Thank you very much. Good evening, everybody.

In a global context still marked by geopolitical tensions, currency headwinds, and a beauty market slowly recovering its historical growth pace of 4 to 5%, Intercos came back to growth, registering a quarter two with solid results both at top and bottom line level. Summarizing the key highlights.

Regarding top line, Q2 was the best-ever second quarter of our history at €185 million, a 5% growth at constant rate. This result allowed us to close the gap versus 2025 accumulated in Q1.

The first semester was only 0.5% below a year ago. Important to note that such a result was achieved despite the decline of the packaging component of our revenues.

As such, our value-added sales, i.e., net sales minus pack, resulted in first semester down by 0.9% at reported rates, which means low single digit up at constant rates. This was done without depleting our order portfolio, which remained up mid-teens versus a year ago, thanks to continued strong order intake.

As for EBITDA, Q2 was our best-ever quarterly result at €47.5 million with a margin of 16.7%, which was 16 basis points better than a year ago. First half was therefore at €72.6 million with flat margin at 14.2% on net sales or 17.9% on value-added sales.

EBITDA was helped by prestige segment, which was up 4 percentage points over a year ago, and the pack component reduction, which was down by over 1 percentage point. As for net debt, we also were down by over €10 million, actually €12 million, after having covered for the share buyback expenses.

Our strong cash generation led leverage to go down to 0.80 times EBITDA versus last year 0.87 times. Summarizing our financial results that you will see in greater details with Vittorio Fiumenero: second quarter saw sales up by +4.9% at constant FX, +4 at reported rates, with an EBITDA of €47.5 million, up +5%.

Margin was at 16.7%, an improvement of 16 basis points versus a year ago. First half reported sales at €512 million, -0.5% versus a year ago or -2.4 at reported rates.

Value-added sales were -1 at current forex, hence low single digit up at constant rates. EBITDA at €72.6 million with 14.2% margin in line with a year ago, or 17.9% on value-added sales.

Net income was up by 33%, tracing to reductions in financial costs and tax rates. Net debt down by €12 million despite share buyback equivalent to €16 million.

Moving to sales details now, and starting by revenues by business unit at reported forex. Make-up, second quarter was down by -1.4 over a high base of a year ago of +13%.

This means it was basically flat at constant rates. There are a couple of important points to underline to fully understand the underlying trend of this business unit.

First, the pack component was sharply down. As such, value-added sales were up at mid-single-digit rates, at constant rates.

Second, the performance accelerated throughout the second quarter, exiting the quarter at a very fast pace. First semester closed at -3%, again on tough comps, last year we grew 18%.

Again, value-added sales were up low single digit. Prestige clients were clearly up, while mass suffered.

EMEA region was the best performer, followed by Americas. Asia was down after years of double-digit expansion, driven by market dynamics that I'll elaborate in a moment.

As for skin care, second quarter was down by 3.4%. Also in this case, on top of the currencies headwinds, pack component went down, value-added sales were low single digit up.

First half was down by 9.5% with Asia growing, but Western countries offsetting this growth. Hair and body reported an exceptional +27% in the second quarter, driven by European clients, especially in fragrance.

As such, first half closed at +5%, in this case also helped by the packaging component. Moving to revenues by region, EMEA was up +10% in the second quarter, driven by prestige clients in both make-up and hair and body.

Emerging brands took back their growth driver role after 1 year of multinationals' lead. First semester therefore ended at +1% after the difficult first quarter.

Americas closed the second quarter slightly positive, +1%, overall in line with the beauty market volume dynamics. Prestige multinational clients were the best performers.

First half resulted as such down by 4%, also paying the weak dollar toll. Asia was the most challenging region.

Here, we witnessed a comeback of the Western brands, who gained shares back from Chinese brands. Hence, in our numbers, where we post only our sales to local clients, you see a decline in reorders.

As such, after years of double-digit growth and against tough base, we recorded a -5% in second quarter and -8% in the first half. Also, this region was impacted by currencies headwinds, especially in Korea.

Moving to clients clusters, in general, this year we see the reverse picture of 2025. Multinationals, which were growing at double-digit pace last year and that therefore had tough comparables this year, closed the second quarter at -2% with American make-up clients performing well, but Asian and skin and hair clients declining.

The first half ended at -8% versus last year, when we had recorded a +18% growth. Emerging brands, conversely, took back their historic driver seat.

In the second quarter, they grew by +13%, driven by Asian skin care and European hair and body. In the first half, they registered a +6% growth.

Retailers also went back to a negative trend after an extremely high 2025. Specifically, in second quarter, they posted -14% versus last year +20, and the first year closed at -19%, offsetting last year equivalent growth.

I now pass the mic to Vittorio, our Chief Operating Officer, who is acting as CFO ad interim, to take you through financials.

Thank you, Renato, and good evening, everybody. Going to the economics of the first half, as we saw in the first part of this presentation, the top line went down 2.5% at reported rate and 0.9% on the value-added sales, going at the constant rate in the positive territories, which is a good sign of our value-added sales.

Going to the gross margin, we have been able to increase the gross margin percentage of 36 bps thanks to the mix and the execution of the operational efficiencies we are executing in our plan. Thank you to the lower packaging rate, which is 1 point lower than comparable to last year.

This drove to an EBITDA of €72.6 million, which is 2.6% lower of the last year, or €2 million, but we recorded the highest quarterly adjusted EBITDA on the Q2 at the €47.5 million euro, or +5% compared to last year. So 16 bps increase year-over-year at 16.7%.

If we go at the net income, we have a very positive progression at 33.3%, driven by a positive impact of the financial items that last year was driven by the headwinds of the forex, and a lower tax rate that is 45 from 45.5% last year to 34.7% this year thanks to the intercompany dividend that has not been yet distributed, and the mix of the different countries' profit. Going to the business units EBITDA, we see a progression of the make-up of 9% with an increase of 180 bps, and this is thanks to the prestige part of our business that is growing, and the positive impact in the EBITDA of this category.

Increasing 180 180 bps at €53.2 million. Going to the skin care, the opposite, the decline in top line and the under-absorption driven by the fixed costs drove the 24% drop, or 300 bps lower EBITDA margin compared to last year, despite in the second quarter the client mix is rising toward the prestige.

Going to hair and body, we saw a 25% reduced EBITDA compared to the last year, or 280 bps. This is mainly driven by the contract manufacturing weight within the category that historically has a lower marginality and a higher weight of packaging within the business unit.

Going to the operating cash flow and the net debt evolution, as anticipated, we had a strong cash generation thanks to the level of the working capital management. We posted an €18.6 million progression compared to the last year's H1, €26.2 operating cash flow.

If I take out the CapEx, the conversion rate is 75%, which is a good sign of the cash generation. The reduced financial expenses and the reduced tax drove to a cash flow before dividend distribution and buybacks at €13 million that is a progression of net €32.4 million compared to the same period of last year.

We then go to the buyback that absorb €17 million cash and the dividend distribution €18, and then we had a €22.2 cash absorption in the first half compared to the 36.8 of the last year. This is driving our net debt at €122.7 million include the IFRS 16 compared to €134.4 of the last year, with an improvement of €12 million, roughly €12 million, that is driving our leverage ratio down to 0.8 compared to the 0.87 of last year with this generation.

Thank you.

Thank you, Vittorio. Moving forward.

Overall, as the geopolitical scenario is quite complex and very volatile. Despite this, beauty is overall well-oriented and realigning to the historical trends of 4 to 5% growth.

Now this being said, which is obviously good news, not everything is perfectly aligned, I would say, with what we would love to see. In Europe, the trends are pretty positive in both volume and price, but make-up, which is our strongest business unit, is performing below skin and fragrances in general, we would like to see make-up getting a bit faster.

US is up high single digit, but is mostly price-driven, we would like to see more volume contribution to the growth of the market. China in spite of a softer than expected June 18 e-commerce festival, it's performing in positive territory.

Obviously, this market share shift from local brands to Western multinationals helps us in the other regions of the world, but it doesn't on the Asian entities. In this context, which we think is going to be confirmed in the second half of the year, we expect the market to end in between 4 and 5% of growth, we have achieved in the first half results that are in line with our original expectation.

Q2 saw an acceleration throughout the quarter. The order book is in the mid-teens up versus a year ago despite this Q2 revenues acceleration, and orders inflow remains strong.

Actually, if I look at last month, it's more than strong, it's a record month. On top of this, the hair and body forecast from clients is stronger than our original expectations.

All in all, all this bode for a strong acceleration of sales in the second half, which was already forecasted and communicated as a backloaded year, and this is confirming, and everything is aligning to that. Based on this, we confirm our forecast, which is in line with the current net sales consensus, which is in the range we had communicated at the beginning of the year in terms of guidance for 2026.

Everything is moving along expectations, and I thank you for your attention, and we are ready to take your questions. Thank you.

Good evening, and thank you for taking my questions, Renato, Vittorio, and François. Two for me, please, if you don't mind.

Firstly, you've reiterated your guidance on net sales. However, if we think in terms of EBITDA, how should we look at it given that packaging has declined as a percent of your sales, and what are your expectations for that part going into year-end?

Secondly, just on skin care, obviously operating deleverage played quite a sizable role in the 300 basis point margin decline, but could you help us breaking it down a bit further just trying to understand why margins were so soft in the division? Thank you.

Thank you, Andrei. I will answer to your first question, and then Vittorio will answer to your second question.

In the EBITDA, in first half, you see two movements. On one side, you had a positive coming from prestige sales going up and pack going down.

The two are, as you well know, well related because usually prestige brands deliver us their packaging, they don't ask us to buy packaging. On the other hand, the growth of hair and body, as is dilutive.

This is the business unit that has the lowest margin. The two components kind of offsetted one another.

Going forward, we had forecasted the pack component, which had gone down significantly last year, to remain overall stable in the course of the year. Especially looking at the hair and body forecasts from clients for the second half, I think that we will see in the second half either stability versus a year ago and a slight increase versus the first semester in terms of percentage weight.

If I look at the skin care question, Andrei, the main drop in EBITDA compared to last year is driven, as anticipated before, by the fixed cost absorption on the legal entities where we produce skin care, particularly the execution has been soft due to the level of the orders, and so the level of under-absorption principally drove the drop on the EBITDA in the H1.

Understood. Grazie mille.

Thank you.

Hi, good evening. Thanks for taking my questions.

I have three, if I may. The first is on make-up, where you saw an increase in the prestige SKU helping profitability.

Would you expect that mix towards prestige to persist? AKA, are you still seeing that in your order intake?

My second question is on skin care. You saw the order book for make-up and skin care progressively accelerate even further.

Could you give us any kind of color in terms of the dynamics between make-up and skin care within that? AKA, you've previously spoken about expecting a pickup in skin care in H2.

Are you still confident in that, or is it more about the other business units driving the full year? Then my third final question, please, on China.

You mentioned in the outlook that you would expect a progressive comeback of the local Chinese brands. Have you seen any early signs of those comebacks, or is this more just something that you think will naturally happen as a course of business?

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much for your questions. First, you talked about prestige orders for make-up.

When we look at the portfolio on hand, prestige remains very strong, we do expect prestige to stay high in the second half of the year as well. The second point you mentioned is the both order book between make-up and skin care.

Make-up is, as I said, in the first semester has been led mostly by growth in the Western Hemisphere. This is still the case in the second half.

For skin care, it's the opposite. It's Asia driving.

Asia is positive, and Western is below. Now what we expect is to see a comeback, as you said, of China clients, especially in skin care in the second half, a further acceleration there.

As the lead times, order lead times in China, especially in Asia in general, but in China especially, is a lot shorter than in the Western world, in make-up, we have a richer order book than in skin care, and that could simply be related to the fact that the transformation time is longer than what you see in Asia and China. Typically, a brand that needs goods for October, November has already placed orders in the Western Hemisphere.

It has not yet in Asia and in China. Now coming to your last question, early signs of local brands accelerating in the second half, we do not have anything tangible.

When I say anything tangible are firm orders. What we hear, though, is their will to gain shares back during the Double 11 event.

Everybody has been quite of surprised after a couple of years where they were winning to see the comeback of the Western brands. They all declare their desire and their eagerness to come back and react to this escalation of Western brands.

It's not only our assumption, it's what we get qualitatively talking to the local clients. Now obviously, we need to see orders inflowing at an accelerated pace to, let's say, solidify this intention, and this is going to come towards end of this month, early September.

I hope I've answered to your questions.

Yes, that's great. Thank you very much, Renato.

Thank you.

Good evening, Renato, Vittorio, and François. Thanks for the presentations.

I have three questions. First, a follow-up on skin care.

How would you expect the prestige skin care performance to evolve into the second half of the year? I think you commented on make-up.

Also how should we think about the performance from multinationals in the US and Europe in skin care, as that appears to have been weaker? Second question is on China.

I just wanted to follow up on the comments regarding the fight back of the Chinese local brands and the willingness to regain market share. How would you expect that to play out in practice?

Would you expect them to become more promotional, or would you rather see a pace of innovation to accelerate? Just to finish on China, it would also be great to hear your perspective on the trends we've seen so far in July, if you have the read already.

Then the last quick question is just a technical one. Can you remind us of your expectations for this year for finance costs and the effective tax rate?

Thank you.

Ciao Aron. Thank you for your question.

Sorry, I'm writing them down because otherwise I forget them. Skin care, prestige for the second half, we're seeing them moving in a good direction, not a great direction, we clearly see a difference so far between make-up and skin care in terms of prestige clients and multinationals.

I know skin care has been mostly driven by Asian clients, and I think this will continue to be the case in the second half. As there are few brands in prestige territory from the local brands.

Now one example is, for instance, in China, Mao Geping. Mao Geping is one of the few Chinese brands that performed well during the June 18 festival.

We keep thinking this brand will continue to go well also in the second half of the year, but there aren't that many. I think that there will be a shift in the total panel of skin care sales, there will be a shift towards prestige and a bit of mass simply because it will be more driven by Asia than the Western world.

From the China fight back, I think that most probably there will be an escalation in promotional. Innovation, yes, but they always had innovation.

It requires a push to get the trial going, and when the Western brands are pushing hard to gain share back, they have an inherent advantage that is driven by their brand image. Getting a great offer from YSL or another luxury brand from the Western is tough for them to compensate.

They need to sharpen their pencils to do better in that respect. Yes, I would go up to answer your questions.

July read, we don't have yet. Sorry.

We have seen data up to the end of June. We have seen a read up to the end of July for US market, but not from China.

For the finance and tax question, I delegate to someone who's better equipped than me.

Thank you, Renato. I start from the tax rate to the ETR.

We expect to have the ETR normalize in a 30 31% as per consensus because we know that the effect of the dividends is temporary, in the H1, we anticipated before. On the finance cost, also here is depending, of course, how the forex will move in the second half, but we do expect here to stay in the range of 12 12 12.5 million euro aligned to the consensus.

Great. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Aron.

Thank you, Aron.

Yes, hello. Sorry, just a quick one from me.

How do you see the inventory level in the market, and so to what extent can this ensure a consistency of the fast growth you are expecting in the next few months if you can comment by category, please? Thank you very much.

Ciao Paola. Thank you for your question.

Inventory level, to be honest, we do not see any particular point to raise. I think it's pretty normalized.

The consumer demand is going in a very steady manner. We think retailers have had time to normalize their stock level.

Sell-out, sell-in should be very much aligned, and we do not hear any particular concern from clients. Obviously, you will always have the exception, one client declaring to be a bit overstocked and therefore reducing orders, and on the other side, you will always have the exception of someone who is a bit short in inventory and wants to accelerate orders.

All in all, I do not see any warning sign. When I look at the reorders trend, as we have a large part of our sales every year is based on reorders.

They're coming in in a more regular and more consistent way than a year ago. That is, generally speaking, a sign that the inventory level in the market is pretty normalized.

Let's say this applies also to the hair and body segment, which is apparently surprising also your own expectations?

In hair and body, the reality is that, on one side, we have won some new projects we were not expecting in the year, to be honest. Also established clients have done a bit of a yo-yo.

They were ordering a lot in 2024. They adjusted their inventories in 2025, and now they're running at a more regular pace.

Over, let's say, a depressed base, they are now looking better. When I look at the millions aside from the indexes, I do not see anything really surprising.

The good news is that the decline of last year was not a sell-out decline, it was an inventory adjustment. Now they're normalizing, and in our forecast, maybe we've been a bit conservative, we were expecting them to stay down at the level of 2025, and in reality, they're going up versus that level.

Pretty clear. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Paola.

Good evening. Thanks for taking my question.

I have one follow-up, please, on profitability. Now you gave us some pointers how to think about H2, but if I look at full year consensus right now, I can see EBITDA of €164 million with margin stable year-on-year.

Are you comfortable with where consensus is? Thank you.

Yes, I am. I think it's pretty accurate, actually.

I wouldn't be able to do it better than that.

Very clear. Thank you.

I'm joking, sorry. No, but, jokes apart, no, I think it's pretty accurate.

It's what we expect for the time being.

It's reflecting the expectation.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thanks for taking my follow-ups. I had two quick questions.

First, on fragrances, could you give us some more color on what's driving the strong performance in Europe? Is it a specific client, a specific innovation that's driving that?

Then second, just on the innovation appetite, are you seeing any divergence in terms of demand for innovations between emerging brands and multinationals, or is it broadly similar? Thank you.

Hi. Thank you for your questions.

Fragrance, well, first of all, I must say that the trend of the fragrance market remains above, I think, everybody's expectation, certainly our expectation. Especially when I look at the trend in America, it's continuing to grow at a faster than usual rate.

There is that element that is driving consumption ahead of expectation. For all the clients that are particularly developed or strong in the American market, this is good news and drives higher volumes.

Innovation, the flow of innovation is pretty similar year-on-year. Everybody plans more or less the same level.

Then, the reality is that it all depends on the rate of success that these new initiatives have, and therefore that can drive big swings in terms of performance for clients, and therefore for us as well. I think that all this is more or less normal in terms of trend.

Yes, we have one one important client that, as I said, tempered its volumes or this is buying to adjust inventory last year, and this year has come back to its, I would say, more regular ordering pace. That is also helping and making a difference.

Coming to your second question, innovation demand from emerging brands and multinationals, very similar. They are all very eager to move ahead, to come up with innovation.

There is also a lot of activity going into reformulations of existing franchises. They are driven by regulatory needs, either short-term or mid-term regulatory needs.

There is a lot of renewals going on, both for emerging brands and for multinationals. I don't see any slowdown at all.

Great. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you for taking my follow-up. Just one for me, please.

Would you mind updating us on the search for a permanent CFO, how that's going along? Thank you.

Yeah. We've we are scanning the market a lot.

As you can imagine, we do not want to make any any mistake. You want to want to be bulletproof on on this one.

I must say that, aside from Vittorio that is probably complaining about his workload, is doing a super job, so as a CFO, I'm I'm almost Thank you.

Thank you.

I kind of don't feel the pressure to rush into a new hiring. We have scanned about 70 resumes.

We have gone through a round of interviews of about, I would say, 20 candidates more or less. We are going through the funnel Shrinking.

and shrinking the candidate list. I think that between September, October, we should come to a conclusion on that.

In the meantime, we have recruited the new IR manager who's going to join us on August 24th, so that is going forward. We've done some other additions in the finance team, we are beefing up and having stronger shoulders.

On the CFO side, we want to be very sure about what we do, we're going to take our time.

Understood. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Yes, thank you for taking my second question. I was wondering if you can share with us some first thoughts about your view on the market for 2027, and in particular your view for what concerned the strong acceleration we are going to see in your revenues and from your order backlog in the second part of this year.

To what extent do you think we can have still a tail or to what extent can this be sustainable also entering into 2027, or do you see any temporary element that should fade in the short term? Thank you.

Thank you, Paola. It is a bit early, frankly speaking, to have a view on 2027.

I personally believe the market will realign, as it is already, as expected is doing this year, is realigning to its historical growth trends. I think that is there to stay also next year.

I would expect, or at least I hope, that the currency will be a bit more favorable next year. In terms of behavior in general, I wouldn't expect any big news, to be honest.

I expect the market to stay in the 4 to 5% growth rate. I expect brands to continue to have a very high appetite for innovation, especially because there are some regulatory changes that are going to get closer in terms of timing, so that race will continue to be up there.

In terms of backlog or anything like that, it will depend a lot on how we perform at the end of the year and what is going to be the ordering flow in the second half of the year, especially from October onwards, it's a bit early. I have no, let's say, anxiety about 2027 for the time being.

Thanks. Thank you.

If there are no more questions, I thank everybody and wish everybody a good summer. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much.