Good evening, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for this Havas Q1 2026 revenue conference call. I am with Delphine Mayer, our head of investor relations.

I try to keep my presentation concise to give you sufficient time for your questions at the end. Please refer to the appendices for the detailed figures.

I will let you read the disclaimer later, and we'll now jump to the Q1 performance. In the first quarter of 2026, Havas recorded net revenue of €638 million.

This is an organic growth of 2.5% compared with same period last year, and it sits in the midpoint of our 2026 guidance. Scope effect contributed for 1.7%, reflecting the impact of our recent M&A, also in line with the scope figures we recorded in the past.

Foreign exchange has had a negative impact of 5.8%, mainly driven by the US dollar and British pound. This should be the worst quarter of the year in terms of negative forex impact.

Now if we move at the performance per region, you will see that North America once again delivered a very strong quarter at 7.4%, mainly driven by the continued momentum in creative and media and the ramp-up of the budget won over the course of last year. Europe recorded 1.1% of organic growth, with France delivering a solid performance supported notably by media, while the UK remained broadly stable.

Asia-Pacific declined by 6.2%, reflecting a phasing impact for this quarter, with China negative and India strongly positive. Nevertheless, we still expect a positive organic growth for the full year in this region.

Latin America was broadly stable. After two very strong performances last year, the organic is -0.6%, and here again we expect a positive organic growth for the full year 2026 and consider this performance as a phasing impact.

If we move now to the highlights, a few words to tell you that beyond the figures, the key message of the quarter is the continued solidity of our business momentum. We recorded numerous mid-sized budget wins and retentions.

These wins again illustrate the strength of our integrated model and our ability to combine retentions, in-business, and new business. A few words now on our AI capabilities, which increasingly sit at the core of our operating model.

In the first quarter, we continued the group-wide deployment of AI, notably through the rollout of EVA, our secure LLM portal, and Vermeer.ai, which supports scalable and responsible content creation. All employees across the group are being trained in the use of AI, supported by the leading external experts.

Now a few words on Middle East exposure. Havas obviously has a limited exposure to the region, which represents 1.9% of the net revenue of the group, no material impact on the group financial statements.

We nevertheless continue to monitor the situation. This region remains a mid- to long-term growth opportunity, supported by ongoing expansion of our creative powerhouses.

Now, let's move to M&A. During this first quarter, we completed four acquisitions: Asento in Spain, with 50 people, that will join the H/Advisors network; Control Digital in Sweden, that reinforces CNC network; Styleride in Germany, almost 100 employees, that will join and reinforce the Havas Play offering; and then, Haute Voltige, which is an agency in charge of organization of fashion shows in France, that will reinforce the luxury vertical of BETC called Maison BETC.

All these operations are majority stakes, as usual, that will strengthen our creative, media, data, and advisory capabilities. They are accretive in terms of growth and profitability, and are fully aligned with our strategic priority.

We still remain confident to close 5 to 10 acquisitions per year this year again, in line with what we have communicated, generating a revenue from €40 to €50 million additional in the year 2026. Now, a few words on the guidance.

Looking ahead, and despite the uncertain macroeconomic environment, we consider we enter the coming quarters with solid fundamentals and agility. We therefore can confirm our full-year 2026 guidance, both on organic growth, profitability, and dividend.

Guidance 2026 is unchanged: between 2% and 3% for the organic growth, 13.2% and 13.5% for the EBIT ratio, and the payout ratio still around 40%. Same for the mid-term guidance that is also confirmed: 14% to 15% for the adjusted EBIT margin, and 40% for the EBIT ratio.

These few words conclude my overview of the first quarter of this year, and we now remain at your disposal to answer any questions you may have raised. Thank you for your attention.

Good evening. I have a couple of questions.

The first one is on the Middle East. Could you please tell us what would your organic revenue growth have been in for the group, I guess, if the Middle East March effect hasn't really been there, or maybe if you could give a bit more detail on how much March decline is?

Is a 30% decline in March fair to assume? My second one is just going back on M&A.

You've done a few bolt-ons, but you've mentioned at your last call that you have a bit of capacity to go beyond the bolt-ons, and I guess particularly Omnicom has quite a few interesting assets to sell, and they are sellers, so that's always a good position to be in for you guys. Can you just give a little bit more thoughts on, yeah, what you've been thinking on more transformational M&A?

Thank you.

Thank you, Annick, for these questions. Middle East, the Middle East impact has been very little during this first quarter, but let's remind that the crisis didn't start at the beginning of the year.

Obviously, the performance of March is not at the level of the previous two months. During this first quarter, the impact has been almost zero on UAE, on Dubai, and stronger on Saudi Arabia and Israel.

We are waiting for the performance of April to know exactly what the trend will be, but it has really not been material during this first quarter, and we will come back after the completion of the month of April to see the impact. It's only 1.9% of our revenues.

On M&A, yes, we have achieved these bolt-ons. We have always told that we were ready to look at bigger fishes, and we know maybe that with some agency to sell by Omnicom or so, we saw some rumors on WPP businesses.

We will obviously look at all of these, but today we are very happy with our bolt-on strategy. We remain open to any bigger deal, but at the time, we have not been working in any of these deals into details.

We remain open. We know we can afford this type of deal, but we need to ensure that it fits with our strategy, it fits with our ambition to have a very integrated model, we will contemplate any opportunity.

Thank you.

My first question is on FX. If rates stay the same for the rest of the year, what would be the FX drag for the full year?

Second question is, can you give us some indications on net interest, restructuring, and tax rate for the full year? Then lastly, on the buyback, since starting, you bought back 45,000 shares a week, but the last six weeks, only 13,000.

If you stay at that lower level, you won't buy back €50 million by the AGM. Will you accelerate the buyback again until the AGM or will you only buy back €35 million?

Then at the next AGM, would it make sense to announce another buyback? Mayer.

Merci, Julien, for these questions. On the FX, you saw this -5.8% impact for the first quarter.

Let's remind that in the first quarter 2025, it was the moment where the dollar was still quite high. We anticipate still the type of impact for the full year in the range between -2% and -3% impact if the dollar remains like it is today in the range of $1.16 to $1.18.

These quarters, as I said earlier, will clearly be the stronger of the year 2026. On the question two, we do not disclose the figures for the full year in terms of financial.

Sorry for that, Julien. On the buyback, yes, you're right.

The level of buyback has been reduced during the past weeks, but we remain very agile and we could increase it in the coming weeks, and we will decide with the board of directors what to do. We keep on buying back shares, and the pace of it will depend on the decision in the coming weeks.

We remain very agile and could adapt our policy depending on the decision we make in the coming weeks and months.

Merci.

Hi, François and Delphine. Two questions, please.

The first one is on the growth difference between Europe and North America. I was just wondering how we should think about it.

Does it come from different market dynamics, different business wins, or dynamics with growth with existing clients? If you can help us understand a little bit, that would be super helpful.

Then second question is on the shareholding structure. I saw that the Compagnie de l'Étoile du Maire increased their shareholding.

Is there anything you can say about the drivers behind that decision? Thank you very much.

Thank you, Laura. On the growth, yes, that's what we can point out is a very good dynamic in the US.

It's coming from the nice new businesses we have finalized during the second half of 2025. We referred to that during previous calls.

I would say mid-sized client, refer to Sanofi, NSI, or The Travel Corporation, which have been won in an integrated model, including creative and media, and which really strongly contributed to the performance of this good start of the year 2025. Same for 2026, sorry.

Same for media assignment which have been won late 2025. In Europe, it's not a real trend.

We have some positive performance in Havas Paris, less strong in other agencies. What is really important to remind is that US has been very dynamic thanks to the new businesses of the previous months.

On the shareholding structure, yeah, you're right. There has been announcement of threshold crossed above 50% for Bolloré Participations through the Compagnie de l'Étoile du Maire, which is including the direct stake of Étoile du Maire plus the one of Bolloré.

We have no real comment to do from Havas, just to confirm that this has been announced as a confirmation of the good performance of Havas and the positive feeling of the shareholder in Havas future that they consider that investing in Havas is a good opportunity. We are very pleased with this move that confirmed the trust of the Bolloré shareholder in Havas performance.

That's helpful. Thank you.

Yes, good evening, François. Thanks for taking my questions.

First question, just on early-look Q2. Maybe you don't have full visibility on April yet, but any changes there that you're seeing that would give you an early indication whether Q2 will be faster, slower, or similar to Q1 organic growth at this stage?

Secondly, if you could give us a little bit more detail at a group level on growth by activity? I think you made reference to media and creative, but if you could just give a little bit more detail at group level of the organic growth and particularly the health care activity at a group level in Q1?

That would be very helpful. Last question just on M&A.

I think you mentioned €40 to €50 million M&A boost for the full year from the deals that have already been announced. Can you just give us an indication of the rough distribution by region that would benefit reported revenues in the following quarters for this M&A effect?

Thank you.

First question concerning the Q2, it's obviously too early to give you any indication. We are working with all the financial directors to ensure the trend for the full year, not quarter by quarter.

Today, as I said earlier, even if we are always very prudent looking at the macro environment, we consider that there is no negative signal that would prevent us from being in our guidance. Quarter by quarter, we do not disclose in advance what the performance could be.

In terms of performance by vertical, I referred to media and creative, and all the vertical, the media, creative, and health, have contributed to the performance of the quarter. Health was easily in line with the others business unit.

They all contributed to this performance, roughly in the same kind of trend. On M&A, it will be on all regions.

We have some deals to finalize in the US to have in, but mainly in Europe. As we did last year, it will be spread in all the regions, including Europe as we did during the first quarter, but also some in the US and in Asia.

It will be well spread.

Many thanks. Thank you.

On the Middle East, how much was it down in March? Then would it be possible to break down the 2.5% organic in Q1 between net new business contribution and existing clients, something that WPP and Publicis do every quarter?

Thank you. In the

Middle East, the performance of March would be in the range of minus 10-something if we take all the three main markets which are Israel, Saudi Arabia, and UAE. That's roughly, but it's once again too early to project that on the future.

On the March, it was in this range. On the organic, we do not disclose any new biz.

We already referred to this as we consider it's not really easy for you and for us to spread the organic growth between new biz, retention, and all type of revenue. We do not disclose the 2.5% by new biz and retention and in-biz.

Sorry, Julien.

Merci.

Thank you for your attention, and we remain with Delphine at your full disposal in the coming hours and days if you had any further question to raise. Thank you, and good evening to everyone.