EL.En. Aktie

Good afternoon to everyone, and welcome to EL.En.'s conference call to present the first half 2026 financial results. Today's call will be recorded, and there will be an opportunity for questions and answers at the end of the presentation. With us on the call today are Andrea Cangioli, El.En's Chief Executive Officer; and Enrico Romagnoli, El.En Chief Financial Officer and Investor Relations Manager. Before we begin, please note that during this conference call, management will make certain statements regarding future expectations, plans and prospects.

These statements may include the forward-looking statements and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied. Certain statements in this call, including those addressing the company's beliefs, plans, objectives, estimates or expectation of possible future results or events are forward-looking statements.

Forward-looking statements involve known or unknown risks, including general economic and business conditions in the industry in which we operate. These statements may be affected if our assumptions turn out to be inaccurate. Consequently, no forward-looking statements can be guaranteed and actual future results, performance or achievements may vary materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. The company undertakes no obligation to update the contents or the forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances that may arise after the date hereof.

After the end of the presentation, [Operator Instructions]. Thank you for joining us today.

We will now begin the conference call, and I would like to give the floor to Andrea Cangioli. Andrea, please go ahead.

Thank you. Thank you, Nicola. Thank you. and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us in this call. As usual, iporoManioli will hold the call with me. I'll try to limit the number of figures, financial figures and just to stick on a description of what has been going on in the 6 months and leave the financial part to leave the financial part to Enrico. We have several interesting topics to talk about in this first half of 2020.

On one side, the excellent performance of our current activities. And on the other one, the announced divestiture of the Liza Cutting division. The first half confirmed the strength of the group growth trajectory and the direction we have been pursuing for some time and increasing focus on the medical sector.

Following last year's sale of Penta Laser Zhejiang at Sean, we took a further step finalizing at the beginning of August an agreement for the sale of the majority stake of Catalyst Penta and of the residual parts of our laser cutting business to the market leader tools. To put this deal in the appropriate frame, at Light is leading the laser cutting division of Mailand Group, which includes a few distribution companies, including the long-term old Catlin to Brazil.

And in 2025, accounted for EUR 121 million and change in revenues and EUR 2 million in EBIT, basically breaking even in terms of net income, also due to interest expense on a net financial debt of about EUR 16 million. In both the year 2025 and the first 6 months of 2026, the business has been somehow struggling amid a complex market situation.

Among others, I would like to recall the uncertainties and fluctuation cast on our main market, the Italian domestic market but the announcements of tax policies supporting CapEx that have been not timely folded up by the actual implementation of such furnaces. But most important, it's now more than 2 years that Catlin in the company. The group has been operating under an imminent M&A condition.

At first, when it was supposed to be sold together with our Chinese business and based on such news at risk to lose its U.S. business. And recently, when word-of-mouth concerning the possible sale to truth has been leveraged by competitors to undermine customers and potential customers' confidence in Cutlite.

By having Cutlite entered the tranche world, we are positive. We are giving to Cutlite and it's more than 200 employees, the best opportunity to enhance their unique capabilities within an organization which is fully focused on the same business area and that will create the right environment and synergies for Cutlite to continue its growth with the success it deserves.

The transaction itself provides a handover of the business at terms that take into consideration its low profitability and material indebtedness. Therefore, as the price will be set according to future performance also, the currently foreseeable price corresponds to a certain loss in terms of P&L, considering the current value of the assets.

While on an early financial profile, the net financial position impact is already widely positive as we are releasing the financial net. What's more relevant for our future is the strategic repositioning effect of the sale on our business goal.

With the medical sectors weight within our revenues growing from 72% in 2025 to 92% in the first half of 2026 according to the new perimeter. This said on laser cutting, I will complete the industrial sector picture before moving to medical.

Following the laser cutting divestment, our remaining activities in the industrial business are now organized around 3 pillars: marking, laser sources and the conservation of artistic heritage. Marking is carried on by Livit that specialized in systems for identification and decoration of typically small surfaces and by solid state laser sources. Small logos, barcodes, QR codes are the typical output of a last marking system, where the outlet markets cover a range that goes from automotive to the promotional and the fashion world from medical devices to electronic consumer goods.

Atlas covers the large surface systems for decoration and for selected technical applications. EL.En itself with its industrial division is providing mid-power CO2 laser sources and sophisticated scanning systems to Atlas and also to third parties, also developing an engineering with special purpose systems, which involve both our laser sources and our scanning know-how.

The conservation of artistic heritage is by far the most exciting and rewarding business in terms not of financial satisfaction, but based on the beauty of the master pieces that our technologies are returning to lives. Business-wise, is expanding, but it is and it will stay timing. These businesses, both together will contribute to consolidated revenues for around EUR 40 million in 2026.

In terms -- I mean for the whole year, -- in terms of sales, this business runs on margins that are more similar, sometimes even higher than in the medical field. The same could apply to EBIT and EBIT margin upon achievement of certain volume thresholds that were not met this year, but that were met in the past.

Also in the recent past ballast, which is the largest of this organization, which is worth just shy of EUR 30 million of revenues per year.

Now let's look at our main business. Within the medical sector, performance was strong and broad-based across our operating units, Deca, fantasistant, Asclera ASA and our appreciation segment and our application segments, they all contributed positively.

The aesthetics segment stood out with double-digit growth, driven particularly by anti-aging applications. where we hold an international leadership position, thanks to our micro ablative CO2 technologies and other innovative noninvasive platform like on the pro and red touch flow. And also a variety of PICO and nanosecond short systems that are extensively used for the tolling application, especially in the [indiscernible]. The growth in the aesthetics segment is especially meaningful given the headwinds we face in the Hermal segment, a trend that is now taking place from several years and that in this 2026 has continued also due to uncertainties that the words are imposing on the Middle East area, which is one of the most important markets for us.

And believe me, we are not leaving any stone unturned to relaunch this segment, which still represents roughly 1/3 of our aesthetics Systems sales. Just to give you an example, we had a planned months ago to participate to the Dubai derm exhibit this week exhibition investing both in the exhibition booth and in the traveling of our staff and our selected KOLs, but the move had to stay with our distributor only in a barely visited venue and our staff could not fly to the area. Also, it's not written in my notes.

I would like to tell you that the success of a in this moment, which, for sure, is 1 of the main drivers of the growth in last year. is so strong that for the first time, we are experiencing a large number of competitors that are trying to blatantly copy our device. -- especially certain fares manufacturers, made great effort in trying to copy one, and we are trying to distribute systems, which are really I mean we try to call that without even getting close in terms of performance, but of course, by creating -- by creating lots of confusion on the market.

I just received the report. This is why I'm mentioning to you, which leaves copies available on the market for -- to Onda pro. Of course, we are fighting with the appropriate legal means this trend. But I mean, it is something that has never happened before for any product in our product range. So back to the fact that in aesthetics, we grow double digits, notwithstanding the notwithstanding the decline in the removal sales.

I have to add that the good news here is that even with the declining performance of Hero we are doing very well. And furthermore, the overall margins in the segment are improving since the decline in revenues involve the most competitive application segment. while our flagship innovative anti-aging systems bear higher margins as their value proposition is well accepted on the market, as I just mentioned.

Surgical applications also performed strongly, supported by neurology and my CO2 laser solution both for E&P and gynecology. Urology system sales achieved by far, the largest sales volume within the Surgical segment. And the continuous expansion of the installed base is also the driver for future sales of consumables, each surgical procedure performed by a neurology laser system requires sterile optical fiber, and we provide such consumable to our customer base.

Therefore, in combination to system sales, fiber sales are nicely aligning to a growth trend, which is materially accretive to our profitability as the sales and marketing and operation expense involved in the sales of steroid fiber are much lower than the expense and effort involved in selling a laser system.

In the first half of 2026, we started up an important activity in the neurology field at the expiration of the distribution agreement with its historical distributor in the United States, Quant assistant moved to establish its own distribution and logistics hub in the United States, which started its operation in the second quarter.

The positive effects of the subsidiary operation on our business and our P&L are evident from the very beginning with Quanta U.S. providing additional sales volume, gross margin and EBIT and consolidating Pasta Systems leadership within the len Group in terms both of sales volume and profitability. The therapy segment contributed positively as well. with a minor growth.

A very significant agreement with our U.S. distributor was signed in July moving to a closer cooperation between our company in charge of the therapy business, ASA, and its historical distributor and the 4 largest customer. As jointly with an funded the distributor with a convertible loan that is expected to convert at first in 20% of the shares of the distributor, also triggering an option to further increase our equity stake in the future.

It's a small transaction for the group, but it's very relevant one for the ASA business and for the therapy business. We also experienced in the 6 months, a very important organizational change with the resignation for personal reasons of our General Manager, Paolo Sabadell, whose employment was concluded in this month of July.

I would like to thank him for the valuable contribution he made to our activities and also for excellent job in improving the managerial performance of several individuals working close to him. Based on these new capabilities, we were able to design a new organizational structure, particularly in EL.En, in Deka business unit where Paulo was operating here in our premises in Florence, where certain managers emerged to higher responsibility reporting directly to the executive directors without the need of replacing General Manager position.

The outlook on our markets remains positive. I'm not telling you anything new. We feel very confident in our capabilities and in the organization that we have crafted for pursuing the growth that our outlet markets seem to be able to sustain.

We are now experiencing a phase of high profitability, and this is not taking place at the expense of the investment. And I mean also P&L investment, especially in R&D. I see the products that are granting our current success like on Onda pro, I know how they have been designed, build generated and brought to success in the market.

And I know that we have the capabilities to bring them up to the markets, new products that based on new technologies or on improvements of the effectiveness of existing technologies will be able in the future to replicate the success of our flagship devices.

I give the floor to Enrico for the comments on our financial performance.

Thank you, Andrea. Good afternoon to everybody. Usual, we will briefly comment the first half financial results released yesterday. The half year report has been prepared in accordance with the IFRS accounting standard, reclassifying the contribution of the industrial cutting division of Catlett Penta in the discounted asset liabilities and income statement result according to the IFRS 5 for the current year.

While for the previous year, the reclassification concern only the income statement due to the binding agreement send and communicated on August 7, which provides for the sales of 80% of the laser cutting business division. In the first half of 2026, the group closed with revenues exceeding EUR 246 million, up more than 9% compared to the same period in 2025, EUR 226 million, confirming the positive performance of the first quarter.

In the first half of the year, the Medical segment posted growth over 10% driven by strong performance in the second quarter, plus 11.4% versus 9.2% in the Q1. Conversely, revenue in the remaining industrial sector declined. Gross margin for the first half stood at EUR 122.8 million, up 12.4% compared to the EUR 109.2 million on June 25.

The improved sales margin recorded in the quarter reflects the more favorable business mix supported by the growing impact of the medical sector, which following the sales of the laser cutting business now represent over 92% of the revenue.

Operating expense to EUR 26.9 million are substantially unchanged from the EUR 26.5 million in 2025 with their impact on revenue decreasing from 11.8% to 10.9% and highlighting a positive operating leverage effect. Staff costs amounting to EUR 47.1 million increased by 4.4% compared to the EUR 45.1 million in 2025, while the impact on revenue decreased from 20% to 19.1%.

National cost for employee stock option plans amounted to EUR 0.5 million for the period compared to EUR 1 million in 2025. EBITDA amounted to EUR 48.7 million, up over 30% from EUR 37.5 million in the first half 2025. EBITDA margin increased from 16.6% in 2025 to 19.8% in 2026. Depreciation, amortization and provision decreased from EUR 5.9 million in 2025 to EUR 5.3 million in June 2026. This change is the net effect of higher depreciation and the provision for risk alongside lower provision for credit risk.

EBIT stood at EUR 43.4 million, a significant improvement compared to the EUR 31.6 million in the first half of 2025 with an EBIT margin rising from to 17.6%. In the context of the presentation of the consolidated income stated according to IFRS 5, due to a purely accounting technique, EBIT burns a penalty of approximately EUR 1.4 million, net of which the half year result would have been approximately EUR 45 million. The impact of this cost on the income statement is neutralized by revenue of an equal value recorded in the line of discontinued operation, ensuring that the accounting it has no effect on the net result.

Financial income amounted to EUR 1.7 million compared with a loss of EUR 2 million recorded in the corresponding period of the previous year. The improvement was primarily attributable to the net foreign exchange result, which shifted from a loss of EUR 3.4 million in June 2025 to a gain of EUR 0.3 million for the current period.

The residual amount was generated by returns on the group's cash holdings, which are invested in short and midterm financial instruments. The share of profit loss -- profit and loss of associated company was mainly attributable to the combined effect of the group's shares in Alesa, a positive result amounting to EUR 93,000 and the share of loss reported by Pentasa in China, EUR 0.6 million. And with us is Japan EUR 0.3 million loss.

The majority interest of these 2 companies were disposed during 2025. However, they continue to report negative result also in 2026. The negative balance of other net income and expenses was attributable to the full impairment of the investment in Epic International held by the parent company, Elen. -- pretax income showed a positive balance of EUR 43.4 million, a significant increase compared to the EUR 29.3 million on June 2025.

Result from discontinued operation is primarily attributable to the contribution of the county division concepment in accordance with IFRS 5. Specifically, it includes the net loss of the business unit and an extraordinary loss of EUR 3.9 million attributable to the impairment of recurring amount of the discontinued operation based on the price to be received under the existing agreement.

Finally, a positive component, the -- as a positive component, the items include the more different accounting classification to the application of IFRS 5, which requires that the economic effect of the sales of the sales need to be summarized regardless of their nature in a single entry of the income statement result from discontinued operation. immediately before the period result.

This positive amount neutralized the negative amount mentioned before when we are talking about EBIT. The group net result amounted to EUR 26.1 million compared to EUR 17.9 million in first half an increase of 45.4%. The tax rate for the period is 32%. In this chart, we can see the pro forma income statement without the IFRS 5.

So with the consolidation of the cut in division that are discontinued in the previous version. Without the application of IFRS 5 revenue for the first half of 2026 would have been EUR 300 million compared to EUR 285 million of the first half 2025, plus 5.2%. Under this income statement configuration, the industrial sector would have seen a poorer performance, minus 8% versus minus 4% due to the cutting segment.

As regard gross margin, the same drivers highlighted in the previous version of the income statement continue to apply, particularly the higher contribution of medical revenue to the total turnover and the more favorable sales mix within the Medical segment. Even including the cutting segment, EBITDA and the EBIT recorded strong double-digit growth of 23.6% and 29.7%, respectively, together with an improvement in both margin as impact on sales.

Moving now to the balance sheet. The comparison with the beginning of the year are affected by the fact that the cutting business unit was reclassified as discontinued operation only on June 30, 2026.

In terms of invested capital, there is a slight decrease. The net working capital sales ratio is in line with the last year's figure, while Roche shows a significant improvement. Investment during the first 6 months were EUR 7.5 million.

Moving now to the analysis of the cash flow and net financial position. The group net financial position increased by approximately EUR 12 million during the first half of the year, rising from EUR 172.2 million as of December 2025, to EUR 184.5 million as of June 2026. As illustrated in the chart, the increase in net working capital is a recurring feature of the group's business cycle during the first half of the year and absorbed approximately EUR 15 million of cash.

Capital expenditure already mentioned, amounted to 7.5%, while dividend distributed in May by parent company and certain subsidiaries amounted to EUR 21.3 million. The contribution to the net financial position arising from the asset a for sale reflects the recognition of the net financial debt on December 2025 for EUR 16 million relating to the discontinued business.

Revenues increased across all medical application segment. The Aesthetics segment performed strongly plus 11%, driven by anti-aging system despite weakness in high removal. Surgical activities recorded a more significant performance, plus 15% mainly supported by the growth of system for urology.

The therapy segment also performed positively, plus 1%. The slower revenue growth for after-service and sales of consumable reflect the loss of revenue from with us last year, EUR 1.5 million, net of which growth would have amounted to 6.2%. Within the segment, nearly 60% of revenues is attributable to sterile optical fibers for urological surgical procedures, which recorded a 12.1% increase in revenue over the half year.

On Industrial Applications sector, revenues for the period were significantly lower than in the previous year, mainly due to the disposal of the laser cutting business, which reduced the scope of the operation or the industrial application sector, the chart doesn't show the discontinued cutting division anymore.

The performance of the residual division, we are negative marking minus 17% and lasers minus 50%, while after service and components revenue was particularly positive, recording a turnover of EUR 5.7 million in the first half 2026, up 34% on the EUR 4.3 million in the corresponding period of last year. The contribution of these activities also reached 30% of the residual overall industrial turnover, confirming the growing rate of the most recovery and visible revenue components, a more complete representation of the business trend, it should be noted that the turnover for the first half of 2026 attributable to the [indiscernible] was equal to EUR 53.8 million, down from the EUR 60.2 million recorded in the first half of 2025, minus 10.6%.

Geographically, the medical sector decline of 16% in Italy compared to the robust growth in Europe, plus 8% and particularly strong performance in non-European market plus 17%, which accounted for the main growth area in the consolidated revenue during the period. In Europe, as plain extensive network supported encouraging result in the DACH region, while non-European market growth was driven primarily by the Paris, the industrial sector showed a strong recovery in Italy, plus 8%, thanks to [indiscernible], while it registered a decline in Europe, minus 15%. The Northern European market, the trend is stable.

Andrea, please go ahead on the guidance.

Okay. So you see that we firmed basically the guidance. We're going to grow revenues over 5%, and we are going to improve EBIT margin. We're going to improve EBIT margin on the previous year. This deserves maybe a few more words.

At Board level, we had this discussion about the message surfacing from the confirmed guidance apparently disappointing since you would have expected once the least performing business unit is removed from financial reporting that better financial results are achieved and therefore, a stronger guidance would be released.

Let me clarify why that's not the case and why we are guiding you to a very strong financial results, our guidance, the one we released in March, was and is defined in terms of improvement with reference to the previous year. Part of the recovery in sales and in profitability that we were expecting in 2026 was to be generated by a strong recovery in the cutting business whose performance was quite weak in 2025 and loss in the second half.

Therefore, under the new scope, the Match mark is much more demanding also considering the outstanding performance of the Medical business in the second half of 2025. So by confirming the numbers of the guidance with a different benchmark, we are confirming that the results in the second half will be extremely strong.

And at this point, we are -- we closed our prepared remarks, and we are open to answer your questions.

[Operator Instructions]. The first question comes from Giovanni Selvetti from Berenberg.

Congratulations for the results. I have a couple of questions. The first one is what's driving the weakness in the Americas sector in Italy and if you expect any improvement in H2.

The second is maybe just to kind of remind us with the new capacity expansion of optical fibers in Samarate with Quanta, what would be the maximum revenue that can be generated in this field. In your H1 report, you also mentioned higher efficiencies and automation in this new plan. So I was wondering if it's reasonable to assume an optical fiber run at an EBIT margin, which is higher than the 20% of the overall medical sales.

The third is maybe about Juan, if you can elaborate a bit more about what you were mentioning before that you start to see already positive results and I was wondering if you will use quant distribution sales also for Asclepion in surgical that based on your financial report, there's already some new FDA approved devices.

And the last one is more strategical in the sense that you have been doing an excellent job in, let's say, disposing assets recently. I was wondering if given also the cash position, which increased further and is going to increase further in -- do you also have some targets for buying something or if you just prefer to invest in organic growth.

So taking the questions in order, medical sector in Italy, yes, we had a decline in revenues we are quite confident the main component of the decline comes from the professional aesthetics -- last year, we also had net sales quite expensive 1 place sales. I mean, we had a burst of sales generated by a very uncommon lead, let's say. We know that we are recovering in this segment in the Professional Beauty segment, and we already did in July and August also closing almost closing the gap.

And we know that also in medical, where we sell through the network of DeCA, the Renaissance brand, which covers both DeCA and Quanta has a very strong backlog. And I don't know if we will be able to completely catch up. But for sure, we will be able to close to make the gap much smaller in the second half of the year. About the sales of fiber optics, there, they were up about I mean, more than 10% in the half in the first half. This is a trend that should be maintained and will not count on any production capacity improvement because we still have enough capacities until the 1 year from now, because the investment in the new fiber optic manufactured facilities is articulated -- we started with the real estate, and we put in white, then we installed the automation which is a revenue in place, but it will take longer to get the full certification to provide this medical device and the full certification for the plans to be active is not expected until the second half of next year.

In the meantime, I mean we expect, especially based on the continuous sales of system and so the enlargement of the installed base this growth trend of sales in fibers to continue, as I said, without the need of increased capacity because we can get the with the current capacities. But with the new capacity being ready to step in 1 year from now when the quant disease will be materially higher than today if everything goes according to the plan.

The new distribution in the United States for Wanda is 1 of the investments in terms of internal growth on the internal growth path also to set a relation to your fourth question me. This company is a managing more than direct sales is more managing other distributors. And this is a job that was doing the former distributor. And I mean they accounted for about EUR 6 million of sales in the quarter because we are talking about quarter only, even though we are making comments on the 6 months, but the company wasn't operating until the beginning of the second quarter.

And so this will be a main contributor to the sales in the surgical business. And concerning let on sales, you are right, Asclepion is getting the FDA clearance for the new device which has served the peculiarities, which diversify it from the plant offer. But no, there are no plans to have the Quanta distribution hub to be used also for escalation as system at the time. according to our business strategy, Asclepion and plant combines, of course, compete on the market, and the only place where they share a distribution network is in Italy. -- where Deca Renaissance streamlines the products of Quanta system.

And it was like that in Germany also. But recently, Quanta System decided to exploit a different distribution channel and they're also running themselves unless something changes. But I mean, in principle, you know that our brands compete monthly but compete worldwide. And so they don't use the same distribution partners.

Finally, M&A, cash, you're right. The net financial position is improving and will improve. There is nothing new about any possible transformational M&A transaction. As we did in the recent past, we are targeting smaller transactions in which we feel more comfortable in widening, especially our distribution footprint. I can tell you we are examining new transactions both in Europe and in the Far East.

Both with Quanta and with other companies, we are quite active according to our standards in pursuing initiatives under this point of view, but none of the initiatives we have on the table today is expected to be of a size that I mean uses a considerable part of our cash. So this is the answer. There's nothing really new under this point of view from what we have been always saying that in the last years about the attitude of the company to expand.

We are expanding nicely in our own business, and we are making all that is needed to expand this. We didn't find yet anything interesting to put down a sizable investment. It's not that we're not looking for it. But as I explained to you, we want to be very cautious because when becoming much larger, there are a certain complex, it is a certain number of complexes, which are driven on the management of the group and on the market position of the group that we -- we want to make sure we are not getting into by investing a lot of our cash and creating problems in the organization of the group. So we -- it's not that we are not thinking at all, but we are very cautious in making a very important step.

And now the next question is from Carlo Maritano from Intermonte.

Good afternoon, everyone. I just have 3 questions from my side. The first one is on the medical business. As you said before, Italy was a little bit weak in the second quarter, while the rest of the world was strong. You mentioned the Far East. I was wondering if you could provide us more color on the countries that are performing the best.

And if you can update us on the situation in the Middle East, if the situation is going back to normal after the first quarter or if the current situation is still causing some disruption. The second question is on the marketing business. that remained fairly weak in the second quarter. But if I look at your results, it seems that gross margin and EBIT are basically at the same level of last year. So I was wondering if you can provide us some color on the drivers behind the higher profitability despite the lower sales.

And the final one is on duties I don't remember exactly how duties work for you, but asking other companies, some are reporting the reimbursement of some duties -- so I was wondering if you had any news on this.

Okay. Again, in Joe, Far East and Middle East -- the -- we are very strong in far east for sure, the most successful country for us in [indiscernible] Korea, which especially in the aesthetic business, it's something extremely significant. Because, as you know, there is a shift in this moment in the trend when you look to aesthetic procedures, wins Goods Korea as one of the main sources of the aesthetic trends in the work.

So being able to sell a technology in a country where there are -- there is plenty of technology developers. I mean, many of them are engaged in coping our systems today, is a sign of great vitality and great strength. We -- I mean, when we talk about Middle East for aesthetics, the most relevant countries typically are Korea, Japan and Thailand. And also now, we are doing very well in Indonesia, which is something new but -- which is by far the most relevant country in terms of population, most part of China, it's the most relevant part country in terms of population. So this is the Far East.

Middle East, what is normal and what is not normal, the more not the word that I was mentioning before, and I'm seeing that Dubai the exhibition being mainly held our distributor with all these people in both I mean we're getting used to something, which is not a or but close to a war in that area. Bottom line, there are certain countries in the area which are performing very well.

There are mean there is commitment to continue. We're expecting several visitors for the Deca Academy, which is an academy we hold from time to time here in Florence, they are coming from Iraq, coming from Saudi Arabia. But I mean, the overall the sales in the Middle East continue to be weaker than last year. They didn't drop to 0, but they are just weaker compared to last year.

The market business, I'm not sure at the numbers you are looking to in terms of profitability. But I can tell you that this year, we had smaller sales both in lasit in land where -- last is 100% marking even though it has its service part as well. And Eland has both marking and laser sources as it manufactures both laser sources, then laser scanning heads. We had a higher volume of sale in Atlas, which is the the company that manufactures large surface marketing systems.

And so the Otas recovered in profitability, Lasit lost in profitability. This is the situation. And maybe we can see together where we have seen an improving in the profitability of the marketing business. I believe it should be in overall a little bit -- I mean, more or less on the same situation because even though mark, even though high margin is improving.

The volume wasn't enough to cover. So maybe when I said that they have high margins, mergers comparable to the medical system. I was referring not to EBIT margin, but to gross range. This is what I was referring to. In the they have historically last EBIT margin, which is comparable to the medical system and gross margin, which is even higher. The other companies have high gross margin, but due to the missing leverage effect, than ever reached interest in EBIT margins in the past.

So I'm very prepared on tariffs because I talked to our distributor actually in the -- for the cutting systems, but -- which is, I mean, somehow in the past, but still, I mean, we work with him. And it's an important customer for Catlight.We are not operating -- we're not operating any company in the United States when the tariffs kicked in, -- now the only operational company we have in the United States is Quanta Inc., which started, as I said, operating in April 2026. -- the companies received reimbursement in the month of July and in the month of June for the tariffs, they paid under the first -- the first round of tariffs, the 1 that the Supreme Court deemed unconstitutional.

And by this way, allowing the path for reimbursement of these tariffs. The other tariffs that have been levied on the companies based on different principles are currently being paid. We -- I mean, our U.S. distributors, given panels, if they get revorsed for the -- this part of the tariffs they paid, probably they'll try to hide this information to us because, of course, they were claiming they had higher cost than they wanted us to somehow participate in the past to this new expense that out of the blue emerged on the transaction between them and as I expect that they have been reimbursed for the share of the tariffs that paid for that period, but I don't have evidence today.

Anyway, it's not us. We don't receive any wire -- so the IRS because we are not directly operating any activity in the U.S. and the tariffs were levied paid by our distributors.

Just so far the question is on interest rates that are increasing in the past month I was wondering if you have any evidence of a slowdown from your clients, especially in the U.S. or if the demand is so strong right now that interest rates don't come too much.

In this small line in the U.S., overall, we're doing very well. We have some let's say, minor concern, but it's not a general concern, but it's a specific concern of certain line of products. I -- we will meet our distributors in the next weeks and have a clear picture about this. At the time being, we are not being let's say, we don't receive any claim, any request based or any excuse because of order not being placed or being proposed related to the raise of interest rates and to higher cost for customers that keeps customers away from purchasing our system. So for the moment, there is no effect under this point of view.

We now -- we have another question from Andrea Bonfa from Banca Akros.

Congratulations for the results, Andrea and enrico very quickly, some of my questions are being answered by the way. But -- would like to know a quick update on your side on the timing to close the disposal of the Metacaton business?

And then a clarification, the performance of medical services because if you are claiming that the fibers keep growing double digit. And although there is some perimeter effect, the services is flat. So if you can maybe comment on that. And we would love to have a pro forma EBIT for 25, if that's possible or we can try to figure it out and more or less, these are my question for [indiscernible] case, I will add something at the end.

Okay. The pro for 25 we get sold media stock and every would prepare a problem. Yes, the service has An excellent performance in fibers for urological business has a weaker performance in general in the static field, I mean, it's basically time and material and has a onetime effect that we are deconsolidating the -- with us. We had the Japanese company that -- of which we saw the majority in March 2025 was still accounted for in the 2025 financials in the first 2 months and was -- actually, they had relevant contracts on the installed base.

There were -- I mean, their revenues was in in service only. And so there is a deconsolidating effect, which is worth, I believe, something like 3%. Net of this effect, the growth would have been 6-point something. And we believe that concerning certain aesthetic devices. Also, there is a reduction in the consumption of -- in the cost because we are selling more devices that are less demanding in terms of maintenance and continuous expense and less of devices, which are more demanding in terms of maintenance and continuous expense, especially you have to consider that the high-power removal lasers is a high consumer of service because it needs replacement of laser lamps and laser hand, which is not only a consumable, but is also a relevant technical service that needs to be performed by qualified service technicians and so as the market for these devices is comparatively reducing with respect to the other sales of simpler systems, we are also experiencing a lower a lower demand under this point of view.

But in general terms, I expect the whole aggregate to be growing more or less in line with the rest of the business when we will get at the rest of the year -- at the end of the year.

And on the timing to close the...

The timing to close Andrea, yes, there are certain conditions that needs to be fulfilled. I actually have meetings today with a potential buyer. They have expectation to close very quickly. I mean the contract has 6 months long stop, so-called long stop period.

Really, I mean, today, I will say that we are very confident that we will close within the end of the year. If within the end of the year, will be October, November or December is hard to say at this moment. But I mean, it shouldn't be a matter of several months just this period. I really count that we will be closing as soon as possible. I mean we would like to close in the month of October, if it could be possible.

We have to see if we get all the related permission and small things that are missing in order to finish the deal in the way and the form that needs to be finalized.

We also have a question from Valentin-Paul Jahan Jahan from Stifel.

Okay. Perfect, thanks for taking my questions and you answer a lot of questions I had, but I can probably follow up a little bit on the industrial segment. Maybe if you could -- if you -- if you could please give more color on the decline in marketing in the rest of Europe and elaborate on what are the exposures of marking by end markets, such as automotive manufacturer, stuff like that. This is for the first question.

Second, could you please give more color on the current gross margin level of industrial now that cutting has been put up as a for-sale business. And the potential indication of the potential normative EBIT margin so following the disposal of cutting activities.

And the third one would be what are the synergies between industrial activities that are still within the group marking, laser sources and others and the medical activities. And does it will make sense to further strain the portfolio around medical activities. And considering capital allocation, should we expect the company to use its same power for bolt-on M&A only in medical? Or could you also say opportunities in antral markets?

Okay. Let's start from the last question this time because I believe it's relevant. The synergies between the medical and the industrial business are quite small, and they are all mainly technical the factory that manufactures the low-power CO2 laser sources, which are used in all the CO2 lasers of the group, are here in Florence, and it's the same technology that is used by the factory that manufactures low- and mid-power CO2 laser sources for industrial application. In fact, they were somehow together. In fact, when we had production peak for one business, we use the facility of the other business, even though the facilities are physically separated, but they work on a similar technology and -- in fact, the R&D for the laser source is one which has been applied to the same kind of technology to the 2 different level of power. And this is one important technological synergy.

The second important technological synergy is the scanning system capabilities, which reside in the Industrial division, of which the Medical division is a customer. The scanning systems that are operated by land by Atlas are made on galvanometers that we manufacture in online facilities, both in Florence and in our Castella Mardistabia facility. And also the industrial team manufactures all the scanner for the thousands of laser systems that use a scanner in for medical application, which is all the CO2 lasers, all the red touch lasers and also most of the high-power surgical volume lasers manufactured by Quanta System and biascletiun, which use the galvanometer manufactured in lens device for, I mean, which is a device which is needed in order to switch the 4 laser sources that -- of which the laser is made of.

And so of course, they would be detachable. I mean there is nothing which each of them wouldn't make it survive if they should divide. But in this moment, we are not actively seeking for dismission of any of these facilities. The entity, which has less strategic interaction with the rest of the group is lasit because Lasit does not use that apart from -- really from time to time, NO2 laser sources and they have their own technology, and so they are completely independent technological speaking.

So the marketing business of Lasit is a strategically more independent than the market business has said atlas which depends and reliance on laser sources that scanners made by in -- and so we don't have any acquisitive ambition today in the market business we are managing it as a historical business. I mean it's something which in the past out also improvement in the technology for the medical applications for the moment.

We don't feel any compelling reason to pursue any further the dismission on any assets in the industrial business.

The first and second questions were somehow high, and you wanted to have some color on the reduced volume of the market business the marketing business decline in revenue, especially in Europe. In Europe is where we have our facilities Lasit has distribution facilities in France, Spain, Poland, U.K. and Germany.

I believe there as -- from these countries, we had a weaker performance in sales. Also, there were some large accounts, large sales that had to be postponed to the second to the third quarter. Currently, we can say that probably the budgeted amounts will not be reached for the year. but we are confident that our market position is not varied by any other market event apart from the fact that there was a weaker overall demand.

You wanted to know which are the end user markets -- generally speaking, it's manufacturing. It changes among our most important customers we have manufacturers of the automotive, not directly the car manufacturers, but the manufacturers of components for cars, we had as an important customer, Magnetar, just to to say a very known name and ramp. I mean those are 2 very relevant component manufacturers for the automotive business.

And also, we are -- we sold some of the most sophisticated marketing systems for the motor heads also to Ferrari and Maserati. So we are in the automotive business, which, of course, is not being particularly brilliant in this space. We sell also to industrial manufacturer for electrical components manufacturers like Schneider, Schneider, we -- one of the largest customers for continuous -- that is continuously purchasing from us in Bosch. And so we go to consumer electrical components.

And then we have also a market in the medical devices. By the way, we founded our German distribution company in the area of Tuttlingen, and Tetlin is the area of Germany, where most of the surgical steel devices, components are manufactured. But general speaking Lasit depends provides marketing to every manufacturing activity.

So if we look every month the sales of laser systems, by Lasit, they touch completely different systems, all in the manufacturing area. We do not depend on a single, let's say, market segment. I do not remember what you were saying about margin and gross margin. Valentin,could you please repeat your question on this?

What is your current gross margin level in the industrial segment in the Industrial division. And yes, go ahead.

It's higher than in medical today, basically typically, both Lasit and Ot-las can sell with margins above 50%. And because this is what the market is calling and only from time to time, we approach a different sale method because we don't rely on distributors.

In the Medical segment, if we consider the end user price, gross margin would be much higher, but we sell through distributors and distributor had considerable discounts. Therefore, the gross margin is reduced a lot in the industrial segment, we have more often direct access to sales, see, for instance, in -- for Lasit, where we have all this distribution companies in Europe.

And for this reason, we are able to grab higher, higher margins. The issue with EBIT margins is that we need to get to a certain volume of sales -- and as you noticed, the beginning of the 2026 wasn't a brilliant under this point of view. But we don't see any structure issue, we see that the relation with our customers, the potential deals to a certain extent, also the backlog are moving in a way that makes us hope and count on a recovery in the second half of the year.

Sorry, we have one more question from from Andrea Bonfa from Banca Akros.

Again. My question is, let's say, a generic one, Andrea, considering the state of the art and let's say, the competitive environment on hair removal, is it fair to assume that, let's say, the mix of your product will continue to expand, let's say, in the most performing one, if I may expressing this way. or volume-wise, as the balance is set to remain the same?

Today, I would say yes. My answer today, I would say yes. This is the feeling that we get from the market. The feeling that tells us that still, we are more requested to provide anti-aging or general dermatologic devices than a removal of devices. So it should continue.

Then we are working on new developments in order to improve the performance of our systems. We know that competitors also, I mean, not defer is low-cost competitors, but also the main players in this segment, which are Adela and Cynosure Lutronic, Lumenis and AM are let's say, trying to relaunch the market segment by introducing to the market new devices, we will improve the performance of our devices, and we might maybe invert somehow the decline of this segment. But for the time being, your statement is fair.

We -- I don't expect the structure of our product mix within aesthetics to change in the very next quarters. Of course, we are exposed to competition in each and every segment. And so we are now experiencing the benefits of selling our high-margin products in the antiaging arena. Of course course, I told you how imitations are flooding in the market for our older systems. This is a hint to how competition is moving trying to compete against us and trying to avoid us to gain further market share and further increase in the margins.

So what we cannot say it's difficult to say and how the competitive environment will be 6 months from now not in our mix, but in our competitors' mix, and if we will be able to maintain the same trend at the same margin in each and all the same segments. This, as you know, is very difficult to say because it's a market in which innovation is brought very often to the end users.

We do it constantly, and it's our strength, but also our competitors do it constantly and not necessarily we're always winning in this competition. So we have all the weapons to compete effectively. We are very successful today. We look forward being very successful in the future, but it's not so deterministic.

I would like to come back again to Valentin Paulo because maybe I switch off of its microphone too early. Do you have any another question Valentin?

No, thank you. I'm okay. Thank you.

Okay. Then we have no more question at this time. But before closing the Q&A session, I would like to ask once again if there are any further questions from investors still connected.

Just a moment, I have another, yes, we have Andrea Bonfa.

I was going to ask Andrea, if there is any update on the MonaLisa attach. What was the state of the art there?

Moneris ataciself, is performing. I mean with now -- I mean, it is performing well. I mean, but the volume now is reduced. We are not -- we don't believe that today, a very large investments to return on exactly this technology in the United States where we had such a large success until 2017 is worth.

We are investigating other technologies to be used together or an alternative to the CO2 laser technology to effectively perform the vaginal atrophy treatment together with a CO2 laser. So we -- the market, the demand for this kind of treatment is high, is relevant. CO2 is so not so popular anymore. In the next years, I would say, we might be deciding to face the market with a new technology that would be an innovation for us and for the market as well.

But as of today, I mean, I cannot disclose what we are thinking of, and I don't have it, of course. But maybe if you continue asking me this question not next quarter, but 6 months or 9 months from now, we will have something new to tell about this market segment.

Andrea, no further question at this time, then if you have any other inquiries in the future. Please do not hesitate to contact Enrico Romagnoli, who will be happy to assist you. Thank you very much for attending today's conference call. We hope to have you with us again next time. Goodbye, everyone.

Bye-bye. Thank you very much.

Good afternoon to everyone, and welcome to El.En's. First Quarter 2026 Financial Results Conference Call. Today's call will be recorded, and there will be an opportunity for questions at the end of the call. With us on the call are Andrea Cangioli, El.En's. CEO; and Enrico Romagnoli, El.En's. Chief Financial Officer and Investor Relations Manager.

Before we begin, please note that there are management remarks during the conference call regarding future expectations, trends, prospects and forward-looking statements. Certain statements in this call, including those addressing the company's beliefs, plans, objectives, estimates or expectations of possible future results or events are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve known or unknown risks, including general economic and business conditions in the industry in which we operate. These statements may be affected if our assumptions turn out to be inaccurate.

Consequently, no forward-looking statement can be guaranteed and actual future results, performance or achievements may vary materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. The company undertakes no obligation to update the contents or the forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances that may arise after the date hereof. -- the virtual and we will have the floor in order of request. But at this time, I want to give the floor to Andrea Cangioli. Please go ahead, Andrea.

Thank you, Nicola. Thank you, Bianca, for your introduction, and good morning -- good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today to discuss the financial results for the El.En. Group for the first quarter ending March 31, 2026. Enrico Romagnoli will be on the call with me as Nicola anticipated. As we look back at the first 3 months of the year, it is clear that the El.En. Group continues to navigate a complex global landscape with resilience and an unchanged commitment to our core mission, leverage our technological leadership in both the medical and the industrial laser sectors to drive value for our partners worldwide and subsequently for our shareholders.

We were pleased with our financial results, and I want to thank our global team of engineers, clinicians and staff to their dedication to the success of our group. Turning to our consolidated financial performance for Q1 2026. We achieved total revenues of roughly EUR 145 million, up 3.3% compared to Q1 of the previous year. This performance reflected the excellent performance of the medical sector, which was up 9.3% in revenues and in fact, more than 10% on an organic base, neutralizing the effect of the exit of our Japanese subsidiary, Withus, overcoming the slowdown in the industrial sector, which was down in sales by 11.4%, mainly due to the cutting segment, which was down by 15.5% in the quarter. The quarter also displayed an improvement in P&L efficiency based both on marginality on sales and on leverage, leading to EUR 19.8 million in EBIT with an EBIT margin of 13.6%, more than 1 point up on Q1 2025, but also, and this was an excellent achievement due to the weak seasonality of the first quarter, also up sequentially on last quarter of 2024, '25 on the EBIT margin performance.

As leverage is given by volume and margin on sale depends upon the quality of the sales mix, I would like to provide you with some color on the matter. Volume increase came from the Medical business only. And this contributed to the overall margin for mere mathematical reasons as margins are higher in medical than in industrial. It's roughly 48% in Medical versus 38% in Industrial.

Within the respective sectors, margins were stable to a high level in Medical, but they materially improved in Industrial from 34% of Q1 2025 and 28% of Q4 2025, up to 38% in this first quarter. So it is important to point out that under the sales margin profile, we had positive contribution by the industrial sector as well. Margin improvement in the segment is the cornerstone of the path towards a return of the segment to a stronger profitability. Sales have been lagging in this quarter in the industrial sector. But under the margin point of view, we are on the right way, and we expect stronger quarters ahead also on the sales volumes side. Ground to this trend lie in the sales mix under the product and the geography profile for both sectors.

In industrial, geography is a prominent margin driver with Europe, the U.S. and Brazil being the most attractive markets margin-wise. Q4 2025 has recorded the highest weight of sales in Italy and a negligible sales volume in the U.S. and Brazil and subsequently showed a very low gross margin in sales. Q1 2026 witnessed a return to a decent sales volume in Europe and in the U.S. and accordingly, a decrease in the total share of sales in Italy.

The effect on margin was evident. The weak sales performance in Brazil was in this quarter the missing piece that didn't allow us to convert the material margin improvement into a volume effect sufficient to better cover the expenses from operation.

In Industrial, as quarterly sales volume in the cutting segment declined, higher margin bearing sales in the marking and laser sources segment increased the weight, therefore, increasing the segment margin. Medical maintained its gross margin levels, confirming a sales mix, which privileged within aesthetic devices, anti-aging treatments versus hair removal and confirm the material contribution of the surgical business, both for system sales and consumable sales as the volume of sterile optical fibers sold in the quarter exceeded once again the EUR 10 million threshold. On the top is currently the trend is deviced in our product range, a system which successfully captures the requirements of the demand in medical aesthetics, especially focusing on skin tightening and skin firming.

Our CoolWave microwave technology enables minimally invasive and extremely effective procedures with effects that are evident, but are also respectful of the appearance of the patient, mild improvements that do not distort the expression. Patients want to improve their appearance but are not willing anymore to accept that their efforts are too evident. They want their status to be maintained without being noticed too much. By the way, on ONDA PRO, we are expecting an unprecedented number of imitations being introduced on the market, and we are delivering a notable effort, both on the marketing and commercial side and on the legal side to protect the uniqueness of our flagship device.

On the innovation side, our key success factor and main competitive weapon, we continue to dedicate significant resources in terms of management, manpower, investments that enable our R&D teams to maintain their excellent productivity level. Coming up this year, we have new products in aesthetics for pigmented lesions and hair removal and improved capabilities for our skin tightening devices. In surgery, a new laser in the wavelength band of the thulium is due for release within the end of the year, while in urology, a new high-powered thulium BPH system is almost ready to launch -- for its launch. In the industrial sector, laser cutting systems are improved, especially for the large-sized high-power system dedicated to steel construction, but also the offer of laser marking is continuously updated with new wavelength and special emission modes, which allow the system to be more and more innovative and more and more matched to the needs of a diversified set of customers, application segments and industries.

A brief mention of the unprecedented first quarter improvement of the net financial position. We were up EUR 1.5 million in the quarter, the first quarter that historically is a cash absorber. Enrico will give you the details. I can now make a comment that CapEx was lower in Q1 '26 than in Q1 '25 as expected to date on a yearly basis as well. As expected to date and as expected on a yearly basis as well.

We though approved during last week a fairly sizable investment for a new building here within the Calenzano plant that will be mainly dedicated to marketing support areas for overcoming potential customers, both in person and with the most recent technologies for effective remote meetings. The order of magnitude of the investment is around EUR 5 million. It won't change the outlook of our cash flow statement, but it will probably bring 2026 CapEx closer or equal to the order of magnitude we had in 2025.

I would also like to give you an update on certain possible M&A activities I outlined in other meetings and calls. Quanta System new subsidiary in the U.S. for the Medical Surgical business is now operational. And with a seasoned general manager, we are hopeful of being able to rapidly capture the market and the customer base that was previously covered through a distributor. The launch of the company didn't exactly follow the plan and also the transition with the former distributor required an initial investment smaller than budgeted. Quanta's management is following closely the development of the company, and we will update you on the performance of this new sub of Quanta. Also in the physiotherapy segment, we are working to an agreement with our U.S. distributor with the goal of a closer cooperation and subsequently an increase in the performance of this market segment, one of the most fruitful among the businesses of ASA, a company based in Vicenza, which is dedicated to this market segment.

Concerning other M&A activities in the industrial and medical sector involving on one side, the laser cutting business and the distribution of medical laser systems in selected countries on the other one, I have nothing notable to report apart the fact that the group is considering the possibility of evaluating certain options in regard. During the quarter, the group continued and further consolidated its sustainability activities, which are also included among the performance indicator relevant to management incentive systems. Implementation of the 2023-2027 sustainability plan continued with overall progress in line with and in some areas exceeding the defined objectives, particularly for initiatives to transition to renewable energy sources. The plan continues to focus on strategic issues such as climate change, circular economy, promoting a responsible supply chain, developing human capital and supporting local communities, confirming the group's commitment to a sustainable development model, which is fully integrated into business processes.

As we anticipated in the press release we issued to disclose the news, we are sharing today more detail with respect of the resignation that our General Manager, Mr. Paolo Salvadeo, formally submitted for personal reasons on April 30. Dr. Salvadeo served in this capacity since 2017, and his impact on our group has been profound. Under his leadership, we have seen EL.En. solidify its position as a global leader, especially in the medical sector, the focus of his management activity.

I obviously did it already in person, but today, on behalf of the Board of Directors, I want to formally thank Paolo for his exceptional professionalism and the significant contribution he has made to our growth under several profiles, including the strengthening of our management structure over the last 7 years. We wish him nothing but the best in his future endeavors. In addition to saying that we are not aware of any reason, if not strictly personal, that led Paolo to the decision to resign and we -- and that we are on excellent terms with him, I want to emphasize certain key points regarding the transition phase we are facing.

In terms of operational continuity, thanks to the robust management structure Dr. Salvadeo has put in place, we are fortunate to have an incredibly talented and professional management team. Because of the strength of this team, we do not expect any impact on our day-to-day efficiency or operational continuity. Concerning our strategic targets, our commitment to our goals remains unchanged. There are no changes in our targets short and midterm.

We are moving forward with the same momentum and focus that we began the year with. Concerning the next steps, the executive management shared with the Board of Directors its view on the new management structure. We confirm there are currently no plans to appoint a replacement for the general manager position.

In fact, also thanks to the contribution made by the General Manager, Paolo Salvadeo, the existing management expertise and synergies allow the company to waive a direct replacement at this time. The company can effectively rely on selected executive roles already in place across various business areas, which are complementary to one another. Ultimate coordination will remain under the responsibility of the Executive Directors, namely the President and the Managing Director.

At this time, I'm giving the floor to Enrico for the comments -- the detailed comments on the financials.

Thank you, Andrea. Good morning, everybody. I'll briefly comment on the first quarter financial results. In the first quarter, the group recorded a 3.3% increase in revenue, reaching EUR 145.6 million compared to the EUR 140.9 million as last year. And the performance -- the main performance was achieved by the medical sector when the industrial showing a decrease of around 11%.

On a like-for-like basis, the growth in the medical sector revenues would have been even higher, reaching nearly 11% as with us consolidated until the end of February 2025, contributed approximately EUR 1.5 million to the medical service revenue in the prior period. In 2026, the weakness of U.S. dollar in medical, but also in industrial had a cumulative negative impact on the growth of sales of minus 1.6% for an amount of EUR 2.3 million. In terms of gross margin, it was EUR 67.2 million, up approximately 7% compared to the EUR 62.9 million on March 2025 with an increase in margin that went from 44.7% to 46.1% in the first quarter 2026.

Although the medical sector achieved the highest sales margin, the improvement in sales margin in the quarter has been registered also to the industrial sector.

Despite a reduction in turnover, the sales mix in Industrial was more favorable, both geographically with a lower incidence of the highly competitive Italian market in terms of product type, thanks to the reduction in the weight of the laser cutting segment, which has lower margins. Operating expenses increased in value and an impact on sales, mainly in G&A, plus 6%, including travel and IT costs and sales and marketing activities, plus 12%, mainly for trade fair. Staff cost increased to an increase in headcount. On March 2026, the employees were 1,428 when on March 2025, they were 1,383, plus 45 units in Italy and Europe in Medical and in Industrial.

EBITDA was EUR 23.7 million, up 9% on the EUR 21.7 million of last quarter. EBIT recorded a positive result, EUR 19.8 million, up 14% compared to the EUR 17.4 million in the prior year.

This increase reflects both the improvement in gross margin and the lower impact on sales of depreciation, amortization and other provision, mainly due to a reduction in bad debt provision. The main reduction relates to Asclepion and With Us, which were consolidated until February 2025. The impact on With US on EBIT 2025 was negative for EUR 0.65 million. Financial management recorded a gain of EUR 0.8 million compared to a loss of EUR 1.1 million in the previous year.

The exchange rate differences went from a loss of approximately EUR 1.5 million recorded in the first quarter 2025 to a profit of EUR 0.6 million recorded in the first quarter 2026. The contribution of associated companies included in other expenses was negative for EUR 0.7 million due mainly to with Penta Laser Zhejiang, minus EUR 0.2 million each. The 2 companies was -- the 2 companies, the majority stake of these 2 companies was sold during 2025. [indiscernible], on the other hand, recorded a positive contribution of EUR 95,000. An additional impairment was recognized by El.En. through a 50% write-down of its stakes in Epica International for EUR 0.4 million. And finally, the pretax was positive for EUR 20 million, up from the EUR 16.3 million on March 2025.

Moving now to the analysis of the cash flow. The net financial position increased by EUR 1.5 million in the quarter from EUR 172.2 million as of December '25 to EUR 173.7 million on March. And the increase in net working capital absorbed EUR 9 million, while around EUR 5 million was absorbed by changes in other assets and liabilities, including the higher advances paid to supplier, lower advances received from customers and an increase in VAT receivable from the tax authorities.

Cash absorption for working capital was therefore lower than that recorded in the first quarter 2025 and capital expenditure amounted to EUR 4 million, also lower than the investments made in the first quarter 2025. On May 27, a dividend of EUR 0.25 per share will be paid for a total consideration of EUR 20 million. For the breakdown by business, the revenue increased across all medical application segment. The aesthetics segment performed strongly, plus 10%, driven by the anti-aging system despite the weakness in the hair removal.

Surgical application remained strong, while physotherapy system showed a recovery. And medical service revenue includes sales of services and consumables generated after the installation of systems, an increase of 8% and approximately 50% of the medical service revenue related to sterile optical fiber used in surgical application. The deconsolidation of With Us, the Japanese company, resulted in inorganic revenue decline for the Service segment.

Consequently, organic growth in the segment, excluding With Us from the sales of 2025 was approximately an increase of 16% in the quarter. In the industrial sector, the quarterly revenue declined by 11% with the decrease affecting system sales across all application segments, except for the restoration. Post sales and components, on the other hand, performed very positively, increasing both in absolute terms and as a share of total revenue.

For the breakdown by area the European market were the main driver of revenue growth during the quarter across both application segment in both sectors in the Italian market recorded a decline, while in the rest of the world, performance was positive in the medical sector and down in the industrial sector. In Italy, the weaker performance in the Medical segment was mainly driven by professional aesthetics for which a recovery is expected following the launch of the new hair removal system.

In the industrial sector, an unfavorable environment continues to affect the manufacturing industry and machine tools in particularly also due to the ongoing uncertainty surrounding tax incentives for investment. These measures are now being defined on a multiyear basis, which should provide a more stable framework for customers investment decision. The decline in industrial sales in the rest of the world is mainly attributable to the weak performance of Cutlite do Brasil, the company distributing our laser cutting system in Brazil.

The growth in the industrial market in the medical sector remained solid, also in non-European countries, driven in particular by the Far East. Andrea, if you want, you can go ahead with the guidance.

Thank you, Enrico. So looking ahead to the remainder of 2026, we remain cautiously optimistic. While we are mindful of macroeconomic headwinds and supply chain complexities,[Foreign Language] sorry, I mean, while we are mindful of macroeconomic headwinds and supply chain complexities, our order book remains healthy and our pipeline is robust. Q1 2026 has provided a solid foundation for the year, and we can, therefore, confirm the guidance we released a couple of months ago that we target a consolidated revenue growth of about 5% and that as we did in Q1 '26, we count on improving our EBIT margin on a yearly basis as well. Thank you for listening to our prepared comments. I believe that we are ready for your questions now.

We can now open the Q&A session [Operator Instructions]

Andrea, maybe we can ask Andrea to speak first. He's the first of the list here. Andrea Bonfa.

Okay. Andrea, go on because we do not have any. Andrea?

Now so I have been accessed to the audio. Andrea. Very quickly, my curiosity is on these numbers, the first quarter number. What's the impact on the procurement of RAM? And what's the visibility on that particular aspect or point?

There's no impact. We are paying our RAM memories a little bit more, but the effect of the RAM single component is not material. At this point, we see a longer lead time, but we do not see a shortage hitting us. So -- and the increase of the cost of memories will increase for sure, the cost of our products, but also given the amount -- the volumes we are planning to manufacture in this moment, such increases in costs are offset by improved efficiencies under other point of view. And so they have no impact on our gross margin, no material impact at least.

And now we have Carlo Maritano. Go on Carlo.

I have 3 questions. The first one is on the guidance. So if I remember well, on the previous call, you indicated an expected growth of 5%, and that was broadly based on similar contribution from both divisions. So I was wondering how the first quarter is changing this picture. So the 5% now is, I imagine, more skewed towards the medical, but correct me if I'm wrong.

The second question is on the Industrial segment. So I was wondering whether the weakness in the segment is also driven by any accounting reasons or maybe orders that were not accounted by the end of first quarter and that could be delayed in the second quarter as happened in the past.

And the final question is on Middle East. I was wondering if you could give an update on how the business in the region is progressing, if there are cancellation of orders or postponement or if the stabilization of the situation is causing no particular problems compared to the past?

Okay. So to the first question, the answer is we confirm the guidance, and we confirm a contribution from both sectors. The first quarter is a very short valuation period for a business like industrial, even though answer and I am answering to your second question, there are no material cutoff changes in this quarter.

There are certain slowdowns in deliveries and in concretization of orders, for instance, in Brazil that we expect and we count on being recovered throughout the year. So even if we didn't -- we can confirm that we expect growth from both segments at the end of the year. Concerning the Middle East situation, there's not much of an effect in this quarter.

Ironically, the sales we are missing in Middle East are mostly hitting the hair removal segment, which is the lowest margin bearing sale segment. And so when we are putting up with sales in other areas and other disciplines, we replace the lower margin bearing sales with higher margin bearing, which is accretive to the results.

For the moment, there are certain countries in the area which continue to buy well like Egypt, other countries where we are registering a very strong slowdown like the Saudi Arabia and Iraq in particular. Overall, so we are seeing a slowdown. But overall, in these months, we have always seen that sales traction in other areas of the world is offsetting the slowdown we are seeing in the Middle East area.

Carlo, do you have another question? It's enough for you?

Yes, yes, it's enough.

We have no more question. Do you have -- I want to ask to the investors if they have any other question for the management. No. We have no more questions at this moment, but I would like to ask once again if there is some other question. No.

Okay.

No problem. No question. Sorry? Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now over. Before closing concluding this call, I would like to extend one final invitation to the Reverse show in Samarate, which will take place on May 28 next week and for which many of you have already registered to attend. We currently have 25 -- 22 investors registered for the event. Tomorrow, we will send out the final invitation and anyone wishing to participate will be able to register directly through our platform or sending me an e-mail requesting registration.

If you have any inquiries in the future, please do not hesitate to contact Enrico Romagnoli, who will be happy to assist you. Thank you for attending this conference, and we hope to have you all again next time. Goodbye, everybody. Thank you.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

Okay. Good afternoon to everyone, and welcome to El.En.'s Fiscal Year 2025 Financial Results Conference Call. Today's call will be recorded [Operator Instructions]. With us are on the call, Andrea Cangioli, he's El.En.'s CEO; and Enrico Romagnoli, El.En.'s Chief Financial Officer and Investor Relations Manager.

Before we begin, please note that there are management remarks during the conference call regarding future expectations, plans, prospects and forward-looking statements. Certain statements in this call, including those addressing the company's beliefs, plans, objectives, estimates or expectations of possible future results or events are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve known or unknown risks, including general economic and business conditions in the industry in which we operate. These statements will be affected if our assumptions turn out to be inaccurate.

Consequently, no forward-looking statements can be guaranteed, and actual future results, performance or achievements may vary materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. The company undertakes no obligation to update the contents or the forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances that may arise after the date hereof. [Operator Instructions]

But at this time, I want to give the floor to Andrea Cangioli. Please go ahead, Andrea.

Thank you, Nicola. Thank you, Bianca, and thank you, everybody, for joining this call of comment on the 2025 financials. Enrico Romagnoli will be with me and will dig into the details of our financial performance after my brief introduction.

As we released our financial results after market on Friday, looking at the news on the web over the weekend morning -- over the weekend, the main line captured by the press is that our net profit declined in 2025 compared to 2024. I don't believe this line appropriately captures our achievements of 2025, and I would like to describe them under 2 essential profiles, market positioning of the group on our main outlet markets and overall financial performance for current operations.

Market positioning. Sales volume was up in excess of 4% in both medical and industrial sectors. In the medical sector, net of the onetime events, which I would call inorganic, I mean the sale of the majority of With Us, our Japanese subsidiary active in the Professional Beauty segment, and the almost complete loss of our historic customer, Cynosure, to its new Korean partners. Revenue growth was, in fact, in the neighborhood of 10%, which I believe is an outstanding achievement for year 2025. DEKA, Quanta, Asclepion, ASA, all the business units and brands marked our sales and profits increased in 2025.

The incumbent obstacles that have been hindering our performance generate internal and uncertainty in the political and financial global arena are surprisingly absorbed and metabolized by the economic environment, and to a great extent, by our organization as well. There's no dark shadow cast on our financial results by the ongoing war in Ukraine, by the war in Palestine, by the new tariffs hitting trade with the U.S. and by the U.S. dollar weakening over the year. We stood strong in all our main markets, including the U.S., where in the medical sector, we consolidated our market position retained through our valuable distribution partners.

Our brands are well recognized and significantly improved their visibility in the market. We have provided adequate marketing support to elevate them to prominence that they serve, both on social media and in the physical world. Moreover, with the exit of our Chinese operation out of the consolidation perimeter, the group is making a move towards the prevalence of the medical sector. We continue to be fully commitment and engaged in exploiting the capabilities and opportunities of the industrial sector within the group. But our overall balance is now more oriented towards the medical sectors, which is proving to be more rewarding.

2025, markedly its second half has been the first period in which we actually operated in the new configuration of the group with a lighter weight of the industrial sector. In 2024, we reported our financials with the same perimeter, excluding China, according to IFRS 5, but we were actually in charge for the Chinese business as well. So what concerns the financial performance, it displayed a very solid result. At EBITDA level, we beat 2024. Due to higher than usual accruals for risk of various kinds, EBIT stood right below the level of 2024. Under this profile, the profit guidance provided at the beginning of the year that we would beat 2020 -- in [ 2025, 2024's ] EBIT wasn't fully met.

On this theme, I would like to spend a few more words. EBIT lagged behind 2024's level throughout the year. And entering Q4, we needed an effect, we counted on an extraordinary performance to close the yearly profit gap in the quarter. The performance in Q4 was actually very solid. Revenue was EUR 169 million, and EBIT margin was 13.5%, both meeting the metrics of Q4 2024. Only a revenue mix that in the laser cutting segment was heavily weighted on the lower margin spare sales on the Italian territory, leading to a poor performance of the tech sector under EBIT generation profile inhibited Q4 2025 financial performance to fully close the gap to 2024.

Drilling down into the performance of the various market segments, revenue mix continued to be favorable in the medical sector and was very unfavorable in the Industrial segment, leading to a wide divergence in the profitability of the 2 segments. In medical, the demand trend confirmed what we had experienced throughout the year. Competition is driving down volumes and prices in the hair removal segment. The volume missing in the hair segment are replaced with expansion in the anti-aging rejuvenation application space, where the margins we can achieve are higher, an effect of the excellent branding and positioning of the technologies and procedures that we offer in the segment.

It is meaningful to mention that both CoolPeel, which is the brand name of the procedure that is performed with our CO2 lasers to effectively, rapidly and painlessly rejuvenate the skin of the face. And ONDA, our unique microwave technology for body shaping and skin tightening, are witnessing an important increase of imitations which are more or less blatantly setting forth claims of equivalence with our systems and procedures, which are recognized as the market leaders and reference. We are taking care of this with our legal department. But this circumstance testifies the strength and enviable market positioning we reached in this space.

In the medical area, we did very well once again in surgery and specifically in neurology where sales volume increased for laser system and even more for the consumable tied to the performance of the surgical procedures, the single or multiple-use sterile optical fibers. Optical fiber's revenue exceeded EUR 40 million in 2025, a notable achievement, which is not materially affecting the gross margin yield, but as the expense involved in the sale of the product is marginal compared to systems, has an important effect on EBIT.

Finally, in medical, I'd like to mention the excellent performance, both in the last quarter and in the full year 2025, of the business unit dedicated to physiotherapy systems, ASAlaser based in Vicenza, Italy, which contributed to the group's performance with an increase both in revenue and in profits. Wrapping up all these elements in the consolidated financial performance, we ended up with yearly revenues EUR 428 million, EUR 114 million in the quarter and with EBIT margin sailing above 17%. I'm talking of the medical sector, of course.

The last quarter performance was not as favorable in the industrial sector, markedly for the cutting sector. The results in terms of sales was remarkable, but the mix, in this case, the geographical mix, was not favorable. Sales were concentrated mainly on the Italian territory, which for the cutting market, is currently very competitive and bears very low margin compared to the U.S. market and the other European markets, which normally provide a stronger contribution to sales and margins but that were extremely weak in the quarter.

As the cutting systems segment is by far most relevant in terms of revenue in the industrial sector, it accounts for EUR 121 million out of the total EUR 162 million for the sector. Its weak quarterly performance impacted on the sector profitability, driving EBIT down to roughly 1% only in the quarter and roughly 2% only for the year.

Among the other segments within the industrial sector, I would like to highlight the excellent performance of Lasit and its subsidiaries. As you know, Lasit is engaged in the laser marking business for identification and small surfaces. Revenues were just slightly up on 2024, but the quality of revenues and margins improved a lot to a remarkable 46% increase in EBIT and to an EBIT margin in excess of 13%, which makes this segment more similar to the medical sector segments profitability-wise.

While our EBIT targets were substantially met under a cash generation profile, 2025 was an outstanding year. Our net financial position is up to EUR 172 million at the end of the year, and we have EUR 11 million more of cash invested in so-called long-term financial assets. The [ 62 and change millions ] increase were due to onetime events, meaning the sale of the majority of Penta Laser Zhejiang for about EUR 20 million -- EUR 24 million, excuse me. While roughly EUR 30 or EUR 38 million were generated by operations, net of about EUR 80 million paid out in dividends and about EUR 80 millions more of capital expenditure.

Net working capital decreased on a yearly basis, contributing to cash generation and inverting the increased trend that had initiated with the post-COVID supply chain crunch. Capital expenditure was higher than forecast, and was mainly allocated to facility expansion and capability improvements.

Quanta System is building its new sterile optical fibers manufacturing facility with improved capacity and automation of certain processes, an investment that will exceed EUR 5 million over the 2024-2026 time spend. El.En. rebuilt part of the building on the other side of the street here in Calenzano, as a new home for the medical service department, which moved there last week, which now has a dedicated facility with appropriate offices, services and logistics, and freed up the manufacturing floor space in the main building.

Lasit in Torre Annunziata increased its investment level in this year, also taking benefit of the significant aid that investment in fixed assets are receiving in Southern Italy.

The determinants that from a comparable starting point in profits from operations, make the 2025 net profit results diverge so much from 2024 results, can be summarized in the opposite impact for both foreign exchange variances and the extraordinary management entries related to the sales of the Chinese subsidiary.

I leave the floor to Enrico that will provide you with all the relevant details on this specific matter and on the 2025 financial performance.

Thank you, Andrea. Good morning, everybody. And as usual, I will briefly comment on the full year 2025 financial results released last Friday.

As already mentioned by Andrea, we apply -- as we already applied for the interim account, the full year 2025 consolidated income statement has been prepared in accordance with IFRS accounting standards. Excluding the consolidation line by line of Chinese activities, both in 2025 and 2024, due to the negotiation for the sale of the Chinese division in accordance with IFRS 5. The majority stake of the division was sold on July 15, and the residual stake is about 20%. So the contribution of Penta Laser Zhejiang for the first 6 months has been accounted in the line of the discontinued operation when the contribution for the second part of the year is accounted in the line of other expenses below EBIT, which included the contribution of associated company consolidated using the equity method.

For the full year 2025, El.En. recorded revenues for EUR 591 million, up 4.4%, versus EUR 566 million in 2024. The medical sector grew by 4.4%, in line with previous quarters, while the industrial sector reported a similar annual increase, plus 4.3%, supported by a significant recovery in the fourth quarter. The gross margin reached EUR 259.8 million, up 5.7% on the year, with margin improving from 43.9% -- from 43.4%, excuse me, to 44%, mainly driven by a favorable product mix in the medical sector. Industrial sector showed a slight lower margin profile due to a higher rate of Italian sales, but the overall effect remained positive. In 2025, the weakness of U.S. dollar in medical and industrial and real in the industrial sector only had a cumulative negative impact on the growth of sales of minus 0.9%, minus 0.8% in Medical, and minus 1.1% in the Industrial.

In terms of operating expenses and costs, we had an increase in value and an impact on sales, mainly in G&A, plus 7%, mainly due to R&D and IT costs, and sales and marketing activities, plus 11%. Staff costs increased due to an increase in head count and in salaries. On December 2025, the group had 1,412 employees compared with last year when there were 1,353, excluding China and Japan, with an increase of 59 employees, plus 4%.

EBITDA was positive for EUR 92.8 million, up from the EUR 91.8 million over last year, notwithstanding a slight reduction in margin, 16.2% in 2024, 15.7% in 2025. EBIT recorded a positive balance, EUR 77.8 million, slightly down from the EUR 78.3 million last year due to more significant provision for risk and charges compared to the previous year, with an EBIT margin decreasing from 13.8% to 13.2%.

In depreciation and amortization provision in 2024, there was the reversal of a provision for risk and charges for EUR 1.6 million due to some legal dispute that were resolved more favorably than expected. And moreover, in 2025, the amount of depreciation and amortization increased of EUR 0.4 million due to the investment did in the year and the past periods.

Financial management recorded a loss of EUR 0.8 million compared to a profit of EUR 0.8 million in the previous year. Financial income generated from the investment of liquidity amounted to EUR 3.9 million, EUR 2.8 million last year, while interest expenses on debt amounted to EUR 1.6 million this year, EUR 2.2 million last year.

Foreign exchange rate, the differences showed a significant overall negative balance of EUR 3.1 million, primarily due to the exchange rate of the U.S. dollar. There is also a onetime exchange rate loss recorded in Q1 for EUR 908,000, following the release of the currency conversion result -- resulting from the sale of the majority in With Us. This release reflects the amount of exchange rate differences accumulated over the years in a specific equity reserve, and this is particularly negative due to the performance of the Japanese yen.

The contribution of associated companies included in other expenses is negative for EUR 2.7 million due to With Us, minus EUR 0.4 million, and Penta Laser Zhejiang, minus EUR 2.5 million. When Elesta was positive for EUR 260,000. In other income last year was accounted the onetime income of EUR 5 million due to the write-off of our financial liabilities related to the earn-out to pay to former minority Chinese shareholders in case of IPO of Penta Laser Zhejiang. The pre-tax income was positive for EUR 74.3 million, down from the EUR 84.1 million.

And below this result, there is the net -- the result of the discontinued operation, negative for EUR 6.6 million, and is composed of 4 main items. The contribution to the consolidated income statement by Penta Laser Zhejiang first 6-month result equal to a loss of EUR 3.9 million. The consolidated capital gain on the sales of the stake equal to EUR 3 million, net of adjustment for costs incurred and expected as of today for the conclusion of the contracted. The financial components related to the release of the currency translation reserve, which resulted in a cost of EUR 1.9 million and a charge of EUR 3.8 million following the definition of fiscal litigation relating to Penta Laser Zhejiang raised in 2025 by the Italian revenue agency, the cost of which were borne by Ot-Las in accordance with the contractual agreement underlying the sale. The Group closed the 2025 financial year with a net profit of EUR 43.4 million, down from the EUR 51.6 million last year.

The tax rate, the effective tax rate in 2025 was 32% versus 25%. In 2024, there were 2 positive onetime effects, the nontaxability of the EUR 5 million in other income as write-off of the financial liabilities related to the earnout previously mentioned in case of IPO of Penta Laser Zhejiang and the cumulative accounting of the so-called patent box in El.En. for the year -- 2024 for a tax advantage of approximately EUR 3 million.

Moving now to the balance sheet. In 2025, we had an increase in fixed assets, with CapEx around EUR 19 million. The main investment referring to plants, lands and buildings. In the year, we reduced a decrease in net working capital for minus 7.6%, with also a reduction in the ratio of sales from 35% to 31%. On December, the net financial position is positive for EUR 172.2 million, up from the EUR 110.6 million at the end of 2024.

The Board of Directors, held on Friday, we proposed to the shareholders' meeting a dividend for -- to be paid on May 2026 of EUR 0.25 per share compared to the point EUR 0.22 per share for a total distribution of EUR 20 million to be paid at the end of May.

For what concerns the revenue breakdown by business, the medical sector reached EUR 429 million of revenues, up 4.4%, driven by the strong performance in surgical, plus 7%; aesthetic, plus 4%; and laser therapy, plus 5%. Despite the exit of the -- With Us, our subsidiaries -- our Japanese subsidiaries, and a challenging environment in U.S. market. The sales of consumable and after sales services remain very satisfactory, driven by sales of optical power in neurological surgery, more than 50% of the sales of the segment, which kept service revenue growth of 2% despite the loss of the service contract revenue from With Us. The exit from the consolidation perimeter of With Us company entails an inorganic revenue loss for the service sector of more than 8% service revenue. Organic growth in the segment was, therefore, approximately 10%.

The industrial sector recorded revenue of EUR 162 million, up 4.3%, supported by cutting and after sales service, with particularly strong growth in Italy when marking and lasers sources recorded a decline in revenue.

The revenue breakdown by area. For medical, Italy led growth, supported by solid performance across Europe, plus 7%, and on the global markets, high international exposure, around 90% of revenue, and successful product in Asia, offsetting With Us exit and U.S. headwinds and confirm the strong competitiveness of the group.

Industrial, in Italy, Italy showed a significant recovery in the second half of the year, supported by renewed confidence in the manufacturing sector and fiscal incentives from -- for investment like [ ZES ] for the south of Italy and Industry 5.0. However, international exposure remains lower than in the medical sector, with foreign sales below 50% of revenue despite structurally higher margin abroad.

In Europe, performance has yet to fully stabilize. Lasit's subsidiaries are now reaching maturity, while Cutlite Penta European branches underperforming expectations. In the U.S., order intake was negatively affected early in the year by uncertainty linked to potential Chinese acquisition, also a recovery in order emerged towards year-end.

Please, Andrea, go ahead with the guidance.

Thank you. Thank you very much. So before going to the guidance, I wanted to mention another point, I believe, also anticipating your request. The point about any planned M&A activity, also in light of the considerable amount of cash retained by the group today. We are today considering opportunities of expansion, especially related to the U.S. territory, on which from the days of Cynosure, we don't have a stronghold anymore.

Opportunities, it's stayed plural, since we operate in several market segments, and each of them would need a specific organization. Quanta System is interested in creating an organization for its surgical business, ASAlaser for its physiotherapy business, DEKA for its aesthetic business. There is nothing more than this, which is worth mentioning to date.

The guidance we disclosed in the press release outlines a 5% growth in revenues and a stronger growth in EBIT. Order intake has been very busy in the last months of the year and also in January and February. Our backlog mix reflects the latest mix of revenues in medical, more weighted in anti-aging devices, Onda Pro at first place. And it is much more balanced on international sales, including the higher margin bearing sales to the U.S. market for the industrial sector, including and specifically in the laser cutting segment. The level of confidence that our operating units display is high.

Had we delivered guidance on February 15, the message we would have broadcasted would have been more optimistic and a shared expected growth more aggressive. But the bombing of Iran could have an impact on our business, though quite unpredictable. Short term, we are seeing the reaction quite understandably from the Gulf area, which is particularly relevant for the medical aesthetic sector. The [indiscernible] immediate impact is the increase of gas prices for cars and prices increase that are hitting in whatever is related to energy and transportation.

Hoping in a quick solution of the conflict, we'll have to see how this will impact on the overall economy trend and propensity to invest. It's a great deal of uncertainty tied to the outcome and effects of this new contract. And as I often have said, uncertainty is one of the worst enemies for capital equipment manufacturers that sell their equipment to customers based on their solid expectation to receive solid results.

But in closing these remarks, and before we answer your questions, I would like to confirm that in any circumstance, we feel our organization is today's strong, stable and well positioned, and we are confident in our abilities and capabilities to pursue our expansion goals. Thank you.

And now we can open the Q&A session. [Operator Instructions] We have the first one from Carlo Maritano.

[Foreign Language] Just have 3 questions from my side, just to begin this session. The first one is on the Middle East. So you just mentioned that it's a relevant market for you. Can you remind us how much of your revenues come from these area and which are the application in the state that are most affected more from the current situation?

The second one is on CapEx. So this year, you invested more than expected to the capacity. I was wondering if next year, given that you expect still some growth, some important growth, if you expect the current level of 2025 will be basically the same in 2026? So it will be more, we can say, normal around 15% -- EUR 15 million per year.

And the final one is on the marking business. So in the fourth quarter, there was quite decline. I was just wondering if you can provide us some more color on the performance of this division?

Middle East. Thank you, Carlo, for the question. Middle East, it's worth roughly 15% of our medical aesthetics sales, where it's way less significant in any other segment. So this is the amount of risk, let's say, of the area. Then the Middle East is quite a broad concept because Egypt is part of Middle East, and Egypt, today is not affected at all, at least by the current situation. While the areas in which we sell that are more affected are the Emirates, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. Those are the 3 areas where we have very good sales volume in medical. The situation is uncertain. Dubai Derma, which is an exhibition which was due to take place at the end of March, has been, for the moment, suspended. Obviously, we'll see. I mean, of course, we would need to somehow put up with this situation. We hope that it won't last too long.

Second question was CapEx. I wouldn't expect 2026 to replicate by any means the volumes of investment in of 2025. We bought a building for Cutlite Penta, which was worth EUR 3.5 million, which we don't expect at all to replicate in this year. We had several infrastructure investments in Lasit which are not going to be replicated in 2026. We built a new building in the other side of the road, here, which will not replicated. Actually, we could have some, again, investment in expansion of capabilities or in refurbishing of certain parts of our manufacturing plants. But as you said, I expect the CapEx in 2025 to remain well below the EUR 15 million mark.

The third point was marking. And yes, marking has seen overall decline. We have 3 companies engaged in various means in the marking arena. The first one is Lasit, which is engaged in the small surface identification market, and then a small increase in revenue were basically even.

The second company engages Ot-Las, which is engaged in the decoration wider surface market. They didn't have a good year. Part of their business is also related to the fashion market and to -- and this year, was a varied idea for all the manufacturers related to the fashion market. So there was no stimulus incentive for our customers to invest.

And the third area of marking is a special system of El.En. El.En., our major -- our parent company, has an industrial division which specializes in 2 specialties, mid-power laser sources and marking systems, which sometimes are sold together, sometimes are sold separately.

In this case, I'd like to mention one of the bad -- one of the worst events of 2025, where we had to stand the bankruptcy of an important customer of ours in Israel, which was a very interesting customer for our marking systems that were used in digital converting. And unfortunately, even though the company was a listed company, they went bankrupt, and it's one of the reasons why we had so large accruals with respect to 2024 in 2025.

Looking forward, since you brought me into the marking segment, we believe that 2026 can be a year of recovery. Lasit has an expensive budget with an expansion both in service related to existing system and in the sale of new systems. Ot-Las has seen a very interesting recovery in their own application fields. And also with El.En. between -- I mean, I wouldn't say for laser markets and laser sources, but with both, we are in this moment, envisaging a good return in growth in sales.

One thing I have to mention, that our -- sometimes our sales volume is important, but the mix of products within the sales volumes is very important as well. Lasit and its subsidiary did not materially increase the sales in 2025, but we shifted their mix to special system, which means systems that are not standard and on which there is less competition because they are customized versions for customers' needs. And by this means, with the same revenue, they increased materially gross margin and materially EBIT margin, which is good news, which makes Lasit a kind of company which operates with the level of margins, both on gross margin and EBIT margin, which are comparable to the medical sector.

Are there questions from investors? Yes. We have Giovanni Selvetti from Berenberg.

The first one's probably is to stay on the point that Andrea was making now on the mix. I was wondering what changed compared to the third quarter because I would assume that if most of the order intake for the industrial division was Italy, unless you were assuming a different profitability in Italy, should have been already clear then that the guidance would have not been met. So because it seems to me that you were saying before that these assistance runs at lower profitability compared to other countries in Italy because the market is more competitive. But at the same time, you should have had the visibility on where these orders were coming. So I was wondering if maybe the profitability realized was lower than you actually expected?

The second one is on M&A. During the last call, you were mentioning that, if I'm not mistaken, you were close or not too far from closing some bolt-on deals, while now it seems more that there's nothing on the table. Is something happened there?

And the third one is mostly very short on the tax rate for maybe Enrico, is it -- if it's fair to assume that it's going to be around 32% structurally going forward?

Andrea, if you want, I can answer to the tax rate. Okay. So the last year, as I mentioned before, there are 2 nonrecurring benefits on the tax rate. So for the future, I think that if you assume a tax rate around 30%, could be a reasonable tax rate, from 30%, 31% around.

No, we are sure it also. So concerning profitability, concerning profitability in the fourth quarter, you are somehow right. Basically, guidance was a mess for 700 -- I mean, for a very, very small amount which, within all the determinants of a quarterly results are, I mean, a minor issue.

We thought we were going to deliver certain units to the U.S. We thought that we were going to deliver more units in Brazil. The performance of Brazil in the fourth quarter was very, very poor. Sales revenue in Brazil was 0. And so these 2 elements by itself change the guidance. Excuse me, not change guidance, caused enough margin reduction not to meet the guidance. The good news here is that the orders that we could not deliver in 2025 are due to delivery now, and so we expect a better mix in the industrial business, in the cutting sector, especially now starting in the first quarter of 2026.

Concerning M&A, you are right. But actually, what I described in my comments is that we are considering -- we are considering those bolt-on transactions for these segments. But that today, I have nothing to add because there is nothing disclosable more than a vague description of an intention to move in that direction.

Andrea -- Andrea Bonfa, yes. We have another question from Andrea Bonfa from Banca Akros.

Now very quickly, is it possible for you to elaborate how is the U.S. market doing in the light of the, let's say, nominal duties and now the potential that the duties will not be applied anymore?

We -- in this moment, our forecast for the U.S. market duties or not is strong, is very strong. Of course, if duties would be actually be released, which, I don't know if I have to believe in full, the situation will be better. All our forecast is based on purchase volumes, which for our customers, bear 50% duties. Should the duties be applied from a certain date on, of course, we would have an advantage. We would probably also have a compression of sales because if a window will open, everybody will try to purchase in that window. But I mean, we don't have a model for that today.

Okay. So if I understood correctly, for the time being, more or less, you are dividing -- you're sharing the royalties or the duties 50% with your client, is that right?

Not exactly. Basically, in the medical sector, most of our customers in the United States are bearing in full, the cost of the tariffs. In certain cases, we provided a contribution, which is though way lower than 7.5%. I believe that as of today, as manufacturers, we have borne in full the effect of the foreign exchange, which was worth close to -- I mean dependence when we look for 7%, 8%, let's say, today, but we didn't bear any material cost in taking charge of the duties. We are not beyond 2% or 3% in the [ sell-down ] circumstances in which we agreed to contribute.

Okay. And if I may, a follow-up question. On your guidance, the 5% top line sales growth, is that expected to be about the same for the 2 divisions? Or do you see a faster growth in medical versus industrial, or if you can comment on that?

As of today, both sectors are expected to grow at the same speed.

Is there any other question for the company. No, it looks like there are no more -- yes, Andrea Bonfa again. Okay.

Sorry, I exploit the fact that there are no questions for the time being. No, the -- so Andrea, I will ask you. I mean, you mentioned that if it wasn't for the war, your guidance in February would have been, let's say, more important. But is that -- is the current guidance already reflecting a slowdown or is it still hypothetical for the time being?

I could talk -- we could talk long on this issue. We had a guidance which provided for certain growth rates in several countries, including the Middle East, and provided on a certain, let's say, global situation. We decided to be more conservative following the bombing of Iran by Israel and the United States. And so we are factoring in a certain degree of prudence, which takes into account 2 major effects. One, the fact that the Middle East countries would probably not be a market as large as we were expecting for the medical aesthetics sector. And so we applied a reduction on that specific market. And second, also a more cautious approach worldwide which, I mean, overall, led us to disclose the guidance that we have disclosed.

Unfortunately, you can understand, 10 days after the beginning of a war, we have no means to understand how this will actually impact our business. Maybe the impact could be negligible. I mean, if the war ends and we have no impact, especially on the supply chains, we are worried about the supply chains. We were already worried by the supply chains for events, which are unrelated to the war, because we are encountering an increase of pricing in certain electronic memories in -- especially in memories, which, of course, are related to the increase of demand for AI. So we already have some concern on certain of our supply chain, let's say, channels. Should other supply chain channels become hurt by this situation, we would need to face further problems.

For the moment, we just -- we are at the beginning of the year, we just decided to apply some prudence to what we -- we thought we could actually perform. And so for the moment, we believe that 5% growth is something we should be able to achieve. And while achieving 5% growth, we should, especially by recovering in terms of profitability in the industrial sector, which has been so poor as also Giovanni Selvetti was somehow -- as we commented with Giovanni Selvetti before, this kind of achievement is something we feel quite comfortable to reach.

Okay. And sorry for the level of detail, but -- so if I understood correctly, in your guidance, the areas -- the countries affected by the geopolitical event are now seeing with the sales decline in your guidance. Is that correct? Or is lower...

Listen, I -- probably yes. I don't know. I can tell you that if we had x million of sales in the Gulf, we applied a reduction of sales to the Gulf. And I don't know if after the reduction we applied on the budget, this is increases or not, but I believe, yes, it's probably -- since we did fairly well last year, not very well. Last year, we did extremely worse in the Far Eastern market, we did not do so well in the Middle East markets because there were already some structural problems related to the unease of the area. So I will not -- I'm not able to tell you if there will be a decrease in Middle East, for sure, we decreased the forecast.

We have one more question from Giovanni Selvetti.

Yes. Two quick one on my side. The first one is related to, again, M&A. Before you seem to -- seems to suggest that probably the -- also Quanta would like to expand in the U.S. In this respect, I saw that you already opened a commercial presence recently with Quanta. So I was wondering if you are deciding to go on with your own, just say, a commercial sales force or if you still would like to find a distributor?

And the second one, maybe again, is on guidance. Is it -- because it's almost done already, that Q1, is it fair to assume that Q1 is going to have an increase of revenues that is more than 5%, considering what you just said then, what's going to happen in the rest of the year, it depends on many things, and I'm aware of that. But is it fair to assume that Q1 is going to be stronger than plus 5%?

First question, you're right. We opened a company called Quanta U.S. We incorporated a company. This is not setting any direction. It's just giving us a, let's say, a logistical in terms of financial logistic base to develop the business. But again, it's too early to disclose the way we will develop the business. So you're right, we have this subsidiary, but we will tell how this will develop in an activity later on as soon as we have everything in place.

For what concerns 2020 -- the first quarter, we are quite hockey sticked always, and so March is the most important month. The last week of March is the most important week. We are subjected to cut off which is technical. So we might have delivered products, but we wouldn't -- it's not -- we are not necessarily able to book it for revenue. So I would say that I would expect a good growth in Q1 2026. But yes, I would say I would expect it well above 5%, but it's not granted. It's not granted because we have to see how things evolve with deliveries in these weeks also in -- also in the United States, also in the Middle East.

If we were -- if we didn't have this issue of the bombing, I would be more confident. But being a very, very short period and being affected by cutoff, I mean, just to -- we had the end of periods with EUR 15 million of cut-off. So EUR 15 million of cutoff is worth 10% of our revenue on a quarterly basis. So it's sometimes very difficult to evaluate until the very last moment. So let's say that I hope and I'm confident that we could improve our revenue below -- over 5%, but I'm not granting it, and I have no certain visibility on it.

[Operator Instructions] No more question, Andrea. Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now over. If you have any inquiry in the future, please do not hesitate to contact Enrico Romagnoli, who will be happy to assist you. Thank you for attending this conference, and we hope to have you all again next time. Goodbye, everybody. Bye.

Bye-bye. Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay. Good afternoon or good morning to everyone, and welcome to El.En.'s Third Q 2025 Financial Results Conference Call. Today's call will be recorded, and there will be an opportunity for questions at the end of the call. With me on the call, Andrea Cangioli, El.En.'s CEO; and Enrico Romagnoli, El.En.'s Chief Financial Officer and Investor Relations Manager.

Before we begin, please note that there are management remarks during the conference call regarding future expectations, plans, prospects and forward-looking statements. Certain statements in this call, including those addressing to the company beliefs, plans, objectives, estimates or expectations of possible future results or events are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve known or unknown risks, including general economic and business condition in the industry in assumptions of -- in which we operate.

These statements may be affected if our assumptions turn out to be inaccurate. Consequently, no forward-looking statements can be guaranteed and actual future results, performance or achievements may vary materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. The company undertakes no obligation to update the content or the forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances that may arise after the date hereof.

At the end of the presentation, if you need to ask a question, please book your question on the chat of Bianca Fersini Mastelloni raise your virtual hand you will have the floor in order of request.

But at this time, I want to give the floor to Andrea Cangioli. Please go, Andrea.

Thank you very much, Bianca, for your introduction and for hosting us. And thank you to everybody for being with us in this call following the release of our financial report as of September 30, 2025. Enrico Romagnoli will be on this call with me, and I thank him for taking care of the details of our financial reporting that he will be sharing with you in a very short time.

Our third quarter came out really strong, especially under the profitability profile, confirming the trend of this 2025, a brilliant performance in the medical sector and a softer one in the industrial business. The reported numbers say on the 9 months revenues were up 4.6% in medical and just shy of 2% in Industrial. And that consolidated EBIT was down 3.2% on the 9 months, but up 3.8% in the quarter, marking the EBIT recovery that hints and supports our guidance for this year-end.

If we look a little deeper inside these numbers, we have grounds to be extremely pleased with the performance in the medical sector, also on the revenue line. In fact, this 2025 -- in this 2025, we're facing the inorganic effect of the exit of consolidation from March 1 of the Japanese subsidiary with us. Net of such effect, growth in medical would have been equal to 7.1% on the 9 months. Moreover, we're also facing the moving away of the historic and very significant customer Cynosure as our OEM contract for the supply of high-power alexandrite laser systems for hair removal is only formally in place after Cynosure merged with a South Korean company, Lutronic, that is now providing and that is going to provide to Cynosure such technology for their distribution net.

By removing the negative effect of this circumstance and cumulatively with the removal of the without effect, sales growth would have exceeded 10% on the 9 months. This on the revenue side. The other pleasing news of this period is that the revenue increase is achieved with the increase of revenues in higher margins bearing sales segments and products with an overall beneficial effect to consolidated gross margins and overall profitability.

Growth in system sales was mainly generated by systems for anti-aging treatments in which the innovative content of both the technology and the application is bearing higher margin on sales for us compared to the main and slowly declining revenue stream of the hair removal devices. I'm talking at first place of the Onda product. The revisiting of our flagship body contouring device, Onda based on the microwaves technology, a revisiting that expanded the intended use of the device to anti-aging face treatments.

Based on this, Onda Pro is experiencing a second use with respect to the original launch of Onda with amazing acceptance also in the most advanced markets for innovation in the aesthetic application, namely the Far East markets like the Korean market, which are extremely developed and sophisticated in selecting the most innovative and effective devices. But as our group does not rely on the peak performance of single product devices, Onda Pro was not alone in driving revenues toward the anti-aging demand. I'll give you just a couple more examples of other successful products and related procedures.

Nano and picosecond devices like the Discovery Pico by Quanta System and the TORO by DEKA are innovation leaders in the pigmented lesion, skin toning area that is traditionally prominent for treating the signs of aging facial skins. CO2 microablative procedure cool peel performed by DEKA's Tetra PRO is now the golden standard for facial rejuvenation and is encountering increasing worldwide success starting from the U.S. market.

Another significant contribution to the performance was provided by the surgical business, especially in the urological application, which are the treatment of stones.

[Foreign Language]

so another significant contribution to the performance was provided by the surgical business, especially in the urological application, which are the treatment of stones and BPH, the benign hyperplasia of the prostate, a business that within the group is mainly pursued by the market leader, Quanta System, but also by Elexxion Surgical, the brand managed by our German sub, Asclepion.

Revenue for laser systems in urology was up roughly 7.5% in the 9 months. The side business of consumable sterile optical fiber was also growing smoothly along with the increasing installed base and it now accounts for more than half of our post-sales revenues of the medical business. which means roughly EUR 10 million per quarter or 10% of the overall revenues of our medical business. Moreover, this piece of revenues is bearing gross margins that are in the upper segment of our products margin mix. And since operation expense in terms of sales and marketing and labor is less intensive than for system sales, the accretive impact on EBIT and EBIT margins is also significant as testified by the profitability of Quanta System that is the main factor in this business for us.

In terms of expenses involved in this business, there is CapEx going on and coming up in Quanta System as Quanta System is starting the construction of a new larger semi-robotized clean room at Samarate facility dedicated to the production of sterile optical fibers to increase its production capacity for its medical devices. EBIT margin for the industrial division, I am providing you an -- excuse me, for the medical division, I'm providing you an unaudited figure is improving in 2024, 2025 on 2024 and was roughly 16.9% on the 9 months and around 19% in the third quarter.

We were not able to achieve similar results for our industrial business. The only activity bearing margin similar to the medical business is the identification marking activity led by Lasit, which continues to perform well both in revenues and in profitability. The other businesses within our industrial world have not performed according to expectation, the expectation we had in our yearly planning, missing the revenue targets and therefore, lacking also in terms of profit generation.

The most dimensionally significant business is the cutting business, which despite expectation and decent order bookings has been slowing down both in revenues and in profits in each quarter this year. Since order bookings came quite late in the year and delivery lead times for our sophisticated and often custom design systems are not easily compressible, as of September 30, we incurred in a major sales cutoff, meaning the inability to recognize revenues for several systems that had been physically delivered to customers but had not cleared the final testing procedure within the end of the month.

To give you an idea of this adjustment, which, to a certain extent, physiologically always takes place at the end of each quarter, we're talking at the end of September of almost EUR 8 million versus less than EUR 1 million at the end of June. EUR 7 million worth 22% on the quarterly business revenue and 7% on the year-to-date revenues as of September. I am not stating that without this adjustment, everything would have been okay in this business segment as the market is very competitive, and we need a great effort to maintain our competitive position and win our sales.

But of course, it would have looked different under several profiles. In fact, we are continuing to invest in what we feel is strategically meaningful for the market positioning of Cutlite in the sheet metal laser business, which can be summarized in 3 CapEx -- in 3 points that lead to CapEx or profit and loss outflows in 2025. The purchase of a plant to expand the versatile production capacity of Cutlite Penta that we closed in the first quarter of 2025. The P&L expenses involved in the launch of the European sales subsidiaries in order to get closer to the customers in the countries of Spain, Germany and Poland.

The profit and loss expenses involved in the managing of Nexam, the company dedicated to automation system complementary to our laser cutting system, an addition to the product range that is highly strategical for the product offering, but that for the time being, is far from being EBIT accretive, though improving its EBIT result in the third quarter.

For what concerns the other smaller businesses in the industrial world, the laser marking system for special application and for large surfaces provided by Ot-Las and also by the industrial division of El.En. very often in combined supplies with the mid-power CO2 laser sources in these businesses, the performance continued to be weak. We are identifying new application niches to recover in a year that has been hit by the negative cycle of the fashion world customers and also hit by the down trimming of the expectation in the motors for electrical vehicle segment.

Cash generation has been outstanding in the quarter as we benefited from the onetime cash inflow stemming from the sale of the majority stake in Penta Laser Zhejiang, which on the net financial position was worth already factoring in the possible future price adjustments, roughly EUR 26.4 million. As I mentioned before, had we closed before, I mean, in previous conference calls we held, had we closed the deal 3 months earlier, the foreign exchange level with the Chinese yuan would have been much more favorable as it quickly deteriorated by 10% around and after the Liberation Day.

Cash flows from operations amounted to roughly EUR 20 million, contributing to the EUR 47 million quarterly increase of the net financial position. Under this profile, it is worth to mention that the quarter highlighted a slight decrease in the overall net working capital and accounted for roughly EUR 3 million in capital expenditure that were offset in the effect on the net financial position by the release of EUR 3 million of long-term cash investment that cannot show up in the net financial position. By the way, the balance of such investments that are not accounted for within the net financial position since they are long-term assets was around EUR 11 million at the end of the third quarter of 2025.

I give the floor to Enrico, and I will be back with more general remarks after his section.

Thank you, Andrea. Good morning, everybody. As usual, I'm going to comment the financials we released last week. As for the year-end and for the half yearly report, the quarterly report has been prepared in accordance with IFRS accounting standards, excluding the consolidation line-by-line of Chinese activities, both in 2025 and in 2024 due to the negotiation for the sale of the division in accordance with IFRS 5. The majority stake of the Chinese companies was sold on July 15. So since July 2025, Penta Laser Zhejiang is consolidated with the equity method for the residual stake of 19.3%.

In the first 9 months 2025, the group recorded consolidated revenue for EUR 422 million, up 3.9% compared to the EUR 406 million and the medical sector up over 4.6% when the industrial up 1.9%. The gross margin was EUR 188.3 million, up 6.5% compared to the EUR 177 million of September 2024, with an impact on revenue of 44.6% improving the profitability of 1% compared with last year. It should be noted that in 2024, the group recorded proceeds for insurance and government reimbursement relating to the damages of the flood of November 2023 for an amount of EUR 1.9 million, 0.5% of the revenue.

In 2025, Asclepion accounted EUR 1.3 million of R&D grants, 0.3 percentage point on the revenue. So excluding both of this nonrecurring income, the impact of gross margin on sales would have improved more than 1% in 2025, attributable to an improvement in the sales mix. Operating expenses increased in value and an impact on sales, mainly in G&A, R&D and IT costs and sales and marketing activities. Staff costs increased due to an increase in headcounts and in salaries. EBITDA positive at EUR 65.6 million. The result is in line with last year, even though the EBITDA margin in 2025 slightly decreased from 16.2% to 15.6%.

Depreciation, amortization and provision amounted to EUR 10.6 million in 2025 compared to EUR 9 million in 2024. The main reason of the increase was the reversal of the provision for risk and charges in 2024 for EUR 1.6 million due to some legal disputes that were resolved more favorably than expected. Net of this amount, the overall cost aggregate is in line with the previous year. EBIT for the first 9 months was EUR 55 million compared to the EUR 56.9 million for the first 9 months of 2024.

The margin on revenue was 13%, down from the 14% with a decrease over last year of 3.3%, having the delay registered on June. Financial Management recorded a loss of EUR 1.8 million. In the first 9 months, the interest income generated by liquidity was EUR 2.8 million, while the interest expenses on debt was EUR 1.3 million. Exchange rate difference has a strongly negative balance equal to EUR 2.4 million. But in addition, we have a onetime exchange rate loss recorded -- already recorded in Q1 for EUR 908,000 following the release of the currency conversion reserve resulting from the sale of the majority of with us.

The contribution of associated company is negative for EUR 1 million, mainly due with us, minus EUR 0.5 million and Penta Laser Zhejiang, minus EUR 0.6 million. In other income last year was accounted the onetime income of EUR 5 million due to the write-off of liabilities related to the earn-out to pay to former minority Chinese shareholders in case of IPO of Penta Laser Zhejiang. So at the end, income before taxes showed a positive balance of EUR 52.2 million, lower than EUR 61.2 million at the end of September 2024.

In the third quarter, as already mentioned by Andrea, the group had a strong performance and recording growth in both revenue and above all, operating profit, plus 3.8% versus Q3 2024 with a strong recovery compared to June when the delay in terms of EBIT compared to the first 6 months of 2024 was 7%. In the third quarter, the main segment that performed better than last year were aesthetic in medical sector and marking in the industrial sector.

Looking into the cash flow, the group net financial position on September 2025 was positive for EUR 137 million, an increase by EUR 47.4 million in the third quarter from the EUR 90 million at the end of June 2025. In the 9 months, the increase was EUR 26.8 million, thanks to the cash flow generated by current activities and the proceeds received for the sale of the majority stake in Penta Laser Zhejiang for a net amount of EUR 26.4 million. The main reduction incurred in the period are dividend paid for EUR 19 million in Q2, CapEx for the 9 months of EUR 13 million, increase in net working capital of EUR 20 million.

Furthermore, the group invested the liquidity in insurance policy, mid- long-term investment accounted in noncurrent assets. So we have additional liquidity of EUR 10.7 million on September 30. What concerns the revenue breakdown by business in the medical sector, system sales showed strong growth in all major segments. In the aesthetics segment, plus 4%, the very favorable trend for anti-aging and body contour application continued. Among surgical applications, plus 8%, urology, ENT and gynecology system continued to record significant growth in sales. Asa's performance in physiotherapy, plus 5% was also very satisfactory, thanks to the significant innovation in the range of products offered, a more effective coverage of international market, together with the relaunch of sales in Italy.

Sales of consumable and aftersales service remained very satisfactory, driven by the sales of optical fiber for surgical application, more than 50% of the sale of the segment, which kept service revenue growth to 4% despite the loss for service contract revenue from the Japanese company with us, whose majority stake was sold in February 2025. In the industrial sector, the cutting segment, which no longer includes Chinese companies, maintained growth of 2%, thanks to the excellent sales result of the Brazilian subsidiaries, plus EUR 4 million of revenue in the first 9 months.

Lasit also performed well in the market segment with the increased weight of its subsidiaries. In the Q3, we had a significant recovery in sales in the segment of large footwear marking application where Ot-Las operates. In the Laser sources segment, the slowdown was more evident and was primarily due to decline in revenues from system integrators for fashion application and electric motor windings. Sales for Industrial Service returned to show an increase of 6% as expected due to the progressive increase in the installed base.

Geographically, the most positive note came from the Italian market with an extraordinary growth of 27% in medical. In the industrial sector, Italian turnover also recovered in the quarter, up 6% in the 9 months, thanks to the increased confidence among manufacturing market operators, supported by the return of tax policies to support investment. The performance in European market was very satisfactory, particularly in the German medical and professional aesthetics beauty sector and in the industrial sector, thanks to the progressive consolidation of the sales subsidiaries activities, particularly by Lasit.

The negative sign appearing on sales in the rest of the world has different determinants depending on the sector. What concerns the medical, Andrea already mentioned the inorganic operation that affected the sector. The result is a good result because it was achieved net of the exit of Withus in February and the loss of the supplies to Cynosure due to the M&A that brought it closer to Lutronic. Net of this departure, turnover, therefore, increased significantly. The situation is completely different in the industrial sector, where our order intake in the American market, the most significant in the rest of the world was negatively impacted in the first month of the year by the image projected on the market by the potential acquisition by a Chinese entity.

Andrea, please go ahead for what concern the guidance.

Okay. In closing my prepared remarks, I would like to touch 3 more topics. The role of the industrial division, especially of the cutting division within the group, the use of our cash and finally, the 2025 guidance. As the performance of the industrial division markedly of the cutting division is weaker than the one of the rest of the group, I would like to share with you the strategy short term and midterm of the group with respect of this business area.

We are very proud of the results and the dimensions achieved by our cutting business unit, but we are also aware -- but we are also aware that its business, especially after the CO2 laser sources have been ruled out of cutting by the fiber laser sources technology is not fully consistent anymore with the other businesses of the group. There is no market correlation and the technological correlation is very limited as well. Therefore, we are convinced that the Cutlite's Penta organization, people and business would benefit of strategically cooperating with organizations that are more consistent to Cutlite's business.

Along this path, we moved towards a transaction that would have placed Cutlite within a larger organization, developing a specific growth strategy for Cutlite. I'm talking of the sale -- potential sales to the Chinese end. But when we were faced by the material risk under the new organization, that one of the most promising businesses of Cutlite, the U.S. business, was bearing the risk of being completely jeopardized, we decided that for protecting the organization itself, we would have not sold Cynosure -- Cutlite anymore. So the short-term strategy now that Cutlite is still within our consolidation perimeter is to manage the potential of Cutlite and to continue to invest in what we feel is needed for Cutlite to flourish.

The longer-term strategy is to resume and pursue the design of finding a strategic partnership for Cutlite a partnership that would enhance its peculiarities, capabilities and potential, giving the best opportunity to Cutlite's organization to continue to flourish or better to improve its opportunities and chances to flourish on its market that are quite competitive. What is evident from our reporting is the amount of investment involved in supporting Cutlite's strategy. What we can additionally tell you about the larger picture isn't much at all for the moment, but we will update you as soon as we will have something meaningful to report.

For what concerns the businesses of Lasit, Ot-Las and industrial division of the mother company, El.En., we are planning to continue to pursue such businesses within the group. Now the quite wide cash position we are holding today, which is beyond the ordinary operational needs of our companies, also considering potential expensive investment activities like the one I mentioned for the fiber optical -- sterile optical fibres manufacturing plant. As usual, capital expenditure and operational needs for our operations are first in the list for us as we believe that interesting growth rates can be achieved by further improving the operational performance of our own business units.

In order to enhance our growth rate, especially in terms of profits, we are investigating a set of small M&A opportunities that could be accretive to the development of the business units involved, especially in the medical sector but also in the industrial sector, as we mentioned before. We could be closing soon one or more small deals across -- along this path. More complex deals that could fall under the label of transformational are now being more closely considered, though there is nothing for the time being to report about.

The Board of Directors has not yet resolved about any onetime cash distribution to the shareholders in any form. Therefore, I'm not in the position to elaborate any comment about. Finally, the guidance. I can keep it simple here. We are targeting and planning to beat 2024, both in the revenues and in EBIT. As you know, we are on schedule for the revenue target. We are just a little bit behind for what concerns the EBIT target, but we are recovering and confident to be able to hit the EUR 23 million figure in EBIT in the fourth quarter of 2025.

Thank you for your patience, and I believe we are ready for your questions.

Andrea, the first question in our list comes from Giovanni Selvetti of Berenberg.

Can you hear me well?

Yes.

Well, I had two, but then let's just say that the final remarks added a few extra questions, but maybe I'll jump in the queue and ask more after. These are two regarding the medical division. The first one is on Asclepion that based on the press release seems to be doing much better in Q3. And as far as I remember, Asclepion was also mainly involved in hair removal, which was the area that was struggling the most. So I was wondering what's changed exactly also because if I can remember, in the first half, the cost of personnel was going up also in relation to Asclepion.

The second one is about Quanta. If I look at your press release, you're saying that now optical fibers account for more than 50% of medical services. So if we assume, let's just say, a figure around 35%, that is, let's just say, more than 50%. If we had to double this capacity, do you see already demand to fill it? Or how much should we think before the excess capacity gets filled?

And maybe the last one is on the Lasit, let's just say, part of the business that, again, based on what you're saying, we are talking about margins based on what the press release say strongly above last year. So I was wondering what kind of margins Lasit is now running at?

Okay. So starting from Asclepion. Yes, there was a recovery. Yes, the recovery was also tied to a better performance in the hair removal in the third quarter. So I mean, this is a good line considering the hair removal segment. And yes, the impact of the cost of staff in Asclepion is quite significant. It was increasing a lot in the second -- in the first half. Since the result for the third half was extremely good in terms of revenues. Now the difference of the impact of staff cost between Asclepion and the rest of the group is smaller.

Most important and what actually made turnaround in the quarter, the business of Asclepion is the increase in revenue, which is due to aesthetics, but also to its surgical line, which is performing very, very well. Quanta System and Fibers, we -- as of today, we do not feel we are limited or materially limited in the deliveries of fibers by our production capacity. But we feel that given the rhythm of new installation and of the absorption by the market of our optical fibers, we needed to expand the capacity in order not to incur in a sales limitation due to capacity in the future.

So we are progressively increasing the volumes, and we are placing this very large investment in order to improve the production capacity, but we don't have an impellent need. It's, I mean, a strategic programming that will allow us to continue to increase the stream of revenue over the time smoothly.

Finally, your third question was about Lasit. Lasit actually is improving. It's not improving its sales volume over the 9 months, especially due to a slow behavior of the Italian market, while we are doing very well, especially in Europe, where the subsidiary that Lasit set up on the territory are now starting to be really accretive to the business. I recall we have subsidiaries in Poland, the oldest one, in Spain, Germany, U.K. and France, the last one. So we have 5 subsidiaries. And quarter after quarter, they are becoming accretive to revenues and especially to profitability.

In terms of profitability, we had an EBIT margin just shy of 8% after the first 9 months of 2024. After the first 9 months of 2025, we are exceeding 11% as EBIT margins. Those are unaudited financial results referring to the consolidated financial results of Lasit and its subsidiaries.

I'll jump in the queue and then I have some questions.

The second question comes from Andrea Bonfa of Banca Akros.

I hope you can hear me. Very quickly, I mean, connecting to your last statement on M&A, potential M&A. So if I understood correctly, transformational deal are -- might be considered but unlikely for the time being, but some bolt-on acquisitions are definitely more possible. Is that possible for you to comment on which sector niches, technologies are you looking for?

No.

Or in which geographies eventually?

I'm sorry, I said all I can say.

Okay. Okay.

It's nothing -- the answer wouldn't change. I mean we are -- we have several things on our pipeline related, as I said, both to medical and to industrial and they are both on the European territory and in the rest of the world. But I mean, in answering by this means, I don't -- I cannot give you any more detail. It wouldn't be fair. I can only tell you that we are examining several situations.

Okay. And if I may, as far as the industrial business is concerned, I mean, within now, let's say, the recent input that you just mentioned, is the U.S. still a potential important market or now with the duties and your, let's say, smaller size is less so. And the third one is on the U.S. duties. How is the trading environment in U.S. now with this new duties environment, if it's possible? Also in relative terms because, I mean, maybe there are other countries now less competitive than Europe.

First of all, the U.S. market for our industrial cutting systems is still very interesting and still the main market -- international market for our systems. We have suffered, as Enrico said explicitly and as I confirm, the image that was projected during the negotiation with the YOFC for the sale of the company. And we spent quite a lot of time in convincing our U.S. customers that we were not becoming Chinese. And also after the deal that was going to have Cutlite Penta fall under Chinese control was canceled.

Still, we have our hard time in discussing with our U.S. partners and I mean, partners because we have distribution partners and making them fully comfortable that we will be able to provide them on the midterm, a sound and price attractive and technologically attractive Italian-made product. This is -- by the way, they are visiting us on Wednesday in order to clarify again this situation because based on this, we have had some sort of fluctuation in order bookings from the United States, notwithstanding our efforts, which include a massive deployment of technical service people in order to serve at top quality with top quality our systems installed in the United States and also a strong investment in terms of fares.

We participated to the FABTECH, which is one of the most expensive fairs that you can approach on the industrial systems market. And so after this long speech, I would say that, yes, the U.S. market, it's still an opportunity. It's still an important opportunity. And it's not an issue of duties. Duties are impacting us in the industrial sector, but it's not duties that today caused a slowdown in sales to the United States in the industrial business.

For what concerns the duty question on the medical system, of course, duties are there. They are quite impacted. But we have seen increasing interest in the last months from our U.S. customers in our products. This speaks about the fact that even though each and every of our customers in the United States will try to negotiate a deal in order to have us participate to the "undue extra cost driven by duties. " They are still looking for us because we are able to provide them the innovative content of products that allows them to make margin, notwithstanding the extra cost.

And so basically, in this moment, we are -- I mean, at least for the first 10 months of the year, we are very pleased with what we have done in terms of revenues and what we have done also in terms of order bookings. Then, of course, -- we will have to see how the hot seasons on the U.S. market, which is the month of December, will roll out for our distributors to have a final judgment on the total effect of duties on our U.S. business. But so far, we have -- we can notice an overall positive reaction of the U.S. market on the duty situation.

Next question comes from Carlo Maritano of Intermonte.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

I just have a couple of questions. The first one is on the European performance in the industrial cutting business in the third quarter. I see that there is a decline compared to last year. I was wondering if it is related to the EUR 9 million of revenue that shifted from the third quarter to the fourth quarter. And the second one is again on the industrial business, in this case, on Italy. So recently, the government changed again the incentives related to [indiscernible]. So I was wondering if you expect any kind of impact on your clients from this change or if the order book remains healthy and that you do not expect any kind of disruption.

Thank you for these two questions. About the first one, the decline in the European revenues in industrial, you see it in the third quarter. It's something which is, let's say, local. It's not related to the cutoff, which is mainly an Italian issue. It's mainly an Italian issue because we don't -- it's tied to the means of delivery we have in Italy. And what we could say, it has been driven by a softer activity in Europe and by the slower activity of the subsidiaries, we should be able to overcome the situation over the rest of the year.

For what concern the Italian laws, the Italian, I mean, funding situation, I didn't want to go in this detail. But of course, we are examining the effects of the cutoff that the Italian government put on Industry 5.0, and this might have some effect. I'm not able to quantify. It shouldn't be determinant, but it could be material. The good news is that it looks like that the new law for 2026 could be interesting for the investors. And so we might suffer a marginal correction. I mean, we have an order book, a book of orders, but some of them may not convert in sales due to the change in the approach by the Italian government as the monies for Industry 5.0 is finished, but we should be supported, hopefully, without the hesitation that took place in 2025, also in 2026 for a certain level of investments.

Andrea, we have one more question from Emmanuel De Figueiredo. I will read for him for problem of connection. The question is, why was medical so strong in Italy versus other markets?

Of course, this stands out. It stands out. And because we did extremely well and because I believe we performed exceptionally well in the distribution of DEKA Renaissance in Italy, which is going to hit a record target, a record amount. We also had some sales in the professional beauty that increased its volume smoothly, and we are still experiencing very, very strong demand.

Why is this happening? I believe the team that we have in Italy now provides to our end customers an unparalleled level of services. We have, I believe, 8 product managers, which are traveling all the time around Italy if they are not stable in a region because, of course, the main regions have product specialists, which are always providing support to our customers. So we not only, as we mentioned before, limit our activity in providing the laser box to our customers, but we are providing continuous training. We are providing very, very -- I wouldn't say cheap, but affordable service in order for them to take the maximum benefit of the lasers that we have sold them. And so since they are happy, since they make money with our lasers, they come back and buy. This 2025 is going to be a record year for Italy. And this is the only explanation I have on this point.

Thank you, Andrea. We have one more question from Andrea Bonfa of Banca Akros.

Andrea, very quickly, in the numbers that you provided at the beginning of the conference call, the like-for-like figure, 7.9% without Cynosure and more than 10% without -- sorry, 7.9% without the Japanese subsidiary and over 10% without Cynosure is related to the medical division only or to the group.

Medical division. What I was saying is that we are hitting in stable situation, the 10% revenue increase target after 9 months. This was the message I wanted to -- for the medical business. This is the message I wanted to give with these comments.

And we have no more questions registered in this moment. I would like...

Giovanni Selvetti has said he wanted to ask more questions. Maybe we answered already, but I don't know. He said he wanted to.

yes, Giovanni. Go on.

Part of it was already answered, yes. I mean let's just put it this way. I don't want to ask too much information on M&A, right, also because you cannot give much. But it was more about whether the companies are more, let's just say, technological company that will add technology or company with actual sales, right? It's more about whether you're investing in technology or in market share. But I'm not sure if you can answer that. So...

It's -- we have everything in our basket. So in our potential basket, there's something of any flavor. So you've got both. I don't know what and if we will close. Again, don't have too wide expectation on this. We're talking of small transaction, but we have both technological and sales solutions and sales opportunities.

Then at this time, we have no more questions. I would like to ask once again, if there are any further questions from investors still connected.

No more questions. Then ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now over. If you have any inquiries in the future, please do not hesitate to contact Enrico Romagnoli, who will be happy to assist you. Thank you for attending this conference, for your participation, and we hope to have you all again next time. Goodbye, everybody.

Bye-bye. Thank you, Bianca. Thank you everyone.