Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to today's Legrand 2026 nine-month results conference call. For your information, this conference is being recorded. All participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, there will be a question-and-answer session. At this time, I would like to hand the call over to CEO Mr. Benoît Coquart and CFO Mr. Franck Lemery. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you. Good morning, everybody. So Franck Lemery, Ronan Marc, and I are happy to welcome you to Le Grand 9 Months 2026 results, conference call, and webcast. This morning, as usual, we published our press release, financial statements, and the slideshow that we will refer to during the call. After a few opening remarks, we will comment on the results in more detail. Let me start on page four with the key highlights for the first nine months. First, Legrand delivered very strong sales growth of plus 22% excluding currency effects, together with excellent profitability. Second, we continue to actively execute our development strategy with seven acquisitions announced since the beginning of the year, all in buy-in energy and digital transition markets. Third, we are revising our FY2026 targets upwards, Last, a short reminder of our new highly value-creating 2030 ambitions. Moving to pages 6 and 7, I will start with an overview of sales. Sales reached 8.3 billion euros in the first nine months of 2026, up 22.1% excluding currency effects. This performance comprises organic growth of plus 12.7%, driven by data centers at close to plus 40% as well as energy transition solutions and growth from acquisitions with a positive scope effect of plus 8.3%. Based on acquisitions announced and their likely dates of consolidation, the overall impact of acquisitions would be around plus 8% for the full year. The exchange rate effect was minus 2.1% over the first nine months Based on average exchange rates in October 2026, the full-year effect would be around minus 1% in 2026. On page 7, you will find the key takeaways by geography on a life-for-life basis. Europe was down 0.9% over nine months and grew plus 2.4% in the third quarter in a building market that remains mixed. North and Central America increased sharply Thank you very much. I will now hand over to Franck for more color on our financial performance.

Thank you Benoît and good morning everyone. I will start on page 8 with adjusted operating profit and margin. Profitability is excellent over the 9 first months of 2026 with an adjusted operating margin of 20.8%. The profitability remained high. despite continued cost inflation and this reflects our strong execution including discipline pricing, solid productivity and the contribution from recent acquisition. It's a solid performance with adjusted operating profit growing plus 20% in value. Going now to page nine and value creation. First, the net profit attributable to the group reached 1.1 billion euro at 12.8% up 29.6% versus 2025. This increase was primarily driven by higher operating profits, a corporate income tax of 27.5% and an unfavorable change in financial results. Second, free cash flow increased by 15.9% to 1 billion euros. representing 12.1% of sales. That's it for the key financial topics. I will now hand back to Benoît.

Thank you, Franck. Let me now cover two key aspects of our strategic roadmap, sustained acquisition momentum and our new 2030 ambitions. First, acquisitions on page 11. Since the beginning of 2026, we have announced seven acquisitions, all focused on energy and digital transition markets. Two in the US, two in Europe, and three in the rest of the world in Brazil, Malaysia, and China. Together, the acquisitions represent approximately 450 million euros in annual sales and further strengthen the group's leadership positions in attractive growth markets. Second, our new 2030 ambitions on page 13. At our Capital Market Day on September 29, we detailed our strategic roadmap structured around three focus areas. Data Centers, Energy Transition Directly Driven by Electrification, and Essential Infrastructures for Buildings. For the 2027-2030 period, our ambitions include organic sales growth of plus six to plus eight CAGR combined with an average yearly scope effect from acquisitions of around plus 5%, an adjusted operating margin of 21% to 22% of sales on average, after acquisitions and including restructuring expenses, and of course, solid free cash flow generation and disciplined capital allocation. We can now move to page 15 with a full year 2026 targets revised upward, taking into account Legrand performance over the first nine months and the current global microeconomic environment. Legrand is now targeting the following in 2026. Sales growth excluding currency effects of between plus 20 and plus 22 percent, comprising organic growth of between plus 11 and plus 13 percent versus plus 8 percent and plus 10 percent previously, and growth through acquisitions of around plus 8 percent unchanged. Adjusted operating margin after acquisitions of between 20.5 percent and 21 percent of sales unchanged, and a CSA achievement rate of at least 100 percent for the second year of its 2025-2027 roadmap. In conclusion, the first nine months highlight the strength of our business model and the acceleration of our momentum. Very strong growth, excellent profitability, sustained value creation, and disciplined execution of our strategic roadmap. Our new 2030 ambitions provide a clear framework to accelerate further value creation supported by structurally attractive markets and Legrand Unique Growth Engines. This concludes our presentation and we are now ready to take your questions.

Thank you. To ask a question, you will need to press star 1 and 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 1 and 1 again. We kindly request that participants limit themselves to one question and one follow-up so that as many attendees as possible have the opportunity to ask questions. Thank you. We are now going to start with our first question. Just one moment. And this question comes from Daniela Costa from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my question. I'll take the one and the follow-up. But I will start out with a question regarding, can you talk a little bit about Europe? Obviously, you moved from negative growth in 2Q to positive growth now. Exactly what drove that? How did France do, given the situation there? And was there any data center pickup in Europe contributing to that?

Yeah, hello, Daniela. Well, there was nothing exceptional happening in Europe. Yes, Q3 is slightly better than H1 in terms of growth. Data center is doing okay. But, you know, I think what really matters is a nine-month trend, which remains somehow a bit muted. I can confirm that there is no rebound happening so far in the building market in Europe, which remains pretty flattish. And our performance is okay in this context. thanks to the data center and to some extent also to energy transition. As far as France specifically is concerned, it's amongst the European markets which are not helping us. Our sales are clearly down in France for the first nine months and we hope that the situation we expect in the quarters to come, the situation remains quite complicated. So I would not qualify the Q3 as a rebound in Europe. The market remained pretty flattish, and in this context, we are doing okay. Slightly negative in H1, slightly positive in Q3, and we hold firmly our market share, but unfortunately, the market are not really helping us yet.

Thank you. And then just on the follow-up regarding, I guess, the margin, given you were so much higher than expectations, and guidance in terms of the organic growth in Q3 would have thought that you would get a bit more operating leverage. Can you talk through about what was pricing? Was there any dilution on the mix from data centers or from anything else? Yeah.

Well, I'll say a few words on pricing and then I will let Franck zoom on the margin topic. So as far as The nine months are concerned. Prices are up by 3%, 3.1% to be precise, selling price. Purchase price also slightly up a little bit more than 3% for the first nine months, up 3.3%. So, yes, we are doing a bit of pricing. We are very cautious in not doing too much pricing. It has been a deliberate strategy for quite some time now to do a bit of pricing to, of course, offset as much as possible the increase in price of formats and components, but making sure that we remain competitive. I can maybe give you already the sort of high-level guidance for pricing for 2026, and I will then let Franck Zoom a bit on the margin topic. So for the full year, we expect selling price to be, again, more than plus 3%. So it will be 3.2%, 3.4%, 3.5%. We'll see. We'll do what it takes. And as far as purchase price, same. We expect the purchase price for the full year to be above plus 3% and probably a little bit more than purchase price. So that's the selling price. So that's... That's what we expect to see in terms of selling and purchase price. Now, Franck, maybe you can take the lead on the margin question.

Yes, of course. I assume, Daniela, that your question is on the group margin, not the European one, which I would be happy to comment if needed. But for the group, as I said first, let's look at the value creation. Operating profit is growing 20%. Then margin-wise on the nine months, it's a strong margin and totally in line with our full year guidance. The main building blocks are about, of course, two things. Some operational leverage and good performance of the acquisition. Let's look at the results excluding acquisition. On a year-to-date basis, margin is improving 20 bps. with some pressure on gross margin, minus 50 pips, with pricing covering largely in value the raw material inflation but not fully in margin, and a strong leverage on HG&A. This comes also with a very strong cost control. Globally speaking, on a nine-month, the costs are growing 8%. F-counts in SG&S minus 1% on a life-for-life basis. So that's the building blocks of the nine months. If we look at Q3 alone, It's a little bit the same story, but with obviously much more leverage coming from the SG&S and accordingly excluding acquisition, adjusted operating margin growing 100 pips.

Sorry, Benoît, the number was 3.2 to 3.5, right? Not 2.2 to 2.5? Yes, 3.2, of course.

Thank you. Yeah, which says, Daniela, by the way that you got from my answer and the answer of Benoît, what could be the inflation balance on Q4, the year to go?

Got it. Thank you very much.

Thank you. We are now going to take the next question. And this one is from Alastair Leslie from Bernstein. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Good morning, everyone. So obviously, it seems like a strong acceleration in data centers again in the course. I was just wondering if you could comment on how much of that, what kind of impact you had from perhaps just a more favorable comp. I mean, given last year, I think we did have a bit of a slowdown in DC growth in Q3. So how much of this is just a kind of sort of genuine underlying acceleration, in your opinion, in data centers? And I was wondering if you could follow on from that. You know, when you You look at your different segments, the critical power, compute infrastructure, cooling, testing. Are you seeing any of those start to significantly outperform any additional color on those segments as well? Thank you.

Yeah. So maybe starting with the numbers. So as I said, data centers over nine months are growing organically by close to plus 40%, which means that Q3 was indeed a very strong quarter. Q3 grew close to 50%. So it's about, let's say, slightly more than 30% in H1, close to 50% in Q3, and close to 40% in nine months. So very, very solid quarter. Well, what are our expectations for the full year? We think now that the data center business should grow In 2026, full year, somewhere between plus 35% and plus 40%, which means that we don't expect another quarter at plus 50%, but it will remain a very, very, very solid growth. And we are again upgrading our guidance for data center growth. So full year, it should be between plus 35% to plus 40%. It implies that indeed not all quarters will be going 50%. Now, was there anything exceptional in Q3? The answer is no. It's a mix of a number of very interesting projects, a couple of new customers that we onboarded, old customers that ordered a little bit more. So, a very, very solid quarter. But again, we don't believe that we're going to grow 50% every single quarter. Are we seeing any sign of the demand weakening? The answer is clearly no, we are not. And we are very confident in the fact that our data center will continue to grow. We have orders coming in, a lot of... very strong book to build, very strong bookings, and it will definitely continue. In terms of product families, well, it's the usual suspects. So if I had to name, all families are growing nicely, and probably almost all families are growing double digits. When you are growing close to plus 40%, you don't have a significant product family which is down or only growing a single digit. If I had to name Three product families which are growing very fast, I would definitely name Critical Power, which is doing very well, Cooling, which is also doing very well, and Testing and Commissioning, and especially the Aftron load bank business, which is also doing very, very well. But again, all product families show a very nice and satisfactory growth.

Fantastic. Maybe if I could just follow on that, because obviously we also saw very strong growth in the rest of the world region, 25% growth in APAC. I think that's quite a strong quarter-on-quarter acceleration. I think a high single-digit last quarter. I guess that's not driven by comps, just looking at prior quarters. And it does look very broad-based, Benoît, maybe with the exception of China. So I guess is this largely data centers again and is the growth kind of in that kind of APAC segment comparable to the kind of 50% that you called out for the group?

Well, again, I'm always a bit cautious in commenting quarterly trends. The answer I was doing to Daniela on Europe, yes, it's a very solid quarter. It's not coming specifically from data centers. The data centers are doing well in the rest of the world, but you also have the traditional essential business and the energy transition piece, which are growing nicely with countries such as India, which are doing a fantastic performance. A lot of countries in Southeast Asia are also growing nicely. So it's not solely data center. It's also energy transition essentials. Now again, it's only a quarter. I think that what is most relevant is to look at the growth over nine months, which is quite solid. Plus 8% over nine months, it's a solid performance. Going forward, again, we'll see. Now coming back to your question on comps, I don't believe that there's been anything helping the group when it comes to comps. neither in the data center business nor in the traditional business and neither in the rest of the world nor in North America and Europe. So the performance over the first nine months of the year and in Q3 does not include any technical factors like basis for comparison, like a number of days, like a big one-off in terms of projects. This is a real... Solid, let's say, performance. Very clear. Thank you.

Thank you. We are now going to take the next question. And this one is from Phil Peler from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.

Good morning, gentlemen. Thanks for the presentation and the questions. I guess I've got two follow-ups. Firstly, just on that Asia-Pacific topic, if that wasn't data centers, are there any one-offs in there that we should bear in mind as we think to Q4? Or really, is the data center growth accretive to the 50% number that you mentioned at a group level? Or is your dollar per megawatt in the region different to the group average? I just want to understand a bit better what's driving that growth if it's not data center. That's the first question.

Well, indeed, it's not only data center. If you take a country like India, for example, well, data center in India represents probably something like 10% for Indian sales. So it's not like in the U.S. where it's 50%. It's only 10%. And even if it's only 10%, India growth was a great... The very solid double-digit performance. So in India, for example, all three businesses are growing, energy transition, essentials, and data center at a very solid pace. Now, we couldn't identify anything exceptional, like, for example, one-off inventory building from our distributors, or again, a big project, or a big number of days. But again, I'm a bit... Koshus, a quarter doesn't make a trend. At Legrand at least, we tend to analyze our performance on a yearly basis, not on a quarterly basis. But to answer your question, there was nothing exceptional in the Q3 performance in Asia-Pacific or elsewhere.

Okay, that's great to hear. Thank you. And then a follow-up on the margin topic, specifically in Europe. In Q2 that was a point to pick on I think and I think most of us were surprised in Q2 to see some of the costs associated with North American growth allocated to Europe. I know that's how you run the business but the margin in Europe has improved significantly in Q3 on volumes which I assume are flattish. So is it as simple as you have chosen to allocate the SG&A and R&D costs slightly differently Is it as simple as that or is there anything else going on here that's led to that jump in the European margins, please?

Well, let me be extremely clear on that one. No, we haven't changed any allocation. It's not the Le Grand style to change the allocation of expenses or to do this kind of stuff between two quarters. to optically improve the results in that or the other. So the clear answer to that is we haven't changed anything in terms of allocation. And then specifically in European margin, I will let Franck answer it.

Yes, I will answer by making two points. The first one is looking at the European profitability, and it's true for the quarter, it's true for the year to date. The gross margin is good. Gross margin is well on hand. It's growing 10 bps versus... versus last year on the year to date. It's even increasingly more on the quarterly to date, above 110 bps versus last year. So good margin is very good. The question of the last call was about SG&S with the confusion of the global SG&S evolution versus what was linked to the business. And I will perhaps recap the number now at the end of the for nine months, we have HGNA growing on a like-for-like basis, because this is what is mattering, by 6%. when sales by origin are going 2%, and on the quarter, SG&As are going 4%, sales 4%. So it's also a little bit what I said at the beginning, commenting the margin, strong execution, very good cost control, and SG&A growing faster than the top line in Europe, is okay, it's growing 6%, considering that Europe is also investing for the group, that the group is growing at 13% on a like-for-like basis, it's totally okay. But definitely absolutely no change in methodology.

Thank you very much.

And I could tell you differently, more qualitative comment, if I may say, our European margin was not a concern in H1, and it's not a relief in Q3. It is exactly where we expect it to be actually, to be clear. That's great. Thanks for the clarification.

Thank you. We are now taking the next question. And this one comes from Max Yates from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. My first question would be around your data center capacity. And I guess if we look at data center additions into next year, it would look like the gigawatts added will be growing somewhere around 50%. And I guess my question is, given the likelihood that your data center business could grow very rapidly again, I would think potentially similar to what we see this year, Do you actually have the capacity to keep growing the business at that rate or are you at the point where you may be running into capacity constraints?

Well, two points, Max. Well, this year we expect the data center business to grow between 35% to 40%. Last year it grew close to 40%. It means that in two years, organically, our data center business will have more or less doubled. and you could see that we've been able to cope with this growth. It did not come without challenges, to make things clear, but I confirm that we could do capacity increase without incurring a lot of APEX. So we could do it. If we need to add further capacity in the years to come, we will have the ability to add further capacity. Again, it doesn't come without challenges. It has a cost. It is complicated. It requires a lot of expertise and professionalism from our team, but we could do it and we will be able to do it if needed. Now, going forward, to make things clear, we don't expect The data center market to grow 40% every year and to double every two years. I remind you the guidance we gave at our last CMD, our assumption or midterm ambitions are based on the data center market growing more or less 15% to 20% from 2027 to 2030. I think it is a more reasonable assumption than every year growing 40%. But to make a long story short, we will certainly have the ability to increase our capacity further if needed. Our data center business is asset light, and we have demonstrated our ability to do it in order to cope with the demand coming from our customers.

Okay. And just a sort of maybe a bit more strategic kind of follow-up question. You know, obviously, yesterday, you know, the US election or Democrat kind of result, but even before then, you know, we were starting to see a few more kind of stresses around data centers, you know, whether it was kind of cost of financing, etc. So, you know, just as that relates to your M&A, it's obviously been somewhat skewed towards data center in recent years. I was just wondering, you know, given the events of maybe not just yesterday, but the last three months, Is there any way to think proportionally how that 5% of sales that you're targeting every year from M&A may balance between data center and non-data center? And would it be reasonable to expect that maybe the sort of data center heavy M&A is a bit less than what we've maybe seen in the last sort of two to three years?

Well, a couple of comments on this very interesting question. Number one, the fact that you may have additional regulation here and there. that access to energy is sometimes complicated, permitting takes a long time, all of that is fully embedded in our military ambitions. I remind you the numbers. If we put together the announcement, the announced gigawatts, there should be additional capacity of more than 300 gigawatts to be added throughout 2030, 300. We have discounted that down to 100. So we took only one-third of the earnings capacity in our plan, so turning the 300 into 100. And this 100 gigawatt capacity is enough for the market to grow 15% to 20% per year. In other words, we have already embedded into our ambition the fact that there will be some regulation, there will be energy access issue, and so on and so forth. And I could even... you know do one more comment is regulation the problem for the business the answer is no if the fact that there is in some communities a pushback leads to regulation implying for example a sort of bring your energy concept it's good for Legrand I remind you that we have a off-site energy generation capability with one of the business we bought in the US. If it requires PUE, power usage effectiveness, to be very low or water usage effectiveness to be very low, it's good for Legrand. I remind you that 40% of our data center business is made with products that help saving energy. If in order to save contracting manpower energy, The market goes toward more container, skid, factory-assembled products. It's good for Legrand because we have bought some of those capabilities. So again, the fact that you have in some communities a bit of pushback and some regulations being implemented is almost a good news for data center business, not a bad news. Now, when it comes to acquisitions specifically, yes, indeed, we have done a lot of data center acquisitions. As we showed in September, late September, a lot of the acquisitions we made recently, the last two years, we're doing data center, but also energy transition, almost half-half. Going forward, it really depends on the opportunity. We may continue to do a number of data center-related acquisitions because we still have A number of geographies where we are underrepresented and a few product families we would love to add. But you should expect to see also energy transition related acquisitions because we believe that it's a very strong and long lasting mega trend. and there are many product families and geographies in which we are not yet represented. And you could also expect to see a traditional or essential type of acquisition. So I know that it's not a very precise answer, but it will really depend on the opportunities. It's highly likely that you'll see probably a bit more of energy transition-related acquisitions than in the past couple of years.

That's helpful. Thanks, Benoît.

Thank you. We are now going to take the next question. And this one comes from Delphine Brault from OdoBHF. Please go ahead.

Yes. Good morning, gentlemen. Thanks for taking my questions. I have two. We'll go one at a time. First, your new Fourier guidance implies a Q4 organic sales growth around 10% at midpoint. What would trigger such deceleration as compared to the close to 19% reached in Q3? Is it just the kind of traditional cautiousness or is there something else?

Bonjour Delphine. Well, yes, you're right. If you look at the midpoint of our guidance, it implies a Q4 at plus 10, which is very consistent with the H1 we did at plus 10. So our scenario is that Q3 saw a sort of surge in sales, but which is not sustainable. And we don't expect to do, again, a plus 19% like-for-like evolution every single quarter. So the sort of sustainable Thank you very much. The whole industry, I think, during the year 2026 has been somehow a bit surprised by the magnitude of the growth in some geographies, in some verticals. No, we have issued this guidance based on what we think we should deliver. And again, the Q4 is very consistent with H1.

Thank you. and the second one, how big is your data center backlog now and how much visibility does it give you for 2027?

Well, we have a large backlog which we don't comment much and you know Delphine, our approach the Connection between backlog and actual sales, it's always a complicated topic. So I can only repeat what I said a little bit earlier in this call. There's a very active level of activity. We have a lot of orders coming. We are confident for the next couple of quarters. We will certainly see growth coming. Now we'll give you a more precise guidance for 2027 at the time of the release of our 26 results in February.

Thank you.

Good try.

Thank you. We are now going to take the next question. And this question is from Martin Wilkie from CT. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning. It's Martin from Citi. So just to continue on the data center's theme and obviously lots of market debates about the spending, when you look at your customer base in data center, has that meaningfully changed over the last year or so? Historically, the hyperscalers were a clear majority of industry spending and there has been some broadening of that spend. But just in terms of your exposure, have you seen a sort of Broadening of your customer mix, either in your current sales or in your backlog. Just understand how we should think about your customer base. Thank you.

Well, of course, you have some customers that are going faster than others, and sometimes you lose customers, and sometimes you gain customers. But in terms of profile, I'm not aware of a very significant change in the last one or two years. The hyperscalers definitely represent a large part of the market. Not all of them are buying direct from Legrand. A number of them are renting space through colocators. So it's likely that our sales more or less replicate the market with basically two big types of customers, hyperscalers and colocators, either retail or wholesale colocators. So I don't see any reason why we would have a breakdown process much different from how the market is organized. Now, if you zoom on a specific category which has attracted a bit of media attention, the new clouds, some of them are very nice customers and we are very happy to have them as customers. In total, Neocloud represents approximately 1% of our total group sales. So it's not a very meaningful exposure. But to answer your question, no significant change in terms of customer weighting between hyperscalers, Neoclouds, retail colo, wholesale colo, enterprise that I'm aware of in the last 12 months.

Great, that's really helpful. And then just a second question more broadly. You've mentioned a couple of times that the energy transition has been a driver of growth as well. When we think about the sort of underlying drivers of that, in some areas it can be regulation, in other areas it's just simply commercial buildings customers or energy savings reasons making those investments. What's triggered the sudden improvement in energy transition?

Maybe starting with a number, I said that in the first nine months of the year, the data center business was up close to 40%. Well, energy transition is up mid-single digit. Essential tools is just slightly up. So you see that energy transition is not growing as fast as data centers, of course, but it has been consistently overperforming the essential part of the business. for quite some time. Well, it really depends on the geographies, but it's less and less the regulation and more and more the private market prompting sales. Take Europe, for example. There's now a good level of understanding that we need to electrify more. And I remind you the number that we showed at the last CMD. There's an official electrify EU plan which is stating that the share of electricity in Europe energy mix should move from 23% in 2025 to 46% in 2040. And it's not prompted by regulation, it's really acknowledging the fact that people understand now that electrical vehicles and heat pumps and electrical press in factories make households and industries less dependent upon the fossil import and hence the price of gas and oil. So look at the percentage of sales in Europe which are of vehicles, which are electrical vehicles. So in Europe, it's really the dependency upon fossil... Fuel and gas, which is pushing people to electrify their vehicle, electrify the heating system, electrify industries, blah, blah, blah. And of course, we're not selling much EV charging station and we're not selling heat pumps at all. But every time you move from a gas powered product or oil powered product or device to an electric one, it's likely that you will install a circuit breaker, a load shedding device, a panel board, a measuring device, blah, blah, blah. This was for Europe. As far as the US is concerned, it's really the very low quality of the US grid which provides us with opportunities. The wind and solar business in the US has been growing nicely, not because it is pushed by a lot of incentives, but because we need in the US to have a more reliable, better grid. Too much interruptions, are damaging or negatively impacting businesses and households. So imports from fossil fuel, getting away from fossil fuel in Europe and in China and a few countries and enhancing the quality of the grid in the US are very strong long-term drivers that should support our energy transition business, not in the next two or three years, but in the next 15 or 20 years. And we are very confident that this business should overperform the essential business. And it's already meaningful. It's already about 20% of our sales.

Great. Thank you very much.

Thank you. We are now going to take the next question. And this one comes from Luca Ferrarne from Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Thanks for the time. I have one and a follow-up as well. Maybe we do it one at a time. The first one is just on your roadmap on new architectures. You highlighted the CMD. Just wondering how you're executing on kind of those product launches you talked about and whether there's any already kind of discussion, testing with customers that is happening. Thank you.

Well, the CMD is a month and a half old. And in terms of product development, you don't have news every single week. So it's as per the plan. No change in the launching dates of our new products, being AI lot stabilizer or the other products. Everything is on plan. Yes, we start to have some discussions with our customers, which are quite early discussions, because everybody is thinking about what the next architecture should be. Those discussions have been going on even before the topic of direct current, but not much news yet. Again, it's only a month and a half away. and we have not seen out on the market anything since our CND that would indicate that we are not doing the right direction. So I confirm that our technical choices are the right ones.

Perfect, thank you. And then the follow-up is just on... and your ability to test a little bit the backlog and the projects you're working on specifically on data center in the US and to follow up really on you know the changes in election and what's happening on permitting you know how far can you go in kind of testing what's happening at customer level the level of permits they have and the let's say reliability you have that those projects will be will be coming through thank you quite difficult to answer this question our backlog is short-term backlog

We don't have a lot of orders that we should deliver in 2019 or 2030. It has always been the case. It's not a change recently. Our backlog is 12 to 18 months max. So those are projects that are already well-advanced and already in execution phase. So they can always be pushed, canceled, and so on and so forth. But those are not... and many more projects that should come out of the blue in 2029 or 2030. Now, as far as the potential impact of the last US elections on our business is concerned, I just refer to my previous answer. Again, it's already included in our mid-term guidance, the fact that here and there you could have some more regulation to be implemented requests for lower power usage effectiveness, requests for customers to bring their own energy. All that has been fully included into our meter emissions.

Perfect, Okuya. Thanks.

Thank you. We are now going to take the next question. and this one is from Ben Uglow from Oxcap Analytics. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone. I hope all are well. My question is about the M&A pipeline as we move into 2027. My kind of impression from the outside, which may be right or wrong, is that there are kind of more assets available than let's say that we've seen recently. And obviously last week we had Eaton, coming in to take out the coal power distribution business in Italy, which was quite sizable. When I look at your acquisitions so far this year, they're typically what we would call smaller, i.e. I think the average sales is something like 70 million. I guess my question is, number one, would you consider doing somewhat larger transactions as we move into 2027? and I guess secondly, how are you feeling about the valuations of the assets that are on the block at the moment? Thank you.

Yeah. Well, the answer to your first... Hello, Ben. The answer to your first question is clearly yes. And almost the bigger the better. For us, it's the same amount of work in terms of deal-making and talking. Whether the company is 50 million or the company is 500 million, and it's sometimes even easier to dock a 500 million company because you quite usually have the processors and so on and so forth. So we are very open to bigger deals provided of course they meet our criteria. So both the strategic and the financial criteria, they have to be for example value accretive within two, three, four years. So we need to see Rothschild higher than the WAC on year 2, 3, 4 and not on year 10. And this is a very, very important criteria. We also want to make sure that the company we buy fits well into our portfolio of products. We are not desperate to make deals. We really want to do the right picks. So the answer is clearly yes, we are open to larger deals provided they meet our strategic and financial criteria. having in mind that in the 400 companies that are part of our pipeline, you have a lot more small deals than big deals. Statistically speaking, you're more likely to see small than big, but we're hoping to be the ones. As far as the pipeline itself is concerned, it remains very solid. We haven't seen anything specific in terms of pricing of the acquisitions. We have done the 2026 divs at approximately 11 times EBIT, 2026 EBIT, so it's likely to be 10 times 2027 EBIT. Well, 11 times 20, 26 EBIT before synergy, I think it's a pretty reasonable multiple. So sometimes we have to pay 13, 14, 15 times EBIT of the current year. It's not out of question. If we feel that the company deserves it, sometimes we pay 7, 8 or 9. It really depends on the quality of the target. and its business plan. But no, no significant change in terms of pricing. We are still able to make good deals at reasonable multiples, to do them properly within Legrand and to have a nice 8, 9 or 10 Roth share within a very short period of time.

That's understood and helpful. Thank you. And then one follow-up. I know that you've sort of answered the question in terms of your you know your targets and your guidance etc but obviously the markets are asking this question in terms of your customer conversations on the data center side in the run-up to the midterms and obviously people have been aware that this was going to come for some time did any of your customers express a different view or a change of sentiment or that your plans may go from A to B based on this or was it just accepted that there would be a democratic clean sweep as it was and this was always understood by your customers?

Well, I personally did not have discussions with customers for the past two days. I've been really focusing on on other topics. Based on the feedback I've got from my U.S. teams, we have not seen any change in the conversation. And the fact that the data center market would come down to more reasonable gross rate, if I may say, has been in the air for quite some time, and it has been clear from a customer standpoint. Now, if you look at the CapEx investments, which has been announced by the big guys. It's interesting to look at the numbers. When they entered the year, if you take the five big guys, like the Meta, Microsoft, Google, Oracle, Amazon, they started the year saying we're going to spend 500 billion US dollars of CapEx investments. Now, my understanding is they will rather spend 800, closer to 800. And most of them have announced further CapEx increase in 2027. So I don't have the feeling, we'll see, but I don't have the feeling that they are slowing down. Now again, those data centers, but I think they knew it already and we knew it already, we need to be more efficient Less water consuming. We need to pull less energy from the grid and we'll need to provide their own energy and so on and so forth. But I think it was already in everybody's plan. So to make a long story short, I'm not aware of any change, neither in the CapEx plans of our customers, nor in the conversations we have or that our US teams have had with our customers lately.

That's great. Thank you, Benoît.

Thank you. We are now going to take the next question. And this one is from Aaron Ciccarelli from Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Hello, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I have two, please. The first is on North America gross margin. So North America organic growth accelerated to about 30% in Q3. but gross margin declined to 290 pips year-over-year after being broadly flat in Q2. What changed sequentially in Q3 and how much of the dilution affects the Reflex data center mix versus acquisitions?

Yes, hello. Talking about the gross margin, starting from a year-to-date perspective, gross margin, you're right to say, for North and South America, is down minus 180 bps. Half is mix, half is acquisition. And the part of the mix, obviously, is definitely recovered on SG&A, so there is no bottom line impact. And when we speak about Q3, more or less the same impact. Now perhaps to echo your question or to rebound on your question on the margin, I'm personally much more looking at the value creation of the U.S. than the margin. As you see, the operating profit of the U.S. on Q3 is growing 46%. On a year to date, 42%. So value-wise, very, very happy of that strong value creation. and we with some mixed challenges on the gross margin but it's which is broadly recovered on the accuracy limit margin.

As far as the mix is concerned we remind you that the data center business has a level of gross margin which is below groups average and a level of SG&A which is below groups average and an EBIT margin which is more or less The Group's Average. So, given the size of the data center business in the U.S., the impact it has on the U.S. growth, this kind of mixed phenomenon can play. Now, when it comes to our performance and profitability performance in the U.S., we are very happy with what is happening. Also, don't forget that when you have this kind of hyper-growth, and we can qualify the U.S. growth as hyper-growth, Unprecedented hyper growth for Legrand. It also comes with some costs and we have to admit it. It comes with inefficiencies, it comes with capacity increase you have to manage, additional subcontracting, sometimes delivering by plane what you should have delivered by truck because you want to make sure that your customer is satisfied. But again, this being said, in terms of value creation, rebounding or confirming what Franck said, plus 46% EBIT growth in North and Central America in Q3 is a fantastic performance.

And even margin, 22% at the CDB margin. So I understand your point, but it's a fantastic performance.

That's very clear. Thank you. And the second question is, I would like to go back to the rest of the word organic growth, which was particularly strong at 19.6%. Perhaps, is that sort of lumpiness going to volatility, let's say, continue to appear in the coming quarters? And Q3 was a representative or underlying demand? Or should we think that some of the strength was coming from, let's say, project timing between quarters? How should we think about that, please?

Well, again, I'm a bit uncomfortable in drawing big conclusions out of one quarter. So one quarter could be up 5%, another one could be up 20%. Well, it's a bit the same comment I made for the full group. Q3 was very strong in the rest of the world. It was a bit lighter, even though it was good in H1. We'll see for Q4. But I wouldn't take for granted that every single quarter or next quarter or rest of the world business would go 20%. Again, a quarter is not a trend and a quarter is not a full year. So we'll see. Sorry not to be more precise than that. But again, it's always complicated to comment only one quarter.

I understand. Thank you very much, guys.

Thank you.

Thank you. We are now going to take the last question. This one comes from Gail Debray from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Oh, thanks very much. Good morning, everybody. The first question I have is related to the US dynamics. I mean, one of your peers recently highlighted that they're seeing demand broadening much beyond data centers. So in commercial, in industrial buildings now, and it seems that you're seeing the same dynamics. So could you provide an update on your strategy journey to diversify away from offices, from shopping malls into more technical buildings in the US? Thank you.

Yeah. Well, Two comments. The building business, very traditional building business, the market, if I may say, remains not very positive in the U.S. Resi, for example, is going down in 2026, even though we are overperforming. It is true that the energy transition piece is doing very well in the U.S. over nine months. and it's not linked to data center because the data center piece is contained in a separate bracket for Legrand but it's everything which is linked to reshoring, semiconductors, industrial facilities, infra, all that is growing very very nicely and we are more and more exposed to that thanks to the many acquisitions we've done in the US, the Gertz, the Aftron, the Kratos of the world. So yes, I can confirm that even though the traditional building market is still very so-so, there are pockets of growth elsewhere that we are now able to capture and that we couldn't capture two years back because we did not have the right assets for that. And this is typically an area where we will continue to look at opportunities, both organically and inorganically.

Okay, thank you. And the second one, very quickly, is there any update on the divestment program that you mentioned at the CMD?

No update yet. And to remind everybody, we said at the CMD that we would divest businesses representing between 0.5 billion and 1 billion euro sales. Well, we have a bit of time, Gaëtan, because those divestments were announced over the duration of the plan, so throughout 2030, so no update to share.

Okay, thank you very much.

But I can only confirm the rationale behind that. The objective is not to sell business for the sake of selling business, but it's to accelerate the repositioning toward a faster growing energy and digital transition. So we intend to sell, let's say, traditional businesses, essential businesses, and to continue to invest heavily into energy and digital transition businesses. And if I may add, same comment. I was saying a bit earlier that we are not desperate to buy. We are not desperate to sell. So we are waiting for the right buyers.

Understood. Thank you very much.

Thank you. That is all the time that we have for questions for today. I will now hand the call back to Mr. Coquart for closing remarks.

Thank you very much everybody for connecting and as usual the whole team including Franck, Ronan, Antonia and myself are at your disposal for any further clarification if needed. Thanks a lot.

Thank you. This concludes this conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.