Good afternoon. This is the commercial conference operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Avio first quarter 2024 results conference call. As a reminder, all participants are on listen-only mode. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, they may signal an operator by pressing star and zero on their telephone. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Nevio Quattrin, Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Q1 2024 conference call. Together with us there is Mr. Giulio Ranzo, CEO of Avio, and Mr. Alessandro Agosti, CFO of Avio. In a while, we will go through the presentation we just released on our website. At the end of the presentation, we will open up the Q&A question. As usual, Giulio, we will go through the main highlights and results of the quarter, and Alessandro, we will go through the main financial results of the quarter. Thank you for your attention, and I leave the floor to Giulio. Thank you, Nevio. Good morning to you all, and thank you for joining the call. We report the first quarter. I would start from page four, from the key highlights of what happened during this first quarter of the year. So most importantly, we are getting ready for our next Vega flight to occur at the beginning of September. This will be the last Vega flight of the original version of Vega. Then we will switch completely to Vega C. We will launch Sentinel-1C for the European Commission, so we're getting ready. The launcher is already on site at the Guiana Space Center, and we will kick off the integration campaign sometime in early July, probably. The Vega C return to flight project is well on track for a flight to occur at the end of the year. So the sequence will be, a Vega flight in September and a Vega C flight, at the end of the year, again, for the European Commission. And in view of that, we are performing, by the end of May, the Zefiro 40 static firing test. You may recall that, Zefiro 40 is the second- stage motor that we had to redesign to accommodate, a new type of material for the carbon-carbon of its nozzle. So the design has been successfully completed and accepted also, by the European Space Agency, and as such, we will be fire testing it at the end of the month. So we'll soon have this milestone to verify that the second- stage is ready to fly. Additionally, we have signed a new contract, a new launch contract for, Vega C, with the European, Commission. It is sorry, with the European Space Agency. It is to launch the SMILE mission by late 2025. So this adds to the already rich Vega C backlog. On the Ariane side, the Ariane 6 front, the launch campaign for the maiden flight is underway. The European Space Agency and CNES have communicated that the maiden flight shall occur between end of June and end of July, so that likely be sometime in July, and we look forward to that. Obviously, that is a major milestone for our business, it should unlock our production acceleration in a way, for the P120 boosters for the years to come. So very, very important milestone, and we'll be witnessing the launch. After so many years of development, this is really, really an important milestone. The other positive surprise that now it's building up quarter- by- quarter is the growth in the defense propulsion business in terms of the size of the backlog and also the revenue acceleration. As you will see, and I will spend some time on it, the defense propulsion activity is growing really in production volumes, and that is very good because it adds at the time when the production, in particular P120 boosters, has been somewhat soft while we wait for the maiden flight. So that's a very positive trend that is now becoming a consolidated part of our journey. We've paid the dividends as planned by May 2nd. And when we look at the first quarter financials, Alessandro will go over it. I wanted to anticipate to you an important theme here. We have forwarded significant cash advances to our supply chain in order to enable revenue growth. In fact, you will see that in the first quarter, we have some 30% more revenues than last year. In order for that to occur, what we have done is we have taken most of our cash advances that we had accumulated, as you might recall, in the last quarters. We have forwarded that to the supply chain for it essentially to become inventory and to be able to let the suppliers go. This is largely something that we will continue to see in the next few quarters as an effect of the revenues accelerating towards the larger volumes that we will have to do in 2025, and so you will see really the production growing on that side. So overall, we maintain our guidance for 2024, and Alessandro will cover that in a few minutes. Moving to page five, as I said, the Vega C return to flight path is on the way. Here you see some photos of the Zefiro 40 motor on our test stand, ready to fire. The nozzle of this second- stage motor has been purposely redesigned to accommodate the different type of carbon-carbon material that we are now using. The design has been checked in many different ways with the help of third-party reviewers, to make sure that it's robust and that we would stand, you know, a very demanding test as we wait to do by the end of the month. So I think this will be extremely important because we'll pave the way for a successful return to flight of Vega C by the end of the year. On page six, we report the signature by Arianespace of the SMILE mission for the European Space Agency. This is to launch into orbit an important ESA mission for Solar Wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer. So it's a scientific mission in a way, and it's one of the important missions for the European Space Agency that we envision to launch no earlier than the end of next year. And as you know, this contract was still signed by Arianespace, but we anticipate the transfer of responsibilities in commercial activities from Arianespace to Avio in the months to come, as an effect of the resolution adopted by the European Space Agency targeting to redefine the governance of responsibilities within the European launches. So this is an important mission. It adds to our backlog. We're quite satisfied with that and grateful for the trust. On page seven, just a few photos of Ariane 6, finally on the launch pad. Many of you would know even more than I do, but the maiden flight is ready to go. A lot of work has been done to prepare for the flight. So the latest hot firing tests have been performed by mid-April on the central core. As you know, the boosters don't need any form of testing. We've done extensive testing, even in flight with Ariane, with Vega C. So all of the rest is ready to go. Last few checks, our experience says that last minute problems are always possible when you come along with a completely new system. I assume now ArianeGroup is working intensively to prepare for the flight, but it seems to me we're going in the right direction for a flight in July. Therefore, we will wait to see this extremely important milestone, which, as I said, will unlock our production plans for the rest of 2024 and most importantly, for 2025. So we are already preparing ourselves to ramp up rapidly production of the boosters to make sure that we can support the growth of the flight rate of Ariane 6 in the years to come. As we know, Ariane 6 has a huge backlog of flights to be performed, something like 30 flights to be performed in the years to come. So we have already anticipated a lot of production. A lot of stuff is already in inventory, but we are preparing to further increase production to really make sure that we cope with the commitments on the contracts already signed and with the market potential that is building up in the meantime. One point, as I said on page eight, on defense propulsion. As you know, defense propulsion was not in the last few years an important part of our portfolio. But as you can see on the left graph, the backlog on this activity is growing very rapidly. It's now becoming a very important part of our backlog. And, as such, I think this is a really a great opportunity I want to draw your attention on, because it's a production business largely out of EUR 317 million towards the backlog. Maybe only 10% is related to development activities. Most of it is production. And as you can see on the graph on the right, the production volumes are growing steadily. Now, why is this important? It's important because it helps to generate profit, to absorb fixed costs at a time when, as I said before, P120 production is not yet where it should be. And also because it provides, as you can see on the graph, great opportunity for growth in the years to come, very, very rapid growth. So, we are continuing to add orders. We have a lot of commercial activities in our pipeline, so we hope and count to further increase the backlog and therefore have some upside potential even on the already rapid growth expectation for the years to come. So the volumes will tend to go well over 300 motors per year, which really will help in securing our targets for profit and for growth that we expect overall in the company. I will now pass the word to Alessandro for him to cover the financials of the first quarter. Maybe one important point, as you know, the first quarter is typically not very indicative of what will happen in the full year. As you know, I recall to everyone that most of the profit is largely accumulated towards the end of the year, and also the cash. So the first quarter is not very indicative. Yet, I think it's important to review that there are some key themes, positive themes, that Alessandro will highlight, that are important for you to follow. Thank you. Alessandro? Thank you, Giulio. Good morning, everybody. Shall we move to page 10? We reported the backlog of EUR 1.4 billion, which is the highest in the company history, reaching more than 4x the 2023 full year revenues, thus providing strong visibility in the medium term. For the backlog evolution over the last four years show a compound annual growth rate of almost 20%, as you can see in the graph. In Q1 2024, order intakes amounted to approximately EUR 100 million, principally composed by EUR 80 million of production order defense propulsion, as Giulio commented before. The remaining orders acquired concern development activities of Vega family. Following the recent growth in the defense order intake, I recall that we had EUR 120 million in 2023. The defense has almost reached 25% of the total order backlog at the end of the first quarter 2024. So defense backlog is now half of the bigger backlog and higher than Ariane backlog, waiting for the maiden flight of Ariane 6, scheduled in June-July, as commented before. 60% of backlog is for production, and 40% of backlog is for development activities. On page 11, we reported the trend of revenues. Revenues increased more than 30% compared to the first quarter of previous year. Such increase has been principally driven by defense propulsion, production activities and technology development projects. Defense propulsion revenues accounted for almost 20% of the first quarter 2024 revenues. 50% of revenues come from production activity and 50% from development activities. So revenue from production, from development activities grew by almost 50% compared to the previous, quarter of 2023, thanks to technology development project. Production revenue increased by almost 20%. On page 12, we report the main financial. The charts report the main financial for Q1 2024 compared to the Q1 2023. Backlog of EUR 1.4 billion, as commented before at the end of the quarter, has been driven principally by defense propulsion production intakes of the quarter, net of revenues of the quarter. Increase of more than 30% of revenue has been principally driven by defense product propulsion production and technology development projects. EBITDA is higher than Q1 2023, as a result of contribution of higher revenues from defense propulsion production and technology development project, basically. No recurring costs were mainly related to exploration of new potential business as it was in the previous year. EBIT, you can see we have a positive effect on EBIT, on EBIT, also driven by lower depreciation following the review of economic usable life of certain production assets in the second half of 2023, which were not included in the first quarter of 2023. In connection, basically, with the phase out of Ariane 5, and, the phasing out of Ariane 6, in parallel with the phase out of Vega and the phasing of Vega-C. Net cash position, as expected, shows a reduction in Q1 2024 compared to end of December, mainly attributable, as commented before by Giulio, to the slowdown to subcontractors of certain advances received from customers in previous months, in line with the typical business life cycle, as well as to certain, for certain strategic procurement of long lead items of Vega C. The fluctuation is typical of our business. In fact, you can see in the next chart on page 13 that we had a significant reduction up to EUR 50 million in net cash position between Q2 and Q3 2023. While in 2022, there was an increase of around again, EUR 50 million in net cash position between Q3 and the year end. The slowdown of advances received from customer to subcontractor also helped to support business activities and the revenues in the quarter, in the first quarter 2024, as commented before by Giulio. In page 13, we, the quarterly development of adjusted EBITDA shows that the EBITDA and is confirmed in particular to concentrate the contribution in the last quarter of the year. On page 14, we reported the CapEx paid in the first quarter of 2024. The Shareholders' Meeting, held on April 24, 2024, unanimously approved the Board proposal of distribution of an ordinary dividend of EUR 3.75 million, as well as an extraordinary dividend from available distributable reserves of EUR 2.25 million, for a total dividend yield of 2.55%, which was proposed by the Board of Directors in March 2024. The shareholders' meeting also approved the completion of the treasury share program, which started in 2019, for a residual amount of EUR 4.9 million. ... Then on page 15, we reported the guidance for the full year for the year 2024, which is confirmed, which show that backlog is expected between EUR 1.5 billion and EUR 1.6 billion, with an growth compared to 2023, between 10% and 15%. Thanks to new intakes expected from the defense propulsion business. We expect also in 2024 to start the rollout of the backlog accumulated previously. Revenues are expected between EUR 370 million and EUR 390 million, with a 10% growth versus 2023. Growth, again, is expected in defense propulsion activities and technological development project as we see in the first quarter of 2024. EBITDA report is expected between EUR 21 million and EUR 26 million, with 10% growth versus 2023, thanks to the backlog rollout that will unlock production economies of scale, basically, from the P120. Net income, finally, is expected between EUR 6 million and EUR 10 million, with a growth rate between 10%-20% versus 2023, thanks also to the marginal effects of financial charges and taxation as it was in the previous years. This is the summary of the financial. I give back the floor to Nevio Quattrin. Yes, we can open up the Q&A session at this time. Thank you. This is the commercial conference operator. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their telephone. To remove yourself from the question queue, please press star and two. Please pick up the receiver when asking questions. Anyone with a question may press star and one at this time. The first question is from Andrea Bonfà of Banca Akros. Hello, good morning to everybody. I got a couple of questions related to defense propulsion, and in particular, if there is any development on the NAREW contract, which is normally very big and could have a very material impact on your backlog? And the second one is a more general comment from your side. I mean, in the light of, let's say, sense of urgencies or lack of, I think European capitals. I mean, how much flexible are you in order to accelerate the 2024 and 2025 production? Because I also looking at some comments from the French Minister of Defense, they are asking a very quick acceleration on delivery of missiles. So if you could elaborate on that. Thank you very much. So thank you, Andrea. So the NAREW contract has been signed by MBDA, and they have communicated that in public. Now, they are in the process of flowing this down to the suppliers, so we expect, and I'm hopeful that by within this year, this will be flown down to us, and that we can cover some initial activities that we have to do for 2024. Then, of course, in terms of converting that, so, I mean, a good chunk of the backlog, we should be able to book within 2024. Then, of course, revenues will pick up in 2025, 2026, 2027, and following years. You know, in these flow downs, there is a little bit of bureaucracy to go through, but it will come, so we don't have to worry too much about it. Now, in terms of production growth, we have flexibility. Consider that this year, as we have reported on page eight, we are targeting something like a 20% increase in production volumes on the defense side. We may go even slightly beyond that, but let us also remind us that we have grown already some 30% last year with respect to previous year, and so on. So, I think we can grow, we can most probably even double these volumes, but not on a year-to-year basis, okay? So it'll take a little bit of time. This is why on page eight, we have provided for you, for the years to come, a little bit the trend of what we expect in production volumes, but we have left also some margin for potential upside. Why do we do that? Because, as I said before, within the backlog of defense propulsion activities, we also have some projects which are in development, okay? The products are not yet qualified. So once we complete the qualification of these new products, we will be able also to add additional production coming from these new product streams. So there is quite some flexibility. It is also important to note that defense production capacity in our plant was there for several decades. So we already have production assets that have been significantly underutilized in the past few years when defense demand was significantly lower. But now we are reactivating lots of production lines that have been somewhat stopped for years, and now are coming back online relatively quickly, because we have to adapt, of course, with new tooling and stuff to the new productions, but the assets are there, okay? So I think to answer your question, we have quite some flexibility in growing volumes. Thank you very much. And if I may, on the other potential upside opportunity of your also page eight slide, is that included also the VSHORAD upside, and the U.S. potential business? So definitely. The problem with these programs is that, as you know, most of them are classified and are covered by confidentiality related to the armed forces, and that's the reason why we cannot talk about them until we are given authorization to do so. But indeed, we are pursuing, as we have commented before, additional backlog to come both from the exploration of new market opportunities and new customers in the U.S., and also within Europe, directly with the armed forces. The problem with defense is that when we are working with original equipment manufacturers, already communicating these programs is difficult. And when you work for armed forces, it's even more difficult, because they are most likely protected by classified information requirements. We know we have to guide you as to what the expectation would be, so as soon as we are authorized to share more about what we're doing, we will do. Thank you very much. The next question is from Martino De Ambroggi of EQUITA SIM. Thank you. Good morning, everybody. The first question is on the short term, focusing on Q1 results. I know your business cannot be evaluated on a quarterly basis, but just to have a rough idea, what are the reasons explaining the low operating leverage, considering that the defense propulsion significantly grew, and my assumption, it is more profitable than the rest of the business? I don't know if it's correct or not. So just to understand, what are the blocks in the bridge justifying the low operating leverage in Q1? And specifically, if you could elaborate on the energy cost in Q1 and the updated projections for the full year. The second is still on the tactical propulsion. I was wondering if, based on the strong volume growth, maybe you have to, or maybe, your customers are asking, your customer, single, maybe multiplied in, in the future, but is asking for price reduction, offsetting, or partially offsetting, the volume growth. The third question is on the P120. So assuming that, Ariane 6 maiden flight and Vega C back to fly is all okay, what could be the production of boosters in 2025, 2026, and what could be the benefit in terms of profitability, because of fixed cost absorption? Thank you. Okay, so lots of questions. Let's start from the first one relating to the first quarter. Again, the first quarter is typically not, not very negative. You, you know now, you know, if you look at the results of the last few years, the, the first quarter, and to some extent, even, the first half, have been typically very soft in terms of the amount of profit we, we report. And, and the reason is, generally, we take a little bit of caution in recognizing profit until we see how the year, is going. This year in particular, as you know, we have, a number of things which are on probation in a way, because, on, on the Vega side, we have the Zefiro 40 test, the Zefiro 40 test, preparing the return to flight by year- end. It's an intense program, it's an expensive program that we are working on, and we still need to see what is the result. So if we have maybe some contingencies, you know, before we release them, we want to make sure that the test goes in the right direction. And on the other side, the return to flight program has somewhat slowed down the Vega production for next year, more than we wanted to, because on the side, for example, of Zefiro 40, we have started preparing the production for, of course, for 2024. So we have manufactured already the motors that will fly by year-end, but not yet those of 2025. So that's why, also, you know, the Vega production will ramp up after success completion of these, of these tests. The P120 production, it's extremely low now. I mean, it's below 10, 10 motors per year. The reason being, as we explained before, that the delay accumulated in the Ariane 6 program was such that we have essentially filled all of the possible inventory capacity, so we could not manufacture any more. So paradoxically, in 2023 and 2024, you know, we will manufacture fewer P120 than in 2022. And now, once the maiden flight is done, and successfully, as we expect, we will first and foremost, ArianeGroup will use the P120s that are available in stock already at their own site. But then they have already anticipated and forwarded to us a request for ramping up the production quite rapidly. Now, we do not know yet what is the ramp-up that we expect, but give or take, we should go back to some 15 booster production overall next year, in 2025, and maybe, you know, 2024, 2025, in 2026, and then reach full production capacity by 2027. Give or take, okay? Now, these things needs to be adjusted. More stocking capacity is being prepared by ArianeGroup at the launch site, so we will have more capacity to store already manufactured P120s, and this will facilitate, of course, growth in production, and also, we provide them more flexibility to grow the flight rate, knowing that they have more boosters in stock. Now, on the tactical, propulsion story on price reduction, well, I would like to say that with a little bit of caution, but given the huge, imbalance between supply and demand, I don't think price is going to be the primary driver of discussions with the customers. There is such, a request that if we could manufacture twice what we do, I think the, the customer will, will absorb it. So we don't have so much discussion on the pricing. We have much more discussion, as Andrea Bonfà was saying before, on how fast you can possibly ramp up. But as you know, industrial activities, you cannot triple production from one year to the following one. You have to implement that gradually. We are ramping up production at, a rate of 20% or more. We will try even to improve with that, but we cannot double production from one year to the other. So, I don't think price would be a primary driver of concern. And that's. I hope I have answered all your questions. Energy costs. Thank- Energy costs. Yes. Energy costs have started, well at the beginning of 2024. So the cost of energy has been somewhat lower than last year, and so this may provide some tailwind for us in 2024, if this trend remains, which obviously we don't know, depends on a number of variables. What I can report is that you see the first quarter, we had a sharp increase in revenues, which is also the result of higher production activities. Now, when you do higher production activities, you obviously have a better absorption of fixed costs. So if this trend consolidates across the quarters, then I think we will have a positive effect on a better leverage on the energy costs. We have also implemented, as Alessandro had already anticipated in previous quarters, we have also implemented a number of initiatives in energy consumption reduction. So for every production hours now, we consume less energy. We have implemented changes in our energy plant that are optimizing a little bit the energy consumption. So that may provide some tailwind by the end of the year. But as I said, with a word of caution, because this is just the first quarter. Yet, you know, this is our target to work on the unit energy costs, to make sure that if we ramp up with production, that will result in a source of operating leverage, of course. Now maybe we will see by the first half, if this trend consolidates, and we will report to you maybe more precisely where we stand also with that in particular. Thank you, Giulio. If I may follow up on the non-recurring costs. You mentioned that, if I understand correctly, the majority, if not the whole amount, is referring to the U.S. initiative, the EUR 1.8 million in the Q1. And I was wondering if the EUR 7 million that you project for the full year are mainly, if not entirely due to this initiative? Well, a good chunk of this is for this initiative. As you know, we continue to invest. As a matter of fact, I am in the U.S. at the present time, and that takes effort and patience and persistence. So we think it's an investment definitely worth doing. So as soon as we can share more about it, we will. Okay. Good morning. The next question is from Bruno Permutti, Intesa Sanpaolo. Okay, thank you for taking my question, and good morning, everyone. I have a question related to CapEx. I wanted to understand if, with the changing, possibly changing, practical defense business outlook, your CapEx guidance and your CapEx expectations would have to be updated. So, what you see in... You said that, okay, you have available capacity right now, but looking a little bit beyond the next two years, one, two years, what you are assuming? If you can update us on the timing for the passage of commercial responsibility for Vega for the Vega C program. And also, when you will be at regime in terms of setting up the structure you need for the services operations that you are going to assume in the next years. So if you can update a little bit if we will see some additional personnel costs still in the coming months related to this transition, and also which are the margins that you expect from these activities? Okay, so let's start from CapEx. No, we do not anticipate sharp increases in CapEx due to additional defense propulsion activity. These are all government contracts in the end, and most of them typically contain within the price the provision for incurring whatever CapEx is required for tooling on the production lines, and so on. Moreover, I would say that I have directed the team this year to be extremely disciplined in CapEx, to keep the CapEx at no more than the level we really need to make sure that we control our cash, and that we really focus on those elements of capital expenditure that provide the highest returns. So no expectation for sharp increase in CapEx in the quarters to come. Now, the timing for Vega C transfer of responsibility from Arianespace to us. We are debating with Arianespace and the European Space Agency. What will likely happen is that we will start a period of transition of responsibility from Arianespace to us, which may take about a year or so, a year and a half, within which, you know, we will run in parallel, and then at some point, all this responsibility will swing on our end. We do this to make sure that we provide the best continuity of service to the customers, and that the subsequent transition is smooth, again, in their interest to have efficient operations and so on. Of course, we are preparing to set up an organization to carry out commercial activities, but the activities that Arianespace conducts on Vega C are not only commercial, they also are related to mission preparation and service to the customers at the launch site. And so we are preparing for this organization, and we will hire more people for sure. But at the same time, we will also book on our side and bill, let's say, a portion of the revenues that were until now incurred internally in Arianespace. So, how much profit improvement we will see, especially during this period of transition, where we will have to do a bit half an hour between ourselves and Arianespace? I honestly don't know. But in the medium term, we expect to have an improvement on the profit side, of course. I mean, good part of the reason why we are transferring these responsibilities is to seek for synergies between these service activities that were formerly performed by Arianespace, and some of the activities we do that have many similarities. So we can probably integrate these type of activities into something that is less expensive, just by the sheer fact that the competencies are the same, and therefore we can optimize the size of the team. Okay, thank you. As a reminder, if you wish to register for a question, please press star and one on your telephone. For any further questions, please press star and one on your telephone. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star and one. Gentlemen, there are no more questions registered at this time. I'll turn the call back to you. Thank you, all. Thank you, thank you, all. For any question, please, feel free to reach out to us. Thank you, everyone. Thank you. Goodbye. Thank you. Goodbye, bye-bye. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining. The conference is now over, you may disconnect your telephones. Thank you.