Imerys S.A. (NK) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Imerys Half Year 2026 Results. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speakers today, Alessandro Dazza, Chief Executive Officer; and Pierre Lebreuil, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and good evening to all of you. Thank you for joining us, as usual, to review Imerys H1 2026 results. Next to me, Pierre Lebreuil, our CFO. Let me start by giving you some highlights of the first semester of 2026. Strong Q2, which led to a very solid first half performance with higher sales, higher volumes, firm pricing, costs under control and consequently, a material expansion of EBITDA and EBITDA margin. Second quarter results further accelerated the positive momentum, which we presented already at the end of Q1. We can be, I would say, proud given the current general environment around us. So revenue -- to go a bit more in detail, revenue was above EUR 1.7 billion, up 1.8% versus last year at constant FX, driven by volume growth and firm pricing. Sales volumes were up 0.5%, reflecting the contribution of recent capacity expansions and the strong performance of our commercial teams, offsetting the impact of some subdued demand in certain markets, weakness in Europe and a little bit in the Middle East, following the conflict. Specifically, the Middle East, limited impact. You might recall in April, we mentioned that we had almost no sales in the area or from the area. In March, situation has improved with, I would say, overall, a more limited impact than expected on revenues for the group. Fundamentally, the group, together with our local partners, we found alternative routes to import or exports to and from the region. Pricing remained firm, increased on average 1% versus prior year. You remember, it was significantly lower in Q1. So a step-up in Q2. Foreign exchange rates had a negative impact of 2.7% on sales. It's almost EUR 50 million, mainly relating to the U.S. dollar depreciation, and it was fundamentally concentrated in the first quarter of the year. Adjusted EBITDA for the period amounted to EUR 290 million, up 10% at constant FX, driven by higher sales volumes, price increases, good, strict cost management and improved contribution from joint venture. It's important to highlight, as you will see -- we will see a bit later on that, at constant exchange rates, all our businesses improved, the profitability in H1 '26 versus H1 '25. Strategic road map progressing well. Project Horizon is on track, and I have a specific slide right after on the topic. Two bolt-on acquisitions. They were announced before. We closed the first one, Great Lakes in the U.S. It will increase our presence in this very dynamic market, closed on the 1st of June. So for the 1 month of little, let's say, contribution to our perimeter. The second one in Brazil has been Mineracao, closed on the 1st of July, calcium carbonates for the local market. We will see the effects in H2 '26. Last, but just as important, E.ON of Belgium and Imerys Graphite & Carbon in Belgium inaugurated a state-of-the-art energy recovery plant at Imerys production site in Willebroek in Belgium, where we produce our carbon black for batteries on July 2, so recently, and this will significantly reduce the group CO2 footprint, and we will use exhaust gases to produce electricity for the equivalent of 40,000 households. A slide here to give you an update on the Horizon project, our performance improvement program launched or announced late in October. In a nutshell, I think it's important to note, this program, which aims at really reaching our target profitability and especially strengthen our competitive position, is on track. All activities are on time, social processes are launched and progressing as planned. Our targets of reaching EUR 50 million to EUR 60 million annual run rate savings versus our 2025 cost base already stepped up. EUR 70 million have been achieved by the end of June, I would say, well balanced between fixed cost and overheads. This confirms what we said before that the group is on track to realize over 50% of the expected benefits in 2026 already with the full run rate impact expected to be achieved in 2027 onwards. On June 30, a provision of EUR 30 million have been booked as restructuring costs. For the industrial footprint, ongoing what is called rightsizing of production capacity is being implemented, has been announced where needed, when needed, and I would say, specifically in Europe, but not only. The common ERP systems worldwide is now almost finalized. We have more than 85%, almost 90% of all of Imerys under one ERP, massive effort over 5 years. This will also help accelerate AI implementation, shared services and certainly fuel productivity gains. Let's take a look at our main underlying end markets and the trends during the second quarter. I would say construction activity, I would say a bit subdued, all geographies, excluding, of course, infrastructure and data centers, but Imerys is less exposed to this specific sector of the construction market. Maybe a bit better in Europe, definitely remains very soft since several quarters in the U.S. We know the need of housing. So for me, it's a matter of time before this market returns to a healthy growth. Consumer goods, no issue, resilient in all geographies so far. Automotive was down, lower production levels, basically in all geographies. China was holding the world up recently. Even China had a drop in Q2. Maybe on the positive side, production of electric vehicles continues on a strong path, and you will see in more details later on the good impact on Imerys business, especially around our solution for energy transition business. Finally, general industrial activity typically follows the overall economy, so a bit soft in Europe, is holding better and even improving in the U.S. and, especially for Imerys, very robust in Asia and in China. So if you look at sales performance by geography in the first half of the year, Asia, you see on the right, very strong, even stronger than Q1, which was good growth in all businesses, certainly with a specific excellence in conductive additives. China, performing very well, is becoming one of the most important markets for the group with good sales, good profitability and good growth. Europe, still negative in Q1, impacted mainly by residential construction, which is really slowly, but very slowly picking up and in general, low industrial activity, okay in consumers, and I think we did better than the market with share gains. North America, solid rebound in Q2, 3% up after a bit softer Q1. Housing market, as I said before, remains weak, but we had strong sales in filtration, in industrial application, in consumer goods in general, and prices remain firm. South America was good, in line with Q1, I would say, at constant exchange rates up, especially around consumers, a bit weaker in construction. If we now look a bit more in detail our 3 business units or business segments, starting with Performance Minerals. Revenue of approximately EUR 1 billion is around 60% of the group sales. Overall, the group remains very resilient, considering especially market circumstances. And there, you have APAC and therefore -- EMEA, APAC and therefore, the Middle East impact. Positive organic growth, stronger in America and in APAC, a bit weaker, as I said before, in Europe. For Performance Minerals Americas, flattish volumes. Construction offset by strong consumers, strong filtration business and definitely share gains in polymer business. EMEA, APAC volumes down, impacted especially by -- in ceramics in Europe, high energy costs following the Middle East conflict caused a reduction in production volumes at our customers. Rebounded in June, so I had hoped that this was a temporary stop to react from -- at high energy prices, but we gained market share in polymers and definitely in filtration. Prices up partly to pass through higher energy costs to our customers, classic energy surcharges. Adjusted EBITDA strong, up 8.1% at constant exchange rates, supported by a positive price/cost balance, but also very strict cost management. If I look at our business solutions for Refractory, Abrasives & Construction, revenue reached EUR 571 million in H1 '26, up 1.6% at constant FX versus last year. Volumes were up 1.7%, strong performance in Abrasives, strong performance in Advanced Ceramics, getting better in Construction, strong in China. I think Refractory and Construction, some market share gains in this -- especially in Europe in these weaker markets. Cost-saving efforts allowed the group flexibility, flexibility on prices. Prices were down in average for this business, but that led to win back market shares in H1. And still, we increased our profitability. Demonstration is on the right. EBITDA -- adjusted EBITDA for the business was up 11.5% at constant exchange rates. If we complete our segment review with solutions for energy transition, we start with Graphite & Carbon, strong, strong growth, almost 14% year-on-year at constant exchange rates, confirming the impressive growth from an already high comparison base of plus 20% in H1 of last year. Revenue EUR 137 million, I said, driven by robust end markets, typically electric vehicles, energy storage, a new avenue of growth, polymers, but also market share gains with new product launches. H1 '26 adjusted EBITDA increased also by 16.4% at constant exchange rates versus last year. TQC, good results, as you see on the table, revenue rose 6% versus last year, but our business in Q2 was helped by some one-offs that led to higher sales and higher profitability. Pierre will give you a bit more details on our financial results. Pierre?

Thank you, Alessandro. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for joining us tonight. So let me recap some of the key aspects of our financial performance, starting with revenue, as just detailed by Alessandro. Group sales amounted to EUR 1.74 billion. This represents a 1.5% organic growth year-over-year, driven by a positive 0.5% volume effect. Prices rose by 1%, accelerating mainly in Q2, driven by the pass-through of higher energy and logistic cost to customers. Organic growth reached therefore 2.3% in Q2, accelerating versus Q1. Currencies had a negative effect of EUR 47 million mainly in Q1. So as a reminder, USD was at a strong USD 1.05 per euro level in the first quarter of 2025, where it is now around 1.14, as you know. Lastly, the EUR 5 million perimeter effect in Q2 is mostly related to Great Lakes Minerals acquisition. If we now look at the group profitability as you can see for the first semester, adjusted EBITDA reached EUR 290 million corresponding to a 16.6% margin. Looking at Imerys direct operational performance, which, as usual, is highlighted in the box in grey color. You can see that adjusted EBITDA has significantly improved with a 10% year-on-year growth driven by positive sales volume, disciplined pricing, strict cost management and as well the higher contribution from joint ventures. Then, if we just look on a reported basis, EBITDA increased by 3% in comparison to the first semester of 2025, and this is a consequence of a massively unfavorable exchange rate effect of EUR 17 million, which as you remember, was mostly recorded in Q1. So just one additional comment about the strong Q2 2026 performance. So just in Q2, adjusted EBITDA amounted EUR 172 million, showing a solid 14.5% year-on-year increase at constant exchange rate. If we now deep dive a little bit on the way we manage our cost in the inflationary environment we faced in H1 2026 and especially in Q2. So keep in mind that energy and transportation costs surged on March 1 after the start of the war in Iran, impacting our H1 2026 cost by around EUR 15 million net of hedges. So how was this offset in our performance? So first, by maintaining firm pricing, notably starting April 1, 2026, as we pass through energy and freight price increases to our customer, especially in Europe. Secondly, by managing our cost, multiple initiatives related to the Horizon projects are ongoing to optimize our overheads and our fixed costs, including some production capacity adjustments in Europe. So at June's end 2026, EUR 70 million savings have already been booked related to this plan in our financials. But in parallel and in addition to this Horizon plan, we have pursued our I-Cube industrial excellence program delivering as well additional savings at June 2026. If we now move to the bottom part of the P&L. As you can see, the current financial result was negative at EUR 46 million in the first half of 2026. This includes a EUR 10 million increase due to interest rates and as well EUR 7 million non-cash mark-to-market revaluation of our 2 virtual power purchase agreements. Other operating expenses are negative by EUR 17 million year-to-date. Those EUR 17 million include a EUR 30 million charge for costs related to Project Horizon, and this is partly offset by a non-cash revaluation gain on the EMILI Lithium project now accounted for under equity method as a consequence of this group share is positive at EUR 49 million. So if we now look at the cash flow generation, Q1 free operating cash flow amounted to EUR 109 million. So as you can see, largely above last year. So in addition to the improved adjusted EBITDA, this is due to 3 main factors. First, as you can see, reduced operating working capital requirements and this despite the sales growth we just reported. Multiple initiatives are ongoing to reduce working capital and some of them already delivered meaningful benefits in this first half of the year. Second, dividend received from JVs in the first semester increased as you can see in comparison with last year. This especially includes a $10 million dividend received from our TQC joint venture, whereas we have not received any dividend from them in 2025. Finally, FOCF improved. Free operating cash flow improvement was as well driven by lower CapEx paid. So out of the EUR 10 million strategic capital expenditures reported in this slide, EUR 7 million were invested in the EMILI lithium project before the switch to equity method consolidation on April 1. So as a reminder, those EUR 7 million were fully covered by the fund received from Banque des Territoires, so they do not represent any net cash out for Imerys. To conclude this financial review, let's now look at the net debt. As of June 30, 2026, net financial debt amounted EUR 1.47 billion. So this means a EUR 77 million increase as compared with December 31, 2025. This increase takes into account the acquisition of Great Lakes Minerals early June and as well a large non-cash adjustment for new leases, basically the lease of our new head office. Excluding those two one-shot components, net debt at June 30, 2026 was slightly decreasing in comparison with December end. So it is as well important to mention that the net debt-to-EBITDA ratio at 2.6 was roughly stable in comparison with December 2025. As a reminder, Imerys investment-grade rating was confirmed both by S&P and Moody's in the second semester of 2023. So on this positive note, I will now hand back to Alessandro for the outlook.

Thank you, Pierre. So let me conclude a few words on the current situation and what to expect going forward. I think as you have seen and heard, strong performance in the first half of 2026. This gives us confidence in delivering a solid full year results and progress compared to last year. We remain, however, watchful and careful about the broader macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainty. Specifically, there is a risk of prolonged high energy costs, which could and would probably drive inflation and potentially lead to higher interest rates to be seen and the situation varies really daily. As a consequence, the group targets an adjusted EBITDA in the range of EUR 550 million to EUR 580 million for the year 2026, assuming no catastrophe and no material deterioration of the current macroeconomic geopolitical environment. What can we control? That's what we focus on, serving our customers, managing our costs, cash discipline, execution of our strategic projects. That's in our hands, and we will deliver. Thank you for your attention, and I hand over to you for Q&A.

[Operator Instructions] We will now take our first question, and this is from Sven Edelfelt from ODDO.

Congratulations for this release. I had actually 2 questions. The first one is on the guidance because I'm not sure I understand the guidance seems a bit cautious. So I just wanted to -- if you maybe could elaborate a bit what are your main hypotheses behind this guidance? Because if I look at the guidance at the midpoint, it means an increase in H2 of the EBITDA of 1.5%. It has been like 3% up in H1. And if I look at Q2, it's almost 12% up. So I would like a bit of a clarification here. Yes, so that's the first one. On the second one, I was looking at the trajectory on the net debt. Of course, it's going up in H1 due to the seasonal nature of the construction activity. But if you could provide a little bit of an update where do you believe the net debt-to-EBITDA will land at year-end? That would be helpful.

I'll try to answer your first question, and Pierre will comment on the quality of debt and ratios. The hypothesis on the basis of our guidance is our current view of the business and the markets. This must take into consideration the uncertainty, especially around the geopolitical situation. Last week, when we were drafting our press release, our presentation and preparing this communication, the war in the Middle East flamed up again. Oil went above $100, gas in Europe is $100 per -- $105 per barrel. The brent -- gas in Europe reached almost EUR 65 per megawatt hour. If this is -- would be the case, it's bad for the economy. It's bad for the economy. We have seen when it happened in April, most of our ceramics business customers shut down their kilns. Gas is one of the main costs. So everything which is tiles, tableware, sanitaryware, everything stopped. So that's the business in Middle East, India dropped significantly. So something like this could have consequences. And today, we cannot exclude it. There was a kind of ceasefire a week later, price dropped to $80 per barrel and the gas went down to $50. Today, we are back to $90, although there is no message, no news. So very difficult today to be firm on the outlook of markets. Not only is energy itself and the cost, and you've seen we can pass it through because everybody does. But this level of cost increase could cause inflation. And if you recall, 2, 3 weeks ago, both Europe and the U.S. started talking on a potential rate increase. It didn't happen. Now they called it back. But the rate increase means uncertainty. It means no construction, no renovation, no new cars. So it's -- we have to be prudent, and we have factored this in our guidance. Then all your numbers affects. So your analysis is very adequate. Please don't -- keep also in mind when you look at absolute terms that we had a very strong FX impact on Q1, reduced significantly in Q2. That helps when you look at absolute numbers. What will be the dollar in Q3 and Q4? I have no idea. At this level, it means no FX, basically no FX impact for the group for the second half of the year, which you have seen the Pierre's bridge, EUR 70 million of EBITDA loss only in translating dollar to euro. If this is 0, our EBITDA is better by EUR 17 million. Am I calculating it? Yes, with a safety factor. So there are too many uncertainties and too much volatility in today's world to -- not to be prudent. And you know the group, that's what we do. We believe Q2 was solid. With all these negatives, our volumes are up, all our businesses are up. All of our costs are under control. Project Horizon is delivering. So I'm confident the group will deliver a good result, but it will not only depend on us. We need the market to stabilize, to be a bit more stable. We don't ask for anything else. The rest we can manage, we can do. I think we are winning market shares. I think our commercial actions, our new products, new capacity, you see graphite and carbon growing double-digit again. We see our business in India, double-digit growth, business in China, high single-digit growth. All new capacity we have put in and they're ramping up is not done. So I think we have good prospects. We need a little bit of stability in the overall market. On the debt, Pierre, do you want to comment?

So on the debt, to comment, maybe allow me first to come back again on the H1 performance. In our view, this is our level of net debt is definitely -- this is quite a strong performance. Maybe to comment a bit further on the 2 specific effects in H1, lease adjustment, as you know, so this is additional IFRS 16 leases that needs have to be accounted in our net debt, especially as I briefly mentioned, the fact that we signed a new long-term lease for our new head office in Paris. But then those additional -- those new leases do not correspond to an immediate cash out will be phased over several years. Then the other effect obviously effect of our acquisition. So in H1, this was a Great Lake Minerals. So it has, well, yes, additional net debt, but as well additional EBITDA. Then that's the reason why we had a chart, if you look at our net debt waterfall, we had a point in the middle. If you restate those 2 effects, actually in comparison with our net debt situation at the end of last year, we had a decrease in net debt despite the fact that, as you mentioned, seasonality play a bit against us, both because Q2 is stronger than Q4 traditionally, which is obviously leading to purely mechanically to an increase in working capital. And then as well linked to the fact that we are paying in Q2 the dividend. And despite this restated from non-recurring effect, we had a drop in net debt. Then, as regard H2, as you know, we do not provide any guidance, so I will not -- on net debt, so I will not -- I will not give you any clear figure. What I can still share, two, you might expect and we hope first to have a cash out related to our Title Chapter 11 process in the U.S., then this would have an impact on net debt. I am sure we will come back to it in another question. The other impact -- non-recurring impact you might anticipate is the acquisitions we closed on 1st of July, Cera Blanca Mineral. And here as well, if we disregard those 2 specific effects, we are absolutely convinced that our net debt will remain under control in H2. For sure, we will benefit in H2 from the seasonality. And we do not believe -- we do not have any specific concern at our net debt level at the end of the year.

I think the commitment of the group to remain investment grade historically is only confirmed.

We will now take our next question, and this is from Ebrahim Homani from CIC.

I have 3, if I may. The first one is about the price effect. It has been positive. Is it the case in all your businesses and maybe in which business should we anticipate any catch-up in H2? And my second question is on TQC results have improved significantly in Q2. Should we consider the same contribution in the next quarters or higher contribution? And maybe how is the business doing in terms of pricing and volumes on TQC.

You said 3 questions, or is that it, Ebrahim.

No, that's it. Only 2.

Price effects, yes, you're correct. It changes from business to business and partly reflects energy surcharges. So I'll give an example. Gas in the U.S. did not change at all. Gas in Europe increased significantly. So typically, European businesses increased their prices slightly more than U.S. businesses. Similarly, APAC was depending on the country, sometimes a bit protected from the energy increases or delayed. So fundamentally, I would say catch-up, yes, but it might remain unbalanced one area to the other, depending on the impact of energy. Then if I look specifically at the businesses, as we write in the press release, I think our RAC business has done some price adjustment downwards. This was possible, thanks to, as we said last year, a strong restructuring and cost savings program that gave them more competitivity. And from this competitiveness -- sorry, they are benefiting by being more aggressive in the market, and we see volumes going up in a market, iron and steel, which is definitely going down. So that's why really it's business to business. But it's healthy everywhere. That's important. And the price cost balance, even if we don't disclose by single business is positive in all businesses. So that's what we see. In TQC, I would say, no, do not extrapolate the good part -- the good first half of the year because they were -- on June 30, we could enforce certain contractual clauses that generated a bit either artificial sales or anticipated sales. So we will not have them in the second part of the year with an immediate recognition in profit, which again will not happen in the second part of the year. So extrapolating H1 to make H2, I would say, is not adequate. I think TQC, as we keep saying now for 2 quarters, is doing better, but it's very slow. Semiconductor is good, it's solid. It remains the smaller part of the business. Solar remains a bit still ups and downs. We know that this year, installation of photovoltaics are at best flat, especially because China canceled all the subsidies. So we will experience a year of less installations. The rest of the world is growing, but China is by far the largest consumer of solar panels. So I think on the demand side, it is a flat year before we go back to healthy growth. Production is normalizing as we have been saying. So I think we progress. But I would say, look more last year and a small progression rather than H1 this year only and extrapolating. It would be too optimistic.