Thank you, and good morning, and welcome to our conference call for the presentation of the Q1 2026 results. My name is Niclas Bo Kristensen, I'm the Head of Investor Relations and Treasury.

As mentioned, this morning joining me is our CEO, Jörg Brinkmann, and our CFO, Bjarne Pedersen. Yesterday, the Q1 report and supporting documents were published and made available on our investor relations website.

During today's call, management will present the Q1 financial results followed by a Q&A session. Please note that this conference call is being recorded and will be made available on our investor relations website after the call.

Before handing the call over to Jörg, I would like to direct your attention to the disclaimer on page number 2. During this call, the executive board will share future plans and expectations for our business that go beyond historical facts.

These forward-looking statements rely on current assumptions and therefore come with certain risk and uncertainties as many factors could change their outcome. For more information about these risk, please see the 2025 annual report.

With that, over to you, Jörg.

Thank you Niclas and good morning everyone. Let's move to page 3 to give you an overview of the Q1 2026 results.

As discussed earlier this year, the year started with really severe weather conditions. Normally we always have winter and it's something normally we don't talk about, but these first 8 weeks of the year, they were really really quite tough from a weather point.

Why is that impacting us? Two points here: number 1, you simply cannot build houses and glue blocks together when it's freezing cold.

This is simply technically not possible and not allowed, there were a lot of construction sites that couldn't operate, i.e., our customers didn't call off volumes from our plants. That is the first thing.

Then the second thing, also the cold weather conditions had an impact on the plant network as such. You can imagine when it's double-digit minus degrees, we are operating with water and yeah, stuff freezes here, and simply some plants they couldn't run and get started.

We have two effects here: one is the demand side, but then also the supply side that impacted us in the first 8 weeks of the quarter. As a result, you'll see there's an organic growth of -15% and then this also leads to an EBITDA of 0.

That is nothing that got us out of the blue, was expected, but certainly impacted it and lead to a fairly weak start into the year. What you then also can see is the gearing went up to a level of 4.

It's a high number, but what's important is it's in line with our banking agreement, from that point also under control and managed. Next to weather, in February the war in Iran started.

Also this has an impact on our business. In what way?

Luckily not so much on the raw material side as we are sourcing locally, but certainly the energy prices started rising. We are hedged.

That's a good thing, but not fully. We need to really make sure that we're protecting our margins here, and the cost increases that we are seeing, that we're passing on that to the markets.

We are doing that in all markets where we are operating, also from that angle, it is a conflict no one needs, but it is an impact that is also well managed and under control. Then with better weather, March started really to turnaround.

We saw stronger volumes coming through, and then also margins going back on track. It was really an issue from the first 8 weeks of the year.

In summary, all the situation here is leads to a situation where we maintain the outlook for the full year. If we zoom in into the different markets and let's move to page 5 where we provide an overview of our business in Poland.

Page 4, sorry. When you look into the market development in Poland, actually it's quite quite a positive trend the market's on.

We see building permits going up by 7% for the first 3 months of this year compared to last year's first quarter, which is an encouraging sign. There's a little bit of a mix in there.

We see a stronger development in the 1-family houses and a little bit less weaker development in the multi-family houses, which has some implication for our products where the AAC is more for the 1-family and CSU is more for the multi-family. Overall, good momentum in the Polish market.

Reference rate is stable at 0375%. For sure we need to see what inflation will do with the conflict in Iran, but for now, still good conditions.

As I said, with better weather, we could see strong momentum in Poland and a really good development. When you look at the overview of the quarters, you'll see the first quarter was 15% lower, but still came in as 15% with 15% EBITDA margin.

You can see also from last year's quarter, our Polish business operates at 25% EBITDA margin, really strong and very healthy business. What also happened in early January, we were celebrating 20 years of our business in Poland, quite exciting.

We could announce the best year, 2025 was the best year in the history of the company in the last 20 years when it comes to earnings. This is really showing of what we have created there over the last couple of years.

Even though the volumes are still 20% lower than they were in 2022, it was the strongest result, which really shows that our restructure that we have done, all the HOME initiatives that we've implemented here are leading to strong earnings and strong returns. The latest project we've executed in Poland is our upgrade of the Puławy plant as part of our HOME initiatives, and want to give you a little bit of an insight here on page 5.

Can you turn to page 5? Thank you.

You have heard me talking about the HOME project, and part of HOME is continuous improvement and running our plants to lean standard, but it's also finding opportunities for debottlenecking of plants. This we've done here in our plant in Puławy, which is an hour away from Warsaw, really important plant to serve that important Warsaw market for us.

We've closed the plant around winter for 8 weeks, extended autoclaves, heating chambers, really did a lot of upgrades here, a lot of automation, and all with the effect of 20% more capacity. The plant was down for 8 weeks.

We've reopened it in week 7, and here you can also see the ramp-up curve. We are very very happy with that investment.

It's performing really well, and we've built a plant that now is able to do 20% more volume, which is really needed from the demand side to serve the greater Warsaw area. From that angle, good investment, interesting payback, on time, and this is the spirit of HOME, and you're going to see us doing these kind of things further.

It's fairly manageable, low capex with very interesting payback, leading to growth and better earnings. This is in nature of our investments, and we have a lot of more potential in other plants when we see demand developing accordingly.

From Poland to UK on page 6. Let me start with the building registrations first.

What you can see is if you compare the quarters, there's the registrations fall by 8%, but on a very high level last year Q1. This is something we need to keep in mind.

Overall, we see a flat development in the UK, not a cooling off, and this is also supported by the sales rate the big housebuilders are reporting. This gives us good indication of where the market is trending.

From that angle, we see a rather flat development in the UK. For sure, also the Q1 was impacted by weather, revenue fall 23% compared to last year Q1, and thus also the earnings were weak in the first quarter.

However, when you look at the EBITDA development over 2025, you see quarter-on-quarter improving, which is basically coming from our HOME initiative, where you can see that margins developing towards the 15% EBITDA level. What we're doing is really fostering the partnerships with our customers.

We are by far a leading supplier in the UK, and that is why we are working very closely with our partners not only to fulfill current sales rate, but also to find new applications for our products and then gaining more share of wallet. This is how we define partnership in the UK.

From there, the ambition is to grow above the market trend, and there's good proof actually that this is also doable. From UK over to our Central Western Europe region on page 7.

When we started looking into the year actually, the development of building permits were quite exciting, we saw a 10% improvement on building permits in the beginning of the year. It's early signs, but it goes in the right direction.

However, when you rank all building markets in Europe, Germany is still the weakest of all of them, and that certainly tells us something about the situation in Germany as such. What is underlying is really the general economy in Germany and consumer confidence is really low, and that is why I'd say from all our markets, this is still the most challenging despite we very much appreciate the first signs of more permits coming through.

In Germany, we are rebuilding the organization. We've moved into the regional setups and really focusing on improving our business on a regional level.

We see some regions improving, some still have a way to go, but overall there is progress in Germany and this is our focus to really establish these stronger regional setups here. For us, the focus is on cash.

We are making good progress with the asset sale program, but then also, and this here you can see that from the Q1 results here, despite the revenue was on similar level like the Q4 2025 results, we were destocking in the first quarter. There were a couple of plants we weren't running on purpose.

We had full stockyards and the focus is then on cash generation, and that then leads also to a negative EBITDA. As I said, focus is clearly on cash generation from the area and then step-by-step, improving the business into this regional stronger setup.

Central Western Europe is more than Germany. When you look a little bit outside, Switzerland is part of it, developed nicely with very strong results.

Then also there's good market momentum in our Benelux market. That is also when we look into the region, there's more than Germany.

However, the overall task for Germany is to turn this around into something that is first, cash positive, and then second, continuous contributing to group earnings in the future. With that, handing over the call to Bjarne, who'll give you more insights into our financial performance.

Thank you Jörg, and good morning to everyone on the call. On the next slide, we have a zoom-in on the top line on the group level.

The sales volume, they are shown on the left-hand side, and the aggregate number of what Jörg talked us through is that we are 15% down on volume when we compare to Q1 last year. All of that related to the weather situation, and of course also the more regional initiatives we're taking in Germany, but it is the weather that is the headline.

When we do the comparison, as you saw on the previous pages, in particular UK has had a tough comparison last year. When we take the volume into currencies, we have the stacked charts on the right-hand side.

Organic growth was -15%, the revenue was in total down 17%, prices were flat-ish compared to the first quarter last year. The 2 extra percent you get that as an effect from the FX, and then also the mix of the countries where Poland had this stronger rebound than the other regions, the share of the total revenue was more driven by Poland, which has a lower sales price compared to the other regions.

If we take the top line and turn that into the profit levers, we can on the next slide see that the gross profit was down into the region we also indicated in our previous communication, DKK gross profit of 73 million and the margins of course being at a level which is far beyond our aspirations, but it all comes from the weather effect. This quarter is probably also a little bit of, let's say, an educational piece of how our business is running.

For example, when a stockyard is full, the plant cannot run, there we get a double whammy: if we don't have the sales and cannot produce either, we don't get absorption of the fixed cost, and that is very visible here in the first quarter. Then also the general weather conditions, as Jörg explained, also makes it sometimes technical impossible to produce.

With the limited flexibility in the current situation, we still had to absorb the fixed costs. With a low plant utilization, both earnings and margins being down.

On the right-hand side, you see the EBITDA buildup per region. As we see, Poland delivering satisfactory, UK being hit in particularly compared to the previous quarter, but we need to bear in mind that we saw the slowdown in the UK in the fourth quarter.

We did continue to produce because then we build up some stock and then we could take out some shifts in the first quarter of 2026. Again, you see the magnitude between the two quarters in the earning as an impact from our production decisions.

For CWE, referring again to Jörg's comment, we are fully aware that is a critical point, and we're continuing to work diligently on that, and this current quarter just shows that there's a way to go. If we turn the earnings into the cash flow, Niclas, you have a slide coming on the next page.

Thank you Bjarne. Zooming in on cash flow a little bit.

Cash flow from operations was negative in the period, which primarily reflected lower EBITDA, seasonal net working capital movements, including customer bonus payouts and payments of restructuring costs in Germany related to last year. This was partly offset by destocking activities in the quarter in contrast to a stockbuild, which is normal seasonal pattern for our business.

On the financing side, tax expense was impacted by a one-off payment. Capex totaled 17 million DKK, resulting in a free cash flow of negative 132 million DKK for the period.

We expect cash flow at year end to be positive, including proceeds from sale of assets. That leads to a net interest-bearing debt at DKK 935 million as of end of March, equal to an increase of 133 million DKK.

That gives a net debt to EBITDA ratio of 4.1 against 2.7 at the end of Q4 last year. As Jörg mentioned, and also reference in our annual report, we have a banking agreement in place that supports this situation.

If we move to the next slide, we have an update on our outlook. There are no changes to our outlook.

Outlook for 2026 is an organic growth of -5 to 0%, EBIT before special items will be in the range of 50 to 100 million DKK, and on the housekeeping side, we assume capex between 100 and 100 and between 100 and 120 million. With that, I will now hand it over to Jörg, who will finish the presentation with a few final remarks.

Please turn to page 12.

Before I open up for questions, let me summarize really four takeaways. First, Q1 is certainly, and Bjarne said that, is beyond our expectations, but the weather really impacted us from two angles: demand and the supply side.

It was expected. Second, since March, we see activities improving with the weather opening, especially in Poland, and strong momentum again, and that gets us back on track, and that is also supporting our full-year outlook.

What we're doing is really building and continuing our businesses in Poland and the UK. We are working on with the customers.

We are driving our HOME initiatives as you can see from the Puławy example here, and this is how we are continuously improving our businesses and our margin levels, ensuring always that we have supply ahead of demand, and that is the ratio we are balancing. Then finally in Germany, different ticket here.

Germany is still on transformation. We have the right structure in place now, but now it's really about to build these stronger regional positions, which will take some time.

The first target is to make sure it contributes with positive cash flow, and from there step-by-step making sure that also the German operations help to improve our group earnings. With that, let me open to the call for questions.

Thank you very much, and hi Jörg, Bjarne, Niclas, and thank you for taking my questions. If I may start on a question regarding the rising input costs.

I was wondering if you could give us a ballpark figure on how much you've seen so far, how much you expect input costs to go up, and also then the size of any price increase that you have already announced so far or would need to announce to mitigate this increase.

Good morning, Anders, and thanks for your question. We talked about the energy previously, where we are big consumers of gas and electricity.

There we have a hedging in place, and the hedging profile aims at striking a certain amount of certainty so we are able to protect our margins, but at the same time not hedge so much that a potential volume decline leads us into a take-or-pay scenario which will be adverse for the company. When you look into that cost category, you can always discuss what you expect for the rest of the year, but let's say that for the last 10 9, 10 months of the year, we see a 50% increase on that.

In rough numbers, the same on the in particular outbound transport. Those are the two main categories.

That is, if you measure it against the total cost, you would see maybe around a 3% or something. It is not something that completely puts us off the chart.

With a fairly good amount hedged, when are able to pass on the remaining part of the increases to the customers. From a P&L point of view, we don't see it has an impact.

We more rather see it as a, let's say, an operational topic that we are managing. If you're looking at the other categories, most of that is locked in on annual contracts, we have to go through more force majeure situations in order for those to be reopened.

Or and then that would typically be if there is a very big change on the energy market or there could be some supply chain disruptions, but that is only limited to a very small part of our categories, mainly being foil, which is oil-driven. That would be the main category, and in the overall spend, that is a fairly small part of our cost.

Thank you very much. What I'm hearing you saying is that if the current input costs continue at this level throughout the year, a period where you are less hedged as well, you would need to raise your prices low single-digits, correct understood?

That's correct, Anders. The point is, we are monitoring that monthly, and it's also the agreement we have with our customers because that's only fair that we are also adjusting these energy surcharges on a regular level.

It's current view, but this situation might get worse, but might also improve. Depending on where this is going, we keep that flexibility and in a partnership way passing that on to the market, and also when this situation is changing, taking that off, yeah.

All right, thank you very much. Then going back to the guidance, one of the assumptions for the guidance I see is that there are no changes to the macroeconomic or geopolitical conditions, yet I would find it a bit reasonable I would say to assume that we have seen some changes, and most of your peers are flagging this as well.

You also flag it referring to the interest rate being maintained in the UK, whereas a rate cut would have most likely been expected in your guidance previously. Just to get an understanding if you can put some more words on why you've decided to maintain the full-year guidance.

Overall, the changes we've seen have not had a big impact for what we're seeing right now. As we indicate with the input costs, yeah, there will be some extra pass-on to the customers, but again, if we're talking less than 2%, even within the organic growth span, we are not out of the band.

We're moving a little bit upwards, but that's it. On the more macro level, it's quite blurry, you can say, but we have not in the marketplace seen anything change significantly that give reason to change our guidance for the time being.

Thank you very much, Bjarne. Just a final question for me before I jump back.

Are there any news on the asset sales that you want to have made here in '26, and potentially also some comments on the ongoing consolidation strategy in Germany, that is closure of plants, etc.?

As mentioned in the annual report, we have these asset held for sale. We have some processes running, and we are confident that we are going to harvest what was set out in our expectations from the beginning of the year, also in relation to the cash flow and the comments from Niclas a little bit earlier.

All right. Thank you very much.

Good morning, Jörg, Bjarne, and Niclas, and thank you also for taking my questions. First, I would like to ask on the sort of throughout the quarter developments.

I appreciate your comments around that you had a tough start to the year with the first 8 weeks being particularly hit by the poor weather, but could you maybe provide a sort of better picture of how growth develops year-on-year throughout the quarter? What I'm particularly looking for here is the exit rate that gives you the conviction on meeting the full-year guidance after a very soft start to the year.

Our guidance is of course built on the full year, and the blurriness I was referring to is that in the phase of, let's say, March, April, there is a kind of a vacuum based on the low sales in January, February because developers need to complete projects and so on. When we are through the second quarter, we have a more clean picture of how much has been a catch-up effect and what is the underlying run rate.

With the guidance assumptions, we see that we will remain in negative territory on the organic growth also when we come out of the second quarter. On earnings level, we should probably be best case at a zero year-to-date when we are in half year.

That is, let's say, kind of a process we're working through right now, and then get more clarity from both the market side and the macro setup on how we then see the second half. With the assumptions and the customer feedback we have right now, we are confident about our guidance.

Just for context, Bjarne, is there any sort of comparison effects that we should look at here considering that you implicitly imply a step-up in H2? Is that benign comparison from last year or is it pricing effects or how does that work?

No, we expect to progress the volumes. We don't see that the market situation allows for big movements on the pricing side.

We know that with the pass-through of the energy cost, we want to do that and we are firm on that, and we see some competitors in some regions being less firm on that, so that's a part of, let's say, the daily management of that. It is that the markets are building back.

We have the positive outlook for UK where we expect to be able to grow above the market growth, and in Poland, we have seen the falling permits in the second half of last year. It seems to be returning a little bit in the permit side now, and that should also give reason for a reasonable volume development in the second half.

It's not that we think go through the roof, but if we don't get any major setback from the macro environment, we're confident that we're going to progress on a reasonable basis.

Thank you. Moving on to the topic of pricing, you talked a bit around it here.

What's written in the report is you see a quote, 'stable pricing environment', and also it looks like the ASP for the quarter is roughly flat year-on-year. I guess this is not good enough considering that you have to pass on, as you said, low single-digit price increases.

However, you've previously in prior quarters alluded to a sort of deteriorating pricing environment. You touched a bit upon it now, but just trying to get my head around what you're seeing in terms of the pricing environment.

Has the uptick in energy prices, has it sort of provided some more discipline in the market or what are you seeing?

Look, it's really market by market, yeah. There's pricing discipline in Poland, pricing discipline in the UK.

The energy situation, just consider it started end of February, right? You can't see that in the Q1 numbers, but it is something we started implementing in March, we started announcing that in March, you want to see that in the Q2.

Then Germany, we do the same thing here. The energy pass-through is something that is a principle in our company here, and that is we're executing that everywhere.

However, when you look at pricing discipline and also the challenging environment, then Germany is most likely the most challenging market we have, right? There is still high underutilization of plants.

There is competitors, yeah, going after volume, and that is impacting the price level as such in Germany. That situation hasn't changed despite clear commitment to pass on energy cost.

That's very clear. Thank you, Jörg.

Then my last question, I'll just ask about the sort of rationale for providing more transparency on the underlying profitability across your geographic segments. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining here, but I'm just positively surprised.

Maybe a few words on the rationale behind this disclosure and also, why only provide numbers back to Q1 '25? Why not go further than that?

Bjarne can take the technical side of it, but yeah, I'm glad you say that you're not negatively surprised. Would wonder if there's more information.

The point is really, I think it's important we were showing numbers the group without Germany, yeah. We were showing that earlier because I really think it's important to understand the different business dynamics here.

The markets are on different tracks. The environment is different, and I think this is important when we talk about that, that we also provide that transparency.

In a nutshell, I'd say we have really good businesses that are performing in the UK and Poland, and we have a business in Germany that needs transformation and is in change from a big nationwide organization into a regional setup, yeah. I think it's important to, number 1, first of all, see these structural differences, also for valuation, and second, to also track the progress a little bit and the progress a little bit better.

That is why we've decided to give that more insight because, again, the companies have different yeah, it's different market environment, but then also different maturity of the organization as such.

Okay. That was it for me.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for everyone dialing in into our Q1 earnings call, and have a great rest of week. Thank you.

Bye-bye.