Thank you. Good afternoon, and welcome to the presentation of the results of the first quarter of 2026 of the Acea Group.

Francesco Ragni, Co-General Manager, and Valentina Bracaglia, CFO and Planning and Control Manager, will give you a detailed illustration of our results. Let me now yield the floor to Mr.

Francesco Ragni, Co-General Manager.

Good afternoon, everyone. As usual, let me introduce some further information on the regulatory environment.

In Water, the main tariff approvals under MTI-4 have been completed by local authorities, and ARERA is about to finish the whole process to approve all group operations by Acea. As far as Grids are concerned, we expect a provisional reference tariff for 2026 for Grids to be published in May, this month, whilst the final 2024 reference tariff was published in March this year.

As for Commodities, in the first quarter of 2026, the energy prices and gas prices are decreasing versus the same quarter of 2025 by 6% and 14%, respectively. The opposite is happening with consumer prices that are increasing by an average of 1.7% to 2.8%.

As to the group's results for Q1 2026, we confirm a robust operating performance. Organic pro forma EBITDA is increasing by 4%, and this growth is virtually all driven by regulated businesses that now account for about 95% of the overall EBITDA.

We also point out that organic EBITDA in the first quarter of 2025 was adjusted to include the effect of the new perimeter, meaning the sale of High Voltage to Terna, photovoltaic, and Publiacqua, which we will discuss in detail later on. Organic net income has double-digit growth, which is about +14%, and it also shows the improvement of operating performance.

As to Capex, Capex net of grants and public contributions increased by about 18%. These investments are mainly going to support the regulated activities, to support infrastructural, sustainable, long-term development.

Operating free cash flow is about -€91 million. This allows us to keep a robust financial structure and net debt to EBITDA pro forma ratio, which is stable at 3.3 times, which is in line with the end of 2025.

As I was saying, the first quarter results are perfectly in line with the full-year guidance we provided when we first published our data in March 2025. As I already said, pro forma organic EBITDA is increasing by 4% year-over-year up to €344 million.

This result is in line with the year-long objectives, and it's mainly driven by regulated businesses. Capex net of grants is €286 million, up 18% versus last year.

Considering the Capex with grants, the overall Capex is up to €302 million. Organic net income, as I said earlier, is up 14% versus the results shifting from about €5 billion as of December 31st, 2025, to €5.1 billion as of March 31st, 2026.

On a pro forma basis, considering asset rotation deals, as we will find in detail in notes, the net financial position is about €4.65 billion as of March 31st, 2026, versus about €4.6 billion at the end of 2025. The debt-to-EBITDA ratio is unchanged, and it stands at 3.3 times.

In view of the results achieved in the first quarter, we confirm the 2026 guidance that we have already disclosed on March. Let me now yield the floor to our CFO, who will give you more details about the results I just outlined.

Valentina, floor to you.

Let's now look in detail at the EBITDA performance. The growth posted in the first quarter of 2026 was wholly driven by the organic development, confirms quality and visibility of growth in the group.

In detail, in this quarter, recurring EBITDA is €344 million, which shows an organic growth of €14 million versus the first quarter of the year before. This increase is mainly due to the growth of tariffs in Water and Grids, but also to the operating efficiencies we have maintained in this quarter.

On the right-hand side of the slide, you see the main one-off events and changes in scope, which in the first quarter of 2025 amounted to a total of €10 million. This effect may be due to the elimination of the contribution of High Voltage and photovoltaic assets in and has been disposed of in Publiacqua.

As to the first quarter of 2026, the one-off elements and changes in scope may be due in particular to revamping some installations in the Environment business. Let's move on results of the first quarter of 2025 with an organic growth of 14%.

This increase also shows the improvement of the operating performance that has already been reported under EBITDA. Just like for EBITDA, in this slide too, on the right-hand side of the picture shows one-off components and changes in scope, as described before.

Besides this, we should add the contribution of income from discontinued operations, and with reference to the first quarter of 2026, the impact from the surcharge of the IRAP tax as per the Decreto Bollette tax law. Let's move on to Capex.

In the first quarter, Capex confirms a big focus on regulated business, which accounts for 89% of overall Capex for a grand total of €302 million, including €16 million of public grants. This slide also shows the main initiatives which were started in this quarter for each individual business, and these initiatives bear witness to the constant attention that the group devotes to developing and strengthening the resilience of its infrastructures.

In the following slide, we see cash flow. Cash flow confirms the robustness of the group's finance and the solidity of our structure.

Operating cash flow is negative by €91 million, mainly due to the high level of Capex and the dynamics of working capital, which reflects the current seasonal performance in the first quarter. With reference to the financial structure, slide 10, we can see that nearly 80% of our debt is a fixed rate, and the overall average cost is 2.15%, whereas the average duration is about 4 years.

This setup allows to guarantee a significant protection versus the volatility of interest rate. The robustness of this financial structure is also confirmed by the fact that we kept our ratings, and both Fitch and Moody's gave a stable outlook on our company.

To support the investment plan, we also point out that a new EIB financing has been underwritten for an overall amount of €190 million to finance the ARERA Capex investments. Following slide, Water business confirms first quarter of 2026 a really robust growth with organic EBITDA up 6% year-over-year.

These results mainly driven by the tariffs growth. Also, we continue our Capex investment plan, and Capex net of grants is up 20% to support the development of infrastructures in this business area.

For Grids and Public Lighting too, we see in the first quarter a very positive growth with an increase of organic EBITDA by 8%, and this increase is supported by the investment plan and by the operating efficiencies we have achieved. Net Capex grows by 7%.

It's now €90 million, and these are designed to support and to enhance network infrastructures. The Environment business, in first quarter of 2026, there's a slight decrease of EBITDA by about €3 million, but this is just a temporary phenomenon, which is mainly due to the decrease of WTE volumes because of the planned shutdown of some installations.

We continue our Capex investments in this business. Capex is actually up 35% to support our plans to modernize, revamp, and enhance installations with a view of strengthening their operating efficiency and capacity over the medium to long term.

Slide 14 shows Generation. Organic EBITDA is particularly significant.

It's as much as 21%, and this performance is mainly driven from the strong recovery of hydroelectricity generation, which is up 27% versus first quarter of 2025, which is more than offsetting a picture of energy prices which is less favorable, with an energy price dropping by 6%. In detail, energy generated grew by 11% from 210 to 233 GWh.

Also, we continue our Capex plan in this business. Capex is up €5 million versus the first quarter of 2025 to support the development and efficiency of our generation assets.

That's all for the presentation, we can now open the Q&A session. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Good afternoon, everyone.

My first question on the update of the business plan is when do you think you will be in a position to update your business plan? Can you provide us with some general ideas on what you think should be the main basis for the business plan update and what kind of time frame you have in mind for this update?

I have a second question on the guidance for 2026, and I would like to try and understand whether you can help us understand what guidance you have in mind for the net income of 2026. Do you have any updates about that?

That would be extremely useful. Also, I have a question on a possible update on the process to build the waste management plant in the city of Rome.

I'm really interested to understand whether you have some timing in mind for that. Finally, can you give us some update on your expectations on the future activities from 2027 onwards?

Thank you. Thank you.

Now,

as to our business plan, we, as a management team, are always looking, of course, at the economic and financial conditions, we monitor them carefully to understand and monitor the business performance. We're waiting for the new board to become effective and to fully take office before we complete the plan together.

The average duration would be the same duration as the previous business plan, but the final details will have to be defined as soon as the new board takes office. As to our guidance, in general terms, we can confirm the guidance we have already disclosed will be driven by Water.

For Grids, we expect growth to be pretty dynamic. Much will depend on regulation and whatever happens with the new regulations.

Then the negative trend we had in the Environment business at the beginning of the year is mainly due to some planned overhauls for some plants, and so we expect that to disappear during the rest of the year. Overall, we should stay within the guidance we have already given in our accounts, and the EBITDA of that company at the beginning of the year was about €30 million.

As to net income, we're not giving any guidance specific on this, but apart from the capital gain that we are posting in April after disposing of retail, we don't expect anything disruptive to happen in this field. Now, are actually experiencing the energy prices that are on the decrease, but, of course, there will be a big impact from the conflict in the Middle East.

Who knows then what's going to happen in the rest of the year? It is important to realize that after losing AA rating from Standard & Poor's, we expect that we will remove some countries from the spread calculation panel, and so if that happens, if Iran is canceled in particular from the overall average calculations system, that will have an impact on pretty much everything we do.

As to the Rome waste disposal plant, we are waiting for the finalization of the current dealings, and we expect something to be communicated to us in the next few weeks. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Thanks for receiving my questions.

I have three questions. First is, can you give us some idea of the working capital performance on a full-year basis apart from the season impacts we had in Q1?

The second question is about waste and, in particular, about waste treatment. What should we expect for the rest of the year, considering that some installations are not working in Q1, but they should open again for the rest of the year?

Third question, is Acea going to be involved in tenders on some regions, Piedmont and Lombardy in particular, that are actually starting to open up for the next few months?

Thank you. As to the working capital dynamics we have included in our guidance and we expect for the end of the year, it's pretty near 2025 and to the payment of some fees which were connected to the extra profits of 2022 and which were due in the first quarter of this year.

We expect dynamics to be pretty neutral. As to the waste, as I said earlier, we expect a partial reabsorption of some of the shutdowns.

Quite a few shutdowns happened in the first quarter, some will continue during the second quarter too, but these are all planned maintenance shutdowns, and we are continuing them in these next few months. However, partially, shutdowns will be completed between today and the end of the year.

As to the hydroelectric tenders, we have been following what individual regions are doing carefully ourselves. We are in the process of evaluating individual tenders depending on their features, depending on their geographical location, and so we will evaluate that.

We're actually already looking at that too. Thank you.

Good afternoon. I have a question on guidance again.

Could you please give us an idea of the main elements right now that may take you to the high end of the guidance or even beyond that because of favorable market conditions, favorable pricing conditions, or whatever? What are the elements that might actually bring us over 5% over the current guidance?

Then maybe you have some more information than we have on the concessions of electricity distribution. Can you give us some update on Peschiera?

This was expected for April, if I'm not mistaken, but there may be some new features there. Also, can you give us an update on M&As?

This is still a really important topic. Is that full integration may happen anytime soon?

Do you think 2026 may still be a pretty active year in terms of possible M&As? Thank you.

Thank you. As to guidance, well, there are two key elements here.

First would be Water, and with the tariff approvals and the two-year updates of tariffs that are going to happen in the second half of the year, there will be some tariff components. Another key element was the acquisition of Acquanexa.

Acquanexa is actually included in the guidance. Of course, this happened in April, it has no impact on Q1, but it's going to support that growth from now on.

For the rest, we expect generation to keep sustaining growth, but it's been quite sharp to begin with in Q1. As to the extension of the concessions on electrical distribution, there's nothing relevant, nothing particularly new there, but we are ready, of course, with our Capex plan.

Our Capex plan is already in line with the ARERA target. We are actually talking to the ministries and all the other stakeholders, but we haven't a specific reference on any given timing or any kind of tariff update.

Right now, we're following and monitoring the process carefully, but there's nothing particularly new as far as we know. As to your questions on M&As, M&As are, by definition, hard to plan.

After the asset rotation season, which was completed with the sale of [unclear] Plenitude and buying from Plenitude their platform for services in the water business, well, after all that, right now, we are actually looking at possible new opportunities on the market. However, our main focus is always our fundamental core businesses, and we want to grow organically there.

We have all the Capex plans we need to improve network efficiency and resilience. Then should any opportunities appear on the market that might help us accelerate our growth process, as usual, we will take them into account.

As we speak, this is what we're doing now. It's premature to comment on any other things now.

As to Peschiera, we are at the final stages of the contracting procedure, we are going to start the economic offer and the blueprint designs, and we're going to start construction in the second half of 2027.

Good afternoon. Thanks for your presentation.

I have a question on tenders. Can you give us an update because Acea was awarded, in the last few years, virtually all the tenders where it was involved, also out of its historic geographical presence and locations?

What kind of major interesting tenders are going on now, or is there any tender that has already been decided or nearly so? Considering that the new ARERA board has taken office and the chairperson is actually very experienced in managing water and emergencies connected to water, we may suggest and we may consider they will be particularly sensitive to this.

Actually, the water networks situation is pretty much of a disaster, whereas it's really, really efficient for electricity and gas. We all know there are major problems in water losses in Italy, especially in the central and southern parts of the country.

Are you talking to the new board to make sure there may be some structural long-term solutions that may actually push a new opening of investing capital or entering joint ventures or maybe partnering with non-listed companies, private companies, so that industrial players like you may actually start working in those concessions that are really abandoned or lacking in investments and that have a terrible situation? There's some places where there's as much as 45% water losses.

Can you have a role in improving that? Thank you.

Sorry, I cannot hear you anymore. Sorry.

We did have a technical problem with the microphone. Can you hear me now?

Good. Now, as far as tenders are concerned, in the next two months, the Benevento tender is going to be decided.

We are the only player involved so far. In particular, we're working with the water board of Campania, the Campania region.

They have completed their due diligence, and they approved to continue the tender. Another tender that's going on is Caserta.

In particular, we are in the competitive dialogue phase right now, and so before the summer, the actual tender is going to be launched in Viterbo. Further tenders we may expect during the year is the Messina tender in particular.

We know this will be one of the opportunities, but more opportunities will actually appear in 2027, 2028, and many concessions are going to expire in the next few years too. As to ARERA, right now, we have a very constructive open dialogue with ARERA, and we also have formal connections with the new board.

Also we all agree on the need to invest to improve the quality of the grid, and so we see the possibility to discuss some methodological issues in order to fine-tune them and improve them. We expect that some mechanisms such as the RAB evaluation parameters and so on will be assessed on a temporary/regulatory basis.

Actually, in the last two years, at least in some geographies, we already had some very interesting discussions with ARERA, and this puts us in the right position to improve the grid as much as possible, the next biennial update, we count we can continue doing that. Also, we discussed wider issues with ARERA like governance and extending to other geographies and so on, but this is part of the future work we're going to have with them.

May I have a follow-up question on Water? Can you please give us an update on the litigation with Flores?

We know that on March 10, 2026, the Court of Florence said we need to sell our share in Acque to another company, and so the hearing to discuss this has been postponed to May 15th. All the economic impact of this transaction have already been accounted for in the 2025 financial statements, and the guidance for 2026 does not include the Publiacqua results.

In our 2026 results, we have not included the impact of Publiacqua, and starting in 2027, it will be excluded from the scope. That's where we stand now.

It's not included in Q1 2026, and there's no grant? Exactly, no, it's not included, and there's no contribution to the economic performance, EBITDA or income, and there was no contribution to the guidance.

When I say no contribution to the guidance, I also referring to the fact that in the net financial position, we had not accounted for the possible sale of Publiacqua. There was no contribution to either EBITDA or net income, and in 2026, no contribution is posted for EBITDA or net income, and this is something we have excluded from our accounts.

Or not even the disposal of the company. If you dispose of the company, it's not necessarily going to happen in 2026 if it happens at all, right?

Absolutely. If we were to be forced to sell our stake, we will actually cash in the proceeds because that will happen at the same time.

On the other hand, if a suspension happens, we'll only cash in the sales proceeds of €114 million if and when we sell our stake. If we do sell our stake, we will be cashing that money in, but we're still waiting for the final decisions of the courts.

Thank you very much.

Good afternoon. Thanks for your presentation and Q&A.

I only have one question on the disposal of Acea Energia. The closing happened, do you think there may be some capital gain you can derive from that?

As you did in the past with Terna, will that actually increase dividends, which is what happened in 2025? Thank you.

The sale of Acea Energia includes a capital gain which is certainly higher than that we have from High Voltage. It's about €200 million and on separate accounts, and on consolidated accounts, it will be even higher.

As to dividends, the dividend policy we have today is a 4% increase over the ordinary dividends of 2025, without the extraordinary component. Of course, as we update the plan and approve the results of 2026, we will certainly review everything and see what we'll decide at the time.

Thank you.

Thank you very much to take my question. Almost all of my questions have been already answered.

Maybe a follow-up question on the Environment segment just to understand. You say that contribution in Q2 you should have also partial shutdowns in Q2 and coming back by the end of the year.

Is it what you said? Thank you.

Hello?

Thank you, Enis. Yes, we confirm that the shutdowns will also include the planned shutdowns and will close the impact on the P&L, too.

Thank you.

Maybe one one question also on discontinued operation. The contribution in Q1, €32 million, it came in well above expectation.

Could you elaborate on the main drivers behind this stronger-than-expected performance, and also should we expect any further contribution in Q2 for the 10 10 days prior to the closing of the transaction? Thank you.

As to discontinued operations, the contribution to net income in Q1 was €32 million. That €32 million also includes a purely accounting effect, which is due to the stoppage of amortizations, because discontinued operations are classified as finalized for sale.

In our results, the amortizations of these assets are neutralized. We have net profit from the assets that's been disposed of, which is Energia, which is about €16 million, plus an accounting effect, which is due to amortization posting, which is another €16 million.

The overall impact is €32 million. If we compare that result to the result of the first quarter of 2025, that €16 million of Acea Energia compare to a result of €19 million last year.

Because last year the stop of amortization In Q2, we expect no impact because the asset has been disposed of in April. We'll have the impact of the capital gain, but we won't have any impact on the economic performance.

Thank you very much. If you