Welcome. Thank you for joining the Aquafil first quarter 2024 results web call. As a reminder, all participants are on listen-only mode. After the presentation, there will be a Q&A session. For operator assistance via web call, please press the headset icon on the bottom left side. For conference call assistance, please press star and zero on your telephone. I would like to turn the conference over to Giulia Rossi, Investor Relator. Please go ahead, madam. Thank you, operator. Good evening, everyone. Welcome to Aquafil quarterly investor conference call. Today, we will update you on company first quarter 2024 performance. Before going ahead, let me remind you that this presentation may contain certain statements that are neither reported financial results nor other historical information. Any forward-looking statements are based on Aquafil's current expectations about future events and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause results to differ from those expressed by the statements. For a discussion of these risks and uncertainties, you should review the disclaimer in the presentation we issued today. I will leave the floor to Mr. Giulio Bonazzi for his remarks. Thank you, Giulia. Good evening to all. Thank you again for attending our video conference. The first quarter of 2024 confirmed our recovery path towards the achievement of our planned targets. In the first three months of the current year, the EMEA and Asia Pacific geographical areas recorded volumes exceeding those for the same period of the previous year. Demand for fibers for carpets and polymers grew in EMEA. As for the product line relating to fibers for garments, the weakness that characterized the full 2023 continued. Asia Pacific further expanded on the market for fibers for carpets in terms of volumes. The U.S. showed a subdued performance in both product lines, thus reflecting the uncertainty context of the first month of the year. We expect a recovery in the second half of 2024. Engineering Plastics project confirmed the growth expectations for the period. Sales of ECONYL-branded products further increased, accounting for over 52% of the group's revenues generated from fibers. Activities continued with the aim of rationalizing personnel costs and containing investments, both below the previous year's level, in addition to optimizing working capital. The company remains confident that the targets set for 2024 to 2025 two-year period will be cumulatively achieved. Thank you. We are now ready for your questions. Thank you. This is the conference call operator. We will now begin the question and answer session. To enter the queue for questions, please press the Q&A icon on the left side of your screen. Please make sure to enable your audio and video connection. If you're on the phone instead, please press star and one on your telephone keypad. The first question is from Joshi Samir with H.C. Wainwright. Great. Thanks for taking my questions. On the guidance for 2024 and 2025, I'm particularly paying attention to the word cumulatively. Does this mean that there's some expectation of the EUR 76 million-EUR 80 million EBITDA for 2024 maybe slipping into the 2025 forecasts? I just wanted to see how the management views this. In reality, we never give guidances for the current year, and so we stuck on the business plan that we delivered last November. That's why we expressed our sentence cumulatively. We think that we will reach the result. That's the reason why. Understood. Okay. It seems the caprolactam prices have gone up in the recent couple quarters. Is there going to be an impact of this on your profitability, or is there a lag, and you might have some low-cost inventory that will support margins for the next couple quarters? Well, thank you for this question. In reality, what we have experienced during the first quarter and also during the month of April, has seen a caprolactam price increasing, I would say, in a pretty large amount. This, of course, is impacting the first quarter results as well as very likely the second quarter one. Even if April and May have remained at the same level, we have no, of course, yet idea about June. As normally happening at the adjustment of the third quarter, starting from the 1st of July of 2024, will fully recover these caprolactam price increases, which of course will leave an impact on the first semester results. Understood. Thanks for that. One last question is on, it seems the outlook calls for, or at least the commentary calls for a second half of 2024 recovery in the U.S. What is your visibility? What is the sort of signals or evidence that you're seeing in the market for the U.S. recovery in the second half? Thanks. Well, both businesses like the Carpet Yarn and also the Aquafil O'Mara are insisting a lot on, let's say, upholstery as well as, of course, carpets. Of course, our Carpet Yarns in U.S. is more related to automotive and commercial, while the Aquafil O'Mara is more on the residential and not only on commercial. That being said, our feelings about what is happening during the last weeks and what our customers are reporting, it is taking our hope for this recovery. Our customers are saying that the order entries starting from February have increased, but they are still working on their inventory levels in order to bring them to the desired level. In reality, they are buying less than what they are consuming. That is why we are considering this recovery for the second half. That was already included in our budget for 2024. Moreover, one of our American competitors for Carpet Yarn has announced recently the exit from the Carpet Yarn business at the end of 2024. Latest December 2024 or January 2025, which of course, will bring further market opportunities for the year to come. Understood. Thanks for that color. Once again, thanks for taking my questions and good luck. The next question is from Niccolò Storer with Kepler Cheuvreux. Hi. Good afternoon. I have a question about your price and sales mix that you show on page four of your presentation. If you can elaborate a bit, how much is a price and how much is a mix? Second question on NTF, talking more in general, so not just focusing on the U.S. Are you seeing any signs of life that can translate into a recovery later in the year? Thank you. Well, the part that we normally like most is related to commercial carpet. This is the normal part that is expressing, because of our competitiveness, especially, the best, let's say, marginality. Also, the other applications are not that. We must consider that there are geographical differences when we sell in Europe or in the United States or in Asia Pacific, as well as of course, there are differences, especially in the NTF business when we sell ECONYL versus a non-ECONYL product. This chart is expressing all these differences, and I'm apologizing for not giving super high detail information about it. What we have seen in the first part of this year has been a slightly lower commercial sales in the Carpet Yarn business in Europe and U.S., while the rest of the businesses have performed even a little better than expected in Europe and maybe not as expected in U.S. The Asia Pacific market, especially the Chinese, Japanese, and the Oceanian markets, have performed in terms of quantities, I would say, in a satisfactory way. The polymer market has been pretty good, at least in the first four months of this year, and especially our new investment in the Engineering Plastics sector has given us some good satisfaction, and we expect that during the coming years, it will give us the opportunity of growing our sales, especially in Europe. This is with regard to the comment that I can release about this chart. Sorry if I don't go in higher detail. I'm sorry, Niccolò, did you ask for a second question? About- Yes. The American NTF. Yes. The American NTF has got, let's say, a big decrease, especially during the month of March and April, while April better than month and May better than April. In the meantime, we have worked in order to reduce our personnel costs, I would say reducing around 20 full-time equivalent in order to match the current status of the operations with the level of employment, that of course, should give us a good relief in terms of EBITDA, let's say, starting from the month of June. Our expectations, because of all the actions that we are implementing there, is to return to, let's say, an expected level starting from the third quarter of 2024. Thank you. The next question is from Dave Sturz with Stonegate. Thank you for taking my question. My first one is just on, in Europe, what kind of pacing should we expect as the recovery continues? Is there any anticipated lumpiness in your forecast? Sorry, because my operator was changing the tone of your voice, so I lost what kind of, and then I've lost your word. Be patient with me. Apologies. What kind of pacing should we expect in the recovery in Europe? Is there any anticipated lumpiness or do you anticipate that'll be fairly linear? Well, let's say that if we compare quarter-over-quarter, the second quarter of last year was very bad. If I look at the second quarter of this year, of course, neutralizing the effect of the higher raw material prices that will be recovered, let's say in Q3, in the European market, we are pretty satisfied. I would say in line with our expectations. The energy prices and, let's say, the quantities, yes, we would love maybe a little better marketing mix in order to show products that are giving us more satisfaction. The ECONYL share is still on the rise or holding. In this case, it's automotive market that is giving us good results when we speak about usage of ECONYL in the carpet flooring market. Europe, I believe, is not a problem. The major problem last year was Europe. This year is maybe a little less good than expected, the results that are coming from the North American market, both from the Carpet Yarns and the NTF in that geographical market area. Understood. Thank you. In the U.S., if and when volumes return, how do you anticipate that you can know as a% to be able to keep pace with that? Well, we never give, let's say, precise numbers divided by geographical area. What I can comment is that the area where ECONYL has a deeper penetration is Europe. We have markets like Japan that are 100% or 99% ECONYL driven. Let's say the area where the ECONYL share is higher is Europe, for obvious reasons, because of course, we started earlier in Europe than elsewhere. Secondly, also because the automotive market in Europe has accepted more quickly this concept, while the American market is taking more time. That's very helpful. Thank you for taking my questions. You're very welcome. As a reminder, if you wish to register for a question, please press Q&A on your left and send your request, or press star and one on your telephone. For any further questions, please press Q&A on your left and send your request, or press star and one. There are no more questions registered at this time. What? Excuse me. We have two more questions. Okay. We have a follow-up question from Joshi Samir with the H.C. Wainwright & Co. Last second. Joshi. Thanks for taking my second set of questions. Actually, just one more. Are you on target for lowering the debt for the year? I know there is a slight increase, it seems, this quarter, but are you still targeting lowering of your debt for this year and next? The most important target that we are taking care is our debt. Of course, we would like to, let's say, finalize all our targets, but be sure that the target that we are taking more attention is related to our debt. In reality, when we deliver our results, we were keeping some reserves in terms of capital expenditures and the possibility of, let's say, containing the working capital. I can tell you that for sure, we will deliver the results for the end of this year. We are very confident about it. Sounds good. Thanks again, and good luck. Thanks. The next question is from Luca Orsini of One Investments. Yeah. Just a clarification question. In the press release, you said that you confirm your guidance for 2024 and 2025 as from the plan, and you say cumulative. What do you mean by cumulative? As I said, when Joshi asked for this question, we are never releasing, or if not in special cases, guidances for the current year. We have never delivered a budget for 2024, a forecast for 2024, but we have delivered a cumulative forecast last November for the year end of 2023 and for 2024 and 2025. Of course, everybody started to guess what would have been the result of 2024, the net financial position of 2024 and 2025. That's why I'm still keeping this position. Sorry, for the time being, we are not yet delivering any guidance for the present year, but we are still confirming that for, let's say, the three years that we have planned, we are confident to be able to strike our targets. Okay. No, thank you very much. I was not connected at the beginning of the call. Oh, no worry. It is worthwhile repeating, no problem. For any further questions, please press Q&A on your left and send your requests, or press star and one on your telephone. The next question is a follow-up from Nicolo Storer, Kepler Cheuvreux. Mr. Storer, your line is open. Sorry. Thank you for taking my question, sorry to go back to the same question about 2024 guidance. Actually, if I take your business plan presentation, I see that you indicated some target EBITDA for 2024, also some target net financial position. Yes, they were not, let's say, budget forecast. We gave a target, we gave some kind of ranges that we wanted to hit. That was our, let's say, idea. We never give you a precise number like, 73.2 or 82.5 or so. This is what I meant when I said we never gave, let's say, a precise and accurate forecast for the year, we stick on this position. Of course, you are right. When we deliver our plan in 2023, there were some, let's say, targets that we have shared with you guys, we will see during the next quarters where we are and what kind of, let's say, explanations or results we are able to share together with you. Okay for us, the most important part that we want to achieve is our net debt reduction, we are very much focusing on it. As you can imagine, of course, until the market doesn't bounce back, we have enough capacities for delivering quantities to the market. We don't need to make, let's say, special capital expenditures. The only place where we are spending money presently is in our Chinese operation, where beginning of this year, we were still forced to send material from Europe to China, which, as you can imagine, is something that is not very efficient in terms of margins as well as in terms of working capital. Also because while we have seen this raw material price increase in Europe, that is driven by what our suppliers are saying, mainly by the blockade of the Suez Canal, because some raw materials were coming from Saudi Arabian or Gulf refineries, as well as also the second reason was the lower usage of Russian crude oil, which is heavier in comparison with the crude oil mix, which is currently used by the European refinery, which has caused a shortage of sulfur. This has caused, in the chemical business, not only in our special activity, some shortages of some chemical product. This has given the opportunity to the European suppliers to increase prices, which didn't happen in Asia Pacific, specifically China. Prices were very resilient. As well as in the U.S., they have increased, but much lesser than what they have increased here in Europe. There has been quite a bunch of speculation, if I can define it. This, of course, is causing a lower margin than expected for us in the previous two quarters. That will be mended from the Q3. There could be also some better margins from the Q3 and the Q4 if the raw materials in Europe will start to go down. Presently, raw material prices in Europe are somewhat around 25% higher than in Asia Pacific, which is not the situation that can last for long, or we will be flooded by Chinese materials. Mr. Rossi, gentlemen, there are no more questions registered at this time. There are no more questions. Let me thank you for participating as well our first quarter financial results. We hope to see you in the next quarter financial results. Thank you. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining. The conference is now over. You may disconnect your devices. Thank you.