Rob Versloot: Performance before taking your questions. Let me start with a few key takeaways for today's call. Overall, Q3 was slightly down and in line with the softer trends we had anticipated going into the H2 of the year. Organic sales were down 0.6%, which brings our year-to-date organic growth to +1.0%. Performance varied across categories and across geographies. We saw strong momentum in brushes and continued improvement in shavers, while stationery remained softer and lighters faced a more challenging quarter, notably impacted by some temporary headwinds. Despite those mixed dynamics, we are maintaining a disciplined approach to execution and are confirming our 2026 outlook. At the same time, we are moving forward with our transformation program. The work behind our BIC to the Future strategy that we unveiled to you in September is well underway, and our focus is now on delivering results.
Rob Versloot: Let me now walk you through our Q3 performance across the different regions. In Europe, our shavers business was a clear highlight in the quarter, delivering high single-digit growth. Performance was driven by distribution gains, continued e-commerce momentum, and strong consumer response to our premium and refillable offerings. BIC Soleil Escape performed particularly well following its rollout across several markets, while our 5-blade refillable ranges delivered double-digit growth. In stationery, we saw a very promising response to our latest innovations. The new Vibbies collection was a star performer during its first back-to-school season, while the Mini Pocket Mouse Pastel also stood out, demonstrating the strong consumer appeal and desirability of these products. Tangle Teezer delivered another quarter of double-digit growth, supported by its second collaboration with SKIMS and the strong start of the new Complete Care brush range, which is already exceeding expectations and receiving strong consumer feedback and ratings.
Rob Versloot: The Middle East and Africa region also delivered another solid quarter, continuing to grow at a high single-digit pace, driven mainly by the stationery and the shavers businesses. In North America, performance was soft in Q3, mainly reflecting ongoing challenges in shavers, shipment phasing effects in stationery, and some unfavorable comparison effect in lighters. These headwinds were partly offset by another strong quarter from Tangle Teezer. Looking ahead to Q4, we expect North America to improve, helped by stronger performance in shavers as we benefit from additional distribution gains and the initial shipments of our new refillable shavers. Lastly, Latin America delivered a weak performance in Q3. This reflects a challenging consumer and competitive environment, as well our deliberate actions to establish healthier lighter inventory levels at our retailers and position the business for 2027. To conclude this first part, organic growth was slightly down despite contrasting regional trends.
Rob Versloot: More importantly, we continue to make progress on our transformation. While 2026 remains a transition year, our performance is encouraging, and we remain focused on delivering our roadmap for sustainable profitable growth. With that, I now hand it over to Grégory to walk you through the net sales performance in more detail.
Grégory Lambertie: Thank you, Rob. Good morning and good afternoon, everyone. Let's begin with an overview of the main drivers of our Q3 sales evolution. Q3 net sales stood at EUR 516 million, broadly stable, driven by negative contributions from lighters for EUR 8 million and stationery for EUR 2 million, partially offset by the positive contribution from shavers and brushes for EUR 5 million, driven mainly by brushes. This quarter, perimeter had a -1.9 percentage points impact on group net sales, and FX, a +2 points impact. Now, let's have a look at the main drivers of the nine-month evolution. Net sales stood at EUR 1,556 million, up 1% organically, driven mainly by the EUR 14 million positive contribution from shavers and brushes.
Grégory Lambertie: Since the beginning of the year, FX and perimeter had a -0.9 point and -2.6 points impact on group net sales, respectively. Turning to slide 8, let me walk you through our Q3 performance by division, starting with stationery. Net sales were EUR 183 million, down 1.1% organically. In Europe, net sales increased slightly, reflecting a mixed back-to-school performance across markets, while countries such as Belgium and Netherlands delivered strong growth. This was partly offset by declines in other markets such as Italy and Germany. As Rob mentioned, our recently launched Vibbies range had strong momentum for its first back-to-school season. In Middle East and Africa, net sales grew mid-single digits, boosted by a strong back-to-school performance across channels in key African countries. In North America, BIC's moderate decline was due to some back-to-school order phasing, with certain orders shipped in Q2 rather than Q3.
Grégory Lambertie: At the same time, the continued weakness in ball pen was partially offset by solid performance in other segments like correction or mechanical pencils. Finally, in Latin America, the challenging trading environment continued to weigh on performance, leading to organic net sales decline in both Brazil and Mexico. Moving on to the performance of the lighter division. Net sales were EUR 170 million, down 4.6% organically. The quarter was impacted by several temporary headwinds that are expected to ease over the coming quarters. First off, in North America, net sales were slightly down, but broadly in line with Q2 in absolute terms, as we continued to stabilize performance following a challenging 2025. Performance was impacted by the unfavorable year-over-year comparison base, reflecting retailer pre-buys ahead of the September 2025 price increase. At the same time, we continue to see positive momentum in the convenience channel, supported by our anti-counterfeit initiatives.
Grégory Lambertie: In Latin America, performance was impacted by temporary factors as we continue to position the business for 2027 and establish healthier inventory levels at retailers across channels. We also faced ongoing competitive pressure, especially in Brazil. In Europe, performance was adversely affected by softer sales in the discount channel across key markets, France and Germany in particular. Turning on to the next slide on shavers and brushes, net sales were EUR 155 million, up 3.9% organically. Our shavers business delivered slight organic growth in Q3. In Europe, we posted a very strong performance, underpinned by distribution gains across the region and also benefiting from the success of premium products like Soleil Escape and Flex 5 Refillable. We grew double digit in Middle East and Africa, fueled by robust commercial execution across key African markets.
Grégory Lambertie: However, our overall shaver performance was negatively impacted by continued declines in North America, where we faced ongoing competition and market share losses, despite some products performing well, like the Flex range. Lastly, in Latin America, net sales also declined, driven by softness in both Brazil and Mexico. In Brazil, we were more negatively impacted by declines in the 1 to 2 blade disposable shavers. However, our premium Flex and Soleil ranges continued to show momentum, supported by key marketing campaigns. Finally, a word on Tangle Teezer's record high performance. It was once again the main growth driver of the division, delivering a remarkable Q3 performance. Growth was driven by double-digit increase in both Europe and North America, supported by the continued success of our flagship collection and the recently launched Complete Care brush range. This leads us to a 29% growth for our brushes division.
Grégory Lambertie: This concludes my review of our Q3 performance. As we look to the remainder of the year, our focus remained on disciplined execution, delivering against our transformation initiatives, and laying the foundations for our new strategic plan beyond 2026. With that, I give the floor back to Rob.
Rob Versloot: Thank you, Grégory. To conclude, our Q3 performance was in line with the expectations we set entering the H2. Based on our year-to-date performance, we reaffirm our guidance and continue to anticipate modest organic growth in 2026, an adjusted EBIT margin slightly above 14%, as well as stable free cash flow year-on-year. We remain confident in our ability to deliver our full year 2026 outlook and are staying focused on disciplined execution for the remainder of the year. Looking ahead, we remain firmly focused on shaping BIC's future. Our transformation is progressing well, laying the groundwork for more sustainable growth and long-term value creation. This quarter's strategic update marked a key milestone, setting out a clear ambition for BIC as we unveiled our BIC to the Future plan. In 2026, we have already done a significant amount of work to put the right foundations in place.
Rob Versloot: As we move closer to 2027, our focus remains on executing the plan and advancing our transformation. With that, we conclude the review of our Q3. We are now happy to take your questions.
Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question, please press star and 1 on your phone keypad. The first question is from Marie-Line Fort Bernstein.
Marie-Line Fort: Yes. Good afternoon. Thank you for taking my question. The first one is about the outlook you mentioned on the US in Q4, mentioning that momentum should improve over the next quarter. I will be curious to know in which division you are a bit more constructive for the end of the year. Also, in Latin America, sorry, the decline is quite significant over Q3. I would be curious also to have some color about Q4 as you are entering in the back-to-school season. Do you think you could also benefit from a better prospect and also after having cleaned the inventories for the lighters business? And finally, on Tangle Teezer, you have still printed a very strong performance in Q3. Is it something that we could extrapolate over the year, or is there some stock effect? I do not know.
Marie-Line Fort: Just to know if it is representative from your midterm outlook for this brand. Thank you very much.
Rob Versloot: Hello, Marie-Line Fort. This is Rob speaking. Let me answer the three questions that you asked. Starting, your first question was related to the US, and more concretely about our expectations for Q4. For Q4 in the US, we expect an overall improvement in the US, driven mostly by shavers, as we will materialize additional distribution gains, which we recently welcomed, and we will also start shipping our new refillable shavers. So, there will be some selling in, some pipeline, which we will have in Q4. So, that would be the reasons for why we are expecting some improvement in the US in Q4.
Rob Versloot: Moving on to Latin America, we expect for Q4 Latin America, our organic growth to continue to be soft in the regions, as the actions we are taking in lighters will continue. We see this as a temporary factor, as we are positioning the business for growth in 2027. Lastly, you were inquiring about Tangle Teezer. We indeed had a record performance in the third quarter, with almost 30% of growth. We expect less for Q4, but overall performance of Tangle Teezer should remain in strong double digits territory, as we will continue to benefit from the Complete Care brush launch, which we just launched now in September. Thank you.
Operator: As a reminder, if you wish to register for a question, please press star and 1 on your telephone. Once again, if you wish to register for a question, please press star and 1 on your telephone. The next question is from Andrei Condrea, UBS.
Andrei Condrea: Thank you very much, and good evening, Rob, Grégory. Two questions from me, please. First of all, when we think about, I know it is a bit early, it is still Q3, but thinking a bit into 2027, we have seen this season, this earnings season, more and more companies start giving some inkling as to how they are thinking cost inflation is shaping up. The only real question is, relative to 2026, how are you thinking about input cost inflation going into next year? Should we expect a relatively similar increase in percentage terms, or could it accelerate further, given how persistently strong oil has been? Thank you.
Grégory Lambertie: Thank you, Andrei. I think it is a clear question. As you can imagine, we monitor raw material pretty consistently. We have taken some proactive action, including selective hedging, to mitigate the input cost pressures. For example, we executed some hedging on aluminum to secure some of the 2027 volume. Overall, in 2026, the raw material impact is flat to slightly negative, whereas in 2027, we expect inflationary pressure to intensify with higher input costs, and we will aim to offset that through targeted pricing actions.
Andrei Condrea: Understood. Thank you. Sorry, if I could squeeze in a quick follow-up, Gregory. Walk us through why you expect your raw materials to be flat to slightly negative. What has been the moving parts there for this year? Thank you.
Grégory Lambertie: Yeah. I think here it is also a matter of timing for us. There is a time lag between the time when we start purchasing and the time it hits our P&L because of the production cycle and then the payment cycle. So it is generally between 4 to 6 months, and therefore the 2026 impact is limited and it is mainly hitting 2027.
Andrei Condrea: Understood. Thanks very much.
Grégory Lambertie: Welcome.
Operator: As a reminder, if you wish to register for a question, please press star and 1 on your telephone. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star and 1 on your telephone. The next question is from Alessandro Cuglietta, Kepler Cheuvreux.
Alessandro Cuglietta: Yes, hi. Good evening. Thanks for taking my question. I just have one on FX. We have seen some currencies moving quite a lot recently. I am just wondering if you see that for full year 2027 turning into a tailwind for you on the cost side. I know you have some hedgings, but any color on that would be helpful.
Grégory Lambertie: For 2026, we expect an unfavorable FX impact, mainly due to US dollar. For 2027, we do not have any particular color yet.
Alessandro Cuglietta: Okay. Thank you.
Operator: Once again, if you wish to register for a question, please press star and 1 on your telephone. Gentlemen, there are no more questions registered at this time. I will now hand it back to Rob for final remarks.
Rob Versloot: Thank you for your questions. We look forward to engage with you once the year has closed. Wishing you all a nice evening. Thank you very much.
Grégory Lambertie: Thank you.
