Good evening, and thank you for joining us, as we discuss our sales update for Q1 2026, that ended on the 31st of March 2026. Today, we have with us our Chief Executive Officer, José Manuel Albesa, and our Chief Financial Officer, Miquel Angel Serra.

José Manuel will share some brief remarks, and then we will open up the line for Q&A. The presentation and the press release are available on our website, where you will also be able to access a recording of the call after the event.

José Manuel, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Varenya, and good evening. It's my pleasure to be delivering my first earnings call today as the CEO of Puig.

Before we get into our comments about Q1, I wanted to address what is likely front of mind for most of you. On the 23rd of March, Puig confirmed ongoing discussions regarding a potential business combination with Estée Lauder, in which the two companies would potentially merge their businesses.

As of today, we can confirm that conversations are ongoing, but no final decision has been made yet. We acknowledge that there is a lot of curiosity about the progress of these discussions.

However, unless an agreement is reached, there can be no assurance regarding the transaction or the terms. Therefore, at this stage, we cannot comment further on this evolving situation.

With that being said, I will turn to our Q1 update. We are pleased to report that we have delivered record Q1 sales and a solid start to the year, continuing our tradition of outperforming the premium beauty market, as we have done consistently for each of the last 5 years, including each of the last 8 quarters as a public company.

Let's turn to the details. We have delivered a solid performance for the first quarter of 2026, which has resulted in a record net revenue of €1.215 billion.

This represents a 4.7% like-for-like growth and a 0.8% increase on reported basis, delivering ahead of the premium beauty market. This performance was broad-based, where we saw all our segments and geographies contributing towards growth on a like-for-like basis.

Our largest segment, Fragrance and Fashion, showed outperformance within a context of more moderate underlying growth when compared to Q1 of 2025. It was supported by a strong performance in makeup and a steady delivery in skincare.

We had a notably negative impact of -4% due to foreign exchange, largely due to the comparison with the US dollar rate versus Q1 of last year. Let me share now some more color by the business segments.

We will start with Fragrance and Fashion, which accounts for 74% of total sales. In the first quarter, the segment delivered another solid result, with €897 million in net revenue.

This represents like-for-like growth of 3.9% and a reported growth of 0.1%, achieved against a demanding comparison base from Q1 of last year and with an environment of market moderation today. Importantly, we see no gap in the sell-in and the sell-out in this category.

As expected, performance during the quarter reflected a softer trend in prestige fragrances, while at the same time, niche continued to show very strong momentum, delivering double-digit growth, once again outperforming the market. We also continued to energize our brand through innovation, with several important launches across our prestige portfolio.

Carolina Herrera launched Good Girl Jasmine and Bad Boy Cobalt Absolute. Rabanne launched Phantom Intense.

Jean Paul Gaultier introduced Divine Couture and Le Male in Blue. We also continue with our collection-based approach in niche, with the launch of [unclear] by L'Artisan Parfumeur, among other strong launches.

Overall, this performance once again demonstrates our ability to navigate on a more normalized market environment, combining disciplined execution, a balanced portfolio, and a consistent flow of innovation. This is only the beginning of the year.

We have a strong pipeline of innovation, and over the quarters that follow, you will hear a lot more from us on Rabanne and on Jean Paul Gaultier. We also plan to share more with respect to our digital strategy in fragrance as we roll it further.

Moving now to makeup, which represents 14% of the total net revenue in the quarter. In Q1, the segment delivered €171 million in net revenue, translating into like-for-like growth of 9.2% and reported growth of 3.3%.

This reflects continued standout delivery. Growth during the quarter was driven by Charlotte Tilbury, with strong momentum across both the Asia-Pacific and EMEA regions.

We saw continued innovation in makeup at Charlotte Tilbury, including the Airbrush Flawless Blur Concealer, Pillow Talk Big Lip, and Beauty Souls [?] palette.

Overall, the performance of makeup this quarter highlights the continued delivery, supported by innovation and strong execution across key regions. We continue to see immense potential with Charlotte Tilbury for the long term.

For a brand so attractive for consumers is distributed only in about a fifth of the footprint that it could be in. Turning now to skincare, which represents 12% of the total net revenue in the quarter.

In Q1, the segment delivered €147 million in net revenue, reflecting solid like-for-like growth of 4.7% and a reported growth of 2.1%. Overall, performance was resilient, supported by a balanced contribution across the portfolio.

During the quarter, we continued to support growth through target innovation. Our dermo-cosmetics brands, Uriage and Apivita, maintained positive momentum, driven by the strength of their core range and relevance with consumer.

We saw continued momentum of Uriage hero franchise Xemose CH+, thanks to its new advanced formula with biomimetic ceramides. We also relaunched our sun care range, Bariésun, which includes two new hero products, and launched the reformulated version of Charlotte Tilbury iconic Magic Cream.

In terms of geographic expansion, this quarter included the rollout of Loto del Sur in Mexico and Chile, extending the brand beyond its home market of Colombia for the first time. Overall, skincare delivered consistent growth, underpinned by innovation and the continued strength of our derma platform.

We also continue to be excited with the prospect of growing these brands for the long term, and the distribution potential for them across geographies and channels remains large. By geography, in Q1 2026, EMEA delivered net revenue of €656 million, representing 54% of total net revenue.

This translates into like-for-like growth of +3% and reported growth of +1.9%, reflecting continued solid performance in a more moderate consumer environment. Growth in the region was led by Fragrance and Fashion, as well as makeup, which continued to resonate well with the consumers.

Compared to the prior year, growth moderated, as expected, following a stronger comparative and a more cautious demand environment. I would also note that the ongoing situation in the Middle East had an estimated -1.2% impact on Q1 revenues, largely concentrated in March.

We are closely monitoring developments and currently expect some ongoing effects, while continuing to operate prudently across the region. The Americas generated €428 million in net revenue in Q1, representing 35% of total revenues.

On a like-for-like basis, the region delivered growth of +2%, while reported revenues declined by 5%, reflecting adverse foreign exchange effects, mainly driven by the US dollar during the quarter. Underlying performance remained healthy, with growth led by Carolina Herrera within prestige, as well as Byredo in niche, confirming the continued strength of our brand portfolio across the region, despite currency headwinds.

In APAC, which represents 11% of total net revenue, sales reached €131 million, delivering a very strong like-for-like increase of +26.1% and a reported growth of +17.9%. This performance reflected continued momentum across the region, driven by niche fragrance and Charlotte Tilbury, and demonstrates the effectiveness of our ongoing investment, brand opportunity, and traction in APAC market.

APAC represents over a third of the global beauty market, yet accounts for just 11% of Puig sales. We have been investing behind reducing this gap for several years, and we believe now is the right momentum to accelerate.

Turning to our outlook, we continue to expect to outperform the premium beauty market on a like-for-like basis, reflecting the strength of our brand portfolio, the relevance of our innovation pipeline, and the disciplined execution across regions and categories. At the same time, we expect that adjusted EBITDA margins will remain stable, broadly in line with full year 2025 levels, despite operating in a more challenging cost environment.

This reflects our focus on cost discipline, prioritization of our investment, and the inherent resilience of our business model. Before I wrap up these remarks, I want to reiterate that due to the confidential nature of the ongoing conversations between Puig and Estée Lauder, there is very little that can be said on the topic, and we have shared those comments already.

We also want to take this opportunity to thank you for your patience and understanding as we postponed the Capital Markets Day, which we were also truly looking forward to, on account of these ongoing discussions. In due course, we will look forward to sharing more.

In the interim, we remain focused on executing our strategy with agility, supporting our brands, and driving profitable growth. To conclude, Q1 reflects disciplined execution and a strong foundation for the year ahead.

Our strong pipeline of innovation and initiative for the year reinforce our confidence in the outlook and our ability to deliver it. With that, I'll hand it over to Varenya.

Thank you.

Thank you, José Manuel. With that, we come to the end of our prepared remarks, and will begin Q&A.

To ensure broad participation, we request that you limit yourselves to one question only. If time permits, we will return to you for any additional questions.

Good evening. Thank you very much for taking my question.

I guess I will stay away from the potential deal and discuss the guidance. You reiterated the guidance, which remains qualitative.

Has your outlook on the growth of the prestige beauty market changed for the year? Or how should we think about it?

I remember that a few months ago, Marc was discussing the 5% growth in consensus as being the right ballpark for the year. Do you confirm that this is still the number?

Thank you, Joffrey, for your question. First, let me give you a little bit of color of the how do we see the performance of the premium market.

We see premium beauty still remains a very attractive consumer segment, and this is due to the global population with a strong appetite for innovation and for self-care. Having said that, inside of this premium beauty, we see fragrance.

This is expected to remain for us the more dynamic category, and we see particularly growth pockets in China, in Latin America, Middle East and Africa. We also think that this segment is driven by the premiumization of the fragrance, and in this case, as we'll have a very strong portfolio of niche brands, which is growing faster than the overall fragrance market.

Having said that, and after many years of stellar growth, we are seeing that the fragrance market is normalizing and is going towards historical levels. We are also seeing that brands are taking different strategies to growth, with more promotions, with more price offers, and also with innovating less.

In this sense, we are not going to play this game. We will lean on the strength of our brands, and we remain confident that we will outperform through innovation.

It's hard to say now how do we foresee the market evolving, but if we have a look at Q1, we can share that selective fragrance market is growing around 3.5% in Q1 like-for-like terms. This based on the data at that time.

We'll see the impact of the Middle East in the future months. We can share also with you that makeup is growing at a low-middle single-digit growth, and we've seen derma middle single-digit growth.

We foresee a continuity of those first data for the year end. Hope this answers your questions.

Thank you very much. It was very clear.

Thank you.

Good evening, José Manuel, Miquel, and Varenya. Thanks for taking my questions.

I have two. First, on the US launch of La Bomba, can you share with us how much did it contribute to the Q1 fragrance growth and should we expect that benefit to continue or to reverse in the second quarter?

Then my second question on capital returns, I noticed a slight change in the outlook slide at the end around the capital return alternatives, and I just wanted to ask if there is a possibility of a share buyback in the near term. Thank you.

Thank you, Aron. Let me take the first question about La Bomba.

As we launched in European Latin America last year La Bomba, which became the number 1 launch in 2025, with great results of exceeding our expectation. We just launched La Bomba in the US 2 weeks ago, it's quite recent.

We are ranking top 5 in those 2 weeks. We are expecting no cannibalization in Good Girl, as we are seeing in the first 2 weeks, and we are extremely confident in this results.

In the countries where we launched it last year, we see continuous growth and continuous gaining of market share last year in Carolina Herrera and this year Q1 also in Carolina Herrera, thanks to La Bomba. In terms of capital return, I'm going to hand out this question to Miquel Àngel, our CFO.

Miquel Àngel?

Thank you, José Manuel. Aron, with respect to capital allocation, our prioritization will be remaining following our policy when it comes to dividend payout.

In this case, just a reminder, will be 40% of net profit reported levels. Again, the next one would be approved in our AGM that's going to be held on the 29th of May.

Then we continue to evaluate the different alternatives, but always bearing in mind that we're aiming not to have a capital structure of net debt over EBITDA levels below 2 times. No real change whatsoever to our capital allocation structure there.

I hope that answers your question, Aron.

Yes, that's very helpful. If I could just follow up quickly on the new Jean Paul Gaultier launch, I think you mentioned in the press release, can you give us a sense on how many distribution points you are targeting with this new product this year, and whether it will also launch in the US at some point this year, and should we expect that to have a meaningful impact on the numbers, or no?

Thank you.

Sure, Aron. This is a very important launch for us.

This launch will happen in the second semester of this year, and this will be the first time we launch a feminine fragrance in Jean Paul Gaultier for the last 10 years. We think that there's an important opportunity in the feminine fragrance, which represents roughly 65% of the total market.

We are well known by our strong position in masculine fragrance market, which represents roughly 35% of the market, and where we have a market share of 16.6%. Our ambition for the next years is to capitalize on the feminine market.

We launched La Bomba last year. We have this important launch of Jean Paul Gaultier in the second semester of 2026, which come in a very good momentum because the brand is enjoying a lot of momentum in worldwide.

We will continue in the next 2 years capitalizing on this feminine launches through innovation. We see that innovation is the name of the game from our side, and we want really to make a statement in the next 3 years with those important feminine launches.

Hope that helps and clarifies your question, Aron.

Yes, very clear. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Good evening, and congratulation on your new appointment.

My question, I understand you cannot talk about the deal. Just my question is nonetheless understanding the motivation of talking or thinking about a merger.

I think 2 years ago, we followed the IPO of Puig. Clearly, your performance, and even today, you talked about the opportunities ahead, you seem to be very optimistic, and you flagged as well Asia still a lot to conquer.

Why is it that Puig cannot conquer all of that on a standalone basis? What has changed versus the narrative of the IPO?

As well the fact that the family had been engaged on a solo basis for more than 100 years. Just I have a follow-up question on could you tell us how big is niche as a percentage of the total fragrance category?

When you said double digit, and I see how strong Asia is, and I think Byredo you mentioned and it's one of your biggest brand, am I right to believe it could be in the 30% type of growth? Thank you.

Thank you, Celine, for your question. I really understand that there is a lot of curiosity about the progress of this discussion.

However, unless an agreement is reached, there cannot be assurance regarding the transaction or the terms. Therefore, at this stage, I cannot comment further on this evolving situation.

As of today, the only thing I can confirm to you is that conversations are ongoing, but not final decision has been made yet, and not agreement has been reached. Having said that, at Puig, we are very proud of our first Q1 results, okay?

We are pleased with all sales, and we see that a solid start of the year. Concerning your second question around niche, niche is enjoying a strong double-digit growth in each one of our four niche brands and in every single market worldwide.

We see huge potential for niche. We experience a amazing growth in Asia, but we are also seeing huge opportunities in North America.

As you may know, the US represents roughly 25% of the total niche global market, and we only accounts in Puig for 15% of our sales. We are only in 150 doors in terms of wholesale, where main competitors are roughly 600-plus dollars doors.

We have a tremendous opportunity that we are going to take, starting this year, through expansion and escalation, which will be selective and productivity-driven. We will increase our reach, but for sure, without compromising our positioning and our productivity in niche.

Hope this answers your question.

Yes, this point, yes. Thank you.

Thank you, Celine.

Yes. Good evening, José Manuel, Miquel Àngel, and Varenya.

My question is on Asia-Pacific, which was very very strong. Could you provide more color, any particular country that you could flag on this superb growth?

Also, if you could share approximately how much can be attributed to niche versus Charlotte Tilbury? Then lastly on Asia-Pacific, if you could also comment on this acceleration that you're expecting, any plans that you could share for the future of this region?

Thank you.

Thank you, Mariano, for this question. APAC represents roughly in the global beauty market around 39%, and in the case of Puig, it's only accounts for 11%.

Having said that, we have a very interesting like-for-like growth this quarter, with +26%, and we have been enjoying double-digit growth for the last 3 quarters, okay? We think it's the right momentum for us to take the opportunity of APAC.

In the last 5 years, our main focus was in the US, where we are reaching roughly a 21% in penetration, and now it's right moment for Asia. If we want to go deeper into Asia, what we are doing is to focus in a two different strategy depending of the area.

For Northeast Asia, we are going to focus on consolidate our niche brands and Charlotte Tilbury. As I was saying before to Celine, our niche brands are enjoying an amazing double-digit growth, and Charlotte Tilbury is growing in a very fantastic path, we are quite happy, and we'll focus on this niche brands and Charlotte Tilbury.

As you may know, over the last years, we created a subsidiary in Japan, we created a subsidiary in Korea, and we are going to take this opportunity to really focus on Northeast Asia. If we have a look to the other part of APAC, we see Southeast Asia, India, and Oceania.

Our focus will be in prestige fragrance and in derma. We are setting a high level of ambition, but without compromising our profitability.

We are excited with the results, the teams are extremely motivated, and the first results are extremely encouraging. I hope this answers your question.

Yes, thank you.

Thank you. Just one question and one housekeeping question.

The question is, just following on from the last response, would it be fair for us to assume, therefore, that we should see very strong growth in APAC for the foreseeable future, given that it's going to be much more of a focus for you than it has been, and you'll be putting more resource in the region? That's the question.

The housekeeping, if you could just confirm that the Middle East impact, the 120 basis points, that was just on EMEA as opposed to the group as a whole? Thank you.

Yes. Jeff, thank you for the question.

Starting with Middle East, Middle East roughly represents about 4% of our total sales, I can be transparent with that, and the impact in this first quarter was 1.2%, okay? We see that first half we expect this impact to be 1%, okay?

We are very careful of the situation, and our first priority is the safety of all our employees. We can also share with you that travel retail is the most affected part of the Middle East business, and we see different levels of performance between Saudi and Dubai.

Overall, we are taking good care of the situation. Your second question—

Sorry, just to confirm the 120, that's on the group level as opposed to EMEA, or EMEA?

Jeff, the rough impact is 1.2% on the EMEA region, okay, just to help you with the math, it's around €8 million.

Thank you.

Concerning APAC is a priority for us in the long term. We are focused on outperform in the long term.

I really want to insist that this level of ambition is going to happen without compromising our profitability. As I was saying before, we have huge potential for growth.

If we take a brand like Charlotte Tilbury, for example, is in a very reduced distribution, no more than 15 doors in China, not yet present in Korea, in Japan, or in Taiwan. If we take our niche brands, we see high potential to growth.

We are gaining market share, increasing our productivity per door, and we are extremely happy with those results. We will take a careful approach, but for sure, Asia is a long-term priority for us.

Hope this answers your question.

Great, thanks.

Evening, all. Thanks for taking our question.

Just the one from us. We had noticed there wasn't any color given around Dr.

Barbara Sturm, if you could provide an update on how the new strategy for the brand's going, and any context on what extent you've pruned the SKU count and by how much you've reduced the distribution, as you'd spoken about at the full year results. Are you seeing any good results so far, and what sort of timeframe do you expect the turnaround to take?

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Tom, for your question. It's been roughly 2 years when we acquired this brand in Puig.

Our first 2 years are really dedicated to redynamize the brand, okay? What we have doing for those 2 years, first, we put a lot of focus on reducing distribution.

We cut roughly 30% of the existing doors. We also put a big focus on reducing the number of SKUs.

That was the first part of the redynamization of the brand. Second part, we have been working together with Barbara in new launches.

We just launched our first product together, Peptide Serum was launched 3 weeks ago, with great results, is today a top 2 SKU in our portfolio, and we plan to launch our second launch together by the second half of the year in the anti-aging sector, with huge expectation as our number 1 launch. Main focus those 2 years have been about that.

We have not go to new markets. We have concentrate in the markets where we were, roughly US, UK, and Germany.

As time goes by, we will start to first increase distribution in doors, improve the existing location as we have been doing up to now, and we will analyze future markets in the years to come. Hope this answers your question.

That's great. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. Good afternoon.

Just one question from my side regarding the makeup business. This quarter had a relatively softer comparable when we compare with the next quarters that we're going to have.

What type of growth can we expect for the makeup, bearing in mind that you came from a 19% growth in the third quarter, 27% in the fourth quarter, and now 9.2%? What type of growth can we expect?

Can you comment on how this is explained by the sell-in and sell-out of the segment? Thank you very much.

Sure. Luis, thank you for your question, and let me first share with you some data about how we are doing in makeup.

We are extremely pleased with our sell-out results. If we take a look of the first quarter of the year, we have been growing market share worldwide.

We have grown more than 1.4 in Germany, more than 1.8 in France, more than 1.1 in Italy, we have grown 0.2 in the US, 0.3 in Canada. We are growing market share in every single country.

We are extremely happy with the performance of our last Christmas campaign, with great sell-out results. It's true that when you talk about makeup, it's mainly Charlotte Tilbury, and each brand has been only one brand, has a very specific calendar with anniversaries to do in terms of innovation and in terms of rollout distribution.

As we all know, second half of the year last year, we opened Amazon in the US, and we also opened some doors in Australia with Mecca and in the US with Ulta. Anniversary of this opening will be compensated with a important innovation calendar for the second half of 2026.

This first quarter, we enjoy a growth of 9.2% in like-for-like basis, we are happy for that. In the second quarter, we are going to see important openings.

For the first time, we will go to Boots with Charlotte Tilbury. We will open a limited number of doors in the UK, and we have also important innovation.

There's also this balance between sell-in and sell-out that will happen in the second quarter. We have a very important sell-in due to the Amazon piece last year that will be celebrated, but we are extremely happy and confident due to the good results of our sell-out growth in every single market.

Hope this answers to your question.

Thank you very much.

Pannuti from J.P. Morgan.

Please go ahead. [...]

specifically in terms of potential cost inflation, especially in glass, potential demand in travel retail globally, and how the consumer may react to higher price points, as well as general inflation in the fragrance category. Then maybe also if you could comment on Americas, there's been no question on this, and the region was weak, if you could comment on whether Latin America was negative, what drove quite a low level of growth in that region?

Thank you.

I'm going to pass to Miquel Àngel, who take your question before about Middle East, please, Miquel Àngel.

Thank you, José Manuel, and thank you, Celine, for the question. In terms of Middle East, and I think what José Manuel was explaining before in one of the questions asked on the topic, do we have been facing higher pressure on the travel retail business over there versus the local business.

This €8 million impact, again, this is the March impact, now, and we do expect that, though the conflict continuing over Q2, the overall impact in Q2 to be around 1%. That is how we are projecting the gross impact due to the conflict in Middle East.

To the topic with respect to profitability, on how the cost pressures both on cost of goods or distribution could affect us, we are monitoring that reality. Given the current situation, given the evolution of our brands, and again, the plans we have for the year, we do still confirm our guidance for the year to keep EBITDA margins flat versus the ones we had last year, and as a reminder, were at 20.7% over net revenues.

That is a bit what we are expecting with respect to Middle East. I hand it back to José Manuel to answer the question on the Americas.

For the Americas, first of all, in North America, we have a very healthy situation with fragrance. The launch of Good Girl is a good proof of that, and the way we are scaling our niche fragrance, Byredo and Penhaligon's.

Latin America, as last quarters have this ups and downs, but we feel confident with the region. We have a very important market share in this region.

We are putting, as I was saying before, efforts in Charlotte Tilbury. We just launched last year second quarter, second half, sorry, of the year in Mexico, with extraordinary results, reaching already a 3% market share with a very few distribution doors, we are expanding this door, and we are considering new markets in Latin America.

Also, derma is an important priority for the future in Latin America. We have good results in Chile and Mexico, which are the main markets where we are starting this conquer of Uriage in the region.

We feel excited, and La Bomba was a a great success. We have very important launch now in Carolina Herrera, which is the number 1 brand in the area with 212, it's specifically done for Latin America, and we have also the launch of Jean Paul Gaultier.

We have important expectation. Niche also, who was not a priority in the area, is getting more and more relevant.

We launch in Mexico Penhaligon's and Byredo with a good good results. We are extremely happy, and we see much more potential that we thought at the very beginning, and the same came for Brazil.

We are confident with that. I hope that answers your question.

That is fine. Miquel Àngel, the 1% for H1 is at the group level, not EMEA region?

Indeed, Celine,

into the overall performance for the group in H1.

The Middle East impact?

The Middle East impact in the overall figures for the group, on group, to be around 1%.

Thank you.

Thanks, Celine. That was the last question in the queue.

Thank you all for your questions today. We will be hosting our Annual General Meeting on the 29th of May, and will be presenting our Q2 and H1 results during the week of July 27th.

We look forward to speaking again then. Thank you.