加载中...
共找到 18,582 条相关资讯
The International Energy Agency (IEA) is sounding the alarm on what it calls the most severe energy crisis in modern history, warning that the full impact of the Iran war is only beginning to hit markets.
Traders have piled into markets, turbocharging a two-day rally in the S&P 500.
Two assets that could jump with a resolution to the war in the Middle East are the euro and global sovereign debt.
The two investors share several investments in common across Berkshire Hathaway and the Dan Ives Wedbush AI Revolution ETF (NYSE: IVES).
As I write on Wednesday, stocks are continuing yesterday's rally, spurred on by positive geopolitical headlines. This morning, President Trump posted on Truth Social that Iran's president has requested a ceasefire – adding that the U.S. would only consider the proposal once the Strait of Hormuz was “open, free, and clear.
U.S. home builders and car manufacturers are taking a hit. Tariffs haven't slashed the federal debt as promised.
Nasdaq's new rules could fast track the entry of a newly public large company 15 days after its IPO.
The wealth effect may have a greater effect on consumer spending than high gas prices.
Comprehensive cross-platform coverage of the U.S. market close on Bloomberg Television, Bloomberg Radio, and YouTube with Bailey Lipschultz, Katie Greifeld, Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec. -------- More on Bloomberg Television and Markets Like this video?
Wall Street ended higher on Wednesday, extending a two-day rally as investors grew increasingly optimistic that the US-Iran conflict could be nearing an end. Gains were led by technology heavyweights, while oil prices declined sharply, reflecting easing concerns over supply disruptions.
'The Big Money Show' reacts to President Donald Trump touting a ceasefire deal with Iran, as markets rally and global attention turns to oil prices and the Strait of Hormuz. #foxbusiness #bigmoneyshow 0:00 Trump's Iran Stance & Market Shock 1:23 The Strait of Hormuz: A Global Problem 4:03 International Response & Economic Incentives 6:07 Geopolitical Shifts & U.S. Advantage 8:05 Oil Prices, Small Business, and Midterm Concerns 12:40 The Big Picture: Long-Term Vision vs.
Micron's (MU) eye-watering rally went from under $100 to $470 in less than a year, then saw a sharp sell-off in mid-March back toward $300. As shares experience a rebound rally Wednesday, Rick Ducat dives into the AI memory chip stock's volatile price action to weigh where shares will experience support and resistance.
Operator: Good morning, everyone, and welcome to today's PVH Fourth Quarter 2025 and Full Year Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note this call may be recorded [Operator Instructions] -- it is now my pleasure to turn today's program over to Sheryl Freeman, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations. Sheryl Freeman: Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the PVH Corp. Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Earnings Conference Call. Leading the call today will be Stefan Larsson, Chief Executive Officer; and Melissa Stone, Interim Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President, Global Financial Planning and Analysis. This webcast and conference call is being recorded on behalf of PVH and consists of copyrighted material. It may not be recorded, rebroadcast or otherwise transmitted without PVH's written permission. Your participation constitutes your consent to having anything you say appear on any transcript or replay of this call. The information to be discussed includes forward-looking statements that reflect PVH's view as of March 31, 2026, of future events and financial performance. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties indicated in the company's SEC filings and the safe harbor statement included in the press release that is the subject of this call. These include PVH's right to change its strategies, objectives, expectations and intentions and the company's ability to realize anticipated benefits and savings from divestitures, restructurings and similar plans such as the actions undertaken to focus principally on its Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger businesses and its initiatives to drive more efficient and cost-effective ways of working across the organization. PVH does not undertake any obligation to update publicly any forward-looking statement, including, without limitation, any estimates regarding revenue or earnings. Generally, the financial information and projections to be discussed will be on a non-GAAP basis as defined under SEC rules. Reconciliations to GAAP amounts are included in PVH's fourth quarter 2025 earnings release, which can be found on www.pvh.com and in the company's current report on Form 8-K furnished to the SEC in connection with the release. At this time, I'm pleased to turn the conference over to Stefan Larsson. Stefan Larsson: Thank you, Sheryl. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our call today. I want to start by thanking our teams around the world for delivering a strong fourth quarter and finish to the year on our multiyear journey to build Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger to their full potential and make PVH one of the highest performing brand groups in our sector. While there is, of course, more work to do, we have made important progress on this journey, and I will discuss this more in a moment. In the fourth quarter, we exceeded our guidance across revenue, operating profit and EPS. Total revenue for the company was up mid-single digits on a reported basis, above our guidance and flat in constant currency. Importantly, we drove better-than-expected gross margin performance in the quarter with sequential improvement across all regions. We continue to manage our operating expenses thoughtfully while strategically increasing marketing spend behind our 2 iconic brands, and we drove a 10% non-GAAP operating margin, which would have been 11.7% without the gross tariff impact. For the full year, we delivered on our financial guidance across both the top and bottom line. And as planned, we returned to revenue growth for the year. Despite the choppy consumer and macroeconomic environment, we delivered a non-GAAP operating margin of 8.8% for the full year, above our guidance, including the impact of tariffs. When excluding the impact of gross tariffs, operating margin was 9.6% -- we continue to simplify our operating model and drive more efficient ways of working, generating over 200 basis points of annualized cost savings. We further strengthened our supply chain, ending the year with a good inventory position, up 5% versus last year or up 1% when adjusted for tariffs, positioning us well for spring 2026. Finally, we returned over $560 million of capital to shareholders through our share repurchases, representing 15% of our shares outstanding. Looking ahead, while the macroeconomic environment remains uncertain, we have started 2026 with positive momentum and higher spring season sell-through trends across both brands and all 3 regions. While wholesalers remain cautious and the consumer macro environment continues to be uneven, our fall 2026 order books for Europe are positive. As we speak, we're in the middle of some of the most important weeks of the quarter with Easter this coming weekend, which falls 3 weeks earlier than last year. For Calvin Klein, we have strengthened our global product capabilities and have addressed the transitory operational challenges we faced in 2025. Our deliveries are now on time and our growing margins are back on plan. This year, we will strategically increase marketing spend and further invest in the shopping experience across digital, shop-in-shops and store concepts. For fiscal 2026, we expect to grow total revenue slightly on a reported basis and be flat to up slightly in constant currency with planned growth in direct-to-consumer across both brands and all 3 regions. We expect our non-GAAP operating margins to hold steady at 8.8% or 11%, excluding the gross impact from tariffs. Additionally, we intend to continue to return capital to shareholders with a target of at least $300 million this year. Now let me share a brief update on what drove our performance for the fourth quarter and full year 2025. Starting with Calvin Klein. In 2025, we continue to drive strong brand relevance for Calvin in both product and marketing. We sharpened our focus on our core categories, strategically infusing innovation and newness in the worlds of underwear and denim supported by full funnel 360 marketing. We reinvented our biggest underwear franchises with the launch of the icon Cotton stretch amplified with Bad Bunny and Rosalia, which grew 20% in men's and 13% in women's, driving our broader underwear business up low single digits versus last year. We also grew our fashion denim category, which represents over 50% of our denim business with high single digits. In addition, Calvin returned to the runway, creating a strong halo for the brand. And during the year, we opened new Calvin Klein flagship stores in both Tokyo and New York City. In the fourth quarter, we leveraged key consumer moments and delivered strong engagement and results, generating higher full price sales versus last year and sequential improvements in gross margin. Turning to Tommy Hilfiger. Throughout the year, we took Tommy's iconic DNA of classic American cool and cut through in major cultural moments from the Met Gala to F1 the movie. We also launched our new partnership with Cadillac Formula 1 in Q4 with a positive consumer response. In addition, we announced one of the most significant new global partnerships for Tommy, our first football partnership with Liverpool Football Club. This news was the #1 most engaged post ever to go out on Tommy's social channels with strong resonance across Europe and driving immediate spikes in e-commerce traffic. In the marketplace, we further improved our e-commerce experience, opened new stores globally and in wholesale, we unveiled our new shop-in-shop concept at the iconic Gallery Lafayette in Paris. And finally, in the fourth quarter, just like in Calvin, we leaned into our best product categories where we drove strong growth for our iconic cable knit sweater franchise with sales up over 50% Overall, when I look at our global business for the holiday, we navigated an uneven macro environment across both brands, and I was particularly pleased to see that where we brought newness into key product categories, we were able to drive growth with higher full price sell-through. Now I will turn to our regional performance, starting with Europe. For the full year, the region declined 1% in constant currency with 2 quarters of strong D2C growth in the first half, followed by a more muted consumer in the second half. In wholesale, we delivered sequentially improving order books each season in Europe, returning to growth beginning with our fall '25 season. In the fourth quarter, revenue was down low single digits in constant currency, in line with guidance and against a muted backdrop. In constant currency, wholesale was down 1% as positive order book growth was offset by lower in-season replenishment and D2C was down mid-single digits. For both Calvin and Tommy, the areas where we have introduced the most product innovation into key categories continue to drive growth, and our focus continues to be on scaling that innovation across bigger parts of the assortment. We also continue to work more closely than ever with our wholesale partners. And in January, we held our second annual Global Partner Day to kick off the fall '26 market launch. We had over 500 key partners in attendance and received the strongest and most positive feedback yet. Next, turning to the Americas. For the full year, we delivered mid-single-digit growth driven by our wholesale channel and strength in our e-commerce business. The consumer backdrop has been uneven. And in stores, industry traffic trends were increasingly challenged, resulting in our total D2C business down low single digits for the year. In the fourth quarter, we grew overall revenue by 4%, driven by wholesale as well as continued growth in digital. D2C declined mid-single digits due to lower store traffic, partially offset by AUR growth. Product-wise, we saw strength in denim for both men and women. Our wholesale business increased high teens, partly driven by the takeback of our women's sportswear and jeans business with underlying growth in wholesale up mid-single digits. Despite lower traffic, we drove greater full price selling for the region and over 200 basis points in sequential year-over-year gross margin improvement. Moving to Asia Pacific. For the full year, revenue declined mid-single digits in constant currency or down low single digits, excluding the timing impact from the Lunar New Year calendar shift. But importantly, we delivered sequential improvements in our top line performance each quarter over the course of the year. In the fourth quarter, excluding the Lunar New Year calendar shift, our APAC revenue returned to growth and was up low single digits in constant currency. In digital, we delivered the second consecutive quarter of high single-digit growth as we successfully concluded Double 11 and the holiday period. Overall, we are seeing good conversion and positive traffic improvements across key markets, including China and Japan. We continue to execute with discipline in the region, driving gross margin improvements and reinvesting into marketing with key local talent. Both brands were proud to participate as first-time exhibitors at the China International Import Expo, building on our long-standing presence and commitment to the market. Before we turn to 2026, I would like to take a moment to reflect on the progress we have made through our multiyear PVH+ Plan journey to date. While we have important work still ahead of us, since 2022, we have navigated a series of external headwinds, including exiting our Russia business, the introduction of tariffs, and we have also navigated specific geopolitical dynamics. Throughout this period, we have remained steadfastly focused on executing our plan and delivering significant operational progress across all 5 critical areas of the PVH+ Plan, winning with our hero products and categories, driving strong consumer engagement, strengthening our distribution in the marketplace by deepening our partnerships with key wholesale partners and expanding our D2C business, building a global demand-driven operating model and driving operational efficiencies to power our investments in growth and in marketing. Through this work, we have built a more systematic, repeatable approach, which is a powerful foundation as part of our continued journey to build Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger into their full potential. As we said we would, we divested profit-dilutive noncore businesses, putting 100% of our attention behind our 2 globally iconic brands, Calvin and Tommy. And on an underlying basis, ex divestitures, we have grown those brands at 2% CAGR in constant currency since 2021. At the same time, we have built a strong leadership team with experience to unlock our brand's full potential. Across our regions, we increased our Americas profitability to double digits ex tariffs. We drove higher quality of sales through our initiative in Europe, and in APAC drove a 5% growth CAGR in constant currency over the period. And as our important work continues, one of the biggest accomplishments is how we have driven brand relevance with the consumers who matters the most going forward. Our most recent consumer research not only confirms that Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger are 2 of the most recognized and loved brands globally, both brands also outperform with the Gen Z and younger millennial consumers. And within these, both brands are performing strongly with the highest value consumer segments, the status-oriented shoppers and style enthusiasts. This is important because these consumers shop more often, have higher order values and are more loyal. This is a direct result of our multiyear work to ignite Calvin's and Tommy's brand DNA and make them even more relevant for today. A key part in our consumer engagement is the strength we have built on social, where Calvin has the most followers and the highest engagement of our competitive set with 44 million followers across our 4 biggest platforms. Tommy has the third largest following in the industry with 31 million and the same leading engagement levels as Calvin, approximately 4x higher than most of our competitors. In addition, our consumer insights confirm clear product authority in some of the biggest and growing categories in the market. For Calvin, this means the right to play and win in underwear, denim, outerwear and knits. And for Tommy, it means the right to play and win in outerwear, sweaters, shirts and knits. The strength we have built with the consumer guides our path forward. We are increasingly targeting the best consumer segments for each brand as we expand our product strength across the top 5 categories. We put innovation and newness into creating the best product franchises, and we drive our consumer engagement with a full funnel 360 approach. To make this possible, we are leveraging the strong global product and marketing capabilities for both brands that we have worked to establish. We are also well underway to successfully transitioning the licensed women's sportswear business in the U.S. wholesale channel for both brands to ensure that our product creation across both men's and women's are brand right and positioned to drive sustainable profitable growth. In the marketplace, we have both increased our focus on our key wholesale partners and have meaningfully strengthened our D2C execution, which now represents approximately half of our sales, up from 44% in 2021. We have done this while elevating the brand experience across digital and stores, delivering digital penetration that is nearly double pre-COVID levels. We have also made significant operational progress in our journey to become a more data and demand-driven company, improving inventory management and building new capabilities, including in AI. Our new collaboration with OpenAI, which we announced in January, will accelerate that progress. Importantly, we drove over 300 basis points of cost savings, including 200 basis points of annualized cost savings from our cost efficiency initiatives. Over the past few years, through the disciplined PVH+ execution and despite the multiple external headwinds, we have built a strong foundation in both Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger to be able to drive sustainable profitable growth with increasing pricing power across our 3 regions. As I've said before, every season, you will see us expand on this further. Now as we look ahead, I want to share our actions for 2026 that will help us do just that. Let me start with Calvin Klein. We can't talk about Calvin Klein today without referencing Love Story, the TV show. The cultural resonance of Love Story reinforces the timeless power of the Calvin Klein brand and its authentic place in American fashion with a premier driving a surge in online interest in Calvin. We're capitalizing on the Love Story effect in multiple ways that are true to the brand, leveraging the '90s focus in our product assortment and marketing and supercharging it in e-commerce and stores with a spring '90s edit on calvinklein.com that is driving above-average social engagement and click-through rates. We are also styling key talent, including actress Sarah Pidgeon, who placed Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy at the recent Vanity Fair Oscar Party. And we hosted a New York Magazine pop-up collaboration at our new SoHo store, achieving our highest daily sales and visitors to date. We are continuing to lead the 90-style conversations globally, a look that we help define by leaning into the styles driving the trend today across our platform. You will see this across our Spring campaign featuring global ambassador Jung Kook, which pairs cultural influence with hero product storytelling to drive consumer demand. Here, strong social engagement is driving fantastic sell-throughs with sales of campaign items up over 50% after launch and the jackets Jung Kook wore reaching 60% sell-through in just 2 weeks. In March, we launched a new Spring campaign featuring FC Barcelona and Brazilian national team soccer star Raphinha, debuting our most recent underwear innovations, Icon Active Mesh and Icon Cotton Stretch with a stitch-free Infinity Bond waistband, we drove social engagement up 62% and sales of featured products were up 11% versus a similar campaign last year. Our most recent runway show at New York Fashion Week once again placed Calvin Klein at the center of the cultural conversation, supported by top global talent, including Jennie, Dakota Johnson, Brooke Shields and Lily Collins. The fall 2026 show was once again the #1 in share of voice and #1 in earned media value from all of New York Fashion Week. Finally, we just unveiled Calvin's latest Spring campaign, starring after Dakota Johnson, styled in new underwear and denim styles. Since the campaign launch, website traffic has been up double digits versus last year in Europe. Sell-through has also been strong. Sales in key featured items showed up 4x versus the time prior. For Tommy in 2026, we are doubling down on our core product categories and set out to create the best product franchises in the market. Moving forward, you'll see us expand our category acceleration across sweaters, outerwear and knits and shirts. We have started the new fiscal year with a healthy momentum with the launch of the brand's Spring 2026 campaign, which features an invitation to Tommy's aspirational world. The campaign has been very well received across markets, serving as both a brand beacon and amplifying our 2026 product priorities. We will continue to leverage our partnerships with Liverpool Football Club and Cadillac F1 throughout the year with a steady drumbeat of consumer engagement. As part of our new multiyear Liverpool partnership, Tommy Hilfiger will dress the full team from match arrivals 6 to 8 times per season, and each tunnel walk represents an opportunity to drive scaled brand visibility and product sales as we style players in our most aspirational Tommy icons and offer shop the look access. In our first tunnel walk, we drove a 200% increase in sales for these products in Europe compared to the prior week. For Cadillac Formula 1, we are activating the partnership with store pop-ups, driver appearances and local influencer styling. Following the first 2 races of the season in Melbourne and Shanghai, where we activated with Valtteri Bottas and Chinese driver, Zhou Guanyu, together with local Tommy ambassadors, our China Tommy D2C sales were up double digits in March versus last year. Our expanded partnership with Sergio "Checo" Perez also continues to drive a consistent uplift in traffic. And in the U.S., the Tommy icons Checo has won so far this season, such as our cable knit polo have seen double-digit sales increases. Overall, our exclusive Tommy partnerships are driving scaled global engagement with our consumers, generating over 700 million impressions and an increase of over 300% in media value versus prior campaigns. And earlier this week, Tommy announced Travis Kelce, American football icon, 3-time Super Bowl Champion as a global brand ambassador and creative collaborator, one of sports biggest stars on and off the field. Kelce will bring his unique perspective to Tommy Hilfiger as part of the series of campaigns kicking off in fall 2026. Looking ahead for our regions, we have started fiscal 2026 with momentum, which has continued through quarter-to-date, where we see spring product season do better than last year same time. In Europe, following a tough second half last year, this year, we are expecting a gradual improvement in top line trajectory as we progress through the year. You will see our investments in marketing and the consumer experience start to cut through in the marketplace. In wholesale, we closed our fall 2026 order book up low single digit, marking the third consecutive season of growth. When taken all together, we expect our overall revenue for the region to be up slightly in 2026 compared to 2025. In the Americas, we continue to work towards unlocking our full potential and expect to grow across all channels by elevating the brand experience, including targeted remodels, strengthening the marketplace distribution and driving pricing power. Overall, we expect modest growth for D2C 2026, and we expect continued growth in e-commerce as we continue to further strengthen our digital position. And in wholesale, we expect to see growth driven by the transition of previously licensed Tommy Hilfiger women's sportswear in-house. In Asia Pacific, we're off to a great start with Lunar New Year, where we launched a dedicated capsule featuring brand ambassador and global K-pop Superstar, Jisoo, exceeding expectations. We expect to continue to drive growth in the region in 2026, up low single digits in constant currency, powered by D2C. The region will continue to be a growth engine for us long term, and we expect to return to growth for the full year. Turning to our licensing business. We continue to build out our already strong licensing business, where our licensing partners help bring our vision to life across multiple lifestyle categories from watches and fragrances to eyewear and are critically important to how we drive sustainable profitable growth. In conclusion, our focus is clear to unlock the full potential of Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger by building on the strong foundation we created and drive next-level execution of our PVH+ Plan. While we are seeing early momentum in 2026, we remain conscious of the current macroeconomic environment, and we are laser-focused on building out further strength in the consumer offerings in both of our brands. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Melissa. Melissa Stone: Thanks, Stefan. Good morning. My comments are based on non-GAAP results and are reconciled in our press release. As Stefan discussed, our fourth quarter and full year results delivered or exceeded expectations across key financial metrics. In the fourth quarter, we generated 6% reported revenue growth, flat in constant currency, drove sequential improvement in our year-over-year gross margin percent and continued our focus on strong SG&A discipline. We drove significant sequential improvement in our operating margin, reaching 10% for the quarter despite a negative 170 basis point gross tariff impact and ahead of plan. EPS was 17% higher than the prior year. For the full year, we delivered 3% reported revenue growth, up slightly in constant currency, both in line with our guidance, with 8.8% operating margin for the year despite a negative 80 basis point gross tariff impact and EPS of $11.40. Throughout the year, we drove quarterly sequential improvements in our gross margin comparisons as we set out to do and exited the year with over 200 basis points of annualized cost savings from our Growth Driver 5 cost savings actions. We ended the year with healthy inventory levels, up 5% compared to last year and 1% excluding the impact of tariffs, well positioned heading into 2026. We delivered strong free cash flow for the year of over $500 million and returned over $560 million to shareholders through the repurchase of nearly 8 million shares of common stock through our accelerated repurchase program and open market purchases. Looking ahead to 2026, we are planning full year reported revenue up slightly compared to 2025 and flat to up slightly in constant currency. We project operating margin to be approximately 8.8%, in line with 2025, even with a negative 215 basis point gross tariff impact as we drive underlying gross margin strength and tariff mitigation actions while investing in our brands through full funnel marketing. I will now discuss our 2025 results in more detail and then move to our 2026 outlook. Reported revenue for the fourth quarter was up 6% and flat in constant currency, exceeding our guidance. From a regional perspective, EMEA was up 8% reported and down 3% in constant currency. Direct-to-consumer trends from Q3 generally continued in Q4, down mid-single digits in constant currency with wholesale down 1%. Revenue in Americas was up 4%, driven by high teens growth in wholesale, reflecting a mid-single-digit increase in the base business, the impact of bringing Calvin Klein women's sportswear and jeans wholesale in-house and initial shipping related to the Tommy Hilfiger women's sportswear and performance wholesale transition in-house. D2C revenue in Americas was down mid-single digits in total and in stores, partially offset by continued growth in our e-commerce business. In Asia Pacific, revenue was flat as reported and down 2% in constant currency, which included an approximately 4% headwind from the timing of Lunar New Year compared to the fourth quarter last year. Excluding the Lunar New Year impact, Asia Pacific returned to growth in the fourth quarter. D2C revenue was down low single digits in constant currency, but up excluding the Lunar New Year timing effect, with continued growth in our e-commerce business, driven by strong Double 11 performance in China. Wholesale revenue was down mid-single digits in constant currency as our wholesale partners in the region continued to take a cautious approach. In our licensing business, revenue was up 10%, primarily due to the impact of nonrecurring contractual royalties in the quarter. Turning to our global brands. Tommy Hilfiger revenues were up 7% as reported and up 1% in constant currency. Calvin Klein revenues were up 3% as reported and down 1% in constant currency. From an overall PVH channel perspective, our direct-to-consumer revenue was up 1% as reported and down 3% in constant currency, which included an approximately 1% headwind from the timing of Lunar New Year compared to the fourth quarter last year. Sales in our retail stores were flat as reported and down 4% in constant currency. Sales in our owned and operated e-commerce business were up 5% as reported and flat in constant currency as strong growth in Asia Pacific and Americas was offset by the decline in EMEA. Total wholesale revenue was up 11% as reported and up 4% in constant currency, which reflects the North America license transitions, partially offset by the decreases in EMEA and Asia Pacific. In the fourth quarter, our gross margin was 57.6%, stronger than planned, reflecting significant sequential improvement across all regions as compared to the third quarter. The decrease of 60 basis points compared to last year includes a decrease of approximately 170 basis points due to the gross impact of tariffs, a decrease of approximately 50 basis points from our North America license transitions, as we've previously discussed, and a marginally higher promotional environment. These decreases were largely offset by our proactive tariff mitigation actions, enabling us to mitigate over 40% of the increased tariffs in the quarter and our efforts to lower product costs as well as favorable foreign exchange. Importantly, we saw significant sequential improvement in Calvin Klein gross margins in the fourth quarter as we steadily work through the previously discussed transitory operational issues. SG&A as a percent of revenue improved 20 basis points versus last year to 47.7%, reflecting efficiencies from our Growth Driver 5 cost savings actions, partially offset by our increased full funnel marketing investments to build momentum heading into 2026. EBIT for the fourth quarter was $250 million and operating margin was 10%, roughly in line with 10.3% operating margin in 2024 despite the 170 basis point negative gross tariff impact. Fourth quarter EPS was $3.82, a 17% increase over $3.27 last year, reflecting a negative $0.70 growth impact related to tariffs and a positive $0.33 benefit related to exchange. Interest expense was $19 million, and our tax rate was approximately 23%. For the full year 2025, we delivered our overall revenue plan. Regionally, EMEA was down low single digits in constant currency with positive first half D2C trends offset by muted consumer activity in the second half, driven by a tougher backdrop in the region. In the Americas, we delivered a mid-single-digit increase in revenue, driven by the North America license transitions and strength in e-commerce. And in Asia Pacific, we drove steady quarterly sequential top line improvement after a challenging start to the year, ending the year overall down mid-single digits in constant currency, including a low single-digit impact from the Lunar New Year timing. While gross margin of 57.5% was lower than last year, including the approximately 80 basis points negative impact of gross tariffs, of which we mitigated approximately 30% for the year, it was stronger than planned. SG&A as a percentage of revenue improved 70 basis points over the prior year to 48.7% as we drove meaningful savings from our Growth Driver 5 cost savings actions. We achieved operating margin of 8.8%. Interest expense was $79 million, taxes were approximately 22% and EPS was $11.40, which included a negative impact of $1.10 from gross tariffs and a positive impact of $0.56 from exchange. This compared to last year's record high non-GAAP earnings per share of $11.74. And now moving on to our 2026 outlook. As Stefan discussed, in 2026, we will build on the strong foundation we've created and drive the next level execution of the PVH+ Plan. While wholesalers remain cautious and the consumer macro environment continues to be uneven, our European order books are positive, and we are expecting growth in D2C in both brands and in all 3 regions for the full year. At the same time, we expect to absorb the full impact of U.S. tariffs in 2026. Our outlook assumes a 15% tariff rate on goods coming into the U.S. starting from February 24 of this year, with inventory receipts prior to that at tariff rates previously in place. Our guidance does not assume any tariff refunds. We expect an approximately $195 million gross tariff cost and EBIT or approximately $3.30 per share based on these assumptions. We continue to take tariff mitigation actions with the benefit of our actions planned to increase quarter-by-quarter throughout 2026 as we work to fully mitigate tariffs over time. It's important to highlight that significant uncertainty remains around the conflict in the Middle East as well as evolving global trade policies, the broader macroeconomic environment and consumer spending behavior. Our business in the Middle East, excluding Turkey, is about 1% of our total revenue and solely a wholesale business, so the profit impact is disproportionate at approximately 7%. Our guidance is based on current macro and geopolitical conditions and excludes any potential impacts from a prolonged, expanded or more intense conflict in the Middle East. For the full year, our overall reported revenue is projected to be up slightly versus 2025 and flat to up slightly in constant currency. We expect full year operating margin will be approximately 8.8%, in line with 2025 and up excluding the impact of tariffs in each year as we drive operational gross margin improvements and annualize our Growth Driver 5 cost savings, some of which we will reinvest in the business, particularly in marketing. We are projecting earnings per share in a range of $11.80 to $12.10 compared to $11.40 in 2025. Regionally, in EMEA, where we saw lower traffic and weaker consumer sentiment in the market in the back half of 2025. For 2026, we are planning for a gradual top line improvement as we progress through the year. We expect the first half to continue to be tougher within this backdrop with second half improvement as our investments in marketing and in elevating the consumer experience drive even greater strength in the region. In wholesale, as Stefan mentioned, we closed our fall 2026 order books up low single digits. At the same time, the overall macro environment remains choppy, and we are planning our revenues prudently. We expect our overall revenue for EMEA will be up slightly in constant currency compared to 2025. In the Americas, we are planning revenue up low single digits compared to 2025 with growth in wholesale driven by the Tommy Hilfiger women's sportswear and performance wholesale transition. And in D2C, despite the choppy consumer backdrop and lower traffic trends in stores in 2025, we entered 2026 with momentum, which has continued in the first quarter to date. We also expect continued growth in e-commerce as we continue to further strengthen our digital position. Overall, we are planning modest growth in D2C for 2026. Next, in Asia Pacific, we are planning 2026 revenue up low single digits in constant currency, led by growth in D2C, partially offset by a decrease in wholesale as we expect our partners in the region to continue to take a cautious approach. Our licensing business is expected to be down low teens, reflecting the North America license transitions. Excluding the impact of these transitions, we expect low single-digit growth in the balance of the licensing business. Overall, the impact of the licensing transitions, net of the increase in wholesale is expected to result in a less than 1% net increase in our total revenue. We expect gross margins to be up slightly compared to 2025 as we plan to more than offset an approximately 215 basis point impact of gross tariffs in 2026, which compares to approximately 80 basis points in 2025 and an approximately 50 basis point impact from the North America license transitions, with gross margin improvements driven by our tariff mitigation actions, favorable product costs, including foreign exchange and other business improvements. We expect to mitigate approximately 60% of the tariff impact for the full year with the impact of our mitigation strategies becoming progressively more meaningful as we move through the year, exiting the year with over 75% mitigation on an annualized basis heading into 2027. We expect SG&A as a percentage of revenue to be up slightly as we reinvest savings from our Growth Driver 5 cost savings actions back into the business, including an over 50 basis point increase in marketing as a percentage of sales compared to 2025. We expect our full year operating margin will be approximately 8.8%, including the 215 basis point growth headwind from tariffs and in line with 2025. Interest expense is projected to be approximately flat compared to $79 million in 2025. Our tax rate is estimated at a range of 22% to 23% and EPS is projected to be a range of $11.80 to $12.10. Looking at the balance sheet, we are projecting capital spending of approximately $250 million as we invest globally to refresh our stores and our shop-in-shops in our wholesale partner stores and continue to strengthen our digital position. And we are planning at least $300 million of share repurchases in 2026. Now turning to the first quarter. We are projecting first quarter reported revenue to increase slightly versus 2025 and decreased low single digits in constant currency, with growth in D2C offset by lower wholesale. Importantly, as Stefan mentioned, we have started 2026 with positive momentum and higher spring season sell-through trends across both brands and all 3 regions. In EMEA, we expect revenue to be down mid-single digits in constant currency overall and in both channels, reflecting the choppy macro environment that has continued into 2026 and wholesale shipping timing, including a slightly larger portion of the spring season shipping in Q4 last year than in Q1 this year. In Americas, we expect revenue to be down slightly as growth in D2C is expected to be more than offset by lower wholesale, reflecting a first half to second half timing shift compared to 2025. And in Asia Pacific, we expect revenue to be up low single digits in constant currency as growth in D2C, including the favorable timing of Lunar New Year compared to the prior year is offset by lower wholesale as our wholesale partners in the region continue to take a cautious approach. In our licensing business, revenue is expected to be down mid-single digits, driven by the previously mentioned North America license transitions. The balance of the license business is expected to grow low single digits. Tariff impacts will weigh more heavily on our year-over-year gross margin comparisons in the first half due to the timing of when the tariffs were effective in 2025 as well as the sequentially increasing impact of our mitigation strategies. In Q1, we project a gross tariff impact of approximately 230 basis points, about half of which we expect to offset through our tariff mitigation actions in the quarter. Despite this significant negative impact, we are projecting first quarter gross margin to be nearly flat compared to the prior year as our operational improvements to drive gross margin expansion, including our tariff mitigation actions and favorable product costs, are offset by the negative tariff impact and the gross margin differential from transitioning license categories in North America back in-house. We are projecting first quarter SG&A as a percent of revenue to be up approximately 150 basis points versus 2025. We are reinvesting a portion of our Growth Driver 5 cost savings back into the business, including an approximately 100 basis point increase in marketing spend compared to Q1 last year. In the first quarter of 2025, we reduced our marketing spend due to the Calvin Klein product delays and the environment in China. This year, we are more heavily weighting our marketing spend to the first half to amplify our cut-through campaigns and drive brand heat early in the year. While this will drive our first quarter operating margin down, we'll see sequential improvement each quarter throughout 2026. In total, we are projecting our first quarter operating margin to be in a range of 6% to 6.5%, including the 230 basis point gross tariff headwind compared to 8.1% last year, which did not include the higher tariff. Earnings per share is projected to be in a range of $1.65 to $1.80 compared to $2.30 in the prior year. Our tax rate is estimated at approximately 22% and interest expense is projected to be approximately $20 million. Before we open up for questions, I want to reiterate that while we continue to navigate macro uncertainty, we have a clear focus on what is within our control and driving the next level execution of the PVH+ Plan. We have started 2026 with positive momentum and are expecting growth in D2C in both brands and in all regions for the full year. We are continuing to invest in our brands and our business throughout the year and expect to drive gross margin up despite the impact of tariffs with operating margin for 2026 at approximately 8.8%, in line with 2025 and reflecting underlying strength. And with that, operator, we would like to open it up to questions. Operator: [Operator Instructions] We'll take our first question from Bob Drbul with BTIG. Robert Drbul: Stefan, I was just wondering, can you talk about how you leverage the information about your consumer and the brand health across the PVH plan throughout the business? Stefan Larsson: Yes. Bob, thanks for the question. It's a really important one. So as we shared in our prepared remarks, we do extensive consumer research and really exciting to see that the work that we have done over the past few years result in standing stronger with the Gen Z and young millennial than our peer group. And within the Gen Z and young millennial, it's really the combination between the strength with the Gen Z and young millennial. And within those groups, the segments that the status interested segments, the style-driven consumer segments because we know that they shop more often, they spend more and they're more loyal. So the way we deploy that knowledge is through social, through e-commerce, expanding, we target these consumers and we build out our category strength from the 2, 3 categories where we see real strength already today in both Calvin and Tommy to the top 5 category. Top 5 categories, it's over 60% of the business. So it's really targeting the consumers where we are the strongest that spends the most and the most interested in style and status and then driving 360 consumer engagement with that consumer. And then that's how we are starting to turn the consumer flywheel. And that's part of why we delivered a stronger-than-expected Q4 and why we are off to a strong start despite the uncertain macro, that's why we're off to a strong start in the beginning of '26 as well. Operator: We will move next with Michael Binetti with Evercore. Michael Binetti: I guess this might be for Melissa, but maybe on the EBIT margins. So we entered the year with margins down 160 to 200 basis points in the first quarter, but then we get to flat in the year. So -- and I think you said EBIT margin improves each quarter. Could you just clarify, is that the level or the year-over-year? Maybe just give us a little bit of help on how to think about the cadence of EBIT margin through the year after first quarter? And then I guess backing up, Stefan, on Americas, the revenues planned down slightly in the first quarter, D2C growth, but I think you said wholesale negative. And I would think you would have about a mid-single-digit lift from the licenses. So maybe just a bigger picture thought on why you think -- and we can see all the marketing and we can see everything with Calvin going viral. I'm just -- I'm curious why you think wholesalers have such a gap to what you're seeing and some of the successes and growth in D2C at this point and if that can reconcile itself as we move through the year? Stefan Larsson: Yes. Thanks, Michael. Let me start and then Melissa will be able to take you through there is timing shift in wholesale, to your point, Michael, in Q1, and there are a number of other shifts as well like the tariff impact that starts off higher and then goes down. So -- but let me start from a business perspective and just say, so we are quite far into Q1 by now, and we have a positive momentum in the spring season sell-through for both Calvin and Tommy across all regions. So we see the stronger D2C trend across both brands, all regions. And in Q1, one factor that also impacts Q1 is that we are strategically increasing our marketing spend. And some of that spend is somewhat front-loaded in the year. So full year basis, marketing spend is up double digit. But the first quarter, as Melissa mentioned, there are shifts from the market conditions last year to this year that gives us the confidence to invest more early. And we see that in Calvin through the strength in the Spring campaign. We see it with the fashion show with the amplification of the Love Story interest. In Tommy, we see it through Cadillac Formula 1. We see it with the Liverpool partnership. We see it with the Spring campaign. So we're really leaning in to turn that consumer flywheel. But Melissa will be able to take you through more of the quarter-to-quarter timing. Melissa Stone: Yes, sure. Thank you, Stefan. So as we think about the trajectory for the year, there's several moving parts. Just on the top line, we have started the year, as we talked about, with positive momentum, with spring season product selling up versus last year in both brands in all 3 regions. And while the macroeconomic environment remains uncertain, we do expect growth for the full year. But in the first half, we're lapping the stronger comparisons in Europe and the Americas from last year. While in the second half, we expect to drive improvement as we continue to focus on what is within our control and see our investments drive strength to the consumer. And I would just add that in Q1, when you look at our overall revenue on a 2-year stacked basis, which takes out some of the wholesale timing that's impacting our comparisons, our total revenue growth in constant currency is sequentially improving from Q3 to Q4 and then from Q4 to Q1. And then when we look at the profit cadence, there are also 2 main parts that I'd highlight. I mean first, as Stefan mentioned, there's the tariffs. And in the first half, we are burdened by tariffs, which only had a very small impact in the Q2 last year. And at the same time, we expect that our tariff mitigation actions will become increasingly impactful as the year progresses, and we expect to exit the year with over 75% of the tariff mitigated on an annualized basis. And then the second piece, as Stefan mentioned, is marketing, where we've strategically weighted our investment in the first half, particularly Q1 ahead of the key consumer moments to align with our commercial plan and activate the full funnel and drive that heat early in the year. And you'll remember that in the second half of 2025, we had already stepped up our marketing investment versus our original plans and so that we lapped that in the second half of '26. And then lastly, from an FX perspective, there's just 2 things I'd highlight. With translation, we see a favorable impact year-over-year, more heavily weighted to the first half, and you can see that effect in our Q1 revenue guidance. And then on our inventory costs, it's actually the opposite, where we see the favorable impact building as the year progresses, and that comes through a strength in our gross margins. And importantly, I would just add that on inventory costs overall, we're starting to see the benefit in our product costs as we leverage the scale and the power of PVH and our 2 global product kitchens. And we saw that benefit start to come through in Q4, and we'll continue to see that benefit in 2026. So a lot of parts. But overall, we expect progressive year-over-year improvement in our operating margins. Operator: We will move next with Jay Sole with UBS. Jay Sole: I want to ask you about Love Story. I mean it really was a phenomenon. I just want to ask about the learnings from it just because it was it bigger than you expected? And how did it play out? And like I said, what are the learnings that you'll take going forward? Stefan Larsson: Yes. Thanks, Jay. It's almost impossible to have a conversation about Calvin right now without Love Story. So it's also a really, really great question. So could we anticipate it? I don't believe anyone could have anticipated the magnitude of the hit it has become globally and across generations. So if you look -- we just got the data yesterday that over 40 million people have watched Love Stories, Hulu's most streamed show ever. So what's the learning for us and what's the effect? When the show launched, we could see the search increase for Calvin Klein, e-commerce traffic, B2C is positive. The consumer is looking for iconic Calvin, starting with iconic underwear and iconic denim. The most sold denim style right now is the '90s fit. So some of the key learnings here is you can't plan for these things. But what I'm really excited about and is what the team has done over the past 3, 4 years is we have gone back to the DNA of what made Calvin collide with culture back in the '90s when that happened and really taking 100% of that iconic DNA and then working hard to make it 100% current. So when something like Love Story hits, we -- it's just a really nice sync up with where we are with the brand. So it also shows the power of the brand. So we are talking about since we started the PVH+ journey that there is something special in Calvin and Tommy because they are one of a handful of brands that have collided with culture and become globally iconic. This is a good example of this because the interest we see spans generations. And then one of the biggest audience parts of Love Story is also where we have built the most strength, which is within the young millennial and the Gen Z consumer. So Calvin really helped shape American fashion and the '90s look. And yes, just -- we see it in the demand. We see it in the interest for the brands, but this is something that has been built over the last 3, 4 years, and we just appreciate it. And for those of you who haven't watched Love Story, please do. It's a great show. Operator: We will move next with Brooke Roach with Goldman Sachs. Brooke Roach: Stefan, I was wondering if I could get your latest thoughts on the path to deliver sequentially and sustainably stronger sales momentum in your Europe business. Beyond the easier compares, what are the most important drivers of that sequential improvement that's planned throughout the year? And what is a more appropriate medium-term algorithm for European growth on a go-forward basis? Stefan Larsson: Yes. Thanks, Brooke. As we mentioned, there are 2 big factors here. One is that the spring product season in both Calvin and Tommy in Europe is up versus last year. We're still relatively -- sorry, relatively early in the spring. So we are 1 week away from Easter. Last year, it was 3 weeks later. But we have a very good read on early spring product up versus last year. And that is both in D2C and wholesale. And then the forward-looking wholesale order books for fall is up low single digits. So you will see that -- you will see it the combination of keep building the D2C momentum powered by our increase because also in Europe, we are stepping up the marketing investments, and we see the effect of that. And we will see the effect of that gradually improve over the year. So you will see our market presence for Calvin and Tommy step-by-step through the year improve. And then we build on the positive start to spring, and then we have the belief from our partners in the forward-looking order books. Operator: We will move next with Dana Telsey with Telsey Group. Dana Telsey: As you think about the uptick in the marketing spend as we go through the year, the first quarter having the most pronounced impact, how do you think of Tommy and Calvin, what we should be watching for, for newness moving through? And the addition of Travis Kelce to the platform, are there other new celebrities or sports icons that we should be watching for also? And Stefan, how do you think this as sales drivers for the brand? Stefan Larsson: Yes. Thanks, Dana. What -- so let me start with Tommy this time. So I'm really excited that earlier this week, as you alluded to, we revealed that American football icon, 3-time Super Bowl winner, Travis Kelce is becoming our Tommy brand ambassador and creative collaborator. And we know when we have done these collaborations in the past, how much power there is because there is a lot of love for Travis Kelce out there, a lot of love for Tommy and then combining those really creates energy and interest. And the way we build that collaboration is, again, going back to the DNA of Tommy's classic American cool. And then as I mentioned, for Tommy, we are building out the -- and putting innovation into our strongest franchises into our 5 most important categories. So when looking at categories for Tommy, it's outerwear, sweaters, shirts, knits, as an example. So it's putting innovation in newness. It's almost like internally, it's very clear, and I push it all the time with the teams is it has to be 100% iconic and 100% current. So that's what we're going to do through the collaboration with Travis. We are also doing it in Tommy. So what you will see more of is building out the Cadillac Formula 1 partnership and the Liverpool Football Club partnership. So Liverpool became, as I mentioned, the #1 engaged social post ever in the history of the brand. And what's really exciting about how the brand makes these collaborations shoppable is Cadillac Formula 1, we were able to launch the fanwear, the Tommy Cadillac Formula 1 fanwear at around the Super Bowl. And for a few days there, 50% of the sales in our U.S. e-commerce was Cadillac Formula 1 Tommy. So there is an enormous interest in that. And then through the races, we work with the drivers, we work with local influencers and then we have shop the looks. So when you see Tommy show up with your Formula 1 team that you follow or you see Tommy with some of the best footballers in the world in Liverpool, you can shop the looks starting from social all the way to e-commerce to e-mails. So some of the biggest impressions we have had since we launched Cadillac Formula 1 and Liverpool. So you'll just see us build out Tommy's presence through those partnerships. And then in Calvin, what you will see in Calvin is starting this spring, you just -- already, you have seen the Spring campaign with Jung Kook, the famous K-pop star, campaign items. So what we -- if you look closer at those campaigns, we build out newness and innovation in underwear, in denim, in outerwear, in knits, and you start to see how that drives sales. So if you look at the Jung Kook featured products prior to the campaign and after the campaign, they are up 50%. And the outerwear that he wore had a 60% sell-through in 2 weeks. Dakota Johnson, same thing. What she war in innovation in underwear was shop the look and became one of the highest selling underwear styles that we have. So when we introduce innovation and newness into our icons, whether it's underwear or denim, et cetera, that's how we drive this 360 engagement. So you will just see a consistent drumbeat of that towards that consumer target, the Gen Z, the young millennial and the standard shopper and the style enthusiasts. So that's -- over time, you'll just see us build that out. We have time for 1 more question. I look at Sheryl now, I get to signal 1 more question. Operator: We will take our last question from Tom Nikic with Needham. Tom Nikic: Just want to ask about the expectations for direct-to-consumer growth this year. And I'm wondering how much of that is driven by pricing in order to mitigate tariffs and how much is driven by expectations for improvement in traffic or unit volume? Stefan Larsson: Yes. Thanks, Tom. So let me start and then hand over to Melissa. But overall, we are pleased to see in North America, how we are able to take pricing by offering the consumer great value. So you see that in D2C, in -- you see that across channels really, but your question was about D2C. So you see the pricing power and the tariff mitigation that coming out of this year, we will have mitigated 75% of the tariffs. And then across the board, we make sure that we drive pricing power in multiple ways. But it starts by being really focused on these 4 or 5 categories that we accelerate and then putting innovation in the franchises and then cutting the long tail of product. There is a lot of pricing power and margin gain over time that we will tap into more and more. And then when we drive the consumer engagement on top of that product strategy and then make it come to life all the way through, that's when we see we're able to drive pricing power. So it's very much connected to where we strengthen the consumer offering. So in Calvin Klein, underwear, denim, we're able to drive pricing power because we offer something that's more valuable to the consumer. Melissa Stone: Yes. And I would just add to that, Tom, that from a D2C perspective, we're planning our overall D2C business up low single digits in 2026, and that includes growth in both brands and across all regions for the full year, not just in our North America business where we're faced with tariffs. Stefan Larsson: All right. Thank you very much, Tom, and thanks, everyone, for joining our call today. Looking forward to reconnecting after Q1, and we are heads down ready for the big Easter period here. So we're going to get back to business and looking forward to speaking with you in a quarter. Thank you. Operator: Thank you. This brings us to the end of today's meeting. We appreciate your time and participation. You may now disconnect.
Operator: Good morning, everyone, and thank you for participating in today's conference call to discuss Synergy CHC Corporation's financial results for the fourth quarter and full year ended December 31, 2025. Joining us today are Synergy's CEO, Jack Ross; CFO, Jamie Fickett; and Greg Robles with Investor Relations. Following their remarks, we'll open the call for analyst questions. Before we go further, I'd like to turn the call over to Mr. Robles as he reads the company's safe harbor statement. Greg Robles: Thanks, Liz. Good morning, and thanks for joining our conference call to discuss our fourth quarter and full year 2025 financial results. I'd like to remind everyone that this call is available for replay and via a live webcast that will be posted on our Investor Relations website at investors.synergychc.com. The information on this call contains forward-looking statements. These statements are often characterized by terminologies such as believe, hope, may, anticipate, expect, will and other similar expressions. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and the actual results may be materially different from the results implied by forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause results to differ materially from those implied herein include, but are not limited to, those factors disclosed in the company's SEC filings under the caption Risk Factors. The information on this call speaks only as of today's date, and the company disclaims any duty to update the information provided herein. Now I would like to turn the call over to the CEO of Synergy, Jack Ross. Jack? Jack Ross: Thank you, Greg. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today to discuss Synergy's performance for the fourth quarter and full year 2025. While 2025 was a year of transition in many areas of our business, it was also a year of meaningful strategic progress that sets an important foundation for sustainable long-term growth. Before discussing our performance, I want to briefly address the 8-K we filed regarding our international license agreement covering the UAE and Turkey. As many of you recall, in mid-'25, we expanded our international license partnership to include UAE and Turkey for a baseline licensing fee with additional royalties tied to product performance. However, the licensee has elected to terminate the agreement, given the increasing instability and uncertainty across the region. As a result, the $2.5 million licensing revenue associated with the agreement had to be reversed in the fourth -- sorry guys. I have technical difficulties here. Just one second. Okay. While unfortunate, this outcome reflects the macro volatility outside of our control rather than any change in our conviction around the potential of FOCUSfactor internationally. We continue to view the UAE and Turkey as an attractive multiyear growth market for both our supplements and functional beverages. The groundwork we laid in 2025 hasn't been lost, the demand remains intact. The brand is strong and our international strategy continues to be focused on scalable, capital-efficient expansion. Before I turn the call over to Jamie, I want to touch on another development that further supports our international growth strategy. During 2025, we established our wholly owned subsidiary in Mexico. And in December, we initiated our first product shipments to Costco, Mexico. On the beverage side of our business, during the first quarter of 2026, we have generated over $600,000 in gross revenue surpassing the entire 2025 revenue, which now equates to $2.5 million run rate for 2026. We have shipped our focus in energy RTDs in shots to new key distribution locations, including EG of America, the parent company of Cumberland Farms convenience stores, Wakefern Foods, Indian Nation wholesale, Mackoul Distributors, Mancini beverages, [indiscernible] and Pine State Beverages to name a few. We have millions of cans of RTDs and shots in stock and ready to ship, and we expect 2026 to be a foundational growth year for our Beverage division. We continue to execute on our supplement side as well, having just shipped 3 new SKUs to all 1,600 Kroger locations. One initiative that we did not achieve in 2025 was turning back on the TV advertising, which is hugely important for our existing store growth. We will be diligently working towards executing this in 2026 to drive same-store growth within our key retailers. If the results that we achieved in the past hold true, we expect to see at least a 15% lift in same-store sales once the TV advertising is up and running. With those updates, I'd like to turn the call over to our Chief Financial Officer, Jamie Fickett. Jamie? Jaime Fickett: Thank you, Jack. I'll now review our financial results. Beginning with the fourth quarter, net revenue was $6.07 million compared to $10.27 million in the year ago quarter, a 41% decrease versus the prior year. The decrease was due to the termination of the license agreement of $2.9 million. Without that reversal, net revenue was $8.97 million, a 12.7% decrease. Gross margin for the fourth quarter was 36.6% compared to 63.3% in the same quarter last year. The decrease in gross margin was primarily driven by the termination of the license agreement of $2.9 million and the write-off of obsolete inventory of $1.04 million. Without those 2 items, gross margin would have been 68.8%, an increase from prior year. Operating expenses for the fourth quarter were $15.53 million compared to $5.14 million in the year ago quarter. The increase in operating expenses was largely due to one-time items of an allowance for bad debt of $6.6 million and the write-off of prepaid media credit of $0.9 million. Without those 2 items, operating expenses would have been $8 million. The majority of the increase was due to professional fees for our corporate development. Loss from operations for the fourth quarter of 2025 was $13.31 million compared to income from operations of $1.35 million in the fourth quarter of 2024. As discussed, this is largely due to onetime items of allowance of bad debt of $6.66 million, termination of the license agreement of $2.9 million, write-off of the obsolete inventory of $1.04 million and the write-off of a prepaid media credit of $0.9 million. Without those one-time items, loss from operations would have been $1.85 million, which is impacted by the increased professional fees for our corporate development. Net loss on the fourth quarter -- net loss for the fourth quarter was $14.82 million or $1.35 per diluted share compared to net income of $105,700 or $0.01 per diluted share income in the fourth quarter of 2024. This is largely due to one-time items of allowance of bad debt of $6.66 million, termination of the license agreement of $2.9 million, write-off of obsolete inventory of $1.04 million and the write-off of prepaid media credits of $0.9 million. Without those one-time items, net loss would have been $3.35 million, which is impacted by the increased professional fees for corporate development. EBITDA loss for the fourth quarter was $13.28 million compared to EBITDA income of $1.68 million in the fourth quarter of 2024. Adjusted EBITDA loss for the fourth quarter was $4.48 million compared to adjusted EBITDA income of $2.79 million in the fourth quarter of 2024. Now turning to our full year results. For the full year of 2025, revenue was $30.38 million compared to $34.83 million in the year ago period. Without reversing the $2.9 million in license revenue, our net revenue would have been $33.28 million in 2025. Gross margin for the full year of 2025 was 66.8% compared to 67.9% in the year ago period. Without the previously discussed inventory write-off, gross margin would have been 70.3%, an increase over prior year. Operating expenses for the year were $28.76 million compared to $17.84 million a year ago. Without the one-time items previously mentioned, operating expenses would have been $21.24 million, which is impacted by the increased professional fees for corporate development. Loss from operations for the year was $8.46 million compared to income from operations of $5.8 million a year ago. The decrease is also due to the one-time items as discussed. Without them, the full year income from operations would have been $3 million, impacted by increased professional fees for corporate development. Net loss for the year was $12.3 million or $1.27 per diluted share compared to net income of $2.1 million or $0.28 per diluted share a year ago. This is also due to the one-time items as discussed, offset by a gain on the settlement of our notes payable of $2.15 million. Without those items, the full year net loss would have been $3.03 million, which again is impacted by the increased professional fees for our corporate development. EBITDA loss was $6.19 million in 2025 compared to EBITDA of $6.46 million a year ago. Adjusted EBITDA and income was $800,000 compared to adjusted EBITDA income of $7.35 million a year ago. Moving to our balance sheet and cash flow. As of December 31, 2025, we had cash and cash equivalents of $2.6 million compared to $687,900 as of December 31, 2024. Inventory was at $3.7 million at the end of the fourth quarter compared to $1.7 million at the end of 2024. At the end of December 31, 2025, we had $33.3 million in total liabilities compared to $33 million in total liabilities December 31, 2024. At December 31, 2025, we had a working capital surplus of $1.78 million as compared to a working capital deficit of $1.12 million as of December 31, 2024. For the 12 months ended December 31, 2025, our cash used in operating activities was $2.6 million compared to cash used in operating activities of $4.8 million at December 31, 2024. The decrease primarily reflects higher noncash charges, including bad debt write-offs and stock-based compensation as well as improved cash collections and accounts receivable, partially offset by the increased inventory investment and the gain on the settlement of debt. Now I will turn the call back to the operator. Operator: [Operator Instructions] And our first question will come from Sean McGowan with ROTH Capital Partners. Sean McGowan: Can you hear me okay? Jack Ross: We can. Sean McGowan: On your comments on the RTD year-to-date being better than all of last year, it kind of implies that the fourth quarter was, I don't know, maybe $200,000 or something and -- so what is still going on there that kept out from being a lot higher in the fourth quarter? Jack Ross: We -- as you know, we just raised the money to actually build the inventory in August and to actually get the inventory built takes time, meaning 8 to 12 weeks to build the inventory. So we just really received the majority of the RTD inventory in-house in December. So that's what affected that. Sean McGowan: Okay. And looking at some of the other lines, was, let's say, compared to the third quarter, was Flat Tummy up? Jack Ross: No. Flat Tummy continues to decline. The weight loss business is being heavily impacted by the GLP1s. It seems that the whole industry has moved to those. So we'll be making a strategic decision on Flat Tummy in the near future. Sean McGowan: Okay. And then on the core supplement group, what's going on there? Jack Ross: The core supplement group, I think, is relatively strong. We continue to add key retailers like Kroger, we mentioned, although the TV advertising is very key to that same-store growth. We have our competitors. We all know who the competitors are pounding the TV airways every single day and night and we need to get that TV turned back on. Sean McGowan: Okay. And what do you think the outlook is going to be with a lot of these one-time things behind you regarding gross margin? Jack Ross: Jamie, you want to talk to that? Jaime Fickett: Sure. We anticipate gross margin to maintain its current level or increase. Again, it was impacted largely by those one-time items. But other than that, our gross margin remains stable. Sean McGowan: Do you mean -- when you say at the current level, you mean excluding those one-time items? Jaime Fickett: Yes. Sorry, like as I read in the script. We look at it normalized. Sean McGowan: Okay. And has there been any other changes to your approach to kind of go-to-market strategy on the RTD as you look to roll that out? Jack Ross: No. I think again, it's a sales cycle, Sean, right? So these things are all driven by planograms. So you really get twice a year where you can really call gain meaningful distribution and we'll call it the major chains. Certainly, you can add smaller chains in the meantime. But we continue with the sales cycle. We do expect -- this is big news. We do expect to have some Costco roadshows coming up in different regions, and we expect to have a BJ's road show coming up. So it should be some meaningful growth there on the beverage side. Operator: [Operator Instructions] And our next question will come from Edward Woo with Ascendiant Capital. Edward Woo: Congratulations on the growth in Mexico. You guys recently formed a subsidiary in Mexico. Are there other international markets that you plan on creating a subsidiary to ship directly in those markets? Jack Ross: Edward, good speaking with you today. No, we don't have any other any other plans on open and international markets directly at this time, although Mexico is a massive opportunity for us to build out the retail network there. So having that subsidiary there allows us to do that. But as you can see, we've started a lot of initiatives last year and for Synergy 2026 is about executing against those initiatives. If those TVs turn back on, get the same-store sales growing, get the opportunities in Mexico that we've already identified up and running and continue to grow our beverage business, that's the focus for 2026. Operator: At this time, this concludes our question-and-answer session. I would now like to turn the call back over to Mr. Ross for closing remarks. Jack Ross: Thank you, everyone, after joining the earnings call today. We look forward to speaking to you shortly as we report our first quarter 2026 results. Thank you. Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.
Artur Wiza: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I'd like to welcome you very cordially to the conference dedicated to the results of the Asseco Group for 2025 today. At today's conference, we will summarize our operations for the previous year, for last year, and we'll also convey information pertaining to the backlog for the upcoming year, for the current year. During the first portion of the conference, we will have the presentation. The latter portion we will invite you for a Q&A session. We have the CEO, Mr. Adam Goral, and we also have Rzonca-Bajorek, who is the CFO of the group; as well as Marek Panek, who is the Vice President of the group. I'll go ahead and give the floor right now to Adam Goral. Adam Góral: [Interpreted] I would like to welcome you very cordially. I'm pleased that we're all here together. And above all, I see in the first row, we see people who decided to be here physically in attendance. And of course, with full respect for all those persons who are participating remotely. So I'd like to welcome everybody very cordially. So Artur didn't emphasize that this is a special meeting because in a year, we Rafal Kozlowski will have to be here. And for me, this is going to be a totally new situation, of course, with the hope and looking to the future because I'm going to move into the Supervisory Board where I should be the Chairman of the Supervisory Board. And so Asseco will always be with me, and this is my entire life, of course, outside of my family, but I treat this company as a member of my family. I'm going to have to be vigilant because I want Rafal to be a leader with his attributes. He's a little bit different. We're different from another. Of course, I have a guarantee of one thing that he represents espouses the same values and that he's perfectly well prepared to run this company -- and I'm sorry for saying that saying that I believe that it was well run. But I think the company was in good hands and was well run. And having in mind that I have a good hand towards other people and is managed by really great people. And so we come here in great sentiments. And these sentiments, of course, are somewhat toned down because I would like for the world to look a little bit differently. And there's a lot of bad people heading up some company -- countries. And even though you have wonderful results, people are aware of their responsibilities, their liabilities, and it's a shame that the world is -- has much turmoil, but we don't have any impact over that. Today, up until now, the various wars have not obstructed us. I don't really want to talk about it. So we have our leader on Friday, I was talking quite a bit with [ son ]. And when we hear that 12 times during the day that you had to go into like the bomb shelter, then you become aware of what it means to think about a war. It doesn't matter who started the war. It doesn't matter who's at fault, who's the guilty party. We have to think about these people who are suffering in Ukraine and those people who are suffering war at the hands of war. And so these wars, I'm not going to say they are helping us or acting as a boost, I'm sorry, during the pandemic period, I had hoped that these times would teach us something that the leaders of -- the global leaders would understand, would grasp the concept that there's not that much that needs to be done in order for us to be totally disappear. They have to understand that human life is of importance. And so that's all the more reason to be disenchanted. But thanks to the wonderful work of tens of thousands of people in the Asseco Group. I'm able to come here today in convey wonderful information. And the previous year was a great year. It was a record-breaking year. And the net profit of PLN 1.139 billion. We have the successful sales. We were able to sell at a good price. And so we had basically 119% growth. And so we made these decisions because we thought that Sapiens should have a new impulse. And today, jointly with Advent, we want to make sure that this impulse will continue to drive us forward. And we hope that, that 18% will have a huge loss of roughly PLN 500 million of that EUR 1.139 billion is due to Sapiens. The rest, which is also record-breaking is linked to the organic growth that we have achieved. And so I'm pleased that we are well positioned in Poland and Central Europe, and you've been able to look at that, and we had a more difficult period. And I'm, of course, under a great impression that as we've been having seen the organization being run by Jozef Klein, our leader. And so for me, the test of his person as a manager is an exceptional year. This was the difficult time when those countries and we are dependent on government projects. It didn't seem that it wasn't spending money on IT and it seemed that some of the substantial EU funds that were being allocated to the energy sector and then Jozef's ambitions led to a situation. Well, it was a very difficult point in time for him. So I'm pleased that they were able to survive and this very difficult period, they were able to draw conclusions, and they were able to perceive the weaknesses of the organization, and they utilize that time in order to eliminate those weaknesses. And today, they have a wonderful 2025. And today, we believe very strongly that they will continue to prosper in 2026. So that group in terms of what's linked to Asseco International, we have reasons to be proud. And in these difficult and challenging times, our teams in Israel. This is a global company, of course, has done very well has coped very well. And so we've known for years that we have exceptional wonderful people there. I remember because I'm going to have a request when we talk about our stock exchange. I don't entirely understand this that we're not able to vote on that 1.5% for my team. So take a look at this. I was a person who was looking at the interest of the investors, the management and the people working for this company. And if I'm going to be in the [indiscernible] I'm going to be in the Supervisory Board, I'm not going to be able to -- operationally, I'm not going to be able to scrutinize these things. Ralph is going to do it, but these 95 people, for us, for the investors, this is the safety in terms of people fighting for the value of this company. And this is the time to encourage you to look at this vote. Once again, it's really worth looking at closely. Do you know why we've been able to achieve such a great success in Israel, the first thing that I did was I met with guy and I gave him a certain number of shares. Of course, in the voting, I wasn't afraid that he's going to be -- he's going to be the richest person in the world. Of course, I wish that to him. Look at the business we've been able to do there. Of course, those equities might not have been the deciding factor, but he had an incredible amount of motivation to run the company in such a way because we say that we're controlling some company. But in our area, there's no bonafide control as a leader, I'm dependent on thousands of people. In terms of how they're operating. And if that later would want to do something, it would be possible to do that legally. And doing this simple maneuver, we were able to achieve a very simple and straightforward objective. And so the $143 million has paid back quickly. And I'm pleased that our investment in Israel is the largest Polish investment. And so we've only got good experience under our belt here. And some of you had given us heatings, warnings, but they're going to try to, let's say, maneuver you and somehow do something. We have a wonderful success there. Take a look at this case and think about my people, please. Think about them who are totally deserving. Of course, they've created this beautiful history of Asseco. And this is not a salary for the history. There is a portion of that is remuneration for -- but this is also remuneration for what they're going to do in the future. So I'd be grateful if you were to follow and embrace my thinking, I'll give the floor to Marek, and we'll drill down into some of the details, and we'll talk about the individual results. And then at the end, I'll take the floor -- I go ahead and bore you a little bit more because I continue to think about the future of this company, and I'm going to tell you a little bit about how I see the future. So I'll give the floor to Marek. Marek Panek: [Interpreted] Thank you very much. So having in mind what Adam said that we still have the final section of the meeting during which Adam is going to want to speak to the future. I today will try to speak more succinctly and I'll take less time than usual, especially since the trends we've observed over the last 3 quarters were sustained and nothing happened, nothing extraordinary happened in Q4. And I think this -- so it wouldn't be necessary to talk about. Let's talk about the profits. So Adam mentioned the net profit, which is PLN 1 billion nearly PLN 140 million. But look at some of the other 2 numbers. So we have revenue at nearly 16.7 -- so it's PLN 16.780 billion, and this is a 12% increase year-on-year. And then we have operating profit, which is in excess of PLN 1.6 billion, and the increase here was 11%. As a matter of tradition, I will show you the split of our revenue by operating segments in terms of geographies. And you can see this is not a mistake. That all 3 of our segments were growing at exactly the same pace of 12% year-on-year. And if you start on the right side, Formula Group, which is the largest, and this is some 60% of our revenue, we've been able to achieve nearly the PLN 10 billion watermark. And then we have international, which is some 27% of total revenue in the group. So we have PLN 4.6 billion. And then we have the Polish segment, which is the Asseco Poland segment, and we have nearly PLN 2.3 billion in revenue. As I mentioned everywhere, we have across the board a 12% pace of growth year-on-year. We'll also show you the revenue by product groups. Here, I will not discuss this in great detail. You can see that all of our segments across the board are basically growing. In some cases, we're growing more quickly. In some cases, we're growing less quickly. All of the solutions that we have for public institutions, which represent 25%, so 1/4 of the total revenue of the group, we have very dynamic growth of some 15%. We're pleased with what's happening in banking sector from the very outset of our operations as Asseco. This is a very important and significant bulk of products or segment of products that we've been offering. So we have nearly PLN 4.7 billion. So it's more than 8% increase. And so all these things are pleasing to us. We're pleased with the diversification of our business. So the top 10 customers in the revenue of the overall group is a mere 12% of the total revenue of the group. And so -- so the largest customer represents 2% of total group revenues. So we're not dependent on any single customers or clients. And let me say a few words about our solutions for finance. We'll talk about the other segments as well. So we have across the group, some PLN 3.7 billion. We have in revenue, an increase of nearly 5% year-on-year. And so you can see in the Formula Group up until now, it was always the leader and was the major contributor of revenue in the financial segment. Now it's #2. And that is a result of the fact that Sapiens has been extracted because it was sold as was stated previously. And of course, this formula system segment is still doing very well. So it's nearly PLN 1.5 billion at 11% growth. Then we have Asseco International, which came in at PLN 1.6 billion, which is 4% growth. And we have Southeastern Europe and PST, which is our company in Portugal, which is operating in the Portuguese market. And then we have Asseco Central Europe. So all of these businesses are growing well. Then we have on top of that, Asseco Poland. So this segment, Asseco Poland segment has a 10% uptick in growth. And here, we're the market leader in terms of banking and lease companies as well as brokerage houses. And so we're very pleased because this business for many, many years has developed nicely. If we think about our public institutions, the growth is much more dynamic than in the financial sector. So we have a 15% increase year-on-year. So it's more than PLN 4.15 billion. And so we have the International segment. Well, for a couple of reasons, that's grown so fast because it's the Czech and the Slovakian markets. And as you recall, we had a stagnation there in previous years. We've been able to rebuild our position. And so the revenue is substantially higher. And the same is true in Southeastern Europe. In the Balkan Group, and so 2024 was clearly a softer year. And so we have experienced dynamic growth on this revenue. In Poland, our growth is nearly 20%. So we came in at PLN 1.2 billion in revenue. So in Poland, we are the leader in terms of our solutions for public institutions. We're a major player in terms of public administration for the health service as well as for the power sector, where our position is a leadership position. And so we're very pleased that the business has grown at such a fast clip. And then we have Formula Systems, which you can see is the major contributor to the revenue. In public institutions, it's seen 11% growth with revenue coming in at PLN 2. billion -- nearly PLN 4 billion. And the final segment that I would like to cover today is ERP solutions. So these are our businesses within Asseco International. So as a matter of fact, it's Asseco Enterprise Solution, ERP solution in Poland, Germany, Slovakia, Czech Republic, we see 8% growth and revenue over PLN 1 billion. You might have noticed that another line disappeared Asseco Poland segment. But this is the reason -- the reason is that DahliaMatic that used to be reporting to Asseco Poland was transferred to Asseco Business Solutions and now is part of the Asseco International segment. Therefore, it made no further sense to show Asseco Poland segment. In Formula Systems, we also have our ERP solutions at a lower scale, but we are very happy to see a 14% increase and revenue over PLN 6 million. We continue our acquisitions 2 slides to cover this story. We are showing all the acquisitions completed last year, Asseco Poland segment and Asseco International segment and Formula Systems segment likewise. That was the greatest bunch. Altogether, we had 13 new entries joining the group last year. So we were keeping the pace from the previous years. Every year, we have a dozen or so new companies joining the group. And we continue our efforts as we speak. We are scanning the market. We are speaking to [ content ] companies, and we are looking for the best match. We have definitely more selective approach. We don't want to just build our mass, but we want to have entities that have specific features in terms of products and competence that they bring to the table. And obviously, we have to look at the price that we need to pay and the return that we can get on each deal. Now when we look at the formula, I have to emphasize that it was a special year for formula systems acquisitions and corporate governance involvement. In addition to the acquisitions that they made, you may recall because we've mentioned that already in Q1, this year, we reached the sort of final line. However, we've been working on it since 2024, namely the combination and Matrix and Magic were joined as one company. So today, they are the largest company in Israel and one of the top 10 IT service providers globally. That was a major project, and it turned out to be very successful. We've already heard that Sapiens sale was a long project, a difficult project, but at the end of the year, very successful. And another sort of tier that we are building here, Michpal, that's the new company that was listed on the Israeli Stock Exchange last year. This is mostly HR and payroll solutions, software companies and service providers. So we are happy to embrace that because we see a lot of growth potential here. So we see a lot of good prospects for the future. Guy has a lot of ideas. He has a healthy and sound pipeline of M&A projects, and I believe that he will be delivering that step-by- step. Thank you for your attention. Over to Karolina. Karolina Rzonca-Bajorek: [Interpreted] I will briefly cover the financials. On the first slide, you see the key numbers. Marek mentioned revenue. We are almost at PLN 17 billion. And we remember that Sapiens was sold in December last year. So it was already excluded from the individual items of our P&L. So it was shown in one line as a discontinued business. Therefore, this is all comparable when you look at these numbers. It's comparable to the prior periods. So over PLN 16 billion of sales. Our own proprietary services PLN 12.6 billion and a nice growth of 7% in both items. And Non-IFRS EBITDA and Non-IFRS EBIT, 8% and 9% up, respectively, and it's PLN 2.5 billion for EBITDA and over PLN 2 billion for Non-IFRS EBIT. And Non-IFRS net profit is PLN 742 million and CAGR, the best of the past 5 years, 9% up. And for some time, we've been showing P&L items between the years. And here, we are sharing this information again. You may see that there is less negative impact of the currency exchange compared to the prior years. It is still a negative impact, but not major, PLN 48 million in terms of revenue and PLN 4 million in terms of operating business and Non-IFRS. We are truly happy about our organic results, PLN 1.3 billion it's ours organic sales. Across the group. And that was translated into PLN 300 additional million operating profit, non-IFRS. And acquisitions is PLN 452 million at the revenue line and PLN 46 million at the operating income, Non-IFRS. Net profit, Non-IFRS, we show which segments were the greatest delta contributors on an annual basis. And we can tell that Asseco Poland is doing very well. The Marek company is showing exquisite performance, but you may scrutinize in the stand-alone financial statement, minus [ PLN 11 million]. So it's a [ interior ] contribution from Formula Systems segment. The main reason is that Sapiens was consolidated over the course of 12 months. But in Q4, we had a first restructuring processes and the cost of that charged the result for the Q4. And Asseco International contribution was PLN 49 million more compared to the prior year. When you look at the entire P&L statement, and we are happy about the dynamics, 11% growth year-to-year revenue and proprietary software and services, over 15% Non-IFRS EBITDA goes up and 20% nonoperating profit, Non-IFRS and 11% the standard operating profit. And here, there is a slight decline when it comes to profitability year-to-year. But please note that it was just Q4. And the reason is in the line that you will find below and namely M&A. This is all one-off events. PLN 67 million is the write-off at Formula Systems for ZAP company. Well, they were not doing as well as we were projecting at the moment of the acquisition. So we decided to actually write off that asset. Some costs were generated by the transaction that Marek referred to. So the merger of Magic and Matrix is PLN 67 million. And then we also have some write-offs from other companies and PLN 15 million was our own project, our own investment, goodwill and assets in Nextbank company. Now what is happening below the operating profit line? Well, you can tell that we are efficiently managing our debt. We were decreasing debt year-to-year. Interest income, the cost of interest is less year-to-year. And the currency line, it's mostly the formula. Formula is reporting in [indiscernible], but they were paid for the Sapiens deal in US dollars. And the translation of the currency balance, even with a small exchange rate decrease generated major foreign exchange impact. Well, we may say that this is just an accounting impact. M&A, I've already covered. And for some time, we've been affected by hyperinflation, and that is Turkish business. And the share in profit of associates looks very nice, but this is formula who is the main contributor. We had the indexation of the revaluation of the -- our investment in the company that was doing SPO, but this year. And therefore, we have the step-up and therefore, we are showing better numbers. In addition to that, we have profit on the discontinued business or discontinued operations. So this is the accounting result that we show on sale of Sapiens, PLN 500 million. This is what we show in the current report, and this is distributed to the shareholder of the dominating company. Now the Sapiens Group. I think that we need to align our projections when we look at the operating revenue and operating profit, well, the Sapiens was a major contributor to these lines. Therefore, for 2026, because of the sale of Sapiens Group, we will be probably PLN 2 billion short in terms of revenue on our operating business and probably around PLN 350 million profit on our operating activities. So Q4 was really charged with the cost of the sale transactions at the cost of restructuring. Therefore, I would rather look at prior year instead of Q4 2025. So that was the explanatory note to Sapiens. Now what is happening across different companies. As I said, we are truly happy to see the performance of the Marek company. In terms of the dynamics and profitability, both were very, very decent. Your notes, analytical notes, expressed some surprise about the net profit contribution. Let me just explain. But when we speak about deals like the sale of Sapiens, the taxes such as CFC are actually booked to Asseco Poland line. And therefore, it is really a charge to our net result. And this is a one-off effect. In case of the Sapiens sale, the Marek company had to pay -- or had to show almost PLN 24 million of additional tax, namely CFC. So the effective tax rate for the Marek company seems to be surprisingly high, but this is the one-off effect of that transaction. In terms of other operations in Poland, Asseco Data Systems is improving their performance, and I think that they are doing quite well and other major companies seem to be in good shape likewise. Now Formula. Here, we decided to show Matrix and Magic together in one line. And as Marek explained, in February, the merger was completed. Right now, they are going to operate as one company. Magic was taken off the stock exchange. It is actually the subsidiary of Matrix. Therefore, you need to look at them as one group. And in terms of other companies, we have consolidated Michpal that was listed on the Israeli Stock Exchange this year. And we have a new subgroup under Formula. The working name or actually the formal name is Formula Infrastructure. Now Asseco International segment, we are truly thrilled with the improvement that Slovakia demonstrated. Adam highlighted that. This is both true for the core business, the public sector business, our health segment in Slovakia. It seems that they really rebounded and they improved substantially. But it needs to be highlighted that in this line, we have our ERPs. So excellent performance of Asseco Business Solutions. We also have major improvement in profitability in Germany. So that's another reason to be happy. And now the Southeastern Europe -- so great performance in dedicated solutions, major improvement year-to-year, very good result in the banking sector. And the payment segment, very decent, too. We need to remember that they are actually charged with the write-offs in India. I believe that [ Piotr ] mentioned that during the conference earlier. And there are some risks that emerged in that segment because of the loss of one of the Turkish customer and the potential loss of another customer in Turkey. Both of them are actually switching to in-sourcing. Therefore, they will drop from our customer portfolio. If we look at cash, I think this is something that has been observed. We have very robust cash flow across the year in Q4 as well. And this is true across the board, across the group. So it's 122%. And if we look at EBITDA, this is something that we've been displaying for years. And Asseco Poland this is 124% it's 109% in international and Formula Systems, 128%. So we had specially good cash flow in the Matrix ID company. And let's take a look at the balance sheet. And you can see that the header is more up to date than previously. And you can see the amount of cash. So it's more than PLN 7 billion on the bank accounts of the companies in the group. and Asseco Poland, which is the mother company and from the sale of treasury shares, it's more than $1.5 billion. Then you have Formula Systems. Here, we need to remember that more than $750 million was obtained from the sale of Sapiens. And this is also on the accounts of the company or in the segment at the end of last year. If we look at the proportional recognition, as is the case in the full recognition, we have certain reconciliations year-on-year. And so we can look at the contribution of the organic businesses and so PLN 734 million and then EUR 110 million from acquisitions. And then if we look at the operating profit Non-IFRS and so we have 3 from acquisitions, PLN 216 million from organic results. We have to remember about some of those impairments. I talked about them previously, the M&A adjustments. And so they're in this proportional recognition. What's also important here, as I've mentioned, that some of these impairments are through Formula, but we also have the Asseco Poland as well. And if we look at the proportional results, we can see that the growth rate is better and the profitability and the improvement in profitability is better. And this is a result of the fact that the Polish segment and Asseco International saw market improvement. And we also show the main companies. I don't think I will discuss that because we've already discussed that. And if we think about the proportional recognition of cash flow generated, it seems that it's very decent, 27%. And so we have 124% in Asseco Poland and 114% in International and 127% in Formula Systems. And so then we have the balance sheet set up on proportional recognition. So the cash available to the shareholders or the holders of the parent company. And so it's PLN 3.3 billion, then EUR 1.5 billion in Asseco Poland and then Formula and Asseco International. So this information has been indicated that a portion of this will be paid out in the form of dividends of some $200 million has been communicated and that this will be paid out in the formal resolution of the shareholder meeting. Well, of the Board of Directors will be made after the -- this will probably be in May once the financial statements of Formula Systems are approved. Then if we look at the backlog, I think we've got a satisfactory growth rate. This information coming from your releases. And so -- if we look at own proprietary services and software and 19% in Asseco Poland is like 17%. And so it's more or less equally divided on public systems and financial sector. So hence, we've got 9% for Asseco International and 14% in Formula Systems. And if we look at this on a proportional basis, we have 16% in Asseco Poland and 10% in Asseco International and 14% in Formula Systems. And then I mentioned the dividend. I said that we have very decent cash flow, and we have a very stable position -- cash position if we look at our balance sheet. And these robust results give us the ability and the wherewithal to pay out a dividend of PLN 1.051 billion, which translates into PLN 13.05 as a dividend per share. Of course, treasury stock doesn't participate in that and 3% of our shares are in the form of treasury stock. And so the PLN 13 per share as dividend per share. And if we look at the consensus opinion here, it's probably around PLN 11 was, I think, the figure that was stated in the consensus. Why did we make the decision to pay out PLN 1.51 billion. The first tranche would be paid out in terms of the cash proceeds from the sale of treasury stock. So we had received more than PLN 1 billion. And so PLN 500 million with plus would be a little bit -- that would be half of that would be from the sale of treasury stock and the rest. And so we took a look at the free cash flow. We factored in on our balance sheet. We looked at the results, and we came to the conclusion that all of this taken together would give us the ability to pay a higher dividend from our current results and cash flow, and that's what fed into this defining the specific figure or calculating the specific figures. Adam Góral: [Interpreted] So thank you very much, Karolina and Marek and my friend who's been listening to us that these are wonderful results, and you guys are even smiling, so I'd like to apologize. It's because of my gravity because I was talking about the world itself. And let's forget about the world for a little bit. Because we have enormous reasons to be joyful and satisfied because these results are wonderful, and they're linked to our efficacy, to our wisdom and to the cogent execution of our strategy. These are things that have happened. I've never lived in the past. So only future is of interest to me. And so of course, we're living in interesting times. So there's the AI battle, which is not easy to monetize in terms of what -- it's not having an easy go at monetizing what is achieved up until now. So this world is giving us wonderful opportunities, and new hopes. We have this battle for the world in terms of AI with us. Of course, this world isn't monetizing things because they're thinking that we're operating too slowly and informing the world, quite the contrary, that we do appreciate what AI is doing because we've reconciled ourselves that this is happening with the tools, but there's a large number of our people who are following this world or tracking that world that we're going to utilize that in a wise fashion. And Asseco's strategy is unchanging. [ Rafal ] is something that will continue along with my new wonderful partners, and we agreed that at the outset, we will continue to make sure that we're going to specialize in the producing software and services related to the software we're going to write. And this is going to be the predominant or prevalent portion of our revenue. And where it's sensible, we won't, of course, resign from integration. We want to make sure there are several regions where we are very strong. We don't want to lose those footholds. We will continue to build and make sure that we're building our sector position, sectoral position. This is something that I'm very proud of. In the near future, I'll have a meeting with my teams responsible for the various sectors and each sector is coming in with its vision for the upcoming 3 years. Of course, our strength is [ individually ] our knowledge of our customers, our customer knowledge and our customer knowledge is something that's been proving its position, its importance in Asseco for some 35 years. So I've been the leader for some 35 years. So this year, we're celebrating the 35th anniversary. We're not going to make a major celebration as a result, isn't that true? But it's a wonderful Jubilee celebration. And the fidelity in terms of our education, the awareness processes that customers utilize. This is our greatest value in the marketplace. And having in mind these new times, well, our fortune is predicated upon the following that we are present in many institutions. Well, these are nonstandard solutions. So AI trying to learn those types of solutions is something that will take a lot more time for that to be replaced or for that to be done. And so this knowledge that we mentioned on the first slide in terms of the teams of people, we talk about our human intelligence. This is going to drive the future of the company. And here, we have an advantage. And I'll show you another slide in a moment. We talk about our experience in a given area is also a great source of value. On top of that, we are utilizing and we are utilizing AI. I will show you where we are because we've made enormous inroads for many years, we've allowed ourselves to be dispersed. We've been a little bit chaotic. So 1.5 years with [ Garrick Brown ] who was -- has been running business intelligence for many years in a wonderful way and in our business division. And so we've appointed him to be a leader in terms of AI. And then I'll show you what we've achieved thus far. Our goal, we want to utilize these tools to enhance the quality of our operations, our activities. We want to be more efficient. We won't use them to restructure. We want to do more with the exact same team. That's our concept. And I'll give you some evidence that we are far along the path in terms of implementing this concept. So in some cases, we have a little bit more time as opposed to those areas where the standard plain vanilla solution is the name of the game. So when we talk about the learning process, that standard, that plain vanilla approach for those companies that are selling the plain vanilla approach, this is going to be something that's going to be precarious for them because those companies will have greater problems. We -- by utilizing our tools wisely, we're going to speed up the pace at which we're utilizing those tools. So our sectoral knowledge, which is a type of capital, this is an edge that we hold. So we have more than 30,000 employees I don't like the word employees, but that's what we wrote on the slide because these are my business partners in some more than 50 countries, the knowledge about the banking sector, about the health care sector, about the government sector. And we have people from various countries. No country has been capable of creating a solution for the government that would be a plain vanilla solution that one size fits all. This gives us some time to learn these AI tools and utilize them at the right point in time. So 12 years is the average seniority in Asseco Poland, somebody could say, well, you guys are old. Well, take a look at the last item, more than 8,000 people applying to participate in our internship programs in 2025. So in the on-boardings, we need these young people, and I convey that to them. I impart that knowledge to them. We can be -- I've never lived by success. I only see problems, and I'm interested in solving problems because I know that we're going to be better as a result. But if people are, let's say, somehow have -- they're just quite. So we're bringing on board these young people. So 12, 15 years ago, I delivered a lecture at the Warsaw University where we're being promoted and touted and Artur hadn't yet joined us. And I was showing thousands of articles, lots of publications about us that everybody knows everything about us. And I was asking the most outstanding IT experts at the University of Warsaw Do you know something about Asseco? And they didn't know anything about Asseco. So I'd like to thank Artur here. From that point in time, we've made huge inroads because our brand recognition that the young people want to join us. And we have young people. Sometimes I'm surprised they want to learn COBOL because we have solutions at PKO BP, which is a COBOL solution. And so I'm pleased to see that young people want to learn COBOL. So you should learn it, but you should make sure that you're diversified in terms of your knowledge business. You can't lose from sight those tools that are timely today. And you have to have that knowledge about other types of tools. And so you should take pains to ensure that you have those things mastered. So that's why I'm calm at ease that this company is going to be healthy, but somehow not entirely quite, not calm. We're #1 in Poland and Europe, many countries. We always talk -- say one thing about that, but the other talk -- the other things we talked about in 10 years, we want to continue being a wonderful company. We want to be a competitive company. Of course, I fully believe that we will be such a company, and that's clearly the case. Why am I trying to be reasonable about AI? As a businessman and entrepreneur, I've been through a time when IT was about distributed architecture. We were one of the very first Polish companies that were centralizing IT systems. And some people were saying, "Oh, you will get lost, the Polish system will never survive." but we made it. We were able to centralize whatever had to be centralized. And then there was a moment of the Internet frenzy. Unfortunately, we were not the main players in that field because we didn't offer the tools. But please note that we were able to grab quite a place for ourselves and build it up. And then the cloud came up. And from the very beginning, I was cautious about it because cloud mean when you have a public cloud, it means that you give single individuals huge power over everyone else. And today, I'm really happy to see the Polish government taking measures and looking at the local content. This is what we are really trying to do. Other countries have done it earlier. I've been fighting for it over 30 years because I've always been of the opinion that Polish people should depend on themselves or [indiscernible]. Let's do it the same way other nations do it. Today when we look at our Diplomatic Corp and our economic diplomacy in different countries. I also noted a major progress. You can actually rely on the Polish ambassadors. They really want to help you. And it started back when we had the first government of Civic Platform and land justice was keeping it up. And now the coalition is doing it again. We have great ambassadors for our beautiful growth and development. I'm really proud that Artur is actually setting up the meetings and people show up. People want to help us sell because they show that we were able to grow. And I know for a fact, but if we take good care of all these things that I mentioned, we will not get lost in the new world where the AI becomes a major player. Now look at [ Adam Goral ] and his team. In June last year, they made a promise, Adam, in December, we will cover your entire internal production process with AI solution. It's been covered. We have been implementing it internally. No not much is going to change with our customers because when we approach our customers, we want to solve their core problems. We don't talk about the products. We say, okay, we help you increase your sales with IT solutions. A we enhance your security or we help you control and curb your costs. So we sell that. The tools are secondary. Why am I saying that we are cautious and we try to be wise about it. The only value that we truly have is our customers and the value that we are able to bring to them. If the customers are disappointed with the solutions that will be driven by AI, we will be doomed. And some AI-based solutions are not stable, are not mature. So this cautious approach, but I'm advocating here. Is something that is not appreciated by the evangelist of the new tools. They think that we should take a different approach. You may have noticed, but there are other peer companies that are similar to us, and they've been dropping in value 20%. This is like pressure on us to get our act together and act faster here. But I have a message to everyone who wants to make money on AI. No worries here. We are going to do it in a smart way. We are going to take advantage of everything that you have developed there, but we will do it in a way that brings the real and true value to our customers, and we are not going to experiment on our customers. So the entire AI process is somewhat atypical for our organization. That's the way we do it. We opted for the federated model, and this is how we do our business. We really wanted to enhance enterprise in all our locations. We didn't want to kill the local spirit. So 3, 4 years ago, we worked everywhere on these themes. Today, we are trying to integrate that and centralize that, not to overlap and double the costs. We are trying to develop the model where Slovaks do not feel fully dependent on Poles. We want to make sure that Balkans curb some room for themselves. And I believe in that model. So the advantage over the companies that have holdings is such that they have to actually scrutinize each of their group companies. They didn't integrate it. But we are pretty well integrated across different sectors. And therefore, once we have AI solutions, it will be much easier for us to implement that than for those who have completely distributed and dispersed business. Therefore, I do have faith. I think that this is my new passion, and that's something that we are going to deliver. I don't want to bore you with the stories of all the sectors that we support and cover. I'm proud of the leaders we are disruptive, but in a healthy way and our ambitions run high. But there are 2 things where my ambitions have not been met. One is cybersecurity. We have a small company concept, and we are not yet happy with them. They are not efficient. Despite the fact that they have smart people on board, they can do a lot, but we are honest about it. We haven't been able to develop the business model that would be fully aligned with Asseco philosophy. And another area is solutions for defense and armed forces. And we have very strong references because we are supporting Frontex. But nevertheless, something is missing here. I believe in my leaders, and I believe that we will see some progress in these areas. Right now, we have a great project in Togo on the radar. You may remember the project that we successfully completed during the pandemic in Togo. We have a Togo company shared with the government. Togo is a very pro-European country, and the leaders are very well educated. And I'm really thrilled because we signed a contract for the development of the system for the Togo Armed Forces for their army. So that also has to do with the cybersecurity and solutions that address the needs of the armed forces. But now we are also trying to find a good partner for cybersecurity business. We are looking for a company that would be better than our current capabilities. Today, we are talking to a company that is of great interest to us. But at the end of the day, there is a price. You pay for the history, but you are buying the future. So we have to be reasonable about it. So this is something that I'm going to really look at and take good care. I think that in our countries in Eastern Europe, these areas have not been truly developed yet in terms of business. I believe that if we find the right leader, we would be able to build a very strong regional position. So that's what I have in my screen. Okay. So once when I am going to be on the Supervisory Board, I'm really going to harass -- sorry for my word, but everyone who will be responsible for these areas that I have just mentioned. But they know how I handle that. I have a lot of patience and -- but I believe that we will be able to build a new position for our business. And the time comes when we have to assess our partnership with our friends from the Netherlands. I'm saying that they are our friends. It hasn't been a long time, but I have to say that we are really pleased I am grateful. Probably the transaction would have never occurred if we were not able to keep the Polish control, so to speak, in terms of the power and being able to decide about the strategy. They come from the background that has a different strategy. When we were buying companies, we were integrating and building our integrated position. Their philosophy is that each company that they acquire, they have as a separate company within the group, and they actually have a separate settlement for each investment. This is a different approach. But now they are looking at the way we are doing it because they truly appreciate the fact that we are in a very special point in time. AI is definitely affecting or impacting our world and our companies have to respond adequately. And I would like to really acknowledge our gratitude to them. I would like to thank them for their openness, for being so generous with their knowledge, the expertise that they have with acquisitions and with handling of the companies once they are acquired. They also have a lot of expertise in finance management. So I have to say that they were really open about it. We were actually borrowing some of their solutions and methods. Some KPIs that they have been using. This is not very surprising to us because they were looking at cash flow, and we were also very mindful of our cash flow. For them, cash was #1 and so has been for us. But they also have other KPIs that really help, but they keep people motivated. They also have KPIs for software companies that are able to identify certain weaknesses. We've been also looking at that, but I'm really happy that we were able to tap into the expertise of these KPIs because to be honest, we were relying more on our intuition here. And based on that knowledge, I think that Rafal can claim the greatest contribution here. Asseco growth. And this is the project that started a lot of commotion within the group because everyone thinks, okay, we've been doing it for years. We know everything about software. But suddenly, it turned out that others approach the same thing from a completely different perspective. So I have to say that it was a very informative and educational experience. And I really wish that we would have this 1.5% approved. I don't feel sorry about the 3% that I didn't get, although they told me openly that Adam, you have to get the 3%. But I say, okay, I can go about it because otherwise, it's like not appreciating the succession that you need. There is a change in generations, right? If you've been doing business with someone and they always deliver and never failed you, you really want to continue doing business with them. So in my generation is still there and is still quite efficient. Rafal has his own peers of his own generation, and he's navigating that very well. But my role is to make sure that we have proper continuity with this succession. So they came to us and they said, well, 3% is the right way to go. I told them, look, our market is not really ready for that. So they were disappointed that we were not able to take a good vote on that. So they don't understand our mindset and our investors. But they continue to respect our country and our market and our capital market. And we believe that together, we were able to vote in the favor of this 1.5%. Once we finally close 2025. Now 2026 makes us optimistic. I always say that it's great. I always say that we are good. And Artur was saying that we are phenomenal. We were great. We were phenomenal. I've already said that on several occasions when I was speaking about our company and our business. So I've been learning too. So very optimistic. Today, journalists were asking questions. They were saying, Adam, we would like to meet you again. I said, look, now Rafal is the key man. I am a very open person. I think that Rafal is more restrained. But if he's more restrained make sure that he's more down to earth, because media has never failed us. And even if I was saying way too much, they didn't publish everything when I said afterwards that, well, perhaps that shouldn't be published. It's not very much shame of that, but we are just humans. And to rank people who are onboarded in the company, I always tell them, look, we don't have a single individual in this company who has never made any mistake. The shame is to repeat the same mistakes again and then to lie about it. If you made a mistake and if you lie about it, then as a result, 100% can get sacked because of it. If you don't lie, if you're open about it, everyone will help you repair and remedy your mistake. That's the way we need to keep it at a [ side]. We have to be positive. You may say, okay, it's hard, but you have to multiply it by 10, saying what you can do to make it better. We are critical, but not in terms of complaining, but we are critical in terms of, okay, that needs to be improved. This is what has to be done about it. It's not about just complaining and saying, I don't know what to do about it. And we are not afraid to make mistakes. And we believe that customers are definitely sacred. They pay our bills. So if something prevents us from providing good service to the customers, we have to fight with that. You have to show it to us, but this is wrong and young people are coming full of power and energy. I love the onboarding experience. I always tell them that they have to address me as Adam. I have a great assistant and she's 24 years, and she's addressing me Mr. President. And I say, look, one order that I always give, I'm Adam. Look, I'm not saying farewell. I'm not really leaving for good, but I'm -- it will be tough because I've always loved meeting you. So I don't know. I will have to learn what to do not to get into Rafal's way. Rafal is definitely sharing and representing the same values. I know that he's prepared. He knows everything how to do the job, but he's a different person. I want him to be himself. I just cannot get in his way. And I know that things will be fine. And I would like to thank all of you for still coming to our meetings because we've been together on so many occasions, but probably you don't find me surprising. I said at the beginning that there are wars out there, and this is not a reason to be happy. But then there is another aspect. It's important to actually speak to people face-to-face. The more the people we have in the room, the merrier it is. It's easier to smile when you have real people sitting in front of you. I know that we have 100 people who are watching us online, but those who came here and are with us in person, it's really nice. Well, perhaps for those 100 that are just watching us online, we were not top performers. If there is anything we need to improve, please let us know. Operator: [Interpreted] So after this wonderful presentation and summary, we have the opportunity to move on to the Q&A session because there are questions coming to the forefront from some of our participants, our online participants. And so the idea is we'd like to move on now to the Q&A session. And at the end, we'll wrap up by bidding ado. So let's begin with the first question in terms of this year's recommendation for the dividend. Should we treat that as an extraordinary dividend? What is the dividend policy for the upcoming years? And in subsequent years, should we anticipate that there would be a higher amount or quantum of transfers to the shareholders? Unknown Executive: [Interpreted] If we will not acquisitions are still our passion. It's more difficult to buy things. There's an enormous amount of competition. We have certain boundaries. The only limit, I think I mentioned that in terms of relations with our new partners that the decisions, acquisition decisions, we make those decisions together. This is a limitation for Marek. This is something we wanted. We wanted to buy things at the optimum price. So we've had major success even if we were a little more intuitive than our new business partners. We've been very effective. I would like for Marek's team to have access to knowledge about how others do that. And I'm pleased that we have that access. So Marek has several potential acquisition targets. We're working on that now. But in Asseco, we always want to buy for organic growth. That's our obsession. One of the very kind journalists, Adam, you know you had Balkans, other areas, but those were different times. At that point in time, we were buying companies at normal prices. So today, if somebody is coming forward to us and we have tens of people, business owners talking with me per annum. And so Marek, of course, is talking with them because Marek, of course, introduces me as well. And so somebody is coming forward and what they've created, which is far away from our standard is pricing that at a multiple of tens over the profit, but they don't want to buy the brand. And I'm not interested in that because we have -- we can pay a lot for the past, for the history. But the fact that we're going to build the future together, well, because if you're using a very high multiple, let's say, 30 or 20 or 40, whatever, then we all understand what that means. And since there's a lot of competition, there are funds out there that have a pressure to spend money and Asseco is not going to participate in that type of battle. We want to attract business owners who understand that based on what you've created in Poland, you can create a wonderful European position because we've proven that we're capable. Our model has proven itself. We know how to attract business owners from other countries. And so if we can find partners like -- and we're looking for those types of partners and hypothetically, we have them, -- but of course, we can always haggle a little bit about price multiples. We are buying -- not to buy. We want it to be effective to generate a return. And jointly with our leaders, we want -- we're going to give them a lot of authority to build things. So if we don't have those type of projects, you can always count on a hefty dividend. And of course, if we have those type of M&A projects, then we won't have that cash. And so the dividend will be a little lower. And so this is a question to our colleagues from Business Solutions. In Asseco Business Solutions is the biggest impact of the national inventory system KSeF was it exerted in Q4 2025? Or will we see it in subsequent quarters? So perhaps I'll field that question because I'm in the Supervisory Board. And I think I might not be entirely precise. I think we can count on KSeF, this national invoicing system. I don't think I'm apologize for saying perhaps I don't know the figures. I don't think it was the biggest quarter for us, Q4 2025. So at the beginning of 2025, we were counting on the national invoicing system. The results were phenomenal because all of you in ABS are proud of what we have done. What Rafal did on an international basis, that integration of our teams with Germany, and Germany is doing very well and competing with Poland, trying to catch up. And of course, this will take a little bit of time. And so we're working strongly on Slovakia and Czech Republic because we want to have integration, I believe in that strongly. So I think in ABS, we will continue to deliver results through the national invoicing system,. And if we talk about recurring revenue, and this is something that's been prepared that we're going to have increase in recurring revenue. For people who might not know the Polish market, today, we have the opening the next wave of companies that will utilize the national invoicing system called KSeF. And so those companies, there's going to be many more companies starting to use that. And so this is coming down. It's going to be applicable to medium-sized companies and smaller companies. What are the problems with implementing or adopting the share system? And what are the obstacles to implementing this program? So based -- this is a little bit of gossip. Basically, what I'm hearing is as follows: the open-end pension funds, we can't give anything away free of charge because we're paying for the past, so we can't vote in favor. So I can embrace that -- I can accept that opinion. But I'm asking these OFEs for them to think about this because even if something is so highly regulated, that's against the development of the Polish capital market, and I'm always going to be an advocate because had it not been for the Polish Stock Exchange, we would not have moved for it because in 2024, nobody would have lended money to Adam Goral for his -- to build his fantasies because I wouldn't be able to prove to any bank in 2004 that I was going to be capable of doing something had it not been for the Polish Stock Exchange. There would be no Asseco. I'm sorry to say, I regret that we don't have a sufficiently large number of IPOs and business owners have started to stop seeing that there's opportunities linked to being on the exchange. So like PKO BP, baby was waiting for us with a credit to when we wanted to buy back shares. Well, the times are different nowadays. And we have to remember that times do change. So of course, I understand the regulations. Well, let's change things that are illogical. My friends from the Netherlands and Canada linked to Constellation, they don't really understand what's behind this because for them, the fact that we will vote this through, well, it's not a guarantee because we're making decisions together in fact. The fact that we voted through gives greater certainty to all of us as investors. So I would precede those. We understand those who can't do it because of the laws, but I hope that we'll have people, if we looked at the results of voting, I was nearly satisfied. We were only missing some 700,000 shares. So that's not very many. So maybe somebody want to come to the shareholder meeting, we're going to vote on that. And then we could vote it through. Let me tell you, honestly, I don't understand why they're behaving this way. We, as investors, why don't we want for one group of Poles that have worked hard and toiled hard for them 95 people for them to receive a total of 1.5% of the company. Of course, 1.5% PLN 200 million. Of course, it's PLN 200 million. That's 95 people that will be the recipients. We haven't -- we're not creating [ oligarchs ]. We want people to have interests aligned and be participating in the risk we have. And if we want to be active on the Polish Stock Exchange, if you want to have more IPOs, we have to have and utilize mechanisms that are utilized on mature stock exchange. I'm not sure if this is of importance, if it will have import. We've been -- we've received rewards or awards by like, for example, the Parkiet newspaper that gave us an award for the growth we've been able to achieve in terms of our market cap and so on and so forth. But I also asked and perhaps these words will exert an impression on somebody and they will vote through proposal through. Well, people are for those person, we want to take care of the stock exchange. The people who are taking care of our business interest, we want more and more of these people to think about the interest of the investors for them to buy for the value of the company and the shareholder value. Operator: [Interpreted] The next question, is it possible to think about the sales of the -- remaining 18% shareholder -- share stake in Sapiens? Well, you remember that after the sale of Sapiens, this is a strange case. We lost control because we sold almost all of the shares. We hope that we have an 18% minority stake, which we hold indirectly in Sapiens. Unknown Executive: [Interpreted] And so this is a good position to think about how to earn thinking about the new shareholder, what the new shareholder is doing in Sapiens, what the restructuring processes are in telling, and we surmise that advent because that's a new investor, if it makes the decision in a couple of years to sell Sapiens, then of course, we will, of course, join forces with them in that sale. Operator: [Interpreted] The next question, what will you earmark the money -- the proceeds from the sale of Sapiens in terms of -- because only a portion is going to the dividends. Unknown Executive: [Interpreted] But well, we don't have the right. You know Guy, even though he was started as a manager, we gave him shares. He's an investor. He's a business owner. He's an entrepreneur. And please note that everything that he did was with our consent and he's nearly made no mistakes over the last 16 years. He was buying at the right prices. We've all forgotten because you were -- perhaps you were right. We were buying shares in the holding, which was running a company that was slightly lost. This is not the Sapiens that was sold just recently. This was not the Magic. This was not the Matrix company. All of that was growing and expanding, not talking even forgetting about the new purchases. So in terms of investing in running these type of companies, he knows and he's very cognizant of. He knows it very well, and he talked -- he didn't give me much time sometimes for some decisions. That's true. But I always had that time to make a decision. I received the materials that were needed and so on and so forth. I continue to believe in him, and we're going to pay out a very hefty dividend. I think we can officially say -- so it was already announced at $200 million. And so we're also counting on a dividend. Well, Guy is working how to neutralize this fact, the sale of the majority stake. He has ideas. We won't talk about those ideas because I analyze this is a new topic in terms of building a position in a given area is still within the framework of IT. He's not running into other areas. And initially, this is something that really appeals to me in Israel. So we wish peace to that corner of the world. We hope that peace will be achieved. And major investments are in the works, infrastructural investments. And we would like to have a company, a group of companies prepared to participate in these projects because we have a very strong position there. We haven't agreed on this, but if there were no interesting targets on the marketplace to purchase, well, then we can always buy back some shares in formulas, we can increase our shareholding. We have some opportunities. I'm not saying that we as Asseco, but utilizing that money that's there. So we can have different types of ideas. Today, we're not being precise on that subject. But I wanted for this decision to be a joint decision about Sapiens because we were of the opinion that we were coming close to a wall that we might not have better ideas. And looking at Advent we're learning a new approach to these type of situations. We believe strongly that Advent is going to be effective and that our 18% stake will have the same value of what we sold. And -- this is something that we wish to those people who are now managing. We wish that from the bottom of our hearts. Operator: [Interpreted] The next question is about TSS and Constellation as your potential competitor in M&A in terms of consulting on M&A. Is that something that's beneficial to Asseco? Unknown Executive: [Interpreted] So Marek, he likes to argue. So this is my area. And of course, we're competing with TSA in Constellation and M&A. And that's not changing after the transaction, but we have written down what we're going to do together and how we're going to behave if we identify a conflict of interest. And so betraying what it looks like from the kitchen. So if we identify that there is a conflict of interest that we're competing on a given project, then we won't engage in these type of consultations in that case. So even members of the investment committee from the TSS that would not participate in these meetings. They would not have any role to consult on those projects. And so we can do that according to our own recognition, according to our best knowledge and our experience. But this is an area where there is competition. Well, this is high business culture. somebody might think about it whether or not you needed that. But take a look, had we not been together. We wouldn't know anything about it. We would compete with one another anyway. Today, I wouldn't preclude a situation, in fact, that we will not want to buy something and we'll inform them of that fact. And we'll give them that target for them to think because it's perhaps the case they might want to buy it because this could be aligned to a concept they harbor. This is something we're going to be able to master. Marek, there are some individual examples and we've developed -- we've cultivated them. There are some cases. It's hard to be surprised because TSS and Constellation are highly active players and the market of potential targets is finite in size, that universe is finite in size. So in many cases, in 5 cases, we had conflicts of interest. And if this is something that we can live with out of a number under 20. Operator: [Interpreted] The next question is to Marek. In terms of potential targets in cybersecurity, are there any Polish companies in that universe? Marek Panek: And the answer is brief, yes. And this is where I would stop. Operator: [Interpreted] And the final question that we have from remote participants, are you thinking about developing a motivation program where the strike price would be closer to the market price as opposed to, let's say, PLN 1. Unknown Executive: [Interpreted] Well, yes, in our concept, I don't know if somebody has noticed, we have 1.5% stake. Those are shares linked to my -- to me. I've selected some 95 persons who, in my opinion, will clearly drive the future. I would like to give shares to 33,000 people. There is no person in our company, in our group who will not drive the future. But just as such, that we had to make some choices. And so for group consists of 95 people. And I believe that these people have earned and deserve to take a role in the future. This is one program. And in that program, these objectives, we can discuss what those objectives should be. But this is going to be PLN 1 because we need these people as investors, but there is a program PLN 0.25. That is a program to change or slightly new bonus program and the bonus program this is experience that I've known from Constellation for years, and this is from [ Topicos]. And so Rafal Kozlowski is today coming forward to each one of our leaders in people who are heading up businesses. And the proposal is that a portion of their bonus would be paid out in shares, in equities, and they will be purchased at the market price. And so these shares would be purchased at market price. And so we'll have a program of that sort as well. I don't know the details, but [indiscernible] who set up Constellation in that overall concept. This is a person from the financial market. He himself with his family. I don't want to -- it was a 7% or 9% over 30 years. These were shares. These were these bonuses. That's how he was able to compile that position that were purchased at various points in time. We want -- our team doesn't have an obligation to follow that program, but we would also like to implement that program. And this will be an additional portion because the 95 people, this will give us a guarantee if you assist me in making sure that we can vote this through at the shareholder meeting, and then we'll make sure that, that other program is going to be available and that we want to remunerate people in the form of shares, of course, at the market price. So we'd like to thank you. Are there any other questions here in the room? Would anybody else like to we don't have a question from the room. So we'll wrap up the Q&A session. And we'd like to thank you very much. And so we've started this year very well. So it portends well. In the near future, we'll come back, but they won't take me to participate in the quarterly conferences. So I think Rafal will be Okay. You can -- so you can take him. I'd like to thank all of you, all those people who are participating remotely, the people here physically in attendance. And so I would like to thank you enormously because we are a very close-nit group, and we've lived many years together in a beautiful way, and you've all had a very positive contribution to the development of our capital market. You've never disappointed me. So I didn't have the 95% share. You've never disappointed me and the votes were always consistent with what I was thinking or what I came forward to propose. And so I'm very grateful because you have a real participation in what we as Asseco have achieved this great achievement. Let me tell you, this is a commercially viable approach. It's worthwhile to turn over that 1.5% equity stake to 95% [indiscernible]. So let's continue vying for our position for there to be peace across the world because then it will be very easier -- much easier for us than to smile then. So thank you once again, then Bye-bye. [Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]
Operator: Welcome to the earnings call of SUSS Micro SE following the figures of 2025. I would like to welcome the company's CEO, Burkhardt Frick; the CFO, Dr. Cornelia Ballwießer; the COO, Dr. Thomas Rohe; and IR, Sven Kopsel, who will guide us through the presentation in a moment, followed by a Q&A session via audio line and chat. And with that, I hand over to you, Mr. Kopsel. Sven Kopsel: Thank you so much, and welcome to our full year conference call after today's release of our annual report 2025, including our outlook for the new financial year. First of all, one personal note from myself after 3.5 years with SUSS in total, 4 annual reports, 2 Capital Market Days and yes, countless investor and analyst interactions, today marks my final conference call with SUSS. While I truly love the company, I have decided to take on an exciting new role in a different listed German company as of May. So April 24 will be my last day at SUSS, and my colleague, Florian Mangold, will continue to be available to you as your point of contact. Now back to the official part. As you probably know from earlier calls, this call is being recorded and considered as copyright material. It cannot be recorded or rebroadcast without permission and participating in this call implies your consent to this procedure. Please be aware of our safe harbor statement on Page 2 of the slide deck. It applies throughout the conference call. And now I hand over to Burkhardt, our CEO, for some opening remarks, followed by our CFO, presenting the financial development. Burkhardt, please? Burkhardt Frick: Sven, many thanks, and also thanks for your great contribution over the past 3.5 years. We really enjoyed you having on board, and I'm sure you will have an exciting future ahead of you. So thanks a lot from my side. Let's now start with an overview on the key financials for 2025. Our order intake ultimately came in at EUR 354 million, more on this shortly with a particular focus on the fourth quarter. Revenue recorded at EUR 503 million, once again, a double-digit growth and exceeding EUR 0.5 billion for the first time. Profitability with a gross profit margin of 35.7% and an EBIT margin of 13.1%, we came short of our initial margin expectations. However, we did meet our most recent guidance. Now a few more words on revenue. EUR 503 million marks another record revenue figure and an all-time high for SUSS. Even more important, we have increased revenue over the past 2 years from around EUR 300 million to EUR 500 million, an increase of EUR 200 million. SUSS is now a significantly larger and more capable company. We are a growth company, and we intend to resume this growth in the midterm. Regarding order intake, in November, I stated that we could achieve EUR 100 million in order intake in the fourth quarter. We now can confirm an order intake of EUR 117.5 million. The book-to-bill ratio was thus around 1. Both segments contributed to the improved order situation with AI being the dominant driver, both in terms of HBM and CoWoS. Further good news, this positive momentum has continued into the first quarter of 2026. Now on profitability. We explained the deviation from our original plans during the Q3 conference call. And as we said in the Capital Markets Day in mid-November, we introduced the new product generations and innovative solutions to achieve a substantial improvement in margins. That's why we are very much looking forward to the next 2 to 3 years and the multiple launches we have lined up. Now let's take a look at the performance of our 2 segments. First, Advanced Backend Solutions. Order intake was approximately EUR 25 million lower than in the previous year and was distributed fairly evenly across the 3 product lines: imaging, coating and bonding. Demand for our imaging systems, specifically for UV projection scanner used in CoWoS process remains strong. Demand for bonding solutions was lower than in previous year, but has improved since the fourth quarter. Revenue grew by 10.7% to around EUR 350 million, while bonding was below 2024. Imaging and Coating Systems contributed the most significant growth, each posting an increase of more than 50% compared to the previous year. Profitability was significantly lower than in previous year, primarily due to weaker product and customer mix, strong growth in Imaging and coating and the frequently mentioned increased temporary ramp-up support provided to our customers for already installed tools as well as the establishment of our new production facility in Taiwan. Now to Photomask Solutions. Order intake of approximately EUR 80 million was significantly down by EUR 43.5 million from the previous year. Out of this number, EUR 31 million was due to lower orders from Chinese customers. However, Q4 showed an improved trend versus Q2 and Q3. Revenue growth of 17.3% to over EUR 150 million is very encouraging. Thanks to our improved operational capabilities, we have further significantly reduced our backlog and accelerated the completion of customer projects. Higher sales volume and an improved product and customer mix also led to a 5% point increase in the gross profit margin and an 8% point increase in the EBIT margin. Now let's zoom in on the fourth quarter of 2025. I already mentioned the positive order intake of EUR 117.5 million, reversing the negative trend of the first 3 quarters. Of this amount, EUR 92 million was attributable, difficult word, to the advanced back-end solutions and EUR 25.5 million to Photomask Solutions. We once again received several orders for our UV projection scanner for CoWoS process as well as for HBM-related follow-up orders, particularly for one of our memory customers. Orders for our mask aligner from customers in mainstream applications have also improved significantly. It may still be too early to speak of a turnaround in this business, but this was certainly a strong intake quarter. Revenue of EUR 119 million was almost unchanged from the third quarter of EUR 118 million. This demonstrates our significantly greater stability when it comes to executing customer projects. Gross profit margin remained low at 34.9%, though it improved slightly compared to the third quarter, where we had 33.1%. EBIT margin was 9.8%, which was slightly lower than Q3, but still better than we originally had expected. To wrap up the first part, here's a look at our new production facility in Zhubei, Taiwan, which is already fully operational. Following the opening ceremony at the end of October, all relocation work has since been completed. As planned, we returned all existing locations to our landlords by the end of February. We delivered the first tool made in Zhubei, a UV projection scanner to our customer already in February. Production is now in full swing, as you see on this picture, about 10 tools were built in Zhubei during the first quarter in 2026. Further capacity increase is under preparation. Q1 '26 is, therefore, also the last quarter in which the P&L will be impacted by the implementation of the new site. And with that, I hand over to Cornelia for some details on our financial development. Cornelia Ballwießer: Thank you, Burkhardt, and also a warm welcome from my side to all of you. Here, you see our key financial figures. First of all, I would like to point out that the previous year figures have been adjusted due to accounting changes made in the connection of the preparation of the 2025 consolidated financial statements. These changes are explained in detail in the notes in our annual report, which has been published today. The adjustments for fiscal year 2024 in short are a sales adjustment amounted to plus EUR 0.5 million. Gross profit was adjusted by minus EUR 1.5 million and EBIT by minus EUR 0.5 million, and net income was adjusted by EUR 0.4 million. In a nutshell, the main changes are based on a more detailed approach to revenue recognition. In particular, installation service following the delivery of our tools and upgrades are no longer recognized on a point-in-time basis, but rather on a period basis. This is from shipment to final acceptance by the customer. The second significant change was made to the provision for the equity-based compensation, which is now recognized on a pro rata temporary basis over the entire 4-year period, the vesting period rather than at the time of the grant of the virtual shares at their estimated value. This resulted in an adjustment of plus EUR 1.2 million in EBIT. And now let's have a look on our financials here on the screen. The order book was EUR 266.8 million at the end of 2025. The vast majority of these orders will be produced, delivered and recognized as revenue throughout 2026. Expenses for selling, administration and R&D increased from roughly EUR 100 million to EUR 118 million in 2025. The main reasons were an increase in R&D, plus EUR 7 million spending to support several product and technology development projects and for IT and digitalization projects, such as the mitigation of our ERP system. But that's not all. There are some other systems we introduce. And the full cost impact of new hires made in 2024 has an impact or the full impact in 2025. Net profit amounted to EUR 46.1 million in 2025, down from EUR 110 million in 2024 when the sale of the MicroOptics business had resulted in a significant onetime gain. Cash and cash equivalents were at EUR 98.7 million and compared to 2024, reduced by EUR 33.5 million. And this mainly because of a significant lower prepayments from our customers and of course due to our CapEx in 2025. Net cash amounted to EUR 49.1 million in 2025. And this is because of the deduction of the leasing liability from the lease agreement for our new Zhubei site which caused this decline. Free cash flow from continuing operations was EUR 20.6 million (sic) [ EUR 22.6 million ] in 2025 and in total at minus EUR 26 million. The fourth quarter was cash flow positive at EUR 5.6 million, but that was not enough to bring the figure back to 0. As our dividend policy is based on free cash flow and is designed for a payout of 20% to 40% of this figure, a dividend of EUR 0.04 per share will be proposed to the Annual General Meeting in June. CapEx increased to EUR 23.2 million in 2025, driven in particular by our new site in Zhubei. Now let's move to the development of our main financial KPIs over the fiscal year. Please be aware of that the '25 quarterly figures are as reported. This means they are not restated. In our reporting, in 2026, all prior year figures will be restated. Burkhardt has already mentioned the significant improvement in order intake in the fourth quarter of 2025. While this can certainly be attributed to seasonal factors and a traditionally strong fourth quarter, it is all the more important that we are able to confirm this improved demand in the coming months. We have already discussed profitability in the past. This overview clearly shows that profitability came under pressure particularly in the second half of the year. The decline in the second half of the year is not unexpected. The weak order intake in the first 2 quarters and the shift in its composition as well as some nonrecurring items and extra costs are clearly evident here. To achieve a significant improvement, we are working on new higher-margin product solutions, which will only begin to gradually impact the P&L starting in 2027. In both segments, we have an order intake trend reversal with strong bookings in both divisions versus previous quarters, and this trend continues in the first quarter. Photomask Solutions benefited in the fourth quarter from product and customer mix, also in connection with upgrade and service business and from some currency gains. The fourth quarter of Advanced Backend Solutions, a lower top line in the fourth quarter than in the third in combination with very negative product mix affected gross profit margin and EBIT margin. There were a lot of UV scanner, but we had the lowest amount of bonus in the fourth quarter. As you know, the double rental costs for the new fab in Zhubei affected the result. And in addition, write-offs for clean room equipment in our old Hsinchu site, which cannot be used in our new fab in Zhubei. This impacted the result in the fourth quarter. And also R&D expenses rise in the fourth quarter to support future growth projects. The R&D expenses also left the mark on the fourth quarter, especially projects for left chamber improvements and for a CoPoS project. On this side, we see our order intake by segments and regions. The order intake by region shows a familiar pattern. The APAC region once again accounted for the largest share of new orders at around 77%, with Taiwan as a dominant contributor. The remainder was distributed relatively evenly between EMEA and Americas. Now I would like to present the main balance sheet developments. Total assets increased by EUR 7.6 million. For the noncurrent assets, the main driver was the Taiwan expansion with the right-of-use asset and CapEx for the interior layout of the building in Zhubei. And as well, there were some CapEx in Europe, around EUR 8 million, mainly in Germany. In current assets, we have a decrease by EUR 54 million to a total volume of EUR 386.7 million. Inventory declined by EUR 39.1 million on a year-on-year basis and amounted to EUR 171.6 million at the end of '25. Contract assets and trade receivables in total increased by EUR 20.6 million. Cash and cash equivalents decreased, as I said, by EUR 37.5 million and of course, due to free cash flow of minus EUR 26 million. And of course, of the dividend payments in the last year and some repayments of our financial debt together in the amount of around EUR 10 million. On the liability side, the main changes already happened in the second quarter with the inclusion of the leasing liabilities from the Taiwan site. In noncurrent liabilities, the main driver was this lease liability for the Zhubei site. Current liabilities decreased at the same time, minus EUR 60.2 million. Here, the major drivers were lower prepayments from our customers who supported last year's steep ramp. And now we have less orders from customers, which usually accept prepayments. Equity increased by EUR 32.5 million, and equity ratio was at 62.2% at the end of December '25, which means that we have improved the equity ratio by 5.6 percentage points. Net income contributed with EUR 46 million and other comprehensive income and dividend payments amounted to minus EUR 13.7 million. And finally, I would like to give you a brief overview of the new syndicated loan, which we announced back in mid-February. Despite the current healthy liquidity position, it is very important for us as a company to increase our financial flexibility to finance further growth and to maintain sufficient reserves to cover industry typical fluctuations. We achieved this with the new syndicated loan agreement and the volume has roughly doubled to EUR 115 million, thereof EUR 85 million for revolving credit facility and EUR 30 million for guarantees. The new contract has a term of 5 years with 2 optional 1-year extension periods. We are now even better positioned to support our growth plan and we have sufficient buffer against industry-specific fluctuations as well as against a general deterioration in economic conditions and economic cycles. Finally, we had significantly reduced the liquidity risk. And now I gave back to Burkhardt, who will present the outlook for 2026. Burkhardt Frick: Thanks, Cornelia. As you said, I now would like to come to the guidance overview. As said before, 2026 will be a transition year. After that, we expect to resume our growth path. Forecasted sales range of EUR 425 million to EUR 485 million, indicating a decline of 9.6% at the midpoint of the range. We see a broadly stable gross profit margin of 35% to 37%, but a declining EBIT margin of 8% to 10%. On the next 3 pages, I will provide a bit more color on all 3 KPIs. First, on the sales guidance of EUR 425 million to EUR 485 million. When we compare the starting points for 2024, 2025 and 2026, obviously, we are beginning the year with a significantly lower order book. You see a detailed comparison on the right side. As a result, visibility at the start of the year is lower. Therefore, we decided to expand the guidance corridor from previously EUR 40 million to EUR 60 million. The extent of the revenue decline compared to 2025 will highly depend on the volume of orders we will receive in the first half of 2026. Thanks to our improved operational flexibility and shorter lead times, we will be able to execute the majority of the orders between January and June within the same year and recognize them as revenue. On gross profit margin, we forecast 35% to 37%, and thus are broadly stable in our expectation. As said before, in the financial year 2026, we will be offering more or less the same portfolio as in 2025. For portfolio-driven substantial improvements, we will launch and ship our new product solutions in the next 2 years. A change in the product and customer mix could still affect margins during the year, depending on the order intake from the first half of the year and beyond. For example, higher demand for Bonding solutions would generally be beneficial for us. Then there are various effects that are likely to neutralize each other. On the positive side, fewer one-off events such as the establishment of a new site in Taiwan and a more normalized ramp-up support for our customers for already installed tools. On the negative side, the impact of the expected decline in revenue on the fixed cost coverage. Finally, our EBIT margin, which is forecasted to a range of 8% to 10%. We had already explained in the Capital Markets Day that the expected decline in revenue is likely to impact the EBIT margin development. In that regard, I don't think the guidance came as much of a surprise. A few analysts had already placed their estimates within that range. So here is what we do expect to happen. First, lower sales volume, combined with a broadly stable gross profit margin will weigh on profitability. We have made a conscious decision not to reduce the R&D budget despite the lower revenue forecast. On the contrary, we actually expect an increase in this area as we are setting the base for future growth in the coming years. At the same time, we expect only a slight increase in sales and administrative expenses, and I can assure you that we will continue to strictly manage those budgets. Now some words on the expected development in our 2 segments. First, Advanced Backend Solutions. Expected sales decline of roughly 10% versus '25 is expected. Slight increase in gross profit margin and a broadly stable EBIT margin as lower business volume will have an impact on profitability. We anticipate the following trends in the market demand. Imaging Systems, there we see a stabilization of the strong 2025 level provided there is continued CoWoS-related demand for additional UV projection scanners. Coating, we see a slight improvement expected provided that the mainstream business picks up alongside a continued strong packaging and OSAT business. And on Bonding, significant improvements versus 2025 are expected as HBM customers commit to add more capacity again after a temporary digestion period which we experienced last year. Secondly, on Photomask Solutions, we have similar sales expectations as in the backend unit with roughly 10% versus 2025. Profitability is expected to decline as a result of the lower sales volume. On the market outlook, I can comment that we expect an improved order situation as high demand for semiconductors, again, driven by AI requires additional front-end equipment, see also the strong ASML order trend and consequently, also additional mask cleaning equipment. Preparation of customers for the introduction of High-NA also can play a role. Potential for additional momentum from the launch of 3 new solutions like the high-end mask cleaner, the mid-end mask cleaner and the first wafer cleaner addressing the 200-millimeter market can also give us a boost. When looking at our guidance for 2026, some might think that this year represents a step backwards for SUSS. I personally don't see it that way. As said, 2026 is a transitional year or rather a year of preparation for further growth and a substantial improvement in margins by 2030. These goals, which we presented in November Capital Markets Day, remain unchanged and recently are even getting tailwinds. Thanks to a strong focus on R&D and the development of new innovative solutions and next-generation products for selected faster-growing markets, 2026 is an important year and a necessary stepping stone into our bright future. And with that, we are opening the floor to your questions. Operator: [Operator Instructions] We have already received some risen hands, for example, by Mr. Menon. Janardan Menon: Burkhardt, I just want to check whether you can give us any indication on how you would expect your sales and gross margin to trend through the year? Is it possible that Q1 is your low point for both sales and gross margin and then you will see a gradual improvement from there? Would that be a reasonable assumption? Or any other color how you see the first half versus the second half develop would be great. And I have a small follow-up. Burkhardt Frick: Janardan, that's a really good question. And of course, you are spot on. We see really us hitting in Q1 as a low point of the effects we saw last year. Remember, we had a 3-quarter declining order intake, and it started showing, of course, in the last quarter of last year, and it will extend into the first quarter. However, this is offset, of course, with a reverse trend in order intakes, which, of course, will take a couple of quarters to materialize in an improved situation. So we think we are approaching the bottom here and will climb up from there. Janardan Menon: Understood. And then I was in Taiwan recently, and there is some talk in the Taiwan market about TSMC looking to localize their equipment, especially on the backend where possible and working with some of the local companies. I was just wondering whether you have any thoughts on that. Do you see this as a potential threat? Or is this mainly in areas where SUSS is not involved right now? Burkhardt Frick: I see that as an opportunity because we are local at the doorstep of Taiwan with our main production site. That's, by the way, also where we are developing our next-generation EUV scanner also in Taiwan. So in that sense, you could even call us a local company. But at least on those products we are designed in, I think we have a fairly solid position. Janardan Menon: Understood. And last one, a short one. Is the prepayments that have fallen, is it mainly Chinese customers that give you prepayments? And is the cash impact because of lower China orders? Cornelia Ballwießer: Yes. Yes, it's the Chinese customers and Chinese demand is not that strong. But there are some other institutes like R&D institutes who make prepayments, but mainly from China customers. Operator: We have another question from Madeleine Jenkins. Madeleine Jenkins: I have a few. Just the first is on a slide you just showed on the different segments. And if I understand it correctly, you're saying that Imaging is going to be kind of roughly flat so as Coating and then Bonding is significantly higher than 2025. But then you've got your sales expectation down 10%. So I'm just trying to understand where exactly that weakness is coming from for that sales forecast. Burkhardt Frick: Madeleine, also good question. Of course, the lower expectations, they stem from the accumulated order intake we collected in the last quarters. So from this, we can, of course, pre-calculate what we have already in our books. The rest, of course, are orders which we have to collect in the running year, mainly in Q1 and Q2 and '26. And both together will, of course, create a forecast which we picked. We picked there a decline of 10% for both units because we see various effects, as I think detailed out in our presentation. For Photomask, it's the decline we saw from Chinese customers. And for the backend, it's really the combined effect of the low intake we have received so far. Now this trend, we see partially being now offsetted, but we need to know and, of course, experience how strong this new high order intake trend will last. Madeleine Jenkins: Perfect. Makes sense. And then my second question is just on HBM. I think you mentioned in your opening remarks that only one of the customers was really in the Q4 order book. Do you have any indication of when the second customer might come in? And also at your Investor Day, you mentioned the potential qualification of SK Hynix. Is that -- could you provide an update on that as well, please? Burkhardt Frick: Yes. As you know, the other Korean customer still sits on a lot of underutilized equipment. So we carefully planned in some kind of demand resuming in the second half of this year. But of course, that has to materialize. But I have some good news on the other -- the second Korean memory maker. There, we did receive some HBM-related orders. So basically, we can now claim that we are in all 3 major memory makers. Madeleine Jenkins: That's great. And just a final question quickly. On the wafer-to-wafer hybrid bonding side, there's a lot of talk recently on its kind of application in 4 F-squared in DRAM. I just wondered if you're kind of in any early conversations here. Do you expect to be inserted in supplier for this in the next few years as that transition is made? Burkhardt Frick: Yes. Hybrid bonding, as you know, Madeleine, is moving a bit sideways, a little bit away from die-to-wafer application because runways are extended for TCB bonding equipment and also some customers, they are struggling with the process. Therefore, wafer-to-wafer hybrid bonding also comes in because you can bond the wafers first and then do the die stacking. I think there's some momentum going on there. But I think it's still in a, I would say, more experimental phase where we do see some interest, but we haven't seen it materializing yet. As you also know, we are not at the forefront with wafer-to-wafer hybrid bonders. I mean there are 2 other customers -- sorry, 2 other suppliers ahead of us. But we have our systems at IMEC, where we are running tests, and we can provide very good data. So I also expect more momentum picking up on that side also where we can benefit from. Operator: We have another question by Michael Kuhn. Michael Kuhn: Firstly, on the transition year again, maybe you could provide us with an update on, let's say, which of the products, the renewed products or the all new products you expect to contribute to sales first? What kind of ramp-up costs you expect and whether you see, let's say, some cost portion that you incurred this year as kind of nonrecurring and also for the context of R&D, is that mostly on medium-term projects? Or is there also a bigger portion, maybe including some external providers for, let's say, final engineering steps ahead of the product launches? Burkhardt Frick: Michael, yes, that's quite a mixed bag there. So let me start with the R&D side. So yes, we have external and internal R&D. And I think we made very clear in our call here that we have not reduced our spend in R&D. In reverse, we increased the spending to make sure that we can stick to the launch timing of those products we have in our pipeline. The first products are coming out this year, and there are notably 3 Photomask products. One is the high-end mask cleaning, the MaskTrack Smart. There we received the first order also in the first quarter of a large memory customer. And so that's the first shipment we are preparing for the second half of the year. The mid-end mask cleaners, we also there, are working on the first systems because we have more than a handful of firm orders for that mid-end cleaner, which will replace also our aging mid-end platform, which we then take from the market. And the wafer cleaner, that's the third product, we also received first hardware, and we are doing our internal commissioning and evaluation before we send it to a launching customer. So there are 3 projects which are really in the final stage for rollout this year. And then there's a backend product, which is our EUV scanner, which is panel capable, 310 x 310 projection scanner, which will be launched in Q3, also, of course, with a large Taiwanese target customer who already has set up a pilot line to evaluate the panel application. So in that sense, 4 products, which are launching this year. Maybe we can squeeze in the fifth, but we have to see to get all these projects on the road. And that's also the reason why we deliberately in that sense, bit the bullet in high continued spend in R&D because we want to make sure we are not letting down the customers. And we anticipate, therefore, this gap or this drop in EBIT. But this is, in our view, just very short term until we can reverse the trend. Michael Kuhn: Understood. And then maybe a follow-up in that context on wafer cleaning. At the CMD, you mentioned you're obviously starting with 200 millimeter, but saw pretty strong demand also for 300 millimeter and also accelerate that project. Where do we stand here in the time line? Burkhardt Frick: Yes. I mean, as you rightly said, the launching product is a 200-millimeter product. We want to, of course, get some feedback first, a, from our internal evaluation and then, of course, also from the first customer feedback, which is then also an input for the design. But we are preparing the design phase for the 300-millimeter tool in combination with an external partner. And we probably will kick off that design in the second half of this year, and we should see first hardware in the first half of 2027. Michael Kuhn: And then last one on the new EUV scanner. My understanding is that the current product comes with a relatively low gross margin. So should we expect the new product to be launched in Q3 to have a, let's say, sizable effect on the gross margin then because it's probably a relatively big part of your top line right now? Burkhardt Frick: Yes. That was the point in also redesigning this platform, which really came to age. Unfortunately, of course, the current CoWoS run, I couldn't wait for that. That's why we have to ship the old version, and we probably have to keep doing so because the first product we are launching is the panel version, which goes into a pilot line and panel production is not going into volume until '28-'29 time frame. So -- but very shortly after this panel version, of course, also our wafer version of the UV scanner, the next generation is coming. But that launches in 2027. And that, of course, depending on the conversion rate will then also improve this very low margin for the current DC. Operator: We have another question from Mr. Schaumann. Malte Schaumann: First one is on timing for potential Photomask uptake in demand for Photomask orders. We have seen quite a strong Q4 order intake at ASML, obviously, with shipments mostly scheduled for 2027. Is that kind of supporting the assumption that you would expect an uptake in demand in the second half of this year for the Photomask cleaning business? Burkhardt Frick: Yes, Malte, that's a good assumption. Of course, we are loosely connected because lead times and cycle times are very different if you compare us with an EUV system of ASML. But ultimately, we should see these effects. And as a matter of fact, we already see those effects because despite our expected decline in China, we currently see Chinese customers speeding up again, especially for photomask tools. But we also see international customers considering to pull in orders. So we are in the middle of evaluating the impact of that, but that is a trend which started late in Q4 last year, and we see it continuing in this quarter -- in the running quarter. Malte Schaumann: Okay. And for the Chinese demand you alluded to, is that then linked to the new mid-end cleaner? Or would these customers still order the current equipment? Burkhardt Frick: Actually, both. Of course, due to the equipment in use in China, the mid-end cleaner is more suitable for that market. But we see still a fairly high amount of high-end cleaning demand picking up again in China, which we didn't anticipate. Malte Schaumann: Okay. A quick one on Hynix. Do you see or do you expect kind of more or less regular follow-up business when production lines get extended with the product you have placed at Hynix? Burkhardt Frick: No, we are only interested in one-off sales, Malte. No, sorry, but I make a joke here. So obviously, yes, that's the intent to see follow-up business. But I think for us, it was important to get back into the door. So we are not talking volume orders here, but at least we have our hardware place now in the most recent HBM R&D line, which we can then, of course, exploit and hope fully get follow-up business. Malte Schaumann: Okay. Then on the guidance, I mean, given the current strength in orders that has continued into the first quarter of the year, the low end of the guidance at the sales level, actually appears a bit low. Is that reflecting uncertainty at customer level you're recognizing? Or is that rather linked to the overall global situation, which is not that stable at the moment? Burkhardt Frick: Yes. We -- of course, one good quarter doesn't make a full year, as we all know. And although we really have a very strong expectation because the quarter is almost over for the first quarter in intake. We have to see how long this strong push remains. When we created the guidance and also set our budgets, we had quite some expectations, and there was also a certain concentration in the second half of the year. But now we got strong demand already in the first quarter. And we have to see if this is a continued trend because if the second half also remains strong, then of course, we can come up with better results. Also the mix will have an important contribution here. So -- it's too early to just base it on one strong first quarter in order intake, I must say, because in sales, we will not see a strong first quarter. Malte Schaumann: Yes sure. Okay. Last one on double costs or one-offs, which are baked into the earnings guidance for this year. So are you able to quantify an amount, which is linked to double rent ramp-up costs and the like? Cornelia Ballwießer: There are some one-offs regarding Taiwan, as you know, because in the first quarter, we have some double rent double cost. And yes, that's more or less what we included in our guidance. Malte Schaumann: And that is a low single-digit amount. Cornelia Ballwießer: Yes, it's 0.4, something like this. Operator: We're moving on to Mr. Ries. Johannes Ries: Also a couple of questions from my side. Maybe let's first start with Taiwan, a short recap. How high was this payment you had made for the leasing which reduced the cash significantly? Remind us, please, how high this impact was? And how high is -- how much capacity you have now finally in Taiwan only to a reminder because it gets more and more important. Thomas Rohe: So Thomas speaking. The investment in Taiwan was a low 2-digit million euro budget, which we invested into the clean rooms and all these kind of stuff. And the leasing contract is now for 20 years and about EUR 40 million of leasing agreement, which we have there. But the cash out is really only on a yearly base for sure, but the leasing has to be accounted in our books already for the complete period. And the capacity only to really make this clear, we are really fully loading the factory as much -- as soon as possible. Right now, we have a load of around, let's say, about 70% with the old sites, which moved all into the new sites. So we are really heavily working to fill it up completely by at least the end of the year. Cornelia Ballwießer: Sorry, I just want to add, as Thomas explained, of course, the leasing liability is booked. It's around EUR 40 million. But you asked for cash out, and cash out is around EUR 2 million to EUR 2.5 million this year. Johannes Ries: Okay. The reduction in last year, but you mentioned partly was the leasing reason that the net cash or the cash has come down heavily. So that's a booking effect. Cornelia Ballwießer: Yes. It's KPI net cash figure, but it's not -- yes, it does not really says something about the duration of the liability in this case. So it's just net cash. But cash out is over the 20 years. Johannes Ries: Clear. On the capacity, from a revenue, how much revenue you can handle with the capacity you have now in Taiwan? Is it -- I have something of EUR 150 million, EUR 200 million in my head. Is that right? Thomas Rohe: That's a really good question, but it heavily depends on the product mix. As you know, we are introducing scanners there, coaters and bonders. And so from that point of view, it's really hard to say how much really revenue we can generate with this. But in general, I would say right now because we have half-half between Germany and Taiwan. So from that point of view, it's roughly perhaps the right order of magnitude, probably a little bit higher. Johannes Ries: Okay. Half of the total revenue came already from Taiwan? Thomas Rohe: Not yet completely, but we are targeting for this. Johannes Ries: Super. On the OSAT business, we hear from the OSAT that they are Amkor and ASE that they definitely heavily increased their budget. How much you have already seen in your own order income is much more -- it's more to come in the coming quarters from this side? Burkhardt Frick: Johannes, it's Burkhardt here. We already saw it last year, and I think I also mentioned that we saw this strong uptick for our Coating and Imaging business, which was mainly on the coating side contributed by additional demand from OSATs. They are expanding in their existing sites in Asia, but also they are planning to expand in the U.S. as also some other companies are. So there also, we expect a continued strong demand. Johannes Ries: And you mentioned that the Coating and Imaging business, there's also scanner in, which is low margin, but there's one reason for the lower margin. I always in my head that the coating -- at least coating had a quite good margin. Has it changed? Or is it only that maybe the scanner has brought down this average margin of Imaging and Coating? Burkhardt Frick: Coating is kind of pretty in the center of our margin distribution. So it is not as good as the bonders, but by far not as bad as the EUV scanners. Johannes Ries: Okay. I expected this. And also for your forecast, you're expecting a stronger business with temporary bonding for this year, but the margin in Advanced Backend Solutions will nearly stay flat. What is the reason? Because last year, it was a pressure coming partly from the temporary bonding came down, we expect an increase. Why is not maybe -- why we couldn't see a little bit stronger margin development in Advanced Backend? Burkhardt Frick: It depends how many more orders we see, especially from the bonding side. When we set out these corridors, we assumed a certain mix. We now see strong intake also on the bonder side. But we have to see how sustainable this is, Johannes. As I said, one good quarter doesn't make a full year. If the other Korean HBM maker doesn't place orders in the second half of this year, then I think we did everything right in our prognosis. But a lot of things can be happening. And as we saw last year, where we had to go in and correct twice our guidance. This is something we don't want to repeat. Johannes Ries: It's clear. But the bonding business is still above average at the margin side. Burkhardt Frick: Yes, well above average. Johannes Ries: Last question, R&D, will it further increase this year and only feeling how much it could increase? It will further increase but how much? Thomas Rohe: So it will increase only slightly. There are no big change really planned for this year. That's much more than EUR 2 million or EUR 3 million in total in absolute values. But we try to keep the headcount stable and also the investment in R&D. Burkhardt Frick: Maybe to add, Johannes, since the top line reduces, so the R&D ratio increases even faster. Johannes Ries: That's a fair point. Very fair point. But finally now, because I will meet him in person in the weeks, but I think it's the last call maybe of Sven as IR. And I think maybe even in the name of all other participants, all colleagues, I really want to say thank a lot for his work and great support, and it was a pleasure to work with him. Sven Kopsel: Thank you so much, Johannes. It was my pleasure. Operator: We're moving on to Mr. Devos. Ruben Devos: I had one follow-up on the EUV projection scanner. I think you've provided already quite some indications, but I was looking or whether you were able to maybe quantify what the EUV scanners actually contributed to the top line last year and whether you could give us a sense of the 2026 order funnel because I mean, there's many growth parameters out there. I think in itself, the products could be quite sizable for you, not only this year, but in the next 5 years. So it would be very helpful if we know a bit where you are currently. Burkhardt Frick: Yes. It's, I think, fair to say that the revenue contribution of the EUV scanner alone was between EUR 30 million and EUR 40 million last year. And this year, this number will be larger. Ruben Devos: Okay. All right. That's very helpful. I think on the -- and then just thinking about your other, let's say, younger products out there, thinking about the hybrid bonders, but also the inkjet printers, like on a combined basis, are we thinking this is about 5% of sales in '26? Or how should we think about that? Burkhardt Frick: Yes, that is really a low contribution because we sold single units to customers who are evaluating those systems. So this is not what I call a volume state. We are at the very beginning of that. So we had last year 2, 3 systems we sold. This year, we probably also have a couple of systems, but it's in the very single-digit percentage range. Ruben Devos: Okay. Okay. And then just for the temporary bonder business, looking a bit further out, with HBM4E and HBM5 sort of requiring thinner dies and even more bonding complexity. Are the existing platforms already compatible with those, let's say, next-generational stack requirements? Or will there be a meaningful upgrade or new tool generation needed? Burkhardt Frick: Well, our current generation of temporary bonders is, as we speak, qualified for HBM4. Otherwise, we wouldn't have received those orders. But of course, we are continuously improving those -- our products and also listening to our customers, what else they need. So we have, in parallel, a flanking program to improve bond chamber performance to meet also future needs because we are working both with the volume side of those customers, but also with the R&D centers who already work on the next N+1, N+2 generation of HBM stacks. So we stay tuned. And then we work with our customers when are we phasing in which improvements. It can be a running change. It can also be introduced in the next-generation platform. So we do both. I hope that helps. Ruben Devos: Okay. Great. And then just a final question on, I think co-packaged optics, you also talked about in the CMD, specifically on co-packaged optics on the interposer as a potential future opportunity. I mean, in the last few months, excitement on co-packaged optics has quite strongly accelerated. So my question is like within that further integration complexity, do I understand it well that basically your EUV scanner and coating portfolio map well on to this? And what is generally the last -- the traction you've been seeing in the last 3 to 6 months on Photonics in general? Burkhardt Frick: Yes, you're absolutely right. There's a lot of hype there, and we are kind of positioned with our existing portfolio. But of course, we need to enhance or upgrade our portfolio to also serve the co-packaged optics market well. So -- but it's from our side, more kind of technical feasibility, what additional features are needed, which can be added to our existing portfolio to also play a role there. But it's too early to really turn this into concrete products. So right now, it's on our side in an R&D development stage. And as soon as we have something noteworthy to report, we will do so. Operator: I think Mr. Schaumann has a follow-up question. Malte Schaumann: One follow-up question on the orders in the first quarter of the year. I mean the environment is pretty dynamic. So a continuation of the trend can have several meanings. So maybe some more color on what does that actually mean? I mean, typically, Q1 is not the strongest quarter in terms of order intake. So despite that fact, should we expect kind of more or less stable order development from the fourth quarter and the first quarter, which would be already good? Or do you see even an acceleration? So some additional color would be appreciated. Burkhardt Frick: Yes. I was almost fearing that this question will come, but it comes late now. So the -- I mean, first of all, I can confirm that we are breaking with that trend that in terms of order intake, this first quarter in '26 is a really very good quarter since we are in the last 2 days of the quarter. Of course, we already know what's coming. We know most of it. And I can say that much that we will be well above the Q4 number of last year in terms of order intake. Operator: We have another question by Mr. Jarad. Hello. Can you hear us? I can see that you're unmuted, but I cannot hear you. Abed Jarad: Yes, sorry. I have a question regarding -- a follow-up question regarding the sales forecast. So maybe you can help me understand it better. But based on your order book of EUR 267 million and assuming like 18% of aftersales, your implied order intake needed in H1 to reach the midpoint is very, very modest. And you are saying that in Q1, order momentum was strong. Burkhardt Frick: Yes. Of course, we need to have 2 strong quarters to complete the year because only what we have an intake in the first 2 quarters, the majority of that, we can still turn around in products assembled, shipped and recognized. So the first quarter, if that is strong, definitely helps to secure the guidance we provided. If we have a second quarter, which is also strong, that pretty much gives us some assurance that we are safe with that guidance. But again, this is speculation, so I don't want to speculate. I can only see a strong order momentum carried over from last quarter into the first quarter. And based on these 2 quarters, we have made our sales projection. Abed Jarad: Okay. Maybe correct me if I'm wrong, did you just mention that Q1 order intake is above Q4? Burkhardt Frick: Yes, I did. Abed Jarad: Okay. Wouldn't this already put you on the midpoint of guidance? So EUR 267 million plus EUR 117 million, let's say, and 15% after -- even assuming conservative 15% aftersales, you are above guidance? Or am I -- like midpoint of guidance? Burkhardt Frick: Well, first of all, the EUR 117 million of Q4 already included in the order book. So I cannot follow your math there completely. But yes, of course, the first -- if we have a strong first quarter, that relieves some of the concerns because it's a continued reversal of the trend at a very high run rate. And if we can also get a decent second quarter in, then I would start agreeing with you, but we are not yet in the second quarter. Sven Kopsel: Maybe, Abed, if I may add one sentence, the order book number of our annual report also always includes service business. So if we get service business, for example, a contract for 2 years, the entire period, this 2 years period is included in the total order book number. So service is not getting on top completely. It's partially already included in order book. Operator: We have one more question in our chat box by Mr. [ Dion ]. He's asking, do you see competition of ASML in the scanner business? And do you think there could be a competitor in hybrid bonding as well? Burkhardt Frick: Yes. I think ASML was late to the party to also join the backend business with the recent announcements and also their focus in that arena. I mean they already have a scanner out there targeted for backend. But this one, we don't see as a competition in the CoWoS process we are currently involved in. However, that is, of course, competition for other markets, our real competition, which is Canon is facing. So that I don't see us as a threat. The other activities, I think it's too early to gauge where this is heading. But of course, I mean, there are other companies, whether it's AMAT or Lam and already TEL who is already active in this domain. So with ASML, this is just the last party -- the last company joining the party. And I think this ultimately will just help the ecosystem to get on common ground here. So I see this rather as an opportunity to collaborate than anything else. Operator: I guess we have one last question by Mr. Jarad. He is raising his hand again. Abed Jarad: Yes, my bad. That was a mistake. Operator: Okay. Thank you so much. Well, with no further questions, we have come to the end of today's earnings call. Thank you very much for your interest in SUSS MicroTec SE. And a big thank you also to you, Mr. Frick, Mrs. Ballwießer, Mr. Rohe and Mr. Kopsel for your presentation and your time. If any further questions arise at a later time, please feel free to contact Investor Relations at SUSS MicroTec SE. I wish you all a successful day, and I'm handing over to Mr. Kopsel once again for your closing remarks. Sven Kopsel: Yes. Thank you so much and nothing really to add. So take care and yes, get in touch if you have any more questions. Thank you. Take care.
Operator: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Quadrise Interim Results Investor Presentation. [Operator Instructions] Before we begin, we'd like to submit the following poll. I'm sure the company will be most grateful for your participation. I'd now like to hand over to the team from Quadrise. Peter, good afternoon. Peter Borup: Thank you very much, and thank you very much for joining us for the interim reporting for Quadrise. As always, we start with a disclaimer. I will leave that to you and jump straight into the presentation. So the strategic challenges of Quadrise are clear and well known. So our focus is entirely on getting the MSC Cargill trial up and running. We have also since we last time met been having a meeting with OCP face-to-face that suggests we might be running a second trial with them leading into a commercial offtake agreement. But perhaps even more importantly, we have been upping and accelerating our efforts to build support from refineries. So we have feedstock supply available, or at least plausible for when we need to scale up after these trials. I have mentioned at previous occasions, latest at the AGM that we are looking at whether we can identify other shipping clients who would be willing to do commercial trials perhaps in other segments. And this is an ongoing effort where we've been speaking with a good number of people that we believe are willing to be upfront users or first movers rather than the traditional shipping approach where you are first adapters rather. And I think we know pretty much who this is. So we've had meaningful discussions. We are talking to the right departments and all these companies, but it's something that takes a little bit of time, but it's an effort that is ongoing. We're also aware that while our focus is entirely on the trial and on the scaling up the refinery efforts, we really need to look at the future as well. I think we have a great platform on the bioMSAR platform, but it's also one where much of the bio feedstock will vary. There's simply not enough feedstock in any one product to meet the IMO requirements should they ever be adopted. So as you will know, we have a stable product with the glycerine. We have been trying out the cash no oils, and we are trying out other feedstocks that are perhaps a little bit further away, but it's really important that we can speed up our, say, product or research to market time. And one of the ways of doing that is being -- modernizing our data infrastructure. It's actually quite good, but leading into building digital twins. We're already part of an EU project in that respect, but it's something that will help us fine-tune before we do the actual machine test, fine-tune exactly how do we make the feedstock, and prepare it for that test. And we can do that then in cyber instead of doing that on a machine. So hopefully speed up the whole process. We've been trying to sharpen our focus. Of course, we've conducted a lot of projects over the years. We're painfully aware that some of these are projects that are research-minded, so there can be longer periods of hibernation where nothing really happens and then they take off again. And that's just part of running a portfolio of different projects. But we also have more specific projects that you've heard about before and we're going to talk about today. And we just have to be very mindful that they continue to make commercial value to keep them alive. So that's an ongoing process. We have a clear focus on shipping clients. We have to make a choice. But it also means that in terms of power plants and industrial clients, they have to be really promising for us to invest time in it. Some of these other projects are far, far away geographically at least, but we are trying to focus on them by also using external clients to speed up the process to market. We'll come back to that on the individual projects. We are, of course, affected, and we are watching what is happening on the regulatory front. Fuel EU is moving along according to plan. We are very mindful that a number of countries are looking at the fuel EU rules and regulations to seek inspiration, and they are likely to be adopted there if IMO doesn't go ahead. Timing is uncertain. Localization is also a little bit uncertain. And clearly, as a former shipowner myself, there's nothing that shipowners fear more than having a number of different regulatory regimes, having the level playing field and having one set of rules has enormous value. What we're hearing from the IMO is that the talks are ongoing. The Americans have offered their view on how it to proceed, not very positive last Friday. Others have also offered their views. We're mindful that Liberia and Panama both suggested solutions that are close perhaps to the Greek position, which is lower fines, a broader base, more LNG involvement in the range of fuels that can be used. The feeling right now, certainly from my side, my personal view is that this is likely to take longer than just a 1-year suspension that the IMO decided last year in October in London. From the market point of view, we actually feel that the -- what happens at IMO might not impact Quadrise's technology that much. The main thing is that there are fuel EU rules, they're driving change. What we are mindful of is that there are a lot of other things on the agenda, also shipowners and most businesses the pace of technological change, not just in AI, but in many other technologies where exponential changes in these technologies is really changing the business landscape and no business can afford to ignore it or not be well briefed on it. Same thing we have on a broad term geopolitical transition that we have not seen at all at this level before in terms of a [indiscernible] role of international law, change in alliances, certainly uncertainty about many of the traditional alliances that we've been working with in the past, but also trading blocks changing quite rapidly. And that means that any company operating in this environment needs to look at their operational expenses before they look at anything else. So my clear impression from the last 6 months where we've been seeing a lot of shipowners and a lot of related businesses is that there's a strong focus on the green transition, but everybody understands that they need to make sure that their businesses are strong, so they are going to be around for the green transition. So the focus will be on cost to a very large extent. And that also matters for, of course, for the choice of technology that we can offer. We are still selling both MSAR and bioMSAR, but there's no doubt that the ability to deliver MSAR at below the cost of conventional fuels is a major for. And that's even before talking about the current conflict in the Middle East. What we are seeing is that many of the players we are dealing with are no longer competing on price or freight rates or even the availability of ships. It's about availability of bunker fuels, which is not a given, and that is impacting the value chain. Clearly, where sometimes we've been finding that we are dealing with much bigger players than ourselves, and that holds its own challenges because they have many, many concerns to take into account. In a case like this, dealing with primarily large players have some benefit because they will be first in line to get the bunker fuels. And I'm not saying it's easy for them either, but it's something that gives us some consolidation as we are trying to get trials in place with MSC and Cargill in the first place. We are -- if we look at the projects, first and foremost for us is the trials that have been planned for such a long time with MSC and Cargill -- we've had quite frequent meetings and discussions with both of them over the last 3 months. I think they're positive. They're down to a few items now. What also happens when things take time and, people are checking carefully the agreements they entering into is that certain things come up again. Most recently, we've been looking into whether VAT issues in the EU for the Antwerp trial would affect or would come into play with a tripartite agreement. It seems not to be the case. So that's been sorted out. We're now discussing or looking at the terms and conditions, which are standard for a big buyer of fuels. And my feeling is that we are getting very close now. We've had meetings again, face-to-face. We are experiencing that MSC is committed to the 2 trials that have been agreed, so one for MSAR and one for bioMSAR. But we're also experiencing that they are very helpful when we are talking to refineries, and others and pushing and endorsing not only the trial, but building a scale up in terms of feedstock supply afterwards. So I think that's quite positive. Some of the issues, some of the things that have to happen now, we have filed for a branch in Belgium, enabling us to start the production in Antwerp, and that might be a little bit early as we haven't signed yet, but we just want to make sure that doesn't hold it up. There'll be some certifications that have to be renewed, but it's -- the whole process has been simplified. But again, we want to do that already now, so we don't have to wait for that. So I think while I can't tell you that it's all been signed and dusted, we're ready to go. My feeling is that we're getting quite close. And our focus has shifted -- not shifted, but has now also been on how do we make sure that we can scale up after an expected successful trial. So no longer than 3, 4 weeks ago, Jason and I and Linda as well were in Singapore exactly to look for potential supplies from refineries, but also from buyer suppliers to make sure we're ready for that and had very positive meetings. Cannot really reveal who we've been talking to. But hopefully, we can talk more about that later in the year. With that, I will hand over to you, Jason, on OCP. Jason Miles: Thanks, Peter. Yes. So in terms of OCP, again, Peter and myself earlier this year, went out to Casablanca and met with the main people there. Quite surprising meeting because they were extremely positive in terms of the cost leadership program, which MSAR fits in with. So the current status is that the updated trial agreement is well underway. So basically, we're now sort of detailing exactly which site we're going to be at. The likelihood is it's not going to be the same kiln as we had before, which is slightly constrained with this OEM issue, which we documented before. But the key thing is, I guess, the time behind the amendment to the agreement, we make sure that there's an operational board, obviously involving Peter and the head of OCP there to make sure that it's got management buy-in and make sure we try and avoid the delays that we've seen so far. The trial itself, the actual duration depends a little bit on the scale of the kiln that we're operating on. So if it's a smaller kiln, it will be 30 days. If it's a bigger kiln, it's likely to be less. So really, the plan is to basically carry out that trial. And that's a longer-term trial is needed. We did -- the previous trial was done over a period of a week or so. OCP want at least a longer-term trial of a couple of weeks minimum to actually get the full operating data that they say is needed before they commit to commercial supply. So that's what we're doing. And in the meantime, our equipment remains on site and any costs that are being incurred, we're getting reimbursed for by OCP still, and that process has been working very well. In terms of the next project in the U.S. with Valkor for basically heavy sweet oil, which is essentially a low sulfur bitumen -- ultra-low sulfur bitumen product. We received obviously the first payment. We revised terms that people remember of the agreement last year. We basically received the first installment this year -- sorry, last year as well. We basically invoiced the second installment, which is due at the end of this month. So we're expecting payment of that 300,000. And then there's another 650,000 due at the end of the year. The samples that have been long overdue as well, they've been -- essentially the Valkor have been going through a change -- slight changes in their exact processing. So they've been holding back the samples until they know exactly which technology route they're going for, but that's now been finalized. So they're doing pilot runs at the moment to generate the samples that we expect to get fairly soon, so we can do the testing in the second quarter of the year. Their pilot plant that is due to go in, be operational in Q3 has been delayed slightly because of the site that they selected was not fit for purpose. So they had to move site to a new location. So that delayed some of the civil works that was planned to be up and running by now. But that's moving ahead. So they expect to be the installation to happen during Q3, and the plant to be up and running in Q4. In the meantime, we're preparing -- we prepared our unit. It's nearly complete now for shipment, and that will be done during the second quarter of the year to the U.S. with expected deployment then in what's obviously just part of the installation program in Q3. So really, the plan is then to carry out a paid for trial for -- to produce actual trial volumes of fuel for local consumers and it also initiates a marketing program that we've had in plan for some time with Valkor as well now that is actually live. But yes, Valkor they're fully funded. Obviously, they've got a position now in TomCo as well in the U.K. In terms of Panama, again, as you remember, we carried out a trial in July, which went very well. Essentially, we've got a letter of intent from Sparkle, basically stipulating what their demand will be. We know that there's other demand from other -- both plants, both within Panama and Central America region, specifically around Honduras. The fuel permitting process, we've got basically MSAR and bioMSAR have been basically approved as alternative fuels. So these are fuels that can be utilized when -- as they're trying to phase out potentially fuel or diesel. So that's been approved. The process for an import permit has also been detailed now. But obviously, we now need a live case where we can actually bring in the fuel with a partner. So we're discussing that with regional refineries and other logistics companies in the region with regards to commercial supply to Panama. And in the meantime, we've had some new arrivals to the team, including Matt Hyde from -- who's coming from BP, who's really helping with the sort of getting a deeper understanding of refinery economics there as well in that region. In terms of the bioMSAR program, which is ongoing, we've been doing a lot of testing with additional biofuel feedstocks, including doing things in the lab, but also doing testing at third-party facilities in Germany, where these engine facilities are used by quite a lot of parties. So it's a good endorsement for the fuel. We're also kicked off -- we also kicked off a collaboration with the University of Bath not just in terms of fuel research, but Peter mentioned before, some of the AI digitization as well. That's something that Bath can utilize in the future. And obviously, it's potentially a good talent pool for us going forward in terms of their engineering and the technical people as well. And in the meantime, as Peter mentioned before, there's a world beyond glycerin for the biofuel, which really comes from biomass-derived material, which is abundant, but obviously, there's different technologies to extract it. So we're working with the main technology providers there, but all of which has its own features and challenges, but we're working through to actually get some of their products to market faster than they would normally expect through some of their other technology platforms, which is why they're working with us. And then as part of the development program as well, we have an EU-funded project, which we're part of us amongst sort of 18 other companies ranging from universities through to people in the marine space as well and actually owners of vessels as well. So that's been going very well, and it's actually -- it's been quite active this year in putting together this digital twin, which again, Peter mentioned at the beginning, which is looking at 4 different types of existing vessels and 4 different types of new build vessels to see what's the optimum technology platform to decarbonize shipping, and it's looking at a range of different technologies of which MSAR is one of those on the biofuel space. So it's a good platform for us to market our technology. And then sustainable ships is something that we launched again with them today -- sorry, this year rather, with Linda and Alfie especially have been very active in getting that up and running, doing an online seminar. And that's brought through some quite good introductions already as part of that program. But it's a good way of comparing how MSAR competes with other -- MSAR and bioMSAR competes with other fuels. The next slide really just gives you a pipeline of the different fuel types that we're using and explains really what the bioMSAR is a mixing technology. It's a platform technology, which enables us to bring in a range of different biofuels into the finished product on the right, which needs to go through the appropriate engine testing, but ultimately can then be rolled out to the shipping fleet and really answer some of the questions around the abundance of biofuels. That's what we're really looking to nail and provide quite a unique difference in what we're offering because we can blend oil and water together. Some of these products like the sugars that we mentioned, some of the pyrolysis sugars and other means of other sort of components on here actually be water soluble as opposed to being easily blendable with oil. So we have the ability to blend both. And I'll hand over to David. David Scott: Thanks, Jason. So our results for the period are largely in line with the same period last year. Our loss has gone up a little. We've got some additional project and development costs in there this year. The main thing that is of interest based on the questions is our cash balance. So at the end of the period, at the end of December, we had $4 million in the bank. Now in addition to that, as Jason alluded to earlier, we're expecting another sum through from Valkor overall to take us through up to the USD 1 million that we're getting on the license fee, and that's expected in over the course of this calendar year. Now where that's going to take us to, we're going to have to see where we get to with our -- hitting our milestones and our projects for the period. So it's too early as yet to say how far that's going to take us to. We're based on our cash spend rate, which is historically about $3 million per year. We've brought in some new additions to the team. So that cash spend has gone up, but maybe only 10%, 15%. So that GBP 4 million is still way more than 1 year's worth of cash spend plus the Valkor money. So we're in a pretty healthy position cash-wise. The loss for the period -- loss per share for the period is in line with the prior period. And our tax losses of GBP 68 million will be there when we come to generate profits. And that's everything for me for the moment. Thanks. Peter Borup: Thank you. So there have been a few updates to the team. You will have noticed our RNS on Lauri stepping down from the Board and Michael Covington joining us. Michael brings in many years' experience in investment banking and private equity leadership also in energy. And just as importantly, he brings in a lot of energy, and drive and a willingness to contribute and participate on the board and in the daily work. So we're looking forward to that. We have also brought in Matthew Hyde, who has more than 30 years in refinery economics, most recently from BP. And that's a reflection of our decision to accelerate how well do we actually understand refinery economics because it's not something we can just do after a successful trial. Once we are having a production trial, we need to make sure we can scale up afterwards. so we can supply the material and the fuels to our clients. Right now, we're down to about probably a gross list of 25 refineries that has a good match to the kind of residues we are looking for. And then Matthew will need to analyze that further to find out which are the ones that will benefit the most from using the MSAR technology and the bioMTAR. So that's ongoing work, but also really important. And I feel we already -- we have already learned a lot compared to when he started. In summing up, -- we -- I feel we are making small steps forward in almost everything we are focusing on. And I'm really looking forward to being able to announce hopefully, the MSC agreement being done and then being able to move on to the next steps. And I'm also very mindful that it looms large to have the agreement signed now or the agreements signed, the next steps are going to call on something else from [Indiscernible] and we have to get into project management phase. We need to mobilize. We need to set up. We need to make sure that the crew on the ship or ships in question are ready for the trials, so we get the most out of them. And then we need to make sure that we scale up properly, that we have agreements in place with refineries -- and while we're starting in Anterp, it's quite clear that some of the next places we have to go, of course, shipping up like Singapore, it might actually be the Persian Gulf again at some point, but also the Mediterranean and the Americas. So that's what we are focusing on and trying to run a tight ship, of course, also on the resource side, still investing in our future, investing in the data platform and accessible data lakes. So that's where we're at. We have had a number of questions come in, I think 45. I'm going to hand over to David to take us through as moderator of the questions that have come in and the questions that you can still post on the platform. So with that, David. David Scott: So thanks to everyone who's submitted questions in on the INC platform. We're going to deal with the pre-submitted questions first, and we've grouped them into segments. So we're going to be going through each segment. After that, we will come in with the live questions that are coming in as we speak. And any questions that we don't want to address today will be dealt with on the INC platform in due course, likely early next week. So I'm going to start now with some of the strategy questions for Peter. And the first question is, what efforts are Quadrise applying to the market of new built dual fuel ships fitted with scrubbers? And how big is this opportunity? Peter Borup: Our focus right now is on talking to owners who have a willingness to move first. So owners who control their own ships. So one thing is owning it, but another one is actually controlling the daily operations. And of course, we're looking for ships that has the highest possible consumption per day of fuel because that's where we can really test them and where we really want to sell. So that is our priority. Secondarily, we are probably looking more for vessels with electronic fuel injection main engines because that works better with our technology. And that's even before looking at scrubbers or no scrubbers. But -- so I think we have a fairly good take of the segmentation there, both from the experience I have and Tony Foster and Linda Sorensen has in the shipping industry, but obviously, also because we have fairly good access to data from various databases on where the ships are with high consumption, and the fuel injection or electronic fuel injection, but also with scrubbers. So we can break that down, and we -- that's how we approach the marketing, if you will. Unknown Executive: Probably worth adding that the dual-fuel ships tend to prioritize LNG, right? There's a reason normally that people have built a dual-fuel ship that's to take advantage of LNG. So it wouldn't be our obvious first choice necessarily. But having said that, there are a number of dual-fuel vessels that are using fuel oil still if they can't get LNG. So -- but it's not the first choice, I would say. David Scott: Okay. So the next few questions are with regards to bringing in additional shipping companies. Do you expect to sign up an additional shipping company once the trilateral agreement is signed between MSC, Cargill and Quadrise? Can you update on how the search has progressed for additional shipping companies? And can you put a time scale on that? Peter Borup: So I -- we are hoping to add another trial. We are talking to tramp owners. We are talking to other types of owners. The time scale is a little bit hard to predict because right now, with all of them, I actually feel we have good access. So in some, we've started with the bunker departments. And then we referred to the technical departments. In others, we've been in with the technical departments first and then talk to the bunker traders or their ESG departments. We had a number of very good meetings in Singapore when we were there, too. So we are sort of spreading it out. We have been talking to family-owned companies, and to listed companies. But again, what we're looking for are people who have proven that they're willing to look at green transition fuels, who have invested in that because it comes often at a cost for them. If we can find owners who have vessels in place for Antwerp, that's another benefit. Predicting when something will be signed is way too early. All I can say is we're having fruitful and meaningful discussions. And some of the ones we've talked to will probably want to wait simply because they don't have ships in place or because the segments that they're operating in are under some pressure at the moment. So I don't want to put a time line on. All I can say is that I feel we are talking to all the right people, and I'm hopeful that we'll get another trial. David Scott: And are you seeing the interest being primarily BioMSAR or MSAR or both? Peter Borup: I would say both, right, at this stage. For some of the bigger players, I'm pretty convinced that the real interest will be for MSAR, but that's yet to be proven, right? But I just know what kind of cost pressure most of these owners are going to be on right now, and the uncertainty that they're operating in. And this is something that shipowners have done for centuries, right, dealing with uncertainty and volatility. So they know how to do that. But it always starts with making sure you have your cost under control. And MSAR is a great product for exactly that. David Scott: Okay. Up to Antwerp, what is the next plan to install MSAR or bioMSAR production? Can you confirm if this will be terminal blending or at refinery or both? Peter Borup: Yes, that's a great question. That obviously depends on our clients. But if you're looking at a very large line of network, or if you're looking at the temporary one, the obvious next place would be Singapore. That's where -- that's the biggest bunkering port in the world. It's a board that has done a lot to improve the transparency of their fuel markets, generally speaking. So they've had issues in the past with cappuccino bunker and all sorts of other substandard fuels, and they've dealt with it using transparency and different mechanisms. We had a fantastic number of meetings, both with governments and fuel providers in Singapore when we were there. I think a lot of what's going on is really, really exciting. But for a sheer size as a bunkering port, that's an obvious place for us to be. For the next places, we've looked at also refineries and suppliers in a number of different places, including in the Persian Gulf, but with what's going on right now, that's not -- doesn't seem to be a viable third place to set up, but we are mindful of the advantages once it becomes accessible again. But East and West Med, the Americas are obvious places. The trial that Jason spoke about with Sparkle is not just about a power plant, but it's also a strategic location for supplying fuel to shipping, right, at the natural bottleneck. So we are looking at these places, trying to identify what are the suppliers available on location that we could collaborate with. David Scott: You said in your interview this week about MSAR offers price competitiveness. So that's where our focus has to be. Is the intention to roll out MSAR commercially once the proof-of-concept data analysis is done and the proof of concept is signed off and successful by MSC? Peter Borup: We will roll it out as soon as we have a client willing to commit to it. Right now, a lot of the clients are willing to do this, their path to adoption will be much easier as a successful trial. So that's why the trial is so important. If somebody is willing to use it now, we have some experience with using the technology in the past in power plants. Now we have to prove it for shipping, but theoretically, there should be very few real issues. There's something about the mobility, et cetera. But if somebody was willing to take -- sign a takeoff agreement now, we would be willing to go ahead with that. But the trial is important for a lot of the owners we are talking to. So we do that first, and then we hope to be able to sign agreements or maybe trial supply agreements with shipowners as the trial shows some results. David Scott: And lastly, on this section, just one on sustainable ships. How is the Quadrise Fuels price model working as a sales tool? Peter Borup: I think it gets people interested. It also works as a sort of a uniform way of calculating because one of the things that we don't always talk about when we talk about biofuels or alternative fuels is that there are so many assumptions that goes in. So at what load do you run the engine, at what speed, what is the weather conditions like, at what end of the range? I mean, many of the -- certainly, many of the articles being written tends to overemphasize the high end of the range of any given product. So I think the sustainable ships platform offers a standardization of that, so we can compare better the different fuels. So I think it has helped us in getting people in the door, but it's also something we use on a daily basis when we are presenting to shipowners, or to people who are interested in the product in general to show what it would work like for a different ship type or a given conditions, or at a given time, right? Because let's not forget that fuel EU changes over time. So requirements will change in 30 and 32, I believe. And the same thing with the proposed IMO framework. So it's helpful for that reason alone. David Scott: Yes. So I'm going to go on to the technology section now, and these are primarily directed at you, Jason. So the first one is just on refinery setup. Is it true that new and updated refineries are having crackers fitted to extract more value from the input crude and that this will reduce the amount of residue available? Does this, therefore, mean that bunker and storage companies producing MSAR or bioMSAR are the path to success for Quadrise rather than refinery bio MSAR production? Jason Miles: Yes. I think in terms of existing refineries, I think those refineries actually installing, I guess, upgrading equipment in the minority. There's not many companies actually investing in downstream assets anymore. So -- but new -- certainly the case for new refineries. If you're building a new refinery, that tends to be a full conversion refinery and you don't produce any fuel oil at all. I think if you look at -- and people are doing this on the basis of a long-term plan that might be 5 or 10 years out, right, with the expectation that fuel oil or especially high sulfur fuel oil is in a decline. But in reality, it seems to be quite a popular product and it's still on the rise in terms of how it's being utilized. And there's still a very large market for heavy fuel oil. Based on our assessment, Peter mentioned before, we've got -- we've done an assessment of all the refineries available and there's at least 25 on our short list, which are really good candidates. And indeed, some of those actually have put cracking capacity in, but they still have a resid stream, which they have to blend the fuel oil, right? So not everybody is going not just because you put a cracker in doesn't mean that you have no fuel oil at all. Some still produce quite sizable amounts of fuel oil. So that's really where we see the refinery is key. I'd say that's the source of the lowest cost feedstock. But having said that, in the middle of that, refineries don't have a lot of tanks and not always involved in the bunker business. And that's where the storage companies and the bunker traders, et cetera, are also important to us as well. So I wouldn't rule them out as partners in the future because they are key to unlocking the logistics of getting it from the refinery to the end user of the shipowner. David Scott: What is the plan for supplying residual streams of bioMSAR at MAC2 to replace the HFO component and further reduce bioMSAR cost base? Also, do you plan to deliver biogenics to refineries to produce bioMSAR at the refineries, and minimize the cost base? Jason Miles: Yes. I think in terms of the, I guess, the residual streams, we're certainly looking at using the more viscous forms of fuel oil or a fuel or derivative. So the heavier the resid, obviously, the lower the cost. But it doesn't mean we can start using refinery resids at that particular facility because of the viscosity of it is just too high and the temperature that you need to handle it in makes it quite complicated from a logistics point of view. But we're certainly looking at the most viscous forms of fuel oil you can buy out there as one of the components. Yes. And in terms of other biogenic components, we're certainly looking potentially to supply those to refineries in the future where we can put a system in the refinery. Certainly, that would be an opportunity to supply them with a biofuel in the future to make the bioMSAR product as it becomes of interest. But the primary driver probably in the refinery is most likely to be the MSAR products initially. But every refinery likes to know that there's a biogenic pathway going forward as well, and we've got a range of different options and a pretty low-cost solution as well compared to some of the other things we're looking at. David Scott: Thanks. My next question is just on MSAR and bioMSAR production. Can MSAR be produced at refineries and then shipped to a bunkering location for further processing in the bioMSAR. So the question is, can we make bioMSAR out of MSAR? Jason Miles: The reality is it's a bit more problematic because MSAR has 30% water and bioMSAR has 10% water. So there's a limitation to how much bioMSAR we can turn into -- sorry, MSAR, we can turn into bioMSAR. So in reality, it's much better to produce the individual fuels. That's not to say it couldn't be blended in the future, but there are some physical limitations in terms of what you can do because ideally, what you'd want to do is replace the water with a biogenic component in the water phase. David Scott: Makes sense. Post BioMSAR, when could we expect other Biogenics to enter the bioMSAR offering at the commercial level? Jason Miles: I mean that's something we're testing at the moment. So there are -- Peter mentioned before, some available products, which are commercially sold today, but have the limitations in the case of methyl ester residues and cash in nutshell liquids and some of the other products out there that we could -- we're looking to introduce at an early stage. That requires some engine testing that we're still doing to confirm that. And obviously, then we need to present those engine test results to Wartsila and others and get a candidate vessel to actually utilize the fuel as well. So it's work in progress, but we're making very good progress in that regard in terms of offering another pathway for these products. David Scott: Okay. Just one here now on ISCC certification. Is ISCC certification a prerequisite to getting the trial agreement signed? Or does the fuel actively have to need to be produced, and the on-site setup audited in order to secure the ISCC certification? Jason Miles: Yes. So the ICC certification process, we're working on together with Cargill. We made some very good progress in that regard. And the new regulations that covers the EU, especially has simplified the process. So in terms of the application process, we're in good shape. The final part of that jigsaw is to actually get the -- an audit done once the plant is up and running -- basically once the plant is installed at MAC2 and being commissioned, that audit can take place, and that's the final rubber stamping. And to answer the first question that you had, I mean, the IC certification process is not holding up anything in that regard in terms of signing the agreements. That's purely the commercial and legal discussion being finalized between MSC and Cargill. David Scott: Yes. Okay. Thanks. There's a couple here on the financials. So I'll just deal with those ones. What is the other income of $12,000 in the interim accounts? So that $12,000 is grant income. So we received grant income for the SEASTARS project. Overall, it's about $50,000. So we've actually got that cash. And what we do is we release that in the P&L as the work against that program is completed. So as of December, we've released $12,000 against the P&L. And then a couple of questions just on where we're at with cash. I did cover that on the presentation, but just to reiterate, -- we've got 4 million at the year-end, which is still more than 1 year's worth of fixed costs despite the increases to the team and the headcount. On top of that, we're expecting USD 950,000 worth of some in from Valkor throughout the course of this year. So we need to work out where we're going to be over the next 6 months by reaching our milestones as to how long that's going to take us to. Then there's one in here as well. Shareholders have been advised that the last fund raise was sufficient to take the company through to commercialization. Given the cash holding and spend rate plus delays to revenue-generating contracts, does that guidance of sufficient cash to commercialization still hold true? And how appropriate was that guidance? So when that guidance was given, that was during -- after the last fundraise and during the last IMC, which is about 6 months ago. And that's where our projections were at that time. Obviously, things have been delayed a bit. So it's not a clear cut, but it's still too early to say. We need to see which milestones we hit over the next 6 months. The next section is on MSC, and I'm going to direct this to you, Peter. Can you provide -- can you provide detail on the delay associated with signing the MSC trial agreement and why trilateral agreement is now mentioned in the interim results RNS? Also specifically, what do you mean when you state in the RNS post-trial commercial considerations? What considerations constitute MSC putting in to paper? Peter Borup: Yes. So we have been talking about bilateral agreements, four lateral agreements and at some point, even bilateral agreements. And some of this is driven by attempts to make this work, right? So there was a concern about being subject to EU VAT in Antwerp. And that led us to look at if we could inject a bargain company in the agreement as well and hence, avoid it. It turns out not to be necessary. So we're back to a tripartite. It's not a fundamental change of the agreement at all. It's now we're back to the original tripartite, but still with a discussion over some of the terms and conditions that Cargill is going through as we speak. So that, I think, was the first question. On the second question, it was about the MSAR, was it? Of course, commercial considerations. Yes, that's really refers to the scale-up in the commercial contract, right? So my expectation is that, that will be for MSAR. My expectation is also that we need to have refineries ready, and we're hoping for MSC to use some of the leverage in helping us get in. But we're not leaving it at that. We are doing our homework. As I mentioned, we've hired Matt to help us do that homework, but we're also using 2 different consultancies who have different kinds of access and different perspective on this, and we can call on them when we need to get a little bit closer to any one of these refineries to make sure we can clinch such a supply. David Scott: Yes. Okay. Peter recently stated that the remaining parts of the draft agreements are now predictable, and we can expect signature soon. Was Peter referring to both tripartite and bilaterals, or just the tri-part idea? And have MSC and Cargill shared their view with the team that they will also expect the remaining parts to be predictable and signed off soon? Peter Borup: The outstanding contracts, a couple of bilateral ones and there's a tripartite as it looks right now, are all related. So it's the same issues that needs to be sorted out in order for us to finalize these. David Scott: So you would expect them all to be signed together? Peter Borup: I would expect it to be one signing, yes. I'm certainly hoping it will be, but I see no reasons why it shouldn't be. My conclusion that these are small is based on 30 years of doing shipping contracts and the issues that are remaining, I believe, is of a pragmatic nature rather than a principal nature. But with large companies, you want to make sure and you will involve your legal departments. So -- and that's where we're at, right? So what we can do now, I'm not going to give you a time frame because that's born to be something I regret. But what I can say is that we try to keep the pace up on this and try to make it a little bit simpler to get it expedited and push your own legal departments rather than us just waiting for it or answering us. So I think these are smaller -- I think these are -- of course, they're not small issues, but they are pragmatic issues, and we should be able to sort them out. But I'm also mindful that if you're running a fleet of 750 ships and you certainly can't get oil out of the Persian Gulf, that's probably going to be your prime area of focus right now, right? So we are competing with that. That's for sure, right? But that's one of the few things I can see should hold it up further. David Scott: Okay. Is the plan for MSAR rollout post MSAR proof-of-concept completion? Can you provide some detail on the plan once the MSAR proof of concept is confirmed as complete? Peter Borup: Well, it is that we need to be able to provide the manufacturing units in the locations where it's required. And it's going to be a gradual rollout. We're not going to open up all over the world all at once, but we will prioritize the big bunkering hubs, spoke a little bit to it earlier. So Singapore is an obvious choice. It's a very, very significant bunkering port. Maybe build out in Northern Europe, certainly in the Mediterranean at some point in the PG because on the Persian Gulf. Right now, that's off the table, obviously, and then the Americas. But that will also depend on the clients and what their preferences are, and they are also likely to perhaps change a little bit as the world changes around us. So we're flexible on that. As you know, we have collaborators who can help us scale up also on the production of these manufacturing units. Fundamentally, it comes down also to the partners we have both on the refining side and also in some places on the bio feedstock side. David Scott: Can you confirm if MSC has informed Quadrise that they'd be willing to use MSAR commercially under the interim law? And if so, how many vessels would that involve assumed agreements were reached? Peter Borup: We have not gotten into the detail like that, no. David Scott: Okay. Do MSC still regard MSAR as the main Quadrise fuel choice in the immediate future with bioMSAR use dependent on economic considerations going forward? Peter Borup: Yes, I think that's a very good question. It's probably one that MSC should answer, right? So my expectation is that there will be a strong focus on whichever one offers better saving over conventional fuel, and that would be MSAR. So I would expect that to be the case. David Scott: Okay. What is the status of MSAR supply to MSC, which we have been told is running independently of MAC2 facility with preferential supply in the Mediterranean? Peter Borup: We are assessing all the locations where we can provide this. But ultimately, it's up to -- it's also up to MSC and collaboration with us and other suppliers to determine where we can deliver the fuels. David Scott: Can you clarify the status of the interim loan oil for MSAR, and whether MSC have explicitly confirmed they would proceed to commercial use without a full loan oil following a successful proof of concept? If so, how have insurance implications been addressed to ensure this does not become a barrier to uptake? Peter Borup: Maybe, Jason, you could take the loan oil part. Jason Miles: I'll take the question if you want. I mean in terms of the interim loan oil was issued to Maersk from -- by Wartsila. So that's the status of the original interim loan, obviously, of which MSC is very much aware, right? So from their perspective, something is in place that covers that. And in terms of the, I guess, the trial itself, obviously, the test vessel is insured in terms of the product liability risk of using MSAR or bioMSAR that's fully insured as part of the development process. As part of doing the trial, obviously, you generate a lot of data and initial -- sorry, further approvals then in terms of the products that we're supplying, all of which helps to alleviate some of the initial risk that you get from insurers and others in terms of obstacles to actually move ahead. So our -- we're in very good contact with our broker and the underwriter on Lloyd's who covers this risk at the moment for us. And obviously, as data is approved upon as the tests progress, then that we should reduce the premiums in terms of using the fuel on various vessels. And we don't see that as a constraint going forward because it's being done with other fuels as well. David Scott: Yes. Okay. Have MSC indicated a desire to get our fuels used in their engines? Jason Miles: They have in the past. And obviously, Peter has been involved with discussions with M&A quite recently in Denmark in terms of what the approval process will look like. So that's something that we are progressing. So yes, I think -- but yes, for sure, M&A or Evolent is now called now are an important OEM that we need to bring up to speed as we get the data from the testing that we progress. moving to Morocco. David Scott: So we're going to move on to the OCP questions now. Can you remind us why the Morocco trial is actually needed given that there was already a successful trial in November 2023. Also, is the fuel to be used the same fuel that was shipped in December 2022? Jason Miles: Yes. So the additional test is needed because the first test that we did was designed essentially a proof-of-concept test by OCP. So that worked very well at Kariba. We basically tested both MSAR and bioMSAR. -- going in that over a short period of time. So the requirement from OCP was that that's gone well, very happy, but we need to have a longer-term test of up to 30 days depending on the kiln to get the data. So that's what we're planning for next is to complete that subsequent trial, anything between sort of 15 to 30 days is the plan at the moment. And we'll be utilizing -- we won't have to make fuel and bring it to Morocco. So all the fuels from the previous test, sorry, was utilized successfully without any problem. So it's not like we've got fuel sitting around there for that period of time, although that will probably still be stable if I'm honest. But yes, so we've been making new fuel in Morocco and using that for the test going forward. David Scott: Okay. For OCP, are you looking to set up Mediterranean fuel supplies previously? Or would the fuel now be made in Antwerp and shipped to Morocco? Jason Miles: Yes, probably have answered that one in terms of we'll be making it in Morocco as opposed to making it outside of the country at the moment. David Scott: I think this has probably gotten our post trial considerations. Jason Miles: Yes, yes, I guess this is with the OCP trial. But yes, in terms of post trial, definitely, that would be -- we'd be looking for most likely a refinery in the Mediterranean region in Africa. David Scott: Okay. And then one for you, Peter, on OCP. Haven't recently met OCP, what is your take on the general attitude to an interest using MSAR? Peter Borup: Also, I mean, we went to Casablanca for the meeting. I was quite positively surprised by their interest in using it. Also an approach that I think makes a lot of sense in involving the different business units to make sure they are motivated and they're measured on it. It's a reasonably small trial, obviously. But we have the equipment on location, if you will. And I think it makes a lot of sense for us to stick around and conduct the trial, and just make sure that the project management around it is something that we can all learn from and that it leads into a commercial takeoff agreement afterwards. David Scott: Okay. A couple of questions now on Valkor for you, Jason. Can you detail the plan on producing MSAR or bioMSAR at the Balcor facility? And how this gets to bunkering locations if MSC are prepared to trial the fuel? Jason Miles: Yes. So I guess the initial plan of Valkor is to produce an MSAR product because that's the simplest thing to do. We're using their heavy sweet oil, which is a very low sulfur asphalt type material to make a low-cost alternative to low sulfur fuel oil diesel potentially. So that's the initial plan is to produce an MSAR product. Obviously, the key thing about that is that as part of their production process, if they're able to demonstrate that the carbon intensity of the product is lower than low sulfur fuel or diesel as well, that's quite important because that gives you carbon credits we can utilize. But the initial market is to really focus on the sort of industrial and power type applications, first of all. The volumes aren't there yet or we don't expect the volumes to be there initially anyway to supply the marine sector other than maybe for the occasional trial volume. But in the past, we've discussed this with MSC at a high level. And in principle, they're obviously interested in testing it if it meets the specifications that we need to for marine fuels, especially around sort of levels of aluminum, silica, et cetera, which oil sands is important to reduce. But yes, so if it is supplied to the marine sector, we've looked into that. There are -- there's rail supply that's very reasonably low cost to get it from Utah, either to the West Coast or down to the U.S. Gulf Coast as well, which is the main markets for bunker fuel. But that's some way off at the moment. So initially, we want to stimulate a local demand, get up and running with that. And then obviously, as they expand, then we can start looking at the marine sector. David Scott: Okay. My next question is just on the status of the samples that we're expecting from Valkor, sort of why have they been delayed? And what's the current expectation? Jason Miles: Yes. I mean we've had some, I guess, some interim samples in the past, right, which have not necessarily been representative of their commercial products. So we were quite specific with them. We didn't want to waste time -- we're testing that if it wasn't essentially a good representation of what they'll be supplying. And in the meantime, they've also been changing some of the technology in terms of what they're installing, both in the oil sands plant and obviously, the downhole drilling program as well to overcome some of the issues they had initially. So that's now been settled. The pilot plant, as I mentioned in the presentation, is now up and running and producing a sample, hopefully, several [panamas] of samples that they're sending across to us. Imminently for testing, and then we obviously think can analyze that and provide a market spec for it as well that we can go out and start selling to end users. So that's all ongoing, but it has been delayed for sure, but not really down to us. David Scott: Okay. So that takes us on to spot. There's a couple of questions here. The first one is just on the Panama power market. Are you aware of the Panama 0 126 power tender where thermoelectric plants running on bunker or diesel that with long-term government contracts must convert to cleaner fuels within 36 months. Is this a target for BioMSAR, BioMSAR Zero with any of our Panama clients? Jason Miles: I mean the answer is yes. We're very much aware of that particular tender. Sparkle made us aware of it. And that's one of the reasons why it was important to get the approval of the Panamanian authorities for both MSAR and bioMSAR to be considered as alternative fuels basically to fuel oil and diesel, which they are. I think initially, the pathway will be still to go the MSAR route, first of all, to reduce the cost of generation there and be competitive, obviously, to LNG, which is the other source other than obviously renewable sources. But ultimately, bioMSAR is certainly seen as a viable means going forward as well compared to LNG and LPG, which are the main alternatives to them. David Scott: Okay. I don't think -- this is probably the last question because I don't think we've got time for many more after this. We were advised that the Panama fuel permits were expected to be received by the end of 2025. What has held them up? Are you working with the government on getting our fuels cleared to be used as cleaner fuels as per the Panama Zero 126 tender? Is this part of the permitting plan now? Jason Miles: Yes. I probably semi answered this in the last answer. But yes, I mean, in terms of the actual approval of the alternative fuels, certainly MSAR and bioMSAR are now considered by the authorities as such. In terms of getting the import permits, we actually need to have now the supply logistics nailed down in terms of which refinery, which terminal we're going to bring in, which partner potentially in Panama might we wish to use. And then we can apply either ourselves or through that particular partner for the import permit, which we've been given the procedure that we need to follow, all of which seems to be fairly straightforward, and meeting the guidelines that we're well used to in Europe and other places. So we're using internationally established guidelines to then get the fuel approved and imported. So we don't see any real holdups now in terms of other than bring the fuel in and make sure there's a commercial contract in place between buyer and seller. David Scott: Okay. Operator: That's great, David. Thank you very much indeed for moderating through the Q&A. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your engagement this afternoon. I know investor feedback is particularly important to you. And Peter, I'll shortly redirect those on the call to give you their thoughts and expectations. But before doing so, I wonder if I may just ask you for a couple of closing comments. Peter Borup: Yes. Thank you so much for listening in. Thank you for your support. Thank you for the many very good questions. I know there are a couple of questions that have come in on the platform live during our presentation. We will address them, as David mentioned earlier, on the platform latest by next week. So once again, thank you very much for listening in. Operator: That's great. Thank you very much indeed. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now redirect you for feedback. On behalf of the management team of Quadrise, we'd like to thank you for attending today's
Operator: Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Second Quarter 2026 Franklin Covey Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's call is being recorded. I would now like to hand it over to our first speaker, Boyd Roberts, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead. Boyd Roberts: Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today on Franklin Covey's Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. We appreciate having the opportunity to connect with you. Before we begin, please remember that today's remarks contain forward-looking statements as defined by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including, without limitation, statements that may predict, forecast, indicate or imply future results, performance or achievements and may contain words such as believe, anticipate, expect, estimate, project or words or phrases of similar meaning. These statements reflect management's current judgment and analysis and are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ material -- materially from current expectations, including, but not limited to, risks relating to macroeconomic conditions, tariffs and other risk factors described in our most recent Form 10-K and other filings made with the SEC. We undertake no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, except as required by law. Now with that out of the way, I'd like to turn it over to Mr. Paul Walker, our CEO. Paul Walker: Thanks, Boyd. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us. It's great to be with you and to have the opportunity to share our results for the second quarter and provide an update on the business and our outlook for the remainder of the year. We're pleased with our results in Q2. Revenue and adjusted EBITDA grew year-over-year, met our expectations and were above consensus. As we've shared previously, fiscal 2026 is a year of execution and a return to growth. And we're encouraged by the continued progress and momentum we saw in the second quarter and throughout the first half of the year. Invoice amounts in the quarter grew 5%, driven by 7% growth in Enterprise North America, or 10% when excluding our government business, which was impacted by the disruption caused by a reduction in federal spending. Invoiced growth overall was also driven by a 7% growth in Enterprise International. We expect invoice growth to remain strong through the balance of the year. Because a significant portion of invoice growth is recognized over time, this positions us for accelerating reported revenue, adjusted EBITDA and cash flow in fiscal '27. In Enterprise North America, growth was broad-based. We saw strong sales of subscription and services to new logos, continued strong retention and meaningful client expansion, resulting in one of our highest revenue retention levels in recent periods. Services bookings also continue to be strong and are up 9% for the year as of this week, reinforcing the importance clients place on the business outcomes we help them achieve. In addition, deferred subscription revenue grew 16% year-over-year and the percentage of revenue under multiyear contracts increased to 62%, reflecting both client confidence and the long-term nature of our partnerships. In an environment where leaders are working to accelerate results while navigating uncertainty and disruption, Franklin Covey continues to be sought out as a key partner in addressing the human side of strategy, execution, change management including related to clients' implementation of AI and achieving measurable performance transformation. We expect the momentum we've experienced in the first half to continue to be strong through the second half of the fiscal year. Turning to our business outside of North America. Our International business delivered strong performance, partially benefiting from foreign exchange with invoiced amounts growing 7% and particularly strong performance in our direct offices where invoiced amounts grew a strong 14%. And in our Education business, reported revenue grew 16% in the quarter, driven by strong demand for Leader in Me services and materials. We feel very good about the momentum in Education and the business is positioned well for a strong second half and full year performance. Overall, we remain confident in achieving our full year revenue and adjusted EBITDA guidance and in the strength of the foundation we're building for accelerated growth in fiscal '27. Jessi will provide more detail on our specific segments in her remarks in a few moments. I'm going to focus the remainder of my remarks today, first, on Enterprise North America, which makes up more than 50% of total company sales and the area in which we have invested for accelerated growth. And second, I'll talk briefly about the strategic importance of what we do and why a growing number of organizations are partnering with Franklin Covey to drive the human side of strategy and transformation, particularly as a simultaneously leveraged AI to transform. So first, as it relates to Enterprise North America. Enterprise North America, which represents more than half of our total revenue, is at an important inflection point. The growth we're seeing reflects both the increasing strategic importance of what we do for our clients, and the traction from the go-to-market transformation we implemented last year. We're now seeing clear evidence that these investments are driving stronger new client acquisition, deeper client relationships, and greater expansion within key accounts. Key results embedded in the second quarter's overall 7% increase in invoiced amounts in Enterprise North America include the following: First, we had strong sales to new clients or to new logos, reflecting a combination of both subscription sales and services. Second, our balance of deferred subscription revenue grew a very strong 16% year-over-year to $59 million, building on the 8% growth in deferred subscription revenue last quarter. Third, we again had a strong logo or client retention quarter. Fourth, we achieved strong existing client expansion where expansion drove one of the highest overall revenue retention percentages we've achieved. Fifth, the percentage of our revenue, which is contracted for multiyear periods increased to 62%. With our sales engine accelerating as planned, I'd like to focus the remainder of my remarks on the strategic importance of what we do and the growing need organizations have for a partner who can help them unleash their organizations to achieve breakthrough results, and why we believe our position has strengthened in the current environment. Artificial intelligence is creating extraordinary new possibilities for organizations. But before addressing that directly, it's helpful to step back and consider a broader pattern we've seen over time. Franklin Covey has been a trusted partner to leaders and organizations through multiple periods of significant disruption, from the digitization of business processes to the global financial crisis to rapid shifts in how and where we work and where work gets done like during the pandemic. In each case, one principle has remained consistent. In times of disruption and transformation, the need for strong leadership, trust and disciplined execution increases. It doesn't decrease. We believe AI follows the same pattern. And as a result, there are 3 things that are important to understand about how AI interplays with our business. The first of these, as I noted, is that AI is actually increasing the premium on human leadership and execution. AI is accelerating change inside organizations. It has the potential to raise productivity, expand spans of control and increase the pace and complexity of decision-making. As routine work is automated and access to information becomes more widely distributed, the differentiators for organizations increasingly become judgment, trust, collaboration, alignment and disciplined execution. At the same time, we're seeing how AI has the potential to reduce the amount of routine and analytical work organizations do, we also see how AI is increasing opportunities that can result from strong leadership, high trust, winning cultures and great execution. The second area and the second interplay is that our model is built around behavior change and collective action tied to real measurable performance outcomes. Our model is not about just delivering content or software digitally. Our role is to help organizations strengthen the people side of execution, helping leaders clarify priorities, align teams, build capability and create accountability systems that translates strategy into measurable results. For many of our clients, Franklin Covey functions as a long-term performance partner to their leadership teams and their organizations overall. While a significant portion of our revenue is subscription-based, our model is fundamentally different from SaaS. Our subscriptions are related and related services are tied to enterprise-wide performance outcomes and long-term partnerships, not simply software usage. This positions us as a performance and advisory partner rather than a software provider. For example, this is reflected in our work with health care systems, where we partner directly with Chief Nursing Officers to strengthen leadership capability, trust and execution across care-providing teams. This drives higher employee engagement, lower nurse turnover and improved patient satisfaction and outcomes, which also directly impacts hospital reimbursement. This reflects the core of our model, the integrated combination of content, technology, services and advisory applied together to drive sustained behavior change and collective action across organizations. That capability and the measurable outcomes it produces is not something AI can replicate at scale. We also saw this in the second quarter with a large technology company that selected Franklin Covey to support the CEO's strategy to transform the organization to an AI-enabled operating model. While the strategy is technical in nature, successful execution of this transformation shift in their business will depend heavily on strong leadership, successful change management and high-trust fast-moving culture, all areas where we're a key partner. This work that we're involved in is about changing collective behavior across teams and organizations, something fundamentally different from simply providing access to ideas or content. The significant impact our engagement and solutions have is exactly what is behind the fact that even in and perhaps especially in times of significant change, we continue to retain a high percentage of clients and they continue to extend both the duration and size of their contracts with us. The third interplay with AI is that we have significant room for growth within our existing client base. Today, our solutions typically reach only a small portion of the employee population within our client organizations, generally in the range of 5% to 10%, which provides substantial room for growth over time, even in a more efficient or AI-enabled workforce. We saw this clearly in the second quarter where we delivered one of our strongest expansion quarters in recent periods, driven by increasing demand for enterprise-wide transformation and leadership capability. Taken together, these dynamics position us well in an AI-driven environment. At the same time, we're continuing to evolve our solutions to incorporate AI in ways that increase the value we provide to our clients. We're embedding AI-enabled coaching and execution tools into our platforms and we're helping organizations lead the human side of AI adoption. We're seeing this play out directly in our business through strong client expansion, increasing multiyear commitments and growing demand for enterprise-wide transformation engagements. These trends reinforce our conviction that as organizations navigate increasing technological change and complexity, the need for strong leadership, trust-based cultures and disciplined execution will continue to grow. Stepping back from all of that, as I conclude my remarks here today, I just would say that we're pleased with the momentum we're seeing in the Enterprise North America portion of our business and across the business as a whole. Driven by this momentum and the expected strength in Education, we believe we're well positioned to deliver meaningful invoice growth this year, and to establish the foundation for significant growth in reported revenue, adjusted EBITDA and cash flow in fiscal '27 and beyond. I'd now like to turn time to Jessi to share more detail on our second quarter results. Jessica Betjemann: Thanks, Paul, and good afternoon, everyone. Franklin Covey continued to see strong demand for our solutions in the second quarter, and as Paul discussed, the strategic investments we've undertaken to transform our Enterprise North America go-to-market strategy are continuing to gain traction. We expect fiscal 2026 to be a year of execution where our adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow will return to growth and where our meaningful growth in invoiced amounts will set us up for accelerated growth in fiscal 2027. In my remarks today, I'll start by providing some details of our second quarter financial performance, then I'll turn to our balance sheet and capital allocation priorities. And finally, I will provide additional context around our reaffirmed fiscal year '26 financial guidance. Total second quarter reported revenue was $59.6 million. Revenue, which was in line with our expectations for the quarter, was flat to the prior year as a 4% decline in reported revenue in the Enterprise division was offset by a 16% improvement in the Education division. Foreign exchange rates had a $0.7 million favorable impact on our consolidated revenue in the quarter. Importantly, our consolidated invoiced amounts grew by 5%, resulting in a 7% increase in deferred revenue at the end of the second quarter, establishing the foundation for accelerated growth in reported revenue in fiscal 2027. A summary of our consolidated financial results is on Slide 3 in the earnings presentation. Consolidated subscription and subscription services revenue recognized for the second quarter increased 3% to $50.9 million. We are especially pleased that consolidated subscription and committed services invoiced amounts for the quarter was up 16% to $39.3 million, continuing the growth we saw in the first quarter for the Enterprise North America and now including growth in Enterprise International. The total value of contracts signed in the second quarter grew 8% to $53.7 million, and was led by the Enterprise division, which raised the value of contracts signed by 12%. The foundation for increased future growth remains solid and is evidenced by the 7% year-over-year increase in our consolidated deferred revenue balance to $101.5 million, which will be recognized as reported revenue in the coming quarters. The total amount of unbilled deferred revenue contracted for the second quarter was also strong, increasing 9% to $10.6 million, with the total balance increasing 1% over the prior year to $64.9 million, which will convert to invoiced amounts and deferred revenue in the future. Gross margin for the second quarter was 75.9% compared to 76.7% in the prior year due to increased amortization of capitalized curriculum expenses and a shift in mix of services delivered and products sold during the quarter. Operating selling, general and administrative expenses for the second quarter were $41.2 million, which was 6% lower than the $43.7 million in the prior year, reflecting reduced associate costs and other cost reduction efforts taken in fiscal 2025 and in the first quarter of this year. Adjusted EBITDA for the second quarter was $4.1 million, an increase of 99% or $2 million compared to last year's second quarter, reflecting the stable revenue, gross margin and lower SG&A expenses I just mentioned. Foreign exchange rates had a $0.2 million favorable impact on our adjusted EBITDA in the quarter. During the second quarter, we continued to streamline our business in certain areas of our operations. We incurred $1.5 million in expense for this restructuring activity, which consisted of severance and related costs. We realized a net loss of $2 million compared to a net loss of $1.1 million in the prior year, reflecting the $1.5 million increase in restructuring costs, a $1.3 million increase in share-based compensation expense and $0.5 million increase in building exit costs, which primarily consists of legal expenses. These increases were partially offset by decreased SG&A expenses. Cash flow from operating activities for the first 2 quarters of fiscal '26 increased 28% to $16.4 million, reflecting the strength of second quarter operating cash flows of $16.3 million versus a negative $1.4 million of cash used in the second quarter last year. This was driven by improved receivables collections and higher invoiced amounts. These improvements offset lower operating income and increased capitalized development costs in the second quarter of fiscal '26 compared with the prior year. Free cash flow for the second quarter was $13.2 million compared to a negative $3.6 million of cash used last year. I'll turn now to a discussion of our business divisions. For the second quarter of fiscal '26, our Enterprise division generated 70% of the company's overall revenue, with the Education division generating 29% of the company's revenue. Second quarter Enterprise division invoiced amounts grew 7% to $52 million. Second quarter Enterprise Division's reported revenue was $41.6 million or 4% lower when compared to $43.6 million in the prior year. As shown on Slide 4, the North America segment invoiced amounts grew a consecutive 7% this quarter to $42.7 million, and excluding government contracts, it grew 10%. We are encouraged by the continued progress this quarter in invoiced amounts, which reflects the positive momentum coming from our investments to transform our Enterprise North America go-to-market organization, and we expect this to translate into increased reported revenue in future quarters. Last quarter, I highlighted an important change aligned with our strategic focus on solution selling, whereby clients now may contractually commit upfront for services, which will be delivered over time as we bundle content and predefined services together. In the second quarter, approximately $3.5 million in invoiced amounts was for such contractually committed predefined services. And while we continue to recognize the revenue upon delivery, because these services have been contractually committed upfront, any unused fees are guaranteed and will be recognized at the end of the contract term. On Slide 10 in the appendix to our earnings presentation, our roll-forward analysis of deferred revenue includes both subscription and committed services amounts and the timing for revenue recognition for committed services will depend on the delivery schedule of our clients. The North America segment's reported revenue of $32.5 million accounted for 78% of our Enterprise division sales in the second quarter of fiscal '26, and was 6% or $2 million lower than prior year, primarily due to lower subscription revenue recognized as a result of a lower invoiced amount and deferred revenues last fiscal year. Adjusted EBITDA for the North America segment increased $1.1 million to $5.9 million for the second quarter of fiscal '26 compared to $4.8 million last year, primarily due to lower SG&A costs resulting from the restructuring activities in recent quarters. Our balance of billed deferred revenue in North America was $59.3 million at the end of the second quarter, an increase of 16% from the prior year and unbilled deferred revenue was $61.1 million, an increase of 3% from the prior year. Importantly, the number of North America's All Access Passes contracted for multiyear periods increased to 59% in the second quarter compared to 55% last year, and the contracted amounts represented by multiyear contracts increased to 62% compared to 61% in the prior year. As shown on Slide 5, second quarter revenue from our Enterprise International segment, which is the combination of our International Licensee revenue and our International Direct Office revenue was $9.2 million. This accounts for 22% of our total Enterprise Division revenue and represented a 1% increase over the prior year of $9 million. International Direct Office revenue, which accounts for approximately 70% of total international revenue increased 7%, driven primarily by improved year-over-year revenues in France and China due to a foreign exchange currency benefit, while International Licensee revenue, which accounts for approximately 30% of total international revenue decreased 10% from the prior year. Invoiced amounts for our International Direct Offices grew 14% year-over-year. And while 6 points of this growth is due to foreign exchange, we are encouraged by the overall growth trend this quarter. Adjusted EBITDA in the second quarter of fiscal '26 for the International segment was $1 million compared with $0.5 million in the prior year, driven by increased revenue and lower operating costs, including lower bad debt expense compared with the prior year. Now turning to our Education division. As shown on Slide 6, revenue in the second quarter increased 16% to $17.5 million. This primarily reflects increased training and switching revenue from the delivery of more than 300 additional training and coaching days compared to last year as well as an additional symposium event and increased purchases of classroom and training materials by schools. Invoiced amounts in the second quarter of fiscal '26 of $8.5 million decreased slightly from the $8.6 million generated in the prior year, partially due to the timing of a large statewide deal, whose revenue began in the first quarter of fiscal 2025, but which is expected to fall into this year's third and fourth quarters. Education subscription-related revenue increased 19% in the second quarter to $12 million compared to $10.1 million in the prior year. Adjusted EBITDA for the Education division in the second quarter was $0.4 million compared to a loss of $0.3 million in the prior year due to increased revenue. Education's balance of billed deferred revenue decreased 4% to $36.1 million as a result of the strong increase in the number of as days associated with the Leader in Me subscriptions that were delivered in the quarter. We currently expect Education to have a strong year in fiscal 2026, with the pattern of large, invoiced amounts and recognized revenue to come in the back half of the year and especially in the fourth quarter. I would like to now spend a few minutes discussing our balance sheet and capital allocation priorities. We continue to pursue a balanced capital allocation strategy focused on 3 primary areas that are aligned with our strategic goals. First, maintaining adequate liquidity and flexibility. Our total liquidity remains strong at over $76 million at the end of the second quarter, with $13.7 million of cash on hand, even after having repurchased $17 million of our stock, combined with the company's $62.5 million credit facility, which is fully available. Second, investing for growth. We will continue to invest in strategic opportunities to drive improved market positioning, accelerated profitable growth and financial value, such as our continued investments in product innovation, business transformation initiatives and opportunistic acquisitions when available. And finally, continuing to return capital to shareholders as appropriate. In the second quarter, we purchased approximately 922,000 shares in the open market at a cost of $16.5 million. And in January '26, completed the $20 million 10b5-1 purchase plan we initiated in November of 2025. The company also acquired approximately 25,000 shares to cover income taxes on stock-based compensation awards issued during the second quarter for a value of $0.4 million. Year-to-date, the company has purchased nearly 1.6 million shares of its stock for $28.1 million. During the last 12 quarters, the company has used 130% of free cash flow to buy back shares. We have a $50 million share repurchase authorization from the Board of Directors with $20 million remaining after the 2 10b5-1 plans we had in place have now been completed. We remain committed to being disciplined stewards of capital whilst being focused on driving long-term value creation. Now turning to our guidance for fiscal 2026. We continue to affirm the revenue and adjusted EBITDA guidance for the year, as shown on Slide 7. Our projections reflect the positive momentum we are seeing and expecting in both the Enterprise and Education divisions, balanced with a disciplined view of the risks and opportunities ahead as we continue to execute in an uncertain macro environment. We continue to expect to achieve solid growth in invoiced amounts this year as demonstrated by the progress in Enterprise North America and the International segments this quarter. Our revenue guidance of $265 million to $275 million is after reflecting the lower deferred revenue generated in fiscal 2025 and the conversion lag of invoiced to reported revenue in the year as a portion of the invoiced growth will go on to the balance sheet as deferred revenue. We continue to expect fiscal '26 adjusted EBITDA in the range of $28 million to $33 million, capturing the benefit of our cost reduction efforts including additional restructuring actions taken this quarter while maintaining flexibility to manage through continued macro uncertainty. We expect revenue to be slightly higher in Q4 compared to Q3, with approximately 50% to 55% of back half revenue in Q4, reflecting normal seasonality, especially in the Education division and the timing of delivery of client services. For adjusted EBITDA, we expect approximately 60% to 65% to be generated in the fourth quarter, driven by the strong contributions from the Education division along with expected overall margin expansion as cost savings and operating leverage build through the back half of the year. With our transformation investments behind us and the expected increase in operating leverage, we believe the company would deliver EBITDA and free cash flow growth, with improved margins and free cash flow conversion in fiscal 2027 and thereafter. Grounded in strong client retention, expanding demand for our services and the resilience of our business model, we remain fully committed in creating long-term value for our shareholders and clients. Before I pass it back to Paul, I would like to thank the entire Franklin Covey team for their hard work and dedication to our business and for providing the unparalleled service to our clients. With that, Paul, I now turn it back to you. Paul Walker: Thank you, Jessi. That was great. And as we prepare to open the line for questions, I'll just reiterate what Jessi said in thanking our teams for their hard work. We're pleased with the momentum that we're seeing right now across the business and look forward to a great second half of our year. And with that, we'll ask the operator to open up the line for questions. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our first question will come from the line of Alex Paris from Barrington Research. Alexander Paris: Congrats on the better-than-expected results in the first quarter. Now we have 2 consecutive quarters of growth in invoiced amounts in North America and Enterprise. So it's not simply a data point. We have 2 data points so we can draw a line. And I think you said that you expect that to continue to be the case through the balance of the year. Is that correct? Paul Walker: Yes. We did. Yes. Jessica Betjemann: Right. Alexander Paris: Good. And then just one quick point of clarification. Jessi, you said that revenue is slightly higher in the fourth quarter than the third quarter, 55% and 45%. Is that how we look at the second half of the year? Jessica Betjemann: That's right. Alexander Paris: Yes. And then adjusted EBITDA, it will be $60 million to $65 million in the fourth quarter. So I guess what is that... Jessica Betjemann: A little bit more on EBITDA as we talk about our restructuring and some of the cost operating leverage will increase towards the back half of the year, but more heavily weighted towards Q4, but then also because of the contributions of EBITDA coming from Education in Q4. Alexander Paris: Yes, makes sense. And it's a typical seasonal pattern anyway, right? Jessica Betjemann: That's right. Very similar to what we normally have. Alexander Paris: Good. The -- next question is really a question about the macro environment, Paul. I think in response to a question last quarter, you sort of said it was neutral. There's some both positives and negatives. I wonder if you could just kind of freshen up that response for us. Paul Walker: Yes. I'd say it's largely unchanged from what we saw a quarter ago. And but -- and so neutral in the current environment better than it was a year ago at this time. I remember we were reporting Q2 a year ago and there was quite a bit of uncertainty for lots of reasons. And while there's still uncertainty out there, I think our clients have adjusted to that, the current environment, and it feels a little bit more stable for us, certainly now than it did a year ago and largely unchanged from what we saw a quarter ago. Alexander Paris: Great. And then again, with this ramping up of invoiced amounts, we would expect growth in revenue, EBITDA and free cash flow in fiscal 2027 and beyond. And then to that point, I think the last time you gave longer-term guidance was on the Q4 '24 conference call, after making the announcement about the sales force transformation. Obviously, with tariffs and government shutdowns and war, that's -- it kind of changed it a little bit. I'm wondering, number one, when will you update that longer-term guidance with -- is that potentially a fall 2026 event? And then second -- answer that first, and then I have a follow-up. Paul Walker: Yes. Okay. Jessica Betjemann: Let me start with -- in the fall and our Q4 call is when we're going to provide the guidance for our fiscal year 2027. We'll be going through our planning cycle in the summer. And as we work through that, we'll be updating our 5-year plan at that time. And we'll make a call as to whether or not we provide some direction with the longer term. Alexander Paris: So obviously, you'll do one for yourselves. The question is what will you share with us this fall, right? Jessica Betjemann: Well, we'll work through that, Alex. Alexander Paris: Okay. No problem. And then -- but in the meantime, adjusted EBITDA margins in fiscal 2024 kind of peaked at 19.2%. And 2025 is significantly lower, 10.8%. And I think based on your guidance, we're expecting a little margin expansion in 2026 and then more in 2027. Is 20% adjusted EBITDA margin still a reasonable target? It's only slightly above the fiscal 2024 level over the next several years. And will you get there by 100 or 200 basis points a year sort of thing? Jessica Betjemann: Yes. I mean so we are planning to increase and improve our operating leverage. I think our goal is to have around 1 point improvement a year. And whether or not that can be accelerated or not, we'll determine that as we work through our long-term planning. But I think that is roughly what seems reasonable to me. Paul Walker: And we do believe that, that 20% that we nearly got to is still a good number out there. And all these investments were meant to permanently reset the cost structure of the company. We were -- it was to accelerate growth and certainly get us back up to that level. And who knows if we could ever get above that level, maybe. Operator: Our next question will come from the line of Jeff Martin from ROTH Capital Partners. Jeff Martin: I was curious if you could go into a little bit more on the Education side of the business, had a very good quarter. What you're seeing as states and districts and obviously, you're having some success there. So maybe an update there would be helpful. Paul Walker: Yes. Great question. Sean is here next to me. I'll ask him to make a comment, but it was a good quarter. And congratulations, Sean, on the great quarter. Go ahead and share a few thoughts. Michael Covey: Yes. So a few things on Education. We're feeling really good about the year and where it's headed for a few reasons. We have a really good pipeline of new opportunities, probably the best we've ever had in terms of large opportunities. We have 3 state-level opportunities. These are very large multimillion, multiyear deals. We've got large district opportunities larger than we've had before. So that's really positive. We've got really strong funding partners out there, and this is in the range of $20 million a year in help from partners that help schools get off the ground. And those partnerships remain in place right now. We feel good about -- we're aligned well with market needs. There's a lot of big issues right now after COVID, getting test scores up is like the #1 thing. The U.S. is still struggling with that, and we are aligned well and we've got great data around how we can increase math and reading scores. Teacher retention, a lot of teacher burnout. We're really good at that. And we've got great data that shows that we retain -- Leader in Me schools are 600% more likely to retain their teachers than non-Leader in Me schools. And then mental wellness continues to be a big factor, and we're well aligned to address those issues. So just given the pipeline we have, the large opportunities we have in place that we need to close, of course, in the third and fourth quarters, we're feeling really good about the year. Some of the headwinds are still there. The Department of Education, there's still some uncertainty with what the Trump administration is going to do, but it's better than last year, much better. And so that helps. The ESSER funds, expired COVID relief funds are gone. So that's a factor 2. And there's some declining enrollment in the public sector, they're moving to a lot of people -- a lot of kids are moving to charter schools, private schools and home schools, and we're well equipped to help with a lot of the -- I mean to deliver on those other channels as well. But I just feel like the tailwinds are stronger than the headwinds, especially the funding partners. We've got a great reputation in the marketplace. This is how we get state bills as we start with a single school then a district goes really well, leads to state confidence and then they get behind us. So all things considered, we're feeling good about the second half of the year and where we're headed overall. Jeff Martin: That's great color. Thank you, Sean. Paul, could you go into some detail with respect to -- I mean invoice growth is 7%, so obviously a positive inflection. How does that compare with what you were thinking internally maybe? And then what, if anything, do you see in the near future accelerating that growth from here? Paul Walker: Yes. Great. Yes, 7%. So 5% overall for the company invoice growth in Q2, which we felt good about that. And then as you mentioned, 7% kind of the engine pulling that as we alluded to last quarter and as we went through the transition of our sales force was Enterprise North America. So 2 quarters in a row, 7%. We feel good about that and feel that, that will continue to generate good invoice growth this year in the back half and for the full year at both the Enterprise division level, specifically but also for the company. And as we mentioned that, that invoice growth out ahead of our reported revenue growth will help us next year in generating more substantial reported revenue growth. So I do feel good about the continued momentum there on the invoice growth side. Operator: The next question will come from the line of Nehal Chokshi from Northland Capital Markets. Nehal Chokshi: Congratulations on this really strong free cash flow. And just a comment here real quickly before I get into my question. But with more than free cash flow deployed in share buybacks and given Franklin Covey shares are trading at basically 6x free cash flow, 4x fiscal year '24 free cash flow, really happy to see the bold move to aggressively buy back shares at this incredibly attractive valuation. So just applaud of that. Now I do have some questions. Excluding government, invoice value is up 10% year-over-year on Enterprise North America. It's a really nice core number that I'd like to focus on. Can you help break up that invoice value growth between, say, new customers and existing customers? Jessica Betjemann: I mean we have not been disclosing that level of detail now. But we did have -- I mean, overall, the new customers in North America combined, we had very strong performance this quarter that we continue to -- that we had in Q1 as well, but we don't provide the details of the invoiced amounts. Paul Walker: I'd maybe point you, Nehal, just -- agree what Jessi said, point you to 2 things, and I mentioned this in my remarks. But to Jessi's point, yes, we continue to see another good quarter with new customers and the overall invoice growth from new customers, we're pleased with that again in Q2 after a really good quarter in Q1. And then with our existing customer base, we actually had quite a strong expansion quarter. As you know, when we initiated our go-to-market transformation, there were 2 core bets in that move. One was that we could win more strategic, larger new customers and that we could move our way into the expansion opportunity that existed within our existing customers, where, on average, we're kind of 5% to 10% of the way penetrated into what we think is the addressable population inside the vast majority of our existing clients. And in Q2, we saw a really good expansion. And so really both sides of the house had good quarters as we think about that 7% or 10% without government overall invoice growth. Nehal Chokshi: Okay. Great. And presumably, you're expecting both new customers and ongoing expansion of existing customers to continue to power the year-over-year growth. It's not one -- exclusively one. Paul Walker: Holly Procter is here by the way, too. Holly, any thoughts on that? Holly Procter: Nehal, yes, we expect both the new logos to continue to grow and for us to make continued improvements on both retention and expansion. I'll call it just a couple of areas that we're seeing some great growth that will contribute on both sides of the house. The first is the specialization in health care. We've seen -- we made a big investment in the current customer base that we have around health care. There's real organic use cases that we can make a real impact around patient staff and nurse retention. So we've seen real lift there. The second is a new horizon for us, but we're also starting to gain great traction is around helping companies through their AI transformation. Both of those, we think, will fuel growth on both the new logo side of the house and the customer side. Nehal Chokshi: Got it. And then Paul, you mentioned that, on average, 5% to 10% penetrated of the addressable opportunity. That's on a user basis within an existing customer. Is that correct? Paul Walker: That's right. That's right. And then there's really -- yes, significant upside for us in attaching services on top of that. But yes, that's specifically referencing kind of the user base. Nehal Chokshi: Okay. And then that user base that you're referencing, is that just leaders? Or is that also knowledge workers? Or is that the whole labor force is given organization? Paul Walker: Yes. Yes, great question. So we have kind of a little formula, if you will, that adjusts for certain portions of populations that we aren't really well suited to address. So you get into factories and things like that, that's not exactly where we play. So depending on the industry, so it's leaders, it's knowledge workers. And in some organizations like tech, it's -- that's almost everybody in the company. And for other organizations that might have a massive manufacturing footprint, we may not be working with everybody all the way down the front line, although we do quite a bit of work in manufacturing with our 4 disciplines of execution solutions. So -- but yes, it's kind of a formulaic-based approach that we have. It's not the entire population of a company. Nehal Chokshi: Great. Okay. A couple more questions from me. So what was the driver of this strong free cash flow, $13 million, $9 million above your $4 million adjusted EBITDA. Can you help us understand that? Jessica Betjemann: Yes. We had a very strong positive swing in the net working capital. So a lot of it was with regards to the collections on AR. As you can see in the balance sheet, the AR balance went down. So that was a huge contributor to the improvement in our free cash flow. And we continue to expect that our free cash flow will be -- I know last quarter, we had negative free cash flow. We expect going forward, we'll continue to have positive free cash flow and especially be strong in Q4 when we have the strong net income and EBITDA in Q4 coming through. Nehal Chokshi: Okay. Great. So you kind of already answered my follow-on question, but just to be clear, I think historically, you guys have talked about free cash flow roughly matching EBITDA on a trailing 12-month or forward 12-month basis? Is that the way that we should continue to think about this? Or is there some deviation from that? Jessica Betjemann: Well, so I'm not particularly sure of the exact comment. I mean I think that we do have -- 2025, we had lower EBITDA to free cash flow conversion. We expect our free cash flow conversion to increase over time because we're not a heavy capital-intensive business. And the amount that we spend on CapEx and capitalized development is relatively steady going forward. So as our operating leverage and our EBITDA increases, we expect that we should have stronger conversion over time. Nehal Chokshi: Okay. But you're not expecting to get back to close to 100% conversion that you were reflecting in fiscal year '24? Jessica Betjemann: No. I mean I -- no. I mean definitely an improvement from the 42% level that we had in 2025, but it wouldn't be 100%. So there will be some strong. Nehal Chokshi: Yes. Understood. Understood. And then you talked about your fiscal year '26 guidance unchanged. And the way to think about parsing out that effective next 2 quarters of guidance in terms of typical seasonality. Can you just remind us what is actually typical seasonality for 2Q to 3Q and 3Q to 4Q? Jessica Betjemann: So what we are projecting in terms of the revenue and EBITDA for Q3 and Q4, that's basically -- that has been the normal seasonality. When you look at last year, we were pretty much in that same range of what we're expecting now as well. So it's been similar. Nehal Chokshi: Right, right. So like last year, it was about a $7 million Q-o-Q increase from the second quarter, third quarter, and then $4 million from third quarter to fourth quarter? Jessica Betjemann: Yes. Last year, if you were to look at Q3 revenue, for example, it was around 49% in Q3 and EBITDA was around 38%. So roughly within the same range of what we're seeing now. Operator: Our next question will come from the line of Dave Storms from Stonegate. David Storms: Just wanted to start with maybe some commentary around the new logo sales. I know in the past, right, new logos tend to come on as either pilot based first or maybe a specific project that the company is looking to accomplish. Could you maybe spend a little time talking about what you're seeing in the current marketplace and maybe tailored to the AI trends if you're having clients come on with a specific goal in mind or if they are maybe a little more highly oriented to start? Jessica Betjemann: Yes. And just to make sure I understood, Dave, the question is around how much of our new logos are pilots and then some examples on the use cases? David Storms: Exactly. Jessica Betjemann: Perfect. Very few of our new logos are pilots. It's really hard to pilot a solution like ours. You either want to drive behavior change and make a big impact in your org or you don't. And so we really don't see any pilots. On the AI solution, it's a great question. There's a ton of interest around this right now. There is not an org that we're partnering with or that we're interested in partnering with that isn't trying to figure this out. And one of the unique things about an AI transformation is it's both top-down and bottoms-up. So the question earlier around who does it touch inside the org, it touches everyone and nobody has figured out exactly how to get this right. And there's so much around the way that you deploy your leaders to navigate this type of large-scale transformation that's critical to get right. And so we're excited to help a lot of companies with this transformation. David Storms: That's great commentary. I really appreciate that. I also want to maybe spend a little bit of time, Paul, you mentioned that you had a really strong expansion quarter. And just thinking about how -- you also mentioned you had maybe 2 quarters of a neutral macro environment. Can we apply that same kind of mentality to maybe a logo recapture rate? Do you have any thoughts around maybe what you're seeing in the market about clients coming back now that the dust has settled a little bit? Paul Walker: Yes. I'll just make a quick point and then ask Holly to comment on that as well. That is actually a metric we do track. We have a mantra around here and its client for life. And when we lose a client, we agonize over that. And so it is actually a metric that we track internally. We don't disclose it. But we are intent on trying to get those clients back regardless of the reason they needed to leave or -- and so Holly, any commentary on or thoughts about what we're seeing there, what you and the team are driving? Holly Procter: Yes. We absolutely see a really healthy win back rate as Paul referenced. So as needs inside their organization shift, they go from trying to drive a high-trust workforce to try to prepare our workforce for AI transformation, then needs evolve over time, and there might be gaps between one deployment and the next deployment. So if we do a good job on the first round, we're excited to welcome them back on the second round. And then I think just a point on the environment, one of the things I don't think we talk about enough and a structural advantage that we have is the breadth of the market that we serve. Our addressable market is enormous, not just in the company type that we pursue, but it's across segments, across buyer types, across use cases, there's virtually no company that isn't trying to solve the issues that we attach to. And so in a world where there's a sector that's down, we can quickly pivot to go after a sector that's up with enormous upside for us. So we move very fast when the market has highs and lows. David Storms: That's great. If I could just sneak one more, and I would love to spend a little time on the International sector. I know it's not as big for you guys, but it does seem like it's having some strong growth even after accounting for foreign exchange. I guess is there anything to highlight here as to what's working? Is this just general tailwinds and you're catching it right? Maybe any thoughts there would be great. Paul Walker: Yes. One thought is -- it's just a couple of thoughts. So we are porting over into International much of the learnings and the strategies that Holly and team have been deploying inside Enterprise North America, that was always the plan. And so we -- now that we've got Enterprise North America, the structure up and running and through that change, where International has been fast followers there. And so I think we'll continue to benefit from that. Second, in the second quarter, China didn't continue to decline for us and was actually flattish. And so that helps from a year-over-year standpoint as well. And... Jessica Betjemann: Also France. Paul Walker: And then we brought France on as a direct office, i.e. a little over a year ago. And we're seeing good growth in France. We continue to see good growth from our German operation that we brought over from a licensee to a direct office a few years ago. And so there's some good performance across international directs in particular, in the second quarter. And we look forward to seeing as we -- as they embrace more and more of what we've been doing in Enterprise North America, I think there'll be good quarters out ahead of us as well. David Storms: That's great. Thank you for the commentary and good luck on the next quarter. Paul Walker: Yes. Thanks, Dave. Operator: Thank you. I'm not showing any further questions at this time. I would now like to turn it back over to Paul Walker for any closing remarks. Paul Walker: Thank you very much. Thanks, everyone, for joining us today. Thanks for your great questions, and we appreciate you and all that you do to understand our story and where we're headed as a company. We feel great about our momentum. Big thanks to the overall Franklin Covey team as well for their hard work, and we wish you a great evening. Thanks. Operator: Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.
Operator: Greetings. Welcome to Terrestrial Energy's Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note, this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to Tom Cook, Managing Director at ICR. Thank you. You may begin. Thomas Cook: Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Terrestrial Energy's Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Earnings Conference Call. With me today are Simon Irish, CEO; and Brian Thrasher, CFO. Alongside today's call, you can find our earnings release as well as the accompanying presentation on our website at ir.terrestrialenergy.com. An audio replay of this call will also be made available, which you can access on our website or by phone. The phone number for the audio replay is included in the press release announcing this call. As a reminder, some of the statements made during this call, including those relating to our outlook, expected company performance or business strategy may constitute forward-looking statements. Please note the cautionary language about forward-looking statements contained in our press release and earnings presentation, which also applies to this call. With that, I would now like to turn the call over to Simon Irish. Simon Irish: Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. It's a pleasure to welcome you to Terrestrial Energy's first earnings call as a publicly traded company. 2025 was an important year for the company. We made significant progress across the 3 key elements of business plan execution. We delivered important regulatory developments, secured federal support for swift licensing and operation of reactor and fuel supply pilot projects. We announced expansion of supply chain activities, progress with commercial deployments, and we strengthened our balance sheet through our business combination with HCM II. Before discussing developments in more detail, I'd like to briefly step back and frame the important context in which we're now operating. For industrial, innovation requires market context and for innovation -- for nuclear innovation, there is no more powerful context to what we see today and stretching far ahead. Referring now to Slide 3 of the slide deck posted to our website that accompanies today's call. Global energy markets have clearly entered a period of generational and transformative change. Electricity demand is accelerating at a pace not seen in decades, driven by demand growth from multiple sources, energy-intensive industrial innovations, artificial intelligence infrastructure, automation and electrification and the reshoring of manufacturing capacity. Furthermore, energy policy today clearly prioritizes national energy security, grid reliability and affordability. Energy security has become a dominant theme across many advanced economies, a shift that accelerated with the start of the war in Ukraine and its associated impact on European natural gas supplies and has moved to a new level today with recent insecurity of Gulf-based LNG and oil supplies. It is now clear that only nuclear energy has the potential to meet these huge demand deficiencies and policy objectives for secure, clean, reliable energy supply. We see these powerful fundamentals driving nuclear energy demand to continue to strengthen, and they create today's extraordinary context for nuclear innovation that is without parallel. Contemplating this opportunity, one quickly realizes there are many methods to supply nuclear energy from different sized plants ranging from the tiny to the enormous and a wide range of fission reactor technologies that cover the conventional -- the long conventional fission technologies of light and heavy water reactors to the generation class of advanced reactor technologies of the future to which our technology belongs. Here lies the secular opportunity today for the innovator. If nuclear energy supply is to meet these extraordinary demand expectations, it supply must be from nuclear plants, operating with different commercial profiles, ones that are smaller and more affordable to build, ones that are much, much more capital efficient for low-cost energy supply, and ones that are modular for quick construction and deployment at scale. This next generation of nuclear plants must be more flexible in operation and capable of providing heat for industry as well as electric power. They must be easier to site near point of demand, close to data center, chemical or petrochemical plant. Their colocation capacity delivers a new energy supply paradigm. Hundreds of megawatts of clean firm energy from a small parcel of land located close to demand and free from pipeline and transmission constraints, only innovation to deliver small and modular nuclear plants operating with next generation of nuclear technology has the potential to deliver these requirements. Turning to Slide 4. Terrestrial Energy was founded over 13 years ago, precisely with this paradigm in mind. We have been diligently moving forward with development of our IMSR plant design, anticipating the arrival of today's extraordinary market and policy circumstances. With this clear innovation focus, our IMSR plant is now heavily differentiated from other smaller modular nuclear plants in the advanced reactor sector in important, competitive and compelling ways. I will discuss some of these differentiators now. Turning to Slides 5 and 6. First, affordability and capital efficiency. The IMSR plant is smaller, 1/6 the size of conventional nuclear plant, modular in design, and it captures the fundamental and deeply compelling techno-economic benefits of molten salt reactor technology. IMSR plant generates power from steam turbines operating with a near 50% greater efficiency than those driven by light-water reactor technology. Its nuclear systems operate at low pressure and with high inherent safety, again, powerful economic virtues that reduce costs further as well as virtues that secure strong social license for deployment. We believe that competitive affordability will be a primary driver of success. Second, flexibility in operations. The IMSR plant is capable of high-temperature thermal energy supply for industrial process heat applications and can strongly load follow. Its output can be customized to a required precise mix of heat and power, and it can be integrated with other energy supply systems, including natural gas for customized resilience and speed to first commercial operations. We believe that this flexibility in operations contributes to an opportunity for a service addressable market for our company that we estimate to exceed $1.4 trillion. Third, scalability for fast fleet deployment. As supply chain factors heavily determine speed to fleet to fleet scale, our supply chain objective has been to source to the greatest extent possible, material and components available from today's nuclear supply chain. This strategy has delivered important competitive and strategic advantages, particularly with steam turbine and fuel supply. While some Generation IV nuclear plants showed some of the characteristics required for next-generation nuclear energy supply, only the IMSR plant uses standard nuclear fuel, uranium enriched to less than 5%. Ten years ago, we strategically chose to avoid HALEU fuel use, that is uranium enriched to between 15% and 20%, the bracket required by other Generation IV reactors in our sector. In today's enrichment constrained environment, this decision has removed from our deployment plans the considerable challenges and uncertainty of uranium fuel supply at commercial scale. In doing so, this decision has improved our market position, reduced regulatory complexity and cost the first plant as well as for fleet. We believe our supply chain strategy is delivering sector competitive advantages to fleet fast deployment at scale. Molten salt reactor technology is not new. It was first demonstrated over 6 decades ago and most recently in 2023, when China began operating its first molten salt reactor based on the technology demonstrated at Oak Ridge National Lab in Tennessee. The technology's long history of research and development yields a considerable understanding of performance and operation. Our strategic design objective was to use this existing and extensive body of knowledge to create the strong technical foundation of the IMSR plant design that exists today. Let me spend a minute talking about regulation. A core objective of Terrestrial Energy since inception has been to retire project risk through early and focused engagement with world-leading nuclear regulators. We were the North American sector trailblazer when in 2016, we applied the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission to undertake its formal programmatic vendor design review of our IMSR plant design. In 2023, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission completed that formal review and concluded publicly that there were no fundamental barriers to licensing the IMSR plant design for commercial use. The work completed in Canada has matured our safety case. It bounds regulatory uncertainty and strengthens our regulatory engagement with the NRC in the United States, which started in 2017. Our business strategy is to deploy IMSR plants with competitive scale and speed and in a capital-efficient manner. To achieve this, Terrestrial Energy invites others to build, own and operate IMSR plant as is industry's convention today. We will, however, remain the key project partner supporting project licensing and plant construction with revenue-generative engineering services and working with established engineering, procurement and construction partners to deliver commissioned and operating plant. We will also provide IMSR core units, fuel, fueling services and full life cycle operational support. This approach leverages the capability of experienced industrial partners, providing speed to deployment at fleet scale. It also allows us to focus on our core capabilities and primary business objectives. With this business strategy in mind, I'd like to present the framework to assess progress. It has 3 pillars. The first drives IMSR engineering and regulatory developments, including our key project engagements with the Department of Energy. The second drives supply chain developments. And the third drives IMSR plant projects advancing to deployment. I'd now like to review 2025 developments, demonstrating our progress across these 3 pillars. Please refer to Slide 7. In 2025, we announced the NRC's completion and acceptance of our Topical Report on the IMSR Principal Design Criteria. This was a foundational ruling, representing an important step forward to IMSR operating license submission and demonstrating progress with our pre-application engagement with the regulator. Our regulatory program operates in parallel with our engineering and testing programs. In 2025, we received welcome support from 2 new strategic programs administered by the Department of Energy. These were established following presidential executive orders in May 2025 to accelerate advanced reactor development. We received 2 OTA awards, one from each program. The first from the Department of Energy's Advanced Reactor Pilot Program. This supports quick execution of Project TETRA, the Terrestrial Energy Test Reactor Assembly project, which assists with data collection required for future IMSR license application. The second was from the Department of Energy's Fuel Line Pilot Program, which supports our schedule for completion of our Fuel Line Assembly project, TEFLA, which is a pilot scale fuel production process, the antecedent to our commercial plant for IMSR plant fuel supply. On further supply chain matters, we continue to build on previously established relationships with leading industrial nuclear suppliers such as Westinghouse, Siemens Energy, BWXT as well as other experienced component manufacturers. These supplier relationships support fabrication of reactor components, development of fuel supply infrastructure and long-term project capabilities. In 2025, we announced further contracts with Westinghouse to support our IMSR fuel supply program. In the past year, we advanced important materials testing, selection and qualification work. We announced our graphite irradiation testing had entered its concluding phase at the NRG PALLAS' High Flux Reactor in the Netherlands. This is one of the West's most powerful test reactors. We would like to draw attention to the importance of such in-core testing for Generation IV reactor materials. These are activities essential for reactor materials qualification, supplier selection and licensing readiness for Generation IV reactor technology. Now turning to IMSR plant project developments. Early in 2025, Texas A&M University, supported by expertise in its nuclear engineering faculty, announced its selection of Terrestrial Energy to site a full-scale commercial IMSR plant at its RELLIS campus, following a competitive sector-wide evaluation process. This selection positions an IMSR plant on ERCOT, one of the fastest-growing electricity markets in North America and places the project in a leading engineering research and workforce development ecosystem. In 2025, we announced collaboration with Ameresco to partner with IMSR plant site identification and project development. Ameresco brings deep project development expertise and extensive experience with federal energy programs. This relationship expands our capacity to identify IMSR plant project opportunities across multiple industrial and data center markets and to develop them. As we move into 2026, our focus is again on disciplined execution against a series of clearly defined and planned steps, each advancing across the 3-pillar framework discussed earlier. With this framework in mind, I would like to provide guidance on further developments in 2026. Turning to Slide 8. We expect to announce the following developments in 2026. First, announce further agreements with Texas A&M for the deployment of an IMSR plant at RELLIS and for testing and development of key IMSR components and processes. These agreements will support the siting and development of the proposed IMSR plant. Second, and following the announcement of the RELLIS IMSR plant project in 2025, we expect to disclose details of between 1 and 3 additional commercial projects to deploy IMSR plants. Third, we expect to submit to the NRC for review at least 3 additional Topical Reports covering key and consequential areas to increase readiness for NRC license submissions to construct and operate IMSR plant. Finally, following the 2 Department of Energy OTA awards in 2025, we expect to provide project development details disclosing sites for both the TETRA and TEFLA projects. We expect to identify key engineering partners and organizations supporting regulatory readiness for these important projects. In closing, 2025 was a transformational year for the company. We were successful with our strategy to respond swiftly to the remarkable and generational change in demand for nuclear energy supply. We strengthened our capital position, advanced regulatory readiness and secured support from the DOE's federal programs in key areas. We advanced commercial and supply chain partnerships always aiming for fleet scale solutions and initiated projects and relationships to deploy IMSR plants. Terrestrial Energy's founding belief was that nuclear technology must evolve to meet the remarkable energy market requirements of this modern era. As a private sector innovator, we declared over a decade ago that the ruling objective for nuclear innovation is affordability, cost competitiveness and speed to market at scale. Design and technology decisions have profound and fundamental consequence. On returning from CERAWeek and reflecting on this objective, as we repeatedly do, we remain as convinced of this objective as on the day we founded the company. And over the last decade, we have consistently programmatically and diligently advanced our IMSR plant design. Today, our long commitment and conviction in this ruling objective of nuclear innovation positions the IMSR plant as powerfully and competitively differentiated in a nuclear tech sector pursuing a $1 trillion market opportunity. We are moving forward from this position, looking past the deployment of a single IMSR plant to a fleet of IMSR plants in the 2030s and the establishment of a standardized and scalable platform for IMSR plant delivery across multiple industrial and grid applications and across international markets. With that, I will now turn the call over to Brian Thrasher, our Chief Financial Officer, to review the financial results in more detail. Brian Thrasher: Thank you, Simon, and good morning, everyone. I will briefly review our financial results, liquidity and capital position for the year, and then we will open the call for questions. Let me begin though with the transaction that positioned Terrestrial Energy to enter this next phase of development. On October 28, 2025, Terrestrial Energy completed its business combination with HCM II Acquisition Corp. and began trading on NASDAQ under the ticker IMSR on October 29, 2025. The transaction resulted in trust redemptions of less than 1% and combined with the $50 million PIPE, secured more than $292 million in gross proceeds. We believe this outcome reflects strong support from investors for both our small and modular nuclear plant design as well as our business strategy in the context of the market opportunity today for nuclear innovation. Following the listing, we also announced developments with our fuel services agreement with Westinghouse, strengthening our supply chain readiness for IMSR plant commercial operation. In addition, we enhanced our senior leadership team during the fourth quarter to support U.S. commercialization efforts and deepen engagement with federal stakeholders. Turning now to our financial results as summarized on Slide 9. Terrestrial Energy reported a net loss of $28 million for 2025, an increase of $17 million on the prior year. This increase reflects growing expenses from our IMSR engineering program with its component testing, regulatory activities from our TETRA and TEFLA projects with the DOE from supply chain development as well as from organizational expansion as we resource for public company readiness for key technical capabilities and for projects. Research and development expenses, those expenses incurred for design and engineering of the IMSR plant increased to $10 million in 2025, an increase of $5 million from the prior year as we expanded materials testing and progressed graphite qualification work. General and administrative expenses increased to $14 million in 2025, an increase of $10 million from the prior year, primarily reflecting expansion in personnel, corporate infrastructure and professional services to accelerate our commercialization activities and support public company readiness. Within general and administrative expenses, legal, accounting and other professional fees increased to $5 million in 2025, an increase of $4 million over the prior year and excluding $22 million of transaction-related costs associated with the business combination, which are presented as an increase to additional paid-in capital. Also, personnel-related expenses increased as we move forward with our commercial development, grew our staff to support IMSR engineering, finance, supply chain development, management of IMSR plant commercial projects and public company reporting requirements. Additionally, stock-based compensation increased to approximately $3 million, an increase of $2 million over the prior year as management capabilities expanded during the year. Finally, we incurred approximately $1 million in additional costs in 2025 to advance public company readiness and scaling of our operations. These included directors and officers insurance, investor engagement activities, conference participation, travel and expanded software and operational systems. Interest expense, net of interest income of $3 million in 2025 increased by $2 million from the prior year, reflecting increased debt balances, partially offset by higher interest income. More specifically, interest expense of $4 million in 2025 compared to $1 million in 2024 is attributable to larger average debt balances in 2025, combined with the amortization of the debt discount on the legacy Terrestrial Energy convertible notes. The company earned $1 million of interest income in 2025 on the cash balance received from the closing of the business combination. Turning now to liquidity. At year-end, we held approximately $298 million in cash and short-term investments. This balance reflects the proceeds from the business combination with a $50 million PIPE investment completed in October, two financing rounds completed earlier in the year and the cash exercise of legacy Terrestrial Energy private warrants. This capital position provides the financial resources for a period of strong business growth and to deliver consequential progress with important milestones. These include milestones from progress with our IMSR engineering program and its regulatory and R&D elements that include the TETRA and TEFLA R&D projects with the DOE, from supply chain development and from progress with IMSR plant commercial projects. At year-end, summarized on Slide 10, the company's issued and outstanding share count was 105.8 million shares consisting of 81.8 million common shares outstanding and 24 million exchangeable shares outstanding. The exchangeable shares are exchangeable into common shares on a one-for-one basis at any time at the election of the holders. That concludes our prepared remarks. Operator, please open the line for questions. Operator: [Operator Instructions] our first question is from Jeff Grampp with Northland Capital Markets. Jeffrey Grampp: I was curious to start on the '26 kind of expectation milestone slide, you guys talked about announcing 1 to 3 additional commercial projects. I know you can't provide too many details on kind of future announcements, but to the extent you can provide a little more detail, do you expect those to be more kind of MOU, LOI type announcements, definitive deployments at identified sites or something else? Just, I guess, trying to level set, I guess, the maturity of some of the conversations you're having with prospective customers. Simon Irish: Well, Jeff, yes, we will reserve detail to the moment in which we disclose these developments, but sort of perhaps more generally, for an IMSR project is first defined by the location. It's got a ZIP code. And it's also defined by a process, which starts with the declared intention of the parties involved to proceed with that process ultimately to the commissioning of an IMSR power plant. So maybe I'll just leave it there in terms of providing additional detail on what that means. Jeffrey Grampp: Understood. Appreciate that. My follow-up, there was a recent announcement from the NRC regarding Part 53 licensing as kind of an emerging pathway, which I think would have some applicability to Terrestrial's design. Is that something you guys are considering pursuing? And if so, what kind of benefit could you see to that having to your commercialization pathway? Simon Irish: Well, it's certainly an option for us to consider in terms of what is the most efficient pathway to commercializing to life getting to operation of first plant. We are very familiar with that type of the Part 52 framework. It's graduated, it's risk informed, it's principles based, all the elements of the Canadian process, by the way. The Canadian process has been defined for a long time as graduated risk informed principles based. So it's certainly an option for us and many others in the industry. Our central case at this point in time for those first couple of plants is going to be a Part 50 strategy. So the 2 step, the construction permit moving on to the operating license. Operator: [Operator Instructions] With no further questions, I would like to hand the conference back over to Simon for closing remarks. Simon Irish: I'd like to thank everyone for joining us today on our first earnings call as a public company. Thank you for attention, and we look forward to providing you with further updates in the future. Thank you. Operator: Thank you. This will conclude today's conference. You may disconnect at this time, and thank you for your participation.
Operator: Thank you for joining today's conference call to discuss Tilray Brands' financial results for the Third Quarter of Fiscal Year 2026 ended February 28, 2026. [Operator Instructions] I'll now turn the call over to Ms. Berrin Noorata, Tilray Brands' Chief Communications and Corporate Affairs Officer. Thank you. You may now begin. Berrin Noorata: Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. By now, you should have access to the earnings press release, which is available on the Investors section of the Tilray Brands website at tilray.com and has been filed with the SEC and OSC. Please note that during today's call, we will be referring to various non-GAAP financial measures that can provide useful information for investors. However, the presentation of this information is not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for the financial information presented in accordance with GAAP. The earnings press release contains a reconciliation of each non-GAAP financial measure to the most comparable measure prepared in accordance with GAAP. In addition, we will be making numerous forward-looking statements during our remarks and in response to your questions. These statements are based on our current expectations and beliefs and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties, which may prove to be incorrect. Actual results could differ materially from these described in those forward-looking statements. The text in our earnings press release includes many of the risks and uncertainties associated with such forward-looking statements. Today, we will be hearing from key members of our senior leadership team, beginning with Irwin Simon, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, who will provide opening remarks and commentary followed by Carl Merton, Chief Financial Officer, who will review our financial results for the third quarter of fiscal year 2026. And now I'd like to turn the call over to Tilray Brands' Chairman and CEO, Irwin Simon. Irwin Simon: Thank you, Berrin, and good morning, everyone. It's been an exciting year at Tilray Brands. We delivered a record quarter with continued international expansion across our platforms. I also want to briefly highlight our BrewDog acquisition. When you have good news, you go to the tallest building and scream it and don't wait. This transaction positions Tilray at approximately $1.2 billion global revenue company on an annualized basis and meaningfully strengthens our long-term growth profile. I've done over 100 acquisitions in my life, and I've never received more calls, congratulations and a brand with more awareness on a global basis, which helps Tilray to be at the forefront around the world. Since 2019, we have transformed the company from a Canadian cannabis business with approximately $50 million in revenue to a global lifestyle consumer products company approaching over $1 billion in revenue on an annualized basis, providing the strength and effectiveness of our strategy and our execution going forward. We are building a diversified global platform grounded in a long-term vision of bringing people together through meaningful connection. With a strong team and clear priorities, we remain confident in our path forward. Today, Tilray leads its global platform as the #1 cannabis company in Canada by revenue, the fourth largest craft brewer in the U.S., a global leader in medical cannabis and a wellness leader in North America. And now with BrewDog, the #1 craft brewer in the U.K. Transforming this business has not been easy. We operate in highly regulated environments globally. Face cannabis regulatory reform in the U.S. and navigate constraints across international markets. At the same time, we've strengthened our global brand portfolio, scale and optimize our cultivation capabilities and our brewing capabilities, built a $0.5 billion beverage platform within a long-established category and established a meaningful wellness strategy. This level of progress reflects both the pace of our execution and the strength of our strategic foundation and the teams that we have in place. Yes, there have been challenges along the way, particularly with integration, and there will continue to be challenges. This takes time. But today, we see the pieces coming together in the way that few businesses can replicate, and we're building something truly differentiated. And our Q3 results reflect this in the third quarter and consecutively from Q2 to Q3, we delivered record results with net revenue reaching $207 million, reflecting 11% organic growth year-over-year and gross profit increasing to $55 million, up 6% from the prior year despite ongoing industry and macroeconomic headwinds, we also maintained a strong financial position ended the quarter with $265 million in cash, restricted cash and marketable securities and approximately $3.5 million in net cash, providing the flexibility to invest in growth while maintaining financial discipline. Our Q3 results reinforce the momentum we outlined last quarter, improving fundamentals, sharper execution and increasing leverage from our diversified global platform. Turning first to our cannabis business. We delivered strong results this quarter across our global platform, with continuous momentum in both Canada and our international markets. As the regulatory environment evolves, particularly in the U.S., we're well positioned with scale infrastructure and experience to expand this business globally, we've built this platform deliberately, and we're ready to execute as opportunities develop. Q3 was the largest quarter ever for international cannabis growth. We generated $24.1 million in net sales with 73% year-over-year growth and 20% sequential growth. This was driven by exceptional sales volume growth. Medical cannabis flower volume was up 100% year-over-year and medical cannabis oil volume was up 90% year-over-year. Tilray holds top position by a significant margin in the medical cannabis oil category across leading international medical markets while we leverage our expertise and reputation in the doctor-led distribution channels. Germany, our largest international market grew 43% year-over-year, an important achievement for our international team as they continue to navigate evolving regulatory framework and significant price compression across global markets. Notably, we overcame $7 million in price pressure that flows directly to the bottom line. Turning to our medical distribution business in Europe. I'm extremely proud to say that CC Pharma was recognized as one of the top 100 innovators, leaders and trusted partners in the European pharmaceutical market. Congratulations to the team on a great accomplishments for continuously driving our business forward. Our Tilray Pharma business grew 35% year-over-year to $83 million, making it our highest ever third quarter for sales and profitability. The increase in distribution revenue in the period was driven by portfolio optimization, mix, positive market trends and increased medical device sales. Our recently announced partnership with Alliance Healthcare further strengthens our leadership in Germany, expanding our reach to more than 16,000 pharmacies, up from 13,000 previously. In addition, we entered into a partnership with Smartway, a leading U.K.-based pharmaceutical distribution company to expand the availability of our pharmaceutical products across the United Kingdom. Together, these partnerships speak to the strength of Tilray Pharma as a valuable strategic asset within our global medical cannabis platform. Looking ahead, our distribution business is laser-focused and driving future operational efficiencies, be automation, centralized sourcing, harmonized packaging and label that sets us up with vertical integration for our cannabis business. Turning to Canada. Our Canadian cannabis business continues to deliver strong results. We reinforced our position as Canada's leading cannabis company by revenue on a trailing 12-month basis, and our adult-use medical grew 8% year-over-year to almost $40 million of net revenue. This performance speaks to the strength of our portfolio and the resilience of our commercial execution and the team that we have in place today. From a market share perspective, Tilray maintained the #1 market share position in cannabis dried flower, pre-rolls, beverages, oils and chocolate edibles. Importantly, this leadership reflects the strength of our tiered brand strategy in dried flower, Tilray is the only licensed producer with 3 brands in the top 10. In pre-rolls, we hold 2 of the top 3 brands. And in beverages, we delivered the top 2 brands in the market during quarter 3. This approach diversifies our reliance across brands and facilities while allowing us to serve the seed consumer segments with clearly differentiated offerings. From a brand portfolio perspective, Broken Coast delivered its strongest quarter in the past 2 fiscal years, growing 16% year-over-year. We also continue to innovate with our core categories launching Good Supply, Where's My Bike and Blueberry Donuts cannabis strains during the quarter. both of which finished the quarter among the top 10 dried flower SKUs in British Columbia, and we plan to scale them nationally and introduce additional genetics in Q4 and into fiscal 2027. Finally, we also introduced a new brand, Portal, featuring vapes, infused pre-rolls late in the quarter. While still early, we're beginning the national rollout. We expect to launch a Portal to build upon our momentum and drive meaningful growth in these key categories going forward. And we're also making clear progress in high-growth price-sensitive categories such as vapes. Quarter 3 marked our strongest vape quarter in the past 2 fiscal years, reestablishing Tilray as a top 10 player in the category. Importantly, this performance reflects our disciplined approach to revenue generation. We intentionally scaled back our vapes volume until we achieve the right cost structure and return the category to profitability. After 7 years of federal cannabis legalization in Canada, we are modernizing the store. We built a strong foundation on Canadian cannabis, and we're now advancing to the next phase transforming our cultivation platform through AI-driven growing systems, next-generation genetics and improved yields across our operations. We're executing a comprehensive end-to-end upgrade of our cultivation capabilities. And while this transition is still underway, we're already seeing progress as we move towards more consistent, higher quality and more efficient production. This evolution is designed to enhance margins, strengthen product quality and position us ahead of the curve as the industry continues to mature. In the U.S., we continue to monitor the rescheduling of medical cannabis and are actively engaged with legislators and regulators. We're also evaluating our participation in the center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation pilot programs. Tilray is well positioned to contribute to the pilot program with its proven track record of operating at a scale in a highly regulated medical cannabis globally. Moving to our beverage business. This quarter and shortly after the quarter end, we successfully executed against our key strategic priority to expand our global beverage platform through a strategic licensing partnership with Carlsberg and the targeted acquisition of BrewDog, strengthening our portfolio, improving utilization and advancing our global growth strategy. We are honored and proud to begin our partnership with Carlsberg, one of the world's leading brewers starting in January of 2027. Through this partnership, we'll produce, market and distribute a portfolio of leading Carlsberg brands across the U.S., leveraging our brewing network, commercial capabilities and our national distribution footprint. We expect this to drive immediate scale accretive to revenues, supported by increased volumes, expand shelf presence and a more favorable product base. Following the Carlsberg announcement and post quarter close, we acquired craft beer icon, BrewDog, creating approximately $500 million global craft beverage platform on a pro forma basis. We acquired BrewDog's global IP, strategic brewing and brewpub assets across the U.K. Ireland, Australia and the U.S., creating immediate scale, strengthening our infrastructure and broadening our international reach. This positions us to extend our reach into previously untapped markets such as the Middle East, Asia Pacific and take our U.S. brands globally while strengthening their portfolio with a highly recognized craft brand. We acquired this platform for approximately EUR 40 million, which reflects a fraction of its replacement cost. This strategic acquisition has significantly accelerated the implementation of our global strategy by several years. Now turning to the results of our beverage business. We're making disciplined progress on the integration of our beverage acquisitions, while staying focused on the work still ahead to generate growth and profitability. As expected, beverage net revenue of $43 million in Q3 was impacted by margin-focused actions as well as industry-wide softness. These margin-focused initiatives are delivered and necessary to reset the business for profitable long-term growth. What's important is that the underlying fundamentals are improving. Through Project 420, we rationalized the portfolio, removing nonstrategic SKUs to improve velocity, margin and execution. We continue to focus on cost discipline, delivered over $6.2 million in annualized savings during the quarter, completing our target synergy program of $33 million enabling us to achieve approximately 32% gross margins despite significant input costs and headwinds. Without these decisive actions taken, margin would have been more significantly impacted. Operationally, we're building a more focused, higher performing portfolio, we're prioritizing fewer, bigger, better innovations aligned with consumer demand. Products like Pub Light are expanding distribution and our ready-to-drink cocktails on the West Coast are delivering margin accretive growth. We're also starting to see sequential improvement across our core brands, including Sweetwater, Shock Top, Blue Point, Revolver and Montauk. Looking ahead, we expect continued momentum on improving fundamentals and a stronger path to growth. Within the spirits category, in Q3, we focused on enhancing our commercial plan. Wholesale completions were 160 basis points above the national spirits trends, demonstrating strong consumer demand and awareness. Our ongoing efforts remain focused on expanding product distribution to additional states and beyond. Regarding our U.S. hemp-derived THC beverage business, we continue to offer Fizzy Jane's, Happy Flower, hemp-derived THC beverages in 5-milligram and 10-milligram formats through nationwide retail partnerships, including major wine, liquor and grocery outlets across the country. While federal and regulatory changes may affect HDD9 products after November 2026, we continue to stay engaged with legislators and regulators who are closely monitoring the development in Washington. Turning to wellness. Net revenue increased by 16% to $16.4 million in the quarter, driven by our focus on value-added innovation across superseed, better-for-you breakfast and snacking and continued momentum in the high-vol energy grade. We'll continue to focus on distribution expansion broader assortment and promotional improvements while continuing to strengthen the profitability profile of wellness business. With that, I will now turn that over to Carl. Carl? Carl Merton: Thank you, Irwin. Before I begin, please note that we present our financials in accordance with U.S. GAAP and in U.S. dollars. Throughout our discussions, we will be referring to both GAAP and non-GAAP adjusted results and we encourage you to review the reconciliation contained within the press release of our reported results under GAAP with the corresponding non-GAAP measures. This quarter, we achieved record third quarter revenue and strong year-over-year improvements in gross profit and adjusted EBITDA and we are reaffirming our adjusted EBITDA guidance for fiscal 2026. Net revenue was a third quarter record of $206.7 million, an 11% increase year-over-year. Revenue growth was across multiple businesses. Cannabis net revenue increased 19% year-over-year to $64.8 million during the quarter, driven by strong growth in gross international cannabis revenue of 73% and 8% in net Canadian adult-use and medical cannabis. The exceptional revenue performance of our international cannabis business solidifies our point from the last conference call that Q4 2025 and Q2 and Q3 of this year's performance are more indicative of what investor expectations should be going forward. Growth in international cannabis accelerated based on an enhanced supply chain, increased patient adoption in certain markets and our targeted expansion into emerging markets. This quarter, we continue to strategically reallocate supply from the Canadian wholesale market to higher-margin international markets and we'll maintain this approach as those markets continue to scale. Year-to-date, we allocated approximately 6 metric tonnes of product from Canada to international markets, which continues to supplement our ever-increasing cultivation in [indiscernible]. Distribution net revenue increased 35% to $83 million based on a focus on higher velocity and margin SKUs and positive impacts from foreign exchange rates. We expect distribution to continue to be a strong contributor as it complements and scales alongside our international business. Beverage net revenue for the quarter was $42.6 million compared to $55.9 million in the prior year. However, the results do not fully reflect the operational progress we have made in the segment. During the quarter, we successfully completed Project 420, closing and delivering $33 million in annualized cost savings, which improved the underlying cost structure of the business. Those cost savings are not always visible in our margin results as they've been largely offset by almost $2.9 million of higher aluminum costs year-to-date and lower overhead utilization rates. Getting our cost structure right in beverage has been and will continue to be a key focus area for us. Looking ahead, Carlsberg represents a compelling opportunity for us through a partnership with one of the largest global brewers. The relationship enables us to improve overhead utilization without deploying capital to acquire a brand while creating meaningful operational leverage. It also provides multiple avenues to strengthen the platform including increased scale with key global raw material suppliers and the ability to collaborate and learn from one another on innovation and best practices to support long-term growth. BrewDog represents an equally compelling opportunity to strengthen our beverage business in the future, but for different reasons as it is more about an international opportunity. The BrewDog transaction was unique because it represented a chance for the business to start with a clean piece of paper and hand select the best and most important elements of a strong business that was placed in administration for reasons other than its core business. After this transaction, Tilray strengthens BrewDog, BrewDog strengthens Tilray. Lastly, wellness net revenue in the quarter was $16.4 million, growing 16% year-over-year based on our focus on high-value innovations the continued strength of high-vol and growth in the ingredient sales channel. In terms of contribution, cannabis accounted for 31% of revenue, beverage revenue was 21%, distribution was 40% and wellness was 8%. Moving on to profitability. We achieved a record third quarter gross profit of $55 million, a 6% year-over-year increase. Gross margin was 27% compared to 28% last year. By segment, cannabis gross margin was 40% for the quarter compared to 41% year-over-year and remained largely flat, primarily due to price compression in international markets, which reduced international cannabis revenue by approximately $7 million despite higher gram equivalent sold. Distribution gross margin increased to 12% this quarter compared to 9% year-over-year due to favorable changes in product mix and increases in average selling price during the quarter. Beverage gross margin was 32% this quarter compared to 36% in the prior year quarter. This change was a function of lower overhead absorption rates and higher input costs, including the previously discussed aluminum costs. Wellness gross margin increased to 33% during the quarter from 32% year-over-year as strategic price increases largely offset an unfavorable change in sales mix. Net loss was $25.2 million, a $768.3 million improvement compared to a $793.5 million loss year-over-year or a net loss per share of $0.24 compared to a net loss per share of $8.69. The improvement in both net loss and net loss per share is primarily driven by the onetime noncash impairment we reported in the prior year quarter. Adjusted net income and adjusted net income per share, which both exclude the noncash impacts of amortization, stock-based compensation, impairments and nonrecurring charges, improved $5.3 million year-over-year to $2.4 million and $0.02 per share, compared to an adjusted net loss of $2.9 million and adjusted net loss per share of $0.03. Our adjusted cash operating income for the quarter was $4.1 million compared to a loss of $3.1 million last year. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter increased 19% to $10.7 million compared to $9 million last year, reflecting continued execution against our strategic plan, particularly from our international cannabis business. Cash flow used in operations was $21.9 million compared to $5.8 million last year. The increase in cash used in operations was largely related to inventory ahead of our seasonally stronger fourth quarter and accounts receivable for our growing international cannabis business. Excluding the impacts of working capital, cash generated from operations was $3.4 million compared to cash used in operations of $9.3 million in the prior year. We ended the quarter with cash, restricted cash and marketable securities of $264.8 million and a net cash position of $3.5 million, which improved $40.2 million from a net debt position year-over-year. As we have recently demonstrated our strong liquidity position has enabled us to act decisively in a dynamic environment and provides continuing flexibility to pursue strategic opportunities. We remain focused on managing and strengthening our balance sheet throughout the remainder of the year and beyond. Lastly, we are reaffirming our fiscal 2026 adjusted EBITDA guidance of $62 million to $72 million. Operator, we can now open the call for Q&A. Operator: [Operator Instructions] And the first question is from the line of Kaumil Gajrawala with Jefferies. Kaumil Gajrawala: Can you guys hear me now? Irwin Simon: Yes. Carl Merton: Yes. Kaumil Gajrawala: Great. I wanted to first maybe ask about the supporting the international business in the context of Canada looks like it's also stabilizing. So you have a lot of growth and great margins in one. But on the other hand, you've got stabilization in your bigger markets. So how are you managing the balance between those two? Irwin Simon: What was the line? I didn't hear. You broke up the last piece, the cannibalization? Kaumil Gajrawala: Not cannibalization, but just managing the balance between supporting your international business and what looks like stabilization in Canada? Irwin Simon: And you're talking cannabis right now for us, right? Kaumil Gajrawala: Yes, cannabis. I'm sorry, this is about cannabis. Irwin Simon: Yes. Yes. Okay. So listen, I think the big thing is, number one, we are bringing on our Masson grow facility in Gatineau, which is increases our -- we're going from 137 metric tonnes of grow to almost 200 metric tonnes of grow. And also, we're bringing on outdoor grow in Cayuga. So number one, when we now have plenty of growth, and this has been a tougher year on yields in that, and that's sort of what you heard me say as we're overhauling things and modernizing things on better yields in the Canadian market. On the other hand, the good news is our Cantanhede facility in Portugal and our Germany facility is probably producing some of the best yields and some of the best flower that we ever had. So the number -- the most important thing is we have plenty of supply to supply the European market. The other thing is we're seeing price compression, which I talked about, with the growth that we're having with yields, we'll be able to support that. And I think the most important thing in Europe is this here, consistent supply. We've not had consistent supply. Number one. Number two, one of the things in Europe, you have to wait for permits, and that has slowed down to getting our sales out there. We've seen a real big improvement in the Portuguese government. I want to thank them. They modernize this now, where sometimes it'll take a month, you can see 3 days now. So being able to get product to our customers is something very important. And then with that, we have perfected our grow and our yields, that will help our margins continuously, and deal with price compression. And I think the important thing is from Tilray standpoint, with our Tilray products with our innovation, with our brands, the big opportunity for us is if we got consistent product, we're going to get the volumes and how do we deal with price compression? If price compression consistently happens, we have supply, and I think we have more supply than anybody there. So it's something that we're aware of. We dealt with it in Canada. We've had $250 million of price compression over 5 years in Canada, and we dealt with that. So not that I want to see that in Europe, but it's something we can deal with either now having supply, now having good yields, now having good grow over there to do it both in Canada and Europe. And there's no one else out there that has the supply that we have, both from the Canadian market today and the European market. Kaumil Gajrawala: Got it. And on Project 420, now that I guess, it's coming sort of towards the end or at completion, is there a new project? Or is it sort of more ongoing business as usual as we look forward from a productivity standpoint? Irwin Simon: This is a good question. I mean there is absolutely project ongoing. We never just say, okay, we made a $33 million, $35 million of cost savings, stop. Now with BrewDog in the mix and bringing that together, both internationally and domestically in regards to buying hops, cans, labels, et cetera. And it's definitely something as we combine now. And just remember, we've gone from a $200-plus million beer business, almost $0.5 billion now in size. So from scale, that's going to help us. And as we look at rationalization continuously on our plants, we look at rationalization on distributors. We just said, how do we bring all the organizations together, there'll definitely be additional cost savings available to us. Operator: Our next question is from the line of Robert Moskow with TD Securities. Xin Ma: This is Victor Ma on for Robert Moskow. So I just want to ask about international first. International grew 73%, Germany grew 43%. What drove this delta? Was it shipment timing or permit delays that -- from the previous quarter that were fixed this quarter? And in terms of kind of looking at growth going forward, is that 43% growth rate for Germany? Is that kind of a good run rate to use and looking at growth for the segment? Irwin Simon: So number one, there was some products that did not get shipped in the second quarter because of permits, but there's products that did not get shipped in the third quarter because of the permit. So it equals out. In regards to what was the growth? The growth was based on us having supply and demand. And I'm not sure, again, we have a big fourth quarter, what is the true run rate there. And the big thing is what I said before, what the market is realizing, what patients and what doctors are realizing is that we will have supply. We will have good flower, we will have lots of innovation, we'll have some good oils. And again, we will be price competitive. So what is the right growth number? I'm not ready to give that yet. But again, there's big opportunities for us in the international markets, not only in Germany and Poland, the U.K. and other markets, it's additionally other markets that we're looking at to open up and what will happen in Spain, what will happen in France. And so we're really excited. The other thing that we have there with our CC Pharma, Tilray Pharma and some of the stuff that we're doing in the U.K. and being vertically integrated as we sell through our distributor and sell directly through our distributor into the drug stores, helps us that where we're a grower, where we've got a brand. And then we have -- the third part of it is where we have from a vertical integration, the distribution going to the drugstores. So that helps us tremendously, too. Xin Ma: Got it. And then my second question is on the beverage segment. So in terms of just rising aluminum costs from the Midwest premium related to the tariffs and then additional supply shocks from the Iran conflict. How -- can you offer any color in terms of how hedged you are on your aluminum exposure? And how -- what's the benefit in terms of kind of scale that adding Carlsberg into the U.S. portfolio give towards managing that cost impact? Irwin Simon: So I'm going to let Carl talk about the hedge in a second because we are hedging on some things. But listen, adding Carlsberg in there with a good-sized business, adding BrewDog in there and then being able to buy on global contracts is going to be very, very helpful for us. Right now, a lot of our hops for BrewDog internationally come from Washington State. But we, right now, as we put this together and listened, having Carlsberg, who is one of the largest brewers in the world and possibly buying into their contract, and we still have left over whether there are hops in that from our ABI stuff. So there's lots of opportunities from a scale to be buying hops and cans, and that's the big one to watch out for is as aluminum prices have gone up and Carl, will talk about hedges. Listen, the big watch out there is what happens with fuel and from a standpoint there is the unknown. But Carl, from where we're hedged -- Carl, do you want to talk about that? Carl Merton: Yes. I mean you answered most of it, but just specifically on the hedge for aluminum, we're currently hedging 65% to 75% of our buy on a month-to-month basis, and we're hedging a year out. Xin Ma: Got it. And just one last question, if I can. In terms of just the distribution gains from the shelf resets that typically happen in the spring. How are those conversations going? How is that tracking? Any color you can share there? Irwin Simon: So going well. I will say this here, we gained and we lost. And the big part of it is this here, we're in the craft beer category, lost some space out there. But I think the big thing is this here, where we didn't -- when we bought the Molson's piece and prior to that when we bought the ABI piece, from a timing standpoint, we lost a lot of SKUs where we had no influence in no part of it. So again, it goes against us. Now we've gained a lot of distribution. And the big thing is this here just because we gain distribution and make sure the product sale. So plus-plus, we probably lost more. But again, it's okay because it was the SKUs that were not part of us at the time. And the new SKUs and the new products and new innovation is what we're excited about and where we've gained. And we had some big days at Walmart. We had some big days at Kroger, Albertsons and some other ones across Shop & Shop across the board. So all in all, we're happy with what we got. And listen, I'd rather the set get smaller and us be a bigger player in a smaller set than just have a big set out there. So there's a lot of resetting happening within the craft beer industry in regards to the size and what retailers need out there. Carl Merton: Just to supplement that a little, when Irwin talked about the acquisitions, it's more about the timing of the acquisitions because we bought those brands after the initial discussions on spring resets that already happened. Irwin Simon: And we were not the ones presenting those spring resets. But now whether it's the Molson or the ABI, and that's sort of where we'll be next year in January as we take on Carlsberg, we'll be out there presenting in February -- January, February for the next spring resets for Carlsberg. Operator: Our next question is from the line of Bill Kirk with ROTH Capital Partners. William Kirk: I want to spend a little time on the improvements at Tilray Pharma. Carl, you mentioned a focus on the highest velocity SKUs. So what SKUs or product types are those that are leading the way? And then maybe more importantly, how can you or how are you leveraging this improved CC Pharma for your cannabis business in Germany? Irwin Simon: So I'm going to -- Rajnish, since you're on the call, I'm going to let you jump in here because you're the one managing this. I think there's three things here. Number one, it's the buying that our guys are doing over there. Number two is our assortment. And number three, as we now look to sell our products into Italy and we sell our products into the U.K. Rajnish, do you want to go into the specifics of what the products are that we've really seen the increase in sales? Rajnish Ohri: I mean, there is a group of products revenues, we have about 2,800 SKUs. So what we have done is basically identified SKUs which have higher velocity to go. So there is a bunch of about 50 top SKUs which are right now working where there is a high velocity which we focus on, not just on velocity, but also on the gross margins. So these are the two criteria for us to look at in terms of the growth. And then we are adding the medical cannabis portfolio. I mean, the medical cannabis portfolio is helping us to grow both in margins as well as in revenue because per unit revenue is much higher and margins are better. So these are the two big things in terms of the selling side of the business. And of course, on distribution, we are now -- with our new alliances, which are coming forward, we are now actually increasing our distribution across the pharmacy channel, which helps us to grow not just per unit, but also in the depth of distribution and the width of coverage of pharmacy. So this is really on the seller side. But more importantly, also on the buy side, I think we are now -- our purchasing is becoming much more robust in terms of the timely decisions. We've implemented automation in our purchasing system, which predicts the pricing patterns and then it helps us to take decisions quicker. So I mean these are a few things which in the pharmacy distribution is helping us to grow. And then, of course, on the operations side, a lot of our business, we are also looking at in-house packaging to out-house packaging and whichever way is working for us, there's a big team, which is working to make sure that there is a consistency in supply from the operators, both in-house and out-house, and that's also helping us to improve the margins. Irwin Simon: When we bought CC Pharma, that was a big part of it. But again, it was bought during the Aphria time was for a tender, and was the age of sub-pharmacies. That was not really happening, number one. Now -- and there was challenges with getting different medicines as we're buying all different types of medicines. But as Rajnish said, we're focused on the core medicines with the higher margins. And we've done a lot of automation at CC Pharma. The other thing is what's happened, we've gone from servicing 13,000 drugstores now to 16,000 drugstores. So we've expanded the amount of drugstores in Germany. The other major thing is as we expand out CC Pharma into Italy and into the U.K. is a bigger platform that we'll be selling through. Not the highest margins, but again, as the volume grows, there's a lot more contribution. And as we put a lot more cannabis through it with much higher margin, you're going to see the margin grow there dramatically. William Kirk: Awesome. Thank you for the detailed answers. My second question, Irwin, in the opening comments, you talked about now being a run rate of $1.2 billion in revenue. The last 12 months, I think, it's something like $850 million. So is the bridge between the two? Is that mostly the revenue from acquired BrewDog assets? And I asked because you didn't take all the assets. So how much of the BrewDog revenue that they've released in their annual reports is generated by the assets that you took on and now have? And how much of their annual revenue was tied to assets that you didn't take. Irwin Simon: So let's say between $225 million to $250 million is what we have taken, okay? And again, we took all the U.K., Ireland, Scotland distribution through retail, we've taken it through on-premise. And we've taken 16 brewpubs in U.K., Ireland and Scotland. We've taken the brewpubs in Australia, we've taken the distribution in Australia. We've taken three brewpubs ourselves, and -- 2 brewpubs ourselves and there's three franchises. There's 15 other franchises out there today around the world that we sell them beer to and we get some type of royalty. In regards to the U.S., we've taken the distribution, the manufacturing in the U.S., and we've taken with them Las Vegas, Columbus, St. Albany and Cincinnati is -- and Cleveland, I'm sorry, and the airport in Columbus. That's what we've taken there. So it's somewhere between $225 million and $250 million in sales that we have taken. In regards to the other piece, Bill, it's all coming from growth, and that's where it's going to come from. And don't forget, you saw from a standpoint there, what we've gone through is SKU rationalization in regards to our beer business. If you take what we're down this year and what was SKU rationalization, what was distributor rationalization, and what was product rationalization, I mean quite a bit of sales come out of our business. Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Aaron Grey with Alliance Global Partners. Aaron Grey: First question for me. I just want to dig a little bit more in terms of hemp. So in terms of your outlook potentially for changes to come before the ban on any product is more than 0.4% THC coming to fruition in November. And then taking that into context, how you're looking at the CMS program, you mentioned potentially looking to enter into that. So how are you looking at potential opportunity there, particularly if there is a restriction on THC products and how appealing that program will be for patient adoption or rejection? And then just how you think about that longer-term opportunity there? Irwin Simon: So number one, let me go back to HDD9 and how we're looking at that. We're looking at it three ways. Number one, it gets extended and stays as is. Number two, there is some type of new legislation that comes out that regulates it either 3, 4 or 5 milligrams, and which would be great and that way we can sell it or the ban in November of 2026 happened, and it completely stops. Listen, I think it's going to be one or two. That will be my opinion. In regards to our CBD drinks into Medicare and that within the U.S. Listen, we have Happy Flower, we have the drinks, we're prepared for that now. It's just making sure that as we talk to the FDA, and we talk to them that how we go about it and how we do it. So we're able to do it. We have the products to do it. It's just making sure the right approvals, and we have a team that is working on this within the U.S. regulations and what could happen here. So stay tuned for that. Aaron Grey: Okay. Great. Appreciate that color, Irwin. Second question for me, I just wanted to go back in terms of alcohol gross margin and the outlook. Carl, I know you mentioned in terms of how you guys are hedging some of the aluminum. But just taking a step back and -- level, there's been some lumpiness. You guys now have Project 420 now completed. So how should we think about that margin for the segment going forward? 4Q, I imagine obviously be higher just given the higher sales flow-through, but just on a full year basis, just how best to think about the gross margin there? Carl Merton: So Aaron, good question. If you look at where we are right now, I think this represents the bottom. We have done a significant amount of work, and we'll continue to do work to manage costs and to keep costs at a reasonable level versus where our volume is. As we said on the call, we've got some headwinds with aluminum costs, and there's potential for headwinds with fuel surcharges and things like that, that we're going to keep a close eye on. But the key is really in the overhead utilization rates. And as we've adjusted to that, and we continue to make adjustments going forward, like we'll see that start to come up over time. And right now, we think this is the bottom of the trial. Irwin Simon: And Aaron, I think there's -- once again, you remember, we get in the beer business in late 2020, with Sweetwater and the acquisitions of the three brands in the West Coast and Montauk and then the ABI pieces and the Molson pieces. We had a onetime had 10, 11 manufacturing facilities. And since then, now with Carlsberg coming on, with the rescaling of the beer business and the SKU rationalization. It hasn't been the easiest road for us, but nothing dissimilar that was cannabis in regards to as we opened up the grow facilities, and we had to go deal with it. But now we got time. We now have the right sets in place. We have the right new products in place. We had some new products out there that didn't do as well as we thought. So as Carl said, now with the purchasing power between BrewDog International, between bringing Carlsberg on with us, we feel good about moving forward where we've done a lot of the overhauling. We're now down to 7 manufacturing facilities. We might even get smaller in regards to that. In regards to the facility in Columbus, Ohio, which is a beautiful facility. And what are we moving there from HDD9, if that is a product that's able to stay within the portfolio. We have a great energy drink called, High Voltage, that's growing in leaps and bounds. Some of the other non-alc products that we have out there today that we will move into our facilities. And as we introduce a lot of Vodka Seltzers and some of the other drinks that we're doing, we'll look to bring most of that in-house. And we will have capacity, as we have a great plan to grow Carlsberg. We think the growth opportunity of Carlsberg is tremendous of what we can do with that brand. So again, it's -- we've only been at this 5 years where most craft brewers have been out there a long, long, long time. And we've had some pain, but we've managed through it. And I think we've really got it in a good place now from a scale standpoint. I don't -- I know, I could be wrong, I think we'll combine with BrewDog and what we're doing today, it's almost 18 million cases of beer that we'll be selling that's between the worldwide. So we're buying lots of cans, we're buying lots of hops, we're buying lots of ingredients here. And yes, some of it is across the water. We're buying lots of kegs, but how do we utilize that? We're just not a little craft brewer anymore from a standpoint there. Operator: Our next questions are from the line of Pablo Zuanic with Zuanic & Associates. Pablo Zuanic: Yes, congratulations on the very strong international growth and also very nice to see the share count being stable quarter-on-quarter. Look, I have three questions on Germany specifically, and I'll try to keep it brief. The first question I want to get your take in terms of the advantage of being vertically integrated versus the many distributors out there, I mean for a while, we saw that the distributors were growing faster. We saw consolidation, Curaleaf by Four 20, High Tide by Remexian, more recently. But now with lower prices, some of the distributors are being squeezed out and they don't seem to have a very stable supply chain. So I'm just trying to understand if you can remind people of the advantages in Germany, especially where the market is evolving or being vertically integrated versus the distributor model. The second question is that it would help if you can expand on your route to market? Like how many people do you have on the ground? How many people are visiting doctors? How many people -- what are the efforts in terms of reaching out to patients given all the restrictions. But just if you can give more color on your route to market in Germany. And the third, which is related to all of this, I could make the argument, playing devil's advocate, that pharmacy reach does not matter too much, right, that all these numbers that we hear about CC Pharma and Alliance now are not so relevant when the doctors and the patients are making the decision and the 80/20 rule applies, right? We know that maybe 50 pharmacies, especially online account for the bulk of sales and only 1 of 7 pharmacies sell medical cannabis. So why does pharmacy reach matter in the short term and in the long term? I know there's a lot there, but there are three questions on international that would help if you can cover. Irwin Simon: I hope I can remember all three, okay? And number one, to your point, and I stressed this before, from a growth standpoint of having our Cantanhede facility and that up and going the way it is today and growing some of the best cannabis that it ever has and having the permits to get out of Portugal into Germany is a major, major advantage to us, and this is what helped us in the quarter to get the sales. And again, as we're getting yields and flower to become that low-cost, that low-cost seller in there in the marketplace and deal with price compression. Number two, you heard me talk about now as we bring on our facility in Gatineau, Quebec, that is a GMP facility. And that from a supply standpoint, and I got to tell you, because originally, we were going to sell that and thank God, we didn't because from electricity costs, from labor cost, that is an excellent facility and it's an excellent facility for us to have and supply the international market, and that's what it will do because it's GMP, because it's a lower cost facility. And then our German facility, which originally we were selling 2 to 3 metric tonnes that are there and Rajnish and the team has done a great job of getting that up into additional metric tonnes and before that we were only allowed to sell into the German government there. So to your point, Pablo, yes, we have supply. Yes, we can be that lowest cost producer. And yes, the big thing is we can be consistent. In regards to the customers that we're selling to. I'm going to let Rajnish talk about what we have on the ground there and the infrastructure in a minute, but just going through the pharmacies, you may not agree that having a vertical integration. So number one, having CC Pharma. The big part of the CC Pharma today's business is not the cannabis business. But there's 3 things CC Pharma does. It has 16,000 pharmacies and a lot of these pharmacies, Pablo, are buying medical cannabis. So now they have the ability and at the end to sell, it has the ability to go to pharmacies, number one. Number two, there's a lot they can do in regards to online and selling online through CC Pharma, and that is something that we're working on. And again, as we look at expanding our product lines in Germany, whether it is vapes, whether it is pre-rolls, CC Pharma has medical license and an application that they can do these things for, and we're looking at numerous things with the CC Pharma. So today, having it, it's very important for us. It has a tremendous network too with other CC Pharma types of distributors that we can sell products through them too. So CC Pharma has a relevance to us, and it's a big relevant for us in the cannabis grow market where no one else really had a CC Pharma today. Rajnish, in regards to your sales organization on the ground, go ahead. Rajnish Ohri: Yes. So two things here. I mean, so there is a price compression in Germany, which is kind of changing the route to market and the route to market is diverting, becoming more integrated. The distributor is now getting squeezed out because of the margins, et cetera. So I think -- we don't see it now, but we do see it going forward that the route to market will become more direct to pharmacies and through the channels of prescriptions to doctors, et cetera. So CC Pharma and our medical team there is presently working along with the prescribers and also in the pharmacies to work and build this integrated supply chain to reach the patients. So that's number one. Number two, to your question of what's the feet on street we have today 2 teams which work on the street. One is the one which work with the prescribers. This is a team of about 20-plus people who are medical representatives and medical advisers, who work on with the prescribers. And then we have a team with CC Pharma, which is also about 7 to 8 people who are basically telecall services people who continuously to work with pharmacies to make sure that the prescriptions, which we reach there and the stocks are available for them. So there is a twin approach there, both at the pharmacy and at the prescriber level at the ground in Germany. And as we go and see this forward, I think -- and these are signs which we see in the market today that the route to market is going more direct than through the distribution. So with CC Pharma and Tilray Medical team, I think this change we are seeing, and we also see data coming to us, which is telling us that the pharmacy sales are improving, still small, but improving compared to what the distribution sales have been. Irwin Simon: And Pablo, not only that, what we have internationally today, I mean, basically, we have marketing teams, we have R&D teams, we have quality teams. We have a researchers working on our different cannabis streams and genetics over there from a medical standpoint that when doctors prescribe for pain, for anxiety, for cancer we can grow and support it. So again, what we're not is just somebody selling into the marketplace. I mean, as Rajnish said, we have a big infrastructure in Canada and Portugal, we have in Germany. And then we have a team that support it in London in regards to the marketing team, and there's a whole supply team. And the good news is we have moved a lot of our Canadian colleagues over there to help us with this grow. You were going to ask something else. Go ahead, Pablo. Pablo Zuanic: I mean, that's great color. Can I add just one more quickly? You mentioned that you're keeping an eye on the CMS program in the U.S. for a full-spectrum CBD. Does that mean that you would be considering or looking at buying a U.S. CBD brand? Irwin Simon: So we have a brand today called Happy Flower, okay? We produce CBD products internationally. So we have formulations. We have products. It just got to fit to what the U.S. standards are and regs are here. But, listen, I've always liked if it made sense to buy something that gives you a foothold in there. But like anything, we have the ability today to do our own with CBD products. Operator: Our next question is from the line of Kenric Tyghe with Canaccord Genuity. Kenric Tyghe: The majority of my questions have been asked, but just a couple of quick follow-ups. With respect to the beverage segment, you called out trough margins in quarter. Is that including or excluding the BrewDog integration? Just trying to get a handle on whether that's a trough on legacy or trough on go forward, and how we should think about that evolution of the margins? Irwin Simon: No. BrewDog, from lease margins, BrewDog was acquired, March 2, so there's nothing in here in regards to BrewDog. And there's nothing in here in regards to Carlsberg from a margin standpoint. And again, from a procurement, from the sales, from an infrastructure, from manufacturing, again, I'm not going come out there with numbers, but I would think there would be upside just putting volume. Kenric Tyghe: Great. And that was the gist of the question was just on that evolution from here forward with Carlsberg and BrewDog, but I can leave it there. Just a follow-up with respect to the brewpubs and that footprint. Just with how consumer trends and consumption patterns have changed. How are you thinking about that footprint going forward? And is it becoming more important to you as a sort of a strategic buffer on the consumption side? Any color around the BrewDog -- sorry, around the brewpub footprint would be useful. Irwin Simon: Listen, good question. It's something today within Tilray, we have 18 of our own brewpubs here in the U.S. So again, it's something we understand. In regard to the U.K., Ireland, Scotland and the other markets, listen, I'm big on brewpubs to look at them from a marketing tool and to build our brand out there. So bringing people together. And that's the whole thing on longevity today to bring people together. And a big part, and I plan to spend a lot of time looking at our brewpubs in regards to what we got to do to interact with our customers that come there, how do we serve them good food and good value. I've also talked about whether it's Carlsberg, Guinness or our other beers of how we bring other beers into there because if they don't want BrewDog, we want them to come to our brewpubs at least to enjoy our food, enjoy the environment, and maybe we can convince them to have BrewDog. Is that going to be a big part of our growth as a part of our strategic plan to open up another 100 of those? No. It's a big part of those to look to upgrade them, to put more TVs, more interactive types of communications in regards to getting more and more of our consumers to that and is something, yes. Is there an opportunity for us to franchise more and more BrewDogs, where we did not take them and make them franchisees? Absolutely, yes. So there's some exciting things here as we look to grow from a franchise model as we look to increase the sales with the ones we own and where we license the brand today in airports. And that's something that we're looking at too because there's -- with airports today, you license your brand name, you collect a royalty and you sell product. So that's how we're looking at these brewpubs. Operator: At this time, I'll turn the floor back to management for closing remarks. Irwin Simon: Well, thank you, everybody. Number one, it April Fools' and our numbers are not April Fools' joke. So that's the good news, okay. Our numbers are some real strong numbers out there. Congratulations to the team on the growth. And not one of these businesses, nothing has been easy out there, in regards to what we deal from a regulatory standpoint, what we deal in regards to pricing, in regards to tariffs and just looking at the consumer today. And again, if you stop and look at Tilray from 2019 to hitting over that $1 billion mark with the acquisition of BrewDog, it's a very exciting time for us. In regards to where we're going in 2027 and with 2 months left in our quarter of 2026, there's a lot to be proud of here. And as you heard me talk about the big overall that we're going to do in the Canadian market in regards our genetics, in regards to our strains, in regards to using AI to help us there, in regards to how we modernize those facilities and take out lots of costs. And Blair and the team have done a tremendous job in doing that. And again, as you come back and think about what we have in grow today and how we've converted these facilities to much more economical and dealt with the challenges of the cost of utilities in Ontario. So again, we've accomplished a lot in the Canadian market and the only market where recreational cannabis is legal in the world and at the same time, dealing with and growing our medical market and introducing more and more patients and consumers to the product. In regards to the U.S., listen, again, I'd like to see some better results coming out of our beverages business. But on the other hand, as you bring everything together since late 2020, and we're here where we are today, I see some good light at the end of the tunnel here of what we're building here and being the fourth largest craft brewer out there and the fourth largest craft beer business. There's been a lot of changes in the craft beer business, it's been a lot of changes in the beer business. And one thing I can tell you is I really feel we got the footprint right, we got the model right, and now we got the product right because we brought up a lot of SKUs. We have over 18 brands. We have over 900 distributors. We've had multiple people, multiple contracts out there that we had to deal with, whether it's buying kegs, cans, hops, et cetera. So as we bring all that together. In regards to our spirits business, you heard me talk about our depletions on Breckenridge being up. We've dealt with lots of distributor transition out there with RNDC, now being acquired by Reyes, which is good news for us, and it's something that we will consolidate into the new Reyes distribution system. In regards to some other changes in the market, it's something we're going to do. But what I'm really happy about and seeing our Breckenridge, some of the new stuff that we're really coming out with in regards to our tequilas, our drinks with moonshot -- our Mountain Shot, it isn't moonshot. Some of our non-alc drinks and some of our products there. But it's great to see some of the stabilization that's going to happen in regard to the distribution business. Listen, this industry is a difficult industry with a 3-tier system, and you can have the greatest products, but it's the distribution that you need. In regards to international, again, Rajnish and team have done some great things in regards to the international piece and the grower and dealing with the regulated market in regards to medical cannabis, dealing with permits when you ship out of the country or permits when you ship into the countries. And again, what we've had to do to get our Cantanhede facility up to the yields and up to the grow that we've done in Canada and up to being able to supply consistent product to the marketplace and back to Pablo's point before, that's something that Tilray now is going to be known for because if you think about it, look where our volumes are today and look where they were a year ago and how we've doubled in the quarter. So a lot to be proud of there. And again, there's a lot more that we're going to do in those marketplaces. We had to overcome Germany being only sold into the German government, which we're losing money and almost doubling the amount of production coming out of that facility. And now we're running Cantanhede probably at 50%, 60% capacity, and we have tremendous opportunities to grow more and more in our Cantanhede market. Really, the highlight is where we've come with CC Pharma. Where we are at 2%, 3% margins and closer to 5%, 6% margins now and really see the opportunity in that business and see opportunities from an integration standpoint and even seeing it grow throughout the rest of Europe. And last not -- well, our wellness business in regards to Manitoba Harvest, and the growth within that business and the growth in regards to some of the beverage businesses that's been in that business. Listen, we'll see what happens in regards to Delta-9, I think as you heard me say, there's three options out there, either 1 or 2 will happen. I'll be disappointed if it's 3. But again, we're out there in full force selling our products today that we have in the marketplace and sticking with it and out there lobbying the government to really take a hard look at that. So last but not least, on March 2, I just sort of want to step back one second in regards to Carlsberg as we announced our partnership with Carlsberg. And it's something I'm very proud of because I grew up in Carlsberg. It's a worldwide brand. It's one of the largest brewers out there. What a class organization to be associated with. I spent lots of time with the Carlsberg team. And it's tremendous what we can learn from Carlsberg. And what we have the ability to tap into their knowledge base, tap into their new products, tap into their marketing things. And I always say this here, when I grow up, I like just to be like Carlsberg. It's something that we aspire to, and having that for the U.S. and the U.S. being the biggest beer market in the world, Carlsberg is looking for some big things for us, and I promise we're not going to let them down. Last but not least, in regards to BrewDog. Listen, I looked at BrewDog numerous times throughout the years in the acquisition, I congratulate the founders for what they did in regards to building this brand and what they did in regards to opening up these beautiful brewpubs around the world today. And since 2015, and basically 10, 11 years what they've built. Unfortunately, not everything goes as planned. And Tilray, when it had the opportunity to participate in the administration to buy this without being able to do due diligence, the way we could, but we knew the brand, without being be able to go into data rooms and ended up buying this at a little over EUR 40 million is something that I'm excited about. But I always say it's not what you bought it for, it's what you do with it. And with that, there's a lot to do. And this changes a lot within Tilray in regards to our beverage business, our worldwide known of who Tilray is. You heard me say in my comments, that I've done lots of acquisitions, whether it's at Anheuser or here, and I've never had so many reach outs about the brand, BrewDog and the excitement that is. So we're pretty excited. It's just a month that we owned the business. We're in the midst of getting our hands around this. And one of the big things, this business as it was going through in administration was in the midst of either being shut down or sold in pieces or sold as a whole like us. So it's almost like we're starting this back up again, and getting it back up to capacity, getting the factories back up, making sure we have hops, where suppliers didn't get paid and there are ransom suppliers that we've got to do that. There was employees that had their resume on the streets that didn't know if they were going to have a job or not, and that's something that we've got to make sure. So stabilization, as I keep saying, is the key to this here. And with that, we will have in place great strategic plans to grow the business in the U.K., Ireland, we'll have great plans in place for Australia. In Europe markets, we'll have plans in place for a franchise and what we will do with our current brewpubs, and what we're going to do in the U.S. So there's a lot of exciting things with BrewDog that we can do and will do. And remember, there's a lot of heavy lifting there and how do we integrate it within our business. So with that, some exciting things happen at Tilray. Let me tell you, as I always say, there's 2x4s that hits you in the head every day. And that's something we live by and how do we deal with it. I want to thank everybody for getting on our call today and listening to us. Happy Passover, Happy Easter to everybody, and enjoy some good beer out there, enjoy some of our good cannabis and to March Madness. Hey, when you're watching March Madness this weekend, make sure you have one of our great beers that we produce out there. Thank you very much for listening to us today. Operator: This will conclude today's conference. You disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation. Have a wonderful day.