Arkema S/Adr (ARKAY) Q4 2025 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

Welcome to Arkema's full year 2025 results and outlook conference call. For your information, this call is being recorded. It will take place in a listen-only mode, and you will have the opportunity to ask questions after the presentation by pressing star and 1 on your touch-tone telephone. I will now hand you over to Thierry Le Henaf, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. Sir, please go ahead. Thank you very much. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Arkema's full-year 2025 results conference call. With me today are Marie-José, our CFO, and the Investor Relations Team. As always, the slides used during this webcast are available on our website, and together with Marie-José, we'll be available to answer your questions at the end of the presentation. In 2025, The macroeconomic environment was, as you know, particularly challenging, probably one of the most difficult our industry has faced in the last 20 years. The second part of the year, in particular, was marked by subdued demand across many end markets, the slowdown in the U.S. while Europe remained at low levels. This reflected ongoing cautiousness of economic actors as well as tight end inventory management and many of our customers. On the other hand, Asia continued to be the most dynamic region for the group, in particular China, where we could see an acceleration in certain sectors like electric mobility, advanced electronics, and sustainable consumer goods as well. As you could expect in this context, the group focused on its fundamentals of customer proximity and innovation while strengthening its cost and cash initiatives. The teams have been fully mobilized on a daily basis to best address the environment and strictly control the operations. As a result, we generated a high level of cash at 464 million euro...