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Operator: Good morning, and welcome to the Tecnoglass Third Quarter 2025 Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note that this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Brad Cray, Investor Relations. Please go ahead. Brad Cray: Thank you for joining us for Tecnoglass' Third Quarter 2025 Conference Call. A copy of the slide presentation to accompany this call may be obtained on the Investors section of the Tecnoglass website. Our speakers for today's call are Chief Executive Officer, Jose Manuel Daes; Chief Operating Officer, Chris Daes; and Chief Financial Officer, Santiago Giraldo. I'd like to remind everyone that matters discussed in this call, except for historical information, are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements regarding future financial performance, future growth and future acquisitions. These statements are based on Tecnoglass' current expectations or beliefs and are subject to uncertainty and changes in circumstances. Actual results may vary in a material nature from those expressed or implied by the statements herein due to changes in economic, business, competitive and/or regulatory factors and other risks and uncertainties affecting the operation of Tecnoglass' business. These risks, uncertainties and contingencies are indicated from time to time in Tecnoglass' filings with the SEC. The information discussed during the call is presented in light of such risks. Further, investors should keep in mind that Tecnoglass' financial results in any particular period may not be indicative of future results. Tecnoglass is under no obligation to and expressly disclaims any obligation to update or alter its forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, changes in assumptions or otherwise. I will now turn the call over to Jose Manuel, beginning on Slide #4. Jose Daes: Thank you, Brad, and thank you, everyone, for participating on today's call. We are pleased to report another exceptional quarter that demonstrate the strength and resilience of our business model even under challenging macroeconomic conditions. Our third quarter total revenues reached a record $260.5 million, up 9.3% year-over-year driven by strong organic growth from both our single-family residential and multifamily commercial businesses. Our robust results in the face of market uncertainty and ongoing inflationary pressure showcases our team's dedication to excellence and our ability to consistently outperform market trends. In our single-family residential business, we grew revenue of 3.4% year-over-year to a record $113.5 million. This performance reflects the early benefits from our pricing initiatives implemented earlier this year. Continued market share gains through geographic and leadership expansion and contribution from our growing vinyl portfolio. Our multifamily and commercial business delivered impressive growth of 14.3% year-over-year to a record $147 million. The improvement reflects both market share gains in key markets and solid execution on our expanding project pipeline. The industry outperformance we're seeing in our commercial activity has resulted in a record backlog of $1.3 billion, up over 20% year-over-year. We maintained a strong profitability with a gross margin of 42.7% and an adjusted EBITDA margin of 30.4%. Our vertically integrated platform a previously implemented strategic pricing actions are helping to mitigate various cost pressures positioning us well as we move into 2026. This margin resilience, combined with our disciplined working capital management, drove robust cash flow from operations. This cash generation enabled us to return significant capital to shareholders while maintaining a strategic flexibility. To that end, we were pleased to repurchase $30 million in shares and paid $7 million in dividends during the quarter. Our Board authorization to expand our share repurchase program to $150 million reinforces their confidence in the business and our commitment to balanced capital allocation. Our third quarter results demonstrate the power of our vertically integrated business model and our ability to execute in a dynamic environment. With our strong balance sheet, record backlog providing multiyear visibility and multiple growth initiatives advancing, we remain as confident as ever in our ability to continue delivering exceptional shareholder value for years to come. I will now turn the call over to Christian. Christian Daes: Thank you, Jose Manuel. Moving to Slide #5 and 6. Our third quarter performance reflects the successful execution of our growth strategy across both businesses with stable order activity and continued market share gains across our key regions. Our multifamily and commercial business delivered record revenue driven by robust activity within the key markets. We ended the quarter with another record backlog of $1.3 billion, up substantially over 20% year-over-year. This expanding pipeline provides a strong visibility through 2026 and 2027 with additional market share gain opportunities across our core geographies and project execution on track. Our backlog has seen consistent sequential growth since 2021, reflecting sustainability of our structural competitive advantages even under challenging macroeconomic conditions. Our book-to-bill ratio remained healthy at 1.3x for the third quarter, continuing our track record of maintaining a ratio above 1.1x for the past 19 consecutive quarters. As previously stated, the composition of our backlog has changed during the last year, shifting more towards high-end large-sized projects, which tend to be less sensitive to higher interest rates and overall affordability. Moving to Slide #7. Our single-family residential business achieved record revenues on entirely organic growth. This performance was driven by previously enacted pricing initiatives that are now flowing through the P&L and helping to offset higher input costs. We were encouraged by double-digit year-over-year increase in residential orders during this quarter. This is very notable because we had $5 million to $7 million in orders that pulled forward into the second quarter ahead of our price increase. This positive performance demonstrates successful geographic expansion, a strong reception of our expanded product offering, more than 20% year-over-year growth in our dealer network and growing contributions from our vinyl product line. We are excited about several growth initiatives that we expect will further strengthen our market position. Our dealer network expansion continues to drive market penetration supported by short lead times and initiative products offering. Better than nationwide demographic trends across our key Southeast markets, combined with our geographic diversification efforts are creating multiple avenues for continued market share gains. The California showroom opening in the fourth quarter and the introduction of the light aluminum legacy line designed for new geographies represent an important milestone in our geographical expansion, where we are already seeing encouraging growth in orders. With our expanded product line portfolio spanning aluminum and vinyl solutions, we are well positioned to continue to grow into 2026. Additionally, we continue to advance our feasibility study for a new fully automated facility in Florida, which would diversify our manufacturing footprint and provide logistics and lead time advantages in many of our target markets, further strengthening our vertically integrated platform. I will now turn the call over to Santiago to discuss our financial results and full year outlook. Santiago Giraldo: Thank you, Christian. Turning to the drivers of revenue on Slide #9. Total revenues for the third quarter increased 9.3% year-over-year to a record $260.5 million, with growth in both our single-family residential and multifamily commercial businesses. This performance reflects pricing gains as well as a robust demand for our best-in-class product offerings driving strong organic momentum. Our Continental Glass asset acquisition contributed approximately $4 million to revenue during the quarter. Looking at the profit drivers on Slide #10. Adjusted EBITDA for the third quarter of 2025 was $79.1 million, representing an adjusted EBITDA margin of 30.4% compared to $81.4 million or a 34.2% margin in the prior year quarter. This quarter gross profit was $111.3 million, representing a 42.7% gross margin compared to gross profit of $109.2 million, representing a 45.8% gross margin in the prior year quarter. The year-over-year change in gross margin reflected several factors. First, we had an unfavorable revenue mix with a higher proportion of installation revenue. Second, raw material costs were impacted by U.S. aluminum premiums reaching all-time highs during the quarter. Third, the Colombian peso strengthened significantly during the quarter, affecting our non-hedged portion of local costs. SG&A expenses were $47.3 million or 18.2% of total revenues compared to $41.5 million or 17.4% of total revenues in the prior year quarter. The increase included approximately $3.1 million in aluminum tariffs on stand-alone component sales, which we are mitigating through our pricing actions. Additionally, we had higher transportation and commission expenses associated with our revenue growth as well as increased personnel expenses related to annual salary adjustments implemented at the beginning of the year. Our strategic pricing initiatives and cost control measures are gaining traction. We implemented mid-single-digit pricing adjustments on residential products and shifted to U.S. sourced aluminum, and we're beginning to see the benefit of those actions as higher priced orders are invoiced. We expect our pricing actions and supply chain optimization efforts to offset an estimated $25 million full year impact of tariffs and increased premiums on U.S. aluminum. Now examining our strong cash flow and balance sheet on Slide #11. We generated operating cash flow of $40 million in the third quarter, driven by strong profitability and efficient working capital management, which more than offset incremental inventory purchases of U.S. aluminum and increased receivables on higher installation revenues, which carry longer cash cycles. Capital expenditures of $18.8 million in the quarter included scheduled payments on previous investments and continued progress on our growth initiatives. We continue to expect capital expenditures to moderate through year-end, driving strong free cash flow generation in the fourth quarter. Our balance sheet remains exceptionally strong with total liquidity of approximately $550 million at quarter end, including a cash position of $124 million and $425 million of availability under our recently refinanced and expanded senior secured credit facility and other bilateral bank facilities. In September, we expanded our syndicate facility to $500 million from $150 million, reducing spreads by 25 basis points and extending the maturity to 2030, providing significant financial flexibility for growth and other strategic capital allocation initiatives. With total debt of $111.9 million, we maintained a net debt to LTM adjusted EBITDA ratio of negative 0.04x, providing us with tremendous financial flexibility to execute on growth initiatives while returning capital to shareholders. On Slide #12, our strong track record of generating returns above the broader industry continues to validate our disciplined capital allocation approach. Over the past 3 years, our strategic investments in operational excellence and capacity expansion have consistently delivered superior returns for our shareholders. This outperformance reflects our focus on high-return investments in our vertically integrated platform as well as our industry-leading profitability and significant improvements to working capital, which are driving sustainable cash generation and shareholder value while maintaining our financial flexibility to pursue additional growth opportunities. We're also pleased to continue returning a portion of capital to shareholders through share repurchases and dividends. During the quarter, we repurchased $30 million in shares and paid $7 million in dividends. Given the Board's confidence in our continued cash flow generation capabilities, prudent balance sheet management and commitment to delivering superior returns to shareholders, they have authorized an expansion of Tecnoglass share repurchase authorization to $150 million. Following the expansion, the company had approximately $96.5 million remaining under its existing share repurchase program. Now moving to our outlook on Slide 14. Based on our strong performance through the first 9 months of 2025 and the expectations for the fourth quarter of the year based on current market conditions, we're updating our full year 2025 financial guidance. We now expect revenues to be in the range of $970 million to $990 million, reflecting growth of approximately 10% at the midpoint. This updated range reflects lower project starts in light commercial due to current macroeconomic uncertainty while maintaining our confidence in double-digit top line growth for the full year 2025 as well as for the full year 2026. Additionally, we're updating our adjusted EBITDA outlook to a range of $294 million to $304 million, representing approximately 8% growth at the midpoint. This guidance assumes that pricing initiatives and other mitigation efforts will help compensate for the projected $25 million full year impact from elevated input costs and tariffs on select products, but now accounts for higher-than-expected aluminum cost, U.S. aluminum premiums and a stronger local currency. Key assumptions supporting our outlook include stable volumes on residential orders for the rest of the year, lower volumes in light construction activity, continued downtrend in interest rates driving mortgage rates lower, FX headwinds from a stronger Colombian peso year-over-year and a healthy cash flow generation during the rest of the year. We expect low single-digit growth for legacy single-family residential revenue with a higher mix of commercial jobs with installation. We now anticipate gross margins in the low to mid-40% range. In conclusion, our third quarter 2025 results demonstrate our ability to execute effectively in all environments by leveraging our competitive advantages to gain market share while maintaining industry-leading margins and generating exceptional cash flow. With our record backlog providing multiyear visibility, expanding market presence through geographic and product diversification and strong balance sheet supporting strategic flexibility, we are well positioned to continue our track record of outperformance. We remain confident in our ability to deliver another year of strong growth in revenues and adjusted EBITDA while creating lasting value for our shareholders and also anticipate to be able to once again grow our top line by double digits in 2026. With that, we will be happy to answer your questions. Operator, please open the line for questions. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Tim Wojs with Baird. Timothy Wojs: Maybe just first on 2026 and kind of calling out double-digit growth. I'm just curious if you could add a little bit of context around the visibility to that, what kind of you're assuming in that number for some of your larger project work, residential and then also just kind of acknowledging some of the kind of weaker kind of smaller commercial projects right now. Santiago Giraldo: Tim, I'll take this first. Obviously, we have a record backlog in place that gives us visibility, especially on the larger projects that are either in execution or already breaking ground that has financial closings in place already. So that gives us a lot of visibility. And I think the single-family residential component, a lot of the growth is coming from what we're seeing as far as the geographical expansion into other places and the vinyl product ramp-up. We'll obviously come back to you guys with more granular detail. This is kind of like what we're seeing based on making some general assumptions and have a lot of confidence in that. But as far as the breakdown goes and where we think specifically each bucket is going to contribute, I think we'll give you more detail in the next call. Timothy Wojs: Okay. Okay. And then as I think about the cost side of things, is there a way just to give us some -- I think aluminum was a $5 million headwind, and you had a couple of million dollars from FX. But I guess how do those -- how does the aluminum piece kind of trend in the fourth quarter and early '26? And then if you could just maybe talk about kind of when you would expect some of the peso headwinds to kind of normalize out? Is that kind of a mid-2026 time line? -- at this point? Santiago Giraldo: Yes. On the aluminum, if you look at what's happened here in the last 3 months, LME has gone up 15% from about $2,500 to $2,900. So that's been a pretty fast ramp-up. And the U.S. aluminum premiums have gone up even faster, about 67% from about $1,000 to $1,800, right? So that's happened fast as of late. I think the thought process here is that as volumes and demand subside, those are going to correct. But as of now, it is anybody's guess as to what's going to happen there. Hopefully, that won't stay at record high levels for a prolonged period of time. And if you look at what's happened with the FX since our last call, we were at $41.70 and now we're at $38.50. That's an 8% revaluation in 90 days. So again, it's a headwind of a very rapid ramp-up over the last 90 days. What's happening there as well is that the government of Colombia did a liability management deal where they have monetized a lot of dollars as of late. The expectation is for the peso probably to come back up about 4,000 by year-end. Luckily, we're covered on about 60% of our cost and expenses, and we'll be looking to be opportunistic and find an attractive entry point to mitigate that risk going forward. But the expectation based on the economist is that we should be closer to the 4,000 level by year-end. Timothy Wojs: Okay. Okay. And then I guess just last one for me. On the vinyl business, could you just give us an update maybe on kind of where that business is tracking in 2025 and maybe your kind of initial expectations for next year there? Jose Daes: Listen, this year, Tim, this is Jose. This year, we duplicated what we did last year, but it's still minimum compared to what is going to be next year. We expect the next year to be from 7 to 10x more than we have done this year because we're going to have a complete line, and we have already like 50 new dealers lined up just waiting for the line to be complete. Operator: Our next question comes from Sam Darkatsh with Raymond James. Sam Darkatsh: So I wanted to piggyback a little bit on Tim's questions around '26. Can you remind us what the price and tariff cost rollovers are from '25 into '26? And I guess what I'm getting at, Santiago, is what do you figure, generally speaking, '26 gross margins might shake out? And can you lever EBITDA margins next year? Santiago Giraldo: Yes. So obviously, there's a few moving pieces here. As far as pricing goes, as you know, we increased single-family residential pricing 5% to 7% in May. So obviously, all of that now has the new pricing. And on the commercial side, you see a lot more of the backlog that was signed earlier in the year coming in with new pricing. Obviously, we're executing still some of the older backlog where we didn't adjust pricing. As far as gross margin goes, I mean, it's early to tell, but I think the idea, depending on what happens with the inputs that we just discussed is that we can be able to maintain the low to mid-40s type profile. But as you see, there's FX, there is aluminum cost, there's mix. We're doing more installation based on the high-end projects that GMMP is executing. And you got operating leverage, right? I mean if we're saying that we can grow top line double digits again next year, we would obviously expect to get operating leverage in there. But again, we'll get you guys more detail as the time approaches and we report Q4 and full 2026 guidance in the next call. Sam Darkatsh: Got you. And then as it relates to pricing, as it stands right now, do you anticipate further pricing actions to mitigate some of your costs? And what are you seeing out in the field in terms of a competitive response to all the aluminum pressures? Santiago Giraldo: Generally, you're seeing tight pricing, as you would expect. Everybody is trying to maintain their market share. So for as much as we would like to take further pricing actions, the market dictates really what you can do. So the expectation for our growth next year is more on the volume side, as Jose was mentioning, not only we're expecting the full ramp-up on vinyl, but all of the other geographies contributing much more meaningful. So when we're talking about double-digit growth, it's more coming from volume rather than the assumption that we're going to be able to raise prices again based on what the competition is doing and the dynamics for the industry. Sam Darkatsh: And then my last question, the prospective U.S. facility that you are contemplating, I know it's still in the semi- early stages. But can you give us a sense of how much capacity you're looking at, what the CapEx cost might be and the timing of those sorts of expenditures? Christian Daes: Well, we're still designing, starting, doing engineering, but we do believe that the building and land will be around $225 million, and the machines will be around $150 million, and it will be the -- we will have the capacity of 40% of most lines. It's still too early to tell. We do have a line already a piece of land that we like, is in a very special place. We're making -- we're going to bid on it. And when we have all the numbers together because it's going to be a fully automatic robotic factory that will employ like 1/8 of the people that we normally employ to make the same window. When we have all that, we'll give you more color on what is it that we have to do. But we are really looking into it because it's a good thing to do, especially that we want to do it in the East Coast and also in the West Coast. Santiago Giraldo: Samuel, just to add to Christian's comments, obviously, that CapEx is multiyear, right? So this is something where if the factory is going to take 2, 3 years to get built out, this is something that gets spent over a multiyear horizon. And also, it can be built gradually, right, depending on demand. So you don't have to make a full investment without having the demand for the excess capacity as well. Sam Darkatsh: So roughly $350 million to $400 million in total costs and maybe $500 million in capacity. Is that the broad brush way of looking at it? Santiago Giraldo: Yes. That roughly sounds good. So if you extrapolate to decent margins, the payback is attractive, obviously. Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Rohit Seth with B. Riley. Rohit Seth: Just on the guidance, you cited slower-than-anticipated invoicing light commercial construction as the driver of the guidance cut. Can you quantify how much revenue maybe slipped from Q4 into 2026? Is this like 1 or 2 projects? Or is this more a broader issue in the commercial side? Santiago Giraldo: Well, we're talking about a $20 million reduction at the midpoint of the guidance more or less. We would estimate that at least half of that is 2026 business, which obviously further supports the idea of double-digit growth next year. And I would say some of that is coming from more stable resi invoicing than previously anticipated. But these are projects that are obviously in the backlog and not expected to obviously drop off. It's more a timing issue. Rohit Seth: Okay. And then on the 2026 double-digit growth guide on revenues, could you maybe narrow that down to a specific range? Is it 10% to 12% or 13% to 15%? Santiago Giraldo: I mean, at this point, I would assume low double-digit growth. But again, more details to come. We're basically working with back-of-the-envelope calculations and assumptions. But when we report Q4 and give you full guidance, we'll provide more granular detail on that. Rohit Seth: Okay. And your gross margins come down to the mid-40s. As you think about 2026, I mean -- and you're driving your margin assumptions. What are the key swing factors? Is there a path back to the mid-40s? Do you think this low 40s is sort of the new run rate? Santiago Giraldo: Low to mid-40s is what we had talked about on the earlier question. And if you kind of back into the math, that's more or less where we can end up this year. Next year, again, there's different variables related to input cost. Hopefully, some of the recent spikes in aluminum cost and premiums will come down to normalized levels. FX is also in question. So it's an important input, and installation mix versus manufacturing mix also comes to play. And finally, how much operating leverage can we get on those incremental sales. So again, there's different variables. We'll provide more color when we report next quarter. Rohit Seth: Okay. And just on the higher mix of revenues with installation, it's been a headwind. Just can you quantify what percentage of your commercial revenue is installation versus product only? Santiago Giraldo: What percentage of the commercial revenues, what, I'm sorry? Rohit Seth: What percentage was the installation mix in the third quarter versus product only. Santiago Giraldo: If you look at the overall revenue for the year, we're doing about $990 million, take about $200 million of that is going to be installation for the year, and that is up 50% versus last year. This quarter, the impact on mix alone for the fourth quarter is roughly about $2 million of EBITDA versus where we were in the prior midpoint. Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Brent Thielman with D.A. Davidson. Brent Thielman: Just coming back to the sort of the short-cycle commercial work that's maybe pushed some revenue out or delayed revenue, however you want to frame it. I mean what is sort of, in your view, kind of changed in the last few months that's influenced that? And I guess as a follow-up question, the backlog continues to grow here. Maybe what you see across the country in terms of high-end base? Is the market getting better? Is the backlog growth clearly an influence of you taking share? If you could comment on those 2 things, that would be great. Santiago Giraldo: Well, I think that the input costs that we're mentioning here is playing a part in many other segments in the construction industry, right? So when you have light commercial construction depending on those input costs, it's probably prudent to kind of push up some of those projects until things normalize. So I think in what you have seen, we talked about LME going up 15% in 90 days and U.S. aluminum premiums up 65% in the same time period. That's translating into other things, right? So for somebody that is putting in place a smaller project where they don't have necessarily financial closings of people that have already bought condos, for instance, that's a different story. It's a different proposition. So it's a matter of timing and having things normalized. At some point, there's going to be some type of correction. So I think that's what's playing a part there. And on your second question, can you repeat? I think Jose is going to address that. Brent Thielman: Maybe just the back -- I mean, look, the backlog is growing at the same time here. So is this, is the market for high-end space getting better in the U.S.? Is this that you're capturing more share in new regions, just discussion there. . Jose Daes: Well, we are expanding geographically. For example, before, we didn't have any work in the Tampa, St. Petersburg area. And now we have a lot of work there. We have work in Jacksonville. We have 3 buildings where we never had any, and we keep quoting. We have a lot of work in the Panhandle area, and that's only in Florida. And now we see a resurgence in the Boston, New York area. And also, we are quoting directly with the GMP brand, which is the installation brand. in Texas, California and even Hawaii. So we're not just relying on Florida anymore. We are expanding Florida, South Florida to all over the state, and we are expanding outside the state with really good results. Brent Thielman: Okay. And then maybe just one more follow-up on the single-family product line, when you look outside of Florida, where do you -- are these different geographies you're targeting? Where are you getting the most traction? Like where are you getting a lot of momentum building the Texas East Coast West Coast? Jose Daes: All over the East Coast is growing with the new line, but we see most of the growth is West Texas, Arizona, Nevada, California, Utah, even Hawaii. I mean we sold last year in Hawaii around -- I don't know exactly, but we're going to end up invoicing this year like $6 million to $10 million, and we hope to do $20 million or $30 million next year. Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Julio Romero with Sidoti. Julio Romero: I appreciate the preliminary revenue expectation for '26 and understand we'll get more color to come on the puts and takes there. Any preliminary thoughts on how we should think about capital allocation? I know you have the automated plant in Florida that you're currently weighing. Just trying to think about how you're thinking about capital expenditures and your recently upped share repurchase? And how would you have us think about that? Santiago Giraldo: On CapEx, as we have mentioned before, it's trending down, and we're talking about core growth CapEx, not talking about the potential to do the U.S. plant, which is still early in the process. So the CapEx is going to trend down. Utilized capacity still allows us to grow well into double digits for the next couple of years. You saw what we did in terms of buybacks last quarter and in terms of the Board action to increase that program. So I think that's definitely a good use of capital going forward as we continue to generate free cash flow. The dividend continues to be there. So that's another way to return capital to shareholders, obviously. And we have very little debt. We continue to expect to be in a net cash position for the foreseeable future. So I think it will be finding opportunities to continue reinvesting in the business. If the backlog continues growing or as Jose mentioned, the opportunities on single-family residential materialize and we grow significantly over the next year, then at some point, we'll have to just reinvest in growth. But immediately, I think doing something on the buyback front makes sense as you saw from the Board's actions and willing to see what happens with the general conditions of the market. Julio Romero: Very helpful there. And then on single-family, I know we talked about vinyl and we talked about showrooms, but I wanted to get a progress update on Multimax, how that's doing at the moment. And a lot of the homebuilders have been rather pessimistic expressing that the near-term rebound isn't likely in the near term. I would be curious to how you're thinking about that product line and the outlook at the moment. Jose Daes: Well, Multimax is doing much better this year, even though the new housing have dropped a little bit for every builder because we gained a couple of very nice accounts -- we now are selling to 3 more homebuilders, and we expect to take 1 or 2 more within the next 6 months. So that line is doing well. But most of the growth next year, particularly are going to come from the new lines that we are launching complete by the end of the year to the other markets to Texas, California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, I mean those lines, even though they're not complete, we are already selling in those states with -- people are really, really happy and enthusiastic. They can't wait to buy a lot more. So we're really excited about those lines. Operator: This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Jose Manuel Daes for closing remarks. Jose Daes: Thanks, everyone, for participating on today's call. We hope to keep growing double digits. Please keep time for better news. Operator: Thank you. The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.
Operator: Hello, and good morning, everyone. And welcome to the VerticalScope Holdings Inc. Q3 2025 Earnings Call. My name is Emily, and I'll be coordinating your call today. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the call over to Diane Yu, Chief Legal Officer, to begin. Diane, please go ahead. Diane Yu: Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone. And welcome to VerticalScope Holdings Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. I'm joined by Chris Goodridge, our Chief Executive Officer; and Vince Bellissimo, our Chief Financial Officer. We'll begin with commentary on the quarter before opening the floor to questions. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that today's presentation contains forward-looking information that involves known and unknown risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events to differ materially from current expectations. These statements should not be read as assurances of future performance or results. Such statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from those implied by such statements. A more complete discussion of the risks and uncertainties facing the company appears in the company's management discussion and analysis for the 3 and 9 month period ended September 30, 2025, which is available under the company's profile on SEDAR+ as well as on the company's website. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this presentation. The company disclaims any intention or obligation, except to the extent required by law, to update and revise any forward-looking statements as a result of new information, future events or for any other reason. Our discussion today will include references to adjusted financial measures, including adjusted EBITDA, free cash flow, free cash flow conversion and MAU, which are non-IFRS measures. All references to currency in this presentation shall refer to USD unless otherwise specified. Now I will turn the call over to Chris Goodridge, CEO of VerticalScope. Chris? Christopher Goodridge: Thanks, Diane, and good morning, everyone. It's a fast-moving environment. And despite some short-term volatility in our monthly active user base, I'm really encouraged by how our teams are navigating this change and focusing our efforts on growth. The strategy that we articulated on our last call is our blueprint for driving organic growth and continuing to build our platform and cash flow. We're building stronger direct relationships with our users, making their experience richer and more useful with AI and turning that direct engagement into diversified revenue streams. And we'll use our free cash flow and financial capacity to pursue growth opportunities that further our strategy and positioning in a more AI-centric web. We believe that the most enduring and successful online experiences will be protected spaces with micro communities of trusted users. This has been the core of our business model for years and will continue to be the foundation of our long-term success. Turning to our results. I'll start with some observations on our MAUs and the trends we're seeing. We averaged 83 million monthly active users in Q3, which was down from the record levels we experienced last year as a result of a surge in search-based traffic. However, Q4 started on a much stronger note with MAUs surpassing 90 million in October and we saw gains across all major traffic sources and most importantly, with direct users, which were up nearly 60% over last year. With the majority of our MAU now coming from non-Google sources, we think the worst is behind us and expect to see MAU growth going forward from direct and other sources. Beyond direct and search, we're also seeing opportunities to grow our paid sources of traffic and to efficiently acquire new users who will be members of one or more of our communities for years to come. Paid channels have historically been a minor source of users for VerticalScope, but we believe this is an important channel to drive additional user growth in the years ahead as search experiences become more fragmented and people increasingly seek out authentic perspectives from real users to validate information they receive from AI. When you combine our efforts to grow direct users with paid channels, we're well positioned to grow our total user base from here. Vince will go through our financials in detail shortly, but I wanted to offer up a few observations. First, our revenue improved modestly on a sequential basis in Q3 and came in at $14.7 million. When we compare back to last year, revenue was 17% lower, essentially all as a results of programmatic ads tied to search traffic. Second, aside from programmatic, all major sources of revenue were either flat or up in Q3. Direct advertising has been very resilient and was up 3% year-over-year as we saw a nice pick up with some key auto, powersports and insurance customers in the quarter, driven in part by new immersive experiences we're making available to brands. E-commerce grew by 40%, mainly as a result of the Ritual acquisition with the rest of our subscription and transaction revenue sources remaining stable. We're still seeing plenty of opportunity to build up commerce, both in our core community experience but also with Ritual. When you combine our solid direct advertising results with e-commerce gains, ARPU pushed up 21% over last year and reaching its highest level that we've seen in 3 years, and demonstrates our ability to generate more value even with volatility in MAU. I think most impressively in the quarter, though, was adjusted EBITDA improving by 45% over Q2, margins exceeding 40% and our free cash flow conversion growing to 94%. This result clearly demonstrates the strength of our business model and the adaptability of our team. Turning to product initiatives. AI continues to open up completely new experiences for our users and is increasingly providing us with operational gains. Machine translations are introducing our communities to new audiences speaking German, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Polish and French and AI summaries are making it easier for new users to find what they're looking for in threads. We're most excited about the potential of our AI community assistant, Fora Frank. We introduced Fora Frank last quarter, and we've continued to roll it out across our communities. Its main purpose initially was to encourage posting activity from our users and help them ask better questions to elicit higher quality responses. We're taking a lot of inspiration from how other platforms have successfully used conversational AI to drive engagement, including the X platform and how it's deployed Rock. Our early results suggest that thread engagement increases by over 3 times when Fora Frank is mentioned. So we're looking for more ways to grow Fora Frank's visibility and distribution within the communities while continuing to improve its capabilities. Our goal is to have AI enhance the human experience within our communities, not to replace it. There are so many interesting applications we see for the technology. For example, with our SMB subscription product, Fora Frank can help our customers post and drive more engagement with their content, adding value and improving retention. We've also built an AI prospecting tool for our sales team that identifies new potential customers and incorporates relevant community content into our outreach messaging. We see this as a game-changing capability that we believe will boost the efficiency and close rates of our sales team. Beyond the work to improve our community experience and grow direct sales with AI. We're starting to envision completely new AI-driven services powered by our rich data sets and that can leverage our distribution to millions of users. It's very early but we're excited about these opportunities, and we'll have a lot more to say in the quarters ahead. Turning to our data license efforts. I'm keenly aware that we've been discussing this opportunity for several quarters. This space is evolving very quickly and I believe our patient approach will pay off. We're at the very beginning of a major shift with how content on the web is both created and consumed and how consumer decisions will be made. We know that users like the experience of engaging with an AI chatbot and we expect that they will also start to transact more within those experiences. But for that to happen to be a great user experience, the AI must have access to the best data available. Over the past several months, we're starting to see a shift in market conditions as the lack of a real value exchange between LLMs and content owners becomes an increasing source of friction. For example, major lawsuits have been filed against the LM companies, including Reddit's recent lawsuits against Anthropic, Perplexity and a host of other data scrapers for the alleged unauthorized use of Reddit user content. In parallel, industry efforts are underway to establish standards for data licensing and compensation through the RSL Collective, a nonprofit organization that is using the music industry as a model and which is supported by a number of significant platforms, including Reddit, Internet Brands and VerticalScope. And finally, we're seeing key players powering the infrastructure of the web, taking steps to close off access by AI companies. Cloudflare, which is approximately 20% of total Internet traffic flowing through its network, has been particularly active on this front and is now blocking AI scraping by default. Base model training is obviously still relevant for LLMs but we see bigger potential opportunities with AI companies requiring access to the most up-to-date information through retrieval augmented generation. We expect this need to accelerate as more and more AI services are launched and scaled. As this happens, we believe that access to accurate, up-to-date information will be critical. Data quality will be the currency. Our communities contain the authentic, high-intent human context that AI agents need to understand what people actually want to do, and we believe this positions VerticalScope as part of the foundational data layer for this new agentic web. So where are we at with all of this? We've taken steps over the past several quarters to block all known AI scrapers at the CDN level. We have very clear terms of use that prohibit scraping outside of a licensed relationship, and we're regularly updating our robots.txt to disallow AI scraping. Another big step forward on this front is our recent partnership with TollBit. TollBit's technology integrates with our CDN to intercept AI scraper traffic and redirect it to a paywall. From there, the AI company can either pay our set rate to start scraping or contact us to license access to a richer structured data feed through our API that would come at a premium. We've been working through the process of onboarding TollBit across our network of communities over the past few weeks and are close to completion. TollBit's analytics suite gives us a detailed view of AI bot activity we can detect across our communities. And early data highlights just how aggressively AI systems are trying to access our content. To illustrate the point, TollBit data from the past week detected scrape attempts, which we're actively blocking, outnumbering real users in some cases by up to 13 times. While this reflects only the activity we can observe, it underscores the scale of AI demand for our data. We're actively monitoring this changing landscape and continue to evaluate how regulatory, legal and commercial developments may affect our strategy. At the same time, our capabilities are improving, our sense of demand and value is growing. We intend to service that value in a way that best serves our communities and shareholders for the long-term. Finally, before passing it over to Vince, I'll offer a few comments on capital allocation and M&A. We've made 4 small acquisitions so far this year and we expect to complete a couple more small ones before the year-end. We continue to see higher inbound activity, which we think is tied to how smaller companies are navigating the broader industry change. Again, we think our shareholders will be best served by a patient approach and so we expect to continue to accumulate cash and build capacity to pursue larger opportunities that will accelerate our long-term growth strategy. And with that, I'll turn it over to Vince to walk through the numbers. Vincenzo Bellissimo: Great. Thanks, Chris, and good morning, everyone. I'll walk you through our third quarter results and share how we are executing against our financial and strategic priorities. Overall, this was a solid quarter for our business, underpinned by our disciplined and hyper-focused approach to execution. We delivered improved performance sequentially, including expanded adjusted EBITDA margins and stronger free cash flow conversion while continuing to strengthen our balance sheet. Our growing cash position provides flexibility to reinvest in growth, both organically and through strategic M&A when the opportunity is right. Our focus on audience quality, ARPU growth, operational efficiency and liquidity continues to position us well in a rapidly changing environment of AI content discovery. Now turning to our results. Total revenue in the quarter increased 1% sequentially to $14.7 million, reflecting stability of our core audience but declined 17% year-over-year, primarily on a 32% decline in MAU compared to all-time highs in the prior year, led by lower value search traffic. This led to a correlated decline in digital advertising revenue, which finished the quarter at $11.7 million, down 25% year-over-year. The decrease was driven by a $4.1 million decline in programmatic advertising revenue, which contributed just over $7 million in the quarter on lower display impression volumes compared to the prior year. Despite the declines in programmatic, we saw a return to growth in both our higher-value direct and video advertising channels, supported by strong demand for custom content campaigns and ongoing optimizations with our video ad unit. Direct advertising grew 3% to $4.6 million, representing 40% of overall digital advertising revenue compared to a 29% share in the prior year. The growing share of direct revenue highlights the strength of our relationships with advertisers and brands across our core categories and a rising demand for customized high-intent campaigns that reach our enthusiast audiences. In an era of AI-driven content discovery, this audience is becoming increasingly scarce and valuable, a combination that will drive growth opportunities in the periods ahead. Turning to e-commerce. Revenue grew 40% year-over-year to $3 million, primarily from contributions from our April 2025 acquisition of Ritual, a local food pick up and ordering app that connects users with restaurants in Canada, the U.S. and Australia and stable performance across our other e-commerce offerings. Excluding Ritual, approximately 60% of our e-commerce activity continues to come from subscriptions, underscoring the stability and loyalty of our user base. We continue to view e-commerce as an important long-term growth driver, supported by ongoing product innovation and the use of AI to enhance discovery and personalization across our communities. Overall, ARPU increased 21% year-over-year, including a 10% increase in digital advertising ARPU and a 106% increase in e-commerce ARPU. ARPU remains a key metric for us and a reflection of our ability to grow and monetize a high-value direct user base, capitalize on premium advertising and commerce opportunities and unlock new monetization opportunities that are powered by data and AI. Turning to our profitability and free cash flow generation, both key highlights of the quarter. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter increased 45% sequentially to $6.2 million, driven by cost efficiencies but declined 16% year-over-year due to lower revenue, partially offset by cost savings realized in the period, including the benefits of headcount and operational changes made in the first half of the year. The quarter also included a benefit from -- the quarter also benefited from $600,000 in tax incentives under the Canada Revenue Agency’s SRED (sic) [ SR&ED ] program, which we apply for annually as part of our ongoing investment in technology on the Fora platform, and are recognized as a reduction in wages on the P&L. Historically, these incentives have been approved and recognized in the fourth quarter but timing can vary year-to-year. Together, these factors contributed to adjusted EBITDA margin expanding 12 percentage points sequentially to 42% compared to 30% in Q2 and consistent with 42% margins in the prior year. This improvement highlights the impact of operating with smaller, more focused teams that are leveraging automation and AI tools to deliver on key growth strategies. Our profitability this quarter also demonstrates the resilience of our business model even as MAU levels remain well below last year's record highs. This reflects a more diversified revenue base and the growth of a higher-value direct audience that increasingly insulates our results from search volatility. Net loss for the quarter was $400,000 compared to net income of $1.2 million in the prior year, primarily reflecting lower revenue and partially offset by lower operating and income tax expense recognized in the period. The net loss for the period included noncash depreciation and amortization expense, primarily related to acquired intangibles of $4.8 million compared to $4.4 million in the prior year. Turning to cash flow and liquidity. We once again delivered strong cash generation in the quarter. Operating cash flow was $4.7 million and free cash flow increased 56% sequentially to $5.9 million, representing a 94% conversion from adjusted EBITDA, up from 86% in the prior year. We ended the period with $68.4 million in total liquidity, including $12.4 million in unrestricted cash and $56 million in undrawn revolver capacity. Our balance sheet remains a key strength with net leverage of 1.24x as defined by our credit agreement, providing ample flexibility to invest in growth initiatives and pursue opportunistic M&A, particularly in areas that accelerate our progress in AI and direct traffic initiatives. Maintaining a strong liquidity position remains our priority. From a capital allocation standpoint, we continue to believe that reinvesting in growth, expanding our audience, data capabilities and AI-driven monetization will create greater long-term value for our shareholders. In closing, there is no change to the full year guidance that was published in April of this year. Our third quarter results demonstrate the impact of the actions we've taken in a short period of time to streamline operations and focus on strategic priorities that drive direct audience growth and higher ARPU across our platform. The world of AI content discovery depends on high-quality human-generated content that's exactly what the Fora platform provides. Our users and the authentic content they create are our most valuable assets and we will continue to do everything possible to protect these assets and unlock opportunities that are sustainable. With a strong balance sheet, differentiated data and a disciplined approach to execution, we are well positioned to create long-term value for our shareholders and employees in this new phase of the agentic web. And with that, I'll pass it back to Chris to close things off. Christopher Goodridge: Thanks, Vince. With that, we'll open the floor to questions. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our first question today comes from Gabriel Leung with Beacon Securities. Gabriel Leung: Just a couple of things. First, just on the cost side of the equation, Chris or Vince, how are you feeling about the current structure right now of your roughly 170 full-time equivalents? Do you feel that's the current -- the right cost structure to drive the growth you're planning on implementing over the next 12 to 24 months? Christopher Goodridge: Yes. Thanks, Gabe. Thanks for the question. So yes, for the most part, we feel pretty good about where the headcount is. There'll be -- we'll be adding selective roles here and there. What's really changed for us and something we're really trying to push within the organization is using AI tools to become more efficient, right? So we're rolling that out really across all of our teams, not as a means of reducing headcount further, but really to drive more productivity out of the team that we've got. But we do think there's opportunities to add certain skilled positions to the business over time. It won't materially change the headcount over the next, call it, year or so. But we expect headcount certainly not to go down from here. Gabriel Leung: And then just secondly, on the data licensing. I know you're, I guess, in the tail end of deploying TollBit and their tech across your community. So I'm curious beyond the initial observations, do you or TollBit, have you thought about how the revenue side of it might play out over the next 12 months or so? Or have you had early discussions with any of the -- some of the AI companies in terms of either licensing or paying a fee on the scraping? Christopher Goodridge: Yes. Thanks, Gabe. There's absolutely discussions that are ongoing with the major players. TollBit's monetization, that part of the platform is relatively nascent to be fair. And the marketplace opportunity that they see, they think is quite big, and it really doesn't apply to just the major players. It's meant to be really anyone who's built an AI service and requires access to kind of fresh data to power it. So they see that as many, many players in the space over the long-term. So I think that is more of a long-term play for us from a monetization side. Like I said, though, what it does is it really empowers us with a lot of great data that helps us articulate the value proposition of our underlying data asset. And so I think the bigger players in the space that are building models that are building kind of chat experiences where they require RAG to offer up fresh information to what the core model offers, that's where I think it's more likely that you'll see direct deals over time. With respect to financial impact, we're not at a stage where we're going to provide a forecast with respect to how that's going to play out over the next period of time. But as that unfolds, you guys will have a lot more information. Operator: At this time, we do not have any further questions registered. [Operator Instructions] We have not received any further questions, and so I will turn the call back over to Chris for closing comments. Christopher Goodridge: Well, thanks, everyone, again, for joining us today. I hope the rest of your year goes quite well, and we look forward to getting back together with everyone again in March to review our year. Thanks again, and take care. Operator: Thank you, everyone, for joining us today. This concludes our call, and you may now disconnect your lines.
Operator: Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Q3 2025 KVH Industries, Inc. Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference call over to your first speaker today, Chief Financial Officer, Anthony Pike. Please go ahead. Anthony Pike: Thank you, Dana. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for KVH Industries' third quarter results, which are included in the earnings release we published earlier this morning. Joining me on the call is the company's Chief Executive Officer, Brent Bruun. Before I get into the numbers, a few standard statements. Firstly, if you would like a copy of the earnings release or if you would like to listen to a recording of today's call, both will be available on our website. And if you are listening via the web, please feel free to submit questions to ir@kvh.com. Further, this conference call will contain certain forward-looking statements that are subject to numerous assumptions and uncertainties that may cause our actual results to differ materially from those expressed in these statements. We undertake no obligation to update or revise any of these statements. We will also discuss adjusted EBITDA, which is a non-GAAP financial measure. You will find a definition of this measure in our press release as well as a reconciliation to comparable GAAP numbers. We encourage you to review the cautionary statements made in our SEC filings, specifically those under the heading Risk Factors in our most recently filed 10-Q. The company's other SEC filings are available directly from the Investor Information section of our website. Now to walk you through the highlights of our third quarter, I'll turn the call over to Brent. Brent Bruun: Thank you, Anthony, and good morning, everyone. The positive momentum that we reported in the second quarter has continued into the third quarter. On our last call, we talked about an inflection point that -- in this quarter, we have reinforced that inflection point. This is due to our strategic focus on LEO airtime revenue and subscriber growth, which have yielded positive results. Highlights for the quarter include a new record for vessel subscriber growth, record quarterly shipments of satellite communication terminals, sequential and year-over-year service revenue growth, closing the sale of our Middletown, Rhode Island facility and the acquisition of customer and vendor agreements, along with other assets from a satellite service provider operating in the Asia Pacific region. At the same time, we maintained our commitment to strong cost control with flat OpEx and reduced CapEx compared to the second quarter of 2025. Service revenue for Q3 was $25.4 million, a 10% increase from the prior quarter and a 4% increase from Q3 2024. The increase in year-over-year revenue is particularly encouraging as the prior year included a significant amount of U.S. Coast Guard revenue, which has drastically decreased since the third quarter of last year. Equally encouraging, our subscriber growth continued in the third quarter. Our total subscribing vessel count increased by 11% to approximately 9,000 compared to the second quarter. And as a result, our subscribing vessel count is up 26% year-to-date. This growth is being driven by the ongoing demand for the Starlink and OneWeb LEO services we provide. During Q3, we shipped roughly 1,600 terminals, a new record. There continues to be strong demand for both stand-alone LEO services and hybrid installations, which represent a combined service utilizing a LEO service in tandem with our legacy VSAT offering. Our Starlink subscriber growth also helped us to stay on target to consume the bulk data pool we purchased in July of 2024, before the end of this year. We're in the final stages of negotiations with Starlink to purchase an additional data pool. We expect the new purchase commitment will scale to reflect the significant growth trajectory of Starlink airtime as a portion of our business, enable us to retain flexibility to create custom competitive data plans to meet our subscribers' needs and allow us to sustain solid airtime margins. In addition, we continue to pursue strategic growth opportunities. In Q3, we completed the acquisition of the maritime communications customer base of a service provider operating in the Asia Pacific region. This acquisition is expected to bring on board more than 800 vessels that are currently utilizing satellite communication services, approximately 300 of which receive our VSAT service, more than 4,400 land-based subscribers who use Inmarsat and Iridium handheld services and a corresponding increase in annual top line revenue. This strategic move represents an essential milestone in our evolution as it is intended to expand our customer base, broaden our product and service portfolio and significantly increase our land connectivity subscriber base. This step is representative of our commitment to investing in KVH and strengthening our market position. And finally, we successfully closed the sale of our facility in Rhode Island, which generated approximately $8 million in net proceeds. Now I will turn the call back to Anthony to discuss the numbers. Anthony? Anthony Pike: Sorry about that. Thank you, Brent. As a reminder, I would like to note that similar to our call for Q2, I will not restate data that is in the earnings release or clearly described in our 10-Q. I will focus my comments on information that either elaborates on or clarifies the published data. So with respect to our third quarter financial results, airtime gross margin was 31.9%, which is down by 3.9% compared to the prior-quarter gross margin of 35.8%. This decrease was driven by the reduction in GEO airtime margins as a result of declining revenue set against a relatively fixed cost base. That said, GEO revenue decline continues to be in line with expectations and is not significantly accelerating. We expect this trend on GEO airtime margin to continue in the fourth quarter. However, from January 2026, our minimum commitments for GEO bandwidth declined considerably by around 1/3, which we expect will reduce pressure on margins. Our LEO airtime margin was consistent with the prior quarter. Total subscribing vessels at the end of Q3 were just below 9,000, which, as Brent mentioned, is 11% up from the prior quarter and 26% up from the beginning of the year. Reported Q3 product gross profit was negative $6.8 million compared to a product gross profit of positive $0.3 million in the prior quarter. This quarter's negative product gross profit included a $5.5 million write-down of our VSAT inventory based upon reduced demand and pricing. The remaining reduction in profitability of $1.6 million this quarter was driven by price reductions on Starlink and our H-Series VSAT antennas. We expect product margins to improve in the fourth quarter from the third quarter of this year, but product margins will remain relatively modest, and we believe the real value of our mobile connectivity hardware shipments is the recurring airtime revenue they generate in the future. The Q3 operating expenses of $9.5 million were flat compared to the prior quarter. And our adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $1.4 million, and our earnings release has a numerical reconciliation of that. Capital expenditure for the quarter was $1.6 million. This compares to adjusted EBITDA of $2.7 million and capital expenditure of $2.4 million in the second quarter of 2025. Our ending cash balance of $72.8 million was up approximately $16.9 million from the beginning of the quarter. And as Brent mentioned, net proceeds from the sale of our property at Middletown, Rhode Island was $7.8 million. So overall, we are pleased with the third quarter performance, which shows our strategy to focus on our recurring revenue service business is proving successful with double-digit sequential growth on both service revenue and subscribed vessels in the quarter, although we cannot assure that growth will continue at this rate. Our LEO margins remain strong, and we are managing the global decline in GEO well. The sale of our manufacturing facility and the first acquisition we have completed in several years evidences our strategic intent moving forward, and we are optimistic for the future. This now concludes our prepared remarks. I will turn the call over to the operator to open the line for the Q&A portion of this morning's call. Operator? Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Chris Quilty of Quilty Space. Christopher Quilty: I wanted to dial in a little bit to the growth in the LEO business. I think you said 1,600 terminals shipped in the quarter. And historically, you were adding 600 a year on the GEO side. Where are you seeing the demand come from or the nature of the demand to see the levels climb that quickly? Brent Bruun: Yes. The demand is really pretty evenly spread between all regions and all types of vessels. So there's not anything specific that's driving the demand, Chris. We did scale back a bit on leisure marine in the third quarter just due to the time of year, right? That's a very -- fourth quarter, first quarter, we'll see a lot more activity there as the boats are moving south. But it's just not really any significant concentration. Christopher Quilty: And how about -- I mean, are you seeing these as competitive wins? Or are these new installs? Or is that mix changing? Brent Bruun: It's a bit of both. It's definitely some competitive wins, on the new installs also because we're going further downstream, and that trend has continued with the service plans that we offer and the price per bit delivered, it's opened up the market quite a bit to the lower end. Christopher Quilty: Got you. And I think I received my first Starlink e-mail yesterday, offering me free equipment on the consumer side. But apparently, you're also seeing that on the maritime enterprise side. How are you managing the hardware inventory and pricing with what's been a pretty dynamic pricing environment? Brent Bruun: Yes. Well, and as Anthony alluded to, they've reduced price. We're not necessarily offering -- we're not offering free equipment for maritime unless you know something I don't. But they have reduced price. It's caused a bit -- it's difficult. You have to manage it because when you're buying inventory, you have it at a higher price and then they're selling it lower, and you need to drop your price. It did impact our margins to a degree. On a go-forward basis, we have an understanding of Starlink, of how to handle this a bit better. And if, in fact, they have further price concessions, we would anticipate that any stock that we're holding, we would get a corresponding reduction and/or credit for the difference between previous sale purchase price and the new purchase price. Christopher Quilty: Got you. And can you contrast that with your OneWeb terminal sales where I think you mentioned a lot of those are being sold under AgilePlan where you're capitalizing the cost there. Is the differential -- price differential or CapEx requirements on your part causing a shift in terms of how customers are looking at the One service versus the other? Brent Bruun: Price definitely has an impact. It's -- we've shipped quite a few more Starlinks and OneWebs. There are alternatives to using a OneWeb and not necessarily just on a stand-alone basis. We talk about our hybrid service offering, which is primarily concentrating on a LEO service with VSAT, but it doesn't -- we also have some customers that have provided two different LEO services on board to ensure diversity. Christopher Quilty: Understand. On the GEO side, is it fair to assume the Coast Guard headwind going into the fourth quarter is probably like less than $1 million? Brent Bruun: You mean as far as the amount of revenue we recognized in the fourth quarter of last year? Christopher Quilty: Yes. Brent Bruun: When you say headwinds. We had a significant amount of revenue in the third quarter, but the contract was expired at the end of September of '24. And we've retained a small amount of Coast Guard revenue, so it's not completely gone, but that small amount was representative in 2024, in 4Q '24, and it will be in 4Q '25. So it's really not going to be a factor in a year-over-year comparison in the fourth quarter, if that's your question. Christopher Quilty: Yes, that was it. And aside from the Coast Guard, what are you seeing in the trends on the GEO ARPUs? Brent Bruun: Yes. I'll defer to Anthony on that question. Anthony Pike: Yes. So the GEO ARPUs this year have been fairly static. The first to the second quarter, they dropped a little bit. But since then, they've been very static. So we're very pleased with the third quarter's ARPUs on our GEO side. They seem to be remaining. Christopher Quilty: Great. And you guys didn't talk about CommBox much in the quarter. Was there any significant movement in customer adoption or -- you had the new cybersecurity feature coming... Brent Bruun: Yes. Well, the cybersecurity feature is being well received. There's not necessarily new news on that. It's being well received. We shipped, I don't have the exact number, but hundreds of CommBoxes, and we activated hundreds of services and it's being well received in the market. But we didn't really see a need to call it out specifically this quarter. It was -- and shipments were up sequentially in the third quarter versus the second. Anthony Pike: Yes. I mean if I just jump in there, Brent. I mean, revenue was up about mid-30%, I think 36% quarter-on-quarter, which just shows we're getting some successful growth and the growth from -- that we discussed in prior quarters continued both in terms of shipments and activations. Christopher Quilty: Great. And sorry, I'm all over the map. I should have organized my questions. But Anthony, did you mention how many LEO terminals were activated in the quarter? Anthony Pike: No, I did not know. No. I'm not sure, Brent, do we... Brent Bruun: Yes. So basically, we talked about our growth, which went -- was approximately 1,000, from 8,000 to 9,000. A significant portion, majority of those would be LEO. As far as the vessels that we have out there, 9,000, more than half are receiving Starlink services. But we'd like to just keep it at that level and know that our overall subscribing vessels are significant, and they've had significant growth in the quarter, which we hope -- we anticipate, or we hope will continue. There's no guarantees. And as we move forward, a larger and larger portion of our installed base will be receiving LEO services and for the current time period, in particular, Starlink. Christopher Quilty: Great. Are you starting to hear whispers from the Amazon guys coming to market? Brent Bruun: Yes, there's all kinds of -- there's not whispers. I think they're shouting from the mountaintop. So... Christopher Quilty: Right. And does that look like it will be a competitive service based upon what you're seeing in terms of... Brent Bruun: Yes. I mean on paper, yes, the proof is in the pudding. So let's -- once we are able to test it and see what the cost of the equipment is, the data speeds, the ability to maintain link and the overall quality of the service, we'll -- when that all comes to fruition and we're able to do significant testing, we'll be able to answer that question a bit more concisely. But on paper, it looks like it will be compelling. Christopher Quilty: Great. With the acquisition, I think you mentioned 800 vessels that obviously didn't show up in the numbers for this quarter. Will we see kind of a onetime jump of 800 vessels that happens in Q4? Brent Bruun: Yes. Let's just be clear, yes, but over 500 vessels, right? So we -- 300 of those vessels were already receiving our service. We'll be able to achieve higher margin on those vessels because we were selling it to the service provider and the service provider was charging their end customer a higher price. But those will be reflected in our fourth quarter. That net 500 will be reflected in our fourth quarter numbers. Christopher Quilty: Got you. You had previously talked about primarily Latin American land growth, but it sounds like there's an element of that with this acquisition. And I think you specifically called out the sat phone part of their business. Is that a focus? Or is it more around, again, traditional land terminals in Asia... Brent Bruun: Well, a bit of both. In this particular case, it was opportunistic because that's what they provided. So we're taking it on. We do have -- we think it would make sense to go into an adjacent market outside of maritime and provide land services since we have the infrastructure to support it. And we're looking into that to do more. Christopher Quilty: Got you. And is that expanding products or services? Is this all SATCOM-related services? Or do you move into other adjacent communication services? Brent Bruun: It primarily will be SATCOM. The handhelds are very high volume, low ARPU type business. So it's -- you need to get a lot of them out there to make any type of significant revenue. Christopher Quilty: And final question just because I don't pay as close attention to the maritime market. Any notable trends due to tariffs or global geopolitical situations that you're watching in terms of the demand and uptake on the maritime side? Brent Bruun: Yes. Well, of course, we watch it, and we pay attention to what's going on, but we're not seeing any significant impact from tariffs or the geopolitical environment. Operator: I'm showing no further questions at this time. Thank you for your participation in today's conference call. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect.
Operator: Good day, and welcome to the Vericel Corporation Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Eric Burns, Vericel's Vice President of Finance and Investor Relations. Please go ahead. Eric Burns: Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. Joining me on today's call are Vericel's President and Chief Executive Officer, Nick Colangelo; and our Chief Financial Officer, Joe Mara. Before we begin, let me remind you that on today's call, we will be making forward-looking statements covered under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements may involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations and are described more fully in our filings with the SEC. In addition, all forward-looking statements represent our views only as of today and should not be relied upon as representing our views as of any subsequent date. Please note that a copy of our third quarter financial results, press release and a short presentation with highlights from today's call are available in the Investor Relations section of our website. I will now turn the call over to Nick. Dominick C. Colangelo: Thank you, Eric, and good morning, everyone. The company delivered outstanding financial and business results in the third quarter with strong top line revenue growth and even higher profit growth, a significant inflection in operating cash flow, and continued progress across a number of key business initiatives. The company generated record third quarter total revenue, which exceeded our guidance for the quarter, record third quarter MACI revenue, which increased 25% over last year and the highest quarterly burn care revenue of the year as Epicel had one of its highest revenue quarters to date and NexoBrid had its highest quarterly revenue since launch. The strong revenue performance translated into significant profit growth and cash generation as the company delivered GAAP net income of more than $5 million and adjusted EBITDA margin of 25% for the quarter as well as record third quarter operating cash flow of more than $22 million. MACI's third quarter performance was driven by strong underlying business fundamentals as we continue to expand the MACI surgeon base and drive growth in biopsies with the launch of MACI Arthro. As anticipated, the strong MACI biopsy growth in the first half of the year, which outpaced implant growth to that point, drove an acceleration of implant and revenue growth in the third quarter. MACI also had another quarter of double-digit biopsy growth with record third quarter highs in both MACI biopsies and the number of surgeons taking biopsies. This momentum continued into the fourth quarter as we had the highest number of MACI biopsies and surgeons taking biopsies in any month since launch in October. In addition to the strength of the core MACI fundamentals, the early launch indicators remain very strong for MACI Arthro, which clearly is contributing to MACI's overall biopsy and implant growth. We now have more than 800 MACI Arthro trained surgeons through the end of October, and the biopsy and implant growth rates continue to increase substantially for trained surgeons and remain significantly higher than the growth rates for surgeons that have not yet been trained. In addition, early data indicates that the cohort of surgeons that have completed a MACI Arthro case to date have a markedly higher implant growth rate than biopsy growth rate, suggesting a higher overall conversion rate for MACI Arthro implanting surgeons. We believe that this dynamic may be driven by the fact that MACI Arthro is a less invasive procedure with the potential for improved patient outcomes. To that end, we remain focused on generating clinical data to demonstrate these potential patient benefits, including a shorter rehab period with MACI Arthro administration. Early data from ongoing investigator case series suggests a significant reduction in postsurgical pain, improved range of motion and a meaningful acceleration in the time line to achieving full weight bearing, following MACI Arthro treatment. These initial results suggest very positive outcomes, which could also lead to a shorter overall recovery time line for patients. We expect to see these cases presented at industry meetings in early 2026 as well as in future publications, and we continue to work with additional surgeons as they complete MACI Arthro cases to collect prospective outcomes data in our MACI clinical registry. Finally, the MACI sales force expansion is on track to be completed in the fourth quarter, with the new reps supporting current territories this year and moving into their new territories at the start of next year, which will support our significant fourth quarter volume growth and position MACI for a continued strong performance for the full year in 2026. In terms of our longer-term MACI growth initiatives, we remain on track to initiate the Phase III MACI Ankle clinical study this quarter, which represents a substantial growth opportunity for MACI and would enable the company to expand into other orthopedic markets. We also remain on track to initiate commercial manufacturing for MACI in our new facility next year, which is designed to meet both U.S. and global manufacturing requirements and will allow the company to potentially commercialize MACI outside the United States. To that end, we're initiating a stage approach to our MACI OUS expansion with the first phase targeting a planned MACI launch in the U.K. This is an ideal first step for OUS expansion in that the U.K. has an international mutual recognition procedure that allows for accelerated approval and market access. There's a high level of awareness and surgeon advocacy for MACI given that the product was previously marketed in the U.K. There's an established reimbursement pathway for this technology given a prior positive NICE opinion for MACI, and there are concentrated points of care with a dozen or so centers of excellence for the treatment of cartilage injuries in the U.K. We'd expect to submit a marketing application in the middle of next year and potentially launch MACI in the U.K. in the first half of 2027 as we seek to expand the long-term growth and value creation opportunities for the company. In summary, MACI remains the clear market leader for knee cartilage repair with a significant competitive moat. Based on the strength of its underlying business fundamentals, we believe that MACI is very well positioned for a strong close to 2025 and continued strong growth in 2026 and beyond. The early launch indicators for MACI Arthro remain very strong and clearly are contributing to the overall biopsy and implant growth for MACI. As we move into 2026, we expect to capitalize on having a full year to engage with the current MACI Arthro trained surgeons and to continue to meaningfully expand the number of trained surgeons next year. In addition to increasing the MACI sales force to drive further growth, we're also supporting the expanded MACI sales team with additional investments across our sales operations, marketing and medical functions to enhance our operational excellence and commercial execution and create additional opportunities for surgeons to engage with Vericel. We believe that all of these initiatives will reinforce MACI's leadership position and drive continued strong revenue and profit growth in 2026 and the years ahead. I'll now turn the call over to Joe. Joseph Mara: Thanks, Nick, and good morning, everyone. The company delivered very strong financial results in the third quarter with record total revenue of $67.5 million. MACI had a strong quarter with revenue growing 25% to $55.7 million, which was above the high end of our guidance range for the quarter. Importantly, year-to-date MACI revenue growth is over 20% with its growth rate having increased each quarter during the year. Burn Care also had a strong third quarter with revenue of $11.8 million, which increased 21% sequentially over the second quarter. Epicel revenue of $10.4 million was the highest quarter of the year and one of its highest quarters to date, while NexoBrid revenue of $1.5 million represented its highest quarterly revenue since launch, growing 38% versus the prior year and 26% versus the prior quarter. The company's substantial revenue growth translated into significant margin expansion with gross profit of nearly $50 million or 73.5% of revenue. Company also delivered GAAP net income of $5.1 million and adjusted EBITDA increased nearly 70% to $17 million or 25% of revenue, an increase of nearly 800 basis points versus the prior year as the company's profit growth continues to outpace our strong revenue growth. Finally, the company generated record third quarter operating cash flow of $22.1 million, nearly matching the fourth quarter of last year. And with just $2.6 million of CapEx during the quarter, the company achieved record free cash flow of nearly $20 million, ending the quarter with $185 million in cash and investments as the expected inflection of our cash generation following the completion of our new manufacturing facility is now being realized. Turning to our financial guidance. We expect full year total revenue of approximately $272 million to $276 million. For MACI, we are maintaining our revenue guidance expectations of low 20% growth for the full year and expect full year MACI revenue of approximately $237.5 million to $239.5 million and fourth quarter revenue of approximately $82 million to $84 million. Given MACI's strong third quarter results and expectations for its continued strong performance in Q4, MACI remains on track for a significant acceleration in revenue growth from 18% in the first half of the year to approximately 23% in the second half of the year. For Burn Care, we expect full year revenue of approximately $34.5 million to $36.5 million, with fourth quarter revenue of approximately $6.5 million to $8.5 million as Epicel trends to date in the fourth quarter are similar to Q4 of last year. I would also note that we are not assuming any additional NexoBrid revenue related to the BARDA RFP process initiated in August, although there is potential for incremental NexoBrid BARDA revenue in the fourth quarter. From a profitability perspective, we have reaffirmed our full year profitability guidance of gross margin of 74% and adjusted EBITDA margin of 26%. For the fourth quarter, we expect gross margin of approximately 77%, approximately $50 million of total operating expenses, which includes the investments related to our recent sales force expansion and adjusted EBITDA margin of approximately 40%. Overall, 2025 is set up to be another positive year for the company with strong top line growth as well as significant margin expansion and profit growth. As we look ahead to next year and beyond, we believe that the durable growth of our portfolio positions the company to sustain strong top line growth in the years ahead and supports our midterm profitability targets that we announced earlier this year of gross margin in the high 70% range and adjusted EBITDA margin in the high 30% range by 2029. This now concludes our prepared remarks. We will now open the call to your questions. Operator: [Operator Instructions] We'll move to our first question. Joshua Jennings: This is Josh Jennings from TD Cowen. Is that -- am I coming through okay? Joseph Mara: We can hear you fine. Joshua Jennings: I'm sorry I got operating notice. I didn't hear my name called. So maybe just -- I appreciate your comments. Congratulations on the strong 3Q results. Your comments just a moment ago, Joe, on 2026 continued momentum. Just sorry for the typical question, a little bit too early prior to 2026 guidance, but maybe just for the MACI franchise, just thinking about MACI Arthro contributions in 2026, additive versus cannibalistic of standard MACI and how we should be thinking about the MACI growth as we move into the coming quarters next year? I have one follow-up. Joseph Mara: Yes. So Josh, again, and thanks for the question. So first off, just a reminder, we haven't given any specific '26 commentary as of yet, but happy to give kind of our initial thoughts. Of course, we'll kind of give more formal guidance as we move into next year. I would say -- I'll kind of hit just briefly on both franchises, but certainly cover MACI. So, I would say across the portfolio, our expectations next year are very high. We have a number of impactful initiatives that we're very excited about across both franchises, particularly MACI. But I do think we'll be pretty prudent to start the year from a guidance perspective. So maybe just briefly starting with Burn Care, I think that one is pretty straightforward. So we talked about last quarter this kind of run rate concept, which we think is appropriate. We said we would adjust it kind of as needed on a quarterly basis. But if you look at our run rate over the last several quarters, we've kind of been in that $9 million to $10 million range on burn care. So I think as a starting point for next year, kind of being in that range, call it in the high 30s on a full year basis next year is a good place to start. We do have expectations that NexoBrid will continue to increase. Certainly, there remains a possibility of some potential BARDA-related revenue that could materialize. But just given Epicel's variability, we're just going to be prudent on that, and I think that one is pretty straightforward. So from a MACI perspective, I would say, as we think about the guidance and kind of what next year looks like, if you kind of look at where analysts are, I mean, most analysts are kind of right around 20% on a full year basis, plus or minus. We think that's a good starting point as we think about '26. If you look at where we were on a full year basis last year, MACI was 20%. It's 20% on a year-to-date basis this year. So we're not going to get ahead of ourselves and plan to start the year guiding above the trends of that 20%. So again, that's a good place to start. You can also look at kind of the incremental revenue on a year-over-year basis. That points to something kind of similar in that $40 million plus range. Again, we don't want to get ahead of ourselves. And I guess kind of the last point I will make on the arthro question. I think as we think about '26 and really moving forward, we're not really thinking about this as kind of arthro versus non-arthro. We're thinking about this from a MACI total level. But if you kind of step back and think about the progression during the year, I think we're seeing exactly what we wanted to see as we kind of march through the year. So first off, great foundation in terms of engagement with surgeons. We're up to 800 trained surgeons. I think the majority of those are either new to MACI or new to smaller defects. So that's exactly what we'd want to see. The second point there that we've talked about for a few quarters now is we are seeing higher biopsy and implant growth after surgeons are trained. So that's obviously exactly what we want to see, and we think that could be impactful over time. And then the last point, early days, but when we look at our arthro implanters, so the surgeons that have done arthro implants, we're actually seeing signals of a higher conversion rate. So, I mean, if you kind of look at that collectively, that is a pretty strong data set and consistent to what we hear externally. So good signals on Arthro for sure. But I would say, certainly, we're mindful of that, but we're just not going to get ahead of ourselves in terms of a planning assumption or guidance next year and would rather start the year a bit more prudently, which we think sets us up for success as we move throughout the year. Joshua Jennings: Appreciate that. And it's great to see the conversion rate thesis playing out for MACI Arthro. We've anecdotally kind of gotten back from some surgeons that patient demand for MACI Arthro is increasing. More patients are seeking out ortho surgeons that perform MACI Arthro or coming in requesting MACI Arthro. Just wondering if that -- if what we're picking up is a trend and whether that's helping kind of drive surgeon adoption rates, surgeons hearing from patients and then they're getting more interested or also driving volumes? But anything you can share on that dynamic would be helpful. Dominick C. Colangelo: Josh, it's Nick. Yes, I mean, as we've talked about repeatedly, we've heard and seen the anecdotal feedback since the early days with MACI Arthro. There's a lot of social media activity from top MACI Arthro implanters. That certainly can be one contributing factor to sort of patients' awareness of a MACI Arthro option. So that makes perfect sense to us. And as Joe mentioned, besides the anecdotal kind of feedback we've been getting, which has been very positive. Everything -- the parameters that Joe mentioned just sort of line up with everything we expected to happen, and it's the progression that we've been talking about for the entire year. So yes, really kind of pleased with the trends. And I think there's -- makes a lot of sense that patients would be interested in a less invasive procedure that has potential benefits in terms of faster recovery and potentially overall rehab time lines. And then, of course, the surgeon interest. We're well ahead of where we expected to be on trained surgeons for the year. So that awareness and engagement has been really positive as well. Operator: We'll move to our next question from Richard Newitter with Truist Securities. Richard Newitter: Congrats on the quarter. I just wanted to get a better understanding of where you're potentially seeing MACI Arthro actually potentially getting used where the traditional MACI was not? . Just the cannibalization versus market expansion, anything anecdotal that you can give us there? And then I have a follow-up. Dominick C. Colangelo: Rich, it's Nick. So I think it's kind of continuing the trends that we've talked about on the past quarters. And again, we don't really -- cannibalization is not sort of how we think about this. We look at increasing MACI utilization and whether a surgeon implants MACI through a mini arthrotomy or small open incision or arthroscopically, that all contributes to the strong MACI growth that we are seeing. So as we talked about before and as Joe alluded to, when you think about it from a surgeon perspective, the trained surgeons and now the biopsying and implanting surgeons come from existing MACI users, but also new users who were former open targets or the new arthro-only targets that we added. And the training kind of breaks down, as we talked about before, roughly 1/3 of sort of the former -- the MACI users who were primarily condyle users and then 1/3 from those that did both condyle and femoral condyles and then 1/3 new users, whether they were open targets or the new targets. So good distribution of surgeons, all of whom are taking biopsies and obviously doing implants. And then from a defect location or a patient perspective, we've talked a lot about that we've seen use not only on the femoral condyles, but also in areas of the knee like the trochlea and tibia, even a few patella cases here and there. And that, I think, will continue, especially as we think about the continued innovation with the MACI Arthro instruments where we will work with surgeons, design the next version 2.0 of MACI instruments that will allow access to different portions of the knee and so on. So I think it's pretty broad-based as we've been talking about all year and supports the growth that we've seen in this third quarter. Richard Newitter: Okay. That's really encouraging to hear. I'm just curious, just given where you are in kind of a new product launch here. As we look to next year, understanding you might not want to provide official guidance, totally understand that for '26. But anything that we should be aware of on the cadence on revenue or on the P&L? Just -- it's been a little bit counterintuitive for the last 2 years and just to preempt any surprises as we all calibrate our models into next year? Joseph Mara: So thanks, Rich, for the question. This is Joe. So I would say, as we go into any year, I mean, I think from a MACI perspective, there's always going to be that seasonality. I mean it can certainly ebb and flow a bit on a quarterly basis. I would say one thing as we're thinking about -- we're talking about the full year, but we have tended to see in the last couple of years that the first quarter has tended to be at kind of a lower growth rate for whatever reason coming off Q4. So I mean that, of course, is a dynamic we've seen that I would point out, that was present in the last couple of years. So that's probably one piece. In general, I would say it typically follows a pattern as we've seen. And again, it can vary a bit by quarters, but halves tend to look pretty similar. So nothing I would call out, obviously, on the burn care side, which I don't think you're necessarily getting to. But clearly, there can be variability there. And again, we're going to kind of stick with that run rate framework, and we'll adjust as needed, as we've done in the fourth quarter here just based on what we're seeing because we certainly want to make sure we're not going to get ahead of ourselves in any quarter on burn care. So that's more of a framework question. I would say on the -- maybe just to hit the profitability for next year and kind of the profitability concept. I mean nothing to call out next year quarterly. But I would say, as you're thinking about the year and just going forward, I'd say, first off, I think it's pretty notable if you look back at Q3 that this is -- of course, the fourth quarter, just based on the MACI trajectory is always our highest revenue quarter, highest margin quarter, et cetera. But to be net income positive at a $5 million level, I think, is pretty notable in the third quarter. We achieved 25% adjusted EBITDA margin in the third quarter, which is also pretty notable. And then just on the cash generation for a moment, I mean, whether you look at free cash flow or operating cash flow, you're kind of around $20 million for the quarter. So we talked a few years ago about that P&L inflection that we're starting to really get on the stronger side of. And I think we're just starting that kind of inflection on the cash generation piece. In terms of the fourth quarter, obviously, we would expect a strong quarter there as well, as I talked about in the remarks. Next year, I would say, as you think about next year, I think we would expect on the margin side things to continue to tick up on both the gross margin and the adjusted EBITDA side. Probably want to just be a little bit prudent there to start the year in the sense that the last 2 or 3 years have been really strong and probably a bit ahead of our expectations in terms of how quickly the margin has gotten up the curve. But I certainly think kind of being up, call it, 1 point in gross margin, maybe 1 point or 2 on adjusted EBITDA is a reasonable starting point. We will have to -- there will be investments on the sales force on a full year basis on the Ankle trial ramping up, cost of goods sold will absorb some of the new buildings. So that has to be contemplated next year. Lastly, I would just say, I think from a broader lens, if you kind of look at where the kind of financial trajectory of the company is and our P&L metrics, they are really kind of starting to ramp up pretty significantly. So last year we had $50 million of adjusted EBITDA. This year our guidance is pointing to $70 million. So we're already starting to get into that $100 million zone on adjusted EBITDA level now. And so, if you assume even similar revenue growth over the next few years and a high 30% adjusted EBITDA, I think it's certainly reasonable to be kind of getting close to that $200 million EBITDA range by 2029, call it. So, I think we're pretty excited about, obviously, everything that's going on in the MACI's side and across the business, but we're also very focused on that kind of financial trajectory in '26, but really over the next several years, which could be pretty significant. And again, we think it makes us pretty unique for a company of our size and scale. Operator: We'll take our next question from Ryan Zimmerman with BTIG. Ryan Zimmerman: Can you hear me okay? Nice quarter. Just given the biopsy trends you saw early in the year, the results this quarter, MACI -- the MACI guidance was tightened. And I'm wondering why fourth quarter wouldn't step up maybe relative to your prior guidance given what you're seeing and your commentary about biopsies in the third and into the fourth quarter? Joseph Mara: Yes. So thanks for the question, Ryan. So I'll take that. I mean I think, clearly, a very strong third quarter, as we referenced, the biopsies at the start of the year led to that higher implanted revenue growth, which is great to see. To your point, the leading indicators have been strong. I'd say particularly the biopsies, which is, of course, a key leading indicator for us. I think in terms of the guidance, I would say another dimension there is, with that strong third quarter, it really derisks where we need to be in the fourth quarter to achieve our full year guidance. So, to your point, we're essentially maintaining the full year guide at the same level. It kind of points to about $82 million to $84 million in the fourth quarter, which is right in line with kind of where estimates and consensus are. But I'd also say this kind of points to a pretty strong acceleration still from an H1 to H2 perspective, depending on where you're in the range, it's 18% to call it 22% to 23%. So a pretty significant step-up in the second half. It also gives us, I'd say, a pretty achievable step-up Q3 to Q4. And I'd just say broadly, we just want to be prudent here on Q4. We recognize there certainly remains a wider range given some of the leading indicators. We've got a great foundation of biopsies in place, but Q4 is our largest quarter. December is our highest month because there always can be some variability at quarter end, particularly with the year-end holidays. So we think this is appropriate. It's an achievable step-up. And I would say just we do not want to get ahead of ourselves as we close out the year. Ryan Zimmerman: Yes. Okay. Fair enough. And the other question, and you kind of talked about this, Nick, which is you're seeing adoption in MACI Arthro. But I guess I'm not clear. I mean, what -- how much MACI Arthro sales were in the third quarter? And what are you expecting relative to legacy MACI, if you will, as we convert and move into the -- both the fourth quarter, but then into 2026? I mean, if you were to kind of think about it with broad strokes, I mean, does it entirely convert over this next quarter? Do you convert over the course of 2026? I guess I'm just curious kind of how you think about the rise of MACI Arthro relative to maybe the decline of legacy MACI? Dominick C. Colangelo: Yes. So we kind of don't, like we said earlier, think about a decline of legacy MACI. I mean, legacy MACI was principally focused on patella defects and large defects anywhere in the knee. And I'd say that patella defects is one of the strongest, if not the strongest growth drivers, for core MACI, and that remains the case. So they're not like a decline in the core MACI. And again, you're never going to have full sort of switch over to MACI Arthro because MACI Arthro instruments are designed for the smaller defects. If it's above 4 square centimeters, you're doing an open procedure. If it's a patella case, you're typically going to do an open procedure. And so the small defects were the smaller part. We had lower penetration there. That's the whole thesis for launching the MACI Arthro instruments. And so, as we've seen an increase in biopsies and implants on smaller condyle defects, those are kind of MACI Arthro attributable cases. So, again, we don't think about it as it's got to be blank on the core and then blank on arthro. You can often start intending to do an arthro case and flip to open if the defect got bigger since you did a biopsy. I mean, it's almost like a halo effect on the whole brand. And so, that's how we approach it. But no [ doubt ], as we've talked about that the trends for trained surgeons and how they're behaving is exactly what you want to see and supports the overall growth for the brand. Ryan Zimmerman: Okay. That's very helpful. And if I could sneak one last one in, and I'll hop back in queue. If you go back, some of the insurance carriers and their policies don't restrict lesion size. Some do. Have you had to work through that? And is there any impact or any gating factor there in terms of lesion size as you launch MACI Arthro? Dominick C. Colangelo: Yes. So the answer -- short answer is not at all. As you mentioned, there are some plans that don't have any sort of size restrictions or parameters there. There are some that require that the defect be 1, 1.5 or 2 square centimeters or above. That's again exactly what the MACI Arthro instruments are designed for. They are 2, 3 or 4 square centimeter defects. So really, that has not been an issue at all. And as we've talked about often, every major medical plan has a policy, a medical policy for MACI and our prior approval rates are up in the mid-90% range. So for the appropriate patients, MACI gets approved. Operator: We'll take our next question from Caitlin Roberts with Canaccord Genuity. Caitlin Roberts: Congrats on the quarter. Just to start with Burn Care, can you just walk us through the puts and takes here? You said Epicel you expect similar Q4 dynamics this quarter and last year. And then the BARDA contract, any more color on that and why there could be some BARDA upside to NexoBrid? And also has the new Category III code for NexoBrid helped uptake there? Dominick C. Colangelo: Caitlin, this is Nick. So just on the Epicel trends coming into the quarter that Joe referenced, I mean, what we said was to start the quarter, and again, we're still relative -- we're only 1/3 of the way through the quarter that the trends to date, which essentially is sort of the biopsies that we had coming into the quarter and in the first weeks of the quarter were more like Q4 last year. So that's what we're going to guide to. As you know, we still have a good amount of the quarter to go. The biopsies for patients we're going to treat in December aren't even sort of in-house yet. So we just don't have the visibility on that. So we -- as Joe mentioned, we want to be very prudent in sort of making sure that we don't get ahead of ourselves on Epicel guidance given its variability. On the BARDA opportunity, as you know, the RFP is public and was intended to sort of begin on October 1st. Obviously, we're all aware there's a government shutdown. So things sort of came to a screeching halt. But we are hopeful and expect that when the government reopens, that there's an opportunity to move forward on that RFP and the procurement, et cetera, and advanced development of NexoBrid. So more to come on that. But obviously, until that happens, we can't really kind of share much more about it. And then on the CPT code, I think we have, as we've talked about, had a pretty good number of P&T committee approvals for NexoBrid, up in the 70 range and more than 60 ordering centers. So kind of in the CPT world, I think we feel comfortable. There's pretty widespread utilization. And we would expect that next year we'll pursue a permanent code, which would then become effective in 2027. So that would be our plan right now. So more to come on that as we get into next year. Caitlin Roberts: That's great. And then just maybe touching on the MACI sales force hiring. Where are you now? And you noted you're on track to be completed in Q4. Any changes to the amount that you noted last quarter that you would hire into the year? Dominick C. Colangelo: Yes. No, we said we were going to be adding 25 new territories and 3 new regions, and that is essentially virtually complete, [ onesie, twosies ] left to go on that. So we are extremely pleased with the quality and caliber of the talent we've brought in. If you're in the sports medicine business, this is a great place to be with MACI. So 0 issues in attracting top talent and couldn't be more excited to kind of have this expanded team as we -- again, to support our Q4 volumes, but also as we move into next year. And so really excited about that. And that, quite frankly, is just one piece, as I mentioned, of sort of the overall sort of investments and enthusiasm around MACI, so expanding the sales force. we're really proud to have kind of built this franchise from a $30 million product 10 years ago to close to $0.25 billion now, and we're really focused on the people, the resources, the processes that we have to have in place to take it from $0.25 billion to $0.5 billion product over the next several years. And that's what we're focused on. The sales force expansion is one piece of it. As I alluded to in my prepared remarks, we're also focused on additional marketing, sales ops and other kinds of investments in medical affairs and engagement with our key customers to make sure that we drive and achieve what's clearly right in front of us as we move forward over the next several years. Operator: We'll take our next question from Mike Kratky with Leerink Partners. Michael Kratky: Congrats on a nice quarter. You've continued to show great progress on some of the leading indicators like biopsies and surgeons taking biopsies. Can you just clarify how much of your 3Q growth for MACI is being driven by implant volume versus pricing? Have you seen some of these really positive leading indicators start to materialize in your MACI volume growth? And how has that tracked relative to your expectations? Joseph Mara: Yes. Mike, thanks for the question. So yes, I mean I'd say kind of the acceleration that we're seeing in Q3 in terms of the performance, I mean, that's really volume driven. As we've talked about early in the year, we obviously had some strong biopsy growth. The implant growth was not tracking at the same level. And so what we really saw in the third quarter, which is what we anticipated, was really the volume from an implant perspective really ticked up. And then again, as you kind of think going forward, obviously, the most important indicator as we look forward, or one of the most important, of course, is that biopsy growth. And that's really something that has continued to be strong, and Nick referenced October was really strong as well, I think our highest month ever. So that's -- it's really kind of been driven by that piece, both in Q3. And then again, you think about those volumes as we start Q4, that's what's going to drive us going forward. Operator: We'll take our next question from Mason Carrico with Stephens. Unknown Analyst: This is Ben on for Mason. In terms of the MACI Arthro trained surgeons, you called out that 1/3 split between surgeon types. Could you compare and contrast arthro biopsy growth and maybe arthro procedures across these different groups? Dominick C. Colangelo: Yes. So just to be clear, we talked about the fact that we had former MACI users, about half of whom were condyle-only surgeons or users. And then we had the other half of those prior users that did both femoral condyle and patella cases and then we have new users. And so it kind of splits between those 2, 1/3, 1/3 or 3 and 1/3. And to be honest, we've seen kind of biopsy growth across the board. And I don't think there's any sort of notable sort of groups that are outperforming the others. Obviously, if they were smaller users and they ramp up even a handful, it's a high biopsy growth rate or if you're a new one, it's a really high biopsy growth rate. So I think the rates across those segments are relatively similar. And it's -- as Joe alluded to, it's pretty exciting for us to say between the new users, 1/3 of the surgeons being trained and then another 1/3 coming from Patella only. I mean, that's 2/3 of these trained surgeons who probably didn't think about using MACI or certainly didn't in smaller condyle defects. And so that's, again, exactly what we would have wanted to see this early in the launch. Unknown Analyst: Great. And then you've historically called out mid to high single-digit pricing for MACI. Could you speak to the durability of that pricing moving forward or just the durability of that in light of the current reimbursement environment? Dominick C. Colangelo: Yes. So again, just so everybody understands, MACI is reimbursed under a medical benefit. So it requires prior approval by each plan before a case can move forward. So obviously, the pricing is known when plans include MACI in their medical benefits. They know the appropriate patients are going to be treated because they have to approve them in advance. And that's what leads to sort of these high sort of mid-90% prior approval rates that we've achieved consistently for the last decade since we launched MACI. So some of the other things, we don't have a big, obviously, Medicare business at all. And so a lot of this sort of macro stuff that's circulating out there doesn't really apply to MACI. In terms of the sort of mid to high single-digit price increases that we've sort of routinely taken, I mean, we do a lot of pricing research with plans and hospital administrators. And again, this is viewed as a very sort of high-tech product where -- more like a biologic in the pharma space where mid to high single-digits are pretty routine. So we're pretty comfortable in our pricing practices and our approach. Operator: We'll move to our next question from Jeffrey Cohen with Ladenburg Thalmann. Jeffrey Cohen: Congrats on the quarter. Two specifically. Firstly, Joe, perhaps you could talk about R&D a bit and anticipation for Q4 full year and general commentary there? Joseph Mara: Yes. I mean so we haven't -- from a spend perspective, broadly, I mean we don't typically kind of get into the pieces. But I would say, I think we called out -- as you're thinking about kind of Q4, we called out about $50 million of total OpEx, which I think kind of gets us back to a similar point on a full year basis that we've been talking about all year. And I think as you think about kind of R&D going forward, and really kind of all the buckets, again, I referenced it earlier, but there's sort of 2 key incremental investments on the operating expense side, which are the sales force expansion, and Nick talked about we have some related investments around that, which I think will be important, and that will be incremental next year. And then the Ankle trial, really next year will become much more operational where you're going to see more sites and potentially patients kind of ramping up. So I would expect that to increase particularly next year, but we'll kind of get to where next year's spend is as we get into next year, probably at a somewhat similar rate in terms of growth this year, perhaps a bit higher just with some of those investments. But again, on Q4, we did specifically call out $50 million, just to be clear of kind of what was expected there. Jeffrey Cohen: Okay. Got it. And then secondly, I know, Nick, you brought up postsurgical pain. Could you talk about that a little more detail as far as anything that has been noted or you've noted as far as the medical treatment as well as the weight bearing and some of the [ times ] and some of the medications that you've understood so far? Dominick C. Colangelo: Yes. So this started way back even in the first quarter when we were talking about the fact that surgeons who had done the initial MACI Arthro cases were posting on social media about sort of these immediate positive benefits in terms of postsurgical pain or range of motion or sort of back to full weight bearing. Those are kind of the key early indicators. And as expected, both by us and surgeons through our market research using the product, when you have a less invasive surgery, you have less arthrofibrosis, so the knee is not swollen, you get better range of motion, et cetera. And so it just promotes a faster -- potentially faster healing process. And we've been really focused. We were fortunate to be able to get MACI Arthro instruments on the market quickly through the human factor study pathway, which didn't involve a clinical study. So obviously, we didn't have the clinical data supporting a faster post-surgical recovery. But that's what we've been focused on, and I alluded to in my comments that through case series and through the MACI clinical outcomes registry, we've been gathering that data and would expect in early 2026 that those -- that data will be presented at industry conferences, ultimately, hopefully make its way into publications. And we think in the progression of MACI when you go -- Arthro when you go from high awareness and training, which obviously we've checked that box, to sort of surgical technique demonstrations, which you see, for instance, at the International Cartilage Repair Society meeting that was recently held in Boston, very effective presentation there and then you move into these clinical benefits for patients. That's sort of the progression you would expect to see for MACI Arthro. And -- so that's kind of exactly what we're seeing and sort of why we made those comments in our prepared remarks. Unknown Analyst: Nick and Joe, can you hear me okay? This is Arthur on for RK. So I just had a quick question on the MACI side. So maybe for the MACI Arthro, could you give us more color regarding the timing from the surgeon finished the training to they are taking their first biopsy? How does that compare to the initial MACI launch? And on the conversion-wise, you mentioned there's a high conversion rate in terms of Arthro. But how about the average time to -- for the conversion, how that compared to the open surgery? Dominick C. Colangelo: Yes. So just starting with the training, it's very much like MACI -- core MACI when we launched where training is never really a barrier. You can train online, you can do cadaver labs. We have MACI Arthro synthetic knees they can practice on. And obviously, in the first cases that were done, biopsies were already taken and then they trained and did the MACI Arthro procedure. So there's really no sort of gating item around training. Often, if there's a surgery that a surgeon intends to do arthroscopically, those get trained ahead of the training. So there's really not a connection between whether you take a biopsy first, you get trained first and then take a biopsy, et cetera. So any of those scenarios, MACI Arthro training, we make a lot of different methodologies available to surgeons, and they just kind of do what they feel most comfortable with. In terms of the conversion rate, I think we mentioned on our last call that we haven't seen any sort of differences in the MACI Arthro conversion time lines versus regular. So kind of early days on that, but kind of similar at this point. Unknown Analyst: And last one, could you discuss the timing and scale of the MACI Ankle phase? How should we think about the data read out there? Dominick C. Colangelo: Well, just in terms of the timing, we said we're set to initiate the study in the fourth quarter of this year. We've kind of built a time line very much like the pivotal study -- the summit pivotal study for the indication in the knee, which was 2 years to enroll, 2-year follow-up and then, call it, 18 months plus on the regulatory pathway. So we've always said this is kind of a [ 2030 ]-plus opportunity. That's a very important part of our sort of long-term strategy for MACI with the core business, obviously, with a ton of momentum, MACI Arthro, then MACI OUS expansion opportunities and then MACI Ankle following that. So just kind of this sort of long runway of growth opportunities for MACI, particularly with no like competition on the horizon. Okay. Well, I believe that concludes all of the questions. So I just want to thank everyone for joining us this morning. Obviously, we had an outstanding third quarter and very well positioned for a strong close to the year and to continue to deliver a unique combination of sustained high revenue growth and profitability in 2026 and the years ahead. So we look forward to providing further updates on our progress on our next call. And thanks again, and have a great day. Operator: This concludes today's call. Thank you again for your participation. You may now disconnect and have a great day.
Operator: Good day, everyone, and welcome to today's AMG Q3 2025 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note, this call is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] It is now my pleasure to turn the conference over to Thomas Swoboda. Please go ahead, sir. Thomas Swoboda: Yes. Thank you, Jen, and good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to AMG's Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. Joining me on this call are Dr. Heinz Schimmelbusch, the Chairman of the Management Board and Chief Executive Officer; Mr. Jackson Dunckel, the CFO; and Mike Connor, the Chief Corporate Development Officer. We published our third quarter 2025 earnings press release yesterday, along with the presentation for investors, both of which you can find on our website. They include our disclaimers about forward-looking statements. Today's call will begin with a review of the third quarter 2025 business highlights by Dr. Schimmelbusch. Mr. Connor will comment on strategy and Mr. Dunckel will comment on AMG's financial results. At the completion of Mr. Dunckel's remarks, Dr. Schimmelbusch will comment on outlook. We will then open the line to take your questions. I now pass the floor to Dr. Schimmelbusch, AMG's Chairman of the Management Board and Chief Executive Officer. Heinz Schimmelbusch: Thank you, Thomas. Our Q3 adjusted EBITDA of $64 million represents a 58% increase versus Q3 last year, driven by continued momentum in AMG Technologies with AMG Engineering's order backlog as well as profitability in AMG Antimony. On top of that, we benefited from a $5 million compensation settlement at AMG Vanadium for an equipment failure related to our growth investment in Zanesville. We remain focused on the elements within our control, executing operationally, strengthening our balance sheet and streamlining our portfolio. The divestment of our natural graphite business represents a key step in this strategy, and we expect the transaction to close later this year. While our 2 main products, lithium and vanadium continue to face low pricing, constrained for profitability and cash generation in the near term, AMG is actively advancing expansion projects across our portfolio. These initiatives are closely aligned with governmental efforts to onshore strategic materials production and strengthen domestic supply lines in the United States. Construction of our chromium metal plant in Newcastle, Pennsylvania is progressing on schedule with a start-up targeted for Q2 '26. Upon completion, it will be the only chrome metal facility in the country reinforcing AMG's role as a key enabler of national material security. We also expand our U.S. titanium alloys capacity at the same facility to keep up with our customers' increasing demand for aerospace applications. In addition, we are evaluating the establishment of a tantalum and niobium metal plant in the U.S., leveraging our long-standing experience in both metals in Brazil and our unique backward integration into AMG Engineering processing technology. This project if executed, significantly enhances our position in the aerospace sector in North America and globally. Similarly, we are assessing the construction of an antimony trioxide production facility in the United States, the first of its kind in North America with a final investment decision expected in the first half of '26. Leveraging AMG's unique positioning and technical expertise, we are confident in our ability to execute these projects efficiently and with limited capital investment financing from ongoing operating cash flow now -- generated from our ongoing cash flow. Together, this initiative, combined with the expected recovery of the lithium and vanadium markets down the road, position AMG for sustained long-term value creation. We look forward to providing further updates as these projects progress in the coming quarters. Let me now hand over this to Mike Connor. Mike? Michael Connor: Thank you, Heinz. Good day, everyone. I will now provide an update on AMG's strategic positioning, highlighting key developments and progress made over the past quarter. In October, we signed a definitive agreement with Asbury Carbons for the sale of our graphite business. This transaction reflects our commitment to active portfolio management, and we will use the proceeds from this transaction to strengthen our balance sheet and focus on our core growth businesses. AMG is uniquely positioned across its portfolio to strengthen Western critical material supply chains as governments in the Americas, EU and Gulf states intensify efforts to secure access to strategic raw materials, our diversified platform stands out as both uniquely positioned and increasingly attractive to partners and policymakers alike. Importantly, control of critical materials today is often determined less by ownership of raw material resources and more by mastery processing infrastructure, technology know-how and the ability to scale refining capabilities. This processing know-how defines the modern geopolitical landscape of material supply. AMG's integrated approach of combining advanced processing technology with regionally distributed production directly addresses this challenge. Our multiregional, multi-material footprint not only reduces supply vulnerability, but also positions AMG as a unique enabler of critical material independence for Western economies. In October, AMG Lithium signed an MOU with Beijing Easpring for the supply and offtake of battery-grade lithium hydroxide. Both companies' investments in Europe underline the joint commitment to a localized battery supply chain. As a first step, we are collaborating closely with Easpring to ensure a successful qualification of AMG's lithium plant while negotiating a binding offtake agreement. Our partnership with Easpring underscores that the European battery value chain is rapidly materializing. This tangible progress is an encouraging indicator of the region's growing capability to build a competitive and self-sustaining energy ecosystem. And after successful commissioning our Bitterfeld lithium hydroxide refinery in May and having produced material in specification, we are making progress on the ramp-up of the plant and the qualification progress with customers as planned. We are now producing multi-ton batches from raw materials of mixed origin according to specification. This marks a significant step on our way to commercial production. Finally, in Saudi Arabia, we remain on schedule with our joint venture Supercenter project in the detailed engineering phase. The EPC contract has been awarded on a full notice-to-proceed basis, and preconstruction works are expected to begin very soon. This project exemplifies AMG's global execution capabilities and underscores how we combine deep technical expertise with alignment to local industrial policies, advancing long-term economic diversification and resource transformation. I will now pass the floor to Jackson Dunckel, AMG's CFO. Jackson? Jackson Dunckel: Thanks, Mike. I'll be referring to the third quarter 2025 investor presentation posted yesterday on the website. Page 3 shows our strategic announcements, including the sale of our graphite business. I'm pleased to report that the net cash proceeds for the sale will be approximately $55 million. Starting on Page 4 of the presentation, I'd like to emphasize Heinz's comments about the strength of AMG's portfolio. AMG's Q3 '25 adjusted EBITDA increased 58% since the same period last year despite the continued low lithium and vanadium prices. On Page 5, you can see the price and volume movements for our key products represented by arrows, which underscore our segmental results. I will cover these volume and price movements in the individual segment comments. AMG Lithium results are shown on Page 7. On the top left, you can see that Q3 '25 revenues decreased 33% versus the prior year, driven by an 8% reduction in lithium market prices, a 32% decrease in lithium concentrate sales volumes and a 64% decrease in tantalum sales volumes caused by shipping delays that will be reversed in Q4. These impacts were partially offset by higher average tantalum sales prices versus Q3 of last year. In Brazil, we are currently running at an annualized production rate of 110,000 tonnes due to the continued effect of the failure during Q2 '25 of one piece of equipment associated with our expansion project. As noted in yesterday's release, we are addressing this issue. Despite the decrease in lithium market prices and the depressed volumes, we remain profitable and low cost due to our multiproduct mining operation. AMG Vanadium results are shown on Page 8. Revenue for the quarter increased by 2% compared with Q3 '24 due largely to the increased sales prices in ferrovanadium and chrome metal, partially offset by lower volumes of ferrovanadium driven by production issues from our refinery suppliers. Q3 '25 adjusted EBITDA of $19 million for our vanadium segment was 81% higher than Q3 of last year. This increase was primarily due to the higher sales prices as well as the Zanesville compensation payment of $5 million. The results for AMG Technologies is shown on Page 9. The Q3 '25 revenue increased by $92 million or 59% versus Q3 '24. This improvement was driven primarily by higher antimony sales prices and stronger sales volumes of turbine blade coating furnaces in the current period. Adjusted EBITDA of $41 million during Q3 was more than double the same period last year. This increase was due to the higher profitability in AMG Antimony and AMG Engineering. Page 10 of the presentation shows our main income statement items. The key change on this page is regarding our tax expense, which was $7 million in the current quarter compared to $2 million during Q3 '24. The Q3 '25 expense was primarily driven by strong profitability in the quarter as well as tax expense from unabsorbed losses, partially offset by a Brazilian deferred tax benefit related to the appreciation of the Brazilian real. Page 11 of the presentation shows our cash flow metrics. Our Q3 '25 return on capital employed was 14.4% compared to 7.4% in the same period last year. Our free cash flow generation remained negative in the third quarter. The inventory buildup for our production ramp-up in Bitterfeld and adverse shipping schedules in tantalum have held back our free cash flow generation during the current quarter. We are optimistic about delivering positive free cash flow in the fourth quarter of this year. AMG ended the quarter with $544 million of net debt. And as of September 30, 2025, we had $220 million in unrestricted cash and $199 million available on our revolving credit facility. The resulting $419 million of total liquidity at the end of the quarter demonstrates our ability to fully fund all approved capital expenditure projects. Also, in July, we executed a maturity extension on our $200 million revolving credit facility to preserve our liquidity and reduce financing risk. The revolver maturity date was extended from November 26 to August 2028 with terms similar to the original agreement. Our term loan maturity date of November 2028 remains unchanged. We continue to expect capital expenditures to be $75 million to $100 million for 2025. And that concludes my remarks, Dr. Schimmelbusch. Heinz Schimmelbusch: Thank you, Jackson. Our AMG Technologies segment continues to perform particularly well, driven by a very high order backlog in AMG Engineering and high profitability in AMG Antimony. We update our estimate for the temporary tailwind from selling low-priced antimony inventories for -- of more than EUR 50 million to more than EUR 70 million for the full year of '25. We, therefore, increased our adjusted EBITDA outlook from EUR 200 million or more to EUR 220 million or more in '25. Over the last few years, we have provided you with financial guidance for the following year at the time of the Q3 results. Based on your feedback, we have decided to push forward our guidance publication for the full year results in line with our peers. We trust that this change will lead to improved guidance accuracy. Operator, we would now like to open the line for discussions. Operator: [Operator Instructions] And our first question will come from Stijn Demeester with ING. Stijn Demeester: I have 3, I will ask them one by one, if that's okay. First one is on the guidance. The low end of your EUR 220 million EBITDA guidance suggests an earnings slowdown in Q4 to a level of around EUR 28 million, roughly half the level that you achieved in Q4 -- in Q3 on an underlying basis. Is this driven by your usual conservatism? Or do you actually see elements that would justify such a slowdown such as the recent downtrend in antimony prices or other elements? That's the first question I have. Heinz Schimmelbusch: I apologize for being boring answering these questions referring to limited visibility. Now, in this particular case, we just experienced, to give you an example, the announcement of export restriction lifting by the Chinese government following the meeting with the United States on a presidential level. Then this announcement was followed by another announcement by China to point out that there will be procedures, which then will be developed to channel to use dual-use goods in a particular way. We don't know these procedures. There will be a variety of clarifications coming and then the visibility will slowly reappear of what that all means. Given those things, and in particular, the antimony example, we are living in rather volatile times. And therefore, we are sitting together as a Management Board and discussing thoroughly such statements about guidance. And they are not optimistic or conservative. They are just based on data, which has to be analyzed and then we come to that conclusion. This is a very thorough process. Stijn Demeester: Understood. Understood. Second question is on the graphite divestment. My perception was -- or other divestments, my perception was in the past that several units within technologies that are not engineering could be considered as non-core. Is this still valid for AMG Antimony or has the recently changed market dynamics changed your view on that front? Heinz Schimmelbusch: Very clearly, antimony was never a non-core business in AMG, but always a very contributive, steady and part of our portfolio. And based on technology leadership and our market position in the overall trade of antimony. And that market position and that technology leadership has enabled us to materialize opportunities as they were related to the export restrictions. We're very happy about that. It was a highly profitable period, and we continue to experience satisfactory results, which are distinctly better than what the average results were in the long past. We also want to point out that we just announced -- or I just announced in my introductory remarks that we intend to build. We intend, it's in an early stage because we are in feasibility studies, but that will be very materializing that we have a position to build an antimony trioxide plant in the United States. It would be the only material plant of that kind -- the only plant of that kind and it would be joining the other one and only plants which we have in the United States in critical materials as we build our position as partnering United States industries and government. Stijn Demeester: Understood. Then last question for now is on the cash flow. I believe the working capital further increased throughout the quarter. Can you maybe give some color on this increase? Is it structural? Or should we count on unwind in Q4? Jackson Dunckel: It should unwind in Q4. So some of it was due to shipping delays, as we said. Some of it is due to increased working capital in our lithium and vanadium businesses, but you should see unwinding in Q4. So as we often do, the fourth quarter is very strong from an operating cash flow basis. Operator: And we'll take our next question from Michael Kuhn with Deutsche Bank. Michael Kuhn: I'll also ask them one by one. Starting with your portfolio and recent discussions about raw material supplies. Obviously, rare earth is not a part of your portfolio as of now. Would that be something you would consider to add? And what would be, let's say, the time line and, let's say, the implementation steps that would be needed for such an expansion? Heinz Schimmelbusch: That's a very interesting question because it was asked -- we were asked as a broadly based really early in the market, critical materials company running a fairly vast portfolio in critical materials. We consider ourselves to be in the group of industry leaders in this. So we were asked many times, so what about rare earths? And so the question is very relevant. Now you might please take notice that we are in rare earths, not in resource -- presently resources of rare earths, but in processing technology of rare earths. In the rare earth downstream flow sheet, you need several applications, material applications, which involve metals, and, therefore, are being treated as high purity, necessary for magnetics, for example, are treated in vacuum furnaces. Since ALD is the world leader in vacuum furnaces, our AMG engineering star, we are deeply involved in the downstream industry of rare earth since a very long time. Now it is tempting -- was always tempting for us to combine our downstream know-how with a resource acquisition. As regard to resource acquisitions, we are particularly careful. We presently as regard to resources, we operate a highly successful large-scale lithium-tantalum mine in Brazil. So we are in resources. So in this screening process of opportunities to add resource capabilities to our downstream know-how, we are involved in this. And I would say this is a very thorough process. It is not academic. It's real. But I would say stay tuned would be a too aggressive statement. Michael Kuhn: Understood. But I guess, let's say, especially among the U.S. government, there is such a high interest that there could be scenarios imaginable where, let's say, some kind of support schemes could be enacted to, let's say, support such development? Heinz Schimmelbusch: Yes, of course. And we are in contact with that world. You are finding us here, this conference call is happening in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which is indicating just visiting one of our expansion sites in the United States, which is our focus right now in expanding our portfolio and deepening our portfolio in line with what we see is necessary in the United States in onshoring and in improving the domestic value chains. And that includes, of course, rare earth. And you could see a business model which combines magnetics capabilities, production capabilities with a resource, which tailors the resource, adding such a thing, and have a uniquely vertically integrated operation. Michael Kuhn: Very interesting. Then one more question on portfolio consolidation. I think you were very clear in the context of antimony. Is there any other part in the portfolio that might be up for disposal, which you would regard rather as non-core? Heinz Schimmelbusch: Our portfolio is fairly elaborate and it is not really totally visible. So there are many parts which are very difficult to explain and very special. But surprisingly, there are corners here as the company develops and as our focus is increasingly pointed to products where we are clearly in the leadership group, non-core opportunities or opportunities to somehow streamline our portfolio occur. Now the last thing we want to do is to say what it is because that would be sort of in our -- when you think about negotiating strategies, that would be not optimal. I have -- Mike, do you want to add to this? Michael Connor: No, I think that's pretty clear. We constantly evaluate the portfolio. And if we identify opportunities to dispose of assets that we would consider to be integral to the key trends that we're working towards, we will dispose if we can get the right price in the right space, for sure. So we constantly work on that and maintain our portfolio as aggressively as possible. Michael Kuhn: Understood. And then last question on cash flow and, let's say, expansion projects. You mentioned you signed an EPC contract in Saudi Arabia now for this joint venture. I would be interested to know, let's say, what that would imply for the cash flow and for potential cash injections into that entity. And also regarding the potential U.S. expansions, obviously, your chrome plant, you mentioned that repeatedly will have a pretty short payback period for the other projects potentially underway, would those be similarly short? And yes, what kind of CapEx thinking should you apply, let's say, for the next 3 years generally? Jackson Dunckel: So let me start with ACMC, which is our Saudi Arabian plant. As we've said in the past, we are focused on nonrecourse project financing. We own 1/3 of that plant. And so our equity contribution would in turn be 1/3. And you would expect to see 70% of it financed by debt. So if you put all those numbers through CapEx estimates, it comes to quite a small number, which will not strain our balance sheet in any shape or form. And as we have more information, we'll share that with you. But we're in the beginnings of the project financing for that. In terms of other projects, the number that we told everybody for chrome was roughly $15 million. I will say that the incremental projects that we're considering are in that order of magnitude or less and have similar paybacks because of being located in the United States, which is chronically short of such critical materials. And therefore, we expect very strong paybacks as well. And then in terms of '26 and a longer look on capital expenditures, we'll cover that in February. But that -- hopefully, that gives you some guidance that we're not looking at big projects here or big expenditures. Operator: [Operator Instructions] And we'll take our next question from Martijn den Drijver with ABN. Martijn den Drijver: I have a couple, I'll take them one by one as well. My first question is about antimony. Have you now fully utilized the low-priced inventory that you had available? Or will there still be tailwinds in Q4 and possibly even into 2026? Jackson Dunckel: No, we would expect that to have fully been utilized. So no further inventory tailwinds in '25. Martijn den Drijver: And then my second question is on lithium. And you mentioned in the press release that the Bitterfeld plant is producing specification using raw materials of mixed origin. Can you elaborate a little bit on that mix supply? And what percentage of that raw material is off-spec material versus technical grade lithium hydroxide from China? And can this percentage of off-spec material go up? And equally important, what is the price difference of this off-spec material versus the supply from China? Just to get a better understanding of the impact. Heinz Schimmelbusch: The qualification process is not based on off-spec material, the qualification process is based on virgin material in our inventory. So later on, strategies imply that we benefit from off-spec materials as the opportunities occur and our procurement network can identify such prospective materials. Right now, this is not what we are doing. Right now, we are doing standard material, and we turn standard material in specification results. And that process is fairly advanced and as expected. Martijn den Drijver: Clear. Any additional color on when that off-spec material could become part of the supply chain? Heinz Schimmelbusch: It already is right now. We want to qualify the material. That means that the next step will be large-scale samples to be audited after audits to be given to our customers, and then we will start production, and that's then the moment where we can optimize further supply chains. Martijn den Drijver: Understood. Then moving on to vanadium and the supply issues. Could you elaborate a little bit on when you assume a normalization of that supply? And once that supply normalizes, how should we think about profitability given that the mix will also include spent catalysts from the Middle East? Jackson Dunckel: It's a very good question, Martijn. Thank you. Our refinery supply customers continue to struggle. And we don't expect to see any resolution of that through Q1/starting in Q2. The incremental purchasing that we've done in the Middle East will be available also starting in Q2. So you should see significant volume improvements starting in Q2 and improving in Q3 and Q4. Martijn den Drijver: That's clear. And then forgive me for asking, but I looked a little bit into the silicon operations and with regards to that portfolio management question before. If you add the adjustments to gross profit in the last 8 quarters, that has been almost $10 million, which means that the EBITDA losses are slightly higher. What do you intend to do with the silicon operations as it's not likely that energy prices in Europe will come down? Heinz Schimmelbusch: Our silicon metal operation is presently partly shut down. We're operating on a minimum level. And it for the last 3 years has been suffering tremendously under the -- primarily under the energy price situation in Germany. And by the way, our competition in other European countries to a much lesser extent, are also suffering under those things. And as we experience consistent problems with German energy supply, it is not likely that we will shortly reappear as a silicon metal producer. So this is an ongoing, keeping it alive, intense-care operation, and we -- our options are very limited. Jackson Dunckel: Just on the numbers, the gross profit adjustment you see is a negative, right? So we are taking profitability out of our gross profit, i.e., the silicon plant is making money, albeit not very much, but it is making money. Martijn den Drijver: Okay. Good. And then my final question is just a bookkeeping question. The $5 million from the compensation settlement, has that been received? Or is it in receivables? Heinz Schimmelbusch: It has been received. Operator: And our next question will come from Maarten Verbeek with AMG. Unknown Analyst: It's [ Marcus Baker ] of DRD. A couple of questions from my side, maybe some clarification on the previous answer you mentioned or you gave. Concerning those 3 CapEx plans you plan to execute and you mentioned for the chrome metal that was some EUR 15 million. For the other 2, was it also EUR 50 million each or combined EUR 50 million? Michael Connor: We're still in pre-feasibility stage. So we're finalizing numbers at this point. But I think what Jackson was trying to give you is a sense of scale. So we believe that they're of that size of nature, but we don't have exact figures now as we're working through that. I mean, really, what we're trying to get across is that we're looking to capitalize on our existing footprint in the United States, leveraging our processing capabilities globally to use those existing assets as a footprint for a platform for expansion into the United States into other materials using our key technologies. And we can do that very cost effectively because of our experience gained from our operations in other locations. Unknown Analyst: Okay. And concerning the Supercenter in the Middle East, I think you will be starting to construct shortly. How long will this take? Will it take 1.5 years, 2 years before completion? Michael Connor: It will be about 2 years. Unknown Analyst: Okay. And then lastly, you have sold your graphite business, and you will see $55 million in net proceeds. Obviously, you still have a liability towards Alterna because you bought 40% of them and you will pay them back in cash or in shares. When will that happen? Or can you simply hold on to that amount for the next 3 years and then pay them? Jackson Dunckel: Yes. Heinz Schimmelbusch: It will happen, but we will not be able at this moment to comment on whether we pay in cash or in shares. Michael Connor: But we have an additional 2.5 years, as you know. Operator: [Operator Instructions] And it appears there are no further questions at this time. Mr. Swoboda, I will turn the conference back to you. Thomas Swoboda: Thank you, Jen. Thank you, everyone, for this very dynamic conference call. I hope we were able to answer all your questions. We are looking forward to see some of you on our investor marketing activities in Europe in due course, and please stay in touch. Thank you so much. Operator: And this does conclude today's AMG Q3 2025 Earnings Conference Call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.
Operator: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for joining the Swisscom Q3 2025 results, hosted by Christoph Aeschlimann, Eugen Stermetz, and Louis Schmid. Louis, the floor is yours. Louis Schmid: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Swisscom's Q3 '25 Results Presentation. My name is Louis Schmid, Head of Investor Relations. And with me are our CEO, Christoph Aeschlimann; and Eugen Stermetz, our Chief Financial Officer. Let's now move to Page #2 with the agenda of today. As you can see, our CEO starts presentation with Chapter 1 and a quick overview on the highlights, the operational and financial performances of the third quarter. Then in Chapter 2, Christoph presents the business update for Switzerland and Italy. In the second part of today's results presentation, Eugen runs you through Chapter 3 with our third quarter financials, including the confirmation of our full year guidance. With that, I would like to hand over to Christoph to start his part. Christoph? Christoph Aeschlimann: Thank you, Louis, and welcome to this Q3 2025 call from my side. And I will move directly to Page #4, showing the highlights of Q3. You can see that this quarter, again, was packed with a number of highlights. We have been able to complete to Connect service tests with the last test that we won this year, we have now won all 4 service tests highlighting our unwavering commitment to the best customer service reinforce the multi-brand play with a new Migros offering, and we are extremely proud of our new deal offering, which we -- for which we launched new additional services, advanced editions, apps and further tiers, which have been launched in the past weeks. South of the Alps in Italy, everything is going according to plan. Integration is proceeding as we have foreseen with integration costs and synergies fully in line. The highlight in Q3 in Italy was the aligned new market portfolio that we launched for the B2C and B2B market, which I will talk a bit more in detail later on in the Italian chapter. And finally, we have confirmed group guidance with revenues roughly at the lower end towards CHF 15 billion, EBITDAaL of CHF 5 billion and CapEx between CHF 3.1 billion and CHF 3.2 billion, also probably rather at the lower end of the range. Now moving to Page #5. You can see the net adds trends in Switzerland and Italy. I will start with Switzerland. Overall, the competitive environment is broadly stable with, I would say, more aggressiveness recently from Sunrise again, and we will -- we probably discuss later on also in the Q&A. On the mobile side, the net adds evolution is stable. You see with roughly a run rate around 45,000 net adds on a quarterly basis. Very pleasing results from our perspective for our mobile business and broadband and TV are slightly improving quarter-on-quarter. We're still negative net adds, but a much better run rate than we had in Q1 earlier this year. If you look at the wholesale side, we have a very pleasing result in Q3 with plus 14,000 net adds. So you can see stable or accelerating growth on the wholesale side. And overall, we have more net adds on the wholesale business than we are losing lines on our B2C. So we can at least partly compensate what we are losing on the consumer side on broadband with new access lines on the wholesale side, which is especially tilted towards fiber connectivity as we will see later on in the details. Now on the Italian side, the market remains competitive, but prices have been pretty stable in the last year. So we can see that the prices are clearly bottoming out and the market is not getting more aggressive. Now in terms of net adds evolution, we have on the mobile side, an accelerating loss, which is actually, if you look at underlying, the B2C losses are improving. So we have less losses this year, clearly better B2C business, but we have less net adds coming in on the B2B side because the TM9 government contract ramp-up is coming to an end. So let's say, net adds on B2B, so a bit less compensating the B2C decline, which leads to an overall minus 39,000 net adds on a company level. On the other side, broadband is improving, and we will see, particularly on the B2C side, things are improving very rapidly, and I will talk a bit more about that later on, but overall, quarter-over-quarter, you can already see that net adds loss has been halved -- more than half between Q1 and Q3 from minus 67,000 to minus 33,000 net adds. So -- and then overall, wholesale, also pretty stable run rate around 50,000, 45,000 net adds per quarter. So we have been able to stabilize both in the wholesale side and also compensating the losses on the broadband side. So I think pretty happy about the wholesale business in Italy. So now moving on to Page #6. You can see that Q3 revenue was slightly softer at CHF 3.7 billion, minus 1.8%, with bringing us to a year-to-date revenue of CHF 1.1 billion, which is minus 2.1%. And the EBITDAaL bridge, you can see on the right-hand side, Switzerland is pretty stable with minus CHF 5 million in quarter 3, bringing us to a total minus CHF 11 million year-to-date. And in Italy, we have the transitional year with the integration and the -- let's say, turnaround of the B2C business, and Eugen will detail the financial numbers a bit more in detail later on in the financial section. But so far, I would say, EBITDAaL is in line with expectations and in line with our full year guidance. Now I will move on to page as a business update for Switzerland and Italy and directly go to Page #8. where you can see our priorities for 2025. So pretty unchanged compared to last quarter. In Switzerland, we want to defend the Telco top line, make sure the service revenue erosion is as slow or low as possible, deliver on the cost savings. And you have seen that we have already achieved the full year cost target by end of Q3, and we want to further grow on the IT side. In Italy, it's similar priorities, but more geared towards the integration. So of course, the priority #1 is to proceed on the integration of the 2 organizations and capture the synergy potential, but at the same time, stabilizing the Telco business and reducing the service revenue erosion that we are seeing this year so that next year, we have a substantially better position, especially on the B2C side. And at the same time, we want to accelerate the energy business, selling more services beyond the core while scaling up the B2B IT and wholesale part to stabilize the overall business in Italy. And you can see now how we are doing in regards to these priorities. I'll move on to Page #9, looking into B2C Switzerland. So as I already highlighted at the beginning of the call, we are extremely proud to be the winner of all connect service tests for best shop, best app and best wireline and mobile hotline. I think this is an important achievement to test and show and demonstrate to the market that the Swisscom customer service is indeed the best customer service in the country. We're also very pleased with the evolution of the We are Family offering that we launched earlier this year. We continue to drive this offering in the market to sustain net adds on the main brand and make the main brand more appealing for family households. In this regard, we have also worked on our third brand positioning, especially with Migros before it was called M-Budget -- now we -- Migros relaunched the mobile brand under the main retailer brand, which is called Migros. So this should help generate more net adds going forward with attractive offers under a new name and a more customer-centric offering. And we have also launched a dedicated AI offering or AI chatbot for private consumers. This offering is called Swisscom -- myAI. It's a chatbot basically in a sovereign mode, where the consumer data is not used for training and respect data privacy. And so there is a free version and then a paid version at CHF 14.90, and we see quite some good traction already, at least on the utilization side of -- in the consumer space. You can see on the right-hand side, RGU and ARPU evolution, churn is at a very stable record low level of 7.7% for fixed and 6.8% for mobile ARPU on the wireline side is pretty stable, which is, I think, a very positive news. And the mobile ARPU erosion of minus CHF 1 is mainly driven by the ongoing brand shift between main brand and second brand, but the ARPUs on a brand level are actually stable as well. So moving on to B2B on Page #10. We are gradually integrating the beem offering in all our existing product portfolios. But we do see quite a lot of competition in the market, and you can see this on the ARPU box in the middle, where you see quite a heavy erosion on postpaid and average underlying product of minus CHF 3, which is basically driven by price competition in the market. And this is why it is so important that we launched the new beem offering to be able to upsell more security services and also create convergence effect on the B2B side and retain more customers with a broader product portfolio instead of competing just on price with Salt and Sunrise. So we will continue to ramp up the beem services. We have launched the new ATL campaign -- marketing campaigns in September. And so far, subscription take-up is very pleasing. We are ahead of plan, which is a good news. And we have now started enabling our partner channels so that we can -- as you know, on the SME front, a lot of sales are not driven in a direct sales mode, but more in an indirect sales mode through partner channels, and this is an important piece of the ramp-up next year. So we have started enabling all our partners to sell the beem offering, especially the higher-end editions, which are more complex to sell, but obviously are more interesting from a revenue perspective. On the IT side, quarter-on-quarter, we have -- or year-on-year between Q3 and Q4, we have -- sorry, between Q3 '24 and Q3 '25. We have a stable revenue evolution. The growth -- we were not able to materialize the growth on the IT side, suffering to some extent a bit from macro conditions in Switzerland. So there is quite a substantial slowdown in the IT market in Switzerland, also still due to the integration of Swiss Credit Suisse and UBS, which took out quite a lot of volume out of the IT market, and we can see this now in the numbers. So I think already a stable service revenue evolution is actually quite a good achievement. But we are obviously aiming to bring that back to growth starting Q4 this year, but especially also next year. I think the highlight is the new cloud platform that we delivered for the Swiss Armed Forces. This project is now nearing completion by end of the year and will be the basis for new IT services that we deliver to the Swiss Armed Forces going forward over the next years and will be a good driver of further IT revenue growth going forward. In parallel, we are also working on the profitability in our operating model, which we continue to transform to improve IT profitability. So you can see that despite having no revenue growth, we were able to increase profitability by 10%, so up CHF 3 million to CHF 35 million quarter-on-quarter, which is, I think, an excellent news, and we will continue to drive IT profitability also next year to make -- or to extract more cash flow from the IT service revenues. And also on the IT side, we have just launched a couple of weeks ago chatbot for SME. So it's basically very similar to the -- myAI for consumers, but this one is geared towards SME companies, so they can upload their own documents and use a highly secured and data private chatbot for their own company, which is quite a high demand, especially in the public sector and some other areas where people have more needs for data privacy and cannot use the, let's say, public cloud or public offering. Now on the Network and Wholesale side on Page 11, we can see that our, let's say, network rollout is continuing. We are now at a 5G plus coverage of 88%, fully on track to achieve our 90% target for the full year in 2025. And also fiber rollout is continuing. It's up plus 5%. We have now a 55% coverage with 10 Gbps connectivity across the country, also in line to achieve our full year target that we have set up for the FTTH rollout. And also on our network, we were able to win the connect fixed network test for the fifth time in a row with a record 991 points out of 1,000. And you can see that on the right-hand side that we are able to monetize also our network in better ways, especially the fiber rollout. So we are accelerating the net adds on the wholesale side. We have more market share on the lines and also plus 4% revenues. So access revenues are up by 4% from EUR 48 million to EUR 50 million on a quarterly basis. And I think what is especially interesting, you can see that the FTTH penetration on our wholesale business is increasing very rapidly [indiscernible]. It's up by 7%, and we have now nearly half of our wholesale lines, which are fiber-based, precisely 49%, and we expect this to be over 50% by the end of the year. Linked to this also, the copper phaseout is going very well. So we don't have numbers on this slide, but we already managed to decommission over 350,000 copper lines. So at the peak, we had 2 million lines in activation, and we are now standing at 1.65 million copper lines, which is already -- so we already achieved our full year phaseout target by end of Q3, which is also a very pleasing development on the network side. So if you look on Page #12, you can see that we have already achieved our full year target of CHF 50 million cost savings by the end of Q3. But I would like to put in a word of caution. We shouldn't get too excited about this because, I mean, it's great that we have achieved the full year target, but we don't expect much more cost savings to come in, in Q4. So please don't extrapolate this -- the growth we had between Q2 and Q3 further into the year, this is definitely way too optimistic. But I would say we come in at 50 plus, but not much more in Q4 to come. But you can -- but what is, I would say, the good news is that the cost initiatives continue to deliver, especially we continue to digitize our customer service. We continue to automate it. We continue to push AI everywhere. We have now launched our unified contact service platform, which is heavily AI-driven, which will continue to deliver new cost savings next year. We are experimenting with new shop formats, AI in the physical stores. We are further expanding nearshore. And of course, we are especially pushing further simplification on the network in IT and this also will continue to deliver cost savings, especially '26 and onwards. Okay. So that was it for Switzerland. I will now move on to Italy. On Page #13, you can see the highlights of the integration, which is progressing as planned and synergies are ramping up. So we have completely finalized our integrated organization, which is fully operational now. We have launched a new aligned product portfolio. So it's not a unified single product portfolio, but we essentially have exactly the same product portfolio under 2 different brands, one on the Fastweb side and one is on the Vodafone side, and we are now able to serve customers of both brands in all stores. And also, most importantly, the SIM migration is progressing in line with plan. So as you know, we have about CHF 200 million of synergies planned next year linked to the SIM migration. So we can confirm that the migration is going according to plan, and we will be -- roughly all customers will be migrated by year-end, and we are very confident to realize the planned CHF 200 million of synergies in 2026. Also, the other projects are ongoing as planned. We have already shut down the first Vodafone Group services that we have terminated and transferred to internal resources, and we are continuously working on carving out more and more services over the coming months and also IT and network consolidations have started. Now moving on to Page #14, we will have a deeper look into the B2C mobile side. So you can see that we have this joint mobile portfolio. There, you can see some screenshots in the middle. So the pricing and the features of the products are completely aligned. And we are continuously working also on improving customer treatment in the shops, but also in call center. And you can see on the right-hand side that this -- all this work is starting to pay off. The churn has significantly decreased from 20% or nearly 23% to roughly 18%, and we will continue to work on better customer service, also leading to higher NPS, and we can already see in our customer surveys that NPS on both brands is improving. So this, I think, is a good news. We can see that the value strategy that we are executing or like moving from volume to value is paying off. We are seeing an improved net adds picture. So you can see on the top right, we typically had over 100,000 negative net adds. We are now at minus 79,000, so still negative. But the outflow, which is typically high ARPU outflow has been substantially slowed down. Sales coming in is also slightly lower, but a much higher quality. So with customers really using our services. So the ARPU delta we are having between churn and net adds has been substantially decreased. And we are further working on this to close the gap and reduce service revenue erosion gradually over the next year. One other important topic on the B2C mobile side is the repositioning of ho. So we have positioned ho. as a clear attacker brand and faster than Vodafone as a clear premium brand, and we will continue to work on this brand positioning to make it clear that we have a clear dual brand strategy with a different service offering on both brands. Now moving on to Page #15. You can see that we have also launched a new fixed portfolio, which is what we call super converged, which is essentially broadband with energy services, which is an important element to drive new service revenue in Italy. So you can see that up to now, we have minus 170,000 RGUs year-to-date, which is impacted by this value strategy and front book price alignment. But transparency and customer centricity are delivering first positive results. You can see we have higher NPS. Churn has also substantially decreased to 15.8%. And you can now see that the RGU development between Q1, Q2 and Q3 is very pleasing. We are now at minus 26,000 RGUs in Q3. But actually, underlying to this, in September, we were at a 0 net adds balance. So the whole loss in Q3 is still coming from July and August, and we have now substantially achieved a stable RGU development. And we are hopeful that in Q4, we will see again a much more improved figure on the broadband net adds side, clearly showing that the strategy and turnaround is working that we are executing on the consumer side, and we will continue to push the new portfolio in the market and continue our value strategy. And I think also one maybe last word on the B2C. We -- the new product portfolio is offered at higher price points. So previously, our lowest price point on mobile was around EUR 8. Now it is at EUR 10 or EUR 9.95. And actually, we can see that the sales inflow or the gross adds are exactly the same. So we are able to sustain the sales performance despite having increased prices from -- or like the entry-level prices from EUR 8 to EUR 10. And the same we see on broadband, our sales numbers have not decreased despite having aligned prices on both sides and now executing at, let's say, increased or above increased prices than previously. So I think that's an excellent news for the Italian market that there are consumers that value quality and are willing to pay for it. Now moving on to Page #16, looking into B2B. So we keep managing also the Telco top line on the B2C side, growing with IT, cloud, security, and AI. So as mentioned at the beginning of the call, RGU net adds have slowed down a bit because we are reaching sort of the end of TM9 contract ramp-up. So we have a bit softer RGU development. But overall, I think a pleasing result on the telecom side. Also on the B2B side, we have integrated both product portfolios from Fastweb and Vodafone, offering the best of 2 worlds now to our customer. And all, let's say, corporate accounts have now been allocated to our internal sales force. Customers have been allocated in the indirect channels. This took a bit more time than on the B2C side because it's more complex to execute. And you can see also this is why we have a bit slowdown in growth on the B2B side as we still were a bit internally focused due to the merger. And you can see that the IT service revenue growth is still there at plus 1.5%, but it is a bit lower than it used to be. But here, we intend to accelerate IT growth again going forward next year as we have now finalized the integration and the sales force is, again, focused not on what is my account, but actually really selling to the market. We also have signed a new contract with Oracle to offer sovereign Oracle cloud offerings in Italy. And as in Switzerland, we have also launched already last quarter, our AI suite for SME companies in Italy, which is a sovereign AI chatbot offering for Italian SMEs. And we are very pleased that we have already been able to sell over 10,000 paying subscriptions, also showing that there is a clear market need or demand for these type of services also in Italy, and we will continue to work on this going forward. Now moving on to my last slide about Italy, Page #19. You can see also that the network rollout is continuing in Italy as well. We have now 87% 5G plus coverage, up 11% and fixed rollout or FTTH rollout is also proceeding rapidly in Italy. We now stands at 54% FTTH coverage with about half of it active and half of it passive in our footprint based on our Fastweb secondary network. We continue to drive wholesale business, both on wireline and Mobile. So on Mobile, we have essentially finished the Coop migration onto our network, and this will help us also to compensate part of the PosteMobile loss next year. And as you might have read in the press, Sky announced the new partnership between Fastweb, Vodafone and Sky. So we will continue to also provide Sky both on wireline and Mobile services, which would also help us to compensate some of the PosteMobile losses, '26 going forward. So overall, I would say, a very pleasing development on the network and wholesale side in Italy. And I will now hand over to Eugen for the detailed financial results. Eugen Stermetz: Thank you, Christoph, and good morning, everybody. I'll start as usual on Page 19 with the group overview on revenue and EBITDAaL. So let's get going with revenue. Revenue is down CHF 242 million in the group, 1/3 of which is currency. So net of currency, the number is minus CHF 153 million. Switzerland down CHF 83 million; Italy, down CHF 55 million. If we look at the quarterly dynamics, Switzerland was almost flat in Q3 after a week Q2, that's due mainly to different timing of hardware revenues this year versus prior year in the IT business. In Italy, it's a bit the other way around. If you look at the quarterly evolution, minus CHF 42 million in Q3 after roughly Q1 and Q2. So year-over-year in Q3, we only had a small contribution from IT and hardware so the Telco service revenue decline shows up in the total number. Move on to EBITDAaL. EBITDAaL is down minus CHF 191 million. We have a lot of adjustments totaling minus CHF 73 million. Net-net, this essentially boils down to integration costs in Italy on the one hand and to currency. Obviously, the gross numbers are a bit more complicated, and I'll comment the gross numbers when I get to Switzerland later on. And obviously, all the numbers as usual, you will find in the appendix to this presentation. So Switzerland, EBITDAaL almost -- if you look at the adjusted numbers, Switzerland almost stable with minus CHF 11 million year-over-year in the first 9 months, which is obviously very positive. Also the quarterly evolution is very stable indeed. On the Italian side, Italy is down minus CHF 95 million EBITDAaL. That's driven by service revenue decline in Q3, we had minus CHF 38 million after minus CHF 15 million in Q2. The minus CHF 38 million in Q3 are actually much more in line with what you would expect given the service revenue decline than what we saw in Q2. You might remember that in Q2, I flagged at the minus CHF 15 million are not necessarily sustainable. So both Switzerland and Italy, EBITDAaL are in line with our full year guidance. I move on to Page 20, CapEx and operating free cash flow in the group. So CapEx is down CHF 174 million, adjusted CHF 171 million. It's driven both by Switzerland and Italy. In both cases, the lower CapEx is due #1 to phasing with some of the capitals to come in Q4. And secondly, also in both cases, Switzerland and Italy, some higher CapEx compared to prior year tied to specific large-scale projects in the prior year. And then obviously, apart from the adjusted numbers in the adjustments, you see the integration CapEx in Italy, which starts showing up this quarter. Operating free cash flow, adjusted deposits plus CHF 53 million. In Switzerland, it's sustainable EBITDAaL, combined with lower CapEx. And in Italy, stable operating free cash flow lower EBITDAaL, but at the same time, lower CapEx, which we're obviously quite happy about. Then move on to Page 21 and dive into the Swiss picture, starting with revenue. Revenues down CHF 83 million, almost stable in Q3. If we look at the individual quarters, B2C is down CHF 29 million that sold lower service revenue and at the same time, somewhat higher handset sales that combined to the minus CHF 29 million. B2B down CHF 60 million, that's lower service revenue, but also lower hardware revenues in line with our strategy not too many low or no-margin hardware deals and somewhat higher IT service revenues in the first 9 months. If you look at the individual quarter, Q3 is a bit of an outlier with plus CHF 8 million. There actually significant hardware deliveries in connection with 1 large customer project all in line with the aforementioned strategy, but that drives actually the dynamics between Q2 and Q3, it's Q2, it was like CHF 27 million lower hardware revenues and in Q3, CHF 27 million higher hardware revenues. Wholesale growing CHF 10 million in revenue. That's essentially the growing excess services over the quarters. There are some minor fluctuations around the general trend due to these clients and roaming, so the bit more volatile elements of the wholesale business. EBITDAaL stable in Switzerland reported slightly up, adjusted slightly down. If we look at the adjustments, we have plus CHF 20 million year-over-year in adjustments positive, in particular in Q3 with plus CHF 33 million. So on the one hand, we released provisions for legal proceedings. But on the other hand, we added restructuring provisions and other provisions with a net effect of plus CHF 33 million. So if we focus on the adjusted numbers, B2C, minus CHF 10 million. B2C was able to compensate part of the service revenue decline with lower direct and indirect costs. In B2B, EBITDAal is down CHF 45 million, which is in line basically with the service revenue decline, there was not much impact of the revenue ups and downs that we saw on the upper part of this page because these revenues are there are pretty low margin IT hardware revenues, as I mentioned. So the service revenue decline shows up in the margin pretty much one-to-one. Wholesale plus CHF 11 million, in line with the revenue growth and also infrastructure and support functions, that's mainly a cost position here in EBITDAaL. So that's CHF 33 million lower costs contributing to the overall cost savings target that Christoph already mentioned. I'll move on to Page 22, deep dive into the Swiss P&L. I'll start at the bottom left with the Telco service revenue evolution decline was minus CHF 35 million in the third quarter, so slightly worse than Q2. If you look at the individual components, B2B at minus CHF 18 million is almost identical to Q2 and Q1. So not much news here. B2C is minus CHF 17 million after minus CHF 13 million in Q2. Actually, wireless in B2C is slightly better than the previous quarter due to increased net debts and also a small effect out of the Wingo price increase and the success of the We are Family! offering. The only element that is worse compared to the previous quarter is wireline ARPU. It's a combination of the phasing of the impact of targeted price increases in the prior year and somewhat stronger promotions in Q3. But all in all, very small numbers and a very stable general trend in the service revenue. Where does that leave us year-to-date? Top left of the page, year-to-date service revenue decline is CHF 92 million for the full year. This means that we will land at about minus CHF 120 million. That's slightly higher than originally guided. You remember, we talked about CHF 100 million, if you look for drivers of that more deviation in B2B, we had somewhat faster migrations of customers that we knew we would lose and the migrations came a bit faster than originally anticipated and on the B2C side, we integrated further roaming into the blue offering, so a somewhat lower roaming revenues was a bit lower demand on streaming on the wireline side. But all in all, no big surprises, no big changes by and large, as anticipated. Move on to Page 23. CapEx is down plus CHF 71 million in the first 9 months, part of which is related to nonrecurring items in the prior year. And part of that deviation will probably remain for the full year and contribute to stable free cash flows from Switzerland, all in line with our full year guidance. And finally, operating free cash flow, up CHF 60 million, adjusted a result of almost stable EBITDAaL and lower CapEx. Now I move on to Italy, Page 24, starting with revenue, down EUR 57 million in the first 9 months. In the third quarter, with a decline of EUR 44 million after a relatively stable Q1 and Q2. So what's going on? Let's look at the segments. B2C is down EUR 73 million, a combination of service revenue decline on the one hand, but higher energy revenues on the other hand. The quarterly evolution is pretty stable. B2B is stable in the first 9 months. So a combination of Telco service revenue compensated by higher IT service revenues and energy revenues. However, in Q3, you see the minus EUR 25 million. So there was a more pronounced Telco service revenue decline compared to prior year than in the first 2 quarters. And at the same time, with growth in IT service revenues and lower hardware revenues in Q3. I'll talk about the reasons for the service revenue decline when I get it on the next page. And finally, wholesale, up EUR 18 million, steady growth, both in wireless and wireline, and there were some decline in non-core revenues. So what you see here is the net of these 2 elements. EBITDAal down minus EUR 148 million reported adjusted minus EUR 99 million. In the adjustment, you have about EUR 40 million of integration cost as the main driver of the adjustments year-over-year in the first 9 months. So if you look at the individual components, contribution margin B2C down EUR 90 million. This is reflecting the impact of the service revenue decline of minus 17 -- sorry, minus EUR 117 million on the one hand and a small positive contribution from the additional margin from the energy business. However, importantly, if you look at the quarterly evolution, Q3 minus EUR 20 million after minus EUR 35 million in the first 2 quarters. This is for the first time that actually the lower mobile COGS show up, and this is obviously very positive and very pleasing because, as Christoph already mentioned, the migration of our mobile customers onto our own network is in full swing and already for the first time shows up as lower COGS in the contribution margin of B2C. B2B contribution margin down EUR 23 million. So that's the margin impact of the Telco service revenue decline and some positive margin from the IT and energy business compensating that. Wholesale, plus EUR 19 million margin -- sorry, the revenue improvement showing up also in the margin. So overall, the minus EUR 99 million adjusted are fully in line with the EBITDAal guidance we gave at the beginning of the year. If we deep dive into the P&L on Page 25, starting with -- also here with the service revenue decline, bottom left. So we had minus EUR 66 million in the third quarter, minus EUR 39 million B2C, minus EUR 27 million B2B, first, B2C. B2C is fairly stable over the quarters, which is very good. Obviously, the operating improvements that Christoph mentioned don't show up yet in the year-over-year numbers, which look backwards, but we are confident they will show up in the next year. Now what's happening in B2B. In B2B, we had EUR 27 million in Q3 after a very small service revenue decline in Q1 and Q2. It's all down to the wireline revenue. So wireline, we had significant onetime revenues in Q3 and Q4 in the prior year related to some large-scale public administration projects. So the effect that we see here in Q3 on B2B wireline is one that we will also see in Q4 again that, that might even accelerate. As I said, it's a tough comparison because we actually had increasing B2B wireline revenues quarter-over-quarter in the prior year, if you look at the pro forma numbers, and this is all due to these large projects with one-off revenues. So full year -- or sorry, year-to-date, that leaves us with minus EUR 166 million year-to-date. So it's clear that the full year service revenue decline will be well above EUR 200 million in 2025. What changed, if you remember, we had an original guidance of EUR 100 million to EUR 200 million already said in the second quarter that we are trending towards the upper end of that guidance. So we will be above that in the full year. What changed is mainly the outlook -- on B2B, we originally expected to be able to replicate these large-scale projects that we had in Q3 and Q4, and this is now not the case. There is no other structural driver we see at this moment. Is there an impact on the EBITDAal guidance? No. The direct and indirect costs we anticipate for the full year are lower than we had originally anticipated in the guidance. So the EBITDAal guidance for Italy is fully confirmed despite this deviation. I move on to Page 26. CapEx in Italy, EUR 83 million below the prior year. That's partly phasing between the quarters, but also partly due to large projects in the prior year. So a part of the deviation is likely to remain for the full year. On the adjustments, you see the integration costs showing up. We had integration CapEx of EUR 53 million so far. There is still a lot to come in Q4, but maybe not the full EUR 150 million of CapEx integration costs that we guided for at the beginning of the year. So CapEx Italy is clearly trending towards the lower end of the guidance. And finally, operating free cash flow in Italy adjusted is stable at minus EUR 2 million with EBITDAal below prior year, but so it's CapEx. Page 27, quick update on synergies and integration costs. We confirm the EUR 60 million synergy target for the full year and the plus EUR 36 million, which we had in the first 9 months is fully in line with this expectation. You remember that the synergies are backloaded due to the importance of the MVNO synergy that kicks in, in Q3 and Q4 and then ramps up to the full run rate next year, as Christoph mentioned before. We also confirm the integration cost target of approximately EUR 200 million. We have in the books EUR 93 million so far, EUR 40 million OpEx, EUR 53 million CapEx. So in the end, there might be some shift from CapEx to OpEx versus the original split of EUR 50 million OpEx and EUR 150 million CapEx, but the overall number of EUR 200 million for the full year, we confirm. Page 28, free cash flow, stable versus prior year. We are comparing to the reported numbers here, not pro forma, so stable versus prior year, plus CHF 23 million, driven by higher operating free cash flow compared to reported last year, plus CHF 116 million on the one hand. And on the other hand, higher interest paid, CHF 127 million, obviously due to the acquisition and all the other deviations on that page are quite minor. So I move on to Page 29, net income. Net income is down CHF 295 million year-over-year with 2 main drivers. One is the higher interest expense, obviously, due to the acquisition. And secondly, there is a lower EBIT, which is almost entirely driven by the amortization of intangibles out of the purchase price allocation of the acquisition, and we also had somewhat lower tax expense this year compared to prior year. So I come to the final page, Page 30 on the guidance. We do confirm the guidance similar to Q2 with 2 comments. Number one, based on the numbers we have seen, it should have become clear that on revenue in Switzerland and Italy and by implication of the group, we trend towards the lower end of the guided range. And we may even undershoot slightly, but if we do so with no impact on EBITDAal guidance and operating free cash flow guidance. And in a similar vein, as mentioned before, CapEx Italy looks like it will land at the lower end of the guidance or even slightly below and also impacting the group number. Last but not least, we confirm the guidance for the dividend of CHF 26. And with that, I hand back to the operator. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Polo Tang: It's Polo Tang at UBS. I just have 3 questions. The first question is just on Swiss price rises. So you recently increased prices on Wingo by CHF 1 a month. But what impact did this have on NPS and churn? And would you consider further price rises on the Wingo brand? My second question is, what is your view on the CHmobile launch by Sunrise? Do you see it as disruptive to the market? And my third question is just about Italian mobile pricing. So you increased your front book price rises. So you increased your front book prices from EUR 8 to more than EUR 10 in September. I appreciate it will take time for these price rises to feed through the subscriber base. But do you think Italian Telco revenues can reach stabilization at some point in 2026? Christoph Aeschlimann: Thank you, Polo. So I'll take the question. So on the Swiss price rises, actually, we were very positively pleased by the execution of the price rise with Wingo. We have seen absolutely no impact on NPS and churn. I think it demonstrates that Wingo is a very strong brand with a very attractive service offering. We executed it as a more-for-more price increase. So we included 5G access with the plus CHF 1, but it was, let's say, good news that it didn't impact NPS and churn on the Wingo brand. And so I will not comment about further price increases, but it is obviously something that we are looking into to see if there is further room to improve revenue and positioning of the brand. But now, let's say, it's also linked to your second question, so CHmobile. Honestly, I don't expect a huge impact from this brand going forward. We already have a lot of low-value brand in the market. It's -- I don't really understand the move from Sunrise because it goes contrary to what they actually talk about moving to a value-based strategy. And at the end, honestly, I think everybody will just end up with the same number of RGUs, but with slightly lower revenues. So it's not really a good news for the market because it kind of creates more downward pressure in the market, especially if you look at the mid -- not really -- I'm not so worried about the premium segment. But if you look at the mid market piece. Obviously, the more routed the brand basis in the lower-end budget segment, the more downward pressure you have also in the mid segment. But we will see a bit how this evolves now over time. But it's clearly, let's say, not a move that goes into, let's say, a price rebound direction in the Swiss market. So we will see also a bit how it's going with the Black Friday promotions in the coming weeks. And then we'll be -- we will see over the next year if there is any impact from this CHmobile brand. Now on the Italian side, the goal is definitely to stabilize service revenue both in B2C and B2B in the midterm. This will take some time, but we are working very hard on it. And actually, price increases, we executed price increases twice. So first, we went to EUR 9 and now to EUR 10. So we have quite a good view on at least the EUR 9 move, which didn't impact sales numbers so far. And I think also now the front book prices, I think, are at a good level. And we are actually executing what we call back book, front book alignment now. So all the back book customers, which are below our front book prices, we are now elevating them onto the front book level to have a completely in-line portfolio. This is currently being executed over the next weeks, and we have started a couple of weeks ago. And so far, numbers look okay as well. And we feel it's an important action so that all customers are actually treated in a transparent and fair way and everybody pays what we are now selling on the front book side. And this will obviously also help us improve service revenue next year going forward as this is a price increase for a couple or like a part of the customer base. Operator: So at the moment, we have one more question. [Operator Instructions] And now I will open the line for the next question. Joshua Mills: It's Josh Mills at BNP Paribas. I had a couple of questions, please. The first was just related to the Swiss service revenue trend. So you said in your comments that part of the reason that you saw a deterioration from 2.4% to 2.6% negative growth this quarter was you had a bit more migration to some of the B2B packages and also some more roaming revenues dropping out as you move to the blue bundles. So it sounds like this is a revenue headwind you've been anticipating, but just one that's coming through a bit earlier than expected. If that's the case, do you think that you'll start to see an improvement in service revenue trends into the end of this year and into 2026? Or are there other factors to consider which mean that we might see a continuation of the service revenue declines? That's the first question. And then the second question, was just around the cost cutting that you lay out on Slide 12. I think you're making it clear not to extrapolate the same level of savings into 2020 -- sorry, into Q4 as you saw in Q3, but where -- why is it that these savings are coming in quicker than expected? And why would there not be more upside to the CHF 50 million target you laid out at the start of the year? Eugen Stermetz: Okay. Thanks, Josh. So I'll take the first question. So maybe I was not super clear in my presentation, so I'll try to repeat. There is -- there is 2 different elements to talk about. So the one I've talked about first is the Q3 service revenue decline compared to Q2 because it looks like a bit of an acceleration. Now actually, on B2B, there is no acceleration whatsoever. So it's minus CHF 18 million after minus CHF 18 million in Q2. The only change is the -- only change is in -- B2C minus CHF 17 million versus the minus CHF 13 million. And there, I commented that wireless is actually slightly better, so the difference that you see between the 2 quarters comes from wireline ARPU because of some targeted price increases we had in the prior year that the impact of which is now trading out and some strong promotions in Q3. So B2B doesn't play a role in this quarter-over-quarter evolution. It's merely B2C. And here, it's wireline ARPU, nothing else. Okay. So that's the one element. Then I talked about the full year outlook, where I said about that CHF 120 million service revenue decline is what we expect and compare that to the roughly CHF 100 million service revenue decline we guided for at the start of the year. And here, actually, there is a B2B element in that deviation, because we lost some customers in B2B wireline on the corporate side, which we were really new at the start of the year. And the -- but the migration of their locations went a bit faster than we anticipated than this led to a slightly higher service revenue decline on the B2B side than anticipated. So that's a B2B. There is no Q-over-Q B2B story. Now having said that, these are all super small numbers, just to be clear. So we guided for about CHF 100 million, which you can't read anywhere you like, but you could always think CHF 120 million, we just wanted to be super transparent while we expect the roughly CHF 120 million now. Is there any impact out of these small changes that I'm commenting here on the midterm outlook? No, I would not read too much into it. Obviously, we are going to talk about the our service revenue decline expectation for '26 in February, but we don't see any fundamental shift. I just tried to explain the change from about CHF 100 million to CHF 120 million on the one hand and try to explain the super small change from minus CHF 13 million to minus CHF 17 million on the B2C side between Q2 and Q3. So I hope I was clear now the second time if not, feel free to follow up. Then on the cost savings side, I always -- I'm repeating myself on that topic. The cost savings do not come in steadily quarter-over-quarter in the same number. That's not realistic. The numbers we are talking about is at the moment, an annual impact of CHF 50 million plus, which is not a huge number, given the overall cost base we have. So small changes in quarters can drive a lot of the change. So it's always important to look at the final year figure, what we achieved for the full year. And I would not read too much into quarterly fluctuation. Joshua Mills: It's very helpful. I mean, just to follow up on the first answer. Should we read that as you don't see any big change in trends to service revenue development and declines in '26 versus the current run rate? Is that what you meant to change? Eugen Stermetz: Yes. I mean you're repeating that. No, I think I was clear. We don't see any structural changes out of the things we commented on -- so you can take -- draw your own conclusions when it comes to 2026 and we didn't guide for '26 in February. Operator: So there's one more question, and I will open the line for the next question. Robert Grindle: Yes. That's Robert Grindle from Deutsche Bank. I saw you bought a B2B video services company in August, the deal is yet to complete, I believe. Is this part of a wider push into security? Could you also provide B2C security products like one of your competitors? And do you see other adjacent opportunities in the market? And my second question is, how would you describe the mood of the typical Swiss enterprise at the moment? You had all that trade talk volatility during the summer. Has that effect sort of evened out now? Or are enterprise customers still holding back on their ICT projects? Christoph Aeschlimann: Thank you, Robert. So I think the B2B video merger you're alluding to is a really small acquisition that I think we did last year, if I'm not mistaken. I think now we have separated it out to an other entity, and we merge with some of our existing capabilities on the Swisscom Broadcast side. But it's really, let's say, a minor business. We're talking about sort of a very low double-digit millions. So it's not substantially impacting really our overall numbers in Switzerland. But Swisscom Broadcast, which is one of our subsidiaries, is actually quite active in sort of the whole surveillance aspect with cameras, but also drone surveillance which is, let's say, a growing area. So we do see some opportunities for growth on that side. But sort of it's growing, but not in a way that it would meaningfully impact our overall Swiss numbers yes, unfortunately. And of course, we -- I mean, there are a number of other adjacencies. I think the most important ones are really sort of AI-related opportunities on the B2B side. So we are pushing very heavily in providing AI consultancy, AI infrastructure services, AI chatbot really trying to monetize the AI implementation in the B2B space. I think that's one important adjacency and the second one is really all around security, which is driven by our traditional security offerings, but also the beem offering, which is completely integrated connectivity and security offering, where we really want to monetize and capitalize on the opportunity of the growing cybersecurity needs of B2B customers. And I think those should provide also meaningful numbers going forward. Now having said that, the general mood of B2B in Switzerland is a bit damp, I would say. So Switzerland is quite heavily impacted by the tariff situation with the U.S. So especially on the machinery and industrial side, it's quite gloomy, I would say. And customers are heavily saving money. Obviously, not all sectors are impacted in the same way, more domestic services companies are not impacted. And also on that side, we are okay. But the more export-oriented industries are quite heavily impacted, so overall, I would say there is a slowdown on the B2B side. It's not like to worry about. I think it's not that bad, but it's not helping us create more growth on the IT side as many companies are now scaling back a bit on their investment envelopes. Operator: So since we have no more questions left, I will hand over back to Louis for the concluding comments. Louis Schmid: Thank you very much. And with that, I would like to conclude today's conference call. In case of any follow-up questions, do not hesitate to contact us from the IR team. Speak to you soon, and have a nice day. Thank you.
Operator: Good morning. My name is Aaron, and I'll be your conference operator for today. At this time, I'd like to welcome everyone to the UWM Holdings Corporation Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Blake Kolo, you may begin your conference. Thank you. Blake Kolo: Good morning. This is Blake Kolo, Chief Business Officer and Head of Investor Relations. Thank you for joining us, and welcome to the Third Quarter 2025 UWM Holdings Corporation's Earnings Call. Before we start, I would like to remind everyone that this conference call includes forward-looking statements. For more information about factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from forward-looking statements, please refer to the earnings release that we issued this morning. Our commentary today will also include non-GAAP financial measures. For information on our non-GAAP metrics and the reconciliation between the GAAP and non-GAAP metrics for the reported results, please refer to the earnings release issued earlier today as well as our filings with the SEC. I will now turn the call over to Mat Ishbia, Chairman, President and CEO of UWM Holdings Corporation and United Wholesale Mortgage. Mathew Ishbia: Thanks, Blake, and thank you, everyone, for joining. Over the past 3-plus years, we've successfully navigated a higher rate environment with a focus on taking market share, showcasing that we are uniquely capable of both dominating purchase business and investing for the future. While most other lenders scaled back, we invested in our people, our technology and the broker channel, which are all operating at all-time high levels. We've been prepared for a rate reality for years. And the third quarter gave us a little bit of a glimpse of what it would look like, and we delivered on everything we said we would. To give you a more tangible example, showcasing our capabilities, one day in September, we had an all-time record lock day. We locked $4.8 billion, yes, $4.8 billion of locks in 1 day. We handled it all in 1 day along with submissions that followed seamlessly. Now that was only a 3-, 4-, 5-day window of opportunity, and we took advantage of it by handling all the volume all the way through our organization from setup to submission to underwriting to closing to client service priorities and all went pretty close to flawless. We maintained turn times, SLAs, world-class Net Promoter Scores and our submission to critical close times actually got even faster from 12 days to 11 days, which are like record-breaking numbers. It was phenomenal to see across the board the execution because we have been preparing for years when you actually have to do it and execute, you never know how it's going to go, and it went amazing. The investments we have made in technology will continue to solidify our competitive advantage and the gap between UWM and our competitors continues to widen. Back in May at UWM LIVE!, we made headlines introducing Mia, our most intelligent agent, a generative AI loan officer assistant. A lot of people were unsure of what this meant and how it would impact business, but we now have actual results. Mia has made over 400,000 calls on behalf of our mortgage brokers, helping them stay in touch with past clients. Remember, as I told you before, 97% of all borrowers love their experience with the broker and want to work with them in the future and have a great experience, but only 10% remember who their brokers when they want to refinance again. Mia is built to solve that issue, and she's doing it. She made over 400,000 calls starting business conversations with borrowers on behalf of the brokers. These were mostly the rate watch calls. And of these, over 14,000 have already closed. What's interesting is we forecasted a 10% to 15% answer rate, and we've actually seen over 40% answer rate. Mia has been phenomenal. We've been saying from the beginning, our business is tied to AI is based on 3 main issues: enhancing knowledge, which ChatUWM does along with a couple of other things we've done, create efficiency, which Bolt has done. And then the hardest one to solve is growth, which Mia is doing by solving the issue for brokers missing business from their past clients. So having over 14,000 closings from this in the last couple of months is even higher than we expected when we rolled it out, by a wide margin. And that's why we are the biggest and best mortgage company in America. We have been for years, and now we are just accelerating and widening the gap. Separately, Mia also answered about 70,000 inbound calls. Once again, this is actual AI working in our business, not just talking in buzzwords like a lot of other people like to do. She's taking messages, making appointments, helping them succeed. I'd love to see how many of our clients are utilizing Mia and having success. Now let's talk about the third quarter performance. We closed $41.7 billion of production, obviously beating our guidance. It was our best quarter since 2021 back when rates were in the 2.5% to 3% range. We did $25.2 billion of purchase, which is on track, as we said, is consistently doing about $100 billion of purchase every year. We have been doing that consistently at UWM. And then $16.5 billion of refi, which is up significantly. Like I said, we were able to take advantage of a very small window, a couple of week window in there where we were able to execute and close loans fast. And we're excited to be able to prove that we can not only -- we are prepared, but we also executed. Our gain margin was 130 basis points, which is slightly above the gain margin that we provided in guidance. And part of that is market moves in our direction. We were able to take advantage of that for that couple of week window. Because of this window, you can see when rates drop, our volume goes up quickly, our margin goes up quickly, and we can really take advantage of it. And it's just a 3- to 4-week window, like I said, not dissimilar to what we saw last September, but we're even more prepared and we were able to take advantage of it in a bigger way this time. Last year, we had a similar 3- to 4-week window, and the 10-year went to about 3.75, maybe 3.80, and we had a great month. We did about $17 billion, but we didn't have the success we had this time because we have Mia. This time, the rates didn't even get that low. The rates got to about 4 in the 10-year, and it's about the same short window. Mia has helped us grow the business exponentially, and we're clearly prepared to handle that volume and more. Now from an income perspective, we did over $12 million of income. That's inclusive of $160 million decline at fair values. But really the number to focus on is over $211 million of adjusted EBITDA. Once again, a dominant performance from UWM. You heard me say this on every call, year after year, our playbook and recipe remain consistent. We will continue to invest in our people, our technology and dominate this industry with our service and by growing the broker channel. Our operating profile and relentless drive to deliver results provides a consistent message for the investment community. UWM is uniquely positioned to win in any market environment, and we are investing every day to further extend our lead for the benefit of independent mortgage brokers and their consumers. I'll now turn the call over to our CFO, Rami Hasani. Rami Hasani: Thank you, Mat. Q3 was a strong quarter for us. We reported net income of $12.1 million and adjusted EBITDA of $211.1 million, up from both Q2 and Q1 of this year. Loan production volume of $41.7 billion, also up from Q2 and Q1 and gain margin of 130 basis points, again, up from Q2 and Q1. Operationally, our business continues to deliver. We also continue to maintain a healthy MSR portfolio with net servicing income of $135.1 million. As we've said before, to support our growth, we continue to invest in our people, processes and innovative technologies to prepare us and our broker partners for long-term growth. We remain on strategy with our investments, including our investments to bring servicing in-house to be prepared for significant market opportunities for us and our broker partners going forward. We previously said that our business is positioned to handle twice the volume without interruptions or adding significant staffing or fixed costs. In Q3, we demonstrated that as there were several periods throughout the quarter where production more than doubled and it was seamless. From a liquidity perspective, we recently completed a successful offering of $1 billion in unsecured notes. With the proceeds received, we plan to pay off $800 million unsecured notes maturing in mid-November, and we'll utilize the remainder to support our growth. We remain well capitalized with total equity of $1.5 billion and continue to be in a strong liquidity position with total available liquidity of $3 billion and $2.2 billion after paying off the bonds maturing in mid-November. While our liquidity and leverage ratios are slightly higher as of the end of Q3, it was the result of the timing of our bond issuance in September and our proactive liability management with the use of proceeds prior to mid-November maturity. Net of available cash, our leverage ratio as of the end of Q3 remained largely consistent with the prior quarter. Going forward, we expect to continue to maintain our capital, liquidity and leverage ratios within what we believe to be acceptable ranges in the current market conditions. In summary, Q3 was a great quarter with strong production and even stronger gain margin performance, levels we haven't seen in a while. We continue to invest in our people and technologies to be the most prepared mortgage company in the country. We're also prepared from a capital and liquidity perspective and believe that we are well positioned for Q4, 2026 and beyond. I will now turn things back over to our Chairman, President and CEO, Mat Ishbia, for closing remarks. Mathew Ishbia: Thanks, Rami. I'll close with a few points before our Q&A. Our work to bring servicing in-house is on track for the first quarter of 2026. This will have a positive financial impact on our business, and we're excited to bring our world-class approach to the servicing world. This will no doubt strengthen the consumer loyalty to their brokers. It was great to share more details on our partnership with Bilt will deliver best service experience in the history of mortgage, plus a tremendous amount of exclusive benefits for our brokers, including 400,000 to 500,000 leads Bilt renters that convert to purchase every single year exclusively to our mortgage brokers. We're also excited about the mortgage matchup center sponsorship out in Phoenix. We've seen a significant spike in both traffic and success through the mortgagematchup.com website since launching this. So very excited about all those things. Now I don't normally do this because I know you guys are going to ask me a bunch of questions. But before I move to guidance, I'll ask you a question. When rates drop, what mortgage company do you believe is most prepared to handle it with AI, with operational capacity, not with buzzwords, but with actual technology, process and preparation that's already been proven. The 10-year dipped to 4%, and you saw what we did. I've been saying this for years, when the 10-year dips to 3.75%, we're going to double our business. No other lender can do that. Even if they could, were they going to go from $4 billion to $8 billion? Like we're going to go from $30 billion to $40 billion a quarter to $60 billion to $80 billion in a quarter, right, with margin expansion. That's how UWM works. I hope you feel good about what lies ahead for UWM because I do. All right. Now turning to guidance. I expect the fourth quarter production to be between $43 billion and $50 billion of production. And we're going to raise our levels on the gain margin to 105% to 130%, moving it up 1 level. And honestly, if we get another dip like we just saw, those numbers could be even higher. But overall, excited about what UWM is doing. We're going to continue to dominate. Thank you for your time today. Let's flip it over to the Q&A. Operator: [Operator Instructions] And our first question for today comes from the line of Terry Ma with Barclays. Terry Ma: I just wanted to follow up on the effort to bring servicing in-house and specifically with the Bilt partnership. Maybe just talk about what you're seeking to accomplish with that partnership, how widespread the adoption could be? And then like ultimately, like who's going to fund the rewards issued from the Bilt card? Mathew Ishbia: Yes. Thanks for the question. So it's got nothing to do with the Bilt card. So it's every mortgage payment that goes through UWM we are letting them be the front-end servicing app, if you think of it that way, the technology on the front end. The real benefit for us at UWM is, one, we're going to be better than every other servicer out there because we're better than everyone at everything we do and servicing is a joke in our industry. And so we're going to make it really great for the client. So when people call, we're going to actually answer the phone, not 43-minute waiting periods like everybody else does. So we'll be great on servicing from a service perspective for the consumers, so consumers will love it, and then they'll get rewards for making their mortgage payment, which is something that's never been done before. And then obviously, the front-end technology to your point about built will be fantastic. On top of that, as I mentioned, built has 5 million people making their rental payments to they're about 10% go and buy houses every year. Right now, they just leave Bilt and go buy house. Now they're going to have a way to make a mortgage payment through Bilt by working with a mortgage broker. So those turn into great leads and opportunities exclusive to our mortgage brokers. And so it's a win-win-win. Bilt is a great company. They do good things, but UWM and our servicing process is going to be the best-in-class. That's how we do things. And so we're excited about that. Terry Ma: Got it. Just to follow up on the rewards piece. Like will that show up on expenses anywhere on your P&L? Mathew Ishbia: P&L? No. That's a silly question, but no, it's not funded by UWM. There's no expense for it at all. This is all upside. Terry Ma: Okay. Great. And then maybe just a follow-up on me. I appreciate the stats. I think you mentioned 14,000 loans off 400,000 outbound calls. Like any room for improvement as we kind of go forward and you continue to kind of use it? Mathew Ishbia: Everything we do has room for improvement. So yes, Mia has been fantastic. It's been better than we expected. The answer rates are higher. The response has been better. But every day that goes by, she gets better. And every day that goes by, our brokers get more and more comfortable, consumers get more and more comfortable with the AI agents reaching out and it's not a human. Like every day, it's getting better and better, and it's only going to be more and more loans. And so 14,000 was a really big number, surprisingly big number for us, but that's also the market we had that little couple of week blip where the market got really good, and we took advantage of that. But no, Mia has been fantastic. And we spend all of our time and investments internally on AI and investments around AI. Once again, it's not a buzzword for us, it's actually producing business. And so Mia has been great. And so I appreciate that question because she's been better than we expected. Operator: Our next question is from the line of Eric Hagen with BTIG. Eric Hagen: Good quarter. On the guidance for the gain on sale margin, is that a function of lower rates? Or is there another variable or condition in the market, which is supporting that? And how do you feel like the margin compares on refis versus purchased loans at this point? Mathew Ishbia: Yes. So the margin on purchase and refis are -- there's no difference. It's not a different thing. The opportunity is if rates drop a little bit as rates get lower, more volume comes in the market. And anyone that's a good mortgage loan officer or knows how to do business knows that rates are not what drives business because if that was the case, then there will be no retail business because everyone in retail charges 400 basis point gain on sale, takes advantage of consumers, does the wrong thing. If rates really matter, then there would be no retail channel. Since there is 70% of the market goes through retail, rates are not the biggest thing. So margin being up 105%, 130% in that range, that just -- for years, we were at the low end. I always told you different levels, 75 to 100 was the lower. And I keep -- I've kept moving it up strategically and timely, and I control that. Nobody else does. And so that's what's happening, and that's what it will be in that range again this month. And like I said, on the volume and margin guidance is accurate as it was last. But if I get a 2-week blip, we are unable to take advantage of it and margins go up and volume goes up and we crush it, just like we did this quarter, although I don't know if you guys recognize it, but it was a dominant quarter. Eric Hagen: Yes, we recognize it was good stuff. Good color from you as always. I mean the origination numbers look really strong, but what was the driver of the conventional purchase loans being down a little bit quarter-over-quarter? And how much upside do you think there is to the purchase numbers if rates fall? I think you mentioned 3.75% on the 10-year. I mean if that's the level, what is the upside to the purchase segment? Mathew Ishbia: The purchase business is -- the best part about our business, and you understand it pretty well, Eric, is that we're consistently dominant on the purchase. We do $25 billion a quarter, maybe $22 billion, maybe $27 billion. But basically, we're $95 billion to $105 billion of purchase every year. Rates go down to 4%, let's just play that out, just use an example, crazy not to 10-year, just the real rates. Yes, purchases will go up maybe 20% to 30%. It's not like a crazy difference. The real difference is the refi. Purchases are steady, consistent always. And that's why nobody else has that. That's why everyone else is sitting here waiting and they've been dying for the last 4 years, and we've been consistent with purchase. So the real upside is in the refi business that will go up like we saw it can double or triple in a week or a day. And so the purchase business, especially in fourth quarter, first quarter, purchase business, as you know, is that's not the purchase season. Purchase season is second and third quarter in really the summer because that's when people are moving and all that stuff. And so it will be steady. It will be consistent. Yes, there's plus 25%, maybe plus 30%, maybe plus 40% volume on purchase with lower rates because maybe some more people sell their houses and you can get all that stuff, affordability gets better, but people got to go out and buy houses still. So I'm not that focused on -- we will dominate the purchase market no matter what happens and then the refi is where the upside comes in. Operator: Our next question is from the line of Bose George with KBW. Bose George: Can you talk about the volume and margin trends that you've seen so far in October, is that kind of at the midpoint of the guidance range? Mathew Ishbia: Yes. I guided for -- to where I did for a reason. October was a great month and the volume and margins are aligned. Now November is a 19 business day month. And if you take out the Wednesday and Friday after Thanksgiving and before it's really a 17 business day month. So it's a really short month. So this quarter is actually a short quarter tied to the end of the year stuff. But I've just guided that no matter what, I'm going to have the best quarter we've had in 4 years. Maybe you guys will recognize that and realize that we're dominating out here. But either way, $43 billion to $50 billion is very good. It's never been done in 4 years at UWM. The margins are guided to those same places that I just did. And so we will not miss guidance just as I never have, I think, as long as I've been doing this. Bose George: Okay. Great. And then actually, on the servicing side, you noted that you'll be bringing it in-house early '26. Does that happen? And is it staggered? Does it come in over time? Or -- how is that going to work? Mathew Ishbia: Yes. All new loans that close in 2026 will be -- will stay here, so we won't subservice those out to your point, to your question. And then the loans that are currently subserviced out at Cenlar over the year, we'll transition them here. So by the end of 2026, there won't be loans anywhere else outside of default loans and different things that we make decisions on. But for the most part, everything will be here internally, whether I move a big chunk of them in March or April, another chunk in September, October, but all new originations are coming in 2026. And by the end of 2026, 100% of the servicing book will be internal, like I said, outside of the loans that I've chosen to not come in town or come in-house. Operator: Our next question is from the line of Doug Harter with UBS. Douglas Harter: Mat, as we think about your ability to ramp up volumes, how -- you've talked about the scale of the business. How should we think about like what are the incremental costs that -- for funding that new volume and just how to think about the operating leverage that's in the business? Mathew Ishbia: Yes. The operating leverage in the business is substantial right now. So there's -- the cost -- you guys look at cost all the time. A lot of them are investments. You look at how do we invest in technology, how do I continue to invest in everything that we do, the broker channel, all the different pieces to it. But where we're at right now, I don't need to add costs to do -- double my business. I've said that before. And so therefore, you can kind of think of the cost. Like obviously, when you do more volume, there's more commissions that get paid out and there's things like that, but that's a variable cost. From a fixed perspective, I feel really good about where we are right now. And I'd expect over the next year that to stay the same or stay in that range, plus or minus 10% and probably be on the lower end of the minus 10% is how I think about it based on just the AI initiatives and things that we've done. But at the same time, if there's an opportunity to make an investment to build the business and dominate, we will do that without question, without thought. And so the investments we make will continue. But the expenses like if you're looking like fixed costs, like how much more, we don't need anything to do the volumes I just told you guys. We don't need anything. Douglas Harter: And then speaking of investment, can you just remind us on the bringing the servicing in-house? I guess, have those investments already started? So like are those costs kind of already in your cost base? And just how to think about kind of the cost side as servicing comes in-house? Mathew Ishbia: Yes. Those costs -- so I'm getting double hit on it, right, because I'm paying subservicers and I'm also building out a servicing portfolio and servicing people, hiring people to build out the way I want to do it. I told you guys really I'd say between $40 million and $100 million. I think I guess said $60 million to $100 million, probably closer to the high end of these ranges I'm giving you, let's call it $40 million to $100 million to bring servicing in-house, and those numbers are accurate. You won't see that all the way through the income until 2027, right? Because this year is the worst because I'm double dipping, I'm hiring people, building it out, and I'm still subservicing. Next year is a combo of it. In 2027, I'll have all the savings baked into our business, along with the leads, along with the growth, along with the success, along with better retention and all the things that come from it. So yes, so you're correct. There's -- those costs are already in there. And same thing with the technology investments right now, building out some of those things from the AI perspective to make servicing, like I said, the best in the country. I'm not trying to be like all these other guys. Operator: Our next question is from the line of Jeff Adelson with Morgan Stanley. Jeffrey Adelson: Mat, just maybe a quick reminder of the hedging. I think this quarter, the hedge gain against the MSR loss was a little bit smaller than we saw last quarter. Just maybe give us a quick update on the hedging strategy. I know you've been a little bit more opportunistic there. Mathew Ishbia: Yes. No, I appreciate it. We don't hedge our MSRs as you're hopefully aware of. I do look at opportunities and look at interest rates and make decisions. Sometimes we do more of it, sometimes we do less of it. This quarter, we focused less on it because we focused on just the dominating the business. Obviously, the 10-year goes up and down, MBS rates go up and down and how it finishes, depending on how it started, it ties to an MSR loss. Anyone, and I know it's you guys because I love all of you guys, but anyone that f****** focuses on MSRs and the fair value just doesn't understand mortgages, doesn't understand this business. It's got 0 to do with what I'm doing, the operating of the business. The 10-year can literally be at 3.75% for this whole quarter. Let's say if it drops to 3.75% today, I'm go to crush it, just crush it across the board. I'll call you next quarter. I'll say, $60 billion, $70 billion, 135 basis points of margin, we'll crush it. But on December 31, the 10-year goes back up to 4.40%, just to use some crazy number, and I'll have an MSR write-up of another $400 million also. That has 0 to do with my business. And the inverse is accurate, too. So the MSR value stuff means nothing. I don't focus on it. I don't care about it. I'm not going to care about it because it's like why would I focus on since I have 0 control over, 0. you can hedge it, Mat, we'll hedge it. That -- once again, MSR value, I'd be putting costs out there to hedge something that I have 0 control over. I don't care about the MSR values. If you guys write about the MSR values, you don't understand my business. It just doesn't matter. It matters 0. So just like, by the way, and you can go back and listen to the record I told you the same stuff when my -- I got an MSR write-up of $500 million. I'm like, don't give me credit for that. I didn't do anything for that. That means 0. Watch my core business. watch what I do with my production, my gain on sale, my expenses and how we dominate in there. And our adjusted EBITDA of $200-plus million, like that's how you run a business. That's all we focus on. I don't focus on other stuff. I know other people like to talk about it because they just don't understand our business. Jeffrey Adelson: And then just in terms of Mia, it was good to hear the color on the success so far there. Just as I sort of think about that 14,000 transactions closed, do you think about that as mostly refi at this point? And some really rough math, if I sort of think about an average loan size here would suggest there was somewhere in the ballpark of maybe like 10% of your originations this quarter. And if most of it was refi, that would be quite a bit of refi as well. So is that right? Or how should we be thinking about those numbers and the path from here? Mathew Ishbia: Yes. And to be clear, and maybe I should have done a better job of stating it, the 14,000 probably includes loans that have closed in the beginning of October because I think I pulled the data like 2 weeks ago. So it's probably a little runoff. So it's not all 14,000 in the first quarter -- in the second quarter -- excuse me, third quarter. And also was probably a little bit in the second quarter. So it's not like pure, but we really saw a massive pickup in that September little blip that we just talked about. So a lot of that stuff closed in September and a little bit rolled in October. With that being said, I would assume that it's all refinanced. 95% is refi. Yes, there are some that Mia called and they're like, "Oh, I'm looking to buy a house or I want a second home." But the focus on the 400,000-plus calls were rate watch calls, which basically means, hey, you might be in the market for a refinance. You should be in the market for refinance. I've got good news, you're LO at this company. And so maybe at some point, we'll play the call. If you call our Investor Relations team, they'll let you hear a call, like the real live calls and people like, yes, I have Johnny call me, and then that turns into an import, which turns into a loan, which turns into a closing. And so I would say 95% refi in the data I just gave you on the 14,000, but I won't try to put it in the third quarter number because it's not all in the third quarter. I would say a good amount of it was in the third quarter, but some of it trickled into the fourth quarter, and we'll have more in the fourth quarter. We already have some since I pulled that data. Jeffrey Adelson: So a pretty good number though, but appreciate the color, Mat... Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our next question is from the line of Mikhail Goberman with Citizens. Mikhail Goberman: Just a quick question about -- a big picture question about technology and how it's affecting the industry, especially with respect to refi, there's been a lot of talk about the sort of traditional 75 basis point incentive for refis really contracting to much lower level going forward, maybe even as low as 25, 30. Could you talk about that and how technology and specifically AI is affecting that? Mathew Ishbia: Yes. Just to clarify your question, so I understand so I can give you the right answer. You're saying that people are more likely to refinance because it's easier these days. They used to think you have to save more money. Now they're willing to do it quicker. Is that what you're asking? Mikhail Goberman: Correct. Yes. Given that sort of the human element has always been the choke point in the refi experience and technology just collapsing that into a faster process. Mathew Ishbia: Yes. I mean I see that. And I guess your point is will there be -- since there's less cost, less friction and it's easier to refinance because of -- will there be more refinances. And I guess I would say, yes, I see the opportunities there. But you're also assuming that all lenders are actually good at it. You're also assuming that other lenders actually have technology. The friction is still a pain in the butt for -- I mean, I think I said 11 days [ sub the CTC ], and I've refis even faster than that. The industry average are still 40 days. There's still a lot of friction. People are still literally -- you get a mortgage with some of these retail lenders or some of these other lenders, you're literally going and printing out your 12 months bank statement, going and get your pay stubs, calling your tax people and getting your tax returns and setting them up, like it's a complete joke still. So don't get confused that just because we're dominating and doing these things and that a couple of other companies are focused on AI. A lot of AI is buzzwords and bulls*** right now. The truth is we're closing like why don't you check their data, see who is actually pulling the friction out. But you are correct. When you make it faster, easier and cheaper, people are willing to do it because like I was not a pain in the butt to refinance. I'll take $92 of savings. I don't need to wait for $200 of savings. In the old days, it was like, let me wait until $200 because it's not worth my time. I don't want to go get my pay stubs and go to Kinko's and fax, make copies and all that nonsense. But there are still lenders and the majority of lenders are still doing it the old way. So I wouldn't say there's a massive change. You'll see ours go faster from the opportunity because we'll be able to help people, but it's still -- it's not going to be a massive change in the markets yet. In the future, it will be, I think you're actually on to something. But you're still -- the technology that I speak of and we talk about in AI is, I say light years, but we'll call it 3 to 5 years ahead of all these other people. And so yes, there'll be more refinances. But with our servicing bringing it in-house, with our faster, easier process with mortgage brokers being cheaper and lower cost, it's going to be more refis. And that's why we're -- we dominated in September, and we dominated in October, and we'll dominate this fourth quarter. We continue with the volume on refis. And then we don't have to own the servicing book. And a lot of people like to say they own servicing book to get the refis, that isn't the game anymore, although people are spending billions and billions of dollars buying servicing books, that helps and they give you a little bit of a leg up, a little inside track, but that is not driving it. As you saw, I think I said last quarter that we own 2% of the servicing book or 3% of the book, and we did 11% or 12% of the refis in the market. So obviously, that's not the game anymore. So taking the friction out is the game. Technology is the game, and that's why you see me making investments every single day to be prepared to dominate just like we did in the third quarter, and I will get in the fourth quarter and then in 2026. Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, that will conclude our Q&A portion for today. I would like to turn the call back over to Mat Ishbia for any closing comments. Mathew Ishbia: Yes. Thanks for the time today, guys. Appreciate you guys. Have a good day. Operator: Thank you. And ladies and gentlemen, that will conclude today's conference. Thanks for attending. We'll see you next time.
Operator: Hello, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Gogo Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to hand the conference over to William Davis. You may begin. William Davis: Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Gogo's Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. Joining me today to discuss our results are Chris Moore, CEO; and Zach Cotner, our CFO. Before we get started, I would like to take this opportunity to remind you that during the course of this call, we may make forward-looking statements regarding future events and the future performance of the company. We caution you to consider the risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements on this call. Those risk factors are described in our earnings release filed this morning and in a more fully detailed note under risk factors filed in our annual report on 10-K and 10-Q and other documents that we have filed with the SEC. In addition, please note that the date of this conference call is November 6, 2025. Any forward-looking statements that we make today are based on assumptions as of this date, and we undertake no obligation to update these statements as a result of more information or future events. During this call, we'll present both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures. We have included a reconciliation and explanation of adjustments and other considerations of our non-GAAP measures to the most comparable GAAP measures in our third quarter earnings release. This call is being webcasted and available at ir.gogoair.com. The earnings release is also available on the website. After management comments, we'll host a Q&A session with the financial community only. It is now my great pleasure to turn the call over to Chris. Christopher Moore: Thank you, Will, and good morning. I will let Zach handle the numbers, but I am pleased with our financial discipline, integration and synergy execution and free cash flow generation as we prepare for growth as a result of our new product ramps and global contract wins. My remarks will focus on the significant progress made across our key new products in the third quarter, including 5G, HDX and FDX, all of which are expected to provide a step function increase in speed, consistency and performance. I will also discuss our progress in the military/government end market, including several recent contract wins that validate our unique multi-orbit multi-band strategy for this important customer base. We believe Gogo is well positioned to execute on our new product launches, and this bolsters my confidence in achieving long-term sustained revenue and free cash flow growth. Before we jump into our product rollouts, let's review the positive demand trends within our underpenetrated market. Global business jet flights are about 30% above pre-COVID levels, and at an all-time high. Fractional demand is robust. Overall demand for business jets remains healthy with major OEMs reporting strong backlogs and estimating 2025 final book-to-bill ratios 1x or higher. Last month, Honeywell estimated business jet deliveries globally of 8,500 over the next 10 years, representing an annual growth rate of approximately 3%. Given that our global addressable market of 41,000 business aircraft is less than 25% penetrated with broadband connectivity, these factors create a robust end market. In summary, our value creation is to grow our current strong position in the underpenetrated market with long-term high-margin customer relationships by delivering a set of new products and services, which deliver order of magnitude improvements in performance with purpose-built equipment that is easier to install, maintain and upgrade than competitors' products. Let's start our new product update with Galileo, our global LEO-based service that comes in two flavors: HDX for smaller aircraft and FDX for larger aircraft. The recent announcement by VistaJet, a leading global business jet operator of its plans to deploy both HDX and FDX across its fleet of 270 aircraft is a powerful endorsement for Galileo. HDX installations begin this month in Europe and start in the U.S. and Asia in January. Vista expects one aircraft upgrade with the Gogo Galileo terminal every nine days, reaching at least 60 aircraft with the Galileo terminal within the first 18 months. VistaJet was comfortable with both the robust performance of our Galileo service and our commitment to long-term global customer support as well as the ability to manage capacity and route traffic across a global fleet with multiple aircraft types. The VistaJet contract continues our momentum across multiple global fleet operators. In addition to VistaJet, Gogo has announced wins with the following fleets, all with plans to upgrade their fleet to Galileo and/or 5G, NetJets, Luxaviation, Wheels Up and Avcon Jet. All in, we believe that there is a path with Gogo to reach well over 1,000 fleet aircraft with either Galileo or 5G representing a true slingshot to propel our LEO and ATG business on a global scale. Further, our combined Galileo pipeline for both HDX and FDX is now approximately 1,000, up from 500 at the end of Q2, and we continue to see a favorable pipeline mix between U.S. and global market of about 60-40. Note, as we win new contracts like the VistaJet deal, this pipeline rolls off into new business won. So, a pipeline is just one piece of the puzzle in tracking our progress. Next, let's drill down on HDX. HDX is ideal for the 12,000 midsized and smaller aircraft outside North America without broadband and the 11,000 midsize and smaller aircraft in North America that fly outside of CONUS or won faster speed than 5G. Our execution on HDX bought significant fruit during the quarter as we increased our completed STCs from 8 to 19 out of 40 under contract. We are very close to reaching critical mass with our HDX STC count. Additionally, we have now shipped over 200 HDX units year-to-date, nearly 3x the 77 shipments we announced on our Q2 call in August with 93% earmarked for specific customers. Our HDX installations are now 50, including outstanding FTCs, which we expect to ramp significantly as we begin to install on our major fleet accounts and execute on line-fit installations with Textron beginning in early 2026. Accelerating AOL in a new product is truly where the magic happens and will be the key to future service revenue acceleration. HDX is performing ahead of speed expectations and was purpose-built to fit on 41,000 global aircraft, and we expect a very significant ramp in shipments and AOL growth in 2026 and beyond. Now let's shift to FDX, our larger LEO antenna for the large global business market of 10,000 aircraft. A successful flight test with OEMs, dealers and fleet customers is a fantastic endorsement to the status of the new product. At the recent NBAA show, we flew multiple flight demos with speeds reaching 200 megabits at the high end of our predicted speed range. As we see, this is streaming. We operated 27 streaming devices simultaneously and consumed an outstanding 36 gigs of data in 36 minutes. I've been launching and testing aviation WiFi systems for a couple of decades and have never seen such flawless execution on a flight demo within a week of aircraft installation and delivery. It was truly an awesome performance. Hats off to the Gogo team and our partners, Hughes, StandardAero and OneWeb. We were thrilled to announce in our earnings release this morning that FDX will be a LEO line-fit option for all new Bombardier Challenger and global business aircraft types. In our view, this validates our technology, our team and shows great trust from a major global business aircraft OEM. We expect revenue generation from this important win in early 2027. We have now announced strong Galileo relationships with the following major global OEMs, Bombardier, Textron, Dassault and Embraer. Let's now move on to 5G, our multiyear investment to substantially improve the performance of our ATG network. I am thrilled to say that we are at the goal line on 5G. Our 5G flight testing began on October 28, and the results have exceeded our expectations. As a result, we reiterate a Q4 launch timing for 5G, and we plan to begin shipping boxes to our 400 pre-provisioned 5G customers in early Q1. They already have the 5G antenna installed and the wiring is completed. We expect our 5G service revenue to begin in the latter part of the first quarter once installations have begun. Beyond our focus on preprovisioned aircraft, 28 out of the 33 FTCs under contract are now completed, and we expect the remaining 5 will be completed by the end of the year. Further, Gogo has 5G line fit commitments with 5 OEMs with already installing the AVANCE L5 box on the production line today. These boxes will be swapped with the LX5 5G box when service is turned on. We continue to believe the significant pent-up demand exists for 5G among customers who predominantly fly domestically, particularly those with light and medium-sized aircraft. 5G offers a tenfold increase in speeds versus the existing L5 ATG solution and is a cost-effective solution versus the more premium priced HDX or FDX. Keeping the focus on ATG, let's move to our LTE upgrade. The upgrade of our ATG network to LTE, which will be largely subsidized by FCC funding, is expected to bring multiple benefits: one, accelerating the upgrade of Classic aircraft to AVANCE; two, increasing ATG network capacity and increasing speeds; and third, accelerating our U.S. government business on the ATG network given the enhanced security of the network. We shipped a record 437 ATG equipment units in the quarter, up 8% sequentially split between 208 AVANCE units and 229 C1 units. Equipment shipments are typically a leading indicator of future installs. We recorded a record 145 Classic to AVANCE upgrades in Q3 as AVANCE AOL grew 12% year-over-year to 4,890. AVANCE now represents 75% of our ATG fleet, and that figure is quickly heading to 100%. Correspondingly, our Classic count of roughly 1,500 aircraft is only 25% of the ATG fleet and over 400 are part of fractional or managed accounts with a defined upgrade path. This leaves approximately 1,100 Classic aircraft not associated with a fleet account. We expect that our count of 101 C1 aircraft will ramp significantly over the coming quarters. The C1 box is identical in size to the Classic box and allows the system to operate after the LTE system is turned on. This box swap takes only a few hours and benefits from FCC subsidies. Bottom line, we are accelerating our progress towards the anticipated LTE cutover in May of 2026, and our entire dealer network is pushing all out to upgrade our Classic fleet as they have a strong vested interest in a smooth transition of our air-to-ground network. While we are encouraged with our efforts to improve the performance of the ATG network across multiple levels, including the 5G and LTE rollout and the C1 upgrade process, we continue to believe that industry trends will pressure our ATG online count for the next several quarters. Our ability to return to sustained service revenue growth will be dependent on 2 things: First, the pace of the ramp of our new products, including HDX, FDX 5G and second, progress in the military/government end market. Let's jump into the discussion of performance of our GEO business. We ended Q3 with 1,343 GEO AOL, up 161 units or 14% from the prior year, powered by our line fit positioning. We expect that our investment in GEO technology will continue to improve speed and performance over time for business jet, which we believe can be leveraged across our military/government customers as well. Our SD Router called SDR is on about 2,400 GEO aircraft and is synchronized with the advanced routers on other 4,900 aircraft. That is a total of approximately 7,300 systems that should be upgradable to new products without box swaps or expensive interior rewiring. Now moving to our military/government end market. Given that our military/government service revenue is relatively new to most of you, let me provide context about how we view it. First, the global military/government aircraft number has an even lower broadband penetration than the business jet market, and this presents a compelling long-term growth path. The 25 by 25 initiative from the U.S. Air Force is a great example of this. The U.S. Air Force set a goal that 25% of its 1,100-non-fighter aircraft would have broadband speeds of 25 megabits or greater by the end of 2025 and that the goal will come up short. Of note, the architect of the 25 by 25 initiatives, retired General Mike Minahan, joined our Board this year. Second, we believe governments globally will seek diversity amongst their aero bandwidth suppliers and will place premium on multi-orbit, multiband service for redundancy and performance. These capabilities are military prerequisites for PACE standing for Primary, Alternate, Contingent, and Emergency. And Gogo is the only company that can fit that bill. This was a major contributing factor in our recently announced 5-year federal contract to deliver 5G, LEO and GEO services to a U.S. government agency. This is the first service win for 5G in a multi-orbit government contract. Third, we can reuse business aviation terminal offering for military/government use without incremental R&D spend. This advantage was highlighted with our recent 5-year contract with SES Space & Defense for a blanket purchase agreement for U.S. Space Force’s Space Systems Command, we will plan to deliver managed global Ku-band Geo Flex air services utilizing our Plain Simple Ku-band Antenna to provide scalable, secure and high-speed satellite connectivity across government operations worldwide. This contract ceiling value is $33 million, of which aviation is a major component and a total revenue split, 80% service and 20% equipment. Finally, given that military/government contracts are typically multiyear, we believe that increased predictability revenue streams under contract in this segment have the potential to add a new layer of strategic value for Gogo. Given that context, we expect that military/government, which is 13% of our total revenue, is likely to move towards 20% over the longer term. Thank you for your attention, and I trust that you share our enthusiasm for the significant progress we have made over the last few quarters in transitioning this global business. I will now turn the call over to Zach for the numbers. Zachary Cotner: Thanks, Chris, and good morning, everyone. Third quarter revenue was in line with expectations, highlighted by strong equipment shipments. Also, adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow were ahead of plan as our integration synergies and financial discipline continue to materialize. As a result, we are reiterating the high end of our 2025 financial guidance ranges for revenue, adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow. As Chris mentioned, global demand for our new products continues to expand, and we believe this will ultimately lead to service revenue growth. As implied in our 2025 financial guidance, we expect to return to modest year-over-year revenue growth in Q4, while increases in Galileo and 5G investments as well as elevated inventory levels driven by our new product launches should decrease adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow sequentially. We are still completing our 2026 annual plan, and we'll be providing guidance on our Q4 call in February. However, in the meantime, we would like to provide a bit of context around next year. We see the potential for some incremental working capital need in '26 to support our new product ramps as well as continued ATG AOL volatility, particularly amongst our Classic fleet. Despite these considerations, we believe that new product growth, the roll-off of 5G and Galileo investments as well as further OpEx and CapEx rationalization will benefit us next year. I'll now provide an overview of our third quarter results, then I will turn to our capital allocation priorities and outlook for the balance sheet transactions to reduce interest expense and further de-lever. And finally, I will provide some additional color on the guidance. On a combined pro forma basis, Gogo's total revenue in the third quarter was $224 million, down 1% on a pro forma basis year-over-year as well as sequentially. On a stand-alone basis, Satcom Direct's Q3 revenue declined about 4% year-over-year. Total service revenue of $190 million increased 132% over the prior year and declined 2% sequentially. Total ATG aircraft online at the end of Q3 was 6,529, a decline of approximately 7% versus the prior year period and down 3% sequentially. Consistent with our strategic goals, total advanced AOL increased 12% from the prior year period and now comprises 75% of the total ATG fleet, up from 62% a year ago. Since the end of 2022, our total AVANCE AOL has grown by over 1,600. Total ATG ARPU of 3,407 declined about 3% year-over-year and approximately 1% sequentially. Total broadband GEO AOL, excluding networks that are End of Life, reached 1,343, up 14% from the prior year and 2% sequentially. This strength highlights our OEM line positions. In addition, most GEO broadband aircraft under fixed-term contracts, enhancing revenue stability and our GEO ARPU continues to hold up better than expected. This performance was the primary driver in the increase in the fair value of the earn-out liability that affected our net income in the quarter. Now turning to equipment revenue. Total equipment revenue in the third quarter was $33.6 million, up 80% year-over-year and 5% sequentially. Total ATG equipment shipments of 437 were an all-time high and up 8% sequentially from 405 in Q2, which was a prior record. Advanced shipments remained robust at 208, while C1 shipments ramped substantially to 229 and up from 129 in the prior quarter. Given that equipment shipments are generally a leading indicator of future installation activity, we believe our strong Q3 shipments bode well for the future conversion of Classic customers ahead of our expected LTE network cutover in May of 2026. Now moving on to our margins. Gogo delivered combined service margins, inclusive of Satcom Direct of 52%, which was in line with our budget. Service gross profit accounted for 97% of total Q3 gross profit. We continue to focus on driving this recurring high-margin service revenue. Equipment margins were about 8% in Q3 as Galileo equipment pricing remains close to cost. Now turning to operating expenses. Total Q3 operating expense for G&A, sales and marketing as well as engineering design and development were $57 million, up slightly sequentially, largely due to SmartSky litigation spend. Now let's turn to our major strategic initiatives, 5G, Galileo and the FCC reimbursement program. Total 5G spend in Q3 was $6 million with approximately $5.5 million tied to CapEx. We continue to expect total 5G spend to decline in 2026 as we launch our 5G network in Q4. Turning to Galileo, we recorded $1.2 million in Q3 OpEx and about $2.2 million in CapEx. We continue to expect total external development costs for both the HDX and FDX to be less than $50 million, of which $34 million was incurred from 2022 through the first 9 months of 2025, with approximately $11 million expected this year. We anticipate approximately 80% of Galileo's external development costs will be in OpEx. And finally, our FCC reimbursement program. In the third quarter, we received $6.6 million in FCC grant funding, bringing our program to date total to $59.9 million. As of September 30, we recorded a $26 million receivable from the FCC and incurred $22.8 million in reimbursable spend during the quarter. The timing of reimbursement payments has not been affected by the government shutdown, but we are monitoring the situation closely. The receivables is included in prepaid expenses and other current assets on the balance sheet with corresponding reductions to Property and Equipment, Inventory and Contract assets with a pickup in the income statement. Moving to our bottom line. Gogo generated $56.2 million of adjusted EBITDA in the quarter, and our adjusted EBITDA margin of 25% was consistent with the initial long-term view of the mid-20s we described in the Satcom deal was announced. Net income for the quarter was negative $1.9 million and EPS was negative $0.01. Net income includes a $15 million pretax fair value adjustment related to the Satcom acquisition I described a moment ago. As of Q3, we have achieved over $30 million of annualized synergies and expect run rate synergies to modestly exceed our previous range of $30 million to $35 million with approximately 2 years of closing the Satcom deal. This is a significant improvement from our original guidance of $25 million to $30 million. We continue to anticipate total cost to achieve synergies in the range of $15 million to $20 million. While we have achieved the vast majority of our headcount reductions, we feel confident that we can further reduce costs as we head into '26 in multiple areas, including real estate, back-office software solutions and CapEx rationalization. Now moving to free cash flow. Gogo generated $31 million of free cash flow in Q3, above expectations and totaling $94 million year-to-date. Based on our current 2025 guidance, we expect Q4 free cash flow to be the lowest of the year, mostly due to the timing of strategic investments and inventory purchase related to the launch of our new products. Now I'll turn to the discussion of our balance sheet. Gogo ended the third quarter with $133.6 million in cash and short-term investments and $849 million in outstanding principal on our 2 term loans with our $122 million revolver remaining undrawn. This equates to a net leverage ratio of 3.1x for Q3, down from 3.2x in the prior quarter. Our cash interest paid net of hedge cash flow was $16.3 million. Our hedge agreement is now $250 million with a strike of 225 bps, resulting in approximately 30% of the loans being hedged. In 2025, we continue to expect cash interest paid net of hedge cash flow to be approximately $70 million. Consistent with our Q2 call, our immediate focus remains exploring ways to streamline our balance sheet, reduce interest expense and continue our deleveraging process. Between our cash on hand and our revolver, we have more than $250 million in liquidity. This is significantly more than we need to operate the business, and we believe this provides plenty of financial flexibility to find the right balance sheet solution in 2026. Bottom line, we continue to believe our expected free cash flow growth over the next few years will provide ample excess cash to pay down debt, reduce our interest expense and ultimately return capital to shareholders. In our earnings release this morning, we are largely reiterating key elements of our 2025 financial guidance. For the year, we expect total revenue at the high end of the range of $870 million to $910 million, adjusted EBITDA at the high end of the range of $200 million to $220 million, reflecting operating expenses of approximately $15 million for strategic initiatives, including 5G and Galileo versus our prior expectations of $20 million. Given our guidance, we expect Q4 EBITDA will decline sequentially largely due to the timing of planned investments and an expected decrease in ATG service revenue. Free cash flow at the high end of the range of $60 million to $90 million. We now expect approximately $40 million slated for strategic investments in 2025, net of any FCC reimbursement versus prior expectations of $60 million. This reduction is largely due to timing. Our net CapEx is still expected to be $40 million after $30 million of CapEx reimbursement from the FCC reimbursement program. In conclusion, 2025 has largely been a year of blocking and tackling execution that include the integration of Gogo and Satcom, significant product investments and launching HDX, FDX and 5G. Now nearly a year after the close of the Satcom deal, we are seeing the results of our transformation. Shipments and installations of game-changing new products are starting to ramp, significant costs are being removed, and we are winning long-term contracts with global fleets, OEMs and governments. I want to express my gratitude to the Gogo team for their hard work in driving this transformation and their dedication to providing exceptional customer service. Operator, this concludes our prepared remarks. Please open the queue for questions. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line Scott Searle with ROTH Capital Partners. Scott Searle: Maybe just to dig in initially on the fourth quarter implied guidance. Chris, Zach, I'm wondering if you could dive in a little bit more in terms of detailing that outlook, it implies adjusted EBITDA in the $40 million range. You've mentioned incremental strategic investments and the ATG kind of roll-off. Could you take us through that a little bit more in detail in terms of the thought process and if you're being conservative on that front or ATG is expected to continue to transition, particularly on the Classic front?  Zachary Cotner: Thanks for the question. I think the way we're looking at it is, as you've seen, the ATG pressure continues, right? And that's the highest margin revenue, right? So, we anticipate a decline, albeit not as aggressive as the prior quarters, largely because the C1 should start they're shipping.  But the other piece is our revenue is actually going to be up, right? And another piece of that is equipment shipments. So, if you have lower margins on equipment shipments, so the mix changes. And as well as that, we have significant testing on 5G. So, there's a little bit of compression on gross margin because of the mix and then the OpEx side is going to be a little bit higher largely because of 5G testing.  Christopher Moore: Yes. I think also if you look at the record AVANCE shipments, C1s as Zach picked up, it's clear that customers are also planning to upgrade. I think the fact that we're rolling out the 5G network, and that's successful, I think that's also a very positive sign at this point in time.  Scott Searle: Got you. And for my follow-up, I'm wondering if we could dig in a little bit more in terms of existing Classic, the transition to C1 and kind of the offset there now that we're starting to see momentum on 5G and Galileo as we go into 2026. So could you help us frame in terms of Classic, how that's expected to roll over the next several quarters. Now with the C1 out there, you had a lot of momentum this quarter. Is the majority of that base expected to convert pretty quickly to C1? Or are some of those expected to upgrade to 5G as well?  Christopher Moore: I think it's a mix. If you look at the record AVANCE shipments, clearly, those customers are looking forward to 5G. It depends also on the customer budget. The C1 is really a placeholder product, but it's really encouraging that people are also taking that when you think it's just moving them on to a more modern network.  And our MRO partners putting in field service team. So, we expect that to pick up and derisk Classic customers not cutting over. Everything we see at the moment is extremely positive. So, we're feeling pretty good about it.  Scott Searle: Chris, if I could just add on to the back of that. From an ARPU standpoint, how do you see things trending as we go into the first half of next year? There's some downward pressure, I would imagine, as we're going to C1, but you're also having some of the higher ARPU services starting to kick in. So how do you see that playing out as we go into '26?  Christopher Moore: Yes. I think what's encouraging is if you look at 5G ARPU is worth twice that of a Classic customer. So that conversion, we actually see upside. And I think that's really where our heads are at the moment. Obviously, you've got more price-sensitive customers, but we've got a lot of price flexibility within the plans. So, people cutting over from over to C1. That's one aspect.  And then you've got people who I mean, we're going to be delivering a 50 to 80 megabit service on 5G. So that's I mean, that's completely and utterly a different service level than these customers have ever experienced. So, we see that as those customers really being a higher ARPU as they're streaming and being able to use video applications within the aircraft that they've never been able to do before.  Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from the line of Justin Lang with Morgan Stanley.  Justin Lang: I just want to double back on the implied 4Q EBITDA guide. Maybe you could just put a finer point on how much of the implied headwind is related to Galileo and 5G investments versus some of the ATG pressures you flagged?  Zachary Cotner: Yes. I would say it's kind of split a little bit evenly between ATG pressure as well as like increased OpEx. I would say there's a bigger piece of it related to 5G versus Galileo. There's still Galileo costs, but the STCs are running through and 5G, there's a lot of testing that has to go. We got to own aircraft right now. So that's a big driver.  Justin Lang: Okay. Got it. And then I know you've mentioned in the past sort of regular maintenance has been a big driver of some of the ATG AOL declines. Are you still seeing that trend? Or are you seeing heightened competitive pressure anywhere?  Christopher Moore: Not really seeing competitive pressure. I think one of the natures of the market is customers have scheduled maintenance for upgrades. So going to the C1, what I mentioned on the previous questions, really, it's that our MRO partners, I put field service teams. It's a very simple upgrade for C1, which we've designed.  So, we're doing a lot of those in the field. And there's been a lot of press about that with Omni, West Star, our MRO partners there. So, I think that will continue to have positive momentum for us. And we see that really encouraging. And I think you can see that with the C1 numbers are starting to really pick up now. So, but obviously, customers who are also waiting for scheduled maintenance, they'll wait until that point as well. It's just the nature of the market.  Justin Lang: Got it. Okay. That's helpful. And then just really quick one on the shutdown. I know Zach you mentioned that it's not really impacting FCC reimbursement. But are you seeing any other impacts maybe around military/government or I'm not sure if there's any regulatory oversight outstanding for 5G flight testing, but are you seeing that creep up anywhere else?  Christopher Moore: Yes. I think you can definitely see things have slowed down a little bit with kind of like when you need government approvals in certain areas. But they're not it's not really affecting our business at this point in time. So, we're just keeping a close monitor to it, but we're not seeing major effects in our revenue outlook because of government shutdown.  Operator: [Operator Instructions] I'm showing no further questions in the queue. I would now like to turn the call back over to William for closing remarks.  William Davis: Thank you for joining our third quarter earnings conference call. You may disconnect.  Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect. Goodbye.
Operator: Good day. Welcome to Teads Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Teads Investor Relations. Please go ahead. Unknown Executive: Good morning, and thank you for joining us on today's conference call to discuss Teads Third Quarter 2025 Results. Joining me on the call today, we have David Kostman and Jason Kiviat, the CEO and CFO of Teads. During this conference call, management will make forward-looking statements based on current expectations and assumptions, including statements regarding our business outlook and prospects. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from our forward-looking statements. These risk factors are discussed in detail in our Form 10-K filed for the year December 31, 2024, as updated in our subsequent reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the call's original date, and we do not undertake any duty to update any such statements. Today's presentation also includes references to non-GAAP financial measures. You should refer to the information contained in the company's third quarter earnings release for additional information and reconciliations of non-GAAP measures to the comparable GAAP financial measures. Our earnings release can be found on the IR website, investors.teads.com, under News and Events. With that, let me turn the call over to David. David Kostman: Thank you, Josh. Good morning, and thank you for joining us. Before diving into the details of the quarter, I'd like to start with an update on the merger, our turnaround actions and how we're positioning Teads for renewed growth and sustained profitability. While this quarter presented challenges and our results fell short of expectations, we are taking decisive actions to drive a stronger performance moving forward. The integration of our 2 scaled organizations is complex with a strategic effort, and we are actively addressing the challenges we encountered. In addition to the merger complexities, we continue to navigate a dynamic and fast-evolving ecosystem marked by shifting traffic patterns across the open Internet and increasing competition on the demand side. Macro volatility in certain geographies and verticals and shorter planning cycles continue to affect pacing. At the same time, we remain confident in the strategic thesis behind our merger and are excited about the long-term opportunity. We believe that the combination of our technology, data capabilities and deep relationships with enterprise, brands and agencies places Teads in a uniquely strong position to be a strategic partner at a global scale for brands and their agencies. And our cross-screen, outcome-driven ad platform led by our fast-growing connected TV business is resonating with customers and partners. I've just returned from our strategic product offsite, and I can tell you that the innovation, creativity and energy of our teams are truly inspiring. This reinforces our confidence in Teads' future and our ability to lead the industry forward. With this backdrop, we decided to take decisive actions in effort to turn the business around, restore growth and improve profitability. Over the past 2 quarters, we've made meaningful progress on the integration and realization of synergies. Operationally, during Q3, we restructured the leadership of our regions and improved our sales team's coverage structure and sales processes. These measures are already yielding some improvements in key leading indicators, though the revenue impact is still in its early stages. In parallel, after working as 1 merged team for 2 quarters, we also decided to conduct a comprehensive business review to identify additional opportunities to restore growth, enhance profitability and generate positive cash flow while building a great company. The plan we developed focuses on 3 main dimensions: First, portfolio optimization to product, geography and customer segment evaluation, prioritizing investments in innovation and high-growth opportunities while taking steps to improve the profitability of the other parts of the business. Second, operational efficiency, refining our organizational structure and processes to enhance agility and accountability. And third, cost optimization, identifying further efficiencies to improve our financial profile and long-term cost structure. We are rapidly moving into execution of these plans with implementation beginning in the coming weeks with the objective of driving immediate impact. These plans should allow us to continue investing in strategic growth while delivering meaningful incremental EBITDA. We are focused on operating as a positive cash flow business. So far year-to-date, we have generated positive adjusted free cash flow, and our objective is to focus on improving our cost structure and efficiencies to finish the year positive as well. As you may have seen in our separate press release this morning, I'm very excited to welcome on board Mollie Spilman as our new Chief Commercial Officer. Mollie brings a wealth of experience on the sales and operations side at scale. She served as Chief Revenue Officer and then Chief Operating Officer at Criteo for 5 years when the company grew revenues from $600 million to over $2 billion. Most recently, Mollie was the Chief Revenue Officer at Oracle Advertising, where she helped clients realize value through the activation of third-party audiences and contextual targeting. Prior to that, she held senior leadership roles at Millennial Media and Yahoo!. I'm truly excited to welcome Mollie to our leadership team. She brings exceptional experience, fresh perspective and a proven ability to lead through transformation. Her insight and commitment to excellence will not only strengthen our leadership team, but also inspire our entire organization as we move forward towards a stronger future. Now, I will turn to some highlights from the quarter. Connected TV remains our most important growth area. In Q3, we saw continued growth of approximately 40% year-over-year. On a stand-alone basis, assuming continuation of recent trends, our CTV business is expected to hit the $100 million mark by end of year. As a reminder, our CTV business focuses on 3 key pillars: on screen, the innovative CTV placement where we continue to be a global leader, other proprietary formats such as POS ads and in-play and cross-screen, which facilitates full-funnel activation. Our connected TV home screen product continues to gain traction, establishing Teads as a leader in this market. We've executed over 2,500 home screen campaigns since launch and expanded partnerships with major CTV players, including TCL and Google TV, alongside existing relationships, some of which are exclusive, including LG, Samsung and Hisense, giving us access to over 500 million addressable TVs globally. We believe that new research from the [ Media Mentor Institute ] demonstrate the power of our CTV home screen, which based on early results, achieved a 48% attention rate and delivered a 16% attention premium over YouTube skippable ads. Cross-screen adoption is strong with over 10% of our branding advertisers now active across both CTV and web. During Q3, we launched CTV Performance, which is designed to enable brands to bridge awareness and performance goals across premium streaming and video environments. For example, in a recent campaign with Men's Wearhouse, Teads generated over 41,000 site visits and more than 50,000 incremental store visits, which we believe demonstrate that CTV can now drive measurable outcomes across the funnel. While CTV continues to grow quickly, we continue to experience declining pay views on premium publishers, partly due to increased adoption of AI summaries and volatility in our programmatic supply. However, this has been partially offset by ongoing RPM improvements and by actions taken by publishers to increase engagement of their audiences, particularly on their applications. On the cross-sell front, i.e., selling performance solutions to legacy Teads clients, clients such as Homes.com, Lavazza and Nissan are successfully combining branding and performance campaigns, driving measurable full-funnel results. Encouragingly, we're seeing improvements in new business opportunities and a notable inflection in cross-sell revenue, albeit from a small base, with October revenue and bookings growing by more than 55% month-over-month in cross-sell. It is important to remember the open Internet remains a vital channel for advertisers seeking incremental reach and unique audience engagement. For example, a recent case study with a major U.S. CPG brand demonstrated over 90% incremental reach when extending campaigns beyond social into the open Internet, which we believe is a powerful example of Teads' ability to connect brands with new audiences beyond walled gardens. In addition to our CTV expansion, diversifying beyond traditional publishers into potential high-growth, high-value media environments, our retail media innovation continues to advance with more updates and partnerships being announced soon, providing enterprise brands with simplified access to multiple retail media networks through Teads Ad Manager. Moving to AI and algorithmic breakthroughs. The acceleration of our AI and algorithmic capabilities stands as one of the most exciting and impactful outcomes of the merger, already yielding tangible improvements and establishing a highly promising trajectory for 2026. First, the combination of the 2 companies' data science teams, data sets and know-how is resulting in real benefits for both brand and performance campaigns with improved conversion rates, click-through rates, auction level bids and AI-based campaign pacing. After a testing period, we are in the process of rolling out some of these benefits to the entire network. Second, the adoption of large language foundational models for advertising. Our next-generation approach trains a single unified advertising foundational model that learns from all available data, user actions, publisher signals and advertiser goals to deliver exceptional predictive power across the entire advertising life cycle. This shift represents a transformative step in ad selection and personalization, unlocking performance improvements across every stage of the funnel. We believe the improvements to our platform driven by this foundational model could be one of the most significant drivers of performance going forward. To sum it up, we fully acknowledge that our integration journey has come with challenges and the progress has not been linear. However, we remain confident in the strength of our vision, the resilience of our teams and what we believe is the unique value proposition of our integrated platform. We are enhancing our leadership team, sharpening our execution, focusing resources in the areas of greatest opportunity and taking decisive steps to build a more efficient, innovative and profitable business. Looking ahead to 2026, our growth and profitability strategy will center on 5 key pillars: First, connected TV growth through home screen formats and cross-screen activations; second, deepened strategic relationships with agencies and enterprise brands; third, expansion of performance campaigns with enterprise clients; fourth, algorithmic and AI advancements driving nonlinear improvements in results; and fifth, enhanced profitability in our direct response business. We plan to share a detailed 3-year outlook and road map at an upcoming Investor Day in March, and we look forward to discussing our progress and vision in more depth at that time. With that, let me now turn it over to Jason to walk through the financials. Jason Kiviat: Thanks, David. I want to start by saying I'm disappointed by our results, landing slightly below our Q3 guidance for Ex-TAC gross profit and adjusted EBITDA. We experienced volatility in our top line and expect a continuation of this in the short-term, but are committed to taking steps to protect our cash flow as we focus on realizing our long-term vision. Revenue in Q3 was approximately $319 million, reflecting an increase of 42% year-over-year on an as-reported basis, driven primarily by the impact of the acquisition. On a pro forma basis, we saw a year-over-year decline of 15% in Q3. I'll touch a little more on the headwinds David mentioned and we spoke about last quarter. While the operational changes we made in U.S. and Europe are showing a measurable improvement in terms of building a stronger sales pipeline that gives us confidence in the longer-term improvement, we continue to see a lower rate of sales in key countries, namely U.S., U.K. and France. As noted last quarter, these 3 regions, which represent about 50% of revenue, are effectively driving all of the headwind on the legacy Teads business with many other countries neutral or growing, including the DACH region, which is our second largest. The impact of the operational changes is encouraging, but it's clear that the time line to see the real fruits of these changes is longer than we anticipated. The pipeline is growing, and we're focusing our resources and efforts in the coming quarters on driving long-term and sustainable value propositions for enterprise advertisers. On the legacy Outbrain business, we see a couple of drivers. One, we continue to see lower page views year-over-year. The residual impact from our cleanup of underperforming supply partners remains a headwind of about $10 million year-over-year in the quarter. And generally speaking, we continue to see lower page views on our partner sites, continuing the trend from prior quarters. While we also continue to see growth in RPM that partially offsets this, it has been less of an offset in the last couple of months, causing the page view decline to have a larger negative impact on revenues in the quarter. Following the merger, we made several strategic decisions around components of the legacy Outbrain business that we wanted to deemphasize and potentially decommission. These decisions are centered around quality and focus on our long-term vision. Examples of these actions include the supply cleanup we talked about as well as additional changes we have made around content restrictions for certain segments of demand and the deemphasis of our DSP business and DIY platform. The revenue impact of these factors has been larger than expected, most meaningfully in our DSP business, where a few large clients lowered their scale meaningfully across our platform, driving a decline in Ex-TAC year-over-year of $5 million in Q3. On the positive side, CTV revenue continues to be a growth driver, growing around 40% in the quarter and projected to $100 million for the year. And this is an area where we still see ourselves in the early innings, representing about 6% of our total ad spend with a margin that has expanded year-over-year as we scale it and further differentiate our offering. Ex-TAC gross profit in the quarter was $131 million, an increase of 119% year-over-year on an as-reported basis. Note that Ex-TAC gross profit growth is outpacing revenue growth, which is driven primarily by a net favorable change in our revenue mix resulting from the acquisition, but additionally aided by the continuation of improvements to revenue mix and RPM growth from the legacy Outbrain business. Other cost of sales and operating expenses increased year-over-year, predominantly driven by the impact of the acquisition. Note, in the quarter, we recognized $4 million of acquisition and integration-related costs as well as $1 million of restructuring charges. Also note that we recorded a benefit from deal-related cost synergies in Q3 of approximately $14 million, approaching the $60 million annual run rate for 2026 that we had guided previously. This was always an initial milestone in our view, and we feel there is more opportunity ahead. Adjusted EBITDA for Q3 was $19 million. And adjusted free cash flow, which, as a reminder, we define as cash from operating activities less CapEx and capitalized software costs as well as direct transaction costs was a use of cash of $24 million in the quarter, driven largely by the $32 million semiannual interest payment made in August. Year-to-date, we have generated adjusted free cash flow of $3 million. As a result, we ended the quarter with $138 million of cash, cash equivalents and investments in marketable securities on the balance sheet and continue to have EUR 15 million or about $17.5 million in overdraft borrowings classified on our balance sheet as short-term debt. And we have $628 million in principal amount of long-term debt at a 10% coupon due in 2030. We generated positive adjusted free cash flow year-to-date and are focused on improving our cost structure and operating as a cash flow generating business. As David mentioned, we are working intently on ways to drive better profitability and growth as a combined company, which involves a deep analysis of our operating model and opportunities for efficiencies. As we move into the implementation of these plans in coming weeks, we expect a benefit to adjusted EBITDA of at least $35 million on an annualized basis and to start seeing a small impact of that in Q4. And as we look towards Q4, our visibility, like others in the space, remains challenged by the shorter planning cycles from advertisers. Given this and the seasonality of the business, we exercised an increased level of caution in our guidance. And with that context, we provided the following guidance. For Q4, we expect Ex-TAC gross profit of $142 million to $152 million, and we expect adjusted EBITDA of $26 million to $36 million. Now I'll turn it back to the operator for Q&A. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our first question is from Matt Condon with Citizens. Matthew Condon: My first one is, just can we just unpack the headwinds in the quarter there were multiple things. Is it just mainly the continuation of the things that you saw last quarter? How much of it was the degradation in search traffic? And then also, I think you called out some macro headwinds as well. Could you just parse through those and just talk about the different components? David Kostman: Let me just maybe at the high level, I think overall, you see a combination of factors. We don't believe there's anything structural. It's -- a lot of it relates to distractions from the merger and the execution challenges that we highlight that are taking longer than we had anticipated, and we needed to take deeper actions that Jason highlighted. There is some weakness in certain geographies and verticals, but we believe that we -- with the actions we're taking, we can turn the business around. Jason, do you want to give more details? Jason Kiviat: Sure. Yes. I mean just breaking it down a little bit as far as what was maybe disappointing to us in Q3 versus what we expected a few months ago. Certainly, just an increased level of demand volatility and kind of drove drivers on both sides of the business. On the Teads side, we talked about the operational changes we made early in the quarter in response to the slowdown that we started to see at the end of Q2. And effectively, what we've seen is just a slower-than-anticipated impact from those changes, and it's really impacting the same key countries that we talked about last quarter in U.S., U.K. and France. Typically, Q3 builds towards September being easily the strongest month of the quarter, and it still was, but not to the level that we would typically see historically, which was a little bit of a negative surprise for us. Visibility does remain challenged with advertisers. They still have shorter planning cycles. We've been talking about since really the beginning of this year with the tariff announcements and other things kind of impacting that. On the positive side, we did see, I said, growth in some regions. We did -- we do see just kind of health and the impact of the changes that we made. The pipeline as we measure it, is growing. We see that starting to pay off a little bit in October here, but it's still early days, and we think it will take longer. We also see stronger cross-sell. We see stronger CTV, which are really 2 of our very main focus areas, as David said. So some optimism there. On the Outbrain side, I think you asked about the impact of the page views. They did tick a little bit lower in Q3 than what we saw in Q2. And we also saw RPM continues to grow and be an offset against that, but there was a little bit less of an offset in Q3 as the quarter went on, and that drove it a little bit of the softness as well as, as I said on the call, the strategic decisions we made around quality, the supply cleanup in H1, demand content restrictions that we've employed having a bigger impact than what we expected. Matthew Condon: And then just as a follow-up, just what is your willingness to -- if things don't materialize, just to take the right steps to protect free cash flow here as you look out into the rest of this year and into 2026? David Kostman: I think we said it on the call, I think we are committed to it. We generated positive free cash flow year-to-date adjusted positive free cash flow, and we're taking all the steps to continue to do that. We talked about the plan that is really a transformational plan around deciding on which areas to focus and invest. So we're still in investment only in certain growth areas, but I think we're looking at business components in a smarter way. We did this exercise in the last 8 weeks to really analyze in-depth the business, decided on the focus areas. And part of that, we will be generating a minimum of $35 million of incremental EBITDA, that's a combination of this transformation and cost efficiencies. So we're definitely committed to that. Operator: Our next question is from Ygal Arounian with Citigroup. Ygal Arounian: So I know you're not going to want to give a 2026 outlook here, but just given how 2025 has trended and the work on the integration, maybe if you could just -- I know investors are going to want to look into 2026 and get a better sense of the confidence level on initially some of the sales execution. Now we're changing some of the product, $35 million of savings you're calling out. Any help for investors to kind of think through the pace of this and the level of confidence that this stuff really finally starts to come through and kind of think about next year? David Kostman: I think we're not giving specific -- Ygal, thanks. We're not giving specific guidance to 2026. What we see is some positive indicators month-over-month in growth in CTV, growth in cross-sell, and we decided on focus areas of innovation, they're going to be focused around the agency side, the CTV side. We believe that, that with a combination of sort of the plans we have around the sort of EBITDA improvement will get us to -- we expect to get to single-digit growth in certain areas of the business and run certain areas of the business for profitability. Once we finalize these plans, we will be communicating in more detail. Jason Kiviat: Maybe what I could add to that, Ygal, this is Jason, just to give a little bit more color. We definitely see an impact of the changes that we've made kind of confirming the operational drivers that we talked about last quarter. And what I mean by that is, for example, we made the changes with the structure in the U.S., which has been our underperforming region. We made the change in July. We immediately saw more meetings, more RFPs a bigger, healthier pipeline being built, equity being built with the brands and agencies that we've worked with historically. And we are starting to see early returns. I mean, in October, early kind of results from that impact, it's still down, but it's down less by close to 10 points on a year-over-year basis, right? And so, it's nominal. It's early, but we do think this is the kind of thing that pays off more over time and that it's not as quick of a turnaround as we had hoped for. We've spent a lot more time with clients ourselves, understand a little bit more about some of the challenges and starting to address them and how we win, and that's prioritization of product, just strategic relationship building, commercial terms. And these are things that are not as we had hoped, a 90-day sales cycle turnaround, but rather things that probably take a few quarters, right? And so, we feel good. We feel obviously a lot smarter. We think we need to make changes, and we've talked about what we're doing there. But we feel good about the areas that we're focused on for sure. Ygal Arounian: Okay. So just -- is it fair to say that you're starting to see some early benefits from the sales reorganization still down, still taking time, but starting to see improvements and then the kind of structural changes you're talking about all that's pretty new and starts to come through more next year, or I guess, in 4Q and into next year? David Kostman: I think that, Ygal, that's very fair. And as Jason said, we already see signs, again, they are leading indicators in terms of RFP sizes of those opportunities, more opportunities are opening, more active meetings that are leading to generating pipeline. Again, October was less of a decline than in September. We see good data points in the U.S., which is the main market we address. I think in the U.K., we're also starting to see some impact of the changes. I'm very excited to have Mollie on board. I mean she brings a tremendous experience. I mean she's sort of led. She was the CRO and COO of Criteo in years where they grew from $0.5 billion to $2 billion. She is a very experienced sales leader, operational leader. I think it's -- we spent a lot of time in the last few weeks looking at this. She believes, obviously, there's a huge opportunity here, and it's sort of in our control to fix. Operator: Our next question is from Laura Martin with Needham & Company. Laura Martin: So let's start. Jason, one of the things you said is you lost several big clients and about $5 million of revenue from them. Can you go into the background of why they turned away from your DSP? Like what -- is it just that we're getting winners and losers and they're pulling money? Is it stuff Trade Desk is doing that's out of your control? I assume there's nothing you did in a single quarter that -- so it's something somebody else is doing like Amazon or Trade Desk or taking share from you. But can you talk about that and why that isn't structural because it sort of sounds structural to me. Let's start with that one. Jason Kiviat: Sure. Yes. So to maybe give a little more color on the -- yes, it's a small number of customers that I was referring to buying on our Outbrain DSP business. It made up the majority. It made up about 2/3 of our DSP business coming from this kind of small group and segment of customers spending on it. And I kind of quoted the impact there of $5 million Ex-TAC impact year-over-year. We've made changes around supply. As I said in the first half of the year, we've also been making changes. And this part is not really anything new for us, but we continuously do this of content rules and content restrictions to make sure that things are up to our quality and what we want to allow out there. And some of these changes made by us and also changes that just impact the customers from their own business models and how they're able to use the platform to run their own business models caused them to reduce their spend dramatically. And we did expect an impact. We didn't expect it to be so binary is maybe how I would put it. But we saw the spend leave, and it's not that it went somewhere else as far as we know. I think it's just impacts their model and their ability to spend in general. And as I said, we don't expect this to come back online certainly in Q4. And this was like 2/3 of the DSP business and the rest of the business is really fundamentally different. I don't see a similar risk with the remaining portion, but I hope that is helpful. David Kostman: Maybe just, Laura, to clarify on that. I mean the whole move to a more premium network is a big move. I mean it's something that takes time. We can't always assess the whole impact. I mean we talked about $10 million in revenue impact from removing supply sources, deemphasizing the DSP. These are legacy Outbrain, I would say, hardcore performance. Other people are taking some of this business. We -- as we move forward with the more premium placements that we need to offer the guarantee of quality to the enterprise clients, I mean these are certain steps that are hurting more than we had anticipated, but I think it's going to be something that, again, we're not -- as Jason said, we don't expect it to come back. I mean it's something that sort of we deliberately are doing. And right now, obviously, feeling the pain of it. But I think when we're looking at the strategic direction of the company, these are some of the right moves and some of this happening faster than we thought. Laura Martin: Okay. Yes, that makes sense. And that's helpful because it limits the downside to the DSP segment. Okay. And then, David, one of the things you said at the top of your comments was that you are seeing -- you're the first actually ad tech company that's reported that says they're seeing a diminution in traffic. Magnite said they're hitting record traffic levels even excluding bots. So I'm curious about that. Do you think that's because your content is primarily news and that also sounds structural. So can you talk about this -- the traffic demise that you're seeing that at least other CEOs are not admitting to. So I'm interested in what you're seeing on the traffic side. David Kostman: So I would just not use the word demise. What we have seen and we analyze this obviously daily basis, when we look at the -- so our business is growing very fast on CTV, we're expanding beyond the traditional publisher world in a very aggressive way, and this is -- I talked about the focus areas. On the traditional publisher side, when we look at the sort of list of premium publishers, we saw around between 10% and 15% decline in paid views. I mean these are the numbers we are seeing. I think it's very consistent with everything you're reading out there. So if everyone is saying that there's no decline in publisher page views, I suggest you do a ChatGPT and you'll see those numbers. What we see, I think it's a little bit softer on in-app traffic. In-app traffic is about 30% of those publishers traffic. And there, we see still some decline in the page views lower than that. So single-digit on the in-app and on the web, around 10% to 15%. That's what we see on a certain segment of publishers that I believe is representative. Operator: Our next question is from Zach Cummins with RBC -- sorry, B. Riley Securities. Ethan Widell: This is Ethan Widell calling in for Zach Cummins. I guess just piggybacking on that conversation about page views. How much of that do you suspect is coming from disruption from GenAI search? And otherwise, what would you attribute the decline to? David Kostman: It's difficult to put a specific number of it. I would say that it is -- the decline is accelerating because of AI summaries and the changes in discovery. So I think it is impacting the traffic to those websites. Ethan Widell: Understood. And then regarding free cash flow going forward, maybe what are your expectations in terms of free cash flow positivity or maybe what the time line to sustainable free cash flow looks like? David Kostman: Just one comment on the page views still. I mean, what we didn't mention, but we're seeing -- we continuously see improvements in RPM. So we're offsetting some of that decline. I mean we had 8 consecutive quarters in growth on revenue per pages, RPM. We're diversifying the business. We're working with those publishers with POCs around how to monetize LLM sort of inputs and platforms that they are using. So there's a lot that's being done. It's not that I think publishers are sitting there and not doing -- taking actions. We are partnering with many of them to increase the engagement of users. We are continuously improving RPM. I mentioned on my prepared remarks, I think one of the exciting things is the algorithmic improvement that we see out of the merger. And we think that is only the beginning, and we into 2026, see a really great trajectory of continued significant improvements on those RPMs. So that's on that front. Sorry, Jason. Jason Kiviat: Yes. So your question, Ethan, about cash flow. So cash flow is something that we take very seriously, of course. Year-to-date, our adjusted free cash flow is positive at a few million dollars. We do expect the year to be around breakeven, depending on just timing of working capital around period end, et cetera. We are seeing, of course, lower Ex-TAC. It's resulting in lower EBITDA, lower cash flow, which has brought down our -- versus our expectations from earlier in the year. But we also do expect lower cash taxes, lower CapEx, lower restructuring costs and things that do partially offset that. So we do think we're in okay shape for this year. And obviously, as I say, we take it very seriously in a lot of our look at the project that we're moving to the implementation phase on now in our analysis, cash flow guides a lot of that as well. And as I said, we do expect to take that $35 million of improvement to EBITDA on a run rate basis, starting here with some impact in Q4. So we do think there will be a sizable impact on 2026. And continue to obviously work also on other cash taxes optimization and those things as well are areas that we still are less than a year from merging and still optimizing at this point. So we do aim to generate cash. It's important for us to do so. I'm not guiding obviously anything for 2026 at this point, but I want to make sure you take away from here how serious we view it and how important it is to us. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our next question is from James Heaney with Jefferies. James Heaney: Yes. It would be great just to hear a little bit more about some of the puts and takes for the Q4 Ex-TAC gross profit guide and what you're assuming for that. Jason Kiviat: Sure. So maybe I'll start here, David, anything you want to add, please do. Our giving guidance here, obviously, we've got a lot to consider. So the visibility is still a little bit challenged by the volatility we've seen. Advertisers continue to have much shorter planning cycles than we historically are used to. And obviously, based on how Q3 played out, where the end of the quarter spike was much more muted than we historically have seen, it certainly gives us a little bit of pause, and we want to exercise additional caution when we're giving guidance. So all that said, we think it's prudent to be conservative and set ourselves up here. Maybe just some of the facts that we're seeing so far into Q4 that might be helpful beyond that. October is performing on the legacy Teads side, October is performing a little bit better than what we saw in Q3. October is typically about 30% of the quarter. So we're still dealing with the bulk of it ahead of us, and there still is volatility in the pipeline. And our guidance, based on what I'm telling you, our guidance for the balance of the quarter is implying a lower performance than what we saw in October. Again, kind of take from that based on my remarks on the things that we're considering in here. On the Outbrain side, we do assume the headwinds that impacted Q3 will impact Q4 even more so within the DSP business, as we said, certain segments of demand, and that drives a deceleration of the performance relative to Q3. Smaller, but on the positive is, we do see October growth in CTV. We do see October acceleration in cross-selling. And these are off a small base, but meaningful accelerations in our focus areas, right? So it gives us some optimism there. But obviously, weighing the collective here, we think it's prudent to guide the way that we are. And I will say that we do expect our cash flow for the year to be around breakeven. Operator: We have reached the end of our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to David for closing remarks. David Kostman: Thank you. Thank you for joining. As you can see, we are very focused on execution, financial discipline. We are investing in growth areas still. We have a clear plan of how to extract more EBITDA into next year and look forward to keeping you updated on the progress. Thank you. Operator: Thank you. This will conclude today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and thank you for your participation.
Operator: Greetings, and welcome to Nutrien's 2025 Third Quarter Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference call over to Jeff Holzman, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations and FP&A. Jeff Holzman: Thank you, operator. Good morning, and welcome to Nutrien's Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. As we conduct this call, various statements that we make about future expectations, plans and prospects contain forward-looking information. Certain assumptions were applied in making these conclusions and forecasts. Therefore, actual results could differ materially from those contained in our forward-looking information. Additional information about these factors and assumptions is contained in our quarterly report to shareholders as well as our most recent annual report, MD&A and annual information form. I will now turn the call over to Ken Seitz, Nutrien's President and CEO; and Mark Thompson, our CFO, for opening comments. Kenneth Seitz: Good morning. Thank you for joining us today to review our results, strategic priorities and the outlook for our business. Through the first 9 months of 2025, Nutrien delivered structural earnings growth through record upstream fertilizer sales volumes, improved reliability and higher retail earnings. We raised our 2025 potash sales volumes guidance range for the second time this year and maintained the midpoint of our retail adjusted EBITDA guidance, highlighting the stability of this business throughout 2025. At our June 2024 Investor Day, we communicated a set of strategic objectives and targets that we believe provide a pathway to increase our earnings and free cash flow. Our results through the first 9 months show significant progress towards achieving these goals. Starting with our upstream operating segments. We increased fertilizer sales volumes by approximately 750,000 tonnes compared to the same period last year. These results highlight the capabilities of our world-class operations, extensive distribution network and strong customer relationships that we have built over many decades. In potash, we delivered record sales volumes in the first 9 months. We increased the percentage of ore tonnes cut with automation to over 40%, maintaining our position as one of the lowest cost and most reliable global potash suppliers. Our nitrogen operations achieved a 94% ammonia utilization rate through the first 9 months, up 7 percentage points from the previous year. Our operating performance demonstrates the significant progress we are making on reliability initiatives across our Nitrogen business. Within our Downstream Retail segment, we delivered 5% higher adjusted EBITDA in the first 9 months by driving down expenses and growing our proprietary product gross margin. We remain focused on efficiently supplying our growers with the products and services they need to maximize returns. As previously communicated, we are on track to achieve our $200 million cost reduction target 1 year ahead of schedule. These efforts contributed to a 5% reduction in SG&A expenses through the first 9 months of 2025. We lowered capital expenditures by 10% on a year-to-date basis through optimization efforts focused on sustaining safe and reliable operations, along with a highly targeted set of growth investments. Delivering on these structural growth drivers, reducing expenses and optimizing capital spend has supported our ability to further enhance return of cash to shareholders. We allocated $1.2 billion to dividends and share repurchases in the first 9 months, representing a 42% increase from the prior year. To put this all together, Nutrien is demonstrating significant progress across all our strategic priorities, delivering higher earnings and cash flow while increasing shareholder returns. At our Investor Day, we also communicated a focused approach to simplify our portfolio and review noncore assets. To date, we have announced the completion or have agreements in place for the divestiture of several noncore assets, including our equity interest in Sinofert and Profertil as well as smaller assets in South America and Europe. These divestitures are expected to generate approximately $900 million in gross proceeds. We intend to allocate the proceeds to initiatives consistent with our capital allocation priorities, including targeted growth investments, share repurchases and debt reduction. We continue to assess assets on the merits of strategic fit, return and free cash flow contribution. As a result, we have initiated a review of strategic alternatives for our Phosphate business. This process will include evaluating alternatives ranging from reconfiguring operations, strategic partnerships or a potential sale. We intend to solidify the optimal path forward for our Phosphate business in 2026. In October, we completed a controlled shutdown of our Trinidad Nitrogen operations due to uncertainty with respect to port access and a lack of reliable and economic gas supply. Our Trinidad operations were projected to account for approximately 1% of our consolidated free cash flow in 2025, a contribution that has been under pressure for an extended period of time. We continue to engage with stakeholders and assess options to enhance the long-term financial performance of our Trinidad operations. Each of these portfolio actions are driven by a focus on enhancing the quality and consistency of our earnings, improving cash conversion and supporting growth in free cash flow per share over the long term. Now turning to the market outlook. In North America, harvest is in the late stages of completion with the pace supportive of a normal fall fertilizer application season. In line with the stronger plant health season we experienced in the third quarter, we expect a record crop will support the need to replenish nutrients in the soil. Summer crop planting in Brazil started at a faster-than-average planting pace, which has supported crop input demand and increased potash purchases since the beginning of the fourth quarter. In August, we increased our global potash shipment projection for 2025 to a record 73 million to 75 million tonnes. We expect demand will continue to grow at the historical trend level in 2026 with potash shipments forecast between 74 million and 77 million tonnes. This would mark the fourth consecutive year of demand growth, an indicator of the stability we are seeing in global potash markets. Our positive outlook is formed by strong potash affordability, large soil nutrient removal from a record crop and low-channel inventories in most major markets. This is most evident in China, where reported port inventories are down by more than 1 million tonnes year-over-year. In addition, we anticipate limited new global capacity additions in 2026 with announced project delays and remain constructive on supply and demand fundamentals. Global nitrogen supply challenges are expected to support a tight supply and demand balance going into 2026. Ammonia markets are currently very tight due to plant outages and project delays, and we anticipate the emergence of seasonal demand to further tighten urea market fundamentals. I will now turn it over to Mark to review our results, full year guidance and capital allocation priorities in more detail. Mark Thompson: Thanks, Ken. As Ken described, our third quarter and year-to-date results highlight strong execution on our strategic priorities and supportive market fundamentals. Nutrien delivered adjusted EBITDA of $1.4 billion in the third quarter, a 42% increase compared to the prior year. In potash, we generated adjusted EBITDA of $733 million in the third quarter, which was higher than last year due to higher net selling prices. Potash prices remained affordable on a relative and absolute basis, which supported sales volumes near record levels for the quarter. Our year-to-date controllable cash cost of product manufactured was $57 per tonne, which was slightly higher than the prior year due to lower planned potash production and increased turnaround costs. At these levels, we continue to track favorably against our goal of maintaining a controllable cash cost that is at or below $60 per tonne. We raised our full year potash sales volume guidance to 14 million to 14.5 million tonnes, supported by strong offshore demand. Canpotex is now fully committed through year-end, and we anticipate a similar split between offshore and domestic sales volumes in the fourth quarter compared to the prior year. In nitrogen, we generated adjusted EBITDA of $556 million in the third quarter, an increase compared to last year due to higher net selling prices and higher sales volumes. We advanced planned turnaround activities at our Redwater and Borger nitrogen facilities and achieved ammonia operating rates that were well above the same period last year. Our nitrogen sales volume guidance range of 10.7 million to 11 million tonnes reflects the assumption of no additional sales volumes from our Trinidad operations for the remainder of the year. Reduction in Trinidad volumes is expected to be partially offset by the continued strong performance of our North American nitrogen operations. In phosphate, we generated adjusted EBITDA of $122 million in the third quarter as higher net selling prices and sales volumes more than offset increased sulfur costs. Our phosphate operations achieved an 88% operating rate in the third quarter as reliability and turnaround activities completed in the first half led to a significant improvement in performance. Our Downstream Retail business delivered adjusted EBITDA of $230 million in the third quarter, up 52% from prior year. We saw strong crop input demand across the U.S. corn belt, consistent with our previous expectations for a strong plant health season, providing Nutrien with the opportunity to efficiently serve growers in their efforts to maximize crop yield. Our full year retail adjusted EBITDA guidance was narrowed to $1.68 billion to $1.82 billion, reflecting the continued stability of this business and execution of our strategic growth initiatives in 2025. We expect North American crop nutrient volumes to be slightly higher in the fourth quarter and per tonne margins similar to the prior year. Our expense reduction initiatives and Brazil improvement plan continue to be in line with previous expectations, helping offset the gain on asset sales and other nonrecurring income items realized in the fourth quarter of 2024. Turning to capital allocation. Last year, on the third quarter call, we discussed our plans to optimize sources and uses of cash as we introduced a refreshed capital allocation framework. We've taken decisive actions to execute our plans and our priorities remain consistent. From a uses of cash perspective, we're focused on sustaining our assets on a risk-informed basis and further evaluating opportunities to optimize spend as we complete our portfolio optimization initiatives. We're also investing in a narrow set of growth initiatives that have a strong fit with our strategy, attractive returns and a lower degree of execution risk. And we continue to build on our long track record of stable and growing dividends per share and are deploying capital towards ratable share buybacks that provide for more consistent returns of cash to shareholders. As an illustration, through the first 9 months of 2025, we repurchased shares at a rate of approximately $45 million per month and anticipate a similar run rate on a full year basis. As we enhance our structural cash generation capabilities and deploy proceeds from the announced divestitures, we also expect to meaningfully lower our net debt position by year-end and gain greater flexibility to allocate capital through the cycle. I'll now turn it back to Ken. Kenneth Seitz: Thanks, Mark. We have a constructive outlook for our business, which is supported by expectations for healthy crop input demand and growth in global potash shipments in 2026. We continue to progress our strategic initiatives and take actions to simplify our portfolio, enhancing earnings quality, improving cash conversion and supporting growth in free cash flow per share over the long term. These features underpin Nutrien's competitive advantages and offer a compelling investment case for our shareholders. Finally, I would like to share an update on the advancement of our succession planning process. After an outstanding 30-year career at Nutrien, Jeff Tarsi will be stepping back from the leadership role of our Downstream Retail business at the end of 2025. I'm pleased to announce that Chris Reynolds has accepted the leadership position for our Downstream business beginning in 2026. Chris has been with the company for 22 years and has held senior leadership positions in our sales, potash and commercial functions. He brings deep knowledge of our business and the markets we serve across our downstream network. Jeff will remain with Nutrien in an advisory role to support the transition and execution of our downstream strategic priorities. We would now be happy to take your questions. Operator: [Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Andrew Wong from RBC Capital Markets. Andrew Wong: So just regarding that Phosphate business today. How would you say cash generation for that business compares to the rest of your business? Are there certain parts of the Phosphate business that maybe are better cash generators than others? And then just regarding that strategic review, is there -- is this about the business maybe just being better suited to run a different way? Or is there something specific about the phosphate assets or the phosphate outlook that's prompting the review? Kenneth Seitz: Yes. Thank you, Andrew. At our June 2024 Investor Day, we talked about this focused approach to simplify our portfolio, with the focus really being on quality of earnings and free cash flow over the long term, and that's absolutely relevant to your question. It is true that we produce phosphate out of White Springs and Aurora. But at the same time, it's only contributing about 6% of our EBITDA. So as we looked at it, it compels us to do a strategic review. And of course, this is on the heels of some of the portfolio of the work that we've been doing, disposing our Sinofert shares, the process that we're in to close Profertil by the end of the year and other noncore assets. And that's all adding up to about $900 million to date. For our Phosphate business, and again, to your question, we're looking at a range of alternatives across our strategic review. And that could be everything, yes, from revised and reconfigured operations with the goal of maximizing and optimizing free cash flow and strategic partnerships that we'll be looking at and the sale as well. We'll be looking at all those alternatives, and we expect to have some conclusions about the path forward in 2026. Operator: Our next question is from Ben Isaacson from Scotiabank. Ben Isaacson: Mark, I have a question for you. You've worn the CFO hat for a little over a year now. I was hoping you could reflect on what initiatives you've undertaken or what's changed in your role? And then as part of that, last summer in '24, targets were set for 2026. And now as we're 7 to 8 weeks out from the start of '26, can you just give us a check-in on just some of the big targets that were set and how those are tracking? Mark Thompson: Ben, thanks for the question. So I'll maybe just start by reiterating some of the comments that Ken and I provided in our prepared remarks this morning. So as you noted, Ken and our team, we laid out a set of objectives and targets at the Investor Day in June 2024. And as we've said this morning, those were focused on levers to drive structural growth in earnings and free cash flow over time. If you look at the progress we've made on a year-to-date basis and our full year guidance, I think you can see we've made very significant progress on those initiatives. If you look at upstream fertilizer sales volumes based on the midpoint of our guidance for 2025, we're on pace to deliver 1.4 million tonnes of volume growth compared to the baseline we set at Investor Day from 2023 results. And obviously, this has come from a few different areas. There's been a focus on reliability, debottlenecking projects in nitrogen and then utilizing our existing potash capacity. And all of those are, of course, very low capital intensity initiatives, and they've got strong cash margin contributions. From a downstream perspective, we set targets to grow earnings through a number of levers, including expanding proprietary products, our network optimization, expense management, margin improvement in Brazil and bolt-on acquisitions, primarily in North America. And if you look at our progress to date versus that 2023 baseline, we're projecting that there will be $300 million in retail EBITDA growth at the midpoint of our 2025 guide. And we're pleased with that, and we think that's something that can continue over time. In terms of cost discipline, as Ken mentioned, we set a $200 million cost reduction target for 2026. We're a year ahead of schedule on that. And of course, we're always looking for more. And also, as Ken mentioned, we've completed or have agreements in place to divest noncore assets as part of our portfolio review that will have generated once closed about $900 million over the last year. And these are assets that didn't fit the strategy, weren't consistently generating cash flow for Nutrien. And so we're pleased with that as well. So all of these initiatives feed into that objective that Ken talked about in terms of increasing structural sources of cash flow. And then, of course, beyond this, as Ken has just mentioned, we've announced a strategic review of the Phosphate business, and we continue to assess our options at Trinidad. And all of that's in the spirit of increasing quality and resilience of free cash flow. From a uses of cash perspective, we set a target at that Investor Day that you highlighted to reduce CapEx to $2.2 billion to $2.3 billion. And as you know, we've overachieved on that target through optimization efforts. Our guidance this year is $2 billion to $2.1 billion, and we're focused on maintaining discipline in this area moving forward. And then finally, one of the items you've heard us speak about over the past year quite a bit is to further enhance our cash returns to shareholders, primarily through more ratable share repurchases. Through the first 9 months, we increased return of cash to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases by 42%, and we've ratably bought back shares at that pace I mentioned of around $45 million per month. And Nutrien shareholders should continue to expect that ratable repurchases are going to be a part of a consistent staple in our capital allocation framework going forward. So as Ken said and I've said, we think we've made a lot of progress over the past year on our strategic priorities. We're continuing to take actions to enhance our competitive position, and we believe this will drive structural growth in free cash flow per share over the long term. Operator: Our next question is from Hamir Patel from CIBC Capital Markets. Hamir Patel: Ken, beyond the strategic alternatives review of phosphate, whatever plays out in Trinidad and the divestitures you've already announced, do you see any other meaningful opportunities for noncore asset sales over the coming years? Kenneth Seitz: Yes. Thanks, Hamir. No, that -- I think for the time being, we're really focusing on the things that we've talked about. And so we've talked about phosphate, obviously, working very hard on the Trinidad file and assessing options as we go forward there and making sure that we carry on with our improvement plan in Brazil. Those would be the three big areas of focus, I would say, going into and through 2026. And again, as Mark just described, expecting that as we progress through that work, really an improvement in quality of earnings and free cash flow. Operator: Our next question is from Joel Jackson from BMO Capital Markets. Joel Jackson: Maybe a shorter-term question. Maybe talk about the fall season. You talked about maybe crop nutrient demand being up year-over-year in Q4. Maybe talk about for the fall season. Maybe talk about 85% expectations a few months ago. How is this fall playing out? It's been an early harvest, but there's a lot of uncertainty going on. One of your large competitors is talking about seeing phosphate demand deferral, which may also lead to potash demand deferral. Can you comment on all that, please? Kenneth Seitz: You bet, Joel, thanks for the question. Yes, we haven't changed our -- the midpoint of our guidance in our Retail business, as you know. And we're staring into the fall, which the next 2 weeks will be kind of critical for that. As we've mentioned, we're on track in Brazil for this year. Here in North America, we're coming off a strong Q3, good plant health season for both crop protection and crop nutrition. Heading into the fall here, yes, we expect that nitrogen volumes probably up. Potash volumes may be a bit flattish from last year and perhaps phosphate volumes a bit down. But it's a few days into November here, Jeff, I'll pass it over to you. Jeffrey Tarsi: Yes. Thanks, Ken. Yes, so we -- as you would have seen in our results, our growers stayed very engaged through the third quarter. In our business, Ken mentioned very strong plant health sales in that quarter as growers were working to protect yields. And I mentioned that because we're just at the completion of harvest now and crop yields look very strong, especially across corn and soybeans. Strong crop yields lead to what we need to replenish for going into the '26 crop. We're doing a lot of soil testing right now. Our largest 2 weeks of application are the week we're in right now and this following week. And to date, weather looks favorable. From that standpoint, we're seeing pretty robust action right now out in the field. A lot of anhydrous going down and then of course, our dries P&Ks as well. But I'll remind people that growers footfall applications out in order to get ahead of the next year's crop. And corn looks strong again for '26. And so growers are going to want to get out ahead of that in the best way that they can. And as Ken said, I think in our projections at the midpoint of our guidance, we just got slightly elevated volumes compared to last year. And if you remember last year, we got -- we did get into some weather issues, especially as it related to anhydrous ammonia. Operator: Our next question is from Chris Parkinson from Wolfe Research. Christopher Parkinson: Great. Just real quick, when you take a step back on your nitrogen strategy, could you just kind of go through how you're thinking about the intermediate term in terms of what facilities kind of can make up a little bit of that gap based on what cadence you were seeing out of the T&T assets in 2025? And perhaps a quick comment on just how you're thinking about the longer-term strategy. I mean are you interested in assets? Would you ever consider a greenfield again? Perhaps that's still a question. But just an updated thought process would be very helpful. Kenneth Seitz: No, that's great. Thank you, Chris. I mean as you know, I think we've been working on reliability issues in nitrogen and challenges that we've had there and deploying meaningful sustaining CapEx and focusing on some of the bad actors in our portfolio and our fleet. And those -- that's yielding results with the 94% operating rate that Mark mentioned earlier. We're also working on our ongoing debottlenecking and brownfield initiatives that are adding tonnes. When we talked about 11.5 million to 12 million tonnes at our June 2024 Investor Day, certainly part of those volumes were coming from those debottlenecking and brownfield initiatives. And we have more opportunity there as it relates to expanding our nitrogen volumes. And we would look at those opportunities, which would be low CapEx, high-margin opportunities prior to certainly looking at something like a greenfield opportunity. In the context of the broader portfolio, which, of course, includes Trinidad, I mean, as we speak, high operating rates in our fleet ex Trinidad are helping to make up some of the difference with our Trinidad operations being, of course, shut down, as you know. In Trinidad itself, we are looking at our various alternatives, assessing options because we do need line of sight to stable and economic gas supply and, of course, access to port. So we're working -- talking to the Trinidad government about what those sort of optimal operating conditions might be. And again, as I say, assessing our path forward. Stepping back from it all, our Investor Day targets, 11.5 million to 12 million tonnes next year, that did include us achieving our full complement -- the 12 million tonnes, our full complement of natural gas supply in Trinidad. The 11.5 million tonnes, the math there would say that you sort of get the 80% of our gas complement in Trinidad to get to that 11.5 million tonnes, depending on the outcomes in Trinidad now, we'll see as our operating rates come up in the balance of our fleet, and we chart our path forward on the island there in Trinidad. Operator: Our next question is from Vincent Andrews from Morgan Stanley. Vincent Andrews: Could you speak a little bit about the Latin American, maybe more specifically the Brazilian environment, just both as we exit this year and into next year, I see you're projecting another year of growth there for potash shipments. But maybe you could just sort of talk to the credit conditions and the incremental financing terms in terms of how fast you're able to get paid down there still? And what gives you the confidence that, that market can grow again in '26 off of very high levels despite the challenging farmer economics and limited credit that's available? Kenneth Seitz: Yes, thanks for the question. So yes, I think the most important point for us is that our -- we're on track with our improvement plan in Brazil. And that's included the things that we've talked about, the shattering of our -- idling of our five blenders. We've talked about unproductive locations and having closed 54 of them now, workforce reduction, 700 people. But to the question, also allocating resources with a real focus on credit and credit collection. And that is, again, largely playing out as we had assumed here in 2025 and hence, part of the story of being on track with our improvement plan. As it relates to growth in agriculture in Brazil, we have seen, once again, a 2% increase in Brazil from last year. Last year, 47 million tonnes of fertilizer went in land on to Brazilian farms, and that's up again 2% this year. And it's the case that looking at corn and soybean prices, Brazilian farmers continue to do the things that they need to do to maximize yield and appropriate application rates are part of that story. So we've been here before, but year-over-year, the Brazilian farmer with expanded acreage and a focus on yield continues to import more volumes. And of course, we, as Nutrien and Canpotex have been the biggest part of that story, now the largest supplier of potash into Brazil. The last thing I'll say is we continue to focus on our proprietary products, also experiencing growth on Brazilian farms, and that will continue to be a focus of ours as well. Operator: Our next question is from Steve Hansen from Raymond James. Steven Hansen: If I'm thinking back in time when you've actually divested a phosphate asset, I think you've really tried to retain much of the strategic value through some longer-term offtake, at least in the initial term. In the context of the current review, really what is the optimal outcome for you? It sounds like all options are on the table, but have you thought about trying to maintain access to the supply as it relates to your integration benefits? You're just looking for someone to cut you a check. How do we think about the optimal outcome here for you as you go through this review process? Kenneth Seitz: Yes. No, thanks, Steve. And actually, it's really everything, all of the above. So we will look at a range of alternatives as it relates to, as I mentioned earlier, reconfigured operations, partnership sale and could that include some form of contractual arrangement. I suppose that's possible. But I can tell you what we will be solving for is free cash flow. And yes, we could probably achieve that in a number of ways. It's early days for us and we just announced their strategic review. The time is good for that. Obviously, what's happening in the phosphate market, the focus on mineral that's as important as they come in the U.S. and of course, the focus on -- in the U.S. on domestic security of supply for something as critical as phosphate. So the time is right for us to announce this. And now that we've announced it, we can talk freely about these strategic options and do the full review assessment. Again, we expect to have line of sight to that in 2026. So we'll have more to talk about. Operator: Our next question is from Kristen Owen from Oppenheimer. Kristen Owen: A couple of things on the Retail business. First, anything that maybe shifted from 2Q to 3Q? I know we had some weather issues. So anything that maybe went a little bit better than expected once we account for that timing shift? And then separately, I wanted to ask about your proprietary products, the growth opportunity there, particularly now that one of your large customers is going through a bit of a restructuring themselves, if that offers an opportunity for you or if there's any real change with that large customer in the retail business? Kenneth Seitz: Yes. Thanks for the question, Kristen. I'll hand it over to Jeff to talk about, as you say, any questions, any shifts between quarters, I think the answer there is not really. And then certainly, on proprietary product growth, I think I know the challenge that you're pointing to, but the growth that we're experiencing would certainly be independent of that. But Jeff, over to you. Jeffrey Tarsi: Yes, Kristen, as far as any kind of shift from Q2 to Q3, no, everything is pretty much going as we've expected this year, especially as it relates to when we capture revenue and margin from that standpoint. You've always got some give and takes in there, but there would be nothing material from that standpoint. On the proprietary side of our business, proprietary products continues to be a very strategic growth driver for our business. We just finished a very strong third quarter as it relates to proprietary products. In the third quarter here, we had significant increase in margins on our nutritionals and biologicals, which again is very impressive. And we also had an uplift to margins in our crop protection side of our business as well in the quarter. And if I look at our portfolio of proprietary products today, I think we're sitting in a good place. I think we basically have what we need from that standpoint. We've got a very strong seed play as it relates to proprietary products, Dyna-Gro and Proven varieties. We've got a very strong play on our crop protection side of the business, and we continue to talk about our nutritional and biologicals. And I think as we go into 2026, you're going to see us introduce over 30 new products globally in our business. About half of those are going to be crop protection products. We're going to introduce seven new nutritional products and several seed treatment products. So again, that's going to continue to be a strategic growth driver for our business, very critical to the growth that we talked about, especially as we reach out into '26. Operator: Our next question is from Matt DeYoe from Bank of America. Salvator Tiano: This is Salvator Tiano in for Matt. So I want to go back to the phosphate strategic review. And specifically, there was one of the options, not the sale of -- or partnership, but the reconfiguration of the business. And can you clarify a little bit what does this mean? Would you, for example, try to make products more for the feed or the food market or even try to do something like purified acid for LFP batteries? And also, can you remind us what are your ore reserves in phosphate? Kenneth Seitz: Yes. No, thanks for the question. And so reconfigured operations, I think, means probably everything that you just described. And again, we're looking at that at the moment. We have, as I think you probably know, we have improved reliability rates at our Phosphate business. We have reduced costs, and we have diversified our product mix. We've done all those things. At the same time, phosphate still only contributes, as I mentioned earlier, 6% of our EBITDA. So when we use the words reconfigured operations, it is exactly, as you say, looking at life of mine at both White Springs, Aurora, assessing how we best exploit the remaining reserves. There's also additional reserves in the area. So we're looking at all those things. And again, we'll have more to talk about on the path forward as we conduct the review. Operator: Our next question is from Jeff Zekauskas from JPMorgan. Jeffrey Zekauskas: You've stressed share repurchase as a use of capital for you. I think over a 10-year period, the average price of Nutrien is $57. And if it turned out that 5 years from now, the price of Nutrien was still $57, would it be a mistake to repurchase shares or not? Kenneth Seitz: Yes, thanks for the question, Jeff. And, yes, I would say that our strategy now as it relates to return of cash to shareholders, of course, we use the word stable and growing dividend and ratable share repurchases. As we look at the word ratable, we'll always assess whether in the moment, at the time, based on our outlook, based on our assessment of value, whether that makes sense. So it's not with the blinders on at all times, just charging forward, we do think about value as we deploy our share buyback programs. Operator: Our next question is from Edlain Rodriguez from Mizuho Securities. Edlain Rodriguez: Ken, so when you look at all the puts and takes in the different nutrients right now, like what's your sense of like near-term pricing movement? I mean which one do you think is better positioned to see an uptick in pricing or do prices need to take a breather from where they are now? Kenneth Seitz: Yes. Thanks for the question, Edlain. It's just going back to the fundamentals and understanding in potash, when we say 74 million to 77 million tonnes and looking at how we're going to supply as an industry, how we're going to supply into that range. I mean at the midpoint, that's about 1.5 million tonne increase from 2025. And that would include probably some supply additions from FSU, maybe 0.5 million tonnes from Canada, 0.5 million tonnes -- and then Laos. And of course, we know Laos -- adding 0.5 million tonnes out of Laos would be a real challenge, I think, given some of the existing challenges in that part of the world. So you look at the level of crop nutrients that have been pulled out of the soil in 2025, you look at the affordability of potash today, and importantly, you look at channel inventories in potash and really being at average or at below average levels, I mean, China is a great example of that, where port inventories are down 1 million tonnes from last year. And so we're constructive on potash heading into 2026, and it's for all of those reasons. Similar story in ammonia and urea, I mean, export restrictions in China on urea having been eased. But just through the summer here, we saw strong demand out of India and now heading into the fall here, seasonal demand, which we expect and probably as we speak, are seeing some firming in urea pricing. And then on ammonia, I mean, on the supply side of the equation, there's all kinds of challenges there and even our own Trinidad operations, which are shut down this year. I would say phosphate probably will continue -- and again, looking at the supply and demand balance, it will probably continue to be tight. I know that potash -- sorry, phosphate prices are elevated compared to historical average levels. But at the same time, it's a supply story. And while we might see some reduced phosphate volumes going down here in the fall, given where phosphate prices and therefore, affordability is at, we might see some of that. We expect that, like I say, into 2026, the market will continue to be tight. Operator: Our next question is from Michael Doumet from National Bank. Michael Doumet: So you've completed a few acquisitions, and you expect to have leverage come down in Q4. And then again, I think next year, another potential divestiture if that happens. Any way you can frame out how much debt you'd like to repay before you consider introducing maybe some additional flexibility into how you're thinking about capital allocation/your share repurchase program? Kenneth Seitz: Yes. You bet, Ben, thanks for the question. And so yes, we will end the year having paid down -- reduced some debt. That's true even while we've increased returns -- cash returns to shareholders, as I mentioned earlier, by over 40% compared to last year. And yes, heading into 2026, we'll see how the year plays out and some of the things that we've announced and how we're thinking about proceeds among our capital allocation priorities. But I'll hand it over to Mark maybe just to provide a bit more detail. Mark Thompson: Sure. Thanks, Ken. So look, I think you step back and think about the priorities we've articulated, capital discipline, cost discipline, the overall focus on free cash flow and really being able to do that on a through-the-cycle basis, really regardless of market conditions. So we've built the strategy, built the capital allocation and returns framework to really be consistent across cycles such that Nutrien will generate structural free cash flow at any commodity price that we can foresee and have consistent abilities to deploy that capital. So when you look at the actions we've taken to enable that, I think the track record is strong over the last year. Specifically on your question, part of being able to support that framework across the cycle is having debt in an appropriate position. We haven't changed our perspective that BBB flat from a rating standpoint is the right place for us. But as we look through a cycle, we think that at roughly mid-cycle prices, we should be roughly 1.5x adjusted net debt to EBITDA. And when we get into a trough, although we can go higher than this, we think 2.5x is probably the trough that we'd like to see when we get to the bottom of the commodity cycle such that we have abundant optionality to take advantage of those moments, return capital to the shareholders and do all the things that we need to do. So what you've heard us articulate today is that with the benefit of divestiture proceeds and the strong cash flow from operations that we're going to see in 2025, we're going to take a step closer to that. And we think we'll be getting in the ballpark. Of course, as we move forward and Ken articulated, we're always going to be looking at the best use of deployment for the cash that we have that maximizes value for our shareholder. So we believe we're on the right track with that. Operator: Our next question is from Ben Theurer from Barclays. Benjamin Theurer: On some of the commentary you already made in regards to the Trinidad assets. Now I was wondering if within the asset review, aside from what you've talked about, phosphate and then obviously, we have the Trinidad decision pending. How you think about the rest of your portfolio? Are there any other assets that you would consider for divestiture or any sort of like an adjustment here given where the market conditions are in the different locations? Kenneth Seitz: No. Thanks for the question, Ben. And it's the case and will be the case that we'll be perpetually reviewing our portfolio. And again, we're talking about our objectives of earnings quality and free cash flow per share and being able to structurally improve those metrics over the long term. As I mentioned earlier, at the moment, consuming our attention is phosphate, is Trinidad and is our work in Brazil. We -- among our divestiture program today, we've talked about our -- to date, we've talked about our Sinofert shares, talked about Profertil. There are a few other smaller assets that we've divested of in Europe and in Latin America. And would there be other smaller assets that we would look at sort of cleaning up in the portfolio? There would be. But there would be nothing that I would describe beyond those three areas of focus today that I would call material. And so again, today, the big things that we need to focus on and talk about are phosphate, Trinidad and Brazil. Operator: Our next question is from Lucas Beaumont from UBS. Lucas Beaumont: I just wanted to clarify a couple of things. So I guess just on Trinidad to start with, so to the extent that remains shut down into 2026, what's the sort of fixed cost base there on EBITDA that will be impacting you? And then just secondly, I saw your potash shipment outlook for North America is flat year-on-year into next year. So are you guys assuming that you don't get any kind of demand destruction impact there at all? Kenneth Seitz: Yes. No, on Trinidad, we'll see, Lucas. We're certainly not prognosticating that we're going to be shut down into 2026. We're just -- we're working through that at the moment and looking for those optimal operating conditions where, again, reliable and affordable gas supply and access to ports and in those discussions today. So those discussions will be ongoing. Trinidad contributes less than 1% of our free cash flow. And so it is from that perspective, in terms of the overall contribution, it's de minimis. As it relates to potash volume growth, I think the best way to think about it is the potash market continues to grow. And we had talked about after some of the demand destruction that we saw, the conflict in Eastern Europe, the return to trend level of potash demand. And indeed, that is exactly what we have been experiencing for the last few years. And given everything that we're seeing on crop nutrient removal from the soil on channel inventories and overall affordability for potash, we expect trend level demand to continue into 2026, and that's why we say 74 million and 77 million tonnes. And for our part, you can think about us participating in that demand growth in the way that we always have. And so sort of that 19% to 20% market share. And so as we look at how we're going to guide into 2026, it will be doing exactly that kind of math. And as you know, with our 6-mine network and our capability to continue to grow our volumes at a very competitive capital, we'll continue to pace along with growth in the market. Operator: Our next question is from Jordan Lee from Goldman Sachs. Suk Lee: Just another one on the Trinidad closure. You mentioned that it contributes a small amount of free cash flow. Can you discuss the different possibilities you see for that asset? Do you think there would be interest if you were to try to sell it? And is that something you are considering? Kenneth Seitz: Yes, thanks for the question, Jordan. What I'll say today is just the things that I've reiterated, and that is we're searching for an optimal path forward here as it relates to our operating configuration in Trinidad, which is dependent on arriving at, as I say, reliable and affordable supply of natural gas in the region, and access to ports so that we can export the volumes off the island. That's the focus for today. Operator: Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back to Jeff Holzman for closing remarks. Jeff Holzman: Okay. Thank you for joining us today. The Investor Relations team is available if you have any follow-up questions. Have a great day. Operator: Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.
Operator: Good morning. Welcome to Mineros Financial and Operating Results for the Third Quarter of 2025. My name is Juan Camilo and I am the Investor Relations -- Original language will be Spanish. However, if you wish to listen to English, please follow these steps. First, the box that says English. Then to avoid listening to both languages at the same time, identify the box that says media players and click on mute. [Foreign Language] Please remember that this call may include forward-looking information. Actual results may vary due to inherent risks in mining. Several financial metrics -- are Section 10 our MD&A available David Londono, CEO; David Splett, CFO -- and enter finance CEO; Santiago Cardona is a President Colombia. And so Gavilanes, is [Foreign Language] Unknown Executive: Gold production stands at 163,000 ounces for the first 9 months of the year. This represents a 2.5% increase compared with the 159,000 ounces reported for the same period in 2024. We had a record net income, which reached 50 million for the third quarter and accumulated net income year-to-date of $136 million. We generated positive free cash flow of $62 million in the third quarter and a total of $106 million in net free cash flow for the first 9 of 2025. We concluded to the share buyback program that was approved earlier this year by the shareholders' general assembly and subsequently by the Board of Directors. The company repurchased a total of 3.9 million shares at a price of COP 12,000. This operation finished in -- on September 12. Finally, we acquired 80% of La Pepa project from Pan American Silver Corporation. This transaction of $40 million grants us 100% ownership of this gold exploration asset in Chile, providing us full control over its future development plan. As we will detail next, our excellent operating performance directly translates into strong financial results. These achievements reflect our discipline in operational efficiency, the strength of our assets and our ability to consistently and safely generate value. We maintain a very optimistic outlook for the company and remain committed to sustaining this trajectory of growth and success. I will now hand the call over to David, who will discuss the financial performance for the quarter. David Splett: Thank you, David. Good morning. Let us begin with the income statement for the quarter. As a reminder, all figures are expressed in millions of dollars. In the third quarter of 2025, the company achieved significant revenue growth of 39%, reaching a record figure of $196 million. The main driver of this result was a 40% increase in the average realized gold price. Consistent gold production in Colombia and Nicaragua, coupled with our strict cost discipline were fundamental to these results. Our gross profit saw an increase of 49%, reaching a record figure of $82 million and net income stood at $54 million, representing 90% growth. This implies a significant advance versus the $29 million reported in the third quarter of 2024. In terms of liquidity, net free cash flow was approximately $63 million. This result is calculated after covering the payment of $7.5 million in dividends, $7 million in sustaining capital expenditures and $0.4 million in interest payments. The cost of sales increased by 33%, primarily because the higher gold prices are reflected in the greater cost of purchasing ore from artisanal cooperatives in addition to an increase in depreciation and amortization. On this slide, we present a summary of our financial results through the end of September 30, 2025. The company's revenue grew by 39%, totaling $538 million. This sudden increase was primarily driven by a 40% increase in the average realized gold price, coupled with 2.5% growth in gold ounces sold. We achieved significant profitability expansion. The gross profit and adjusted EBITDA registered increases of 70% and 59%, respectively, reaching $221 million and $244 million. Net income experienced 114% growth during the first 9 months of the year, increasing from $63.4 million in the same period of 2024 to a record figure of $136 million at the close of September 2025. The cost of sales increased by 23% during the first 9 months of the year. This is primarily attributed to the higher cost of purchasing material from artisanal miners cooperatives due to the increased gold price in addition to higher taxes and royalties. Let us now look at the adjusted EBITDA. This key indicator reached a record figure of $90.3 million at the end of the quarter, representing an increase of 44% compared to the $62.9 million registered in the Q3 from 2024. This expansion is directly attributable to a strong revenue growth, primarily driven by the favorable increase in gold prices. Finally, let's review the cash position. Net cash flows from operating activities generated $204 million from the sale of gold, silver and electricity. This was after payments to suppliers totaling $103 million, employee salaries and benefits payments for $15 million and tax payments amounting $11 million. Cash flow utilized in investing activities was allocated to purchases of property, plant and equipment totaling $16 million and strategic investments in intangible assets and exploration projects of $45 million. Regarding the cash used in financing activities, the main components were dividend payments of $7 million and the amortization of financial obligations totaling $9 million. Our current credit and loans balance stood at $17.6 million, while the cash and cash equivalents balance was $102.2 million, a highly significant figure despite the capital expenditures incurred during the quarter, including the La Pepa acquisition. With this review, I will now turn the floor over to David and this finalizes our operational indicators, who will present the operational indicators. David Londono: Thank you so much, David. Let us now discuss our operating indicators. This chart summarizes our operating performance over the last 5 quarters. As you can observe, the total production for the third quarter remained stable and consistent compared to previous periods. This is a direct reflection of our strong discipline and operational execution across all our assets. As clearly visible on the green line, the average realized gold price per ounce in the third quarter of 2025 reached $3,464, which represents a significant 40% increase compared to the same period last year. We emphasize that our margins continue to show a positive trend. And here, we can see graphically how the gap between our average realized selling price and our costs continues to widen, indicating continuous margin improvement. On the cost front, we registered an increase of 38% in cash cost and 34% in AISC, which stood in $1,704 and $1,982 per ounce, respectively. This increase is primarily explained by the rise in the cost of sales, largely associated with the purchase of ore from artisanal mining in Nicaragua, as David mentioned that before. I will now turn the floor over to Santiago Cardona, our Vice President of Colombia, who will present the results and details of our Alluvial operation. Following that, we will continue with in Inivaldo Diaz, who recently assumed the Vice Presidency of Nicaragua and who will offer us a comprehensive overview of Hemco operation. Santiago Cardona Munera: Thank you, David. In Colombia, we achieved a production of 23,000 ounces during the third quarter, which represents a 16% increase compared to the same period in 2024. This growth was primarily driven by lower dilution and the optimization of overburden removal and the hydraulic level control of the pit. The AISC per ounce of gold sold increased by 13%, reaching $1,573 per ounce. This is primarily due to the increase in gold prices, which directly impact the cost of operating contracts in our formalization contracts, more taxes and royalties related to this price. Also the increase associated with the year-over-year change. Additionally, during the quarter, we saw the commissioning of the Aurora plant contributing to our growth strategy and technological renewal aimed at optimizing recovery in our operations. Finally, our occupational health and safety indicators continue to report very low values, highlighting our safety performance. This is the result of our robust and effective prevention culture and demonstrate that safety is a core value and a pillar of our operational excellence. With this, I conclude the presentation of our operations in Colombia, and I will now turn the floor over to Inivaldo Diaz, Vice President of Nicaragua. Inivaldo Diaz: Thank you, Santiago. In Nicaragua, Q3 production remained stable, registering 32,000 ounces. This figure is 5.4% below the production from the third quarter of 2024. This variation is primarily due to a 9.5% decrease in tonnes milled, though it was partially offset by a 4.6% increase in the process grades. Of the 32,000 ounces produced, 83% originated from the artisanal production. Consequently, 58% of the total cost for the third quarter is directly associated with this artisanal output. The AISC recorded a 52% increase. 80% of the increase of the AISC is due to higher purchases from artisanal mining, 26% above compared to the same quarter from last year, which is explained by the prioritization given to artisanal mining over the industrial mining. The feed blend shifted from a 55% artisanal, 45% industrial mix in the Q3 of 2024 to a 20% artisanal, 30% industrial mix in the Q3 of 2025. Adding to the higher purchasing volume is the price effect, which is 40% higher in Q3 2025 versus the same period in 2024, leading to a greater volume of purchases in 26% and 40% higher price. Finally, in July, the decision was made to begin stockpiling high-grade ore purchased from artisanal mining for a special processing at the Vesmisa plant. This required upgrades, including replacement of the corn crusher, major repairs to the agitation tanks and other circuit adjustments. The plant was shut down for nearly 1 month, affecting quarterly operational costs and production. By September, we began achieving the anticipated results. The ore inventory generated at the stockpiling pads amounted to 5,604 ounces, of which 4,527 ounces are from the artisanal mining and 1,077 ounces are from industrial mining. The benefit of this initiative to batch process the high-grade material is the increase of metallurgical recovery by enhancing the residence time and reducing the gold content in the leach tails. With this, I conclude the results for Nicaragua, and I turn the floor back to David. David Londono: Thank you very much, Inivaldo. Let us now discuss our opportunities and outlook. I want to start by highlighting the solid progress in near-mine exploration, which is crucial for the future sustainability of our operations. During the third quarter of 2025, we completed a total of 9,806 meters of diamond drilling. This brings our year-to-date cumulative total to 29,252 meters, maintaining an excellent pace of exploration. Moving to the Porvenir project, we continue working to advance on the following key stages. We are proceeding with the update of the pre-feasibility study with -- that will be finished by the end of the fourth quarter. Operating and capital costs within the project's financial model are currently being updated. In parallel, we are in the process of reaching an agreement with the community and authorities to define an environmental compensation plan. This is a fundamental step for the submission of the environmental management plan for the process plant. The greenfield exploration campaign focused on new discoveries began drilling in July 2025. And currently, we have 3 drill rigs operating on site. We have completed 6,688 drilled meters during the year. Finally, regarding the La Pepa project, as we mentioned earlier, we have completed the acquisition of 100% of the project. We are currently focusing our team's efforts on advancing the exploration plans, which we expect to commence next year. 2025 has represented a key period of strategic consolidation for Mineros, characterized by a substantial transformation and the establishment of unprecedented financial milestones. These achievements reaffirm the robustness of our strategy and our unwavering commitment to generating sustainable value for our stakeholders. From a financial perspective, management has demonstrated operational excellence. Productive discipline has ensured a stable and safe operation, driving the achievement of record revenue at the corporate level. This operational efficiency has directly translated into a significant increase in profitability materialized as a record EBITDA, record net income and an outstanding generation of free cash flow. We have maintained a stable dividend program, and we have observed the market validating our execution, which has resulted in a very positive share performance during the year. On the corporate front, we have worked to secure the foundation for future growth. We have successfully completed the redefinition of the corporate strategy, providing a clear framework for the next phase of growth. We executed the share buyback program, thereby returning additional capital to shareholders and significant operational progress has been achieved, highlighted by the commissioning of our Aurora plant. Our geographic expansion strategy is consolidating with the total acquisition of the La Pepa project, integrating a new high potential jurisdiction into our operations. Finally, we continue to invest in our exploration pipeline with important advancements in greenfield exploration and in the development of the Porvenir project, ensuring long-term sustainability of our operations. This concludes our presentation. We would like now to open the floor for questions. Operator: [Operator Instructions] First one comes from Luca Skarbahal. And he asks, why is it possible to have a debt in the company if the most attractive part of the company is a very healthy balance. David Londono: So the opportunity of financing was open, and we decided to try the market for that. We have to have enough cash flow when an opportunity comes. And that opportunity is now. Unfortunately, when we were going to get the market or go to the market, the conditions were not favorable. We obviously have a plan to grow as a company, and we have this journey to grow at 300,000 ounces per year and even more in the next 3 years related to the investment with Porvenir and Alluvial as well, and Hemco as well. And we are going to invest $200 million or $300 million related to this plan for growth organically -- for growing organically. And also, we want to maintain maximum liquidity if there is a chance to buy an asset or to buy a mine or something that is attractive, but we still need to identify that opportunity. Operator: Next question comes from Mr. Simon Londonio. Unknown Analyst: Congratulations for the results. Would you consider the possibility of starting a new buyback program? David Londono: Thank you so much for your question. That's a decision made by the assembly. We are open for this decision from the assembly. And also, there's another perspective from the previous point. We want to grow this company in the gold production. And it is feasible that this growth has more value for the shareholders even more than the dividend. So our preference is to maintain the dividend in about $30 million per year and maximize the growth plan of production. Operator: We have 2 more questions from Mr. Justin Chan. Justin Chan: Could you please inform us the schedule for the final decision about Porvenir. If the pre-feasibility study is presented in the next year, will you have a definite study before approving the pre-project or the feasibility project is enough so the assembly approves that project. David Londono: Thank you, Justin. I would like to start first by saying that we are finishing the pre-feasibility study. We will finish that in December at the end of the fourth quarter. And this will give us the possibility to perform a feasibility study that is going to be quite fast because this pre-feasibility study is the second time it is performed. It has more details. It is almost a feasibility study. We only have to work on a detailed engineering so we can make that decision. I think that those -- that's going -- we're going to make the decision at the -- in the middle of next year. We are applying all. Operator: The next question from Mr. Justin Chan. They ask about this talk of capital. The working capital and the fiscal capital have a significant impact in the fourth quarter. Do you prevent that there is any temporary factor that will affect the cash flow? Or will it be maintained based on the AISC. David Londono: I'm going to respond. We do not do not experience important changes in our balance sheet or in our cash flow answer. There is something that we need to deep dive in this part. The taxes of the company are paid during the whole year as down payments or advanced payments. And when we have this payment related to taxes after liquidations. Operator: Next question from Mr. Lucas Carbajal. With the commissioning of the Aurora plant, how much are you expecting to increase the production? David Londono: I'm going to start responding to this question, and then Santiago will respond, the Colombian VP. I think the commissioning of the Aurora plant is a total success, and it will improve production and the performance in Colombia. So it depends on our mining plans and the management that we will have, but this plant will cover 5,000 cubic meters -- additional cubic meters per day. A production that we are adjusting as a project and that we expect to have this year between 1,000 and 1,500 additional ounces. And next year, we will explain you the plan for the mining process next year. We will inform that. Operator: Next question from Ben Pirie. Ben Pirie: Congratulations for this great quarter. I am highly excited for Q4 as the gold price has risen even further. Can you guide any sort of budget for the La Pepa in 2026 for the exploration program? David Londono: Thank you so much. First in Spanish, I'm going to speak. So La Pepa, we have planned to start the exploration. In this moment, we are working to get the staff that is going to work in La Pepa and we would start exploration next year when all the consultants and all the people are in the site. I think we're going to spend -- we will have an additional budget of $5 million. Operator: Next question from Mr. Juan Soto. Unknown Analyst: What is the forecast of production that you have for 2026. David Londono: Thank you so much, Juan, for that question. In this moment, we are finalizing the budget, and we are internally reviewing how this is going to be. But I think we will see a slight increase in production in both operations. It could be 2% or 3%. Operator: This is from Alejandro Correa. What's the forecast of the company with the gold prices in 2026. What is the contribution in monetary resources are you expecting from Project La Pepa in Chile? And when would you start the exploration phase. David Londono: So the forecast, we don't work with the forecast of the gold prices. We control the costs, but not the price. We assume that for the next year's production, the price should be -- we have this forecast of -- with 15 different banks and the forecast related to 2026, it's in the range of $4,000 per ounce but we are going to use this last forecast from 2025 that could be ready by December. We are going to use that forecast. And in terms of the second part of the question about the La Pepa project in Chile, what is it that we expect. We expect to start exploration and all the studies next year. I think exploitation that will be planned for between 5 and 7 years, while we do all the exploration, we have to do the pre-feasibility study, the feasibility study and that will take a long time and obviously, acquiring or getting all the permits that we need. So we are just starting to do this work. Operator: Next question from Alfonso Maris. Unknown Analyst: What happened with the silver production. David Londono: In terms of silver, that is due to the adjustments that we had in the Vesmisa plant, that was the adaptation to process the high-grade minerals or ore. We processed less tonnes because we are working under dispatch processing modality because hybrids increased substantially during this quarter. So this led us to process less tonnes and focus in the recovery of gold, and we run the test of recovery and the amount of silver has also decreased. Operator: Next question from Mr. Exon. Unknown Analyst: We know that you are in pursue for inorganic opportunities across different geographies. I would be grateful if you could give us more color on which countries or jurisdiction you favor over others. David Londono: Thank you for this question. We will always see opportunities in different geographies. Obviously, we prefer to be in the same time zone. But if we see opportunities that are smart opportunities for us, we will study them. Operator: Next question from Mr. Maria. Unknown Analyst: Congratulations for the results. The valuation that the shareholders have received is quite high. What's the reason of the reduction of production and how is Guillermina doing? Inivaldo Diaz: The answer is the same that I've replied before. This thing about the Guillermina plant that we are using for processing the high-grade ore and that reduced the production tonnes. And in terms -- in relation to Guillermina, we continue with the exploration plan. We are doing the drilling, and we are expecting to receive the results, but it's promising. We expect that, that brings more resources to the operation. Operator: Next question. This is from Simon Londonio. Unknown Analyst: Could you please update the guidance in relation to the ounces production and CapEx, considering the -- and CapEx, considering the new projects. David Londono: Thank you for that question. The guidance does not change in this moment. And for 2026, we see the guidance in the Q1 in January, and we will have this guidance for production, exploration and CapEx. Operator: We see this from Pablo Castro. Unknown Analyst: We see an increment in the brownfield exploration. Is this a change in the strategy under the new administration? Do you see any potential in the current mines for this increment in the exploitation. David Londono: Yes, indeed. Thank you for that. We have to increase the brownfield exploration. And the reason for this is that we want to replace the year's production in both jurisdictions. For us, this is very important to have this certainty about the budget that we are making. So this is a change in the strategy, increase those expenses in exploration because in the end, this gives a lot of profitability. We have always said that Nicaragua has a very good perspective. It's an area with a good perspective, and we expect to have very good results with increase in the exploration. And in Colombia, this has been very consistent and the fact of increasing the exploration. So we are sure about what we are going to produce in the next 5 years. Operator: We have another question. Why the underground production of gold has really been -- has decreased in 44% and what's -- what are the future plans for the underground sector. David Londono: In Hemco, our bottleneck is the capacity for processing. We currently see an increase in the contribution of the artisanal miners that because of their activity, it had -- their grade doubles what we obtain in the industrial mines in our mines. So seeing the plan and the sequences adapted, and we give preference to the ore from the artisanal mining above or on top of our own mining. So we are increasing the processing capacity in our plants. That's part of our growth plan in our capacities. Operator: We have a question from Christian Marasco. Unknown Analyst: Congratulations. Could you please detail your investment plan for the funds that come from a possible bond emission. How is the return on investment in the new mines. Unknown Executive: So we have this growth to 300,000 ounces in relation to the investments in Porvenir, Hemco that should -- we could create a lot of value for our shareholders with this organic growth and to maintain this liquidity in case there is an available... Operator: This question is from Juan Soto. What's the forecast for CapEx and for which type of investments would you destine these funds. David Londono: The answer has just been given by David. But just to repeat that a little bit, it's $170 million or $200 million that we want to invest in the construction of Porvenir and about $45 million that we have for the expansion of the bottleneck in Hemco and the possibility to have more production or improvements in the performance in -- with the acquisition of this plant. Operator: Next question that comes from Santiago Mason. Unknown Analyst: Could you please give us a guidance of the dividend for 2026? David Londono: This is something that is defined in the assembly in March. So we cannot give you a guideline of how much it would be. Well, thank you so much. With this, we close the Q&A session for this call for the results of the third quarter 2025. Thank you so much for your participation, and I will see you in the next quarter's call. Thank you very much. Operator: With this, we finish the today's conference. Thank you so much for your participation. You may disconnect from the call now.
Antonia Junelind: Good morning, and a warm welcome to the presentation of Skanska's Third Quarter Report for 2025. For those of you that don't know me, I'm Antonia Junelind. I'm the Senior Vice President for Skanska's Investor Relations. And here on stage in our studio today, I've got President and CEO, Anders Danielsson; and CFO, Jonas Rickberg. We're going to follow the typical structure of these press conferences. We will start by walking through the past quarter to provide you with a business, financial and market development update. And after that initial presentation, we will move over to questions. [Operator Instructions] If you are here in the room with us, then you can, of course, just ask questions by raising your hand. We will bring a microphone to you, and we will take it from there. So yes, I will no longer hold you off. We'll take you through the third quarter. Anders, let's do this. Anders Danielsson: Thank you, Antonia. Good to see everyone. Before we jump into the figures, I want you to look at the picture here on the slide. And that's called The Eight, one of our project development office building in Bellevue, part of Greater Seattle area in the United States. And it's actually a Class A building, one of the biggest or the biggest commercial investment we have had. We're also proud to be able to announce in a couple of years back that we have the greatest, the biggest lease here as well. And this -- today, the office building is leased more than 80%. So it's a great, great building. I'm happy to say that we're going to host the Capital Market Day in a few weeks in the same building. So I look forward to see everyone who will show up there. And we will also have a deep dive, of course, of the U.S. operation at the time, together with the commercial direction forward for the group. But now the third quarter. It's a solid quarter, solid third quarter. The construction is performing very well in all geographies, and we have strong market generated by a solid project portfolio. In Residential Development, we have very strong sales and margin in our Central European business, so a very high performance there. The Nordic market remains weak, which impacts both the sales and the profitability level. Commercial Property Development. We have 2 large lease contracts signed in the quarter, and I will come back to the profitability level here. Investment Properties, stable performance, stable cash flow and stable leasing ratio. Operating margin in Construction is 4.2%, very high level, very high compared to last year, 3.6%, and well above our target, as you know. Return on capital employed in Project Development, 1.4%, and that's on the low level below our target but it's driven by a slow market in different parts of our operation. Return on capital employed in Investment Properties is 4.7%, stable performance there on a rolling 12. Return on equity, 10% on a rolling 12-month basis. And we continue to have a solid performance on the financial position, and that's very important for us, of course, and a competitive advantage going forward. And we also managed to continue to reduce the carbon emission. And now we are at 64% reduction compared to our baseline year in 2015. So I will go into each and every stream, starting with Construction. Revenue increase in local currencies, 7%, which is good. Order bookings is around SEK 40 billion. And we do have a book-to-build ratio over 100% on a rolling 12-month basis. So we have a very good position when it comes to order backlog. I will come back to that. But it is on historically high levels. And operating income close to SEK 1.8 billion, increased from last year, SEK 1.5 billion. And again, the operating margin is very strong here, 4.2%. So strong result and high margin across all geographies, and that's very encouraging and also prove that we have kept our discipline and we have been successful in the strategic direction here. And we have a rolling 12 months group operating margin of 3.9%. Solid order intake for the group and a strong backlog. Moving on to the Residential Development. Revenue is pretty much in line with last year. We have sold 383 homes, and we have increased the started homes mainly driven by the Central European operation, 572 started homes. And we have an operating income of SEK 131 million, representing a return on capital employed 5.9% on a rolling 12. Very strong sales and result in Central Europe. We have started 2 new projects, and we have -- with a very good presale level, which drives, of course, the sales in the quarter. The Nordic housing market remains weaker and Nordic businesses recorded a very small loss there. But overall, it's driven by a weak market. We can see some signs of improvement in the Norwegian operation here, but overall, quite slow. Commercial Property Development. Operating income is minus SEK 397 million, which is driven by write-downs in impairments, write-downs in few projects in the U.S. properties. We'll come back to that. But that gives -- we also have a gain on sale of SEK 377 million in the quarter. Return on capital employed is 0, rolling 12. We do have 15 ongoing projects representing SEK 15 billion in investment upon completion of those projects. And we have 22 completed projects representing SEK 18 billion in total investment. The leasing ratio in those completed projects is fairly good. We are at 77% leased. So we have a good position there, giving us a cash flow -- positive cash flow. Three project divestment and one internal land transfer in the quarter. Result includes these impairment charges, of course, in U.S. And we have 2 large lease contracts signed in the same quarter. Investment Properties, operating income stable, SEK 143 million, and we do have a stable occupancy rate of 83%, it was the same as last quarter. The total property values continue to be on the same level, SEK 8.2 billion. If I go back to the Construction stream now and look at the order bookings. And here, you can see over time for last 5 years, the order backlog, the bars, the blue bars here. You can also see the rolling 12 order bookings, the light gray line and the order bookings per quarter, the orange. And also the revenue, the green, rolling 12, which you can see has had a slow increasing trend the last few years. And that's thanks, of course, that we have been successful in increasing the order backlog, which again is on historically high level. And you can see the yellow line, the book-to-build rates over 12 months. So I think it's important here to look at over the rolling 12 months' trend, because when it comes to order bookings, it can fluctuate quite a lot between a single quarter. And that you can see also when you look at the order intake in the quarter, which is down from SEK 50 billion to around SEK 40 billion. We'll come back to each and every geography here. But we are in a very good position. And if I look at the order bookings per geographies, you can see here that overall, we have a book-to-build ratio of 106%, and we have over well above in the Nordic and European operation slightly below in the U.S. operation on a rolling 12-month basis. But look at the months of production, 19 months in overall, and I'm very confident that we have a very good position. So we can continue to be selective going for projects that we see we have competitive advantage and that we have a good track record as well for the future. So with that, I hand over to Jonas to go through the financials. Jonas Rickberg: Thank you, Anders. And we'll continue here with the Construction side. And as you can see, the revenue is fairly flat here in SEK, but it's actually up then with 7% in local currency. The green line, we're actually then having a gross margin that has increased to 8% in the quarter, which really emphasizes the great quality that we have in the order book. We continue to have a strong and good cost control within the stream, and that is then generating that you can see over the line there, but that is also then showing here with a good result in the operating margin of 4.2%. Operating income of SEK 1.8 billion, an increase with 22% versus last year. Worth mentioning again, I would say, is the rolling 12 of 3.9% in operating margin. Looking here on the geographies, we still see that we have a solid delivery for all the areas, Nordic, Europe and U.S. That sticks out a little bit on the positive side here, it's actually Sweden with 4.9. That is building up from a strong portfolio right now, and it's very clear natural trends within the quarter and so on. So if we summarize the Construction line here, the Construction stream, we can see that we have a strong performance in all geographies right now. We have actually a 5-year track record here on margins that are on or above our target of 3.5%, which is strong. And of course, as you said, Anders, we had SEK 264 billion here in our order book that we can harvest from, and that is a real strength going forward. Moving on then to residential development. Here, we can see the income statement. And of course, you can see that half of the revenue actually come from Central Europe, which is really strength from that delivery point of view. We started 2 new projects in Central Europe in Prague and Kraków, and that had a really good presales level as well. We have reduced S&A significantly over the years. And right now, we have an organization that is set for higher volumes going forward to really get the leverage here on the S&A going forward. Also, please note that we have an upward trend on the rolling 12 operating margin at 8% here, which is strong. Looking at the operating income or income statement by geographies, you can see here very clear that Europe of SEK 159 million, that is really lifting or keeping up the strong -- the performance here in the stream on a margin of 17.5%. Secondly, here, you can see that Nordic is a little bit on the weaker side, and that is mainly driven by low revenue, actually low sales, few units sold. And also it confirms the trend here that we have said before that buyers really would like to buy close to completion and that we are selling mostly from projects that were a little bit weak in margin that is reflected here. Moving on to home started. You can see that we have out of the 572 units, we have 430 that is coming then from Central Europe and then 142 in Nordic here, and that is actually that we have started places here in Oslo and Uppsala and [ Östersund ]. And looking at the homes sold of the 383, you can see that 240 is actually then coming from presales started in Central Europe and 141 from the Nordic areas here. Rolling 12 months, you can see that we are very balanced when it comes to the sold and started homes, I would say. If we turn into our stock situation, you can see that we have -- the homes in production is actually then ticking up to a level of almost 2,900 homes in production, and that is up since Q2. Unsold completed homes is also coming down from Q2 level of 486, which is good as well. If you summarize the Residential Development area, we can see that we have a good performance despite we have a challenging situation in the Nordic, but it's really lifted up from the Central European unit here. And also that we are preparing here good projects within pipeline for start when the market condition is in a better place as well. If we move to Commercial Development, you can see here that revenue side, there are 3 divestments, 1 in Poland and 2 in Sweden. And also, we have the internal sales of land from -- in Europe here. Impacting the operating income is actually the gain from sales mostly related then to -- from a situation of SEK 234 million here in the gain of sales. Also, as we were into, we had an asset impairment in U.S. of SEK 658 million. And as we have mentioned earlier, it's low transaction volume in U.S. and it's very slow there. So it's -- the visibility is hard to compare there. So it's a few units only. The impairment has done, of course, to really ensure that we are having the right balance, the asset value in the balance sheet, and we are doing this continuously over quarters. And it's very clear that it has no cash flow impact, and it's then representing a little bit more than 3% of the book value of total U.S. portfolio. Moving on to unrealized and realized gains. Here, we can see that we had SEK 5 billion in the quarter, and it's an upward trend, which is good. And that is then sign actually of the starting -- of the fact that we are starting to see the positive impact of slowly starting new projects here with profitable and solid business cases. We have a situation. We have a good land bank in attractive locations that we really would like to build and harvest from going forward and actually making sure that we have solid business case for this going forward. In the portfolio, we have unrealized gains of 10% here in Q3. And as we have said many times before, it's very, very quite much in the portfolio between the different regions of started and older -- more new project versus older projects and so on. If we move on here to the completion profile of all the Commercial Development properties that we have, we have SEK 18 billion of already completed and 22 projects. And as we can see here, it's on the purple line, it's up -- it's 77% in leasing, and that is up from 74% last year. So it's a good trend there. Also, if you look into the green dots, and if you are very particular comparing them to the last quarter, they all have moved up, and that is a real strength here that we are leasing more with ongoing projects. And in Q3, we also made sure that we are having a better outlook here for Central Europe and Nordics when it comes to the commercial property. And it's very much based on the fact that we can see that we have -- there's better access to debt as well as the pricing on debt and so on, and that is driving a little bit the market here. And that is, of course, very encouraging to see. Focus even more here when it comes to the leasing part of commercial operation. We can see that we have in the bar there to the blue, last right, you can see 77,000 square meters let, and that is actually then coming from 2 big leases, H2Offices in Budapest as well as Solna Link that we have started there. Also, we can see, I'm very glad also that we have a trend shift here. Average leasing ratio of the ongoing projects is 64% versus then the compared to completion of 55%. And that is a strength, of course, that we are increasing the leasing versus then the completion that we have. To sum up, we have a strong leasing activity in the quarter. And of course, we see the importance here to turning the -- all the completed assets that we have and translate them going forward and also be able to make sure that we have solid business case to start with when the market is ready and so on. We have a lot of things to sell, but we are also very cautious about how -- and we have a very patient and good value for the -- we really would like to capture the good value that we have created over the years. So very good patience here to sell the good things that we have, I would say. When it comes to the Investment Properties, it's stable operational and financial performance within the stream. Operation income is positively impacted by a reassessment of the property value of some units here, and it's actually then SEK 53 million up. And that is also a sign that we can see that we have better outlook here for the Nordic markets real estate as well. Moving into the income statement. We can -- here, I would like to take the focus a little bit on the central items that is SEK 58 million, and that is actually then coming from a positive effect from release of provision on the asset management business related to some milestones in projects there. Also, we can see that cost varies between quarters and so on. And as I said last quarter 2, we are on the level that we are representing more or less the first half year of this year for the full year. And we are seeing a little bit higher cost here due to the fact that we have outsourced IT infrastructure that is impacting this year, but of course, it will be better here going forward once we can see these synergies. Also, looking at the elimination line there, you can see that, that is then connected to the internal transfer, that of SEK 234 million recognized in the commercial development area. And no swings really in the financial net, and we actually then recorded a profit of SEK 1.3 billion and an earnings per share increased by 36% versus last quarter. Moving into group cash flow. We can see that we had a 0 cash flow for the quarter, and that was a result of that we are in a net investment for Residential and Construction stream right now. If we lift ourselves a little bit more and look into the bigger trend of rolling 12, we can see that we have a really good underlying cash flow from the business operation, and we can see good -- and continue to have good level of negative working capital as we will come into soon as well. And also, we can see that we continue being a net divestment cycle that we really would like to be and releasing more cash and so on. Focusing on the construction and the free working capital, you can see it's fairly flat there between the Q2 and Q3. And we are quite comfortable with these levels as we have right now and so on. Also worth mentioning here is that the higher bars here last year, quarter 3 and quarter 4, are not representing really because it was very much connected then to mobilization of some milestones in big projects that we have an advantage of. And of course, we have 18.2% here in relation to revenue, which is strong. Moving on to the investment side. As mentioned, the quarter, we had net investment for the group. But rolling 12 period, we remain on the net divestment territory here. This means that we are taking down the capital employed level within Residential and Commercial Development here, as you can see in the bottom from SEK 64 billion then to SEK 62 billion and so on. Looking ahead, of course, as I said, we have a few assets on the balance sheet that we really would like to transfer and making ready for divestments. We are starting and preparing new products with really good solid business case as well. But the timing of these flows are of essential that the market and the demand and supply are meeting, then, of course, we will shoot off these. For sure, once we see that we are succeeding here with the divestments, we're making sure that we will then invest more going forward. If we look into the liquidity point here, we can see that we have a good liquidity situation of SEK 28.1 billion here. And that is then a super strong position, and we have a loan portfolio that have a balanced maturity profile as well. Finishing off here with the financial position, which is very, very strong, as you know, who has followed us. We have an equity of SEK 60 billion, and that is almost a level of 38% and equity ratio. We have an adjusted net cash of SEK 9.3 billion. And as you were into Anders, it's a good situation to be in and also good for all our customers that are really relying on us and making sure -- and trusting us in the fact that we are here to complete the projects no matter what. So we have the financial strength to do that, I would say. And by that, handing over to you, Anders. Anders Danielsson: Sure. I will go through the market outlook before we summarize and start the Q&A. Market outlook for Construction is pretty much unchanged from the last quarter. We have a strong civil market in the U.S., and we can see we are in a more traditional infrastructure operation in U.S. So we can see a strong pipeline, and we don't see any slowdown here. And there's still existing federal funding programs as running over time here. The civil market in Europe is more stable. It's strong in Sweden due to -- we can see that there's a lot of investments in infrastructure. We can see defense and also wastewater and that kind of facility coming out. So that's a good opportunity for us. And the building market is stable in the U.S., continue to be stable and more weaker, especially in the Nordic due to the slower residential and commercial construction market. But in Central Europe, it's more stable, both on civil and building. Residential Development, good activity, as we've been talking about in Central Europe, great market and driven by a lot of people moving into the capital cities and the largest university cities. And the lower-than-normal market in the Nordic housing market, even though we can see some signs, the underlying need for residential is there in the market we are operating in. The lower interest rates helps, of course, but I think we need to see some economic growth, GDP growth in the different market in the Nordics to really see that people are getting back the confidence and buying homes. But we do have an underlying need. Commercial Property Development, we're increasing the outlook in Central Europe and in the Nordics. We can see higher leasing activity in both Central Europe and Nordic, we can also see that the investor market and transaction market, they are more active, especially in Central Europe, but we can see signs of improvement also in the Nordics. So we are increasing it to a stable market in those geographies. Investment Properties. Here, we can see continue to be stable market outlook. There's a strong demand for high-quality buildings, office building in the right location with good train connection and so on. We can offer that. So we can see it's a polarized market, definitely, but we are in the right location there, and we expect rents to be mostly stable here. So if I summarize the third quarter. Construction, strong margin generated by the solid project portfolio. We had a great performance in Residential Development in Central Europe, weaker in Nordic. Commercial Property Development, 2 large lease contracts signed here in the Nordic and Central Europe. And again, the Investment Property is very stable. And very important, we are maintaining a solid financial position, which is a competitive advantage. So with that, I hand over to Antonia to open up the Q&A. Antonia Junelind: Very good. So yes, now we will open up for your questions. [Operator Instructions] But I will actually start by turning to the room to see if we have any questions here. If you have a question, then just please raise your hand. We will bring a microphone and we'll ask you to please start by stating your name and organization. We have a question here in the front. Stefan Erik Andersson: Stefan from Danske Bank. A couple of quick ones. First, the margins in the Construction division. It's a major jump year-on-year. It looks good quarter-on-quarter as well. We're not really used to that kind of jump up. We can see the drop sometimes, but rarely such jumps up. Could you maybe elaborate on -- 2 questions. What's behind that? Are you getting rid of problem projects, and therefore, the good ones are seen? And second question on that, is this a new level that we could be comfortable calculating also for the future? Anders Danielsson: I can take that question, Stefan. Yes, we have a very strong performance in the Construction stream. And I can say that we have been able to, by this good discipline, avoiding loss-making project. And that's a real key to be successful here. And also, we should not look at the single quarter, I said it before. So you should look more on the rolling 12 months. We don't have any positive one-offs in the quarter. It's a very good performance. And the key here is all geographies performing, and that's also quite unusual even though we have been on a good level for some years now. So right now, everyone is performing. And of course, that boosts up the underlying margin. And I also see that in a single quarter, it can fluctuate because we -- sometimes, we are completing large project, profitable project. And then since we have a conservative profit to take in -- during the construction, we can have a boost in the -- when we complete the project. So look more over time. What we expect of the future? I always expect to reach our targets and be above our targets, which we have been for some time now, and I have no other view on the future, definitely. Stefan Erik Andersson: That's good. That's enough. And then on orders, when listening to you, you're talking a lot about the rolling 12 months and don't look at the quarter above and all that. But 2024 was extremely good in -- with large orders. Should I interpret you as the level in 2024 to be a normal year? Or should I continue to believe that it was a very, very good year, unusually good year? Anders Danielsson: It was an unusually good year. If you look at the third quarter now in U.S. because you can see the Nordic and European is actually increasing the order intake. But the U.S., if you look at the current year, we are on a 5-year, 10 years average. And again, we have a rolling book-to-build of rolling 12, but it's very close to 100% in U.S. So I'm -- so that's how we should look at it. Stefan Erik Andersson: And then the final question on IP. You talked about the stable situation with the occupancy there, 83%. It's 80% in Stockholm, Gothenburg. To me, if you're not [ Kista ] with new stuff, it's actually a low level and it's not improving. So just wondering a little bit, is the specific properties that is a problem? Or is it just a general spread out issue? Anders Danielsson: I would say the leasing market is somewhat impacted by a slow economic growth. So there is -- we see some, as I said, increase in some signs of improvement, but it takes time, and it's a very polarized market. So if you have a Class A building and right location, it's much more attractive. So that's -- but it's -- you're right, it's on the same level for over a couple of quarters. Stefan Erik Andersson: Is there specific properties that are really... Anders Danielsson: No, I wouldn't say so. It's quite even spread. Antonia Junelind: So we're going to continue with a question here in the room. Albin Sandberg: Yes. Albin Sandberg, SB1 Markets. I had a question on the financial position, and you made a comment about a level where the customers are happy and they can trust you. At the same time, you have the financial targets that would allow you for substantially more debt, which I guess also is tied back to the commercial property activities and so forth. But what kind of levels do you need to be in order to have the customers to be sort of happy with you? And is there anything to read into where we are in the cycle now that makes you want to operate with a higher net cash maybe than what you theoretically could? Jonas Rickberg: Albin, of course, I mean, we are in a business that is very cyclical. And of course, we really would like to be able to take advantage of things and be opportunistic when things are possible to do that. So we are not really guiding how much we need and so going forward. But we are comfortable with the situation we are right now, definitely. Albin Sandberg: And my second and final question is, when it comes to your investment, the plans and so forth because obviously, your invested capital has come down a bit now year-to-date. Given what's happening on the office side and so on recently, what would take you to get the investments up now, let's say, over the next 12 months? Jonas Rickberg: No. But as we said, we can see that we have a good leasing traction and so on and also that the market is here in Central Europe as well as in Nordic, it starts to meet and so on. And of course, if we are successful here with the SEK 18 billion that we have in the balance sheet of [ 22 ] ready projects, and if we can make them fly here. And of course, then we are a little bit more appetite for the things that we have prepared, of course. So really looking forward to things to move here. Anders Danielsson: I can add to that, that we will start project and our starting project in geographies that we see that there's more -- better activity, we announced starting in Poland the other day as one example. Antonia Junelind: Very good. So we will then move over to the online audience. And I will ask you, please, operator, can you put through the first caller. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Graham Hunt with Jefferies. Graham Hunt: I've just got 2 questions, please. First one is on the U.S. commercial impairment. So you only have a handful of assets in the U.S. So I just wondered if you could give any more color on where that impairment has been taken or what kind of assets it's been taken on region-wise, type of building wise. Just any more color on the breakdown of that impairment would be helpful. And then second question also on the U.S. construction business. Last year, you had quite a lot of order intake related to data centers, but that seems to have dropped off quite significantly in 2025. Is there anything that we should read into that as to your offering in data centers? Or is that just typical lumpiness in the market? Any comments around that would be helpful. Anders Danielsson: Sure, Graham. Thank you for the question. If I start with the U.S., we have an operation in 4 cities in U.S., as you know, and we haven't announced where. We have said now it's a few projects. And again, to Jonas' point, the value of this write-down represent just about 3% of the total value. So I don't see any drama in that. And if you look at the U.S. portfolio overall, we have mainly -- the main part is office building in those 4 cities. And we also -- but we also have high-end rental residential in the different cities as well. And we also have some small life science. But the main part is office building. And again, we have a good leasing ratio here. So we do get a good cash flow from them. But we have looked into this internally, external help, and we see due to the slow market, very few transactions. So we have to take this write-down in the single quarter. On the construction data centers, I don't think you should look in a single quarter. It can be quite lumpy. We do -- we have a healthy backlog with data centers, a lot of international -- strong international players, who invest in data centers, and we can see they continue. So we haven't seen any cancellation. And we can see that the strong pipeline will -- our expectation, it will materialize going forward. Operator: Our next question comes from Arnaud Lehmann with Bank of America. Arnaud Lehmann: A couple of questions on my side. Firstly, just following up on U.S. construction. Have you seen any implication from the recent government shutdown? We hear in the press about some projects being potentially canceled. So either in terms of order intakes or delays in payments or anything happening there in U.S. construction, please? That would be helpful. And secondly, I appreciate it's a small part of your business, but coming back on Residential in the Nordics, you mentioned the weakness. Can you give us a bit of color on why that is the case when rates have been coming down a little bit? And do you see at one point potential improvement into 2026? Anders Danielsson: Thank you, Arnaud. If I start with the U.S. civil and the -- U.S. construction operation and the government shut, we haven't seen any impact on our project, and we haven't seen any cancellation either or late payment. The most of our client in U.S. operation are states, cities, institution, large -- as I said, large player on the data center side. So we are having a close look at it, of course. But so far, we haven't seen any impact. And on the Nordics, yes, as I said earlier, the underlying need for homes in the Nordics are there, definitely. And we are on a very low level if you look at the whole market and new units coming out. But -- and the rates helps, of course, interest rates cut, it helps. But we need to see consumer confidence coming back. We saw it dropped quite a lot in the first quarter this year, and we also saw the impact on the sales. So I think we need to see some economic growth in the different geographies. There's a lot of now initiative, Sweden as one example from the government to boost the growth, economic growth. And if that materialize, I'm sure we will see a different outlook in the future. But right now, we think it will take sometime. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Keivan Shirvanpour with SEB. Keivan Shirvanpour: I have 2 questions on CD. The first is that you lifted your outlook for the Nordics and Europe in Q3. What's your expectations on divestments going forward? Are you maybe optimistic for making some transactions before the end of the year? Jonas Rickberg: Okay. And as you all know, we don't guide here going forward. And right now, of course, we can see signs that, as I said earlier, when it comes to the leasing activities that is coming up and also that the transaction market is a little bit better with international players as well like this coming in and interesting to use the capital, so to say. So that was the main things why we are actually then increasing the outlook for the CD business here in Europe as well as in Nordic, I would say. Keivan Shirvanpour: Okay. And then my second question is related to the unrealized gains. First of all, the complete project that you have, you have unrealized gain, which is at 5%. And then for the ongoing projects, you have unrealized gains, which is up 20%. Could you maybe elaborate the difference? Jonas Rickberg: Sorry, once again, if you said that the unrealized in? Keivan Shirvanpour: Yes. Unrealized gains for the completed project is equivalent to 5%, but the unrealized gains for completed projects or ongoing projects is at 20%. Why is there such a difference? Jonas Rickberg: And that's, as I said, I mean, we had here the average of 10%, and that is then correlated to the fact that you are pointing out that we have a little bit older properties with lower, and then more new ones that is stable when it comes to the business cases and so on that is then generated the higher portfolio value there. Keivan Shirvanpour: Okay. So just -- maybe I'll follow up. So I assume that divestments that may occur from completed projects will potentially have quite low margins, potentially single digits, if I interpret that correctly based on that valuation. Jonas Rickberg: No. And as I said, I mean, we have the average here of 10%, and that is where we are communicating at the level right now. Operator: Our last question over the phone comes from Nicolas Mora with Morgan Stanley. Nicolas Mora: Just a couple of questions coming back on the U.S. First one on the order intake. You still seem to be struggling a little bit with the smaller projects, the one you account for below SEK 300 million. Is the market still soft there? There's just no real pickup in these small projects from either on the private side or the public side? That would be the first question. Second, on margins. So another very strong performance. All your peers are also doing better, especially, for example, in the U.S. civil works, but the Nordics peers as well have reported very strong results. Since everybody is being more disciplined, why not think about increasing the medium-term margin trend? You're getting very close to 4% now. Anders Danielsson: Yes. Thank you for that question. If I start with the U.S. order intake, the average size in the U.S. are larger than compared to Europe. So we would more proportionate more -- communicate more orders there compared to Europe. But I would not -- again, I would not look at a single quarter and compare it to -- last year was significantly higher -- unusually higher. And you should look more over time. And also, we are still on a 5 years average. And I think that's -- we have a very strong order backlog in U.S. as well. So I'm confident in that, and I can also see a strong pipeline. So I'm not worried about the situation. We can continue to be selective and go for projects where we can see a competitive advantage and we can go for higher margin. That's what we've been doing for several years now, and that's paying off, obviously. So that -- and if I look at the margin then, yes, we can see that it's increasing not only in U.S., we can see good margins in Europe as well. And we definitely -- we have been on the target level or above for some time now. And -- but the target is, as you know, 3.5% or above. And of course, I have no other view on it that we should maximize the profit from the operation. So -- but the target is still relevant. Nicolas Mora: Okay. And if I may, just following up on the question on data centers. I mean you -- obviously you said, I mean, these orders are lumpy. We should look at it over at least a 12-month basis. But if we -- indeed, if we look on a 12-month basis, it's been -- it's really been a dearth of projects in the U.S. in your sweet spot regionally and in terms of size, do you have an issue with your main customer? Or it's just basically bad luck on timing and things will pick up? I mean you say strong pipeline, but it's been now 5, 6 quarters with not much in terms of strong order intake. Anders Danielsson: Yes. But we have also communicated the last few quarters that some -- it's coming in new -- this data centers that needs to be cool and require more cooling. So sometimes we need to -- or the client needs to design the facilities to water cooling instead of air cooling and of course, that delays some of the projects. So I don't see any -- I haven't seen any cancellation. I have seen that some clients are postponing some projects due to the need for redesign. So I still -- I'm confident in that. Antonia Junelind: Very good. Then as far as I can see, there are no more questions from our online audience. Can you confirm that, George? Operator: That's correct. We have no more questions. Antonia Junelind: Perfect. And no more raised hands in the audience, or Stefan, you have one more question? Yes, sure. Stefan Erik Andersson: Just a follow-up there on the earlier question from SEB about the margin in the completed. When it comes to the projects that you -- over the last 2 years in the U.S. have written down the value on, I would imagine if you sell them to what you think is the market value, you wouldn't have any margin on those or -- so that's part of the explanation of the low margin or do I misinterpret that? Jonas Rickberg: No. But as I said earlier, sorry to repeat myself, I mean it's a full portfolio view we are looking into here and there is differences here between the older project and the new ones that we started and so on, and we don't give any guidance really for specific markets where we have the profitability, so to say. Stefan Erik Andersson: I fully understand that, but put it this way, when you write down the property value, you write it down, so you don't have any margin if you sell it, what you think you could get for it? I mean you don't write down and get the margin... Jonas Rickberg: Yes, correct. Correct. Antonia Junelind: Very good. So that was then the final question. Thank you, Anders, Jonas, for your presentations and answers here today. And thank you, everyone. Big audience in the room today. Thank you for coming here and joining us here today. And for those of you that have been watching, thank you so much for tuning in for this webcast and press conference. We will naturally be back with a new report in the fourth quarter. And even before then, as Anders mentioned here earlier, we are hosting our Capital Markets Day on November 18. So it will take place in Seattle. And if you can't join us there, we will also live stream part of the day on our web page. So turn into our IR pages there, and you will find the link, or reach out to myself or anyone else in the IR team. Thank you so much for watching. Have a lovely day.
Operator: Greetings, and welcome to the MFA Financial, Inc. Third Quarter 2025 Financial Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce Hal Schwartz, MFA Financial. Please go ahead. Harold Schwartz: Thank you, Rachelle, and good morning, everyone. The information discussed on this conference call today may contain or refer to forward-looking statements regarding MFA Financial, Inc., which reflect management's beliefs, expectations and assumptions as to MFA's future performance and operations. When used, statements that are not historical in nature, including those containing words such as will, believe, expect, anticipate, estimate, should, could, would or similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements speak only as of the date on which they are made. These types of statements are subject to various known and unknown risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other factors, including those described in MFA's annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2024, and other reports that it may file from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These risks, uncertainties and other factors could cause MFA's actual results to differ materially from those projected, expressed or implied in any forward-looking statements it makes. For additional information regarding MFA's use of forward-looking statements, please see the relevant disclosure in the press release announcing MFA's third quarter 2025 financial results. Thank you for your time. I would now like to turn this call over to MFA's CEO, Craig Knutson. Craig Knutson: Thank you, Hal. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for MFA Financial's Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. With me today are Bryan Wulfsohn, our President and Chief Investment Officer; Mike Roper, our Chief Financial Officer; and other members of our senior management team. MFA continued to execute on our business objectives during the third quarter and delivered a total economic return of 2.6% to shareholders. After my remarks this morning, Mike will provide details on our financial results, and then Bryan will discuss our portfolio activity, financing and Lima One before we open up the call to questions. For today's call, I will focus on a new slide that we've added to our earnings deck. This is Page 4, which lays out various actions we have taken to increase earnings and grow ROEs over the next year. Although we have previously mentioned some of these plans, we think it is important to highlight these initiatives in the aggregate as we believe that together, these programs will have a meaningful impact on MFA's earnings, returns on equity and dividend generation. The first initiative is higher capital deployment. Over the last several years, we have consistently operated with high levels of liquidity, often with over $300 million of unrestricted cash. This strategy was prudent, particularly during 2022 and 2023 when the bond market experienced extreme volatility against the backdrop of an unprecedented tightening cycle by the Fed and allowed us to capitalize on temporary market dislocations to add assets at attractive yields. During these years, we also executed on a liability strategy to create durable and non-mark-to-market financing for the vast majority of our assets, much of which was through securitizations. Also over this time, we began adding Agency MBS beginning in December of 2022. As we discussed at the time, we saw agencies as an attractive complement to our mortgage credit portfolio. In addition to providing very attractive returns, agencies significantly increased the liquidity of our overall portfolio and helped us manage the cash needs for margin calls on our interest rate swap hedge position. Fast forward to today, with increased clarity on the path of interest rates, lower market volatility, the increased portfolio liquidity provided by our agency portfolio and the predominance of non-mark-to-market financing on our loan portfolios, we have increased confidence to deploy more of our excess liquidity into our target asset classes, including an increased allocation to Agency MBS. Holding nearly 20% of our equity in cash has been a significant drag on earnings. While the 4-ish percent that we earn on cash is certainly better than the 0 we earned in 2021, it's more than 1,000 basis points less than the ROEs we generate in all other asset classes. Investing $100 million of this excess cash will still leave us with substantial liquidity, but the incremental earnings will have a meaningful and immediate impact on earnings and ROE. Finally, our ladder of outstanding securitizations is another potential source of additional capital. Because these securitizations delever over time, calling them and resecuritizing the underlying loan collateral often frees up tens of millions of dollars of capital to deploy into new assets, significantly boosting portfolio ROEs even if the new securitization deal comes with a higher cost of funds. We've shared progress over the last several quarters on our efforts to grow origination volumes at Lima One, and we're happy to report that we are starting to see these efforts bear fruit. We announced on our second quarter earnings call back in 2024 that we've made the decision to pause multifamily transitional lending at Lima One. We used this pause as an opportunity to initiate a comprehensive review of the multifamily underwriting guideline and processes. This review led to some changes, and we have recently hired a new multifamily leadership and underwriting team. In the last 1.5 years, multifamily seems to have found some footing with prices above the lows from early 2024, new construction starts down materially about 50% between 2024 and '25 and supply and demand in more balance. We are confident that the changes we have made have significantly strengthened our product offering, and we expect to resume multifamily lending in early 2026. During 2025, we have also made significant new hires to Lima's sales team, rolled out technology initiatives that materially improve the borrower experience, and we're planning to launch a wholesale origination channel next year as well. These initiatives take time to produce results, but we are confident that we have the right team, the right mindset and the right processes to produce quality loan production that we can now begin to scale. Business purpose loans generate some of the highest ROEs of all of MFA's target asset classes. So growth at Lima One into 2026 will contribute materially to MFA's earnings. Another initiative has been expense reductions. Over the last year, we've taken a hard look across all of our operating expenses, both at MFA and Lima One. While most of the significant reductions have been personnel related, we've also canceled or renegotiated many vendor contracts. As Mike stated on our last earnings call, our goal is to reduce run rate G&A expenses by 7% to 10% versus 2024 levels, which is about $9 million to $13 million a year or $0.02 to $0.04 per share per quarter. While we have realized a significant amount of savings already, we anticipate that additional savings will be realized throughout 2026 as many of these actions take time to be realized. A further initiative has been accelerating the resolution of nonperforming loans. These loans are across MFA's loan portfolio, but many are business purpose loans, including the aforementioned multifamily transitional loans. Our team has over 10 years of on-the-ground experience resolving nonperforming loans, dating back to 2014 and 2015 when we were large buyers of RPLs and NPLs from banks and the GSEs. We've been working closely with Lima One servicing professionals to resolve these loans, whether through loan sales, foreclosure and liquidation or other forms of asset resolution. And we've made significant progress. The multifamily transitional loan portfolio is almost half of what it was a year ago, and delinquent loans are down from $86 million to $47 million so far in 2025. Economically, losses associated with these loans were reflected in fair value marks when they emerged, which in most cases was over a year ago or more when these fair value marks flow through GAAP earnings and book value. But these nonperforming loans tie up a lot of capital. In some cases, these loans or REO properties may be unlevered, in which case, they are funded 100% with equity. In other cases, they may be funded partly with borrowing, but the advance rate on delinquent loans is generally lower than for performing loans. Additionally, we do not -- we generally do not recognize interest income on delinquent loans due to our nonaccrual policy. So the equity that we have tied up in nonperforming loans is a significant drag on our earnings and ROE. As we free up capital by resolving these problem assets, we can invest it in our target asset classes that generate mid- to high-teen ROEs. Finally, during the third quarter, we began a program to modestly modify our capital structure. Under our recently implemented preferred stock ATM program, we have issued additional shares of both our Series B and Series C preferred stock and used the proceeds to repurchase common stock at a significant discount to economic book value. While modest in size thus far, this is very accretive. And importantly, because we are issuing equity in the form of preferred stock, we are not shrinking our equity base despite repurchasing common stock. In the aggregate, we believe we are taking active measures to materially increase earnings and ROEs, and we expect to begin to see these results in 2026. And I'll now turn the call over to Mike to discuss our financial results. Michael Roper: Thanks, Craig, and good morning. At September 30, GAAP book value was $13.13 per share and economic book value was $13.69 per share. Each effectively unchanged from the end of June GAAP earnings of $48.1 million or $0.36 per basic common share. Net interest income was $56.8 million for the quarter, a modest decline driven primarily by the nonrecurring acceleration of discount accretion from the redemption of our MSR-related assets last quarter. As Craig mentioned, we continue to make progress with our expense reduction initiatives. Quarterly G&A expenses totaled $29 million, a $900,000 decline from $29.9 million last quarter and a $4.8 million decline from $33.8 million in the third quarter of 2024. Year-to-date G&A expenses were $92.4 million versus $103.9 million for the same period last year, a decline of approximately 11%. While we're proud of the savings achieved thus far, we continue to make progress on initiatives that we expect will bring additional savings in the back half of 2026. Distributable earnings for the third quarter were approximately $21 million or $0.20 per share, a decline from $0.24 per share in the second quarter. DE was again adversely impacted by credit losses on our loan portfolio, which totaled $0.11 per share for the quarter. DE, excluding these credit losses, declined modestly to $0.32 per share from $0.35 per share last quarter, a decline driven largely by the nonrecurring income in the second quarter on our MSR-related assets. Though we continue to expect some near-term pressure on our distributable earnings, as we made progress on the highly accretive strategic initiatives Craig spoke to earlier, we expect to see growth in our DE in the quarters ahead and continue to believe that our DE will reconverge with the level of our common dividend by mid-2026. Moving to our capital. During the quarter, we sold approximately 70,000 shares of our Series B preferred stock and approximately 125,000 shares of our Series C preferred stock for aggregate proceeds of approximately $4.5 million at a yield well below our common cost of capital. During the quarter, we repurchased approximately 500,000 shares of our common stock at a discount of approximately 27% to our economic book value. As we continue to execute on our strategic initiatives to grow earnings, we find the opportunity in MFA's common stock today to be extraordinarily compelling. Given current market conditions and the trading level of our common stock, we expect to continue to issue preferred shares and repurchase our common shares as a way to enhance returns to our shareholders without sacrificing scale. Finally, subsequent to quarter end, we estimate that our economic book value is up by approximately 1% from the end of the third quarter. I'd now like to turn the call over to Bryan, who will discuss our investment activities in the third quarter and our progress with Lima One. Bryan Wulfsohn: Thanks, Mike. We acquired $1.2 billion of loans and securities in our target asset classes during the third quarter. This included $453 million of non-QM loans, $473 million of agency securities and $260 million of loans originated by Lima One. I'll expand on the latter 2 in a moment. Our non-QM portfolio now exceeds $5 billion in size and remains our largest asset class. The loans we purchased during the quarter carry an average coupon of 7.6% and an LTV of only 68%, which we believe helps insulate us from a softer housing environment. We remain focused on the credit quality and maintain a robust diligence process, utilizing in-house resources in addition to independent third-party reviews. Credit performance in our non-QM book continues to be strong with a delinquency rate just over 4%. We issued our 19th and 20th non-QM securitizations during the quarter, selling $673 million of bonds at an average coupon of 5.4%. We've now securitized over $7 billion of non-QM paper since our first issuance in 2020. I want to thank our many investors who have consistently supported our deals. We grew our Agency MBS position to $2.2 billion during the third quarter, adding almost $500 million of securities. Spreads have tightened, but it remains possible to generate mid-teens ROE with leverage on these investments. We continue to focus on lower pay-up spec pools that provide additional prepayment protection than generic pools. Our portfolio is predominantly comprised of 5.5% purchased at a slight discount to par. Our portfolio interest rate exposure remained stable over the quarter with our duration decreasing slightly just under 1 year. As Craig mentioned earlier, we plan to invest our excess cash into our target assets, which includes agencies. Subsequent to quarter end, we acquired an additional $900 million of Agency securities, and we plan to marginally grow our position further while spreads remain attractive. Given the liquidity of our agency portfolio, we retain the flexibility to opportunistically rotate capital should credit spreads widen from here. Turning to Lima One. Lima originated $260 million of business purpose loans during the quarter, a 20% increase from the second quarter. This included $200 million of single-family transitional loans with an average coupon of over 10% and over $60 million of new rental loans with an average coupon of 7%. During the quarter, we sold $66 million of recently originated rental loans at a premium to third-party investors, generating $1.6 million gain-on-sale income. Lima overall contributed $5.6 million of mortgage banking income to our earnings. During the quarter, we made important progress in positioning Lima for growth. We hired new talent to help expand Lima's product offerings and origination channels, and we've continued adding to our sales team across the country. As Craig mentioned, Lima is planning to reenter the multifamily lending space in addition to opening up a wholesale channel focused on single-family rental lending. We are exploring partnerships with third-party investors interested in these credits to accelerate ROE growth. We believe these hires, along with further technology improvements will help support Lima's origination volume in future quarters. Finally, turning to our credit performance. The delinquency rate for our entire loan portfolio declined by 50 basis points to 6.8% in the third quarter. This was driven by decreases in nearly every asset class, including our multifamily book, where we sold $15 million of delinquent loans at levels in line with our marks from the prior quarter. Over the quarter, we resolved $223 million of nonperforming loans, generating a gain to our prior quarter marks of nearly $15 million. We are excited by the prospect of recycling all of that capital into income-producing assets moving forward. Wrapping up, we're excited about the growth prospects across our business and look forward to sharing our continued progress next quarter. And with that, we'll turn the call over to the operator for questions. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our first question today will come from Bose George with KBW. Bose George: [ Audio Gap ] run rate EAD. Should the starting point be $0.32 where we just basically pulling out that loss provision? And just to be clear, that loss provision is -- since that was already in the mark, that's not having an impact on your book value. Is that right? Michael Roper: Sorry, Bose, we didn't hear the first part of your question. Can you just repeat the question? Bose George: Sure. Yes, the first part -- actually, the cool question. The first part was the -- when we think about run rate EAD for the company, should the starting point be the $0.32, which is basically the $0.20 after pulling out the loss provision this quarter? And the second part is that loss provision is already reflected in the mark or just confirming that's the case. So there's no book value impact from these loss provisions. Michael Roper: Yes. Thanks, Bose. So I guess a couple of things. We strip out 100% of the losses in that $0.32 number. This is not a 0 loss business. So it's certainly heightened right now, but call it, $0.01 or $0.02 or maybe slightly north of that, certainly not $11. I think if you look at the initiatives Craig spoke to, there's a lot of ROE to be found there, right? And if you look at the lossless DE ROE, it's something like 9-ish percent. And then if you look at our dividend yield on book value, it's about 10%. So there's a lot of upside to be found in some of the initiatives Craig spoke to. And you can very, very cleanly bridge the gap between that sort of lossless DE today and where we think we can take DE to and the earnings potential of the portfolio. Bose George: Okay. Great. That's helpful. And then in terms of incremental capital deployment, you guys -- you noted the $100 million of excess. And how much capital is tied up in the delinquent loans? Like how much could that be in terms of incremental investment? Michael Roper: One sec Bose. So I think that could probably be somewhere in the magnitude of like $40 million to $60 million associated with the delinquent loans. And I think I maybe missed part of your previous question. Just to confirm, the losses that are flowing through DE, they've been reflected in book value, in some cases, years ago. We have about -- I think for the quarter, if you look at where it was marked last quarter and then where the asset resolved today, we had about a $15 million gain for the quarter associated with those resolutions. So these are really old news. And in many cases, they're actually positive to book value when they're being resolved. Bose George: Okay. Great. And yes, just on the incremental capital. So $150 million times whatever teens ROE is kind of the way to think about the incremental contribution -- I guess, net of -- on the $100 million net of the cash that you're earning is kind of the... Michael Roper: That's exactly right. Operator: And next, we'll move to Mikhail Goberman with Citizens JMP Securities. Mikhail Goberman: If I could ask about Lima One, originations were very strong there. What kind of margins are you guys seeing in that portfolio? And do you guys need sort of a higher level of margins to get that mortgage banking income quarterly up from the $5.6 million you did in this quarter to sort of, let's say, a higher single teen million dollar level? Bryan Wulfsohn: Yes. In terms of -- I mean, the margins are pretty healthy. So on the short term, you're collecting sort of 1 point to 2 points on origination and then you're additionally getting a servicing strip on the back end. So I think growth there will lead to increased mortgage banking income. On the loan sales related to the rental loans, those sell at generally, say, a 2 to 3.5 point premium. And then we're also collecting origination fees on those loans. So the margins are pretty healthy. I think there's just -- we just need to increase the volume of origination, which would drive that income growth. Mikhail Goberman: And that's ostensibly what the multifamily -- the move into multifamily is going to do, right? Bryan Wulfsohn: Right. The multifamily plus the wholesale. Mikhail Goberman: Right. Great. Maybe if I could ask one more about your Agency MBS capital allocation, how you guys are thinking about what that level might be going forward, what it might grow to? Bryan Wulfsohn: Yes. I mean in terms of the equity allocation, where we are today, we could see some marginal growth as sort of I stated in the prepared remarks, but we don't see it dramatically changing after this additional purchase of $900 million post quarter end. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Next, we'll move to Eric Hagen with BTIG. Eric Hagen: We thought it was a good quarter. The move to get back into multifamily at Lima One, can you say what the levered returns that you're seeing there are? And when you think about the credit box, I mean, have there been any meaningful changes or kind of like edits or tweaks to the credit box? And how you guys are just thinking about like the sustainability of the credit there? Bryan Wulfsohn: Sure. I mean in terms of ROEs, we think mid-teens ROEs are achievable. And we also said that we would utilize sort of third-party capital partners as well with that. So we don't necessarily need to take all the loans on our balance sheet. So what really it does do efficiently is help grow sort of the mortgage banking income line down at Lima One. And in terms of the types of assets that we're looking at, really, it's moving somewhat up in market and quality and then thinking more about bridge versus value add. Eric Hagen: Okay. That's interesting about the bridge. You guys talked about the agency portfolio. We really like what you guys are doing there. Can you talk about the range for leverage that you guys think you can tolerate in that portfolio? And then on the hedging, I mean, are you using any products which maybe help you better manage the liquidity in that portfolio versus some of the products or the kind of structure that you've operated with in the hedge portfolio in the past? Bryan Wulfsohn: So yes, from a leverage perspective, we're still -- we're not really targeting increasing that leverage. It's still around plus or minus 8. And then in terms of the hedges we use, we use cleared swaps as well as we started using these SOFR futures from ERIS. And they're similar in terms of economics as it relates to the cleared swaps. However, the initial margin is materially lower. So just as an example, we've added almost $300 million notional of hedges, but we moved some cleared swaps into the SOFR futures, and it reduces the initial margin by, say, $16 million, $17 million, and that can then be redeployed into a mid-teens ROE asset. So if you think about sort of unlocking earnings power of the portfolio, that's about, say, $2 million a year, just moving that. So it's pretty attractive. Operator: And at this time, there are no further questions. I would like to turn the floor back to Craig Knutson for additional closing remarks. Craig Knutson: Thank you, and thank you for your interest in MFA Financial. We look forward to speaking with you again in February when we announce fourth quarter and full year results. Operator: Thank you. That does conclude today's teleconference. We thank you for your participation. You may disconnect your lines at this time.
Operator: Thank you for standing by. My name is Tina, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the NACCO Industries Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Christy Kmetko with Investor Relations. Please go ahead. Christina Kmetko: Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for today's third quarter 2025 earnings call. I'm Christina Kmetko, and I oversee Investor Relations here at NACCO. I'm joined by our President and CEO, J.C. Butler; and our Senior Vice President and Controller, Elizabeth Loveman. Yesterday evening, we released our third quarter results and filed our 10-Q with the SEC. Both are available on our website for your reference. Before we get into the results, let me remind you that today's discussion will include forward-looking statements. As always, actual outcomes could differ materially due to various risks and uncertainties, which are outlined in our earnings release, 10-Q and other filings. We undertake no obligation to update these statements. We'll also be referencing certain non-GAAP metrics to give you a clear picture of how we think about our business. Reconciliations to GAAP can be found in the materials we posted online. Lastly, as a reminder, during the second quarter, we changed the names of our reportable segments. Coal Mining was renamed Utility Coal Mining. North American Mining is now Contract Mining and Minerals Management was renamed Minerals and Royalties. Segment composition and historical reporting are unchanged. With the housekeeping comments complete, I'll turn the call over to J.C. for his opening remarks. J.C.? John Butler: Thanks, Christy, and good morning, everyone. I'm happy to report that our third quarter operating profit of almost $7 million improved sequentially from very disappointing second quarter breakeven results. Our Q3 2025 EBITDA increased to $12.5 million, up from $9.3 million in Q2. This sequential increase was driven by improvements in all segments and demonstrates solid progress in growing our businesses and boosting our profitability. I'm pleased we were able to overcome most of last quarter's temporary operational challenges to deliver these solid third quarter results. Our Utility Coal Mining segment is the foundation of our business, anchored by our long-term mining contracts. We continue to have solid demand in our unconsolidated coal mining operations. However, Mississippi Lignite Mining Company's results continue to be impacted by contractual pricing mechanics that are creating a reduced per ton sales price. The team is working diligently to run the mine as efficiently as possible to meet demand while keeping costs at a minimum, but they cannot outrun the contract mechanics. We anticipate that this contractual pricing anomaly will begin to rectify itself as we move into 2026. In our Contract Mining segment, which is operated by North American Mining, tons delivered grew 20% year-over-year and 3% sequentially. Higher customer demand and improved margins at the mining operations led to substantial improvements in both year-over-year and sequential results. These improved results stem in part from contracts negotiated in recent years and other growth initiatives for this business. Our Contract Mining segment is our growth platform for mining and we continue to add long-term contracts to its expanding portfolio. We provide contract mining services for several of the top 10 U.S. producers of aggregates and our expanding pipeline of potential new deals is strong. We believe this positions our Contract Mining segment as a core driver of future growth. Just last week, North American Mining executed a multiyear contract to provide dragline services for an embankment dam construction project in Palm Beach County, Florida, that is expected to be accretive to earnings beginning in Q2 2026. We are excited about this contract as it advances our growth into large-scale infrastructure projects. It also provides an opportunity to showcase the efficiency and environmental advantages of the new electric drive MTECK draglines, a key factor in our selection for the project. These new MTECK draglines enhance efficiency and uptime for our customers. We're an exclusive dealer for MTECK draglines in all the 2 U.S. states. Turning to our Minerals and Royalties segment. Catapult completed a $4.2 million strategic acquisition in July, which expands our mineral interest in the Midland Basin. The acquisition includes a mix of producing wells as well as additional upside opportunities through future development with existing operators in that region. The Catapult team continues to look for additional investment growth opportunities that will be accretive to earnings. Mitigation resources, a strong reputation and clear competitive strengths are supporting continued expansion into new markets. Although the business continues to be variable in performance due to permit and project timing, it is expected to achieve full year profitability in 2026 and more consistent results over time as new projects are secured. Overall, I believe we are well positioned for meaningful growth. Our business model is built on long-term contracts and investments, delivering strong earnings and steady cash flows that will help us deliver compounding annuity-like returns over time. We followed this approach over the last decade and momentum continues to build. That's why I'm confident in these businesses and our ability to deliver solid 2025 fourth quarter operating results with continued progress into 2026 and beyond. Our long-term strategy is laid out in our latest investor presentation. A copy of that presentation is on our website, along with recording from the end of August when we attended an investor conference in Chicago. In this presentation, we explained how we have built a portfolio of strong businesses focused on compounding growth and we describe our strategies for achieving our long-term target of $150 million of annual EBITDA in the next 5 to 7 years. If you've not seen that presentation, I encourage you to review it after this call. With that, I'll turn the call over to Liz to provide a more detailed view of our financial results and outlook. Elizabeth Loveman: Thank you, J.C. I'll start with some high-level comments about our consolidated third quarter financial results compared to 2024. Then I'll discuss the results at our individual segments. Consolidated revenues were $76.6 million, up 24% year-over-year, while gross profit of $10 million improved 38%. While consolidated earnings improved sequentially, as J.C. mentioned, they decreased compared with the prior year third quarter due to the 2024 $13.6 million benefit from business interruption insurance recoveries. Our third quarter 2025 operating profit was $6.8 million, down from $19.7 million last year. Excluding the insurance recovery income, the underlying consolidated operational performance overall was stronger with a net improvement in operating results. Substantial year-over-year operating profit improvements in our Contract Mining and Minerals and Royalties segments more than offset lower results in the Utility Coal Mining segment and an increase in unallocated expenses. We reported third quarter 2025 net income of $13.3 million or $1.78 per share versus $15.6 million or $2.14 per share in 2024. Significant favorable tax effects in the current quarter helped minimize the decline in net income. EBITDA was $12.5 million versus $25.7 million for the same period last year. Moving to the individual segments. At the Utility Coal Mining segment, the decline in operating profit and segment adjusted EBITDA was primarily driven by the 2024 insurance recoveries that I've just mentioned. The underlying Mississippi Lignite Mining Company business results were also affected by a reduced contractually determined per ton sales price in 2025. Looking ahead, we anticipate steady customer demand for the remainder of 2025 and in 2026 at our unconsolidated mining operations. At Mississippi Lignite Mining Company, fourth quarter 2025 results are expected to improve over 2024 due to operational efficiencies. However, this improvement is not expected to offset the effect of the reduction in the 2025 contractually determined per ton sales price, causing Mississippi Lignite Mining Company and the Utility Coal Mining segment's 2025 full year results to decline compared with 2024. We expect improving profitability in 2026, driven by anticipated improvements at Mississippi Lignite Mining Company in both sales price and cost per ton delivered, particularly as the customers' power plant is able to operate more consistently and formula-based pricing improves as expected. In the Contract Mining segment, revenues net of reimbursed costs rose 22%, driven by higher customer demand and increased parts sales. Improved margins at the mining operations and increase of part sales and lower operating expenses led to significant increases in both operating profit and segment adjusted EBITDA. Operational efficiencies, partly offset by elevated operating expenses are expected to lead to improved 2025 fourth quarter profits in the Contract Mining segment with momentum accelerating into 2026. These factors, combined with earnings from the new contract J.C. mentioned, are expected to lead to a significant increase in year-over-year results. At the Minerals and Royalties segment, operating profit and segment adjusted EBITDA increased year-over-year, primarily due to an improvement in earnings from an equity investment and increased royalty revenues, mainly driven by higher natural gas prices. Looking forward, Minerals and Royalties operating profit and segment adjusted EBITDA for the 2025 fourth quarter are expected to decrease compared with 2024, primarily driven by current market expectations for natural gas and oil prices as well as development and production assumptions. While fourth quarter 2025 results are projected to decline, full year operating profit is expected to increase over 2024, excluding a $4.5 million gain on sale recognized in the 2024 second quarter. In 2026, operating profit is expected to increase modestly over 2025 as income from Catapult's newer investments is expected to be mostly offset by reductions in earnings from legacy assets. Overall, we anticipate consolidated operating profit for the 2025 fourth quarter to be comparable to the prior year quarter. Full year operating profit will be lower than 2024 due in part to the 2025 second quarter breakeven results. We're also terminating our pension plan during the fourth quarter, which will simplify our financial structure going forward. While the plan is overfunded, the termination will trigger a noncash settlement charge. The pension settlement charge and lower operating profit are expected to lead to a substantial year-over-year decrease in net income and EBITDA compared with the 2024 fourth quarter and full year. We expect meaningful year-over-year improvements in both operating profit and net income in 2026. From a liquidity standpoint, at September 30, we had total debt outstanding of $80.2 million, down from $95.5 million at June 30 and $99.5 million at December 31, 2024. Our total liquidity was $152 million, which consisted of $52.7 million of cash and $99.3 million of availability under our revolving credit facility. During the quarter, we paid $1.9 million in dividends. And as of September 30, 2025, we had $7.8 million remaining under our $20 million share repurchase program that expires at the end of 2025. We are forecasting up to $44 million in capital spending for the remainder of this year and up to $70 million in 2026. Most of this is earmarked for new business development. As our returns from previous investments start to materialize, we expect cash flows to improve over the prior year. In 2026, we expect cash flows to be comparable to 2025. With that, I'll hand it back to J.C. for closing remarks. John Butler: Thanks, Liz. To wrap up, I have a lot of confidence in our trajectory and our future. We are operating in an increasingly favorable environment. There is strong and growing demand for energy and for the products and services that we provide. Recent government support is also helping to strengthen all of our businesses. I believe the building blocks for durable compounding growth at NACCO are firmly in place. Our team is focused on execution, operational discipline and driving long-term returns for shareholders. We remain confident in our ability to deliver sound fourth quarter 2025 operating results with momentum building as we move into 2026. With that, we'll now turn to any questions you may have. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Doug Weiss with DSW Investments. Douglas Weiss: So congrats on a good quarter. I guess starting with the Contract Mining segment. If I just look in your financial filings, you ascribed about $200 million of asset value to that segment. So it looks like at the moment, the ROIC is a little below your targets of mid-teens ROIC. I'm just curious, is that a function of how the contracts were priced historically? And going forward, you think you've made changes that will address that? Or are there other factors you would point to? John Butler: Yes. Good question. I would say that there's a little bit of I guess I'd call it timing. There's both past and future in there. You've got assets that are attributed to projects that we're working on contracts we've got that are fully operational and delivering full levels of profitability. There's also assets in that segment with respect to things that are yet to deliver. We've talked about the long-term nature of these projects and they tend to be invest and then harvest kind of projects where if we do put capital upfront, it's because we're going to earn returns later. I guess that one place I would point in the Contract Mining segment is the Sawtooth mine in Northern Nevada, where we've agreed to commit some of the initial capital for equipment. We get repaid for that over time. But that project isn't going to really fire up and start delivering full levels of profitability until, I think, end of 2027 is when we expect to start delivering lithium. '28, '29, beyond that, I mean, this thing -- this is going to be a great project for us. So some of the capital that you're seeing in that total asset number includes things like that. I mentioned Sawtooth. It's not the only one. I guess the other one I'd point out is we just -- yesterday, was it yesterday we released the announcement about the [ FAO ] project? Elizabeth Loveman: Tuesday. John Butler: Tuesday. Two days ago already. We announced -- we issued a press release for a new project that we signed up in Florida, which we mentioned in our comments. We've got some capital committed there as well and that's going to start delivering profitability early next year. So it's a bit of a mismatch between the assets that are there and the current profitability of the business. In all honesty, I think that's -- given the way we're growing the business and continuing to grow the business with these long-term projects, I think there will probably always be a bit of this mismatch in those metrics when you look at them purely on a period basis. Liz, do you have anything you'd add to that? Elizabeth Loveman: No, I think that is a good description. John Butler: Does that make sense? Douglas Weiss: Okay. It does, it does. And then you've traditionally done dragline work, but you've -- Sawtooth, I believe, is surface work. And I'm curious, are the economics any different as you move outside of dragline? And do you have a desire to -- do you have a preference between those types of projects? John Butler: Well, let me get to the preference piece at the end because I've got to think about that. So the Contract Mining segment is really mining services for things that are not coal or not coal related to energy generation. And you're right, there's one piece of the business. 15 years ago, we called it Florida dragline operations and it was using draglines to mine aggregates that were underwater for aggregates producers. Over the last 10 years, we've been expanding that. But really, we can kind of do any kind of mining. When you think about the very comprehensive scope of what we do in our coal mining operation, we can run draglines. We can do truck shovel operations for people. We run virgin surface miners. And as you get to Sawtooth, we're going to run the entire mine. Now there's no dragline at Sawtooth and there won't be. But it's much more akin to one of our surface mines where we're doing everything from start to finish with respect to the mining. That's different than the dragline operations where we are just running a single piece of equipment. We're really happy to deliver whatever kind of services a customer needs. Really, our preference is that we find a partner that's a good long-term partner where we can really be an integrated part of their operations. When you think of all of those things that we do in the Contract Mining segment, we're part and parcel of what happens with each customer's project. And if that's running a dragline, that's fine. If it's running lots of equipment, that's fine, too. I would say that the more work we do at a given location, the more opportunities we have to get paid for our service since we really are, at the end of the day, a service company. But it's really more about finding the right partners and the right projects than having a strong preference for one model over the other. Happy to grow in any way. Elizabeth Loveman: I would also add that our fee would be commensurate. If we bring capital to the table, we would structure our fee to cover the cost of that capital. John Butler: Yes, that's fair. If we're operating somebody else's equipment, we're going to have a lower fee there. If we bring capital, obviously, we need to be compensated for the capital we're bringing. Good point, Liz. Douglas Weiss: Right. I mean, in terms of your new business development, do you have a sales force that -- like your typical person out there in the field, are they -- do you have people who are entirely focused on aggregate and people who are focused on non-aggregate opportunities? Or does everyone sort of cover everything? John Butler: We operate with sort of a one-team approach, very much a one-team approach. So anybody that's out in a business development effort knows that they have specific things that they can offer as well as comprehensive things they can offer because as a good example, the [indiscernible] project we just signed up in Florida, we're going to be operating draglines there to build this embankment. But to the extent that that project needs assistance or wants advice from any other part of the business, we'll be there in a heartbeat no matter whether they're in the environmental part of the business, Mitigation Resources or an expert from North American coal. So our business development people really are very well informed and well educated about the range of capabilities that we have. And we approach each project and each potential customer with kind of a -- it can be specific or it can be very broad in terms of what they need. Douglas Weiss: Okay. In the Utility Coal segment... John Butler: Sorry, just one more thing I would add. We think that that approach helps us identify and secure more projects than if we're very specific. If you're -- I don't really think of any of our people as salesmen given the long-term nature of it. I think it's more like business development. But we believe that if they're focusing broadly on solutions that we can provide for potential customers, we're more likely to come up with success as opposed to having somebody focused on one specific area, they might not be addressing the larger opportunities that might reside with that potential customer. Douglas Weiss: I mean, so if you were to just look out 5 years from today, I mean, I think today, you're predominantly aggregate mining plus Sawtooth and then you had the phosphate opportunity and this new opportunity. And maybe there are others that I'm not aware of. But if you look 5 to 10 years from now, would you see the business as more diversified? Or would you still see aggregates as the predominant end customer? John Butler: Well, you're really talking about the pie chart of what's the mix of business. I think 5, 10 years from now, the pie chart is going to be a lot bigger. We're going to have a lot more projects given the opportunities that we're seeing on the horizon. And I would just add that as we expand the areas of the country where we operate and we expand the range of equipment and the customers we have, well, that just creates more opportunities to touch people and get to know people in various areas. So I think we're going to see an increasing range of opportunities just because we're operating in more areas. I think that the aggregates piece is going to continue to be a substantial part of the business. We operate equipment for some of the very largest aggregates producers in the United States and we continue to find new business for them. So I think that's going to continue to grow. I also think that we're going to continue to find more opportunities, perhaps even an increasing pace of new opportunities that are broader than just mining aggregates for aggregates production. You look at the [ Fail ] contract, I mean, it's kind of got one foot in both camps because in one respect, we're going to use a dragline to excavate aggregates, but the aggregate is going to be used to build this embankment dam. And it's really more of a civil earthworks project than it is delivering aggregates to an aggregates producer that's selling them for construction and cement and other things. So I think that's introducing a new market to us that we're very excited about. This happens to be a similar force project that we use as a dragline, but we now have our toe in a market where we could put the full range of skills that we have to work and find new opportunities. So I think -- I mean, I've got actually a fair amount of confidence that 5 to 10 years from now, you're going to see a lot more things inside this contract mining business than we're doing today. But I still think the limestone business is going to be a very important piece of that, given the strength of the customers that we work with. Douglas Weiss: Okay. Sounds good. Let's see. On the Utility Coal segment, you've had this pricing agreement that has pressured this year's results. In the K, you describes what sounds like a similar contractual structure in the unconsolidated operations. I'm just curious, obviously, those are doing well. So I'm just curious how those 2 contracts differ and if there's any risk on the unconsolidated? John Butler: You're asking about the difference between the unconsolidated mines and Red Hills? Yes. Douglas Weiss: [Indiscernible]. Yes. John Butler: Entirely different contract structures. The unconsolidated mines are purely fee-for-service. The customers pay 100% of the cost at a mine and they provide all the capital in one form or another, either through guaranteeing loans or funding us directly. And we collect a fee for every ton of coal that we deliver. So it's purely a service business. At the MLMC, Mississippi Lignite Mine Company Red Hills mine, that is a -- that's a more traditional contract generally. We own all the capital. We pay all the costs. Where it's a little different than a typical mining contract is the price that we sell the coal for is not market price. It's a price that's determined by a contractual formula. And this formula was devised in 1994, '95, long before any of us were involved. It's got very particular mechanics with respect to how we are able to charge for the coal that we deliver related to the change in indices, a basket of indices over time that reflect inputs that are used in mining. Think about things like diesel fuel and tires and labor. And so it's this set of indices that match those things and you look how those change over time, both over a 1-year and 5-year period. And then you do a bunch of math. And we're going through a period right now where if you think about 5 years ago, right, 5 years ago was November of 2020, we were going through all the whipsaws of index indices related to COVID. And so we're seeing the 5-year lookback piece of the formula sort of jerking us around. At the same time, you've got lower diesel prices. So it's an entirely different contract structure. I guess I would point out that, look, the operating profit can get beat up by this. I tend to look at EBITDA for this contract because even though we've spent a lot of capital in the past, that contract expires in 2032. So we're really kind of putting a lot more capital in there. So I think the EBITDA with respect to that mine and actually the whole segment is a better metric for me to watch. Douglas Weiss: Right. No, that makes sense. I guess what I was curious about is it sounds like the unconsolidated is just a fairly straightforward inflation adjuster. In other words, you just -- in terms of what fees you pay. John Butler: It's CPI and PPI for the most part. Maybe there's some other indices, but it's -- fee basically goes up by CPI and PPI. Douglas Weiss: Okay. Got it. Got it. You had a little bit of a larger-than-normal unallocated expense line this quarter. Could you say why that was up? Elizabeth Loveman: Yes. There's a few things in there that are causing that increase, mainly employee-related and there's 2 components to that. We had higher medical expenses. And we also had our share-based compensation. We had an increase in our share price if you look year-over-year. So when you include that component into our incentive compensation calculation, purely because of the increase in share price, we're going to have a higher incentive compensation expense. And we also had higher business development expenses running through the quarter. Douglas Weiss: Okay. Okay. Are you still moving ahead with your solar project? John Butler: Yes. Yes. We are working pretty diligently right now on getting those projects that are in the pipeline safe harbored for tax credit purposes. But yes, we're working on those very diligently. Douglas Weiss: And so it sounds like you're looking at multiple locations now for those? John Butler: Yes. Douglas Weiss: Okay. Let's see. That might be all I have. Well, I appreciate all the good work and it really seems like things are moving in the right direction. John Butler: Well, we appreciate your continuing interest and your great questions. Operator: There are no further questions in queue. I'll turn the call back over to Christina. Christina Kmetko: All right. With that, we'll conclude. Before we do, I'd like to provide a few reminders. A replay of our call will be available online later this morning. We'll also post a transcript on our website when it becomes available. If you do have any questions, please reach out to me. My number is in our press release, and I hope you enjoy the rest of your day. I'll turn it back to Tina to conclude the call. Operator: As Christina said, an audio recording of this event will be available later this evening via the Echo replay platform. To access the platform by phone, playback ID is 728-4609 followed by the # key. This replay will expire on Thursday, November 13, at 11:59 p.m. Thank you for joining us today. This does conclude today's conference call. You may now disconnect.
Operator: Greetings, and welcome to the Primerica Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Nicole Russell, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead. Nicole Russell: Thank you, Melissa, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Primerica's third quarter earnings call. A copy of our press release issued last night, along with other materials relevant to today's call are posted on the Investor Relations section of our website. Joining our call today are our Chief Executive Officer, Glenn Williams; and our Chief Financial Officer, Tracy Tan. Our comments this morning may contain forward-looking statements in accordance with the safe harbor provisions of the Securities Litigation Reform Act. We assume no obligation to update these statements to reflect new information and refer you to our most recent Form 10-K filing as may be modified by subsequent Forms 10-Q for a list of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to materially differ from those expressed or implied. We will also reference certain non-GAAP measures, which we believe provide additional insight into the company's financial results. Reconciliations of non-GAAP measures to their respective GAAP numbers are included in our earnings press release. I would now like to turn the call over to Glenn. Glenn Williams: Thank you, Nicole, and good morning, everyone. Primerica delivered solid earnings growth and generated strong cash flows during the third quarter of 2025, underscoring the resilience of our business model and consistent execution as our clients gradually adapt to economic headwinds. Our complementary product lines have proven to be a key advantage and powerful differentiator, while our sales force's commitment to serving middle-income families continues to set us apart. Starting with a snapshot of third quarter financial results. Adjusted net operating income was $206 million, up 7% year-over-year, while diluted adjusted operating EPS increased 11% to $6.33. We remain disciplined in our capital deployment strategy and returned a total of $163 million to stockholders through a combination of $129 million in share repurchases and $34 million in regular dividends during the quarter for a total of $479 million returned year-to-date. Looking more closely at our distribution results, both recruiting and licensing were down compared to the prior year period, which benefited from elevated post-convention activity. However, current levels remain healthy relative to historical trends in nonconvention years. During the quarter, more than 101,000 recruits became part of Primerica and nearly 12,500 people obtained a new life license, positioning us to end the year at around 153,000 life license representatives. This projection is slightly above last year's record level. Looking at our life sales results. During the quarter, we issued 79,379 new Term Life policies, down 15% year-over-year compared to record performance in the prior year period. Those policies contributed $27 billion in new protection for our clients for a total of $967 billion of in-force coverage. Productivity at 0.17 policies per rep per month was below our historical range, driven by a combination of lower life sales and continued growth of our life sales force over the last 12 months. As we close out the year, we project the total number of policies issued in 2025 to decline around 10% compared to 2024's record-setting pace. Lower life sales are largely driven by cost of living pressures in the middle market. However, our conviction in the future potential for our life business remains unchanged. Primerica is well positioned to reach and serve middle-income families, one of the largest and most underserved market segments. We're working toward improving productivity on several fronts. First, we continue to improve the accessibility and appeal of our Term Life products. Our next generation of products recently received approval for sale in the state of New York. For all U.S. states in Canada, we continue to work toward more convenient and faster underwriting and issue processes to make sales simpler for our reps and clients. In addition, we've introduced improved life product training for newer representatives with the goal of positively impacting their productivity. In the coming months, we will evaluate the effectiveness on productivity of this training alongside increased focus by field leadership with expectations of a positive impact. Moving to our ISP segment, where results continue to outpace our guidance. Sales grew 28% year-over-year to a record $3.7 billion during the third quarter of 2025. We continue to see strong demand for all product categories, including managed accounts, variable annuities and U.S. and Canadian mutual funds. Net inflows for the quarter were $363 million, comparing favorably to $255 million in the prior year period, while client asset values ended the quarter at $127 billion, up 14% year-over-year. Over the last few years, we've made meaningful improvements to our platform and fund offering, including the addition of over 50 new investment portfolios. In Canada, the principal distributor model continues to be well received and is driving strong sales. We believe demand for investment solutions will continue to benefit from inflows as the baby boomer and Gen X populations prepare for retirement. Given the strength in the equity markets and continued momentum, we expect full year ISP sales to grow around 20% in 2025. Through our mortgage business, supported by more than 3,450 licensed representatives, we remain well positioned to help middle-income families obtain a new mortgage or refinance to consolidate consumer debt. We're now licensed to do business in 37 states with the recent addition of South Carolina. Year-to-date, we've closed nearly $370 million in U.S. mortgage volume, up 34% compared to the first 9 months of 2024. We also have a mortgage referral program in Canada, bringing refinancing and new mortgages to our clients there. As 2026 approaches, we're laying the foundation for strong momentum by launching a series of major regional field events in the spring. Our goal is to build excitement and field engagement as we move toward our 50th anniversary convention in 2027, a milestone we're proud to share with our sales force. We remain focused as we close 2025 and look forward to the exciting opportunities ahead. With that, I'll hand it over to Tracy for the financial results. Tracy Tan: Thank you, Glenn, and good morning, everyone. Our third quarter financial results were strong across all segments, giving us confidence that we're well positioned to end 2025 with solid year-over-year growth in both revenues and earnings. Starting with Term Life segment. Third quarter revenues of $463 million rose 3% year-over-year, driven by a 5% increase in adjusted direct premiums. Pretax income was $173 million compared to $178 million in the prior year period, down 3% year-over-year. Results during the quarter included a $23 million remeasurement gain compared to a $28 million gain in the prior year period. Excluding the impact of these remeasurement gains, pretax income remains largely unchanged. As required under LDTI accounting, we completed our annual review of actuarial assumptions and made certain changes to our long-term assumptions, which resulted in a $23 million remeasurement gain in the current period. And the largest portion of the gain was from mortality assumption change, reflecting favorable trends observed since the pandemic in addition to a positive experience variance from the quarter. As a reminder, the prior year period included a remeasurement gain of $28 million, primarily driven by an adjustment to our best estimate assumptions for the disability incident rate under our waiver of premium rider. Persistency remained stable on a year-over-year basis in aggregate, although lapses remained above our long-term LDTI assumptions. We believe that our clients are resilient over the long term and value our services and products. Based on historical trends, we expect persistency to normalize as clients adapt to the evolving economic environment. As a result, we did not make a change to our long-term lapse assumptions during the recent review cycle. Turning next to our key financial ratios. Excluding the impact of the remeasurement gain, the Term Life margin at 22% and the benefits and claims ratio at 58.3% remains consistent with our guidance. Our other key financial ratios also remained stable with the DAC amortization and insurance commissions ratio at 12.2% and the insurance expense ratio at 7.5%. Given the size of our in-force block and the stable nature of our Term Life business, we maintain our full year guidance to the ADP growth at around 5%. After revising our updated mortality assumptions, we expect the benefits and claims ratio to remain stable at around 58% in the fourth quarter. Guidance for the DAC amortization and insurance commissions ratio remains unchanged at around 12% and the operating margin at around 21% for the quarter with expectation for some accelerated technology investments to support growth. This will result in full year operating margin above 22%. I will provide full year guidance for 2026 in February. Turning next to the results of our Investment and Savings Products segment, which continued to perform well on the strength of robust sales momentum and increasing client asset values. Third quarter operating revenues of $319 million increased 20% from prior year period, while pretax income rose 18% to $94 million. Sales-based revenues increased 23%, slightly outpacing the 20% increase in commissionable sales, primarily driven by strong demand for variable annuities. Asset-based revenues increased 21% year-over-year compared to a 14% increase in average client asset values as we continue to benefit from a mix shift due to customer demand for products on which we earn higher asset-based commissions, namely U.S. managed accounts and Canadian mutual funds sold under the principal distributor model. Sales commissions for both sales and asset-based products increased relatively in line with revenues. In the Corporate and Other Distributed Products segment, we recorded pretax adjusted operating income of $3.8 million during the quarter compared to a pretax loss of $5.7 million in the prior year period. The year-over-year change is due to higher net investment income, primarily from growth in the size of the portfolio and a $5.2 million remeasurement loss on the closed block of business in the prior year period. Finally, consolidated insurance and other operating expenses were $151 million during the quarter, up 4% year-over-year. The growth in expenses was driven by a combination of higher variable growth-related costs in the ISP segment and to a lesser degree, in the Term Life segment as well as higher employee-related costs. We continue to see year-over-year growth in technology investments and anticipate some acceleration as we move towards the fourth quarter. We expect fourth quarter expenses to grow around 6% to 8%, resulting in full year growth towards the lower end of our original guidance of 6% to 8% as we have realized expense savings that offset some of the investments we made this year. Our invested asset portfolio remains well diversified with a duration of 5.4% up -- 5.4 years and an average quality of A. The average rate on new investment purchases in our life companies was 5.25% for the quarter with an average rating of A plus. The net unrealized loss in our portfolio continued to improve, ending the September quarter with a net unrealized loss of $116 million. We believe that the remaining unrealized loss is a function of interest rates and not due to underlying credit concerns, and we have the intent and ability to hold these investments until maturity. We continue to generate strong cash driven by the superior growth of our fee-based ISP business and the steady premium contribution from our large in-force block of insurance policies. Our holding company ended the quarter with $370 million in cash and invested assets. Primerica Life's estimated RBC ratio was 515%. We have plans to increase capital release from our insurance companies in the fourth quarter and to continue our effective capital conversion for the long run. We are confident in our strong capital position to fund growth initiatives, absorb economic volatility and to provide superior return on equity to our stockholders. With that, operator, please open the line for questions. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Joel Hurwitz with Dowling & Partners. Joel Hurwitz: Tracy, I just wanted to start with your last comments there on the planned capital drawdown from the insurance entity. Just can you elaborate on what you're expecting in the fourth quarter and then maybe going forward? Tracy Tan: Yes. Good morning, Joel. Our capital position remains a very strong, particularly because of the excellent cash generation from our in-force block. And in the third quarter, we also had a really nice improvement on profitability from our statutory entities, and that's part of the reason why the RBC got higher. And from a cash generation standpoint, the continued strength of our profitability on the Term Life being consistent and being resilient is a big part of why the RBC ratio continued to be very strong. And as you know, that our ability to take the cash out of the life business is really based on the regulatory conditions as a limitation of how much you can take out as a percent of or limited by the prior fiscal year income. So we are taking maximum amount out as we speak. However, in the fourth quarter, we do have plans to increase that conversion from our insurance entities. The specific plan clearly will help us reduce that RBC ratio and while keeping a strong enough ratio above 400% to help support the growth. And as we continue to anticipate a growth for the long run for life insurance business, we know when the growth pace start to pick up, it's going to consume more cash because of how the cash flow is more front-loaded for a policy issuance. So that is part of our long-term plan. But for the fourth quarter, we have actions in place that could possibly include in the long run, looking at how dividend can be converted out, not excluding special dividend, but also including some other actions that we are putting in place to certainly increase that conversion rate. I hope that helps answer your question. Joel Hurwitz: Yes. No, that's helpful. I look forward to seeing what you do in Q4. Maybe shifting for my second one, shifting to the term sales. Can you just help unpack, I guess, sort of what you're seeing and what you think the drivers of the weaker sales relative to your prior expectations? Is this all cost of living? Or are you starting to see other headwinds emerge that are impacting sales? Glenn Williams: Joel, we think it's primarily cost of living and other general uncertainties. It seems like every day, there's something new about the future that's unknown that you thought you do the day before. And so it's -- as far as we can tell, it's all external. As I said in my prepared remarks. Obviously, we don't want to just be victims of the environment. We want to push back as hard as we can. So as we look at making our processes easier and faster, I had some conversations with some of our reps yesterday about the difficulties in the marketplace. And they're saying the conversations are taking longer. Clients are having to dig deeper into their budgets to reprioritize because their budgets are tighter. And so the discussions take longer. The decisions are harder for clients and we want to be able to work through that with them. We're not going to just say, okay, thanks, we'll check with you when things get better. And so that's part of the training process we were talking about earlier is to help our reps have those conversations with clients that can get them deeper into their budgets for prioritization, understanding the importance of protection in their family of putting in force and keeping in force. But there's still that uncertainty out there that has people in a wait-and-see mode in general. And I pulled our kind of an informal poll of a number of our reps that were in yesterday for a training session and said, how many feel like it's harder to make a life insurance sale this year than last year because of the economic and social circumstances around they all raised their hand. They said, life has gotten harder, investments for those clients that have money has gotten easier. And so I think what we're seeing is the result of the path of least resistance. And we've seen that before in our business when one line of business goes up and another one struggles a little bit, and then it turns around in future years. Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Jack Matten with BMO Capital Markets. Francis Matten: First one on the ISP business. Just wondering if you could talk about the sustainability of these kind of strong sales growth levels. And certainly, the VA or RILA market has been a tailwind. But I also do think of you all is having some structural advantages given your kind of built-in customer base. I know you've been adding new products and funds. So just curious, bringing it all together, whether there's kind of like an underlying kind of growth rate we should think about over time? Glenn Williams: Yes. As we look forward, Jack, we do -- we are pleased that we see the growth across the product lines. So we've seen strong growth of mutual funds, variable annuities, managed accounts, Canadian business and that breadth gives us -- adds to our confidence that this is a trend that probably has some legs. That said, a sudden turn in the market, a lot of discussion out there about is the market higher than it should be? Is the correction out on the horizon. Those are the types of things that can really turn this momentum around, again, far beyond our ability to control them. But the fundamentals of the breadth, the fundamentals that I mentioned in my prepared remarks of the demographics long term, we think there's true growth opportunities here. It might be a little choppier than it's been in 2025 if the market starts to reverse direction on us in a significant way or for an extended period of time. So I think we just have to keep that in mind, but the fundamentals are sound in that business. Francis Matten: Got it. Makes sense. And just a follow up on the cash flow outlook. I guess, are you suggesting that there is like the potential to have maybe like a structural improvement in your cash flow conversion ratio over time? Or were your comments more related just to this year where you've had better experience and so maybe more cash flow coming out and then it normalizes heading into next year? Tracy Tan: Jack, so on cash performance, what I would comment about is the question in terms of cash conversion was more specific about cash conversion out of life insurance business to the holdco, where the RBC ratio is. I think we have plans in the fourth quarter to improve that conversion, even though that conversion is largely limited by the statutory requirement. We do have plans that could help improve that conversion. Now in terms of a long-term cash flow generation, I think we're very confident of the ability to generate very positive cash flow. First and foremost, is that our fee business has been really outperforming in terms of the ability to generate cash and that conversion continues to be very strong. And we have very good momentum on those fee business growth beyond just what the market normal growth rate is. And as we look at our growth rate on these businesses, we've been outperforming the market in the comparatives. So that generation has been very strong, and that gives us a very good long-term potential from the fee business cash generation when I look at -- in the longer term, when I'm looking at more 4, 5 year out. At the same time, our Term Life is an extraordinarily important business that produces very consistent strong cash flow because of how big the in-force block is and how consistent that business performs. If you look at the margins, it doesn't really vary all that much more than 200 basis points. So combined, our total business profitability is very, very sound at over 20%, if you look at the overall profitability. So the consistency, the resilience and our ability to just convert the cash from subs into holdco and our ability to return from holdco to the stockholders. I mean, we've been performing at around 79% -- 80% capital return to stockholders, which really is superior to the health and life performance. And you look at our conversion from our subs of insurance to our holdco is around 80% and some years higher possibly, and that's also superior to our peers. So overall, our cash performance has been fantastic. And that's why that's also part of -- in the long run, look at our ROE performance at $0.30 return on $1 of investment, that's also superior to many peers as well. So overall, we're confident about our ability to generate cash and our ability to return good amount of cash back to the stockholders in various ways. Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Ryan Krueger with KBW. Ryan Krueger: I had a question on the 21% margin in the fourth quarter in Term Life. You had mentioned some higher investments. Can you elaborate on what you're doing there to start? Tracy Tan: Yes, Ryan. So our -- yes, our Term Life performance has been relatively consistent. Really, when we look at the ratios, they don't really vary more than 50 basis points much at all. Some quarters, there is a little bit of a pattern, maybe higher than the other quarters due to just the spending patterns. So in terms of looking at the fourth quarter, we do have some activities of accelerated technology investments that will be continuously supporting our growth potential from the front end. And if you look at the overall ratio on the Term Life business, it's pretty steady. If I look at the benefit, I look at the DAC ratio and look at the expense ratio, they're very consistent overall on a total year basis to our guidance. And the margin for the year is going to be well over 22% as well for the total year. Now in terms of fourth quarter, we do believe that some of this acceleration is specifically targeted addressing our front-end productivity side of the improvement purposes that makes the rep journey easier, and that will continue to be a focus of ours to support the technology side of the improvement and the digital marketing and then the reps and the clients' experience. I hope that answers your question, Ryan. Ryan Krueger: Yes, it does. And then the follow-up was in the ISP business, your net fee rate has been kind of gradually trending up for the last several quarters. Is there any specific thing that's driving that? I know you are growing the managed account platform more, which I wonder if maybe that has slightly higher revenue rates. But is that -- can you give any color on what's driving that and if this trend may continue going forward? Tracy Tan: Yes, Ryan, this is a great observation. I think certainly, on the ISP side, we do have a mix shift because of the client demand. And this is particularly driven by where the highest growth rates are. If you look at our -- the growth rate on managed account, it significantly outpaces most of the other categories and then variable annuity, as an example, also outpaces the other categories. All of those on a relatively basis, compared to mutual fund, they have higher from a margin and the variable side of the story, it's a little bit of a higher ending trend that pushes some of the improvement you see on the ISP business. Now again, as we talked about from previously when Jack even talked about the variable annuities there on the tailwind, I will say that some of this certainly has the impact of where the interest rate is that pushes people to try to capitalize on the opportunity to lock in higher rates. But secondarily, more importantly, is the demographic shift of people to Glenn's point, preparing for retirement as well as certain need to avoid the volatility possibly from equity market standpoint. All of those help push our good performance on the ISP rates and margins. Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Wilma Burdis with Raymond James. Wilma Jackson Burdis: Do you guys expect any forward impact from the assumption review? And maybe you can just walk me through this a little bit, but how is the assumption review so outsized given the 90% mortality reinsurance? Tracy Tan: Wilma, our assumption review in the third quarter generated $23 million of remeasurement gain. In relative terms, it is still a small percent when we consider reinsurance. And that's actually on the comparative speaking terms of size, if we didn't have reinsurance, this would have been several times bigger of an adjustment number. So looking at our overall mortality performance, we've been experiencing very good mortality for several years since middle of 2022. So we took a portion of that profit -- of that improvement and adjusted our long-term best assumptions. Now to your point, what the size would have been, well, without the reinsurance treaties and the size of that 90% YRT that we reinsure, this would have been several times larger of a number. So this $23 million total remeasurement gain in the third quarter is a very, very small percent in terms of what the size could have been. Hopefully, that helps answer the question. Wilma Jackson Burdis: Yes. And I realize you guys have given quite a bit of color on the Term Life sales. But I guess I'm just wondering what might change the trajectory of those sales. I've been looking at your recent surveys on households, and I'm not seeing that the trends appear sharply worse than they have in some of the recent results. So I'm just wondering if there's anything else that might contribute to the pressure that could potentially run off nearer term? Glenn Williams: Yes, Wilma, you're right. Fortunately, we have seen kind of some flattening of the increases in cost of living. As we talk to our reps and our clients and survey them, we find that the cumulative effect is still causing some struggles. So while it's not getting worse as fast, it's not getting better very fast either. But we do believe that clients are adapting. Over time, people become accustomed to where they are. I'm not going to say they like it, but they become accustomed to it and learn to deal with it. And that's where we've often seen these types of pressures start to ebb some is after a period of time. But clearly, it's better if we can have household incomes really start to gain some ground. The prices aren't going to come down significantly, I don't think, but it's household income catching up that will help us get out of this. We are seeing some of that begin to happen. I think it just takes time to get some traction. And fortunately, we've seen this kind of dynamic in the past. So we believe, number one, it is a temporary situation and that we can take some actions to help clients work their way through it because we've seen it before. If you look at our history as an almost 16-year-old public company, we've had a number of years where we see this exact dynamic that recruiting and life insurances down and investments is up. We've seen other years where recruiting and life insurance is up and investments is down, and we've seen a lot of years, which is what we strive for, where everything is up at the same time. So it's not unprecedented by any means. It's probably a little more severe than we've seen in probably 15 years or so and taking a little longer to get out of it. And then I would say there are also what we've termed government policy uncertainties that other things in life that aren't directly financial, there's everything from the government shutdown. And we've got federal employees on furlough right now that are saying, well, let's wait until this is over before we make a buying decision. So there's just an unusual amount of uncertainty to add to the financial pressure. But again, we think it's temporary, and we eventually will get out of it, and we think we can take some actions to work through it and sort of turn the tide along the way. Wilma Jackson Burdis: Can I squeeze one more? Glenn Williams: Go ahead. Wilma Jackson Burdis: Okay. Is there anything that you think is going to change near term for your customer base? So I know that there's some different tax impacts that are coming in next year. Is there anything like that, that you see on the horizon that could provide some relief? Glenn Williams: Wilma, not anything that we have enough confidence in to count on. I mean we always keep our ear to the ground on the types of decisions that might be made at government policy level or taxation level that will be helpful for the middle market. And you're right, there are some discussions out there that might provide some relief and that kind of thing. We want to build a plan about what we can control. And then if we get some breaks that are beyond our control, it will just be icing on the cake. So we're not counting on those to turn the direction, but we do know there are all types of discussions going on because I think everyone recognizes the pressure that middle-income families are under. There's a universal agreement, I think, among all the divisions in our 2 countries where we do business right now is that middle-income families are under a significant amount of pressure. So hopefully, there would be some relief that would give us a tailwind. Operator: Our next question comes from the line of John Barnidge with Piper Sandler. John Barnidge: Cost of living headwinds, I think the competition is clearly with space in your core customers' wallet. It's been talked about that rates are going lower -- it's also been talked about rates are going lower for seemingly longer time as well. But with the refinancing of a mortgage, when that does occur, how much on average do you save the consumer versus the average life policy premium? Glenn Williams: I can give you some directional answers, John. I don't have the averages at my fingertips. We can maybe follow up with you on that. But you're exactly right. Another area of uncertainty is the direction of interest rates. I think the entire mortgage industry has been struggling with that for a while. We assume for a long time they were going to come down and then they did and they actually went the other direction. And I think that's common among all in that business. When we help a family refinance in addition to their mortgage, we are also looking at their consumer debt, which is generally at a much higher rate -- interest rate than their mortgage and trying to bring all that in together to maximize their savings. When we're able to do that, we also can adjust the term as needed to make things affordable or to accelerate, which is what we'd rather do, accelerate their payment. But generally, when we help a family on the mortgage side, it frees up more than the cost of a life insurance policy. And it actually can, where appropriate, not only provide them the funding for that, but also to get a systematic investment plan started. And that's the reason that we like that business. I've said many times, we get approached all the time by people product providers wanting us to load additional products into our distribution system and more products tend to cannibalize existing products. And so we're very resistant to that. I think the product that doesn't do that is a refinance of a mortgage where we can lower the average interest rate and pull in those consumer debts that are at high interest rates and high payments, and then we can get the clients on better financial ground. So that's one of the reasons that we think that business is important. As you know, it's a highly regulated business. So we've got a significant licensing process to take people through to enter the business. And then it's also highly regulated as you transact the business. So it's a more complicated and sophisticated business. And so it will move at a slower pace in our growth than us being able to add on Term Life Insurance representatives. But you've hit directly on why we love that business is because it does free up money for clients to get on a better financial footing. John Barnidge: My follow-up question, do you track the amount of sales maybe on Term Life in any given year to government employees? I'm just trying to get a size of how much your total addressable market is directly impacted by the shutdown in 4Q as the revised or the Term Life guidance for the year suggests acceleration in the decline of Term Life policies issued? Glenn Williams: Yes, John, I wouldn't attribute the government shutdown specifically to a change or magnifying a change in the fourth quarter. I just use it as another level of uncertainty that we're dealing with. I mean we don't target government employees, but we cover a slice of the middle market that includes everything that's out there. And so there are government employees included in that. And it's just one more level of uncertainty that our reps have to deal with to get around. So I don't think it's the difference maker. It's just one more issue that I would add to the list. Again, I don't have the percentage of our clients that are government employees at my fingertips either. But I wouldn't attribute everything that happened in the fourth quarter to that. I would just say the uncertainty continues to be a headwind for us. Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Dan Bergman with TD Cowen. Daniel Bergman: To start, I guess, it sounds like with the 50th year anniversary coming up, the next convention was pushed out to 2027 instead of the typical biannual pattern. In the prepared remarks, I believe you mentioned a number of field events next year instead. So just given that the convention typically drives outsized sales force and new business momentum, I was just hoping you could provide more color on your plans for next year and whether the events are expected to offset the lack of a convention. Just -- and I guess just with the -- will the timing of these events drive any change in your typical seasonal pattern of sales and recruiting as we look into next year? Glenn Williams: Sure. You've read that exactly right. We moved the convention out for 2 reasons. One was it does coincide with our 50th anniversary being in '27. The other reason was because of the World Cup in 2026, you can't rent a stadium in the U.S. or Canada. And so it was convenient that it gave us a reason to push it out and have a payoff there that it does sync up with our 50th anniversary. But we do recognize the importance of those events and generating momentum and excitement and casting a vision for our business. So we certainly didn't want to go for another year in '26 without big events, but we also didn't want to compete with the '27 convention. It had to be big enough a plan to make a difference, small enough not to take anything away from the drive we have going already to the '27 convention. So working with our field leaders, we ran a play that we've run in the past. It's probably been more than a decade. But it's regional events, 5 locations, 3 in the U.S., 2 in Canada that will run in the spring, starting at the end of April for the first one, and we have one every week or every other week through the first week in June. So it's during the second quarter, it's a little earlier than our convention. That was intentional to give us more benefit during the year by getting them out there a little earlier. We wanted to avoid the kickoff of the year because we still do encourage all of our teams to have a big kickoff and engage quickly at the beginning of the year. We didn't want to step on that. We wanted to get beyond bad weather for travel. And so that's the reason we chose the spring. It was really early in the year as possible. So these will not be the size of our convention, but if you add them all together, they should be as big as our convention, is the thinking in attendance. And so we'll treat them differently. It will not be as long an event. It's a Friday afternoon, evening, Saturday event as opposed to a 4-day event, so people can get in and out more easily. Geographically being closer, we think it makes it more convenient and less expensive for people to attend. And we have another events that we've consolidated to offset the expense of doing these. So we're doing it kind of virtually an expense-neutral plan for our events budget next year by doing it this way. We're going virtual with some of our other events to make these live events possible. So we're excited about it. It's something that hasn't been done in a while. It should have the type of the impact we would expect around the convention. Remember, the convention is not just the event itself that drives momentum. It's the incentives that we announce and use around the convention. We use the convention as a platform to announce those incentives, and it's the combination of those 2. So we'll be doing a slightly smaller version of that. We'll have some incentives in play around these 5 events. We'll use this big stage as a recognition platform. We have people competing right now to be recognized on those stages. That's always an important driver of our business. And so we think in combination, this gives us an opportunity to really come off of what has been a slow year compared to the previous year in our distribution and life business, add some momentum to those 2 businesses and continue to maximize the momentum in our ISP business as we head into '26. Daniel Bergman: Got it. Very, very helpful. And then maybe just following up on the earlier questions around the rise in your RBC ratio so far this year. Is there any way to break down the drivers further? I guess, specifically, how much of the improved capital generation has been due to strong in-force earnings versus less capital strains from the lower level of life sales? I guess what I'm trying to understand is if life sales do remain somewhat subdued for a period of time, could this allow for an ongoing outsized level of dividends for the holding company and ultimately, share repurchases to help offset this slower sales trends for a period of time. So any way to size that or how you're thinking about that would be great. Tracy Tan: Dan, in terms of the RBC ratio being higher, obviously, one of the reasons is the higher profitability and income generated from the statutory side. Clearly, the statutory side of the cash impact is one of the reasons why RBC ratios are higher, but still primarily the reason is the overall ability to convert the cash out based on the regulatory restrictions of the 12-month rolling combined cash you can take out as an example, not exceeding prior statutory income. So as our income gets to be higher in the future period than the prior period combined, and you're limited to how much you can take out. So just by continually improving profitability on the statutory basis, as an example, there is a possibility of cash generating more than what your prior profitability combined would allow you to take out. That being part of the reason, we clearly are looking at the plans that we're going to putting in action in fourth quarter to help us be able to convert more cash out. And you will see when we get into the fourth quarter, how those actions take place. And to your point, the faster growth of the Term Life business will consume more cash than when it's at a slower pace. And that's part of the reason why when we look at the future rates that we want to keep for RBC, we always want to have a little bit of a cushion should when we get towards the 50th anniversary as the excitement starts to build and the momentum start to get stronger, we wanted to make sure that there is sufficient cash in place to capture that growth potential. Currently, we're on relatively lower growth speed compared to prior year because it was at such a record pace. But if you look at it on the longer 20-year term, 30-year term, our growth is still at pretty consistently good levels. Just the fact that last year was higher doesn't necessarily say the current growth is somewhat really unseen in the past. So that being said, that's part of what's driving our decisions on how much we keep in those entities and how much we take out. But in the long run, I think we have anticipation of keeping at relatively high historical level conversion. Some periods could even possibly exceed what we've seen historical ratios. But overall, I think we're confident and to keep at that very high-end performance in all the peer -- compared to all the peer sectors being able to continue that relatively predictable trend in terms of the ratios that we predict and use. Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Mark Hughes with Truist Securities. Mark Hughes: Excellent. The asset-based revenue, you point out that has been growing faster than the underlying [Technical Difficulty]. Operator: Mr. Hughes, it seems like... Mark Hughes: Different categories. But is that -- should that sustain a positive trend? Glenn Williams: Mark, we lost you for the entire middle part of your question. Would you mind restating? Mark Hughes: Trend continue. Glenn Williams: Mark, we're only getting 2 or 3 words out of that. I apologize. I don't know if you've got a bad speaker or what, but we're only hearing every other word or so of your question, so it's not coming through. Mark Hughes: Yes. Can you hear me now, Glenn? Is this... Glenn Williams: Yes, that's much better. Much better, much better. Mark Hughes: Okay. All right. Appreciate that. Be a faster growth in asset-based revenue relative to assets, is there any reason that should -- that trend should not continue? Glenn Williams: I think, as Tracy said, it's driven by product mix and our managed account business and then also the principal distributor model in Canada, which has similar dynamics. Both are kind of our -- some of our fastest-growing product lines. They're smaller. And so on a percentage basis, they tend to grow faster, but they're also beginning to catch up in the overall mix. So we would expect, barring some unforeseen disturbance that, that should have some legs and should continue. You're right. That direction is not something we anticipate would change. Mark Hughes: Yes. And then, Tracy, the YRT ceded premiums, if you look at those relative to adjusted direct premiums, those have been moving up, that ratio has been moving up. What is the update on how that should trend over the next year or so? Will it just continue that upward drift? And again, this is YRT ceded premiums as a percentage of adjusted direct premiums in Term Life? Tracy Tan: Mark, I think the YRT ceded premium as compared to the adjusted direct premium is because for those life policies, as the insured age, the ceded premium start to creep up to cover for the higher mortality risk. So when you look at it, you actually don't want to look at it in its silo. You want to add it to the -- actually the benefit cost. So when you combine those as a percent of ADP's relatively steady. That's how you want to look at it. Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Suneet Kamath with Jefferies. Suneet Kamath: First question, just on the assumption update. Tracy, you had mentioned that you took a portion of the mortality or favorable mortality that you're seeing and put it through your assumptions. I'm not expecting a specific answer, but can you give a rough sense of like what proportion of the favorable mortality you put inside? Was it half? Was it 20%? Just a rough estimate would be helpful. Tracy Tan: Suneet, so our mortality performance since 2024, middle of that year has been consistently favorable. We had thought that it was possibly a pull forward from the pandemic increased unfavorable mortality experience and that it would end at some point, but we continue to see that consistently. It's been reasonably good size of favorability. So we took a portion of it. In terms of what the proportion is, I think the theory really is that we believe our best estimate assumption is that we've taken the portion that we think for the long run, it's the best estimate on what the mortality experience would be in the long-term trend. So if we had thought that it needs to be higher, we would have taken it in our assumption review. So this is our -- truly our best estimate. In terms of what we could expect for the future, I would say that because we have had favorable experience possibly bigger than what we've taken, so it wouldn't be unlikely that we might have some favorable period claims and mortality favorable experiences from period to period. But long-term trend, we have taken our best estimate on what that trend would be. Suneet Kamath: Got it. And just -- again, I don't want to box you into a corner, but is it like 20%, 25% of what you'd expect -- what you think just more than half? Just trying to get a sense of size. Tracy Tan: Yes. So that's a great question. The challenge really is there's a lot of complications of really deciphering the mortality performance on the cohorts and what that predictable trend, what cohort is a predictable trend for the long run. So I think that what our combined study looking at our experience really tells us this truly is the best estimate. So the future is uncertain. We believe that the portion we've taken truly represent what the long-term trend would be given our best estimate. So the period variance that we will experience, we'll continue to monitor and size that if that continue to be a pattern that we think becomes a long-term trend at that point, then we will recognize that if that were to come true. Suneet Kamath: Okay. That's fair. And I guess my second question, just on the annuity sales. So we've seen sales volumes increase for both you and the industry. Now some of that could be driven by just higher markets as essentially 401(k) rollover -- 401(k) asset balances are higher and so the rollovers are higher. So another way to think about growth would be growth in the number of contracts that you write. So I'm just wondering if you have any data on that. And then sort of relatedly, Glenn, do you think you're increasing the total addressable market for the annuity business? Or are you effectively selling products to the existing customer base, so you're seeing a lot of exchange activity? Any color on that would be helpful. Glenn Williams: Sure. Don't have specific stats, but I can give you some directional answers on that, Suneet. The annuity business is attractive. Again, some of it is a demographic change. I think Tracy mentioned it in an earlier answer. The demographic direction, the aging demographics, people have accumulated some amount of money, and they are looking for ways to preserve that in uncertain times or expecting volatile markets down the road. And so the guarantees within variable annuities, the floors that are created and the guaranteed income coming out of them are what makes them attractive. And as we've said before, our product providers have done a great job in making those products as attractive as actuarially possible. So they've done well there. Changes in interest rates and their ability to provide those guarantees may be adjusted. So it's -- nothing is forever, but I think the product providers have done a good job of making their products attractive. I think our salespeople have used that to both help existing clients as well as be referred out to other clients. So we are seeing not only larger transactions, but increasing transaction volume. And we believe that's coming not only from our existing clients where we would be able to see a move if it was out of one of our products into a variable annuity, but we have existing clients who have assets elsewhere outside of Primerica that bring them to Primerica to join the other assets that we already have with them. We see some of that. And we see brand-new clients as well as those satisfied clients as happens throughout the industry refer us to others. So we're getting some of all of what you described, Suneet, that's driving that business. Operator: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes our Q&A session and will conclude our call today. We thank you for your interest and participation. You may now disconnect your lines.
Operator: Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Alaris Q3 2025 Earnings Release Conference. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Amanda Frazer, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead. Amanda Frazer: Thank you, Tanya. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today to discuss our Q3, 2025 results. I'm joined on the call by Steve King, our President and CEO. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that all financial figures discussed are in Canadian dollars unless otherwise indicated. Please note that some comments made during this call may include forward-looking statements. These statements are based on current assumptions and involve risks and uncertainties, so actual results may differ materially. For more detailed information on the factors, assumptions and risks involved, please refer to our press release issued last night and the management discussion and analysis under the headings Forward-Looking Statements and risk factors available on SEDAR @sedarplus.com and on our website. We will also be referencing certain non-IFRS financial measures, which may be presented differently than similar measures by other companies. Additional information and reconciliations related to these measures can be found in the press release and the MD&A. With that out of the way, let's turn to the highlight. Alaris delivered a record quarter in Q3 2025, underscoring the consistency of our model and the strength of our partner portfolio, we achieved strong fair value gains, solid recurring partner distributions and expanded our long-term revenue base through capital deployment. Net book value per unit increased 6% from last quarter to $25.10, a record high reflecting $1.90 per unit of earnings and comprehensive income, another Alaris record, which included a $0.41 per unit foreign exchange recovery, partially offset by the $0.34 quarterly distribution. Year-to-date, NCIB repurchases added approximately $0.06 per unit as we repurchased and canceled 465,000 units at an average price of $18.87, enhancing per unit value while maintaining balance sheet flexibility. Total revenue and operating income rose 7.8% compared to Q3 2024 supported by a $47.9 million net unrealized fair value gain across 9 investments, offset by a decline in 2. These fair value adjustments are noncash, but they reflect the underlying earnings growth and continued value creation within our partner base. Partner revenue exceeded guidance coming in at $58.1 million, which included $57.4 million in distributions and $700,000 in management and transaction fees. Fee increase was driven by new investments McCoy and follow-on in Carey, as well as higher-than-expected common distributions. Preferred distributions increased 7.3% in Q3 and 6% year-to-date, totaling $40.7 million and $120.8 million, respectively. While common distributions were, as expected, lower year-over-year. Notably, fleet's $10.3 million common dividend this quarter versus USD 14.7 million last year. The annualized yield on preferred capital remained strong at approximately 12%, highlighting the portfolio's continued ability to generate steady cash flow. Total return on invested capital was 6.6% for the quarter and 13.3% year-to-date, reflecting both strong reoccurring cash yields and improved valuation. Alaris' net distributable cash flow decreased 26% in Q3 and 14% year-to-date, largely due to the notable variability of common distributions, the timing of cash tax payments and transaction costs. Underlying portfolio cash generation remains solid and in line with expectations. Our payout ratio was 48% for the quarter and 50% year-to-date, both below our target range of 65% to 70%. Since conservative level provides flexibility to fund reinvestment and debt repayment, while sustaining unitholder distributions. Alaris generated free cash flow after distributions of $21.9 million in Q3 and $38.9 million year-to-date prior to the NCIB repurchases. In the quarter, we deployed $32.2 million including an initial USD 27 million investment in McCoy and a USD 5.2 million follow-on investment in Carey. Subsequent to the quarter end, we invested an additional USD 20.5 million into Cresa supporting their strategic acquisition. These deployments bring total capital invested year-to-date to approximately $228 million, reflecting continued demand for Alaris' Capital Solutions. Our portfolio fundamentals remain strong, with the majority of partners continuing to deliver year-over-year revenue and EBITDA growth. With a weighted average earnings coverage ratio of 1.5x and 13 of 21 partners maintaining either no debt or less than 1x senior debt to EBITDA, emphasizing strong balance sheets and stable earnings coverage. Looking forward, we expect Q4 partner revenue of approximately $43.5 million. This includes our previous estimate for FMP, although we continue to evaluate the impact of the ongoing U.S. government shutdown. FMP remains well positioned with a surplus of cash on the balance sheet and undrawn senior credit facility. The guidance also reflects lower expectations for GWM, while we continue to evaluate the longer-term impact to the 12-month cash flows and the navigation of GWM's banking covenants. And on that note, I'll turn it over to Steve for his comments. Stephen King: Great. Thanks, Amanda, and thanks, everybody, for tuning in. Obviously, very pleased with our record quarter that we've just published. As you can see, our portfolio is larger, more diversified and performing better than it ever has in our 21-year history. We've added another $1.50 in book value. Our coverage ratios remain near all-time highs. Debt levels remain extremely low and the nature of our businesses have been largely unaffected by tariffs or inflationary pressures. Having 19 out of our 21 partners performing at or above the expectations is exceptional for any private equity portfolio. Our payout ratio, even with the announced dividend increase remains below our target, leaving more upside for dividend increases in the coming year. Deployment outlook continues to be extremely vibrant. Alaris will shatter our previous record for deployment in this calendar year, and the outlook heading into 2026 remains very strong. Our unique structure, which delivers the majority of our return and low volatility cash payments allows us to be more confident and successful in environments, where traditional private equity, which relies on high debt levels and buoyant exit multiples are retreating. 2026 also promises to be a year, where some of our planned exits are scheduled to begin Alaris investors are already seeing the outsized returns coming from our common equity positions in our book value increases, and we expect to display some crystallization of some of these positions over the next 12 to 26 months and those won't just further grow our book value, but it will also be a huge part of funding our continued deployment into new quality companies. So Tanya, I'll open it up to questions, if you want to take them right now. Operator: [Operator Instructions] And our first question will be coming from Gary Ho of Desjardins Capital Markets. Gary Ho: Maybe just starting off with the Edgewater. It's just pretty sizable USD 18.5 million fair value gain. Maybe can you give us an update on kind of some of the contract wins? How does the rate reset look? I know anything nuclear-related trades at a pretty healthy multiples today? Just wondering how you're evaluating the equity piece of that business. Amanda Frazer: Yes. In the quarter, the contract win definitely played into the increase in value. Also, there was a decrease in the discount rate for that company. It's grown substantially since we initially invested. And with its continued growth in this contract, the business is now triple what it was when we initially invested. So that played into the company's overall discount rate as well as this increased outlook with regards to the contract. Also reset expectations on the press were updated this quarter and that played some role in the go-forward cash expectations and valuation on the preferred shares. I don't know, Steve, you'd like to expand? Stephen King: Yes. I mean the contract that they won was very much a transformational win for them. This has already been a very successful investment for us, but this new contract has taken that to a much higher level. And there's another contract that they are getting on that would be even larger than that, actually with the same group. So you're right, Gary. I mean, the nuclear space is a great space to be in, both from a defense and from an energy perspective. So it is a very hot space for private equity trading at very high multiples. And with the growth rate that Edgewater is putting up here, and this would be a very, very sought after asset when it eventually does transact. Gary Ho: Okay. Great. And then on the flip side, I just wanted to hear some comments on the GWM. It sounds like they're impacted by lower ad spending environment in the U.S. Can you provide some maybe outlook for when the turnaround could be? And any debt in that business? Just remind us. Stephen King: Yes. So I actually spent a day with GWM at their headquarters this week. So I'm pretty fresh on what's happening there, and they remain a very confident group -- they believe that they will pay us in full in 2026. And there have been some -- some pretty fundamental changes in that industry. So macro changes in addition to the economic environment, which you noted, just in the programmatic media space, there's been a few new entrants, including Amazon that has disrupted the space and made people change their patterns. So GWM is very confident that they can kind of adapt to the new environment. They've got a very good backlog of new contracts. And it's really cementing those contracts and continuing to add, but they do have some debt on their balance sheet, not a ton, but they do have some debt. So that always makes us more conservative, when we're dealing with these things in our book value and in our guidance. But certainly, kind of the feeling from GWM management is that they'll be able to pull through this. Gary Ho: Okay. Great. Maybe I can sneak 1 more in. Steve, it's good to see the recent capital deployment into a new partner and some follow-ons as well. How is the pipeline looking as we kind of sit here today, timing-wise as well, how far along in some of these could you look to transact? Stephen King: We're very far along in more transactions before year-end. So we do expect to be busy. That's why I made the comment about shattering our previous records. Those are very close by. In terms of McCoy, a new partner, they are a roofing company out of Omaha, Nebraska. Obviously, Nebraska being in the storm belt in the U.S., particularly Hail. So being a roofer in that market is very lucrative a normal roof will last about 20 years in Nebraska. It lasts about 7. So great young management team that is hungry and growing quickly. We've got the best reputation for ethics and how they treat their customers in the market. So we're very proud to be partnered with them, and they're super excited to keep growing. I think this 1 will see not just organic growth, but acquisition growth as well. And once you get up to a critical mass of size, that kind of a company is also going to trade at a very nice multiple. Gary Ho: Okay. And then just the dry powder at the quarter end, is it roughly USD 150 million out of McCoy? Amanda Frazer: Yes, I think, we're at about USD 160 million. Operator: Okay. And our next question will be coming from David Pierse of Raymond James. David Pierse: Just on GWM, is your increase on core run rate revenue in your 12-month outlook for them? Or is there some... Amanda Frazer: So we've reflected that there's -- we have our expectations in the payment or in Q4 we continue to evaluate what the additional 9 months will look like. Our expectation is there would be some level of payment over the 12-month period, especially in that later 9 months, first 9 months of 2026, but we continue to work with the company and the lenders to evaluate what that looks like. Stephen King: Yes. My sense from talking to them is that they may need some short-term flexibility in terms of kind of paying in -- kind for partial amounts for a couple of months. But we'll see how it plays out. But as I mentioned, they do expect to pay in full for the year. David Pierse: Okay. That's helpful. And then -- to increase the distribution -- last one. I'm curious, what's the change in rationale behind the capital allocation? Obviously, that's the first distribution increase we've seen a few years. So just your thoughts on that. Stephen King: Yes. We're not ruling out more share buybacks. I think, as I mentioned, we're going to likely see some exits in the coming months, and that will put us in a position to buy back more shares. But we're growing quickly. Our cost of equity is not keeping up with the lowering cost of debt and not keeping up, quite frankly, with the fundamentals of our business. So we thought it would be prudent to increase the dividend at this point. And if you look back at our trading history as a public company, we've always traded above book value until post COVID and pre-COVID we had a very, very set dividend growth strategy. And so, we're going to get back to that and see if that can help the cost of our equity because with our growing deployment. You look out down the road, there may be a situation in the next year or 2, where we might have to raise some equity. And I think having a higher share price and a growth multiple attached to us like we've had in our past is prudent for our investors, if we can -- we can keep on growing as we can, and that's absolutely my expectation. Amanda Frazer: We've always been committed to increasing the dividend with our growth proportionate to our cash flows. And with -- even with the NCIB, we would remain below that 65% to 70% target. Having our payout ratio dip below, I think we're at 40-some-percent for the quarter, even lower as we continue to grow, just was not in line with our overall business strategy. David Pierse: Helpful. And then maybe if I can 1 more. Sono Bello, I think stopped paying in time this quarter. It looks like cash flow has improved. What's driving that? Is that better expense management or demand starting to recover a bit? Amanda Frazer: Sorry, could you just repeat that? David Pierse: Just on Sono Bello, I think they stopped paying in time this quarter. Cash flow has improved. Just what's driving that? Is it better [indiscernible] coming back? Just your thoughts there, please? Stephen King: Yes. Sono Bello is doing extremely well. They're well above budget in the last 6 months and setting records. There are new Contour division, which is the breast augmentation that is added on to liposuction and skin tightening and tummy tuck is now doing better than expected. So yes, very good tailwinds there with Sono Bello, and we expect that to continue. Operator: And our next question will come from Zachary Evershed of National Bank Capital Markets. Zachary Evershed: Is that -- as we get close to the end of 2025, you're looking at shattering the all-time record for deployments, how are you thinking about deployment guidance for next year, though? Stephen King: Yes, almost impossible to say. I mean, all I can tell you is that the environment right now has probably never been better. There's a few factors for that. As I mentioned, traditional private equity is in a very kind of tempered place right now, I guess, we'll be saying it nicely. They're not aggressive. A lot of them are having a lot of difficulty raising capital. So we're seeing them having retreated a little bit multiples are a little more same. And the other factor is you'll see us do some Canadian deals here for the first time in 6 or 7 years. And I would also say that the political environment has led to some very good Canadian companies referring to deal with other Canadians. And we're quite proud to be adding some Canadian partners we're proud Canadians. And obviously, that hit home with us. So a few different different things. But in terms of next year, we only have about 3 months of visibility on our deployment. So I can tell you the next 3 months are extremely good, probably the best in our history. But after that, it really will depend on what kind of opportunities we decide to pursue after that. But I'll add on to that because our portfolio is growing. We're just going to have more follow-on deployment as well in '26. We do have several companies that are acquisitive. So I believe that part of our business will continue to grow as well. Zachary Evershed: Happy to hear it. And then for FMP, you guys previously made reference to about $1.2 million in distributions in the run rate. What's the plan for them these days? Amanda Frazer: The $1.2 million of distributions remains in the run rate. We collected a small amount of distributions in the quarter from FMP. With the government shutdown, we both concluded that it would be prudent for them to just hold on to that capital until the government opens back up and contracts are back up and running. So we don't expect a change to expectation at this point, but we continue to evaluate how long and the impacts of the government shutdown on both FMP and broader. Jeff Fenwick: Fair enough. And then for Ohana, how's the membership trending so far in Q4? Is that more of a Q3 story or ongoing? Stephen King: In terms of the 1 click, yes, it seems to be stable. They're really trying to find the happy ground there to have more new people join because it's easier to cancel versus some people hitting the easy button and canceling. So it was expected that, that would be a short-term phenomenon of people that had a chance now to just click cancel that maybe were too lazy to do it otherwise. And I think that's coming true. In general, we're super happy with Ohana, the fundamentals of that business are very strong. I think we're going to be looking at likely a price increase on the Black Card membership, which is about 2/3 of our members, which will also cycle through over the next couple of years. The acquisition that we did in Michigan is super strong, good synergies there. It's a higher-margin clubs than what we had in the past. And we are seeing some good acquisition -- some other acquisition opportunities there as well. So a really strong investment for us. Zachary Evershed: And then I think you guys mostly addressed this, but I'll just ask it head-on again. How are you thinking about balancing new deployments versus buying back shares under book value? Are you guys looking at that through an IRR lens cost capital lens? Stephen King: Yes. It's an IRR lens. The deals that we're doing and the deals that we have are extremely high opportunities. So that's where our focus is, as we have excess capital from exits, I think you'll see a two-pronged approach. But yes, we're adding some very high expected IRR situations into our portfolio. So that's by far the best use of our capital right now. Zachary Evershed: Could you comment on how recent deal IRRs compared to your historical average? Stephen King: Well, it's tough to compare because our historical average, we didn't have common equity in the structures. So on our typical prep-IRR expectations, they would be kind of high-teens to 20%. Now with the structures that we have, we're looking at in terms of mid-20s, blended IRR, so 20% on the prefs and typically around 30% on the common. So if not higher. So yes, our return profile has gone up considerably. We don't think our risk profile has. We're still protected by the exact same rates and remedies through our prefs that we always have been -- these are low to no leverage companies with a long track record, and they're choosing us because they want to keep more upside and keep control. So the alignment is much better than any other kind of structure out there. So yes, it's a very good time for us. Operator: And our next question will be coming from Bart Dziarski of Research Analyst. Bart Dziarski: RBC Capital Markets. Question around fleet. So a 2-parter here. The distributions were down 30% over a year, and then there was a quarter-on-quarter 11% fair value increase. So can you just maybe help us understand those 2 -- what drove those 2 dynamics? Amanda Frazer: Yes. The common distribution is always going to be variable. The distribution was within our expectations from basically the forecast from last year. So there was no surprise in that decrease. The previous year, fleet had a significant amount of cash flow on the balance sheet. And a fantastic year overall. The increase in fleet valuation is driven by just the outlook and growth in the business overall as well as there -- sorry, I just... Stephen King: The one thing I'd say about fleet is and the difference between our prefs distributions that are common is that the pref is very structured and known, whereas the common is completely up to the Board of Directors of each individual company. So fleet, even though their performance is very strong, had other needs for their capital to fund their growth. So the distribution was down year-over-year even though their performance was not. Amanda Frazer: I'm sorry, I just -- came back to me. In addition to the growth in the business and the forecast driving that fair value increase during the quarter, there was also a small redemption by the company of the final amount of shares outstanding to a founder. We completed a transaction a few years ago, which transfer that business into the hands of management. And as part of that transaction, there was a small redemption right, in the agreement that was exercised and the company repurchased and canceled those shares, which has led to a small increase in our overall ownership and that's also reflected in the fair value. Bart Dziarski: So was a lower discount rate as well? Or no, that didn't... Amanda Frazer: Just driven by market factors, so just market movement with overall interest rate and risk-free rate declines, nothing specific to the company's board. Bart Dziarski: Okay. Okay. Got it. And then -- just a follow-up question around kind of capital allocation. So you're sounding pretty bullish around exits for, call it, the next 12-ish months and funding NCIB. So should we be thinking that the NCIB can also ramp up here? Or -- or is that not the case? Stephen King: So is the NCIB being ramped up? Bart Dziarski: Yes. Their share buybacks? Stephen King: Yes. So no, I think for the time being anyway, in the short term, the focus is really going to be on funding new investments. But yes, I think there's lots of room here for a good mix of funding deployment, NCIBs or SIBs and also further dividend increases. Operator: Our next question will be coming from Trevor Reynolds of Acumen Capital. Trevor Reynolds: Most of the questions have been answered. But just in terms of the deployment opportunities that you're seeing here, would these primarily be new opportunities or add-ons? Stephen King: Yes. We've got some new opportunities in the short term. But as I mentioned, we're -- you can expect some add-ons over the next 12 months as well. We've probably got 5 or 6 companies in our portfolio that continue to be quite acquisitive and have opportunities for us. So it's a great way to grow very low-risk deployment for us. But yes, in the very short term, you can probably expect some new partners. Trevor Reynolds: Okay. And then it sounds as though the exit timing has maybe move forward a little bit on a few names here just based on the commentary quarter-over-quarter. Is that accurate? Would this be the same names that were kind of previously expected to undergo exits? Stephen King: Yes, same names. I think ramping things up for the first half of next year in terms of a couple of exits is the game plan. Obviously, no guarantees on that. It will depend on the market environment and the process, but that's the plan. So we're excited about that because we've got some situations that I think will surprise the market on the upside in terms of what kind of returns we're getting. Trevor Reynolds: Okay. Great. And then FMP, you mentioned returning to payments. potentially next year? Like would that include catch-up payments for those missed? Or is it just kind of starting off at a base level? Amanda Frazer: No. We had $1.2 million in the outlook for FMP. That amount remains in there. They will return to payments gradually. And as they recover, we can evaluate any catch-up payments. I think there'll be some -- like we did with SCR, just renegotiation of how that catch-up and how those partial payments are scheduled to play out over a few year period. Trevor Reynolds: Okay. Great. And last one, is there any update on Heritage? Stephen King: Sorry, on what heritage here -- nothing substantial. They're cash flow positive. They're performing well. We've got our consultant, our former partner that's consulting for us in there, very active almost on a daily basis. The management team is doing everything asked of them. They've just had a nice new contract win, which was super positive. So yes, happy there, but nothing dramatic Operator: I'm showing no further questions at this time. I would like to turn the call back to Steve King, President and CEO, for closing remarks. Stephen King: Thanks, Tanya. Thanks, everybody, for your questions and for tuning in. As always, if you have anything further, please contact Amanda and I directly. And we look forward to new news in the near term and another great quarter for year-end. Thanks very much. Operator: And this concludes today's program. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.
Operator: Good day, and welcome to the Nexstar Media Group's Third Quarter 2025 Conference Call. Today's call is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to Joe Jaffoni, Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir. Joseph Jaffoni: Thank you, Kerri, and good morning, everyone. Let me read the safe harbor language, and then we'll get right into the call. All statements and comments made by management during this conference call other than statements of historical fact, may be deemed forward-looking statements for purposes of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Nexstar cautions that these forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those reflected by the forward-looking statements made during this call. For additional details on these risks and uncertainties, please see Nexstar's annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2024, as filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and Nexstar's subsequent public filings with the SEC. Nexstar undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. With that, it's my pleasure to turn the conference over to your host, Nexstar Founder, Chairman and CEO, Perry Sook. Perry, please go ahead. Perry Sook: Thank you, Joseph, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us on our call. Mike Biard, our Chief Operating Officer; and Lee Ann Gliha, our Chief Financial Officer, both with me this morning. During the third quarter, we made the milestone announcement of our definitive agreement to acquire TEGNA in a cash transaction valued at $6.2 billion. The proposed acquisition will strengthen Nexstar's position as the nation's leading local media company with high-quality broadcast stations, award-winning news operations and innovative local programming, all of which collectively demonstrate our commitment to trusted community-focused journalism. Operationally, TEGNA will enhance and expand Nexstar's scale, geographic reach and community impact by adding 64 top-performing stations primarily in the top 75 DMAs and to our growing portfolio of media assets. Financially, on a combined pro forma basis, Nexstar and TEGNA generated over $8 billion in revenue and $2.56 billion of adjusted EBITDA. Taking into account expected after-tax synergies and incremental interest expense, the transaction is projected to be more than 40% accretive to Nexstar's stand-alone adjusted free cash flow and with roughly $300 million in anticipated synergies, we expect only a modest increase in pro forma net leverage. We're making good progress on our path to closing. TEGNA filed its definitive proxy statement and the shareholder vote there will take place on November 18. We submitted our [ HSR ] filing on September 30, and as expected, we received a second request letter from the DOJ on October 30 as well as a handful of inquiries from state AG offices. Our FCC applications are ready to go once the federal government reopens, and our expectations for closing the transaction by the second half of 2026 remain unchanged. In the meantime, as previously announced, we are taking a disciplined approach to capital allocation, conserving cash that would otherwise have been used for share repurchases in order to fund the more accretive TEGNA acquisition. As we enter this next phase of Nexstar's growth, I've never been more confident in our strategy nor more energized about the opportunities ahead. This is a defining moment for our company, our industry, our shareholders and the communities we serve. When I said on our August conference call that I'm deeply committed to seeing this transaction through, I meant that. That's why I was pleased to extend my employment agreement as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer through March 31 of '29. Together with our teams, we will continue our mission to build a stronger, more competitive local media company and expand Nexstar's impressive long-term record of success and shareholder value creation. Turning now to our third quarter financial results. Nexstar delivered another solid quarter of net revenue and adjusted EBITDA, reflecting stable distribution and nonpolitical advertising revenue as well as strong expense management. It's clear that broadcast television remains the bellwether and the most profitable segment of the media ecosystem, delivering the most watched content and most valuable programming. According to Nielsen, time spent watching broadcast TV increased 20% from August to September, representing the largest month-to-month gain since 2021 and more time spent watching television on broadcast than the entire universe of cable networks. September's results were driven by a strong start to the NFL season as well as college football. Through Week 6, the NFL averaged 18 million viewers per game, the highest average viewership since a record 2015 season. And similarly, the average total audience for the first 2 games of the NBA season, newly launched on Broadcast Network NBC reflected a 36% improvement versus the first 2 games on TNT last year and double the total audience of the games on ESPN and 3.6x the average total audience of the games on Prime Video first week of the season last year. And of course, November started with a bang with Game 7 of the World Series delivering over 25 million viewers, the highest number for baseball in nearly a decade. These results underscore the enduring power and reach of broadcast and our consistent ability to aggregate mass audiences in real time, something other platforms just can't replicate. Major sports franchises continue to value the unmatched reach and advantage of broadcast television and sports programming continues to complement Nexstar's popular local news programming, which accounts for almost half of our total household viewership. In terms of the CW, Nexstar's own broadcast network, CW Sports delivered record performance with the best quarter since the launch of live sports programming in Q1 of 2023, driven by continued strong viewership of the NASCAR Xfinity Series as well as a strong start to the ACC and Pac-12 college football season. In fact, last Saturday night, our final Xfinity race of the season on broadcast in primetime beat college football on CBS in total viewers, adults 25 to 54 and adults 18 to 49. In addition, solid results from our entertainment programming lineup drove the CW's sixth consecutive quarter of primetime ratings growth. Year-to-date, the CW has surpassed competitive Big 4 primetime telecast 250x across total viewers among the 18 to 49 and 25 to 54 demos. That's an impressive increase over the 45 times we accomplished that for the full year of 2024. The continued success of our long-term strategic growth on high-impact news and sports programming, further validated by the performance of NewsNation, which ranked as the #1 basic cable network for year-over-year growth in the third quarter, continuing its trend from Q2. On a year-to-date basis, NewsNation surpassed MSNBC 57x and CNN 39x in head-to-head telecasts across total viewers and in the adult 25 to 54 demo. That compares to 2024 when NewsNation surpassed MSNBC 4x and CNN 2x in the head-to-head telecasts. These results reflect the fact that NewsNation's programming and unique fact-based reporting is resonating with viewers who are looking for a refreshingly balanced and impartial reporting and analysis. In summary, the continued strength and consistency of Nexstar's financial performance reflects our stable diversified revenue and operating base, our disciplined expense management and continued execution across our portfolio. Our proposed acquisition of TEGNA meets the deregulatory moment where it is and sets the stage for an incredibly bright future ahead for Nexstar, our industry, our shareholders and the communities we serve. With all of that said, let me turn the call over to Mike Biard. Mike? Michael Biard: Thanks, Perry, and good morning, everyone. Nexstar delivered third quarter net revenue of $1.2 billion, a decline of 12.3% compared to the prior year, primarily reflecting the year-over-year reduction in political advertising. Third quarter distribution revenue of $709 million was flattish compared to the prior year quarter, down 1.4% and primarily reflects MVPD subscriber attrition and the resolution of a nonrecurring disputed customer claim offset in part by increased rates and other contractual commitments, growth in vMVPD subscribers and the addition of CW affiliations on certain of our stations. Without the impact of the resolution of a legacy customer dispute, distribution revenue would have been slightly up. Advertising revenue of $476 million decreased $146 million or 23.5% over the comparable prior year quarter, primarily reflecting a $145 million year-over-year decrease in political advertising. However, nonpolitical advertising was essentially flat and better than our expectation of a low single-digit decline. Growth in national advertising, including at the CW and NewsNation, strong growth in local digital advertising and the absence of political crowd out that impacted last year's third quarter offset soft local advertising driven by the absence of the Olympics in the third quarter this year. No advertising category materially moved the needle in the quarter, and we have not observed any negative impact on the pharmaceutical category from recently introduced regulations. As a reminder, the pharmaceutical category represents less than 3% of our total nonpolitical advertising. Speaking of political, we generated approximately $10 million in political advertising revenue during the quarter, primarily driven by spending related to state-wide elections in Virginia, including the Governor's race as well as California's redistricting ballot initiative. Looking ahead to the fourth quarter, nonpolitical advertising is currently forecast to decline in the very low single-digit area on a year-over-year basis, benefiting in part from the absence of political crowd out in the quarter, but offset by advertising revenue softness and tougher year-over-year programming comps at the CW and our national digital business. Political advertising is expected to be consistent with 2021 fourth quarter levels. Turning to the CW. We are consistently delivering favorable results from our programming investments, especially from sports, which continues to account for more than 40% of the CW's programming hours. And we continue to build our CW Sports portfolio. During the third quarter, we expanded our relationship with the Pac-12 conference through the 2030-31 season to include 66 annual events, including 13 regular season football games, 35 regular season men's basketball games, 15 regular season women's basketball games and the semifinal and championship games of the new Pac-12 women's basketball tournament. During the quarter, we also completed a new multiyear agreement with the Professional Bull Riders to be the exclusive live broadcast partner of the PBR teams series on Saturdays and Sundays, which began airing this last August. The NASCAR Xfinity Series, transitioning to the NASCAR O'Reilly Auto Parts series next season is now firmly established exclusively on CW Sports, delivering strong momentum and benefiting from the scale and audience engagement of our broadcast model. Xfinity races delivered an 11% year-over-year increase in viewership for the first 30 races of the season with more than 1 million viewers for 20 of those races. By comparison to last season, only 8 of the first 30 races broke the 1 million viewer mark in 2024. Audiences are consistently showing up for our live sports lineup. Ratings for ACC and Pac-12 college football games in the CW have more than doubled year-over-year among adults 25 to 54, while WWE NXT continues to climb since moving to the CW from USA Network, up 12% year-to-date. That momentum is translating into progress toward our financial targets. In the third quarter, we reduced losses at the CW by $5 million or 24% year-over-year. In the quarter, growth in distribution and advertising revenue virtually offset lower licensing revenue and lower operating expenses, net of a small increase in programming amortization drove the improvement in losses. Our outlook for the year for the CW remains unchanged as we continue to project 2025 losses to be lower than 2024 by about 25%. And our expectation of achieving breakeven sometime in 2026 also remains unchanged. To close, I want to reiterate our confidence in our long-term outlook and the enduring strength of Nexstar's business model. Our programming strategy anchored by live news and sports continues to deliver results for the CW and NewsNation, and we remain committed to unlocking even greater value from these assets as our audiences grow. Our local programming strategy is similarly anchored by our unrivaled live news product, and the proposed TEGNA acquisition will create substantial and immediate value for shareholders while advancing the public interest by strengthening local broadcast journalism and providing an expanded range of competitive broadcast and digital advertising solutions across our portfolio of local and national assets. With that, it's my pleasure to turn the call over to Lee Ann for the remainder of the financial review. Lee Ann? Lee Gliha: Thank you, Mike, and good morning, everyone. Mike gave you most of the details on the revenue side and on the CW, so I'll provide you a review of expenses, adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow along with a review of our capital allocation activities. Together, third quarter direct operating and SG&A expenses, excluding depreciation and amortization and corporate expenses, declined by $23 million or 3%, primarily driven by our operational restructuring initiatives taken last year. Q3 2025 total corporate expense was $68 million including noncash compensation expense of $19 million compared to $53 million including noncash compensation expense of $19 million in the third quarter of 2024. The $15 million increase is primarily due to onetime expenses associated with the expense portion of a nonrecurring settlement of a disputed customer claim and the proposed acquisition of TEGNA, offset in part by the release of certain reserves. Q3 2025 depreciation and amortization was $190 million, matching the amount in the third quarter of 2024. Of these amounts included in our definition of adjusted EBITDA is $72 million related to the amortization of broadcast rights for Q3 2025 compared to $70 million for Q3 2024. The increase in amortization of broadcast rights by $2 million was primarily due to slightly higher programming costs at the CW versus the comparable prior year quarter given the mix of programming. Q3 2025 income from equity method investments, which primarily reflects our 31% ownership in the TV Food Network declined by $12 million versus the comparable prior year quarter, primarily related to TV Food Network lower revenue. On a consolidated basis, third quarter adjusted EBITDA was $358 million, representing a 29.9% margin and a decrease of $152 million from the third quarter of 2024 of $510 million due primarily to the election cycle. Moving to the components of free cash flow and adjusted free cash flow. Third quarter CapEx, together with payments for capitalized software cost net of proceeds from asset disposals were $34 million, an increase from $31 million in the third quarter of last year. Third quarter net interest expense was $94 million, a reduction of $19 million from the third quarter of 2024. On a cash basis, this compares to $93 million in the third quarter of 2025 versus $110 million in Q3 2024. The reduction in interest expense was primarily related to a reduction in SOFR and Nexstar's reduced debt balances. Third quarter operating cash taxes were $33 million compared to $10 million last year. As expected, our cash tax payments primarily in Q3 2025 and expected in Q4 '25 benefit from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act through the [ Marinne ] statement of bonus depreciation on CapEx and the ability to deduct amortization of internally developed software. The low cash tax in the third quarter of last year was due to the change of the timing of our tax payments using the annualization method. Cash distributions from the Food Network were $6 million in the third quarter, which amount is still captured in our free cash flow and adjusted free cash flow definition. This amount reflects our pro rata share of distributions to cover tax from our proportionate share of the income of the JV. Included in the third quarter's adjusted EBITDA, but excluded from adjusted free cash flow is $22 million of income before amortization from equity method investments, which is primarily our pro rata share of Food Network net income in the third quarter of 2025. In Q3, programming amortization costs were lower than cash payments by $17 million as certain deferred programming payments were paid and certain future programming was paid prior to [ airing ]. As a result, consolidated third quarter 2025 adjusted free cash flow was $166 million compared to $327 million in last year's third quarter. A few additional points of guidance with respect to adjusted free cash flow, we are currently projecting CapEx in the $32 million range in capitalized software payments in the $6 million range in Q4. In addition, we will acquire one of our buildings subject to a long-term lease for $21 million. Based on the current yield curve and our mandatory amortization payment, Q4 interest expense is expected to be in the $88 million range. Q4 2025 cash taxes are expected to be in the $45 million range. In Q4 '25, cash distributions from the Food Network are expected to be in the low single-digit million-dollar range compared to our share of adjusted EBITDA in the low teens millions and payments for programming are expected to be in excess of amortization by about $30 million due primarily to prepayment of future programming payments and payment of deferred programming. Turning to capital allocation in our balance sheet. Together with cash from operations generated in the third quarter and cash on hand, we returned $56 million to shareholders in dividends, repaid $25 million in mandatory debt repayments and did not repurchase any shares as we are conserving cash for our acquisition of TEGNA, which we expect will be more accretive than a stand-alone share repurchase strategy. Our cash balance at the quarter end was $236 million, including $13 million of cash related to the CW, our debt balance was $6.4 billion. Because we designate the CW as an unrestricted subsidiary, the losses associated with the CW are not accounted for in the calculation of leverage for purposes of our credit agreement. As such, our net first lien covenant ratio for Nexstar as of September 30, 2025, which is now calculated on the last 8 quarters annualized basis was 1.73x, which was well below our first lien and only covenant of 4.25x. Total net leverage for Nexstar was 3.09x at quarter end. These leverage statistics are calculated pursuant to the description in our credit agreement. With that, I'll open up the call for questions. Operator, can you go to our first question? Operator: [Operator Instructions] And our first question will come from Dan Kurnos with Benchmark. Daniel Kurnos: Two for me. Perry, I appreciate the update on the deal timing. It was implied yesterday that the SEC might address the cap in early '26. And I appreciate all of the color you gave us around what you guys are doing behind the scenes. So I just wanted to give you the floor to maybe talk about why you're confident that the deal will close and close on time as you proposed it? And then for Mike, just a housekeeping question on the Q3 distribution stuff. I appreciate the color. Any more granularity you could give us? And is that onetime in nature? Is there any flow-through into Q4? Perry Sook: I think as it relates to the timing, I mean, the pieces are falling in place. The Eighth Circuit mandate was issued on October 21. That eliminates the top 4 ownership rule, that will go into effect as soon as that order is published in the federal register and it's effective 30 days later. So we need the government to reopen for that to happen. We have prepared 37 applications seeking approval of the transfer of control of TEGNA's licenses to Nexstar as well as the request for waivers unless they are rendered moot by other rulemaking. And we, again, continue to believe that this administration, the Trump administration and Brendan Carr at the FCC are focused on deregulating business, allowing businesses to breathe, allowing businesses to compete and that we've been spending a lot of time in Washington to reinforce at the regulatory agencies and on the hill that we are indeed here to help meet the regulatory moment, where it is, which all of -- which continues to point toward the regulatory rulemakings happening in the first half of next year, concurrent with the processing of our application. I will add that while there's a lot of work ahead of us in complying with the DOJ request, and I've read our FCC applications. I think they're very good and make very good public interest showing as to why this transaction is in the public interest which is, by the way, the standard at which the FCC will hold it to. But I can also tell you that internally here with several meetings over the last week in conjunction with our Board meeting, in conjunction with the integration plans here, there is genuine enthusiasm in this building for this acquisition for the opportunity it creates to grow our business, for the opportunity it creates to make sure that we secure a future for our business and the opportunities that we see downstream with 3.0 and spectrum, additional local content distributed across multiple platforms and allowing us to compete on a much more level playing field with big tech. And all you have to do is look in the news that things going on around us to see indeed why these -- why deregulation and further consolidation to preserve local journalism and our industry is necessary. So there's a lot of work to be done on our end, but people are -- we have a coalition of the willing that is really pitching in to comply with all the regulatory requests and to make sure it's done in a timely fashion. Michael Biard: To your second question on the distribution item, no, Dan, that was truly a nonrecurring onetime only anomaly that will not linger into the fourth quarter at all. Operator: We'll go next to Benjamin Soff with Deutsche Bank. Benjamin Soff: So you obviously already have your big transaction in place, but I'm curious if you have any thoughts on what the rest of the industry might look like a few years down the line. in particular, are there any implications for Nexstar if the rest of the industry goes through consolidation or not? And then I have a follow-up. Perry Sook: I'll start from the end of your question back. I mean I think you -- a good, strong industry needs to have good, strong companies comprising it. So we think that we will be the poster company for not only what the future of the industry will look like, but also the strength of our balance sheet, management team, financial profile and the amount of local content that we deliver as well as leading on innovation for the industry. But we can't do it all by ourselves. And so we're very much in favor of having good and strong companies in our industry. And if that means they're good and strong competitors to us, well, hopefully, that will just make us that much sharper. So Mike, I don't know if you want to add more to that? Michael Biard: No, I think you've covered it. I think we're not afraid of competition by any stretch of the imagination. And I think as Perry says, dealing with all of the forces around us, whether that's dealing with big tech on the advertising side, dealing with big media, whether that's the networks or other big media having others in the broadcast space that are good, healthy companies is something that we absolutely support. Benjamin Soff: Great. And then I'm just curious to get your thoughts on the outlook for the next political cycle. And in general, how do you view the dollars and how they might flow between broadcast and CTV in the future? Perry Sook: Well, we've already done our way too early 2026 political forecast internally here. And suffice it to say, we think that our company, based on our geography, even before the integration of TEGNA -- the TEGNA acquisition will produce a prodigious amount of political revenue in 2026. And again, it's all based on our geography, the states that we're in, where we see toss-up races, ballot propositions, redistricting, all the things that will cause money to flow. Our, again, way too early take is that broadcast will continue to be the dominant repository for political advertising. However, the fastest growing will probably continue to be CTV advertising as it was in 2024. So no change thematically, and we do project that we will have substantial political revenue in 2026. And to those that follow the company, that should be no surprise. Operator: Moving on to Steven Cahall with Wells Fargo. Steven Cahall: I have a couple of strategic questions. So first, Perry, I made the mistake once of writing that you might be nearing retirement. That's clearly not the case. So as you think out to the end of the decade, we'll be in a different administration. We'll be in some different NFL contracts. What are some of your biggest priorities sort of post TEGNA that you still have in mind for the company as you look forward? And then pro forma for TEGNA, I think Nexstar will have local news in something like 80% of the country. We've seen your network partners not be shy about going into the streaming market where there's a lot of households that just aren't on linear. How do you think about your ability to be in the CTV market at that level of scale, whether that's working with a big platform provider or doing something on your own? Perry Sook: Sure. Well, let me speak to what we see post TEGNA. First of all, our eyes are on the prize in getting the TEGNA acquisition to and through the finish line, and we're going to run through the tape. So that is our total focus now. But I will say, I don't think that, that means that we are forever done with acquisitions. We will continue to look opportunistically for acquisitions that make good industrial logic and, most importantly, are substantially accretive to the company. I think we've got a pretty good track record of finding those, and we will continue that quest. I think also with the combined entity, we will have spectrum holdings reaching approximately 80% of the country. And I think that's the next big frontier for the industry and certainly for Nexstar, who will have more spectrum assets than any other company in our space and the opportunity to develop monetization of the non-video uses of our ATSC 3.0 spectrum continue, in my view, to be the biggest value creation lever in our business as we know it today. And so that's -- we'll spend a lot of time on that. And then probably more to the mundane, but we need as an industry and Nexstar will need to lead this, need to be much more sharp around our business processes, how you buy and sell television time. It is inefficient from a cost and process standpoint for agencies to do business in linear television, yet look at the linear television revenue that is generated in this country, but it's not growing anywhere near the digital alternatives, which are much easier and cheaper to buy from a process perspective. We need to compete on a level playing field with the buying and selling of advertising with the rest of the industry. And I think if we can get to that point, which will require enhanced and better measurement, it will require enhanced and better processes. But we've got some very big goals in that regard and see opportunity in the future. What if the World Series was going into the 11th inning and you had a chance to bid for inventory at the next break, like you can in digital, whether it's in real time or on some sort of a delay for those additional inventory spots that came available, why can't we vision that and then make it happen in linear television. It's hard, but it's not impossible, but that's where the future is. So business processes, acquisitions and ATSC 3.0 will be our focus post the successful acquisition and integration of TEGNA. I think your second question related to CTV inventory. It's interesting. I mean we are and have rolled out CTV applications in the vast majority of our marketplaces as -- and are producing alternative programming to fill the hours on those apps, and that will still be an emphasis and a growth area for the company. But by the same token, why does anyone go into streaming? It's because they can't ubiquitously reach consumers outside of the pay-TV ecosystem. Well, we do every day. It's called over-the-air television. And so while streaming and CTV will all be a part of our product offerings, our core tenet is people are trying to get what we've had all along, which is a direct-to-consumer relationship with our content and with our advertising messages. And by the way, we don't have to lose billions and billions of dollars to ramp that effort up. It already exists. So I don't mean to be Pollyanna about it, but if you look at -- and I think we gave the example of what sports looks like on Amazon and what sports looks like on broadcast and what sports looks like on cable, you can put a lot of money into streaming, but you won't achieve the same results as you can one-to-many with broadcast television, which is kind of our definition. So I hope that's responsive to your question, but we don't see that as doom and gloom. It will be an additional competitive factor. But at this point, people are trying to duplicate what we already have. Operator: [Operator Instructions]. We'll go next to Craig Huber with Huber Research Partners. Craig Huber: Perry, my first question is you talked about $300 million of synergies with TEGNA. I would think, if anything, that's conservative. Can you talk a little bit about how you get to that number? Just repeat that, if you would. And then with all those synergies here, once this deal supposedly closes, I would imagine it's going to free up a lot of money on your end, if you wanted to enhance the news programming, for example, at TEGNA. I've always viewed TEGNA as one of the better run companies in the group, but nothing is perfect, and I think you could potentially increase maybe the number of hours on the news programming side for local, but also the quality of it even further. Maybe just touch on that, please. And to talk about what's better for the public. I mean, that would certainly be appealing, right? That's my first question. Perry Sook: It would, Craig. And we have, just through our desk review, identified 9 markets where we can create additional local news broadcast on stations that either have a de minimis presence or no local news presence using the combined power of the 2 stations in the marketplace. Dallas is a perfect example. WFAA does a fine job producing local news in the marketplace. We have a CW affiliate that has a half hour kind of news magazine type program, but not a serious, credible local news effort. We can use the newsroom of WFAA and their people and maybe some additional resources to create a news presence on our CW affiliate here in the marketplace, which is right down the road from where I'm speaking to you from. But there are at least 9 markets where we have those kinds of opportunities, and we are now in our discovery phase or Diligence 2.0, if you will, which we'll do a deeper dive into the operating and financials of each of the operating business units as we continue to look for additional opportunities and additional synergies. But at this point, we feel very good about the number and about the enhanced operating opportunity we'll have by virtue of making this acquisition, all of which you'll read about in our FCC filing once it's made. I'll let Lee Ann talk a little bit more about the synergies. Lee Gliha: Yes. Craig, so I think as we've talked about on our call when we announced the transaction, there's about $300 million of synergies. It breaks out very similarly to how the synergies broke out on the Tribune deal, which was about 45% from net retrans and the remainder coming from operations. And then on the operations side of things, that's really a combination of things. It's looking at corporate overhead. You don't need duplicative corporate overhead. We have a number of hubs that we use that we can expand to help service the larger station footprint. And then it's looking kind of within the operations for efficiencies. We look at how we operate our stations versus how TEGNA operates theirs, and there are many areas where we do things a little bit differently that generates synergy. And then there's obviously the significant amount of 35 or 51 markets that are the overlap markets that we can really operate 2 stations off of 1 infrastructure. And so that's an area where there's a significant portion of those synergies are coming out of that. As Perry said, this has been our initial analysis. We did a very deep analysis in terms of looking at line by line, person by person, what these costs could be. We're going to be in the market and doing a little bit more work and looking to see what else is there. I think as we also mentioned on a prior call, this really was reflective of the near-term synergies. What can we generate kind of in the next 1 to 2 years after the close. I think there are some medium-term synergies because there is so much overlap, there will be an ability for facilities consolidation, but that takes a little bit longer time, right? You have to move people, move equipment, sell a business or sell a piece of real estate and then benefit from those synergies. So we think there will be more over time. But for right now, we're feeling good about that number and look forward to providing you some updates as we kind of move forward. Craig Huber: I have one final just housekeeping question, Lee Ann. Are you guys still expecting gross and net retrans revenue this year to be flat versus a year ago for the full year? Lee Gliha: We don't reupdate our guidance. That was our guidance for the year. As you know, in this quarter, we did have a onetime impact of an old dispute that got resolved in this quarter, and that impacted our revenue for the quarter. If we didn't have that, our actual distribution revenue would be up. And so you can start to see for the first 3 quarters of the year, that was flattish. And so you can kind of extrapolate from there. Operator: And Patrick Sholl with Barrington Research has our next question. Patrick Sholl: I was wondering if you could talk a little bit more about the ad trends expectations that you laid out for the fourth quarter. I was wondering if there was like any specific like weaknesses in local markets or any category drivers of what you kind of called out? Lee Gliha: I'll take that. We're not anticipating any sort of particular changes in the category. I think we're getting a little bit of sports betting money because of Missouri which is nice. But from a local perspective, I don't think there's going to be a whole heck of a lot of change in sort of the trajectory in terms of the trends for the third quarter versus the fourth quarter. I think where we're coming in the fourth quarter that's putting a little bit of pressure on the numbers is just we're lapping NASCAR at the CW, which we had in the fourth quarter last year, we had in the fourth quarter of this year. And there's just some other kind of onetime items in our national digital business that have -- that are putting a little bit of pressure on that number. Operator: And we'll go next to Aaron Watts with Deutsche Bank. Aaron Watts: Clearly, there's optimism that 2026 will be a strong year of political spending. Typically, with that setup, we're used to seeing pressure on core advertising growth due to the crowd out effect. That said, you'll have more sports on the air notably with NBC, broadcasting the NBA as well as other big sporting events next year. With the benefit of those incremental sports, curious if you think core advertising could be stable or even grow next year compared to '25 or at least perform better than it has in election years in the past. Perry Sook: That's really technical, Aaron. I think that as far as the Olympics go, it's the Winter Olympics, so it will be earlier in the year, which is further away from the peak political activity. So we ought to be able to monetize that pretty well with core advertising. I think it's hard when you look at the kind of political revenue that we'll run through the system next year to expect that you'll see core advertising revenue grow because the displacement will be substantial. We're not issuing guidance at this point. But listen, I think that if interest rates continue to come down and confidence continues to grow. We have resolution on tariffs and all of those things go into confidence and eliminating uncertainty, all of which I think is good for people's confidence in spending money on advertising. So I think we'll have more tailwinds than headwinds in 2026 overall, but it's too early to quantify the way that you'd like us to. Aaron Watts: Okay. And if I could ask you one follow-up around sports, Perry. There's been reports that the NFL may look to open up negotiations on its media rights as early as next year. I think there's clear benefits to that for local TV broadcasters, but also some concerns. Would be curious to hear how you're thinking about that potential and whether it is actually a good thing for you and the universe. Michael Biard: Yes. I'll take that one. I think on balance, we're optimistic about that. I think when you look at the trends that Perry talked about in his opening remarks, on broadcast, there really is a very sort of clarifying view of the ecosystem that broadcast brings more eyeballs, more viewers, bigger events than any other platform by far, right? You've seen that happen in the NBA with the move of some incremental games to broadcast from cable. We expect that will probably happen around Major League Baseball as well. You can see it on other sports. So we think the NFL, given its traditional conviction around the importance of local broadcast will not be any kind of principle that they move away from as part of an early discussion. Certainly, I think an early discussion leaves the networks in a position, probably a stronger position than they would be at the end of that deal. And to the extent that the NFL is moving any games to streaming, we really think that will be at the margin, may be part of increasing the overall schedule to an 18th game and largely around potentially, I would think, producing a package of international games. So on the whole, we think that's actually a strong thing, and we think broadcast is going from strength to strength at this moment. Operator: This now concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the floor back over to Perry Sook for closing comments. Perry Sook: Thank you very much. I'll just say quickly in closing that Nexstar's strong third quarter financial results extended our long-term operational track record, and we plan to put that expertise to work in our pending acquisition of TEGNA. We couldn't be more excited nor more energized about our prospects here at Nexstar. In the near term, we see a decreasing interest rate environment, the reset of the majority of our distribution contracts at the end of this year, the acquisition of TEGNA and an election year in 2026, all of which we expect to drive shareholder value. Longer term, we expect to accelerate our CW and NewsNation network growth strategies, our deployment of applications for ATSC 3.0 and innovation around how we go to market and the products and services we bring to benefit our viewers and our advertisers. Thank you for joining us. We look forward to updating you on our year-end results in February of next year. Happy holidays, and have a good day. Operator: 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: Welcome to the Twin Vee Powercats Company Third Quarter 2025 Investor Call. As a reminder, this call is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] Your speakers for today's program are President and CEO, Joseph Visconti and Chief Financial Officer, Scott Searles. Before I turn the call over to Joseph, please remember that certain statements made during this investor call are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements on this call, other than statements of historical facts, including statements regarding the company's future operations and financial position, business strategy and plans and objectives of management for future operations are forward-looking statements. In some cases, forward-looking statements can be identified by terminologies such as believes, may, estimates, continue, anticipates, intends, should, plan, expects, predict, potential or the negative of these terms or other similar expressions. The company has based these forward-looking statements largely on its current expectations and projections about future events and financial trends that it believes may affect its financial condition, results of operations, business strategy and financial needs. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties and assumptions described, including those set forth in its filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which are available on the company's Investor Relations website at ir.twinvee.com. You should not rely upon forward-looking statements as predictions of future events. We cannot assure you that the events and circumstances reflected in the forward-looking statements will be achieved or occur. Finally, this conference call is being webcast. The webcast will be available at ir.twinvee.com for at least 90 days. Audiocast quality is subject to your equipment, available bandwidth and Internet traffic. If you experience unsatisfactory audio quality, please use the telephone dial-in option. [Operator Instructions] I will now turn the call over to Joseph Visconti. Joseph Visconti: Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining Twin Vee Powercats Quarterly Investor Call. Today we'll outline how we're navigating current conditions with a clear focus on sales, dealer expansion and customer engagement. As we know, high interest rates, inflation and cautionary consumer spending have slowed new boat sales across the sector. Pressure on new unit demand and higher-than-normal inventory levels across the industry are still a challenge. As a builder of premium Twin Vee and Bahama boats, these headwinds create a complex environment for manufacturers and dealers alike. At Twin Vee, we're addressing these challenges head on by controlling what we can, our costs, our inventory, our relationships with dealers and customers. Our primary focus is driving sales and rebuilding our backlog. We're channeling all resources into sales, marketing and strengthening customer demand. In Q2 and Q3, we added 10 new dealer locations, expanding our reach into regions like the Southeastern Seaboard, the Gulf Coast and a brand-new stocking dealer in Australia. We're working closely with all dealers offering hands-on support through personalized customer consultation, demo events and any guidance required to shorten the sales cycle for customers. Operationally, we've made strategic moves to improve efficiencies. Our Fort Pierce headquarter expansion is complete. This gives us the capacity to produce new models, expand our production and integrate additional brands. We have also completed the installation of our 46-foot 5-axis CNC router, which allows us to handle precision in-house tooling. This reduces our reliance on external vendors, cuts lead times and lower costs on product development. These upgrades are now operational, enabling us to respond to demand without significant further capital investment. On the product front, we're seeing steady progress with our 22-foot BayCat, which continues to resonate with customers for its versatility and value. Production remains efficient with manufacturing output is aligned with dealer orders to avoid overstocking. You can explore this BayCat in other Twin Vee models on twinvee.com using our new 3D configurator, which lets customers build and price their boats and also customize options like upholstery, colors and engines in real time. We also completed integrating the recently acquired Bahama Boat Works known for its premium offshore fishing vessels. We've completed the relocation of all Bahama molds and the tooling into our expanded -- our recently expanded Fort Pierce facility. We are carefully pacing the Bahama rollout to match market demand, ensuring we don't overextend inventory while building excitement for these amazing products. As a public company, our priorities are clear. We're going to drive revenues through sales, marketing, rebuild our backlog and maintain financial disciplines. We're positioning Twin Vee to capitalize as conditions improve. We will continue to expand our dealer network and drive efficient operations. We've taken additional steps to ensure success in this challenging market. One significant decision was the sale of our North Carolina property. This move has further reduced overhead, particularly the insurance and carrying expenses associated with the facility. And more importantly, the proceeds from the sale will bolster our balance sheet. Looking ahead, our strategy is straightforward: stay lean, focus on sales and deepen customer and dealer relationships. We are confident that our disciplined approach positions us to outperform competitors. The sale of the North Carolina property has strengthened our financial foundation. Our expanded product portfolio enhances manufacturing capabilities and our growing digital presence are all aligned to drive revenue and rebuild our backlog. We remain committed to delivering value to our shareholders by focusing on what we do best, building high-quality boats, supporting dealers and engaging directly with customers. The marine industry may be navigating rough waters, but Twin Vee, we are focused on emerging stronger than ever. In closing, our operation, upgrades and strategic acquisitions position us to compete effectively while protecting our financial health. I want to thank you for your support, and I will now hand it over to our interim CFO, Scott Searles. Scott Searles: Thanks, Joseph. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Scott Searles, I'm the Interim CFO for Twin Vee. This is my first earnings call with Twin Vee, and I want to begin by thanking all the shareholders, employees and dealer partnerships for their warm welcome and for your continued support. It's been great getting to know the business, and I'm excited to be part of Twin Vee's story moving forward. As Joseph mentioned earlier, the boating industry continues to face a challenging environment. High interest rates, inflation and cautious consumer spending has slowed new boat sales across the sector. Inventory levels across the industry remain elevated, creating a complex environment, both for manufacturers and dealers. At Twin Vee, we're tackling these headwinds head on by focusing on what we can control, our costs, our inventory and our dealer relationships. Our approach is simple, stay lean, stay disciplined and keep supporting our dealers to rebuild momentum. For the third quarter, net sales were $3.43 million, up 18% year-over-year from $2.9 million last year. Gross results showed a small gross loss of about $45,000, a meaningful improvement over last year's $146,000 loss reflected better production efficiency and cost control. Selling and general and administration expenses were down roughly 16% from the prior year. Our net loss for the quarter was $2.76 million, an improvement from last year's $3 million loss and consistent with our expectations given the industry backdrop. For the first 9 months of 2025, we generated $11.8 million in sales with a gross margin of 9.6%, up significantly from 2.7% a year ago. These results demonstrate the early benefits of our operational discipline and focus on aligning production with dealer demand. Turning to the balance sheet. We ended the quarter with $2.7 million in cash and equivalents and continue to maintain very low leverage. Our only long-term debt remains the SBA economic injury disaster loan, which carries a fixed 3.75% rate and is fully current. After the quarter end, we completed the sale of our North Carolina property for $4.25 million. That included $500,000 in cash at closing and a $3.75 million secured promissory note earning 5% interest payable in [ installments ] between '26 and '27. This transaction immediately reduces overhead and strengthens our balance sheet. We are managing working capital carefully, producing to order rather than to stock to preserve liquidity and to protect dealer profitability. Operationally, our Fort Pierce expansion is now complete, and our 5-axis CNC router is fully operational. This capability allows us to handle precision tooling in-house, reducing outside vendor costs and shortening development times. It's a good example of what we're doing more with what we have, not spending more to grow but investing smarter. And I wanted to thank all of the operations and finance teams for their hard work in achieving this balance. Looking ahead to the fourth quarter, our priorities are clear: protecting liquidity, support dealers, sell-through and remain ready for the growth when demand improves. We're entering Q4 from a position of stability with a leaner cost base, stronger dealer coverage and healthier balance sheet. Our focus is on rebuilding the backlog and strengthening our relationships with our dealers and customers. The sale of the North Carolina property gives us flexibility to invest in marketing and dealer support without taking on debt. We'll continue to expand our presence in high-potential coastal regions and ensure our dealers have the training and tools and support to succeed. Before we open the call to questions, I want to thank you all for -- and the shareholders and employees and our partners. Your confidence truly motivates our team every day. We're focused on what Twin Vee does best, building high-quality boats, supporting our dealers and engaging directly with customers. The marine industry may face rough waters, but we are steering through them with focus and discipline. Our mission is clear: to whether the storm, emerge stronger and create a lasting value for our shareholders. Thank you for your continued support. With that, I'll turn it over to the operator for questions. Operator: [Operator Instructions] There are no questions at this time. And this concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and we thank you for your participation.
Operator: Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Himax Technologies, Incorporation Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Ms. Karen Tiao, Head of IR/PR at Himax. Ms. Tiao, please go ahead. Karen Tiao: Welcome, everyone, to the Himax Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. My name is Karen Tiao, Head of IR/PR at Himax. Joining me today are Jordan Wu, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Jessica Pan, Chief Financial Officer. After the company’s prepared comments, we have allocated time for questions in the Q&A section. If you have not yet received a copy of today’s results release, please e-mail hx_ir@himax.com.tw or himx@mzgroup.us, access the press release on financial portals or download a copy from Himax website at www.himax.com.tw. Before we begin the formal remarks, I would like to remind everyone that some of the statements in this conference call, including statements regarding expected future financial results and industry growth and forward-looking statements that involve a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those described in this conference call. A list of risk factors can be found in the company’s SEC filings, Form 20-F for the year ended December 31, 2024, in the section entitled Risk Factors as may be amended. Except for the company’s full year of 2024 financials which were provided in the company’s 20-F and filed with the SEC on April 2, 2025. The financial information included in this conference call is unaudited and consolidated and prepared in accordance with IFRS accounting. Such financial information is generated internally and has not been subjected to the same review and scrutiny, including internal auditing procedures and external audits by independent auditors, to which we subject our annual consolidated financial statements and may vary materially from audited consolidated financial information for the same period. The company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. On today’s call, I will first review the Himax consolidated financial performance for the third quarter 2025, followed by our fourth quarter outlook. Jordan will then give an update on the status of our business, after which we will take questions. You can submit your questions online through the webcast or by phone. We will review our financials on an IFRS basis. During the quarter, U.S. tariff measures continue to see [indiscernible] global trade dynamics, adding to the macroeconomic and [indiscernible] uncertainty. [indiscernible] we are pleased to report that our third quarter revenue and profit both significantly exceeded the guidance range announced on August 7, 2025, while gross margin came in within guidance. Third quarter revenue registered $199.2 million, representing a sequential decline of 7.3%, which significantly outperformed our guidance range of 12.0% to 7.0% decline, primarily driven by better-than-expected sales from automotive IC and Tcon product lines. Our gross margin was 30.2%, in line with our guidance of around 30%. Q3 profit per diluted ADS was $0.06, substantially exceeding the guidance range of a loss of $0.02 to $0.04 attributable to the stronger-than-guided revenues. Revenues from large display drivers came in at $9.0 million, representing a decline of 23.6% on the previous quarters. All three product lines within the large panel driver IC segment declined primarily due to the absence of the traditional seasonal shopping momentum amid a volatile macroeconomic environment as well as the customers pulling forward purchases in prior quarters. Sales of large panel driver IC accounted for 9.5% of total revenues for the quarter compared to 11.6% last quarter and 13.8% a year ago. Revenue from the small- and medium-sized display driver segment totaled $141.0 million, reflecting a slight decline of 2.4%. Q3 automotive driver sales, including both the traditional DDIC and TDDI increased single digit quarter-over-quarter, outperforming our guidance of a slight sequential decline, indicating resilient underlying demand despite global softness in automotive sales. The sequential growth was mainly driven by replenishment in both TDDI and DDIC products with customers adhering to a make-to-order model and keeping inventory lean in view of an uncertain demand outlook. Our automotive business comprising DDIC, TDDI, Tcon and OLED IC sales remain the largest revenue contributor in the third quarter, representing over 15% of the total revenue. Meanwhile, revenue for both smartphone and tablet IC segments declined quarter-over-quarter as customers pull forward purchases in prior quarters. The small and medium-sized display driver IC segment accounted for 17.8% of total sales for the quarter compared to 67.3% in the previous quarter and 69.9% a year ago. Q3 non-driver sales reached $39.2 million, a 13.7% decrease from the previous quarter but outperforming our guidance range, primarily attributable to increased shipment of Tcon for automotive application. Himax continued to hold an undisputed leadership position with a dominant market share in automotive Tcon. Tcon business accounted for around 12% of total sales with notable contributions from automotive Tcon. Non-driver products accounted for 19.7% of total sales as compared to 21.1% in the previous quarter and 16.3% a year ago. Third quarter operating expenses were $60.7 million, an increase of 24.2% from previous quarter and roughly flat compared to the same period last year. The sequential annual bonus compensation, which we award employees at the end of September each year, typically resulting in much higher Q3 employee compensation expense compared to our quarters of the year. Increased tape-out expenses, salary expenses as well as the appreciation of NT dollar against the U.S. dollar in Q3 were also factors behind the sequential increase. Our annual bonus compensation grant for 2025 was $7.7 million, slightly higher than the guidance of $7.5 million as the bonus amount determined based on the expected full year profit was revised upward following a much improved Q3 financial performance. Of the $7.7 million, $7.5 million was immediately invested in expenses in the third quarter. Including the portion of the awards granted in prior year, the total bonus expenses for Q3 2025 amounts to $8.1 million, significantly lower than $13.9 million recorded in Q3 2024. For reference, the annual bonuses granted for 2024 and 2023 were $12.5 million and $10.4 million respectively, of which $11.2 million and $9.7 million were vested and expensed immediately. Amid ongoing macroeconomic challenges, we continue to exercise strict budget and expense controls. Third quarter operating loss was $0.6 million, representing a negative operating margin of 0.3%, compared to 8.4% in the previous quarter and 2.6% for the same period last year. The sequential decline was primarily attributable to higher employee bonus which, as stated earlier was $8.1 million, compared to $0.8 million last quarter, coupled with lower revenues and gross margin. The year-over-year decrease was mainly due to the reduced sales. Q3 after-tax profit was $1.1 million, or $0.006 per diluted ADS, compared to $16.5 million, or $0.095 per diluted ADS last quarter, and down from $13.0 million, or $0.074 in the same period last year. Now, turning to the balance sheet, we had $278.2 million of cash, cash equivalents and other financial assets as of September 30, 2025. This compares to $206.5 million at the same time last year and $332.8 million a quarter ago. The sequential decline in cash balance mainly reflected the $64.5 million dividend and $13.1 million employee bonus payout. Q3 operating cash inflow was $6.7 million, compared to an inflow of $60.5 million in the prior quarter. The sequential decrease mainly reflected higher accounts payable payments in Q3 for inventory procured in prior quarters to support customer demand, along with employee bonus payment mentioned above. The employee bonus paid out this year included $7.3 million for the immediately vested portion of this year’s award and $5.8 million for vested awards granted over the past three years. We had $30.0 million of long-term unsecured loans at the end of Q3, of which $6.0 million was the current portion. Our quarter end inventories were $137.4 million, a slight increase from $134.6 million last quarter and lower than $192.5 million a year ago. After several quarters of inventory decline from its peak during the industry-wide supply shortage, Q3 inventory slightly increased but remained at a healthy level. As macroeconomic uncertainty limits visibility across the ecosystem, we will continue to manage our inventory conservatively. Accounts receivable at the end of September 2025 was $200.7 million, decreased from $219.0 million last quarter and down from $224.6 million a year ago. DSO was 87 days at the quarter end, as compared to 92 days last quarter and a year ago. Third quarter capital expenditures were $6.3 million, versus $4.6 million last quarter and $2.6 million a year ago. Third quarter capex was mainly for R&D related equipment for IC design business and the construction in progress for the new preschool near Himax’s headquarters built for employees’ children. As of September 30, 2025, Himax had 174.5 million ADS outstanding, little changed from last quarter. On a fully diluted basis, the total number of ADS outstanding for the third quarter was 174.4 million. Now turning to our fourth quarter 2025 guidance. We expect Q4 revenues to be flat sequentially. Gross margin is expected to be flat to slightly up depending on product mix. Q4 profit attributable to shareholders is estimated to be in the range of $0.02 to $0.04 per fully diluted ADS. I will now turn the call over to Jordan to discuss our Q4 2025 outlook. Jordan, the floor is yours. Jordan Wu: Thank you, Karen. The U.S.-China tariff negotiations recently reached a preliminary framework, sending a positive signal to the market. Yet most panel customers continue to adopt a make-to-order model and maintain low inventory levels. In the automotive display IC business, Himax's most important market accounting for over 50% of total revenues, demand visibility remains low as customers continue to act conservatively and sustain lean inventory levels. Despite the limited short-term visibility in the automotive market, remains optimistic about our automotive business outlook for the next few years, backed by our leading new technology offerings and comprehensive customer coverage. Meanwhile, we continue to focus on the expansion into emerging areas beyond display ICs, including ultralow power AI, CPO, and smart glasses, all novel applications characterized by high growth potential, high added value, and high technological barriers that are well-positioned to become new growth drivers for Himax soon. Before I [ leverage ] on those [ new ] business areas let me touch base on the Automotive IC business. Himax has been deeply engaged in the automotive display market for nearly two decades, offering a comprehensive range of display IC technologies spanning from the LCD to OLED. Amid intense industry competition, Himax holds a solid leadership position with #1 global market share across all segments of automotive display ICs and an overwhelming lead over competitors. As smart interiors advance, demand for automotive displays continues to grow, shifting toward larger, higher resolution and more innovative displays, including the adoption of OLED displays for high-end vehicles. Himax is well-positioned to benefit from this trend. Looking ahead, we expect further growth in automotive TDDI and Tcon technologies, driven by continued adoption from global panel makers, Tier 1 suppliers, and automakers. Both TDDI and Tcon are advanced display solutions for vehicles and have already been successfully designed into hundreds of projects worldwide. Meanwhile, in the traditional DDIC segment, shipments remain relatively stable due to long product life cycles and the nature of many applications such as dashboards, head-up displays, and rear- and side-view mirrors that do not require touch functionality, thereby continuing to generate long-term and stable DDIC revenues for Himax. In addition, Himax has been deeply engaged in automotive OLED technology development for many years. With a continuously expanding product portfolio and an increasing number of leading global automakers accelerating adoption of OLED technology in new vehicle models, we expect OLED display adoption in the automotive sector to grow rapidly starting in 2027. Despite lingering economic uncertainty, Himax continues to actively expand its business beyond display ICs, focusing on ultralow power AI, CPO, and smart glasses. Through years of dedicated investment and R&D, Himax has established a solid technological foundation and a strong patent portfolio in these areas, while closely collaborating with partners to drive products toward mass production and real-world applications. As these emerging businesses gradually materialize, they are poised to become key growth engines for Himax, reduce our reliance on the display IC market and further enhance both profitability and long-term competitiveness. First, on the WiseEye AI domain; WiseEye enables battery-powered endpoint devices with real-time analysis, precise recognition, and environmental awareness at ultralow power consumption of merely a few milliwatts. Leveraging these core strengths, WiseEye has been successfully adopted by multiple leading global notebook brands with ongoing collaborations with customers to integrate more AI features into next-generation laptops. WiseEye has also been widely deployed across various domains such as smart door locks, palm vein authentication, and smart home appliances, partnering with top-tier global customers to co-develop a range of innovative applications. Our WiseEye module business features a simple design and ease of integration, making it highly suitable for diverse AIoT applications. It has already been adopted in applications such as smart parking systems, access control, palm vein authentication, smart offices, and smart home, with the number of design-in projects fast expanding. Further, a recent major application addition is in smart glasses, a new product category characterized by extremely demanding low power. WiseEye enables real-time AI functionality at industry-leading ultralow power consumption while supporting always-on sensing for surroundings and event-based eye-tracking to deliver a natural and intuitive human–machine interaction. It has been adopted by numerous major tech giants, traditional ODMs, brands, and startups to integrate into their new smart glasses projects. Looking ahead, the WiseEye business is entering a phase of rapid growth, becoming one of the [indiscernible] key growth engines. In the field of Co-Packaged Optics or CPO, Himax leverages its proprietary WLO advanced nano-imprinting technology. Together with our partner, FOCI, we have achieved significant breakthroughs in silicon photonics technology, with the first-generation solution being validated by customers and partners [indiscernible] towards mass production readiness in 2026. In parallel, joint development efforts with leading customers and partners are underway, focusing on future-generation high-speed optical transmission technologies to meet the explosive bandwidth demands of HPC and AI applications, while addressing the critical challenge of overheating in high-speed transmission. Himax expects CPO to become a major revenue and profit contributor in the years ahead. Last but not least let me touch base on the status of our Smart Glasses businesses. Driven by generative AI and Large Language Models, the smart glasses market is experiencing a resurgence and is seen as the next high-growth, high-volume market opportunity. Smart glasses has been one of Himax's long-term strategic focus areas where we are among the few in the industry that possess three critical enabling technologies for smart glasses, namely ultralow power intelligent image sensing, micro-display, and nano-optics, giving Himax a unique opportunity to take advantage of the potentially explosive growth of smart glasses. In intelligent sensing, Himax's WiseEye AI delivers always-on, ultralow power contextual awareness with average power consumption of just a few milliwatts. It significantly enhances the interactivity and perception of smart glasses while preserving battery life of the smart glasses device. In micro-display, Himax's latest Front-lit LCoS micro-display specifically tailored for AR glasses has attracted strong market attention since its debut. It achieves an optimal combination of form factor, weight, power consumption, and cost, while delivering high brightness and high color saturation in full-color display performance, all key attributes for AR glasses. With over a decade of mass production experience with leading tech names and a proven record of reliable delivery, Himax's new LCoS product, now in sampling stage, has attracted the attention of numerous AR glasses players worldwide. In the field of nano-optics, Himax offers proprietary WLO technology for advanced nano-optical foundry service to selected customers to develop waveguide solutions which, when bundled with micro-display, forms the display system required of AR glasses. Looking ahead, we expect revenues from AR and AI glasses related applications to grow substantially over the next few years. With that I will now [indiscernible] with an update on the Large [ Panel ] Driver IC Businesses LDDIC. In Q4, large display driver IC sales are expected to increase single-digit sequentially, driven by new notebook TDDI projects entering mass production, along with customers' restocking of monitor IC products following several subdued quarters. Despite a challenging market environment, we continue to advance our technology roadmap for next-generation displays to achieve faster data transmission, lower latency, improved power efficiency, and high-speed interface for next generation premium and gaming displays. In the Notebook sector, we continue to focus on the growing adoption of OLED displays and advanced touch features in premium models, driven by the rise of AI PCs and demand for more interactive, productivity-enhancing experiences. Himax is well-positioned to capitalize on opportunities with a comprehensive range of ICs for both LCD and OLED notebooks, including DDIC, Tcon, touch controllers, and TDDI. Multiple projects for OLED displays, as well as gaming monitors and notebooks, are currently underway in collaboration with leading panel makers in Korea and China. Turning to the Small and Medium-sized Display Driver IC business. In Q4 small and medium-sized display driver IC business is expected to slightly decline from last quarter. However, Q4 automotive driver IC sales, including TDDI and traditional DDIC, are set to increase single digit quarter-over-quarter, largely driven by the continued adoption of TDDI technology among major customers across all continents. Despite the challenging macro environment, our automotive driver IC sales for the full year 2025 are projected to grow single-digit year-over-year, with total volume projected to outgrow the global automotive shipment. Himax remains the leader in this market, with a market share well above 50%, far outpacing those of competitors. Traditional automotive DDIC demand remains solid despite partial replacement by TDDI. The transition continues to be gradual, as many automotive displays, such as dashboards, HUDs, and rear- and side-view mirrors, do not require touch functionality and typically have long product lifecycles. Himax holds a solid 40% market share in traditional DDIC and remains the go-to supplier for both legacy and next-generation automotive display applications. Himax also continues to lead in automotive display IC innovation by pioneering solutions across a wide range of panel types while addressing diverse design needs and cost considerations. For example, in ultra-large touch displays, we led the industry by introducing LTDI solution which began mass production in Q3 2023. LTDI has been gaining traction, driven by increasing popularity of larger in-vehicle displays that demand higher performance, improved signal integrity, and simplified system design. Additional LTDI projects with multiple leading global brands are on track to enter mass production as move into 2026. For smaller displays with form factor and budget constraints, we provide single-chip designs that combine TDDI and local dimming Tcon. This enables advanced local dimming in small-size displays, reduces overall system cost, and improves power efficiency, making it an attractive choice for customers. For high end displays, during the recent SID Vehicle Displays and Interfaces Symposium, one of the industry's leading events for automotive display and HMI technologies, Himax showcased the industry’s first OLED touch IC that supports both tactile knobs and capacitive touch keys, enabling flexible design options and delivering a safer, more intuitive control experience for OLED automotive displays. Himax continues to advance interactive display technologies that enhance driver safety and cabin ergonomics. Looking ahead, OLED panel adoption in automotive displays is expected to accelerate starting in 2027. This presents an attractive opportunity to further solidify our leadership in the automotive display market where we already has a dominant market share position across DDIC, TDDI, and local dimming Tcon for LCD displays. We provide ASIC OLED driver and Tcon solutions that entered mass production a few years back, and now we also provide standard ICs ready for broader deployment. In parallel, we are collaborating with major panel makers on new custom ASIC developments to address diverse customer requirements. Additionally, our advanced OLED on-cell touch control technology delivers an industry-leading signal-to-noise ratio, ensuring reliable performance even under challenging conditions such as glove or wet-finger operation. These OLED on-cell touch ICs entered mass production in 2024 and are being increasingly adopted by major global automotive brands for their upcoming car models. As the industry transitions to next-generation OLED display for high-end vehicles, Himax is uniquely positioned to capture the accelerating adoption of OLED in future automotive displays, replicating our success in the LCD by leveraging nearly two decades of automotive display expertise, strategic partnerships established with leading panel makers across China, Korea, and Japan, and a proven record in mass production and product quality that adheres to the world's most stringent global standards for quality, reliability, and safety. Moving to smartphone and tablet IC sales for LCD panel, we expects revenues for both segments to decline quarter-over-quarter, as customers pulled forward purchases in prior quarters. However, in the smartphone OLED market, we are making solid progress in collaborations with customers in Korea and China, with mass production set to ramp in Q4 this year and volume to increase further in the following quarters. Meanwhile, for OLED tablets, several new projects with top-tier brands are expected to enter mass production heading into 2026. In parallel, we are developing new technologies that enable value-added features such as active stylus, ultra-slim bezel designs, and higher frame rate to further differentiate our products and reinforce its competitive edge. I would like to now turn to our Non-Driver IC business update [indiscernible] we expect Q4 revenues to increase single digit sequentially. First for an update on our Tcon business. We anticipate Q4 Tcon sales to be flat sequentially. However, Q4 automotive Tcon sales are well-positioned to grow single digit sequentially, fueled by a strong pipeline of more than 200 design-win projects gradually entering mass production. Many of these projects feature local dimming functionality, an area where Himax maintains a dominant market position. Our full year 2025 automotive Tcon sales are set to grow by approximately 50% year-over-year, laying a solid foundation for sustained growth as we move into 2026. In contrast, Tcon for monitor, notebook and TV products are expected to decline sequentially, primarily a result of customers pulling forward inventory purchases early this year. We continue to lead in automotive Tcon innovation. Our new generation local dimming Tcons offer advanced features such as edge sharpness and high dynamic range, ideal for customers looking to upgrade their displays for better panel performance. Meanwhile, head-up displays are rapidly emerging, evolving beyond simple text and symbols to deliver high-brightness, high-contrast, AR-enhanced visuals within automotive displays, fueling demand for advanced Tcon solutions. To address this trend, we launched an integrated Tcon that features the industry's first full-area selectable local de-warping function, combined with Himax's market-leading local dimming and on-screen display technologies. The newly introduced multifunctional Tcon offers industry-first full-area selectable local de-warping capability, a major advancement over existing solutions that typically offer only full screen or limited split-screen de-warping. Built on Himax's dominant local dimming technology, the new de-warping Tcon solution continues to deliver exceptional contrast performance and effectively eliminates the undesired postcard effect commonly seen in HUDs, caused by backlight leakage typical of conventional TFT-LCD panels. Our industry-leading OSD function is also integrated within the new Tcon, allowing critical safety information to remain visible on the display even when the main system is shut down, thereby enhancing overall driver safety. The new Tcon solution supports a broad range of HUD architectures, including Windshield HUD, Augmented Reality HUD, and Panoramic HUD systems, [Audio Gap] design and cost requirements. Several customer projects are already underway, reflecting strong market recognition of our advanced HUD Tcon technology. Switching gears to the WiseEye Ultralow Power AI Sensing Solution, a cutting-edge endpoint Ultralow Power AI processor, always-on CMOS image sensor, and CNN-based AI algorithm at its core. As AI continues to advance at an unprecedented pace, WiseEye is uniquely positioned with context-aware, on-device AI inferencing that delivers industry-leading power efficiency of just a few milliwatts with a compact form factor while fortified by industrial-grade security. This combination enables advanced AI capabilities in endpoint devices that were once constrained by power and size limitations, driving expanding adoption across a wide range of applications, including notebooks, tablets, surveillance systems, access control devices, smart home solutions, and, more recently, AI and AR glasses. This growing momentum highlights WiseEye's role as a trusted on-device AI sensing enabler, powering smarter and more power-efficient solutions across everyday devices and AIoT applications. In notebooks, WiseEye's human presence detection has seen expanding adoption across leading global brands, driven by its ultralow power consumption of merely a few milliwatts, instant responsiveness, and privacy-centric design, perfectly aligned with the industry's transition toward always-aware, AI-driven PCs. More notebook models are scheduled to enter mass production starting in 2026. Meanwhile, additional feature upgrades are being developed with our notebook customers to tackle more complex real-world scenarios and deliver greater user experience, all while maintaining exceptional power efficiency. One such feature is gesture recognition that mimics keyboard input, allowing page scrolling or volume adjustment without keyboard. With large language model AI driving a shift from predefined command inputs to natural language human–machine interaction, another advanced feature currently under development is the voice-activated keyword-spotting function, in which WiseEye serves as an ultralow power front end that performs wake-word detection, activating the CPU only when a specific trigger phrase is detected, enabling continuous audio monitoring while consuming very little power. In the surveillance domain, WiseEye AI enhances security systems by combining accurate human-object distinction with event-driven activation, significantly reducing false triggers. In addition to the China market, where shipments to leading smart door lock vendors are already underway, we are now partnering with world-leading door lock manufacturers to introduce novel on-device AI features such as palm vein biometric access, parcel recognition, and anti-pinch protection. Recently, we introduced a state-of-the-art bimodal solution combining palm vein and facial authentication to meet customer demand for greater flexibility and reliability in smart door lock. The dual-authentication approach enhances both security and user experience, marking a significant advancement in biometric technology while still consuming extreme low power, making it ideal for door lock application which is extremely demanding for power consumption. Several of the projects are slated for mass production starting in 2026. Notably, Himax solution complies with Europe's General Data Protection Regulation or GDPR, one of the world's strictest data privacy laws. Our recent exhibitions at Sectech Sweden 2025 illustrate Himax's proactive expansion into Europe's security and access control market, one of the most privacy-regulated and innovation-driven markets globally. Himax demonstrated its technological readiness and credibility to European system integrators, OEMs, and customers seeking secure, contactless, and power-efficient authentication solutions. Next for an update on our WiseEye Module business, which integrates [Audio Gap] image sensor, AI processor, and pre-trained no-code/low-code AI algorithm. It's designed to make AI simple and accessible, helping developers accelerate innovation and scale their products from prototype to commercial deployment. Thanks to its broad applicability, the WiseEye Module has been adopted across a wide range of domains, including leading brands' upcoming smart home appliances and various security applications. Notably, our Palm Vein module has attracted strong interest across multiple industries, rapidly securing design wins in smart access, workforce management, smart door locks, and more. Many of our WiseEye Module projects are scheduled to enter mass production in 2026. In the AI sensing domain for AR and AI glasses, WiseEye AI processors continue to build strong momentum, being adopted and integrated into next-generation smart glasses by a growing number of customers, while deepening collaborations with major tech companies, brands, and startups worldwide. Smart glasses makers are leveraging WiseEye to deliver instant responsiveness for a wide range of AI applications while maintaining extended battery life. The increasing number of design-in activities reflects broad recognition of WiseEye's unique ability to bring intelligent, context-aware vision sensing to next-generation wearable and AR devices, specifically to empower both outward and inward vision sensing. Outward vision sensing supports surrounding perception, object recognition, and spatial awareness, while inward sensing tracks eye movements, gaze direction, and pupil dynamics to enable natural and intuitive user interactions. Together, these capabilities redefine how users engage with both digital and physical environments, paving the way for more immersive, power-efficient, and personalized AR experiences. Moving on to our latest advancement in LCoS micro-display technology; following years of dedicated R&D and close collaboration with leading industry players, our proprietary Dual-Edge Front-lit LCoS micro-display has achieved a breakthrough, delivering an optimal combination of form factor, weight, power efficiency, performance, and cost, while offering ultra-high luminance and vibrant RGB display that meets the industry's stringent specifications for next-generation see-through AR glasses. This breakthrough is showcased in our industry-leading Front-lit LCoS micro-display, which combines the illumination optics and LCoS panel into an ultra-compact form factor of just 0.09 c.c. and 0.2 grams, delivering up to 350,000 nits of brightness and 1 lumen output with a maximum power consumption of just 250 megawatts. This exceptional luminance performance ensures outstanding user visibility even under bright sunlight, while the ultra-compact design enables sleek and lightweight AR glasses suitable for everyday use. Samples of our Front-lit LCoS were released early this quarter and are now being actively evaluated by several leading global tech companies and specialized smart glasses makers, with joint development efforts progressing steadily. We will announce further progress in due course. That concludes my report for this quarter. Thank you for your interest in Himax. We appreciate you joining today’s call and are now ready to take questions Operator: [Operator Instructions] Now we'll have the first question, Donnie Teng, Nomura. Donnie Teng: My first question is regarding to your fourth quarter guidance. So it looks like the revenue and gross margin can sequentially improve from third quarter. But just curious why we have a little bit conservative EPS guidance for the fourth quarter? And the second question is that for the CPO progress, I noticed that I think in the past couple of quarters, you indicated some breakthrough on the CPO business. And it looks like we have another progress in the revenue. So just wondering if you can elaborate more on [Technical Difficulty] we can deliver meaningful revenue from the CPO business into 2026. Jordan Wu: Thank you, Donnie. For your first question about our seemingly better top line and gross margin guidance compared to bottom line. Well thank you for pointing that out. One of the key reasons is income tax adjustment. We -- as a standard practice, we estimate our quarterly income tax based on our assessment of full year total income. And in Q3, as you know, we actually underestimated the Q3 profit in our guidance, right? And therefore, we have a major [ bit ] in our guidance. And so we underestimated Q3 profit and therefore, also the income tax expense. So [indiscernible] at the time we provided our guidance last quarter. Therefore, we have to kind of [indiscernible] income tax that we accrued in Q3 into Q4 and that turned out to be rather significant given that compared to our current level of income. So we have to add back the income tax expense in the fourth quarter. Another major reason is higher R&D expenses during Q4. So in addition to a few relatively expensive [indiscernible] scheduled for Q4, which is just the timing issue, right? It's not -- I mean we don't necessarily plan it that way, but it just happened that way. So we have a few more expensive tape-out schedule for Q4. And also in addition to that, we have recently been awarded the major R&D grant by Taiwan Government's so-called -- I don’t know what is called IC innovation program, [indiscernible] IC innovation program. The government actually announced that publicly so I'm allow to talk about it. The schedule of the grant is such that we are kind of [indiscernible] R&D spending related to that project, which by the way, is about our WiseEye product line. So we are kind of requested to speed up the spending. We are also getting a speed up in our grant but as you know, our spending has to be much higher than the grant and that's how the [ game ] is made, right? So we have to kind of speed up the R&D spending related to that project in Q4 as well. So these are the reasons. So you are right. If I take a longer term view, there is no particular reason why our expense in Q4 are higher than those of the other three quarters of the year, but it just happened a few factors together. And again, thank you for pointing that out. And in regard to the CPO progress, your second question, together with our partner [indiscernible] our focus right now is getting the first generation product validation completed and at the same time, finalizing the development for the second generation product, which, by the way, is in a very advanced stage, i.e., the second generation product, which is targeting CPO or GPU product line, customer GPU product line. So to recap this year, 2024 -- 2025, sorry, 2025 has been a year for engineering validation with small quantity sample shipments. So in all likelihood, we will be fully ready for volume production in 2026. Now, as for the timing of the customers' mass production and also the revenue contribution for us in 2026 next year, it is much harder for us to comment. And again, the main goal of 2026 is to complete the validation of our product and manufacturing process by key customer/partner. And we believe conservatively, there could be revenue contribution, but we don't really estimate the revenue contribution to be significant compared to our overall revenue. Rather, we believe it will be [ still ] limited because the switch to CPO involves a pretty complex ecosystem which requires long lead time, right? So we -- our technology may be ready and our immediate customer may be ready, but then the repercussion of the switch throughout the whole ecosystem all the way down to the data center operators can be quite complex. So that is why we are not -- we don't necessarily hold a very aggressive view on that timing. However, we believe we can potentially see rather meaningful top line and bottom line contribution starting in 2027. When we expect shipments for engineering runs, that is actually, by the way, based on our assessment, it is still [indiscernible] that is only engineering loss. But that again, [indiscernible] contribution we believe can already contribute rather meaningfully to our top line and bottom line. And after that, after 2027, we should enter official [indiscernible] when the growth will likely be explosive. But again, I want to emphasize all this -- everything I said about timetable and contribution and all that are just our own best estimate for now. Ultimately, when and how the ramp will take place is a call to be made by the customers. Actually related to this we are seeing offline a question about potential market penetration of the CPO technology. So I will address the question online as well. Naturally, a bit on the timetable, our best estimate is 2028, it will be full blown mass production. And again, the growth will be explosive. And naturally, as the technology becomes proven and more mature CPO adoption, we believe will rise for AI data center application. So we believe with all the obvious benefits like substantially [indiscernible] transmission bandwidth and reducing power consumption and all that right of data transmission we all know the drill and all at a relatively low cost compared to the overall cost of a complex AI system. The CPO technology has the potential of very, very high market penetration of data center eventually. And we are not just saying this as our own opinion. We actually got opinions from across the board, our direct customer or end customer. Everybody seems to be holding that view. So everybody is like holding the breath and watching our step by step for validation to engineering up to mass production. And so it's very exciting times for us, we certainly under a lot of pressure, but we are quite confident we should be able to achieve what I just mentioned. But again, the ultimate timetable will be a call to be made by the customer. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Jordan Wu: There's one of the question about our outlook for -- particularly for automotive market products 2026. I guess the question is because we do hold a very significant market share in the automotive display market. So Display IC market, Automotive Display IC market. So I guess is probably meaningful for investors. We believe the auto market seems to be showing signs of bottoming out or bottoming out judging by the customers' low inventory levels and strong rush orders over the last few quarters, and that is also actually the main reason for our exceeding our guidance last quarter. Having said that, the automotive market is quite sensitive to the overall economic condition and tariff. And therefore, we don't really anticipate a very strong recovery next year. And in our view, and in our internal business projection, we are budgeting for a mild recovery only next year. So our strategy is to maintain the technology leadership and we start to further deepen customer engagement. And a very important focus for us next year is to continue to diversify our supply chain, and this is in response to the customers' request, some customers' request or need for our geographical diversification of our supply chain and our production. So we have very strong confidence of our overall dominant market share right now, backed by leading technology offerings and strong design win pipelines, numbering hundreds of programs across a very diverse customer base. So we feel we are probably reaching the bottom, but next year, if there's a rebound, we don't anticipate a very, very strong rebound. We believe it's a mild recovery. That's our [indiscernible]. Another question is what is driving your confidence in AI revenue growth? Is this a design win with a single customer or [ much ] smaller ones? Presumably you are talking about smart glasses. In our prepared remarks, we have three things for smart glasses; WiseEye for [indiscernible] application, both looking outward and inward for smart glasses that covers both AR glasses and AI glasses. And the second thing is our LCoS micro-display, which is only applicable to AR see through glasses, right? And the third one is our WLO [indiscernible] technology where we are holding what we call optical foundry service business model targeting only a very selective small number of customers. So the third one, evolving rather complex design [indiscernible] development. So it is going to be a few years away, although we are talking about some of the most significant customers, the biggest names, some of the biggest names in the industry. So we still feel obligated to mention that as a business potential in our prepared remarks. But in terms of revenue contribution the third thing with WLO as a foundry service for [indiscernible] very big name customers, I think it's still a few years away. WiseEye AI is an ongoing, very active ongoing progress. Customers big and small across not just U.S. major names, but also Chinese, even Koreans and Japanese are coming to us. And also there are also major customers who are offering a platform of AI or smart glasses solution. And we have been working very closely with them for WiseEye solution and our solution, our technology has been taken as the standard offering part of the standard offering. So that platform solution based into -- more production, which is anticipated to take place starting next year. I think we will see revenue contribution from our WiseEye product line. And for [indiscernible] display, which is for AR see-through glasses only, not AI glasses, you need to have glasses with display to meet our [indiscernible] solution. We -- again, in our prepared remarks, we believe we are offering a combination of factors with a real product, which is quite very promising, and we believe it's something that is fully addressing the very difficult requirements of AI gasses for now. However, that product we are only in sampling stage. So from sampling stage to ultimate mass production, it is going to take some time. So I don't really anticipate [indiscernible] sales contribution from [indiscernible] next year and hopefully the year after because again, we are only in sampling stage and customers need to take our [indiscernible] solution to match [indiscernible] and then we start as a display solution that develop the full set of smart glasses products. So that is still going to take some time, although our solution has been anticipated by a lot of customers, big and small across the board. But this is very new, and we are in sampling stage so it's going to be quite an effort for us to mass production to [indiscernible] our customers. Could you give us an update on the second generation [indiscernible]? Do you expect higher revenue number with second gen? I cannot comment on specifics, but the key difference of first gen and second gen is the number of channels, right? And basically, we are more than doubling up from first gen to second gen. And actually, the technical challenge is tremendous. And that also involves a pretty fundamental revision of our optical design to achieve that goal. And customers have made it very specific that they -- customers are very hopeful for the success of our second gen because with the success of our second gen, it will be a very good product idea for GPU, which as you know is something requiring high bandwidth transmission. So upon the success and mass production of second gen, we believe certainly the revenue contribution will be significant. However, as I mentioned in my earlier Q&A we think -- I think to our timetable for next year, the year after, 2028. So we don’t want to overpromise and make people feel that it is going to be immediate revenue contribution. But second is a big deal, is a huge deal for us, for our partner, and our customer. Operator: Okay then thank you for all your questions. I think that will be the end of the Q&A session. And I'll pass the call back to Mr. Jordan Wu. Thank you. Jordan Wu: Thank you, operator. As a final note, Karen Tiao, our Head of IR/PR, will maintain investor marketing activities and continue to attend investor conferences, and we will announce the details as they come about. Thank you and have a nice day. Operator: Thank you, Jordan. And ladies and gentlemen, this concludes third quarter 2025 Earnings Conference. You may now disconnect. Thank you again. Goodbye.
Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by for Autohome's Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this time. A live and archived webcast of this earnings conference call will also be available on Autohome's IR website. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Mr. Sterling Song, Autohome's IR Director. Mr. Song, please go ahead. Sterling Song: Thank you, operator. Hello, everyone, and welcome to Autohome's Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. Earlier today, Autohome distributed its earnings release, which can be found on the company's IR website at ir.autohome.com.cn. Joining me on today's call is our Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Craig Yan Zeng. Management will go through the prepared remarks, which will be followed by a Q&A session, where it is available to answer all your questions. Before we continue, please note that the discussion today will contain forward-looking statements made under the safe harbor provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from our current expectations. Potential risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, those outlined in our public filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Autohome doesn't undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, except as required under applicable law. Please also note that, Autohome's earnings press release and this conference call include discussions of certain unaudited non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of the non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures can be found in our earnings release. I'll now turn the call over to Autohome's Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Craig Yan Zeng, for opening remarks. Please go ahead, Craig. Yan Zeng: [Interpreted] Thank you, Sterling. Hello, everyone. This is Craig Zeng. Thank you for joining our earnings conference call today. In the third quarter, we continued to advance our AI and O2O strategies. On AI, we significantly strengthened the integration of AI technologies with our products, fostering business innovation while enhancing both user experience and customer operational efficiency. On O2O, we continuously improved our O2O platform by integrating online and offline resources, optimizing the end-to-end user experience and building a comprehensive closed-loop ecosystem that spans the entire customer journey from initial traffic acquisition to transaction completion to after sales services. In terms of AI technology applications, we completed a comprehensive upgrade of our AI assistant by strengthening model capabilities, integrating user inquiries with specific vehicle models and expanding usage scenarios we achieved precise matching between user queries and car models. This has created a decision-making loop of content drives engagement, engagement lead to action. In addition, we've also introduced 2 new features, the AI car selection system and AI vehicle for diagnostics, providing users with more intuitive and efficient tools for their car-related needs. In September, we launched the first inaugural Global AI Technology Conference. This established a premium platform for technical exchange among leading enterprises, showcased cutting-edge advances in China's intelligent automotive technologies, and elevated the collective image for Chinese auto brands. The conference's success also serves as a testament to Autohome's professional influence as a trusted media platform. The conference received authoritative endorsements from 5 major automotive associations and was strongly supported by 14 key corporate partners. 7 top executives from leading companies in the industry delivered impact keynote speeches. Following the conference, over 30 automotive brands engaged with Autohome's official Weibo account, while more than 60 professional editors, technical experts and PGC creators formed a multidimensional communication matrix that drew widespread attention across the industry. In building our auto ecosystem, we soft launched our Autohome Mall on September 20, marking a major milestone and significant progress in our one-stop online to offline strategy. This initiative further improves our new retail business model through continuous upgrades and makes our model more complete. This strategy extends Autohome's role from being a decision-making hub for car selection and research to the final car purchase and ordering per transaction creating a full digitalized closed loop for the entire car purchase experience and significantly increasing the value of our traffic. Specifically, on content, we strengthened our content matrix by increasing professional depth and expanding the breadth of perspective, while continuously advancing our diversified content ecosystem. For our 2025 series of coverage on domestic and international auto shows, we adopted a dual-track approach to achieve comprehensive reach from global influence to local penetration. At the Munich Auto Show, we took a global perspective, focusing on world's premiers and the Chinese brands going global. We built a professional and exclusive content matrix through intensive bilingual live streaming and video production that leveraged global mainstream media networks to amplify China's automotive innovation and brand recognition worldwide. At the Chengdu Auto Show, we focused on new car launches and purchase guidance, integrating resources from 18 automakers to create Autohome exclusive live streaming sessions. This provided users with an immersive auto show experience. On the first day of the auto show, we achieved 100% coverage of all new car launches. Beyond our professional auto show coverage, we made significant strides in developing a content-centered interactive ecosystem. The newly established Autohome Media MCN is committed to building a multi-category influencer matrix that centers on automotive vertical, while expanding into technology, travel and overseas content. We've also developed a rich and diverse content ecosystem that combines professional and engaging PGC content, in-depth and authoritative OTC insights and authentic user-generated experiences that resonate. To date, we have gathered over 200 high-quality creators across multiple platforms covering professional car reviews, technology, travel and other areas, continuously enhancing Autohome's platform influence. According to QuestMobile, the average mobile DAUs reached 76.56 million in September 2025, up by 5.1% from the same period last year. In NEVs, we continue to focus on user and client needs while building a comprehensive automotive ecosystem. Online centered around our newly soft launched Autohome Mall introduced in late September, provides transaction services, while our offline network of franchise stores, CARtech outlets and used car dealerships is designated to integrate the entire process from online ordering to offline delivery and service. Building on the success of trial, we plan to officially launch the Autohome Mall during the Double 11 shopping festival. By integrating resources from across the industry value chain, we are committed to providing users with more precise, professional and efficient car purchasing experiences. Furthermore, total revenues from NEVs in the third quarter, including those from the new retail business has continued to grow, increasing by 58.6% from last year. On digitalization, our 5 major digital intelligence product lines are leveraging Autohome's platform capabilities of full life cycle data tracking to continuously help clients improve targeting accuracy and service efficiency. Furthermore, at the Global AI Technology Conference, we officially launched the Tianshu Intelligence Service Platform powered by Autohome's proprietary Cangjie Large Language Model, the platform uses an open toolkit and service distribution capabilities to redefine collaboration among users, the platform and the ecosystem partners. This advancement drives Autohome's transformation from an automotive information platform to an industry-wide intelligent hub, further strengthening our field advantages in technology and ecosystem. For our used car business, we continue to advance the standardization of both transactions and services. The AI car inspection expert developed based on historical transaction data and algorithmic models have achieved industry-leading accuracy in vehicle valuation. Meanwhile, our flagship certified used car stores have further expanded its network of partner dealers. In the future, we will continue to uphold integrity and standardization as our foundation, deepen our collaboration with high-quality used car dealers and continuously strive to provide consumers with a more reliable and worry-free used car buying experience. In summary, this year, we focused on AI and O2O to comprehensively accelerate our business expansion. Looking ahead, we will continue driving innovation in both products and business models, building a more efficient automotive ecosystem and service system that creates sustained value for the industry and ensures our long-term stable development. With that, now please let me briefly walk you through the key financials for the third quarter 2025. Please note that, I will reference RMB only in my discussion today, unless otherwise stated. Net revenues for the third quarter reached RMB 1.78 billion. To break it down further, media services revenues contributed RMB 298 million, leads generation services revenues were RMB 664 million and the online marketplace and others revenues increased by 32.1% year-over-year to RMB 816 million. With respect to cost, cost of revenues in the third quarter was RMB 646 million compared to RMB 408 million in the third quarter of 2024. Gross margin in the third quarter was 63.7% compared to 77% during the same period last year. Turning to operating expenses. Sales and marketing expenses in the third quarter were RMB 620 million compared to RMB 877 million in the third quarter of 2024. Product and development expenses were RMB 279 million compared to RMB 339 million in the third quarter of 2024. General and administrative expenses were RMB 125 million compared to RMB 137 million during the same period last year. Overall, we delivered an operating profit of RMB 147 million in the third quarter compared to RMB 83 million for the same period of 2024. Adjusted net income attributable to Autohome was RMB 407 million in the third quarter compared to RMB 497 million in the corresponding period of 2024. Non-GAAP basic and diluted earnings per share in the third quarter was RMB 0.87 and RMB 0.86, respectively, compared to RMB 1.02 for both in the corresponding period of 2024. Non-GAAP basic and diluted earnings per ADS in the third quarter were RMB 3.47 and RMB 3.45 respectively, compared to RMB 4.09 and RMB 4.08, respectively, in the corresponding period of 2024. As of September 30, 2025, our balance sheet remains robust with cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments of RMB 21.89 billion. We generated net operating cash flow of RMB 67 million in the third quarter. On September 4, 2024, our Board of Directors authorized a new share repurchase program under which we are permitted to repurchase up to USD 200 million of Autohome's ADS for a period not to exceed 12 months thereafter. On August 14, 2025, the Board approved an extension of the term of this program through December 31, 2025. As of October 31, 2025, we have repurchased approximately 5.48 million ADS for a total cost of approximately USD 146 million. In addition, in accordance with our dividend policy, our Board of Directors has approved a cash dividend of USD 1.20 per ADS or USD 0.30 per ordinary share payable in U.S. dollars to holders of ADS and ordinary shares of record as of the close of business on December 31, 2025. The aggregate amount of the dividend will be approximately RMB 1 billion and expected to be paid to holders of ordinary shares and ADS of the company on or around February 12, 2026, and February 19, 2026, respectively. On September 30, 2025, the company announced the approval of a cash dividend of approximately RMB 500 million. Overall, the company has fulfilled its commitment to shareholders to distribute no less than RMB 1.5 billion in dividends for the full year of 2025. Looking ahead, we remain committed to maintaining a long-term stable and proactive approach to shareholder returns, and we sincerely thank our shareholders for their continued strong support to the company. So that concludes our financial summary. We are ready to open up Q&A session. Operator? Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Thomas Chong of Jefferies. Thomas Chong: [Interpreted] I have 2 questions. The first question is about the outlook for 2026 auto market. How should we think about the industry trend? And my second question is about AI. We mentioned AI in our prepared remarks. So, I just want to get some more color about the progress of our AI product offerings. Yan Zeng: [Interpreted] Thank you for your question. First, let me share some market recent developments and the future trends with you. First of all, the price war in the auto market has shown some signs of easing and the automakers are accelerating their intelligent technology efforts. In recent months, multiple government agencies have rolled out intensive policies calling for the industry to end devolution and provided policy guidance to ease the ongoing price war in the auto sector. So, all these measures have helped to cool down the price war in the auto market. And we have also observed that over 20 automakers have gradually phased out their fixed price promotions. Since the start of this year, major automakers have successfully announced their plans for intelligent driving technologies, to accelerate the adoption and application of intelligent driving. So, from this, it's quite clear that future industry competition will depend more on the company's comprehensive capabilities in integrating intelligent technology, user scenarios and meeting user needs, et cetera, rather than any single technological advantage. So, for next year, the price competition is expected to shift more towards a battle of technological cost effectiveness. Secondly, the NEV market still remains the core growth driver, even though this year, their growth number is comparatively a little bit slower than last year. But according to the data from the China Passenger Car Association, CPCA, the NEV penetration rate exceeded 50% in 7 out of the first 9 months of this year. So, this was mainly driven by the extension of favorable policies, et cetera. So, we believe for next year, the overall market -- auto market is expected to continue to undergo structural adjustments, which will redefine how consumers to make their purchasing decisions. At the same time, the China's auto industry continues to remain under high pressure, which has been lasted so long. And this pressure includes severe capacity -- overcapacity, declining profit margins and intense or fierce market competition, et cetera. So, we see both traditional automakers or dealers also undergoing such business pressure. So confronted with both price wars and shrinking profit and margin, we see OEMs and dealers alike. So, they have raised their expectations for both online consumer acquisition and offline sales conversion efficiency. Looking ahead to next year, we believe the following few points merit our attention. We believe there are short-term challenges, but it coexists with long-term opportunities because the auto market still face significant short-term pressures, mainly stemming from the shift of the NEV purchase tax exemption policy from full exemption to half exemption and the expiration of tax incentives for the ICEs. So combined with the price war in traditional ICEs, all such factors may further impact the auto market. Despite the above short-term pressures that we just mentioned, there are still upgrades in intelligent technologies, improvements to and recovery in the market order, and if there's further supported by introduction of additional long-term policies, we believe it will still stimulate consumer demand in the auto market and the market is expected to achieve modest and steady growth in 2026. So, for us, for Autohome, we will continue to deepen our AI and auto strategies, as I just mentioned. On one hand, we will keep advancing the product innovation and upgrades, accelerating the application of AI technology across content, intelligent customer services and scenario-based services, et cetera. On the other side, we will continuously explore ways to leverage our online and offline resources to achieve integration, build a closed loop for auto transactions and better serve our users and clients. The second question is our AI product progress. So, in the field of intelligent technologies, we have already completed the strategic layout of multiple products, built a technology product mix. Spans the entire life cycle of auto consumption and continuously we drive improvement in both user experience and customer business efficiency. For our users, our AI smart assistant and the used car AI smart buyer are continuously being upgraded. The new generation of the smart system has moved beyond simple question-and-answer model to proactive understanding and links provision. So, it can automatically identify the car models and series mentioned in the conversation and directly push product links. So, it shortened the users' search process and improve our decision-making efficiency. And for our clients, we have deployed 5 major AI product lines covering core business scenarios such as marketing insights, online customer acquisition, store visit invitation, dealer store operations and used cars, et cetera. So, through the intelligent tools, we can continuously empower our business team members and to realize the full chain digital operations. And for our technology foundation, we have our own proprietary Cangjie large language model. For example, our used car AI smart buyer is powered by this Cangjie engine, and it is -- besides, it is combined with Autohome's unique data assets, so it can deliver highly accurate and efficient recommendations, achieving a high degree of matching between the vehicle sources and the user needs. So currently Autohome is comprehensively and vigorously promoting the AI-driven upgrade of the products, achieving a comprehensive transformation from the underlying architecture to application scenarios. So, in the future, we will continue to deepen the integrated application of AI across multiple scenarios using the technological innovation to drive an efficiency revolution in the auto sector in the industry. Operator: The next question comes from the line of Xiaodan Zhang from CICC. Xiaodan Zhang: [Interpreted] So can management share your outlook on the traditional business for the upcoming quarters? And also, is there any update on the shareholder return plans? Yan Zeng: [Interpreted] Thank you for your question. In the third quarter, we do see that the OEM promotional discount still remains at high level and the price war has been there for so long. And the overall discount for OEMs has already exceeding 23%. So, for the car sales volume and profit, I still remain concentrated among the leading companies. So, the price cutting for volume strategy has made a lot of OEMs to control their marketing budgets. For the media services revenue in Q3 still declined year-over-year, but the decline has narrowed down significantly. And the continued decline is mainly due to the continued pressure from the OEMs price war in the market. And as Q4 approaches to the year-end, and we believe OEMs is expected to maintain high professional discounts to boost their sales revenues and this still put pressure on our media services revenue. So, we do expect we will achieve a slight year-over-year decline. For our lead generation business, because of the market inventory backlog and the inverted pricing, so dealers continue to face operational pressure, and we see that over 50% of dealers operating at a loss in the first half of the year, and it doesn't look very optimistic for their survival for many dealers. So accordingly, our lead generation services also faced some ongoing pressure in the second half of the year. Nevertheless, our customer penetration rate still remains at a good level. As the market -- once the market and customer operating conditions improve, our traditional business can be hit the bottom, rebound and stabilize. As I just mentioned, our media segment, business segment already narrowed down their decrease. And on the other hand, our innovative business developed quite strong, quite well. So, to some extent, our -- it offsets the situation of our traditional businesses. On the shareholder return on dividends today, we just announced a cash dividend of RMB 1 billion for the second half of this year. And combined with RMB 500 million we announced in September, we have fulfilled our commitment to a total annual cash dividend of no less than RMB 1.5 billion for the whole year 2025. Our Board of Directors will continue this stable dividend policy. On the share repurchase program, of the USD 200 million share repurchase program, until today, we have completed over 70% and the overall execution of this program is progressing quite well. So, in the next few months, we will continue to carry out the remaining share repurchase program. For a long time, we have been committed to building a comprehensive shareholder return plan centered on the continuous dividends and the share repurchases, providing shareholders with predictable and stable shareholder returns. So, over the long term, we are very confident in our business operations in the future. So, we will continue to uphold our long-term stable and proactive approach to shareholder returns. We sincerely thank all shareholders for their long-standing strong support to the company. Operator: The next question comes from the line of Ritchie Sun from HSBC. Ritchie Sun: [Interpreted] So I have 2. First of all, the gross profit margin it has been dropping year-on-year and Q-on-Q in first quarter. So why is that? And what is the trend going forward? Secondly, I want to ask about the energy space stores and satellite stores. So, what is the development progress and the 2026 target? Yan Zeng: [Interpreted] Thank you for your question. Since the beginning of 2025 this year, so in order to accelerate the development of our new innovative businesses, we have been actively expanding in -- we have been actively developed our business and so it increased our upfront investment and consequently, it resulted in higher costs. Specifically, our innovative business such as the new retail business has scaled up in the third quarter, as compared to the same period last year. For example, we soft launched Autohome Mall business in September. And although, this model is quite early in its early stage, but we observed where we get quite positive market feedback. And we believe such staged investments is quite necessary to -- for our future development for our -- to explore new avenues of growth and create much greater room for future development. So, the gross margin of our transaction business, it cannot be -- of course, it cannot be compared for our traditional business. For example, the media business and the lead generation business is much lower than our traditional business. So going forward, we will adhere to our consistent practice of the strict cost controls, and we'll hold the prudent principles in managing the scale of our investment. So, we will pay attention to our gross margin change. We will focus on that. The second question is about Autohome space station and satellite stores development. The development of our offline network is always centered on using our digital technology to streamline the car purchasing process and improve the transaction efficiency. So, our advantage is in our ability to cover areas in low-tier markets where OEMs or dealers, they don't reach. So, we can help them to expand their sales network. So, this business model is also being continuously upgraded and iterated. As I just mentioned, we are integrating the online and offline resources, bringing our online technology and the traffic advantages to offline. So, we try to transform from an auto content-oriented platform to a transaction service platform. So, after we complete the controlling shareholder, we will continue to working on combining our online and offline efforts to provide platform services that are more convenient and efficient, and we try to find new ways to grow beyond our traditional business model. Operator: Our final question comes from Brian Gong from Citi. Brian Gong: [Interpreted] I will translate myself. The used car market seems still a little bit weak recently. How does management view the outlook for used car market ahead? Yan Zeng: [Interpreted] Thank you for your question. Since the beginning of this year, the used car market has generally shown a trend of rising transaction volume and the falling prices according to China Automobile Dealers Association, CADA, for the first half, the transaction volume for used cars rose 2% year-over-year, while the average transaction price decreased by 12% year-over-year. At the same time, we see there are 2 notable structural trends emerged in the market. First is the increased cross-regional flows. Second is the rapidly increasing NEV used cars sales. While the transaction volumes are expanding, the operational pressures in the industry continue to intensify due to the impact of price wars in the auto market, we see the proportion of loss-making used car companies has expanded to over 70%, with lengthening average inventory cycles, continued high customer acquisition costs and intensified homogeneous competition, et cetera. But despite this, positive factors still remain. For example, the trade-in policies have stimulated replacement demand and brought more high-quality used cars into the market with the new energy used car becoming a key growth engine. So, the CADA forecast for the full year, the used car transaction volume could exceed 20.5 million units, an increase of 4% to 5% year-over-year. Currently, the used car sector has entered a crucial stage of deep adjustment and value chain reconstruction. The negative impact from the price cutting for volume model are gradually becoming apparent. However, China's large vehicle ownership base and relevant consumer demand provide strong support for the mid-to long-term development of the used car industry. So Autohome will continue to collaborate with industry partners to actively address challenges through refined operations and service upgrades, exploring new business models, unlocking new value to advance the used car industry towards high-quality development. Operator: There are no further questions at this time. I'll turn the conference back to management for closing remarks. Yan Zeng: [Interpreted] Thank you very much for joining us today. We appreciate your support and look forward to updating you on our next quarter's conference call in a few months' time. And in the meantime, please feel free to contact us if you have any further questions or comments. Thank you, everyone. Operator: This concludes the conference for today. [Portions of this transcript that are marked [Interpreted] were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]