Good afternoon. This is the Chorus Call conference operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Interpump first quarter 2024 financial results conference call. As a reminder, all participants are in 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 Ms. Elisabetta Cugnasca, Head of Investor Relations of Interpump. Please go ahead, madam. Thank you. I am Elisabetta Cugnasca, Head of Investor Relations of Interpump Group. Good afternoon or good morning, depending on your time zone, and welcome to this Interpump first quarter 2024 conference call. As usual, I must draw your attention to the disclaimer inserted in the annex part of the presentation, and I hope you were able to download from our website. I would now like to introduce Mr. Marasi, the Group Chief Executive Officer. Thank you, Ms. Cugnasca, and allow me to thank you, all of you, for joining the call. To cut a long story short, these are the numbers. The first quarter 2024, from an organic point of view, a drop in sales by around 9% corresponds to an EBITDA, excluding the one-off of less than 14%, and a total free cash flow increase of almost 150% over the first quarter 2023. For the full year 2024, overall sales expectations of between -5% and +1%, and an EBITDA margin of around 23.5%. To cut a, a long story short, so what do these numbers tell us? The first quarter 2024 numbers confirm that when we correctly forecast the sales evolution and we have time to react, we can protect profitability. At a group level, from an organizational point of view, we are highly decentralized. Vice versa, from an industrial point of view, many important companies within Interpump are highly integrated in terms of manufacturing process. Therefore, having limited the EBITDA decrease to -14% with a -9% organic sales, is a satisfactory and encouraging achievement that proves once again, the flexibility and the soundness of the group. They confirm a sort of natural hedging that our business model is able to generate. Strong growth in sales and profitability require cash, CapEx, and moreover, trade working capital. But the cash exploitation is effective and fast when needed. In the first quarter of 2023, we recorded the best organic sales growth of our history. In 2024, we generated the best first quarter cash flow of our history, after 2020 and 2021, which are years that do not bear comparison. For 2024, the numbers are expected to tell us that two out of three assumptions on which we based the initial 2024 guidance were confirmed by first quarter numbers and the initial spring trends. As for the one that is not confirmed, we believe it's only a matter of timing. In other words, it's only delayed. 2024 is expected to be precisely the opposite of 2023. In 2023, we had a very strong start in the first half, and then recorded the sales performance normalization during the year. While for 2024, we expect a more challenging first part, also for a tougher comparison base, and a substantial improvement in the second part, even if for some business lines, somewhat delayed compared with the initial expectation. That our commitment is to protect profitability and further improve cash generation has been resoundingly confirmed and achievable, given the strength in terms of portfolio balance and business model flexibility, that has allowed us to deliver a fantastic string of excellent and stable results year after year. After cutting a long story short for this introduction, let's analyze the most important quarterly KPIs more fully and in detail. In terms of sales, a decrease of 8% on a total basis and 9% on organic basis, driven by the Hydraulic division. On such a difficult basis for comparison, and let me remind you that in the first quarter of 2023, we achieved an organic sales growth of 18.7%, very, very well balanced between the two divisions. It's not easy to clearly distinguish between the real business evolution and the simple comparison effect, even for those, like us, are absorbed in the business every single day. This is certainly true for Water Jetting. The flat organic performance is emphasized only by the comparison with the +16% mentioned before. The business is sound and strong. The complete system and the pressure pump are the best performance in the most important categories, and the backlog is gradually increasing month after month. In Hydraulics, the situation is more mixed, and therefore, not as clear, with an overlap between normalization and comparison base. Once again, diversification between and within divisions and between geographies helps to bring the different trends into balance. For example, in the first quarter on a consolidated level, Adaptors Industrial Vehicles and Generic Dealers, the two most important applications, are self-balancing. The first is up by around 3%. The latter is down by less than 4%. Agriculture and Earth-moving Machines are still significantly lower by 27% and then 3% respectively. Although, it's worth mentioning better or a flatish compared to the fourth quarter, 2023. Food & B everage is up by more than 7%. In terms of geographies, North America remains strong, with a sales increase of more than 2%, while the most important European countries, Italy, Germany, and France, are recording negative performances with a fall in sales of double-digit. India and China, the two most important countries in Asia, displayed opposite trends. India is up by almost 7%, while China is down by around 30%. It's interesting to note that India is now the most important country in the emerging markets, and represent more than 4% of the group sales. Moving to EBITDA, to understand the profitability results, it's fundamental to first strip out from the first quarter 2023 results, the EUR 3.6 million insurance reimbursement received in regard to the IMM factory fire in Romania in May 2022. Once this is done, profitability decreased on an organic basis by less than 14% compared to the 9% decrease in sales. From an industrial point of view, this is very encouraging result, and is due to the two main drivers: the diversification that characterize our group and the flexibility of our business model. Hydraulics give us growth in positive momentum. Water Jetting give us protection in negative momentum. How many times have some of you heard me saying that? Despite the flat sales performance and the sales mix that I mentioned before on an organic basis, Water Jetting in 2023 reached a margin of 27.8%, and the decrease recorded was due solely to the parimeter change, and namely, White Drive. In terms of business model flexibility, let me first mention Hydraulics. - 12% of sales translated itself into - 18% of profitability. When we have time to adjust our cost structure to the evolution in sales, we can deliver results and protect our profitability. Measures to protect the first quarter 2024 profitability were launched in autumn of last year because we knew already the headwinds that we would have to face. We started to bring production in-house, fine-tune the working shifts, and implement all the other countermeasures we have at our disposal, and we delivered the results. Let me make a quick comparison between group's performance in this quarter and that of December 2023, which I so regret. Last December, the decline in sales took us by surprise, and we did not, we did not have time to react properly. With a sales decrease close to 15%, the profitability drop was more than double. Last autumn, we were expecting a market sales drop at the start of 2024, after the extraordinary 19.5% sales increase in the first quarter 2023, and so we started to plan our activities carefully. As an example of our business model flexibility, I can point to the Water Jetting division again. Exactly one year ago, we started to talk about a negative sales mix due to the soft dilution produced by the complete system sales, and you may recall that we were not successful in managing that effect in all quarter last year. Sales were booming, and our determination to meet customers' request as much and as fast as possible, pushed us to outsource some production phases to look for new suppliers, which usually need to be overseen more than the well-established ones, and to apply extraordinary shifts. This combination led to inefficiencies, and we have been gradually learning how to manage in-house. We are continuing on this learning path and deploying this lesson in the next quarter in order to extract full value from any sales we are generating in this division. To conclude the overview on the start of 2024, let me touch briefly on CapEx, free cash flow, and acquisitions. In terms of CapEx, last February, we shared with you goals and the details of our 2021, 2023 post-Covid CapEx plan, anticipating that the CapEx would start to decrease in 2024 and return to the usual level of around 4% of sales. The decrease is still not evident in the first quarter, simply because we started the construction activities of the new headquarters of Interpump Hydraulics, close to Bologna, last autumn, the last important project to be undertaken. You can see the progress in the work as of the end of March on slide nine of the presentation. Moving to our M&A, immediately after the first quarter, there were two small transactions: a double one in China and one in U.K., that are both consistent with our strategy and are evidence of the improved M&A environment. Expanding our network step by step is very important, and we did this in both divisions. Moreover, I would like to draw your attention to the double transaction in China. After many years of no acquisition in the Flow Handling segment, we acquired four companies in the last 12 months. It could be argued that the transactions conducted so far this year are small deals, around EUR 15 million overall on an annual basis, slightly more than EUR 10 million consolidated in 2024, and making a total impact from the perimeter change in 2024 of around EUR 25 million, equal to slightly more than 1% in sales. It's true, they are small, but two or three years ago, even deals of this size were priced differently. This proves that what I've said many times, currently, we are in an historical phase of rebalancing role among all actors in the acquisition process, and an industrial buyer like Interpump will have more and more opportunities and will achieve better conditions compared to the recent past. We will continue on our path. Let me give you a brief update on our previous acquisition, and in particular, Waikato. Waikato is facing a market decline in the reference market, and unfortunately, difficulties arose at the start of the integration process. Activities are progressing. Everything we reported to you three months ago, headquarters reorganization, logistics and manufacturing rationalization in Europe and U.S., respectively, and the start of a collaboration with the INOXPA commercial network are underway, and we are seeing first positive evidence in terms of G&A and cash generation. Concluding with the free cash flow, it's important to underline that, in the first quarter 2024, we generated a free cash flow that is more than twice the first quarter 2023 figure, delivering on the cash improvement commitment that we made in summer 2022. It's important to underline that the improvement driver in this quarter was the concern over the past, the situation becoming worse: trade working capital. Cash absorption from trade working capital more than halved, driven by efficient inventory management and the impact of the sales decrease. As for acquisitions, we will continue on this path. Before the usual update on most recent market trend and more details on the 2024 expectations, let me hand over to Ms. Cugnasca for the ESG update. Thank you, Mr. Marasi. We spoke last time about ESG at length. Today, I will be concise and give a brief overview on 2024 action, summarize on both the first quarter financial results, press release and the presentation. As already mentioned, the 2023 and 2024 action aimed to integrate in the group strategy the fundamental ESG principle, and so created the value and organizational framework. Action in 2025 will seek to support the group in achieving the, 2030 and 2050 decarbonization targets. The entire process is also focusing on the global sharing of the best practices developed by the various group entities on specific topics. We would like to draw your attention to the most important 2024 action, among which the S6, extension to all Italian manufacturing companies of the supplier evaluation model according to environmental and social criteria, is based precisely on the sharing and example of best practice. The starting point was the development by Walvoil in 2023, the so-called S5 action. Equally important are the action S1, confirmation of 2022 to 2024 average employees incidence index below the average of 2019, 2021, and E7, definition of group guidelines for the eco-design of product. The importance we give to this action compared to the other must be understood in the light of the decentralization of our structure and what this involves in terms of planning. In addition, we will work to successfully execute one of the most important of the 2023 action, the decarbonization strategy, and deliver one of the most important action in 2025, the increase of non-compulsory training. Signing a corporate power purchase agreement and of a global training program are important step towards achieving these, the two targets, respectively. We will continue with the mapping of Scope 1, 2, and 3, which I remind you is an important task. Thanks again, Ms. Cugnasca. Now, let's focus again on the business, on the most recent trends, and on what are the implications for the year. Spring start displaying a mixed picture, with, on one end, the confirmation of our 2024 initial expectations, and on the other, a deviation from them. A deviation which could be better described as a delay. Which of the assumptions made three months ago predicted flattish organic sales, and which forecast the actual trend we are seeing? Water Jet ting. The steady and consistent growth of the most important business lines of the division, with the increasing contribution of the complete solution. Excluding the comparison effect, which has created some confusion, the first quarter 2024 results and the most recent trends fully confirm these assumptions. Food & B everage and Generic Dealers are two examples in terms of market application strength. Hydraulics: the normalization of some of the division's business lines, that even in the final part of 2023, displayed strong growth compared to 2022. Assumption is confirmed, for example, for Adaptors I ndustrial Vehicles and Generic Dealers. First sign of recovery of the business lines that started to slow down already in the first part of 2023. Unfortunately, rather than signs of recovery, so far, we have seen evidence of stabilization at the bottom for some market applications. For example, and above all, Agriculture, Earth-moving Machines, and Lift. Precisely the sector I mentioned you before. In summary, the first quarter 2024 and following data confirm two out of three of the three assumptions that we made in February. For some of the business lines that entered some 2023 in the normalization phase, we are seeing a stabilization and not recovery. We are therefore updating our forecast, including the impact of the small acquisitions closed so far, for a change in sales compared to full year 2023, between -5% and +1% for the full year 2024. After sales, EBITDA. As already mentioned, the first quarter 2024 profitability performance, a decrease of less than 14% compared to a -9% in sales, and a profitability margin well above 23%, underlines the flexibility of our business model and the soundness of the countermeasures we are applying. Obviously, new sales, new sales expectations require to reconsider EBITDA expectations, and so we are updating you from this point of view as well. And we are doing this with our usual transparency to avoid any kind of misunderstanding. For us, there is only one EBITDA, the reported one. The answer to the question: what was the group 2023 EBITDA margin? There is only one answer, 24%, including IMM insurance reimbursement. Back to zero. But internally, when each group company is tracking its performance month after month, the comparison is made with the operational results, which at the consolidated level, and excluding IMM insurance reimbursement, represent a 23.6% EBITDA margin. When we spoke of margin protection last February, the landmark to be protected was 24%, because once again, it's the reported number that matter. The new sales expectation is taking us to an EBITDA margin of around 23.5%. From an industrial perspective, and considering the expected associated sales evolution, we believe that this number gives substance to our goal to protect the 2023 profitability, regardless of the 2023 landmark. After sales and EBITDA, cash generation. As mentioned at the beginning, the first quarter 2024 free cash flow improvement is the result of the job began many months ago, that is now bearing fruit, and which will continue to bear fruit in the coming months, considering the ongoing normalization of trade working capital and CapEx after three very demanding years. To conclude, and to cut a long story short, the first quarter numbers says that diversification between and within divisions and the business model flexibility are helping us balance the different evolution of end markets. Each year is the result of its four quarters, and we are doing our best to maintain the utmost commitment regarding each of them, building the year quarter after quarter. I have invited you so many times, in particular in uncertain and volatile markets, to focus on full-year results instead of taking conclusions based on a shorter period of time. Most recent numbers, the spring ones. We are on track on two out of three 2024 sales assumptions, and we expect only a delay in attaining the remaining one, and in particular, the recovery of the demand in the weakest end market in Hydraulics. In terms of M&A, the environment is more favorable to all industrial buyers, like in the Interpump Group. To conclude, the expected 2024 numbers will confirm once again, the group ambition to excel. Thank you. Excuse me, are you ready for the Q&A session? Absolutely. Okay, thank you. So this is the 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 touchtone telephone. To remove yourself from the question queue, please press star and two. Please pick up to receive when asking questions. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. The first question is from Matteo Bonizzoni, Kepler. Please go ahead. Thank you. Thank you, Fabio. Thank you, Elisabetta. Good afternoon. Two questions. I go maybe too much straight to the point. The first question is, regarding on the revenues, -5% to +1%. You have clearly said that, it's a little bit large, if you want, because, in some markets you are starting to see sort of a stabilization recovery. In other one, they are stabilizing, but at the bottom, so no, not yet sequential recovery, let's say. I was just curious to know a little bit more why you have chosen this range, and if you can elaborate, what's the scenario at the bottom? What's the scenario at the top? You have already elaborated a little bit during the call, but maybe you can provide a little bit more color on what's at the bottom and what's at the top in terms of sensitivity. The second question relates to the margin. 23.3% is the margin in Q1, 23.5% around is the guidance for the full year. If we look back at your typical seasonality, which only plays a partial role, but typically Q1 and Q2 are the strongest, Q3 and maybe even more Q4 are lower. So in this case, you are projecting a guidance for the margin for the full year, which is a little bit higher than Q1. So what is at play here? Sequential recovery, action on cost? I was just curious to understand why 23.3% and not 23%. Thanks. Thank you, Matteo. As always, very good questions. The first one, organic. It is clear that we are facing a very uncertain environment and a very uncertain and volatile end markets, and in particular in the main markets in Hydraulics. Then, we have chosen to point to a, let's say, a reduced target in terms of organic growth evolution, but maintaining a large range, considering how volatile and uncertain the markets are. In particular, the main application fields in Hydraulics, let's say Agriculture, Construction, and Lifting, are very volatile and very different in the different geographies. And this is the main reason why we have not chosen, and we are not able now, to point to a smaller range. It is clear that the current environment is making us more prudent than what we were forecasting and commenting in February, but there are still several months, and the reaction or the variation in the different customers, in the different application fields, in the different markets, can still represent a support that will drive to a better number at the year-end, or can remain stable at the bottom and will drive to a minus mid-single digits in terms of organic growth. It will depend on the evolution, and it is clear that now the visibility on the main application fields, in Hydraulics in particular, is significantly reduced with some amount or some quarter ago. In terms of margin, in terms of margin, we have been, once again, transparent and honest. We could have easily said about 23%, but we are saying around 23.5%, it is a little bit more aggressive, because we believe that the countermeasures that we have taken and we are taking are protecting our profitability, and we believe that we will have time to adapt and to activate all the flexibility measures that we usually have to activate. And like I pointed out in my speech, if we have time to face the reduction and the slowdown in demand, we have time to react and adapting costs, adapting the in-house and outsourcing manufacturing capability, in adapting the internal production shifts organization, and so on. For this reason, we are optimistic that we will be able to deliver a very, very strong and a very nice EBITDA margin, even in a tougher top-line scenario. These are the main reasons. Thank you. The next question is from Domenico Ghilotti, EQUITA. Please go ahead. Good afternoon. A few questions, just, first of all, a clarification. When you say stabilization on, say, some of weak, weak, areas, you mean sequential stabilization, so year-on-year, still, still down, but at least stabilized on a sequential basis, quarter-on-quarter. And then, on, on the guidance. If I understand properly, so on the Water Jetting, could you, could you give us a sense of if you still, are expecting some organic, growth, in, in the year? I got this feeling from your comments, around the order intake. And, if you can comment also a little bit on the different regions. I saw that in Q1, North America was, much better than, EMEA. Do you, do you see the same trend also going forward? Thank you, Domenico. When we refer to the stabilization of the bottom, we are referring to a sequential stabilization, then stabilization in terms of demand in comparison with what we have seen in the second part of last year, and we were referring in particular to the very weak markets, Agriculture in particular. In terms of guidance by division, I confirm that Water Jetting will be stronger than Hydraulics, and I confirm that we are expecting a positive organic growth for the full year 2024. The reduced visibility and the reduced expectation are mainly characterizing the Hydraulics division. In terms of geography, I confirm that USA is stronger than Europe, and is stronger in general, and we are seeing the same trend also going forward in the remaining part of 2024. Okay, thank you. If I, if I may follow up, so just a curiosity, so you, you have been managing White Drive for a while, is facing, let's say, tough, tough environment. So I'm, I'm trying to understand what is the pressure on profitability that you are facing now and, compared to the level you reached, let's say, when you completed the integration. Yes. White Drive is clearly the company that is suffering the most, considering that it's the company or the group of companies that is the most exposed to the agricultural end markets. Then, in terms of organic, we are down strong double digit. In terms of profitability, we are adding pretty well, but we are well below the 21% that we reached in some quarter last year. Are you satisfied by the reaction, in terms of countermeasures on protecting profitability? Yes. Okay. Yes, absolutely yes, because in these 2.5 years, we have adjusted the White Drive business model in order to create industrial flexibility. I, I believe that we have commented many times about the difficulties that we faced in the first, at the start of the integration process of White Drive, because we found a company with very little flexibility. In these two and a half years, we have created industrial flexibility, creating outsourcing opportunities, realizing the right investments, and I believe that now White Drive is organized in a way that is well aligned with Interpump Group companies. Okay, last question on M&A pipeline, if we can, do you have something, say, sizable in your pipeline? We have everything in our, on our pipeline. The question or the point is, what we will be able to finalize and when? What I can confirm is that, the outlook or the scenario is positive, is very positive, for the reason that I've already commented several times in terms of interest rates, in terms of strength in our balance sheet, and in terms of, more realistic expectations from, the entrepreneur or the seller that we are discussing with. Thank you. The next question is from Alessandro Tortora, Mediobanca. Please go ahead. Yes, I, good afternoon, everybody. Let's say I have two brief questions. The first one is on the free cash flow trend you mentioned in Q1. Basically, can you confirm, considering also that, in theory, CapEx should gradually and sequentially decline over the coming quarters? Can you confirm to us that basically, free cash flow generation should still improve quarter on quarter? That's the first question, Fabio. And then the second one relates to especially Europe, but also Germany. Can you mention the, let's say, Europe underperformance versus the U.S.? And can you comment a little bit about Hammelmann performance in this context? Especially, I know that Hammelmann is not, let's say, Germany, but just to give some comments on the performance of Hammelmann in this macro context. Thanks. Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Alessandro. In terms of free cash flow, I confirm that we expect a sequential improvement or growth quarter after quarter, because of the normalization of the CapEx. Mm-hmm. Like, I said in my speech, we are facing now important expenses for the Interpump Hydraulics new headquarters in Bologna, but it's something that will conclude our extraordinary investment phase in the post-COVID recovery. And for this reason, on a group level, we are very confident that we will reach very important numbers in terms of free cash flow generation this year. If we move to the second question, in particular, Hammelmann performance, Hammelmann performance is almost spectacular. It has always been spectacular in terms of profitability, but we are really, really comforted by the very strong order intake and the new projects in which Hammelmann is involved. For this reason, we believe that on a full year basis, Hammelmann will be one, maybe the, the one with the strongest results in terms of organic growth, on a full year basis. You know, our Hammelmann is important, and our Hammelmann is contributing in terms of profitability. Mm-hmm. And just probably if I may, on this last point, now, when you mentioned also before, the fact related to the mix of the Water Jetting, is this an aspect which relates to Hammelmann, NLB? So just understand, who is basically, you know, selling more systems today. It's something that goes across all the companies, because you know that the systems are produced, take into account raw materials and spare parts from many companies of Water Jetting. Mm-hmm. It's something that is not concentrated in one single company, but it's more across the Water Jetting division. Okay. Okay. Gotcha, Elisabetta. Gotcha, Fabio. You're welcome. Thank you. Thank you, Alessandro. As a reminder, if you wish to register for a question, please press star and one on your telephone. Once again, if you wish to register for a question, please press star and one on your telephone. Gentlemen and Ms. Cugnasca, there are no more questions registered at this time. I turn the conference back to you for any closing remarks. Okay. Thank you very much for your attention, and we speak soon in August. Bye. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining. The conference is now over, and you may disconnect your telephones.