Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Solvay's Third Quarter and First Nine Months of 2026 earnings call. I'm Geoffroy d'Oultremont, Head of Investor Relations, and I'm joined today by our CEO, Philippe Kehren, and our CFO, Alexandre Blum. This call is being recorded and will be accessible for replay on the Investor Relations section of Solvay's website later today. I would like to remind you that the presentation includes forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties. The slides presented in today's call are also available on our website. With that, I hand over to Philippe. Thank you, Geoffroy, and hello, everyone. Q3 was another quarter with a lot of challenges, and in this context, more than ever, safety remains at the core of everything that we do. The annual trend is good, but we're not satisfied with the three incidents that we had in the third quarter, and this is a reminder to us that we cannot afford to take our eyes off the ball. We will continue working closely with our teams and contractors to strengthen our safety culture and improve our performance. During the third quarter, we continued to operate in a challenging market environment affected by the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. The most significant impact came from the temporary shutdown of our Peroxides plant at the Sadara complex in Jubail, Saudi Arabia. The conflict has also driven higher energy, raw material, and logistic costs. While most of our energy-intensive businesses benefit from indexation mechanisms, these do not always fully or immediately offset cost increases due to lags or threshold-based adjustments, even though our regional footprint and high degree of integration help mitigate part of the impact. Finally, the situation is also affecting demand. With gas prices now around EUR 100 per MWh in Europe, we see customers being more prudent and some of them reducing their production rates or delaying purchases. Moving to our businesses, I would like to highlight a few major trends that we have observed recently. Starting with soda ash, where current seaborne pricing remains near historical lows. However, there have been developments in the industry across a number of regions. First, in Europe, where producers have already taken actions, including us, with the reduction of our capacity in Spain. Then, in the U.S., SVM closed its production in California in the first half of this year. More recently, in China, various public sources have reported capacity reductions, including at several large-scale plants. It appears that for the first time, capacity closures are expected to broadly offset capacity additions in 2026. In the last weeks, Chinese inventories of soda ash have reportedly declined as well. It's too early still to say that this represents a sustainable trend. The pace of recovery will ultimately depend on demand, which remains relatively subdued across most regions. Nevertheless, these changes in trend are necessary to see a gradual improvement in market fundamentals. Besides soda ash, most of our other businesses continue to demonstrate resilience, and that includes bicarbonate, which now represents more than 14% of group sales, as well as Silica and fluorine in North America. Actually, the underlying EBITDA of Performance Chemicals in the first nine months of this year is stable compared to last year when you exclude the non-recurring elements. We also continue to deliver double-digit growth in electronic-grade peroxides, and we continue to invest in more capacity when it meets customer demand, as we have done recently with our JV in Taiwan. Rare earths is another business with high growth potential where we have continued investing and where we are making important progress. We have spoken several times about the permanent magnets market, where electrification continues to drive strong structural demand for rare earth-based materials. Customers' interest is very strong as they are increasingly looking for secure, traceable, and diversified supply chains. This creates attractive opportunities for our rare earths business, and we continue to make progress to support its long-term growth. We have strengthened the upstream part of the value chain by signing a long-term supply agreement with Viridis. This agreement will provide rare earth materials to our La Rochelle plant in France from their mine project in Brazil. As you may recall, in September, we shared that we were in discussions with OneIM. These discussions are progressing. If this leads to a definitive agreement, Solvay would contribute its rare earth activities to a newly formed joint venture while retaining a significant minority ownership interest. Together, these developments represent important steps, and we will update you as we reach further key milestones or if we have additional news to share. Now, Alex, over to you for the financial results. [Foreign language] [Foreign language] We can hear you. Continue, please. Alex, over to you for the financial results. Thank you, Philippe, and good morning, good afternoon, everyone. As usual, I will comment on the organic evolution, meaning at constant scope and currency, unless otherwise stated. Here are the key numbers to remember for today. Let me highlight the EBITDA with EUR 173 million and the EUR 54 million of free cash flow. Let's now move to the details. Underlying net sales were broadly stable year-on-year at slightly more than EUR 1 billion, a 3% decrease year-on-year, but sequentially flat compared to Q2. The volume decline primarily reflect lower peroxides HPPO as well as lower soda ash. Pricing, on the other hand, contributed positively, mainly driven by a significant year-on-year improvement at Coatis, as well as the price increases at Silica and Special Chem, driven by formula-based indexation. Moving now to EBITDA. The ongoing conflict in the Middle East continues to affect performance, with a total impact for the quarter of minus EUR 25 million, minus EUR 15 from the temporary shutdown of our Peroxides plant in Jubail, and the rest being margin pressure from increased energy and logistic costs. Overall, we delivered an EBITDA of EUR 173 million in the quarter, down 27%, with an EBITDA margin of nearly 17%. Year-on-year, the significant volume decline is primarily explained by two elements. First, the shutdown of our Peroxides plant this quarter and the non-repeat of the EUR 40 million gain from the sale of CO2 emissions rights recorded in Q3 of 2025. Looking at net pricing, selling prices improved in most of our businesses, notably thanks to indexation mechanisms, but it did not fully offset higher variable costs, especially due to some lag in formula indexation. Fixed cost and other element contributed EUR 31 million positively. Our operational savings and the phase-out of stranded costs more than offset inflation, demonstrating the continued delivery of our structural cost-saving programs. Let's now turn to the segment performance, starting with Basic Chemicals on slide 11. The impact from the Middle East conflict is the most visible in this segment. In Soda Ash & Derivatives, sales declined 8% organically. Demand for soda ash was slightly lower in domestic market, while domestic pricing remained broadly stable. In the seaborne market, volumes were broadly flat, but pricing remained below the prior year level. On the other hand, our bicarbonate business continued to demonstrate resilience with performance broadly stable year-on-year. In Peroxides, sales declined 10%, mainly due to the continued suspension of the HPPO operation in Sadara. This was partly offset by continued strong growth in electronic-grade peroxides. Basic Chemicals' EBITDA was down 20%. The decline mainly reflects the lower peroxide volume, together with continued pricing pressure and some limited phasing from energy indexation mechanism in Soda Ash & Derivatives. The EBITDA margin remained just above 20%. Moving on to Performance Chemicals on slide 12. The segment delivered a year-on-year significant improvement. Silica sales increased year-on-year with stable volumes and benefited from formula-based adjustment following the significant increase in raw material costs. Coatis sales increased significantly year-on-year. The improvement was mainly driven by the higher pricing across both the phenol and solvents product line, while volume remained broadly flat. Special Chem sales were stable. Lower volumes in autocatalysis were partly offset by stronger demand in fluorine North America in the context of higher operating rate at refineries and in electronic reverse application. Pricing was higher year-on-year, also reflecting the pass-through of cost increases. Performance Chemicals EBITDA increased 17% with an improved EBITDA margin of 17.1%, mainly supported by improved pricing and stronger contribution from Coatis. Finally, a brief comment on corporate. The year-on-year variation mainly reflect the circa EUR 40 million gain from the sale of CO2 emissions rights recorded in the third quarter of last year. Stranded costs continue to phase out thanks to our saving program. Let's now turn to the free cash flow on slide 13. Free cash flow to Solvay shareholders amounted to EUR 54 million in the quarter, bringing the total for the first nine months to EUR 70 million. Capex remained strictly controlled, reaching EUR 203 million in the first nine months, well in line with our objective to stay below EUR 300 million. Working capital represented a cash outflow of EUR 105 million at the end of September. We expect this position to reduce by year-end in line with the usual seasonality of the business. Cash outflow from provision amounted to EUR 152 million. This is in line with expectation, but remain above the normalized level and continue to reflect restructuring and transformation-related projects. Tax and other items represented a net cash outflow of EUR 7 million. This include a EUR 28 million one-off insurance gain related to a former Solvay business. Finally, financing cash outflow amounted to EUR 43 million, mainly reflecting net interest payment and dividend to non-controlling interest. Moving to net debt on slide Fourteen. Fourteen. Underlying net debt stood at EUR 1.8 billion at the end of September, compared to EUR 1.6 billion at the end of last year. The increase primarily reflects the EUR 254 million of dividend payment, partially offset by the free cash flow generation. The leverage ratio was 2.4 at the end of the quarter. Overall, we recognize that the conflict in the Middle East is causing challenges that are affecting our businesses, but it does not distract us from implementing our strategy, continuing the transformation of the group, and maintaining a solid balance sheet. Philippe, back to you. Thank you, Alex. Let me now move to the outlook for 2026. As announced on October 19th, we revised our full-year guidance to reflect the impact of the conflict in the Middle East on our operations, and its impact in particular on our Jubail Peroxides site. Our operations there are conducted through a joint venture with Sadara, and Sadara is majority-owned by Saudi Aramco. Today, we are ready to restart. We are ready to restart operations and are awaiting our local partners and customers to go ahead. In that situation, we are exploring all available avenues to mitigate the financial impact of the shutdown, as the joint venture contractual framework includes mechanisms designed to recover the lost profitability. Our updated guidance for the year is as follows, and it excludes any potential revenue or recovery measures from Sadara for the remainder of the year. An underlying EBITDA between EUR 720 million and EUR 740 million, a free cash flow to Solvay shareholders from continuing operations between EUR 120 million and EUR 150 million. This is after approximately EUR 90 million of transformation costs, which continue to weigh temporarily on our cash generation. Finally, a CapEx limited to less than EUR 300 million. This EUR 300 million of CapEx includes the EUR 15 million-EUR 20 million investment in La Rochelle that we announced in July on rare earths. To conclude, while our recent performance has been impacted by a challenging environment, particularly the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, our priorities remain clear. We are focused on the actions within our control, which are driving operational excellence, delivering our transformation program, maintaining strict capital discipline, and preserving our solid balance sheet. At the same time, we are actively shaping Solvay for the future. Today's rare earths announcement illustrate our approach to value creation, leveraging our unique industrial capabilities while partnering with the right players to accelerate growth. We are confident that the combination of transformation, disciplined growth, and pragmatic portfolio management will continue to strengthen Solvay's positioning and will continue creating value over the long term. Thank you. Now, Alex and I are happy to take your questions. Thank you, Philippe and Alexandre. There was a little technical issue, but on your side, I think it was all fine for you. Very good and sorry for that. Gaia, please, you may now open the line for the questions. Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key six. The first question is coming from Thea Badaro from BNP Paribas. Your line is now open. Please go ahead. Thank you, and good afternoon, everyone. Two questions, if I may. The first is on the free cash flow. To reach the lower end of your current target, you would need to generate more than twice what you have this quarter when excluding EUR 30 million one-off. Without a clear recovery in any of your end markets, I am curious to know what makes you confident in achieving this. Secondly, on soda ash, some market report is pointing to a 25% increase in soda ash prices in Q4 in Europe, as energy surcharges are obviously being introduced. Can you confirm or deny that this is the right magnitude you are looking at across your contracts? Maybe as a quick follow-up, how are these surcharges being met with from customers? Thank you. Thank you very much, Thea. I will give the floor to Alex for your question on the free cash flow, and I will take the one on soda ash. Alex, the floor is yours. Yeah. Thank you, Philippe. The free cash flow guidance we gave for the full year is EUR 120 million-EUR 140 million, assuming we are not receiving any compensation for HPPO unit in Jubail. At the end of Q3, we are at EUR 70 million. The big driver for Q4 is the reversal of working capital. That is typically taking place between September, where we are at the almost peak level of activity, and December, which is the lowest level of the year. I remind you that last year, we generated EUR 200 million cash flow in Q4. Obviously, we didn't have the same headwinds that this year, but this shows that the normal seasonality is always towards the Q4. Philippe, you want to Thank you, Alex. Yeah. On soda ash and on the price increase of +25% announced in Q4 versus Q3. I mean, first, yeah, I remind everyone that we have indeed contractual energy pass-through mechanisms in Europe that are triggered above certain threshold, that they cover most of the additional costs, but that there's also, for all of them, a time lag that ranges, I would say, between one and three months, more or less. Basically, if you have an increase during one quarter, you recover part of it only the quarter after. Of course, it's difficult to assess the number of 25%. It's true that there is a price increase due to the increase of the cost of energy. That's right. We also see, I would say, an impact on the end market, and that's important because we pass through the cost, but at the same time, these costs need to be integrated by the customers. They have an inflationary impact, and they have an impact on the demand as well that we are monitoring extremely carefully. Very helpful. Thank you. The next question is coming from Chetan Udeshi from JPMorgan. Your line is now open. Please go ahead. Yeah. Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. First question was just going back to the soda ash indexation. What you're saying is in Q4, maybe you've triggered some of these indexation clauses, but you're still not in a position to fully recover the cost inflation that you're seeing in your business. Is that right? If that's the case, how should we think about 2027? Should we be penciling in continuing headwinds from energy costs in your business, or you feel any confident, or any more confident to be able to fully pass on the inflation that you've seen in your cost base, especially H2? The second question is on this JV that you are trying to put together for your rare earths business, and I'm a bit curious. It seemed, at least until very recently, your plan was to invest in the business and try to reap the benefits yourself, and now you're thinking of doing a JV. Maybe just a thought process around what changed. I guess, you have a limitation in terms of your balance sheet to be able to afford a big Capex, and that could be a consideration. How should we think about value uplift from this JV for Solvay? What are you looking to achieve? Is it the better exit price for this business and what you trade on? Is it Capex but still upside optionality? I'm just curious, how are you sort of framing the optionality from this JV for Solvay and shareholders? Okay. Thank you, Chetan. For soda ash, well, I would say, yeah, we have very good pass-through mechanisms in most of the contracts, at least in European and U.S. markets. They are not 100% perfect, but they cover us very well, and they have some time lags. Meaning, for example, that you can see prices going up in Q4. It means that part of it will be recovered potentially only in Q1 next year. Then I remind you that the impact of the Middle East crisis today is around EUR 25 million per quarter. Most of it is coming from Sadara, but we still have around EUR 10 million coming from cost increases. That's right. It's not only energy, by the way. It's also, and foremost, logistics as well, right, that we have to bear, in particular on the export market. Basically, I mean, of course, difficult to say how this will impact 2027 at this point. What we know is that we see some customers being extremely careful, because they have to cope with this inflationary environment, and this will have an impact on demand. Now, second question on rare earths. Well, first, I would say discussions that we have today are progressing, and we have not yet reached an agreement. Of course, we will communicate further if that's the case. What we can say is that the intent indeed is that we bring, we contribute our rare earth activities into a new joint venture where we would have still a significant minority ownership interest. Why do we do that? Because indeed, we need to partner in order to fully develop this business and to become a global player in the rare earth separation business. I think one important step has been achieved this morning with the announcement of the contract with Viridis. That's the first part that is important, is to secure the sourcing of our future developments in this segment. At the same time, we are working with the customers also to secure the offtake of the future investments that we will do. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome, Chetan. The next question is coming from Kathryn Richards from Barclays. Your line is now open. Please go ahead. Hi, good afternoon. Just one follow-up on the OneIM, particularly on the timing. I mean, I guess you must be reasonably confident given you've got a sense that this is going to be a minority JV. Would it be fair for us to assume that discussions will conclude in a formal announcement in the next month, per se? Just some color on the timing would be useful. Yeah. Second question, if possible, would be on the Special Chem. This looks like it trended better quarter-on-quarter, so I was wondering if you could give us some information on the drivers behind this. Sure. I will first answer your question on rare earths, and then I will give the floor to Alex for Special Chem. On rare earths, very clearly, I mean, again, discussions are progressing since we announced the start of these discussions in September. But today, there are still a lot of work to do before we can reach an agreement, and so we will give you further detail if and when it's appropriate. Alex, I don't know if you want to Yeah, on the Special Chem, there are different applications. I would say the automotive part is broadly stable sequentially. I think there are two things which are helping to trend sequentially. One is electronics. Certain electronic application in fluorine and rare earths are having a good trend. Second, we have certain application that goes in refineries in the U.S. As you can suspect with the current environment, the demand from those fluorine product is high, and this is helping the trend. Gaia, are you still Yeah. Kathryn, is the answer clear for you? Yes, thank you. Okay. The next question is coming from Martin Rödiger from Kepler Cheuvreux. Your line is now open. Please go ahead. Thank you for taking my questions. Firstly, on Coatis. I see this very strong top-line performance, 19% year-over-year. Is it right to say that a large part of the 22% EBITDA increase in the segment Performance Chemicals is due to Coatis? I see that Special Chem had more formula-based pricing, so that means passing on largely higher input costs to customers. How do you see the prospects for Coatis in Q4 and beyond? In other words, how sustainable is the current tightness in phenol and solvents? That is my first question. The second question is on your dividend, actually. You keep the interim dividend unchanged at EUR 0.97, a gross dividend per share for the January payment. Looking at your free cash flow guidance of EUR 120 million-EUR 150 million, you cannot cover the EUR 260 million dividend payout. Don't you need to cut your dividend? Thank you. I will answer your question on the dividend. Maybe in the meantime, Alex, you can address the question on Coatis and the Performance Chemicals segment. Yeah. I would say all the businesses of Performance Chemicals broadly improved in Q3, but it's true, Coatis is the one with the highest recovery. As a reminder, it's really the fact that last year, they were really at the trough, much below their mid-cycle. The different elements we've mentioned in the past, the lower tariffs, the good dynamic in South America, indirectly the Middle East, which have made more expensive freight for competition and have increased the index. All of that helped the Coatis business to come back, not at its peak, but more towards its mid-cycle level. It's true, it's the main driver, but not the only driver of improvement for the segment. Thank you, Alex. You are confident also going forward? Yes. Again, it's difficult to say what will happen on the tariffs and everything, but I think the business is recovering. We have some industrial challenges that we're currently solving. So, yes, the situation is improving. As Alex said, I think the trough was really between Q3 2025 and Q2 2026. I think it was deeply in 2025, even at the beginning of 2025. The business is recovering, and probably will stabilize around mid-cycle in the weeks or in the quarters to come. But again, of course, it is very difficult to anticipate. Regarding dividend, indeed, the board approved the interim dividend, which is in line with historical practice, so 40% of the previous yearly dividend. I remind you of the capital allocation framework that is in place at Solvay. The first bucket is essential Capex. EUR 250 million, more or less, a little bit less even, because we are tightening the expenses. The second bucket is, and with equal importance, dividend policy and investment-grade rating. The third bucket, it is investment in growth, which is based on affordability, and obviously, today, we have limited optionality there, and we are spending more or less EUR 50 million in projects such as electronic-grade hydrogen peroxide or rare earths. That is the capital allocation framework that we have at Solvay. The board regularly reviews this capital allocation policy in line with the strategic priorities. That is the position that we have. Then, of course, you know that we have transformation costs this year of EUR 90 million. That will go down next year to 50, and that will gradually go to zero. That is another element I think that is important. Thank you. The next question is coming from James Hooper from Bernstein. Your line is now open. Please, go ahead. Hi. Thank you very much for taking my questions. I have two, please. The first is about soda ash capacity. Are you able to be a bit more granular with how you see soda ash capacity developing? If I look at Chinese expected capacity, you have the increases from Inner Mongolia or Naimanqi, meaning a couple of million tons per year coming out of there. Do you think there is going to be enough restructuring to offset those in future? Then secondly is about the transformation. Philippe, you have said that you are in the middle of a kind of multi-year transformation program. Can you take us high level just to see where you think we are now and how you think the transformation costs, you are expecting them to slow as we go into 2027, 2028? Thank you. Thank you, James. Alex will answer the transformation program update after I address your question on soda ash. Yes, we have, and you can read CMA reports and so on. There are very accurate data, more and more accurate data, I would say, on what is happening. First, the restructuring is taking place in Europe and in the U.S. So in Europe, we have right-sized ourselves, our plant in Torrelavega, reducing capacity to adjust to the domestic market. In the U.S., one of the five production units have shut down earlier this year in California. That is quite significant. That was SVM. China has started to restructure quite significantly, and that offsets the new capacities that have been in place. There are still some potential closures that are quite significant in China, so we will continue to monitor what is happening. All this you can find in public reports and analyst reports. We will continue to monitor this. I think it is a positive signal. Is it enough? We do not know. The demand is not great, including in China. Positive thing is that we see inventories going down, so that is another good news. Let us see. It might take more or less time to restore the supply-demand balance. Okay. Hi, James. On the transformation costs, I think we still have the same vision as what we have communicated in previous quarter, even if there are many moving pieces. Again, since the separation, we have a certain number of restructuring to do in the business, in the field, in business, in shared service to separate the IT with Syensqo and so on. That is many moving pieces, but overall, we think all these transformation expenses will peak in 2026, around EUR 90 million for the full year. I would say a little bit less than half that impacting EBITDA. We estimate that next year, we should be around minus EUR 50 million, and it will be with a limited impact on EBITDA. From 2028 onward, it is almost completely gone. We will have rolled out our ERP, done all the restructuring in the business. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad. The next question is coming from Tristan Lamotte from Deutsche Bank. Your line is now open. Please go ahead. Thanks for taking my questions. First one is, and sorry to ask another one on this, I was just wondering if you can maybe explain a little bit more how the dividend and investment-grade can have equal importance. Are the two kind of linked so you can't have one without the other? Maybe linked to that, have you thought about a kind of temporary dividend cut if you were saying some of these elements are temporary? Then second, I was also wondering if you could talk about some of the recent discussions of measures from the European Union that have been in the press. I think some of your products were potentially named under that, or maybe you could clarify, and do you see any potential upside, meaningful upside from that? Thank you. Okay. I can only repeat that dividend policy and investment-grade are equally important, and that we are managing the company, and we are allocated our capital in order to meet those two requirements after, of course, we have paid our essential Capex. By the way, in the current circumstances, it's true that we have been able to reduce a little bit the baseline for our essential Capex. I think that's also one of the strengths that we have. We will, again, with the board, review constantly and regularly our capital allocation policy in order to check that it is well in line with our strategic priorities and also with the quality of the balance sheet that we want to have. On your question on defense measures from the E.U., again, I think we see a lot of good intentions in terms of realizing that all the strategic value chain that we need or that Europe needs starts with an essential chemical molecule. Meaning there is no A.I., no data center, no semiconductor. Without rare earths, without electronic-grade hydrogen peroxide, there is no lithium, there is no solar panels. Without soda ash, there is no green mobility. Without rare earths, without Silica. Everything that we do is, most of the time, the first step or a critical step of everything that is critical, and we should not only look at the end product. That is why we, of course, see with a certain level of comfort that this is being taken into account, that there is an intention to protect some critical materials. We are really waiting now for action. That is really the message I want to convey, is that we need action. We see a lot of pressure on our industries in Europe, and we need practical actions in order to make sure, first, that we have the right level of competitiveness for our industry, and second, that we also have a level playing field, I would say, a fair competition. The next question is coming from Julia Winckelmann from Bank of America. Your line is now open. Please go ahead. Hi. Thanks for taking my question. I wanted to ask about your leverage. It is already at 2.4, which is quite high for such a cyclical business. Now the EBITDA base is reduced by the HPPO plant outage and might be reduced further by a potential rare earth deal. I was wondering how you think about your leverage target, if you have one, and also what is your ambition to potentially deleverage over the next 12 months or so? Related to that, if there would be a deal in rare earth, how would you use the proceeds? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Julia. I will give the floor to Alex. Hello, Julia. I would say, well, the leverage is at 2.4. This is the peak because, I mean, we have paid the dividend in the first part of the year and we generate cash flow at the end of the year, so there is always a little bit of a peak. We don't have a target per se of leverage. Our North Star is S&P investment-grade rating, for which we have a little bit of headroom. It's super important for us. We constantly monitor the rating ratio, and we are in close contact with S&P. So, we will manage. Now, I mean, regarding the rare earths deal, we cannot comment for now. When and if we conclude the deal, we will be more explicit about the quantum of the proceeds and the use that we will make of them. Which will be in line with our capital allocation Yes. Policy anyway. Thank you, Julia. There are no more questions at this time, so I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments. Thank you, Gaia, and thank you, everyone, for your participation today. If you have questions, please feel free to reach out to the investor relations team. We have a few events planned for November and December. As usual, you can find them on the financial calendar page on our website. Our Q4 and full-year earnings will be published on March 4, and we will also come with a strategy update in March 2027. Stay tuned. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for joining today's call. You may now disconnect.