Compagnie de Saint-Gobain S.A. ($SGO)

Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, good afternoon. We have convened you for today's ordinary AGM to discuss the items on the agenda that we'll be reading to you very shortly. This year, I will be chairing the AGM as Chairman and CEO. Besides me, I have Maud Thuaudet, who is our Chief Financial Officer; Claire Pedini, who is our Deputy CEO in charge of HR and CSR; and Antoine Vignial, who is our Company Secretary. Maitre Eric Vilet is our bailiff and he will also be attending this meeting in person. Antoine Vignial will now explain the safety instructions for the Salle Pleyel.

Thank you, Benoit. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Safety is Saint-Gobain Group's top priority. This is why before beginning the meeting, I would like to explain the safety instructions to be followed. In the event of a problem, you will hear an evacuation message, followed by the sounding of an alarm. If that is to happen, you should head calmly towards the closest exit. There will be blue arrows, as you can see. We will go to the assembly point at the angle of Faubourg-Saint-Honore and Avenue Hoche. Please take your advice, take your instructions from the safety personnel.

Thank you. I now propose to set up the bureau and to read the agenda for today. As Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, I have the great honor of chairing this AGM. Our tellers will be the 2 shareholders present and accepted with the largest number of votes. These 2 shareholders are, respectively, the fund housing, the group savings schemes plan represented by Sylvie Denis-Allemand and Amundi, represented by Madam Benedicte Sehli-Citti. With the approval of our tellers, I propose that we appoint Antoine Vignial as Secretary for today's Annual General Meeting, and to whom I now give the floor.

The agenda and resolutions were sent to you with the notice of meeting. I propose not to read them out, but rather to move directly to our observations authorizing the AGM to conduct its business. Now this meeting only has ordinary resolutions, so it's under the authority of an ordinary AGM. We require, therefore, a quorum of 20% of shares with voting rights. According to the indications that we already have on the attendance sheet, the votes by correspondence alone exceed, by some distance, this 20%. So we have a quorum already. I have here a folder in which all the documents required by law to conduct an AGM, and particularly, the documents convening the meeting, the reports of the Board of Directors, the statutory auditors' reports, the sustainability report, text of the resolutions, as an example, a copy of the articles of incorporation, the list of registered shareholders. All these documents provided by law are at the disposal of the shareholders as required. Therefore, the assembly is now duly constituted and can conduct its business.

Dear shareholders, here are a few words. First of all, I will talk to you about the group's strategy and prospects. Then we will talk to you about our financial and non-financial performance with Maud Thuaudet and Claire Pedini. Thirdly, Jean-Francois Cirelli will present his findings as Senior Independent Director and Deputy Chair of the Board, but also his findings as Chairman of the Nominations and Compensation Committee. Then we will have Frederic Gourd speaking on behalf of the auditors. We then have a presentation of the resolutions by Antoine Vignial, followed by an exchange with you, the shareholders, in the form of a Q&A session. We will then vote on the resolutions and close the AGM. After the AGM, I propose that we convene together to share a drink. I now propose to begin by showing you a video on the highlights for Saint-Gobain in 2025. [Presentation]

Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, as you've just seen in this video about our highlights, Saint-Gobain once again in 2025 has shown the relevance of its strategy as a worldwide leader of sustainable construction. In a few words, in a nutshell, Saint-Gobain is a highly efficient group which creates value for the stakeholders, an innovative group, which has reinvented itself for the past 350 years, and a worldwide leader which is committed and for which sustainability is at the heart of its strategy and business model. Saint-Gobain plays a key role as leader and opinion leader. For the third time, our barometer has shown that sustainable construction is very highly appreciated within 30 countries, which makes it possible for Saint-Gobain to be really in the vanguard of innovation topics, for instance, with its Action Paper, a summary of recommendations of sustainable construction, or during the Brazil COP in November 2025, or in last April technical report, which was published with a major U.K. consultancy firm. The group is also official partner of the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture. Each year, it gives an award to the 5 architects which put sustainability in the core of their projects. Social and environmental responsibility is at the core of our strategy at Saint-Gobain. And from an environmental point of view, we have again invested more than EUR 200 million in decarbonization in 2025, making it possible for the group to lower the CO2 emission of the group, and those emissions are 35% below the level of 2017. From a social responsibility point of view, our human resource policy continues to be recognized worldwide, and our group has been certified Top Employer Global for the 11th consecutive year. And all our employees and their families are protected by our social protection programs in all countries. And this is shared by all the stakeholders. The teams, first of all, the employees hold 7.7% of our capital. 75% of the French employees have bought shares during the employee savings plan campaign in April 2026. And of course, our shareholders have received EUR 1.5 billion in 2025 in dividends and share buybacks. And also, the work for the community, Saint-Gobain has paid EUR 1.2 billion in taxes and in expenses. And of course, Saint-Gobain gives a lot of value to the value chain, the suppliers and the clients everywhere in the world. In France, it represents almost 500,000 craftsmen and building companies that we support in many ways, logistics, advice, consultancy or credit. Now we have a very efficient strategy in terms of results and value sharing with all the stakeholders. You will remember, we had in 2021 initiated my term of office as CEO. And we had initiated our strategic plan in 2021, Grow & Impact 2021-2025. This plan has been completed in 2025 very successfully. From a financial point of view, all our objectives set in 2021 have been achieved with an internal organic growth average of 3% per year. And from a strategic point of view, the group profile has been enhanced with a rapid internationalization in Northern America, Asia and emerging countries and a worldwide leadership in construction chemicals. We have been determined in that because we have invested EUR 14 billion in growth and acquisition. And EUR 7 billion, dear shareholders, have been allocated to you from '21 to '25. Over the same period, our share price has increased by 127%. So it's 3x more than the CAC 40. And we have rolled out our strategic plan, Lead & Grow 2026-2030. Saint-Gobain would like to step up its profitable growth. We would like to target the megatrend upholding sustainable construction. We want to develop and enrich our offerings in solutions which can create value for our customers. We want to expand our solution-based approach that we have well developed on the residential market, and we would like to expand this approach towards nonresidential building and infrastructure market, of course, on the basis of our organization based on the country platforms, which are the megatrends supporting sustainable construction. Saint-Gobain Group brings all the necessary replies to the challenges of our period in each major region, rapid urbanization and population growth, housing crisis and aspiration to quality habitat, energy renovation and adaptation of all the buildings to climate change, reversal of globalization, relocation and local infrastructure needs. And finally, the resources are becoming more and more scarce, which makes it necessary to make circular savings. In order to meet those megatrends, we deploy a whole range of unique solutions year after year on a country-wide basis. Saint-Gobain is the only player able to bring a complete range of solutions for the building: roofing, ceilings, facades, partitions, floorings and foundation. These solutions meet all the buildings' requirements: energy performance, acoustic welfare, natural light and visual comfort. We developed the solutions country-by-country in order to step up our growth. Let's take the example of India. Saint-Gobain was already -- had a footprint in this country 10 years ago with 2 ranges of product, external -- exterior glazing and plasterboards. Now we have progressively expanded our offering with organic growth and with acquisitions. And now we can offer -- supply a whole range of complete solutions for buildings and infrastructure, and we have a leader position. The results in India have been multiplied by 6. Our income has been multiplied by 6. The same approach has been rolled out methodically in all our main countries in order to step up our growth, whether it's in North America, in Latin America or in Asia. Saint-Gobain is a precursor concerning the low carbon supply. And I would like to talk about low carbon plasterboard or insulating materials in fiberglass with recycled content and also admixtures for low-carbon concrete. Of course, the Saint-Gobain solutions make it possible to increase resilience of the buildings in view of extreme weather conditions. In the United States, for instance, we propose construction -- constructive systems, rainfall systems able to resist to -- withstand the storms. The solutions, of course, bring a lot of benefits to our customers. On the left-hand side of this slide, you have the global renovation of the country with the Saint-Gobain solutions in order to improve the thermal comfort of the inhabitants, but increasing also the real estate value of the property. In France, there is 30% price spread difference per square meter between the energy-efficient buildings and those which are not energy efficient. Another example in nonresidential construction, Saint-Gobain's solutions makes it possible to reach the highest level of environmental performance and considerably improve the life quality of the people working in the offices, for instance. Those benefits for our clients also have positive results for Saint-Gobain. For each project, more sales in the various families of products, more innovative product promotion and prescribe to adapt. This results in increased margin and growth for your group. Saint-Gobain rolls out innovative solutions in some very demanding industrial markets. For instance, our panoramic roofs, which can become opaque, on request, for cars and also they bring visual comfort, safety, thermal performance and acoustic comfort. Also, ceramic technologies to decrease the carbon content of industrial processes. Our high-performance polymers for many critical applications in the industry. Now those are the solutions that we roll out to bring value to our clients. This approach that we have historically developed on the residential market makes it possible for us to expand or to increase our market shares in the nonresidential and infrastructure markets. Even though we have generated already EUR 15 billion in sales, we can win -- gain market shares -- major market shares in the nonresidential and infrastructure markets. You can see that on the slide. One of the strategy drivers is Lead & Grow. It means that we can take many opportunities in -- growth opportunities. In order to do that, we have to adapt our offering in order to meet the specific needs of each market segment. Let's take the example of hospitals: hygiene, comfort, air quality, safety, security, resilience, climate resilience in view of the increasing number of heat waves. All this is very important for doctors and patients. Saint-Gobain proposes a whole range of solutions, for instance, floors and easy-to-clean ceilings, plasterboard, which can protect against X-rays. For instance, in the hospital of Nantes, we have 26 different solutions prescribed by specialized teams in the health sector. In data centers, which have [indiscernible] requirements, which Saint-Gobain meets is speed of construction, power efficiency, security and resilience and sustainability. Saint-Gobain has a whole range of technical solutions that notably include Chryso solutions. Chryso reduces the carbon footprint of concrete by 20%. In 2026, we have now embarked on 600 data center projects spanning 26 countries. At the same time, Saint-Gobain is continuing to reinforce its position in infrastructure, thanks to its leadership in the field of construction chemicals. Our platform in this field has a value of EUR 6.5 billion, spanning 76 countries. This meets to the critical requirements of infrastructure and buildings with tightness solutions, very often technical solutions, concrete add mixtures, technical floors, rendering to insulate facades and many, many others. We are continuing our growth in construction chemicals through acquisitions and by investing over EUR 9 billion by 2030. Now I've described our strategic outlook, which is very promising. Let me now tell you how our people are going to implement these strategies. As you know, the quality of execution is absolutely essential if the strategy is to be successful, particularly in the very uncertain world that we live in now, the deglobalized uncertain world. To roll out the profitable growth of Lead & Grow, Saint-Gobain is using a multi-local organization model in the form of country platforms. This is in all our regions, and it's an essential asset. This organization by country makes the group more resilient and robust and enables it to react with great agility to the volatile macroeconomic context in a highly fragmented geopolitical situation. This organization is also particularly relevant in the construction markets, which are local markets by nature. These are very close to our clients, and are very close to our people in the field. Most of our managing directors and country directors are from the country that they manage. So they know their ecosystem and they can promote a complete multiproduct offering, a very broad offering that's well suited to their local markets in terms of distribution channels or technical prescription. Now to optimize performance, these country platforms obviously reap the benefits of the group's operational excellence, first of all, its industrial excellence, with over 4,000 robots in our plants and shared know-how along all our production processes. This -- another operational lever is innovation through our 5 hubs in each of our large regions. Then there's commercial excellence with a very structured approach to our large accounts. Or of course, digital. For instance, the whole series of digital services provided to our craftsmen who are clients of POINT.P in France. Now the rollout is accelerating, but the rollout of artificial intelligence, which is gathering pace in the group, be it in R&D, in the applications along our supply chains, in our plants, in our production processes and, of course, our support functions, not to mention the various services that we propose to our clients. We will continue to develop these country platforms with special emphasis on North America, Asia and the emerging markets where our markets are higher growth markets on average. For that purpose, we will continue with our very determined resolute policy of opening new plants, new production lines. 2025 was a very active year in that respect with 24 new production lines or plants opened in network. We also intend to continue making acquisitions and proceeding with disposals, always aimed at reinforcing the group's strategic profile in terms of growth and profitability. On the one hand, there will be acquisitions that will create value, such as the 4 acquisitions made since the start of the year in construction chemicals, but also targeted disposals, such as our recent disposal of the distribution businesses in Brazil and Belgium. The active management of our scope is an essential part of our strategy if we are to optimize unrelentingly, the growth potential and the profitability of Saint-Gobain. Our target is to evolve over 20% of the group's sales between now and 2030, be it in the form of acquisitions or disposals. Let me finish with Lead & Grow. The success of our new strategic plan is, of course, borne by our men and women, men and women to whom I'd like to pay tribute and I'd like to thank them warmheartedly for the talent, for their extraordinary commitment and for their outstanding performance. In 2025, 89% of our employees in the world declared that they were proud to work for Saint-Gobain. That energy and this great commitment that we see day in, day out in our logistics centers, in our R&D centers, in our production plants, this commitment, which brings us together around a common vision at Saint-Gobain, which we call aiming higher. Now our new strategic plan and this ambition that I've just described and I just explained to you mean that we can aim higher in terms of financial objectives and environmental objectives financially at 1 to 2 points, outperforming the underlying market by 1 to 2 percentage points. Sales growing in the mid-single digits, EBITDA margin of between 15% and 18% by comparison with the average of 14% in recent years. And of course, the continued pursuit of our ambitious environmental objectives. By way of conclusion, ladies and gentlemen, I am confident, I have confidence in the strength and relevance of our Lead & Grow strategic plan to take advantage of Saint-Gobain's global leadership in sustainable construction, in extracting value from our strength of wealth, particularly in residential, nonresidential and infrastructure and of course, to generate high added value for all of our stakeholders. I'd like to thank all our directors, all our members of the Board for their interesting discussions and for their continued support. Let me reassure you, ladies and gentlemen, that your group is very solid and that its profitable growth trajectory is on the right track. Let me reassure you that as Chairman and CEO, I am committing myself to reap the benefits of all our potential with every single person in the group. I thank you for your attention. I give the floor to Maud Thuaudet and Claire Pedini, who will talk to you about our financial performance in the first case and extra financial performance in case of Claire Pedini.

Thank you, Benoit. Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, good afternoon. I am delighted to have this opportunity to tell you about your group's financial performance in 2025. In 2025, Saint-Gobain, as Benoit told you, performed well in a contrasted environment. In local currency, the group progressed its sales by 2.1%. Its EBITDA grew by 3.4% and its operating income grew by 3.8%. The operating margin continued at a very good level in 2025 at 11.4% despite the adverse effects of exchange rates and the market environment, thus reflecting the strength of our strategic positioning and the good operational performance of the group. The EBITDA margin was also stable at 15.5% and was on par with the record level of margin we achieved in 2024. Recurring net income totaled EUR 3.3 billion and return on capital employed at 14% is a good reflection of the priority that we attach to the creation of value for our shareholders. Let me now give you the breakdown of performance by region, beginning with Europe, Middle East and Africa, where the group sales were virtually stable in local currency. After a first half year where we were down 2%, the business progressed in Europe in the second half year, rising by 1.1% in local currency. This was, for the first time since 2022, a return to sales growth driven by Southern Europe, particularly France, thanks to the improvement in new construction, and in Spain and Italy, where Saint-Gobain continues to gain market share. The operating margin remained virtually stable for the year at 8.5% after 8.6% in 2024. Moving on to the Americas. The Americas posted growth of 1.5% in local currency. In North America, sales were marked by the downturn in the new buildings and the event of any -- the absence of any major climatic events in the second half of the year. As you know, Saint-Gobain has a very good offering in terms of adaptation to climate change. Latin America saw its business rise by 13.5% in local currency, in particular, with the integration of Cemix, a very successful integration of Cemix in early 2025 and the gain of market share in construction chemicals, particularly in Brazil. Overall, the operating income that's not including foreign exchange and the operating margin progressed well to a new record level of 17.2%, up from 16.8% in 2024, thanks to a very good first half. The second half was stable, supported by very good discipline in the management of prices and costs. Let's now move on to the Asia Pacific region, where sales rose sharply by 16.9% in local currency. This was driven by the very successful integration of FOSROC in early 2025. This is in construction chemicals. Very good dynamics with double-digit growth of India. India now is the third biggest country in terms of contribution to the results of your group. Southeast Asia also posted very strong dynamics, particularly Vietnam, driven by infrastructure projects and the recent launch of the first zero carbon production of exterior boards. Operating margin reached a record of 13.3%, up from 13% in 2024. Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, a few words about your group's very strong financial profile. In 2025, free cash flow remained at EUR 3.8 billion that's up 29% by comparison with 2021, which you will remember was the first year of our Grow & Impact plan that was 2021-2025. So the rate of conversion of free cash flow, that's cash flow -- free cash flow and EBITDA reached 58%, thanks to a very, very good of our working capital requirements. The gearing or net debt over EBITDA was a ratio of 1.4. And of course, the rating agencies have once again confirmed the very good strength, very good solidity of our group. A few words now about the first quarter of 2026. Sales were down 2.3% in local currency. Comparable -- that's less than anticipated despite difficult weather conditions in January and February in North America and in Europe. Asia Pacific saw its growth accelerate by 9% in local currency. Europe is flat, and the Americas are down. In the course of this first quarter, we continued to optimize and reinforce the group's profile with 3 acquisitions in construction chemicals and the starting of 11 new production lines or production plants, 10 of them in high-growth countries, I mentioned, but India, where we opened up a new ceilings line or Malaysia, where we opened up a new plasterboard line. Finally, since the start of the year, we have continued to optimize the group's profile with notably, the disposal of our distribution of ventilation and tiling in the Nordic countries. Also, our final exit from the distribution of construction materials in Brazil. At the end of April, we confirmed the guidance for 2026, aiming at an EBITDA margin above 15%. The first half year was affected by the weather conditions, extreme weather conditions at the start of the half year in Europe and North America. What about the return to shareholders? Well, your Board of Directors has recommended that we pay out a dividend of EUR 2.30 per share. That will be a 4.5% increase over last year and an average annual increase of 12% since 2021, which is the first year of Grow & Impact. Furthermore, at the start of 2025, the group bought back shares for a total of EUR 402 million. We will continue that buyback policy with EUR 2 billion earmarked to buy back shares between 2026 and 2030, as we explained at our Investor Day last October. Finally, concerning the stock market performance, you will see on this chart, how well the Saint-Gobain share price has fared by comparison with the CAC 40 Index since January 2021. The Saint-Gobain share has risen 109%, CAC 40 has risen 47%. In a word, ladies and gentlemen, Saint-Gobain has continued year in, year out to perform very well in a contrasted environment, thanks to its very good strategic position, but also thanks to its -- the high quality of its operational execution. You can count on highly mobilized staff who are championing this ambition of profitable growth within the general framework of strict financial discipline. So I have every confidence in our group's ability to achieve yet another year of overachievement in 2026. I now give the floor to Claire Pedini to tell you about our extra financial or nonfinancial performance, which, as you know, is an integral part of the group's strategy.

Good afternoon, dear shareholders. I would like to talk about the nonfinancial performance of our group and particularly, the climate strategy results. Our strategy and our leadership in CSR is based on 2 bases, maximizing our impact on our value chain in order to benefit our clients. Benoit Bazin has given a lot of examples of that. And we would also like to minimize our footprint, our carbon footprint, and I would like to dwell on that point. In order to do that, we are working in 3 directions. We want to contribute to decarbonize the world. We want to improve the performance of our ecosystem by reducing our footprint, and we want to participate in a safer, fairer and more inclusive world. As you can see, the strategy of our group is making progress and has good results, very successful. Our company has continued to decrease its carbon footprint in 2025. By comparing to 2017, we have reduced our direct -- CO2 direct emissions and the electric consumption that could generate in CO2, what we call Scope 1 and 2, by 35%. Our electricity is decarbonized up to 70% at present. And these are all the regions, all the countries. In India, plasterboard and ceiling tiles in Vizag operates at 100% with biomass in order to avoid the emission of 35,000 tonnes of CO2 per year. Biomass comes from waste. We don't want to compete with the agricultural users. In Canada, we have inaugurated last year the first plasterboard plant, zero carbon plant in North America, avoiding us 40,000 tonnes of CO2 per year, thanks to the electrification of our production. So we have reached, in 2024, our target, which is to decrease by 33%, our Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions, which have been set by 2030. So we have increased that ambition. And now we target, as you can see on the slide, a reduction by 2035 compared to 2017, a 40% to 45% reduction. That objective is -- target is very ambitious because it takes into account the future growth of our group, such as Benoit Bazin has depicted. We work, of course, in order to decrease our impact beyond our direct emission, that is, Scope 3, in order to take into account our whole value chain for our clients and suppliers. Those targets, our actions and our road map are in line with our net zero emission objective by 2050. Our whole organization is involved in the climate strategy, thanks to our governance with our committees within the Board and within the Group Executive Committee. We use an internal carbon price for our investment projects and R&D. We have incentives for compensation, short-term as well as long-term incentives. And we have committed teams everywhere in the world. Now for instance, we have trained over the last 3 years, more than 80% of our employees to the Climate Fresk within -- worldwide. I think that Saint-Gobain is the group which has trained the largest number of employees. We also want to reduce our footprint. And we want, first and foremost, to promote water preservation. You know that we have made a lot of progress over the past years. If we compare our results to 2017, our water withdrawals have been reduced by 26%. We make a lot of efforts in facilities located in very -- in regions where the water stress is very high. 70% of those facilities have no industrial water discharge. That represents 94 facilities out of the 130 facilities concerned. And Saint-Gobain has invested, for instance, in Pont-a-Mousson in France, thanks to complex investments, making it possible to circulate water in a better way and with an enhanced follow-up of our circuit. And last year, we have decreased our withdrawals by 30%. And by 2030, we want to divide by 2 the number of water withdrawals compared to 2017. And we don't -- we wish not to discharge water at all in those areas where water stress is very high. Those measures year after year are part and parcel of the continuous improvement plans of our plants. Now we want to reduce our footprint, of course, and increase circularity. We have decreased by 27% the non-recycled waste within our plants versus 2017. 16% of the commodity consumption has been replaced in 2025 by alternative content, recycled materials, coproducts. For instance in Finland, a whole brand-new [indiscernible] processing plant makes it possible to replace 70% of cement in Enae mortars. Or in Austria, where our group has opened its first recycling plant for the gypsum in this country. Of course, we want to stay the course with our 2030 objective. That is to say, 80% reduction in our non-recycled waste versus 2017. Now we want to participate in a healthier, fairer and a more inclusive country. We want to promote health and security at work. We continue to improve our performance. We have decreased by 61% the occupational accident rate versus 2015. It's a good result, but we have still too many serious accidents. In order to decrease the number of accidents, we have a systematic follow-up of those accidents resulting in serious injuries in order to draw all the lessons possible. We have decided to roll out this year, a new training session for security online, which will be compulsory for all the employees of the group, and of course, additional to what already exists. It will be given to the permanent -- to the employees working on a permanent basis in our facilities. We also want to continue with the dedicated programs for the subcontractors in Brazil. In Poland, for instance, where we use artificial intelligence to detect risks that could be related to security, and we want to automatically generate alarms and warning signals. On a wider scale, we want to continue to act for a more inclusive work. We want to work on our value chain, of course, for instance, in our sustainable construction schools in France. We train the craftsmen of the future. More than 1,000 apprentices have been trained to sustainable construction since 2022, and we intend to train 2,500 additional craftsmen by 2030. We want to develop programs, giving access to a decent and sustainable housing for an underprivileged population through a program called Build Change or via the Saint-Gobain Foundation, supporting solidarity-based projects and professional integration programs within local communities. More than 500 projects have been rolled out in 44 countries that have been supported since the foundation has been set up in 2008. And we share our values with all our stakeholders. Our objective is to create a confidence-based framework, a healthy and committed framework. Of course, we have an ethical code and we have a due diligence framework or policy with our employees and suppliers. And you can see that on the slide. Our teams are fully committed to those targets. Now all this makes out Saint-Gobain a recognized leader in social and environmental responsibility. For instance, we have a very good ranking by the main nonfinancial agencies. We are amongst the 10 best companies and also have a strong recognition by first-party labor/top employer, which has awarded its certification on a worldwide basis for the 11th consecutive year. We also are part and parcel of the stock exchange indexes recognizing the companies that are having outstanding results in the CSR area. Of course, our ambition is to reduce our CO2 emissions by 2030 and 2050, and it has been validated by the reference institute, the SBTi Institute. The company has an integrated approach concerning performance, financial performance and also nonfinancial performance. One that doesn't exist without the other. And we can, in that way, propose our clients different sustainable solutions, which is a source of competitive edge for us. And our group is a recognized opinion leader in sustainable construction.

Thank you, Maud. Thank you, Claire. Let me now give the floor to Jean-Francois Cirelli, who will tell you about his work as Independent Director and Vice Chair. And of course, his activities of his work with Compensation and Nominations Committee.

Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. I must now report to you as Senior Independent Auditor -- Senior Independent Director, I should say, of our group. You will remember that when the Board proposed to combine the role of Chairman of the Board and -- was back at the AGM of 2024. It also referred to a balance of power within the Board and in particular, not only by increasing the importance of the role of the Senior Independent Director, which has led to a change in the bylaws of our group. In that framework, the framework of our bylaws, which specify my duties, I, first of all, draw your attention to my role as passer, should I say, between the Chairman of the Board and the Directors on matters of governance and on how the Board operates. The assessment of the Board's performance is an annual event. The meeting up with the main shareholders every year and what we call governance roadshows, which are very time consuming to talk with shareholders about how the group is governed, how it all fleshes out, so to speak, what we talk about on the Board, what our areas of focus are. So this is a very interesting exercise for our large investors. There's also the work on the agenda of the Board. And of course, last year, Benoit and I worked together, and this is a very good illustration of all that. We also review the independence of our directors. So it's a useful task, which requires good cooperation between the group's management, the Chairman and the Chief Executive Officer, but also the Company Secretary, Secretary of the Board, Antoine. Of course, Maud, Claire, and the -- all the members of Saint-Gobain's ExCo. Now this cooperation from the word go has always gone very, very well. And the Board's appraisal, which was carried out by an independent firm at the end of last year confirms what I'm saying. Concerning the appraisal of the Board, it is universally appreciated by the directors themselves. And each and every one in their respective roles underscore the quality of the interaction within the Board. I should also point out how well aligned everybody is strategically with the management's objectives. Those have been very careful inclusion of risk management in group. The Board operates in a very structured manner with an outstanding transparency, excellence on the part of management, which creates an environment of trust that contributes considerably to the quality of our discussions. Of course, there's always room for progress. I'm working on that. But I think I can say as of now that your Board works with discipline, commitment and confidence with the sole goal of making the company successful. I'm going to leave it at that for that part. Could we have a jingle, please before moving on? There we are. That's all I want. I now have the honor of reporting as Chair of the Nominations and Compensation Committee. This is on our work conducted in 2025, and my presentation will come in 2 parts. First part, which will be a review of how the Board performed in 2025. And the second part on the components of the compensation package of our Chairman and CEO for 2025, what we call ex post say-on-pay. And in respect to 2026, which we call ex ante say-on-pay. Bearing in mind that you will be voting on both of those aspects, ex ante and ex post. Now there you have the key figures concerning the Board. A brief reminder, first of all, the size of the Board, composition, the degree of diversity, the origins, the seniority. You have all that on the screen. But I wanted to say too, it's very simple. As you can see, your Board is a balanced Board. It's a diversified Board. It's also independent. And it's a Board that is committed with an attendance rate of 100%. As for the competence, this is something that our main shareholders are very attuned to, particularly in terms of our diversity. As you can see, 5 out of 11 members, 45% are non-French nationals. It was 36% before last year. This increase in the number of non-nationals was due to the appointment of 2 new directors at the AGM of June last year, Maya Hari from Singapore and Hans Sohlstrom, who is Finnish, two regions, by the way, in which Saint-Gobain has very strong position that it continues to develop, Benoit told us earlier. These are 2 remarkable additions to the Board that we needed, and we're very, very pleased that they accepted to join us. Now French law being French law, when we calculate these proportions, it does not count employee representatives on the Board, which is probably [indiscernible], but we have 3, Sibylle Daunis Opfermann who represents the employee shareholders. And you know just how important it is for us that our employees own a substantial amount of the share capital. So Lydie Cortes and Philippe Thibaudet both represent the other employees. Now these 3 people make a significant contribution, a much appreciated contribution to the work of the Board. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank them for that. So overall, with this new Board of Directors, it took us 2 or 3 years to reconstitute it with the various departures. But I think I can now say that the skills and competencies are particularly well adapted to Saint-Gobain's business model. Now to prepare our work, we have 3 committees, 3 expert committees. The first is the Audit and Risk Committee, which is chaired by Thierry Delaporte. He's been Chair for the last 2 years and he is now up for reelection. We also have the Corporate Social Responsibility Committee, which has been chaired since last year by Sophie Brochu. And thirdly, the Nominations and Compensation Committee that I have the great honor of chairing myself. Now we have one renewal this year. Thankfully, only 1 committee present is up for renewal, that is Thierry Delaporte. I can tell you as of now that if today's AGM approves the resolution, we will reappoint him as Chairman of the Risk and Audit Committee. Thierry, thanks to his great, broad professional experience, makes a remarkable contribution to the work of your Board. And indeed, he chairs the work of the Audit and Risk Committee very, very efficiently. So excellent collaboration with our CFO and the whole financial department. That's the first part. Second part now is the compensation of your Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. This information is drawn up by the Board, but is subject to submitted to you for your say-on-pay. The idea is that compensation and achievement of strategy should be aligned. By way of brief synopsis, nothing like a nice, simple chart. This is the compensation of Benoit Bazin for 2025. Two comments I'd like to make. The first is that this is a continuity of the past. No changes were made to the structure of the Chairman and CEO's compensation, which is based on 3 components: fixed compensation at the top line; variable compensation, which is capped; and a long-term incentive in the form of share-based performance or performance per share, I should say. Second thing I'd say is that the overall compensation of our Chairman and CEO is below the median of his colleagues in the CAC 40 or even of the CAC 40 of industrial companies. Concerning variable compensation, the chart is maybe a little denser than the previous chart. But let's take 3 things to take away. First of all, that there's a cap. The cap is 170% of the fixed component. So you cannot -- the variable compensation cannot exceed 170% of the fixed compensation. Secondly, there are quantitative and qualitative data, 75% quantitative, 25% qualitative. Of the quantitative, 60% are financial indicators have we achieved our financial goals or not, and 40% are extra financial, in particular, corporate social responsibility, CSR and environmental criteria. Concerning quantifiable -- financial quantifiable criteria, which represents 60% of his variable compensation, all the goals were achieved. We can only be pleased about that. A wonderful achievement of our previous program, which ended in 2025 despite a global context that was anything but simple. So I think the Board can say just how happy it is that we have achieved all our goals. I think that's a remarkable performance over the last 4 years. As for the qualitative criteria, here again, we felt that the Board, in its wisdom, because it is a value judgment that these goals have been achieved, particularly the management of stakeholders and of the rollout of Grow & Impact, the working of the Board, the chairmanship of the Board by Benoit Bazin. Here again, we were perfectly satisfied that all the objectives have been achieved. Maybe one point that I should point out to you, Benoit has mentioned it. Claire Pedini also spoke about it at some length. It's the objective regarding safety. At Saint-Gobain, as you will have understood, for an industrial company, safety is absolutely of the essence. Every time we meet, we start every Board meeting with a quick update on safety. I think it's the way to proceed. The rate of accidents in the workplace. We talk about the TF2, that's the frequency rate. Not just our employees, but there are people who are subcontractors and temps who all work on our sites. Our TF2 is one of the lowest in the whole profession. We're at a rate of 1.43 last year. We were last year, which is very good. So we're very pleased about that. Every year, the Board pushes for better performance. But of course, management takes this on board very successfully to improve our TF2. Last year, we achieved our goal. You saw that we've achieved our goal. Unfortunately, as Claire mentioned, the number of serious accidents has increased. Benoit decided that this particular criteria was not achieved, so he would not accept any additional compensation on the strength of this criteria, which I think emphasizes how much importance we attach to safety. So we are fully supportive of Benoit's decision, which explains that the Chairman and CEO will not receive the full amount he could have received in view of his decision not to receive any compensation on the basis of safety. And this is something that -- a decision that I can only applaud. Moving on to long-term compensation, which is the third component, fixed, variable and long term. Saint-Gobain has a performance-based plan of action for, I think it's 2,500 top executives in the group, and Benoit Bazin is one of the beneficiaries of this long-term incentive plan, a plan that was decided at the end of the year. And the Board wished to grant him the maximum amount, that's 75,000 performance-based shares given the excellent operational performance of the group in a difficult environment. But this is what we will be asking you to approve when you vote on the ex post say-on-pay. Moving on to 2026. Again, the structure is exactly the same. It's the same slide that you saw earlier on, the figures out there because we haven't got the performance what we will have achieved. But we haven't changed the structure of compensation by comparison with 2025. Beginning with the variable compensation. Of the financial objectives and as you know, there's a new strategic plan, which will -- for the period 2026 to 2030. So we've adopted the financial criteria to align them with the management's objectives, particularly as explained in our Capital Markets Day last October, that's EBITDA in excess of 15%. Maud gave you the main components of those objectives. So we've adapted the compensation. It couldn't have been any other way. So the group has made commitments to certain objectives. We have made commitments to these objectives, and they will be aligned in the compensation plan. Regarding CO2 emissions, no change, except that the important thing with CO2 is millions of tonnes of -- that's our carbon footprint. But we want to do more. As Claire said, 30%, 45% reduction by comparison of 2017 by 2035. Now that may seem a very ambitious objective. Indeed it is because as Claire said, you make acquisition very often when you acquire a company, the carbon footprint is actually higher than our own carbon footprint. And of course, the demand increases when you sell more, well, you generate more carbon arithmetically. So it's quite an undertaking to actually abide by these objectives. We have decided to be very ambitious but realistic all the time. It's important to keep improving without necessarily targeting figures that are impossible to achieve. So we will continue to organize ourselves in that way to arrive at 40%, 45%. As regards to safety, which is the final point I wanted to mention, we felt that we should continue to be very demanding about the reduction of the TF2. And despite the fact we're at a very low level, we must now take on board serious accidents. The fewer there are, the more serious they are. So we now have a new indicator that Claire hinted at. The Board wanted that the safety indicator include a new acronym. I apologize for this. It's what we call high-consequence injuries, the very serious cases. So the 5% of that compensation package next year will gauge whether we've abided by our safety goals. And within that particular target, have them ensure high-consequence incidents. Of the quantitative data and quantitative criteria, we will continue in the same way. We feel that's the right criteria. And of course, the first area that we focus our judgment on is the rollout of the Lead & Grow strategic plan announced last year. There are other components, but it's the same chart every year. Pension funds and other considerations, which are highly unlikely. I think we have many, many years ahead of us before we look at any of these criteria. One final point is the compensation policy for directors, for members of the Board. Again, no changes by comparison to what you approved last year. The same envelope, EUR 1.6 million for the Board in its entirety. We have made 1 or 2 small minor adjustments in-house, particularly for the Audit Committee. But otherwise, nothing very substantial. They are just small internal adjustments. As you know, we have some special conditions for our non-French directors who, if they have to cross the Atlantic where it takes more time and there's greater costs involved. So that's all built into the overall budget that you've already approved. That's what I wanted to say to you about the work of the Compensation and Nominations Committee. Thank you.

Thank you, Jean-Francois. Let me now call on Frederic Gourd to join us to report to us on behalf of the statutory auditors.

Ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to speak on behalf of the college of statutory auditors and give you my account of the reports that we have drawn up for you. Now we've issued several reports as part of our assignment in respect of financial year 2025. First of all, our reports certifying the information as regards to sustainability, but also our reports on the statutory accounts, and indeed, the consolidated accounts as well as our report on the related party agreements. These reports can be found in the universal registration document, which is available on the company's website and has been there since the 11th of March 2026. I propose to report in a synoptic way, beginning with our report on sustainability, which was issued on the 26th of February. Our task consisted doing the work necessary to form an opinion, expressing limited assurance regarding compliance with the European Sustainability Reporting Standards, ESRS, of the process used by the group to arrive at these data, the compliance of the data itself for the ESRS data, and finally, compliance with the demands in line with the green taxonomy. Concerning compliance of the process with the ESRS, we have not identified any errors, omissions or major inconsistencies. We should point out that we paid particular attention to the updating of the analysis on double materiality. Concerning the compliance of information on sustainability with the ESRS, we haven't identified any errors, omissions or inconsistency. Two areas give rise to particular attention. First of all, the greenhouse gas emissions; and secondly, the transition plan for limitation of climate change. Concerning the compliance with the demands regarding green taxonomy, we have not identified any errors, emissions or inconsistencies. Let me now move on to our report on the consolidated and statutory accounts issued last February '26. These reports conclude that we have unreservedly certified the accounts which are consistent with the IFRS system as adopted by the European Union for consolidated accounts and the French GAAP in the case of the statutory accounts. We have formed our opinion on the work carried out or conducted by the auditors, which give us a reasonable assurance that the accounts of information are both sincere and full compliance. Our works have been adapted to the particularities and characteristics of your group and include ongoing operations and the more nonrecurring events of the financial period. We use the procedures and internal control systems in the group and focus on the entire group worldwide. Our conclusions were submitted to the Management and Audit and Risk Committee of your group. Our reports further comprise a description of the key points in each audit. These are areas with significant risk of anomaly that we think are of significant greater significance for 2025. These are the main issues that we discuss with management and the Audit Committee. For each of these items, in our reports, we explained the reasons that we selected them, the type of risk identified, but also the response we received from the audit department. For the period ended December 31, 2025, these key issues concern in the case of consolidated accounts, the appraisal of goodwill and tangible and intangible fixed assets, but also the appraisal of the provision for the asbestos lawsuit in the U.S.A. In the case of the statutory accounts, this concerns equity investments and related receivables. We point out in our report on the statutory annual accounts that we have an observation during the first year of application of the ANC 2022, 2026. This observation had no bearing on our opinion. We also point out in our reports that we have no observation concerning the specific verifications, particularly concerning the sincerity of information provided in the group's management report, but also the exactness and sincerity of information provided concerning the compensation paid to corporate officers. Moving on to the special report on related party agreements. We have pointed out in our report that we had reported to us an agreement between Compagnie de Saint-Gobain and Jana Revedin concerning a partnership for the editions 2026, '27, '28, '29 of the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture. We were also notified that there is a continued agreement ongoing between Compagnie de Saint-Gobain and Jana Revedin concerning a partnership relating to the organizational production of the 2025 edition of the Global Award for Sustainable architecture. This report can be found on Page 285 of the universal registration document and does not contain any particular comments or observations. That brings to the end of our report. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your attention.

[Interpreted] Thank you, Frederico. I give the floor to Antoine Vignial, our Secretary General, and he is going to present in a nutshell, all the resolutions that you have to approve or not.

[Foreign Language]

[Interpreted] Thank you, Antoine. I would like to say that a certain number of written questions have been asked before the assembly. And we also have given the opportunity to the shareholders to ask questions by e-mail until 10:30 this morning. And the answers of the Board have been posted on our Internet site and the entry finance general assembly. And sometimes one single answer has been given to several questions pertaining to the same topic. Mr. Luca, individual shareholder, has asked a question about artificial intelligence, which is a very important topic, very topical issue. And I think that I would like to give you the answer here rather than give you the answer in writing. So the Saint-Gobain Group enters the area of artificial intelligence in laboratories and in operational business, in industrial maintenance or industrial manufacturing. What are going to be on a long-term basis, the impact on employment at Saint-Gobain. Of course, we have been working on artificial intelligence for years, 3 or 4 years ago, it was at the stage of ideation of ideas, which were rolled out in the group. And then now we have an actual operational reality in the group. We are controlling a whole set of AI technologies, and we also have internal tools for cybersecurity and privacy of data. We have about 500 cases of huge concerning AR in the group, cases concerning several countries. We are reorganizing our governance, AR governance in order to make it a strategic issue. We have trained a little more than 16,000 employees on AR and AI tools. A few examples, of course, because it pertains to all the company functions, for instance, formulation of materials, speed at which we can have a convergence on formulation, for instance, in construction chemicals, we need to have specific applications for concrete, sand and ad mixtures. So we are able now to have a convergence on a certain number of samples much more quickly than before. And we can divide by 3 or 4 the convergence time compared to a few years ago. It is also true for material research and for a circular economy because we can retrieve a lot of research that has been made over the past few years. It's true also for industrial research, and the Saint-Gobain Group has reorganized its database over the past years. So we are lucky because we have a lot of data concerning all our industrial processes. We have about 100-plus board plants generating a lot of data. So we have a lot of relevant tools, and we have organized those tools in order for them to be used by our employees. And this is an asset for industrial processes as far as AI is concerned. It concerns all support functions, procurement, legal department, HR department, customer service and also it concerns use part B, material shrinking. Now if you have energy renovation projects, those are complicated projects. So it takes some time for craftsmen and then this craftsman is going to talk with the customers at plant B and he is going to help drafting a cost estimate. So thanks to AI, it is possible to do that very quickly. And it will take time for the sales representative in order to draft the cost estimate with customized solutions. So it's a good example concerning interaction with our customers. So artificial intelligence in a way to give support to our teams from an industrial research point of view, support point of view, commercial or business sales point of view. So it's an acceleration of the Saint-Gobain offering and growth strategy and efficiency strategy rather than search for efficiency. And it's not about cutting jobs. It's part of our strategy, and I have given you a few examples concerning the whole of our Saint-Gobain chain of value, and our teams are very much committed to using AR everywhere in the world, not only in France but as well as in the United States or elsewhere. Now this was my answer to this question, which was asked in writing, but it could have been asked by you today. Now what about the questions in the room? You have the floor. Please wait for the mic.

And we can spend about 30 minutes to our exchanges. Question #1, Pat.

[Interpreted] I've been a shareholder for about 6 years, 2 questions. The first question, Lead and Grow 5-year plan, Lead and Grow. The objective a 20% increase in sales or turnover in local currency. Between '24 and '25, there was no increase in sales. Same thing the third quarter 2026. It's even minus 2%. I think that there are some headwinds in the world. Trump administration. In Europe, the European Parliament has voted in 2019 for a major green deal, more than EUR 100 billion, and it's being, in fact, reduced. Same thing for the French government. Is it a megatrend here that the government and the countries are over-indebted and they can't afford to have those major green deals anymore? So I think that you are ambitious for the 20% by 2030. Second question. Are you involved in the carbon capture in the plants for instance. Just as Veolia, the Veolia Group is doing, can you do that? Do you plan to do that?

[Interpreted] Thank you for this very relevant question. First question, 20%. 20%, it concerns the renewal of our sales. So we want to continue to make disposals and acquisitions. We have EUR 50 billion in sales at present. So EUR 10 billion in sales are going to be acquired or disposed of. It could be EUR 7 billion or another figure. This is in order to compare that with what we have done in the past years, around 40%. Now mid-single-digit growth of between 4% and 5% per year of sales growth. So what do we want to acquire? And what do we want to dispose of in each country? So we are ambitious as far as the continuation of the group growth. Now the impact of exchange rates. The euro is a strong currency. And if we had published the group sales in dollars since 2022, then the growth would have been much higher. But we're very glad to have a strong euro. But let's not forget the exchange rate impact on our sales. So indeed, you're right, the overall situation is not very good. But it does not pertain to -- it does not impact on sustainable buildings. Those are the best buildings in Europe and elsewhere. Of course, the governments can make a stance about that. But I can tell you that in the United States, in the residential area, there are no insurance companies willing to ensure you when a hail storm has destroyed your roof if you have not used more sustainable material to build your home. So there is an accelerating climate change. And you have 14 states in the United States having defined tax advantages for people having used, for instance, waterproofing materials for their buildings. So this in order to fight against climate change. In the office building, for instance, in April last year, we had met the Chairman of LEED, L-E-E-D, Leader in Energy and Environment, and he explained that in the United States, the office buildings is 25% higher value if it has a good energy performance label. So on the one hand, we have political statements. And on the other hand, you have the actual value, financial value of an office. You have the insurance companies, which we choose to insure some buildings. In Europe, we had a lot of standards for the past 5 years, creating a lot of confusion and slowing down the implementation of those energy standards. In France, we had 16 definition of eligibility criteria to the renovation bonus over the past 5 years. And this has not had a negative impact on renovation. But we have tax advantages. We have renovation bonuses and there is a 30% difference between good energy diagnosis and poor energy diagnosis. And people are going to look into whether there is light in the paint or whether there is a seismic or flooding risk. So those are the facts in spite of all the governmental statements or the simplification of stance on the European level. However, those renovated buildings are better buildings, bringing some benefits to our customers in energy efficiency and purchasing power. We had forgotten about the Ukraine war impact and the war in Ukraine. So electrification is not going to be all and end all. And even if we have a heat pump in schools, we had a heat wave last week in France, and this didn't change the fact that the schools were much too hot for the children. And you're right, people -- the governments are over indebted. Countries are over indebted. And so insurance companies have to help us. So I think that fundamentally, Saint-Gobain proposal concerning sustainable building brings a lot of advantage and benefits to the customers, and it has an impact on the planet. So CO2 capture, no, we're not involved in that because we want to reduce our CO2 footprint rather than capture. And we have done that on a very high level, minus 35% since 2017. So you can see that this is due to the Saint-Gobain acquisitions. So we make a lot of efforts. We electrify our plants. We have built the first in the world, the first plasterboard plant in Norway working with electricity. Even if we did nothing to reduce our CO2 footprint, our facilities do not emit enough CO2 that would make CO2 capture profitable and interesting because we are not major emitters. Our plants are not major CO2 emitters, and it would not be possible to gather or to pull all those emissions and borrow them in the North Sea. So we can reduce emissions in another way. The CO2 capture processes are very expensive. For the cement manufacturers are talking about projects costing EUR 1.5 billion. So we do not spend as much to reduce our CO2 footprint, but we are very successful in doing that, and we want to make a lot of progress, and we want to bring a lot of sustainable building in the world.

[Interpreted] I would like to congratulate you because we do not only restate figures. I think that those figures are as big as official figures because companies restate figures a lot. And for instance, some companies have negative sales figures and they restate the figures and they become positive. So you're not afraid of mentioning real figures without restating them. My question concerns what you have mentioned, vegitalized building. First question what impact is going to have this vegitalization? Of course, insights are going to be attracted by this vegitalization and they are going to enter your building and your apartment. Has Saint-Gobain developed some kind of system in order to prevent insects to come into the apartments? With AI, we can make extraordinary things. Now in my house, when I grow vegetal, I know what happens with insects. So what are you going to do about that?

[Interpreted] Thank you for your first remark. Of course, we want to publish true figures. And concerning vegitalized buildings, what is important is to keep in mind, and you can see that in urban planning because Saint-Gobain does not only selling of plasterboard, but sells a whole solution concerning a home building in a city. So sustainable building is part and parcel of an ecosystem. And what is challenging is together -- to bring together several players. We have vegetable islands in Paris, for instance, which are very important to lower the temperature. And this is why we have vegitalized roof in the United States. They paint them in white. And it's very important to have waterproof membranes in order to avoid flooding through the roof with a poor waterproofing process. So don't worry about the painting being deteriorated because we have taken that into account, particularly waterproofing. I'm not a specialist as far as insects are concerned. And when you switch off the light, you can repower insects and also mosquito nets. In the United States, we sell mosquito nets with some asphalt attractivity which glass fiber. I think it's the best response. Now I'm not going to talk about biodiversity. But when there are more insects, or more birds and biodiversity is protected. So we are very glad to hear the bird thing in Paris, was the case during COVID. And I think that it's a wider topic, urban planning. For instance, the Louvre museum. In 2028, we are to celebrate the 40 years of the Louvre pyramid, everything in mineral. You've probably been there and you wait for too long a time before you can enter, the temperature is very, very hot. So this has been designed 40 years ago. The Louvre yard is entirely mineralized, but we have to think about the temperature. And those are very significant and important topics in order to make cities more sustainable and cooler in order to lower the temperatures and capture the CO2. But I can't give you the perfect answer concerning the insect topic. What would happen if more roofs were vegetalized in our cities? I think that vegetalization in cities is a very important topic. And we know that in some cities, green spaces are much more -- much wider than in Paris, much larger than in Paris.

[Interpreted] My name is [indiscernible]. I'm an individual shareholder. First of all, thanks for the WiFi. It's very practical. My MacBook is very happy about that. I have a question about the price per tonne of CO2 that you reinvoice internally at EUR 100 per tonne. It's about EUR 85 in the open market. Are you adding a margin to the price per tonne? What's happening? Because the real value of the tonne is less than what you're reinvoicing within the group. My second question concerns your compensation. I think 100% of the qualitative variable will be attributive, bearing in mind that there were a few accidents to staff. I have some difficulty understanding that you get 100% despite the fact of accidents. And my final question concerns your shareholders. You're biggest shareholder is the fund, the employees fund with 7.5%, BlackRock has 7%. Nobody between 5% and 7%. And I see some individual shareholders something like 8.5%. Air Liquide has a lot of individual shareholders and has decided to give its shareholders a fee or a gift when they come to attend the AGM. Is that something that your Board is looking at? Are you drawing inspiration from Air Liquide rather than gadgets or projects that actually consume CO2?

[Interpreted] Thank you for your questions. Firstly, the ton of CO2 is something that we impose upon ourselves within the group. My predecessor lost it at EUR 25 for investments, EUR 50 for R&D, which is more long term. We've gradually increased to the price of EUR 100 and EUR 200 per tonne. This is not something we pay in cash outside of the group. This is the way we go about modeling and justifying our investments and our R&D. Let me give you an example. If you look at a glass of, if you just look at the heat recovery system, your return on investment will be over -- a little over 10 years. You obviously do that shows return on investments 4, 5 years. But if you grant EUR 100 per tonne, this is fictitious. But if in India, that's where the tonne is EUR 100, it's EUR 85 in Europe, then we apply that throughout the world. And you see that our heat recovery system at EUR 100 a tonne, if I recover that and don't lose it then I have a return on investment, I prefer to go ahead by comparison with materials that are expensive. You see that the carbonated material that we burn to produce glass or whatever. But if I have decarbonated materials and I apply EUR 200 a tonne in 10 years' time, I would have to learn to make glass with the [indiscernible] world, which is -- contains no carbon by comparison to what we've been using historically. So that type of dynamics that enable us to progress. And irrespective of the market, you need quotas or buy those quotas in the market. This is how we progress, especially when we look at our R&D projects or our investment projects. Your second question with my compensation. First of all, you've seen it was 155% of a maximum -- out of a maximum of 170%. Now I think it was -- financial performance was 95%, and that includes safety. At the time, we had a measurement called the frequency rate, TF2, we achieved our objective. However, there were serious accidents. And I felt that from my own point of view and from the ExCo's point of view, who agreed with me, I felt that it was important [indiscernible] because that's not going to bring anybody back unfortunately, but to receive no compensation whatsoever in respect of that criteria. So it's 155% out of a potential 170% because the safety issue, which is 15% of variable was at my behest reduced to 0 and approved by the ExCo. Your third question was the large shareholders, we're very happy to have our group savings scheme of the main shareholder and BlackRock. BlackRock isn't just a fund. BlackRock is a whole series of funds. Individual shareholders are important to us and the proportion has increased. I think our individual shareholders will have appreciated the annual average increase of our dividend by 12% over the last 5 years. It's very important for us to continue to help increase the number of individual shareholders. So all sorts of events, your physical presence here today, individual shareholder meetings in Paris or in the provinces that Maud and I do with our Investor Relations teams. We also organize visits to facilities and production sites. We would receive something maybe not a fee, but a gift that I hope you will appreciate when you leave that I think is good -- I hope that will give you a binding memories. And yes, we are very keen to continue to grow our number of individual shareholders. I believe it's 8%, much happier than when it was at 6.5% a few years back. So yes, we would like to have more individual shareholders.

[Interpreted] If I could just add a word. Maybe I can ask you if you'd like to join the club of our shareholders because this is where all this happens. This is where we have all sorts of dealings with individual shareholders. Very happy to be in touch with you directly by means of you'll find the inscription form on our website. I think the person here had a hand raised. Please go ahead.

[Interpreted] I'm speaking as an individual shareholder. I have 2 questions. On technical questions that I feel it's important and a more of a more general nature. The latter concerns your results, which had a historically high level and EBITDA margin of 15.5% and an EBIT margin of 11.4%. Given the headwinds we face briefly in construction chemicals, can we reach or even exceed these historically high levels? If we look at the about job indicators, we know that the price of chemicals has risen sharply over the first 4 months, with downstream, the pass-on has only been in the region of 2%. My technical question is Ecocem, which we don't speak very often is an important part of Saint-Gobain. Ecocem has 3 facilities in and one in the Netherlands. Could you tell us a little bit more about them?

[Interpreted] Ecocem is an investment we made about 20 years ago, a little over 20 years ago. It's in decarbonated cement made from slag from our high furnaces, the clinker. This was an important issue 20 years ago. It's still an important issue today. We have a minority stake in Ecocem. The -- I think it's become increasingly important since Chryso joined the group because Chryso has important admixes for low-carbon cement. We will, of course, continue to develop Ecocem with our major players in the civil engineering. If I take concrete, this is Ecocem cement with Chryso admixes used in a number of the major construction projects in Paris. So yes, essentially in the same way, Saint-Gobain owns Leca. Leca produces calcine clays, which are important factors of substitution in cement -- in our low-carbon cements, and this is an important aspect -- it's become increasingly strategic and increasingly important as we increase our involvement in construction chemicals. So thanks for your comments on our results. We always want to do more better. And of course, the strategy with Lead and Grow is 15% to 20% as you heard, that's evidence of our ambition. Our goal for this year is to be over 15% EBITDA. We said at the start of the year that the weather in the U.S.A., France and Germany had not been very conducive in January and February, but that things should pan out after that. I can't say much more at this point in time. I don't think it's the right place, but I'm confident about the fact that 2026 will be a good year for Saint-Gobain. I'm confident that as we've shown in 2022, for instance, where there was a big increase in the cost of raw materials, we succeeded in increasing our raw materials by more than inflation. That's what we have decided to do. We have our people mobilized around that objective. And I expect that by the end of the first half year that what we've been doing with prices will materialize. I think with our roofing products, we pass price increases in April, the whole series of things we've done. And of course, our know-how and how we coordinate local purchasing, global measures that enable us in times of crisis to eke out opportunities, including in construction materials. We have outperformed our main competitors by 2 percentage points, almost 3 percentage points in the first quarter -- first quarter of this year. This is part and parcel of our system of seeking out solutions. I'm confident in times of crisis, the crisis are also opportunities for us to outperform others, particularly in the financial field. Gentleman here with #7, I think.

[Interpreted] I have a question concerning the 40th anniversary of the privatization of Saint-Gobain. It was in 1986 that Saint-Gobain was privatized. Saint-Gobain had been nationalized in 1982. It was a huge popular success because 1.5 million people subscribed to Saint-Gobain shares. Last year, for the 360th anniversary of the group, you did not invite the individual shareholders to join the other stakeholders to participate in the festivities. This year, 2026, when we commemorate the 40th anniversary of the privatization of Saint-Gobain, was my question, have you any plans for a great big party that will bring together the people who place their trust in you back in 1986? Those shareholders and their descendants, the individual shareholders who represent 8.5% of your share capital. Will they be acknowledged for their loyalty and their longevity? I believe they will buy more and more Saint-Gobain shares to reach by the end of your term of office, Mr. Bazin, 2028, hopefully, they will reach 10% of the group's share capital.

[Interpreted] Thank you very much. And congratulations for your ambition and the objectives that you set us. It's true that I think people who subscribe to the shares when the group was privatized. I think they can boast, I think, almost 10% growth per annum on average over the last 40 years, which is very good. 360 years. Yes, we did a trip around the world with our partners and -- that was located in our large regions with major accounts. That said, we associated shareholders with a whole series of events in Paris, the events that I took part in myself that Maud took part in. We're doing everything we can to include our individual shareholders. But more specifically, I'm going to tell you what our share is. The gift for you is for a ticket to attend the waterworks event in the [indiscernible], the Gallery of Hidden Glass. It's an invitation. Okay, it's [indiscernible] event, but a very spectacular one. I hope you'll be able to attend. hopefully, on a day that will be as warm as recent days, but -- we believe that you will remember that one of the first things that Saint-Gobain was the Gallery of Mirrors, the Gallery of Hidden Glass. Now you've given us until 2028 to reach 10% individual shareholders' ownership of the share capital. I thank you for that. I don't have full control over the tax measures that will apply to you or that will soon apply to you because unfortunately, this has adverse effects on individual shareholders. We are doing a lot to solicit a new generation of shareholders in terms of the transmission values. This is part and parcel of what we do as corporate officers. So thank you for your testimony, which I think should be a good example for younger people to encourage -- younger shareholders to become involved. I meet with students from business schools. And last year, I was with one of these business schools, all sorts of students talk about Saint-Gobain's strategy. And I hope that they either join us or become shareholders. But we try to do quite a lot with younger people because clearly, it's young people who are the future of each of our countries. That's why we invest in education and youth and including the future of our shareholders. So thank you for the challenge. We're not going to wait another 40 years to reach 10%. We will certainly improve, I think, the share price. It would be all too easy if we would just reduce the share price, make it more affordable. Thank you for your support. Also thank you for the great encouragement that you have given us. Thank you.

[Interpreted] One question, another one here. Sir, I have noted in your presentation concerning some product recycling like what you said I noted what you said and you are also ambitious concerning construction chemicals, which has to guarantee a certain development in the group. My question is the following. What about the products that are going to result from that construction chemicals? Are they going to be recycled themselves?

[Interpreted] Very good question. Very relevant. Construction chemicals, let's take the mixtures that we put into concrete. Now we can have a wall that is demolished and then we are not going to find the original molecule. Concerning the waterproofing solutions, yet, we are working on this type of solution in order to recycle some membranes. But there are a certain number of initiatives that are taken in construction chemicals. For instance, facade rendering, everything that is exterior insulation, insulation, glass grade and facade rendering. We want to be able to give [indiscernible] and rather to crush everything and lose everything, we prefer to have surfaces that can be separated easily one from the other. If we want to recycle materials, we have to separate the flows in order to find materials quite rapidly. It's part and parcel of our project. We also have some work being done on green chemicals with polymers. So yes, construction chemicals is part and parcel of our work. Motors, for instance, tiling, we have cement there, and we substitute cement with alternative products in Indonesia. We have replaced 45% of concrete with [indiscernible] ashes from palm trees. We have palm trees in Indonesia, as you know. And they are cutoff furnishing for furnitures and everything is not cut off. So we use palm tree ashes in order to decarbonize. So we have a lot of sustainability initiatives in construction chemicals and the formulation or the ability to recycle some materials. And this is important for this business line of the group to be involved in our efforts.

[Interpreted] Question number 5, [indiscernible], individual shareholder. I have 2 questions concerning distribution of payout -- distribution. Your Point.P brand used to be a leader a few years ago. And this distribution brand has been overtaken by other groups, for instance, in the U.K., I can't remember the name of the U.K. group. And my second question, Eramet, the company which manufactures materials with the mining extraction. Are you interested in that company which has a lot of difficulties right now?

[Interpreted] I am very confident in the leading position Point.P and CDO and [indiscernible], which are affiliated companies. We have more sales than #2, and we are gaining market shares in France. The brand names, I'm not going to give you the brand names that you have mentioned concern do-it-yourself, DIY. And you know that our customers are mainly craftsmen. So Point.P, you have heard our distribution manager and Point.P is very much ahead of competitors concerning, for instance, connected software for swift cost estimate in order to support craftsmen and train the craftsmen. I know no other distributor in the world, whether it's in the U.K. or the U.S., which is able to draft cost estimate with AI. Point.P is doing that. So sometimes, of course, there is some competition from craftsmen working shadow economy and they come to Point.P because they have the right products, the right services and the right advice, particularly concerning energy performance in households. So at Point.P, we continue to make a difference. And this is very much in line with our industrial business line. Saint-Gobain is leading a group concerning construction building in France in residential and nonresidential markets. Now concerning your second question, we have a very specific know-how in ceramics in order to house Eramet. For instance, for ceramic in order to extract lithium and let brine evaporate for 18 months. So I know that I've had some problem from Indonesia. I had the opportunity to talk about that with the Eramet Chairman last Tuesday. And we have a specific ceramic know-how expertise, and we have a lot of industrial expertise. So the extraction of lithium from -- with ceramic, I think, is part and parcel of our expertise. I don't really know much about the outlook for Eramet, but we can support them with outstanding and innovative solutions. Of course, they have to be able to implement the solutions in their operations. Thank you for your question. Question #3, and then we will move over to the voting period.

[Interpreted] I am an individual shareholder. As far as I remember, we're talking about Saint-Gobain Pont-a-Mousson. What about Pont-a-Mousson? What is the lesson that we can draw from the past?

[Interpreted] Now you're right. In 1970, Saint-Gobain was called Saint-Gobain Pont-a-Mousson when we had this merger with Pont-a-Mousson. We still have this logo, which is modernized by my predecessor. Pont-a-Mousson is a subsidiary of the group. And we have continued to invest in Pont-a-Mousson mainly on the water market. We had a footprint in China, but not anymore. We have a footprint in Europe at present with a minor business line in Brazil. But the core business of Pont-a-Mousson is Europe with several plants in France. Pont-a-Mousson is 4,000 employees, half of them in Pont-a-Mousson in France, and we continue to invest in this facility with a plant in Foug. So this is a profitable business with electrical furnaces. So we have an electric furnace in Foug in order to manufacture pipes and also in pipeline in Santander in Spain. There are huge requirements and needs in the water market in Europe. Sometimes there are funding issues from the various governmental water agencies. You've heard about water stress. Spain and Italy and other infrastructure plan have invested a lot in piping, in pipes. So France has to do that as well. But we continue to invest and develop that business line with technological transitions concerning, for instance, the move over to electrical furnaces. Question #7 and then question #2.

[Interpreted] [indiscernible] individual shareholder. Mr. Chairman, I would like to congratulate you as well as you are very good manager. Now of course, this is encouraged by the renovation business, which is becoming more and more significant. In my house, primary and secondary house, I have tried to change the glazing. And I was confronted to triple glazing, double glazing and many sorts of double glazing. So it's difficult to choose. I had put a big question a few years ago, you were still General Manager at the time you were not CEO and you hadn't given me the right answer. Maybe your technical experts are going to give me the right answer. Now maybe what you could do is to have a booklet where you could have a list of possible glazing with their advantages and drawbacks and the price of the materials. I was a little bit angry because I had to trust the craftsman who did the job. I tried to choose myself, but I couldn't. I was not able to do that because I didn't have any knowledge about that.

[Interpreted] Now I would like our communication team to take your address, your mail address in order to give you the answer. We have done a lot of work over the past years in order to streamline and simplify this matter. You need one specific type of glazing and you need one answer. Now we have the ECLAZ, E-C-L-A-Z range of glazing and you have all the possible information about the ECLAZ glazing on the Internet, and you will have the right answer. It's on the Internet. Maybe the quant did not explain that to you. So this is the ECLAZ range. It's modern glazing. It's a new innovative gazing, which has been put on the market 5 years ago with luminous transition and a good thermal performance, whether in winter or in the summertime. Now we are going to take your details and in order to be sure to give you the right answer this time. Now we are talking about electrification right now, but it's not electrification that is going to make it more comfortable to read your newspaper by the window in the winter or when there is a heat wave to give you the opportunity to have a cooler house. [indiscernible], who is the shareholder or shareholder representative has organized a material tech a few months ago with a glass window, low carbon window. And the craftsmen told us, I have natural light, it's cool. So that was the return. It was last week, in fact, when a heat wave struck France. And so we had this meeting. So we have the necessary know-how, but it's true that we have progress to make as far as communication with craftsmen and with the individual customers is concerned. Thank you for your question. One last question, and then we are going to vote.

[indiscernible] Saint-Gobain retired from Saint-Gobain Pont-a-Mousson. Concerning the high furnaces or polluting high furnaces at Pont-a-Mousson, they are going to be replaced by an electrical furnace, which is a major investment. And the Pont-a-Mousson management -- senior management has said that the employees and retired employees should participate -- should be involved in that investment. Social agreement has been imposed, which has a negative impact on employees and retired employees. Any way the pensions is quite close at Saint-Gobain. So for retired persons receiving a certain level of pension -- having received a pension for the past 10 years. This is going to result in a smaller amount of pension. I don't think that it's a good idea. And is it a good social policy to have employees and retired employees involved in the industrial renovation and industrial policy of the group?

[Interpreted] Now welcome to the [indiscernible], including the ex Saint-Gobain employees. I have answered this question. It has nothing to do with the Pont-a-Mousson investment project. I think that there has been a problem with communication with the pensioners. We have communicated with the employees. And this agreement has been validated by the CGT, that is to say the main trade union of the Saint-Gobain employees. You probably know the situation at Pont-a-Mousson. It incurred a loss, and it worked in a very competitive environment to face with confronted with Turkish and Chinese competitors. So I think that we have to rebound at Pont-a-Mousson. It's our duty. And we did that with the incorporation with the majority trade union, the CGT. So we have asked for the employees' efforts, for the employees to join us in our efforts in order to ready the Pont-a-Mousson company. And there were some anomalies at Pont-a-Mousson number of hours worked compared to the average number of hours worked at Saint-Gobain. Also, they had at Saint-Gobain 6 additional leave days compared to the average vacation days in the group. So if we want to be successful in the 21st century, we have to work more, not less. And also, the -- there is a death insurance, which is given to all our employees. And when you are retired, it's true that as far as life expectancy is concerned, you are getting closer to death, but you are not going to pay this death insurance to the pensioners. We had annual bonuses for all the Pont-a-Mousson retirees or pensioners. I don't think it's very interesting for everybody to go into all the details, but we decided that we had to look into the future and that it was normal to have the Pont-a-Mousson benefits at the level of the benefits given to the other employees in the Saint-Gobain group shifted work was 28 hours, and now it has been increased to 32 hours at Saint-Gobain Pont-a-Mousson. So we have besides made all those decisions in order to increase the Pont-a-Mousson profitability. It has already been improved during the past 2 years. I think that it's quite normal, and the Saint-Gobain Group is quite exemplary as far as those topics are concerned, whether it's for the employees or for the -- whether it's for the pensioners, the retired employees. And the Pont-a-Mousson subsidiary is not the most profitable subsidiary of the group in France as well as in the group. But I recognize that we have not been very good as far as the communication is concerned, but the General Manager of Pont-a-Mousson has given the necessary explanations about that.

[Interpreted] One last question. Now you have mentioned Foug, Foug location. And it's very interesting for me. Now what about smelting, decorative smelting? I think that you have also taken back the market of production smelter. Now this is smelting for water supply. So you are talking about pipes for water supply and sanitation. Thank you for your answer.

[Interpreted] Yes, you're right. Thank you very much for all your questions. Very relevant and interesting questions.

[Interpreted] Okay. Now I propose to move on to the vote on the resolutions. I can now give you the final number of shares present. 74.81% of shares present voting as a result of which our quorum has been more than reached. But before voting on the resolutions, we're going to hear about how to vote. This is in the form of a short video. [Presentation]

[Foreign Language]

[Foreign Language] [Voting]

[Foreign Language]

[Foreign Language]

[Foreign Language] [Voting]

[Foreign Language]

[Interpreted] Approved by 99.6%. Third resolution, approval of the accounts and appropriation of -- sorry, appropriation of earnings and determination of setting of the dividend. Voting underway. [Voting]

[Interpreted] Voting is over.

[Interpreted] The third resolution has been approved by 99.79%. Fourth resolution concerns related party agreements. Please vote now. [Voting]

[Interpreted] Voting is now over.

[Interpreted] The resolution has been approved by 99.7%. Fifth resolution is say-on-pay ex-post of Chairman and CEO, Benoit Bazin. Voting on the way. It's the sixth resolution, by the way, not the fifth. [Voting]

[Interpreted] Voting is over.

[Interpreted] And the resolution has been approved by [ 90.31% ]. Seventh resolution concerns the report on the compensation of corporate officers. Voting is underway. [Voting]

[Interpreted] Voting is over.

[Interpreted] And the resolution has been approved by 93.27%. Eighth resolution, that's the say-on-pay ex ante concerning the compensation of Chairman and CEO Benoit Bazin. Voting underway. [Voting]

[Interpreted] Voting is over.

[Interpreted] And the resolution has been approved by 89.59%. This is the ninth resolution say-on-pay ex ante concerning corporate officers or executive directors. Voting underway. [Voting]

[Interpreted] Voting is now over.

[Interpreted] And the resolution has been approved by 99.5%. Tenth resolution asks you to approve trading in the company's shares. That's the share buyback plan. Voting underway. [Voting]

[Interpreted] Voting is over.

[Interpreted] And the resolution has been approved by 99.9%. Now we're going to come back to Slide #5. That's the fifth resolution, which I think we skipped. This concerns the term of office of Thierry Delaporte. We are asking you to renew fifth resolution, and we apologize for this little slip-up. Voting is now underway on resolution #5. [Voting]

[Interpreted] Voting is over.

[Interpreted] Thierry Delaporte sees his term of office renewed by a majority of 93.48%. Congratulations, Thierry. And thank you for your support and your high standards as Chairman of your committee. Final resolution, no, we didn't vote. 11th. The 11th resolution concerns powers for formalities to carry out the decisions. Voting underway. [Voting]

[Interpreted] Voting is now over.

[Interpreted] And we are reassured that resolution has been approved by 99.84%.

[Interpreted] As we have now completed today's agenda, I now declare today's meeting closed at 5:51 p.m. on 4th of June, next January. And in the meantime that we convene for a drink together, if you would pass -- hand back the voting devices as you leave the meeting. I will give the opportunity to receive the gift that I told you. Thank you. [Portions of this transcript that are marked [Interpreted] were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]