Akzo Nobel N.V. (AKZOF) Q1 2026 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

Hello, and welcome to the Akzo Nobel Q1 Results twenty twenty six Earnings Call. My name is Alex. I'll be coordinating today's call. I will now hand it over to Jan Willem to begin. Please go ahead. Good morning, and welcome to Akzo Nobel's Investor Update for the First Quarter of twenty twenty six. I'm Jan Willem Inhus, Head of Investor Relations. Today, our CEO, Fred Fuguillaume and CFO, Magdalene de Vries, will take you through our results. We'll refer to the presentation, which you can follow by webcast or download from our website at uxanobel.com. A replay of the webcast will also be made available following the event. For additional information, please contact our Investor Relations team. Before we start, a reminder of our forward looking statements disclaimer on Slide two. Please note this also applies to the conference call and answers to your questions. I'll now hand over to Greg, who will start on Slide three of the presentation. Thanks, Guillermo. Good morning to everyone on the call. In Q1, we delivered a clear beat with EBITDA of EUR $345,000,000 coming in 7% ahead of the EUR $323,000,000 consensus. Organic sales were 1% lower year on year with a 1% pricing gain offset by 1% declines in both mix and volumes. Profitability improved meaningfully. Adjusted EBITDA was up 7% at comparable scope, while adjusted EBITDA margin rose to 14.5% up 80 basis points. This marks the fourth quarter of margin expansion year on year driven by disciplined pricing and strong execution on our cost actions in soft end markets. Operationally, our industrial transformation will be completed by year end. We closed a further three sites in Q1 bringing the total to 15 since the program's inception. We've done all of this without business interruption. We also delivered a key milesto...