Titan S.A. ($TITC)

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. I am Maria, your Chorus Call operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Titan Group conference call and live webcast to present and discuss the first Q2026 results. Please note, this call and presentation is intended for analysts and investors only. The conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Marcel Cobuz, Chair of the Group Executive Committee; and Mr. John loannou, Group CFO. Mr. Cobuz, you may now proceed.

Thank you. Hello, everyone. Good morning, good afternoon. Very happy to be here with John loannou, our Group CFO; and Spyros Kamizoulis, our Investor Relations Head. And happy to share with you record results for a good quarter, although this is a small quarter, marked by weather impact, has shown solid volumes and improved pricing, which led to organic sales growth. And at the same time, the positive price over cost has allowed EBITDA margin expansion by 250 basis points. So I would like to thank all our teams and partners for delivering another record quarter for Titan. At the same time, this quarter and a couple of days ago marked the completion of three transactions we have announced since our Investor Day in France, in Turkiye, in Greater Istanbul markets and in U.S. Eastern Coast. So a big welcome to our 450 new employees and their families to the big family of Titan. And I think that illustrates our capacity to identify, deliver and execute in a very disciplined way, cement acquisitions. This record performance has been also possible, thanks to the cost optimization initiatives and cash initiatives, which are already delivering tangible financial benefits that John will walk us through later in the presentation. We have announced at the time of the Investor Day that we are tabling on EUR 100 million from the cost base over a period of three years. We are announcing today that this target is anticipated, and we are already realizing it in a large proportion this year. We will also share with you the outlook for 2026, where we remain cautiously optimistic given the energy crisis triggered by the Middle East war, Middle East conflict and we'll go a little bit more in details on what we expect on sales from EBITDA progression as well as the capital expenditure, both in like-for-like for our organic growth, but also even the impact of the new acquisitions, which are now being consolidated as of Q1, two of them and as of Q2, the third one. Maybe before we go into the details, the financials of the quarter, let me walk you through these three significant acquisitions, which are front-loading our capital to be spent by EUR 700 million plus, which have been finalized in the first months of 2026. We'll start with Vracs de L'Estuaire closed in first quarter and already consolidated for 10 months of the year. It's a grinding plant, a grinding cement plant in the Port of Le Havre in Northwestern France with a clinker capacity of 0.6m MT p.a. serving an addressable market of more than 7 million tonnes, one of the largest and thriving markets in France, providing direct access to the Paris metropolitan market. Integration is going as planned, and we are already creating synergies in terms of direct sales channel with our clinker supply from manufacturing units elsewhere in Europe. So we have, we are internalizing the flows. And at the same time, we are implementing digitalized tools, which are further improving the reliability of the asset. The second acquisition, which has been completed in the first quarter, and we already have the integration teams on site, and we have launched the new visual identity of Titan Tracim Cement, a very well-known brand in Istanbul market as Titan has preserved its grinding capacity in the same market, and now we have one of the most modern and largest plants in Marmara region with a capacity of 2.5 million tons serving a very vibrant market of more than 15 million people with multiple projects, both in terms of residential, but also in terms of power, renewables, infrastructure and more projects to come on the next 5 years economic planning of the country. This plant has also a permit for another 2.5 million tonnes production line, which, as we previously announced, would serve our export needs towards U.S. We have started investment there in 100-megawatt solar plant in a partnership, which will further decrease the cost and improve the margin. Significant synergies are there at stake first in terms of network optimization between the cement plant and our existing grinding plant as well as utilization of cement tissues as we aim at having more greener, high premium, high-margin blended cements in Istanbul market. Same thing like for the grinding station in France. We are deploying the excellence models in terms of industrial, commercial as well as logistics of Titan, but also the digitalization tools, which will bring upwards the reliability as well as lower the consumptions and improve the overall margins. Finally, we have announced a couple of days ago the completion of the acquisition of Keystone Cement in Pennsylvania that adds a clinker production capacity of 1 million tons, short tons per year, again, in an excellent addressable market of 6 million tons in the mega regions of East Coast, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Delaware and Maryland. As we have announced 2 days ago in Titan America analyst call, there are game-changing synergies for these assets, given the expectation of improved operating margins, reliability improvements, again, thanks to digitalization tools real-time optimizers as well as immediate sustaining investments, the network optimization, the raw material cost optimization, but also commercial and energy efficiency plans. So very happy to report this excellent start of the year in terms of our nonorganic growth, in line with what we have announced at the time of the Investor Day, where we have announced to the community that about EUR 3 billion to EUR 4 billion capital will be deployed over the next 4 years over, between 2025 and 2029, which will bring Titan to a new level of a EUR 4 billion company with EUR 1 billion EBITDA profile and with top of the class Return on Capital Employed, we have announced at the time, 15% to 17%, as you know, we have delivered consistently above that target, both in 2024 and 2025. With this, John, could you walk us through the results, the financial results of the quarter, please?

Sure. Thank you, Marcel, and good morning, good afternoon, everybody. This was indeed a very interesting quarter in the sense that we, the quarter started soft, mainly due to adverse weather conditions across key territories. Then by the end of February, the war broke in the Middle East, yet we had the strongest March we had in the history of Titan, and that led us to a record performance, as Marcel indicated, for Q1. This performance was highlighted by good volume performance, very strong pricing execution with positive price over cost. It was also characterized by the launch of our self-help cost initiative program called PRIME at the Group level, delivering already 10% of our annual targeted savings. On the treasury front, this quarter, we had a very successful bond issuance, raising $350 million to support our M&A activities. And as Marcel explained just now, we completed three major acquisitions, two in Q1 and 1 just 6 days ago, which put us well on our way to deliver our Titan Forward 2029 strategic objectives. The only data point I would probably add here is that all three acquisitions from the moment we announced them until the moment we signed took about three months and just shows the strong execution of the team here and the ability to execute in three very diverse geographies, U.S., Turkey and Western Europe. So we're very happy with that. Our key financial metrics, sales, EUR 636 million, up 4.7%. Our EBITDA, EUR 138 million, up 16%, both like-for-like. Our earnings per share, EUR 0.86, which is 29%. Our capital investment in the first quarter was EUR 70 million behind maintenance and growth investments. We talked about the acquisitions. Our leverage ratio stands at 1.1, up from 0.4x at the end of the year due to our bond issuance and our investments. Dividends per share, EUR 1.1, 10% up versus '24. This will be payable on the 7th of July. And we launched our new share buyback of EUR 10 million on April 1, 2026. The '26 outlook, we're cautiously optimistic for the balance of the year despite the uncertainty due to the crisis, the Middle East crisis. Our acquisitions are expected to provide additional growth in line with our strategic objectives. We expect stable volumes, improved price over cost positions and margin expansions and our CapEx investments estimated around EUR 300 million to EUR 350 million, supporting our growth projects. If we move to sales, we had a robust top line growth, adjusting 2025, which is our base year for scope, which is Adocim and translational for it's, mainly the U.S., we grew our sales by 4.7% on a like-for-like basis, driven by strong pricing and healthy volumes. And on the right-hand side, we can see already in the light blue color, the impact of our two acquisitions in Turkey and France. Moving to the next slide, our EBITDA performance, very strong performance, marking a plus 16% growth on a like-for-like basis, driven by top line gains, as explained just now, positive price over cost management, which led to our margin expansion by 250 basis points from 19.2% to 21.7%. On the volume front, we had a sustained performance in Q1 despite adverse weather conditions in the beginning of the year. Cement grew by 1% with solid performance in Greece and Egypt and for the most part, in Southeast Europe as well, while U.S. stayed at prior year levels due to subdued residential demand and persistent economic uncertainty. Aggregates grew by 5% with continued growth in Greece and in U.S., fueled by investments in Florida business unit. Our ready-mix on a like-for-like basis, removing the Adocim impact from 2025 was minus 1%, driven primarily by the weaker residential demand in the U.S. Blocks grew by 10% in Q1, lapping a low comparative in Q1 of last year, but this is following a plus 10% in Q4 of 2025. So, we noted that the trend is improving and is driven by the retail channels and sales to contractors in the U.S. Moving on to our cash flow. Our operating free cash flow improved. We delivered EUR 53 million in Q1 versus EUR 49 million last year. Our net debt increased by EUR 462 million, reflecting our investments in CapEx and the two M&As in Turkey and France that were completed in Q1. Despite the increase in net debt, our leverage ratio remains at low levels, currently stands at 1.1x to EBITDA. And our debt maturity profile is healthy, as you can see on the right-hand side. At the end of Q1, more than 90% of our debt is long term. We're actively working though with our relationship banks to renew most of our loans maturing in '26 and '27 and push them to 2031. So, this picture by next quarter will improve even further. Moving now to market overview. Solid performance in the U.S. despite the increased macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainty and the subdued residential demand along with adverse weather conditions in the Mid-Atlantic region. This performance is attributed to the strength of our vertically integrated operations, our targeted cost initiatives and self-help program and our ongoing strategic investments. Sales in the U.S. grew by 2% and EBITDA grew by 2% as well, both in U.S. dollar terms. In Greece and Western Europe, we continue our robust performance, with healthy price increases across products early in the year that led us to double-digit growth rates and to robust margin expansion. We also note the contribution of our newly acquired grinding plant in France. And, but on a like-for-like basis, sales grew 7% and EBITDA by 22%. In Southeast Europe, we had improved revenues and profitability despite headwinds from imports. The market there remained overall flat, but resilient pricing across most of the region led to an EBITDA growth of 6% on a like-for-like basis and expanded margins by 130 basis points. A very strong growth in East Med region, driven primarily by Egypt, where domestic demand momentum continued, supported by large-scale projects and residential construction activity. The country remains a leading export supplier, albeit in March, export momentum eased due to the Middle East crisis. In Turkey, Tracim acquisition was completed in Q1, and we already see the results in our figures. Sales on a like-for-like basis grew by 29% in this region and EBITDA tripled, leading to a very strong margin expansion. Finally, in Brazil, the market grew by 1.8%, but in the Northeast region where we operate, consumption grew by 10%, driven by housing and infrastructure projects. Sales grew by 16% and EBITDA doubled, leading to again strong EBITDA margin expansion. Moving on to the outlook. As we look into the 2026 outlook and given that energy is the biggest victim of the Middle East crisis, we wanted to share some data points regarding our energy cost profile with you. Energy is one of the five key cost elements along with raw materials, labor, logistics and third party and represents approximately 20% of our cost structure. And the key question is how exposed are we here? On the left graph, one can see that energy cost in absolute terms, despite volume growth has been declining mainly due to increase of alternative fuel usage, our hedging activities and surcharges programs that we have in place. As such, energy as a percent of sales, the blue line is reducing year-on-year, while alternative fuel usage, the orange line is growing. On the right graph, one can see that we are gradually improving the profile of our energy cost exposure. Fuel and oil represents 11% of our cost structure, out of which 70% is in the U.S. where surcharges are in place. Electricity represents 45%, out of which 45% of that is in Greece, where 50% to 60% is hedged and 15% is in the U.S. where electricity is cheaper than the rest of the world. In Southeast Europe, we're also investing in PPAs with solar plants to mitigate our exposure there. We don't see a huge impact of that yet, but it's coming. Finally, on thermal fuels, which represent 44% where in Greece, East Med and Bulgaria, we are increasing our alternative fuel usage. While in the U.S., we use natural gas not exposed to that. So, with that, we move to the last slide of the presentation, where the geopolitical uncertainty and its impact on macro is a concern, of course, to us. We're vigilant and we continue to monitor the developments closely, and we are working on cost and self-help measures to mitigate the impact. As I've mentioned earlier, we launched PRIME, our cost optimization initiative that is targeting EUR 40 million to EUR 50 million of cost savings and self-help measures this year, out of which 10% have already been realized in Q1. So, following a strong Q1, we're cautiously optimistic for the balance of the year, but we see stable volume growth, improved pricing over cost performance and margin expansions. We estimate our CapEx to reach EUR 300 million to EUR 350 million with a higher share allocated towards growth projects. And at this point, we complete our presentation, and we are happy to receive any questions you may have.

[Operator Instructions] The first question is from the line of Stathis Kaparis with Axia Ventures.

Congrats on a good set of results. I've got three questions, which are actually interlinked. The number one is, what do you see on the ground? Heidelberg yesterday indicated some positive inflection point on, especially in April. I was wondering if you see something similar on the ground. And then regarding the different wording in guidance versus last quarter, can you give us a bit more color? I mean, what does it mean changing from low single-digit top line and mid-single-digit EBITDA growth to the new guidance in Q1? And finally, on CapEx, this EUR 50 million reduction, does it indicate lower CapEx needs for the acquisitions? Once you got them on board, you realize you need less CapEx? Or this is, this indicates some cautiousness for the year, hence, lower CapEx?

Thank you. Very good questions. We'll start on the first two, and maybe, John, you will give some examples of CapEx on the third one. So, what we see status on the ground is positive. Very good order books, very good backlog. We are very happy with the way in Greece, both the price increase realization, but also the volumes with the four large contractors are coming on stream. We are very well exposed to very large projects, iconic projects, not only Ellinikon that we mentioned in the past and the Thessaloniki flyover, but also new projects again in the ports, new projects in the airport in Athens. So very happy with the way we see the year here in Greece and also in a couple of markets in the Western Balkans. Very good growth also in Istanbul markets as well as in Egypt, where both the pricing environment and also the volumes are positive in April. And of course, we also see volume stability in U.S. and sequential price increases compared to the last quarter in U.S., and we have given more color on this two days ago in Titan America call. So positive inflection in April. Now what we have said is that particularly for U.S. as the elevated mortgage rates are still weighing on the housing affordability and residential activity and taking into account also the American Cement Association latest forecast, the recovery is still expected early 2027. However, currently, we see good stable volume there. Guidance, so we gave a couple of elements of guidance a couple of weeks ago, in fact, when we published our full year results. We are, based on what's happening around us and the energy crisis, and I think we demonstrated our exposure, but also the good profile to mitigate those risks. We remain optimistic for the year. And in fact, sales, if we indicated low single digits, we see middle single digits. EBITDA, we said that it will be margin expansion. So, if we indicated middle single-digit growth, we expect high single-digit growth. And that's from the organic activity of our business. So, the amount of synergies and the additional sales and EBITDA coming from Tracim, Titan from the French unit and from Keystone will come on top of this. CapEx, it's mainly deferrals, not that much cancellation of projects and John will give a couple of examples. But again, we commit to a higher CapEx than last year, and that goes hand-in-hand with the optimism we are showing for the year results. And this does not include the CapEx, which will be allocated for the synergies that we mentioned for the newly acquired businesses.

Yes. That's correct. On the CapEx, Marcel. Some of the projects do spill over into 2027 into next year, hence, the lowering of the CapEx this year. We are really focusing on M&A-related CapEx. In other words, as we acquire the companies, I can give you some examples in Turkey, for example, we are investing in a new solar plant and some of the funds will go out this year. It's a 2-year project as well as in new transformers at the substation to ensure the good safety and maintenance of operations there and the palletizer in Marmara that is more of a logistics play for us there and also a lot of savings and reducing cost and increased operational efficiencies. We continue our alternative fuels CapEx investment there across the board in Greece, Southeast Europe, Egypt and the U.S. with a key objective, obviously, to reduce exposure to energy price volatility and reliance on coal and petrol. Specifically, in the U.S., we have an investment in a new multi-fuel burner technology at Roanoke and a process engineered fuel capacity at Pennsuco. Here, we aim to get fuel flexibility, resulting in lower production costs and improved CO2 profile at the two main manufacturing plants. And last but not least, we continue our digital investments, the deployment of our AI-driven real-time optimizers. We aim that by the end of the year, almost all of our plants will be, will have the RTO digital technology and the benefits are huge, and we've been experiencing those lower energy consumption, higher throughput, reduced downtime versus predictive and preventive maintenance and so forth. So, we're very committed behind our capital investments. And yes, there is an element of caution. We take, obviously, each quarter as it comes. but we feel pretty confident behind our investments.

And you are right, John, to mention, this is a level of CapEx, which is a record level for Titan, definitely higher than the previous years. And we are fast tracking here, the energy-related CapEx, alternative fuels, waste heat recovery. We continue allocating CapEx to our projects, lighthouse project of carbon capture and storage, where we are progressing towards financial close next year and then other growth projects related to capital, to capacity expansion. So, Stathis, we are firing from all the engines on this one.

The next question is from the line of Wim Hoste with KBC Securities.

I have three, please. The first one would be on the regulatory landscape. I'm referring to CBAM ETS. Is there any change in reasoning or discussions with the authorities or impact you see from that on the ground? Then the second question is on the pipeline for further M&A. You were very active with M&A recently. Does that mean that you are now kind of going into a bit more pause to integrate what you acquired? Or is there still possibility to see further sizable deals in the short term in the coming quarters? And then third question would be on Egypt specifically, given its proximity to the Middle East. Is there any impact you see from the conflict on the Egyptian business and maybe export plans or order books in that respect, if you can also clarify that? Those were the questions. Thank you.

Very good questions. I like your business lenses. So on the regulatory landscape, look, I was together with our Head of Region Europe in Brussels at the beginning of the week, and we constantly spend time with the regulators as well as with Cement Europe as we prepare for the ETS revision, which most likely will be tabled to the European Parliament by European Commission sometime in July after a consultation period. So, we are actively involved. We do have our own advocacy for the way the phasing out of CO2 rights, the mechanism for carbon pricing, the export allowances are currently shaping up. So, we monitor this. There are no new elements as all this is in discussion. But we remain positive that they will be largely in line with the current ETS probably with some alterations towards the end of the interval. That means 2032, 2034 going forward. But that doesn't change anything significantly for us. We have a limited number of assets and markets under ETS. It's practically only Greece and Bulgaria. And as you probably remember, we do have a large portfolio of CO2 rights, which allows us to, at the same time, to engage into high decarbonization projects, including financing of our CCS project, but also to weather any negative impact if that goes that direction. So far it is rather positive. On the pipeline of M&A, you are right to point out that we have been very successful in signing transactions, identifying realizable transactions and also closing them in record time. These transactions are value accretive. And as we spend more time in these businesses, we will give you more color on the amount of synergies, but we remain highly optimistic. Now, this is the result also of a very disciplined capital allocation. And you may remember at the time of the Investors Day, we did not announce just the capital to be deployed, but also the targets and what is expected in terms of EBITDA growth over proportional, but also Return on Capital Employed, which needs to stay between 15% and 17%. So, we remain highly disciplined capital. Now there are smaller transactions which have been realized as well over the past few months, a joint venture in Mortars in Greece, the acquisition of additional sources of cement tissues in Serbia and a joint venture in Precast with Cementos Molins and a local partner in Bosnia and parts of other markets. And we continue pursuing a number of transactions of a smaller size in line with our strategy. So disciplined capital allocation, a pipeline, which is active and Titan was absent from the market for almost a decade. We have now a machine which is working nicely, both in terms of origination as well as in execution, and you will see in the next quarter in terms of integration and delivering the synergies. So, we remain with our intact firepower given the strength of our balance sheet, and we pursue a number of transactions, and we will announce in due time. Regarding Egypt, we have just completed an important project of building additional silos, which in our plant in Alexandria, which gives more ample opportunities for our export capabilities. We are practically sold out, and we also have Egypt for the first time supplying our part of our U.S. needs, which shows not only the strength of our delivery capability, but also the quality, the uniform quality of our products. And around Egypt, as you pointed out, there have been zones of conflict or areas under restructuring or reconstruction, whether it's Libya, Israel and Gaza and other markets. And we are actively exporting in these markets.

The next question is from the line of Marios Bourazanis with Eurobank Equities.

Just a couple of questions for me. Most have been already answered. So yes, just starting with the first one. I understand that Q1 was largely unaffected by volatility in energy prices. But if you could give us any early indications on how costs are evolving in Q2 and particularly in Greece in the Balkan and East Med. That's my first question. And my second one, if you could also comment on pricing trends in the U.S. so far this year? And if you still see any room to push through price increases across the key product lines there? Thank you for your question. So, John has provided more information on our energy profile. I think, again, we are much better off than in the past, and we are advancing at a very rapid pace in using more alternative fuels and waste, which is reducing our thermal fuel needs and therefore, volatility. And we are increasing also our electricity hedging both in grid or to hedge contracts or long-term PPA hedge contracts or through our own captive solar power plants. And you heard that we are also investing now 100 megawatts, which will cover a large part of our needs and also make us a trader of electricity in Turkey. So, these are very positive trends weathering us from any large spikes. As we look into Q2, I think, John, you made an estimate of what could be the impact and how we mitigate that. Can you give more color on this? On pricing, while John is preparing his answer on pricing in U.S., again, sequentially and what we have announced in Titan America call, sequentially, we see price improvements between Q4 and Q1 of this year. We also have in U.S. the energy surcharges, which for our ready-mix business are automatically passed through. And we will announce at the end of Q2 more on the pricing realization in the quarter. Again, we have positive news on infrastructure spending and construction technology, which is driving the growth. As you know, we are well placed in Virginia, which is a capital of data centers. 40% of these data centers are using our Titan product. We have recently launched TriForce, which is a dedicated project for complex projects. So we are aiming high on nonresidential and commercial projects. We are also optimistic about the reconducting of the infrastructure funding overall in U.S. And we have already announced that the recovery in the housing and residential activity, we expect it in early 2027.

Sure. Yes. On, so as I've stated before, we are monitoring very closely the market, and we're focusing a lot on the cost impact that relates to electricity across each region, solid fuels, diesel oils, ocean freight and general other costs. We are estimating for the second quarter, the impact to be around, on the cost inflation to be around EUR 10 million. We have identified the initiatives already for this quarter and some of them relates to pricing that will be, obviously, we're taking now will be rolled over to the other quarters as well. And some, as I mentioned before, our program PRIME that goes in detail into cost initiatives and self-help measures to mitigate that impact. So we feel confident that we will cover all of the inflation and our price over cost will still be positive in Q2 as well.

The next question is from the line of Auguste Deryckx Lienart from Kepler.

Congratulations for the good results. My question is on the U.S. You are forecasting stable volumes for 2026. Does this mean that the residential part should decline further given that infrastructure segment is performing well? Or is there a potential upside risk on the current forecast?

Thank you for your question. So on the residential, in fact, we even see ZIP codes or micro markets where cement is going up. That has to do also with the resilience and durable building trends, which is in U.S., given the fires, the replacement of wood by cement-intensive products. I think John mentioned that, for instance, our block, which is the concrete block, the business line has recorded a very nice double-digit increase. That has to do with residential, the walling, the facades in multifamily housing. And there we see positive trends. Again, residential is marked by the affordability and also by the mindset linked to the high mortgage rates. More is expected in terms of how the Federal Reserve Bank will address the inflationary impact later in the year, also how the housing bill will be shaped by the current administration. So more on that, we will see in the later quarters. But for now, we expect a higher, an inflection point in 2027. Now in some of the markets, we are with residential at 45% of our sales. In some other markets, we are at 30% or lower as infrastructure and commercial projects as we go into Virginia markets or New Jersey market, they have a dominant position. So from market to market, the impact of residential is also varying.

The next question is from the line of Nestoras Katsios with Optima Bank.

Gain on the outlook front. So you're guiding for stable volumes this year. Is it like-for-like or including the recent acquisitions? And also a follow-up on the acquisitions. I think you said in the previous conference call that you expect an additional EUR 40 million EBITDA from the Tracim and also the acquisition in France. Do you, where do we stand with this estimate? And also third question regarding Keystone, is there an estimate for the contribution from this year? Thank you.

So the guidance we mentioned is like-for-like. So volume sales or EBITDA from the newly acquired businesses and consolidated, as we mentioned, 10 months for France and Turkey and 7 months for Arabia will be on top of that. The figures you quoted for as an impact, EBITDA impact, full year impact for Tracim and France, we reconfirm, yes, they should be in that range. And in fact, we are quite positive after the first few months of integration that this can be exceeded. And I think Spyros Kamizoulis in a subsequent call can give you more details on that. Keystone happened 6 days ago. So you would appreciate that as we speak, we have teams there. We are very happy with the quality of people we have found in Keystone, and we have already started discussing about the synergies, the reliability of the assets and marking a good start. So more details on this at the end of quarter.

The next question is a follow-up question from Marios Bourazanis with Eurobank Equities.

Actually, my question was answered.

There are no further audio questions. We will now accommodate any written questions from webcast participants. The first question is from Mike Bed with Database analysis. And I quote: "Keystone's profit was low in 2025, and I think it has been weak for several years. I also hear that it's been for sale off and on for many years, but a buyer was not found until now. I am wondering what you see in Keystone that others missed? Or was it a case of just waiting for the right purchase price? I can see the opportunity, but what are the greatest risks around the transaction?"

Thank you, Mike, for the question. We think a light, we see the opportunity here. So you're right to point out that the profit was low in 2025. This was an asset on sale for quite some time. It's indeed exactly because the profit is low that has attracted our attention and we see a lot of opportunity out there Again, we are, we remain very optimistic on the level of synergies. And these assets will be part of a network, while in the past, this asset was pretty much of a singular asset. So the synergies here are the network synergies, the synergies here, transferring our model of excellence from our other plants, which are at reliability levels of 98%, 99% and also access to high-level technical expertise to realize the necessary CapEx and increase the reliability. Then it's raw material cost optimization, energy efficiency, but also there will be commercial optimization of commercial synergies with our other activities of sale in the region. So very optimistic about the level of synergies. We have always proven in the past our ability to make plants at levels to our performance, not far from this asset we have with the plant in Roanoke, where we have a good mastery of our cost. So more on this at the end of Q2 is in the making as we speak.

The next question is from Isaac Ocio with, OnField Investment Research. And I quote, three questions: "What has been the level of price realization from your April price increases? Could you provide a split between volumes and prices in the main parts of your European operations, Greece and Southeast Europe? And what impact from higher freight costs do you expect on the group's trade flows in the U.S."

Yes. Thank you, for your questions. We have markets where we are already at the second price increase, and we will not spare any opportunity for our strategy of the year to have a positive price over cost. As John mentioned, positive price over cost, which has drove margin expansion. I think, John, you announced that it was EUR 21 million in price increases and EUR 7 million from volume. So that is already pocketed in Q1. As for April, as I mentioned, good backlog, good address book and already price realization. We will comment more on this at the end of Q2. The fleet volumes and prices you gave already. And on the impact of freight costs, John, do you have the figure or Spyros will come back directly to you? Yes. So Spyros will come back specifically on the freight cost. for now, I would say that we have already contracted prior to the crisis, a number of vessels. So that's a hedge, a quantitively hedge we have provided. And we also have a number of flows which are inside the group with predetermined freight costs. So we do not expect here high impact.

For third party, that's, so the impact of the freight cost is around EUR 9 million. This is, we also have our own vessels and it's kind of a hedging exercise that we have now as well. So that will reduce it by EUR 2.5 million to EUR 3 million because of the increased freight we have there. On the pricing, I think you've indicated here the split between Greece. Greece was able to pass on early on healthy prices across all the categories, some double digits, some high single digit. And in Southeast Europe, especially in Bulgaria, we had double-digit price increase there as well. Where else in the rest, in North Macedonia, we also have a high single-digit price increase, where in the other countries because they were impacted heavily by imports, they kept the prices at the prior year levels in Q1.

So, as you can see, I said we are really acting simultaneously on all fronts, paying attention to the pricing realization, the cost savings. I think I would like to reiterate this. We have announced at the Investor Day EUR 100 million cost savings by end of 2029. We are bringing forward that objective with an objective of EUR 50 million for this year. We have already pocketed a bit above 10% of that already in Q1. So, you would expect a better cost base, which at the same time is mitigating for any adverse impact from war and Middle East energy prices. So good price over cost, we're expecting margin expansion and at the same time, investments, which will bring our energy cost further down, particularly in use of alternative fuels, waste heat recovery, and overall the energy consumption.

Ladies and gentlemen, there are no further questions at this time. I'll now turn the conference over to Mr. Cobuz for any closing comments. Thank you.

Thank you, everyone. Thank you for the very good questions with a very strong business head. And you can be assured that we will continue feeding you with the latest information. Of course, Spyros Kamizoulis is at your disposal for any other questions you may have. But again, it has been a very good quarter, record quarter for the group, both in terms of sales and EBITDA over proportional EBITDA growth, margin expansion and it's marked specifically by the completion of three transactions, which are value accretive for the group. And for two of them, we have provided already guidance for the year. And for the third one, at the end of Q2, we'll give you more news. Thanks again, and we'll see each other on the 30th of July for Q2 results and more positive news on Titan. Thank you.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, the conference has now concluded, and you may disconnect your telephone. Thank you for calling and have a good afternoon.