Amrize (AMRZ) Q3 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

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DATE

Thursday, Oct. 29, 2026

CALL PARTICIPANTS

• Vice President of Investor Relations - Dillon Cumming
• Chairman and Chief Executive Officer - Jan Jenisch
• Chief Financial Officer - Samuel Poletti

TAKEAWAYS

• Revenue -- $3,771 million, reflecting a 2.2% increase driven by price increases of $78 million and acquisition contributions of $77 million.
• Adjusted EBITDA -- $1,076 million, representing 0.2% growth as pricing gains were partially offset by higher freight, diesel, and raw material costs.
• Net Income -- $558 million, increasing 3.3% due to higher pricing and savings from the ASPIRE operational program.
• Diluted EPS -- $1.02, representing 4.1% growth compared to $0.98 in the prior year period.
• Building Materials Margin -- 33.0%, reflecting a 30 basis point expansion driven by pricing growth in cement and aggregates and traction with surcharges.
• Cement Price per Ton -- $173.10, representing 1.8% growth on a constant currency basis supported by the company's market-leading footprint.
• Aggregates Price per Ton -- $14.80, representing 6.9% growth on a constant currency basis due to broad-based price realization across geographic markets.
• Cement Volumes -- 6.8 million tons, a 4.2% decline resulting from unfavorable weather patterns in the Northeast, South, and Central regions.
• Aggregates Volumes -- 40.1 million tons, a 0.2% decrease as weather headwinds were mitigated by acquisition benefits and infrastructure project demand.
• Building Envelope Revenue -- $929 million, growing 3.6% driven by stronger commercial roofing volumes and positive pricing traction.
• Building Envelope Adjusted EBITDA -- $182 million, a 14.6% decrease resulting from raw material inflation and higher freight costs.
• ASPIRE Savings -- $73 million, achieved year-to-date through strategic sourcing and operational projects across 1,000 new suppliers.
• Surcharges -- $23 million, contributed by energy, fuel, and freight fees to offset lagged inflationary impacts.
• Pricing Tailwind -- $78 million, excluding surcharges, as management successfully implemented April and sequential price increases.
• Volume Headwind -- $69 million, primarily impacting the cement and aggregates business lines due to regional weather disruptions.
• Acquisition Performance -- $77 million, contributed by PB Materials and Rapid Redi-Mix, which management reported are exceeding initial expectations.
• Capital Expenditures -- $262 million, focused on cement terminal expansions and six major aggregates quarry expansions.
• Share Repurchases -- $1 billion, representing the completion of the company's repurchase authorization as of Oct. 28, 2026.
• Dividends -- $0.11 per share, declared for the third quarter and to be paid on Nov. 18, 2026, from capital contribution reserves.
• Full Year Revenue Guidance -- $12.2 billion to $12.4 billion, updated to reflect current construction market volumes and interest rate environments.
• Full Year Adjusted EBITDA Guidance -- $2.95 billion to $3.05 billion, incorporating ongoing oil price-driven cost inflation.
• Net Leverage Ratio -- 1.8x, based on trailing 12-month adjusted EBITDA and net debt of $5,549 million.
• Total Liquidity -- $3.4 billion, including $299 million in cash and cash equivalents to support growth investments and shareholder returns.
• Interest Expense Guidance -- $340 million, projected for the full year 2026.
• Aggregates Reserves -- 150 million tons, representing the planned addition from six ongoing quarry expansion projects.

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RISKS

• Jenisch stated, "We expect this environment to continue through at least the fourth quarter with normal seasonal destocking trends likely to weigh on Q4 shingle demand," regarding the outlook for residential roofing volumes.
• Jenisch warned that "elevated interest rates could affect the timing of some projects," which may influence the conversion of the commercial project pipeline into active demand.
• Poletti noted that Building Envelope margins "were unfavorably impacted by the ongoing delay between price realization and oil-driven inflation across our cost base."

SUMMARY

Amrize AG (NYSE:AMRZ) reported revenue growth of 2.2% driven by pricing gains and contributions from recent acquisitions, though weather-related volume declines and cost inflation impacted overall segment performance. Management reported that the Building Materials segment achieved margin expansion through effective pricing and operational efficiencies from the ASPIRE program. The Building Envelope segment faced headwinds from raw material inflation and soft residential roofing demand, leading the company to push its expectation for price-over-cost positivity in that segment to 2027. The company completed a $1 billion share repurchase program and updated its full-year guidance to reflect the impact of elevated interest rates and persistent energy-driven costs.

• Management reported that the company's megaprojects pipeline remains strong, with Jan Jenisch stating, "We continue to see a strong pipeline of mega projects leading the way for both materials and roofing systems."
• The company is expanding its regional footprint through the integration of PB Materials in West Texas and Rapid Redi-Mix in Dallas-Fort Worth, both of which are expected to be EPS accretive this year.
• Management indicated that the ASPIRE savings program is on track to reach its full-year goal of $80 million, with a long-term target of $250 million in savings through 2028.
• The company expects steady demand from infrastructure funding, noting that the Draft BUILD America 250 Act includes support for cement and aggregates intensive projects.
• Management noted that cement imports were minimal this year, as the company's strategy focuses on strengthening domestic supply chains and local production capacity.
• Production expansion continues with a new state-of-the-art shingle plant in Indiana, which management stated will allow the company to increase market share in the Midwest and Eastern markets.

INDUSTRY GLOSSARY

• Aggregates: Raw materials such as sand, gravel, and crushed stone used in construction and infrastructure projects.
• ASPIRE: The company's operational excellence program focused on driving synergies and cost savings across logistics, procurement, and production.
• Building Envelope: A business segment focused on roofing and wall systems, including membranes, insulation, and protective coatings.
• Ready-mix: Concrete that is specifically manufactured for delivery to a customer's construction site in a freshly mixed and unhardened state.
• TPO: Thermoplastic Polyolefin, a single-ply roofing membrane used primarily in commercial construction.

Full Conference Call Transcript

Operator: Hello, and welcome to the Amrize's Q3 2026 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Also as a reminder, this conference is being recorded today. If you have any objections, please disconnect at this time. I will now turn the call over to Dillon Cumming.

Dillon Cumming: Thank you, and good morning. This is Dillon Cumming, Vice President of Investor Relations for Amrize. Welcome to Amrize's Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. We released our third quarter financial results yesterday after the market closed. You can find both our earnings release and presentation for today's call in the Investor Relations section of our website at investors.amrize.com. On the call with me today is Jan Jenisch, Chairman and CEO; and Sam Poletti, CFO. Before we begin, during the call and in our slide presentation, we reference certain non-GAAP financial measures, which we believe provide useful information for investors. We include reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures to U.S. GAAP in our earnings release and slide presentation.

As a reminder, today's call is being webcast live and recorded. The transcript and recording of this conference call will be posted to our website. Any statements made about future results and performance, plans, expectations and objectives are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ from those presented during the call due to various factors, including, but not limited to, those discussed in our 2025 Form 10-K and in other reports filed with the SEC. The company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements.

Please also note that in today's presentation, certain prior period financial information includes revisions that were not material to any previously issued consolidated financial statements. Additional information regarding these revisions can be found in our Form 8-K filed with the SEC yesterday after the U.S. market close. With that, I will now turn the call over to Jan.

Jan Jenisch: Thank you, Dillon, and thank you all for joining us today. I will begin with our top highlights and takeaways. We made important progress across our business in the third quarter. We increased revenue 2.2% on strong pricing and contributions from our recent acquisitions. This demonstrates the strength of our network and strategic footprint to deliver resilient results even with weather patterns affecting volumes across construction markets. We grew net income 3.3% to $558 million and increased adjusted EBITDA to $1.1 billion. Diluted earnings per share increased 4.1% to $1.02. Importantly, we expanded our margins in Building Materials by 30 basis points.

This was thanks to strong pricing growth in cement and aggregates and solid traction with our energy, fuel and freight surcharges to offset oil price-driven cost inflation as well and excellent progress with our ASPIRE savings program. These results demonstrate our strong market position and our commitment to operational efficiency. Our Building Envelope business continued to see strong commercial roofing momentum, led by expanded system sales, large-scale data centers and industrial projects, while residential roofing was soft due to lower sales of both new and existing homes as well as softer re-roofing activity. Segment profitability was affected by higher freight, raw material costs and the lower shingles volumes. We are proactively managing what we can control.

Our pricing improved sequentially and year-over-year, and we had solid traction with our fuel and freight surcharges. We continue to successfully execute on our capital allocation strategy of investing for profitable growth through CapEx and M&A while returning cash to our shareholders. We executed on $262 million of CapEx in the quarter, focused on attractive growth projects to expand production and improve efficiency and best serve our customers. Our recent acquisitions, PB Materials and Rapid Redi-Mix, have been excellent additions to Amrize. Both positively contributing to our results and further strengthening our footprint in the Texas market. Through the third quarter, we have delivered $1.1 billion of cash to shareholders with our dividends and share repurchases.

As of October 28, yesterday, we successfully completed our $1 billion share repurchase authorization. Our Board has declared a third quarter dividend of $0.11 per share. Let's now look at our market environment. In this quarter, we saw weather patterns impact construction volumes. In commercial construction, which makes up half of our business, we continue to see a strong pipeline of mega projects leading the way for both materials and roofing systems. Building Materials projects that broke ground in the third and fourth quarter of last year are now converting into Building Envelope demand.

While elevated interest rates could affect the timing of some projects, we expect continued strong long-term demand for these projects, particularly data centers, advanced manufacturing plants and energy projects. These carry multiyear run times and our footprint, scale and distribution network with over 1,000 sites across North America is uniquely positioned to serve customers for these attractive projects. In addition to the commercial projects, the required infrastructure upgrades associated with these projects offer a variety of opportunities for our business. Turning to infrastructure. State and federally funded projects continue to support steady demand.

The recent infrastructure funding extension should continue to offer near-term support for infrastructure activity in the U.S., and we expect the successor bill to drive a long-term infrastructure tailwind for our business. The Draft BUILD America 250 Act includes strong funding for cement and aggregates intensive projects. In Canada, the federal and provincial governments are committing substantial funding to infrastructure. This includes their Build Communities Strong Fund and Ontario's 10-year capital plan with investments in national infrastructure, energy, public transportation, health care and housing. These programs are expected to support long-term demand for cement, aggregates and concrete in Canada. Within the residential sector, interest rates and affordability challenges continue to limit new construction in the quarter.

Re-roofing remained pressured by a lack of significant storms and lower levels of existing home turnover. We expect this environment to continue through at least the fourth quarter with normal seasonal destocking trends likely to weigh on Q4 shingle demand. We expect an eventual return to normal weather patterns and the structural housing shortage to eventually drive a return to industry growth over the long-term. Overall, we see mega projects continuing to lead the way for Amrize. Underlying growth trends, including onshoring of manufacturing, AI, energy, infrastructure and population growth are resilient, growing and long-term in nature. These projects have significant size and scale for Amrize. Let me share some examples of our customer projects underway.

In North Dakota, we are supplying both building materials and our Elevate MAX PVC roofing system for a new data center project. In Hubbard, Texas, we are supplying cement, aggregates and ready-mix concrete for a new 5-gigawatt campus that represents the second largest data center under construction in Texas. In Louisiana, we are supplying high-performance cement and slag for a new 12-mile long water infrastructure channel that will divert excess flood waters to protect nearby communities. In the Toronto area, we are supplying aggregates and concrete for a large highway infrastructure modernization. On the Building Envelope side, we are supplying our Elevate UltraPly TPO system for a new cold storage facility in the Pacific Northwest.

Both our Duro-Last and Elevate brands are supplying multiple education and school construction projects across North America. These are just some examples of our current projects and our pipeline continues to grow. Let us turn to our ASPIRE program. As we continue to deliver for our customers, we are also driving synergies and operational excellence with ASPIRE. Our team has been successful in executing hundreds of projects across raw materials, services, logistics and equipment with an ongoing focus on strategic sourcing initiatives as well. For example, we have onboarded about 1,000 new suppliers. We have now achieved year-to-date savings of $73 million, which has proven especially important in the current inflationary environment.

This gives us a high degree of confidence in our full year target of $80 million, and we are on track for our long-term goal of $250 million in savings through 2028. Let us review our growth investments. We spent $262 million in CapEx in the third quarter. This includes production expansion and debottlenecking initiatives across several of our cement plants. These initiatives are focused in attractive markets like Texas, Alberta and Quebec, where we expect population and economic growth to drive customer demand for our solutions in the years to come. Cement terminal expansions in Memphis, Kansas City, Cincinnati, Columbus and Lubbock, Texas represent further growth projects that will continue to strengthen our distribution network in attractive growth markets.

Our teams continue to execute 6 major aggregates quarry expansions aimed at adding more than 150 million tons of reserves to support our growth. In Building Envelope, our team continues to make excellent progress on our new state-of-the-art Malarkey shingle plant in Indiana. This will enable us to expand market share in the attractive Midwest and Eastern markets. Looking at M&A, we are executing our strategy with a strong focus on synergies and growth markets. Our acquisition of PB Materials, the aggregates leader in West Texas, is proving to be an excellent addition and is exceeding our initial expectations. This quarter, we closed the acquisition of Rapid Redi-Mix, a fast-growing concrete producer in Dallas-Fort Worth.

Both acquisitions are EPS accretive this year and are delivering significant synergies with our aggregates operations and cement network in the region, complementing the planned expansion of our Midlothian cement plant. These actions demonstrate how we align our M&A and CapEx investments to connect our network and capitalize on growth opportunities. We are continuing to deliver cash to shareholders with year-to-date capital return now standing at $1.1 billion. We completed our $1 billion share repurchase program on October 28, representing around 4% of share capital. We have now paid $364 million of dividends year-to-date, including the special dividend for 2025 and the first and second quarter dividends of $0.11 per share earlier this year.

Additionally, the Amrize Board of Directors has declared a dividend of $0.11 per share for the third quarter to be paid on November 18. Importantly, these dividends are paid out of capital contribution reserves and are not subject to Swiss withholding tax. I will now turn it to Sam to review our quarterly financial results in more detail and later discuss our full year guidance.

Samuel Poletti: Thank you, Jan. Turning to our results for the third quarter. We delivered a resilient year-over-year revenue growth of 2.2% as accelerating pricing traction in both segments complemented positive contributions from completed M&A. This reflects the insulated position of our inland markets, accelerating aggregates pricing and contributions from our premium cement product offerings, which taken together should continue to drive above-market pricing growth through the cycle. We have also successfully passed energy, fuel and freight surcharges across both segments to offset increasing cost of production, which are continuing to flow through on a lagged basis. In total, price accounted for a $78 million tailwind in the quarter which excludes additional contributions from surcharges across the majority of our business lines.

These surcharges added a further $23 million to our year-over-year revenue change in the quarter. Volume performance in the quarter was mixed with unfavorable pressure from weather, particularly in the Northeast, South and Central regions. These volumes pressures were most pronounced in our cement and aggregates business lines. Commercial roofing volumes remained strong, while residential roofing volumes remained under pressure from lower storm-related re-roofing demand. Altogether, volumes represented $69 million headwind in the quarter. Our acquisitions continue to outperform expectations with PB Materials and Rapid Redi-Mix contributing a total of $77 million in revenue for the quarter. Now to review our adjusted EBITDA performance. In the third quarter, adjusted EBITDA was slightly up year-over-year to $1.1 billion.

Pricing actions and M&A drove the entirety of our resilient year-over-year improvement with partial offsets from lower volumes and continued inflationary impacts from freight, diesel and raw materials. Our ASPIRE savings continue to mitigate the magnitude of these cost items, contributing to a positive price over cost position at the consolidated company level. We continue to take pricing actions and surcharges across all parts of our business to address the persistent inflation in U.S. freight rates, direct diesel expense and raw material expense in both segments. Turning now to our results by segments. For Building Materials, revenue grew 1.8% year-over-year to $2.8 billion.

By product, cement pricing saw year-over-year growth of 1.8%, a positive inflection versus the 0.2% year-over-year decline reported last quarter. Year-over-year, improvement was broad-based across markets and continues to reflect the benefits of our market-leading cement footprint. We also saw strong aggregates pricing growth of 6.9%, which represents an acceleration versus pricing growth of 4% last quarter. Similar to cement, growth in the quarter was broad-based and supported across our geographic footprint. Cement volumes fell 4.2% year-over-year. As previously mentioned, volumes saw unfavorable impact from weather patterns in several of our key regions in the quarter. Aggregates volumes were down 0.2% year-over-year.

Similar to our cement footprint, headwinds from weather were offset by benefits from acquisitions and steady demand from multiyear infrastructure projects. Building Materials adjusted EBITDA increased 2.7% year-over-year to $938 million. This year-over-year improvement was led by strong pricing and positive contributions from acquisitions, partially offset by ongoing headwinds from higher freight and diesel costs. Our ASPIRE savings helped to partially mitigate headwinds from these costs. As mentioned, we continue to implement surcharges across both cement and aggregates, which over time should more fully offset the inflationary impacts of oil and energy seen year-to-date. Turning to Building Envelope.

Revenues grew 3.6% year-over-year to $929 million, driven by stronger volumes in commercial roofing and positive pricing traction across both commercial and residential roofing. We continue to see success from our system-focused sales strategy, combined with positive contributions from large-scale projects, including data centers, warehousing and education. Overall, commercial roofing demand remains resilient. Turning to residential. Underlying market conditions faced ongoing headwinds from slower existing home sales and a lack of significant storms. Affordability challenges continue to limit residential new construction. Building Envelope adjusted EBITDA was down 14.6% year-over-year with tailwinds from stronger volumes entirely offset by raw material inflation and higher freight.

Margins were unfavorably impacted by the ongoing delay between price realization and oil-driven inflation across our cost base. Importantly, at a segment level, pricing increased sequentially and inflected positive on a year-over-year basis. As previously announced, actions continue to gain traction through the course of the quarter. Freight and fuel surcharges continue to ramp in Building Envelope segment as well, which were additive to the underlying pricing growth in the quarter. We expect this trajectory of price improvement to continue through Q4 and into '27, which will help to drive the sequential improvement in our price over cost spread in Q4 versus Q3. We have a strong balance sheet and investment-grade credit ratings.

As of September 30, '26, on a trailing 12-month basis, our net leverage ratio was 1.8x. We had approximately $299 million of cash and cash equivalents with $3.4 billion of total available liquidity. This financial strength, coupled with our investment-grade balance sheet, gives us a significant liquidity to deploy capital for growth investments, acquisitions and return cash to shareholders. The strength of our balance sheet and resilience of our cash flow profile puts us in a favorable position for capital allocation. We will continue to maintain a balanced approach between organic growth investments, M&A and cash return to shareholders. I will now pass the call back to Jan to review our updated '26 guidance.

Jan Jenisch: Thank you, Sam. In Building Materials, we expect cement pricing to be positive in the fourth quarter and to be flat to low single digit for the full year. We expect aggregates pricing at mid-single-digit growth for the full year. Elevated interest rates could drive softer volumes in our Building Materials segment in the fourth quarter. We expect to be price over cost positive in Building Materials with price growth, energy, fuel and freight surcharges and our ASPIRE savings offsetting ongoing oil price-driven cost inflation. In Building Envelope, roofing markets remain mixed with positive commercial volumes offset by weather-related challenges in residential.

As a result of a lack of significant storms and ongoing affordability challenges, we expect normal seasonal destocking patterns to weigh on fourth quarter shingle demand. This will likely pressure shipments at an industry level. We continue to see good traction with our pricing actions and surcharges in both commercial and residential and expect further improvements in the price over cost spread in the fourth quarter versus the third quarter. However, the magnitude of year-over-year inflation has pushed our expectations for price over cost positivity into 2027.

Our ASPIRE program remains on track to deliver $80 million in savings in 2026 with our teams focused on saving initiatives to address both underlying cost opportunities and efforts to mitigate cost inflation in both segments. As a reminder, there was a $36 million net insurance benefit in the fourth quarter last year that will not repeat this year. As a result of these changes, we are updating our 2026 revenue and EBITDA guidance. We now expect revenues of $12.2 billion to $12.4 billion and EBITDA of $2.95 billion to $3.05 billion. These updated targets reflect ranges that we view as achievable under a variety of scenarios for the fourth quarter.

With that, I will pass the call back to the operator to begin the Q&A portion of the call.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our first question will come from Anthony Pettinari with Citi.

Anthony Pettinari: Jan, you're obviously absorbing a lot of costs this year. And I'm just wondering, as we look to '27, can you talk about what kind of pricing actions you need to take in cement and aggs to recover those costs into the new year? And then just generally, kind of your confidence in cost recovery in what seems like it could be a softer, or at least a more volatile kind of demand environment.

Jan Jenisch: Yes, thanks for the question. That's a big and important question. I think you have seen that the cost inflation has accelerated from Q2 into Q3. Now very hard to predict what's going to happen next year. I think we're going to revisit that in more detail around the quarter 4. And fundamentally, we expect 2027 to be a year of growth for us. Price momentum should continue. And then we have to see how the global situation evolves if that inflation will stay on that level or if we get some relief here.

Operator: Your next question comes from Trey Grooms with Stephens.

Ethan Roberts: This is Ethan on for Trey. I just wanted to clarify a few of the moving pieces around price cost. So price cost in Building Materials is expected to exit the year in positive territory. But in Building Envelope, it sounds like as you ship on these roofing systems priced at legacy ASP that's being pushed to 2027. So, one, we started to hear some conversation about perhaps some degree of a broadening of cost inflation outside of just freight and energy costs. So to what degree are you seeing this?

And then two, on the Building Envelope price/cost piece, I know you mentioned that it would be positive in 2027, but is there any more color you can give on when exactly, most likely just seasonally not a 1Q event, but any more color on high-level timing there would be great.

Jan Jenisch: No, good question. I think, first of all, I'm very proud of the team to execute this margin expansion of 30 basis points in Building Materials. That was a tough challenge for us. You see our pricing, cement up 1.8% in the third quarter. Aggregates up 6.9% in the third quarter. Then you saw we reported another -- an extra $23 million of surcharges for energy, transportation and diesel, where a large part is also for Building Materials. The teams have really executed very well in this high inflation environment. I'm very proud of that. We believe this will continue. We will carry that good pricing into the fourth quarter.

I think we're going to see satisfactory results we expect to be price over cost positive also in Q4 for Building Materials. So really great job done from the team. I would say for Building Envelope, the challenge was maybe even was a bit steeper, I think. First of all, from -- you mentioned it, the cost inflation went beyond transportation or diesel only. We also have the petrochemicals-based raw materials, which were inflated in Q3. That was obviously a burden for our residential and commercial roofing products. That was a bit steeper on the inflation side. Then maybe second, the market, especially the soft environment for shingles for residential roofing didn't help with the pricing.

Nevertheless, the teams did also a good job here. We increased prices in both product lines or business lines, so in residential and in commercial roofing, which makes us confident for the future. We have then also the surcharges are working well here, especially for transportation, as you mentioned, logistics is up significantly in Q3. So this is good. Now how does this turn? I'm confident our pricing is going well. Surcharge is going well. The one thing not in our control is the inflationary environment. We have that in the question before. We have to see now how this phases out. You saw the crude oil prices where they stand at the moment.

We have to really see how this plays out beginning of the year. But I'm confident that we do everything under our control to reach the target of price over cost positive, but I cannot control the inflationary environment.

Operator: Your next question comes from Bryan Blair with Oppenheimer.

Bryan Blair: I also want to focus on Building Material -- Building Envelope price cost. Are you willing to quantify the dollar or margin impact in Q3? And then what's contemplated in Q4 guidance ahead of the transition to targeted parity or better looking at 2027?

Jan Jenisch: I cannot share that data with you. We obviously have our scenarios what can happen in Q4 and then also importantly, into the next year 2027. We know that the Building Envelope side or especially the commercial and the residential roofing has been on a bit of a roller coaster, right? We started -- we had last year a very slow quarter 4. The comparison base is actually on a low bar for Q4. At the same time, that volume decline led to pricing challenges beginning of the year. Then in Q2, we entered into this very strong inflation. The Building Envelope side is challenged. Same time, we had basically no weather impact like you normally would see.

The re-roofing in residential was largely disturbed the same, the rate increases for interest rates don't help. We have a couple of things challenging at the moment. But again, I think we do the right thing on pricing, on cost mitigation and on surcharges. Now we have to see how the inflation will play out in Q4 and then also for next year.

Operator: Your next question comes from Cedar Ekblom with Morgan Stanley.

Cedar Ekblom: My question relates to the Building Materials business. So in the third quarter, we had a positive price over cost delivery, which is, I think, very encouraging, especially in an environment where volumes were negative. If I'm thinking about the fourth quarter guidance, though, the sort of implication at the midpoint for the year-on-year trend, do I need to think about a negative price over cost in Building Materials in the fourth quarter? Or is the price over cost challenge really centered around the Building Envelope business? So I'm just trying to understand about the sequential price over cost development and how we should think about that in the fourth quarter for materials specifically.

Jan Jenisch: Cedar, no, I already talked a bit about this. I think I'm very confident for Building Materials. We really made -- I would say, our team has made an excellent job in Q3 on the pricing, on the surcharges, on cost mitigation. I think this will stay in quarter 4. I think we have somewhere in the documentation, we also guide for positive price over cost for the fourth quarter, and this is what I'm expecting.

Operator: Your next question comes from Garrett Greenblatt with JPMorgan.

Garrett Samuel Greenblatt: As we think about the M&A environment going forward, given the recent derating across the space and some larger acquisitions across your peers, how are you thinking about the opportunity and the health of the pipeline into 2027? Should we continue to see acquisitions more bolt-on in construction materials? Or could we see something larger, more transformative across your portfolio?

Jan Jenisch: Great question. Look, I think we have a track record of successful M&A, and you can expect that from us also going into the future. I'd like to mention that we have 2 fantastic acquisitions this year already. PB Materials, the leader -- aggregates leader for West Texas. This was a fantastic deal. We have a great team in West Texas. The market is really booming there with all the -- not only oil and gas, but all the projects they have for data centers to energy projects.

We really are even on a good timing, but the company is just great, and we are above expectations for sales and EBITDA and even materials will be fully earnings accretive already this year. Similar fantastic deal with Rapid Redi-Mix. We just closed it on the last day of July in Dallas-Fort Worth, fantastic ready-mix company with huge growth and great team also there. Also here, we expect to close the year above expectations and also this acquisition will be value accretive. While these 2 deals might not qualify for a $1 billion deal, they are very important to us.

They are adding more than 2% in sales and EBITDA in earnings growth, and this is very important for our growth model. Our pipeline is, I would say, we have a very solid pipeline of future M&A, and we're working on it on a daily basis, and I hope we can report more action here in the months to come.

Operator: Our next question comes from David MacGregor with Longbow Research.

David S. MacGregor: Can you hear me?

Jan Jenisch: Yes, we hear you.

David S. MacGregor: Well, congratulations on the strong pricing performance in the quarter in Building Materials, 7% lift in aggs, 2% in cement is pretty impressive in this market. I guess I would like to ask you what you learned from the midyear pricing this year and about what is maybe changing in the demand environment for aggs and cement? And how does that guide your thinking as you develop your beginning of your ask?

Jan Jenisch: That's a good question. Look, first of all, I'm happy. You remember when we talk about Q1 and we talk about aggregates, I think in Q1, we were only at plus 1% in pricing, if I recall correctly. Then we shared that we have the price increase planned for April, and that was true. We then sequentially or year-over-year, we had a 4% aggregates pricing increase for Q2, so fantastic. We followed through. We did a few selected pricing things, but basically really executed the April price increase very well. Now in Q3, we are up 6.9% in aggregates pricing. Very proud of the team.

We have many questions in the past, are you not good in pricing in aggregates or something. I always share we have one of the best DNAs in quarries and aggregates and quality and our teams will show that. I'm really proud that we could do that. In addition, a lot of surcharges, I shared before, we had $23 million just in Q3 in surcharges alone, which was not part of the price. So very happy with this. What did I learn? I tell you, we had a very strong focus on the pricing this year. This is something we talk with the teams or we followed up on really on a weekly basis, and that helped a lot.

We're sharing with the teams different experiences and so on. That really helped. Again, I'm proud of what the team delivered. Cement is similar a bit, right? We promised we were down in pricing in Q1, and then we did the April price increase and teams executed this really well, and now we are standing at 1.8% increase for the third quarter. So well executed. That was maybe a bit more challenging as we have maybe other market participants with softer pricing or something, but we didn't compromise and the teams were really committed to show such a pricing. So very happy, very happy.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Julian Radlinger with UBS.

Julian Radlinger: Can you hear me?

Jan Jenisch: Yes, Julian, go ahead.

Julian Radlinger: Okay. So on Building Materials volumes. So you started the year feeling quite positive on commercial demand, particularly thinking back 9, 12 months now. And you had a good H1, I think, a bit helped by comps, right? Now Q3 volumes were quite soft, a little bit weather affected, that's clear. But what exactly changed here? Was it just weather and weaker resi? Or did commercial or infra also slow down? And from today's point of view, as you're looking to Q4 and then especially into 2027, I mean, is it reasonable to assume that can be a growth year? Or are things trending a little bit more flattish at the moment? Any color would be super interesting.

Jan Jenisch: Julian, thanks for the question. Look, I think we did -- on the volume side, we had a good quarter in commercial roofing. If you want to point to this. We also see very continued demand for commercial roofing going into Q4 and then also for next year and really driven by, I think, icing on the cake is the data centers, but also we have a long pipeline of projects here to be roofed. So this is going very well.

I think on the shingle side, we maybe we don't -- I think we don't show that number, but there was a softer Q3, and there was no storm season this time or something so we have this double effect of less demand and then some destocking in the distribution channel. The shingles had tough quarter. Now we expect this should normalize in the future. I don't see that those volumes will stay that low for next year, especially, and we will get to a more normalized season. So I think -- is that answering your question, Julian?

Julian Radlinger: Excuse me, sorry, Jan, sort of I was actually asking for Materials, not for Envelope. Sorry.

Jan Jenisch: Okay. No, for Materials, I think it's nothing to really worry about. You know that we had actually Building Materials has started to grow middle of last year. We talked about this in previous sessions that Building Materials with more project starts in commercial and the strong infrastructure demand, we had a growth basically every quarter since then. The comp is maybe a little bit more challenging for us at the moment. We had quite some weather effect, especially in Texas and some other regions. I don't want to use this really as an excuse, but that certainly took down the volumes quite significantly in those areas.

We have -- I don't -- I'm quite confident for the volumes now going into Q4 and going into next year. To the one thing I think we also shared with you in the docs is have to see now the recent interest rate increases, how this will play out, the midterm, how this will play out, but nothing in my control. I think we are doing what we always have been doing. We're focusing on acquiring those large projects and supplying our products.

Operator: Your next question comes from Martin Husler with ZKB.

Martin Huesler: I hope you can hear me.

Jan Jenisch: Yes, Martin.

Martin Huesler: Okay. So my question is about the free cash flow conversion. Obviously, you have a midterm target of 50%. And obviously, we can see that the CapEx is a bit higher for this year. But maybe your thoughts on what you can expect for the last quarter? I mean, what range we might end up?

Jan Jenisch: Thank you, Martin, for the question. I pass this over to our CFO, Sam.

Samuel Poletti: Martin, happy to address that. I think from an overall perspective, we're very happy with where cash flow goes. Obviously, we have a seasonal business, which you know. We're always getting the majority of the cash flowing towards the end of the year. This is particularly related to our maintenance programs, which we're doing in the low season. I'm very confident where we see that. We always have a good collection throughout the fourth quarter. I would still expect that we are a bit lower on cash conversion. It's not at the 50% level.

That's going to be a bit down because we are investing more into our business, and we see that fruits then coming into fruition basically then into the next quarters and particularly next year.

Operator: Our last question comes from Yassine Touahri with On Field Investment Research.

Yassine Touahri: I think your reporting suggests that you imported a bit more than 2 million tonnes of cement last year or around 10% of your volume. And I remember you mentioned that last summer that you intend to reduce import to just a few hundred thousand tonnes. Could you give us an indication of your import run rate this year and your expectations for next year?

And also on import, do you think that cement producer might take a more measured approach to pricing in coastal market to discourage importers for expanding in a context where -- or even maybe push some out of the market in a context where they will probably see some significant pressure from a higher freight rate?

Jan Jenisch: No, look, our strategy is not to import cement. I mean we have, as Amrize, a specific strategy to strengthen all our domestic supply chains. We see as we are a local to local partner with local supply chains, you see in our CapEx, we are increasing our flagship plants, the capacity and the efficiency here going into the future. We just finalized the big investment in Ste. Genevieve, the largest single cement plant in North America. We have other projects now in Canada, in Texas to increase capacity and efficiency. This is our future. We have almost no cement imports this year because that's not our strategy. You see also our vision for the company.

We are certifying now all our cement plants made in America, Canadian ones as product of Canada. These are official logos from the government. We are able to obtain, and this is our strategy, local for local supply chains, and we don't believe that import strategy is necessarily sustainable or has sufficient returns. And you will see that from us. I think we demonstrated now Q3, people talk about imports. Well, we increased the price, we increased the margins.

I think you can expect more of that from us in the future, especially on the efficiency side, we believe we have a lot of leverage here going into the future as we have covered quite some -- had to cover quite some cost increase over the last couple of years. So very confident, but precisely to your question, basically not an importer this year of cement.

Operator: Thank you. We have no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back over to Jan Jenisch for closing remarks.

Jan Jenisch: Yes. Thank you very much for joining us today for the third quarter, and I very much look forward to engage with you in the future, especially for our fourth quarter report coming up in February. Thank you very much.

Operator: This concludes the Amrize's Q3 2026 Earnings Conference Call. You may now disconnect.

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