Thank you very much. Good evening, everyone, and thanks for connecting to our earnings call.

We'll present you our Q1, which, as expected and communicated, was difficult due to a convergence of negative factors. The currency headwinds.

Second, the continued reduction of packaging component in our top line. Third, the softer reorders trend post summer 2025, which impacted Q1 invoicing, and which was ahead of the orders peak at the end of the year, which will impact Q2 onwards.

All this on a high comp basis. In fact, last year in quarter one we grew 13%.

Going to the specific results, sales were down -6% at constant rates. Adjusted EBITDA margin stood at 11%, which was 66 basis points below a year ago, and this drop of marginality was entirely due to fixed cost absorption.

Conversely, the quarter was extremely positive in terms of cash, which was positive by €7 million despite €25 million of shares buyback and €19 million of dividends distributed. Last but not least, it's very important to note that in the past six months, we had an order entry in double-digit growth.

Very, very solid order entry. Looking in more details at our sales development at current rates: and starting with BUs, Make-up, which represented 65% of sales, was the segment that held the best, as already seen in 2025.

Sales were down 5% on a very high base of last year, which grew 23%. Considering the headwinds in currencies and the pack sales reduction, we were effectively flat.

Emerging brands performed well, but offset by multinationals, whose order entry has recently accelerated in a very visible manner. Prestige brands performed well, while mass declined.

Moving to Skin Care, which represented 13% of total sales, we continued to suffer. We posted -17%, mainly due to the Western emerging brands, while Asia continued to perform well in this segment.

We expect a comeback in the second half of 2026. Hair & Body, which was 21% of our total sales, also posted a double-digit decline, -16%, mostly due to fragrances, which, as did not have the benefit of significant launches in the past months.

Despite we remain focused on innovation, as witnessed by the recent Hair Care Award for Innovation, which we got during Cosmoprof this year, we also see a forecast for fragrances that is very solid for the remaining part of the year. We expect to come back very strongly in this segment as well.

Moving to the results by geographic regions: EMEA, which was 52% of total sales, was down 8.5%. I'm always referring to current rates.

Make-up posted growth in the region, but this was offset by the negative trend of Hair & Body and Skin Care. We expect an immediate rebound of the region, as the order intake from November onwards was extremely strong for the region, and we now have an order book which is the strongest ever for this region.

As for Americas, representing 28% of our sales, quarter one posted decline of 8.8%. The region was obviously very much impacted by the dollar devaluation.

In the region, Make-up was broadly flat, but results were affected by Skin Care, where our lack of manufacturing sites is penalizing in the current tariff environment. Also for this region, order entry has been extremely strong in the past six months.

Asia, which was 20% of our sales, was down 12% on a very high base of last year. Last year, we were at +18%.

Also in this case, Forex accounted for more than 50% of the decline, and we saw Skin Care doing well in the first quarter, but this was offset by Make-up. Moving to the customer type: Multinationals, representing 50% of our sales, posted a 13% decline on last year very high base.

Last year, we grew 28% in quarter one. All the BUs suffered in this cluster of clients.

However, the order entry trend highlights a comeback of multinationals in the rest of the year. Emerging brands, which were 45% of our total sales, remained overall stable at current rates, hence quite positive at constant rates.

Important to note that we registered a recovery of US brands after the soft 2025. Retailers, which only weighted 5% on our total sales, also posted a double-digit decline, closing first quarter at -25%.

The results was entirely driven by the Western retailers, while the Asian ones were positive. Now, looking forward, let's talk about the months ahead of us.

We remain optimistic about the beauty market trend overall. The signs of a progressive comeback to the historical trends of beauty are getting confirmations in the first months of 2026.

Both US and China are coming back, and Europe is holding quite well. We expect the market to grow between 4% and 5% in the year.

Far, Make-up is the less dynamic segment, but we think it will progressively accelerate in the rest of the year. Obviously, the darkest cloud in the coming months is the Middle East crisis with the connected energy impacts, should the crisis continue on a longer period.

For what concerns Intercos, we remain confident to beat market trend despite our slow start in the year, and there are three factors that are backing our confidence. The past six months' order entry is at double-digit growth versus year ago, and the order book we have in our hands is also double-digit up versus year ago.

Second, last year launches are getting strong consumer response in the market, and this should sustain reorders going forward. Third, the new collection of innovation presented at Cosmoprof in over 300 meetings got enthusiastic response from clients, including Hair Care, where we won, as I just said, the Cosmoprof Innovation Award.

As such, we confirm our guidance for the year, expecting net revenues to grow by about 5%, 6% versus fiscal year 2025. Thank you very much.

I'm ready to get your questions.

Good evening, and thank you for taking my questions. Two from me, please.

On your 2026 outlook, you talk about sales increasing 5% to 6%, but looking at your EBITDA expectations for the year, what are you seeing in terms of input costs currently and what tools do you have at your disposal to mitigate these effects? Tied to this, what does this mean for pricing looking at the remainder of the year?

Secondly, you mentioned that Q1 was held back by increased lead times in your orders. Could you perhaps quantify this impact, and what benefit will this have on your Q2 numbers?

Thanks very much.

Thank you, Andrei, for your questions. Yes, our outlook is 5% to 6%.

Now, as we do not give guidance on EBITDA terms, although we give a general guidance that if normal conditions are around, we expect leverage from volume leading to about 50 basis points of improvement year-on-year, but this is an average of what can happen. Now, in terms of cost and pricing, for the time being, we are seeing increases in terms of logistic costs, and we have communicated to clients that we are passing energy surcharges to them at the end of each month based on the actual cost increase of this logistic costs.

We are doing everything to neutralize costs related to logistics, which I remind you are pretty limited in our P&L because it's about 2.5% of our sales—because we work mostly in an ex-work environment, this means that we do not have effectively outbound logistic costs, while we have inbound costs. Sorry, I said 2.5% of sales, I am wrong, is 2.5% of COGS, which is a bit different.

Logistics is the number one factor for the time being. In terms of utilities that are even lower than logistic cost in terms of impact in our P&L, in reality, we work with fixed rates for 2026, we will have an impact of higher energy cost only if the current crisis goes on to 2027.

We will not get an effect in 2026. I hope I've answered to your first question.

Second one was about lead times increasing. For the time being, we're not seeing anything significant in terms of lead times of productions and deliveries.

This may come if the crisis goes on for a long period, but for the time being, we're not seeing that very much. Now, the rebound, the peak of order increase started in November, December, it's quite normal based on the current lead times, especially in the Western part of the world, that this impacts Q2 onwards.

If we are confirming the guidance as we are, it means that we expect in the quarters to come a pretty solid growth, high single-digit to double-digit going forward, and this is, as I said, backed by a very, very rich order portfolio that we have in our hands. I hope I answered your questions.

Grazie mille.

Hi, good evening, Renato. Thank you for the presentation.

I have two questions. One relates to the order intake.

If you can please give us a little bit more color maybe on the composition of this strong order intake that you're seeing and maybe the split between reorders and new project launches? Then the second one, I've seen the announcement of the CFO changing.

If you can please give us some more context around that? Thank you.

Ciao, Anna. Thanks a lot for your questions.

Composition of order intake: We keep seeing Make-up being the main lead of this order intake. We see a lot of traction in Make-up.

We see it in Europe, we see it in US. We're seeing also movements in a positive direction from Asia.

Western prestige brands in Make-up are, let's say, the leading factor so far in what we're getting in terms of orders. As I said—I think I said it, but I will repeat it in case—also the forecast for Hair & Body, and especially fragrances, which is not part, as you well know, of our order entry because it goes in a rolling forecast model, but the forecast we're seeing, it's very strong also for that part of the business.

I really see Make-up and Hair & Body picking up the fastest. Skin Care, I think, is going to be more of a second semester game.

In terms of reorders versus new initiatives, we see more new initiatives than reorders at the moment. That in general, we are about 70/30, reorders 70% and new initiatives 30%.

We're now at 65/35, which I always take it as a good sign for the time being for the simple reason that with beauty market and so end consumption increasing progressively in the course of the year, we should see progressively reorders picking up as well. Also second point is obviously, whenever we see a lot of new initiatives, that is a good sign for the year, but also for the years to come.

I'm always very happy when I see orders being led by new projects. I think I've answered to your first question.

Second question is the CFO change. Yes, unfortunately we are getting back to square one.

Not something we are happy about. I can obviously not disclose the reasons because they are mainly personal, I don't think it's appropriate for me to speak about that.

The only thing I can say is that we have a very strong team under the CFO. Our team is very well-structured, and so I'm sleeping well at night despite again, this change in the role.

That's all I can say about it.

Thank you very much, Renato.

Thank you, Anna.

Hello, nice to be back and hearing the Intercos results this evening. I just wanted to take a step back and bigger picture on the acceleration, particularly that we're seeing in Make-up.

A lot of the brands that order from you started to talk about massive pushes on innovation nearly two years ago. Is this just sort of a delayed proof of that happening, and why has it taken so long?

Or do you think it's another reason? Thank you.

Hi, Molly. Nice to see you back.

Thank you.

In general, as because I've said it several times, brands tend to accelerate on innovation when the market conditions get tougher. Last year, everybody got very much into it.

I would say in the past 18 months, everybody got more active into new projects. The lead times, though, from the moment you start working on a new project to the moment it gets to market remains, especially for multinationals, rather long.

You're talking 18 months on average. Then there are initiatives that are a bit faster than that, but there are also that are longer than that.

I would say it's quite a normal lag that is leading to the situation we're seeing today. I don't see anything unusual in that front.

Asia is faster usually. We've seen a lot of growth coming from the local Chinese brands, very much led by almost a frantic attention and activity in terms of innovation.

We are now in a phase where Western brands and prestige is regaining a bit of weight. You're certainly seeing that in L'Oréal and in Lauder as well, and that is what we're seeing in the market.

I expect that there will be new waves of innovation coming also from the Chinese brands. Obviously, we need to see what happens mid-June with the 618 event to see how bold are they going to be or not.

We'll see. Nothing unusual in terms of initiatives lead times, I would say.

Perfect. Thank you for the color.

Thank you, Molly.

Good evening, Renato and team. Thanks for taking my questions.

A couple of questions from my side. The first one is on the US market.

If you can provide us some some additional color on the current behavior of brands and retailers in terms of innovation launches, replenishment activities, and and the situation of inventory there, and if you think the the current environment can accelerate in the in the next quarter quarters? I was wondering the following up on the what you mentioned that you you can serve local for local, if this can be a factor that is could accelerate in the coming quarters the the M&A like scouting there?

The second one is on the on margin progression this year. We we appreciate that that in you have under-absorption in first quarter, but should we expect margins to progressively normalize already from second quarter, or is it or is it more skewed to the second half of the year?

The last one, if I may, if you can provide some some color on on the cash generation you you have in mind for for the full year for for this year?

Sorry, I'm noting down, otherwise I forget. That I'm an old guy.

No, Francesco, sorry. I don't want to forget any of the questions you're making.

US market: In general, we're seeing US market progressively improving. As we have gone through 18 months, more or less, of quite soft market.

It's not booming yet, or actually is doing very well in terms of retail sales, but because there is a quite important pricing component, which I think is the direct consequence of the tariffs. From a volume standpoint, we're seeing growth that is in the region of 3% growth for the market, which is good.

It's way better than what it was a year ago. I don't see a situation where brands are having a high level of inventory.

I think that what retailers will do is what they always do, which is they keep a coverage in weeks terms. The higher the consumption they see, the higher the stock they will build, because they will want to keep their 4 weeks, 5 weeks, 6 weeks of stock depending on the retailer and depending the category and the brand.

Actually, I see a progressive benefit from the end demand we're seeing at the moment. Brands are active in terms of innovation.

They've been active all along 2025, not visible to you, not visible to the market because they were working on that with us and not only with us, unfortunately. They're coming to market now.

When you hear L'Oréal or Lauder talking about very strong innovations coming in now is because they started, as I said, 18 months ago on average. That activity is going to be to the benefit of the whole category.

Usually, a high innovation pace, it's instrumental to boost the consumption in the market because, again, it's an impulse-driven category, new things means paying attention to this new products, more movement in terms of end consumption. All this is going in the right direction going forward.

M&A: Yes, the local for local in Skin Care is very important. We spoke about that last year.

This year, we are confirming that. It's very important.

We keep on being very close to the market and to the different opportunities that are there. Unfortunately, the results, globally speaking, for the potential targets in 2025, especially those that are private equity owned, were not in line with the expectations they had, they're taking longer to get to an exit.

We keep monitoring, we keep staying very close, we keep chasing certain targets that are not on the market. We'll see.

We'll see. Again, I will repeat myself, I'm sorry for that.

I think that my anxiety is related to the multiples that, as in US are way higher than the ones we're seeing for listed companies in Europe. I hope that when we will get to work on something tangible, there won't be too much of a gap between our multiple and the one of the target we're looking at.

We'll see. The one thing I can grant you is that we are very much on this.

Then it happens or not, I don't know. It's not only on us, as you well know.

Margin progression for the rest of the year: As I said, in Q1, there's nothing worrying in terms of marginality. There is only a mathematical consequence of a lower volume, lower net sales, and therefore absorption of fixed costs that had this 66 basis points impact on marginality.

Since we are expecting, as you can easily do the math, on a much better top line in the quarters to come, you will see a much better absorption of fixed costs going forward. Yes, I do expect margins to go up in the remainder of the year.

Aside from the fact that Q1 is always the lowest in every single year for a seasonality standpoint, it's the lower sales and the lower EBITDA of the year, but also in terms of year-on-year improvement, we will see a benefit going forward from a much richer top line. Cash generation, I leave it to my expert on the left side of me here.

Hi, Francesco. We don't guide on the net debt, but all in all, if you look at the consensus, there is a net debt which is pretty much stable compared to the 31st December 2025, which is a number that makes sense in our view, and that includes, of course, dividend distribution for €19 million and approximately €3 million of buyback that we want to close by the end of this year.

Great. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Francesco.

Hello, good afternoon, everybody. I have a few questions.

The first one is a bit of a, say, high-level question about your top-line growth. Just to understand how do you look at the current phase of reacceleration, especially in Make-up, to understand what kind of, let's say, sustainable growth space is behind that, and to what extent is, let's say, a revival of innovation, which is the consequence of the last few years very difficult for the sector?

I don't know if this is something we can discuss at the moment. Second point is still about profitability, just if you can recap with us the several moving parts, especially in terms of mix, since you mentioned a good prestige component in your order backlog.

I wanted to be sure whether I got it right. Also if you can comment still about the order backlog in terms of how we should look at packaging component incidence going forward and to what extent, let's say, what you're seeing with a better top line overall, but also possibly greater contribution of Hair & Body and in terms of efficiencies, if you are possibly delivering more than you expect?

Without guidance, but still compared to your initial ambitions for the year, what are you seeing at this point? Thank you very much.

Ciao, Paola. Thanks for your questions.

Innovation: I think there is a mix of elements in terms of innovation. Number one is certainly the need of brands in a difficult market conditions to grab consumers' attention with new products, new ideas, and all that.

That is a process that started, as I said, months back, coming to market now, but is something that we are still seeing, a lot of activity going on as we speak. I think that that will be sustainable.

Then, maybe not always visible in percentages term because then they will generate reorders and all that. One is structural.

The second is an extra add-on to that, which is related to reformulations that are linked to either regulatory needs or public opinion requirements. Let me try to explain that.

Let me do it in the simple way. Talc: As talc has become like poison for everybody, there are a number of important brands, important companies, especially for US, that are running away from powders with talc, and this generates a lot of innovation to relaunch brands and products without talc.

This comes on top of what a brand would normally do to gain market share. It's more of a defensive move that they're trying to play at their advantage by sending it as a total relaunch of product lines.

There are these two factors that are coming into play. The second one will likely come to an end, but this will take a while because it's not only talc, there are a number of moving parts, silicones, microplastics.

There is a lot going on. I always said that this is a devil, but also an angel for us because it brings a lot of complexity, but it puts under the spotlight our superiority in innovation because it's difficult to formulate well without these ingredients and it's difficult for the smaller competitors to be good at that, it gives us a competitive advantage that I think is sustainable.

I think there is a big chunk of this innovation sprint that is sustainable. There is another part which is, let's say, more short-term, but when I say short terms is not your short term, is at least a couple of years.

I know that whenever I say short term to you, you take the quarter. I take two years.

That is probably going to calm down in three, four years' time. I hope I've answered your questions.

Can you confirm?

Yes, the first one, yes, absolutely. The second one

was on the— No, I know, I know. Was why I wrote it down.

I just wanted to make sure that I understood well your first question. Second question was about the profitability, the mix, and all that.

What we see in our order book is, as I said, a very rich order book that is especially rich in Make-up. We expect Make-up to be strong.

This usually it is a good mix. We also see prestige being better than mass market, and this is also usually a good sign in terms of mix for marginality.

Then, on the other side, I think that quarter one of this year saw the lowest level of pack as part of our top line. We said that we were expecting 2026 on average to be in line with 2025 in terms of pack percentage on total sales.

This means that in the following quarters, we will see a little bit of rebalancing of what we've seen in quarter one. Nothing dramatic, but a little bit of rebalancing we will see.

Also because, as I said, we're seeing Hair & Body and especially fragrances forecast being strong for the remainder of the year, and that will bring a little bit more of packaging components into it. In terms of mix, on the other side, what I just said of Hair & Body being a bit stronger will be a bit of an offsetting element versus what I just said about Make-up.

All in all, I don't expect mix to be a factor. We expect, after the very strong gains of last year, to have more of a stability of marginality in the course of 2026, which is basically what we told you when we closed 2025.

What about your efficiencies if you can comment on that?

No, the projects on efficiencies are going well. Everything is tracking exactly in line with what we were expecting.

Obviously, we are at the very beginning of the year, we need to make sure that when the ramp-up of volumes will happen, we will be cashing in exactly what we are targeting. We have no negative signs so far, but we are not seeing either further benefits on top of what we had budgeted for.

All in all, we are tracking well, and we will see in the coming quarters if this gets confirmed. No flags at the moment.

Very clear. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Paola. As a reminder, if you wish to register for a question, please press * and 1 on your telephone.

Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press * and 1 on your telephone.

Thank you very much. Thank you, everybody.

Thank you. Thank you.

Bye.