Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. I'm Constantinos, your conference call operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Titan Cement Group conference call and live webcast to present and discuss the first quarter 2022 results. Please note this call and presentation is intended for analysts and investors only. All participants will be in listen-only mode, and the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, you may signal an operator by pressing star and zero on your telephone. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Michael Colakides, Group CFO, and Mr. Dimitri Papalexopoulos, Chairman of the Group Executives. Mr. Colakides, you may now proceed. Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to the conference call for our Q1 results. On Monday, we held our extraordinary shareholders meeting, and earlier this morning we had the annual general meeting for our shareholders. We're happy to report that all matters were approved. We may now proceed with the presentation of the results. The first quarter of this year marked a positive start to the year, characterized by resilient demand in all regions the group operates in. Group consolidated revenue reached EUR 455 million, up 23% versus the first quarter of last year, thanks to significant price increases across products and countries implemented already late in 2021 and again early at the start of this year. At the same time, EBITDA decreased by EUR 10 million- EUR 46 million, as the phasing in of higher prices only gradually absorbed the increase in energy and input costs. It should be noted that the price effect of kiln fuel and electricity costs in the quarter was a very significant amount. Aiming to address global cost headwinds, further price increases have already been announced in most markets and will be effective within the second quarter of 2022. The first quarter net profit after taxes and minority interest dropped to EUR 1.3 million compared to EUR 15 million last year due to the lower EBITDA, as well as negative FX variances, mainly due to the devaluation of the Egyptian pound. Group net debt at the end of March closed at EUR 757 million, the same level as in March last year. Now, turning to the first quarter regional highlights. Revenue in the U.S. reached EUR 268 million, up 17.8% and 9.6% in dollar terms, while EBITDA retracted EUR 24 million with significant price increases across our products introduced gradually, but only partly covering the spike in the cost of imported cement and high production costs. Revenue in Greece and Western Europe grew by 23% to EUR 70 million, thanks to higher prices and higher domestic volumes. EBITDA remains stable at EUR 6 million, suppressed by rising fuel and electricity costs. Similarly, Southeastern Europe also recorded top line growth with revenues up 30% to EUR 64 million. Prices matched rising costs and EBITDA declined only marginally by EUR 0.6 million- EUR 11 million due to the spike in energy and electricity costs. Revenue in the East Med grew significantly as well by 41.9% to EUR 53 million, mostly thanks to the performance of Egypt. Price increases managed to offset the elevated energy cost, inflationary pressures, and local currency devaluations. EBITDA in East Med rose to EUR 5 million compared to 0.2 million last year. Now looking at our P&L. As we said, group revenue growth was 22.6%, reaching EUR 455 million. And the EBITDA declined by EUR 9.7 million compared to last year, mainly reflects the increased energy, electricity and distribution costs. As a reminder, these costs started increasing during the third quarter of last year. Hence the comparison year-over-year is unfavorable on the cost side as such costs were much lower at the beginning of last year. In the first quarter of 2022, thanks to the successful refinancing of debt, we had less financing costs. Due to lower EBITDA levels and negative FX variances, mainly due to the devaluation of the Egyptian pound, net profit dropped to EUR 1.3 million. Our balance sheet has not materially changed in any way compared to December, so there are no further comments to be made on that. Now turning to our volumes. The evolution of group volumes in the quarter largely reflected higher domestic cement volumes in all markets except Turkey. There was a small decline in exports. Thus, the total volume of cement sold was 100,000 tons less. The slight decline in aggregates is attributable to extended maintenance work in the U.S. Looking at our cash flow. Our operating cash flow that showed a seasonal quarterly outflow of EUR 35 million, which was due to lower EBITDA levels, higher CapEx of EUR 39 million, and increased working capital needs of EUR 51 million, which is not surprising given the rise in turnover. The higher CapEx levels relate to announced investments, mostly in Greece and the US, targeting to improve both our sustainability footprint as well as our operational efficiencies for the anticipated demand growth. Net debt, as mentioned, closed at the same levels as last year, as March last year. As you can see on the next slide of evolution of the debt of the group. The seasonal increase similar to last year brought net debt to the same levels to EUR 757 million as last year. We should remind that the next important maturities are significantly spread out in the future. Next, coming up is as far as 2024. We do not have any significant obligations regarding our net repayments, our debt repayments moving forward. Now turning to operational performance and starting with the U.S. In the U.S., solid top line growth was driven by improved prices coupled with higher volumes. Revenue was up 17.8% in EUR terms or 9.6% in dollar terms, reaching EUR 268 million. Cement volumes were up, with the impact of price increases implemented in January across all regions and products, they drove the revenue growth. Aiming to stay ahead of the cost curve, a second round of price increases is due to take place in June. EBITDA in the quarter was down 37.6% to EUR 24 million, with a high cost of imported cement which spiked in Q4 of last year, compressing profitability margin. At the same time, there was an increase across the category items of cost of goods sold in addition to imported cement, such as logistics, energy and raw materials. As regards to the state of the market, demand for residential construction, both single and multi-family remained solid against persisting low inventory levels. Commercial projects are enjoying surges, while healthy Department of Transportation budgets are reflected in robust road infrastructure work activity across states and a strong project pipeline. It is worth noting that amidst this heightened activity, the U.S. construction industry remains strained in terms of labor shortages, also affecting logistics as well as the supply of raw materials with the attendant effects that all this can have on the evolution of project work. Most importantly, Titan America continued to expand its sales of its lower carbon Type 1L cement, which is now also available in New Jersey and the New York metropolitan area. Activity in the Greek market continued robustly with domestic demand growing and cost increases being absorbed by the market, which resulted in stable EBITDA levels against an increase in revenue to EUR 70 million, which was up at 30% growth. The higher domestic cement sales volumes partly offset the drop in exports, but the U.S. remains Greece's biggest export destination with stable volumes. EBITDA managed to remain stable at EUR 6.3 million as significant domestic and export price increases covered the rising costs. In response, the group has already implemented further price increases, which came into effect at the end of the first quarter. Addressing both cost management and environmental performance, the new Kamari cement plant is on schedule for completion early next year, while new silos are under construction to accommodate for increased volumes of lower carbon cement. Projects are also underway to increase alternative fuel usage in Thessaloniki. It is also worth mentioning that further operational efficiencies are also being achieved as a result of ongoing digitalization projects across our manufacturing process at the plants. Coming to Southeast Europe. Growth in the region continued with healthy construction activity levels, supporting both volume and price growth. Like in most markets, energy and electricity costs constitute headwinds in the region, suppressing profitability margins. Revenue in the region grew by 30% to EUR 64 million, aided by solid price increases in all countries and strong volume growth in most of them. The region, being heavily dependent on imported energy, still had its impact on EBITDA, which was only marginally down by EUR 0.6 million, thanks to the successfully implemented price increases across the market, which covered most of the cost increases. Further price increases were already introduced at the beginning of the quarter, aiming to recover profitability margins within Q2. The group is vigorously managing these challenges, targeting continuous operational improvements with increased use of alternative fuels, investments in solar projects, and other initiatives. Now, regarding the Eastern Mediterranean, where the group recorded growth in revenue, EBITDA margins, primarily thanks to Egypt's recovery and stronger performance against softer volumes in Turkey. The region recorded a revenue growth of 42% to EUR 53 million, supported by improved pricing. Volumes were stable in Egypt, while sales in Turkey were affected by a very harsh winter earlier in the first quarter. EBITDA is EUR 5.4 million, up from just EUR 0.2 million last year, mostly attributable to the performance in Egypt. Cement prices increased in both countries in order to cover the rise in energy costs, inflationary pressures, and the weaker local currencies. The market in Egypt was resilient, aided to a large extent by the rationalization of production implemented by the government last summer, which is now expected to be extended beyond June this year. In Turkey, macroeconomic challenges translated into reduced public spending and adverse weather conditions, coupled with that market demand, which contracted in the quarter. Last, turning to Brazil, where we have the joint venture. Cement demand in the country declined by 2.4% in the quarter, reaching just under 15 million tons, partly the result of concerns over mounting inflationary pressures and rising interest rates. On the other hand, there is a drive, especially ahead of this year's general elections, which will take place in October, for public housing and infrastructure investments. Prices posted a significant increase of 11%, covering most, but not all of the impact of cost inflation. Revenue in local currency was up by 9%, while EBITDA declined by 49% to EUR 2 million. Now, turning to the ESG performance of the group. The group accelerated its carbon footprint reduction efforts. In the first quarter of the year, net specific CO2 emissions were 6.6% lower than in the same period of last year. As mentioned before, the investment in Kamari is already running and will be completed early next year. In addition, Titan America continued to expand in sales of its lower carbon Type 1L cement, which is now available on all the East Coast where we operate. Also low carbon cement products sales are growing in Greece, Egypt, and North Macedonia, so this is a growing effort. In Greece, Titan launched EVIRA, an innovative ready-mix concrete that reduces the possibility of flooding phenomena, conserves valuable water resources, and controls the increase in the average temperature in urban building environments. Meanwhile, a pilot carbon capture unit was installed at the Kamari plant near Athens in the context of the EU-funded Carbon Capture and Utilisation project, RECODE. The project involves the production of value-added chemicals and materials by utilizing CO2 captured from the plant. Now, I will turn you to Dimitri Papalexopoulos, who will give you our outlook for the year. Thank you, Michael, and good morning and good afternoon to everyone. Let me set out how we are thinking about the outlook in the current context. I will say a few things about demand, then cost, prices, and margins, and finally about the longer-term direction. Starting with demand. The fundamentals in most of our key markets remain strong for this year and for the next few years, as we have been arguing for a while. In particular, in the important U.S. and Greece markets, well-funded infrastructure projects are ramping up. There's a big wall of money out there. Investment in energy-related projects is also set to accelerate. Housing demand and housing inventories are at historically low levels, and housing demand is trending upwards. A lot of commercial projects of different kinds in different areas are being developed. The momentum is clearly there. What, of course, seems to be pulling in the opposite direction is the broader context. There are obviously risks associated with rising interest rates. For example, with respect to single-family housing demand in the U.S. There are risks associated with soaring input costs, delaying projects or rendering some of them unviable, although we haven't seen much of this so far. There are risks associated with logistics and labor availability constraining implementation speed, and there's small examples of that, but nothing massive. Finally, perhaps most importantly, there are risks associated with the hit to confidence levels as the risk of economic slowdown increases. We will have to wait and see how those competing supporting factors and headwinds balance out. At this point, we still like what we see on the ground, and we also believe in the medium-term outlook and momentum. Let us now talk a little bit about costs and prices. I would start by arguing that it would not be wise to try and read too much on or base a model on sort of the last couple of quarters, Q4, Q1. Other than being, as usual, a weather-dependent, maintenance-heavy period, this time there is also a lot of noise and volatility in the numbers, which relates to the timing of price increases, which are different in each country, the timing and extent of hedges or inventory of input materials, the gyrations of energy costs and shipping costs. Rather than going into detail, let me try and lay out some more general observations on the situation today in the hope that they will provide some color. One observation is that price increases in cement and aggregates, the basic materials, have either covered or seem well on their way to covering energy cost increases. In the downstream concrete products, including the important U.S. ready-mix market, progress has not yet been as healthy. This is at least partly a reflection on the way the market operates as, for example, some major, secured projects enjoy protection from price increases. Another observation, of course, is that it's unclear when and where energy prices will settle. There seems to be broad agreement that they will not return to previous lows, but also that some of the risk and fear premium in today's prices will be reduced going forward. Also, based on the cycles of the shipping markets that we have seen many times in the past, we fully expect that maritime trade rates will return to normal levels at some point, not too far. This will be a benefit to our more asset-light, transportation-intensive business model, which is suffering from the higher transportation costs at this time. In the context of all this current volatility, the longer-term direction of travel remains absolutely clear on the levers we can control. We are pushing ahead with alternative fuels and all kinds of energy substitution and energy efficiency projects. Many of those projects now seem even more attractive or more attractive than they were in the past. They can, at the same time, reduce our carbon footprint and diminish our dependence on expensive energy inputs. We are also extracting or are moving to extract more production out of existing facilities through a combination of applying some digital magic and of reducing clinker content in cement. Finally, we are also investing to improve our logistics and service capabilities, allowing us to provide more product to more customers with better service and lower costs. Lastly, we continue to push through price increases as the market allows. As Michael pointed out, Greece and some of the Balkan countries implemented further price increases at the end of last March, last month, which will take effect in Q2. In the U.S., new price increases across the board have been announced effective June first. All in all, from where we stand today, we are coping well with the current volatility while continuing on a long-term trajectory to grow, improve efficiencies, and transform the business. Let me stop there and open it up for questions. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we'll begin the Q&A session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star followed by one on their telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, then you may press star and two. Please use your handset when asking your question for better quality. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. One moment for the first question, please. The first question is from the line of Adolfo Espin with ODDO BHF. Please go ahead. Yes, good afternoon, gentlemen. Thank you for taking my question. I would have three if it's possible. The first one, what is the cement price increase you had in Q1, and what is it for March, so that we can draw the line and have a better idea of where you're going? That would be the first question. Second one, in terms of energy deal, some of your competitor are pointing to an increase of 50%-60% increase. What would be your best guess for Titan for this year? And also, what is your hedging, and that would be the third one. What is your hedging for H2, at least for the part of the combustible that can be hedged? That's it? The three questions. Okay. Yes. Let's start with the price increases. Which price increases one should be aware that take time to materialize. It's large customers usually accept them in a staggered ways. Let's say if you do $10, they say okay $2 or $3 per month in order to gradually be phased in. There are also projects where they're already committed contracts for the supply at previous prices. So what is announced is not immediately effective. If we start with Greece, order of magnitude 10% was introduced in Q4 last year, and another 10% at the end of Q1 of this year. In the U.S., just sticking to the cement side, the announced price increases were $12 in both Florida and Mid-Atlantic. Announced January 1st, gradually phasing in, even more slowly taking place on the ready mix side, where there are much more contracts outstanding. The new price increases for June are again the order of magnitude around $12. The peak is $15 in New York, New Jersey, and if I recall, it's $10 in Florida. Order of magnitude, again, another equivalent price increase. I think what you should be aware is that it's not just us announcing price increases, but our competitors have also announced price increases as well. Southeast Europe, again, order of magnitude of 10%-15% price increases gradually introduced last year, but again this year in most of the markets. What you have seen so far is still short of what one should expect going forward, with full effect to take place in Q3, but also very much of the effect to be noted on the Q2 results. Now, the energy bill, it's very tricky to talk about an annual rate of increase. Because 2021 was a year where energy costs were pretty low in the first quarter. What we have now compared to Q1 of last year, we're talking about an increase of maybe 70% Q1 to Q1. But if we look at Q1 of this year compared to Q4 of last year, we are practically flat. If one assumes there will be no further increases during this year, then there will be no increase Q4 on Q4. The elevation of the cost of energy was much more acute in Q4 last year. We saw a decline. If you look whether it's coal or petcoke, after the spike in October, November, there was quite a decline in December, January, and everything shot up after February 21st, after Putin's speech on the invasion in Ukraine. Our guess for the annual increase in energy cost would be for much lower than the 50% that you mentioned. Now, on the hedging side, we have 50% of the European energy, sorry, electricity costs practically hedged. On the solid fuels, we do not have a hedge. We are mostly looking at physical hedging by storing more if we feel that the prices are going to go further. The futures markets indicate, at least the coal future markets, that we should be expecting a decline from current levels, going forward. Similarly, on the shipping freight, which is also a significant cost for us, where we have something like 70%, 70+ of our exports to the U.S., hedged. The remaining, which is towards the end of the year, is where we expect the market to decline. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Tobias Woerner with Stifel Europe. Please go ahead. Good afternoon. I came a bit late onto the call, so thank you for taking my questions and apologies in advance if they've been asked already. In terms of your ongoing current business, obviously interest rates one year have gone up in the U.S. and also across Europe. Are you starting to see this in your business already in April and early May? That's question number one. Number two, Greece obviously has had a very challenging period through or post the GFC. How do you feel about this market now and in context of the stimulus which is flowing into the market? Thank you very much. What was the question on Greece? Can you please repeat? Yes. Greece obviously, in terms of capacity utilization, is one of the lowest we've seen in the world for a long time, post the GFC and the Euro crisis. The question was whether you're starting to see a sustained recovery around housing and also the benefits of the stimulus coming into the country. Thank you. Let me take those questions, Michael. On interest rates, we have yet to see any impact on what we see. As we said earlier, we haven't seen any impact on the ground yet. It remains to be seen whether there will be impact, but we haven't seen anything yet. On Greece, let me take a broader look given your question. Greece peak to trough from 2010 was down over 80% and remained at very low levels for a very long period of time, very at minus 80, 75%-80% for almost 10 years. It has been edging upwards at the rate of 10% per annum for the last two or three years, but that still leaves it more than 70% down versus the peaks and a very high percentage down versus what you would call any kind of mid-cycle level. The per capita consumption in Greece remains very low. We have seen demand prospects improving over time. There is a wall of money that's hitting Greece now with about EUR 70 billion worth of European Union funds that will be made available over the next five to six to seven years. To the extent that they can be well absorbed, which is a challenge, these will give a big impetus. There's a lot of work happening on various infrastructure projects, and other energy related projects and what have you. There's also a lot of developments going on. The major Elliniko project, couple of airports, some tourism related work is also increasing. Tourism is anticipated to have a record year this year. Finally, if you come to housing, there have been virtually no houses built in Greece with only a slight exaggeration for the last 10 years. The inventory of housing has been absorbed, the housing stock has become older, and we have seen a significant uptick in new permits the last couple of years. Now, how much all of that will be impacted by the war and the concomitant crisis remains to be seen. The latest estimates. We were expecting very high growth in Greece this year of about 6% of the economy, and very high growth also for the next couple of years. The current estimates have trimmed that down to 3%-4%. Generally speaking, I think it's fair to say that the outlook for Greece still seems positive with all the question marks one puts against any kind of forward-looking statement, at this time. Is that helpful, Tobias? Thank you very much, Dimitri. It is indeed. I mean, just remind me, I can check with my own numbers, what do you think, cement consumption per capita is at the moment? Population of Greece The general number, Greece, is anywhere between 3 and 3.5 million, the expectation to go over 3. No. The Greece demand was around 2.5 million tons ± for almost 10 years, which was two hundred fifty per capita or less than two hundred fifty per capita. Now it's over 3 million tons, so 3-3.5 or from memory, so it's maybe three- If you look at the 50-year period from the 1960s, 1970s up to 2010, the consumption was around the 5 million mark. That's a bit more of a norm to consider for the country. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Mike Betts with Jefferies. Please go ahead. Thank you very much. I had three questions, please, if I could. First one was on the ready-mix sales, where you said it's been more difficult to get price increases through or it's taking longer. Could you remind me, for the first time, how much your ready-mix sales are in EUR a year. When I look in the accounts, I get a number of EUR 700, but I think that also includes aggregates and concrete blocks. So how big is the ready-mix sales and are they almost all in the US? Is the first question. The second question is imports to the U.S., which I guess is where we're being hit with the higher freight rates, mainly. How many tons can you remind me you're currently importing into the U.S., or do you expect to import into the U.S. this year? My third and final question. We've had a lot of these calls where, you know, people are trying for obvious reasons, to increase their usage of alternative fuels. Can you remind me, you know, in terms of how the cost of alternative fuels works, I mean presumably if it's existing supply, the cost is fixed for many years. If it's a new supply, it's renegotiated. I mean, I guess where I'm getting at is the higher increase in energy costs that we're seeing in coal and petcoke. Is there any risk of that following through into alternative fuels as people try to target that more, as an alternative source of energy? Thank you. Thank you, Mike. Starting with RMC. We don't break out RMC in our accounts. You are right that we bundle it with aggregates and other concrete products, block and other products. But the bulk of what you see in that category is ready-mix concrete. Indeed, it's a product with a lot of turnover and less and a much lower EBITDA margin. You're right also that a big part of that is in the U.S., but a big significant part is also in Greece and Bulgaria, and sort of the E.U. countries. Very little ready-mix in other parts. There's some in Turkey, there's some in Egypt, there's some in the Balkan countries, but the bulk is the U.S. and Greece. Imports into the U.S., again, I apologize, we do not provide that number. We have said in the past that and it's true that we are building up our capacity to significantly increase that number going forward by investing in terminals and upgrading our terminals in Tampa and Norfolk. Which so our three main terminals in the U.S. could easily do 3 million tons in terms of capacity in the future, if should that become necessary. Finally, on alternative fuels, you're right to ask the question, and I don't have a very precise answer. The answers I have is A, every country is different, every situation is different, and it's a very constantly moving mix. There is no such thing as saying I have a long-term contract and alternative fuels, and that's that, and I can relax and enjoy the benefits. It's a constantly moving thing. The supply-demand balance changes all the time. You may have noticed that we have decided in some areas, we have announced, for example, in Greece, that we're becoming actively involved in the waste market ourselves in order to be able to have an impact and influence how much of that flow comes to us. Broadly speaking, in most countries we're in, alternative fuels provided a competitive advantage cost-wise versus conventional fuels, even before the current increase in energy prices and even before accounting for carbon emissions. They have a long way to go before becoming unattractive, if that's the implication of what you're saying. It was more. I wasn't gonna say they were gonna become unattractive 'cause they obviously have a carbon benefit as well. It was more whether, you know, you'd seen the benefit of no price increase there, but all of a sudden we might see, you know, some significant leap up in the cost of alternative fuels. Can I just follow through on that carbon and the link there? I think it was 6.something% reduction in carbon emissions per ton of cement, which is clearly extremely good. Was that driven by more alternative fuels, or was that driven by a lower clinker factor with more limestone or a bit of everything? All of the above. There will be some volatility in quarter by quarter, but the direction of travel is very clear. We have committed to a 30% reduction by 2030. What happens to 2050 will depend on technologies that are still being debated and developed. What we can do to 2030 is mostly based on what you would call traditional levers, like the ones you mentioned, alternative fuels, different kinds of cements, lower clinker content, more cementitious materials, and some innovation, as well. Those we are on track sort of annually at that pace to achieve that target. Now, of course, it will probably not be linear going from here to there. You know, if I may draw an analogy, Europe had a very clear energy decarbonization plan using natural gas as a bridge, base load for electricity production during the transition to so the wind and solar and what have you. That has now been thrown in disarray, and parts of Europe are going back to using more coal and lignite for the next year or two or three to ensure availability energy supply. Similarly, we have built a lot of options into our supply system. For example, I think we've mentioned this in a previous call. We have full interoperability in, say, U.S. and Egypt in all of our plants between natural gas and solid fuels. When one offers a much better cost advantage than the other at some point in time, how do you balance that with your progress vis-à-vis carbon emissions? That will be an ongoing discussion in management meetings. Generally speaking, we are comfortable with our pace of progress against our committed goals for carbon emissions while retaining competitiveness. Understood. Thank you very much indeed. Thank you, Mike. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone. Ladies and gentlemen, there are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the conference over to Mr. Colakides for any closing comments. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all for attending. Our next conference call will be for the second quarter half yearly results at the end of July. Hope to see you then. Thank you. Bye. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now concluded, and you may disconnect your telephone. Thank you for calling, and have a good afternoon.