Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining Almarai's third quarter 2026 earnings call. This is Abdulhadi Al-Amri, Head of Investor Relations at Almarai, and I am joined today by our CEO, Mr.

Fawaz Al-Jasser, and our CFO, Mr. Ikram Ulhaque.

Thank you as well to AlJazira Capital for hosting the call and to Fahad Irfan for moderating today's session. Our Q3 2026 earnings presentation is available on Almarai website, and we will take you through the key developments in the business and our financial performance before opening the floor for Q&A.

Before we begin, I would ask everyone to take note of the disclaimer, especially the sections relating to the forward-looking statements, underlying assumptions, and potential risks. Our comments today should be considered alongside Almarai's published financial statements and regulatory disclosures.

With that, I will hand it over to Ikram to take us through Almarai's performance for the third quarter and the first nine months of 2026.

Thank you very much, Abdulhadi. Shukran jazeelan, assalamu alaikum, and good afternoon to all.

Let us get straight into the Q3 performance, which was an excellent quarter. If we can go to Market Dynamics, thank you.

We go to slide number 5, and it's good to see number 1 on the right-hand side for all the five core categories. Alhamdulillah, as you can see, Almarai is number 1 in dairy, juice, food, bakery, and poultry as well.

If you remember last quarter, we talked about food category where we have a temporary adjustment. It is good to see back our number 1 position, and happy to report that everything is going well in that respect.

With that said, I would like to move to next slide, which are our innovation for the third quarter. I trust that virtually all of you have tried at least two, if not three or more, of the new innovations this quarter.

As you can see, the exciting range of iced tea, Muscle Melt, and you can see the new categories within breast fillet and new flavor extension in poultry as well. As much as they're great from a consumer perspective, I'm double pleased as the CFO, as you can see, most of them, virtually all of them, are very positive both from our margin and our pricing perspective.

You can see Almarai portfolio is getting revamped towards a more improved margin-accretive portfolio. With that said, let me now move to the Q3 performance.

If we can go to slide 8, let us go through the key highlights for the quarter. I'll start from the top left-hand side, and I'll go in one-line direction.

Let me start with revenue first: 11% growth year on year, double-digit growth during a crisis which has engulfed the whole region. Remarkable performance, and the good thing about this quarter, that the growth is coming positively in all categories, all countries, and all channels, which is a great result achieved by Almarai during this quarter.

I'll elaborate for each of these three dimensions in the next slides. Let me move to the operating profit first.

It's excellent to see, again, a green number, positive growth, 3%, despite all the challenges we are facing of higher cost of feed importation, energy inflation in the region, transportation costs in general, and ramp-up costs mainly in the protein business. I'll touch base on that during the revenue section.

Abdulhadi will elaborate on that when he talks about the financial performance. Net income is also positive year on year.

The decline compared to operating profit is purely because of higher funding balance, which we are retaining because of water acquisition from last year. Let me now go through balance sheet and cash flow highlights.

Working capital: we are now exceeding 5 billion riyals in working capital. Virtually all of it is coming from inventory.

Inventory is up by nearly 1 billion riyal, which is by choice, done knowingly. We are now carrying more than 106 days of stock on average, but this, during the conflict, has become a great source of stability and resilience for Almarai.

We will balance the number of days and will adjust as the conflict unwinds. Second is capex: you can see last quarter we spent 1 billion riyal and this quarter is 859.

The reduction of 143 million is consistent with the last three quarters, as you will see the same reduction going through for the next four or five quarters to come as well. I'll talk on that more when we talk about balance sheet at the end of the deck.

Free cash flow looks very positive, 1 billion riyal plus. If you remember in Q3 2025, Almarai bought the water business for around 1 billion riyal.

The benefit of the current quarter is that it becomes normalized, we are free cash flow positive, and even though we are paying more in working capital, the reduction in capex allows us to report a positive free cash flow. If I can go to the next slide, then you'll see the growth by each country.

You can see the top two countries, KSA and Egypt, contributing more than 100 million riyal each by themselves. In total, Almarai is reporting more than 635 million riyals.

Each country has their own different channel and product dynamics, but it's good to see positive numbers for every single one of the countries where we operate in. If I go through the same growth vector by product categories, I'll take a bit more time there.

If you can go to slide number 10, please. First one, fresh dairy: after the adjustment done in May, you can see the Q3 number remained very positive.

We are very happy to see a normalized trading condition continued for the fresh dairy. Protein was another excellent quarter from a quantity point of view.

Almarai produced 87 million birds, same number of birds we did in Q2. That growth, that added capacity is in full scope and is doing very well in distributing to the market.

Fruit juice, again, remarkable is of 19%. I will take a chance this time, fruit juice and long-life dairy, virtually half the growth in both categories is coming from Egypt.

Egypt is doing very well in that respect. In all three categories of yogurt, long-life dairy, and juice, Egypt has done remarkably well, and that's where the growth is coming from.

Bakery across the board is doing well, 13% growth in general. Gulf countries are going stronger in bakery, which is fantastic.

KSA itself is close to double-digit growth rate as well. With that said, that's a very high-level view of our product.

Let me now move to channel. If you look at this graph, as you can see, traditional trade is more than 50% of our revenue.

You can see even the bigger channels are going double-digit growth rate: 10% in traditional trade, modern trade 14, food service 16%. Please note, modern trade includes e-commerce, within modern trade, there is mixed performance.

Good thing to note is all three channels are working on full cylinder. Our export markets are doing fine as well, growing at 6%.

In total, Almarai growth of 11%, as you can see, is positive across all countries, products, and channels. With that said, let me now request Abdulhadi to take us to the next section for financial performance.

Over to you, Abdulhadi.

Thank you, Ikram. Let me now move from the commercial momentum we have just discussed to the financial performance for the quarter.

The key message is that the business continued to deliver strong top-line growth, while the current cost environment has constrained the conversion of that growth into earnings. This bridge tells the earnings story for the quarter very clearly.

We begin with net income of 613 million in Q3 of last year. Pricing contributed 191 million, while volume, mix, and other factors added 31 million.

These gains demonstrate the underlying strength of the commercial performance, but they were substantially absorbed by higher costs of goods sold and operation expenses. COGS was 132 million of headwind, and opex reduced earnings by 68 million, and funding and other items by another 17 million.

The result was net income of 618 million, up 5 million or 1%. The important message here is that the commercial engine is delivering strongly, but the benefits are currently being absorbed by the elevated cost environment.

Taking a step back from the bridge, the quarter demonstrates the resilience of the underlying business. Revenue increased 11% to 6.18 billion, supported by strong performance across all markets, led by Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Kuwait, and volume growth in fresh dairy and protein.

Operating profit increased 3% to 779 million, despite pressure from energy, logistics, and protein ramp-up costs. Net income reached 618 million, broadly in line with prior year and up 5 million.

Looking beneath the group results, the segment performance shows three different but complementary dynamics. Dairy and juice continued to provide a resilient foundation for the group.

Revenue increased 10%, supported by healthy demand and strong market position. Profitability remained comparatively stable, with an improved dairy revenue mix helping to mitigate higher feed shipping costs.

Bakery delivered another strong quarter, with revenue up 13% and net profit also showing strong growth. The performance reflects excellent commercial execution, improved product mix, and continued operating discipline.

Poultry remains an important growth engine. Revenue increased by 12% as additional capacity continues to come online.

However, profitability remained under pressure from poultry market conditions, higher distribution costs, and costs related to ramp-up of new capacity. Poultry expansion is clearly delivering the expected top-line growth.

The next phase is about improving utilization and converting that additional scale into stronger profitability. Now I will hand it back over to Ikram.

Shukran, Abdulhadi. Let us now go through the first three quarters of the year, the first nine months.

The shape of the results are very similar, we'll go through it fairly fast to allow more time for Q&A. When you look at the first line of revenue, operating profit, and net income, same trend you have observed into Q3 as well: double-digit growth rate on revenue; growth is very positive on all fronts, countries, channel, by product as well.

Operating profit remains positive despite having very high transportation cost, energy cost, and ramp-up cost. They're the three things affecting operating profit.

The net income is virtually flat year on year. Working capital is ramping up, as you can see at the bottom left-hand side.

We're investing more in inventory to manage us through this critical path of the Iran conflict. Capex is coming down, as we have promised earlier, and we'll talk more on the full-year basis as well.

We're targeting less than 4 billion, inshallah we will get there as well. Free cash flow becomes very positive, as we don't have the inorganic investment from last year.

If I go to the next slide, I won't take much time here. The same story continues that the growth is very positive across the board.

As you can see, KSA and Egypt delivering more than 100 million, in three digits across all categories. Qatar is doing well in percentage term, but that's only because some categories in bakery and poultry have opened up, but it remains underdelivered, but we're doing well on a percentage basis.

We do the same thing if you go to the next slide by category, you will see protein taking the lead. The growth in protein is now overtaken the growth in fresh dairy, which was the anchor for Almarai.

Very good to see that we have now multiple sources of growth coming across, and you can see the diversity of Almarai portfolio delivering growth across the board in multiple fronts. Water business looks positive, but I would like to highlight that this includes an inorganic growth rate.

On a YTD basis, we are comparing nine months versus two months, this growth rate is inflated, but we'll adjust it because it's the last quarter. After this quarter, growth will be like-on-like basis.

If you go on to the next channel, by channel growth rate, again, positive story across the board, even for the first nine months as well. Despite the Iran conflict, what we were witnessing, especially for food service in the Gulf, the sector and the food service, tourism sector have remained strong, especially in the food categories.

Good to see positive results on that front too. With that said, I'll pass on to Abdulhadi to take us through the financials for the first nine months as well.

Thank you, Ikram. The year-to-date picture reinforces much of what we saw in Q3: strong underlying commercial conditions supported by capacity expansion and broad market execution, along with a cost environment that moderated the translation of growth in revenue to bottom-line growth.

The year-to-date bridge illustrates this dynamic very clearly. We started with net income of 1.9 billion.

Net pricing generated 287 million of benefit, while volume, mix, and other factors contributed another 182 million. Together, those commercial factors represent a substantial positive contribution.

However, they were offset by 172 million of higher COGS, 231 million of additional opex, 28 million from funding and other items, together with 44 million from the non-occurrence of the prior-year Oman impairment reversal. This brings year-to-date net income to 1.986 billion, essentially in line with last year.

The message here is that year to date is consistent with the quarter: demand and revenue growth are strong; the opportunity ahead is to improve conversion. Looking at the nine months financial performance as a whole, the strength of the top-line performance remains evident.

Revenue increased 10% to 18.21 billion, supported by broad-based performance across all markets, along with continued capacity expansion and the integration of the water business. Operating profit increased 1% to 2.46 billion, while net income remained broadly stable at 1.986 billion.

Finally, looking at the first nine months by segment, the picture is broadly consistent with what we have seen in the third quarter. Dairy and juice delivered resilient revenue growth across all markets, with strong performance from Egypt.

The segment continued to benefit from favorable dairy mix, although higher feed shipping costs remained a headwind. Bakery remained a strong performer.

Revenue increased 8%, while net profit grew 18%, supported by execution, mix optimization, and continued operational excellence. Poultry delivered 12% revenue growth as our expansion strategy continued to translate into additional sales.

Profitability, however, remained below the prior year, reflecting competitive poultry market conditions and higher distribution and energy elevated costs. Our core businesses remain resilient, and the growth investments are generating additional revenues.

The priority now is to improve the returns generated from that top-line growth. Now I'll hand it back to Ikram.

Thank you, Abdulhadi. Let us go through the other highlights for the quarter and for the year.

Looking at capex, very pleased to see the downward trajectory. As we talked before, we have passed the peak of this investment cycle.

As you can see, on our trailing 12-month basis, we are today at 17% of our revenue. Just like you saw the graph in the history going backwards, you will see the same thing going forward as well.

For the next two or three years, we expect this percentage to keep going down till it reaches single digits. You will see the same trend we will elaborate in more detail during our Capital Market Day coming on this Thursday.

If we go to the next slide, working capital, it goes through a temporary surge, and now we having working capital at around 22% of revenue. As we talked before, this is done by choice.

We are comfortable with it, and as the conflict unwinds, we'll be able to better manage it. If you go to the next slide, which is operating cash flow, underlying operating cash flow remains very strong.

I'll talk about it on the next slide. It's the adjustment in working capital that makes around 21%, and this will again turn back upwards when we manage the working capital after the conflict.

Interesting slide on slide 29, how Almarai has managed its cash over the last 12 months. The key part here is the first green bar on the chart, 5.9 billion.

The underlying business continues to generate cash at a very healthy rate. We are already looking at nearly 6 billion riyal of underlying operating cash flow.

This is getting, in the short term, affected by the working capital adjustment, which is being driven by inventory, and that's why the last 12 months OCF is 5.1 billion. When you look at the capex, you can see already it's hitting 4 billion riyal on 12-month basis.

Biological assets take up half a billion riyal, and in total 4.5 billion. Free cash flow is now looking at positive, as we speak today, for this quarter on a TTM basis.

We expect that momentum to grow further in the next three or four quarters as well. Then you can see the borrowing funds from the bank to pay for our funding cost to the banks and dividend to our shareholders.

If I keep going to the next slide, net debt trend, we're seeing the peak of the net debt, the leverage ratio as we speak today. As of September 2026, net debt to EBITDA is 2.72.

In the next few quarters and years, you will see our EBITDA, our operating cash flow grow gradually by 300, 400 million riyals every single year. You will see our debt remaining constant or going down as well.

As a result, you would see this net debt trend coming down, just like you have seen the capex coming down over the last two or three quarters. If you look at EBITDA and EBIT margins, they are affected in the short term.

This is as a result of the war. As you can see, we are growing top line very successfully, but the bottom line is affected temporarily because of what we're seeing in transportation cost and the feed cost.

We are confident during the next one or two years, when the conflict unwinds, we'll be able to return the profitability back to the 14% to 15% range as we target in the long term. If you go to the next slide on debt maturity, we have already arranged all the funding available for the next one year.

We are in talk with the banks and things already signed up. Very comfortable regardless of what happens in the capital markets, our funding is sorted for the next 12 months.

Inshallah, by the time we finish the year-end, we're targeting for the next 24 months as well. We can see the challenges ahead with comfort in mind that we have no issues on liquidity too.

Next slide is about cash dividends. Highlights that Almarai will pay its shareholder regardless of the trading conditions, and you can see a very strong history of Almarai through all the investment cycles, making sure the dividends keep on rising in line.

With that, I would like to request our CEO, Mr. Fawaz Al-Jasser, to take us to the final slides of the deck and the key takeaways for the quarter.

Mr. Fawaz Al-Jasser, over to you.

Thank you, Ikram. Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.

Despite everything happened in the region, demand remains strong. Almarai continue to grow.

We deliver double-digit growth across all the segment, geography, and channel. We still have a challenge, the challenge of the feed imports and the poultry markets.

We are building our inventory to make sure that our products remain available in the shelf, supply is not affected, and this is shows how resilient we are. That comes with the cost.

Profitability remain under pressure, hopefully in the short term, but mainly due to the current situation.

Thank you very much, Mr. Fawaz.

With that said, let us go to the last slide and we'll open the floor for Q&A. If I can ask AlJazira Capital to open the session, and we're happy to take questions from there, Abdulhadi.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Fawaz, and Mr.

Ikram, and Fahad Irfan, if you can please take us through the Q&A.

Hi, everyone. Congrats to management and thank you for a great presentation.

I have two questions from my end. The first one is regarding bakery segment.

The performance was quite strong this quarter, and it's the same margin despite the higher production costs. What is the driver behind this growth?

It's a volume-led growth, and we have done pricing adjustment recently in Q2 and Q3 as well, and that's the benefit coming through. As I said in the presentation as well, we're seeing growth in the Gulf markets much stronger than KSA as well.

It's a mixed issue. We're doing very well on bread, we have no issues on that one, but in terms of treats, which is the cakes category, this is where we are having a mixed issue.

Some sectors are growing very strongly, very comfortable on bread and buns, but in terms of some of the cakes and other product categories, we are facing some pressure. Other thing, wastage has been doing very well in this sector.

We are running much lower than our yearly averages, less than 3% to 2%, and has given us another greater benefit to our P&L.

Great. For the second question is on the other activities.

We saw larger losses by around 40 million. It's more than the same quarter last year.

Can you give us more color of what's happening in this segment?

The other sectors, look, it includes water, and again, this is the inorganic acquisition which is getting clubbed into that sector. I would recommend that from next quarter onwards, you will have a proper like-on-like comparison.

On top of it, what we are facing in other segment is Fondomonte results. Fondomonte results are more trading in nature.

Given what's happening in the region and given what's happening with alfalfa, Almarai is trying to sell a lot of products within USA and Argentina as well. That's resulting in some short-term losses because we're selling crop in the same countries as well.

That's the reason for this temporary blip in the other sector.

Great. Thank you, management.

Hello. Thank you very much for the great presentation and congrats on the strategy and the results.

Just to follow up on the question regarding the other activities, could you quantify the losses that is coming from Fondomonte because even looking at the cash flow statement, there is an inventory or account receivables, don't know which is which, a loss of around 27 million, which might be a one-off. The other thing is that we're noticing the selling and distribution expenses, it is growing year over year similar to the last quarter, and it is eating away whatever contribution margin that is being added.

If we go to the net income bridge, we notice the increase in net pricing is 190 and the increase in cost of revenue is around 130, so that is a 60 million netting on gross profit, but that is eaten away by higher S&D expenses. Regarding energy, we know that the big bulk of it is in the cost of revenue, could you elaborate on what is happening with the S&D?

Nay, Abdullah, you've gone through the whole financial statement questions, and it's interesting how you have constructed the question. I'll try to answer them.

I think it covers a lot of them, but let me go through one by one, and if I forget, remind me of the question again, please. Look, I'll start with the other one.

We don't give details on the Fondomonte and sub-channels, and the reason is, again, you see a lot of temporary difference because of the accounting of the crops, which happens at each country at different level. You miss by two or three days when the crops are ready, you'll have a very big volatility in the P&L.

The reference you made to the inventory issue, the 27 million riyals in the cash flow statement, you're absolutely right. It's up by 27 million riyal from Q2.

This is higher provision we are taking. It's actually the sign is the other way around, as if you notice.

Almarai is taking higher provision in inventory, and that's not because of Fondomonte. That's because we are carrying more inventory within Saudi Arabia.

I talked about 1 billion riyal of extra inventory as well, and some of the inventory comes with a higher risk, and we have automatic systems by which we are forced to take higher inventory provision because of expected losses, because of dryness, because of water damage at the bottom of the pallet. Those things as a result of that.

There's no change in debtors, as you can see, on top of the P&L, in the main P&L section. This is inventory, and this is coming from the Saudi Arabian inventory held, and that's because of the increased inventory.

That's your first question. Your second question was about S&D cost.

To sell 11% growth rate volume, you can imagine how much volume we are pushing through, how much extra trucks and vans we are carrying. On top of it, the extra expense we are carrying for diesel, especially in the UAE, where we've seen at least two or three price increases during the year, that's also hitting the S&D.

I think with all the efficiency, I think Almarai is doing very well to keep S&D cost in line with revenue, because we're seeing a lot of pressures on the underlying, let's say, the cost factors as well. You may have some other questions which I might have forgotten, but please remind me.

Diesel

cost: look, diesel costs affect both lines. Diesel cost will affect S&D, in some of our factories, we are using diesel as an alternative for electricity.

Not all of our factories are connected to the grid. The impact of the diesel affect both parts: it affects the COGS line, it affects the S&D line as well.

I would say, the reefer from the factory all the way to the depot, it's covered in COGS. All the vans that you see on the street every single day, the diesel used in those are affected from the S&D cost.

This is why when I talk of UAE and other countries, that's why the S&D cost is going up as well.

Thank you, that covers it all and it's quite informative. Thank you very much.

Just as a confirmation, would you quantify that the one-offs regarding the inventory provision and the losses that is coming from crops to be around 40 million this quarter, or close to this?

No, I don't think so, no. Look, as I said again, the accounting for crops is different, they're ready for sale.

What happens, I don't want to go into an accounting session, but especially in those countries, we are using crops for both reasons. We're using crops for sale in the market as well, and using crops to be distributed internally to Almarai as well.

They just follow, you will have huge swings between the quarters, and that's why we always manage it in the sense that we keep it in other categories. It distorts the profitability up and down.

That's the reason.

Hey, guys, good afternoon. Thank you for taking my questions.

A couple for me, please. Ikram, I think if I take you back to the Q2 conference call, you had said that if things remain where they are, you expected that the pricing action you took in fresh dairy in particular would result in net income growth year over year, I think in the back half of the year.

Now, clearly circumstances have changed. I think the escalation we've seen in the Red Sea no doubt added to the cost headwinds you had already been seeing.

Some of the feedstocks, raw materials have also been moving higher over the last couple of months when I look at corn or soybean as an example. I think all things considered, it definitely seems a fantastic outcome that earnings are stable year over year despite all these headwinds.

I guess the natural question from here, though, is as you look into Q4 and especially into next year with diesel prices potentially being another swing factor, how are you thinking about the balance of protecting margins versus passing pricing on to the consumer? Would you consider taking, I guess, more aggressive pricing action given how well the price increases across the board have been taken domestically in Saudi and the fact that consumption overall has been quite resilient despite all the uncertainty?

That's a very good question. You're reading my mind, well said.

Look, when we were talking in Q2, I think all of us, including you, me, and the people on the call as well, we were optimistic about the conflict finishing soon as well. If you remember, there was a lot of news at that time that the war will finish around June time, and we will all go back to at least within a few months or a quarters to a normalized situation.

The escalation has continued, unfortunately. As we speak today, that's gone worsened.

I don't have something in mind that how this conflict will finish. If we hear to the US side, I would say the end of the year is a reasonable assumption.

Somebody has to take a call on that, let's say from our financial point of view. End of the year sounds a reasonable assumption for the conflict to finish, even if it takes two or three quarters extra to get to a normalized position.

As you rightly said, if the conflict continued further, and it has continued, if it kept on going, the cost impact on all the dairy companies, and I will say all the food companies in the region, in Saudi Arabia, would be significant. We will face quite significant headwinds in terms of elevated cost of importation of food.

This is something that Almarai will make a decision, and it will employ everything available in its parcel. We will look at all options.

Our first option is always about management of cost. We have to look internal first, and we have to make sure we are doing everything we can to reduce the cost.

Then, of course, pricing remains an option. It's not the first choice by default, but it will remain an option.

For example, if the war continues for another two or three quarters, then we will have to make a call, and perhaps pricing would be initiated. As I said, it's not the first choice as we speak today.

That's clear. Then second question if I can on poultry.

I think you had said that you were seeing some improvement in the promotional dynamics, in Q1 and particularly in Q2, probably helped by the conflict adding cost headwinds to importers, etc. That seems to have changed based on the commentary on this call and looking at the results in poultry in terms of profitability.

Can you talk us through what you're seeing and expectations through the rest of the year in terms of promotional intensity and pricing there?

It has remained at the same level. We saw, as you rightly said, I think the bottom was the Q4 last year.

Q1 was better than Q4, Q2 was better than Q1, and I would have loved to report that Q3 has become better than Q2, but it hasn't. We still see a lot of promotional activities within the poultry segment across the board.

The discounting has continued. Happy to report similar, I would say, EBIT margins as we did in Q2, but of course, would have liked to see the trend going further up as well.

This is something we haven't seen, at least for the last four or five weeks. Whenever a discounting by one of the players will come down, another player will ramp up the pressure as well.

Local market is seeing a lot of discounting as well.

Thank you. This is Muhammad Saad from Al Rajhi Capital.

Thank you, AlJazira, and thank you, Almarai management, for this opportunity. I just have a couple of questions.

My first question is with regards to Egypt. We have seen a phenomenal revenue growth in Egypt, I would love to hear from you what's going on on the ground, what is driving this revenue growth?

Is it price? Is it some promotional activities?

Is it volume? The growth in revenue that is coming in from Egypt, does it have the same net margin effectively, or are you giving out some heavy promotions to push through your volumes?

That's my first question. My second question is about your long-life milk segment.

We saw some pricing in the fresh dairy, but up till now, despite increase in skim milk powder prices, we have not seen any improvement in pricing in the long life. Any color you can give on if we can see such a increase in price?

Lastly, we have seen in the 132 million cost I'm assuming it includes the impact of both logistics and the impact of higher alfalfa. To what extent is the impact of higher alfalfa and higher logistics costs already being incorporated in the 102 million 132 million incremental increase in cost, or should we expect further increase in cost of goods sold?

These are my three questions. Thank you.

Thank you, Saad. I'll give you two good news and one bad news, but let me start in order from what you've asked.

First question about Egypt: so alhamdulillah, fantastic growth across the board. It's a volume-led growth.

If they are growing by, let's say, about 22% or 23%, I would say around 20% is all volume, and the balance is just pricing. For me, it's very healthy to see, especially for this quarter, that it's a volume-led growth rate.

We're doing good across the board. Chilled is doing very well.

Where chilled, I refer to yogurts. Their expansion into cheese, into long-life dairy, and juice is also doing extremely well in that respect.

Market in Egypt is doing well. You can look at Juhayna results, too.

They're, masha'allah, also doing very well. I think market in general in Egypt is performing well.

Not to discount our team efforts, they are doing over and above what's required, and it's very healthy to see in that respect. Margins are dilutive.

They are still single-digit EBIT margins. In terms of profit contribution, it dilutes because our revenue growth is coming from areas where EBIT percentage is lower, so that's dilutive in nature when it comes to Egypt.

That was your other question. Long-life dairy, you are spot-on.

Today, fresh dairy in Saudi is getting full, let's say 7 riyals. When I go across the board, I see mixed pricing on long-life dairy: 6.2, 6.3, 6.4 riyals on average.

Let's say around 10% discount to fresh dairy. We haven't seen any movement, and in that respect, it's up to the market leader.

Today, Saudia Dairy owns a very high market share in white milk in UHT. Flavored milk, we do much better, but in white milk category, they are way ahead in retail especially.

We're doing very good in terms of other channels. We're doing much better in wholesale, we're doing much better in demand collectors across the board.

Non-traditional retail channels, Almarai long-life dairy is doing very good as well. In retail, it's a matter of the market leader and how they're going ahead, and we'll follow them in that respect.

Your last question was about 132 million. That was the bad news.

I wish I could say that we have seen the end of the cost structure, but no, we've only seen part of the alfalfa cost in the 132 cost. I think that number is likely to go further up.

Is it 150, is it 160, is it 170? Hard for me to give a guidance, but that number will definitely go up in Q4.

The accounting impact of alfalfa is yet to fully reflect, and that's why all options, including efficiency gains by Almarai and the optionality of pricing, remains on the table.

Thank you, management, and congratulations for the results. Just one question.

Now that the capex cycle is winding down, how much of the finance costs previously capitalized will be shifted to the P&L? When do you see the impact start happening?

Currently, I think we're capitalizing around 260 or 70-odd million, if I remember exactly. That, I think, will probably wind down maybe by 20, 30 million more.

The reason I say that, I look at always asset under construction. If you look at Almarai today for last year, I think nearly 5 billion riyals were always under asset under construction.

If I take off even 90% to 95% of assets as qualifying assets, let's do a very high-level maths: 5 billion into 6%, that's 300 million of interest costs that was getting capitalized. Of course, not everything is there, so that's why you only get 260 to 270 million on a TTM basis.

This number will gradually come down for sure because we are winding down the capex, but we still investing for the next 5 years as well. I do expect this number to come down by maybe 30 to 40 million every year for the next two or three years.

That's clear. Thank you.

Hello, everyone. Thank you, management, for the presentation.

I have one question from my side regarding the prices. Recently we've seen, or the last quarter we've seen a price increase on a certain product on a fresh dairy segment.

For the upcoming quarters, if there is a price increase, it will be in other segments such as bakery or other products on the same segment in fresh dairy?

Look, Salman, I think I'm not going to corner ourselves into one particular segment or product or category. The importation of feed cost may affect dairy and poultry today, but the issues we are facing in logistic affects all products.

If the diesel in UAE is going up by, let's say, 2 riyals per liter extra, that's every single category, that's every single product, for example. I hate to say we will only do here, we will not do there.

As I said, we'll focus internally first, look at our own cost first, and then, depending on the category and the market, we will take a pricing decision if required.

Clear. Thank you so much.

Yes, hi, Ikram. This is Taher from JPMorgan.

Just maybe two questions from my side. The first one is just looking at the current backdrop, you pushed a price increase on fresh dairy, you're doing quite well on the top line, but clearly that benefits are not filtering through on the bottom line.

I just want to understand, given where we are today and clearly there is maybe more to come in terms of cost impact on the P&L, is it fair to assume that the argument for potential margin expansion in 2027 seems far-fetched at the moment, given the impact of this expensive inventory sitting on your balance sheet as it continues to filter through the P&L, again with the absence of any new price increases? Is that a fair assumption to look at, and what makes you confident that potentially we can go back into a 14%, 15% EBIT margin?

You think just unwinding of the conflict naturally will help the business go back into that level of margins? I just want to get maybe your thoughts there.

That would be my first question.

Taher, I'll be a bit more optimistic in that respect. It's easier to say that 2027 will not see any margin growth or any other profit growth.

As of right now, in the absence of any corrective action, your assumption may appear right. As I said before, Almarai will deploy any options available, including its internal network first, its own supply chain review, and then if there's a need required, there will be pricing action taken as well.

If the pricing action is taken, margin expansion will follow through based on the expansion of the product categories, the volume, the poultry, and the new categories will be launching. We will talk about at least two or three new categories in the year 2027, and we'll talk about it on the 8th of October as well.

For us, the volume expansion, all the 5 billion riyal we've been spending over the last two or three years, you will now see the result of that. You will see how Almarai will be launching the beef, which we've announced to the market, the seafood, the premier food factory.

For me, the volume story remains very bullish, the top-line story remains very exciting. The issue remains what's happening in the conflict, and once we take away the short-term impact of that, and whenever the reversal happens, it could happen tomorrow, next week, first week of January, or could be later as well.

This one gives me confidence that the underlying commercial engine is running very smoothly and running at a beautiful speed. The other part, which are temporary shocks, we'll be able to manage that and we'll take actions accordingly as it comes through.

Okay. All right.

Very clear. Maybe just a second question on the poultry.

We are in the midst of more capacity coming through over maybe the next two two years or so. Just to understand, you highlighted maybe the challenges in terms of trading performance because of discounting and promotions in the market.

Just how confident are you that bringing more capacity to the market will be absorbed? I know you talked before and you were quite happy with utilization that new volumes coming in are actually being sold.

I just want to get maybe your thoughts, how will the poultry market look in the next year or two? The smaller players continue maybe to make losses, they continue to discount, you guys are following through maybe on that in terms of pricing, and now there's more volumes coming in.

I just maybe want to get your thoughts. Are you comfortable about the return on investment on the poultry capex, given that we could be sitting at around 400 million birds maybe in 2 years from now?

Maybe just your thoughts there in terms of the poultry segment and potentially what kind of EBIT margin, if that's the right way to look at it, you would be happy with for the poultry business on a sustainable basis?

This is Fawaz, will you allow me to answer? تفضل

[Go ahead].

Shukran. I think poultry is another story for the whole market.

Today, as you rightly mentioned, it's heavily discounted. If you see the poultry markets in three different area: one, the market today is divided into three segment: one fresh, frozen, and cuts.

When you look to the cuts, is almost worth of 7 to 8 billion riyal worth of market size, and majority of it is imported. Second part, frozen: frozen mainly it is also imported, and the majority of the local players are playing heavily on fresh.

Now, considering the expansion that companies are doing, Almarai and the rest of the markets, I think there are an effort that we are doing as well with the government to regulate few things that if you picture it is closing the tap in a way where we would have an open market for local players. I think that's something that we personally capitalize on this, and hopefully that soon we'll be able to realize.

That if that's happened, that it will open up an opportunity for Almarai and for the rest of the markets.

Okay. Is there just any color on the potential EBIT margin that we could look at once Almarai ramps up to 400 million birds and this capex cycle is behind us?

You can expect at least 2 to 3 basis point improvement on top of it. Look at net income at 11%, you can add 3%, 4% for let's say the EBIT bridge.

Then the full utilization should give us another at least 2 to 300 basis point, or let's say 2% to 3%.

Thank you for the opportunity, management. I want to ask about the channel growth wherein export channel has been seen a volatile growth, let's say a negative single digit in first quarter, 47% in second quarter, and then again a single-digit growth in third quarter.

I would like the management to shed some light on this. My another question is on inventory.

You had around 6 months of coverage in last quarter, and now it has went down to 4 months of coverage. How does the management plan to manage the inventory levels going forward, because you'll have to replenish it at some time once it gets over?

How would it be done with keeping the pricing intact or similar range? Thank you.

Thank you, Harsh. Look, on your first one, export is volatile by nature.

Imagine selling an order to Iraq on baby food powder. It's not something that follows a weekly trend or a daily push per se.

You get one or two big orders and you see a huge growth and it starts to come down. When we look at export orders, we prefer a TTM basis to the TTM basis.

That's always a better way of looking into it. You can do yearly, but during the quarters, that's how we look into.

Like this quarter, there were some delays in export, let's say, food category to some of the countries, and that looks bad, but again, you'll catch up on it in the next quarter. It's the nature of the product itself that is very choppy per se.

Your next question was about inventory issue. Look, inventory, we are maintaining different levels for different types of inventory.

We may not be carrying such high inventory for packaging because it's produced locally and we can manage that easily, but for some of the products like alfalfa, which we might carry more than one year, corn and soya, we might carry couple of quarters, and the same goes for different categories. Like, flour, we don't carry because the government is supplying for this one.

For me, it's very different on different categories and different inputs as well. We manage each part separately as well.

Our BUs look into it by product, by material as well. In general, we're carrying, as I said, a higher level of stock.

When I talk about 108 days, it is a general assumption. Of course, as I said, this will mean we carry 12 months of alfalfa, maybe 1 month of packaging.

When I talk at a group level, it's an average, but the real work is done by material, by BU, which happens every day within our supply chain team.

Hi, good afternoon. Assalamu alaikum.

Thank you, gentlemen, for the call. Just one follow-up question to the point you mentioned, Ikram, of targeting to increase EBITDA by at least 300, 400 million per year.

Just to clarify, is this inclusive of the normalization of shipping costs or is this purely driven by volumetric growth and the associated operating leverage, and the normalization of cost would be on top of that?

No, it's exclusive, normalization will be on top of it.

Hi. Assalamu alaikum.

Thank you for the presentation. I just wanted to get a sense on given you have made substantial investments in your organizational capability, sales capability, distribution, infrastructure for the past several years, how should we view your operating cost growth over the next few years?

Would you be able to segregate that increase in costs that you experienced during the quarter of what is more sticky and what is because of geopolitical situation?

Thanks, Adnan. We're getting into management area much more detail, but your question is valid.

When we look at the supply chain increases going forward, I would say we will definitely have a leverage in terms of having higher synergies in that area. All the depots and all the vans you see, we will have more benefit going through.

Will that be growing in line with volume or revenue? I would say will be more or less there because we always like to have some added capacity.

Looking into for the next five or six years, we look at higher volume throughput coming through. By definition, it will give us synergy.

On a long-term basis, on a 3 to 5-year basis, I expect benefits to show up in a P&L in that respect. I don't want to commit to a volume or a revenue growth target in that perspective.

In terms of current quarter, the stickiness, look, the cost of diesel in neighboring countries, how sticky they are, it's hard for me to say. A lot of the costs we are witnessing, their nature, I would like to admit that they are temporary in nature, but you never know with these things.

We have seen costs that we thought during COVID time that are temporary in nature and they have stuck with us for the last five years. I can't quantify the impact of those costs or the nature as we speak today, but as we go forward, we'll be very transparent and we'll show to you guys what's increasing and what's not.

Hello. Thank you for taking my question.

My question is on your new investments. Your incremental ROIC has been below the hurdle rate.

When do you expect these returns to rise, and what will drive this improvement?

Dana, a good observation. The returns, as I said, are heavily impacted by the costs that we are seeing because of the Iran conflict.

We are facing cost in excess of 5 to 600 million riyals on an annualized basis. Of course, not all the cost is coming in, and that's the factor diluting our ROIC on an incremental basis.

On top of it, we are seeing a lot of investment done, but they haven't come online. My request would be to observe Almarai for the next six quarters.

You will see at least five, if not six major announcements where you will see the return of the asset under construction into asset into play. You will see multiple categories coming on time, you will see multiple growth streams coming online, and that's when you will start to see why we believe in the return of these assets going forward, and you'll see the ROI rising as well.

Thank you, Fahad. Thank you to all the participants.

Thank you to our CEO, Mr. Fawaz Al-Jasser, and our CFO, Mr.

Ikram Ulhaque. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to [email protected].

Thank you, everyone.