for the vast majority of our cost base. If you break down the cost base into its key elements, you'll have labor, which in West Africa, we are very lucky to have a great supply of people, well-experienced people. And as a result, we haven't seen the level of labor inflation that is necessarily being seen in other territories around the world. Local inflation, I think, as a result of the pegging also means that the -- there isn't runaway local inflation that, again, you may see in other territories. So the fiscal discipline and policy of the Regional Central Bank fundamentally helps us from an inflationary perspective across the majority of our costs. In addition to that, we've obviously got medium, long-term contracts that help us manage over time associated with agreed to contractual rise and fall. So there, again, that's on our side rather than helping it from an inflationary perspective. More importantly, to the second part of your question, oil or energy represents a fairly significant proportion of our cost base as well. But it's important to note that the 3 host nations in which we're operating all have relatively strict sets of pricing mechanisms, whereby the vast majority of host nations are maintaining a very low level of volatility of fuel prices on the ground to international oil prices. So we have not seen either the highs or lows in terms of volatility that other countries have seen over the last number of years. On top of that, the vast majority of fuel that is supplied into West Africa is not coming from the Middle East. So our actual reliance in terms of security of supply is much more focused to Northwestern Europe and Africa itself. And consequently, when we look at oil shocks, we tend to see it more as a question of pricing rather than security of supply. But even with that pricing, because of the government's pricing mechanisms, volatility is not significant for us from an all-in sustaining cost perspective. Operator: Excuse me, Marina, any further questions? Marina Calero Ródenas: Not that I have. Operator: And the next question comes from the line of [ Alex Badawani ] from Stifel. Unknown Analyst: Just one simple question for me. So Guy, I want to pick up on something you alluded to earlier when you said Endeavour type assets when referring to the exploration impairments. At this point in time now, what constitutes an Endeavour type asset? And has that changed in the last couple of years? Guy Young: Thanks very much. No, it hasn't changed. So you're right, it was shorthand, but what we're talking about is the same key elements that we would have always described as an Endeavour type asset. So it's life of mine cost profile and size, i.e., annual production. They're the same. Unknown Analyst: And what sort of thresholds are we looking at? Is it minimum 250,000 ounces... Guy Young: Exactly. It's 250,000 ounces annual production. It's 10 years plus, and it's first quartile cost producer. Operator: Now we are going to take our next question. And the question comes from the line of Frederic Bolton from BMO Capital Markets. Frederic Bolton: So just 2 questions from me as has already answered them for me. So first on Koulou, given your 19% position in the company, should we think of that as a stake -- think of that stake primarily as an investment today? Or is that one that carries a longer-term strategic value in the portfolio? And then second question, given that there's been a bit of industry discussion around royalty rates in Côte d'Ivoire. When you think about the costs over the long term, what are the sort of key operational or financial levers you can mitigate or offset against the royalty pressures when you look at project economics? Ian Cockerill: Yes. Look, I mean, we've been involved in Koulou Gold for several years now. We think it's a very interesting project. I think everything that we saw right from the get-go, the more that the guys look, the more that we appreciate what's there. That whole southeastern corner of Côte d'Ivoire is turning into a very interesting from a geological perspective because it's not Birimian, it's not Tarkwaian. It's really the transition between the 2. So what you have is you have Birimian type grades, but you have Tarkwaian type, call it, size and scale. So it makes it a very, very interesting part of the world. At a 19% stake, we're comfortable with where we are. We have someone who sits on the Board, and we're watching very closely what is going on there. And we have good cooperation with Koulou. On the royalty, I'm going to pass you over to Guy. Guy has been very much involved with the discussions with the government on royalty. Guy, over to you. Guy Young: Thanks, Ian. I think your question around the royalties is more where are the opportunities to offset an increasing royalty environment. So is that the question? Frederic Bolton: Yes, that's the question. Yes. Guy Young: So I'll start off, and I'm sure Djaria may want to add here as well. But if we look at fundamental offsets, I would suggest it's probably in a couple of areas. The first and most obvious one is just day-to-day, month-to-month, year-to-year productivity gains. So we do whatever we can to be mining and processing on a more efficient basis. And we have a productivity program in place across sites that is going to play a partial role of offsetting the royalty cost. The other piece and the one that we're trying to talk about in today's slide deck is also just to maintain a perspective that we will continue to add higher grade options to our portfolio. And that's through obviously exploration in the first instance. But then through, as you mentioned earlier, investments in the likes of Koulou. The ability for us to do that from a diversification perspective and ensure that we are improving grade being fed into the mills is naturally going to be assisting us in terms of cost. And then one thing which I think is longer term, which I don't want us to lose sight of is new growth based on that exploration in West Africa comes at a lower capital intensity. So those 3 elements for me would be key offsets in West Africa in total, but specifically to your question in Côte d'Ivoire as well. Djaria Traore: If I can, just to add in there, just to reiterate what Guy had mentioned, is really for us in terms of operations to look at way of reducing mining costs. And that really goes through several opportunities initiatives that we're currently putting in place with the team on site. Obviously, we do know about the Ity doughnut. We also know about the Ity grand pit. What it allows us to do is to be able to look at different type of equipment, either bring in bigger equipment or just some mix of equipment so that we ensure that we optimize those costs. So that's one of the levers. The other ones in terms of our fixed plant is to ensure that we keep our throughput optimal, maximize it. And if we add capacity, just -- again, it's really to look at different initiatives to ensure that we are processing those ore high-grade ore that we have. And I think it's really, again, with the team to think outside of the box, what are different levers and different initiatives that we can put in place on a daily basis. Operator: Now we take our next question. And the question comes from the line of Mohamed Sidibe from National Bank. Mohamed Sidibe: And maybe if I could just follow up on the royalty rates and not necessarily in Côte d'Ivoire, but just if you could comment on anything that you may be seeing either in Burkina or Ivory Coast or Senegal as it relate to that pressure for potential higher royalty rates. We know that Côte d'Ivoire just went through, but any comments would be appreciated on the remainder of your portfolio. Ian Cockerill: Look, I mean, as far as Burkina is concerned, I mean, the royalty rates in Burkina are well established. We know there's a sliding scale -- they're getting towards the top end, but they are well known. As far as Senegal is concerned, Senegal has not changed its mining code for quite some time. And there's been a sort of some indication that they want to sort of change the mining code. We do, though, have a sort of a grandfathered project at Sabodala and that Sabodala-Massawa, that basically were grandfathered until 2040. So a mining convention. But if they want to change sort of royalty rates and what have you, that is usually outside of any sort of mining convention that we've got. At the moment, Senegal is lower in terms of the overall rates, much more favorable sort of overall taxation and royalty schemes than the other countries. There's been some suggestion ventilated about them wanting to change that. I would argue that it's likely that the trajectory overall would likely increase because that seems to be the move everywhere. It's not just here in West Africa, but even in other places around the world. So whilst we're not seeing or hearing anything definitive as yet, if it happened, it probably would not be a huge surprise. But as to quantum size, change or when, at this stage, totally unknown. Mohamed Sidibe: And then just my final question on your target for 2030 for 1.5 million ounces of production. I know that Assafou will be a big contributor to that. But could you maybe help us reconcile the potential contribution from Sabodala and Lafigué? Any color on those 2 would be appreciated. Ian Cockerill: Yes. Look, I mean, if you take the existing sort of 5 assets, you could probably sort of look at a relatively steady performance coming from Mana. Houndé would be sort of the mid-200s, maybe slightly higher than the mid-200s. Ity would be its steady level, plus/minus 300. We'll likely look at a higher output coming from Sabodala as part of the overall program, we were certainly targeting by sort of '28, '29 to be somewhere into the low to mid-300s. I think as an indicative number, that is the sort of target that we will be looking for. Lafigué, anywhere sort of guiding between sort of 180 and 200. And then you're coming in with Assafou, which in '28 and then '29. '29 will be the first targeted first full year of production, but not at full rate, but it will be in 2030 that we'll be getting the full rate at Assafou, which will be sort of in the low 300. Operator: We're going to take our last question for today, and it comes from the line of Daniel Major from UBS. Daniel Major: Can you hear me okay? Ian Cockerill: Yes. Daniel Major: Yes. First question is a follow-up on the first question actually around capital returns. Yes, encouraging to see the commitment to lifting cash returns. But if we looked at free cash flow from the business anywhere near to spot prices, you would significantly exceed $2 billion of free cash over the next 3 years. I guess the question is, is there a net debt target or net debt level at which you would make a commitment to shareholders to return 100% of free cash to -- in the form of dividends and buybacks? Ian Cockerill: Yes. I think we've said all along that through the cycle, we wanted a net debt target of 0.5. Clearly, when we're not in a build program, that net debt would virtually go down to 0, maybe even occasionally just flick over a little bit. During the build program, we'll be bumping up against our upper limit closer to 1x debt to EBITDA. When the time comes and assuming that we're in the fortunate position that we're generating huge amounts of cash, the way we structured our program gives us absolutely the flexibility to return as much as we can. If there is no other sensible use of our for our sort of free cash flow. And of course, it's going to go back to shareholders because it's shareholders' money after all. But what we've tried to do with our programs is give a base outline at the -- what we -- as Guy called them, sort of conservative yet rational levels. And then beyond that, as and when we generate the money, it will get dished out to shareholders. So I don't think there's any need for us to say, well, it's going to be 100% or even less than that. As the time comes, we'll see what we need to do the business because one of the last things we want -- we don't want to do is we don't want to come through a period of really good gold prices, just handing back all the money to shareholders and then making sure that our -- the business is not robust and resilient. As we come out the other side of this strong gold price, we want to make sure that we have a business, we have an asset base, which is in sound shape, and that may well require some additional capital injections in there. But again, everything will be done, assuming our normal sort of capital allocation program and making sure that we get the sort of returns that we're looking for as well. Daniel Major: Okay. And second one, just on the portfolio. Mana is the lowest quality of your assets. Would you consider disposing it if a good offer came in is the first question. And the second question, some assets in the region from one of the larger peers in Tanzania DRC may come to the market. Would you be interested in looking at any acquisitions in the region if they were to become available? Ian Cockerill: On Mana, first of all, we're always asked the question about it's our poorest asset. I would advise people just look at the cash generation of Mana. It's generating a lot of cash. It's more than adequately washing its space. If somebody wanted to come along and compensate us for that, yes, we are. As I said all along, all assets ultimately are up for sale. It is simply a question of is someone prepared to pay for it. But bluntly, Daniel, we haven't had people banging the door down saying we'd like to make an offer for Mana offer any other asset. And that's fine. I'm very happy to continue running those assets as long as they are contributing to the bottom line. As far as -- and if I understand the thrust of your second question in terms of potential inorganic opportunities. Over the last 2 to 3 years, we have looked at a variety of assets. all of which we have walked away from because they don't satisfy our return criteria. Does it mean that we are not going to do inorganic growth opportunities? Of course, not. We are in the fortunate position that we have got a very strong organic growth pipeline, and that is where our focus would be. But it is also appropriate for us to look outside of that. As and when opportunities arise, we can look at stuff. And if it makes sense, obviously, we would do it. But again, it has to be -- has to measure up and to be able to satisfy the sort of returns that we would be looking at as a group as a whole. Operator: Daniel, any further questions? Daniel Major: No, that's it. Operator: Dear speakers, there are no further questions for today. I would now like to hand the conference over to the management team for any closing remarks. Ian Cockerill: Thank you, operator, and thanks, everyone, for listening, and we look forward to reporting back when we do our Q1 results for 2026. Look forward to it then. Thanks very much indeed. Cheery-up. Bye-bye. Operator: This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now all disconnect. Have a nice day.
B. Bazin: Good morning. It is my pleasure today to present our 2025 results together with Maud Thuaudet, our CFO. Once again, we delivered a very strong performance in 2025. 2025 was the last year of our Grow & Impact plan, which has been a very clear success. We have demonstrated our capacity to execute year after year and deliver on strategic initiatives, value creation, margin and cash. Saint-Gobain is now an attractive business profile, thanks to our decisive portfolio optimization, which will, of course, will continue. We are positioned Saint-Gobain as the leader in sustainable construction, and we have achieved all the financial targets that we had set at our 2021 Capital Markets Day. Here are a few examples of Saint-Gobain solutions being used around the world in iconic residential or nonresidential buildings, such as this inspiring resort in Saudi Arabia. On infrastructure also, we have provided, for instance, 17 solutions at the new Noida airport in Delhi in India, bringing clear benefits in terms of climate resilience, regulatory compliance and fire safety. In 2025, our teams have once again delivered very well against very different market backdrops. Europe improved in the second half, returning to growth. In North America, as expected, we outperformed, and we delivered a broadly stable margin in the second half. In Asia and emerging markets, we delivered strong growth, up 12.6% in local currencies. And finally, we have taken new strategic steps in construction chemicals with Cemix and FOSROC acquisitions, in particular, achieving almost 16% sales growth in local currencies. Let me congratulate and thank very warmly all our talented and very engaged teams all around the world. Now moving to our financials. In 2025, we have delivered a strong set of results despite contrasted markets. Growth in sales up 2.1% in local currencies with over proportional growth in profit, both EBITDA and operating income, a robust EUR 3.3 billion recurring net income and a 4.5% increase for our proposed dividend at EUR 2.3 per share. We also continued to deliver strongly on free cash flow with a 58% conversion ratio. So a very strong set of results and very, very strong execution. Now, Maud the floor is yours to go through all the financial metrics. Maud Thuaudet: Thank you very much, Benoit. Good morning to all of you, and I'm very happy to share with you our strong 2025 results this morning. I'll start with the top line. We achieved sales growth of 2.1% in local currencies. On a like-for-like basis, sales were virtually stable. They were supported in H2 by good growth in Asia Pacific and Latin America, a return to growth in Europe despite the decline in North America. Volumes were down 1.3% over the year, reflecting these mixed market trends by geography. Prices were up 0.8% and with a positive 0.7% effect in H2 in a softer inflationary environment, inflation was broadly stable in H2. This actually reflects the added value of our solutions and disciplined execution from our local team. Currency effect was minus 2.3% for the year. It became more negative at minus 3% in H2 with the depreciation of most currencies against the euro. And we expect similar impact in Q1 2026 of around minus 3% on sales. We had a positive scope impact of 2.6% and reflecting our continued portfolio rotation and in particular, Cemix, FOSROC, Bailey and CSR. Regarding operating income and margins, we delivered overproportional operating income growth, up 3.8% in local currencies and slightly up like-for-like. We were able to deliver a stable operating margin despite the environment and the negative currency impact. This was driven by our ability to proactively adapt our operations throughout 2025 as market conditions shifted from our initial scenario. We had a greater impact from FX on the operating income at minus close to 4%, close to double the impact on sales. This is because the depreciation versus the euro was particularly seen in regions where the group -- where the margins are above the group's average. This strong margin performance reflects a very good operating performance, including a slight positive price/cost spread. Moving now to EBITDA and EPS. EBITDA rose 3.4% in local currencies with the EBITDA margin stable at 15.5%. Nonoperating costs remain below our group guidance of around EUR 250 million on average per year. And as explained in July, there were more in H2 than in H1. Net financial expense was up, reflecting the rise in gross debt and less interest earned on cash placements. The tax rate on recurring net income was stable at 24%. Last, EPS increased 2.5% and 6.4% in local currencies. Now looking at cash and balance sheet. We generated free cash flows of EUR 3.8 billion with a cash conversion ratio of 58%, above our target of 50%. We continue to dynamically optimize the operating working capital, reducing by 1 day to 11 days sales at the end of 2025 despite the dilutive effect of our portfolio rotation. And in terms of CapEx, we remain stable at around 4.5% of sales and planned for the same this year. We also maintained in 2025, a strong financial discipline and a strong balance sheet. Our net debt-to-EBITDA ratio was stable at 1.4x and we made clear capital allocation decisions toward value creation for our shareholders with notably 95% of our gross investment either through gross CapEx and M&A put in our high-growth markets and EUR 1.5 billion returned to our shareholders through dividends and share buybacks. Now let us look at the results by region, and I'll start with Europe overall, where we saw a return to sales and operating margin growth in the second half sales were up 1.1% in local currencies and up 0.6% like-for-like. The margin held up well despite the lower sales in H1 driven by firm price and cost management. In terms of local dynamics in Northern Europe, a contrasted situation from one country to the other with the U.K. reporting further growth with a strong outperformance, thanks to our specified sales and our full solutions offering in the country. Eastern Europe was slightly up even if Poland was impacted by weaker Industrial Solutions, Germany remained down ahead of the stimulus plan in a wait-and-see attitude and the Nordics remained mixed overall, but we won several large infrastructure projects there. Lastly, it's worth noting that we are well placed to capitalize on major infrastructure and defense spending in Central and Eastern Europe, thanks to a network of 100 plants and representing over 10% of our sales of the group sales. Now moving to Southern Europe, Middle East and Africa. We improved noticeably because in the second half, sales were up 1.7% in a market that remains uncertain, France stabilized in the second half and reported growth in the fourth quarter, driven by the rise in permits and housing starts, which should continue to support new construction. We outperformed the market in both new construction and renovation. Spain and Italy continued to show growth with particular market share gains in Interior Solutions and the Middle East and Africa achieved double-digit growth, supported by the successful integration of FOSROC, in construction chemicals and major infrastructure project in Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi. Moving now to the Americas. Sales in North America were down 4.2% over the year and by 7.3% in H2 with Q4 down 8.2%. U.S. roofing volumes remained low as expected in Q4, down 17% given the lack of major weather events. The new construction market was down, impacting Interior Solutions, but construction chemicals accelerated throughout the year with market share gains. Despite this challenging environment, our North American teams outperformed the market and delivered a very good operating performance, maintaining a positive price effect and optimizing production cost and industrial plant maintenance. As a result, margins held firm for the full year and in the second half. Latin America delivered a strong performance, up 13.5% in local currencies and 6.9% like-for-like. Growth was slower in H2 on a tougher comparison basis and with prices slowing at the end of the year due to lower energy costs. The integration of Cemix in Construction Chemicals has been a great success with 15% growth in local currencies and clear spillover effect in Central America for the full Saint-Gobain solutions offer. The Americas region delivered a slight increase in its operating margin over the year to 17.2% and held firm at 16% in H2, as we said last October. Turning lastly to Asia Pacific, we delivered 17% growth in local currencies and 2.4% like-for-like. The operating margin reached a record supported by volume growth and good pricing management. India saw double-digit growth and further market share gains with our comprehensive range of solutions, we were awarded new projects in nonresidential and infrastructure with increased share of wallet, thanks to our leadership in construction chemicals and the successful integration of FOSROC. Southeast Asia saw growth with a widened range of specified solutions and the delivery of 20 data centers in Indonesia and Malaysia during the year. The integration of CSR is going well, both in operational performance and in the enhancement of the solutions offering for the local market. The Australian construction market remains lackluster but leading indicators are improving. And last, China was down slightly over the year, but progressed in H2 with market share gains despite continued market weakness. So in a nutshell for Saint-Gobain, 2025 was a strong year focused on discipline and execution despite a contrasted environment. And for 2026, I can tell you that all the teams are fully committed. Priorities are crystal clear, outperformance, margin, cash portfolio rotation and we are all set to deliver. Benoit, I'll leave it to you for the conclusion. B. Bazin: Thank you, Maud. Let me now update you on our strategy. Saint-Gobain is opening a very exciting new chapter with our strategic plan, Lead & Grow that we announced at our Capital Markets Day last October. We benefit from strong supportive megatrends in sustainable construction, population growth and urbanization, notably in Asia and emerging countries, job site productivity and energy efficiency renovation, notably in Europe and the adaptation of buildings and infrastructure to extreme weather, especially in North America. We have an unmatched breadth of addressable markets across residential, nonresidential and infrastructure totaling EUR 500 billion. And to capture this, we are rolling out a value-enhancing solutions approach and leveraging the well-established growth compounding country platforms. Let's start with our solutions. We are the only provider of a comprehensive solutions set delivering performance and sustainability. We have everything for buildings and infrastructure from roofing to facades, flooring, partitions, ceilings and so on. And our solutions bring thermal, acoustic, air quality, visual performance and even productivity benefits project sites. This is altogether a very crucial competitive advantage for Saint-Gobain. A key part of Lead & Grow relies on our expansion of these solutions into nonresidential and infrastructure markets where we have many growth opportunities and where we can tailor and specify our Technical Solutions segment by segment. If I take the hospital segment, for instance, where hygiene, safety, air quality, comfort are crucial, we have a full range offer, including easy to clean floors and ceilings, X-ray protection plasterboard, antibacterial wall finishings and so on. We provide technical support in high performance and code-compliant materials and we have dedicated local teams for the health care market. Similarly, data centers have their own specific requirements centered around construction speed, thermal performance, fire safety, sustainable construction. And here also, we have a full catalog of technical, specific what we call hero products that address these needs. With our global key account management, we are currently working on an active pipeline of more than 600 data center projects in 26 countries around the world. In infrastructure, airports have their own specific requirements in terms of customer experience, regulatory compliance and climate resilience. We have also tailored comprehensive solutions to address both the billings, which, on average, is 60% of the CapEx for an airport and the infrastructure part of airports. As you know, we are growing fast on infrastructure, thanks to our attractive leadership in construction chemicals, which has been a very dynamic buildup in the last years. Our EUR 6.5 billion leading platform across 76 countries can address all critical parts of infrastructure and buildings. As we highlighted at our Capital Markets Day, we plan to continue our acquisitions and also our CapEx to reach more than EUR 9 billion of sales by 2030 on construction chemicals. This is a bit of a highlight by segment. Now let's look at how we deploy our solutions by region. In Europe, we see improving leading indicators with strong commitments from government, even the EU level to address the housing crisis, also some rising affordability and better housing starts. On the renovation side and energy efficiency, we see policies supportive of energy-efficient renovation and green value is increasingly reflected in real estate prices. We are well placed to benefit from the improving leading indicators, thanks to our solutions approach across the board that brings share of wallet, cross selling and margin benefits for Saint-Gobain. We also have very attractive digital solutions. One example is for architects on facade specification, we are the clear leader. The second one as a go-to partner for thousands of craftsmen in France, we have a full suite of digital tools enhanced by AI that bring to them speed and value on quotes, regulations, invoices, deliveries and, therefore, attractive, stickiness and volatility of those contractors to Saint-Gobain. In North America now, we work also on strong contractor engagement and loyalty to drive and enhance our brand reputation across our multiple products and solutions offer. We are the #1 position in North America on interior and exterior solutions. This allows us to further roll out cross-selling actions and more importantly, to build up and strengthen win-win partnerships with the top national distributors across the country. In North America, we are the best player to address the increasingly extreme weather conditions with the most comprehensive climate resilient offer on the market. But the core of that offer is our leadership in roofing across U.S. and Canada. And I'm convinced that it will continue to benefit from strong fundamentals. Although, as we know, the 2025 storm season was unusually calm with no hurricanes for the first time in 10 years, there is an increasing number of extreme climate events in the U.S. Second, more than 12 million homes built in the early years of 2000, need renovation -- aging of the roof. And third, we have this structural housing shortage that persists in the U.S. and in Canada. To build up on that momentum and the strong fundamental drivers of roofing, we are replacing a nearly 50-year old line with a modern, highly competitive roofing capacity in the undersupplied region in the Southeast. Altogether, I'm confident that this positions us altogether on climate resilient offer, including, of course, roofing, to outperform and continue to outperform in North America, like we have demonstrated again last year as one of the only 3 meaningful national players in roofing in North America. In North America, we're also expanding in nonresidential and infrastructure. We are well positioned to serve fast-growing segments such as data centers, airports, I mentioned hospitals a bit earlier on. We have dedicated sales teams and we differentiate with highly technical products like our Sage electrochromic glass. We are the only in the world to provide that, that has been specified in 29 U.S. airports over the last 2 years. Altogether, I'm confident about the structural growth drivers and outperformance of Saint-Gobain in North America and what will continue to grow in North America across the board in the coming years. Let's now look at how we are deploying our solutions in Asia and emerging countries, a very important profit tool and growth tool for Saint-Gobain. In India, we are the undisputed #1 on buildings, and we are expanding on infrastructure, already 2,200 major infrastructure projects in '25. In Southeast Asia, we systematically complete our offer country by country. And we differentiate like in China, differentiate ourselves with high value-added solutions that represent 45% of our sales, which brings good resilience and margin also in China. In this region, we are significantly increasing our penetration on nonresidential markets also through specification. Take the fast-growing hospitality market in the Middle East we are very well placed to service this market with our leadership positions in the Middle East and Turkey. In Mexico, nearly 30% of our sales stem for specification, and we are leveraging our widened offer, including our construction chemicals offers, thanks to the very strong profitable Cemix acquisition. So this is the view by region, after the view by segment. And as you know, to roll out our strategy, of course, quality of execution, which we have demonstrated day in, day out in the last 5 to 6 years, quality of execution is crucial. And this is what we have delivered consistently and will continue to do so. We benefit from our country-led operating model, which is well suited to our markets, of course, but well suited as well to our current geopolitical environment. This Saint-Gobain operating model has been tested and proven with proactive and empowered CEOs very close to their teams and customers. They work -- we work on all levers, commercial excellence, I highlighted quite a lot of examples by systematically tracking the rollout of our solutions, margin by proactively driving cost and productivity gains as well as positive price/cost price based on the value that our solutions bring to our customers and cash, of course. This operating model by country is a great growth and value creation compounder for Saint-Gobain. A few examples of what we have done in the last year, take, for example, North America, where our teams have increased our sales by 60% since 2019. Mexico, India, the Middle East, which are meaningful size for Saint-Gobain, not only in sales, but of course, in profit where we have more than doubled our turnover over the same period. And in all these countries, Saint-Gobain has significantly outperformed the market. As you know, one of the strong, very strong pillars of Lead & Grow is that we have done in the past, our ongoing portfolio optimization that has brought a lot of successes. So we continue to actively steer our portfolio optimization. I'm happy to say that the integration of FOSROC and Cemix in construction chemicals are going very well with 11% organic sales growth in local currencies and 20% combined EBITDA margin. We have created a lot of value in the past acquisitions, such as Chryso, GCP and Continental, and we are on track to deliver value for our most recent acquisitions. In 2025, we rotated EUR 1.2 billion of sales, and our country platforms are nurturing an active pipeline as we speak. As you know, we intend to rotate through acquisitions and disposals more than 20% of our sales by 2030, keeping a strong value and continue to work, of course, under value creation for our shareholders. Indeed, our strategy is delivering attractive shareholder returns. In '25 total return to our shareholders from dividends and share buybacks amounted to EUR 1.5 billion. If I take the last 5 years, we have returned over EUR 7 billion to our shareholders. In 2026, the Board we had yesterday proposed -- will propose to the AGM, a dividend of EUR 2.30 per share. Shareholder returns will continue to be a very important part of our capital allocation framework. From '26 to 2030 we plan buybacks of around EUR 2 billion and dividends of around EUR 6 billion. So EUR 8 billion altogether for our shareholders. Now let me finish and turn to our outlook. You can see our expectations for each geography here on the slide, in a contrasted macroeconomic environment and still uncertain geopolitical landscape, Saint-Gobain expects an EBITDA margin of more than 15% in 2026 with the first half affected by the extreme weather conditions in Europe and North America that we have seen since the start of the year. As a conclusion, we have established a very strong track record over the last 5 years. Lead & Grow gives us a very exciting and very powerful road map, very clear for the teams, for the customers, for the shareholders over the next 5 years, deepening our value-enhancing solutions, expanding them across nonresidential and infrastructure; and second, sharpening the group's business profile through portfolio rotation. All this being delivered with ongoing excellence in execution supported by our proven operating platform country by country. So I'm very confident that all this will continue to deliver strong momentum, strong value creation for all our stakeholders. Thank you very much. And we now turn to your questions for Maud and myself. B. Bazin: As always, we start with the questions in the room, and then we will go on the call or Internet. So Elodie wants to... Elodie Rall: Elodie Rall from JPMorgan. Maybe I'll ask them one at a time. First of all, could you give us some color about your expectations about volume and pricing for '26? And I assume you confirm price/cost positive. I'll continue then. Second, you're guiding for a weaker H1. Does that mean that we should prepare for -- prepare for margin in H1 to be down before recovering in H2? And overall, do you think you can defend 2025 margin, noting that consensus is already a bit above? Third question is actually on the difference between EBITDA margin and EBIT margin. So I know you confirm at the CMD that more than 15% EBITDA margin equals more than 11% EBIT margin. But what we've seen in H2, is that actually EBITDA margin was down 40 bps when EBIT margin were flat. So maybe you can give us a bit of color what's going on in D&A and other nonoperating costs and how we should forecast that in '26? And just 2 quick ones more. Northern Europe, I think the disappointment was that volume was sequentially lower there versus Q3, and we were expecting some improvements. So when should we expect volume to turn positive in the region? And lastly, well done on North America margins, indeed flat in H2. But I think you indicated tougher comps in H1 '26. So what is the magnitude of decline that we should prepare for H1? B. Bazin: So we took notes because it's a long list. Do you want to take the technical one, the third one. Maud Thuaudet: Yes. So difference in EBITDA and EBIT. So what we said at the CMD, 15% equivalent to 11%. That doesn't change. Then you have indeed some H1, H2. End of July, we had said that we had lower nonoperating costs. They were at that time around EUR 50 million. And then you have overall for the full year, EUR 230 million. So you have had that mix in terms of semester on nonoperating costs. And especially, of course, that has weighed on the EBITDA margin in Northern Europe, where we have done a bit more in H2 of restructuring and nonoperating costs, therefore, being a bit up in Northern Europe in H2, especially. So the message remains the same, which is EBIT plus 4% and then EBITDA. And then in terms of depreciation, we anticipate more or less the same figures in terms of depreciation. B. Bazin: Maybe we'll go back to the first one. So yes, we continue to target positive price/cost spread like we have done last year on H1, full year and H2. Now let me clarify a bit the -- your question on volume and price and notably on Q1 weather because I'm sure it's a question I hate, and it's the first time I mentioned weather, but it's a fact that we have a very significant weather impact. If you take France, we have -- we have seen snow, but more importantly, we have seen a lot of floods in the last weeks. First time ever in the last 50 years, we have so much rain, and we have half of our regions, which are down double digit. So it's significant. You have seen also all the huge snowstorms in the U.S. with, I think it's 24 states on emergency status in North America. So all this has an impact. So we are assuming, of course, the normalization in Q2 because we think the weather will normalize. So Q2 and second half normalization improvement, as I highlighted in the outlook. So it's a transition, weaker volume. We think we'll have bottom actually on Q1 in North America, assuming the weather will normalize in the second quarter. So all in all, when you take the impact on North America and U.S. we should expect a low to mid-single-digit volume down in Q1 because of this weather. It's unfortunate. But that's the fact that we see in France and North America. And from there, normalization, improvement. We expect a lot of the green shoots we have seen in Europe to continue. France turned positive in Q4. And outside of this weather impact, it should continue. We have seen some positive momentum in the U.K. You have seen some very strong performance in Asia and Latin America. All that will continue. But yes, there is this volume impact on the first quarter, which has again, low to mid-single digit impact on Q1 volumes, minus 3 to minus 5, it's too early to tell because. We are not completely out of the woods. But that's the magnitude of the impact. And to sum up, on Q1, we were expecting Q1 to continue like Q4 outside of the weather impact, but the weather impact has been significant notably for France and the U.S. Overall H1 margin, we don't guide again margin by half. As you know, we are ambitious on the margin. We will stay ambitious. So there is, I think, a different seasonality to expect this year on the margin like on the operating profit because it's about the same. Don't forget these exceptional items last year that we are different in H1 and H2. So that's the slight difference between operating profit and EBITDA. But we might see a seasonality different this year between H1 and H2 on the margin because of this weather impact and because of the fact that we will see improving trends in our end markets starting in Q2. But more importantly, in H2. So it will be a bit of 2 halves of the year with a different momentum. I think your other question was on North Europe volume, take that one? Maud Thuaudet: Yes, sure. So Northern Europe, it's really a story of mixed and contrasted evolution country by country. Again, U.K. outperforming clearly. Then Germany still down. And we are quite happy to see that finally, the stimulus plan, you see some money starting flowing into the economy, but not yet into clear spending in construction at least. That's not what we're observing. So ahead of that, for sure, we have done some restructuring. We have optimized our setup in Germany, and we are ready to capture. The teams are already -- have key accounts in place discussing with all the major customers and with all the major people in charge of this public spending to prepare for the project and to get the impact. But it is slow, and it is taking a little bit of time. Then looking at Nordics, again, within the Nordics, mixed and contrasted dynamics. Norway is still difficult. Finland and Denmark are in a better shape. So we will see how that evolves, but that's the overall... B. Bazin: And if I take the last question on North America. As you have seen, Q4 was a bit softer than Q3. So we outperformed the market when you look at our self-delivery and margin in the second half. We don't have the carryover. Therefore, effect that we had starting Q1 of '25, [ because Q4 ] was a bit softer. So all in all, H1 '26 margin in North America will be below H1 '25, no surprise. And I think in terms of magnitude, the better indication is more the H2 '25 margin, than H1 '25 margin because of the volume momentum we have seen in H2 that we will continue to see at the start of the year, notably in Q1. And then it will progressively normalize. So as a reference, it's H2 margin, H1 margin that we expect for H1 margin in North America. Elodie Rall: So that's 200 basis points decline then? B. Bazin: You know the figures. But that's -- of course, it's too early to tell, but the order of magnitude is more the reference of '25 second half than first half, second half, where we had this carryover from late '24 expecting again in Q2 a normal weather pattern, which is what we expect, and we'll see the replenishment of the inventories from the distributor. And keeping in mind that roofing is 35% of our total exposure in the U.S. We grew in siding in Q4. We are growing as we speak in siding. So we gained market share on construction chemicals. So I think we should not overemphasize the roofing picture, which as we have seen on the slide I shared with you, a very abnormal hurricane season. And on top of that, even on the storm from hail storms, we were 13% below the last decade. So I think it was a transitory weaker volumes in North America due to weather impacting roofing, weather impacting across job sites in Q1. I think we can say too early, but we have bottomed in Q1 in North America. And from there, it will improve. You have seen that you take collective housing, the starts and the figures are moving in the right direction. I think the affordability even if it's a bit slow, is improving versus where we were some months ago, and we have delivered very well on our commitment in North America and all the teams are hands-on how to continue to [Technical Difficulty]... Ebrahim Homani: Ebrahim Homani, CIC CIB. I have 3, if I may, a follow-up on the roofing business in North America. -- if the weather conditions are more normal than last year, what could be the organic growth and the margin in 2026, especially in H2. My second point on your CapEx and the investment strategy for 2026. And do you expect an increase in free cash flow to EBITDA? And my last question is on Europe, price and volume dynamics that you expect, especially in Southern Europe? B. Bazin: I take the first. You may conclude. I repeat again, Roofing is a very strong business in North America. We are the only, the 3 only national players. So when you talk to the large distributors that are consolidating the market, they need national payers. So you win because you are national player across U.S. and Canada. I had a chance to meet the top 3 national distributors we have in December. I can tell you they are happy to continue to win with Saint-Gobain. I know that some competitors thought about entering the market. They may have realized, it's not easy to be a meaningful player on residential roofing in North America across the board. So it's a very good business, driven by strong fundamentals. Again, you have seen the multiplied by 4 of the weather patterns. If I take the last 30, 40 years, it's not going to diminish. It's accelerating with an exceptional low year in 2025. We have also all the aging of the roof. And on top of that, the housing shortage that everyone is working on it across all the states of the U.S. and also in Canada. So yes, we expect the weather to normalize. You may have seen -- we are not the only one to say it, Home Depot, which is a good proxy of the U.S. market, said it beginning of this week. So all this is there. We could expect -- again, it's too early to say that all the ice and snow storms we have seen across the board in the last 2 months would trigger some additional above and beyond renovation. By how much? It's a bit early to tell, but yes, the momentum in roofing will continue to be good, assuming, of course, a normal weather pattern starting in Q2 and H2. So yes, we will find it back in the second half. And that's the equation that we have computed because all the fundamentals drivers of roofing are still there, and we are happy that we have this Georgia competitive plant ready to go. Again, it's a 2% addition on the market, which had been sold out in the last 5 years. And even the region of Florida and Southeast today are pretty busy. So we are happy to be the first to have a competitive plant ready to go when the market will improve, and it's very meaningful for the national distributors when you continue to invest on your roofing business, like when you invest on your plasterboard, siding business and when you have the complete offer. So I'm not worried at all about 8% new capacity additions that we have seen over the next 3 years on the market and again, 2% coming from Saint-Gobain. We shut down a plant, which was 50 years old. We didn't ask you to visit, and we'll be happy to ask you to visit the new one, but happy to have a new one recent one in Georgia, which is a very busy [ Southeast ] region. Maud Thuaudet: Yes. So in terms of CapEx, 2025, we were around 4.5% of sales. We will be the same for next year. 80% of our growth CapEx were in those high-growth markets, as you might have seen. It's very important that we allocate those CapEx to growth. And there are clear allocation on this topic. And we are, for example, in India, building clearly very fast our footprint to grow in the country, and it's working extremely well. We are enlarging the offer, and we are gaining shares as well in the categories where we are already. In terms of free cash flow generation, our target is to be above 50%. You have seen the results this year. We will obviously remain there and continue to optimize all the elements of the free cash flow. B. Bazin: You had a question on price and volume in Europe. Yes, we expect what we started to see in the second half of last year to continue. Now keep in mind that it has been 4 years in Europe with a negative trend. So I was happy that for the first time in H1 '22, if I'm correct, we had growth in Europe in local currencies in H2 of '25. We should continue to see that bearing in mind, notably in France, the negative impact of the flood in the last 2 months. So yes, it should continue. We have announced some price increase at the beginning of the year in Europe across multiple geographies, be it in France, in the U.K., in Germany. So that should continue and progressive evolution as well in Europe. We have seen all the green shoots of new build. If you take France, the starts are up 5% to 7%. The permits up double digits. So all this will trigger some additional activity going forward. Another question in the room. So, we may turn questions to the call, who wants to start? Is it Goldman Sachs? So go ahead, please. Unknown Analyst: I just had 2, please. I guess, thanks for the comments on the U.S. margin impacts in the first half. If we're thinking about the European margin impacts, is it right to think they're less significant than the 200 basis points you expect for margin pressure in Americas? And I guess the second question would just be on portfolio rotation, in light of the 20% target by 2030. I'd be interested, do you see 2026 as a year where you can make more progress than average on -- against that target? And I guess do you see the upside more from divestments or acquisitions this year? B. Bazin: You take the first, and I take the... Maud Thuaudet: So EU margins, they will continue. You've seen what we have delivered this year, and we will continue maintaining the positive price cost spreads at group level, obviously, and focusing on strong pricing. And we will continue delivering on the margins. Of course, we will have some benefit from volumes when volumes are back, and that's what we have said in the past about operating leverage of around 25% when you have some kind of significant volume uptake. B. Bazin: And on the portfolio, so yes, we are active. You have seen that we announced on Tuesday or Wednesday, 2 small acquisitions on Construction Chemicals, that's part of the add-ons and bolt-ons we are happy to say and to deliver. We will continue to do that. We are working, as we speak, on acquisitions and divestitures. Depending on your average, I don't know what it is. If you take the last 5 years, we rotated 40%. So roughly 10% per year. We want to rotate 20% in the next 5 years. So is it going to be 10% just this year? It's a bit on the high side. But yes, we will be active on portfolio rotation in '26, both in terms of acquisitions and divestitures. On acquisitions, we have a very solid balance sheet. So we are ready to capture the good opportunities, but we are always extremely conscious about the value creation that we have delivered in the past, integrating well when you have double-digit growth on Cemix and FOSROC, that means it's a very good solid acquisition and delivery. So yes, we will be active in '26, and we will show more progress, as you asked on the portfolio rotation to continue to strengthen the business profile. And you know the criteria, financial criteria and also the strategic criteria, growth and acquisitions and CapEx in high-growth geographies, construction chemicals and divestitures in the businesses which are a bit far from the strategy or a bit far from the financial performance of the group. Unknown Analyst: Excellent. And Maud, maybe just coming back on the margin question. Just thinking about the French weather impacts that we could expect on margins in the first half. Is there any way to quantify what kind of headwind that might pose against, obviously, the improving volume outlook and positive price contribution? Maud Thuaudet: So you've seen that in the past we've been able to manage quite well the margins in Europe. And we will be, again, always very demanding with our teams who deliver really well on the margins. B. Bazin: Next question is from Cedar, Morgan Stanley. Cedar Ekblom: Just 2 questions from me. Can you talk about your relative performance in the U.S. market in the fourth quarter? It does look like your volumes outperformed Owens Corning and outperformed the broader ARMA data from a roofing perspective. Do you think that, that's just a comp effect? Or do you think that there is something to say there in terms of how you're engaging with the customer? And then can you help us put some numbers around how to think about energy cost inflation into 2026? Obviously, energy markets have been quite volatile, but is there a potential for a tailwind on energy costs as we move into 2026? Or should we still be thinking about an inflationary backdrop? B. Bazin: I'll take the first and you take the second one. There are multiple reasons for this outperformance in the second half. Clearly, I think the fact that we have a full breadth of offering, when you talk to the big distributors, they are happy to have -- because a lot of them, they have now exterior and interior solutions, take the Home Depot, SRS, GMS, you take Lowe's and FBM. So they are happy to have the full set of solutions, exterior and interior. And we are the only one to provide all this when you compare to the roofing or to the other players. So that's part of the equation. Like I would say, when you look at our construction chemicals overperformance, we delivered almost 3% in the second half. Of course, the other set of product lines have a pull effect on our construction chemicals performance and [indiscernible] a pure-play silo business, yes, the fact that we have the full breadth is meaningful. We have also enhanced our contractor customer engagement on the ground that helps on the delivery. After that, yes, there is a bit of outperformance versus ARMA statistics, and we hope we are working hard to continue to do that going forward. There was also -- if you take the gypsum performance in the U.S., we did much better than some of the public figures, we have seen because we were in a mid-single-digit decline in the kind of minus 5%, minus 6% decline in North America in the second half when I have seen some other figures being down double digit. That means you can have this win-win effect on exterior/interior solutions. Maud Thuaudet: Energy. So energy, as always, we have our hedging policies, which are in place. Indeed, it's a volatile market. We don't see much inflation. We anticipate around stable energy inflation for this year with, of course, volatile situation, but no particular point on energy. And overall, for inflation, we anticipate stable to slightly positive inflation. And of course, we will keep this positive -- slight positive price cost spread for the full year. B. Bazin: I think the next question is from Bank of America, Arnaud. Arnaud Lehmann: Three questions, if I may. Firstly, you -- Maud you just commented on energy. Can you -- could you please comment on raw materials? We've seen industrial metals moving higher. I guess cement could be moving higher. So do you see meaningful inflation on the raw material side? That's my first question. My second question is coming back on U.S. residential roofing. Sorry about that, but we've seen some price increase announcement from the industry for April. Are you confident that this could happen? Or are you trying to be a little bit defensive, trying to prevent price decline and you expect prices to be stable? And lastly, in France, we've seen quite a few headlines around housing targets, boost to social housing. We've seen MaPrimeRenov coming back after the budget. Could you try to frame things a little bit for us in terms of what's going on in France in terms of housing activity? Unknown Executive: You start with the first one. Maud Thuaudet: So raw material, again, stable to slight inflation. We have some categories which are seeing inflation, sand, paper, raw material -- sorry, packaging and transportation are seeing some slight inflation. Coming to your specific point, you mentioned cement. So cement, we are substituting quite a lot of our cement input. For example, we inaugurated a plant in Finland that enabled us to actually substitute cement with other raw materials. So we are quite stable on this one. But overall, stable to slight inflation for the group on raw material as well. B. Bazin: And on your second question, yes, we have in mind, it's a bit too early to say, but we have in mind and our teams are preparing for that, a kind of price increase around April for roofing. You may have noticed, but we can tell you that we were still positive on Q4 pricing in North America in Q4. So we have been very disciplined. That helps also the margin on top of all the cost actions we took in the second half. We have been very disciplined on the pricing momentum for our different product lines, which were all exterior or interior positive in the second half. On France, well, Arnaud, we have seen in the last year that France is not an easy read on multiple fronts. So I will be a bit cautious because it could change. But for me, if I step back, over the last 3, 4 years, clearly, and we have been advocating for it, not only for Saint-Gobain but just for our overall society, the housing topic, the energy efficiency in homes is becoming more and more as a top political priority, even to the point, even to our surprise that the EU Commission, which is not in their perimeter, decided to take on the housing crisis across Europe. So yes, in France, there are some increased momentum, 400,000 homes and start we should build in the coming years, more emphasis on social housing. So we see a clear momentum on new build in France as we speak, again, single digit in starts, double digit in permits. The political willingness is there. We will see a positive momentum there in '25. It's a bit too early to see a bullish scenario for housing in France. But yes, the momentum is there. All the players are pushing for that. MaPrimeRenov, as you said, is back. So energy efficiency is a factor. I highlighted the green value of what it means for the real estate value, not only the comfort and the purchasing power on the energy bill, but also the real estate value. So all those parameters are moving in the right direction. Let's not fool ourselves on the total momentum. But as you have seen, we are turning the corner in France, and I'm confident that we are outperforming in France across new build and renovation, thanks to our full presence, and it should continue throughout the year '26 and beyond. We are at the beginning of the large housing recovery in Europe because there are big needs. We are at the beginning of that, which will be a multiyear process. Next question is from Yassine, On Field. Yassine Touahri: First question on -- there is a debate currently in Europe around competitiveness versus potentially a revision of the EU ETS. I guess decarbonization is a big theme for you. What do you think of this debate? And what does it mean for the strategy of Saint-Gobain and your investment plan? That would be my first question. And my second question, coming back to the U.S. pricing. Have you announced any price increase in gypsum or insulation? Or is it too early in the context where the volume are a bit subdued? B. Bazin: No, it's too early to say on gypsum and insulation. So we will see how the year develops, but it's too early. We start the year slightly above where we were last year because we ended the year on a positive note, but it's a bit too early to say on all this topic about competitiveness and decarbonation, keep in mind that within building materials, the light side is the solution. And all the strategy of Saint-Gobain on light sustainable construction has been to accelerate the rollout of solutions towards low-carbon construction and low-carbon buildings. We are not the problem. We are the solutions in terms of lowering the carbon content of construction. So we are not part of the CBAM scope, and we don't need that. We don't rely on that. We have some quotas of CO2. We are actively decarbonating our plant. We dropped by 35% of our CO2 content within Saint-Gobain in terms of footprint, Scope 1 and 2. So we are, I think, pioneering on that with only 2 plasterboard electrified in the world, Norway and Canada. So it's not only Europe, it's across the board. So we are making nice progress, and it's a competitive advantage for Saint-Gobain. So we don't have the volatility of what it means for us because we are not relying on CBAM, and we are on the solution to bring forward low carbon content in materials on buildings, be it new or be it renovation. So for us, it's a good momentum, and we will continue to accelerate and differentiate on that. We have the full scope almost of Saint-Gobain covered with EPDs, Environmental Product Declaration. We have the full suite of products [ Infinae ] for low-carbon gypsum, [ Enae ] for low carbon mortar substituting cement, [ Rinnai ] for low-carbon insulation. So all this is already a commercially available offer for Saint-Gobain and doesn't rely on CBAM type of measure. Next question is from Julian, UBS. Julian Radlinger: So 2 from me, please. So first of all, can you talk about Europe and specifically Northern Europe? So I remember in summer 2025, you were still assuming positive growth but then sort of turn to flattish and now it ultimately ended up being negative more than 2%. I mean what was the main driver versus your own expectations here aside from the market just staying tough? And I guess what gives you the confidence now that, that will turn after the difficult weather in Q1? Next question, it's 3 actually. You said the Americas margin in H1 could be around 16%. So can I just ask, so for that kind of scenario, what kind of volume and price would you need to see to achieve that? And what could be the upside or downside? And then last one, and most importantly, maybe if I take everything together that you said on this call, weaker first half than second half, the margin comment on Americas, et cetera. For the full year, do you think EBIT or EBITDA should reasonably be up year-on-year in absolute terms for the group? Is that kind of a fair base case? B. Bazin: So on Northern Europe, I answer that. As Maud highlighted, we have been a bit disappointed by the momentum in Germany and in Nordic countries. Sweden was slightly better, like Denmark, but Norway a bit down. So that has been the reason behind last year. It's improving. We have also, keep in mind, divested a business, which was a tough one for us in Germany, which was commodity mortars. That was part of the negative like-for-like last year, which we are not going to see going forward. We outperformed clearly in Switzerland. We have a nice growth in Switzerland. Because we are from Switzerland, so I'm happy to say that. We have growth in the U.K. We have growth in Eastern Europe. So it was the size of the Nordic countries and Germany below the momentum and the expected momentum we had last year. It's again improving, and we will see that in '26 on -- anything you would like to... Maud Thuaudet: No. B. Bazin: On Americas, again, I've been clear on how you should compare the margin overall for Americas. We expect, and there is no reason not to say that, a normal weather in Q2 and starting the season, like always, for all the job sites, be it renovation, be it new build, be it roofing or gypsum. So that's what we expect, and there is no reason to think differently. We will have this negative impact in Q1, which I highlighted. We have seen that across all the competitors. Outside of that, we will continue to deliver on a normal year and do well on our margin overall for Americas, H1 being lower than what we expect in H2. And the full year, well, we have given a very clear guidance for the full year, like we do every year at the beginning of the year. We are ambitious on the margin. We have a very powerful plan for the next years. You have seen that we delivered every single year, every single year, and it was not walking the park in the last 5 years, be it inflation, energy crisis, Ukraine war, COVID, whatever, we delivered. So this is what Saint-Gobain showed you in the last 5 years. We deliver on portfolio optimization. We deliver on execution and operational excellence. We have a fantastic growth avenues on nonresidential and infrastructure, where we gained share. We have seen that on construction chemicals clearly in North America and across the board last year. So happy to continue, and we will have a nice momentum in '26. Keeping in mind that, yes, there is a transition on weather at the beginning of the year. But I think we have bottomed in Q1 in North America because of this weather pattern and no carryover of roofing from last year. So from there, in Europe, in North America, I think we will show some attractive momentum. From Bernstein now. Unknown Analyst: So I had one question on working capital. And again, you've got another year where the working capital days has reduced by 1 day. So could you help us in trying to get a sense of how we should think about it going forward? I mean, obviously, there has to be one range where you're comfortable, but how much lower can you go from here on? And my second question, sorry for going back to North American roofing and the North American margins in general. So I think it was -- it's quite commendable that you were able to maintain the margins despite the huge decline in volumes in roofing, and you also highlighted some weakness in the Solutions business. So could you help us unpack the offsetting drivers which allowed you to offset the impact of the weaker volume in some parts of the business so that you were able to maintain the margins? B. Bazin: I'll take your second one, and Maud will take the first, quickly again on North American roofing, there is -- we have a lot of lovely businesses within Saint-Gobain. It's not only North American roofing. Stay with us and stay tuned. We are growing a lot in double digits in Asia and emerging markets. And with -- now based on the exchange rate, we have more profit from Asia and emerging markets than Western Europe and than North America. So stay tuned on how fast we grow double digit in Latin America. No one talked about the 7% almost organic growth we delivered in Latin America, but I can tell you it's stellar and way, way above the market without mentioning the double-digit volume growth that [indiscernible] has delivered, [indiscernible] very well on volume in India last year. But coming back to our interesting piece of roofing, we took a lot of actions in the second half. Of course, pricing. We have shown a very strong pricing discipline. As I said, it has been up altogether in H2 and also in Q4. We took some short-term actions that you can take. You cannot take that forever. You're dropping some shifts, working on your maintenance cost. So there are some short-term actions that we took deliberately in the fourth quarter, in the second half to deliver on our commitment. You cannot take that forever because at some point, you have to rebuild the inventory to service your customers. So yes, there were a lot of the full range of short-term actions that we took across the board in North America last year and not only in roofing, our Siding business accelerated in the fourth quarter. We had a nice delivery on gypsum. We took some one furnace down in insulation in the U.S. Altogether, sometimes, I should maybe emphasize that more, but we have taken a lot of cost actions within Saint-Gobain last year. If I were to tell you that we had over the last 2 years, 4,000 headcount reduction in Europe, that's the fact. That's how proactive we have been on cost management within Saint-Gobain. Last year, we did shut down 20 plants across Saint-Gobain in the world, we did open 24, but we did shut down 20 old plants, including 6 in the U.S. So a lot of those actions are behind the margin protection, the margin focus. And all this is being delivered by country CEOs, being proactive, hands-on and incentivized on their margin. So all those parameters helped us to deliver nicely on our commitment in the margin. Maud Thuaudet: Yes. On the working capital, yes, indeed, we improved by 1 day this year in 2025. I think we are at the range where we can stabilize the working capital -- the operating working capital. It's where we are at ease to service the customers in a good way. So clearly -- and we have guided during the CMD for a working capital below 15 days. So that's the order of magnitude where we will navigate going forward, again, from where we are today and navigating within the range of our CMD objective. So that is what you should expect. But again, as for the margin, remaining ambitious in terms of cash generation and ambitious in terms of how we are able to optimize all our operations, as Benoit explained, for the margins. We do the same for the cash. We optimize everything. B. Bazin: Thank you, Maud. Next question from Ephrem, Citigroup. Ephrem Ravi: Sorry, going back to the working capital again. The -- given the weather events in the first half, should we expect a change in trajectory at least in the short term on the working capital in terms of holding higher inventory at your sites or at your distributors given the potential kind of bounce back in demand in the second half? So i.e., should we see a big or a sizable pickup in the first half in terms of working capital versus the second half? Secondly, in terms of free cash flow and net debt. So basically, your net debt remained relatively stable despite your acquisitions and increased dividends. So again, do you see scope for the balance sheet to be stretched a little bit more in terms of acquisitions beyond sort of the EUR 2.5 billion range that would get you to about sort of 1.7, 1.8x net debt to EBITDA? Maud Thuaudet: So in terms of working capital, of course, it will depend how the season goes and when actually the weather normalizes, et cetera. So we will see how it evolves. It's a bit early to say. We will manage that very tightly, being a bit strategic as well in building the right inventory so that we can service the spikes in demand that we typically see whenever there are some hailstorms, for example, in the U.S. coming back to the Roofing business. So we are strategic in maintaining the right level of inventory to capture the demand and the spike in demand. So we will manage that very tightly, and you should expect something to be normal. You've seen what we've done last year, and we continue managing that. In terms of net debt, yes, we have room for acquisitions. Does it mean that because we have room, we are going to go on major moves that -- so again, we have some clear criteria. We have a good balance sheet. We have optionality to do nice deals. We have a good pipeline. But then again, being very picky on the quality of the company and the quality of the business and what value it brings to Saint-Gobain to the shareholders. B. Bazin: Next question from Bill Jones, Rothschild. William Jones: Three, if I could, please. First, just generally around synergies. Clearly, you're still integrating some large deals from the recent years. So just whether you could talk a bit more about the revenue and cost synergy benefits that might lie ahead this year and where they could be most impactful. Second was on the Distribution businesses, France and Nordic particularly. Perhaps you could just talk on the performance in '25 there, particularly around gross margins and any comments for '26, maybe that is aside from just the macro? And then maybe just Asia Pacific lastly, slightly stronger volume growth in H2 than H1 at kind of 3% to 4%. Do you think that run rate can continue? And any country-related comments there would be great. B. Bazin: So maybe I'll take the one and three, you take the second. On Asia and emerging markets, yes, we have seen a better momentum, stronger momentum in H2. We have stellar growth in India, and it will continue. We have a good start -- a very good start of the year in this part of the world. Southeast Asia, be it Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, all those countries are strong. So that will continue. In China, we have seen some positive momentum lately. So then we are with a high-added value positioning in China, keeping in mind that we have a sizable part of Industrial Solutions in China, competing on innovation. So that should bode well. So yes, I'm confident that the momentum in Asia will be positive and even increase in '26 versus what we have seen in '25 in the second half. On the -- I take the first question, yes, synergies and how we integrate. You have seen the value we created, if I take our gypsum position in North America, the first with Continental Building Products. We have seen very good momentum. Let's take the second half of last year, we were down single digit on gypsum versus the public figures, I've seen some -- from peers down double digits, 14 or 15 when we were down in volume, minus 6 or minus 7. So I put that on the background of how we can deliver on synergies, not only on plasterboard, but across the full spectrum because every single of the top distributors in the U.S. You take A, B, C, they have exterior, they have interior with L&W. So all of them, they ask for interior and exterior solutions. You take our strong momentum in Latin America. Cemix, of course, has a nice pull effect across Mexico and Central America. I went to Saudi Arabia and Middle East in December together with Thierry Bernard. We have a 30% growth in the Emirates. And it's thanks to FOSROC, Gyproc, all the momentum. So all this is part of the -- not only cost synergies on purchasing and all the logistics and the raw materials we can deliver, but more importantly, on the top line. So yes, we are happy about the synergies we have been delivering on all those acquisitions and more to come because we have now the country platform to integrate well and to accelerate the momentum. You want to take the... Maud Thuaudet: Yes, sure. For distribution performance, well, you see the margins in Southern Europe, in particular, and in Northern Europe, which shows that those businesses are performing well in terms of margin despite, again, a tough environment in terms of volumes when you compare to 2019, for example, in France, it is down 15%. In Nordics, more around the 20%. So those businesses are doing well. We had given -- they are a bit below what we had said at the previous CMD of this range, 6% to 8%, but they are doing well. They are clearly leading on all the digital side, and they are providing great insight for the rest of -- great pool for the rest of Saint-Gobain. If you think about AI applications, if you think about digital suite, digital tools, those businesses are really spearheading those topics and we're creating some nice spillover on the rest of the group. So good performance, and we will continue on this one with very mobilized, of course. B. Bazin: Next question from Harry Goad, Berenberg. Harry Goad: I've got 2, please. First, if I could just come back to Europe, I guess, with a more specific question with your thoughts on 2026. Do you expect to see positive volume growth in France, Germany and the U.K. in the year? And then the second one is just with regards to the evolution of the portfolio when you talk about this 20% turnover of the revenue base, should we think of that as sort of half acquisitions, half divestments? Or is it right to think of it as much more skewed to acquisitions driving that 20% evolution in the next few years? B. Bazin: The 20%, if I understand correctly your question, it's both acquisitions and divestitures, and we measure it like we have done in the last 5 years on turnover. So that gives you the magnitude. Also you take EUR 50 billion turnover of Saint-Gobain, depending on the exchange rate, that's around EUR 10 billion of sales we will have rotated in the next years. And to your first question on '26, yes, we have seen some green shoots moving in the right direction on those countries. So putting aside the weather impact at the start of the year, and again, if we -- don't be surprised on Q1 organic growth because of this negative effect coming from the weather. I say it again, you may have seen some pictures at least for the French ones with half of France being totally flooded. So it's not only that you cannot work because you have to dry the building, but you cannot even access to the job sites. France, we have 6,000 truck drivers on the road every single day. So that's a double-digit impact at the beginning of the year. But bearing that aside, putting that aside, yes, we expect the countries you mentioned to turn on positive volumes in '26. Now we move to the questions on the Internet on the website, and I will start with a question from [ Paul Roger from Exane. ] I guess I will read your question, Paul. I will not have your perfect accent. It will be my French accent, but keep with us, stay with us. Did the group lose any market share in Northern Europe, Germany and Nordics? And why did H2 EBITDA margins decline in this region? I'll take the first half. I don't think we lost market share, but it's not regions where we have a clear outperformance. If I take France, Spain, Italy, U.K., U.S., Canada, Brazil, India, all those countries, we beat the markets. In Germany and in the Nordics, we have been working on the quality of the assets. If I take Germany specifically, as I said, we divested last year -- it was kind of EUR 100 million of sales. Our great commodity mortars, which, frankly, was not high-end part of our solutions. We did also shut down a large flat glass facility in Herzogenrath in September, October because of the overcapacity. So we thought it was the right action to take. So it was not fishing for volumes. It was working on the quality of the assets. And therefore, no outperformance in terms of market share, notably in Germany. But I think we have now a better portfolio. We have a new manager in place, Christian Bako, who used to be the Head of Saint-Gobain marketing worldwide. So it will, for sure, bring a nice dynamic in Germany going forward, plus all the expected momentum we see on the infrastructure and... Maud Thuaudet: There was a second part of the question, and I'll take it, which was about H2 margin decline in this region. So we talked about it. It's mostly due to nonoperating costs, which were higher in H2 in that region because of the actions that Benoit just mentioned. B. Bazin: Next question from Laurent Runacher. No, sorry, there was another question. Will depreciation step up this year as the group increases capacity? You answered that question... Maud Thuaudet: Yes. B. Bazin: Already, Maud, right. Does the group's high market share limit further M&A opportunities in U.S. construction products? The overall answer is no, of course with some exceptions. If you take roofing, as I said, residential roofing, we have only 3 national players. So it's hard to buy one of them, but that would be one exception. And as you remember from what Mark Rayfield presented at the Capital Markets Day, the direction of travel in North America is more towards nonresidential and infrastructure markets because we have a very meaningful #1 position on residential roofer, both interior and exterior. So if any, target and effort, it's more organically and inorganically towards nonresidential and infra where we have plenty of space. This is why we have done some acquisitions on construction chemicals in the U.S. and in Canada last year. We will continue to look at that. We have some targets as we speak. So that's the direction of travel to expand our Saint-Gobain presence in construction products across North America, U.S. and Canada. Next question is from Laurent Runacher. With the last rotations of the portfolio, what can we now expect in terms of organic growth for the group over the cycle? Well, we answered that on October 6 on the Capital Markets Day. So I think you have the answer, and we highlighted it region by region and also saying that on non-resi and infra, we expect that to be above the group average. So please... Maud Thuaudet: Yes. And we also highlighted the fact that our acquisitions on average have 4 points of organic growth additional versus the group average. So clearly, portfolio rotation changes the growth profile of the group. B. Bazin: A question from Glynis at Jefferies. You talked about win-win relationship with top U.S. distributors. Can you provide some additional color on this? Well, there is a bit of commercial insight, of course, behind that. But maybe one easy answer is to say, when you are a national player with hundreds, if not thousands of outlets across U.S. and Canada, you want to make deals and bring eye-to-eye top CEOs, CEO to CEO across the country. You don't want to have a deal because there is a new plant in Alabama or a new plant in Minnesota. You need to partner altogether. And this is the kind of -- I talk to the natural players. And if they can deliver to me not only 1 product category in 50 stores, but 6 different categories across 800 stores, I'll partner with them. So that's the kind of high-level strategic discussion and long-term partnership we have been building with the top distributors. They have been consolidating. And when you consolidate, yes, you need an even bigger player on the partnership side. So that's what we have been seeing. And one example, I'm not sure we gave it on my slide, we have increased by 10% the number of stores on those distributors where we are cross-selling. And for us, cross-selling in the U.S., we measure it when we cross-sell more than 6 product lines. So that's true that last year, we increased by 10 points the cross-selling point of sales with the national distributor. So that's the kind of initiative. Another initiative, they are all working on digital solutions on AI. They partner with the big players that can offer that. So it's important. And they are happy when you can tell them, we invested $7 billion in the U.S. in the last 5 years. That means we are committed to the country, and we are a meaningful player to you. So that's the kind of -- and with those top players, I can tell you, Mark Rayfield, myself, we have top-to-top meetings every single year and deepening the relationship. As you have seen, Continental Building Products years ago helped us to accelerate in retail. The fact that some retail players bought some Merchanting businesses, will continue to help us accelerate in retail, and we have seen some good initiatives as we speak. So that's the kind of win-win partnership we will continue to move forward. This is also what we experienced in France. In France, when you are 6x bigger on your Merchanting business than any other player, you partner with the best players on the manufacturing side, which are the Saint-Gobain manufacturing brands. So that's the kind of win-win snowball effect we will continue to push forward. There is a question now from RBC, if I'm correct. Some energy efficiency tax credit programs are expiring in the U.S. this year. Therefore, how are you thinking about U.S. renovation demand and volumes within your Interior Solutions segment going into '26? But frankly, I don't look at it like that. I look at it as acceleration of the climate, extreme weather patterns, take a multiyear view. We have seen that across the board. It could be fire risk. It could be flood. You have multiple states today where there is no more insurance. If you have a fortified home because of your roof, because of waterproofing, because of siding, so the need for climate-resilient building is accelerating in the U.S. So that's clearly an important momentum that should continue because, as I said multiple times, sustainable construction just means better buildings, better real estate value. You take the average statistics in the U.S. on offices, we have 25% higher real estate value when you have the right performance on energy efficiency, regardless of any tax credit. So be it the real estate value, be it climate-resilient offer. This is driving the U.S. market, and it will continue. We are not going to rebuild Los Angeles the same way it was built. We are not to rebuild homes that have been destroyed with heavy storms the same way they were built 20 years ago. You need more wind-resistant shingles and it goes on and on like that, and we'll continue to see that. I think some last questions from Davy. Can you provide an estimated percentage of revenues that currently relate to data centers? And how big is the growth strategy. Maud, do you want to take this? Maud Thuaudet: Yes. It's -- we had highlighted this topic at our CMD where there had been this study of who is the most present in terms of building material towards contractors and the answer from contractors at 34% was Saint-Gobain. So we have a strong offer in data centers, and Benoit just showed it. We are working currently on 600 projects, and we are talking about projects which take place everywhere in the world. And the way it happens is we partner with some consultants. Sisk, for example, in Ireland is one of them. We develop the offer. We co-develop the offer with those players. And then, of course, we have the ability to provide that offer everywhere in the world because the construction sites are then local in every country. When we deliver 20 data centers in Indonesia and Malaysia, it's because we produce in Malaysia and Indonesia part -- large parts of the offer. And then, of course, we can ship some additions, which make the complete data center offer. So we are quite uniquely positioned. And I think we had said, Benoit, last call that data centers is -- we can expect to triple sales in that area, and it's some hundreds of millions. B. Bazin: I think we are exhausted, the last question. No regrets, Elodie Rall from JPMorgan. I -- Not, I can hear you, Elodie, and I will repeat the question for everyone. So questions from Elodie Rall, JPMorgan is the scope and FX estimate for the full year and the tango of margins of roofing in North America where the -- if I understand well, where the H2 margin will be more -- H2 '26 will be more comparable with H1 '25 when we said that H1 '26 will be more comparable with H2 '25. So you take the first one Maud and I will take the... Maud Thuaudet: Yes. So FX, we anticipate at current spot rate because it's a little bit of a complex exercise, but at current spot rate, about minus 3% on sales for first quarter. H1 would be around minus 2%. But again, keep in mind that this is very volatile, and we've seen that last year. And then in terms of scope, if -- things will move, but as of now, around stable scope effect, maybe a bit negative, but around stable. B. Bazin: And to your second question, the overall answer is yes, because we expect the weather to normalize in -- starting in Q2 and therefore, in H2. Let's see how strongly the momentum will develop, notably the proportion of the additional business we could get from the snow ice storms we have seen at the beginning of the year because we will not have the carryover that we had in H1 '25 from '24. So -- but I'm confident that H2 will be a normal year for roofing, and we should see that starting in Q2. So in general, high-level answer is yes to your question. Thank you. I think we are short on time. Last question from [ Christophe, mic, ] and then we will finish, [ Christophe Lefevre-Moulen. ] Unknown Analyst: To come back to U.S. insulation and plasterboard, we -- so main issue for your competitor, Owens Corning was not roofing, but this business line, gypsum and insulation, what was the case for Saint-Gobain over the second half? Was the margin strongly down as it was the case for your competitor? Or are you able to maintain it? B. Bazin: Well, we have delivered a flattish margin in the second half in North America. So we could not have done it if one of the big businesses, be it exterior or interior would have been down. So the overall answer because I'm not going to give you the details on all this that we delivered well on the margin, both exterior and interior across North America in the second half with some cost actions. So insulation was tougher, and we decided to shut down one furnace in Kansas City. So there has been some ups and downs, but we delivered quite well on the margin overall being broadly stable in the second half in North America. So I think we covered all your questions. Thank you again. As a conclusion, again, a big thank and a big congratulations to all the Saint-Gobain teams for another year of very strong delivery, consistent delivery like we have shown in the last 5 years of Grow & Impact. And happy to say that we have nicely concluded Grow & Impact, and we are opening a very exciting Lead & Grow. I can tell you the teams are running and didn't wait for January 1. We have been running since we launched it in October. Lead & Grow is simple -- powerful and simple. It's deepening our solutions, which are proven to be very relevant, expanding those solutions on infrastructure and nonresidential markets where we have a lot to play and to win. Rotating the portfolio. We are active, and we have been -- that we can deliver well on that in terms of value creation, and we have clear plans and clear projects as we speak to do some meaningful moves in '26. And of course, continue to rely on super engaged, powerful operating model at Saint-Gobain driven by country CEOs. So many thanks to all of them. Many thanks to all of you, and we will deliver a strong performance in '26. Thank you very much.
Operator: Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for your patience. Welcome to the BioLargo 2025 Annual Report and Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note, this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to your host, Brian Loper, Investor Relations at BioLargo. Brian, the floor is yours. Brian Loper: Great. Thank you, operator. So the 10-K has been filed and this call is being webcast and available for replay. In our remarks today, we may include statements that are considered forward-looking within the meanings of securities laws, including forward-looking statements about future results of operations, business strategies and plans, our relationships with our customers, market and potential growth opportunities. In addition, management may make additional forward-looking statements in response to your questions. Forward-looking statements are based on management's current knowledge and expectations as of today and are subject to certain risks and uncertainties and may cause the actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements. A detailed discussion of such risks and uncertainties are contained in our most recent Form 10-Q, 10-K, Form 8-K and other reports filed with the SEC. The company undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. And with that, I now hand the call over to BioLargo's Chief Executive Officer, Dennis Calvert. Dennis Calvert: Brian, thank you very much. Good morning, everyone. We're excited to present BioLargo's 2025 Annual Report Earnings Call. We're at a time of pivotal transition, moving decisively from development into commercialization across our key technologies. We'll detail how our strategic focus has positioned us for significant growth and value creation, and we're eager to share the progress we've made and our vision for the future. Before we dive into the details, take a moment to review our safe harbor statement. Brian covered that quite well. This presentation does contain forward-looking statements, and the actual results may differ. We encourage you to always look at our periodic filings with our 10-K and our quarterly reports to get a comprehensive understanding of the risks and uncertainties and we believe in transparent communication with our investors and this statement underscores that commitment. Now let's look at the concrete actions that we took in 2025 and up to today. Our journey is marked by disciplined execution, where we've delivered and are delivering on key commitments. We've successfully installed our AEC technology at the municipal site, launched Clyra Medical commercially and presented exceptional clinical data for our ViaCLYR products. We also have advanced critical battery factory partnerships, secured third-party validation of the Cellinity Battery technology, and we've taken decisive action to protect our intellectual property. Our engineers have continued to grow their services business while continuing to support our various technologies through their validation and commercialization journey. This disciplined approach ensures a strong technical and commercial foundation for our future growth. This focused execution has significantly strengthened our diverse portfolio, which we'll explore next. Our portfolio contains 4 distinct platforms addressing massive market opportunities through one-of-a-kind technical solutions that have each been validated for their performance. Each platform, Clyra Medical, Cellinity Battery, AEC water treatment and ONM Environmental targets very large commercial markets. We hold a significant stake in the ownership of these companies ranging from 49% to 100%, in these -- what we consider to be high potential ventures. In addition, BioLargo receives a 6% royalty on sales helping ensure a consistent revenue stream for the corporate office as these businesses grow. The structure also creates an attractive investment framework for both BioLargo and our investment partners to participate directly in the growth of our subsidiaries. The model helps us diversify our risk from things that are simply out of our control, leverage our core competencies, attract diversified investors and also help future liquidity events for each business and its investors including BioLargo with the goal of rewarding our shareholders and our co-investors. This diversified approach allows us to sustain an impressive team of scientists, engineers and business development professionals while advancing each business unit through the commercialization process with a highly specialized team members for specific industries. Clyra Medical is now entering its commercial stage. We want to do a cheer. It's a great moment of excitement. It's been a long time coming. It's very exciting. It's a significant milestone after years of dedicated development. It's ViaCLYR product, a wound irrigation solution, which is FDA 510(k) cleared and delivers a superior antimicrobial kill rate and sustained efficacy, making it both safe and effective for all wound types. We've secured an exclusive distribution agreement with Advanced Medical -- Advanced Solution, providing access to thousands of hospitals and clinics focused on wounds and burn care. Our first commercial stocking order has already been shipped and paid for and a compelling -- and the compelling clinical data that was recently presented at the 48th Annual Boswick Symposium, the world's leading wound and burn symposium. It's a big deal. This commercial momentum is further supported by recent infusion of capital of $1.7 million all in the last few weeks, actually, positioning Clyra for substantial revenue growth. As you may know, we also have a major industry strategic distributor preparing to launch products in the near future. We're extremely excited about this development and we look forward to sharing more details, including their identity and the innovative products involved, when the time is right, which is now in the final stages of preparation. We can see the starting gate and we've done quite a bit of preparation for this moment. It's also worth noting that direct investments into Clyra over the past 14 months which concludes 2025 up to present, now total about $7.5 million. BioLargo has invested about $1.7 million approximately over the last 2 years. In addition, Clyra's CEO, Steve Harrison, and I, Dennis, as the Chairman of Clyra Medical, have also invested from our personal estates approximately $320,000. We're going to dig a little deeper into the clinical evidence next. Our clinical data for Clyra Medical speaks volumes about ViaCLYR's effectiveness. For me, personally, this is a full circle story for BioLargo. I've had the honor to work with Ken Code, the original inventor who first shared with me the story of his discovery and his belief that it would impact the world for good. It was the origin story of our beginning and to see it come full circle is extraordinarily gratifying. Our work with the FDA help me understand just how special the technology is. As we were told by the reviewers, they've never seen results like we had proven in the data submissions. Now we have leading professionals in the field -- experts testified to their peers about the remarkable results is simply amazing and extraordinarily gratifying. To note that our work can now be showcased around the world, to help professionals avoid infections and assist in healing wounds is just awesome. We believe the combination of claims that Clyra can now present to the field to the market are unmatched. The strong clinical validation with more in the works on a continual basis, supports our commercial launch and future product expansion. We believe that our Clyra products can become known as the new standard of care for infection control and wound care around the world. Next, we'll talk about the progress in solving the PFAS problem. Our first municipal deployment of our AEC system in Lake Stockholm, New Jersey is up and running, and it validates our commercial readiness. The AEC is better than other technologies. It treats long and short chain as well as ultra short chain molecules, all in the PFAS family, and it generates at the same time, minimal waste, which is crucial for municipalities. The AEC at Lake Stockholm is now under a 12-month monitoring program with the U.S. EPA and the department -- the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. We're also advancing industrial pilots of key partnerships. We're engaged in active discussions with major partners around the world, and we have an extraordinarily robust pipeline of projects in consideration. Moving on, we're going to talk about the Cellinity Battery. The Cellinity Battery represents a superior solution for the $1 trillion dollar energy storage market, which is expected to grow 6x to 7x its current size over the next 15 years. This sector is widely considered one of the most significant growth opportunities in the energy industry as batteries are critical for data center development, grid resiliency and renewable energy storage. The performance metrics of Cellinity Battery are unmatched. The world needs better batteries. Lithium ion and even the emerging field of sodium ion have significant drawbacks. Our liquid sodium technology offers superior energy density in a 20-year life cycle. Crucially, it has no thermal runaway risk and uses earth-abundant materials, no rare earth elements, allowing to manufacture domestically in almost any region in the world. Our business model focuses on selling factories through joint venture structures on simply selling batteries. We've executed 4 MOUs and are actively negotiating joint venture partnerships around the world. Each gigafactory is forecasted to generate approximately $80 million to $90 million in annual net operating income based on a total capital investment of approximately $170 million. In that structure, we're seeking a minority interest and a royalty, again, in line with our model. It's also important to understand the significant incentives available in this sector, including energy credits, workforce development incentives, economic development incentives, a host of financial incentives to encourage the development of just this sort of strategy. These incentives create a compelling opportunity to develop joint venture project financed ventures globally, and we're excited to advance the prospects into definitive agreements. Now let's turn to ONM Environmental and the Pooph situation. Regarding ONM Environmental, our Pooph proprietary technology is proven at scale. The Pooph brand was built on our IP and achieved national recognition with over 60,000 positive Amazon reviews and impressive top line revenue, and it validated our business model. This effort validated the commercial power of the underlying technology. We took decisive actions in September 2025 revoking Pooph's license after they failed to pay $3.85 million owed. In November, we filed a federal lawsuit for patent infringement and false advertising and breach of contract. We're actively seeking new partners for pet products, and we're also active in these business dealings to hope to secure the right partner soon to see our technology find its rightful place in the market, eliminating troublesome odors, while remaining safe for people, pets in the planet. We believe this will reposition well, and we'll find commercial success again. So please stay tuned. I'm going to let Charlie Dargan, who's joined us, Charles, take this section. Charlie, you're up. Dennis Calvert: Thanks so much, Dennis. I appreciate it. And thank you, listeners and stakeholders, we at BioLargo, really do appreciate your support. I won't pull any punches. This was -- 2025 was a very difficult year for us. But I do want to give you some pointers and some proper context as to actually what happened. Now the raw numbers, which you see where our revenues declined to $7.8 million. Our loss was $15.2 million and our stockholders' equity declined to $1.5 million. But I do want to point out that throughout the process, throughout the year, we maintained our cash position, and you can see, we ended up at $3.9 million, which we continued. And we were liquid for the entire year, access to capital markets, other operations. So we were liquid and in a good cash position. So the big gorilla in here, and Dennis just mentioned it, of course, is the termination of the Pooph licensing agreement. That did create the majority of the decline in the revenue and of course, the increase in our loss. And just to point out because sometimes people miss it, but you'll see that we booked a credit loss, which is on top of the reduction in revenue of $3.9 million, so significant. I think on the other side, and this is a good thing. We did spend more or Clyra spent more but that is an increase in its staffing and development costs. And it's because it's prepping for this upcoming national product launch with a leading -- an industry-leading distributor, and Dennis mentioned that as well. We're very excited about that, and it's been a long time coming. I think the other thing I'd like to point out, and again, people kind of run over it is our service revenues because we've always -- we talked very heavily on our products. Our service revenue pretty much doubled. It went from $1.0 million -- $1 million in 2024 to approximately $2 million in 2025. And that just demonstrates not just with our engineering services, but our other services and products that our core business has organic growth. And I'd like to conclude and circle back to remind everyone that we maintained a strong cash position. We avoided having to raise any type of toxic debt and we maintained our liquidity throughout last year. I think that's part of just the discipline in our financial and our operational management. So what we've done is we've laid a solid foundation and it positions us very well for the commercialization efforts this year and in the future years. Dennis, I'm going to turn it back to you. Dennis Calvert: Thank you. Thank you very much, Charlie Excellent. So building on our disciplined execution in 2025 and to present, our current outlook for the future points to a significant inflection point for BioLargo. We anticipate multiple catalysts converging across the portfolio, driving meaningful revenue and market validation. Clyra Medical will see its commercial rollout accelerate with ViaCLYR, reaching a national network and an expanded product line. For the AEC water treatment, we expect critical validation data from Stockholm that could establish our technologies and industry standard. Our work with EPA will continue. It's important that validation really expands our presence throughout the world. We also have growing strategic alliances in development. Our Cellinity Battery is poised to secure its first definitive joint venture contract. We're working hard on that. Transitioning from MOUs to concrete factory engineering. Recall that in the business model, when we start, we make money. Finally, ONM Environmental is expected to announce new partnerships that will further expand our reach. Together, this convergence of milestones positions 2026 as a transformative year for BioLargo. So why now, right? Why invest in BioLargo now? We used the words off and we say we paid a price to be here. It's a pretty steep price and it's certainly tested everyone's patience. We've done the work. That's a common theme you'll hear come out of my mouth often. How do you get this done? You have to do the work. You have to do "all the work" to reach the remarkably good position we're in today, poised for massive success in multiple markets. We believe there is a substantial valuation gap between our current market capitalization in this potential of the portfolio. At this moment, however, we have significant benefit from powerful structural tailwinds. Increasing PFAS regulation combined with a level of dissatisfaction with old technologies like carbon. They have experience now. They're experiencing the weaknesses of the carbon solution in the current market. And even current installations with carbon are looking for a change out. It's remarkable. There's a growing demand for energy storage driven primarily by the AI boom, energy boom, and really widespread dissatisfaction with some outdated technology. In the medical field, old technologies that have been used to control infection and wound care, are often harsh and ineffective, short-acting. They don't have the same claims. There's also, of course, the persistent rise in hospital-acquired infections that now claim more than 100,000 lives in America alone. The timing for our solutions coming to market as the world is looking for better technical solutions to some of the most pressing issues like these creates a perfect storm. What's truly changed about the company is our transition from development to commercialization. There's examples all around us. Clyra Medical secured its first commercial revenue. The AEC has achieved its first municipal installation. Our battery technology is technically derisked. It's been reviewed by third parties and now has joint venture partnerships under development and demand for our solution in the world is an all-time high. Equally important, we have the basic capital foundation and structure needed to expand with partners, customers and maybe most importantly, non-dilutive capital providers. The recent clear raise in our strong cash position at this stage, especially in light of some of the adversity we had to overcome in the last 6 months is remarkable. As always, we remain committed to transparent communication, disciplined capital deployment and focused execution on near-term revenue milestones. The foundation of BioLargo is solid and unwavering, impact-driven leadership, a great team of highly trained professionals, best-in-class technologies and a capital conserving strategy. As we always say, we're on a mission. We believe our investments and they are investments, investments of money, time, energy, are well positioned to deliver both meaningful impact for a greater good but financial returns of great significance. So with that, I'm going to turn this back over to Brian for the Q&A. Brian Loper: All right. Thank you, Dennis. Thank you, Charles. On the financial front, do you guys expect to renew the Lincoln Park agreement or establish any new ATM agreement? Dennis Calvert: Yes. It's a good question. Yes, as referenced in our 10-K, the Lincoln Park agreement has expired on its terms and at this time, we have no intent to renew it. We do believe, however, the safety net that a facility like that can provide for the company is critical. It's critical not only in time of necessity but also as a tool to provide comfort for significant investment partners who are really looking for that kind of stability as we enter into dramatic commercialization. So yes, we do intend on pursuing that strategy, and we have commitments in place that we will continue to pursue and bring to conclusion and Lincoln Park is no longer providing that service for the company. Brian Loper: All right. Switching gears, why is the U.S. EPA in New Jersey monitoring the Lake Stockholm installation? Dennis Calvert: So there's a -- yes, it's a good question. We think it's really great, by the way. So I just want to make sure everybody got the tone of that. The federal -- so recall, the federal -- last year, we had a government shutdown, and we had a reorganization, if you will, of all these agencies. So the fact that the EPA has really focused in on our AEC is just awesome. The idea that the regulator itself is participating in the proving up of the technology and the validation work is extraordinarily valuable. So we're pleased to have them. As a normal process when new technology comes to market, you often secure what's called a temporary use permit. What that means is as long as you continue monitoring, they'll let you to install your technology in the field and go to work serving clean water to the constituents and the customers in the local market. So this is all normal. Using the state and the federal is awesome, really good for us. And as we've mentioned sometime before, there's even indication that the EPA would like to move forward with additional testing for validation purposes over an extended period of time in which they would actually purchase through the requisition equipment and tools to do that work. So it's all really good. And so we're thankful to have EPA on side with us to validate this technology. If you think about its importance in the field, the first installation is not a huge installation, but it is of reasonable scale and it demonstrates efficacy and its commercial viability. And there's a huge market for the smaller installations. Now we are moving upstream and what's amazing in our journey is to now see the very, very large customers who are looking at our solution as a scaled design. And so that does present supply chain and all sorts of work to do to make sure that we can compete at that level. It drives us to want to form alliances with larger companies that already have supply chain and scaled engineering and implementation in place. So I think that's a real driver as we look at those relationships to be able to compete at the very highest level. And again, we used to say the project should be $0.5 million to maybe $2.5 million. And we thought the big ones would be $5 million to $10 million, and we're now involved in bidding and quoting and scaling for projects in the $20 million and $25-plus million range. So we believe our technology will find a significant home in the market, and we believe it's a really great opportunity to find corporate alliances of significance to not only assist us in the growth that's required to support those customers, but the confidence and peer mass that can go literally all over the world. So we're pretty excited. Brian Loper: Great. Great. And then any insight as to why Garratt-Callahan has started actively promoting the AEC as the best PFAS solution? Dennis Calvert: Yes. I think it's a really great move. We've always had Garratt-Callahan in great favor. We're anxious to find success with our AROS system for sure. I know that's been a subject to frustration for everyone, including Garratt-Callahan, I'm sure, right? Because everybody wants to see that technology kind of sway the market. In the meantime, because of our work with them, there's a growing sense of comfort and confidence, which is all very good. And so to me, it's a little bit speculative, but I would chalk that up to real simple. Our AEC has commercial validation now. It has a demonstration site now. It has relationships with the regulators now. And the industry is evolving to more rapid adoption because of regulatory advancements. And the trend of that is not going to change, and everybody now accepts it as the future. And so my hunch is Garratt-Callahan smells business opportunity just like a lot of other people, which is really awesome. So I think that's the way to think about it. Brian Loper: Great. So let's talk more about Clyra. So Dr. Gitterle, recently did a presentation. Seems like a great guy. But is there a recording to watch of that presentation? Dennis Calvert: No. That venue is not our venue. So that's a production of the conference, and that's -- and it's not available for rebroadcast. We do have additional KOLs and Dr. Gitterle also preparing some of that work and presentation materials and also interviews. So there's going to be a number of tools that will come available for that information to be viewed by everyone in the public. And so standby for that to happen. We're also rededicating ourselves to more social media and really distribution of that kind of content. So it's not that it's a secret. It's that -- it's in production and it's moving fast, and we're really busy, but it's coming. So there you go. Brian Loper: Great. And then how many insiders invested into Clyra? Dennis Calvert: Well, let's see, I think we've got -- let's see insiders is funny. So we have employees that are not necessarily insiders, so because of their corporate position. But I think if you said -- if I say it a little differently, people that are closely tied to ongoing work with the company. I think there's 4 or 5 investors who come in. So something like that. Maybe more, but, yes, it's nice. For all reasons, it's good because our people do see it, and it's also good for outside investors to see it. But really, I would comment for everybody. We've always known the significance of the technology involved in the Clyra asset, the whole plan. We've just always known it. And it's -- when -- in the darkest hours when you're looking at the abyss charting your course, you're reminded of the significant impact that that's going to make all over the world. And it's kind of like this driving passion of impact that keeps us going to see it now come full circle is huge and see the clarity of the commercial strategy with all the tools being put in place. Steve Harrison has done a remarkable job, and I've got to commend his entire team. He's grown quite a professional staff. They're highly trained in the field. It's not inexpensive. Takes a lot of money. I always say in the medical field for med device like this, especially something going into the surgical suite, being used for inside the body, right, I'm sure we know that. It's a pretty technical thing and everything is expensive. Everything. Like tests and materials and production. So we've been able to capitalize that in a pretty effective way. That's also remarkable, a testimony to the technology and the team and our strategy, the way we played this out. So having co-investors for insiders is awesome. We're thankful. Brian Loper: Yes, absolutely. And how about so far this year, how much is Clyra rate? Dennis Calvert: I think we just reported in the deck, $1.7 million in the last -- basically last month for the post-effective subsequent events as disclosures in the K. We've got commitments for more cash, but that's not reportable until it's in the door. So we'll keep you posted. Brian Loper: All right. A lot of momentum with Clyra. That's what I'm hearing. Dennis Calvert: Yes. Brian Loper: Excellent. Well, that concludes all the questions we have from our investors. Thank you very much, Dennis. Dennis Calvert: Yes, I'll wrap it up here real quick. I want to thank everybody for the support of course. I know it's tested the patient level. But rest assured that we are steadfast and sure, and we're anxious to get some of these technologies repositioned, and we're looking forward to a great year. So thank you very much. We look forward to talking to you soon. Operator: Thank you very much. This does conclude today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. We thank you for your participation.
Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. I'm Paulina, your Chorus Call operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Turkcell's conference call and live webcast to present and discuss the Turkcell Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 financial results. [Operator Instructions] The conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mrs. Ozlem Yardim, Investor Relations and Corporate Finance Director. Mrs. Yardim, you may now proceed. Ozlem Yardim: Thank you, Paulina. Hello, everyone, and welcome to Turkcell's 2025 year-end earnings call. On the call today, we have our CEO, Ali Taha Koc; and CFO, Kamil Kalyon. They will provide an overview of our operational and financial results for the quarter and the year, followed by a Q&A session. Before we begin, I would like to kindly remind you to review our safe harbor statement, which is available at the end of our presentation. With that, I will now turn the call over to Mr. Ali Taha Koc. Ali Koç: Thank you, Ozlem. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. We closed 2025 with a strong finish, exceeding all of our expectations. Revenues increased by 11%, and we achieved an EBITDA margin of 43.1%. Net income from continuing operation reached TRY 17.8 billion, up 23% year-on-year. These outcomes reflect disciplined execution and strong momentum across the business. 2025 was pivotal for our long-term strategic positioning. We were awarded the largest spectrum in the 5G auction and secured our fiber footprint through the agreement with BOTAS. This will strengthen our network leadership and expand our capacity to capture 5G demand. We maintain a robust balance sheet through prudent financial management. This preserves flexibility and liquidity. We delivered shareholder returns through a solid dividend payment and launched a 3-year share buyback program. Turkcell is a technology company. We are reinforcing that identity through focused investments. In 2025, we allocated 15% of CapEx to strategic areas, primarily in data center, cloud infrastructure and renewables. These investments deepen our digital infrastructure, enhance energy resilience and support long-term value creation. A major milestone for Turkiye is our strategic partnership with Google Cloud. We are building a hyperscale cloud region in Turkiye. This cloud region will help enterprises accelerate cloud adoption to secure their data sovereignty as well as excess advanced capabilities in AI, cybersecurity and digital platforms. Turkcell is at the center of Turkey's digital transformation. With this partnership, Turkcell will have sustainable technology-led growth. Next page, please. Over the past 3 years, we have executed with discipline to show that Turkcell's leadership in connectivity and digital infrastructure. This transformation shapes how we operate today and how we allocate capital to deliver long-term value creation. Our capital allocation framework is built on 3 pillars. First one, investing in our business to sustain leadership and capture future growth. We continue to advance mobile rollout and expand our fiber footprint with 5G. Our fixed wireless access solution Superbox will extend our coverage beyond fiber. In parallel, we are investing in data centers and cloud, which will bring future growth. As we scale this business, we may also evaluate selective inorganic opportunities. Our expected CapEx intensity of around 25% reflects this investment cycle. The second one, delivering attractive shareholder returns. Last year, we distributed 72% of net income from continuing operations. This is our ninth consecutive year of dividend distribution, 9 consecutive years. We also launched a new share buyback program and repurchased $58 million of shares to date, reflecting our confidence in long-term value of our business. Thirdly, maintaining a strong balance sheet. We continue to diversify our funding sources from sustainable bond issuance to Islamic financing structures. We remain committed to maintaining net leverage below 1x, preserving flexibility to invest in growth while continuing to support shareholder returns. Overall, we have a crystal clear capital allocation plan to invest in strategic infrastructure, capture structural global opportunities and deliver sustainable shareholder value. Next page, please. We can now move to the quarterly performance. The fourth quarter marked another period of solid execution for Turkcell's leadership. Performance was driven by operational excellence and supported by our key growth engines. With outstanding performance across all core segments. In this quarter, revenues grew by 7% year-on-year to TRY 63 billion. Results were underpinned by ARPA expansion, continued subscriber momentum and scaling of our data center business. All of these reinforce the strength and resilience of our growth model. Group EBITDA increased 12% to TRY 26 billion, reaching a solid 41.2% margin. Margin expansion reflects continued cost discipline and as well as the operational efficiency. Focused financial management also supported our bottom line with net income from continuing operations increasing 11% to TRY 3.6 billion. We achieved 905,000 net postpaid additions in the fourth quarter. This is the strongest quarterly result in the last 6 years. This was driven by targeted value propositions as well as customer-focused strategy. Another good news, this growth also came with real ARPU expansion, reflecting balanced growth. On the other hand, our data center and cloud business continued to scale with revenues growing by 32%, renewable energy installed solar capacity reached 62.2 megawatts. Next, please. Let us turn to the key operational highlights that shape our great quarter. Competition remained elevated for much of the year, but it is moderately in the middle of the fourth quarter. 2025 was marked by record high mobile number portability. In this environment, our customer-centric approach and pricing strategy helped us strengthen our market leadership and expand our customer base. We had 2.4 million postpaid net additions for the year 2025, the highest level in the past 26 years. Rising share of the postpaid subscribers was a key driver of revenue growth. It increased by 4.7 percentage points year-on-year to reach 81%, strengthening the resilience and the visibility of our revenue base. Revenue quality also improved. Through our micro segmented pricing actions and AI-supported offers we migrated a significant portion of our subscribers to higher-tier packages. As a result, mobile ARPU real growth is 5.4%. Innovative offerings, including family plans and a new loyalty platform like Tumbara, increased engagement and supported retention. As a result, our churn improved year-on-year to 2.7%. Next, please. Turning now to our fixed broadband operations. Another strong year for Superonline, our fixed business as well. We expanded our base with net addition of 119,000 Turkcell fiber subscribers. Total fiber subscriber base reached 2.6 million. High-speed campaigns were instrumental in driving this growth. We expanded our offer to speeds of up to 1,000 megabits per second. Today, out of all of our customers, 1 in 5 customers subscribes to speeds above 500 megabit per second. This signals a clear shift toward premium connectivity with Turkcell Superonline only. Residential fiber ARPU increased by 10.3% year-on-year. We expanded our fiber home pass to 6.3 million home passes. While increasing the number of home passes, we achieved a phenomenal performance on take-up ratio of 42%. Next please. Our digital infrastructure strategy is central to Turkcell's long-term growth. We believe that cloud and AI infrastructure is structural, a must for every business in Turkiye. The Turkish cloud market is growing at 19% annually in dollar terms, supported by increasing digitization and rapid adoption of AI-driven workloads. Our partnership with Google Cloud marks a defining milestone. Establishing a Google Cloud region in Turkiye strengthens our country's digital ecosystem and enhances our position in the infrastructure value chain. This partnership diversifies Turkcell's revenue streams and reinforces our long-term growth profile. Today, we operate 50 megawatts of active data center capacity, and it will be doubled by 2032. Over the same period, we expect our data center and cloud revenues to grow at least sixfold in U.S. dollar terms. Beginning in 2026. We expect this segment to generate approximately $100 million in EBITDA. We are uniquely positioned to capture this technological breakthrough with our scale, network assets, market leadership and strategic partnership, we are ready to benefit from this structural growth. Next please. Digital Business Services delivered solid growth, with revenues increasing by 30% to TRY 7 billion, supported by stronger hardware sales. Our system integration backlog reached TRY 6 billion. Our data center and cloud revenues increased by 32% year-on-year. This outstanding growth was driven by capacity expansion. As this new capacity established a higher base, we expect growth rates to gradually normalize. Even so underlying demand remains robust and continues to support for further expansion. We expect to complete the final module of Ankara data center in this year, reaching the full capacity -- full technical capacity of our existing facilities. In the first half 2026 construction of our new data centers under Google Cloud partnership will start. This will be our next phase of capacity expansion strategy. Techfin is one of our core strategic growth engine. Our techfin business delivered solid performance in 2025 with revenues growing by 21% and once again outpacing group growth. Paycell was the main driver of this growth. In the fourth quarter, its revenues increased by 40% year-on-year, supported by POS solutions and Pay Later services. Paycell increased its non-group revenue share by 18 percentage points to 77%, reflecting its ability to scale beyond the Turkcell ecosystem. On the financial side, revenues declined by 6%, mainly reflecting the lower interest rate environment. The loan portfolio continued to expand despite tight regulatory conditions. Net interest margin improved to 6.3%, primarily driven by lower funding costs as well as disciplined risk management and better collection practices. Overall, techfin continues to enhance the diversification and quality of our revenue growth. Next page, please. Now a few words on our renewable energy footprint. We are so proud of it. In the fourth quarter, we commissioned our largest active facility to date. Active solar capacity increased from 8 megawatts at the end of the last year to 62 megawatts in 2025. In total, we reached 164 megawatts of installed capacity across 8 different cities. These investments are already delivering financial benefits. During the year, our solar energy portfolio generated TRY 156 million in OpEx savings. Stronger contribution is expected in 2026. We will continue to expand our portfolio to enhance cost efficiency, strengthening operational resilience and support our 2050 net 0 commitment. Next page, please. We exceeded our expectations in 2025. This underscores the resilience of our operating model and the consistency of our execution. Looking ahead to 2026, our focus remains on real profitable growth. We expect real revenue growth in the range of 5% to 7% with the strength of our core business and increasing contributions from strategic areas. We aim to deliver an EBITDA margin between 40% to 42%, reflecting ongoing operational efficiency while continuing to invest in growth. Our operational CapEx intensity is expected to be around 25%, consistent with our investment cycle in 5G rollout, digital infrastructure expansion and renewable energy projects. In our data center and cloud business, we anticipate revenue growth in the range of 18% to 20%. This reflects a normalization following the significant capacity expansions completed in 2025, while underlying demand remains healthy. Overall, we believe our guidance balances growth, continued investments and sustainable value creation. With that, I will now hand over to our CFO, Mr. Kamil Kalyon, to walk you through our financial highlights. Kamil Kalyon: Thank you very much, Ali Taha bey. Let me briefly walk you through our financial results. We delivered a strong performance for both the year and the quarter. Top line grew by 11% year-on-year, surpassing TRY 241 billion, quarterly growth was 7%. This performance reflects resilient execution in our core telecom business and continued scaling of our techfin platform. Turkcell Turkiye revenue increased by TRY 21 billion year-on-year. Growth was driven primarily by real ARPU expansion and sustained postpaid subscriber additions. Continued upselling and premium positioning further enhanced the quality of our revenue base. Techfin accounted for 6% of consolidated revenues contributed TRY 2.4 billion for the year. Performance was underpinned despite strong momentum in Paycell, particularly in POS solutions and Pay Later. Both verticals continue to expand transaction volumes and monetization. Next slide, please. Now EBITDA performance. Exceeding the top line growth, EBITDA increased by 14% year-on-year to TRY 104 billion, reflecting efficient cost management, EBITDA margin surpassed 43%. The main positive contributors were employee and energy expenses. While payment expenses scaled alongside strong POS expansion, Paycell's primary growth driver this year. Radio-related expenses reflect the acceleration of our 5G readiness and ongoing network modernization efforts. As a result, EBITDA margin expanded by 1.2 percentage points demonstrating disciplined execution while continuing to invest for future growth. We remain focused on balancing strategic growth investments with long-term profitability. Next slide, please. Profit from continuing operations increased by 23% year-on-year to TRY 17.8 billion, primarily driven by strong EBITDA growth. We maintained market leadership through solid execution and a diversified revenue mix supporting sustainable EBITDA generation. We had a larger debt position during the year. However, our proactive balance sheet management further supported bottom line performance by TRY 3.5 billion. Net finance income benefited from lower interest expenses, loan redemptions and reduced hedging costs amid stable FX conditions. In addition, maintaining a solid TL position allowed us to benefit from attractive local currency yields. Monetary adjustments continue to reflect moderating inflation dynamics and the residual impact of the Ukraine divestment in 2024. Looking ahead, the capitalization of 5G license is expected to support normalization in this line. TOGG contributed positively this year, supported by improved pricing dynamics and the launch of the new model. We see additional long-term value creation potential as 5G-driven technological transformation accelerates. Income tax expense increased mainly reflecting the deferral of inflation accounting application in statutory financials. Next slide, please. Let's take a closer look at our CapEx management. With a prudent CapEx approach, we closed the year at 22.6%, in line with guidance. We continue to advance both mobile and fixed infrastructure. Fixed investments accelerated adding 405,000 new while base station fiberization reached 47%. Excluding strategic areas, CapEx intensity remains stable at around 18% to 19% over the past 3 years reflecting consistency in our investment framework. Our investment profile reflects a focus on our strategic growth areas beyond traditional telecom. Operational CapEx intensity of 25% is aligned with our strategic priorities across 5G, data centers and renewable energy. We allocate capital with a clear focus on long-term value creation, favoring projects with strong return visibility and scalable cash generation. Next slide, please. Moving now to our balance sheet. Our balance sheet provides flexibility to execute our strategic objectives while preserving financial resilience. We closed 2025 with a cash position of TRY 92 billion after dividend payments, loan repayments and the Eurobond redemption in the fourth quarter. Our solid liquidity position fully covers upcoming 5G payments and debt service obligations over the next 2.5 years. Net debt was TRY 15 billion. Net leverage improved to 0.1x supported by strong EBITDA generation. We remain committed to maintaining leverage below 1x while comfortably funding 5G payments and broader strategic investments. The increase in lease obligations reflects the onetime accounting impact of a 15-year BOTAS infrastructure renewable agreement in the fixed side. We continue proactive debt management and actively evaluate diversified financing opportunities to support our long-term growth strategy. Next slide, please. Lastly on foreign currency risk management. We proactively monitored market conditions and swapped a portion of our U.S. dollar holdings into Turkish lira. As a result, 56% of our cash was held in TL at year-end. This allows us to benefit from higher local currency yields and supported net financial income. At the year-end, we had USD 3.4 billion in FX debt, USD 1.9 billion in FX-denominated financial assets and a derivative portfolio of USD 600 million. Derivative portfolio reflects our short-term FX swap transactions with volumes increasing towards year-end and fewer NDF transactions. The increase in our short-term FX position mainly reflects higher FX-denominated CapEx in the fourth quarter and a deliberate reduction of hedging instruments to avoid higher costs. We target managing our FX position around USD 1.5 billion to support investments and 5G license obligations. We may adjust this level proactively in line with market volatility. This concludes our presentation. We are now ready to take your questions. Thank you very much. Operator: [Operator Instructions] The first question is from the line of Bystrova Evgeniya with Barclays. Bystrova Evgeniya: Congrats on your results. I have just one question. I was kind of curious to know more about the data centers business. If you could please provide more color maybe on what are the EBITDA margins of this business? That would be very helpful. Ali Koç: So thank you very much for the question. It's our growth area, and we are expanding our data centers. AI and our cloud are expected to drive 14% CAGR in data centers from 2025 to 2030, lifting global capacity from 108 gigawatts to 200 gigawatts. So overall, what we can see is our results are getting better and better. AI is reshaping workloads all around the world. So there's a huge demand on the data center business. So currently, our expectation is that more than 2x increase in active data center capacity and 6x increase in the data center cloud revenues in dollar terms as of 2032. Share of the DC cloud revenue and total revenue is expected to increase around 8% to 10%. It is -- currently, it is around 2% and we are expecting that no dilutive impact is expected on our EBITDA margin. Operator: The next question is from the line of Demirtas Cemal with Ata Invest. Cemal Demirtas: Thank you for the presentation and congratulations for good results. My question is about your FX position. Maybe if could you further elaborate that. If I didn't understand wrong, you mentioned that you have short position now around $900 million. I couldn't understand the justification behind that any -- short position in U.S. dollar, maybe that will be more helpful because there's jump and you justify with some other things, I guess, investments that further evaluation could be helpful. And the other question is, again, the data center sites. We visited one of your -- the data center, and it was really helpful for us. Thank you once again, and you spent time with us, and it was very helpful to know where Turkcell is going ahead. But Ali Taha bey, I'm receiving questions about the size of the investments. Currently, is a simple calculation, maybe you can just give us a better color with the size, you have already have 50 megawatts. And you will add additional 50 megawatts. And -- but during that period, $1 billion will be invested you and $2 billion will be invested by Google. For some -- just we see that question from also investors, isn't the small number, small megawatts as a hyperscale scalers shouldn't be expected a bigger megawatt numbers also in the investment side, please just help us to understand better? Or should we assume that this is the starting point. Going forward, this megawatt number could be much higher. That would be very helpful again. Kamil Kalyon: Yes. Cemal, I will start from your first question. Our FX position is around USD 957 million sizes. As you know, fourth quarter is seasonality from the CapEx investments are very high in our site. Therefore, the one reason is coming from the high CapEx investments. The other side, as we mentioned in the presentation slide, we are monitoring the market conditions very closely and we swapped some portion of U.S. dollar holdings into Turkish lira. Therefore, we would -- currently our cash is -- 56% of the cash is Turkish lira position. This transaction in order to benefit from the higher local currency yields coming from the money funds, for example, in Turkiye, the money market funds. Therefore, we would like to benefit from this advantage, therefore, we swapped some portion of our U.S. dollar into Turkish lira. For the first question, I can say this at for the second and third question, I will hand over to Mr. Ali Taha. Cemal Demirtas: Kamil bey, related to this question. Doesn't it mean you are taking a position, if I understand correctly, it looks like if there is the pressure on Turkish Lira, do you have any hedge for that already as a structure -- is it hedged? I just try to understand that. Maybe it's a good strategy part of this, but doesn't need just for the benefit because Turkish lira -- things might change. There's a risk and it's not the main business of the company. So maybe further justification could be helpful. Kamil Kalyon: You're absolutely right. But as you know, in 2025, the FX policy of the Central Bank worked very well. Therefore, the hedging costs were very, very expensive in 2025. Therefore, we prefer to move a short position in the U.S. FX side in 2025. Yes, this policy worked very well in 2025. For example, if you do not have any war in the Iran or something like that, we believe that in 2026 this policy also will work. But currently, we are monitoring the conditions. Current conditions are a little bit different when you compare it with 2025. We are closely monitoring the markets and the environment right now. Therefore, we will decide how will we use this FX position. But as we mentioned in our presentation, our aim is, our policy is we would like to keep the short position in USD 1.5 billion levels. We still trust the policy of the Turkish Central Bank for 2026. Ali Koç: Okay. Let's come to the data center business. Yes, that's my favorite topic and favorite question. Let me tell you that. Let me give you a brief information about the Turkiye. Turkiye's total cloud consumption is around 150 to 200 megawatts. So if you look at the corporates, it's there out of 70 to 80 megawatts. So overall, what we need to do is most of the corporate domain in Turkey is still building their own data centers and they do internal consumption. So that's the reason that 50-megawatt number is not a huge number. The good thing about the 50-megawatt is. So previously, what we were doing is we were preparing the infrastructure for the colocation services. So our first 50 megawatts, most of the banks, most of the airline companies are bringing their own servers and they have their own hardware, and we colocate them in our data centers. But for the Google Cloud, it's going to be full-blown system. So we are going to build a data center. We are going to prepare for Google Cloud that infrastructure with electricity with cooling. But on top of it, Google will bring thousands, 10 thousands servers to Turkiye. So that's the reason that the investment is high. So they're going to have a full-blown system such a way that -- and so another thing is the space, 50 megawatts is good enough because these servers are going to be used by not only one company, hundreds of companies that are going to -- together, they are going to use it. That's the meaning of cloud actually. So they can utilize their service more and more. So that's the reason that 50 megawatts is a huge investment, and I'm pretty sure that our biggest target is to bring all of these companies or the industry players to move their old systems to this cloud -- state-of-the-art cloud regions. Operator: [Operator Instructions] The next question is from the line of Karagoz Yusuf with Ak Yatirim. Yusuf Karagoz: You ended the year with a 43% EBITDA margin for the next year, your guidance is around 40% to 42%. Do you expect any contraction in margins? Kamil Kalyon: Yusuf, normally, as you said, that the 2025 performance was very, very good regarding the EBITDA side, especially for the energy cost and the salary expense, salary wage expenses are -- does not increase over the inflation rate. It was very useful for 2025. In 2026, there are some -- we make a salary increase, average in 30 percentage levels is a little bit above the inflation side. And as you know, this is the 5G year. We will be starting from the April 1, the 5G issue. Therefore, we will be spending some money through the marketing expense, marketing activities and the sales activities for the 5G side. And we will closely monitor the energy prices because the war, current war might affect -- might have some effects, inflationary effects in the energy side and the other cost. Therefore, we would like to be a little bit conservative starting for the year for the EBITDA margin. We will look forward within the year. But this year is a little bit less when you compare it with the 2025. Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, there are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the conference over to Turkcell management for any closing comments. Thank you. Ali Koç: Thank you very much for listening. Hope to see you next time. Thank you. Kamil Kalyon: Thank you very much. Ozlem Yardim: Thank you, bye. Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, the conference has now concluded, and you may disconnect your telephone. Thank you for calling, and have a pleasant evening.
Operator: Greetings, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Global Water Resources, Inc. 2025 Year-end Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I would like to remind everyone that this call is being recorded on March 5, 2026, at 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time. I would now like to turn the conference over to Kyle Upchurch, Controller. Please go ahead. Kyle Upchurch: Thank you, operator, and welcome, everyone. Thank you for joining us on today's call. Yesterday, we issued our 2025 year-end financial results by press release, a copy of which is available on our website at gwresources.com. Speaking today, we have Ron Fleming, President and Chief Executive Officer; Mike Liebman, Chief Financial Officer; and Chris Krygier, Chief Operating Officer. Ron will summarize the key operational events of the year. Mike will review the financial results for year-end, and Chris will review Arizona Corporation Commission activity. Ron, Mike and Chris will be available for questions at the end of today's call. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that certain information presented today may include forward-looking statements. Such statements reflect the company's current expectations, estimates, projections and assumptions regarding future events. These forward-looking statements involve a number of assumptions, risks, uncertainties, estimates and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements. Accordingly, investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements, which reflect management's views as of the date hereof and are not guarantees of future performance. For additional information regarding factors that may affect future results, please read the Risk Factors and MD&A sections of our periodic SEC filings. Additionally, certain non-GAAP measures may be included within today's call. For a reconciliation of those measures to the comparable GAAP measures, please see the tables included in yesterday's earnings release, which is available on our website. I will now turn the call over to Ron. Ron Fleming: Thank you, Kyle. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. We are pleased to report the results for year-end 2025. First, before jumping to normal operating highlights, I would like to get straight to the main points on 2025. This year included many large and successful initiatives that will materially grow rate base. In fact, including 2024 and 2025, the test year and post test year for our Santa Cruz Water Company and Palo Verde Utilities Company rate case, we have increased the collective rate baseable assets of our company by $70 million or 59%. With respect to these initiatives, we've had a near record year for capital investments that were critical to complete within 2025. These investments span everything from recommissioning the previously mothballed water reclamation facility in Pinal County, south of the City of Maricopa, which is part of the system we refer to as our Southwest plant to our capital improvements to stay in front of our fast-growing communities and the acquisition of the City of Tucson water systems. All of these investments inure to long-term value creation and also benefit customers and communities we have the privilege to serve. However, these investments increased expenses across the board, including much larger depreciation and a onetime asset write-off related to the Southwest plant, which all impact income and earnings per share. This regulatory lag is an unfortunate part of the historical test year environment here in Arizona, but it is necessary to make investments upfront and seek recovery thereafter. Additionally, certain company expenses such as medical costs continue to grow at an unprecedented pace. As I've been saying for many quarters now, we need new rates to keep up with all the investment and inflation that has occurred in our utilities. Chris will discuss these rate cases and our regulatory activity later in the call. In the meantime, I want to make it clear. 2026 is about working hard to control expenses, and we have reduced the pace of capital investments. Now as a reminder of many other positive announcements from 2025 that underpin our goal of long-term value creation and our ability to deliver total returns to our shareholders in the years and decades to come. First, we announced that the Arizona Governor signed meaningful water legislation known as Ag-to-Urban, which became law in 2025. We believe this will result in many benefits that will be applicable for Global Water in our service areas, improving offer for sustainability while creating a new groundwater supply to support additional growth. Based on Global Water's established service areas created through buying and building utilities in the path of growth, our regional areas coincide with land that has considerable historical farming operations just outside densely populated Metro Phoenix. Thus, we believe the new law will drive even more growth to our service areas. Second, full funding of the highway 347 expansion connecting Interstate 10 and metro Phoenix to the City of Maricopa and the entire western part of Pinal County was approved in 2025. As the stakeholders had already begun engineering on certain long-term elements of the 13-mile road widening project, it is estimated that the construction will begin in summer 2026. This project should go a long way to ensure that the City of Maricopa continue to be one of the fastest-growing communities in the country, and it meets -- helps meet our population projections of growing nearly 90% by 2040. As evidence to the potential of this population projection, on July 1, 2025, the U.S. Census Bureau released its population projections from 2024 data. And the City of Maricopa was once again in the top 10 of the fastest-growing large municipalities in the country, coming in at #6. Even more telling was that population growth in 2024 was even stronger than 2023 as the city realized 7.4% growth compared to 7.1%. Below, I will discuss connection growth rates and permit growth rates that have begun to slow, but it is important to keep this population growth that I just discussed in mind, as it is now more closely correlates with consumption and revenue growth based on the amount of multifamily housing and commercial growth that is occurring. Finally, if you think about everything just mentioned from rate base accumulation to water and transportation that are the 2 fundamental elements of economic development, you can see that even more than ever, we have the foundation of sustainable growth for the years and decades to come. Now I'll provide a few operational highlights. Total active service connections increased 6.3% to 68,577 at December 31, 2025, from the 12 months prior. In 2025, we achieved a 3.2% total active service connection growth rate, excluding the recent acquisition of the 7 Tucson water systems. And specifically, we invested $67.3 million into infrastructure improvements in existing utilities to provide safe and reliable service. The majority of our investments in 2025 were post-test year projects in Santa Cruz Water Company and Palo Verde Utilities Company, our 2 largest utilities located in Pinal County and are included in our already filed 2024 test year rate application. Now I want to discuss organic customer growth and what is going on in our core utilities even further. The single-family dwelling unit market ended 2024 with approximately 27,156 building permits issued in the Phoenix greater metro area. In 2025, this market realized 21,815 building permits, and this did represent a nearly 20% decrease in 2024. In 2025, the Maricopa market realized 600 building permits, representing a 39% decrease from the same period in 2024. The 2025 permit data showing a bit of a pullback from the prior year is not surprising considering the uncertainty in the market today. While new permit activity has slowed in '25, growth in the Phoenix MSA, particularly in the City of Maricopa, is reflected in the company's 3.2% year-over-year organic increase in active connections. We believe the decline in permits is temporary, especially considering that mortgage rates continue to drop, and we remain well positioned to benefit from the anticipated long-term growth of the Phoenix MSA. I will now turn the call over to Mike for financial highlights. Michael Liebman: Thanks, Ron. Hello, everyone. Total revenue for 2025 was $55.8 million, which was up $3.1 million or 5.8% compared to 2024. The increase in revenue was primarily attributable to the City of Tucson acquisition in July 2025, organic growth in active water and wastewater connections and, higher rates in our Farmers and Sororal utilities compared to 2024. Operating expenses for 2025 increased approximately $5.3 million or 12.2% to $48.6 million compared to $43.3 million in 2024. Notable changes in operating expenses included depreciation, amortization and accretion expense increased $2.3 million for the year, the increase was substantially attributable to the additional depreciable fixed assets placed in service this year as a result of our increased capital investments and the commissioning of related projects, which are part of our current rate case. Operating and maintenance costs increased approximately $2 million for the year. The increase was primarily driven by 3 things: first, personnel costs as a result of the Tucson acquisition, medical expenses and filling a previously vacant position; second, utilities, chemicals and repairs due to higher purchased power, chemical costs and water treatment expense associated with increased consumption and newly operational plant; and third, higher contract services. G&A costs increased by approximately $1 million in 2025, primarily driven by higher medical costs, increased professional fees, largely from legal expenses associated with the Nikola bankruptcy, higher IT spending, increased insurance premiums and elevated municipal licensing fees tied to revenue growth. Now to discuss other expense. Other expense for 2025 was $3.2 million compared to $1.5 million in 2024. The increase in expense is primarily attributable to a loss on asset disposals of $1.3 million related to the recommissioning of our Southwest plant and lower income associated with our Buckeye growth premiums. Net income for 2025 was $3 million or $0.11 per diluted share as compared to $5.8 million or $0.24 per diluted share in '24. Adjusted net income, a non-GAAP measure, was $3.9 million or $0.14 per diluted share in '25 as compared to $6.3 million or $0.26 per diluted share in '24. Lastly, I'll discuss adjusted EBITDA, which adjusts for certain nonrecurring items such as onetime storm-related expenses and noncash items such as restricted stock expense and the loss on asset disposals for our Southwest plant. For 2025, adjusted EBITDA decreased 0.7% to $26.5 million from $26.7 million in the prior year. This concludes our update on the year-end 2025 financial results. I'll now pass the call to Chris to review our regulatory activity for the year. Christopher Krygier: Thank you, Mike, and hello, everyone. We accomplished a number of constructive developments on the regulatory agenda this year. First, in January 2025, we secured ACC approval to acquire the 7 public water utility systems from the City of Tucson, which we closed in July 2025. Second, in April 2025, the Arizona Corporation Commission approved approximately $1.1 million of new revenues for our Global Water Farmers utility. Finally, we continue progressing on our Global Water Santa Cruz and Global Water Palo Verde rate reviews. As Ron mentioned, we are squarely focused on securing rate relief for our significant capital investments and rising expenses. Since we last spoke in November, we filed testimony supporting a proposed revenue increase of approximately $4.3 million. Since that filing, the parties and the administrative law judge revised the case schedule to include additional ACC staff testimony being filed on April 15, 2026, and the hearing is now scheduled to begin in August of 2026. We are continuing to dialogue with our regulatory stakeholders on the case, and we will keep you apprised of additional updates on future calls. This concludes the update on regulatory activity for the year. I'll now pass the call back to Ron. Ron Fleming: Thank you, Chris. To close today, I just wanted to express how proud I am of our team. We took on a lot in 2025 and successfully executed on many fronts. But while these efforts have prepared us for 2026 and beyond, we still have more work to do. And despite many headwinds, we will continue to execute our growth plan and remain at the forefront of the water management industry, advancing our mission of achieving efficiency and consolidation. We truly believe that expanding our total water management platform and applying our expertise throughout our regional service areas and to new utilities will be beneficial to all stakeholders involved. We appreciate your investment in and support of us as we grow Global Water to address important utility, water resource and economic development matters along the Arizona Sun Corridor, allowing our communities to thrive. These highlights conclude our prepared remarks. Thank you. We are now available to answer any questions. Operator: [Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Zach Liggett from Desmond Liggett Wealth. Zach Liggett: I just had two. First of all, on the rate case, just given how kind of frustrating this has been, I'm curious if you guys have done an analysis and have looked at things that are within your control that you can do differently on future rate cases. So that's my first question. And then the second question is just related to AI, if there's any use cases you guys have identified that you can apply to the business and try to squeeze out some more operating efficiencies. Ron Fleming: Yes. Zach, it's Ron Fleming here. I'll go ahead and start on the rate case question, and then Chris and Mike, feel free to jump in. I just want to make it clear that to use your word, it's been a frustrating process. The primary element of this rate case is very unique, and it is the recommissioning of that Southwest plant assets. And for those of you that are new investors to the company, we invested in a new utility territory just South of the City of Maricopa prior to the Great Recession. So really in the years 2005, 2006, 2007. Ultimately, when 2008 hit, no customers showed up. And so we weren't able to actually fully commission and bring those utilities online and move them in the rates, which is clearly your normal process. Lots of things happened during the Great Recession, as I'm sure you can imagine that took a long time to work through. But most recently, growth did return there, kind of back in 2001. We started working with the developers there again. Growth has jumped from the City of Maricopa to this area, and it's growing actually pretty nicely now. But we had to recommission those assets and move them into rates. And so to be fair to the commission, this is a unique situation that's not often dealt with. And we certainly don't plan on replicating the situation again in future kind of normal business operations or rate cases. Christopher Krygier: Yes, Zach, this is Chris Krygier. What I would add to that is I absolutely agree on the uniqueness. I've been in the regulatory space for a long time in my career, and this is definitely one of the most unique situations that we've had to work through. But I'd tell you, big picture, you're always looking and taking lessons learned from every rate case, and we have continued to do that. But I'd also say we follow the pretty traditional playbook with a unique issue like this, meaning we've been talking to our regulatory stakeholders for a long time about it. We've been talking to our communities about it. And so really -- and talking to customers about it. So we'll continue all of those, but it is a unique issue, but we will get it there. Ron Fleming: Yes. And then happy to speak a little bit on the AI question as well. Ultimately, funny enough, we just got a presentation from our Vice President of IT and Security yesterday on it. And ultimately, there's going to be lots of use cases in our industry. The most obvious one that people benefit from right off the jump is in your call center, and your ability to provide better service to your customers and also, obviously, on our end, make it more efficient. So that's something we've started to implement at a level. But to take it outside of the call center and across our utility operations, because we're obviously very highly regulated and very highly automated, there's lots of security issues that we want to have in place before pushing it too far out into the organization. So those conversations are being had. We're not going faster, primarily because of the security considerations that we need to have in place. Zach Liggett: Makes sense. I appreciate the color there. And just a quick follow-up on the -- back on the rate case. If we get to the end of the year and it just doesn't go as you guys hope, do you have the ability to accelerate like a refiling and take another crack at it? Or like how does that process work? Christopher Krygier: Yes. Zach, we're -- this is Chris again. We are looking at all of those options and giving thought as to what that would look like. We don't have anything to announce at the moment, but I'd say we're evaluating all of those options and what would be the best court if we needed to pursue that. Ron Fleming: Yes. Thank you. And I'll make one more point on the top of that. It kind of builds off my comment earlier in my planned remarks about having moved $70 million of rate baseable assets into service. That means it is into service, so providing customers. So it is a matter in our view of when, not if, and we'll have that determined through this rate case on the win. So thank you. Operator: Seeing no further questions, I would like to turn the conference back over to Ron Fleming for any closing remarks. Ron Fleming: All right. Thank you, operator. Again, I just want to thank everybody for participating on the call and for your interest in Global Water Resources. We appreciate it and look forward to speaking with you again. Operator: The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.
Nicolaas Muller: Good morning to everyone. Welcome here to all those present, the investment community, our own Implats people and for everyone who's dialed in as well, welcome. Always an honor to represent a very talented Implats team. Extraordinary times that we are living in. We had a presentation from one of the consulting firms the other day, and it was very clear that we are going through a shift in global order. It's a new era that is being introduced. We're seeing changes in international relationships, institutions, NATO, trade paths are changing, supply chains are changing. The move from globalization to multipolarity is accelerating. We just recently this weekend seen a new event unfold in the Middle East. And so all of this creates a number of consequences, one of which is uncertainty in future supply, particularly in natural resources and in our case, critical minerals and metals. And critical can be defined in many ways. But one is, if it's used in critical industries like in Europe, the auto industry is a very important employer. It affects politics. And so without our metals, there is a risk for the industry. But then also our concentrated supply globally with 80% of the world's PGMs being produced from Southern Africa and the uniqueness of our metals, as has been said many times over the past. And so given these pressures and the uncertainty in supply chains, where will this metal come from in the past, there's a major topic of critical minerals and the hoarding of that, we've seen, as an example, the $12 billion evolve program announced by the U.S. We certainly are having similar discussions with other jurisdictions or representatives of industry in other jurisdictions where similar concerns are being echoed where there's an engagement to determine the extent to which relationships can be formed to provide security for long-term supply. In addition to that, we've seen the flow out of the U.S. dollar towards hard assets such as gold. We've seen record gold prices and other precious metals like platinum has now followed suit. So that has in part been the driving force behind the extraordinary rise of the PGM dollar prices. On top of that, if you look at the market fundamentals, we do see continual downward revisions in the EV penetration rates. We have witnessed in recent times a shift in priority in decarbonization in general, particularly in the U.S. But we have seen relaxation in terms of expectations of where the world wants to be in terms of, for instance, the percentage of fleet contribution of electric vehicles by certain dates 2030 and 2035. And so that has resulted in an increase in demand for our metals. We have seen an increase in demand from Chinese jewelry and certain industrial customers as well. On the other side, we do have certain supply risks being acknowledged by the market. We have not seen the historical levels of investment in future supply. I had occasion to sit with the four CEOs -- the other four CEOs of PGMs. And even in February, we were unanimous that it's not the right time to consider large-scale greenfield capital projects at this stage. And so if you look at the global order shift in world uncertainty combined with shifts in the fundamental markets that has given cause to the increase in -- sorry, on the wrong slide, metal prices. As a consequence of where -- of the nature of the major forces, it is our contention that the price support that we're currently seeing is not a short-term one. This is not as a consequence of Donald Trump. It's the Trump effect. It will outlast the current administration. It's not reliant on who wins the next election. It's uncertainty -- once you've asked these questions, those questions remain relevant and you have to organize your country, your region very differently for a generation to follow. So it is our belief that this current upswing in prices will remain longer than has been the case in the past where we saw relatively short summers following very long winters. And so if you look at our results, it's dominated by two major points. One, the production performance, both at mine operational level as well as in the processing division and what we sold, it's more or less in line broadly. I mean, as I said in the video, if you look at all of those numbers, it's like 0% or plus 1% is around about there. So that's the one thing. The business has been in good hands. We have navigated through this period in a very stable fashion. The one red flag that we need to be cautious of is the increase in operating costs. Our unit cost increased by 11%. There are reasons for that, that will be addressed by Meroonisha and our COO, but it is something that we have to be aware of. So I think cost management is something that we have to take into consideration and the operating cost specifically. And then, of course, the other dominant factor has been this 40% increase in the rand basket price. And if you look through all of the financials, the entire industry is looking a lot more attractive than what it did in the previous period. Given the fact that we are where we are in terms of metal prices and then increase in EBITDA and revenue and cash flow, it does provide us with a really important opportunity, and that is to change our strategic focus in the company. During the lean years, we are very defensive. We focus on cost control, capital management. We even go as far as organizing or reorganizing labor and even do things like portfolio reviews to understand or to have a strategy if there is a further decline in prices. So at the bottom, that talks about an inflection point. So if I look at where the company is positioned now, the focus is different. We now have the opportunity to focus on how to strengthen the company. And our opportunities, there's like a funnel of a pipeline of opportunities, starting off at the most basic level, Patrick and his team with the support of Meroonisha and the rest of the executive have already implemented through Board support a number of early action programs to initiate life extension projects. They've occurred at -- two Rivers, at Marula, at some of the shafts at Rustenburg. One of them has already been converted to a fully fledged capital application that was approved, and that's at 14 Shaft for roughly ZAR 1 billion. And that will provide us with life extension project. I am very confident that some of these other early works programs that were initiated will result in approval of additional capital. And based on Patrick's information, roughly, we will look at a 3-year extension to our current steady-state 3.5 million ounces per year production profile. Thereafter, we will require additional initiatives. So that's the one part. The second part is that we do believe that there is room for optimizing of the industry through various actions. One, there is the sharing of infrastructure. We are constrained at the moment with our processing capacity, and we have excess ounces. But in future, I mean we do see a declining production profile. So that will open up some processing capacity to share in the industry. And we do believe it's critically important for Southern Africa to protect local beneficiation of the metals. And so I think that the opportunity to do so will increase as we go forward. Then there are the normal cross-boundary opportunities that always exist. And I can think about a few, but let me just raise one. And I'm not -- please don't interpret this as me announcing any action. I'm just saying one of the areas that we have battled with in the industry is the Eastern Limb as an example. So if you reimagine what the Eastern Limb could look like if it's operating as a greater unit, I think you can share concentrator capacity with mining capacity, but it will provide you with better muscle to create a more attractive area to get skill better -- a better range of skills in the area and to do better at your socioeconomic contribution to increase the license to operate. So I think there is an opportunity. If I look at Zim, there are a number of emergent producers, GDI, Karo's and so on. So I think that there is an opportunity not only for Implats, but for the industry to reimagine how it operates and to optimize to increase further efficiencies as an industry. And I do think Implats is very well positioned. I mean, we are represented in all the major producing -- PGM producing areas other than Russia. So I mean, we are in South Africa, Western Limb, Northern Limb, Eastern Limb, as well as in the Great Dyke as well as North America. So I do think that we're very well positioned. We do have a good track record in constructive partnerships, toll arrangements, joint ventures. We have been operating in Africa where we focus on long-term strategic relationships. So that's something that we think is quite valuable in considering future options. And then I mean, we can ask more questions about it, but then there would be the questions about greenfields, the Waterberg and the big other thing. As I said earlier, we remain cautious about introducing major new ounces to the market at this point. So we do not expect to make any announcements about that soon. On that note, I would like to hand over to our esteemed COO, Mr. Patrick Morutlwa. Patrick Morutlwa: Thank you, Nico. Yes. Good morning, everyone. It's really a privilege for me to present our group results. And I'll start with safety, health and environment, which underpins everything we do in our group. So for the past 18 months, we have been implementing our 8-point safety plan. And I'm glad to say it is starting to deliver a step change in safety that we've actually envisaged. And this is seen in some of the milestones we've achieved for the period. Our mining and processing division for the first time for the period actually went fatal-free. Similarly, so Rustenburg, one of our biggest operations achieved 5 million without the free shift in the period. And also, if you look at our key risks: fall of ground, winches and machinery, we saw a 12% reduction in injuries, which is all symbolizing and strengthening of career controls in those areas. So while we are building on this momentum, we are equally humbled and also grounded because of the two losses of life we incurred, one in the period and one post the period. So we are reflecting, we are learning, and we will be taking these lessons to make sure that we implement no repeat solutions. So we don't repeat this type of incidents. On the environmental side, our ESG programs continue to receive global recognition. As you've seen in the video, for the fifth year running, we have been included in S&P's Sustainability Yearbook. And during all the same period, you have seen that we have not recorded any Level 3 to Level 5 environmental incident. So we operate sustainably because this is the way we express our values of care, respect and deliver. And lastly, on the health side, also our health programs continue to deliver positive results. Our HIV and TB prevalence are well below the national averages. So the next thing for us for health really is to focus on mental health and psychological health of our employees because healthy employees are engaged, they are safe, but they are also productive. Then moving over to production. We have actually delivered a steady and consistent production, which was really buoyed by second quarter, which was much stronger than the first half. So what you also see that this has happened despite three of our operations having some serious strategic shift. At Marula, we focus on development. At Canada, we continue with the high-grade strategy as previously communicated. And lastly, Rustenburg 3 of our shafts are nearing end of the economic life. So we had to deal with labor movement in those shafts. So going forward, in terms of processing, we also have seen strong performance. And this is also on the back of the work we have done. We have upgraded our BMR at Springs, and we have also done some design and maintenance work in Rustenburg furnaces. So you will see that for our BMR, we have actually a record milling and also for this period, Rustenburg smelter performed very well above budget. And as a result, we were able to release 20,000 ounces of excess inventory. Usually, our release is gravitated towards H2. But because of this good work, we are able to release 20,000 ounces. Our furnace 4 have gone down for maintenance way ahead of schedule. We should be able to restart now in April. And as a result, very confident to release 100,000 of excess inventory as promised at the start of the year. As Nico spoke about the cost, we were about 5.5% above the mine inflation. This was a decision to strategically invest in our infrastructure, particularly some conveyor belt in Zimplats and also improving our maintenance fleet across the group. This will set us well for the future to make sure that we can maintain the current production, but we also deliver into the future expectations. So as I stand here, I can safely say we will meet our guidance on production, on cost and capital for the year. Thank you very much, and I'll hand over to Meroonisha. Meroonisha Kerber: Thank you, Patrick. And I'm checking the time still good morning, everyone. So clearly, the steady operational performance that you've seen enabled us to fully benefit from the 40% improvement in pricing. Let me just get there. Okay. So you'll see EBITDA up at ZAR 18.1 billion, headline earnings, ZAR 9.3 billion. But I think what is noteworthy is that we did not have any unusual non-recurring items in our earnings for the period. As Patrick and Nico spoke about, given the improved pricing and profitability, we were allowed to reinvest in the business. So you'll see some of that in our unit costs, where we took the opportunity with the improved cash flow to spend more on infrastructure and maintenance. And of course, some of that contributed to the 11% increase that you've seen. If you -- and that is particularly at two of our biggest operations, our Rustenburg operations and Zimplats. If you look at free cash flow for the period, we generated significant -- there was a significant improvement from ZAR 600 million in the previous year, up to ZAR 7 billion. And this was driven largely by the improved profitability, but some of this was offset by the buildup in working capital. I think what's important to note is that at the end of the period, there was an additional tax payment that was due of ZAR 1.4 billion, and we made this payment in January, and it basically was a top-up to our provisional tax. If you recall, there was quite a steep increase in prices in the month of December. And clearly, we worked our forecast that were done in November that didn't fully take into consideration the rapid improvement in pricing. If you look at the balance sheet, we used the opportunity of the improved free cash flow to repay some debt. So we repaid about ZAR 800 million worth of debt, mostly at Zimplats, and our gross debt declined from ZAR 1.8 billion down to ZAR 1 billion. Another very important thing we did in the period was our group revolving credit facility was almost -- I think it would have expired now in February. So we took the opportunity to refinance it in quarter 2. And basically, we upsized it from the -- just under ZAR 8 billion to ZAR 14 billion, and we managed to do this on very competitive terms. The new revolving credit facility is valid for -- well, extends for 3 years, and we've got two -- the reason that I mentioned the RCF is we've made some changes to our disclosure on net cash. So in line with the new RCF, we amended the disclosure and definition of net cash to align to the RCF. What this meant is that, we now exclude the deferred revenue from the gold stream from the net cash balance, but also we are not now including the cash held at Zimplats in local currency in our cash balance. And that really is because of the fact that, that currency is not -- you cannot use it outside of Zimbabwe. So on this basis, our net cash got adjusted -- our net cash increased from ZAR 8.1 billion to ZAR 12.1 billion. And with the undrawn revolving credit facility of ZAR 14 billion, we closed the year with headroom of just -- liquidity headroom of just under ZAR 29 billion. I think before I go on to the next slide, I just want to point out a few things. If I look forward, I think the company is really well poised to take advantage of the favorable metal price environment. And there's a few factors that I would like to highlight. Firstly, you've seen sustained operational delivery, and I have no doubt that the team will continue to deliver into H2. We have got a track record of good cost discipline, and it is something that will receive focus. But that -- but I think our teams will deliver on keeping the cost tight. Our capital intensity has normalized, but we've got the ability and the capacity to further strengthen the business and invest in progressing our life of mine projects. And I think the other point, which is very important, is that we have expanded processing capacity and the excess inventory. And I don't think we must underestimate the flexibility this gives us to manage any operational challenges that we might have along the way, and it does support free cash flow generation. If I can then move on to capital allocation. So after repaying about ZAR 800 million worth of debt and making provision for the ZAR 1.4 billion tax payment, the Board declared a dividend of ZAR 4.10 per share or ZAR 3.7 billion. This represents a free cash -- sorry, a payout ratio of 60%, about 60% of adjusted free cash flow, which is double our minimum policy. And if you take into consideration the tax payment that was due, it's about 80% of the available free cash flow. As a result of, obviously, prior capital allocation decisions as well as completing a number of our strategic projects, there was limited capital that was allocated to growth and investment. I think what the capital allocation should demonstrate is that overall, we have maintained our disciplined and consistent approach to capital allocation, and we have prioritized returns to shareholders. Lastly, as Patrick has alluded to, we will obviously end with the market guidance. We're very pleased that we keep our guidance intact. And I believe given where the business is, we are well on track to deliver within this guidance. So with that, I'd like to hand over to Johan. Johan Theron: All right. Thanks to the team. Happy to take some questions as normal. I think let's start in the room. There will be some roving mics. We will pass that along. Just for the benefit of people that might not see on the screen or the camera, just start just to raise your name, just so that everybody knows who's asking the question. We've got a couple of hands up here. Chris, let's start there with you. Christopher Nicholson: It's Chris Nicholson from RMB Morgan Stanley. A couple of questions, if I may. So you've provided a fairly optimistic outlook on the pricing environment. Maybe a bit of a surprise that you didn't accelerate, maybe some of the capital projects to the same extent. So here you're doing some early work. Could you maybe give us further details specifically on Marula? Is this akin to what was previously known as Phase 2? And what type of mine life extension you're looking to get there? Similarly at Impala Rustenburg, 14 Shaft and some of the other extensions, how long are you looking to extend mine life by there? And then kind of linked to that, should we expect ZAR 9 billion of CapEx going forward? Is that a good level into these prices? And then just second question, again, optimistic price outlook. I think some might be slightly disappointed with the dividend. You've seen another 2 months of very strong prices since year-end. Just thought process as to why you need to hold too much cash on balance sheet again. Nicolaas Muller: Okay. I think, Pat, if you don't mind. The first question is about the life mine extension projects, the specifics and that's what they are going to cost and the expected life extension. Patrick Morutlwa: Yes. Let me start first with Rustenberg. As Nico said, we have already approved 14 Shaft extension. It is taking the existing decline into the 18 shaft area. It will give us 4 additional years, which will maintain the current production for another 4 years. It is about ZAR 877 million. The early capital was approved the last quarter, so work is continuing there. Then again, there, we have Rustenberg 20 shaft, where we're now taking 20 shaft into the Styldrift ground. So that work, we're still validating the feasibility study. It should be coming to the board somewhere in August. So I cannot share the numbers now, but it will also extend life approximately 5 to 6 years there. Then the last one is BRPM North shaft, is just taking the existing decline further. So that one, it will give us a much more long life, anything between 10 and 15 years. And again, there early capital approved, so we're executing the final capital numbers not yet finalized. Then moving over to Marula. Marula Phase 2 was closed given that at the time we executing that project, the price did climate. So as part of cost preservation, we did stop that. But now with the new prices, we have restarted the work, approved ZAR 40 million of early capital. So it's not going to be the same as Phase 2. So we're actually doing small chunks. So this project is now divided in four phases. Phase 1 is taking the 11 shaft 2 level down, and there will be a big chunk of capital to secure infrastructure then further chunks of capital to take both Driekop and Clapham down. So we have designed in such a way that we've got proper off ramps through the price plan, we should be able to stop. So the first phase, I spoke about should give us additional 5 to 6 years on top of the existing 6-year life left at Marula. So that's more or less high level on this project that we have undertaken. Nicolaas Muller: And Patrick, the ZAR 9 billion capital, is that a fair expectation or... Patrick Morutlwa: All right. Thank you for that. So you remember, we gave you between ZAR 8 billion and ZAR 9 billion. With this bolt-on project, you can add a maximum ZAR 2 billion. So I think it makes ZAR 10.5 billion, because we will start very slow and just ramp up a bit. But I don't see it going beyond ZAR 11 billion, really. Nicolaas Muller: Chris, I want to -- sorry, I just want to add -- actually, maybe repeat Patrick's words, but in a different form because you asked is it Phase 2? And he said, no. I think it is. But the application of how we get there is different. In fact, the first time we did, we had a ZAR 5.5 billion single project and we had agreed off-ramp points whereas this time, we are saying there's no single ZAR 5.5 billion project. There are going to be a sequence of smaller projects. And so we will have like a consolidated assessment for the entire thing, which will be based on the valuation, but the implementation will have to meet certain performance hurdles as we go along for the next phase to be implemented. So essentially, it's Phase 2 wrapping different color. Patrick Morutlwa: And if I may just add one thing. Nico earlier said that with this project, they will push the 3.5 million ounces back out another 3 years. In addition to that, the old profile within 10 years' time, if we did nothing, we're going to lose 50% of our production. Now this project have also helped to slow down the decline. So within the same 10 years, if we do all this project, we will only be dropping by 15%. So they do actually extend life and the angle of decline. Nicolaas Muller: And sorry, I'm again butting in. But I think Tim will kill us if we don't talk about Canada because I really think that there's an opportunity there. I mean, we have already extended the life to April '27. But the technical team at Impala Canada is working on a novel technology for us in the group, which is called dry tailings, which makes use of the filtered tailing plant, which enables you to essentially to dry out the tailings and place that on existing tailings dams as opposed to creating a new greenfield tailing dam, which requires new licensing and permits and so forth. I mean the capital expenditure is quite intense, but that will provide Canada with not an incremental 1 year time life, but that will enable us to take a longer position subject to the palladium price remaining at above $1,600 or something like that. And then we haven't quite spoken about Mimosa. I mean, there's a few things to resolve in Zim specifically, but there is still the opportunity to consider some form of North Hill extension to life at Mimosa, which currently we're not speaking to because it's not currently in the works. It's being evaluated and we've got a partner that we need to consult them on that and so forth. Meroonisha Kerber: Sorry, the question on the cash. So I think there were two parts to it. So the one was around why the ZAR 10 billion and the other one was about the cash that we've made since year-end. So let me address the second part of it first. I mean our policy, and we've consistently applied it is when we look at the dividend, it's on the cash that was made in the 6-month period. So you can -- if you look at the trajectory of the price, you'll see December, we had the rapid increase and then January, February, we've enjoyed these very, very high prices. Also, you've got to take into consideration we have contracts that -- a lot of contractual sales, and we've obviously got the lag in the contractual sales. So that increase in December only really will flow through mostly in the second half of the year. So to the extent that, that flows through in the second half, that will be part of the free cash flow for the second half and it becomes available for distribution per our capital allocation framework in the next 6 months. And maybe just to add to that point is that if you just look forward at our capital allocation, there's a little bit of work to be done on the balance sheet, not a lot of debt. So even if we want to do it, it's not going to take a lot of capital. There's -- Patrick and Nico have talked about our life of mine extensions, but there's no greenfield projects that we're looking at. So there should be a fair -- all of that profitability should be available for distribution in the at the year-end. The second question was really around the ZAR 10 billion and why the ZAR 10 billion. So I mean, it's like running your bank account. Nobody wants to run on an overdraft. So here, what we do is we look at -- so what is the liquidity that we need for the group. And remember, we've got entities in different jurisdictions at different currencies. And so the view that we have is that all of our operations should be able to pay -- settle its working capital and be able to operate for 1 month without resorting to borrowing of money. And so, that's how we get to the ZAR 10 billion. And you can imagine that there's timing differences between sales, et cetera. And with IRS, there are big payments that need to be made. So we need to be able to hold enough money in the required currencies in the required jurisdictions to be able to manage all of the timing. So that really is how we -- there's no other signs to how we get to the ZAR 10 billion. Gerhard Engelbrecht: Gerhard Engelbrecht, Absa. Chris has asked the questions. So I'm not going to flog that horse any longer. Can you maybe give us an idea of any near future furnace maintenance projects, shutdowns that you have on the cards? Johan Theron: Adele is here, if she wants to speak to that. Nicolaas Muller: That's a good idea. Where's Adele? If she's at the back, you can perhaps just pass her the mic. Johan Theron: Adele, come stand quickly here in front of me. Adelle Coetzee: Good afternoon. Thank you for that question. Yes, we have furnace maintenance, furnace scheduling going on as per our normal maintenance philosophies and structures. And obviously, to make sure that our infrastructure is sustainable going forward. As Patrick already mentioned, we have #4 furnace that is currently in rebuild that we hope to get power on that furnace very soon. Also on schedule as what was planned. We also will be having at our Zimplats operation in the coming year, not in the next 6 months, in our new year, we will be doing our end walls also as per our internal maintenance strategic plan. And then going forward, as everyone should be knowing by, should know by now, we are planning the rebuild of our future furnace. And we will commence with our rebuild, our new design in Rustenburg come July 2027. And that will be on the furnace #5. Hopefully, that is answering the questions. Thank you. Johan Theron: Adele, just to put a final point on it. It's fair to say that we're back to normal furnace maintenance. The interventions are all behind us now. Nicolaas Muller: Sorry, Johan, if I can just add, as I do, just one more point to that. Historically, if we went into furnace rebuilds, we would have accumulated additional stock. So, the historical work that has been done on expanding the smelter capacity as well as the 10% expansion of our base metal refinery results in current capacity that prevents the buildup of stock. That's why, I mean, we've only released 20,000 ounces of the committed, I think it was. Johan Theron: 110,000 ounces. Nicolaas Muller: Yes. 110,000 ounces. 110,000 ounces is what we committed to the market. I see that's changed to 100,000 ounces only. I think we are on track, notwithstanding the maintenance on the smelter to release 110,000 ounces for the year. I think that is quite newsworthy. And also, I mean, as Adele, you didn't mention on the -- sorry, I'm expanding. But in base metal refinery, we have achieved record milling rates again, which prevents us from having to build up stock in front of the BMR. So the investments that we've made over the past three or four years has really paid off. Sorry, Johan. Johan Theron: No, all good. One more question, Arnold. After Arnold, I will given opportunity on Chorus Call. So if you're on Chorus Call, you can queue yourselves along, and then we'll move to Chorus Call after Arnold's question. Arnold Van Graan: It's Arnold Van Graan from Nedbank. Just want to go back to your capital projects which you're doing in phases. Look, I welcome that because the last thing we want is everyone jumping in and just bringing on excess capacity. But my question is, how efficient is it doing these projects piecemeal as opposed to the big projects? And what I'm thinking about is further down the line where you then ultimately will have to in any way do the whole thing. My concern is that interim, it creates inefficiencies in the system. And we're already looking at your cost number. You alluded to that it's -- it's under pressure. So, yes, how do you manage that? What is different? Why did you previously want to do all of it in one go, and now you're doing it in phases other than the balance sheet impact? Nicolaas Muller: So firstly, you can also contribute. So, you are 100% correct. I mean, I was just saying if you have got a 5-year mining contract, you can do that once, if you do it, break it up into different parts, you've got slightly establishment costs and all of that. I mean, I think that there are ways to mitigate that to ensure that the different phases are dovetailed. But there are performance conditions to the continuation. And that's where -- I mean, we need to see an improved Marula. I mean, Marula even at current prices, if I look at the cash contribution of Marula, it is -- if I have to be honest, it's below expectation. And so we want to incentivize ourselves and the operation and the project by making sure that the financial valuation on which these things are premised is, in fact, met. And so I am 100% convinced with all of the additional face length that is being created and the improvements in the infrastructure, we are going to get to a stronger position of confidence with Marula. But at the moment, we think in spite of the potential cost inefficiencies, it is better for us to have a cautious approach to investing large sums of capital in the projects that really requires some improved operating performance and project execution performance. Patrick Morutlwa: Yes. I think the only thing I can add, Nico, is that, I mean, as you said, that we do the evaluation of this project, the whole project. But then we divide into critical milestone to open all reserves, but also that milestone #1 should be able to pay for milestone #2. But also, again, like I said earlier, these are off ramps. So should the price plummet, you have not committed cash and have a lot of unfinished bits and pieces, because that's exactly what caught us the last time. So we want to make sure that when the price plummets, we've actually delivered phase then that can take the mine further. So it's literally just make sure that we don't commit cash all over and when the price plan is, we have got a lot of unfinished bits and pieces. Johan Theron: As high as you can. Nicolaas Muller: Yes. And one small last consideration, Marula has the option if we can navigate through farm boundaries of extending laterally. So we have just not been successful in achieving those agreements to the extent that we can. That will be a far more efficient capital investment per ounce generated, so we are hoping that between now and final execution at some point that we have an opportunity to settle on some of that potential and that will then typically replace some of the deepening as an interim and shift Phase 2 later components further down the path. Johan Theron: Okay. I'm going to queue to Chorus Call. I can see there's one question on Chorus Call. So I'm going to hand over to the coordinator. Operator: Thank you. The question comes from Nkateko Mathonsi of Investec Bank. Nkateko Mathonsi: Good afternoon, and thank you for the opportunity to ask questions. You've spoken about life of mine extension, and I'm referring to Impala Rustenburg. But I also just want to get a bit of a confirmation as to how we should think about life of mine for some of the shafts that have a shorter life, and that's Shaft #1, Shaft #6, and E/F. I think the last time I asked this question, you said 1.5 years, but prices have increased. You probably are able to keep these shafts going for a bit longer. So, if you can give us a little bit of guidance around that, that would be helpful. My second question is very much on costs. We've seen you spend close to ZAR 1 billion on technology around winders. Are there other areas that you're looking to do something similar in order to improve your asset reliability? And what does it actually -- what are the implications for cost beyond FY '26? Then I also have a question for Nico, and this is regarding Zimplats. And if Alex is there, he can also answer. I just wanna your experience of operating in Zimbabwe during your tenure. From headline news, it would what I'm seeing is the risk is not necessarily declining there. And the latest news was the ban on unprocessed raw material does not seem to affect you guys, but somehow it looks like the risk continues to actually escalate. And then there's also the financial issues. So, if you can just comment in terms of how you are experiencing Zimplats at this point in time, how we should think about it going forward? So those are my three questions. Johan Theron: Thank you, Nkateko. Moses, can we pass a microphone to you specifically on 1 E&F, #6 Shaft, and your view of prices now? Can we just get a microphone to Moses, please? Moses Motlhageng: Thank you very much, Nkateko. This time I've got your surname correctly. Regarding 1 Shaft, when we remember in this current business plan, we've got one year for 1 Shaft, we've got one year for 6 Shaft, we've got two years for E&F. We are currently evaluating that. As it stands, it appear that 1 Shaft will have additional year, and then 6 Shaft will remain on one year, and E&F will also remain on 2 years. There's not much of a change with the current blocks or reserves that we've got. It looks like 6 Shaft will be out, E&F maybe 2 years, and 1 Shaft, 2 years. That's for the shorter life shafts. Perhaps Johan, I can also just jump on the capital that we are spending on our infrastructure. Nico spoke about spending a little bit more capital on the infrastructure. Yes, it's correct. When we look at the longer shafts or the growth shafts, we are looking at spending, I mean, upgrading all those winders to make sure that in the long term, they do sustain us even if the prices goes down. So there's about a capital of just over ZAR 800 million, that we want to spend it on our winder infrastructure. We see that as an opportunity, especially during this price commodity that we find ourselves at. Thanks. Nicolaas Muller: Let's just talk about Zim and the perceived risk with the jurisdiction. In my opening, I did talk about our presence in Africa in difficult jurisdictions. We believe that long-term partnerships are absolutely critical. And that has proven very successful for Implats throughout its 25-year presence in Zim right now. Funny enough, we've actually had worse times. I can remember there were times, Johan, prior to any of us joining, I mean, we had to pay employees in not in money, in groceries and so forth. And so, difficulty in Zimbabwe is not new to us. And what I will say is that we've got an extremely cooperative relationship between Implats, Zimplats, as well as government and the communities. I mean, just as an example, now for the second time that I'm aware of, during the difficult times, employees agreed to a salary reduction to accommodate the fall in price. That, I mean, that's the kind of relationship that we have. So having said that, the big issue at Zim is the uncertainty of policy and the shifts that happen from time to time, and that scares foreign direct investors quite a lot. So, if it's difficult, that's one thing. If you're never certain what the rules are gonna be in the next year, that is a different kettle of fish. And I do find that at the moment, for us, there is elevated risk. And so we have -- we are navigating through a process with the government to address that because our perception of risk has materially shifted upwards over the last year or 2 years. And in part, it's the change in policies, but it's also got to do with the retention of local currency that is owed to Zimplats in exchange for the foreign currency retention in terms of the foreign -- the policy of Zim. And so, in fact, Leanne and I just had this morning an extensive meeting with Alex. We are scheduled to meet with SA government as well as with the Zim government. I have to believe that a successful outcome will be achieved. It has always been achieved in the past. And I'm very confident that we will get to a similar position right now. So our posture will not necessarily change with immediate effect. Johan Theron: I don't see further questions on the Chorus Call, so I'm gonna go to the webcast. I'm also conscious of time. I'll try and group the ones that can be grouped all together. There's a question here from Adrian. I think we've dealt with the two first parts of his question. The second one hasn't come up, which is, can you give us some color on some of your customer order trends in the auto space and some of the other minor metals? So, I guess with all the volatility in prices, how does your customers engage and buy your metals? Sifiso, you're probably best positioned to talk to that. Any news hot off the press from our customer base? Sifiso Sibiya: Thank you. Thank you, and good afternoon, everyone. From our customer side, we've seen increased requirements in terms of all the metals. The higher list rates are actually making our customers require metal earlier than they would normally do. So, we've seen this during our H1 FY 2026, and the trend is still continuing. Nicolaas Muller: And sorry, Kirt, I'm not sure if you would like. Sifiso spoke to you about the existing customers. But the conversations that you have been engaged in during Indaba and recently, and perhaps how the focus of potential consumers of the metal, I spoke earlier about some of the relationship requirements or expectations or hopes. Kirthanya Pillay: Yes. I think what we are seeing more broadly than I think the normal customer ongoing relationships is an increased focus from the OEMs and the end users to secure supply as well as price certainty for the future. So it's very much the story that was playing out in the BEV space a few years ago, where there is a requirement to create longer term relationships than just the normal short-term fixed price contracts and potentially for the OEMs to move upstream and create these longer term partnerships with the actual suppliers and the miners of the metal on more attractive pricing. But largely to secure supply, particularly linked into this ongoing issue, as Nico mentioned, of a more multipolarized world and creating security for each of the regions in which these OEMs are operating in. Johan Theron: Thanks, Kirt. Interestingly enough, there's two people asking exactly the same question. Rene Hochreiter, and David Fraser, specifically to Nico, and now that you're reimagining what an Eastern Limb could look like, any thoughts on the Waterberg project and, you know, whether it's a different way of imagining it fitting into the world, specifically given its palladium dominance? Nicolaas Muller: No. Johan Theron: All right. We've dealt with that one. Nicolaas Muller: Yes. So I mean, the Waterberg project is in the Northern Limb. We are acutely aware that it has got a strong palladium bias, and that's probably the metal that we have got the least confidence in long term. I mean -- well, our palladium and rhodium. I mean, I do believe that there will be a place for the Waterberg project. We do not see that as imminent right now. Johan Theron: Perfect. And then I can probably conclude there and to all of the questions, and to the extent that we don't get to them, we will make sure we come back. I think there's two or three that again specifically asks about the dividend and given the metal prices, the good operating performance, was there any consideration of higher payouts or other ways of returning value to shareholders? That question is repeated by a couple of people online. So maybe, we have answered it, I think, but maybe in conclusion. Meroonisha Kerber: Just -- so, I think -- I mean, clearly if you look, if you look forward, are we gonna generate substantial cash? And I have spoken about allocations to balance sheet and growth, and investment are not gonna be significant. So with that, there are gonna be increasing returns to shareholders. At the time when we look at the returns, we do have options. The one is to do what we've done in the past, which is to provide a sort of a special dividend by increasing the payout ratio. But there is also the option to look at a combination of these special dividends and potentially share buybacks. I mean, we haven't undertaken one in the past, but I think at any point when we look at these surplus funds to return back to shareholders, we will have to look at what the most effective way to return value to shareholders at that point in time. Johan Theron: So with those great prospects, probably a good time to end. We're really, really looking forward to spending some time with you on the road. For the people in the room, please join us afterwards. There is some snacks available. The whole management team is here, so a good opportunity to ask those other questions that perhaps we didn't get to. And then for people on the webcast and Chorus Call, thank you for joining us. We should see most of you on the road over the next week or 2 weeks. And to the extent that you have any questions, please reach out to the team and we'll endeavor to answer it as quickly as possible. Thank you very much.
Operator: Good morning, and welcome to Harbour Energy 2025 Full Year Results. Today's presentation will be hosted by Linda Cook, CEO; Alexander Krane, CFO; and Nigel Hearne, COO. After the presentation, we will take your questions. Linda, please go ahead. Linda Cook: Great. Thank you, Dan. Good morning all, and welcome to our 2025 full year results call. I'm Linda Cook, the CEO of Harbour Energy. And as Dan said, joining me for the presentation today are Alexander Krane, our CFO; and Nigel Hearne, the Chief Operating Officer. Before we turn to results, I do want to first just acknowledge recent geopolitical events, which are driving extreme commodity price volatility and raising concerns over energy security. In some ways, similar to where we were just about the same time last year with Liberation Day upon us, governments and businesses around the world coming to grips with the impacts of a wide range of new tariffs and trade agreements. And of course, not that long ago, before that, we had the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a conflict that continues to this day and before that, a global pandemic, all in the last 5 to 6 years. These are all reminders that we live and make decisions within an uncertain and at times volatile global environment. In response, it's important in a business like ours that we balance the short term with the long term and that we remain focused on the things we can control, operational excellence, capital discipline, managing risk and creating value for our shareholders. So turning to the agenda. I'm going to start by taking you through the highlights from what was a very good year for Harbour Energy in 2025 and some changes to our portfolio. Nigel will then cover operations, including how we're driving performance. Alexander will follow with the financial results, 2026 guidance and the cash flow outlook for the near to midterm, all updated for our recent transactions and also an outline of our new distribution policy. And then it's back to me to wrap up, leaving plenty of time for questions. So turning to my first slide. Harbour has grown from 0 to more than 450,000 barrels per day over the last decade, driven by disciplined M&A and reinvesting in the acquired assets to add value. During that time, we repeatedly demonstrated our ability to identify and secure strategic transactions and after completion, to safely and successfully integrate the acquired businesses and organizations. While past acquisitions, including Wintershall Dea in 2024, we're focused on building scale and diversification. Our more recent ones have been targeted towards strengthening the portfolio, making it more resilient and enhancing longevity. Perhaps the best example is the acquisition of LLOG Exploration in the U.S. Gulf completed ahead of schedule just a few weeks ago. The LLOG assets, oil weighted and all under operational control, helped to secure Harbour's overall production at between 475,000 to 500,000 barrels per day to the end of the decade. And while overall production stays broadly stable, as you'll see later, replacing the declining U.K. volumes with growth in the U.S. with its attractive fiscal framework means that we'll see a significant increase over time in cash flow. So turning first to look back to 2025. As I said, another strong year for Harbour Energy operationally, financially and strategically. We achieved record production at 474,000 barrels per day. It was up more than 80% on the prior year. And with unit OpEx at $13 per barrel, our margins were strong. This, along with strong capital discipline and cost control, resulted in materially improved free cash flow and demonstrated our ability to navigate volatile commodity prices. We also had good momentum on our growth projects, including the transfer of operatorship of the major Zama development in Mexico from PEMEX, the national oil company to Harbour. And we continue to improve the overall quality of the portfolio through M&A. And let me just turn to that now. In December, we announced 3 transactions, each of which advances our strategy and strengthens our portfolio. First, we agreed the sale of our mature higher-cost Indonesian producing assets and the stalled Tuna development project for $215 million, improving our portfolio quality and accelerating value. We also announced the $170 million acquisition of Waldorf, a small U.K. producer that brings around $900 million of value through tax losses. In addition, we unlocked $350 million of trapped cash upon completion, more than covering the purchase price. Combining the benefits of Waldorf with the great work by our team in Aberdeen to reduce costs and improve efficiency means we've materially enhanced the resilience and free cash flow outlook of our business in the U.K. The proceeds from the Indonesia sale, along with the near-term cash flow uplift from Waldorf helped fund our entry into the U.S. Gulf through the acquisition of LLOG. As we said in the announcement at the time of this transaction, we're really excited about the addition of a strategic position in the U.S. deepwater. With LLOG, we get a high-quality growth portfolio in one of the most prolific oil and gas producing basins in the world, along with one of the best teams in the Gulf, and we're more than thrilled to have them join our Harbour team. So each transaction was strategic in its own way. And collectively, they have a material impact on the overall quality of our portfolio. So the next slide takes us to a snapshot of Harbour today, and I'll illustrate that point about the improved quality of the portfolio here. With the divestment of Vietnam in 2024, the announced sale of most of our Indonesia assets and our entry into the U.S., our geographic footprint is shrinking and the portfolio center of gravity is shifting to the West. We've divested from mature positions in Southeast Asia with declining production and high unit costs acquired 5 years ago through the Premier Oil transaction and added strategic positions in Norway, Mexico, Argentina and now the U.S., all with significant running room from a subsurface point of view, demonstrating, I think, that portfolio management is alive and well within Harbour. Like in the past, if we can't see a route to scale or the assets can't compete for capital in our portfolio, they become divestment targets. And with the LLOG acquisition, the bar to compete internally for capital has got that much higher. The outcome is a higher quality portfolio with higher margins and as Alexander will show, increasing free cash flow over time. He'll also talk about the new distribution policy details, which aim to strike a balance, enabling a sustainable dividend and resilient balance sheet across commodity price cycles while supporting investment in future production and enabling shareholders to benefit as that cash flow growth materializes or if like today, we have an unexpected spike in commodity prices. Turning to my last slide. I've mentioned our shrinking geographic footprint, meaning that today, we're focused on 5 key countries: Norway, the U.K., Argentina, Mexico and the U.S. As you can see, these account for 90% of our company, however you cut it: production, cash flow, reserves, resources. As Nigel will explain, each of these countries has its role to play in Harbour. And while together, they support flat production over the coming few years, the portfolio evolution continues, and that's hinted out in the bars on this page. While the U.K. is responsible for 1/3 of our production today, it represents only a bit over 10% of our combined reserves and resources. With Norway production expected to be flattish, the U.K. decline is replaced by investing in projects in the Americas: the U.S., Mexico and Argentina. And this, over time, has positive implications for after-tax margins and cash flow. So now over to Nigel, and he'll take you through each of these countries in more detail, followed by Alexander. A. Hearne: Good morning, and thank you, Linda. Today, our portfolio is more focused, competitive and resilient. Across the business, we're aligned on delivering against 4 key priorities to drive total shareholder return: operating safely and reliably, expanding our margins through cost and capital efficiency, converting our resources into reserves and into production profitably and competitively and growing our free cash flow sustainably. I will shortly take you through how each of our core business units is delivering against those priorities and how the actions we've taken over the past year has put us on a path to stronger, longer, higher quality cash generation. First and always first is safety. Nothing matters more than protecting our people, our assets and the communities in which we operate. We did see a slight increase in our recordable injury rate in 2025 as we expanded into new countries, but we continue to be a top performer in personal safety. In process safety, we delivered a reduction in Tier 1 and Tier 2 loss of containment events, but unfortunately, recorded one Tier 1 event in Mexico. Safety is an area we will never be satisfied. We actively promote the learnings from our incidents and are strengthening our focus on risk assessment, prevention and assurance activities. We've also delivered a step change reduction in our greenhouse gas emissions intensity, creating a more resilient portfolio. 2025 was a year of record production, delivering at the very top of our guidance. This reflects a full year's contribution from Wintershall Dea, but also a strong year of execution across our expanded portfolio. We brought new wells online and completed new projects ahead of schedule in Norway, the U.K. and Argentina. Reliability across our asset base continued to be high at greater than 90%. And we made structural improvements in our cost base with unit OpEx down 20%, driven by lower cost barrels from Wintershall Dea, actions taken in the U.K. to reduce our cost by 10%, our exit from the higher cost Vietnam volumes, and we captured early synergies as we leveraged our increased scale. Together, these actions improved our earnings and cash margins, strengthening our competitiveness and resilience. Turning to our core business units. As the second largest Norwegian gas exporter to Europe and Harbour's largest producer, our Norway business is central to our long-term cash flow. Our strong pipeline of infrastructure-led developments sustain profitable production into the next decade. At the end of 2025, we completed the Harbour operated Maria Phase 2 project, the first of 6 developments due online in the next 24 months. This project was delivered on time and within budget and is performing well. Our operated Dvalin North is on track for completion mid-2026. All subsea infrastructure was successfully installed in 2025 and development drilling is underway. We're also maturing our next set of projects, and we continue to explore. Earlier this week, we announced the Omega Sor discovery, where we have a 24.5% share. The estimated size of the discovery is between 25 million and 89 million barrels of oil equivalent of gross recoverable volumes, exceeding our pre-drill estimates and extending the Snorre field's lifetime beyond 2040. Our Norway business continues to exemplify our ability to profitably and efficiently turn resource, to reserves, to production. Despite continued fiscal headwinds, the U.K. delivered a strong performance in 2025. This was underpinned by high production efficiency and strong turnaround execution at our operated assets, structurally lowering our cost base. We shortened cycle times through near-field development and delivered best-in-class capital efficiency through the 2025 wells program. Joscelyn South was brought on stream in March, just 3 months after discovery. Strong subsurface performance at Talbot and successful intervention campaigns led to the J-Area producing at rates not seen for over a decade. We are now bringing that same level of focus and discipline to our U.K. decommissioning program. In addition, the Waldorf acquisition, as Linda said, once completed, will deliver meaningful financial synergies. As a result of these actions, we've materially strengthened the U.K.'s cash flow outlook. Now turning to the Americas. Argentina provides both low-cost and long-term production, underpinned by our significant reserves and resource position. Today, the majority of our production comes from the conventional CMA -1 license. Phoenix is a great example of the tieback opportunities that supports a stable, low-cost production from this asset. We hold over 700 million barrels of oil equivalent of 2C resources, primarily in the vast of Vaca Muerta shale play. We are progressing the unconventional oil license at San Roque with a 16-well program expected to start later this year. We are scaling up gas drilling at APE and our gas resource development will be optimized through our participation in the Southern Energy LNG project, where export permits and incentives are secured, 80% of the first vessel offtake is now contracted and the fabrication of the spur line and conversion of the second vessel is underway. First LNG production remains on track for the end of 2027. We continue to focus on drilling and completions efficiency as we increase the scale and pace of our Vaca Muerta development. Argentina is a cornerstone for future flexible and capital-efficient reserve replacement. Our newest core business unit, the Gulf of America, add scale and growth through to the end of the decade. It is a 100% operated oil-weighted portfolio centered around 3 deepwater hubs at Who Dat, Buckskin and Leon-Castille. Production is expected to double by 2028, supported by low breakeven drilling targets at our production hubs and ramp-up at Leon-Castille. Combined with the attractive fiscal terms, we are adding high-margin barrels that fuel free cash flow growth through to the end of the decade. And with more than 350 million barrels of oil equivalent of 2P reserves and 2C resources, plus 0.5 billion barrels of prospective resources and success in the recent bid round, we have lots of running room in this prolific oil and gas basin. Our team have a proven track record of profitably and competitively converting resource to production, ranking best-in-class among global peers when it comes to development cycle time. They're also responsible for 1/3 of all discoveries made in the Gulf since 2014. Over the next 3 years, we expect to allocate around $400 million a year with 10 to 15 wells planned. This includes development wells with internal rates of return in excess of 40% and low-risk infrastructure-led exploration wells with a short cycle time to production, if successful. The Gulf of America business unit is transformative and raises the bar for capital competition within Harbour. Finally, Mexico represents one of our most material long-term growth opportunities. Through the Zama and Kan shallow water hubs, we are building a scaled advantaged business with tieback potential. As newly appointed operator of Zama, we've submitted a simplified phased development plan designed to lower breakevens, improve returns and lower risk. At Kan in 2025, resource was upgraded by 50% to 150 million barrels of oil equivalent gross. Together, Zama and Kan have the potential to deliver reserves equivalent to more than 2 years of group production. As operator of both hubs, we have the opportunity to capture synergies across design, drilling and operations. Both projects are expected to enter FEED this year. Subject to partner alignment, securing FPSOs and regulatory approval, we're targeting both to be FID ready within an 18-month horizon and possibly one project as early as year-end. We also see additional upside through the alignment with our Gulf of America business unit, using key capabilities and talent that we now have to help successfully deliver Zama and Kan. Mexico builds long-life, high-margin oil exposure with strong operating control. So putting this all together, what does it mean for our CapEx and production outlook? We expect to spend $2 billion to $2.3 billion per year from 2027, which we believe is the right level given our portfolio and opportunity set. With over 3 billion barrels of oil equivalent of 2P reserves and resources, we will prioritize the most competitive projects, continuing to high-grade the portfolio. This level of investment allows us to sustain production between 475,000 and 500,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day through the end of the decade. During this period, operated CapEx rises to 60%, giving us more control over cost, schedule and performance. And while overall production remains stable, we are replacing the declining higher cost U.K. production with higher margin growth in the U.S. and over time, Mexico. We have a strong history of reserves replacement, and we expect that to continue. For 2026, we anticipate at least 150% reserves replacement, supported by the LLOG and Waldorf additions. Historically, we've grown reserves through M&A. Going forward, more will come organically from our large, diverse 2C resource base. The quality of our reserves also improves, more oil-weighted, more operated and increasingly positioned in lower cost, lower tax basins. In summary, we are and will continue to have a laser focus on operating safely, reliably and with discipline, expanding margins, lowering breakevens and improving capital efficiency, converting resources into production profitably and predictably and building a portfolio with scale, longevity and rising free cash flow. This is how we continue to strengthen Harbour. I will now hand over to Alexander for the financial review. Alexander Krane: Great. Thanks, Nigel. And again, good morning to everyone dialing in this morning. We've delivered another strong set of financial results, reflecting a full year's contribution from Wintershall Dea, excellent operational performance and strict capital discipline. As a result, we improved our operating margins. We generated $1.1 billion of free cash flow, beating our guidance for the year, and we reduced our net debt. At the end of last year, as Linda mentioned, we announced the Indonesia divestments and the U.K. Waldorf and U.S. LLOG acquisitions, materially improving our free cash flow outlook. We increased 2025 declared shareholder distributions to approximately $0.5 billion and also announced in December our intention to update our distribution policy, better aligning distributions to our cash flows. 2025 was marked by significant geopolitical and macroeconomic volatility, driving uncertainty in commodity markets. 2026 is proving no different. Recent events in the Middle East have pushed spot prices higher, but concerns around oversupply persists with the possibility of materially lower prices from here. Against this backdrop, Harbour is well positioned, particularly following the LLOG and Waldorf transactions. We have a large scale, diverse portfolio, including by product with 40% of our production exposed to Brent and 40% to European gas, a structurally lower cost base, greater operational control and investment-grade credit ratings, supported by our prudent financial policy. As a reminder, we hedge 2 years forward, targeting 50% of economic exposure in year 1 and 30% in year 2, targeting even split between swaps and collars. This protects around half of our downside exposure while preserving meaningful upside participation. And we continue to hedge through the recent volatility this week, securing attractively structured colors, especially for European gas. Turning now to the income statement. Thanks to the hedging results, we realized prices broadly in line with global benchmarks for oil despite slight grade differential on liquids and above benchmarks for our European gas. Revenue and adjusted EBITDAX increased by 65% and 77%, reflecting higher production and stronger gas realizations, partly offset by lower realized oil prices. Now as Nigel outlined, we lowered our unit operating cost by 22% to $12.8 per BOE despite the significantly weaker U.S. dollar. Net financial items reflected $0.5 billion of foreign exchange losses, partly offset by $0.2 billion of FX hedging gains. Profit before tax increased to $2.8 billion or $3.4 billion on an adjusted basis. While we reported a loss after tax of $0.2 billion, driven by a more than 100% effective tax rate, adjusted profit after tax increased to $0.6 billion, up over 60%. Adjustments reflected 3 main items: $0.4 billion of impairments, including as a result of license exits and write-offs in our Mexico, North Africa and CCS portfolios; $0.2 billion of intercompany FX losses; and $0.3 billion related to the U.K. EPL extension to 2030, the latter 2 already reported at our half year results. The adjusted effective tax rate was 82% compared to 106% reported, more in line with the 78% statutory tax rates we now have in Norway and the U.K. Turning to cash flow. During the period, we generated $7.3 billion of operating cash flow, invested $2.3 billion on total capital expenditure, and we paid $3.5 billion of cash taxes, substantially in the U.K. and Norway. This resulted in free cash flow generation of $1.1 billion, materially higher than in 2024 and significantly above what we expected at the outside of the year once normalizing for commodity prices. This increase was driven by strong operational execution and rigorous capital discipline. Now turning to net debt on the next slide. Net debt reduced over the year to $4.4 billion. This reflects strong free cash flow of $1.1 billion, of which approximately $0.5 billion was returned to shareholders with the balance going towards debt reduction. The impact of the weaker U.S. dollar, which increased the value of our pre-swap euro-denominated bonds by $0.6 billion was partially offset by net $0.4 billion increase in cash balances from the issuance and repayments of subordinated loans. Post period end in February 2026, we completed the $3.2 billion LLOG acquisition funded through a combination of $0.5 billion of equity and $2.7 billion of cash, including a $1 billion bridge facility and a $1 billion 3-year term loan with existing relationship banks and a few new banks joining our syndicate. Now as a result, net debt increased to $7.2 billion on completion. Having prefunded 2026 maturities through senior and hybrid bond issuances in 2025, we now have greater flexibility around the timing of the bridge takeout. Consistent with our approach on previous acquisitions, we aim to delever using cash flow to repay the term loan over the next 3 years. We have updated our 2026 guidance to reflect LLOG completion in February and the expected closing of the Waldorf and Indonesia transactions by end Q2. Production guidance is increased to between 475,000 and 500,000 BOE per day, while unit OpEx is expected to be slightly higher at approximately $14.5 per BOE with LLOG and Waldorf increasing near-term unit OpEx. Here, LLOG OpEx is expected to be $19 per BOE in 2026, then expected to decline to approximately $12 per BOE by 2030, primarily as a result of production increase impacting unit operating costs. Total CapEx is expected to increase to $2.2 billion to $2.4 billion, driven mainly by LLOG with also approximately $0.1 billion related to Waldorf. At $65 Brent and $11 European gas prices, we expect to generate approximately $0.6 billion of free cash flow, reflecting investment in the LLOG portfolio and Waldorf synergies starting in 2027. Post completion of the LLOG acquisition, we are now more sensitive to oil prices. A $5 per barrel move in the average oil price for the full year impacts free cash flow by some $170 million, while a $1 change in European gas prices impacts free cash flow by approximately $150 million. Forward curves are moving a bit this week. But if I use today's curves for the entire year, we would expect free cash flow to be closer to $1.4 billion. Now looking through to the end of the decade, we expect materially increasing free cash flow, driven by the continued transformation of our portfolio. Higher cost Southeast Asia exits and declining production in the U.K. are being replaced by higher-margin volumes, primarily in the U.S. Gulf alongside Norway and Argentina and over time, Mexico. We expect our effective tax rate to fall quite significantly, reflecting a strategic shift in profitable production towards lower tax jurisdictions. In the U.S. Gulf, a 23% tax rate and the ability to depreciate the log purchase price means we expect to pay very little tax there in the coming years. In parallel, we expect CapEx to reduce to around $2.0 billion to $2.3 billion from 2027, reflecting continued portfolio high grading and disciplined capital allocation. As a result, free cash flow is expected to increase to $1 billion in 2028, mainly supported by increasing production in the U.S. Gulf and significant financial synergies from the U.K. Waldorf acquisition from 2027. Beyond that, we see further cash flow margin upside towards the end of the decade, driven by continued growth in the U.S. Gulf and as our Mexican projects come on stream. Let's turn now to the shareholder distributions and our revised policy. We communicated our intention to update our distributions policy in December and believe that now is the right time to pivot, linking shareholder distributions directly to cash flows and strengthening our capital allocation framework across the commodity price cycles. In the past, we've returned on average around 40% of free cash flow to shareholders each year. We are now target returning 45% to 75% of annual free cash flows, including an initial base dividend of $0.161 per voting ordinary share equivalent to approximately $300 million. By tying distributions directly to our cash flows, the new policy builds in the opportunity for shareholders to benefit from the growing cash flow outlook I just showed and from periods of higher oil and gas prices like the ones we're experiencing today. So how will this work? Well, when leverage is above 1x, we expect the payout will be towards the lower end, enabling us to prioritize debt reduction. However, when leverage is below our target of 1x, we expect distributions to be at the upper end of the payout range. As such, our new policy supports a sustainable base dividend across the commodity price cycles and allows us to share the upside with our shareholders alongside near-term deleveraging and disciplined investment for future growth. In line with the new policy, the Board has proposed a final dividend of $0.0805 per share, equivalent to $150 million, representing a 45% free cash flow payout for 2025. For 2026, at $65 per barrel Brent and $11 per Mcf European gas, we'd expect to distribute $300 million to shareholders. Then just to illustrate the benefits of this updated policy. If we again use $75 per barrel and $14 Mcf for the full year, closer to today's forward curve, a 45% minimum payout would get us to around $600 million of distributions. My final slide is a reminder of our 3 capital allocation priorities, which we look to balance through the cycle. First, we remain committed to maintaining an investment-grade balance sheet. Following every major transaction, we have consistently prioritized debt reduction and with the additional leverage from recent transaction, we intend to do so again. Under our outlook price forecast by 2028, supported by stronger free cash flow, we'd expect to have repaid $1 billion of debt with leverage returning below our through-cycle target of less than 1x. We also aim to maintain a robust and diverse portfolio. By investing $2 billion to $2.3 billion per year, we expect to be able to deliver increasingly high-margin, cash-generative production through the end of the decade. And thirdly, we will continue to deliver attractive shareholder returns through the cycle. And as you heard today, at current forward prices, there is clear potential for significantly higher distributions this year. And over time, we expect to deliver material distribution growth in line with our growing free cash flow profile. So with that, thanks for everyone's attention, and I will hand you back to Linda for close. Linda Cook: Thanks, Alexander. So in summary, we've had an excellent year operationally, financially, strategically, and we've carried that momentum into 2026 with the completion of the LLOG acquisition and with production off to a good start. Our portfolio actions have transformed the outlook for Harbour, and we're seeing the benefits of our increased scale and resilience. And now the organic opportunity within the portfolio means we can sustain production and generate material and growing free cash flow to the end of this decade and possibly beyond. Looking ahead, our portfolio, our team and our track record give me confidence that we'll deliver against these capital allocation priorities, including maintaining the strong balance sheet and delivering competitive shareholder returns through the cycle. So it's now time for Q&A. Alexander, Nigel and I were joined by Alan Bruce, EVP of Tech Services, and we look forward to answering your questions. So now I'll hand it back to Dan. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Lydia Rainforth of Barclays. Lydia Rainforth: I actually have 3 questions, if I could. I'm sorry for quite many, but there's a lot to go through. The first one was just on the cash return structure. Obviously, you said in the past, you've done a combination of buybacks plus dividends. And you've now gone with the base dividend. And then when you're looking at sort of why go for 100% base dividend? And when you're going forward, when you look at sort of where the current cash prices are, do you split it between a special dividend plus buyback just to give us an idea of how you're thinking about that? The second question was on the LLOG integration. I just wonder if you can just walk us through a little bit more of that, whether culturally how that works and how that -- you feel like that's going at the moment? And then the third one, is that just more of a how do we actually work today question. So obviously, we've got a lot of volatility. Just in terms of when you're seeing this level of volatility, how as Harbour do you react? Are there things -- the levers that you can pull in terms of additional production? Are you seeing conversations with customers? I'm just kind of working through what -- how you're actually seeing practical impacts of the current disruption? Linda Cook: Lydia, thanks for the 3 questions. I'll turn to Alexander first to just say a few words about how we think about buybacks in the context of our distribution policy. And then I'll take the last 2 about log and then the -- yes, how we deal with volatility. So Alexander? Alexander Krane: Yes. Thanks for the question, Lydia. Yes, I think when it comes to the distribution policy, we've tried to strike a good balance here between a base dividend that we're comfortable through the cycle and then what the added shareholder distributions are going to be on top. You've seen us in the past do quite a bit of share buybacks when we thought that was timely and a good thing to do. And going forward, it's probably going to be a mix of both higher dividend levels and share buybacks. And we and the Board will probably assess closer to time which of the 2 and what that mix is going to be. But I think for today, our point here is to set that base dividend level, the percentage of how do we think about sharing the extra free cash flow that we expect to see. And also how would you -- how do we balance this with debt levels. So hopefully, the guidance that we've provided today and what I talked through is helpful in that regard and gives a bit of insight into our thinking. But yes, it's probably going to be a mix of the 2. Linda Cook: Yes. Thanks, Alexander. I agree with that. I think it will just depend on the circumstances at the time, what's going on with commodity prices, our outlook for cash flow, et cetera, et cetera. So a bit hard to answer hypothetically, I think. Going to the other 2 questions. So LLOG integration, going really, really well, I think. And one of the reasons why I think we were successful landing this transaction was the fact that both sides saw what we believe will be and so far has proven to be true, a good cultural fit between their organization and ours. And that always helps make an integration go more smoothly, and we're just 3 weeks in and so far, so good. It's not that complex of an integration for us if we compare it to the Wintershall Dea transaction where we had, I don't know, 7 countries we were adding and multiple different onshore and offshore production, operated assets and nonoperated assets, dealing with works councils in Germany, et cetera, buying a single business unit, if you will, in a country where we don't currently have operations. So there's no overlap. We're not dealing with 2 different offices who's going to do what. This one from that standpoint is actually fairly straightforward. I was there a couple of weeks ago. We have staff there. This week, we call them ambassadors. It's part of our integration toolkit where we send people more experienced in Harbour to new locations, and they just sit there and answer questions for 2 or 3 weeks so that people say, how do I get X, Y or Z done, somebody can tell them who to call or where to look, et cetera. So all going really smoothly. The staff there seem excited to be part of Harbour and curious to see what's going to come next. Volatility. Well, never a dull moment in our industry, Lydia. It wasn't -- even as recent as last week, right, there were new reports coming out from experts trying to convince everyone that oil is headed to $50 per barrel. I know you weren't one of those, Lydia. So you were a bit of an outlier there, which we've always appreciated. But you know now here we are with oil, I don't know where it is right now, but $80. So I think it's just another proof point that we live in a volatile world and our sector, in particular, can be quite buffeted by that. And when that happens, we just have to focus on controlling what we can control. In terms of what we do this year, I mean, production this year, CapEx this year, these are things that have largely been decided months or even years ago or driven by decisions we've made in the past. So not a lot actually to do, in particular, with production this year. There are some knobs we can play on CapEx. But no one believes that the conflict is going to be long-lived or at least we can't assume that in our planning. And so what we have to assume is that at some point, prices come back to a more normal range. What is that? Who knows? But we're certainly not making any decisions today that assume prices are going to be $80 or higher for years to come. Operator: Our next question comes from Alejandra Magana of JPMorgan. Alejandra Magana: Excellent. As a follow-up to how you're responding to the Middle East developments, would you consider any changes to your hedging program to potentially accelerate your path to sub 1x leverage? Or does maintaining cash flow stability remain the priority? In your prepared remarks, you gave illustrative examples of what the cash flows could look like on today's forward curve, which were encouraging. So I'm curious how you're thinking about that trade-off today? And my second question is on your portfolio. You've discussed 5 core countries, which implies regions like Germany and North Africa could ultimately be candidates for disposals. How are you thinking about those assets today? What are market conditions like for potential divestments? And does your deleveraging time line assume any disposals? Or would these just simply accelerate the path? Linda Cook: Yes. Thanks, Alejandra. I'll turn to Alexander first to talk about hedging. I mean you know the phrase, never waste a crisis, kind of comes to mind. So I'll say a few words about that, and then I'll talk about divestments. Alexander Krane: Yes. Thanks for the question, Alejandra. Yes. So on hedging, I mean, the starting point is that we've I think, now for several years, had a fairly consistent hedging policy where we do try to get to 50% and then 35% hedged for the following year. Then what's developed over the last year or 2 is just how we think about the mix here. Instead of doing consistently swaps, we've transitioned into doing more and more of these collar structures. So trying to lock in a floor typically above what the rating agencies are using in their cash flows and then without giving away too much of the upside. So what are we doing today? Well, we are, as you would expect, actively engaged looking at sensible structures in today's environment as well. What has been quite unique is when you get this type of volatility, it impacts the pricing of color structures. So what we call the SKU on the put and the call. And one thing is on the crude side, where there's been, for us as producers, a positive SKU here, but also -- and more impactful is the skew here on natural gas. And what we've been doing this week is putting quite a bit of structures in place here on the gas side, not enormous amounts, but we're putting quite a bit of hedges in place where we saw the opportunity to lock in $15, $14 type dollar puts and then participating in the upsides, way up in mid-20s or so. So the skew on what we've seen here has been, how should I say, unusual and something we've been trying to benefit from. So yes, we remain very active monitoring this, but of course, not participating and doing way too much as you shouldn't do at the point risk point in time. But yes, those -- volatility impacts those type of opportunities, and we try to be awake and see what's possible to do there. Linda Cook: Thanks, Alexander. Now coming to your question, Alejandra, about divestments. So we do have active track record of portfolio management, and we expect that to continue. It's just a foundation or one of our keystones of our strategy. Given what we've announced today, we will have nearly exited Southeast Asia. That leaves, as you said, Europe and Americas as core, the bigger producers there at least. And then what's outside of that ring would be Germany and MENA. So a small position in Libya, also relatively small in Algeria and then in Egypt. And we have really good assets in those countries and fantastic teams that do amazing things and they generate positive cash flow for us. So today, certainly doing no harm and providing some benefit to the portfolio. But we look at the portfolio rather dispassionately and the criteria remain the same. If we can't get to scale in a country, we don't see -- if we're not at scale today and we don't see a profitable path to scale or if investments in the country are struggling to compete for capital, then it may be more valuable in someone else's hands, and we would consider divesting. And that remains the case. So what does that have to do with the forecast we presented today? The production forecast only really includes transactions that have been announced more or less. So there's none built into the forecast. That doesn't mean we won't continue active portfolio management, but there's none actually built into that. And in terms of proceeds, the free cash flow forecast that we give excludes divestment proceeds. But if there are some, I think what we -- the question was what we would do with them, and I think it just depends on the circumstances at the time. What's leverage -- as you said, what's leverage at the time we get those proceeds? What are oil and gas prices doing? What's our outlook for free cash flow at the time? And then depending on the circumstances and the amount of the proceeds, the Board will decide what the best use of those are and whether they go towards leverage or shareholder distributions or some other use. Thanks for the question, Alejandra. Operator: Our next question comes from Chris Wheaton of Stifel. Christopher Wheaton: Two questions, if I may. Firstly, can I come back to the point on 2027, 2030 CapEx. Guidance there of $2 billion to $2.3 billion at DD&A rates of $15, $16 a barrel. That doesn't suggest you're replacing all your production in that period of the late 2020s. And that then suggests to me that you're going to see decline post 2030, which is kind of in forecast already as you see Norway roll over. I just wondered why a CapEx number that low because that doesn't seem enough to sustain this business post 2030. And my second question was on G&A cost. The G&A cost now $470 million for 2025. Yes, there's $70 million odd of transaction costs in there, but it feels those restructuring costs are a feature of your business year-on-year. Comparing you to, example, for Woodside, that's a pretty similar number to Woodside, but Woodside is 25% bigger. What are you doing about controlling G&A costs? Because it feels like the business is getting more complex, not less, and G&A costs seem to be rising -- risen quite substantially. I was going to throw in a third question on windfall tax. But after this week chaos, I'm not going to bother. I think I'll stop there. Linda Cook: Thanks, Chris. Let me turn to Alexander to talk about the CapEx levels. I think what we did lay out was our projection around reserve replacement ratio over the coming years and our current forecast that includes that CapEx projection or range that you talked about and does support a reserve replacement ratio during that period of over 100%. So we feel good about that and flat production towards the end of the decade. But Alexander, do you want to say a bit more about that in G&A? Alexander Krane: Yes. No. Thanks, Chris. I was almost expecting a question on EPL. So I'm not going to say I'm disappointed, but we can take that offline. Yes. So on CapEx, I mean, the point today, Chris, is to show what this enlarged portfolio is now capable of doing. And how can we sustain production through the decade with these assets on hand. And also what you've seen from Nigel's bit is a very significant 2C basket as well. And there's also some exploration in here, which is, of course, not necessarily booked in any of these categories. And we'd expect to do exploration both in Norway and the U.S. Gulf. So I mean, again, we think this is sort of the right level of CapEx to keep production at these rates. And the point is here that we do think that we can high grade this and margins will increase over time as well with the new jurisdictions, with lower cash taxes coming there as well. So fairly flat production, but margins increasing, and that's what we expect, and that's why we are making the statements about free cash flow growing over time as well. Linda Cook: And on G&A, anything to add, Alexander? Alexander Krane: Yes. I mean I appreciate the comments around this and how G&A has been increasing. And there's obviously a few one-offs in terms of being acquisitive and going through all of this process that we are. So I think our target remains the same to get to $2 per BOE or hopefully lower. Yes, we have been and we will be hard at work to ensure that we're operating just as efficiently as we can, not having too much overhead or too much process and losing the agility that we think we still have in this company. So I mean that is the target, and we'll be hard at work to keep that under control and hopefully reduce that as well. Linda Cook: I would just add that the Wintershall Dea integration was a particularly complicated and therefore, expensive one to do and that we had a 12-month TSA in place that we were paying almost every month last year, at least 9 months last year. And so that's now gone away. And in fact, we're getting a bit of rebate on that because we had overpaid. So if we adjust last year's G&A for that, I think $30 million or something comes off of that, Chris, but that will be helping us this year. And as Alexander said, targeting to get to $2 per barrel by 2027. And believe me, there is pressure from at least one person in the organization to get there before then. And if we think about -- your comment about are we going to continue to see those kind of costs in our G&A, the Waldorf and the LLOG transactions are both very simple, as I already commented when it comes to an integration standpoint. Waldorf, we already have a U.K. BU. It's all nonoperated. So that's very little to be done there. And then in the U.K., as I commented earlier, a single country where there's no overlap with existing operations. So that's -- I wouldn't say plug and play, but relatively simple. And then there's still scope for all of this to come down as we continue to rationalize IT systems, and everything else over time. That doesn't happen overnight. And we're trying to be very thoughtful about does it really make sense to replace certain systems or to change operations in one country onto a system we might be using elsewhere? Does it make more sense to just keep it simple and build an interface between the 2. So we're doing that over time as it makes sense to, but should drive down costs over time. And then EPL, yes. Well, thanks for not asking the question. Thanks, Chris. Operator: Our next question comes from James Carmichael of Berenberg. James Carmichael: Just going back to the distribution policy in terms of the base dividend. I appreciate it feels quite far away given where commodity prices are at the moment. But if there was a period of weakness and free cash flow dipped below $400 million, let's say, does that $300 million sort of base still hold? Or would the sort of 75% be the ceiling so potentially go below that? Just on the U.S. quickly as well, I guess if we look at the production growth chart, there's a lot of focus on Who Dat, Buckskin and Leon-Castille, but the other bucket looks to be driving quite a bit of the production growth as well, maybe more than Who Dat and Buckskin combined. So maybe just wondering if you could give a bit of color on what's driving that or underlying in that other bucket? And then I probably seeing as we here probably will ask about the EPL, I'm afraid. So there's obviously been a lot of discussion headlines, et cetera, around that this week's statement didn't really provide any color, but then stories around the meeting, which I guess you guys were in yesterday. So just wondering what, if anything, you sort of can say around where you think the government's head is at your level of confidence that, that comes forward, et cetera. Linda Cook: Great. Thanks, James. I'll turn to Alexander to talk about kind of the sustainability of the $300 million in different price environments, then to Nigel to talk about other fields where the growth might be coming from in the U.S.? And then thank you for asking a question about the EPL, and I'll be happy to take that. So Alexander? Alexander Krane: Yes. No. Thanks, James. Yes, I mean the base dividend -- I mean, we set it at a level which we're comfortable and we think this will hold through the cycle. And we view that as an initial base dividend level. And when we're having -- again, back to Alejandra's question earlier, when we're having this type of volatility in markets, we do try to be mindful here of doing hedging, doing other things, which protects that as well. So trying to do hedging into future years to, yes, protect free cash flow there just to ensure we are above that minimum level as well. Linda Cook: Nigel? A. Hearne: Sorry, you didn't come off mute fast enough. Sorry about that. James, thanks for the question. Look, we have an active program. We're just working through right now potentially adding a second rig line in the Gulf of America. We clearly are focused on our existing hubs to grow production. There are other opportunities that you referred to in here are really around [indiscernible], which is 100% owned and then potentially beyond that post 2028 is really where we think to think about our short-cycle exploration program. But the other bucket you referred to on that chart is really driven by [indiscernible] production. Linda Cook: Great, James, and then the EPL. Well, Alexander had the honor of representing Harbour Energy at the meeting yesterday with the Chancellor. So after I answered, if he wants to add some color, we'll give him the chance to do that. But I guess we'd say we welcome the opportunity to engage with the Chancellor on the topic, and we welcome the statement from our office yesterday saying she'd like the EPL to come to an end and that she had hoped to announce it this week, but geopolitical events gotten the way, if you will. And certainly, there's a lot of overlapping interest and common ground between Harbour and the Chancellor's office and between industry in general and treasury. So investment, jobs, growth, all priorities for all of us. The problem is the current fiscal environment for the U.K. oil and gas sector supports none of those things and actually has led to the opposite over the past few years, lower investment, job reductions, falling domestic oil and gas production. That's meant more imports with higher emissions, lower energy security. And now we see that it's all come in another bad time with European gas storage levels well below 5-year lows and now 20% of the world's LNG disrupted -- LNG supplies disrupted. So we continue to believe in the potential of the U.K. North Sea. We certainly believe in our team in Aberdeen and have seen them do amazing things when it comes to recovering oil and gas in what can be a sometimes challenging environment. And we do hope to continue to work with the Chancellor now to make the removal of the EPL happen sooner rather than later, especially at this time when energy security is unfortunately back on the radar. Alexander Krane: Yes. Thanks for the question, James. And I mean, you know that we have been one of the vocal companies who said the EPL has very negative effect for the U.K. and how we think about energy policy and security here. We've spent quite a bit of resources in engaging with the U.K. government and helping us to get to a new regime in place, which was announced last year. Now this regime would not come into play until 2030. And again, we've been vocal in saying, well, why wait. If we have a future-proof fiscal system, why wait until 2030. We believe it's in the best interest of the sector here and the country, quite frankly, to implement this sooner. I mean we have been working quite a bit with the U.K. government, and we will, of course, continue to do that and support as best we can. And we do also think that the efforts now from the Chancellor's office do seem genuine, and we are hopeful to see some progress over here in hopefully, the not-too-distant future. Linda Cook: I think we have one more question maybe, Dan. Operator: Our last question comes from Matt Smith of Bank of America. Matthew Smith: I'd love to turn to projects a bit in LatAm in particular. So first of all, on Argentina, Vaca Muerta specifically, is there any update you could give us as to production performance versus expectations and the latest on licensing there as it relates to the oil and gas side. That would be interesting. And then second question, turning to Mexico and Zama specifically. Could you give us some more details on the latest development plan that you're working on, I guess, the overarching improvements versus the old. And I'm just wondering also how many phases we could be looking at to exploit the full Zama resource, please? Linda Cook: Great, Matt, and thanks for the questions, and it's nice to get questions from time to time about the project. So I'm going to turn this over to Nigel. A. Hearne: Matt, thanks for the question. So I'll start with Argentina. Our base production today is around 70,000 barrels a day. Bulk of that comes from our CMA-1 license. We completed a project early and ahead of schedule last year at Phoenix to plateau that production through to 2040, and we did actually extend the license. The real growth opportunities in our resource position is in the APE gas window, where we have about 22.5% equity and in the San Roque oil window. We did complete a successful pilot in the unconventional license to San Roque last week -- last year, and we've got a 16-well program started -- scheduled for the end of this year. We're working with our key stakeholders down there and our partners really to secure the unconventional oil license towards the end of the year. So once that -- once we have clarity there, we will be progressing that program with our partners. In APE, today, our production is around 20,000 barrels a day from 80 wells. I would say that we've got a significant number of well locations potentially to materially increase the resource. We're not going to drill for the sake of drill and grow production. It's about generating a margin. Today, the gas market has softened a little bit, and we've got less offtake and we've got more market penetration from associated gas. So that's one of the key reasons why we've invested in SESA. I think it gives us another avenue to secure a better gas price and give us options on pricing, which allows us to optimize and then underpin our development in APE. So as you know, the LNG project is an FID we took last year with several partners. That project is underway, and that will, I think, open up avenues to continue to develop our dry gas window. You asked a question around Zama and Kan, we have actually spent a lot of time focusing on what we want our business to look like in Mexico over time. It is about creating 2 advantaged hubs. We have actually taken some deepwater assets out of the portfolio, which we won't invest in and we will not be advancing those projects. So we're focused on Zama and Kan. We'd like to get both of those projects to FID ready over the next 12 to 18 months. The concepts are nearing completion, and we'll be entering FEED this year on both projects. We've reoptimized the Zama development for a phased development, which we'll see $1 billion to $2 billion investment in the first phase with potentially a small waterflood, but we're really finalizing that scope. So we'll see a phased development, small number of wells to generate some early production, and then we'll come back with a more second phase on Zama. Now we're operator, we have more control and are focused on really optimizing that design and that concept. And we'll know more as we get to FEED this year and have clarity around the FID and first oil timing sometime later this year, early next year. We're looking to secure FPSOs for both Kan and Zama. We have line of sight to narrowing the options on both of those. So it's an exciting time to be in Mexico. Both projects have matured a lot in the last 12 months. We're getting close to finalizing the concept for each. Optimizing our well locations as part of driving down our breakeven costs. We are focused not necessarily just on schedule, but just driving down our breakevens. These will be long-lived projects. We need to make sure they compete and compete over time. So a lot of focus on maturing the projects and on driving capital efficiency into both of them. We do see some synergies if we can run them somewhat in parallel where we can optimize rig schedule, service vessels, engineering support. So a lot to get worked through this year, but both projects are now getting clearer and clearer on their path forward. Linda Cook: Great. Thanks, Nigel. And thanks, everyone, for joining. We really appreciate the fact that you've spent some time with us today. And as I've said, I'm really proud of what the teams delivered last year, and it's good to see that we're off to a solid start for 2026. So thanks again for joining, and have a good rest of your day.
Operator: Good morning, and welcome to Harbour Energy 2025 Full Year Results. Today's presentation will be hosted by Linda Cook, CEO; Alexander Krane, CFO; and Nigel Hearne, COO. After the presentation, we will take your questions. Linda, please go ahead. Linda Cook: Great. Thank you, Dan. Good morning all, and welcome to our 2025 full year results call. I'm Linda Cook, the CEO of Harbour Energy. And as Dan said, joining me for the presentation today are Alexander Krane, our CFO; and Nigel Hearne, the Chief Operating Officer. Before we turn to results, I do want to first just acknowledge recent geopolitical events, which are driving extreme commodity price volatility and raising concerns over energy security. In some ways, similar to where we were just about the same time last year with Liberation Day upon us, governments and businesses around the world coming to grips with the impacts of a wide range of new tariffs and trade agreements. And of course, not that long ago, before that, we had the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a conflict that continues to this day and before that, a global pandemic, all in the last 5 to 6 years. These are all reminders that we live and make decisions within an uncertain and at times volatile global environment. In response, it's important in a business like ours that we balance the short term with the long term and that we remain focused on the things we can control, operational excellence, capital discipline, managing risk and creating value for our shareholders. So turning to the agenda. I'm going to start by taking you through the highlights from what was a very good year for Harbour Energy in 2025 and some changes to our portfolio. Nigel will then cover operations, including how we're driving performance. Alexander will follow with the financial results, 2026 guidance and the cash flow outlook for the near to midterm, all updated for our recent transactions and also an outline of our new distribution policy. And then it's back to me to wrap up, leaving plenty of time for questions. So turning to my first slide. Harbour has grown from 0 to more than 450,000 barrels per day over the last decade, driven by disciplined M&A and reinvesting in the acquired assets to add value. During that time, we repeatedly demonstrated our ability to identify and secure strategic transactions and after completion, to safely and successfully integrate the acquired businesses and organizations. While past acquisitions, including Wintershall Dea in 2024, we're focused on building scale and diversification. Our more recent ones have been targeted towards strengthening the portfolio, making it more resilient and enhancing longevity. Perhaps the best example is the acquisition of LLOG Exploration in the U.S. Gulf completed ahead of schedule just a few weeks ago. The LLOG assets, oil weighted and all under operational control, helped to secure Harbour's overall production at between 475,000 to 500,000 barrels per day to the end of the decade. And while overall production stays broadly stable, as you'll see later, replacing the declining U.K. volumes with growth in the U.S. with its attractive fiscal framework means that we'll see a significant increase over time in cash flow. So turning first to look back to 2025. As I said, another strong year for Harbour Energy operationally, financially and strategically. We achieved record production at 474,000 barrels per day. It was up more than 80% on the prior year. And with unit OpEx at $13 per barrel, our margins were strong. This, along with strong capital discipline and cost control, resulted in materially improved free cash flow and demonstrated our ability to navigate volatile commodity prices. We also had good momentum on our growth projects, including the transfer of operatorship of the major Zama development in Mexico from PEMEX, the national oil company to Harbour. And we continue to improve the overall quality of the portfolio through M&A. And let me just turn to that now. In December, we announced 3 transactions, each of which advances our strategy and strengthens our portfolio. First, we agreed the sale of our mature higher-cost Indonesian producing assets and the stalled Tuna development project for $215 million, improving our portfolio quality and accelerating value. We also announced the $170 million acquisition of Waldorf, a small U.K. producer that brings around $900 million of value through tax losses. In addition, we unlocked $350 million of trapped cash upon completion, more than covering the purchase price. Combining the benefits of Waldorf with the great work by our team in Aberdeen to reduce costs and improve efficiency means we've materially enhanced the resilience and free cash flow outlook of our business in the U.K. The proceeds from the Indonesia sale, along with the near-term cash flow uplift from Waldorf helped fund our entry into the U.S. Gulf through the acquisition of LLOG. As we said in the announcement at the time of this transaction, we're really excited about the addition of a strategic position in the U.S. deepwater. With LLOG, we get a high-quality growth portfolio in one of the most prolific oil and gas producing basins in the world, along with one of the best teams in the Gulf, and we're more than thrilled to have them join our Harbour team. So each transaction was strategic in its own way. And collectively, they have a material impact on the overall quality of our portfolio. So the next slide takes us to a snapshot of Harbour today, and I'll illustrate that point about the improved quality of the portfolio here. With the divestment of Vietnam in 2024, the announced sale of most of our Indonesia assets and our entry into the U.S., our geographic footprint is shrinking and the portfolio center of gravity is shifting to the West. We've divested from mature positions in Southeast Asia with declining production and high unit costs acquired 5 years ago through the Premier Oil transaction and added strategic positions in Norway, Mexico, Argentina and now the U.S., all with significant running room from a subsurface point of view, demonstrating, I think, that portfolio management is alive and well within Harbour. Like in the past, if we can't see a route to scale or the assets can't compete for capital in our portfolio, they become divestment targets. And with the LLOG acquisition, the bar to compete internally for capital has got that much higher. The outcome is a higher quality portfolio with higher margins and as Alexander will show, increasing free cash flow over time. He'll also talk about the new distribution policy details, which aim to strike a balance, enabling a sustainable dividend and resilient balance sheet across commodity price cycles while supporting investment in future production and enabling shareholders to benefit as that cash flow growth materializes or if like today, we have an unexpected spike in commodity prices. Turning to my last slide. I've mentioned our shrinking geographic footprint, meaning that today, we're focused on 5 key countries: Norway, the U.K., Argentina, Mexico and the U.S. As you can see, these account for 90% of our company, however you cut it: production, cash flow, reserves, resources. As Nigel will explain, each of these countries has its role to play in Harbour. And while together, they support flat production over the coming few years, the portfolio evolution continues, and that's hinted out in the bars on this page. While the U.K. is responsible for 1/3 of our production today, it represents only a bit over 10% of our combined reserves and resources. With Norway production expected to be flattish, the U.K. decline is replaced by investing in projects in the Americas: the U.S., Mexico and Argentina. And this, over time, has positive implications for after-tax margins and cash flow. So now over to Nigel, and he'll take you through each of these countries in more detail, followed by Alexander. A. Hearne: Good morning, and thank you, Linda. Today, our portfolio is more focused, competitive and resilient. Across the business, we're aligned on delivering against 4 key priorities to drive total shareholder return: operating safely and reliably, expanding our margins through cost and capital efficiency, converting our resources into reserves and into production profitably and competitively and growing our free cash flow sustainably. I will shortly take you through how each of our core business units is delivering against those priorities and how the actions we've taken over the past year has put us on a path to stronger, longer, higher quality cash generation. First and always first is safety. Nothing matters more than protecting our people, our assets and the communities in which we operate. We did see a slight increase in our recordable injury rate in 2025 as we expanded into new countries, but we continue to be a top performer in personal safety. In process safety, we delivered a reduction in Tier 1 and Tier 2 loss of containment events, but unfortunately, recorded one Tier 1 event in Mexico. Safety is an area we will never be satisfied. We actively promote the learnings from our incidents and are strengthening our focus on risk assessment, prevention and assurance activities. We've also delivered a step change reduction in our greenhouse gas emissions intensity, creating a more resilient portfolio. 2025 was a year of record production, delivering at the very top of our guidance. This reflects a full year's contribution from Wintershall Dea, but also a strong year of execution across our expanded portfolio. We brought new wells online and completed new projects ahead of schedule in Norway, the U.K. and Argentina. Reliability across our asset base continued to be high at greater than 90%. And we made structural improvements in our cost base with unit OpEx down 20%, driven by lower cost barrels from Wintershall Dea, actions taken in the U.K. to reduce our cost by 10%, our exit from the higher cost Vietnam volumes, and we captured early synergies as we leveraged our increased scale. Together, these actions improved our earnings and cash margins, strengthening our competitiveness and resilience. Turning to our core business units. As the second largest Norwegian gas exporter to Europe and Harbour's largest producer, our Norway business is central to our long-term cash flow. Our strong pipeline of infrastructure-led developments sustain profitable production into the next decade. At the end of 2025, we completed the Harbour operated Maria Phase 2 project, the first of 6 developments due online in the next 24 months. This project was delivered on time and within budget and is performing well. Our operated Dvalin North is on track for completion mid-2026. All subsea infrastructure was successfully installed in 2025 and development drilling is underway. We're also maturing our next set of projects, and we continue to explore. Earlier this week, we announced the Omega Sor discovery, where we have a 24.5% share. The estimated size of the discovery is between 25 million and 89 million barrels of oil equivalent of gross recoverable volumes, exceeding our pre-drill estimates and extending the Snorre field's lifetime beyond 2040. Our Norway business continues to exemplify our ability to profitably and efficiently turn resource, to reserves, to production. Despite continued fiscal headwinds, the U.K. delivered a strong performance in 2025. This was underpinned by high production efficiency and strong turnaround execution at our operated assets, structurally lowering our cost base. We shortened cycle times through near-field development and delivered best-in-class capital efficiency through the 2025 wells program. Joscelyn South was brought on stream in March, just 3 months after discovery. Strong subsurface performance at Talbot and successful intervention campaigns led to the J-Area producing at rates not seen for over a decade. We are now bringing that same level of focus and discipline to our U.K. decommissioning program. In addition, the Waldorf acquisition, as Linda said, once completed, will deliver meaningful financial synergies. As a result of these actions, we've materially strengthened the U.K.'s cash flow outlook. Now turning to the Americas. Argentina provides both low-cost and long-term production, underpinned by our significant reserves and resource position. Today, the majority of our production comes from the conventional CMA -1 license. Phoenix is a great example of the tieback opportunities that supports a stable, low-cost production from this asset. We hold over 700 million barrels of oil equivalent of 2C resources, primarily in the vast of Vaca Muerta shale play. We are progressing the unconventional oil license at San Roque with a 16-well program expected to start later this year. We are scaling up gas drilling at APE and our gas resource development will be optimized through our participation in the Southern Energy LNG project, where export permits and incentives are secured, 80% of the first vessel offtake is now contracted and the fabrication of the spur line and conversion of the second vessel is underway. First LNG production remains on track for the end of 2027. We continue to focus on drilling and completions efficiency as we increase the scale and pace of our Vaca Muerta development. Argentina is a cornerstone for future flexible and capital-efficient reserve replacement. Our newest core business unit, the Gulf of America, add scale and growth through to the end of the decade. It is a 100% operated oil-weighted portfolio centered around 3 deepwater hubs at Who Dat, Buckskin and Leon-Castille. Production is expected to double by 2028, supported by low breakeven drilling targets at our production hubs and ramp-up at Leon-Castille. Combined with the attractive fiscal terms, we are adding high-margin barrels that fuel free cash flow growth through to the end of the decade. And with more than 350 million barrels of oil equivalent of 2P reserves and 2C resources, plus 0.5 billion barrels of prospective resources and success in the recent bid round, we have lots of running room in this prolific oil and gas basin. Our team have a proven track record of profitably and competitively converting resource to production, ranking best-in-class among global peers when it comes to development cycle time. They're also responsible for 1/3 of all discoveries made in the Gulf since 2014. Over the next 3 years, we expect to allocate around $400 million a year with 10 to 15 wells planned. This includes development wells with internal rates of return in excess of 40% and low-risk infrastructure-led exploration wells with a short cycle time to production, if successful. The Gulf of America business unit is transformative and raises the bar for capital competition within Harbour. Finally, Mexico represents one of our most material long-term growth opportunities. Through the Zama and Kan shallow water hubs, we are building a scaled advantaged business with tieback potential. As newly appointed operator of Zama, we've submitted a simplified phased development plan designed to lower breakevens, improve returns and lower risk. At Kan in 2025, resource was upgraded by 50% to 150 million barrels of oil equivalent gross. Together, Zama and Kan have the potential to deliver reserves equivalent to more than 2 years of group production. As operator of both hubs, we have the opportunity to capture synergies across design, drilling and operations. Both projects are expected to enter FEED this year. Subject to partner alignment, securing FPSOs and regulatory approval, we're targeting both to be FID ready within an 18-month horizon and possibly one project as early as year-end. We also see additional upside through the alignment with our Gulf of America business unit, using key capabilities and talent that we now have to help successfully deliver Zama and Kan. Mexico builds long-life, high-margin oil exposure with strong operating control. So putting this all together, what does it mean for our CapEx and production outlook? We expect to spend $2 billion to $2.3 billion per year from 2027, which we believe is the right level given our portfolio and opportunity set. With over 3 billion barrels of oil equivalent of 2P reserves and resources, we will prioritize the most competitive projects, continuing to high-grade the portfolio. This level of investment allows us to sustain production between 475,000 and 500,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day through the end of the decade. During this period, operated CapEx rises to 60%, giving us more control over cost, schedule and performance. And while overall production remains stable, we are replacing the declining higher cost U.K. production with higher margin growth in the U.S. and over time, Mexico. We have a strong history of reserves replacement, and we expect that to continue. For 2026, we anticipate at least 150% reserves replacement, supported by the LLOG and Waldorf additions. Historically, we've grown reserves through M&A. Going forward, more will come organically from our large, diverse 2C resource base. The quality of our reserves also improves, more oil-weighted, more operated and increasingly positioned in lower cost, lower tax basins. In summary, we are and will continue to have a laser focus on operating safely, reliably and with discipline, expanding margins, lowering breakevens and improving capital efficiency, converting resources into production profitably and predictably and building a portfolio with scale, longevity and rising free cash flow. This is how we continue to strengthen Harbour. I will now hand over to Alexander for the financial review. Alexander Krane: Great. Thanks, Nigel. And again, good morning to everyone dialing in this morning. We've delivered another strong set of financial results, reflecting a full year's contribution from Wintershall Dea, excellent operational performance and strict capital discipline. As a result, we improved our operating margins. We generated $1.1 billion of free cash flow, beating our guidance for the year, and we reduced our net debt. At the end of last year, as Linda mentioned, we announced the Indonesia divestments and the U.K. Waldorf and U.S. LLOG acquisitions, materially improving our free cash flow outlook. We increased 2025 declared shareholder distributions to approximately $0.5 billion and also announced in December our intention to update our distribution policy, better aligning distributions to our cash flows. 2025 was marked by significant geopolitical and macroeconomic volatility, driving uncertainty in commodity markets. 2026 is proving no different. Recent events in the Middle East have pushed spot prices higher, but concerns around oversupply persists with the possibility of materially lower prices from here. Against this backdrop, Harbour is well positioned, particularly following the LLOG and Waldorf transactions. We have a large scale, diverse portfolio, including by product with 40% of our production exposed to Brent and 40% to European gas, a structurally lower cost base, greater operational control and investment-grade credit ratings, supported by our prudent financial policy. As a reminder, we hedge 2 years forward, targeting 50% of economic exposure in year 1 and 30% in year 2, targeting even split between swaps and collars. This protects around half of our downside exposure while preserving meaningful upside participation. And we continue to hedge through the recent volatility this week, securing attractively structured colors, especially for European gas. Turning now to the income statement. Thanks to the hedging results, we realized prices broadly in line with global benchmarks for oil despite slight grade differential on liquids and above benchmarks for our European gas. Revenue and adjusted EBITDAX increased by 65% and 77%, reflecting higher production and stronger gas realizations, partly offset by lower realized oil prices. Now as Nigel outlined, we lowered our unit operating cost by 22% to $12.8 per BOE despite the significantly weaker U.S. dollar. Net financial items reflected $0.5 billion of foreign exchange losses, partly offset by $0.2 billion of FX hedging gains. Profit before tax increased to $2.8 billion or $3.4 billion on an adjusted basis. While we reported a loss after tax of $0.2 billion, driven by a more than 100% effective tax rate, adjusted profit after tax increased to $0.6 billion, up over 60%. Adjustments reflected 3 main items: $0.4 billion of impairments, including as a result of license exits and write-offs in our Mexico, North Africa and CCS portfolios; $0.2 billion of intercompany FX losses; and $0.3 billion related to the U.K. EPL extension to 2030, the latter 2 already reported at our half year results. The adjusted effective tax rate was 82% compared to 106% reported, more in line with the 78% statutory tax rates we now have in Norway and the U.K. Turning to cash flow. During the period, we generated $7.3 billion of operating cash flow, invested $2.3 billion on total capital expenditure, and we paid $3.5 billion of cash taxes, substantially in the U.K. and Norway. This resulted in free cash flow generation of $1.1 billion, materially higher than in 2024 and significantly above what we expected at the outside of the year once normalizing for commodity prices. This increase was driven by strong operational execution and rigorous capital discipline. Now turning to net debt on the next slide. Net debt reduced over the year to $4.4 billion. This reflects strong free cash flow of $1.1 billion, of which approximately $0.5 billion was returned to shareholders with the balance going towards debt reduction. The impact of the weaker U.S. dollar, which increased the value of our pre-swap euro-denominated bonds by $0.6 billion was partially offset by net $0.4 billion increase in cash balances from the issuance and repayments of subordinated loans. Post period end in February 2026, we completed the $3.2 billion LLOG acquisition funded through a combination of $0.5 billion of equity and $2.7 billion of cash, including a $1 billion bridge facility and a $1 billion 3-year term loan with existing relationship banks and a few new banks joining our syndicate. Now as a result, net debt increased to $7.2 billion on completion. Having prefunded 2026 maturities through senior and hybrid bond issuances in 2025, we now have greater flexibility around the timing of the bridge takeout. Consistent with our approach on previous acquisitions, we aim to delever using cash flow to repay the term loan over the next 3 years. We have updated our 2026 guidance to reflect LLOG completion in February and the expected closing of the Waldorf and Indonesia transactions by end Q2. Production guidance is increased to between 475,000 and 500,000 BOE per day, while unit OpEx is expected to be slightly higher at approximately $14.5 per BOE with LLOG and Waldorf increasing near-term unit OpEx. Here, LLOG OpEx is expected to be $19 per BOE in 2026, then expected to decline to approximately $12 per BOE by 2030, primarily as a result of production increase impacting unit operating costs. Total CapEx is expected to increase to $2.2 billion to $2.4 billion, driven mainly by LLOG with also approximately $0.1 billion related to Waldorf. At $65 Brent and $11 European gas prices, we expect to generate approximately $0.6 billion of free cash flow, reflecting investment in the LLOG portfolio and Waldorf synergies starting in 2027. Post completion of the LLOG acquisition, we are now more sensitive to oil prices. A $5 per barrel move in the average oil price for the full year impacts free cash flow by some $170 million, while a $1 change in European gas prices impacts free cash flow by approximately $150 million. Forward curves are moving a bit this week. But if I use today's curves for the entire year, we would expect free cash flow to be closer to $1.4 billion. Now looking through to the end of the decade, we expect materially increasing free cash flow, driven by the continued transformation of our portfolio. Higher cost Southeast Asia exits and declining production in the U.K. are being replaced by higher-margin volumes, primarily in the U.S. Gulf alongside Norway and Argentina and over time, Mexico. We expect our effective tax rate to fall quite significantly, reflecting a strategic shift in profitable production towards lower tax jurisdictions. In the U.S. Gulf, a 23% tax rate and the ability to depreciate the log purchase price means we expect to pay very little tax there in the coming years. In parallel, we expect CapEx to reduce to around $2.0 billion to $2.3 billion from 2027, reflecting continued portfolio high grading and disciplined capital allocation. As a result, free cash flow is expected to increase to $1 billion in 2028, mainly supported by increasing production in the U.S. Gulf and significant financial synergies from the U.K. Waldorf acquisition from 2027. Beyond that, we see further cash flow margin upside towards the end of the decade, driven by continued growth in the U.S. Gulf and as our Mexican projects come on stream. Let's turn now to the shareholder distributions and our revised policy. We communicated our intention to update our distributions policy in December and believe that now is the right time to pivot, linking shareholder distributions directly to cash flows and strengthening our capital allocation framework across the commodity price cycles. In the past, we've returned on average around 40% of free cash flow to shareholders each year. We are now target returning 45% to 75% of annual free cash flows, including an initial base dividend of $0.161 per voting ordinary share equivalent to approximately $300 million. By tying distributions directly to our cash flows, the new policy builds in the opportunity for shareholders to benefit from the growing cash flow outlook I just showed and from periods of higher oil and gas prices like the ones we're experiencing today. So how will this work? Well, when leverage is above 1x, we expect the payout will be towards the lower end, enabling us to prioritize debt reduction. However, when leverage is below our target of 1x, we expect distributions to be at the upper end of the payout range. As such, our new policy supports a sustainable base dividend across the commodity price cycles and allows us to share the upside with our shareholders alongside near-term deleveraging and disciplined investment for future growth. In line with the new policy, the Board has proposed a final dividend of $0.0805 per share, equivalent to $150 million, representing a 45% free cash flow payout for 2025. For 2026, at $65 per barrel Brent and $11 per Mcf European gas, we'd expect to distribute $300 million to shareholders. Then just to illustrate the benefits of this updated policy. If we again use $75 per barrel and $14 Mcf for the full year, closer to today's forward curve, a 45% minimum payout would get us to around $600 million of distributions. My final slide is a reminder of our 3 capital allocation priorities, which we look to balance through the cycle. First, we remain committed to maintaining an investment-grade balance sheet. Following every major transaction, we have consistently prioritized debt reduction and with the additional leverage from recent transaction, we intend to do so again. Under our outlook price forecast by 2028, supported by stronger free cash flow, we'd expect to have repaid $1 billion of debt with leverage returning below our through-cycle target of less than 1x. We also aim to maintain a robust and diverse portfolio. By investing $2 billion to $2.3 billion per year, we expect to be able to deliver increasingly high-margin, cash-generative production through the end of the decade. And thirdly, we will continue to deliver attractive shareholder returns through the cycle. And as you heard today, at current forward prices, there is clear potential for significantly higher distributions this year. And over time, we expect to deliver material distribution growth in line with our growing free cash flow profile. So with that, thanks for everyone's attention, and I will hand you back to Linda for close. Linda Cook: Thanks, Alexander. So in summary, we've had an excellent year operationally, financially, strategically, and we've carried that momentum into 2026 with the completion of the LLOG acquisition and with production off to a good start. Our portfolio actions have transformed the outlook for Harbour, and we're seeing the benefits of our increased scale and resilience. And now the organic opportunity within the portfolio means we can sustain production and generate material and growing free cash flow to the end of this decade and possibly beyond. Looking ahead, our portfolio, our team and our track record give me confidence that we'll deliver against these capital allocation priorities, including maintaining the strong balance sheet and delivering competitive shareholder returns through the cycle. So it's now time for Q&A. Alexander, Nigel and I were joined by Alan Bruce, EVP of Tech Services, and we look forward to answering your questions. So now I'll hand it back to Dan. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Lydia Rainforth of Barclays. Lydia Rainforth: I actually have 3 questions, if I could. I'm sorry for quite many, but there's a lot to go through. The first one was just on the cash return structure. Obviously, you said in the past, you've done a combination of buybacks plus dividends. And you've now gone with the base dividend. And then when you're looking at sort of why go for 100% base dividend? And when you're going forward, when you look at sort of where the current cash prices are, do you split it between a special dividend plus buyback just to give us an idea of how you're thinking about that? The second question was on the LLOG integration. I just wonder if you can just walk us through a little bit more of that, whether culturally how that works and how that -- you feel like that's going at the moment? And then the third one, is that just more of a how do we actually work today question. So obviously, we've got a lot of volatility. Just in terms of when you're seeing this level of volatility, how as Harbour do you react? Are there things -- the levers that you can pull in terms of additional production? Are you seeing conversations with customers? I'm just kind of working through what -- how you're actually seeing practical impacts of the current disruption? Linda Cook: Lydia, thanks for the 3 questions. I'll turn to Alexander first to just say a few words about how we think about buybacks in the context of our distribution policy. And then I'll take the last 2 about log and then the -- yes, how we deal with volatility. So Alexander? Alexander Krane: Yes. Thanks for the question, Lydia. Yes, I think when it comes to the distribution policy, we've tried to strike a good balance here between a base dividend that we're comfortable through the cycle and then what the added shareholder distributions are going to be on top. You've seen us in the past do quite a bit of share buybacks when we thought that was timely and a good thing to do. And going forward, it's probably going to be a mix of both higher dividend levels and share buybacks. And we and the Board will probably assess closer to time which of the 2 and what that mix is going to be. But I think for today, our point here is to set that base dividend level, the percentage of how do we think about sharing the extra free cash flow that we expect to see. And also how would you -- how do we balance this with debt levels. So hopefully, the guidance that we've provided today and what I talked through is helpful in that regard and gives a bit of insight into our thinking. But yes, it's probably going to be a mix of the 2. Linda Cook: Yes. Thanks, Alexander. I agree with that. I think it will just depend on the circumstances at the time, what's going on with commodity prices, our outlook for cash flow, et cetera, et cetera. So a bit hard to answer hypothetically, I think. Going to the other 2 questions. So LLOG integration, going really, really well, I think. And one of the reasons why I think we were successful landing this transaction was the fact that both sides saw what we believe will be and so far has proven to be true, a good cultural fit between their organization and ours. And that always helps make an integration go more smoothly, and we're just 3 weeks in and so far, so good. It's not that complex of an integration for us if we compare it to the Wintershall Dea transaction where we had, I don't know, 7 countries we were adding and multiple different onshore and offshore production, operated assets and nonoperated assets, dealing with works councils in Germany, et cetera, buying a single business unit, if you will, in a country where we don't currently have operations. So there's no overlap. We're not dealing with 2 different offices who's going to do what. This one from that standpoint is actually fairly straightforward. I was there a couple of weeks ago. We have staff there. This week, we call them ambassadors. It's part of our integration toolkit where we send people more experienced in Harbour to new locations, and they just sit there and answer questions for 2 or 3 weeks so that people say, how do I get X, Y or Z done, somebody can tell them who to call or where to look, et cetera. So all going really smoothly. The staff there seem excited to be part of Harbour and curious to see what's going to come next. Volatility. Well, never a dull moment in our industry, Lydia. It wasn't -- even as recent as last week, right, there were new reports coming out from experts trying to convince everyone that oil is headed to $50 per barrel. I know you weren't one of those, Lydia. So you were a bit of an outlier there, which we've always appreciated. But you know now here we are with oil, I don't know where it is right now, but $80. So I think it's just another proof point that we live in a volatile world and our sector, in particular, can be quite buffeted by that. And when that happens, we just have to focus on controlling what we can control. In terms of what we do this year, I mean, production this year, CapEx this year, these are things that have largely been decided months or even years ago or driven by decisions we've made in the past. So not a lot actually to do, in particular, with production this year. There are some knobs we can play on CapEx. But no one believes that the conflict is going to be long-lived or at least we can't assume that in our planning. And so what we have to assume is that at some point, prices come back to a more normal range. What is that? Who knows? But we're certainly not making any decisions today that assume prices are going to be $80 or higher for years to come. Operator: Our next question comes from Alejandra Magana of JPMorgan. Alejandra Magana: Excellent. As a follow-up to how you're responding to the Middle East developments, would you consider any changes to your hedging program to potentially accelerate your path to sub 1x leverage? Or does maintaining cash flow stability remain the priority? In your prepared remarks, you gave illustrative examples of what the cash flows could look like on today's forward curve, which were encouraging. So I'm curious how you're thinking about that trade-off today? And my second question is on your portfolio. You've discussed 5 core countries, which implies regions like Germany and North Africa could ultimately be candidates for disposals. How are you thinking about those assets today? What are market conditions like for potential divestments? And does your deleveraging time line assume any disposals? Or would these just simply accelerate the path? Linda Cook: Yes. Thanks, Alejandra. I'll turn to Alexander first to talk about hedging. I mean you know the phrase, never waste a crisis, kind of comes to mind. So I'll say a few words about that, and then I'll talk about divestments. Alexander Krane: Yes. Thanks for the question, Alejandra. Yes. So on hedging, I mean, the starting point is that we've I think, now for several years, had a fairly consistent hedging policy where we do try to get to 50% and then 35% hedged for the following year. Then what's developed over the last year or 2 is just how we think about the mix here. Instead of doing consistently swaps, we've transitioned into doing more and more of these collar structures. So trying to lock in a floor typically above what the rating agencies are using in their cash flows and then without giving away too much of the upside. So what are we doing today? Well, we are, as you would expect, actively engaged looking at sensible structures in today's environment as well. What has been quite unique is when you get this type of volatility, it impacts the pricing of color structures. So what we call the SKU on the put and the call. And one thing is on the crude side, where there's been, for us as producers, a positive SKU here, but also -- and more impactful is the skew here on natural gas. And what we've been doing this week is putting quite a bit of structures in place here on the gas side, not enormous amounts, but we're putting quite a bit of hedges in place where we saw the opportunity to lock in $15, $14 type dollar puts and then participating in the upsides, way up in mid-20s or so. So the skew on what we've seen here has been, how should I say, unusual and something we've been trying to benefit from. So yes, we remain very active monitoring this, but of course, not participating and doing way too much as you shouldn't do at the point risk point in time. But yes, those -- volatility impacts those type of opportunities, and we try to be awake and see what's possible to do there. Linda Cook: Thanks, Alexander. Now coming to your question, Alejandra, about divestments. So we do have active track record of portfolio management, and we expect that to continue. It's just a foundation or one of our keystones of our strategy. Given what we've announced today, we will have nearly exited Southeast Asia. That leaves, as you said, Europe and Americas as core, the bigger producers there at least. And then what's outside of that ring would be Germany and MENA. So a small position in Libya, also relatively small in Algeria and then in Egypt. And we have really good assets in those countries and fantastic teams that do amazing things and they generate positive cash flow for us. So today, certainly doing no harm and providing some benefit to the portfolio. But we look at the portfolio rather dispassionately and the criteria remain the same. If we can't get to scale in a country, we don't see -- if we're not at scale today and we don't see a profitable path to scale or if investments in the country are struggling to compete for capital, then it may be more valuable in someone else's hands, and we would consider divesting. And that remains the case. So what does that have to do with the forecast we presented today? The production forecast only really includes transactions that have been announced more or less. So there's none built into the forecast. That doesn't mean we won't continue active portfolio management, but there's none actually built into that. And in terms of proceeds, the free cash flow forecast that we give excludes divestment proceeds. But if there are some, I think what we -- the question was what we would do with them, and I think it just depends on the circumstances at the time. What's leverage -- as you said, what's leverage at the time we get those proceeds? What are oil and gas prices doing? What's our outlook for free cash flow at the time? And then depending on the circumstances and the amount of the proceeds, the Board will decide what the best use of those are and whether they go towards leverage or shareholder distributions or some other use. Thanks for the question, Alejandra. Operator: Our next question comes from Chris Wheaton of Stifel. Christopher Wheaton: Two questions, if I may. Firstly, can I come back to the point on 2027, 2030 CapEx. Guidance there of $2 billion to $2.3 billion at DD&A rates of $15, $16 a barrel. That doesn't suggest you're replacing all your production in that period of the late 2020s. And that then suggests to me that you're going to see decline post 2030, which is kind of in forecast already as you see Norway roll over. I just wondered why a CapEx number that low because that doesn't seem enough to sustain this business post 2030. And my second question was on G&A cost. The G&A cost now $470 million for 2025. Yes, there's $70 million odd of transaction costs in there, but it feels those restructuring costs are a feature of your business year-on-year. Comparing you to, example, for Woodside, that's a pretty similar number to Woodside, but Woodside is 25% bigger. What are you doing about controlling G&A costs? Because it feels like the business is getting more complex, not less, and G&A costs seem to be rising -- risen quite substantially. I was going to throw in a third question on windfall tax. But after this week chaos, I'm not going to bother. I think I'll stop there. Linda Cook: Thanks, Chris. Let me turn to Alexander to talk about the CapEx levels. I think what we did lay out was our projection around reserve replacement ratio over the coming years and our current forecast that includes that CapEx projection or range that you talked about and does support a reserve replacement ratio during that period of over 100%. So we feel good about that and flat production towards the end of the decade. But Alexander, do you want to say a bit more about that in G&A? Alexander Krane: Yes. No. Thanks, Chris. I was almost expecting a question on EPL. So I'm not going to say I'm disappointed, but we can take that offline. Yes. So on CapEx, I mean, the point today, Chris, is to show what this enlarged portfolio is now capable of doing. And how can we sustain production through the decade with these assets on hand. And also what you've seen from Nigel's bit is a very significant 2C basket as well. And there's also some exploration in here, which is, of course, not necessarily booked in any of these categories. And we'd expect to do exploration both in Norway and the U.S. Gulf. So I mean, again, we think this is sort of the right level of CapEx to keep production at these rates. And the point is here that we do think that we can high grade this and margins will increase over time as well with the new jurisdictions, with lower cash taxes coming there as well. So fairly flat production, but margins increasing, and that's what we expect, and that's why we are making the statements about free cash flow growing over time as well. Linda Cook: And on G&A, anything to add, Alexander? Alexander Krane: Yes. I mean I appreciate the comments around this and how G&A has been increasing. And there's obviously a few one-offs in terms of being acquisitive and going through all of this process that we are. So I think our target remains the same to get to $2 per BOE or hopefully lower. Yes, we have been and we will be hard at work to ensure that we're operating just as efficiently as we can, not having too much overhead or too much process and losing the agility that we think we still have in this company. So I mean that is the target, and we'll be hard at work to keep that under control and hopefully reduce that as well. Linda Cook: I would just add that the Wintershall Dea integration was a particularly complicated and therefore, expensive one to do and that we had a 12-month TSA in place that we were paying almost every month last year, at least 9 months last year. And so that's now gone away. And in fact, we're getting a bit of rebate on that because we had overpaid. So if we adjust last year's G&A for that, I think $30 million or something comes off of that, Chris, but that will be helping us this year. And as Alexander said, targeting to get to $2 per barrel by 2027. And believe me, there is pressure from at least one person in the organization to get there before then. And if we think about -- your comment about are we going to continue to see those kind of costs in our G&A, the Waldorf and the LLOG transactions are both very simple, as I already commented when it comes to an integration standpoint. Waldorf, we already have a U.K. BU. It's all nonoperated. So that's very little to be done there. And then in the U.K., as I commented earlier, a single country where there's no overlap with existing operations. So that's -- I wouldn't say plug and play, but relatively simple. And then there's still scope for all of this to come down as we continue to rationalize IT systems, and everything else over time. That doesn't happen overnight. And we're trying to be very thoughtful about does it really make sense to replace certain systems or to change operations in one country onto a system we might be using elsewhere? Does it make more sense to just keep it simple and build an interface between the 2. So we're doing that over time as it makes sense to, but should drive down costs over time. And then EPL, yes. Well, thanks for not asking the question. Thanks, Chris. Operator: Our next question comes from James Carmichael of Berenberg. James Carmichael: Just going back to the distribution policy in terms of the base dividend. I appreciate it feels quite far away given where commodity prices are at the moment. But if there was a period of weakness and free cash flow dipped below $400 million, let's say, does that $300 million sort of base still hold? Or would the sort of 75% be the ceiling so potentially go below that? Just on the U.S. quickly as well, I guess if we look at the production growth chart, there's a lot of focus on Who Dat, Buckskin and Leon-Castille, but the other bucket looks to be driving quite a bit of the production growth as well, maybe more than Who Dat and Buckskin combined. So maybe just wondering if you could give a bit of color on what's driving that or underlying in that other bucket? And then I probably seeing as we here probably will ask about the EPL, I'm afraid. So there's obviously been a lot of discussion headlines, et cetera, around that this week's statement didn't really provide any color, but then stories around the meeting, which I guess you guys were in yesterday. So just wondering what, if anything, you sort of can say around where you think the government's head is at your level of confidence that, that comes forward, et cetera. Linda Cook: Great. Thanks, James. I'll turn to Alexander to talk about kind of the sustainability of the $300 million in different price environments, then to Nigel to talk about other fields where the growth might be coming from in the U.S.? And then thank you for asking a question about the EPL, and I'll be happy to take that. So Alexander? Alexander Krane: Yes. No. Thanks, James. Yes, I mean the base dividend -- I mean, we set it at a level which we're comfortable and we think this will hold through the cycle. And we view that as an initial base dividend level. And when we're having -- again, back to Alejandra's question earlier, when we're having this type of volatility in markets, we do try to be mindful here of doing hedging, doing other things, which protects that as well. So trying to do hedging into future years to, yes, protect free cash flow there just to ensure we are above that minimum level as well. Linda Cook: Nigel? A. Hearne: Sorry, you didn't come off mute fast enough. Sorry about that. James, thanks for the question. Look, we have an active program. We're just working through right now potentially adding a second rig line in the Gulf of America. We clearly are focused on our existing hubs to grow production. There are other opportunities that you referred to in here are really around [indiscernible], which is 100% owned and then potentially beyond that post 2028 is really where we think to think about our short-cycle exploration program. But the other bucket you referred to on that chart is really driven by [indiscernible] production. Linda Cook: Great, James, and then the EPL. Well, Alexander had the honor of representing Harbour Energy at the meeting yesterday with the Chancellor. So after I answered, if he wants to add some color, we'll give him the chance to do that. But I guess we'd say we welcome the opportunity to engage with the Chancellor on the topic, and we welcome the statement from our office yesterday saying she'd like the EPL to come to an end and that she had hoped to announce it this week, but geopolitical events gotten the way, if you will. And certainly, there's a lot of overlapping interest and common ground between Harbour and the Chancellor's office and between industry in general and treasury. So investment, jobs, growth, all priorities for all of us. The problem is the current fiscal environment for the U.K. oil and gas sector supports none of those things and actually has led to the opposite over the past few years, lower investment, job reductions, falling domestic oil and gas production. That's meant more imports with higher emissions, lower energy security. And now we see that it's all come in another bad time with European gas storage levels well below 5-year lows and now 20% of the world's LNG disrupted -- LNG supplies disrupted. So we continue to believe in the potential of the U.K. North Sea. We certainly believe in our team in Aberdeen and have seen them do amazing things when it comes to recovering oil and gas in what can be a sometimes challenging environment. And we do hope to continue to work with the Chancellor now to make the removal of the EPL happen sooner rather than later, especially at this time when energy security is unfortunately back on the radar. Alexander Krane: Yes. Thanks for the question, James. And I mean, you know that we have been one of the vocal companies who said the EPL has very negative effect for the U.K. and how we think about energy policy and security here. We've spent quite a bit of resources in engaging with the U.K. government and helping us to get to a new regime in place, which was announced last year. Now this regime would not come into play until 2030. And again, we've been vocal in saying, well, why wait. If we have a future-proof fiscal system, why wait until 2030. We believe it's in the best interest of the sector here and the country, quite frankly, to implement this sooner. I mean we have been working quite a bit with the U.K. government, and we will, of course, continue to do that and support as best we can. And we do also think that the efforts now from the Chancellor's office do seem genuine, and we are hopeful to see some progress over here in hopefully, the not-too-distant future. Linda Cook: I think we have one more question maybe, Dan. Operator: Our last question comes from Matt Smith of Bank of America. Matthew Smith: I'd love to turn to projects a bit in LatAm in particular. So first of all, on Argentina, Vaca Muerta specifically, is there any update you could give us as to production performance versus expectations and the latest on licensing there as it relates to the oil and gas side. That would be interesting. And then second question, turning to Mexico and Zama specifically. Could you give us some more details on the latest development plan that you're working on, I guess, the overarching improvements versus the old. And I'm just wondering also how many phases we could be looking at to exploit the full Zama resource, please? Linda Cook: Great, Matt, and thanks for the questions, and it's nice to get questions from time to time about the project. So I'm going to turn this over to Nigel. A. Hearne: Matt, thanks for the question. So I'll start with Argentina. Our base production today is around 70,000 barrels a day. Bulk of that comes from our CMA-1 license. We completed a project early and ahead of schedule last year at Phoenix to plateau that production through to 2040, and we did actually extend the license. The real growth opportunities in our resource position is in the APE gas window, where we have about 22.5% equity and in the San Roque oil window. We did complete a successful pilot in the unconventional license to San Roque last week -- last year, and we've got a 16-well program started -- scheduled for the end of this year. We're working with our key stakeholders down there and our partners really to secure the unconventional oil license towards the end of the year. So once that -- once we have clarity there, we will be progressing that program with our partners. In APE, today, our production is around 20,000 barrels a day from 80 wells. I would say that we've got a significant number of well locations potentially to materially increase the resource. We're not going to drill for the sake of drill and grow production. It's about generating a margin. Today, the gas market has softened a little bit, and we've got less offtake and we've got more market penetration from associated gas. So that's one of the key reasons why we've invested in SESA. I think it gives us another avenue to secure a better gas price and give us options on pricing, which allows us to optimize and then underpin our development in APE. So as you know, the LNG project is an FID we took last year with several partners. That project is underway, and that will, I think, open up avenues to continue to develop our dry gas window. You asked a question around Zama and Kan, we have actually spent a lot of time focusing on what we want our business to look like in Mexico over time. It is about creating 2 advantaged hubs. We have actually taken some deepwater assets out of the portfolio, which we won't invest in and we will not be advancing those projects. So we're focused on Zama and Kan. We'd like to get both of those projects to FID ready over the next 12 to 18 months. The concepts are nearing completion, and we'll be entering FEED this year on both projects. We've reoptimized the Zama development for a phased development, which we'll see $1 billion to $2 billion investment in the first phase with potentially a small waterflood, but we're really finalizing that scope. So we'll see a phased development, small number of wells to generate some early production, and then we'll come back with a more second phase on Zama. Now we're operator, we have more control and are focused on really optimizing that design and that concept. And we'll know more as we get to FEED this year and have clarity around the FID and first oil timing sometime later this year, early next year. We're looking to secure FPSOs for both Kan and Zama. We have line of sight to narrowing the options on both of those. So it's an exciting time to be in Mexico. Both projects have matured a lot in the last 12 months. We're getting close to finalizing the concept for each. Optimizing our well locations as part of driving down our breakeven costs. We are focused not necessarily just on schedule, but just driving down our breakevens. These will be long-lived projects. We need to make sure they compete and compete over time. So a lot of focus on maturing the projects and on driving capital efficiency into both of them. We do see some synergies if we can run them somewhat in parallel where we can optimize rig schedule, service vessels, engineering support. So a lot to get worked through this year, but both projects are now getting clearer and clearer on their path forward. Linda Cook: Great. Thanks, Nigel. And thanks, everyone, for joining. We really appreciate the fact that you've spent some time with us today. And as I've said, I'm really proud of what the teams delivered last year, and it's good to see that we're off to a solid start for 2026. So thanks again for joining, and have a good rest of your day.
Operator: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Ellington Credit Company Fiscal Quarter ended December 31, 2025 Results Conference Call. Today's call will be recorded. [Operator Instructions] It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to Alaael-Deen Shilleh, Associate General Counsel. Please go ahead, sir. Alaael-Deen Shilleh: Thank you. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that this conference call may include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are not historical in nature and involve risks and uncertainties detailed in our registration statement on Form N-2. Actual results may differ materially from these statements, so they should not be considered to be predictions of future events. The fund undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements. Joining me today are Larry Penn, Chief Executive Officer of Ellington Credit Company; Greg Borenstein, Portfolio Manager; and Chris Smernoff, Chief Financial Officer. Our earnings conference call presentation is available on our website, ellingtoncredit.com. Today's call will track that presentation, and all statements and references to figures are qualified by the important notice in end notes at the back of the presentation. With that, I'll turn it over to Larry. Laurence Penn: Thanks, Alaael-Deen, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate your time and interest in Ellington Credit Company, which we often refer to by its New York Stock Exchange ticker, E-A-R-N or EARN. Please turn to Slide 3. The fourth calendar quarter was the most challenging market environment for CLO equity since mid-2022 and before that, since the COVID crisis. Thanks to our active and disciplined portfolio management strategy, Ellington Credit was able to limit fund losses to approximately 9% of NAV, once again outperforming the overall peer set. The CLO equity market was impacted by many of the same factors in the leveraged loan market, particularly elevated credit dispersion and ongoing coupon spread compression. Those same factors that dominated performance in prior quarters. Put simply, weaker credits underperformed, while stronger borrowers continue to refinance and reprice at tighter yield spreads. These factors continue to pressure leveraged loan prices and reduce excess interest across the vast majority of the CLO market. Together, these dynamics weighed heavily on CLO equity performance, leading to lower projected cash flows and weaker mark-to-market valuations with year-end technical selling further compounding the weakness. As estimated by Nomura Research, the median CLO equity return for the quarter was negative 9% and for the full year, negative 14%. For Ellington Credit, our relative up in credit bias and active trading strategy helped mitigate these headwinds. CLO mezzanine debt tranches, which have been a focus of our investment activity in recent months, proved more resilient and opportunistic trading contributed positively to results. As shown on Slide 3, yield spreads did widen on CLO debt tranches, but the move was much more contained than the dislocation seen in CLO equity. Last year, following our conversion to a CLO closed-end fund on April 1 and continuing through the fourth calendar quarter, we steadily increased our allocation to CLO mezzanine debt tranches, which we believed offered a compelling balance of yield and downside protection by virtue of their structural credit enhancement. Reflecting the strategic shift, approximately 70% of our CLO purchases during this 9-month period were mezzanine debt tranches. Meanwhile, we also identified select CLO equity opportunities in the secondary market while generally avoiding new issue CLO equity where pricing dynamics were mostly unattractive. In the fourth quarter, we also benefited as we did throughout much of last year from several mezzanine positions being redeemed at par that we had purchased at discounts, generating realized gains. Those redemptions, coupled with opportunistic trading, offset some of the portfolio growth from new mezzanine investment activity. Nevertheless, the proportion of debt in our CLO portfolio grew substantially, ending the year at just under 50%, up from roughly 1/3 at our April 1 conversion. Active trading once again played an important role in our relative outperformance. We executed 47 unique CLO trades during the quarter, excluding deal liquidations, and we actively managed our credit hedges. We redeployed our October interest payments and equity distributions into higher-quality deleveraging mezzanine debt positions while trimming higher dollar priced, longer spread duration mezzanine debt profiles where we saw less favorable risk reward. We also took advantage of notable spread concessions in the new issue debt market to add BB-rated tranches at significantly higher yields. On the equity side, we remain selective, steering clear of more levered and lower quality profiles. This active approach allowed us to mitigate downside pressure, harvest gains opportunistically and reposition the portfolio for better risk-adjusted returns. The real-time information that comes with this level of trading activity is especially valuable in these high volatility market environments. On Slide 6, you can see that we actually recorded positive realized gains in each subsector for the quarter. All that said, as previously reported in our monthly NAV updates, the magnitude of the market-wide decline in CLO equity valuations led to a drop in the fund's NAV and therefore, a net quarterly loss overall. Not all losses are created equal, however. While price declines emanating from underlying loan losses and from refinancing and repricings of premium loans are irreversible, a portion of the decline in our quarterly NAV was driven by credit spread widening rather than realized credit impairment or fundamental deterioration. As a result, a portion of these mark-to-market losses could reverse if and when market conditions normalize. Now please turn to Slide 10 for an overview of our credit hedges, which we increased significantly during the fourth quarter. With corporate credit spreads remaining tight relative to CLO spreads, we were able to add this protection efficiently and at attractive levels. As shown on Slide 10, we increased our credit hedge portfolio to roughly $175 million of high-yield CDX bond equivalents by year-end. That's approximately 90% of our NAV. So these hedges represent a very significant level of protection. Credit markets have had no shortage of headlines to digest from the collapses of Tricolor and First Brands to growing concern over software sector borrowers facing AI-driven disruption. In short, while the fourth quarter was challenging for CLOs broadly, our disciplined and active portfolio management cushion the impact, drove EARN's relative outperformance and positioned us to play offense in what we believe is an increasingly opportunity-rich investment environment as we move forward into 2026. I'll now turn it over to Chris to discuss the financial results in more detail. Chris? Christopher Smernoff: Thanks, Larry, and good morning, everyone. Please turn to Slide 4. For the fourth calendar quarter, we reported a GAAP net loss of $0.56 per share. On Slide 6, you can see a breakout of portfolio net income by CLO subsector. Significant mark-to-market losses on CLO equity drove our net loss for the quarter, while CLO mezzanine debt held up better by comparison. In the U.S. leveraged loan market, performance diverged sharply by credit quality during the quarter. Lower rated CCC loans came under significant pressure from elevated CLO reset and liquidation activity and rising defaults while premium priced loans continue to refinance at par. Against that backdrop, CLO debt spreads widened and CLO equity bore the brunt of the weakness as spread compression and credit deterioration among weaker loans drove simultaneous declines in both excess interest and underlying asset values. Higher quality seasoned mezzanine tranches proved more resilient. In Europe, the story was more nuanced as loans underperformed their U.S. counterparts, while CLO debt tranche spreads for the most part, held up better by comparison. Within our CLO mezzanine debt portfolio, net interest income and trading gains, together with the positive impact of deal calls on positions owned at discounts to par offset the majority of mark-to-market write-downs. Credit hedges were also a drag on results, reflecting strong performance in the broader credit and equity markets during the period. Net interest income declined by $0.02 sequentially to $0.21 per share for the quarter, driven by lower asset yields and portfolio turnover. The weighted average GAAP yield for the quarter on our CLO portfolio was 13.7%, down from 15.5% in the prior quarter. Slide 7 illustrates a modest sequential decline in the size of our overall CLO portfolio. During the quarter, we made new purchases totaling $66 million, 60% in CLO debt and 40% in CLO equity, and we sold $19 million of CLOs, consistent with our active trading approach. At December 31, CLO equity represented 52% of total CLO holdings, roughly unchanged from the prior quarter, while CLO -- while European CLO investments accounted for 12%, down from 14% at September 30. Slide 8 provides an overview of the corporate loans underlying our CLO investments. The collateral remains predominantly first lien floating rate leveraged loans, representing roughly 95% of the underlying assets. Our industry exposure is well diversified, led by technology, financial services and health care with no single sector exceeding 11%. Loan maturities are spread over several years with the largest concentrations in 2028 and 2031 and low concentrations of near-term maturities, producing a weighted average loan maturity of 4.3 years. Facility size is skewed towards larger borrowers with 44% in facilities over $1.5 billion and a weighted average size of $1.6 billion, which supports liquidity. Slide 9 provides further detail on our underlying loan collateral. Slide 10 presents a snapshot of our credit hedges as of year-end. As Larry noted, we further increased our corporate credit hedges during the quarter with that portfolio equal to roughly 90% of our net asset value as of December 31. We also maintained a foreign currency hedge portfolio to manage exposure from our European CLO investments. Turning to Slide 11. At December 31, our NAV was $5.19 per share and cash and cash equivalents totaled $24.3 million. Our net asset value based total return for the quarter was negative 9.1%. With that, I'll pass it over to Greg to discuss the CLO market environment, our portfolio positioning and our outlook. Greg? Gregory Borenstein: Thanks, Chris. It's a pleasure to speak with everyone today. Overall, calendar Q4 was challenging for junior CLO tranches, especially CLO equity. Many of the themes that weighed on CLO equity through 2025 continued and even accelerated in Q4, further hurting performance. While CLO mezzanine tranches also saw muted returns, they outperformed CLO equity and EARN's increased allocation to mezz benefited the fund and helped mitigate some losses. Further, the weakness in CLO equity was more pronounced in the new issue space than in the secondary market. And once again, EARN stayed away from participating in new issue equity transactions during the quarter. We've only participated in one new issue equity transaction in the 11 months following our conversion. Calendar Q4 was one of the most difficult quarters for CLO equity in recent memory. Continued dispersion weighed heavily on performance as fundamental issues in lower quality credits paired with continued coupon spread compression and better quality credits pressured both interest cash flows and NAV valuations. In addition, because CLO liabilities generally have longer non-call periods than the underlying loans, CLO managers had limited ability to refinance or reset debt tranches at lower financing costs. As a result, CLOs were largely unable to capture the benefit of lower rates at the liability level, which could otherwise have helped offset the effects of coupon spread compression on equity cash flows. That said, entering 2026, more than 40% of EARN's U.S. CLO portfolio consists of deals scheduled to exit their non-call periods before year-end. As these deals become refinanceable, liability refinancings and resets at tighter spreads could help mitigate the drag from coupon spread compression should the market conditions permit. In the fourth quarter, CLO new issue volumes were constrained by a weak arbitrage. And as noted, the fund continued to avoid new issue equity. There has increased attention on the impact of manager-controlled captive funds on new issue pricing dynamics. While that discussion has merit, we believe there are also significant structural and technical factors that warrant caution on new issue equity. We have seen more attractive opportunities in secondary trading, which continues to play to Ellington's strength as an active trader. The subordination levels and structural protections remain paramount in guarding against continued idiosyncratic and sector-specific credit issues. We continue to favor defensive CLO mezzanine positions, which greatly outperformed equity on the quarter. Mezzanine debt is far less vulnerable to coupon spread compression than equity. That said, following the recent drop in loan prices, only about 15% of the universe were priced above par as of the end of February. Prepayment risk on CLO equity has definitely abated. That 15% level is down from 57% coming into the year and marks the lowest level since last April's tariff shocks. Given our active trading approach and relative value framework, we continually reassess our mezz to equity weighting as the opportunity set evolves. In Europe, spreads widened less than on debt tranches relative to the U.S. You can see that on Slide 3, and we were able to monetize gains and rotate capital, reducing our overall European exposure as a result. While similar credit dispersion dynamics emerged during the fourth quarter, CLO equity in Europe avoided the same degree of spread compression seen in the U.S. So far in 2026, CLO equity and mezzanine to a lesser degree, has continued to underperform with weakness spreading into broader markets amid concerns around software and AI-related credits. More than ever, I believe that our active trading, focus on liquidity, disciplined risk management and use of tail hedges, we've earned well positioned to take advantage of dislocations and generate alpha through periods of volatility. Now back to Larry. Laurence Penn: Thanks, Greg. First, I'd like to step back from the quarterly results and reflect on the full 2025 calendar year because I think the bigger picture provides important context for where we stand today. 2025 was a transformative year for Ellington Credit. We completed our conversion to a CLO closed-end fund on April 1. And in the days that followed, we efficiently liquidated all remaining mortgage-related assets with minimal NAV impact despite all the market turmoil around the tariff announcements. Given all that volatility, we are particularly proud of how smoothly this went. It was a clean and well-executed transition that positioned us to focus exclusively on the CLO opportunity set going forward. Following conversion, we methodically built out our CLO portfolio, expanding it by nearly 50% to $370 million by calendar year-end and adding credit hedges in lockstep with that expansion. We executed 218 CLO trades during this 9-month period, comprising $272 million of purchases and $63 million of sales, excluding redemptions. Relative to other CLO-focused closed-end funds, we delivered both a meaningfully stronger and significantly less volatile earnings stream, a direct reflection of our disciplined and highly active approach to portfolio construction and risk management. Second, I'll turn to our activity so far in 2026. January and February continued to reflect more of the same difficult market dynamics. CLO equity remained under significant pressure with the underlying credit concerns outlined earlier continuing to weigh on sentiment. Meanwhile, mezzanine debt continued to hold up comparatively well. For January, I'm pleased to report that EARN once again outperformed its peer set, ending the month with an NAV per share of $5.04. February was an even tougher month for the sector, which we think has created many more opportunities. In terms of portfolio activity, our overall portfolio was smaller given the decline in NAV, but we've continued to add mezzanine debt positions, particularly in deleveraging BB tranches. We have also been active recently in exercising CLO call options, generating realized gains on debt tranches purchased at discounts to par. In addition, we've recently collapsed certain CLOs where we held discount positions, which has further strengthened the credit profile of our remaining portfolio and helped to build up liquidity in a highly volatile environment. While more than 3/4 of our purchases in 2026 have been mezzanine debt, we have also selectively increased our CLO equity holdings where we see compelling value, such as deals with mispriced call optionality where we believe the sell-off has been overdone and entry points are attractive. We have also been disciplined about maintaining very substantial credit hedges. Given the dispersion we've seen in the corporate credit market, our credit hedges haven't yet been able to offset the declines in CLO equity prices, but we continue to view them as an indispensable part of our portfolio management strategy. This is all the more true today given that overall yield spreads in the corporate credit markets continue to be relatively tight when viewed on a historical basis. Finally, looking ahead, we are focused on rebuilding net investment income and net asset value as we deploy capital into what is looking more and more like a distressed market. For more passive strategy, that environment only creates headwinds. For us, we see it as fertile ground, creating the kind of relative value and trading opportunities where active trading and disciplined risk management can add meaningful value. Furthermore, and as noted earlier, we continue to believe that a substantial portion of the recent price declines are reversible since they reflect yield spread widening rather than fundamental credit impairment. Equally importantly, we have yet to tap the capital markets as a closed-end fund issuer. We are exploring the potential issuance of long-term unsecured debt in the coming weeks, which will supply us with a significant additional dry powder at a potentially ideal time. We believe the current environment characterized by dislocations and expanding relative value opportunities is especially well suited to our active investing and trading approach, and we look forward to updating you on our progress next quarter. With that, let's open the floor to Q&A. Operator, please proceed. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our first question will come from Crispin Love with Piper Sandler. Benjamin Graham: This is Ben Graham in for Crispin Love. You mentioned earlier that your portfolio is very diversified by industry and that no sector exceeds 11% exposure in your portfolio. And obviously, there's a lot of negative headline attention around software, et cetera. So I'm just wondering what your stance is on sentiment there. And then if there are any other sectors that you're particularly excited about. Laurence Penn: Go ahead, Greg. Gregory Borenstein: Sure. So I think the way we think about this, this is a lot of the benefit of CLOs. There's a lot of diversification by sector and then there's diversification by name. You see some headlines with what's going on maybe in areas of private credit. But in some of those vehicles, things can be pretty chunky. The same thing goes for certain areas of the middle market and private credit CLO market even. So if you're going to have large single name exposure, you just have much more idiosyncratic risk. We find this to be far harder to control. And so given our whole risk management framework and process, I think we generally feel more comfortable that as long as our portfolio is representative of the overall market, be it percentage of sectors, percentage of names, things like that. Overall, it just becomes more statistical for us to handle the risk in regards to views on specific sectors, there is certainly damage done in software, and the sector has sold off a lot. I think from the way that we look at the credits, the way that we speak to our managers who are looking at the credits, there's going to be winners and losers, which has been the story of a lot of things over the last year. And so in some cases, you might have names that have real warning signs and we should be concerned about and others may be pushed down in sympathy with managers reducing overall sector exposure. I don't think we have a strong view if loan prices are specifically weak or cheap on a name-by-name basis within the sector. I think it's just important to keep these exposures appropriately in line. Operator: Our next question will come from Jason Weaver with JonesTrading. Jason Weaver: First, I wonder if you could help us quantify the proportion of loans underlying the portfolio that are CCC rated or lower. Laurence Penn: Greg, do you happen to have that at your fingertips? Gregory Borenstein: I don't have it at my fingertips. But I think in general, a lot of these operate around 7.5% is a typical CCC bucket in the CLO. And I could get you an exact percentage at an underlying look. Obviously, the percentage exposure -- I'm getting some feedback on a deal basis. Because if we own, for example, a well-supported mezzanine tranche, if the deal has a certain amount of CCC exposure, we're not necessarily exposed as much as we are if we own an equity tranche. So but the CLO loan index, for example, is about 4.4%. And so considering our diversification that we were just talking about in terms of equity demand across a number of deals with underlying -- a lot of underlying loans underneath all these, I would guess that we're tracking not too far off from that 4.4% number you see in the CLO market in total. Laurence Penn: Sorry, I was just going to say we'll consider adding that to our monthly term sheet. Jason Weaver: Okay. And then turning back over to the -- I'm getting some feedback. Turning back to the credit hedges. I think in January, the update said you had trimmed the $175 million position a bit. But can you help us understand the amount of negative carry from those positions? At current levels of high yield, I see something like $0.04 a quarter, but maybe you executed those a lot tighter. Laurence Penn: Well, I think first, maybe, Greg, you can speak to the carry question. In terms of trimming the size of the credit portfolio, the loan portfolio also declined. Both declines are modest, 12/31 to 1/31, but it was a smaller credit hedge portfolio in lockstep with a slightly smaller loan portfolio. Greg, do you want to comment on the kind of the drag you're seeing from the credit hedges on a go-forward basis? Gregory Borenstein: Sure. I think overall, there's what we've experienced and then there's what we've had so far. I think if you look when you discuss what's going on this year, for example, it's been a pretty minimal drag just because you've actually -- at least year-to-date, some widening in high yield, right? Also, you have to remember that we really focus these hedges for larger drawdown scenarios. We're very mindful of the drag. And so I think the protection we have is much more in sort of these larger shocks, if you take a look at the holdings that we have in there versus what the drag is on a run rate. So I can get you the exact as of today because obviously, this number shifts around quite a bit depending upon where things widen into. But I would note that we've been very active in repositioning and rotating considering all this volatility. And we're mindful when we take a look at it, some of these shorts may be in a more liquid high-yield index. Some of these shorts may be in loan form as we've seen very specific loan issues there as well as on the out of the money side, different types of puts and payers. I think that overall, as I'm trying to give you an answer off a rough -- off the top of my head on this, you're seeing probably an overall drag which amounts to something to 1% to 2% of fund NAV per annum. So we think that considering the environment and the risk right now, it's a small or a very reasonable amount to pay for the type of protection we'll get if volatility or any sort of drawdown should really kind of persist throughout the year. Laurence Penn: Even 2% would be less than $0.01 a month, well worth it. Gregory Borenstein: We do, once again, to reiterate by keeping the protection focused more out-of-the-money options, it really does substantially reduce the cost to believe it's protected. To locally more heavily protect, I think the issues become, one, the cost obviously will weigh heavily. And then two, the basis risk, right? The issues that happen that you're exposed to in terms of really tail load names on the capital structure is not easily controllable when you talk about using more liquid indices, right? You would have seen, for example, loans underperform things like high yield or underperform anything in equities. And so we're also mindful around the accuracy and efficacy of the hedge we use, right? And there are a lot of different basis risks. And so we are mindful. Jason Weaver: Got it. That's helpful. And the sort of decomposition of it would be interesting to see. We're just looking at it from looking at high-yield CDX, and that's what you put as equivalents. But obviously, there's much more basis of using individual positions. So I appreciate the color. Laurence Penn: But it's not... Gregory Borenstein: All be published... Laurence Penn: Yes. It's not so much single name positions though. That's not what we're doing. It is more in broad-based CDX and similar instruments. Gregory Borenstein: It's a lot of -- to Larry's point, you'll see different types of indices, potentially ETFs, right? The CLO market, we own a large number of tranches backed by each one of these deals can be hundreds of loans. And so it really creates a lot of diversification, which allows us to be a little more statistical. By using indices as well, it allows us to similarly represent that, right? We're not here. It is not our strength to be making single name bets as we were saying. So unless we think there's an outsized exposure to a single name that exists for some reason and maybe we want to take on that. In general, we look to avoid single name bets on the long side and single name bets on the short side. But when you look at what we generally have, just to give you a set of what we generally use in our arsenal, CDX high-yield index out of the money IWM puts, loan ETF shorts, credit index tranches, loan ETF puts, right? I think it's just sort of all in that area of the market that we think offers different values in how we want to protect and some sort of mixture of those will pivot around and adjust based upon as our portfolio and our longs change, right, the way we see things and the way that we think that, that helps sort of protect and manage our risk. Operator: Our next question will come from Eric Hagen with BTIG. Eric Hagen: All right. So obviously, a lot of attention on redemptions for asset managers right now. The question is how much of a knock-on effect do you see between redemptions and conditions and spread widening in the CLO market? Laurence Penn: Greg? Gregory Borenstein: Well, I think that one thing to point to is maybe some redemptions you've seen in things like JAAA, right? That ETF will actually sort of move as flows come in and out, and it's more easily trackable. And so listen, I think the concerns around loans, concerns around where interest rates may go, right, has certainly led to what may drive that. Floating rate funds, there's other ETFs that I think have similar to JAAA, which is the big one in the space, have experienced a similar situation. I mean this is what we're sort of looking for as an active trader, it creates great opportunity for us with flows moving from A to B, lots of folks repositioning their portfolios. There's a lot of rotations even from some of these ETFs where it's not necessarily inflows, outflows, but maybe they're rotating, right? And as there's much more active market as price discovery settles in, it's really beneficial in terms of being able to actually actively trade to maneuver. So it's been something we've honestly look forward to. Eric Hagen: Okay. That's interesting. Next one is maybe more related kind of to the general mechanics in working through potential defaults and what the time line and the structure to work through those defaults looks like. Is it -- would you chalk it up to basically being like a binary outcome with respect to recovering potential proceeds? Or is the severity almost always 100% in the CLO market? Gregory Borenstein: No, no, no. Historically, if you were to take a look at leveraged loans, these recoveries are well above 0. I mean recoveries have been pushed down over time. I think that historically, I think there's a lot of data out on this. Maybe it was up around 70%. It's probably eased off of that a little bit. I think that -- sorry, if you take a look at CLOs, for example, if you look at -- we look at something called par burn, right, which is just what's the overall kind of loss of the deal just because now you have to be mindful that sometimes there's some loss that's not classified as a default. For example, if something is a distressed exchange, it's not a technical default, and there's generally some haircut. But if you look at CLOs with underlying leveraged loans, the average par burn or loss rate as we sort of see it from a pragmatic standpoint, is about 75 basis points annually, which helps to kind of translate to that. So when loans are defaulting, you are seeing real recoveries. Now it varies. Some certainly have been close to 0. Others have been much higher. And so those are all very deal specific, right? And this is where you get into do you have liability management exercises? How are the sponsors treating things? Are there in groups and out groups? I think overall, we try to be -- defaults and losses have picked up as I think we saw some of these issues. CLOs have seen a lot less than the private credit, right? These broadly syndicated loans that have real transparency on them that do price actively day-to-day, right? You generally know where most of these are in terms of bid and offer. But we are mindful of where losses could go to. They were elevated last year above historical averages. And as you see sector-specific concerns, I think that one reason we are mindful and tepid on increasing equity exposure is that if you're a first loss CLO, you are exposed directly to any defaults that may occur. So I don't know if that directly answers the question, but... Operator: That was our final question for today. We thank you for your participation in the Ellington Credit Company Fiscal Quarter ended December 31, 2025 Results Conference Call. You may now disconnect the line and have a great day.
Eamonn Crowley: Good morning, and welcome to our 2025 Full Year Results Presentation. I'm joined here today by our CFO, Barry D'Arcy. I'm going to cover the key highlights for 2025 and comment on the wider progress we have made through this first year of our 3-year strategy. I will then take you through how we see the financial performance of the bank evolving over the next few years before handing over to Barry, who will provide a more detailed review of our 2025 results. After this, we would be happy to take your questions. So if we just turn to Slide 5. 2025 was a transformational year for PTSB. The bank's balance sheet continued to grow as customers responded to the strength of our brand and product offering. We lent a total of EUR 3.4 billion during 2025, and this is the highest level in 18 years, with circa 17% of this lending in nonmortgage lending. Our deposits increased by 6% or EUR 1.5 billion. Our mortgage book grew by over 3%, and our business banking portfolio rose by 9%. Looking at our key financials, our total income reduced by 3% during the year due to the lower interest rate environment. However, it was a game of 2 halves with income in the second half of the year recovering 3% relative to the first half as margins stabilized, enabling volume growth to drive net interest income. Our operating costs also reduced by 2%, and I'm pleased to say that we achieved operating cost level of EUR 519 million, which is EUR 6 million less than what we guided a year ago and EUR 12 million less than 2024. In terms of profitability, our profit before exceptional items and tax was EUR 175 million, which was 3% or EUR 5 million lower than what we recorded in 2024 and this translated into a return on tangible equity at 7.3%. And as you know, we believe the bank is well positioned for this number to materially increase over the next few years. Moving to capital. Our Core Equity Tier 1 capital level was very strong at 17.5% at year-end on a pro forma basis. And the approval of our IRB mortgage models is transformational for the bank as it significantly enhances our competitiveness and will enable further sustainable business growth and returns for our shareholders now and into the future. And finally, I'm delighted to announce a proposed final dividend of EUR 10 million or approximately EUR 0.018 per share and this is another important milestone for the bank for a number of reasons. It's the first dividend since 2008. It is the first dividend payment as a stand-alone business and not under the Irish Life banner. It is regulatory approved after an extended period of time when the bank was subject to a dividend restriction or dividend blocker, and it clearly reflects the renewed strength of PTSB. If we turn to Slide 6. 2025 was a year of real delivery for PTSB. As you can see on Slide 6, we met or exceeded our guidance on every key metric, be it income, costs, impairment, capital or returns. If we turn to Slide 7. This time last year, I took you through our fresh 3-year business strategy. So I won't dwell on this slide again today. Our ambition is to be Ireland's best personal and business bank through exceptional customer experience. And the overarching goal of our strategy is to deepen customer relationships, diversify our income and differentiate through customer experience. And in parallel, the bank will drive greater operating efficiencies so we can continue to grow and generate sustainable returns for our shareholders. If we turn to Slide 8. On Slide 8, I would like to give you some sense of how this strategy comes through in the business on a day-to-day basis, and this is behind the headline financials. So a lot of points here, so I'll only pick up a few. In our Own My Home value stream, a key objective for us is to improve our digital mortgage sales and service internally for all our customers. And this would be good for our top line, but also for our cost base as we put more information and decisions into the hands of our customers through an online portal. Mortgage drawdowns through this portal were up 55% in 2025. And we've rolled out features through this portal, including balance availability and statements. And indeed, there are many more features to deliver in due course. In our Manage My Money value stream, we put a lot of investment into our app, and it is encouraging to see that the benefits of this investment is starting to come through. Customer ratings across iOS and Android have effectively doubled in the past year when measured on a monthly basis. We will continue to push hard on this front as the app is now most -- is how most of our customers interact with us today and it is key to us attracting more current account customers with low-cost funding. And I should also say that our core NPS -- relationship NPS score across consumer banking was up further 2 points to 24 in 2025. In our Grow & Run My Business value stream, our impact lending was up 16%, and we continue to widen our product footprint, such as the new higher purchase product line for companies at reduced rates, which are quite attractive. And we will also look to enter the PCP market in 2026, which is a very popular route for consumers when buying their car today. Finally, we've listed a number of achievements that come under the Transform the Bank and Strengthen the Foundations value streams. I will cover the IRB model transformation on the next slide, and I've mentioned the dividend payment already. But I would also point to a 10% reduction in FTEs in 2025 and the progress we've made in embedding sustainability within the bank as evidenced by the upgrade in the CDP rating from a C to a B. In addition, we are rolling out AI tools across the organization. We have initial AIB capabilities deployed in customer service and operational passes. And we are also targeting advanced solutions in fraud, AML and product innovation. So our AI adoption is progressing steadily with a clear focus on building the foundations needed to scale responsibly. And we continue to explore value-based use cases across priority areas and build our understanding of the benefits from AI tools as they become embedded. Let me just turn to Slide 9. We've been talking to you about our IRB story for a number of years, and it is fantastic to finally receive regulatory approval to use new and updated models, which better reflect where PTSB is today. As you can see in the chart on Slide 9, the risk weighting on our total mortgage book has reduced dramatically since the end of 2024. The first major reduction reflected the implementation of CRR3 on the 1st of January 2025. And if we pro forma at the end of 2025 number, the risk weight would fall another 4.6 percentage points to 30.7% and that is a significant fall of around 9 percentage points in just 1 year. We're not going to disclose specific numbers for our IRB book. But you've heard us talk about a risk weight on our new business of over 50% under the previous mortgage model. This has now reduced materially, which provides us with not only higher RAROC levels but increased optionality as to how we might want to compete in the market. As we said on the call in January, when we announced the news, the key point to understand here is that the risk weight and our overall book will continue to reduce in the years ahead as we write new business at lower risk weights and the older loans on the book, which have a higher risk weight roll off. And this fact supports our confidence that the bank's RWAs are now projected to be 10% lower than we originally penciled in our medium-term financial plan. In recent weeks, we've been working on updating this plan and feeding the new IRB models into our ICAP cycle. This work is not yet complete, but clearly, the bank's sustainable returns and distribution capacity are now a good deal higher than where they were. We are probably looking at a rate closer to the European average of around 50%, other things being equal, rather than the 40%, which is covered in our dividend policy today. However, at this time, we do not plan to make any changes to this policy or recommend further distributions due to the ongoing formal sales process. If we just turn to Slide 10. So as we leave legacy issues behind us that for so long have held us back as a bank, we believe the PTSB franchise is now well positioned to really show what it is capable of. However, the fortunes of any bank are tied to the economies in which they operate. And PTSB is truly fortunate to operate exclusively in the Republic of Ireland, which has been and continues to be one of the most vibrant and resilient economies in Europe. And notwithstanding all the geopolitical uncertainty over the past year and indeed over the past week, the Irish economy continues, as I said, to be resilient. And it is notable that our core market of mortgages -- apologies, it is notable that our core market, which is mortgages, new lending in 2025 surprised the upside with mortgage lending reaching EUR 14.5 billion for the year compared with a more conservative forecast of EUR 14 billion. And we took 20% of this larger market, which was in line with our expectations and our objectives. So if we just turn to Slide 11. We've laid out here our medium-term targets, which are unchanged from what we gave you a few weeks ago, and also our new guidance for 2026. In giving you this new guidance, we are somewhat constrained in what we can disclose due to the restrictions of the takeover panel rules. But looking out to 2028 and underpinning these numbers is an acceleration in lending growth from the current 4% rate, driven by an expansion in the mortgage market and an increase in the net interest margin to 2.3%. And it should be noted, we recorded a margin of 2.3% in 2023. So we regard this as not being overly aggressive. We also aim to keep costs well under control out to 2028, which will enable our cost income ratio to fall significantly to less than 60%. If you look at asset quality, we continue to see signs -- we continue to see no signs of strain in the book, and we are well provided for, but we prudently model for a cost of risk that moves upwards towards a 20 to 25 basis point range 3 years from now. So we put all this together, we believe we can drive a return on tangible equity towards 13% by 2028. And if you roll this forward a couple of years, we believe that number will be higher than 13% in that sense. So just to mention that. So I'd like to thank you at this stage. I'll now hand over to our CFO, Barry D'Arcy, who will take you through our financial performance in more detail. Thank you very much. Barry D'Arcy: Thank you, Eamonn, and good morning, everyone. Slide 13 sets out our financial performance for -- during 2025. Total operating income reduced to 3% during 2025, as while our balance sheet grew, our margins reduced reflecting lower ECB and mortgage rates and higher average deposit costs. However, as Eamonn said, it is important to note that income returned to growth in H2 with a rise of 3% relative to H1, and it was only marginally lower on a year-on-year basis. Total operating costs were EUR 519 million or 2% lower and this outturn was better than the EUR 525 million we had guided. Within this, regulatory charges came in at a lower-than-expected EUR 25 million as we had no charge for the deposit guarantee scheme. Given the gap between income and cost, cost growth, our cost-to-income ratio rose 1 point to 75%, albeit the ratio fell over the course of the year and was closer to 74% in H2. We've recorded an impairment release of EUR 39 million for the full year, reflecting the underlying health of our assets and the completion of a review of our IFRS 9 models for the mortgage book. To note, this is the fifth year in a row that the bank has recorded an impairment release, and this is testament to our low-risk balance sheet and a prudent approach to provisioning. Exceptional items were EUR 47 million, which is higher than the EUR 32 million we guided at the half year stage. This includes EUR 35 million for the voluntary severance scheme and EUR 12 million for other noncore items, which included some early cost for FSP or formal sales process. Stripping out exceptionals, our underlying profit before tax was EUR 175 million for the period, and our equivalent EPS came in at EUR 0.206 for the year. Meanwhile, return on tangible equity on the same basis was just over 7%. And finally, as Eamonn mentioned at the outset, we are delighted to be able to recommend a final dividend to shareholders of EUR 0.018 per share, our first in 18 years. On Slide 14, we show our net interest income, which was EUR 590 million for the year, which is 4% lower. The main negative driver behind NII was higher deposit costs. This is a function of higher average volumes relative to last year, particularly in term products and higher average rates. However, I mentioned at our interim results that our costs of our deposits had peaked. And indeed, the average rate we paid on both our term deposits and interest-bearing deposits in aggregate was lower in [Technical Difficulty] hedges in place to manage our IRRBB exposure within risk appetite. As rates came down, recorded gain on hedges linked to our MTNs and Tier 2 instruments, which helps lower wholesale funding costs. Our asset yield reduced 22 basis points year-on-year as income on our tracker mortgages and cash balances repriced. I'll talk about our lending income in more detail in a minute. Meanwhile, our average cost of funds having been up 3% at the halfway stage fell 4% -- 4 basis points year-on-year when measured after the hedging gain. Our net interest margin was 203 basis points for the year, consistent with our guidance of greater than 200. Our Q4 exit NIM was 208 basis points, and favorable rollover rates on both the asset and liability side are helping to raise margins as is a positive change in the mix. This puts us in a strong opening position relative to our guidance, which is for a NIM of greater than 210 basis points for 2026. Once again, this guidance is based on the assumption that the ECB deposit rates remain at 2% through the year. The bank's sensitivity to movements in interest rates has reduced materially in recent years and we have shown that latest number on the slide from movements both up and down from here. Moving to Slide 15. Our new lending performance -- our total new lending was EUR 3.4 billion in 2025, which was up 31%. In mortgages, we lent EUR 2.9 billion, and our market share was a strong 20% compared with the 16% level we recorded in 2024. New lending and business banking, which includes SME and asset finance was EUR 450 million, up 4%. And again, we were particularly pleased with the 10% jump in new SME lending, while asset finance was flat. And in response, we took steps in the fourth quarter to support a better position to compete across the different market segments. For a number of years, PTSB has not really been an active participant in consumer lending, and it only represents about 1% of our loan book today. However, we expect this to change. The 10% rise in payouts shown here hides what has happened since we refreshed our offering in September with lower rates, a simple product set and an easier online process. Since that refresh, average weekly applications are up 25% and drawdowns up 63%. On Slide 16, we'll give you some detail on our lending income and our mortgage book, in particular. Our performing mortgage book rose by 3.5% in 2025 to EUR 20.4 billion. Falling rates outweighed the benefit from this volume growth as our margin slide showed. You can see the different effect of falling rates in the chart at the bottom on the left. Our flow yield, which captures new to bank customers during the year was 3.62%, but it was still slightly higher than that for the stock, which was 3.53%. However, an important piece of our lending story is what's happening with our fixed rate maturities. Here, we have mortgages written when rates were much lower, such as in 2022 and '23, maturing on to higher rates today, and that is providing support to NIM as we go forward. For instance, nearly half of our fixed rate matures in 2026 and '27 and is coming off rates that were closer to 3% rather than the 3.5% for the book overall. We show you here the latest split of the mortgage book. And as before, fixed rate mortgages make up the majority of our performing book at 74%. The variable component of the book is now 15%, and the ECB tracker portfolio is down to 11% of the book. On Slide 17, net fees and commissions increased 5% to EUR 58 million, driven mainly by growth in current account income. Unlike our competitors, we charge a flat per monthly fee for our current account and provide a range of other benefits, including 2% cash back each month on your mortgage if that is with PTSB also. Growing this revenue line is not just about growing our customer base and improving cross-sell. It is also about managing our outgoing costs, particularly in the payments area, and this is something that we've been working very hard at. Other developments mentioned include the final implementation of SEPA instant, and we look forward to the imminent launch of Zippay in Ireland, which will make peer-to-peer payments easier between the local banks. Aside from fees and commissions, we also recorded EUR 7 million in other income, up from EUR 5 million last year, and we alluded to these customer-related FX and hedging gains in our Q3 statement. Moving to Slide 18 and looking at operating costs. These were EUR 519 million for the year, down 2%. This was better than our guidance of EUR 525 million. Regulatory charges came in at EUR 25 million. And excluding these charges, underlying costs were down 1%. Meanwhile, the bank's cost-to-income ratio at 75%. And as I said earlier, there was a reduction from over 76% in H1 to near 74% in H2. At the start of 2025, we committed to a reduction of 300 FTEs. Through our voluntary severance scheme and natural attrition, we have delivered a reduction of 329 to an overall FTE number of 2,918 for the year. The VS scheme will generate annualized cost savings of circa EUR 21 million per annum, less than half of which came through during 2025. And the carryforward benefit here will help offset general inflationary pressures. We also expect our depreciation charge to be lower this year. There was a one-off element relating to leased assets in 2025. For full year 2026, we're guiding a cost-to-income ratio of less than 70%. On Slide 19. Asset quality remains strong. And as a result, the bank recognized the EUR 39 million P&L write-back, the fifth year in a row we have done so. The main drivers behind this result were the continued benign macro environment and the conclusion of the review of our IFRS 9 mortgage models. This review covered staging, LGD and PD models and contributed significantly to the EUR 72 million decline you see in the total provision. Our provision stock ended the year at EUR 320 million or 1.4% of loans, down from EUR 392 million and 1.8% the previous year. Within the total, the main move that took place related to coverage of our Stage 1 loans. We previously held 64 basis points on these loans, which marked us as a significant outlier relative to peers, and this is now reduced to 18 points, which is still marginally more conservative than our peers on a like-for-like basis. On the other hand, coverage of Stage 3. Our NPLs is now higher than a year ago as part of our provision models program, a new approach to calculating ECL for longer-dated NPLs was developed and now uses a DCF-based formula. This approach resulted in higher coverage levels for NPLs on the books for greater than 3 years. We recently completed a small NPL sale and this also contributed to the reduction in our stock of provisions and a further fall in our NPL ratio to 1.4%. While the transaction completed after the year-end, these loans were held as receivable at the 31st of December '25. The average loan to value on our mortgage book is now 46%, while the figure for new business was 65%. Our review of IFRS 9 models for other loan books is well underway and should conclude later this year. In terms of guidance for 2026, we continue to believe we are well provided for currently. And again, we would point to a nil or 0 charge for the year. If I go to Slide 20 next, our approach to scenario forecasting has changed post our IFRS 9 models review, and we're now more in line with the approach taken by our peers. For instance, we now have 4 rather than 3 scenarios for mortgages. What has not changed, however, is that our forecasts are still on the conservative side relative to consensus. Our downside 1 scenario best captures the geopolitical developments that we're seeing play out right now with unemployment rising to 8.5% in 2027 and house prices falling to 8% -- or falling 8%. In the second table, we have provided you with a sensitivity showing how provisions would move if each scenario came to pass. On Slide 21, looking at our funding and liquidity. The picture here remains the same, that of the bank in a very strong position. You can see here that following over 5% growth during 2025, our balance sheet has now crossed the EUR 30 billion mark, which is a significant threshold from a regulatory perspective. The key driver behind this was customer deposits, which rose 6% year-on-year. And while this was slightly lower than the 7% we reported in the first half, we did flag this would happen after it was a very strong start to the year. Our retail term deposits rose EUR 0.9 billion, and the growth in balances slowed during the year as market rates came down. That meant less cannibalization from our current account balances, which were up 4%. I said at our interims in August that the average cost of interest-bearing deposits was plateauing. And this, indeed, the figure for H2 came in at 9 basis points lower than in H1. This should continue to fall going forward as our more expensive deposits in the 2.75% to 3% range starts to roll off. Meanwhile, our MREL ratio remains very strong at over 36%, which is well ahead of a requirement. And if we measure this on a pro forma basis using new IRB models, it would be even higher. It's no surprise, therefore, that we are reviewing our issuance needs over the next number of years. For instance, we have EUR 650 million in medium-term notes that have a call date in April 2027, with a coupon of 6.6%. Under normal circumstances, one might look to refinance that toward the end of this year, and such a bond will probably have a 3% handle today given where our rating and spreads are. On Slide 22, before I take you through our capital, I just want to give you some color on the various changes that have taken place on our RWAs. Eamonn mentioned earlier that the overall weight on our total mortgage book has fallen by almost 9 percentage points since the end of '24. If we pro forma for our new IRB models, that is a combined effect in addition to the movement on CRR3 on the 1st of January and the new models coming into effect 5 weeks ago. We've mentioned that if we applied the new IRB models to our June 2025 mortgage book, the average risk weight would fall from 36.4% to 32.8% or by 3.6 percentage points. Running this pro forma calculation again at the end of December '25 would reduce this weighting from 35.3% you see in the table here, to 30.7%. That's a reduction of 4.6 points. This translates to a pro forma drop in RWAs of over EUR 900 million or the equivalent of EUR 130 million in capital, and compares with the circa EUR 700 million reduction we spoke about just in January. If you look at the IRB book on its own, the reduction in average risk weights for the new models is larger at around 6 percentage points. Again, we expect this risk weighting to fall further over time as new lower-risk loans come onto the balance sheet and older, higher weighted loans roll off. For clarity, our core PTSB home loan book is now the only book we have on IRB. All our other loans, be the Ulster Bank mortgages we acquired, our legacy buy-to-let portfolio, our business banking and our consumer lending are now all unstandardized. This makes sense for us, and it's more efficient from a cost perspective, given the relatively small scale of these portfolios. Looking at Slide 23. Our CET1 was 15.9% at year-end. But on a pro forma basis, building in the benefit from the loan sale and the new IRB models, this would rise to 17.5%. In the chart here, we show the various moving parts in our CET1 over the last 12 months. And you can see that CRR3 and IRB approval have lifted our capital level into a completely new territory. The greater than EUR 900 million reduction in RWAs from IRB translates into a CET1 gain of 1.5%, while the loan sale added 0.1%. At this level, our CET1 is well in excess of our regulatory requirement with our 2026 SREP requirement of 10.69%. And while we are committed to optimizing our capital structure, as Eamonn said earlier, given the ongoing FSP process, the Board does not plan to recommend further distributions to shareholders at this time. And so to summarize, we are very pleased with the financial performance of the bank in 2025. Particular highlights for me were the return of revenue growth in H2, the absolute decline we achieved in costs and the very positive developments we saw in relation to our capital. I'll hand you back to Eamonn now for some concluding remarks, and then we'll open for questions. Thank you. Eamonn Crowley: Thank you, Barry. I would like to finish on Slide 24, to remind you of our guidance for full year 2026 and indeed, the medium-term targets. We see our return on tangible equity rising to over 9% this year and reaching around 13% in 2028. And underpinning this improvement in returns is a rising net interest margin combined with an acceleration in loan growth as the Irish mortgage market grows, and we continue to diversify our lending into business banking. With tight cost control, we believe our cost income ratio will fall below 70% this year and below 60% in 2028. And lastly, we prudently model for some modest deterioration in the cost of risk from a 0 charge this year to a range of 20 to 25 basis points in 2028. We believe PTSB is now in a really strong position to compete and win on the Irish market, which is one of the best banking markets in Europe, both from a growth and a structural perspective. In addition, with the bank now in a more level playing field from a capital perspective, we can grow while improving returns we generate for our shareholders. It's also important to note that 2026 represents our own birthday in that we are 210 years in existence, and we were set up primarily to help customers save and then use -- for the TSB to use those savings in order to help customers buy their own home. Our target, well, not much has changed in our approach since then, except to get a mortgage in 1816, it was a lottery for people who saved. So we have a much more sophisticated credit approval process these days rather than just a lottery. But in that sense, our core purpose and what we operate today around building trust with customers, helping them with their financial needs, helping them with their savings and indeed, helping more than 9,200 customers last year acquire a home has not changed in that sense. So thank you very much for joining us today, and we would be happy to take your questions. As before and as we mentioned, we restricted in the level of information we can provide about our formal sales process, but also our financial forecast in that sense due to takeover rules. And I should mention as well, once again, our financial advisers, Goldman Sachs are here with us today to ensure that all information we provide is permitted under these rules. So thank you very much for your attention, and we're happy to take your questions now. So thank you. Denis McGoldrick: Just a couple please, if I may. So one maybe, Barry, just in terms of the interest-bearing deposits. So you gave good color on how the cost of those reduced half-on-half. Maybe if you could provide a guide for 2026? And I guess what level of that continued reduction is supporting the higher NIM guidance? And then secondly, just on the risk weights and models, is it still your intention to move the Ulster loans on to IRB as presumably there would be a benefit there rather than staying on standardized? And if I could get in one more, maybe, Eamonn, just from a broader perspective in terms of the mortgage market and your own positioning. With the market share at about 20%, what is your level of ambition for that in light of, obviously, the new models? Barry D'Arcy: Thanks, Denis. So on the deposit front, what we've seen, as I mentioned earlier, our rates in previous years at 2.75%, more recently for 1 year and 3% for a 3-year -- more than 2 years ago are starting to roll off. Our current headline rate on term is 2%. We have a very favorable regular saver at 2.25% as well. So what we've seen is we did reduce rates in the fourth quarter. We saw volumes being maintained. It's an area that we keep a very close eye on and look at movements. But I think the broader piece that we see in the market is that the Irish consumer is in a very strong resilient position and we see those deposits growing, and our ambition there would be to follow the market in effect. So that's something that we'll keep a close eye on. Regarding the Ulster portfolio and IRB, one of the key points on that is that, that portfolio continues to pay down quite rapidly actually. The risk weights, we haven't disclosed the risk weights on that portfolio. A key challenge on that is, obviously, we're successful at concluding the IRB outcome on our core portfolio. There is some work to be done on that over the coming years. And the question is, which comes first. So we're looking at that, and we're having good regulatory engagement to ensure that we get the best outcome for the bank but also suit and support what the regulatory expectations are there. So that's a work in progress. Eamonn Crowley: So just on your question on mortgages. Obviously, mortgages continue to be a key part of our volume growth. But as I mentioned earlier on, 70% of our lending last year was nonmortgage. And it's not so long ago that it was only a [ 95.5% ] number. So we are trying to diversify into other areas, and we're doing it quite successfully and Barry gave an indication of the growth we're seeing in unsecured lending. But to come back to your core question. What the IRB models really allow us consider our positioning in the mortgage market and much more in a freer manner in that sense. And we've clearly indicated in our presentation that the risk weights and first-time buyer mortgage origination, which is about 60% to 70% of the market are lower. And therefore, our return in that segment of the market has improved significantly. And therefore, it gives us more optionality. And you would have seen in mid-January, we reduced our rates, particularly for higher LTV mortgages, which is a first-time buyer mortgage category. So we're not chasing any market share. It is our natural area of activity after 210 years of doing this very extremely well. And we have more optionality in that sense. We're happy with our 20% share in a growing market. But we can also consider competing more in various segments, given our new IRB modeling. So that's how I'll put it. Unknown Analyst: Just 2 questions on capital, if I may. First of all, the CET1 ratio of 17.5% on a pro forma basis seems a little bit higher than what was mentioned in the January statement. I was wondering if you could provide us some color there and then talk us through the moving parts of that change? And then secondly, on capital returns. If you can provide some details on the decisioning to pursue further capital returns at this time? Barry D'Arcy: I'll take the first question. Eamonn, you might take the second piece. So the 17.5%, obviously, greater than EUR 900 million RWA change with the IRB models equivalent in that is the back book versus front book mix. Eamonn mentioned earlier, great than 50% previously with the models that were developed back in 2017 versus now. We haven't -- we cannot actually share what the new number is, but it's materially lower. And in FX, what we've tried to do with the capital model is building our strategy. So we want to -- how we actually acquire current account savings and also the mortgage. So the broad customer relationship plays into that. So what we saw was a very strong second half year on mortgage acquisition, and that played into our numbers. As that progresses over time, we'll continue to see that evolve. Another feature of this as well with the model for those loans that actually have any arrears history or negative elements in terms of payment. The model is more penal as well. So we have to look and consider how things will actually look at over time. But all in, the number at June reflected the balances that were available. The December obviously reflected a strong second half, and that has played very positively through to the number. Eamonn Crowley: So to come back to your second question, the pro forma is based on the IRB model officially been approved in January. So we -- that pro forma is based on that number. But dividend payments are based off your financial statements. So it's the capital position as at the end of the year or expected capital position. And as Barry mentioned, the IRB models alone have added 1.5% to that CET1. We have to put this in the context of 2 aspects. One is it's our first dividend payment, where we've applied to the regulator. And that in itself is a momentous application for us because of where we've come from. And secondly, it has been absolutely the norm in the market that the first dividend payment that banks make at a slightly lower level than -- so as to ensure that there's a sustainable dividend payment going forward. That's the norm in the market. Indeed, we would have seen even Virgin Money issuing a dividend of 1p per share when they started to show that they could pay a dividend. That's really all I can say about it because we are in a formal sales process, and it is not our intention to make any distributions based on that process. So that's all I can say. But to reiterate, it's the formal position at the end of 2025. We look at not the pro forma, and we're following a normal path of how a bank thinks about distributions. And this is particularly relevant to us because we had a dividend restriction or a dividend blocker, 1 of only 2 banks in Europe to have such a blocker for such an extended period of time as well. So that's the background. Are there any questions online? Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our first question is from Dan O'Neill from Carraighill. Daniel O'Neill: Two from me. So firstly, your 20% mortgage market share versus the 16.5-ish in 2024. So I believe it's at least partly explained by disagreement between one of your competitors and the brokers. I don't think this caveat has been mentioned today. So basically, I'm wondering if there's a risk that this comes down going forward, even despite your improved ability to complete post IRB. And then the second question is to do with headcount. So I think you said that EUR 35 million of costs were related to the voluntary severance scheme. So the 300 FTEs that works out to about EUR 120,000 per head. So given that, it would appear that you've lost higher-paid employees. So looking forward, do we have falling FTEs as well as a falling cost per employee? Eamonn Crowley: Okay. So I'll pick up the first one. I won't comment on how competitors are competing in the market. The year before last year, so 2023, we had a 20% share of the market and it dipped in '24, primarily because of our -- the capital movement related to the Ulster deal, and we were cautious in the sense of how we allocated our capital as we settle that deal into the bank. We have -- you're referring to the intermediary market. We have a long-standing and very positive engagement with the intermediary market. The broker market, which now represents between 40% to 50% of volume, it's not so long ago it was only 20% of volume. And we actually have a positive and growing share in that segment because we've stuck with brokers and we supported intermediaries through thick and thin over many, many years. We're one of the fastest to, yes, and the fastest to cash, and brokers like that. So once we are competitive on price, we will win business through that channel. We've seen other competitors go in and out of that market over time, but we have been consistently there for brokers. So we're comfortable with our position. But in fact, when you stand back, our non-broker channel by way of mortgage origination is growing much faster than our intermediary channel. And that's related to our brand proposition. We are now 1 of 3 pillar banks in the market, and we're competing effectively. And the mention of IRB model review will now help us by way of our optionality with regard to how we will compete in that market with a much better return than we had here before. So overall, I'm not too worried about what others are doing. I'm actually concentrated in ensuring we fulfill broker needs, and we ensure we're growing our share in the nonbroker channel as well. So overall, that's our position. Barry D'Arcy: Thanks, Eamonn. Just on the FTE storyline and the EUR 35 million voluntary severance. What we did in DC, it was actually -- it was a longer service staff who took the option to take a voluntary severance. So in all, I think it was around 240 FTEs that have actually chosen to take that out of the 329 that we saw leave the bank at the end of 2025. There are some elements that will come through in the '26 results, as I mentioned earlier, about just under half of the savings of EUR 21 million that we expect on a full year basis came through in 2025, and we'll see the balance of that come through in the current year. Eamonn Crowley: But just to add to what Barry said, we have more longer term colleagues who have taken the availability of that. So it's a mixture of service, how that interacts with the severance payment and then their underlying salary costs as well. So it is -- it has worked for us. And indeed, all employees have contractual rights in that sense. And we've facilitated our colleagues and indeed, reduced our head count in a very professional manner, and that will continue to be our approach as we think about overall head count. We will manage it professionally. We'll manage it in an orderly fashion. And indeed, we are focused, as I mentioned earlier on in ensuring we drive efficiency. But efficiencies also, a flat cost and a growing volume by way of how we think about growing our business over time and a diversification of our business with a higher margin. So all of these things are coming together, and we can make sense to them. But we will continue to focus and manage our costs. And lastly, against our 2 players in the market, their costs have increased this year, our costs have reduced. So I think in that sense, we are also booking the trend of the wider market. So thank you. Operator: Our next question is from Aman Rakkar from Barclays. Aman Rakkar: We've got feedback on the line, so I'm going to try and ask the question anyway. On costs, I just want to check, I think the market is probably looking for cost to be down versus the '25 level. And I just wanted to check whether that's a realistic assumption. Obviously, you've done better performance on an underlying basis in '25, but it seems like the levy, for example, is unsustainably low. So I just wanted to check. You might not want to give us an exact number, but just in terms of the shape, is it reasonable to expect the kind of cost down from the '25 level from here? Or should we expect kind of some potential increase in that, mindful of the fact, the top line looks like it's growing pretty strongly from here. And then the second one, I appreciate the limitations that you're under right now and you might be constrained in terms of what you can say in terms of financial outcomes, but just would invite you, if you're able to comment at all on the formal sale process in terms of your experience to date or any color at all would be very helpful, if you're able to. Eamonn Crowley: So I'll pick up on the 2 questions. I'll take the second one first. So under the takeover panels, with panel rules, we are absolutely restricted in commenting with respect to the process, only to say that it's ongoing. And also to say because it's in the public domain, when we announced this program, we announced it in the sense of clearly saying to the market, we have a strong position. And these 2025 numbers underpin our position at that time around launching the sales process, which in itself was an open process, and invited anybody who had credibility and interest in acquiring the bank, as I say, 1 of 3 peer banks in the market, and that process continues. I can't comment any more than that. With regard to definitive comment on lower cost. Again, we're restricted in saying that. But we are very cost conscious. We are focused on managing our costs. I refer to aspects of human-assisted AI activity that we're working on and looking to embed in the organization over the next number of years. And indeed, the proof point around a 10% reduction in our head count in 1 year in the sense of enrolling that cost, annualized cost reduction forward is a very positive indication of how we think about cost, but I can't give you a definitive by way of it being lower. But if you add up all the comments I've made, you can come to your own assessment. Operator: Our next question is from John Cronin from SeaPoint Insights. John Cronin: I just want to come back to what's happening in the banking system more broadly. Your CET1 print is obviously very strong. I hear your comments in relation to the inaugural dividend and that being more of a signpost than necessarily a run rate. And that being said, you've stuck your CET1 target of 14%. I think I asked you about this back at the half year. And I know you can't comment now in relation to where that might trend, but we've seen one of your peers formally increased its target ratio to the surprise of markets. And I guess, look, theoretically, if you weren't in a sales process, like what are you thinking right now in terms of optimal levels for a bank like PTSB, if I can put the question like that? And is there anything we need to be thinking about in terms of the same? Eamonn Crowley: So thanks for your question, John. And nice to hear from you. So we're sticking to the 14% level. What you would have seen from the outcome from our SREP engagement with our regulator last year, our SREP demand reduced by 25 basis points. So after many years of increasing SREP demand, we're seeing some level of reduction. So in that sense, we believe 14% is the level. It's arguable. And John, we would have discussed this over many years. It's hard to go for a bank like ours, which has a more simplistic in the sense of a business model not only complicated with no level of additional complication around market making and trading and things of that nature, it's arguable that rate should be lower if you compare it to our competitors across Europe. But we know Ireland has a higher risk weight and has a higher capital demand. But we're sticking at 14%, but we've seen a downward trend in the sense of the request from a regulator based on our SREP outcome. So that's where we are, John. Operator: We currently have no further questions. So I will hand back to the management team for some closing remarks. Eamonn Crowley: Great. Well, thank you very much. 2025 has been a transformational year for us, not only by way of the results that we've produced, which clearly shows growth. Our balance sheet grew by 6%. It clearly shows that if there's credit growth in the market, we will get our fair share, if not more. And the diversification of our business model will assist us in driving on both our net interest margin, but also our volume in due course. So this is a very exciting time for us. And of course, it's transformational in the sense that we have put ourselves up for sale, and the process with regard to that is ongoing. So thank you very much, and thanks for your attention.
Operator: Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Endeavour Mining's Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Results Webcast. [Operator Instructions] Today's conference call is being recorded, and a transcript of the call will be available on Endeavour's website tomorrow. I would now like to hand the call over to Endeavour's Vice President of Investor Relations, Jack Garman. Please go ahead. Jack Garman: Hello, everyone, and welcome to Endeavour's Q4 and Full Year 2025 Results Webcast. Before we start, please note our usual disclaimer. On the call today, I'm delighted to be joined by Ian Cockerill, Chief Executive Officer; Guy Young, Chief Financial Officer; and Djaria Traore, Executive Vice President of Operations and ESG. Today's call will follow our usual format. Ian will first go through the highlights of the quarter and the year, Guy will present the financials, and Djaria will walk through our operating results by mine before handing back to Ian for his closing remarks. We'll then open the line up for questions. With that, I'll now hand over to Ian. Ian Cockerill: Thank you, Jack, and hello to everyone who's joining us on the call today. Now 2025 was an outstanding year for Endeavour, in which we delivered a strong operational performance and record financial results. Over the course of the year, we produced 1.2 million ounces at an all-in sustaining cost of $1,433 per ounce. We achieved the top half of our production guidance with costs in line with the guided range on a royalty adjusted basis, and our safety record remained sector-leading. Our strong operational performance, coupled with higher gold prices, translated directly into free cash flow. We generated a record $1.2 billion of free cash flow, and that's equivalent to over $955 for every ounce of gold that we produced. This cash generation enabled us to quickly deleverage our balance sheet to just 0.07x net debt to EBITDA by year-end, which is well below our through-the-cycle target of 0.5x, positioning us to significantly increase shareholder returns and invest in our exciting organic growth pipeline. For 2025, we returned a record $435 million to shareholders, and that's equivalent to $360 for every ounce of gold that we produced and 93% above our minimum commitment for the year. That's truly a sector-leading return. And looking forward, we are already increasing returns with a commitment to over $1 billion minimum dividend over the next 3 years that we expect to supplement assuming current gold prices with at least another $1 billion of additional dividends and share buybacks. Importantly, shareholders are not the only stakeholders benefiting from our strong performance. We also contributed $2.8 billion to our host countries, and that includes $919 million of direct contributions to our host governments, and we significantly increased our in-country procurement spend, reiterating our commitment to our in-country partners and strengthening the resilience of our business. As we transition into a phase of increased focus on organic growth, we continue to advance the Assafou feasibility study towards completion, which is expected in a few weeks, and the key environmental and exploitation permits have already been approved, and that significantly derisks our time line to first gold, which is targeted to H2 2028. Our exploration program discovered 1.5 million ounces this year at Assafou, Sabodala and Ity. And while we didn't fully replenish reserves, we are strengthening our exploration pipeline to ensure that we sustainably replace reserves, resources and production depletion as part of our 5-year exploration program as well as adding new high-return growth projects into our pipeline. We started 2026 with a strong operating momentum, and we will remain disciplined as we accelerate organic growth and shareholder returns, delivering on our strategic objectives. On Slide 7, in 2025, we show how we increased production by 10% year-over-year, driven by the full year contribution from our Sabodala-Massawa BIOX plant and the Lafigué projects. More importantly, at a realized gold price of $3,244 an ounce, our all-in sustaining margin expanded dramatically to $1,811 per ounce. That's up 60%, 6-0 percent from 2024. Our track record of achieving guidance speaks for itself, and we were pleased to extend that track record in 2025. That means we've now achieved or beaten guidance 12x over the last 13 years. That demonstrates our operational excellence and the high quality of our diversified portfolio. Looking at the year ahead on Slide 9. Group production is forecast to remain relatively stable as increased production at our Sabodala-Massawa mine will be partially offset by a planned lower production at our Houndé and Lafigué mines, which are entering a short phase of lower grades associated with higher stripping activity. All-in sustaining costs are expected to increase primarily due to the cost impact of this phase at Houndé and Lafigué. We'll also see the impact of the increase in Côte d'Ivoire sliding scale royalty rates from 6% to 8% and a weaker dollar-euro ForEx assumption for the year. Nevertheless, we'll continue to generate exceptional margins, and we expect to see cost improvements from 2027 as Houndé and then Lafigué complete their current phases of stripping and transition back into higher-grade material. As shown on Slide 10, we're firmly on track to achieve our 2030 production target of 1.5 million ounces, representing a 27% organic growth from this year. This growth will be driven by the targeted addition of production from Assafou [indiscernible] growth that will be coming from Sabodala-Massawa. At Sabodala-Massawa, we continue to drive improvements in BIOX's throughput and recovery rates. And in the second half of the year, we are starting some underground development to support high-grade underground ore through the CIL plant. Importantly, we expect to achieve this growth while improving all-in sustaining costs, positioning us again in the lower quartile by 2030. Our production growth last year, combined with strong gold prices supported record operating cash flow and record free cash flow of $1.2 billion in 2025. So that's equivalent to $955 of free cash flow for every ounce of gold produced, and we'll continue to maximize cash flow for every ounce of gold we produce. We're chasing margins and not just chasing ounces. This strong cash flow helped rapidly deleverage our balance sheet that Guy will walk us through shortly. The free cash flow outlook for '26 is strong with us well positioned relative to our gold peers due to stable production and CapEx year-on-year. The completion of our hedging program and improved gold prices. Importantly, the gold mining sector is still good value for money relative to other sectors. On Slide 13, for the year, we returned a record $435 million to shareholders, as I said, $360 for every ounce that we produced. Now since we started paying shareholder returns 5 years ago, we have returned $1.6 billion or 83% above our minimum commitment, and we have increased dividends per share and total returns per ounce produced every year, a trend we expect to continue in this higher gold price environment. As shown on Slide 16, our '25 returns compared very favorably with our peers, both on a per ounce basis as well as in terms of yield. While the gold sector has not historically delivered an attractive yield compared to other sectors, we see that changing, and we want to maintain -- to remain a sector leader so that we're not just attractive for gold investors, but appeal to a wider investment base that seeks reliable yield in a macro landscape of rate declines. In January, we announced our updated shareholder return program for '26 through '28. We will return a minimum of $1 billion dividend over '26-'28, and that's based on the assumption of a gold price of $3,000 per ounce and similar to our previous program, at higher gold prices, we'll supplement that minimum. As I mentioned, we've paid 83% above the minimum over the past 5 years, and we'll do that -- and with gold prices where they currently are, we expect total returns to more than double our minimum commitment over the next 3 years. Moving on to growth and our flagship Assafou project on Slide 18. We're progressing very well, and the project remains on track with key environmental and exploration permits now approved, and that significantly derisks the project pipeline. The feasibility study mine plan is expected to be well aligned with the pre-feasibility study plan and the feasibility study will incorporate higher CapEx due to optimizations following additional grade control drilling results, a more scalable processing plant design that can be expanded in future and an extended road and power line diversion, which is aligned with both community and government requirements, which will bring slightly higher initial capital costs. More detail on the feasibility study will be released at the end of this quarter as we formally announce the results of our feasibility study in a separate stand-alone presentation. On Slide 19, I wanted to highlight some resource expansion and permit consolidation that we have been busy with at Assafou and across the wider belt. We increased measured and indicated resources by 13%, largely thanks to the maiden resource at Pala Trend 3, which is the first satellite target that we've defined at Endeavour. Now while the resource is initially quite small, it is less than 2 kilometers away from Assafou. It's over 1.5 grams per tonne of oxide material that starts from surface. So it supports significantly increased operating flexibility at Assafou, and we expect it to be the first of many satellite resources that will ultimately support the upside at Assafou. Our strategic partner, Koulou Gold, has also successfully acquired the permit to the south of Assafou in addition to their permit to the East, helping to consolidate this highly prospective underexplored belt. Exploration has been our most significant value creator over the last 10 years. We have now discovered more than 22 million ounces of measured and indicated resource for a discovery cost of less than $25 per ounce, including discoveries of the cornerstone Lafigué and Assafou deposits. This year, we discovered 1.5 million ounces at Assafou, Sabodala-Massawa and Ity, which only partially offset the production depletion and model optimizations that took place across the balance of our portfolio. Over the next 5 years, we are targeting the discovery of between 12 million to 15 million ounces of measured, indicated and inferred resource. That target comprises 6 million to 9 million ounces at our existing operations to replace production depletion and up to 6 million ounces from greenfield resources, including the potential discovery of up to 2 or 3 new projects focused on strengthening and diversifying our long-term greenfield pipeline. As outlined on Slide 22, despite Endeavour's strong performance and strong outlook that is underpinned by substantial organic growth, we still have a compelling value proposition, not only amongst gold peers, but across most other sectors as well. As we continue to deliver consistently, invest in sector-leading organic growth and deliver sector-leading returns while retaining our disciplined approach to capital allocation, we expect to unlock even more value. As a long-term partner in West Africa, our resilience is underpinned by our ability to continue to deliver value to all our stakeholders. In 2025 alone, we contributed $2.8 billion to host economies, including $919 million in payments to host governments in the form of taxes, royalties and dividends and $270 million in wages and $1.6 billion on procurement at in-country. We also maintained our strong ESG track record, which is a reflection of our consistent commitment to excellence in ESG, and this is best shown in our impact over the last 5 years. Since 2021, we've delivered more than $11 billion in total economic contribution, including $3.3 billion to host governments and $6.6 billion in local procurement. Beyond this economic contribution, we have made tangible impacts to local livelihoods through our social investments, including providing 55,000 people with access to quality health care, 38,000 children with educational support and nearly 10,000 people with economic development opportunities. Generating shared value that benefits all our stakeholders is key to sustaining our success, and I encourage you to view our sustainability report that we've published today. And with that introduction, please let me hand you over to Guy, who will take you through the financials in more details. Over to you, Guy. Guy Young: Thank you, Ian, and hello, everyone. As Ian mentioned, 2025 was an exceptional year financially for Endeavour with record results across all key metrics. We produced 1.2 million ounces at an all-in sustaining cost of $1,433 per ounce, or $1,305 per ounce when adjusted for gold price-driven royalties. With a realized gold price of $3,244 per ounce, we generated record adjusted EBITDA of $2.3 billion, up 75% year-over-year and adjusted net earnings of $782 million, up 244% year-over-year. Free cash flow reached another record $1.2 billion, up 269% from 2024. Turning to Slide 25. For the fourth quarter specifically, production increased by 34,000 ounces to 298,000 ounces due to higher grades across the portfolio, in line with the mine sequence. Our all-in sustaining margin also increased to $2,225 per ounce, a $547 increase compared to the prior quarter due to improved gold prices. On Slide 26, we can see that the improved gold price translated into a 46% increase in adjusted EBITDA for Q4 as we generated $681 million with our adjusted EBITDA margin also increasing quarter-on-quarter. The higher EBITDA naturally drove an improvement in operating cash flow, as shown on Slide 27. Our operating cash flow in Q4 was up 97% from Q3 to $609 million, benefiting from the higher Q4 production, higher realized gold prices and seasonally lower tax -- sorry, cash taxes. The operating cash flow bridge on Slide 28 shows the key drivers of the $300 million increase from Q3 to Q4. The realized gold price increased by $626 per ounce, which added $208 million of operating cash flow. Gold sales increased by 44,000 ounces, contributing a further $156 million. Cash operating expenses were up $177 million due to increased production, increased royalties due to gold prices and increased royalty rates in Côte d'Ivoire. Income taxes paid decreased by $44 million due to the seasonality of cash tax payments and the typically lower payments in Q4. And working capital improved by $69 million as the buildup of inventories and VAT receivables slowed and was offset by a slight increase in payables at the end of the year. I highlighted that we were expecting to see improvements in our working capital last quarter. And pleasingly, Q4 was a significant improvement over Q3. This year, we're expecting this to improve further. We expect to further reduce inventory as we start drawing down on stockpiles at Lafigué and Houndé as we will be relying on stockpiles to support the mill feed during H1 as we concentrate on stripping at both sites, in line with mining sequence. And we expect our VAT receivables to also improve as the timing of the VAT recovery cycle normalizes in Côte d'Ivoire and Senegal. And in Burkina Faso, we will continue to convert our VAT receivables into marketable debt instruments and sell them on the open market. Free cash flow in Q4 reached a record $476 million, up 187% from Q3, driven by the stronger production, higher gold prices and lower seasonal taxes. For the full year, free cash flow was $1.156 billion, up 269% from 2024, marking a significant inflection in our cash generation capability following the completion of our last growth phase. It is pleasing to be converting strong operational performance into free cash flow, and we are effectively and efficiently upstreaming that cash to support our increasing shareholder returns. Last year, with great support from our host nations within the West African Economic Union and the Central Bank of West African State, we successfully upstreamed $1.2 billion, leveraging our annual cash upstreaming model, which serves us and our in-country stakeholders very well as it provides early visibility on cash movements, foreign exchange requirements and minority interest dividend and withholding tax quantum. Moving on to Slide 30. The change in net debt bridge on the slide shows how we are able to rapidly deleverage the balance sheet. We started Q3 with net debt of $453 million and generated operating cash flow of $609 million. After investing activities of $133 million and financing activities, including dividends and buybacks of $181 million, we ended the quarter with net debt of just $158 million. This represents a comfortable leverage level of only 0.07x, down from 0.21x at the end of Q3 and well below our through-the-cycle target of 0.5x. We reduced our net debt by $574 million and also reduced our gross debt by $511 million last year, leaving us with over $1.1 billion of liquidity available through our cash on hand and our undrawn RCF. Finally, turning to earnings on Slide 31. I won't go through every line item, but just a few of the highlights. We generated $665 million of earnings from mine operations for Q4. We recorded $193 million of impairments, largely across exploration properties, including, in particular, Bantou, Nabanga and Kalana, as we don't expect to do any exploration work in the near term and don't see potential for Endeavour type assets at any of these properties. Other expenses increased to $44 million. This does include $37 million of incremental royalties for 2025 at our Ity and Lafigué mines in Côte d'Ivoire, where the royalty rates for 2025 were retroactively increased from 6% to 8%. The net losses on financial instruments of $62 million were mainly due to realized losses on gold collars, partially offset by unrealized gains on marketable securities. Last year, the tail end of our hedging program created a significant headwind to our earnings and our free cash flow. Given the strong gold price environment in particular, pleasingly, this year, we are fully unhedged and expect to realize the full benefits of this favorable gold price environment. During the quarter, we recognized a $52 million deferred tax recovery in the quarter as deferred tax liabilities decreased following the impairment of our exploration properties, which I referenced earlier. And adjusted net earnings reached $293 million or $0.93 per share for the quarter. Thank you, and I'd like to hand you over to Djaria. Djaria Traore: Thank you, Guy, and hello, everyone. Before discussing our operating results, I want to start with safety, which remains our top priority. I'm pleased to report that we've maintained our industry-leading safety performance in 2025 with a long-term injury frequency rate of just 0.07, which position us as one of the safest operators in the gold mining sector. Before turning to the mine-by-mine review, I wanted to touch on our reserve and resource evolution. During 2025, our P&P reserve decreased by 10% or 1.8 million ounces to 16.6 million ounces, driven by 1.4 million ounces of production depletion and the optimizations of several of our reserve models to incorporate updated cost assumptions. The decrease was partially offset by an increase in reserves gold price from $1,500 per ounce to $1,900 per ounce. However, we have not realized the full benefit of this increase as we have not yet updated the pit shells at Sabodala-Massawa and Ity mines. And the full benefit of the higher gold prices is expected to be realized next year when these pit shells are updated. M&I resources also decreased slightly by 4% or 1.1 million ounces to 25 million ounces, which is due to 1.6 million ounces of depletion and resource model optimizations, which was partially offset by 1.5 million ounces of discoveries at Assafou, Sabodala-Massawa and Ity. As part of our new exploration strategy, we are focused on replacing production depletion at our existing assets, while adding up to 6 million ounces of resources at new greenfield projects to support our long-term growth -- organic growth. On Slide 35, you can see an overview of our portfolio performance and the 2026 outlook. In 2025, we've achieved a production growth across Sabodala-Massawa, Mana and Lafigué, while production was lower at Houndé and Ity mines. Looking ahead to 2026, we expect further production growth at Sabodala-Massawa due to continued improvement through the BIOX plant. This increase will be offset by lower production at Houndé and Lafigué, where, as Ian mentioned earlier, we will be mining and processing lower grades and prioritizing waste stripping. All-in sustaining costs are expected to increase this year, largely due to an increased focus on waste stripping at Houndé and Lafigué, which will lead to the processing of lower grade ore and a reliance on stockpiles to supplement the feed. In addition to that, the higher royalty rates in Côte d'Ivoire and the lower USD euro ForEx has driven our all-in sustaining cost guidance higher. We expect costs to start to improve next year as this phase of stripping is completed at Houndé and Lafigué. On a longer term, we are tracking well towards our 1.5 million ounces target by 2030. And as we incorporate higher grade at Sabodala-Massawa, Houndé and Assafou in the coming years, we expect to be in the first cost quartile when we got to that 1.5 million ounces target. On Slide 36, with Sabodala-Massawa, we've delivered a strong performance in 2025, achieving the top half of our production guidance range with costs within the guidance range on a royalty adjusted basis. Production increased 20% year-on-year as the BIOX plant had a full year of production. We expect to see further increases this year as the BIOX throughput continues to increase, targeting 15% above design nameplate, while recoveries continue to improve towards the 85% target. At the same time, we are starting to develop the Golouma underground deposit to incorporate the high-grade non-refractory underground ore into the mine plan from 2027, and that's supporting a continued production growth and cost improvement. Moving to Houndé on Slide 37, where we've achieved near the top end of our production guidance range last year with cost beating guidance on a royalty adjusted basis. The strong performance was largely due to higher grade from the Kari Pump pit. As Ian mentioned earlier, Houndé will focus on waste stripping at the Vindaloo deposit this year. And as a result, we will be mining lower grade and drawing down on stockpile to supplement the mine ore feed, which result in a slightly lower production and higher costs. As stripping advances, we expect to see grade and costs improve through the year and notably into next year 2027. Longer term, we are excited by the underground potential at Houndé, and we expect to declare a maiden resource for the large high-grade Vindaloo Deep deposit during H1 this year. At Ity on Slide 38, we've achieved the top half of our production guidance with costs in line with the range, supported by strong mill throughput that has benefited from the use of supplemented mobile crushers. Production is expected to be stable year-on-year, while costs will be higher due to a slight increase in sustaining capital related to waste stripping at Ity, Zia and the Le Plaque pit. but as well as the increase in sliding scale royalty rates in Côte d'Ivoire from 6% to 8%. At Mana on Slide 39, as expected at Mana, the accelerated development rates improved access to higher grade underground stopes, supporting a stronger production in the later part of last year. As a result, we've achieved the top half of our production guidance, while costs were above the top end of the range, reflecting an increased development and costs, which were associated with the contractor changeover. This year, production at Mana is expected to be stable as underpinned by improved development rates from our consolidated single contractor underground mining model, coupled with a small volume of open pit feed in the mine plan. These 2 elements are expected to support an improved throughput year-on-year, which will largely offset the impact of slightly lower grade in the mine sequence. We are continuing to work on improving cost at Mana, prioritizing improvement in grid connection, power stability as well as underground mining productivity. Finally, turning to Lafigué on Slide 40. We've achieved our production guidance with -- above the top end of the range due to higher mining volumes required to support the improved processing throughput rate as the plant continued to deliver well above design nameplate. For 2026, similar to Houndé, Lafigué will be prioritizing stripping activities to improve access to higher-grade ore. The mill feed will be supplemented with lower grade stockpile material, which combined with the increase in sliding scale rates of royalty in Côte d'Ivoire is expected to result in slightly production and higher costs year-on-year. Thank you, everyone. I'm now handing back to Ian for the closing remarks. Ian Cockerill: Thank you, Djaria. Now as we look ahead, we're extremely well positioned to continue creating value for all of our stakeholders. Given our strong operational outlook and high gold prices, we expect to generate very strong free cash flow, which given our low leverage will be used to deliver sector-leading organic growth and sector-leading shareholder returns. So thank you for listening. And now let me hand you back to the operator, and let's open up for Q&A. Thank you. Operator: [Operator Instructions] And we take our first question, and it comes from the line of Alain Gabriel from Morgan Stanley. Alain Gabriel: Ian, I have a couple of questions. First, can you confirm on your capital allocation that you are thinking about $1 billion of supplemental buybacks and special dividends above and beyond the minimum $1 billion that you have set? And if so, what are the next milestones, time lines and signposts to unlocking these additional returns? Is it the AGM? Is it the Q1 results? How should we be thinking about it? That's my first question. Ian Cockerill: Okay. Thanks, Alain. Yes, look, just for clarity, we said that the $1 billion over 3 years is the minimum that we'll be sort of targeting to hand out to shareholders. That assumes the maintaining a minimum gold price of $3,000 an ounce. What I was saying is that if you take current spot prices, the very real prospect of an additional $1 billion, and that will be made up of supplementary cash dividends as well as buybacks. And the buybacks will continue on an opportunistic basis, and they will form part of that additional $1 billion. Alain Gabriel: On that question, on the second part of your question -- of your answer, is it -- should we wait for the AGM for an authorization for the next leg of the buyback? Or what are the next milestones that we should be waiting for? Ian Cockerill: No, sorry. Yes, I should have been a little bit clearer there. No, look, I mean, we've already decided there's not a fixed number in terms of buybacks. It is going to be opportunistic. It will follow what we have done previously. Buybacks form part of the broader capital allocation framework, prioritizing where we get best return on our investment. And as and when we see the opportunity to affect a buyback and get the sort of returns that we're looking for, they will happen automatically. So there's no further sort of approvals needed because in principle, it's already been agreed that we should be doing it. Guy Young: Sorry, Alain. I was just going to add, I don't think you should expect that at the AGM, we'll come out and revise the shareholder returns program per se. Your first clear indication is going to be probably at the time that we're declaring the next dividend. So we're effectively saying we see our way clear at these gold prices. But what we will be waiting for is effectively a period in which, for example, the first half, we've earned that cash, and therefore, we will look to distribute to shareholders, and that would be the dividend declaration. But we're not looking to revise the shareholder returns program through the period. Alain Gabriel: Very clear. And my second question is on Assafou. I think, Ian, in your presentation as well, you touched on the cost being slightly higher than initially anticipated, but also the size of the project resources is also expanding, continues to expand. Can you give us some preliminary hints or indications as to the scale of the increase in CapEx? And given what you've learned in the last few months on production and profile -- the production profile and the economics, anything that you can give us in advance of the full feasibility study that you expect to release before the end of the quarter? Ian Cockerill: Yes. No, look, I'm not going to be sort of specific. The increases are not out of the ordinary. They are linked as much to changes in scope for the project, some subtle design changes. We've picked up on, say, for instance, Lafigué because obviously, Assafou is very much the fundamental design is predicated on what we have at Lafigué. But also on what we've learned at Lafigué, what went well, what didn't go so well and having looked globally at other projects using sort of HPGRs and making sure that for instance, our comminution circuits are fit for purpose, robust and are going to work well. So there is modest increases. I mean, escalation is there. I think everyone is seeing cost creep on these things. So we will be in a position by the end of this month to have finalized the numbers, but it would be premature to give you the sort of even an indication at this stage. But the number will be going up, but not dramatically. Operator: And the next question comes from the line of Ovais Habib from Scotiabank. Ovais Habib: Congrats on a solid year. Just a couple of quick questions from me. You already answered the question on Assafou CapEx, so that's all good. But just moving on to -- and keeping on Assafou, maybe talking about Pala Trend 3. It looks like good oxide resource there, good grades there. Will this be included in the DFS? And if not, would it be safe to assume that these ounces will come into the mine plan in the front end of the mine life? Ian Cockerill: Yes, Ovais, look, again, just for clarity, no, they will -- Pala Trend 3 ounces are not included in the feasibility study. But because it's -- as we said, it's very, very close to the actual mine and to the plant, it's oxide material. It's there almost as should we call it, an emergency backup. So it just gives you greater sort of mining optionality and flexibility. But we're seeing even more sort of resource in and around and in close proximity to the plant. So it's the upside over and above the basic mine plan, it's more than just Pala Trend 3. There are other satellite deposits in close proximity to the plant that will ultimately be included and will form part of the natural, should we call it, evolution and expansion of this plant as we get it up and running, as we debottleneck, as we start to probably operate beyond the 5 million tonnes, we don't need to include them in the feasibility study, but they will form, I think, a natural sort of upside to the project and probably will be in the early part of the project because it's so convenient to get it close by. Ovais Habib: And just again, as you were talking about those other satellite targets that you guys are probably targeting, I mean, is this Sonia targeting those areas right now in the 2026 drilling program? Or is this more going to be more once production starts, then you'll continue doing more exploration around the area? Ian Cockerill: We haven't really stopped from the time that we started doing all the exploration drilling around there, Ovais. So it's not as if we've got to start doing it. These are projects that have already been identified. Some of them we've done some initial scout drilling, some more advanced than others. I think what I'm really basically trying to say is that this is -- it's a permissive area. There's lots of opportunity, and it forms a natural sort of extension to the existing broader regional program in and around Assafou. Ovais Habib: Perfect. And I don't know if Sonia is online, but just wanted to see if -- where she is most excited about this 2026 exploration program. Ian Cockerill: Look, she's not here at the moment. But what I can tell you is that we've been doing a lot of very interesting work at Sabodala. We've been applying a lot of -- doing some lot of AI work on that permit. We've identified a significant number of targets, applying this technique over our existing deposits. It identified 99% of the deposits that we already know about. So the fact that we've got a very interesting number of new projects gives me a lot of hope that we'll be finding some more stuff. Effectively, what we've done, Ovais, is we started to join the dots because we -- as you know, we've got lots of deposits in and around. But our knowledge and understanding of how they all interconnect has been somewhat disjointed. We're starting to fill in the gaps in our knowledge. So we're very excited for '26 about what's there. And then we're going to take this technique and this technology. We're applying it to Ity South as well as Ity Maine. And we'll also apply it on our East Star joint venture in Kazakhstan, where we've got a massive area. So using this technology to help us zero in on target areas as opposed to just trying to cover the whole area makes a huge amount of sense. So lots of prospect. The other area more immediately is Vindaloo Deeps at Houndé. Now we are very, very close to sort of publishing the results of that study. It wasn't quite ready in time for this year's declaration. But there's going to be not far short of 1 million ounces going into resource at Vindaloo Deeps, that's high grade, good quality. I know that, Djaria, I can't wait to get our hands on that. Ovais Habib: Sounds good. And my last question, just moving on to Sabodala. Djaria mentioned that you're developing Golouma to come into production in 2027. Are there any other satellites that could come into production in the near term to improve the oxide production oxide production? Djaria Traore: Thank you, Ovais. I think, yes, as you mentioned, we will be starting -- I think we're currently busy finalizing the commercial decisions, which contractors select for Sabodala. So that should be done sometime by the end of quarter 1, so that we can start mobilizing equipment into H2 of this year. We expect that next year we'll be in and around development to start seeing the first ounces sometimes in 2028, really, which is really the high-grade ore that we needed for the CIL plant. We are working very closely with Sonia, obviously, to see, as Ian just mentioned, what are the other targets that we can see in and around Sabodala-Massawa. So I'm sure that the next call, we'll be able to start giving you some hints in that as well. Operator: And now we're going to take our next question. And the question comes from the line of Fahad Tariq from Jefferies. Fahad Tariq: Apologies if I missed this. Can you walk through the thought process of using $3,000 an ounce gold to set 2026 guidance? Ian Cockerill: It was simply a question of choose a number. The classical approach that we have taken historically is that we give forward guidance on our dividend program. We select a number and then based against our anticipated production and cost profile, we know what our cash generation should be. We're comfortable in guaranteeing that sort of number. And then over and above that, that's when we say there will be supplemental returns as well. So 3,000 was just chosen as a number. We could have taken another number, but we felt comfortable with 3,000 over the next 3 years. And it's an indication to investors if you've got that sort of gold price environment, that's what you should anticipate should be coming your way in the form of dividends as a guaranteed. Fahad Tariq: Okay. And then maybe just -- my question is more on just setting the cost guidance in particular. Maybe let me ask a different way. If I think about the year-over-year increase in the AISC guidance from 2025-2026, how much of that would be the higher royalty structure versus the increased waste stripping at Houndé and Lafigué? I'm just trying to get a sense of how AISC could potentially come down in 2027 once the stripping is complete? Guy Young: Let me try and answer. The 3,000, is obviously relatively conservative in terms of current spot prices. But we do like to use fairly conservative gold pricing for budget purposes and cost control in the first instance. When it comes to, I think, the second part of your question, which was '25-'26, if you take a look at the overall cost per ounce increase, roughly 15% of that is made up of royalty rate increases and foreign exchange. The remainder is effectively down to the mine sequencing, which includes a proportion of stripping activities at Houndé and Lafigué, which we mentioned, as well as the cost of stockpile drawdown. And those 2 factors combined constitute about 85% of that cost increase. Operator: And the next question comes from the line of Marina Calero Ródenas from RBC Capital Markets. Marina Calero Ródenas: I have a couple of questions. The first one is on your reserves. You mentioned that Ity and Sabodala are -- don't have the reserves calculated using the $1,900 per ounce price. I was wondering if you could give us a bit more details about that? And how will your group reserves look like if those prices were used across the entire portfolio? Ian Cockerill: Sorry, Marina, I didn't get -- it's a bit garbled. Could you repeat the question again, please? Marina Calero Ródenas: Is now better? Can you hear me now? Ian Cockerill: Yes. Yes, that sounds much better. Marina Calero Ródenas: Okay. Sorry about that. I was just asking you about your 2025 reserve statement. I noticed that you're not using the $1,900 price for Sabodala and Ity. So I was just wondering if you could give us a bit more color about that and how your group reserves will look like if the same prices were used across the entire portfolio. Ian Cockerill: Yes. Sorry. Now I understand the question. Look, I think what we have to recognize is that last year, there was a massive dislocation on gold prices. For us to get to produce truly accurate answers about reserves, you actually have to change pit shells, the pit shells also have to align. It's not just a question of changing the prices. And to be honest, we just -- for the 2 mines that you mentioned, at Sabodala and Ity, we just didn't have a chance to do the changes in the pit shells. They will take place later on this year. What I -- and from that, we'll see what changes have taken place. What we are seeing, though, and this is a very sort of generic statement rather than anything specific about these 2 operations. is that the intrinsic quality of our reserve base and the relatively flat grade tonnage curves that we've got from our operations means that major changes in the gold price doesn't necessarily have a significant impact on our reserves either going up or going down. But we still need to do the proper engineering with the correct price pit shells, and we simply just didn't get around -- didn't have the time to get around to doing it for those 2 specific mines, but it will be done later this year. And then as we update in the middle of the year, we'll see those changes coming through as we'll see also the updates coming through from Houndé, which we'll be able to produce fully [ queue feed ] resource and reserve statements there from Houndé as well. Marina Calero Ródenas: Just another question on costs. Can you comment on the main inflationary pressures that you're seeing? And maybe as an extension of that, why is the sensitivity of your all-in sustaining cost, if any, to the oil price? Guy Young: Sure. So on the first one, in terms of inflationary pressures, we've got somewhere in the region of 2/3 to 3/4 of our costs are effectively local denominated costs in [ CFA or XOF ]. That local currency is pegged to the euro. And as a result, we see relatively benign inflation for the vast majority of our cost base. If you break down the cost base into its key elements, you'll have labor, which in West Africa, we are very lucky to have a great supply of people, well-experienced people. And as a result, we haven't seen the level of labor inflation that is necessarily being seen in other territories around the world. Local inflation, I think, as a result of the pegging also means that the -- there isn't runaway local inflation that, again, you may see in other territories. So the fiscal discipline and policy of the Regional Central Bank fundamentally helps us from an inflationary perspective across the majority of our costs. In addition to that, we've obviously got medium, long-term contracts that help us manage over time associated with agreed to contractual rise and fall. So there, again, that's on our side rather than helping it from an inflationary perspective. More importantly, to the second part of your question, oil or energy represents a fairly significant proportion of our cost base as well. But it's important to note that the 3 host nations in which we're operating all have relatively strict sets of pricing mechanisms, whereby the vast majority of host nations are maintaining a very low level of volatility of fuel prices on the ground to international oil prices. So we have not seen either the highs or lows in terms of volatility that other countries have seen over the last number of years. On top of that, the vast majority of fuel that is supplied into West Africa is not coming from the Middle East. So our actual reliance in terms of security of supply is much more focused to Northwestern Europe and Africa itself. And consequently, when we look at oil shocks, we tend to see it more as a question of pricing rather than security of supply. But even with that pricing, because of the government's pricing mechanisms, volatility is not significant for us from an all-in sustaining cost perspective. Operator: Excuse me, Marina, any further questions? Marina Calero Ródenas: Not that I have. Operator: And the next question comes from the line of [ Alex Badawani ] from Stifel. Unknown Analyst: Just one simple question for me. So Guy, I want to pick up on something you alluded to earlier when you said Endeavour type assets when referring to the exploration impairments. At this point in time now, what constitutes an Endeavour type asset? And has that changed in the last couple of years? Guy Young: Thanks very much. No, it hasn't changed. So you're right, it was shorthand, but what we're talking about is the same key elements that we would have always described as an Endeavour type asset. So it's life of mine cost profile and size, i.e., annual production. They're the same. Unknown Analyst: And what sort of thresholds are we looking at? Is it minimum 250,000 ounces... Guy Young: Exactly. It's 250,000 ounces annual production. It's 10 years plus, and it's first quartile cost producer. Operator: Now we are going to take our next question. And the question comes from the line of Frederic Bolton from BMO Capital Markets. Frederic Bolton: So just 2 questions from me as has already answered them for me. So first on Koulou, given your 19% position in the company, should we think of that as a stake -- think of that stake primarily as an investment today? Or is that one that carries a longer-term strategic value in the portfolio? And then second question, given that there's been a bit of industry discussion around royalty rates in Côte d'Ivoire. When you think about the costs over the long term, what are the sort of key operational or financial levers you can mitigate or offset against the royalty pressures when you look at project economics? Ian Cockerill: Yes. Look, I mean, we've been involved in Koulou Gold for several years now. We think it's a very interesting project. I think everything that we saw right from the get-go, the more that the guys look, the more that we appreciate what's there. That whole southeastern corner of Côte d'Ivoire is turning into a very interesting from a geological perspective because it's not Birimian, it's not Tarkwaian. It's really the transition between the 2. So what you have is you have Birimian type grades, but you have Tarkwaian type, call it, size and scale. So it makes it a very, very interesting part of the world. At a 19% stake, we're comfortable with where we are. We have someone who sits on the Board, and we're watching very closely what is going on there. And we have good cooperation with Koulou. On the royalty, I'm going to pass you over to Guy. Guy has been very much involved with the discussions with the government on royalty. Guy, over to you. Guy Young: Thanks, Ian. I think your question around the royalties is more where are the opportunities to offset an increasing royalty environment. So is that the question? Frederic Bolton: Yes, that's the question. Yes. Guy Young: So I'll start off, and I'm sure Djaria may want to add here as well. But if we look at fundamental offsets, I would suggest it's probably in a couple of areas. The first and most obvious one is just day-to-day, month-to-month, year-to-year productivity gains. So we do whatever we can to be mining and processing on a more efficient basis. And we have a productivity program in place across sites that is going to play a partial role of offsetting the royalty cost. The other piece and the one that we're trying to talk about in today's slide deck is also just to maintain a perspective that we will continue to add higher grade options to our portfolio. And that's through obviously exploration in the first instance. But then through, as you mentioned earlier, investments in the likes of Koulou. The ability for us to do that from a diversification perspective and ensure that we are improving grade being fed into the mills is naturally going to be assisting us in terms of cost. And then one thing which I think is longer term, which I don't want us to lose sight of is new growth based on that exploration in West Africa comes at a lower capital intensity. So those 3 elements for me would be key offsets in West Africa in total, but specifically to your question in Côte d'Ivoire as well. Djaria Traore: If I can, just to add in there, just to reiterate what Guy had mentioned, is really for us in terms of operations to look at way of reducing mining costs. And that really goes through several opportunities initiatives that we're currently putting in place with the team on site. Obviously, we do know about the Ity doughnut. We also know about the Ity grand pit. What it allows us to do is to be able to look at different type of equipment, either bring in bigger equipment or just some mix of equipment so that we ensure that we optimize those costs. So that's one of the levers. The other ones in terms of our fixed plant is to ensure that we keep our throughput optimal, maximize it. And if we add capacity, just -- again, it's really to look at different initiatives to ensure that we are processing those ore high-grade ore that we have. And I think it's really, again, with the team to think outside of the box, what are different levers and different initiatives that we can put in place on a daily basis. Operator: Now we take our next question. And the question comes from the line of Mohamed Sidibe from National Bank. Mohamed Sidibe: And maybe if I could just follow up on the royalty rates and not necessarily in Côte d'Ivoire, but just if you could comment on anything that you may be seeing either in Burkina or Ivory Coast or Senegal as it relate to that pressure for potential higher royalty rates. We know that Côte d'Ivoire just went through, but any comments would be appreciated on the remainder of your portfolio. Ian Cockerill: Look, I mean, as far as Burkina is concerned, I mean, the royalty rates in Burkina are well established. We know there's a sliding scale -- they're getting towards the top end, but they are well known. As far as Senegal is concerned, Senegal has not changed its mining code for quite some time. And there's been a sort of some indication that they want to sort of change the mining code. We do, though, have a sort of a grandfathered project at Sabodala and that Sabodala-Massawa, that basically were grandfathered until 2040. So a mining convention. But if they want to change sort of royalty rates and what have you, that is usually outside of any sort of mining convention that we've got. At the moment, Senegal is lower in terms of the overall rates, much more favorable sort of overall taxation and royalty schemes than the other countries. There's been some suggestion ventilated about them wanting to change that. I would argue that it's likely that the trajectory overall would likely increase because that seems to be the move everywhere. It's not just here in West Africa, but even in other places around the world. So whilst we're not seeing or hearing anything definitive as yet, if it happened, it probably would not be a huge surprise. But as to quantum size, change or when, at this stage, totally unknown. Mohamed Sidibe: And then just my final question on your target for 2030 for 1.5 million ounces of production. I know that Assafou will be a big contributor to that. But could you maybe help us reconcile the potential contribution from Sabodala and Lafigué? Any color on those 2 would be appreciated. Ian Cockerill: Yes. Look, I mean, if you take the existing sort of 5 assets, you could probably sort of look at a relatively steady performance coming from Mana. Houndé would be sort of the mid-200s, maybe slightly higher than the mid-200s. Ity would be its steady level, plus/minus 300. We'll likely look at a higher output coming from Sabodala as part of the overall program, we were certainly targeting by sort of '28, '29 to be somewhere into the low to mid-300s. I think as an indicative number, that is the sort of target that we will be looking for. Lafigué, anywhere sort of guiding between sort of 180 and 200. And then you're coming in with Assafou, which in '28 and then '29. '29 will be the first targeted first full year of production, but not at full rate, but it will be in 2030 that we'll be getting the full rate at Assafou, which will be sort of in the low 300. Operator: We're going to take our last question for today, and it comes from the line of Daniel Major from UBS. Daniel Major: Can you hear me okay? Ian Cockerill: Yes. Daniel Major: Yes. First question is a follow-up on the first question actually around capital returns. Yes, encouraging to see the commitment to lifting cash returns. But if we looked at free cash flow from the business anywhere near to spot prices, you would significantly exceed $2 billion of free cash over the next 3 years. I guess the question is, is there a net debt target or net debt level at which you would make a commitment to shareholders to return 100% of free cash to -- in the form of dividends and buybacks? Ian Cockerill: Yes. I think we've said all along that through the cycle, we wanted a net debt target of 0.5. Clearly, when we're not in a build program, that net debt would virtually go down to 0, maybe even occasionally just flick over a little bit. During the build program, we'll be bumping up against our upper limit closer to 1x debt to EBITDA. When the time comes and assuming that we're in the fortunate position that we're generating huge amounts of cash, the way we structured our program gives us absolutely the flexibility to return as much as we can. If there is no other sensible use of our for our sort of free cash flow. And of course, it's going to go back to shareholders because it's shareholders' money after all. But what we've tried to do with our programs is give a base outline at the -- what we -- as Guy called them, sort of conservative yet rational levels. And then beyond that, as and when we generate the money, it will get dished out to shareholders. So I don't think there's any need for us to say, well, it's going to be 100% or even less than that. As the time comes, we'll see what we need to do the business because one of the last things we want -- we don't want to do is we don't want to come through a period of really good gold prices, just handing back all the money to shareholders and then making sure that our -- the business is not robust and resilient. As we come out the other side of this strong gold price, we want to make sure that we have a business, we have an asset base, which is in sound shape, and that may well require some additional capital injections in there. But again, everything will be done, assuming our normal sort of capital allocation program and making sure that we get the sort of returns that we're looking for as well. Daniel Major: Okay. And second one, just on the portfolio. Mana is the lowest quality of your assets. Would you consider disposing it if a good offer came in is the first question. And the second question, some assets in the region from one of the larger peers in Tanzania DRC may come to the market. Would you be interested in looking at any acquisitions in the region if they were to become available? Ian Cockerill: On Mana, first of all, we're always asked the question about it's our poorest asset. I would advise people just look at the cash generation of Mana. It's generating a lot of cash. It's more than adequately washing its space. If somebody wanted to come along and compensate us for that, yes, we are. As I said all along, all assets ultimately are up for sale. It is simply a question of is someone prepared to pay for it. But bluntly, Daniel, we haven't had people banging the door down saying we'd like to make an offer for Mana offer any other asset. And that's fine. I'm very happy to continue running those assets as long as they are contributing to the bottom line. As far as -- and if I understand the thrust of your second question in terms of potential inorganic opportunities. Over the last 2 to 3 years, we have looked at a variety of assets. all of which we have walked away from because they don't satisfy our return criteria. Does it mean that we are not going to do inorganic growth opportunities? Of course, not. We are in the fortunate position that we have got a very strong organic growth pipeline, and that is where our focus would be. But it is also appropriate for us to look outside of that. As and when opportunities arise, we can look at stuff. And if it makes sense, obviously, we would do it. But again, it has to be -- has to measure up and to be able to satisfy the sort of returns that we would be looking at as a group as a whole. Operator: Daniel, any further questions? Daniel Major: No, that's it. Operator: Dear speakers, there are no further questions for today. I would now like to hand the conference over to the management team for any closing remarks. Ian Cockerill: Thank you, operator, and thanks, everyone, for listening, and we look forward to reporting back when we do our Q1 results for 2026. Look forward to it then. Thanks very much indeed. Cheery-up. Bye-bye. Operator: This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now all disconnect. Have a nice day.
Operator: Good morning. My name is Daniel, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to Savaria Corporation's Q4 2025 Investor and Analyst Call. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. This call may contain forward-looking statements, which are subject to the disclosure statement contained in Savaria's most recent press release issued on March 4, 2026, with respect to its QX 2025 results. Thank you. Mr. Bourassa, you may begin your conference. Sébastien Bourassa: Thank you, Daniel, and good morning, everyone. Today, I will start with a small recap of our Q4 results. Then Steve will update us on financial, and JP will update us on Savaria One and Europe, followed by a Q&A session. Once again, I'm very proud of our Q4 results. As for the first time ever, we reached $51.3 million of EBITDA at 21.2%, which is a very important milestone and our best quarter ever. We finished the year with sales of $913 million and an EBITDA of $186.2 million at 20.4%, which again is our best result ever. All KPIs are improving, and Steve will go more in detail later. Today, there's 3 things that I would like to highlight. First, thank you. Yesterday marked the 5-year anniversary of Handicare acquisition, and I need to say that I'm quite proud of all the work that has been achieved since the beginning, especially through Savaria One. It's not the same company anymore, and you can see it in the people, in the operation, in the product portfolio and recently, the change under Savaria brand in Europe. So I'm very optimistic about the future and the growth and the profitability. Also, I would like to highlight the performance of Garaventa North America in 2025. It was a record year for the team in Vancouver and North America. So congrats to all the team. Second, growth. I'm quite happy with the way we ended the year as we had growth in each area. And it is the pillar that was a bit behind in the Savaria One as naturally commercial efforts takes more time usually to pay off. And here are some example of the recent effort to have to generate some future growth. We continue the effort to develop the market on home elevator in North America, increase our sales effort in North America, continue to expand the Matot dumbwaiter material lift line of products. Business development activities are always ongoing so that we continue our growth and be a market leader. Expand the one-stop shop in Europe, talk about it for a long time, but it's coming, the Luma, the VPL, the inclined lift, so that will give us a good future. Continue to be the partner of choice on stairlift in Europe. And in the patient care, on the room and continue to develop the long-term care segment as well as the acute care. It's just some small details, and we'll try to unveil more detail during our Investor Day on April 14 as well as our 5 years financial target. Third item, acquisition. We have demonstrated in the past that we can do 3, 4 acquisitions per year to bring additional sales and EBITDA. And now with liquidity of $312 million and a debt ratio of 1.03, we can easily invest $200 million over the next few years and maintain an EBITDA debt below 2, which has been always a comfort zone. With the best team ever, we feel quite good that we can apply the learning over the last 2 years towards integration to make it successful faster. The recent acquisition of Baxter Residential Elevator is a good example. Small tuck-in, but very strategic in a high potential area. It's one of the most area with the best housing start in North America. We will invest more to develop this area with our sales force, our marketing to become a dominating player in Texas. So welcome R&D and all the team in the Savaria family. To conclude, what allows us to beat each quarter after quarter in the last 2 years is the new Savaria One culture. It's part of our DNA, and it make it normal to always have continuous improvement and what we implement is sustainable. Once again, thanks to all the employees for their efforts over the last 2 years and looking forward to this new chapter of growth. Steve, financial, please. Stephen Reitknecht: Thank you, Sebastien, and good morning to everyone on the call. I'm now going to provide some further detail and commentary regarding our Q4 2025 financial results. Key highlights for the quarter include: firstly, our adjusted EBITDA for Q4 reached $51.3 million, which is our highest quarter ever and represents growth of almost 20% over prior year. The corresponding margin of 21.2% represents an increase of 200 basis points and brings our 2025 year-to-date margin to 20.4%. This EBITDA performance was driven by revenue growth of 8.3%, made up of almost 8% growth in Accessibility and 10% growth in Patient Care. And lastly, our Q4 ending leverage ratio was 1.03, which reflects a decrease of $71 million in our net debt versus the same time last year. So now going into more details. Consolidated revenues for the quarter were $241.8 million, an increase of $18.4 million versus last year. This was driven by organic growth of 5.2% as well as a positive foreign exchange impact of 2.5%. Our Q2 acquisition of Western Elevator also provided revenue growth of 0.6%. Our Accessibility segment saw growth of 7.7%, including growth of 7.2% coming from North America, combined with a strong growth of 9% in Europe. Europe recorded positive organic growth this quarter, and we feel that we have turned the corner there. Patient Care achieved a revenue growth of 10% in Q4 to bring the full year revenue growth number for that segment to almost 5%. Our consolidated gross margin for the quarter was 38.9% compared to 37.7% in 2024, and our operating income increased by 36.6%. This performance is mainly driven by the Accessibility segment due to continued improvements under Savaria One as well as operating leverage. As mentioned, adjusted EBITDA was $51.3 million for the quarter, marking our first quarter above the $50 million threshold. Adjusted EBITDA margin finished at 21.2% for the quarter versus 19.2% in Q4 2024. And the Accessibility segment finished at 23.4%, while Patient Care finished at 19.4%. Our full year adjusted EBITDA margin was 20.4%, which is above our goal of 20% that we set over 3 years ago. We also incurred $4.7 million in strategic initiative expenses for the quarter. This quarter marks the last quarter of consulting fees related to Savaria One. We also incurred $1.8 million of other expenses in this quarter, and that's related to optimization and one-off costs. Finance costs for the quarter were $4.8 million compared to $2.4 million last year. Interest on long-term debt decreased by $1.3 million due to an overall lower debt balance and a reduction in variable interest rates. We also incurred an unrealized foreign currency loss of $1.7 million compared to a gain at the same time last year. Net earnings was $20.5 million for the quarter compared to $14.3 million last year, which is an increase of 43%. And earnings per share was $0.28 for the quarter compared to $0.20 in Q4 2024. Now looking at cash flow and our balance sheet. Cash flow from operating activities in Q4 was $35 million, driven by the strong net earnings and also a reduction of working capital of $2.8 million for the quarter. CapEx was $6.8 million for the quarter and finished at $22 million for the year, which represents 2.4% of sales and is in line with our guidance. CapEx mainly includes for us a mixture of maintenance, new equipment and R&D costs. Our cash flow contributed to a repayment of debt of $45.2 million in Q4 and $75.2 million for all of 2025, improving our leverage ratio to 1.03 at year-end, as previously mentioned. We finished 2025 with our guidance largely achieved. As noted already, we surpassed our adjusted EBITDA goal of 20%, which we owe in large part to Savaria One and the transformation that has taken place across the company. This new profitability level is 100% structural and it was achieved without any favorable one-offs in our underlying numbers. Savaria One is a continuous improvement way of working that is now ingrained in our culture, and the next phase of our strategic plan will focus on accelerating growth by expanding our market opportunities, deepening customer relationships and further strengthening our competitive position. We look forward to sharing more details at our upcoming Investor Day in April. And with that, that completes my prepared remarks, and I'll turn the call over to JP to provide further details on Savaria One. JP? Jean-Philippe Montigny: Yes. Thank you, Steve, and good morning, everyone. So let me first talk about Savaria One to explain what happened in 2025, highlight some of the successes in Q4 and also give a heads up for what we expect in '26, and then I'll say a few words about Europe. 2025 was a year of transition for us on Savaria One because we really internalized the effort. What happened is we kept the rigorous cadence of implementation that we had for the past years. We started to generate more initiatives by ourselves. So a lot of the initiatives we implemented in last year have been developed in-house without any support. When I look back at the numbers, we implemented more than a dozen initiatives each month for -- with over 160 initiatives through the year. So it's really a lot of small efforts across the company that are paying off. We also continue to generate more gains each quarter than the quarter before, which means that we have an accelerating momentum. So nothing is slowing down on our side. Also important to note is that we refreshed our strategic plan last summer and early fall, and that's something we'll present in the next Investor Day in April. And therefore, we have a growth road map for the next 3 years, but also cost reduction initiatives that we continue to implement. So I think we had a very successful year in 2025 on Savaria One, and now we enter 2026 with at least 100 new initiatives generated for this year. So still a lot of work ahead of us. If I look at Q4 in particular, there were about 35 new initiatives implemented in the quarter, generating multiple millions of recurring savings. Some examples of what happened include the renegotiation of our main IT support and license contracts. We also improved our -- what we call the RMA process, which is the returns and warranty parts process to reuse more parts. We completed a number of procurement RFPs, which delivered savings across different categories. We also partnered with a distributor for small hardware across many of our facilities to reduce small hardware costs. Also, we had some additional successes with automation of our business processes and something that we've been working on for some time is getting our field engineers to be more efficiently dispatched and that continues to improve. And finally, we reduced our warehousing costs and also innovative in our factories. So still many improvements happening even in Q4 last year. So we're also already actioning some elements of our growth plan. So we did a lot of work last summer to look at how we can grow the business. But as you saw in the results in Q4, we're already accelerating our growth, including in Europe. So that's very positive. And one thing I want to highlight is our direct businesses are doing particularly well, and that's because we had a lot of innovation and improvements in those through Savaria One. So what to expect for 2026 for Savaria One. Like I mentioned, we entered the year with 2 things. First is about 100 new initiatives that we're going to implement this year, but we also have some tailwinds or momentum, if you call it this way, from all the initiatives we implemented in 2025. So if you remember, we had initiatives implemented through the year and some of them did not pay off fully in the year and continue to accrue benefits in the next year. So we -- I think we have good momentum starting this year. And of course, we'll have more details to unveil during the Investor Day. But rest assured, everything -- all the good habits we developed in Savaria One continue. In fact, we decided to keep the name Savaria One internally because we really believe this is the right way to talk about how we improve the business and work together to be one great efficient company. Maybe some news about Europe now. So I started a new role earlier this year officially, but I've been spending a lot of time in Europe in Q4 of last year. And the way I would think about it is that the last 2 years in Europe before I started, we were a lot about reorganizing the business and improving profitability. But somehow my arrival coincides with a changing in momentum and priorities for Europe, where we now have a good business that is very healthy and profitable, and our focus is about growing the top line. And as you saw in the Q4 results, we already have some good momentum there. So one thing that we did to make that happen and enable that going forward is we already reorganized the team in Europe to have a better allocation of responsibility between different dealers so we can have a better support for each of our growth vectors. We also spent a lot of time with our different dealers, which actually have great feedback about our company, about our support to those dealers and about our products. So that is already starting to show in the numbers, and we're quite optimistic about the potential there. We already had some good wins since I started of dealers switching their product portfolio to us. And again, it shows in the numbers that we had in Q4. Looking forward, 2026 is going to be a year of new product introductions and of innovations, especially in Europe, where we have new stairlifts that are coming, but also a new incline platform lift. We have a number of field trials going on right now. And hopefully, if everything goes well, this year, we'll have a number of those product introductions to come to mass market. Finally, we did something important for us, which is that we rebranded our operations in Europe to be under the name Savaria, which is a bit of a symbolic thing, but to say we are now Savaria in Europe. We're not just the different brands that we used to convey, but we're actually Savaria, which means we have the full product portfolio. We are the one-stop shop, and we're positioning ourselves to be the best partner for accessibility with our dealers. So this summarizes my update. Maybe I'll turn it back to you, Seb, for closing remarks. Sébastien Bourassa: Thank you very much, JP. Good detail. So before we turn to Q&A, I just want to say thank you very much to all the analysts. You do a very good job on your coverage. You know well the story of Savaria. So hopefully, today, you learn a few new things that you can continue your good work. So Daniel, I think we are ready for questions. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Michael Glen with Raymond James. Michael Glen: Maybe just to start, JP, you were talking about Europe. Can you just remind us -- I think it's been for the past 2 years that Europe on the top line has seen some pressure. Can you just remind us like the -- what were the main items that were overhanging top line in Europe and just the duration of those in total? Jean-Philippe Montigny: When you say overhanging, you mean that limited the growth of the top line, just to be sure? Michael Glen: Yes, exactly. I think there were some programs, some government programs that came off and then there was some -- you guys had exited some business, just those elements, the timing of those and the duration. Jean-Philippe Montigny: If you want exact timing and duration, maybe, Steve, you can complement. I can talk about the main ones, just to give you a flavor. One -- so if you think about top line, what happened is, first of all, we did some divestments in the car business, but that was a while back. So maybe Steve can add to this. We had some restructuring, if I can call it this way, for our business in Europe. So in some of our direct businesses, we decided to have maybe a more rigorous approach on pricing. We did the same in some of our dealer businesses. So in some markets, we had some contracts with, let's say, business partners and dealers that were unfavorable to us. We just held a stronger line on the partnership terms and sometimes on pricing, and that made some of them go to competition. We also had very aggressive competition in some markets, to be honest, so at the same time. So that's why we had limited or sometimes a flat growth in Europe. So I think that happened in -- through 2024 and maybe the first half of 2025, largely speaking. There were also some challenges with government programs. So in many of our markets in Europe, there is some form of government support for purchasing of our accessibility products. And sometimes, for example, in France and Italy, last year, there were some moment of stop and go. So the government would announce a program, for example, in France, but would not be ready to process the order. So that slows down the business or in Italy, they announced that the program would stop and then it started again. So there's a bit of stop and go like this happening. But I think that's just creating fluctuations quarter-to-quarter. But I think the fundamental thing we did in the last 2 years is more to be more rigorous about which business we want to have, be more disciplined about which partnerships and the pricing we want to have, and that resulted in limited growth since 2024. Steve, do you want to add anything on this? Stephen Reitknecht: I mean I think you covered it well, JP -- just adding that the biggest impact was really our focus on higher-margin sales. And we -- these efforts really kicked off with Savaria One. So I'd say, Michael, it's really been 2 years that sort of the end of 2023 and now lapping that at the end of 2025. So it's really been the last 2 years that we've seen sort of that decline now come to an end. Michael Glen: Okay. No, that's -- thanks for framing it that way. That's good information. And then can you also just provide an update on the capacity expansion in the U.S. and the expected timing for the go-to-market on the Made in the U.S.A. elevator product? Sébastien Bourassa: Okay. Well, very good question. Thanks for the interest. So yes, definitely, Greenville, if we go back in time in Q2 2025, we started to do some elevator -- home elevator in Greenville. I think right now, again, we are doing approximately 35%, 40% of our home elevator of Savaria brand. In Greenville, depending on where the end user is located, for sure, right now, we're still complying with UMSC. So that means we do not pay tariffs. So that's why we pick and choose. And I will say a Greenville expansion that we are actually have other permits that they are in place, they are digging and the new extension should be ready in October this year. So I think that will be a positive news to be able to continue to add some capacity for the future. Michael Glen: And with FedEx, when would you expect to -- will the elevator -- how much of the elevator at that point in time will be made in Greenville once that capacity expansion done? Sébastien Bourassa: We'll need to come back later with more details right now. Again, we are compliant. We do not pay tariffs. So I think this is why we started with one line. And as the expansion gets ready, we'll be able to expand with more for the future. Michael Glen: And Steve, can you just remind us of how CapEx trends next year and what we should expect quarter-to-quarter? Stephen Reitknecht: Yes. So the Greenville obviously is a one-off project for us. It's an own building. That started already. It's -- we have shovels in the ground already in 2026. So the work has actually started. We're going to see this probably come live in Q4. So we're going to see the spend or the CapEx investment over the next few quarters. We do have an increase in our CapEx budget this year, but we have tightened up some other areas. So we're going to be slightly over our 2.5% of sales, but this is sort of a one-off project investment that we're treating that way. Michael Glen: So would it be $25 million in CapEx? I'm just trying to get a number? Stephen Reitknecht: For 2026, our number is probably going to be more in the 2.5% to 3% of sales. Operator: Our next question comes from Derek Lessard with TD Cowen. Derek Lessard: Congratulations on a great year, Sebastien, to you and your team. Maybe just talking about the business as a whole. Curious how you're thinking about it and without stealing any of your thunder coming this April, but is it more -- and you did allude to accelerated top line growth, but can we expect some margin expansion in 2026 as well? Sébastien Bourassa: Very good question, Derek. So for sure, we need to wait a bit more to get further detail. But definitely, as JP said, things are sustainable. We continue to generate new ideas. And when this new idea, it's not always about money, but often there's some EBITDA impact. So definitely, I would be disappointed if we don't continue to improve the margin this year. Let's call it this way. For sure, we always have to be careful if we do, example, midsized acquisition that could bring down the margins for a certain time. But on the legacy business, on the full Savaria, I'm very positive as the environment change that we should be able to improve the margins. Derek Lessard: Okay. And then maybe that's a good segue. My next question was on M&A. Curious about the pipeline and maybe some of the opportunities that you're seeing in the market, whether it's new categories that you guys want to get into? Or is it may be related to incremental manufacturing capacity that you might need? Sébastien Bourassa: Good question. So for sure, again, we have always done M&A in the past, and we like to do M&A because for us, to acquire one of our existing dealer is very natural. And again, we proved it last year with Western, this year with Baxter. So this is good because we are vertically integrated. That gives us a chance to invest a bit more in the local market to accelerate the sales. Also, when we bring in new products, example, Matot when we bought that last year, that's always good because that brings new products to our dealers so that we can continue to be the #1 choice in the industry. So definitely, there's the 2 type of acquisitions we like to do, products or dealer that can help us be better on the local market. Now we are lucky. We have the right liquidity -- but for sure, we always remain disciplined, okay? We don't want to just do acquisition to do acquisition. We have to do the one that will be the most beneficial for the group, we have a good future. Derek Lessard: Absolutely. Okay. And maybe I'll throw one last one in here for JP. Just maybe talk about your full circle transition from consultant to a leadership role in Europe and how that came about? Jean-Philippe Montigny: What's your question specifically? Do you want to -- I'm happy to answer, but what are you thinking? Derek Lessard: No, I was just curious on why -- one, the transition and is it because you saw -- or what opportunities you saw in the role in Europe in particular? Jean-Philippe Montigny: Well, just I'll try to answer your question. Thanks for asking. For me, the role in Europe is a natural professional progression for me because like joining Savaria as Chief Transformation Officer, I got to know the whole business, and I learned skills that I did not have as a consultant. So I was building on my skill set, but expanding it. And leading the business in Europe is a personal professional challenge for me. So I'm learning a new role. But I feel like I'm also very well equipped for it as a true Savaria One. I did spend a lot of time in Europe. I know the business quite well. I speak multiple languages. I studied and worked in Europe a lot in my previous life. So I think I'm very happy here. I'm having a great time, and I think it's benefiting the business also that I bring some of the Savaria North American culture to Europe, so I can really bridge the gap there. So I think, yes, that's how I think about it. So it's great for me. It's great for the business, I believe. And hopefully, we have a lot of success with me playing this role. Operator: Our next question comes from Frederic Tremblay with Desjardins Capital Markets. Frederic Tremblay: Just maybe coming back on the CapEx and beyond 2026, not looking for specific numbers, but just wondering if the growth plans that you're about to introduce, will that require incremental CapEx? Or do you feel like the growth opportunity can be supported with -- largely with the existing infrastructure? Stephen Reitknecht: Yes. No, I mean, we're definitely going to talk more about this at the Investor Day. But generally speaking, we have enough capacity, especially with what we're building at Greenville to facilitate the growth that we have planned for the next few years. You never know what could come through M&A too as far as footprint is concerned, but we have enough -- especially with the Greenville expansion, we're going to have enough footprint and capacity to achieve our growth plan. So we are going to have a little bit of additional expenditure this year, but we're going to be back down this year being 2026, but we're going to be back down in line with our 2% to 2.5% of sales for 2027. That's our plan. A big part of our CapEx spend, as a reminder, is our R&D. That continues to be an area of focus for us where we do invest. It's roughly half of that CapEx spend on a normal annual year. So it won't be not exactly the same in 2026, but for 2025 and 2027, typically, R&D and intangibles sort of half of where we spend the money. And that's important to us to make sure we have a robust R&D pipeline of new products hitting the market. So while it can be a sizable investment, it's a critical area of expertise for us and a critical competitive advantage, I'm trying to say. Sébastien Bourassa: Okay. And if I may, Steve. So I think, again, for us, Fred, we have pushed a lot of our factories in the last 2 years to improve, to have the best machine to be the most productive. And right now, we have unlocked so much capacity in the last few years, but to continue to be the best is very, very important for us. And R&D, we have 62 people. I think we have done a lot of reorganization, new process in the company. And you will see that in the future, we'll be able to improve existing products, launch some new one and R&D has to be part of the growth plan. And I think we are pretty in good shape across all our different segments. Frederic Tremblay: That's great. I was hoping to get maybe a bit of an update on market conditions in North America. We're obviously seeing home construction activity is still pretty slow, but you guys keep growing at a nice pace in North America in Accessibility segment. So wondering if you could comment just generally on the market and sort of what Savaria has been doing to win market share and keep growing nicely in that region. Sébastien Bourassa: Definitely we have some interesting slide to show at our Investor Day about the size of the market, the opportunity. But again, with the aging of the population, after the densities in the city that town house are going up, okay, that's really helping elevators. And right now, not enough people put a home elevator into their housing, okay? So if we continue the good work with architect, contractor, designer to develop this market, I think that that's enough opportunity to offset some of the slowdown you might have right and left. Example, Texas, we talked about that's an opportunity for us. So I think on our side, we continue to be busy. And when we look at other products like stairlift, it is a necessity. When your bedroom is on the second floor, you cannot go up and down. No, you put a stairlift, it is very affordable. And in some places in Europe, yes, you can have some subsidies. So that's -- again, we have the right demographic to help us. Frederic Tremblay: Great. And then maybe last one for me. Just on dealer acquisitions. Can you remind us of like the drivers of accelerating the growth of those businesses after you acquired them? I think typically, you'd expect the organic growth of those businesses to accelerate after you've acquired them. So maybe briefly run through some of the key aspects that you guys focus on after acquisitions? Sébastien Bourassa: For sure, it's a good question. Right now, we own 30 direct store. And I think we -- there's a lot of good place that we do very good business. And at the end, we're able to learn from each other and to bring it to the dealer after the acquisition to enable to invest in the business, to generate more leads to again push with the sales team to meet more architect, contractor. We believe in showroom. So very often, we'll make sure we have a good representation, a nice room that we can bring a professional and customer into our showroom to see what is the best we can do. So I think that's really all the knowledge that we had in the past that when a dealer wants to sell or wants to retire, we are a very natural buyer. Right now, approximately 33% of our sales of accessibility are direct. The rest is dealer, but we are good at it. Operator: Our next question comes from Zachary Evershed with National Bank Capital Markets. Zachary Evershed: Congrats on the quarter. So most of my questions have been answered. Maybe just one. You mentioned a 5-year target to be revealed on April 14. Will we be getting shorter-term guidance as well for 2026? Sébastien Bourassa: I think it's the job of the analyst to do short-term guidance, Zach. But no, we try to -- I think we have demonstrated in the last 2 years, what we are capable to do and what we do is sustainable. I think we'll be able to give enough color at the Investor Day on the 5-year target that people will be able to put a number by themselves for the yearly guidance. No, we want to go on a broader period because we're in the business for the mid, long-term, not for the short-term. Zachary Evershed: Makes sense. And then actually, just one other one. You previously mentioned that some parts of Europe are already exceeding the 20% margin target while some are dragging. Can you tell us broadly what those units are doing differently versus the ones still under the target? Or is it primarily a function of the subsidies that are available in those geographies? Sébastien Bourassa: I think just one -- I'm not sure where you got this comment. But I think if we look at our detailed MD&A, I think we see that the accessibility is at 23%. So again, it's a mix of North America and Europe. So I think we're probably closer to the 20% than we were in the past, okay? But I don't think we detail exactly per location or per country what's happening. But maybe some of the good things that we are doing, JP, you want to highlight a few items, what we're doing good for Europe to improve our profitability? Jean-Philippe Montigny: Yes. So the main things in the last few years has been the efficiency of our factories and our field operations. So in our factories, there are a number of initiatives to reduce, let's say, the number of people we have for the same output by automating some industrial processes we have. So that's been very effective. We also deployed a lot of lean, let's say, lean improvements to our factories. So I think that's where we have a lot of people in the factories and there we became much more efficient. The other place where we have a lot of people is in the field operations for installation and servicing. And for that, we did not only improve the quality, let's say, of our work because we had a lot of training and we elevated the performance of our team by capability building, but also we deployed better systems where the dispatching, for example, is more efficient. So that's something we keep working on, but it's already much better than it was. So through this, we improved the profitability quite a bit. And last thing, as I mentioned before, as we became a bit more let's say, rigorous and strategic in how we price and manage the pricing. So as a result of all these things, we improved our profitability overall. Operator: Our next question comes from Justin Keywood with Stifel. Justin Keywood: Just on the Baxter Residential Elevator acquisition announced early in February. I realize it's a tuck-in deal, but are you able to provide any metrics around the profitability of that asset and the opportunity to expand margins and some of the integration activities that have been successful with some of Savaria's other acquisitions? Sébastien Bourassa: Thank you, Justin. So yes, I would say probably in the low teen, the profitability. But I think the success of Savaria is always the vertical integration from the dealer to the factory, to the subcomponents, example, in Mexico. I think all this make it successful. Again, we see with Baxter a good opportunity. Again, it's a small business unit. So I think we will add some volume and develop some area that will be -- that will continue to help for the success. But I think that's an area that we believe we can be much better and that's why we did the acquisition. Justin Keywood: Great. That's helpful. And how did the acquisition come about? Was this a cultivated opportunity? Just if you have any background on that. Sébastien Bourassa: I think at this stage, most of the dealers know that we are a natural buyer. So I think it goes to different conversation with their President right and left, that Nicolas, corporate development. So definitely, we know which dealer might be selling in the next few years and typically, on the list and when they are ready, they call us. So that's a bit of how it works. Justin Keywood: Great. Good to hear. And I had a question on foreign exchange. It was quite impactful in the quarter. I don't recall it being impactful historically. Just wondering if there's a strategy around managing FX risk with hedges or if there were any unique factors for this quarter impacting the results? Stephen Reitknecht: We do have some hedges in place, Justin. So we do hedge some of our debt. What happened this quarter was unrealized loss on the U.S. dollar. So some of our mainly related to U.S. cash and to U.S. receivables that when they were converted back to Canadian, just the change in the FX rate quarter-over-quarter created that loss versus the same time last year. You remember the U.S. dollar was going the other way, so quite a bit. So I mean, we do have some hedging in place, but we're going to see these types of impacts on a quarterly basis. I think this one is just more pronounced based on the change in the U.S. dollar over the last short-term. Operator: Our next question comes from Razi Hasan with Paradigm Capital. Razi Hasan: You spoke about operating leverage in the quarter. Could you maybe talk about future ability to capture operating leverage and where that comes from? Stephen Reitknecht: Yes. I mean we're -- we've talked a lot about continued improvements that have come under Savaria One, and it's a new way of working and a new culture here. But something that is just going to happen naturally without any effort is going to be some of that operating leverage. We -- I mentioned the capacity that we have at our sites. A significant amount of our cost base is fixed. So being able to put through more revenue with the same cost base, we're going to see that leverage come through in all of our regions and segments. So we're going to see that in Patient Care and Accessibility. We are making this one-off investment in Greenville, but we feel -- we know that we have enough capacity to service our long-term growth plans. So Razi, we're going to see this come through. We saw some this quarter. We're going to see this continue over the next few years. Razi Hasan: Okay. Great. And then maybe one for JP. Just if we take a step back a bit, could you maybe provide some details on growth rates for the elevator market in Europe? Just overall, how do you see that market growing? Or how has it been growing? And how do you see it growing going forward? Jean-Philippe Montigny: Just to clarify, we're currently not playing in the elevator market in Europe, except for Vuelift, right, you know this. So that's the context. Now the growth rate, we will present that in the Investor Day what we think are the growth rates per market, but I think it's in the range of 4% to 5%, if I remember, I'm going from memory, but it's in that range. Most of our markets are in that or slightly higher range of growth rates. So that's what -- yes. But maybe hold that question until the Investor Day, and you'll get a more granular view of all the markets we operate in. Razi Hasan: Fair enough. That's helpful. And then maybe just lastly, I'm not sure if it was answered earlier or asked, but just thoughts on priorities for capital deployment for 2026. Stephen Reitknecht: Yes, I can take this one, Razi. I mean we're -- we have been delevering over the last couple of years. We're going to continue to do that. We are building the balance sheet for -- mainly for acquisition growth and for acquisition opportunities to make sure we have the funds available to execute transactions as they arise. So we are at 1x leverage. Our sweet spot is around that 2 mark or below that 2 mark. So Sebastien mentioned in his comments that there's $200 million available for acquisitions over the next few years. I mean this is going to continue to expand, and we're going to -- the idea is that we're going to be self-funding acquisitions. So our dividend policy is relatively stable. We're not looking at buybacks in the short-term, and we talked a little bit about CapEx already, but the main goal right now is to continue to repay debt and use our revolver to execute on acquisitions when they arise. Operator: Our next question comes from Jonathan Goldman with Scotiabank. Jonathan Goldman: So really nice organic growth. Maybe we can just focus on accessibility, both North America and Europe. Can you provide some color on how booking trends and backlog have trended so far in Q1? I guess if you want to talk about directionally, has the momentum from Q4 spilled over into 2026? Sébastien Bourassa: Okay. So I don't think we have retailer backlog in Q4. I think we had a good start of the year. And typically, Q1, there's a bit of deadline in North America for some price increase. So that usually give us a healthy backlog. And I think in terms of stairlift, we are busy. So no, I'm quite comfortable with the way we have exited the year that we have some backlog remaining to hopefully have a good Q1. Jonathan Goldman: Okay. And maybe switching to Europe, the idea of kind of being a one-stop shop. Can you remind us of what the current product mix is in Europe right now? And I guess related to that, could you give us an update on the dealer uptake and reception of the Luma? Sébastien Bourassa: Yes. So maybe I will start and JP will complete. So for sure in Europe, we are firstly the stairlift organization. That has been the bread and butter of Handicare for many, many years. And then don't forget, we have the Garaventa brand in Europe, where we have the incline platform. We have been a strong player in incline platform as well. We brought the Luma last year. So for sure, Luma, again, it takes time, but it's one of those we put the seeds for the mid, long-term because people before they buy example, 10, they do and they put in the showroom, then they do one of the customer. So it takes some time. But definitely, there's a lot of traction. People like the products. So I think we'll get a good future. Again, we have the Vuelift in Europe. We have some short VPL called them out. So definitely, we are starting to have a better picture of the one-stop shop and the dealer appreciate that. So I think that would be good. Maybe JP, you want to complete something on that? Jean-Philippe Montigny: Well, I think you said it well, Sebastien, but I think it's recent that we bring almost all the products. So the one big piece that's missing is home elevators because we have the Vuelift, but we don't have the other category killers like the Eclipse, for example, but for everything else, we are there. But for us, to be transparent, for example, selling incline platform lifts, vertical platform lifts has always been something that we existed through Garaventa, but we still have room to grow there because we're, for example, educating even still today some of our historical Handicare dealers to sell those products, okay? So at least we made progress in that regard in the last few years, but there is still work for us to do and room for us to cross-sell our different products to our different historical dealers in Europe. Jonathan Goldman: Okay. That's good color. And maybe just one more. On the Patient Care, the organic growth was really strong in the quarter, and you were lapping also like a really strong comp as well. Was there any onetime projects in there or anything that would make that growth look unusual? Sébastien Bourassa: About patient Care, we have to be careful. It's always a bit lumpy from one quarter to the other, because of big project, as you said, and sometimes there's some deadline with some funding with the government. But on our side, we try to get more at a year versus a quarter for the Patient Care. I think last year, we finished in the low 5% of growth. I think it is below what we want, but I think this is how we should look at it. Operator: Our next question is a follow-up from Michael Glen with Raymond James. Michael Glen: I'm just -- I apologize if I missed this, but did you indicate what the organic -- like the excluding ForEx organic growth rate was in Europe for the quarter? Jean-Philippe Montigny: Steve? Stephen Reitknecht: Yes. So we don't typically disclose that number, but we had low single digit -- in the quarter, we had low single-digit organic growth in Europe. They had a very large positive FX impact. So it's roughly around the 9% split roughly around 2% organic and 7% FX, but the pound and euro strengthened versus the CAD. Michael Glen: Okay. And that -- is it safe to assume that, that would have been negative through the first 9 months of the year? Stephen Reitknecht: No, it wasn't negative. It's been positive for most of the year. Michael Glen: Okay. And then just the tax rate next year or this year '2026? Stephen Reitknecht: Yes. And so maybe your question is coming from our lower tax rate that we experienced in Q4. For next year, we're expecting to be back in the range of 26%, 26.5%. There were some positive impacts in Q4 that you'll see. I think our rate for the quarter was about 17.5% and we had some positive adjustments on earnings in some countries that previously were experiencing losses. So we have carryforward losses in some of those countries that where we're now making income that we apply those losses against the current income so that the effective tax rate is lower. So there was a bit of a one-off adjustment. But going forward, I think if you're modeling, keep 26.5%. Operator: I'm showing no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn it back to Sebastien Bourassa for closing remarks. Sébastien Bourassa: Thank you very much, Daniel. So thanks for all the good questions. It seems a lot of good interest this morning. So again, I'm very happy of the results, very proud of that. And I think it shows that we are in a good industry. We continue to do the right thing, Savaria One learning we did in the last 2 years. So quite comfortable and excited to present to you the next chapter of growth in April. And I remember, if you have interest to be at the Investor Day in April in Brampton, Toronto, please register so that we have enough chair and enough sandwich for lunch. So thank you very much, Daniel. See you next quarter. Operator: This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.
Nicolaas Muller: Good morning to everyone. Welcome here to all those present, the investment community, our own Implats people and for everyone who's dialed in as well, welcome. Always an honor to represent a very talented Implats team. Extraordinary times that we are living in. We had a presentation from one of the consulting firms the other day, and it was very clear that we are going through a shift in global order. It's a new era that is being introduced. We're seeing changes in international relationships, institutions, NATO, trade paths are changing, supply chains are changing. The move from globalization to multipolarity is accelerating. We just recently this weekend seen a new event unfold in the Middle East. And so all of this creates a number of consequences, one of which is uncertainty in future supply, particularly in natural resources and in our case, critical minerals and metals. And critical can be defined in many ways. But one is, if it's used in critical industries like in Europe, the auto industry is a very important employer. It affects politics. And so without our metals, there is a risk for the industry. But then also our concentrated supply globally with 80% of the world's PGMs being produced from Southern Africa and the uniqueness of our metals, as has been said many times over the past. And so given these pressures and the uncertainty in supply chains, where will this metal come from in the past, there's a major topic of critical minerals and the hoarding of that, we've seen, as an example, the $12 billion evolve program announced by the U.S. We certainly are having similar discussions with other jurisdictions or representatives of industry in other jurisdictions where similar concerns are being echoed where there's an engagement to determine the extent to which relationships can be formed to provide security for long-term supply. In addition to that, we've seen the flow out of the U.S. dollar towards hard assets such as gold. We've seen record gold prices and other precious metals like platinum has now followed suit. So that has in part been the driving force behind the extraordinary rise of the PGM dollar prices. On top of that, if you look at the market fundamentals, we do see continual downward revisions in the EV penetration rates. We have witnessed in recent times a shift in priority in decarbonization in general, particularly in the U.S. But we have seen relaxation in terms of expectations of where the world wants to be in terms of, for instance, the percentage of fleet contribution of electric vehicles by certain dates 2030 and 2035. And so that has resulted in an increase in demand for our metals. We have seen an increase in demand from Chinese jewelry and certain industrial customers as well. On the other side, we do have certain supply risks being acknowledged by the market. We have not seen the historical levels of investment in future supply. I had occasion to sit with the four CEOs -- the other four CEOs of PGMs. And even in February, we were unanimous that it's not the right time to consider large-scale greenfield capital projects at this stage. And so if you look at the global order shift in world uncertainty combined with shifts in the fundamental markets that has given cause to the increase in -- sorry, on the wrong slide, metal prices. As a consequence of where -- of the nature of the major forces, it is our contention that the price support that we're currently seeing is not a short-term one. This is not as a consequence of Donald Trump. It's the Trump effect. It will outlast the current administration. It's not reliant on who wins the next election. It's uncertainty -- once you've asked these questions, those questions remain relevant and you have to organize your country, your region very differently for a generation to follow. So it is our belief that this current upswing in prices will remain longer than has been the case in the past where we saw relatively short summers following very long winters. And so if you look at our results, it's dominated by two major points. One, the production performance, both at mine operational level as well as in the processing division and what we sold, it's more or less in line broadly. I mean, as I said in the video, if you look at all of those numbers, it's like 0% or plus 1% is around about there. So that's the one thing. The business has been in good hands. We have navigated through this period in a very stable fashion. The one red flag that we need to be cautious of is the increase in operating costs. Our unit cost increased by 11%. There are reasons for that, that will be addressed by Meroonisha and our COO, but it is something that we have to be aware of. So I think cost management is something that we have to take into consideration and the operating cost specifically. And then, of course, the other dominant factor has been this 40% increase in the rand basket price. And if you look through all of the financials, the entire industry is looking a lot more attractive than what it did in the previous period. Given the fact that we are where we are in terms of metal prices and then increase in EBITDA and revenue and cash flow, it does provide us with a really important opportunity, and that is to change our strategic focus in the company. During the lean years, we are very defensive. We focus on cost control, capital management. We even go as far as organizing or reorganizing labor and even do things like portfolio reviews to understand or to have a strategy if there is a further decline in prices. So at the bottom, that talks about an inflection point. So if I look at where the company is positioned now, the focus is different. We now have the opportunity to focus on how to strengthen the company. And our opportunities, there's like a funnel of a pipeline of opportunities, starting off at the most basic level, Patrick and his team with the support of Meroonisha and the rest of the executive have already implemented through Board support a number of early action programs to initiate life extension projects. They've occurred at -- two Rivers, at Marula, at some of the shafts at Rustenburg. One of them has already been converted to a fully fledged capital application that was approved, and that's at 14 Shaft for roughly ZAR 1 billion. And that will provide us with life extension project. I am very confident that some of these other early works programs that were initiated will result in approval of additional capital. And based on Patrick's information, roughly, we will look at a 3-year extension to our current steady-state 3.5 million ounces per year production profile. Thereafter, we will require additional initiatives. So that's the one part. The second part is that we do believe that there is room for optimizing of the industry through various actions. One, there is the sharing of infrastructure. We are constrained at the moment with our processing capacity, and we have excess ounces. But in future, I mean we do see a declining production profile. So that will open up some processing capacity to share in the industry. And we do believe it's critically important for Southern Africa to protect local beneficiation of the metals. And so I think that the opportunity to do so will increase as we go forward. Then there are the normal cross-boundary opportunities that always exist. And I can think about a few, but let me just raise one. And I'm not -- please don't interpret this as me announcing any action. I'm just saying one of the areas that we have battled with in the industry is the Eastern Limb as an example. So if you reimagine what the Eastern Limb could look like if it's operating as a greater unit, I think you can share concentrator capacity with mining capacity, but it will provide you with better muscle to create a more attractive area to get skill better -- a better range of skills in the area and to do better at your socioeconomic contribution to increase the license to operate. So I think there is an opportunity. If I look at Zim, there are a number of emergent producers, GDI, Karo's and so on. So I think that there is an opportunity not only for Implats, but for the industry to reimagine how it operates and to optimize to increase further efficiencies as an industry. And I do think Implats is very well positioned. I mean, we are represented in all the major producing -- PGM producing areas other than Russia. So I mean, we are in South Africa, Western Limb, Northern Limb, Eastern Limb, as well as in the Great Dyke as well as North America. So I do think that we're very well positioned. We do have a good track record in constructive partnerships, toll arrangements, joint ventures. We have been operating in Africa where we focus on long-term strategic relationships. So that's something that we think is quite valuable in considering future options. And then I mean, we can ask more questions about it, but then there would be the questions about greenfields, the Waterberg and the big other thing. As I said earlier, we remain cautious about introducing major new ounces to the market at this point. So we do not expect to make any announcements about that soon. On that note, I would like to hand over to our esteemed COO, Mr. Patrick Morutlwa. Patrick Morutlwa: Thank you, Nico. Yes. Good morning, everyone. It's really a privilege for me to present our group results. And I'll start with safety, health and environment, which underpins everything we do in our group. So for the past 18 months, we have been implementing our 8-point safety plan. And I'm glad to say it is starting to deliver a step change in safety that we've actually envisaged. And this is seen in some of the milestones we've achieved for the period. Our mining and processing division for the first time for the period actually went fatal-free. Similarly, so Rustenburg, one of our biggest operations achieved 5 million without the free shift in the period. And also, if you look at our key risks: fall of ground, winches and machinery, we saw a 12% reduction in injuries, which is all symbolizing and strengthening of career controls in those areas. So while we are building on this momentum, we are equally humbled and also grounded because of the two losses of life we incurred, one in the period and one post the period. So we are reflecting, we are learning, and we will be taking these lessons to make sure that we implement no repeat solutions. So we don't repeat this type of incidents. On the environmental side, our ESG programs continue to receive global recognition. As you've seen in the video, for the fifth year running, we have been included in S&P's Sustainability Yearbook. And during all the same period, you have seen that we have not recorded any Level 3 to Level 5 environmental incident. So we operate sustainably because this is the way we express our values of care, respect and deliver. And lastly, on the health side, also our health programs continue to deliver positive results. Our HIV and TB prevalence are well below the national averages. So the next thing for us for health really is to focus on mental health and psychological health of our employees because healthy employees are engaged, they are safe, but they are also productive. Then moving over to production. We have actually delivered a steady and consistent production, which was really buoyed by second quarter, which was much stronger than the first half. So what you also see that this has happened despite three of our operations having some serious strategic shift. At Marula, we focus on development. At Canada, we continue with the high-grade strategy as previously communicated. And lastly, Rustenburg 3 of our shafts are nearing end of the economic life. So we had to deal with labor movement in those shafts. So going forward, in terms of processing, we also have seen strong performance. And this is also on the back of the work we have done. We have upgraded our BMR at Springs, and we have also done some design and maintenance work in Rustenburg furnaces. So you will see that for our BMR, we have actually a record milling and also for this period, Rustenburg smelter performed very well above budget. And as a result, we were able to release 20,000 ounces of excess inventory. Usually, our release is gravitated towards H2. But because of this good work, we are able to release 20,000 ounces. Our furnace 4 have gone down for maintenance way ahead of schedule. We should be able to restart now in April. And as a result, very confident to release 100,000 of excess inventory as promised at the start of the year. As Nico spoke about the cost, we were about 5.5% above the mine inflation. This was a decision to strategically invest in our infrastructure, particularly some conveyor belt in Zimplats and also improving our maintenance fleet across the group. This will set us well for the future to make sure that we can maintain the current production, but we also deliver into the future expectations. So as I stand here, I can safely say we will meet our guidance on production, on cost and capital for the year. Thank you very much, and I'll hand over to Meroonisha. Meroonisha Kerber: Thank you, Patrick. And I'm checking the time still good morning, everyone. So clearly, the steady operational performance that you've seen enabled us to fully benefit from the 40% improvement in pricing. Let me just get there. Okay. So you'll see EBITDA up at ZAR 18.1 billion, headline earnings, ZAR 9.3 billion. But I think what is noteworthy is that we did not have any unusual non-recurring items in our earnings for the period. As Patrick and Nico spoke about, given the improved pricing and profitability, we were allowed to reinvest in the business. So you'll see some of that in our unit costs, where we took the opportunity with the improved cash flow to spend more on infrastructure and maintenance. And of course, some of that contributed to the 11% increase that you've seen. If you -- and that is particularly at two of our biggest operations, our Rustenburg operations and Zimplats. If you look at free cash flow for the period, we generated significant -- there was a significant improvement from ZAR 600 million in the previous year, up to ZAR 7 billion. And this was driven largely by the improved profitability, but some of this was offset by the buildup in working capital. I think what's important to note is that at the end of the period, there was an additional tax payment that was due of ZAR 1.4 billion, and we made this payment in January, and it basically was a top-up to our provisional tax. If you recall, there was quite a steep increase in prices in the month of December. And clearly, we worked our forecast that were done in November that didn't fully take into consideration the rapid improvement in pricing. If you look at the balance sheet, we used the opportunity of the improved free cash flow to repay some debt. So we repaid about ZAR 800 million worth of debt, mostly at Zimplats, and our gross debt declined from ZAR 1.8 billion down to ZAR 1 billion. Another very important thing we did in the period was our group revolving credit facility was almost -- I think it would have expired now in February. So we took the opportunity to refinance it in quarter 2. And basically, we upsized it from the -- just under ZAR 8 billion to ZAR 14 billion, and we managed to do this on very competitive terms. The new revolving credit facility is valid for -- well, extends for 3 years, and we've got two -- the reason that I mentioned the RCF is we've made some changes to our disclosure on net cash. So in line with the new RCF, we amended the disclosure and definition of net cash to align to the RCF. What this meant is that, we now exclude the deferred revenue from the gold stream from the net cash balance, but also we are not now including the cash held at Zimplats in local currency in our cash balance. And that really is because of the fact that, that currency is not -- you cannot use it outside of Zimbabwe. So on this basis, our net cash got adjusted -- our net cash increased from ZAR 8.1 billion to ZAR 12.1 billion. And with the undrawn revolving credit facility of ZAR 14 billion, we closed the year with headroom of just -- liquidity headroom of just under ZAR 29 billion. I think before I go on to the next slide, I just want to point out a few things. If I look forward, I think the company is really well poised to take advantage of the favorable metal price environment. And there's a few factors that I would like to highlight. Firstly, you've seen sustained operational delivery, and I have no doubt that the team will continue to deliver into H2. We have got a track record of good cost discipline, and it is something that will receive focus. But that -- but I think our teams will deliver on keeping the cost tight. Our capital intensity has normalized, but we've got the ability and the capacity to further strengthen the business and invest in progressing our life of mine projects. And I think the other point, which is very important, is that we have expanded processing capacity and the excess inventory. And I don't think we must underestimate the flexibility this gives us to manage any operational challenges that we might have along the way, and it does support free cash flow generation. If I can then move on to capital allocation. So after repaying about ZAR 800 million worth of debt and making provision for the ZAR 1.4 billion tax payment, the Board declared a dividend of ZAR 4.10 per share or ZAR 3.7 billion. This represents a free cash -- sorry, a payout ratio of 60%, about 60% of adjusted free cash flow, which is double our minimum policy. And if you take into consideration the tax payment that was due, it's about 80% of the available free cash flow. As a result of, obviously, prior capital allocation decisions as well as completing a number of our strategic projects, there was limited capital that was allocated to growth and investment. I think what the capital allocation should demonstrate is that overall, we have maintained our disciplined and consistent approach to capital allocation, and we have prioritized returns to shareholders. Lastly, as Patrick has alluded to, we will obviously end with the market guidance. We're very pleased that we keep our guidance intact. And I believe given where the business is, we are well on track to deliver within this guidance. So with that, I'd like to hand over to Johan. Johan Theron: All right. Thanks to the team. Happy to take some questions as normal. I think let's start in the room. There will be some roving mics. We will pass that along. Just for the benefit of people that might not see on the screen or the camera, just start just to raise your name, just so that everybody knows who's asking the question. We've got a couple of hands up here. Chris, let's start there with you. Christopher Nicholson: It's Chris Nicholson from RMB Morgan Stanley. A couple of questions, if I may. So you've provided a fairly optimistic outlook on the pricing environment. Maybe a bit of a surprise that you didn't accelerate, maybe some of the capital projects to the same extent. So here you're doing some early work. Could you maybe give us further details specifically on Marula? Is this akin to what was previously known as Phase 2? And what type of mine life extension you're looking to get there? Similarly at Impala Rustenburg, 14 Shaft and some of the other extensions, how long are you looking to extend mine life by there? And then kind of linked to that, should we expect ZAR 9 billion of CapEx going forward? Is that a good level into these prices? And then just second question, again, optimistic price outlook. I think some might be slightly disappointed with the dividend. You've seen another 2 months of very strong prices since year-end. Just thought process as to why you need to hold too much cash on balance sheet again. Nicolaas Muller: Okay. I think, Pat, if you don't mind. The first question is about the life mine extension projects, the specifics and that's what they are going to cost and the expected life extension. Patrick Morutlwa: Yes. Let me start first with Rustenberg. As Nico said, we have already approved 14 Shaft extension. It is taking the existing decline into the 18 shaft area. It will give us 4 additional years, which will maintain the current production for another 4 years. It is about ZAR 877 million. The early capital was approved the last quarter, so work is continuing there. Then again, there, we have Rustenberg 20 shaft, where we're now taking 20 shaft into the Styldrift ground. So that work, we're still validating the feasibility study. It should be coming to the board somewhere in August. So I cannot share the numbers now, but it will also extend life approximately 5 to 6 years there. Then the last one is BRPM North shaft, is just taking the existing decline further. So that one, it will give us a much more long life, anything between 10 and 15 years. And again, there early capital approved, so we're executing the final capital numbers not yet finalized. Then moving over to Marula. Marula Phase 2 was closed given that at the time we executing that project, the price did climate. So as part of cost preservation, we did stop that. But now with the new prices, we have restarted the work, approved ZAR 40 million of early capital. So it's not going to be the same as Phase 2. So we're actually doing small chunks. So this project is now divided in four phases. Phase 1 is taking the 11 shaft 2 level down, and there will be a big chunk of capital to secure infrastructure then further chunks of capital to take both Driekop and Clapham down. So we have designed in such a way that we've got proper off ramps through the price plan, we should be able to stop. So the first phase, I spoke about should give us additional 5 to 6 years on top of the existing 6-year life left at Marula. So that's more or less high level on this project that we have undertaken. Nicolaas Muller: And Patrick, the ZAR 9 billion capital, is that a fair expectation or... Patrick Morutlwa: All right. Thank you for that. So you remember, we gave you between ZAR 8 billion and ZAR 9 billion. With this bolt-on project, you can add a maximum ZAR 2 billion. So I think it makes ZAR 10.5 billion, because we will start very slow and just ramp up a bit. But I don't see it going beyond ZAR 11 billion, really. Nicolaas Muller: Chris, I want to -- sorry, I just want to add -- actually, maybe repeat Patrick's words, but in a different form because you asked is it Phase 2? And he said, no. I think it is. But the application of how we get there is different. In fact, the first time we did, we had a ZAR 5.5 billion single project and we had agreed off-ramp points whereas this time, we are saying there's no single ZAR 5.5 billion project. There are going to be a sequence of smaller projects. And so we will have like a consolidated assessment for the entire thing, which will be based on the valuation, but the implementation will have to meet certain performance hurdles as we go along for the next phase to be implemented. So essentially, it's Phase 2 wrapping different color. Patrick Morutlwa: And if I may just add one thing. Nico earlier said that with this project, they will push the 3.5 million ounces back out another 3 years. In addition to that, the old profile within 10 years' time, if we did nothing, we're going to lose 50% of our production. Now this project have also helped to slow down the decline. So within the same 10 years, if we do all this project, we will only be dropping by 15%. So they do actually extend life and the angle of decline. Nicolaas Muller: And sorry, I'm again butting in. But I think Tim will kill us if we don't talk about Canada because I really think that there's an opportunity there. I mean, we have already extended the life to April '27. But the technical team at Impala Canada is working on a novel technology for us in the group, which is called dry tailings, which makes use of the filtered tailing plant, which enables you to essentially to dry out the tailings and place that on existing tailings dams as opposed to creating a new greenfield tailing dam, which requires new licensing and permits and so forth. I mean the capital expenditure is quite intense, but that will provide Canada with not an incremental 1 year time life, but that will enable us to take a longer position subject to the palladium price remaining at above $1,600 or something like that. And then we haven't quite spoken about Mimosa. I mean, there's a few things to resolve in Zim specifically, but there is still the opportunity to consider some form of North Hill extension to life at Mimosa, which currently we're not speaking to because it's not currently in the works. It's being evaluated and we've got a partner that we need to consult them on that and so forth. Meroonisha Kerber: Sorry, the question on the cash. So I think there were two parts to it. So the one was around why the ZAR 10 billion and the other one was about the cash that we've made since year-end. So let me address the second part of it first. I mean our policy, and we've consistently applied it is when we look at the dividend, it's on the cash that was made in the 6-month period. So you can -- if you look at the trajectory of the price, you'll see December, we had the rapid increase and then January, February, we've enjoyed these very, very high prices. Also, you've got to take into consideration we have contracts that -- a lot of contractual sales, and we've obviously got the lag in the contractual sales. So that increase in December only really will flow through mostly in the second half of the year. So to the extent that, that flows through in the second half, that will be part of the free cash flow for the second half and it becomes available for distribution per our capital allocation framework in the next 6 months. And maybe just to add to that point is that if you just look forward at our capital allocation, there's a little bit of work to be done on the balance sheet, not a lot of debt. So even if we want to do it, it's not going to take a lot of capital. There's -- Patrick and Nico have talked about our life of mine extensions, but there's no greenfield projects that we're looking at. So there should be a fair -- all of that profitability should be available for distribution in the at the year-end. The second question was really around the ZAR 10 billion and why the ZAR 10 billion. So I mean, it's like running your bank account. Nobody wants to run on an overdraft. So here, what we do is we look at -- so what is the liquidity that we need for the group. And remember, we've got entities in different jurisdictions at different currencies. And so the view that we have is that all of our operations should be able to pay -- settle its working capital and be able to operate for 1 month without resorting to borrowing of money. And so, that's how we get to the ZAR 10 billion. And you can imagine that there's timing differences between sales, et cetera. And with IRS, there are big payments that need to be made. So we need to be able to hold enough money in the required currencies in the required jurisdictions to be able to manage all of the timing. So that really is how we -- there's no other signs to how we get to the ZAR 10 billion. Gerhard Engelbrecht: Gerhard Engelbrecht, Absa. Chris has asked the questions. So I'm not going to flog that horse any longer. Can you maybe give us an idea of any near future furnace maintenance projects, shutdowns that you have on the cards? Johan Theron: Adele is here, if she wants to speak to that. Nicolaas Muller: That's a good idea. Where's Adele? If she's at the back, you can perhaps just pass her the mic. Johan Theron: Adele, come stand quickly here in front of me. Adelle Coetzee: Good afternoon. Thank you for that question. Yes, we have furnace maintenance, furnace scheduling going on as per our normal maintenance philosophies and structures. And obviously, to make sure that our infrastructure is sustainable going forward. As Patrick already mentioned, we have #4 furnace that is currently in rebuild that we hope to get power on that furnace very soon. Also on schedule as what was planned. We also will be having at our Zimplats operation in the coming year, not in the next 6 months, in our new year, we will be doing our end walls also as per our internal maintenance strategic plan. And then going forward, as everyone should be knowing by, should know by now, we are planning the rebuild of our future furnace. And we will commence with our rebuild, our new design in Rustenburg come July 2027. And that will be on the furnace #5. Hopefully, that is answering the questions. Thank you. Johan Theron: Adele, just to put a final point on it. It's fair to say that we're back to normal furnace maintenance. The interventions are all behind us now. Nicolaas Muller: Sorry, Johan, if I can just add, as I do, just one more point to that. Historically, if we went into furnace rebuilds, we would have accumulated additional stock. So, the historical work that has been done on expanding the smelter capacity as well as the 10% expansion of our base metal refinery results in current capacity that prevents the buildup of stock. That's why, I mean, we've only released 20,000 ounces of the committed, I think it was. Johan Theron: 110,000 ounces. Nicolaas Muller: Yes. 110,000 ounces. 110,000 ounces is what we committed to the market. I see that's changed to 100,000 ounces only. I think we are on track, notwithstanding the maintenance on the smelter to release 110,000 ounces for the year. I think that is quite newsworthy. And also, I mean, as Adele, you didn't mention on the -- sorry, I'm expanding. But in base metal refinery, we have achieved record milling rates again, which prevents us from having to build up stock in front of the BMR. So the investments that we've made over the past three or four years has really paid off. Sorry, Johan. Johan Theron: No, all good. One more question, Arnold. After Arnold, I will given opportunity on Chorus Call. So if you're on Chorus Call, you can queue yourselves along, and then we'll move to Chorus Call after Arnold's question. Arnold Van Graan: It's Arnold Van Graan from Nedbank. Just want to go back to your capital projects which you're doing in phases. Look, I welcome that because the last thing we want is everyone jumping in and just bringing on excess capacity. But my question is, how efficient is it doing these projects piecemeal as opposed to the big projects? And what I'm thinking about is further down the line where you then ultimately will have to in any way do the whole thing. My concern is that interim, it creates inefficiencies in the system. And we're already looking at your cost number. You alluded to that it's -- it's under pressure. So, yes, how do you manage that? What is different? Why did you previously want to do all of it in one go, and now you're doing it in phases other than the balance sheet impact? Nicolaas Muller: So firstly, you can also contribute. So, you are 100% correct. I mean, I was just saying if you have got a 5-year mining contract, you can do that once, if you do it, break it up into different parts, you've got slightly establishment costs and all of that. I mean, I think that there are ways to mitigate that to ensure that the different phases are dovetailed. But there are performance conditions to the continuation. And that's where -- I mean, we need to see an improved Marula. I mean, Marula even at current prices, if I look at the cash contribution of Marula, it is -- if I have to be honest, it's below expectation. And so we want to incentivize ourselves and the operation and the project by making sure that the financial valuation on which these things are premised is, in fact, met. And so I am 100% convinced with all of the additional face length that is being created and the improvements in the infrastructure, we are going to get to a stronger position of confidence with Marula. But at the moment, we think in spite of the potential cost inefficiencies, it is better for us to have a cautious approach to investing large sums of capital in the projects that really requires some improved operating performance and project execution performance. Patrick Morutlwa: Yes. I think the only thing I can add, Nico, is that, I mean, as you said, that we do the evaluation of this project, the whole project. But then we divide into critical milestone to open all reserves, but also that milestone #1 should be able to pay for milestone #2. But also, again, like I said earlier, these are off ramps. So should the price plummet, you have not committed cash and have a lot of unfinished bits and pieces, because that's exactly what caught us the last time. So we want to make sure that when the price plummets, we've actually delivered phase then that can take the mine further. So it's literally just make sure that we don't commit cash all over and when the price plan is, we have got a lot of unfinished bits and pieces. Johan Theron: As high as you can. Nicolaas Muller: Yes. And one small last consideration, Marula has the option if we can navigate through farm boundaries of extending laterally. So we have just not been successful in achieving those agreements to the extent that we can. That will be a far more efficient capital investment per ounce generated, so we are hoping that between now and final execution at some point that we have an opportunity to settle on some of that potential and that will then typically replace some of the deepening as an interim and shift Phase 2 later components further down the path. Johan Theron: Okay. I'm going to queue to Chorus Call. I can see there's one question on Chorus Call. So I'm going to hand over to the coordinator. Operator: Thank you. The question comes from Nkateko Mathonsi of Investec Bank. Nkateko Mathonsi: Good afternoon, and thank you for the opportunity to ask questions. You've spoken about life of mine extension, and I'm referring to Impala Rustenburg. But I also just want to get a bit of a confirmation as to how we should think about life of mine for some of the shafts that have a shorter life, and that's Shaft #1, Shaft #6, and E/F. I think the last time I asked this question, you said 1.5 years, but prices have increased. You probably are able to keep these shafts going for a bit longer. So, if you can give us a little bit of guidance around that, that would be helpful. My second question is very much on costs. We've seen you spend close to ZAR 1 billion on technology around winders. Are there other areas that you're looking to do something similar in order to improve your asset reliability? And what does it actually -- what are the implications for cost beyond FY '26? Then I also have a question for Nico, and this is regarding Zimplats. And if Alex is there, he can also answer. I just wanna your experience of operating in Zimbabwe during your tenure. From headline news, it would what I'm seeing is the risk is not necessarily declining there. And the latest news was the ban on unprocessed raw material does not seem to affect you guys, but somehow it looks like the risk continues to actually escalate. And then there's also the financial issues. So, if you can just comment in terms of how you are experiencing Zimplats at this point in time, how we should think about it going forward? So those are my three questions. Johan Theron: Thank you, Nkateko. Moses, can we pass a microphone to you specifically on 1 E&F, #6 Shaft, and your view of prices now? Can we just get a microphone to Moses, please? Moses Motlhageng: Thank you very much, Nkateko. This time I've got your surname correctly. Regarding 1 Shaft, when we remember in this current business plan, we've got one year for 1 Shaft, we've got one year for 6 Shaft, we've got two years for E&F. We are currently evaluating that. As it stands, it appear that 1 Shaft will have additional year, and then 6 Shaft will remain on one year, and E&F will also remain on 2 years. There's not much of a change with the current blocks or reserves that we've got. It looks like 6 Shaft will be out, E&F maybe 2 years, and 1 Shaft, 2 years. That's for the shorter life shafts. Perhaps Johan, I can also just jump on the capital that we are spending on our infrastructure. Nico spoke about spending a little bit more capital on the infrastructure. Yes, it's correct. When we look at the longer shafts or the growth shafts, we are looking at spending, I mean, upgrading all those winders to make sure that in the long term, they do sustain us even if the prices goes down. So there's about a capital of just over ZAR 800 million, that we want to spend it on our winder infrastructure. We see that as an opportunity, especially during this price commodity that we find ourselves at. Thanks. Nicolaas Muller: Let's just talk about Zim and the perceived risk with the jurisdiction. In my opening, I did talk about our presence in Africa in difficult jurisdictions. We believe that long-term partnerships are absolutely critical. And that has proven very successful for Implats throughout its 25-year presence in Zim right now. Funny enough, we've actually had worse times. I can remember there were times, Johan, prior to any of us joining, I mean, we had to pay employees in not in money, in groceries and so forth. And so, difficulty in Zimbabwe is not new to us. And what I will say is that we've got an extremely cooperative relationship between Implats, Zimplats, as well as government and the communities. I mean, just as an example, now for the second time that I'm aware of, during the difficult times, employees agreed to a salary reduction to accommodate the fall in price. That, I mean, that's the kind of relationship that we have. So having said that, the big issue at Zim is the uncertainty of policy and the shifts that happen from time to time, and that scares foreign direct investors quite a lot. So, if it's difficult, that's one thing. If you're never certain what the rules are gonna be in the next year, that is a different kettle of fish. And I do find that at the moment, for us, there is elevated risk. And so we have -- we are navigating through a process with the government to address that because our perception of risk has materially shifted upwards over the last year or 2 years. And in part, it's the change in policies, but it's also got to do with the retention of local currency that is owed to Zimplats in exchange for the foreign currency retention in terms of the foreign -- the policy of Zim. And so, in fact, Leanne and I just had this morning an extensive meeting with Alex. We are scheduled to meet with SA government as well as with the Zim government. I have to believe that a successful outcome will be achieved. It has always been achieved in the past. And I'm very confident that we will get to a similar position right now. So our posture will not necessarily change with immediate effect. Johan Theron: I don't see further questions on the Chorus Call, so I'm gonna go to the webcast. I'm also conscious of time. I'll try and group the ones that can be grouped all together. There's a question here from Adrian. I think we've dealt with the two first parts of his question. The second one hasn't come up, which is, can you give us some color on some of your customer order trends in the auto space and some of the other minor metals? So, I guess with all the volatility in prices, how does your customers engage and buy your metals? Sifiso, you're probably best positioned to talk to that. Any news hot off the press from our customer base? Sifiso Sibiya: Thank you. Thank you, and good afternoon, everyone. From our customer side, we've seen increased requirements in terms of all the metals. The higher list rates are actually making our customers require metal earlier than they would normally do. So, we've seen this during our H1 FY 2026, and the trend is still continuing. Nicolaas Muller: And sorry, Kirt, I'm not sure if you would like. Sifiso spoke to you about the existing customers. But the conversations that you have been engaged in during Indaba and recently, and perhaps how the focus of potential consumers of the metal, I spoke earlier about some of the relationship requirements or expectations or hopes. Kirthanya Pillay: Yes. I think what we are seeing more broadly than I think the normal customer ongoing relationships is an increased focus from the OEMs and the end users to secure supply as well as price certainty for the future. So it's very much the story that was playing out in the BEV space a few years ago, where there is a requirement to create longer term relationships than just the normal short-term fixed price contracts and potentially for the OEMs to move upstream and create these longer term partnerships with the actual suppliers and the miners of the metal on more attractive pricing. But largely to secure supply, particularly linked into this ongoing issue, as Nico mentioned, of a more multipolarized world and creating security for each of the regions in which these OEMs are operating in. Johan Theron: Thanks, Kirt. Interestingly enough, there's two people asking exactly the same question. Rene Hochreiter, and David Fraser, specifically to Nico, and now that you're reimagining what an Eastern Limb could look like, any thoughts on the Waterberg project and, you know, whether it's a different way of imagining it fitting into the world, specifically given its palladium dominance? Nicolaas Muller: No. Johan Theron: All right. We've dealt with that one. Nicolaas Muller: Yes. So I mean, the Waterberg project is in the Northern Limb. We are acutely aware that it has got a strong palladium bias, and that's probably the metal that we have got the least confidence in long term. I mean -- well, our palladium and rhodium. I mean, I do believe that there will be a place for the Waterberg project. We do not see that as imminent right now. Johan Theron: Perfect. And then I can probably conclude there and to all of the questions, and to the extent that we don't get to them, we will make sure we come back. I think there's two or three that again specifically asks about the dividend and given the metal prices, the good operating performance, was there any consideration of higher payouts or other ways of returning value to shareholders? That question is repeated by a couple of people online. So maybe, we have answered it, I think, but maybe in conclusion. Meroonisha Kerber: Just -- so, I think -- I mean, clearly if you look, if you look forward, are we gonna generate substantial cash? And I have spoken about allocations to balance sheet and growth, and investment are not gonna be significant. So with that, there are gonna be increasing returns to shareholders. At the time when we look at the returns, we do have options. The one is to do what we've done in the past, which is to provide a sort of a special dividend by increasing the payout ratio. But there is also the option to look at a combination of these special dividends and potentially share buybacks. I mean, we haven't undertaken one in the past, but I think at any point when we look at these surplus funds to return back to shareholders, we will have to look at what the most effective way to return value to shareholders at that point in time. Johan Theron: So with those great prospects, probably a good time to end. We're really, really looking forward to spending some time with you on the road. For the people in the room, please join us afterwards. There is some snacks available. The whole management team is here, so a good opportunity to ask those other questions that perhaps we didn't get to. And then for people on the webcast and Chorus Call, thank you for joining us. We should see most of you on the road over the next week or 2 weeks. And to the extent that you have any questions, please reach out to the team and we'll endeavor to answer it as quickly as possible. Thank you very much.