Thank you, Sandra, and welcome from Heidelberg. We're here with, as usual, Dominik von Achten, CEO, René Aldach, CFO, and the IR team.

After going through some prepared remarks, we get ample time for your questions. With that very short intro, over to you, Dominik.

Christoph, thanks. Hello, everybody.

Great to have you on the call. Thanks for joining.

Look, we had a interesting quarter in the start for 2026. Robust performance from our perspective, but quite significantly impacted by weather in US, Europe, and partially in Africa.

The revenues are at 4.5 billion, RCO 0.2 billion, down from prior year quarter, but important for us, positive price over cost and that to a large extent mitigates the volume impact that has been driven by the weather. I don't have to tell you, Northeast, you saw the pictures from New York, you saw how Northern Europe and Western and Eastern Europe were under snow for a long time.

That's our footprint in that respect. For us, I would say normal course of business.

Transformation Accelerator, I think it has taken off, but from my seat and our seat, I think there is still ample room for maneuver on the cost side as we go through the year, especially given the volume developments in the first quarter. We should expect further good traction on the Transformation Accelerator.

More than 400 million are already on the clock, and we are very confident that we will surpass the 500 million by year end, and that's important for us, especially in the current environment. Share buyback, we stepped up our last year's buyback of about 400 million now to 450 million with the next tranche that will start after next week's AGM.

Important for us, as we always said, we want to grow organically with our sustainable products focus, but we also want to grow externally, and great acquisition Down Under in Australia with MAAS that's going through the antitrust process right now. Everything on track.

Then we have Akçansa, I think a very interesting step-up into the majority position of a company we know very well, of a market position in Turkey we know very well, and from an export platform we know super well, and we can leverage for growth not only in Africa, but also in other parts of the world, including North America. A little bit behind the scenes.

We sneaked our French Airvault plant through a massive rebuild. Significant investment well beyond €300 million.

Step change in efficiency and decarbonization. The plant is now running.

The kiln is running, clinker is produced, alternative fuel are running. I think in that respect, we are really as we'll see a big change in the performance of France, not only on the financial side, but also in terms of carbon footprint.

Keep in mind, the carbon footprint of this new setup is 30%, 3-0%, better than the old plant. A massive change.

That's why we said step change. With that, we confirm our outlook between 3.4 and 3.75 billion.

ROIC will be above 10%, and the CO2 emissions will be slightly reduced. If you go to the details on page 3, I don't think I have to go through that, EBITDA at 400 484, 13% down, operating margin slightly down to 10.7, and then on the RCO, down to 163 million.

If you see on page 4, this is mainly driven by volumes. That's the impact that I was describing.

From my seat, that is mainly and predominantly weather-related. There are some markets that are a little bit sluggish, we'll come to that, I guess, through the discussion, but in general, this is weather-impacted in Q1.

Important that the price over cost remained positive. If you then go to the margin, you see that LTM, last 12 months, the margin's actually moving in the right direction in all businesses.

Cement is moving in the right direction up to 27.5, aggregates is up to 25.7, and for the group then, that means an increase to 21.6. From our perspective, a green light, the train is moving in the right direction despite all the headwinds.

Transformation Accelerator, as I said, 380 million of last year, more than on track. Because normally if you halve the 500, we would have expected 250 to 300, 380 a fantastic job, and we just need to do it again, and that's what we are fighting for this year.

We should, as I said earlier, expect to well surpass the 500 million by year end. If you then go through the different areas, Europe is the one that has had harsh weather and where the result really came down.

I think Europe is large, large footprint, and the markets are quite different. From our perspective, the sluggishness of the market sits a little bit in a line between the UK and Germany, and Benelux in between.

The rest of Europe is actually okay. Then in the East, it's maybe Poland and Romania that is a little bit slower.

The rest is actually going quite well, if not very well. In that respect, the big countries for us are a little bit hit by the by the weather and some sluggishness in their performance.

I'm sure we'll come back to that in during the discussion. Then if you go to North America, the result is below last year, and I would say that's all about the Northeast.

That's why, it's from our seat it's for us the biggest region by far, and it is the one that has been hit the hardest by the weather. That's why I think we are on it.

April looks good. I think from my seat and our seat, this will go this is going in the right direction.

There are also large projects that are now kicking in and really seeing the material pull. I'm actually quite optimistic that North America in general, but also the Northeast, will turn the corner.

Asia-Pacific, I would say stable with some ups and downs in the different countries. René can maybe later on say something to Australia, but also there we see movement in the right direction.

Overall, I think we've seen the worst in Asia and Australia, but the question is how much uptick we'll see throughout the year. Let's wait and see.

Volume development also in April was actually good. Africa, despite the fact that volumes were a little bit under pressure, especially in the northern half of parts of Africa, but also in some parts of Sub-Sahara driven by the weather.

In the end, the result was quite stable, and also there April looks significantly better. I I'm pretty confident that also Africa or AMBA for us will continue to deliver well during 2026.

Then on the guidance, as I said early on, we absolutely stick to our guidance at 3.4 to 3.75 RCO, above 10% ROIC, a slight reduction in CO2 emissions, and then on the CapEx, 1.2 to 1.3, and the leverage around 1.5 times. That's it from our side.

René, do you have anything to add?

Just a short info about the next tranche of the share buyback. We will start this after the AGM in May.

You remember the last few ones were around 400 million. This one will be 450 million, so that's a significant or it's a nice uptick.

Together with the dividend, I think we stick to our commitment that we want to increase the shareholder return, which we're de facto doing. That's just what I wanted to add to Dominik's explanations.

Thank you, Dominik. Thanks, René.

Operator, we can start the Q&A process, please.

Thank you, operator. As the line is pretty full, as usual, please stick to two questions at a time, and we start with Ben Rada Martin from Goldman Sachs.

Hey, Ben.

Hi, Ben.

Great. Good afternoon, Dominik, René, and Christoph.

Thank you for the questions today. My first was on energy inflation.

I know in the press release, you spoke about expectations of cost inflation and a partial offset from pricing and surcharges. I guess it'd be helpful, could you quantify what kind of base case of inflation is on your €2 billion energy bill and I guess your €2 billion or so transport bill as we sit today?

Then the second one would just be on pricing. It'd be helpful to touch on how you saw pricing realization in the first few months of the year in Europe and North America, please.

Thank you.

Let me take the first, and then René does the second, and René takes the first. It's Dominik.

Ben, on the pricing, I think pricing in Europe is intact. For us, that's okay.

The only, to be honest, the only sluggish market a little bit is maybe the UK. The rest is absolutely intact from our perspective.

The one more, the other a little bit less, but no change from what we have indicated earlier on pricing in Europe. We continue to do volume value before volume.

For us, it's important to move the price, also because you look the carbon certificate is still at €75. From our seat, the cost position is pushing, especially for those who are short.

In that respect, no change from our pricing approach. For North America, pricing you saw this, pricing in aggregates very strong.

I think also, in comparison, I think our pricing in aggregates, go to the details, I think top performance of the team in North America, which is important for us. In cement, you can always dream more, but also there, if you take the benchmark, I think top job of the team, and pricing is moving for us in positive territory.

North America pricing is up also in cement. Remember, last year we were down.

We've said we going to target a single low single-digit increase in cement in North America. We are actually on track with pricing also in North America, Ben.

Regarding the energy inflation, also first of all, I want to clarify something. Also we you read here partial offset, but the clear target is to fully offset the cost, no?

As I'm managing the Australian business, and I can assure you, and I have the numbers, in April, we fully offset the additional fuel costs we got direct and indirectly from suppliers. That's number one.

Number two, how much is this affecting us? It's interesting, no?

The oil price is now 10% down today, this moves every hour. Now to give you a precise number is difficult, but I give you a little bit a preview here how you think about need to think about this.

Fuel and diesel and oil is only 15% of our energy bill, no? It's if you take 2.2 billion, it's 300-something million.

You can imagine that we learned from the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and our hedge levels were never as high as they have been in 2026. Only a certain part is affected by the Iran let's say conflict.

I would have said, they we want to recover the full impact, and it's probably from a direct fuel and energy cost impact is probably low low low single-digit cost increase on our energy bill, which we want to offset. Now with the 10% oil price decrease, that will be even lower.

It's clear we want to offset, but mathematically, that's clear, if you just offset 1 to 1, that's margin dilutive. It's very clear.

That's the mathematics of this. That should not impact us big time.

We seem here very comfortable.

Thanks, Ben.

Thanks, Ben. Next one is from Luis Prieto from Kepler.

Hey, Luis.

Hi, Luis.

Hey, good afternoon. Thanks a lot for taking my questions.

Just a couple of them very briefly. The first one, coming back to pricing.

Is there a scenario in which we see further initiatives implemented in the second half of the year? Things are changing a lot, but is that something that is likely?

The second one, if I recall correctly, you mentioned in Q4 results that you were optimistic for the year with a conservative initial guidance. Has your stance at all changed due to geopolitical risks?

In other words, can we still categorize the confirmed outlook as a conservative initial guidance? Thank you.

Luis, let's get one by one after the other. Pricing, we never give up on pricing, to be very clear.

There is no rule that we can't move in the second half. We try every day to advance our pricing.

We need to react to the volatilities, and that depends a little bit what René said earlier. It depends also on the geopolitical wiggle room that we have that we can't manage.

We'll navigate well through the fog as we did in the past. The clear message to you is there is we never give up until the 31st of December, and then the work starts on January 1.

Pricing is a continuous movement in the right direction ideally. No question around this.

Look, early days on the guidance. Let's not get ahead of ourselves.

We stick to what we have said end of last year, and let's not now speculate about too many potential upsides or deviations from that. Let us deliver, and as we go through the year, we keep you updated.

Given also the geopolitical volatility, I ask for your understanding that it's still a way to go until the year end, and we need to manage all the ups and downs. We're confident we can get there, absolutely confident we can get there, otherwise we would not tell you.

Let's not get ahead of ourselves, no?

Super clear. Thank you.

Thanks, Luis.

Thanks, Luis. Next question comes from Paul Roger from BNP Paribas.

Hey, Paul.

Hello.

Hello, team. Hope you're well.

Thank you for taking the questions. I have one short-term, one long-term then.

On the short term, pleasing to hear there was a significant recovery in April or in Q2. Wonder if you could be a bit more specific and maybe quantify the volume growth, and also talk a bit about some of the recent trends and if they differ by market.

Then secondly, on the longer term, you referenced a bit the deal in Turkey. Could you say a bit more about the rationale for that, and also whether there'll be any strategic changes following that deal?

Thank you.

Just because the line was not super clear, Paul, just to repeat your question, the first one was recovery in April, and what was the second half of that first question? By region?

Can you quantify a bit and talk about the hot spots and maybe some of the weaker spots as well.

Yeah. Then the other one was Akçansa, no?

Perfect. Paul, on the recovery in April, we are clearly above prior year and also our plan in April in terms of volume.

Let me not get into too many specifics, but it's not just a small tick-up. It's for my seat is a significant tick-up.

I think that goes in the right direction. I think there are also, to your second half of the point, there are markets that are still sluggish.

I've I indicated them to you earlier. If I look at Europe, it's this axis between all the way between UK and Romania, you can always draw almost draw a line.

That is the one that I think we are waiting for a significant recovery. I think I get some good indications here in Germany on housing here and there a little bit.

There is movement below the hood, but it's we don't see it yet in our numbers. The sluggishness, Paul, sits predominantly there.

Then I think that is probably the weakest spot, which I can take the smile now and say, hey, that gives us the biggest upside, but let's fix that problem first. Those are probably the weakest links.

The rest, nothing to mind boggle about. It's ups and downs, but it's nothing to be either too happy or worried about.

Then on Akçansa, let me start and then René add, because he knows the business also quite well. He's also involved in that.

For us, why did we do this? that we know the business for 30 years.

We had a joint venture with Sabancı, and we have now the opportunity to take over their shares. That's what we are doing, which then puts us into a almost 80% share, predominantly ownership.

From our seat, the business has been underperforming. That's also why we were forcing a little bit a solution here, and we do believe we are the best owner for this.

that we have also a Turkish board member who knows the business and the surroundings in Turkey very well. As a team setup is also good.

The assets we know very well. We know the upsides of the assets.

We know the market position in Turkey very well. We know the surrounding markets of Turkey, and that's important, the plant in Çanakkale sits at the water and is a powerhouse when it comes to exports both in terms of serving Africa, Asia, and even North America.

I think that's important for us to get a grip on that, because with all the volatilities, Texas here, imports absolutely, blah, blah, blah, there is a lot of wiggle room that you get and flexibility you gain in your network. That we have a very powerful trading arm that is dealing globally under HC Fuels, HM Trading.

René, maybe you have something to add

also financially? This is As Dominik said, the business was in '25 underperforming, but if you look the prior years, it was okay, and there's significant synergy potential if we manage this on our own.

I guess this is a strategically very, very good deal. If they come to normal EBITDA levels as well financially is good.

We buy an own known business. The risk downside is very low.

We have Hakan, who was working for Akçansa. He knows everything.

Now we can manage by ourselves, it's a very good strategic acquisition helping as well our growth story within our financial metrics. That's great.

Thank you very much.

Thanks, Paul. Thank you.

Thank you. Next question comes from Elodie Rall from JPMorgan.

Hey, Elodie.

Elodie, hello.

Hi. Good afternoon.

Just a follow-up first on Paul's question. April volumes, does that mean that April volumes are up and in Europe as well, if you could just clarify?

Because I'm not sure I understand if you also said that overall European volumes are up in April. Then second question is on your overall margin performance in Q1 and maybe going forwards.

Because you're saying that you're delivering on your cost initiatives, but your EBITDA on a like-for-like basis is down in all regions, even in regions where you generated positive like-for-like sales. For example in North America, like-for-like sales were up 3%, but like-for-like EBITDA margin EBITDA is down 27%.

What's going on there? Where are the cost savings basically going?

Because it's a bit disappointing not to see that translating in EBITDA performance. Maybe Q1 is exceptional, and from here it's okay, but if you could give us a bit of color there, that would be quite useful.

Thank you.

Hey, very good. Elodie, let me give you the first answer.

The volumes are clearly up for the group. Europe is flat.

Then

Which is to be clear, much better than the first quarter.

Elodie, second quarter regarding margin performance, let's go through this, no? You say North America revenue is okay and margins are down.

This is correct, but what? We have only one region in Q1 in North America which is down.

All the others are nicely up. Which one is the region which is down heavily?

It's the Northeast. Dominik alluded to this, New York, what have you, snow, heavy snow.

This is by far our biggest region. That is also it's a cement region with high margins.

If this is heavily down, then it weighs on your average margin. It's very clear.

Then we have as well, obviously this, maintenance timing, inventory, you don't need to go into these details. Q1, was impacted by the Northeast.

All other regions were clearly up. From our point of view, that is not a concern, because in April, that region as well, volume-wise went nicely up.

That's a tick. Then, what, in Europe, you have 20 countries.

Now to Q1 for the weather report is to go through margins from my perspective doesn't make any sense. The cost reduction focus is there.

We will push further. As Dominik also said it, the 500 is probably the not the end number, not probably, it will not be the end number, it will be nicely higher.

The savings will show up. What we have also done in Q1, you have seen this, we further optimize the European footprint.

We have announced to close another cement plant in Germany. We have announced to, let's say, restructure, optimize our cement plant network in Sweden.

That will all comes through, don't worry. If you look at the European cement margins, I think they are even improving.

I'm not worried, Elodie, about this. Even in the if in Q1, look at the slide 14 of the deck, the cement margins are up in Europe with shitty volumes and weather.

That gives me confidence, and there you see the savings.

Okay?

Very clear. Very clear, Elodie.

Thanks a lot. Next one comes from Arnaud Lehmann from Bank of America.

Arnaud, hello.

Arnaud, hello.

Hello, hello. Thank you for taking my questions, gentlemen.

Firstly, just a clarification on your full year guidance. Do you include any contribution from MAAS Group in Australia or Akçansa in Turkey in the guide for EBIT?

Secondly, and if you can clarify maybe the timing of consolidation for these two assets, please. Secondly, just to finish the world tour, in Africa, you mentioned bad weather for declining sales.

I thought it was always sunny in Morocco and Egypt, but maybe you can give us a bit of color. Thank you.

Okay. On the guidance, I think, no, it's not included.

MAAS, René,

you want to say something? Okay.

MAAS, we have signed this after we have let's say decided on the guidance. There's a cartel or the ACCC is the authority reviewing this.

earliest, I would have said, late Q3, beginning of Q4. That's it for MAAS.

Akçansa, also there is an antitrust process running with the agencies in Turkey. Very hard to predict.

Again, let's not get ahead of ourselves, it's not in the guidance, but it's very hard to predict when this will close. It can go fast, but this can also take longer.

I'm being cautious on this. We are not trying to overpromise here, no?

That would be an uptick if it comes earlier, but let's not here speculate on too high hopes, huh? On Africa, as I said, I think the North Africa was actually good in April.

Volume performance across the board was very positive. There was also Ramadan effects.

That's clear. Sub-Sahara Africa comes and goes a little bit, but overall, also in Sub-Sahara, there are parts of Sub-Sahara that were stronger than others, but overall, AMBA is clearly up in volumes for April.

Thank you so much.

Thanks.

Thank you. Next question comes from Pujarini Ghosh from Bernstein.

Hey,

Pujarini. Hello.

Hi. Thanks for taking my questions.

If we discuss the RCO margin, Q1, RCO obviously dipped quite a bit, and going back to your full year guidance, it implies, almost at the upper end more than 10% increase. My question is, what kind of volume, price, price cost expectations are you baking in to take you to either the bottom end or the upper end of the guidance?

Basically, how should we expect the remainder of the year to progress? My second question is back on AMBA.

Basically, you've discussed the Africa region, but the other part, other markets in that segment, how are they doing? Is there any impact from the conflict?

Any color around that would be very helpful. Thank you.

Let me take the second one, and then René takes the first on the margins. Look, we are not in the direct conflict zone.

The biggest impact we see for years now in Israel. Obviously, Israel is under war scenario for quite some time now.

That's where we see the biggest impact. Egypt is not impacted, at least not negatively.

I think even positively because the market in Egypt is strong. Morocco, same thing.

We are not in the Middle East. Turkey, no impacts other than the direct indirect impacts that René was describing earlier, but other than that, Pujarini, we are not in the Middle East with any presence, no impact to us.

Then

to your first question regarding our guidance, no? Also as Dominik said it, we have one small quarter now.

Yes, we are a little bit behind prior year, but we could explain this, and April looks good. We will catch something up what we have missed in Q1.

The overall, North America, as we said it, pricing is very, very good in aggregates. Our volumes except Northeast were good across all the regions.

No change to our assumptions in North America. AMBA also, April very strong, catching up what we missed in Q1.

Again, in Q1, our highest margin, biggest country there is Morocco, and they had floodings the first two and a half months, and we see this catching up. As well here, no change to guidance.

Then Europe, as Dominik also said, there's few bigger countries not performing like we want to, but, we will make this up with cost, and our pricing is okay. Also here, overall no change to what we said when we have given out the guidance, and probably there's maybe upside a little bit in Asia and Australia, let's see.

Overall, I think we will hit what we wanted to hit. Thanks, Pujarini.

Thank you.

Next in line is Yassine Touahri from OnField Research. Hey, Yassine.

Hello.

Yes, good afternoon. Thank you very much for taking my question.

I think my first question would be on the cement margin in North America. I think the cement margin have been coming down for, I think, fourth quarter in a row now, and on the compression that we see in the first quarter, it's nearly 700 basis points.

I understand it's partly weather-related. Again, it's very surprising.

Is there any one-off in this or the timing of maintenance or anything that explain this collapse in margin in Q1? When we look at the rest of the year, do you feel that you're in a position where you could see a return to margin expansion in cement or at least margin stability?

Then my second question would be on there is a press report suggesting that you might be looking at an acquisition in South Africa. Is it something that you can comment on?

If you cannot comment on this specific press report, could you explain a little bit your strategy in emerging market? Could we see more acquisition in emerging market in cement, or are you going to focus mostly on developed market?

Yassine, let me take the second one, and then René takes the first one. As always, Yassine, no comments on any press speculations.

That is also true for this one. When it comes to M&A, we've always said we're going to grow both in developed and in emerging markets.

We have a global portfolio. There are ups and downs in each of those markets.

We want to balance also things out. We focus on delivering our financial metrics and our growth ambition, and in that combination, we look at every opportunity in our core business.

We will not leave our focus on heavy building materials. That's what we always said, and that's our clear focus, because we believe that's what we know best, that's where we'll have our global advantage, that's where enough growth sits.

With that, we stick to what we have said all along. Both developed and emerging markets are absolutely there.

You see now, MAAS was a developed market acquisition. I would say Turkey is probably counting somewhat to emerging markets, maybe stuck in the middle, but in that respect, the full range is up for grab, but it needs to deliver a contribution to the financial metrics.

As René was explaining earlier, that's true both for MAAS and true for Akçansa, and it's true for every acquisition that will come. The pipeline is full, and you should expect more acquisitions as we go through the year, no?

Yassine, regarding your cement margin, and I thought I have somehow alluded to this. That delta is coming, again, only from our biggest region, cement region we have in North America.

You are saying on a group level, it's what, 650 or whatever basis points, in that region, we are talking 200 basis points, no? 2,000 basis points, no, delta, because there was not much going on there.

Again, margin expansion, that's obviously with increasing cost, and you put fuel surcharges in, everything that's margin dilutive is clear. We need to get back to the margin pass for North America.

It should not go down, clear. Cement pricing needs to move better than it has last year, but that's not Heidelberg problem, the whole industry cement pricing last year was not great.

It's clear, Yassine, that we need to get better here, and we will. Again, Q1, don't use Q1 because there's the biggest region under heavy pressure with no de facto not much sales.

I'm not so concerned, again. Let's see.

April again,

The idea is to look at the when we look at the second quarter, the idea is that the volume should be better, at least in April. As a result, the margin pressure should be much less substantial, and it could even be potentially stable depending on the pricing execution.

Is that the way to look at it?

Correct. That's you have summarized it better than I did.

That's correct.

Thank you very much.

Thanks, Yassine.

We have two more questioners on the line. We're doing okay on time, if you have any more questions, feel free to step back in line.

The next question comes from Julian Radlinger from UBS.

Hey, Julian.

Hello. Hey, guys.

Morning, thanks. Three for me, please.

I think they should be relatively quick. The first one is a really easy one.

We've talked a lot about the cement margin decline in North America. The aggregates margin decline in Europe, is there anything other behind that than just volume declines that we saw in Europe?

Second question, if I'm looking at your segments, taking a step back from the Q1 now, APAC continues to be the one that sticks out as the one where earnings have been moving sideways for a long time now. I know you get this question a lot, but how happy are you with this region in general?

Is the performance there meeting your expectations? If the answer is no, what can you or are you doing about that?

Are you and how far are you considering portfolio actions there as well? Then my last question, and this is sort of similar to what Yassine asked about emerging market acquisitions, I'd if you can come back to that and elaborate a little bit, I'd love to understand a bit what makes certain emerging market assets look more attractive right now than, for instance, doing more aggregates bolt-ons or cement bolt-ons in the US, or contributing to European cement market consolidation in a region which is highly underutilized, things like that, if you can help us understand a little bit the trade-offs there.

Thank you.

Yeah. Julian, that's almost a textbook for the next half hour.

Only a small three questions. Let me take a stab, and then René will jump in when it comes to your second question.

Aggregates margin decline in Europe, it's very simple. I've indicated to you UK is sluggish, and that is our one of our biggest aggregates.

The the aggregates volumes, if you look a little bit where they sit, they sit predominantly in the markets where I that I described as as being sluggish. I think that's the main reason.

If you take that on the flip side of the argument, that's a volume pressure there. I think overall, from my seat, we should also see a recovery in aggregates in Europe and predominantly in the UK.

It depends also on specific market developments. I think overall, I think that's mainly the answer there.

On APAC, let me give you the answer in for total APAC, and then René can again comment on Australia, because I would argue we do take portfolio matters quite substantially in APAC. that we've done an acquisition recently in Malaysia.

that we have done moves in Indonesia, and René will come to the moves in Australia. We are growing that region quite substantially, and it has the beauty that it has the fairly stable market of Australia in there, and then the more emerging markets, Indonesia, India, Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong.

I think that's the case. Maybe before we get to Australia, it's clear that we continue to work on our portfolio.

That's also clear for APAC. The question was whether we are satisfied.

No. Does it meet your expectations?

No. Can we change or should we think change overnight hastily?

No, because that's destroying shareholder value. That's not what we are paid for.

We are keeping an eye on what we can do from a portfolio perspective, but clearly portfolio management will continue also in APAC. You should expect that not only in Australia, but also in Asia.

René, maybe you describe a little bit the situation in Australia?

Okay. Julian, for Australia, we have done the BGC acquisition via our joint venture Cement Australia.

That is a big big, big, big success. Then, following our strategy, we want to increase our our, let's say, presence in markets where we are and where we have where we can further improve, and that is the MAAS acquisition on the East Coast.

I think that fits perfectly to our portfolio. You have seen as well our other competitors in the building materials growing in Australia, and I guess we are doing the right thing.

We follow these result positions of these acquisitions very, very closely, and they are outperforming like we wanted to have it in Australia, I think that fits perfectly to the strategy.

Then Julian, on your last question, emerging markets acquisitions versus aggregates bolt-ons and European consolidation moves, I think it's pretty straightforward. Again going back to what we said, we want to grow, we want to meet the financial framework.

The beauty about the emerging market acquisitions that we do, they are very quickly value-accretive both in terms of margins and in terms of ROIC, because in most cases, these are asset-light steps, not everywhere, but in most cases. That means that typically on a ROIC performance, you get a good return.

That's especially true for the AMBA setup. Then aggregates and cement bolt-ons, obviously we are looking at everything that moves, but we do say no to a lot of things because we don't see the value and the value accretion for our financial framework.

It's a matter of availability of the acquisitions, but it's also a matter of price and the matter of synergies or missing synergies. That's the way we look at that, and that's basically also true for European cement consolidation.

Rest assured, we look at everything, but I haven't seen 10 deals in the last three months in that respect. There is not a lot of this movement moving yet, but absolutely we're looking at this.

Same principle, if we are the best owner for the asset, if we can drive the biggest synergies, if we can get value accretion to our financial framework, then we absolutely move also in cement consolidation in Europe.

Thanks, Julian.

Great. Thanks very much.

Next one comes from Harry Goad from Berenberg.

Hey, Harry.

Harry, hello.

Hi. Good afternoon.

I've got one question, please, on US federal funding of infrastructure, specifically on the IIJA bill, where, although I appreciate there's quite considerable capital still to be spent, as I understand it, the bill needs to be reauthorized this year. Is there any, I guess, first of all, can you give us any insights on what you're hearing on negotiations around reauthorization, and is there any risk on funding for, not necessarily 2026, but 2027 if negotiations sort of don't go as well as you would hope?

Thank you.

Harry, I think it's hard to predict. It's never been harder to predict how these negotiations go in general, and that's not a detail for many negotiations.

In general, I'm quite optimistic that they will bridge it somehow, whether they do it through a reauthorization in September or in October, or whether they do it in January. I don't think that's going to they have muddled through this in the past.

You can go back to history. This has never led to a cutoff in investments.

They somehow then do interim solutions or something. If I look at the general political setup and the desire of the current administration to at least not lower the chances for the ballot in November, I'm quite confident that there will not be a dramatic swing to the one or the other points.

I don't see that at all. I think I would rather assume for now, don't quote me, but I would rather assume a fairly stable maneuvering.

I wouldn't see a massive uptick, and I wouldn't also see a massive decline at this point. From our main scenario, we would assume that the funding continues well through 2026.

Okay. Thank you very much.

Thanks, Harry.

Next one comes from Glynis Johnson from Jefferies.

Hey, Glynis.

Glynis, hello.

Hello there. Two, if I may.

The first one in terms of Transformation Accelerator. There have been some more recent plant closures that you've announced, and I just wanted to understand are they part of the original Transformation Accelerator program, are they supplementary to that?

If so, can you give us any additional quantification of what this potential savings could be? Then second of all, similar thematic actually, is your friendly peer in Switzerland put a EBIT number on AI upside.

You've obviously talked about digitalization very enthusiastic place since the Capital Markets Day at the very least. Do you feel confident enough to put a number on it yourselves for what the upside could be in terms of digitalization and AI?

René, you want to take the first one, and then I take the AI one?

Glynis, for the Transformation Accelerator, these plant closures we have announced, let's in the Q1 will be additional savings to the clear original 500 million, and that's why Dominik and I say the 500 million will not be 500 million, it will be more. We always said there's fixed and variable cost part components, and don't assume this is for the full year.

There's a process, we have unions, we have a lot of things to manage. There will be an impact in 2026, but the full run rate then will come in '27.

Yeah. On the second topic, Glynis, that we've been on the topic of AI for quite some time now.

We've given you very specific examples, and I'm always happy to see that others in the industry are also following that. I think that's fine.

I think it will also increase the suppliers are moving on this, it will the whole network will move down the road of AI, which I think is great. It's also great for us when we talk about our digital investments in terms of Command Alkon and other things.

I think in that respect, we're moving in the right direction. We are not we have not put a number on this at this point.

Partially, it obviously also drives the Transformation Accelerator, but we have bigger hopes and dreams on AI. Let us continue to work on this in a diligent way along our processes and together with our customers, and then eventually we'll come up with something nice.

We should at this point, that that's the status from our side.

Thanks, Glynis.

Thank you.

We go back to a second round, this time from Elodie again, JPMorgan.

Hey, Elodie. Elodie again, hello.

Hey. [laughs] Hello again.

Thanks for letting me ask another question. We haven't discussed benchmark, ETS, something that we all seem to have forgotten about.

Do you have any latest views that you can share with us on first of all when you think we'll get the benchmark, which we've been long-awaited for, and what level you expect? Then the ETS reform to come, what kind of changes you have assumed, the timing, the news flow, what we should expect basically?

Thank you.

Elodie, we manage our business, but it's hard to manage the politicians. I'm being careful with making assumptions on what will come out of Europe in this respect.

The discussions. I can only pick up what I'm sure you've also picked up, the rumor that the new benchmark will anyway sit around what is it, 650, 660, or something.

Let's wait and see. That would be a little bit relief versus what the speculation was maybe a couple of months ago, but I can't tell you.

My understanding is that they will try to come up with a decision here in the next couple of weeks, but it's again it's hard to predict. There is no formal date to the best of my knowledge.

Then on ETS, again a lot of speculations back and forth. The market at least is not speculating at this point about a fundamental change, because the CO2 certificate price has pretty been stubborn around €75.

Normally the market is pretty clever. I'm not trying to beat the market in that respect.

This for me gives an indication, maybe it's only one indication, that there is a revision coming, but clearly the market at least is not speculating on a revolution, nor do we. I think that they probably will try to put some sort of relief in there, and you've discussed, Market Stability Reserve, linear reduction factor.

All the ups and downs and gimmicks around this, but it's really would be not professional for me to speculate on where they exactly land because there are so many discussions going on, also behind closed doors. We are wherever we can be, we are giving our input, absolutely, but it's hard to predict.

I ask for your understanding. I don't think this would be professional for me to say anything more than I've said now,

no?

Thank you.

Thanks, Elodie.

Thanks, Elodie. Then

we go full circle and end with the one that asked the first question, Ben from Goldman Sachs.

Ben. Ben, hello.

Excellent. Thanks for the final few questions.

My first was on evoZero. I know we haven't really spent much time on it today, but be interested, a few months into production with the product, how have the volume and I guess the green premium realizations been versus your expectations set at the CMD?

Then second one is we've seen some press articles about admixture shortages in APAC and diesel shortages. Are there any geographies that you think are a risk from physical supply shortages of input materials that's worth flagging?

Thank you.

Ben, thanks a lot. Let me answer the first one, and then René, as he heads procurement, he'll come to the second one.

On evoZero, I think interesting dynamics continue. First part of your question, production goes very well, technically it's a clear green tick in the box.

Also the integration with the cement plant, the team has done a fantastic job. We are producing, we are capturing the CO2, we are storing the CO2, the carbon bank is filling.

That's fantastic. Big innovation, nobody's done this before, but it's really working.

I think in that respect, very, very encouraging. We are working diligently on the sales side of things.

We have very engaging customer discussions in all across Europe and with some global tickets that are also centered around their European footprint. I think that's really the pipeline there is very full.

Now, to the price point discussion, it's clear and we've always said that we are demanding for this product a completely different price point, and we are very focused to get to that price point. For now, that works very well.

Let's wait and see. The good advantage that we have that we don't have a pressure to act.

That's much different from if you start a cement plant and you are have a silo of 20,000 tonnes. If the silo is full, you have two options.

Either you sell the product, or you stop your production. That pressure is not there with evoZero, to be very clear, because we can breathe over five years in terms of storage with the tokens.

That gives us also ample opportunity to pull every lever we can or want on finding the right projects, the right customers for the right price point.

Okay. Then, Ben, regarding your question about additives and diesel supply security, here I've nothing to report.

We have no shortages. Supply right now is okay, nothing to report from that perspective right now.

Thanks, Ben.

This concludes our conference call. Thanks for your good questions.

Just a reminder that as always, we will be on the road following our AGM next week on when is it, Wednesday next week? We will be at a couple of conferences in Frankfurt, also in the US.

Stay tuned. If you're interested, please let the IR team know.

With that, have a good day. Thanks.

Thanks, everybody. Thanks.