Thank you. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening to everyone.

Welcome to Bureau Veritas' first-quarter 2026 revenue presentation, and thank you for attending this call. I'm joined by François Chabas, our Chief Financial Officer.

This quarter, Bureau Veritas delivered a steady performance in a changing macroeconomic environment, reflecting continued momentum in the execution of our LEAP | 28 strategy. I'd like to thank our teams worldwide for their commitment and contribution.

I would like now to go through our Q1 revenue performance. Revenue reached €1.5 billion.

Organic revenue growth stood at 4.5%. While this quarter is slightly below historical organic growth averages, I'm pleased to see that a number of our businesses are delivering on or above expectations, offsetting the impact of project delays and the Middle East disruptions on others.

External growth contributed 1.8% from recent bolt-on acquisitions, largely offset by last year disposals. We expect the recent mid-sized acquisition, LotusWorks, to take effect in half two 2026.

As expected, the appreciation of the euro against most currencies led to a negative currency impact of 5.2% in the quarter. I will elaborate further on our new full-year growth guidance at the end of this presentation.

I'd like to say, though, that this year is shaped by complex geopolitics and our decision to exit specific contracts in the subsegment Government Services. Moving now to our revenue performance by business and geography.

From a business perspective, Marine & Offshore and Buildings & Infrastructure delivered the strongest organic growth in the high single-digit to double-digit range. Marine & Offshore delivered 11.2% organic growth, supported by strong new build activity as the global fleet modernization continues.

Buildings & Infrastructure grew 7.3%, demonstrating the value of our recent portfolio expansion, with data centers up more than 30% organically year on year. The rest of the portfolio posted low to mid single-digit growth, with the lowest growth in Agri-Food & Commodities and Industry, reflecting tougher comparables and project delays and disruptions from the Middle East conflict for the latter.

From a geographical standpoint, Asia Pacific delivered strong growth of 7.9%, driven by solid momentum across the region, primarily in China, Korea, and Australia. The Middle East and Africa delivered a resilient 5.5% while navigating disruptions across operations in the Gulf Cooperation countries.

Europe continued to outperform GDP with organic growth of 3.4%. In the Americas, growth reached 1.7% with a strong growth in North and Central America, offset by contract delays and end of contracts in Latin America.

I would like now to give you a quick update on the Middle East. We have 10 countries impacted across the region, and I'm pleased to report that our people and their families are safe, and our facilities and laboratories did not sustain any damage.

These countries account for 6% of group revenue, with activities distributed across Industry, Agri-Food & Commodities, and Buildings & Infrastructure for the most part. The security situation varies by country, impacting operations in different ways.

We work closely every day with our customers to maintain business continuity in a safe way. I would like now to give you an update on LEAP | 28 strategy execution.

A few words first on the AI-driven secular trend. The technology race we're witnessing in this age of intelligence will have a profound impact on reindustrialization and urbanization.

In addition, the rapid development of AI and the associated needs in computing capacity and data storage are fueling a massive build-up phase for data centers and semiconductors manufacturing. These dynamics translate into significant capex commitments from hyperscalers and others and chips manufacturers, particularly with the rapid build-up in the Americas and Europe.

Just on the right there on the slide, you can see that data center capital expenditure is projected to rise 17% annually from 2023 to 2030 across the world. Semiconductor manufacturing capex spend in the Americas and EMEA is expected to grow at a CAGR of 8% from '24 to '29, highlighting a multi-year investment cycle.

Taking that into account and specifically looking at Buildings & Infrastructure, B&I represents 30% of our portfolio today. It's our biggest market and a leading business in our expand leadership stream of the LEAP | 28 strategy.

The B&I strategy is built around three clear growth areas: building capex, building opex, and infrastructure. I would like to focus on buildings capex, which represents 38% of the divisional revenues.

Our strategy is to expand our capabilities in code compliance and to increase our position in mission-critical assets. These assets, such as data centers, semiconductor fabs, and high-performance facilities, are complex, highly regulated, and have high expectations of operational performance and uptime.

These factors naturally drive higher testing, inspection, and certification intensity. The acquisition of LotusWorks will significantly reinforce our exposure to these mission-critical segments.

About LotusWorks, LotusWorks brings highly complementary technical expertise that significantly enhances our end-to-end service offering across mission-critical assets, from construction phase through to the operations phase. Together, we are building a platform of around €300 million in revenues fully dedicated to mission-critical assets, such as data centers and semiconductor facilities.

This platform, when put together, will represent roughly 15% of our B&I revenue and will materially strengthen our positioning in high-growth markets. This acquisition will also support Bureau Veritas' organic growth, will be accretive to the group's adjusted operating margin, and slightly accretive to earnings as early as '26.

I will now pass it on to François to share some financials.

Thank you, Hinda. Good afternoon, everyone.

We do a bit of a deep dive on the numbers. In the first quarter, as you see on that page, we delivered a revenue of €1.55 billion.

Organic growth was robust at 4.5%. Bolt-on acquisition closed in past quarters contributed 1.8% to the growth, mainly in the B&I and Industry segments, where we have reinforced our positions in Europe in particular.

Divestments accounted for -1.9%. As you may remember, as part of our active portfolio management, we have divested in 2025 our food testing activity business and part of our technical supervision services in China at the end of 2025.

On a net basis, scope had a marginal impact of -0.1% in the first quarter. Currency, still a headwind this quarter at -5.2%, which mainly due to the strength of the euro against the usual suspects, key currency: US dollar, Chinese renminbi, Australian dollar, and Canadian dollar.

I think the good news is if we assume the current spot rates, we expect the FX drag to ease significantly from Q2 onwards. If you remember, those currencies moved against the euro following the announcement of tariff 12 months ago.

We are now coming out of this comparison phase. We expect Q2 and the rest of the year to be much better at current spot rates, of course.

If we have a look now at our business performance in the first quarter, both on organic and scope aspects, total being constant currency on the right. Marine & Offshore, it's another very, very strong quarter, double-digit organic growth, bit more than 11%, driven in particular by new construction, as Hinda mentioned.

Second element, we're happy and pleased to see Building & Infrastructure delivering strong growth of 7.3% organically, 8.2% at constant currency. The revenue growth is led here on three, is structured around three main aspects that will be further developed: one, data center and mission-critical commissioning services; two, an increased demand for infrastructure-related services; and three, the contribution from recent acquisitions, as mentioned, specifically in Australia and Europe, which are now slowly getting into the organic contribution in terms of revenue bytes.

Consumer Products, 4.3%, driven by the recovery of our Technology business. We bottomed out, as I think we told you during our February call.

We are now back into the positive here. Certification with an organic growth of 2.3%.

March exit rate was encouraging, reflecting steady demand for assurance and compliance services. Agri-Food & Commodities delivered 2.1%.

Finally, Industry growth was limited to 0.7% organically, but we reached almost 3% at constant currencies. It reflects the recent reinforcement of our portfolio offering, in particular in nuclear-related services and power generation services.

Organically, let's face it, we faced tougher comparable in Q1. If you remember, we delivered, I believe, almost above 40%, 14% growth in Q1 '25, as well as some impact from the Middle East situation.

Here, we expect a sequential acceleration throughout the year 2026. I will now hand over back to Hinda for giving you more elements on business highlights of the quarter.

Thanks François. Let's start with the Marine & Offshore.

The division continued its strong momentum in Q1 '26, delivering 11.2% organic growth, reinforcing the excellent momentum we have seen actually over last few years. Looking at it by subsegment, new construction once again posted strong double-digit growth, supported by accelerating deliveries and the capacity expansion that we have talked about with the new shipyards coming online.

The order backlog is solid. We have reached 33.6 million gross tons, up essentially 24% year on year.

Now looking at the opex activities or the core in-service activities as we call them, that grew modestly considering the tough comparables we have, but the fleet continues to expand with some key new wins, as you can see on the slide more recently. The marine sector continues to transform fast, and we are developing solutions to support rapidly digitalizing ships.

We have recently partnered with the Hong Kong Shipping Company to class an augmented ship. If we look at Agri-Food & Commodities, the business delivered 2.1% organic growth in the first quarter with contrasting dynamics across subsegments.

Oil and petrochemicals faced a challenging environment and delivered a modest organic contraction, driven by trade disruptions in the Middle East. The impact was partly offset by volumes redirected through alternative routes and in other markets.

Metals and minerals continued to perform well, delivering high single-digit organic growth. Activity was sustained in gold and copper, and also we have seen higher exploration spending.

The deployment of new laboratory services, on-site laboratory services, also contributed to this performance. The agri subsegment contracted in the quarter, reflecting volatile global trade work flows.

Moving on to Industry, the division delivered 0.7% organic growth in the quarter, an aggregate performance with different dynamics across the subsegments. Additionally, the Middle East conflict and opex project delays were two important factors in the performance this quarter.

If we look at oil and gas, it achieved mid single-digit organic growth, supported by double-digit growth in the capex activities, with several important inspection and technical support contracts secured both in the Middle East and Latin America. Opex activities were temporarily impacted by conflict-related delays in the Middle East and by reduced activity in Latin America.

I'd like to add that some of the opex delays actually predated the Middle East conflict itself. Power and utilities delivered low single-digit organic contraction, reflecting the postponements of major inspections in the Middle East.

Solid capex momentum is maintained, and we have seen a mid to high single-digit organic growth there, sustained by spend in renewables and nuclear projects. As an example, Bureau Veritas was selected to perform quality assurance and regulatory compliance second-party inspections at a major European nuclear fusion project.

In the industrial product certification, we delivered high single-digit organic growth, supported by pressure vessels and increased demand for machinery. I would like to finish this update on Industry by saying that customer spend remains robust, driven by growing energy needs and increased concerns around security of supply.

The Middle East conflict provides a catalyst for increased spend across all energy sources in the rest of the world. This quarter should represent the trough of the industry activity, and we expect growth recovery from Q2 onwards.

Moving on to Buildings & Infrastructure, the division was once again among the strongest performers this quarter, delivering 7.3% organic growth in Q1. This performance is a result of portfolio pivots that we have completed over the last 24 months, coupled with a solid backlog and a sustained demand for capex services.

The buildings capex delivered double-digit growth, driven primarily by multi-year data center projects with a strong momentum in the United States. Buildings opex achieved low single-digit growth with a steady growth in our largest market, France, from increased volumes and high demand for energy-efficient services.

The US activities were more focused on asset condition assessments. Infrastructure recorded high single-digit growth, supported by government-led programs in Europe, strong momentum across North America and Asia-Pac, and continued large-scale projects in the Middle East.

Turning to Certification, the division delivered 2.3% organic growth in the first quarter against challenging comparables, with momentum improving in March. Performance was temporarily impacted by some timing effects of schemes and specific contract terminations or scope reductions.

Looking at the different subsegments, the QHSE and specialized schemes posted moderate organic growth, while demand remained robust for customized, voluntary, and transition-related certification programs. For sustainability and digital certification, it continued to perform well, delivering high single-digit organic growth, driven by rising demand for carbon assessments, ESG services, and supply chain-related services, as well as a solid momentum in cybersecurity certification in Europe.

Overall, Certification continues to benefit from strong structural drivers in assurance, sustainability, and risk management, supporting a pick-up from Q2 onwards. During the quarter, we secured a contract to perform ESG performance and supplier audits for a large European hospitality company.

Lastly, turning to Consumer Products Services, the division delivered 4.3% organic growth in the first quarter. Softlines, toys, and hardlines demonstrated resilience despite very strong comparables from pull-ins ahead of tariffs last year.

Technology services performed particularly well, delivering double-digit organic growth as the electrical and electronic platforms develops in East and Asia from acquisitions we have completed in the last 24 months. Finally, transition services within this division continued to expand.

In the first quarter, we were selected to provide social audit support for a major US retailer. Now, prior to talking about the outlook, I'd like to come back to the decisions linked to certain activities that we have taken this quarter.

Pursuant to internal alerts, the company has conducted investigations that uncovered compliance deviations in the Middle East and Africa region, mostly in Africa, and primarily in the Government Services legacy subsegment. We have proposed several remedial measures needed in the short and medium term to our board of directors.

At its meeting on April 21st, the board of directors supported and approved all of these actions. First, the company took the decision to immediately and voluntarily disclose the situation to the French authorities in a spirit of transparency and cooperation.

We will provide an update on the financial consequences of this deviations and disclosures as soon as we can do so. Furthermore, the company will terminate the contracts in question and will continue the in-depth review of its activities within the Government Services legacy subsegment, which represented €185 million in revenue in '25, to determine the appropriate terms of exit from this subsegment.

As a result, we have updated our full 2026 growth outlook. I'd like to say that our existing compliance framework will be reinforced to ensure that all activities fully adhere to the group's ethics and compliance standards.

We have implemented disciplinary measures, and Bureau Veritas is committed to implementing all necessary measures to prevent the reoccurrence of such events. Turning now to the outlook.

Complex geopolitics and an uncertain macro environment are shaping 2026, in addition to the launch of an in-depth review of the terms of an exit from the group's Government Services legacy subsegments, as I explained earlier, in particular, after we have decided to terminate certain contracts in the Middle East and Africa region. We have therefore updated the guidance for full-year '26 as follows: on the growth side, mid single-digit organic revenue growth; on the margin side, improvement in adjusted operating margin at constant exchange rates; and on the cash side, strong cash flow generation.

The group is fully committed to the LEAP | 28 financial guidance, benefiting from favorable market trends and from the sustained execution of LEAP | 28 portfolio and performance programs. I would like to close now on this first-quarter performance.

A number of factors, including project delays in various parts of the world, the conflict in the Middle East, and very challenging comparables in key divisions, contributed to what we consider a low point in our growth journey. We have a solid backlog, sound and scalable execution capabilities, and ongoing performance programs that will all contribute to what we expect to be a recovery throughout the year.

Our business model is resilient, with a well-balanced mix of activities, our portfolio composition continues to evolve, and we have a solid financial position. On the LEAP | 28 strategy front, I'm pleased with the progress achieved so far around our portfolio priorities.

The acquisition of LotusWorks is a significant milestone as we accelerate the build-up of new platforms for future growth. We have proactively disclosed a compliance event that is triggering certain Government Services contract terminations.

Based on that, we have accelerated an in-depth review of this legacy subsegment activities to determine the appropriate terms of exit. Bureau Veritas is committed to the highest standards of ethics and integrity in the conduct of its activities anywhere in the world.

I would like to finish by saying that our updated full-year 2026 revenue growth guidance is only a temporary step out of our LEAP | 28 path. I reiterate our commitment to our 2028 financial ambition.

Thank you for your attention, and François and I are now ready to take your questions.

Hi. Good afternoon, Hinda.

Good afternoon, François. I have two questions, please.

Firstly, regarding the downgrade to your full-year organic guidance, could you elaborate just on how much of the downgrade is more macro-driven, i.e. you're seeing slower-than-expected activity in some of your end markets, even beyond the Middle East, and how much is simply the exit of those contracts that you referenced?

From memory, you typically start the year with the vast majority of your revenues locked in, I'm just curious as to what has significantly changed in the last couple of months, as I said, beyond the Middle East. Then secondly, regarding the investigation into the Government Services subsegment, you've mentioned in your remarks implementing additional compliance controls.

How confident are you that this is an isolated situation within the group? To that end, are you planning any additional compliance checks or business reviews across the rest of your portfolio?

Thank you.

Thank you, Annelies. Let me start with the second question, and I'll get back to the first one.

I think this is still an ongoing investigation. There are a number of things we cannot share.

I would like to say that our actually compliance programs are effective in finding such deviations. Therefore, we have an organic way of finding this, and we have been very clear in our approach to this issue.

We investigated, we voluntarily are disclosing to the authorities, and based on our findings, we're stopping some contracts. This is a clear case of compliance for us.

We did what we will do in these cases. Now, the fact that we are considering the exit from Government Services in many ways is a natural thing.

I have mentioned in my prepared remarks that this is a legacy segment. This is a business we had for a very long time.

It's low growth. It is subscale.

It's a segment that fits in our bucket of optimized value and impact. The fact that we had to stop these contracts because of this particular case, as I've mentioned, really in a way accelerated a review that we would have got to at some point.

There is no major drama here. This is us acting on that information we have found.

I'm quite confident that as we learn from this investigation, we'll implement the necessary measures to ensure such events do not reoccur. On the first one, well, again, because we are in the middle of this, and also because the contract terminations will take a certain time that we are not able to tell you right now, because the key thing that Bureau Veritas focuses on is business continuity for our customers and finding an orderly and professional way to exit these contracts or terminate them, it's really very hard to give you an exact number there.

I think at this point, we'll just stay on that, Annelies.

Okay. Thank you.

The change in the guidance is those exits, it's not that you're seeing slower activity elsewhere in the business?

No, I think that the change in guidance, it is the impact of these contracts, absolutely. There is, of course, the fact that we have a very uncertain situation around the world.

I've mentioned a few times in my prepared remarks that we have project delays. These project delays are a bit everywhere, and we want to make sure that we take that into account as we revisited our plans for the year.

Very clear. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, thanks. I've got three questions, please.

I just wonder if I could follow up on the Government Services and just ask if you could give us the revenue number for what you've exited, and whether the margin profile is different for Government Services as a whole versus group. The second thing was just looking at group organic growth, if you could give a split of price versus volume.

Then finally, just thinking about M&A and optionality and news flow we've had recently, just wonder how the board thinks about deals and whether potentially revisiting discussions from late '24 or early '25 would ever come back on the table. Thanks.

All right. Thank you for the questions.

I'm going to let François take the first one. Go ahead, François.

Yes, thanks for the question. If we frame this a little bit, the Government Services we disclose, it's 3% of the group revenue, €185 million.

It's a subsegment. As a matter of fact, we do not disclose margin by subsegment or for any subsegment, in particular in this business where the competition landscape is super restricted.

The overall impact is captured in the guidance. You've seen we haven't changed guidance on margins, so that's should reassure you.

Then I think that's very clear when it comes to the process to review various exit options, at that stage, we take a cautious look at it with due respect to clients and employees. That's why we have a broader guidance, whether it's revenue or margin, that's encapsulates various options for which today we don't have certainty, but which are broad enough that we know we'd be able to stick to those guidance as we speak.

When it comes to the price-volume, we start to see a bit of discussion about inflation coming back, not that easy, though, for various reasons. We elaborate if you wish.

At that stage, we haven't changed our plans for the year, meaning one-third inflation, two-thirds volumes on a full-year basis, really, on a full-year basis. That's where we are.

Again, if you want to further elaborate, be patient, be happy to do so.

All right. On the third question, on the M&A and optionality, I think we've been clear, and it's very important to reiterate that.

We have two streams in our M&A. We have the bolt-on stream, which we will continue to do very opportunistically based on the gaps we have, be it on capabilities or in terms of geographies on different businesses.

That will continue, and it's a very well-oiled machine in terms of gaps. The other stream we had is mid-sized acquisitions, and we tend to essentially put that between €100 million and €500 million, mostly to build new platforms.

The LotusWorks acquisition fits exactly into that. We have, at this point, no plan to change that approach, but of course, we're watching very carefully what's happening today in the market.

As to coming back to

late

cases in '24, that's not the case. Thank you.

Thanks.

Hi, thank you for taking my questions. I have three quick one.

First one, we see 5.5% organic growth in Middle East, which is quite impressive. Do you have an idea of how much growth you left on the table because of Middle East disruption, in your view or let's say versus your previous budget before Middle East disruption?

Second question, when you did the full-year '25 call, you mentioned your willingness to double the portfolio rotation versus what was done the last two years. At this stage, had you already the Government Services in mind in your portfolio rotation?

Did you already know or had the alert of potential wrongdoing in this division? Can you also reassure us on the financial impact, meaning that you will asset only the potential exit and not any accounting fraud that might trigger, let's say, treasury impact?

The third point and last question, on your new guidance on sales, this new mid single-digit target, is it will include the Government Services that would be probably exited or run off, or will it be stripped out? Thank you very much.

Sorry, Geoffroy, could you repeat the last question? I didn't hear that properly.

Yes, on the mid single-digit new target that you have, is it including the Government Services business within your portfolio or will it be stripped out of your portfolio? Thank you.

Right. François, you want to take the first?

On the business impact, if you've seen, you're questioning here about the impact in March, I think the big scheme of things, we had a bit of impact on the Industry segment and, to a lesser extent, on the B&I segment, as well as on the oil and petroleum testing within Agri-Food & Commodities. I think the bulk of the impact in March has been led to disruption in Industry and Agri-Food & Commodities.

What we see today, it's the activity is getting back, I would not say to normal in April, but with less disruptions in the industry field where we can go and visit refineries and such locations. The food testing business remains subdued.

How much we've left, I think we know by the end of June a little bit, but not a vast amount at that stage. I think what we indicate when it comes to Middle East disruption is more for the year to come is more, broader disruptions in the global economy, because most of what we have technically left on the table in Q1 are opex-related services that we'll have to happen in the year and testing of petrochemicals flows, which we move, if not from the Middle East, then somewhere else.

This we would recoup anyhow, mostly in Q2, Q3, or Q4. Broader disruption is something which is more difficult to assess, and it has to deal with the global economy here.

That answers the first point. Just precision on the financial impact and accounting fraud, just for everyone to be very clear on this, we gave you an update on the financial consequences of this compliance events as soon as we can do so.

For now, it is way too early to make more comments. To answer bluntly to your question, there is no accounting problems.

All right. Thanks, François.

On the third question, the question is whether Government Services is included in the numbers, it's removed from the numbers. Just to be clear, I couldn't hear the question.

Geoffroy, just

to be clear on the question, I think, Geoffroy, you asked if the new guidance was including the, as Hinda mentioned, the exiting of the contract. The answer is yes, it does include the exiting of the contract.

It is removed.

That means we don't follow numbers, there will be no such numbers, but it's part of the guidance. In case of doubts, you can channel your further questions to Laurent.

We'll be happy to answer them with all level of detail. It's within, but being removed.

Yes.

Good afternoon, and thank you for taking my questions. Just a quick one on Industry.

If I think about sequential dynamics for Q2 and onwards, obviously, comps get easier, but I would assume that Q1 only had the effect of Middle East-related disruptions in March. If the conflict's being ongoing, Q2 will likely book an impact from April onwards.

Are you still confident that the impact from the easier comp kind of offsets the Middle East disruption, or how should we think about Industry essentially with these key two moving pieces into Q2 and then the remainder of the year? Thank you.

Yes, thank you, Virginia, for the question. Look, Q2, first of all, the comps are a little easier, but last year, Industry grew 10%.

We are confident that we will have a pick-up in Q2 versus what we have seen in Q1 in terms of growth. The impact, as we said, was one month in Q1, and it's not only the conflict itself, but project delays in the region.

We tend to talk about the Middle East, but there are two dynamics. There are project delays, and then there is some of the impact of the conflict specifically to it, but two different dynamics here.

We've seen these project delays mostly in opex, both in oil and gas and in power and utilities, meaning non-oil and gas energy sources. The capex is growing nicely.

Again, we also've seen project delays in Q1 in other parts of the world that will recover in quarter two. When we take that, we take the backlog we have, we are confident that in Q2, we'll see recovery of our Industry division.

Perfect. Thank you very much.

Very helpful.

Thank you.

Hi, thanks for taking my question. I have three questions, please.

Firstly, on growth by region, in the Americas, you posted 1.7% organic growth despite a 6.8% organic increase in North and Central America. Can you talk about what the offset to that was, please?

Was it driven by weakness in the LatAm region, perhaps? Secondly, if I remember correctly, at the full-year results, you saw project delays in Industry and had a negative effect on your margins.

Would you expect a similar impact on first-half margins this year given that the project delays have continued, or was that more of a one-off timing effect in 2025? Then my last question is on Certification.

At full-year results last year, you talked about rolling out a new production system, and how has this been progressing and did the rollout of that new production system impact growth at all in Certification? Thank you.

Thank you, Victoria, for the questions. On the Americas, Latin America has a combination of project delays and some non-renewal of contracts, and that's really impacted the growth this quarter.

We continue to work very hard on the pipeline, on the sales front, and we secured some new contracts there in Industry. That was really some of the Industry, some of the B&I.

That's really what was driving that lower performance in Latin America. We expect to see that starting to move.

The project delays in Industry, the second question you mentioned, it's mostly on one-offs. That was last year.

We stopped some contracts because we were looking for more the commercial and profitability of these contracts. That was last year.

We don't have that this year. This year, we have continued project delays that I have explained, and some non-renewal of contracts that occurred, but there is no voluntary stoppage of contracts.

Then on Certification, we have a SmartCert platform that we have been deploying, and that's ongoing. We have deployed it in a number of countries.

We have been able to see some really good feedback from our teams around the world, and we should be completing probably the deployment by mid next year because we have some very big regions that need a bit more adaptation during the implementation of that. All in all, it's going according to plan.

Understand. Thank you.

Just to follow up on my second question actually on the margins. Just to clarify, will your first-half margins be unaffected by the project delays in that case?

I think the simple answer is not materially, if it is. We do not guide on margin by semester, by segment, but we do not expect any material drop in margins for Industry in H1.

Okay.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, and thank you to take my question. Sorry to come back to this, but I still feel I do not understand the nature of the misconduct.

This is not an accounting fraud, what exactly is it? Corruption?

If so, why notify the French authorities rather than the local authorities? To your best knowledge, when these deviations have started?

Thank you.

Thank you for the question, François. As you can understand, this is an ongoing investigation, and we are disclosing to the authorities.

There are limited things that I can share on a public call. At this point, all what I can say, it's a compliance event that we have investigated and continue to investigate.

We are talking to the authorities, and the investigation will take its course in the hand of these competent authorities. I really cannot say more than that.

It impacts the Middle East and Africa region, mostly in Africa, and it does impact Government Services, as we have explained. That's all what I can tell you at this point.

As you understand, the answers sound lawyer-driven, and they're clearly not sufficient for investors, with the share price down 13% today mainly because of that. When do you plan to share more details?

I think as soon as we can disclose more, we will, of course, disclose more to investors, absolutely. Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, good afternoon. It's Rory here.

Just one follow-up on the margin, please. As discussed, you haven't changed the wording of the margin guidance despite the lowering of growth guidance and a slower Q1.

Can you just talk about your cost actions you've taken as a result of any of these project delays and your attitude towards cost management, what's proving a tricky year in general? Also related to that, if you can't talk about subsegment profitability, could you please commit to disclosing the margin impact of any contract exits as that happens over time?

Thank you.

Hi, Rory. Just on the margin guidance, I think we have enough means within our variable cost structure to be able to adapt in a very agile way as soon as there is a little bit of slow down.

I think we have as well to put that a bit under a wider context. Moving from mid to high to mid remains something that is pretty much manageable in a service-based company.

As we have a good chunk of our business that is run through contractors, that enables us to adapt to the ups and downs. The company is used to manage its cost structure in a very, I would say, rational and efficient manner, no big drama here in our furnace.

Two, reiterate 3% of the business, if you want me to disclose each and every contract we're going to stop in terms of margins, get ready for a long night, my friends, because that will be a long list. I think the company is managing its portfolio.

We have, if you remember, last year, end of 2024, we divesting the food testing business in trenches, not in one go, and I think it's been well managed from a guidance point of view, well managed in terms of making sure everyone is involved and knows what's happening. We do the same thing here.

I think that should make everyone comfortable, that's our guidance is well proportioned and that we know how to navigate this. Again, let's put that into consideration, what do you mean by 3% of the revenue of the company.

By the way, just we'd say it's a [hasard?] , as we say in French, but we end up having LotusWorks coming, which probably almost the same size.

We are in the transformation of a portfolio with, and it's true, this is quite unique in this sector. Not many companies in this sector are shaping the portfolio the way India is doing it, and I think we have some credentials in being successful in this.

I think look, obviously, we haven't discussed Government Services. We considered it a mature legacy business that at some point, we will deal with it in terms of portfolio pivoting.

It just so happened that we had to do it now. I think it's very important for us to execute that with an eye to business continuity for the customers, which we have done with our food business and continue to do so.

We are, of course, managing the announcement and its impact on our employees. We will make sure that as this investigation progresses, when we can, we give you more information on that.

There is full transparency on this matter, but I hope you understand that there are some limitations to what we can disclose at this point. Appreciate it.

Yes, thank you. Thank you very much.

Again, with that, I think we are coming to the end of the call. Thank you all very much for joining our call, and have a good day.