Earnings call transcript: Intertek Q1 2026 sees strong growth, stock surges

Intertek Group PLC (ITRK) reported robust growth in its Q1 2026 earnings call, with revenue reaching 838.5 million GBP, marking a 6.7% increase. The company’s stock price surged by 11.97% following the announcement, reflecting investor confidence. The performance was driven by both volume and pricing contributions across divisions, despite challenges in some sectors.

Key Takeaways

• Intertek’s Q1 2026 revenue grew by 6.7%, with a like-for-like growth of 5.4%.
• The Consumer Products Division saw notable growth, particularly in hardlines and electrical.
• Recent acquisitions in 2025 and 2026 contributed positively to performance.
• The stock price increased by 11.97% post-earnings announcement.

Company Performance

Intertek demonstrated strong performance in Q1 2026, with a 6.7% increase in revenue from the previous year. This growth was attributed to both volume and pricing strategies, with significant contributions from the Consumer Products and Corporate Assurance divisions. Despite some negative performance in the Government and Trade Services sector due to Middle East trading disruptions, the overall company performance remained positive.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: 838.5 million GBP, up 6.7% year-over-year.
• Like-for-like revenue growth: 5.4% at the group level.
• Consumer Products Division: 6.5% growth.
• Corporate Assurance Division: 10.8% growth.
• Health & Safety Division: 5.9% growth.

Market Reaction

Intertek’s stock price rose by 11.97% following the earnings announcement, reflecting strong investor sentiment. The rally comes after a challenging period, with shares down 17.5% year-to-date and 20% over the past six months. Despite the recent surge, analysis from InvestingPro suggests the stock remains undervalued, placing it among opportunities on the Most Undervalued list. This positive market reaction underscores confidence in the company’s growth strategy and recent acquisitions.

Outlook & Guidance

Intertek’s forward guidance remains optimistic, with EPS forecasts for FY2026 and FY2027 at 3.69 USD and 3.89 USD, respectively. Revenue forecasts for the same periods are 4853.74 million USD and 5102.54 million USD. For deeper insights into Intertek’s valuation and growth prospects, investors can access the comprehensive Pro Research Report, one of 1,400+ available exclusively on InvestingPro. The company continues to focus on expanding its market presence through strategic acquisitions and innovation.

Executive Commentary

Executives highlighted the success of recent acquisitions, such as Aerial PV and QTEST, in expanding Intertek’s market-leading positions in solar energy and the electrical business. They emphasized the company’s commitment to maintaining strong margins and free cash flow generation.

Risks and Challenges

• Middle East trading disruptions impacting the Government and Trade Services sector.
• Negative performance in the Transportation Technologies sector due to reduced client R&D investments.
• Potential macroeconomic pressures that could affect global market conditions.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts inquired about the impact of recent acquisitions on future growth, the company’s strategy to mitigate disruptions in the Middle East, and expectations for the Transportation Technologies sector. Executives reassured stakeholders of their strategic focus on high-growth and high-margin sectors to drive future performance.

Full transcript - Intertek Group PLC (ITRK) Q1 2026:

Moderator, Call Moderator, Intertek: Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Intertek’s strategic review and 2026 Q1 trading update. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question and answer session. If you wish to ask a question, we ask that you please use the raise hand function at the bottom of your Zoom screen. If you have dialed in, please select star nine to raise your hand and star six to unmute. Instructions will also follow at the time of the Q&A. I would like to remind all participants that this call is being recorded. Questions will follow after the presentation. I will now hand over to André Lacroix, Chief Executive Officer, to start the presentation.

André Lacroix, Chief Executive Officer, Intertek: Good morning to you all. Thanks for joining us on our call. I would like to welcome Laura Crespi, our new CFO, on our call today. Of course, Denis Moreau, our VP of Investor Relations, is also on the call with us. There are three main takeaways in our calls today. First, we’re announcing the start of a strategic review to determine whether we can accelerate growth and drive further shareholder value by creating two specialist scale global AT businesses, Intertek Testing & Assurance, and Intertek Energy & Infrastructure. The second key point on today’s agenda, we had a strong start to the year with a robust like-for-like revenue growth at 5.4% constant currency in the first quarter. The third important message, we are confirming our full-year guidance.

We are on track to deliver a strong 2026 with mid-single-digit like-for-like revenue growth at constant currency, continuous margin progression, strong earning growth, and a strong free cash flow. I would like to start by saying that we are truly energized by the launch of our strategic review to unleash the full potential of Intertek and deliver greater value for all. I am very proud of our passionate and talented colleagues who are building a stronger Intertek every day in every single business with a disciplined executions behind our AAA growth strategy. We’ve launched our AAA strategy about three years ago. Since then, we’ve delivered annual revenue growth of 6% at constant currency, 240 basis points margin accretion, an average EPS growth of 12% per annum, and of course, all of that with industry-leading margins and returns.

Intertek has always been a pioneer in the industry, and true to our Ever Better high-performance culture, we truly believe in the power of reinventing ourselves to accelerate growth and unleash our potential. We believe that the Group has now reached a scale and breadth that would benefit from greater simplification and strategic focus to take our industry-leading global business lines to greater heights. That’s why we have initiated a strategic review to evaluate whether the separation of Intertek Testing & Assurance and Intertek Energy & Infrastructure, either by way of a sale or a demerger, could accelerate growth and create greater value for shareholders. In a stronger growth environment that we are experiencing across our markets, we believe that two specialist scale global ATIC businesses could be better positioned to unlock our full potential.

Intertek Testing and Assurance and Intertek Energy Infrastructure are high-quality businesses with scale and are renowned for their science-based AT customer excellence and have earned the trust of our clients through delivery of superior customer service for many years. Both businesses have compelling opportunities for further growth and value creation. They are offering premium market-leading AT solutions to their clients through their global network, and we believe could grow faster with a more focused portfolio strategy, sharper capital allocation, and faster in-market execution. Intertek Testing and Assurance and Intertek Energy and Infrastructure have different customers, operate in different markets with different financial characteristics and offer distinct value propositions. The decentralized and coordinated operating structure that we have in place at Intertek means that these two businesses have built the talents, the processes, have the assets and technology capability they need to thrive in today’s and tomorrow’s market.

During the strategic review, which will be concluded and implemented by mid-2027, we will remain very focused on the disciplined execution of our triple-A strategy, delivering on our corporate goals of mid-single-digit like-for-like revenue growth at constant currency, continuous margin progression, strong cash generation, disciplined capital allocation, and an excellent ROIC. Let me turn briefly to trading in the last three months. As usual, all the comments we’ll make are at constant currency. We have benefited from a strong demand for AT solution across our divisions and geographies, enabling us to deliver a robust 5.4% like-for-like revenue at the group level. Our consumer products division delivered like-for-like revenue growth of 6.5%, delivered with mid-single-digit like-for-like revenue growth in softlines, high single-digit like-for-like growth in hardlines and electrical, while GTS delivered a mid-single-digit negative like-for-like performance as it was impacted by trading disruptions in the Middle East.

Our Corporate Assurance division delivered like-for-like revenue growth of 10.8%, driven by double-digit like-for-like growth in Business Assurance, while we saw a low single-digit negative like-for-like performance within Assurance due to a baseline effect linked to a few large contracts that lapsed at the end of June last year. Our Health & Safety division delivered like-for-like revenue growth of 5.9%, driven by double-digit like-for-like revenue growth, mid-single digit in Food, mid-single digit like-for-like revenue growth in CMP, and AgriWorld delivered a stable like-for-like performance. Our Industry & Infrastructure division delivered like-for-like revenue growth of 5.5%, with low single-digit like-for-like revenue growth in Industry Services, a double-digit like-for-like revenue growth in our Minerals business, and a low single-digit like-for-like revenue performance in Building & Construction. Our World of Energy division delivered a stable like-for-like revenue performance with low single-digit like-for-like revenue growth in Caleb Brett and CEA.

While our Transportation Technologies business reported negative double-digit like-for-like revenue performance due to the reduction by some of our clients in R&D investments as they continue to focus on cost reduction in the challenging automotive environment, as always, there is much more details in the RNS. Overall, we had a strong start to 2026, and let’s now discuss the performance at the group level for Q1. Our revenue for Q1 grew 6.7% to GBP 838.5 million. Our like-for-like revenue growth, as I said, was 5.4%, driven by both volume and pricing. The four acquisitions we made in 2025 to scale up our portfolio in attractive growth and margin sectors with TESIS in Brazil, Envirolab in Australia, Suplilab in Costa Rica, and PTL in the U.S. are all performing very well. We saw continued margin progression as we benefit from divisional mix, operating leverage, cost control, and productivity improvements.

We delivered a strong free cash flow and continue to operate with a strong balance sheet. We continue to invest in organic and inorganic growth opportunities. We’ve recently announced the acquisition of Aerial PV in Europe to expand our market-leading position in solar energy and the acquisition of QTEST in Colombia to expand our electrical business in attractive Latin American market. Turning now to the outlook for 2026. We are confirming our full-year guidance. We expect to deliver mid-single-digit like-for-like revenue growth at constant currency with high-single-digit like-for-like in Corporate Assurance, mid-single-digit like-for-like in Consumer Products, Industry & Infrastructure, and low-single-digit like-for-like in Health & Safety and the World of Energy. We are targeting further margin progression, which, combined with our expected revenue growth, will deliver strong earnings growth. Our cash discipline will remain in place to deliver strong free cash flow.

We’ll invest in growth with a CapEx of circa GBP 150 million-GBP 160 million. We’ll, of course, continue to deliver an excellent ROIC. A quick update on currency for your model. The average sterling rates in the last three months applied to the full-year results of 2025 will be broadly neutral at the revenue and operating profit level. In addition, going forward, I’m pleased to announce that we’ll be providing quarterly trading updates for the three months ending March and September. In conclusion, we have seen a significant performance acceleration with the strong delivery of our AAA strategy, and looking ahead, we are super excited about the significant value growth opportunity.

To deliver quality growth and value for our shareholders, we’ll capitalize on our high-quality cash compound earnings models, benefiting year after year from the compounding effect of mid-single-digit like-for-like revenue growth, continuous margin accretion, strong free cash flow, and disciplined investment in high-growth and high-margin sectors. Our enduring competitive advantage underpin our confidence to deliver quality growth moving forward. We operate a high-quality portfolio with leading scale positions in attractive industries that are all poised for global growth. We are the premium leader in quality assurance with superior ATIC customer service, which has earned the trust of all of our clients over the years. Our high-quality cash compound earnings model is underpinned by disciplined performance management both on financial and non-financial metrics. Our science-based organization is a high-performance organization. We attract and we develop and retain the best talents in the industry.

Last but not least, we operate with a culture of doing business the right way with strong controls, compliance, and very strong governance. The strategic review we’re announcing today will determine if the separation of Intertek Testing and Assurance and Intertek Energy and Infrastructure into two specialist scale global ATIC leaders will augment this enduring competitive advantage with three major benefits. First, a focused specialist portfolio approach for each business, resulting in greater strategic focus. Second, a sharper capital allocation to seize the immediate and long-term growth opportunities, targeting faster market share gains. Third, a simpler business to manage, resulting in faster in-market executions, increased productivities, and higher returns. We are all energized about the start of our strategic review to unleash our full potential and seize the significant value growth opportunities ahead.

Having said that, we’ll all remain laser-focused on delivering quality growth in Q2, Q3, Q4 to make sure that we have a strong 2026, and of course, we continue to deliver strong performance in 2027 and beyond. Thank you for joining our call today. We’ll take now any questions you might have.

Moderator, Call Moderator, Intertek: We will now start the Q&A. If you are dialed into the call and wish to ask a question, please use the raise hand function at the bottom of your Zoom screen or star nine on your telephone keypad. We’ll pause a moment to allow the queue to form. Our first question comes from Rory McKenzie with UBS. Please unmute your line and ask your question.

Rory McKenzie, Analyst, UBS: Good morning, André. It’s Rory here. My first question I just want to ask about, I guess why now? I think all the divisions have always been run relatively independently, and the historic view in the testing sector was that there’s a benefit to there being a large central brand to leverage. Can you explain more about why you think that this kind of more focused specialist approach for each unit could accelerate organic growth and what that would really change? Secondly, in terms of any carve-out, can you just talk through more about how Intertek is structured today? Do the divisions have existing different management and finance teams? What costs might you need to build up so each unit can stand alone? Just how do you expect to go through the process of legal entity separation for different countries? Thank you. All right. Thanks, Rory.

André Lacroix, Chief Executive Officer, Intertek: Look, this is a strategic inflection that we’ve been thinking about for quite a long time. This is not a short-term thinking. We came to the conclusion that the generalist portfolio model, that is the one we’ve been using for decades to build global scale in each of our global business lines, local scales in each of our markets, developing the depth and breadth of IT solutions, has been doing extremely well for us, but might be reaching its potential, and there is merit in greater strategic focus. There is merit in sharper capital allocations, and there is merit in faster in-market execution. What we are proposing is to evaluate the merits of these strategic assumptions. Of course, we have not made decisions. We’ll obviously work on that.

It is our working assumptions that the specialist portfolio model will drive greater focus, sharper capital allocations, and faster in-market executions, and accelerate growth. Why we’re doing it now, because we’ve concluded that the generalist portfolio strategic approach is reaching its full potential. This is not a new idea. This is something we’ve been thinking about for quite a long time. Of course, today we are just announcing the start of the strategy preview that I just explained. How are the businesses being managed today? We have, as we’ve talked about in the past, an operating model that is decentralized and coordinated. What does decentralized mean? It means that at our head office here in London, we operate with a very little overhead unit. We have about 50-60 people here in London.

All of our resources, that’s why we are the best in terms of customer service, have always been in the market. Essentially, all of our global verticals have got their own operational teams and functional teams. To the question about these synergies in terms of supporting cost, look, it’s still early in the process, but given the fact that we operate with a very decentralized and coordinated approach where the resources are in the market and the process are aligned with very state-of-the-art technology, we believe that these will be limited in terms of dyssynergies. That’s the work that we have to do with Laura and the team.

Rory McKenzie, Analyst, UBS: Yeah. I understand that it’s still early. Just to clarify, I guess in most countries, would Intertek only currently have one legal entity? Will that be, again, something to work through in different jurisdictions?

André Lacroix, Chief Executive Officer, Intertek: No, look, in terms of legal entities, we have plenty of legal entities. We’re going to go through all of this. Don’t worry.

Rory McKenzie, Analyst, UBS: Great. Thank you, André.

Moderator, Call Moderator, Intertek: Our next question comes from Suhasini Varanasi with Goldman Sachs. Please unmute your line and ask your question. Suhasini Varanasi, you should be unmuted.

Suhasini Varanasi, Analyst, Goldman Sachs: Hello. Hi. I hope you can hear me.

André Lacroix, Chief Executive Officer, Intertek: Yeah.

Suhasini Varanasi, Analyst, Goldman Sachs: Morning.

André Lacroix, Chief Executive Officer, Intertek: Morning.

Suhasini Varanasi, Analyst, Goldman Sachs: Thank you. Two questions from me, please. Number one, clearly a pretty strong start to the year, which is very reassuring to see. Just wanted to check if there was a bit of a catch-up effect from November, December last year, which is obviously a bit slower than expected. Have you seen any changes to the operating environment since the Middle East conflict started? Any changes to oil and gas trade volumes or any increases to oil and gas CapEx trends, for example? The second one is on the strategic review. Can you help us understand maybe what would make you consider a sale versus a demerger or vice versa? Will you be considering also a change in listing, maybe, to the U.S.? That’s it. Thank you.

André Lacroix, Chief Executive Officer, Intertek: Yeah. Thanks. On the second question, right, all the ideas you mentioned are options available to us. It’s very early on. We’re going to be evaluating every single option with a very simple goal to maximize, obviously, the value we can create through the separations for our shareholders, not only the value, and including, of course, the certainty if we decide to do so. Look, plenty of options to consider, as you rightly said, but it’s too early to say. We are considering all potential options. We are very open, and we have not determined if we do that, how we’re going to do it. As far as the performance in Q1, look, it was a very strong start indeed. I wouldn’t say that we had some catch-up from orders that were not fulfilled in Q4 because, as you know, our customers cannot wait.

When we deliver basically a testing report or an assurance report, it’s got to be done with a short turnaround time. It’s really a representation of the organic performance of the Group. The question that you have asked on the Middle East is an important one, and let me just give you a bit of background what’s happening in the Middle East and what does it mean for oil and gas. Maybe if I were to contextualize what is the Middle East business for Intertek. It’s about 6% of the Group revenue. We have multiple business lines, but the three biggest business lines we have in the Middle East are Caleb Brett, Industry Services, and GTS. The Middle East business was slightly down in the month of March, low single digit, but was up double digit in Q1. This is a strongly performing business for Intertek.

There is no question that within these three large business lines, Caleb Brett, Industry Services, and GTS, the two businesses that were mostly impacted are Caleb Brett, which was double-digit negative in March in the Middle East, and GTS, which was, as I said during my remark, impacted by trading. What does it mean in terms of the overall oil and gas trends around the world, which is your other questions? We all know that the Middle East is about 20% of the daily supply and consumption of oil and gas around the world. Clearly, the production and the export out of the Middle East has obviously reduced significantly in March. It’s public information. Now, it takes time for a cargo to go from Dubai to Singapore or to Australia.

There is a bit of a lag in what it means for supply chains of our clients at the receiving end. We expect, obviously, Asia to be the most impacted region if things continue as they are today. Having said that, we are seeing a very strong acceleration of production and export in the Americas, where Intertek is very strong as you know. That’s the situation. Obviously, we are following that very carefully. Our teams have remained operational despite the war and the safety considerations that have been taken very seriously by all of our colleagues locally in the Middle East. We are ready to start obviously providing testing and inspection to our clients when the export of the Strait of Hormuz start to increase again. At the moment, it’s quite a slow business environment.

Having said all of that, the Middle East is only 6% of Intertek Group revenue, and within Caleb Brett globally, which is, I think, the important business line to have in mind, it’s also 6% revenue. We can manage.

Suhasini Varanasi, Analyst, Goldman Sachs: That’s pretty clear. Thank you very much.

Moderator, Call Moderator, Intertek: Our next question comes from Annelies Vermeulen with Morgan Stanley. Please unmute your line and ask your question.

Annelies Vermeulen, Analyst, Morgan Stanley: Hi. Good morning. I hope you can hear me.

André Lacroix, Chief Executive Officer, Intertek: Yeah.

Annelies Vermeulen, Analyst, Morgan Stanley: I have two questions, please. Hi. Two questions, please. Firstly, on the strategic review, could you elaborate a little bit more on why you think diversification is not the right strategy? Rather, you’ve talked about you seeing the generalist model reaching its full potential. What indicators would you point to that that is the case? What are you seeing in the business that makes you think, actually, we can’t unlock the full value while remaining as one business? What are the barriers to do that? Secondly, again, if you think about your M&A strategy as you undergo this review, would you expect to allocate capital to acquisitions across sort of both of these buckets of businesses, or do you think you’ll focus more on the consumer side? Thank you.

André Lacroix, Chief Executive Officer, Intertek: Thanks, Annelies. Look, on the second question, it’s business as usual, right? We have not made our mind. We are initiating a strategic review to see if it makes sense. As far as running the business for value and growth, we’re not going to change anything. I think your question is where do you see the benefits? I think if you go back into the history of Intertek, and I’m not going to go too far in times, just when we obviously listed the company here in London, at the beginning of the century. The businesses had an operating model that was essentially made of verticals, i.e., global centrally driven organizations to develop the industry through global accounts. I’m just making it simple for us to understand. That worked tremendously for us to basically develop the market.

There was a very big inflection when the organization decided that to augment the growth through global accounts, we also had to focus at the local level and trying to basically win local customers. That’s when the organization that we have today, which is essentially a matrix between global verticals and regions, was created to make sure that we scale up, not only with global accounts, but with local accounts. We have now reached a real strong position in each of our markets. We have scale, global verticals, local verticals. There is no question that when you run a region, if you run regions with 15 business lines, there is complexity attached to making decisions that are the right decisions in terms of people, capital allocations, investments, M&A for these 15 businesses.

We believe that to take the business to the next phase of growth would benefit from a, number one, more strategic focus in terms of portfolio. What does it mean? It means that the management that is running that country or that regions will be focused on fewer industries, being closer to their customers, certainly having sharper insights in terms of innovations. When it comes to people development and executions, it will simplify their agenda. The second area is capital allocation. When you operate in a group like Intertek, you have a certain envelope of capital allocation, which we’ve talked about is 4%-5% every year. There is arbitrage, and there is de facto competition between high-growth, low-margin business, high-growth, high-margin business.

You can imagine that in two separate units, you will operate with capital allocations that is focused on your end markets. These two businesses that we talked about, Intertek Testing & Assurance and Intertek Energy & Infrastructure, operate in different end markets. Intertek Testing & Assurance is obviously focused on global leading brands, FMCGs, retailers. While Intertek Energy & Infrastructure is focused on the global world of energy, traditional gas, renewables, and of course, the infrastructure investments through the work that we are seeing with our minerals and B&C. There will be a sheer benefit from sharper capital allocations. The last point in terms of decision-making, the focus that you’re going to create at the portfolio level, the complexity that you’re going to remove will accelerate decision-making and de facto accelerate in-market execution. We have not decided we’re going to do that.

We want to evaluate if this strategic working assumption I just talked about, the specialist portfolio model, capital allocation policy that is dedicated for each business, and faster in-market executions will accelerate growth and create more value for our shareholders. That’s the work we’re going to do right now, but we believe that it might be the time to take the next inflection in the way we run the Group to move from the generalist portfolio model to a specialist model with two global ATIC business of scale.

Annelies Vermeulen, Analyst, Morgan Stanley: Perfect. Thanks. Very clear. Thank you. Just as a follow-up, you’ve obviously said several times it’s different end markets, different customers. Can we assume there’s not a lot of customer overlap between these two segments and therefore you don’t see any risk of revenue dissynergies from breaking up the business?

André Lacroix, Chief Executive Officer, Intertek: Yeah, you said it right.

Annelies Vermeulen, Analyst, Morgan Stanley: Perfect. Thank you.

Moderator, Call Moderator, Intertek: Our next question comes from James Rowland Clark with Barclays. Please press star six to unmute and ask your question. James, that’s star six on your telephone keypad to unmute.

James Rowland Clark, Analyst, Barclays: Thank you. Can you hear me?

André Lacroix, Chief Executive Officer, Intertek: Of course. Good morning.

James Rowland Clark, Analyst, Barclays: Morning. Three questions, please. On the strategic review, I’d just be interested to know if in the recent history, you’ve been approached by buyers for any of your verticals within World of Energy and Industry & Infrastructure, and whether those interested parties tended to be trade buyers or private equity. My second question is on Health & Safety. That’s a division you’re planning to keep. It’s underperformed the Group. It’s grown low single digit this year, and you’ve done a restructuring in that division. Is there any reason why that isn’t considered within your strategic review as potential for sale or de-merger? Finally, Assurance improved a lot in Q1 versus the end of the year. I think you mentioned this in the answer to Suhasini’s question, but is there any catch-up there?

Can you just help us with what the underlying growth really is in Assurance at the moment? Thank you.

André Lacroix, Chief Executive Officer, Intertek: Yeah. All right. Let’s just start with the last question. No, there is no catch-up in Assurance. As I was saying to your colleague, we have a key priority with every single of our customers called turnaround time. Right? If you basically test a T-shirt or a jean, you got to deliver your report within few days. It’s the same with Assurance. Our clients don’t wait very long. No, I think there is no catch-up. The growth that we got in Q1 is basically because we had built the backlog of demand for Q1 and the rest of 2026. As far as Health & Safety, look, Health & Safety, yes, had a bit of a slow 2025, but I just want to put things into context. We did 7% revenue growth in 2023, 7.9% revenue growth in 2024, and we did 5.9% revenue growth in Q1.

This is a strongly performing business. Yes, we had a bit of a slowdown in one of our business line last year for the reason we talked about it, but it’s a fantastic business. In going back to the question that Annelies was asking about customers, the big difference between Industry, so Energy & Infrastructure and Testing & Assurance, Testing & Assurance work for global leading brands, being retails or consumer brands. This is a business that is definitely part of our Testing & Assurance division moving forward. It’s been performing very well, recognizing that we had a bit of a slowdown in 2025, but as you know, you cannot keep growing full speed ahead every single year. As far as your first question on strategic review, no, we’ve never received any formal offer or approach for one of our World of Energy business.

That’s what I’ve got to say.

James Rowland Clark, Analyst, Barclays: Excellent. Thank you.

Moderator, Call Moderator, Intertek: Our next question comes from Victoria Chang with JPMorgan. Thank you for your patience, everybody. Victoria, if you’d like to repeat your question. Thank you very much.

Victoria Chang, Analyst, JPMorgan: Yeah. Thank you. Can you hear me?

André Lacroix, Chief Executive Officer, Intertek: Yeah, of course. Sorry for that, Victoria. Apologies.

Victoria Chang, Analyst, JPMorgan: Yeah, of course. My question was if you can confirm that you expect to keep all business lines within Industry & Infrastructure and World of Energy in the Intertek new Energy & Infrastructure business, or are there certain business lines that you could expect to move into the rest of the business, for example, CEA, which I understand could be a bit more Assurance-based. My second question is also on Assurance activities. What percentage or how big is the Assurance activity business within Industry & Infrastructure and World of Energy? Do you expect that to stay there or does it make more sense to move any kind of Assurance activities into the other business? Thank you.

André Lacroix, Chief Executive Officer, Intertek: Yeah, thanks. Really two very good question. CEA, which is our solar assurance business, will move into the electrical business because this is the way it’s run. It’s obviously solar panels and energy storage and battery, and it’s managed today by our global electrical business. That will basically move from the World of Energy into Consumer Products. The rest doesn’t change. Your question on assurance is really a good one. We have developed our ATIC value proposition over the years, and when we offer assurance, we have two type of assurance solutions. We have the assurance solutions that are industry specific and which are basically managed by the business lines. Let’s just say B&C or Moody or Caleb Brett. You’ve got the industry agnostic assurance solutions that are part of Corporate Assurance. That’s the distinctions that we make. All right?

Nothing will change in terms of the ATIC solutions that Caleb Brett or B&C or Moody provides and sells to their clients today. All right?

Victoria Chang, Analyst, JPMorgan: I see. Okay. Is it possible if you could disclose what level of industry-specific Assurance activities you have within Intertek Energy & Infrastructure?

André Lacroix, Chief Executive Officer, Intertek: Yeah. Look, we disclose the ATIC revenues on global basis every year. If you want to get a sense of the weight, if you want, in terms of revenue of the non-industry agnostic Assurance solution, the best way is to take the Assurance revenue that you have at Group level, minus the Corporate Assurance, and you will get the answer.

Victoria Chang, Analyst, JPMorgan: Okay, I understand. Sorry, just one more follow-up.

André Lacroix, Chief Executive Officer, Intertek: It’s all right.

Victoria Chang, Analyst, JPMorgan: The Government and Trade Services within Consumer Products.

André Lacroix, Chief Executive Officer, Intertek: Yes.

Victoria Chang, Analyst, JPMorgan: Do you think it makes sense to continue fitting there?

André Lacroix, Chief Executive Officer, Intertek: Of course.

Victoria Chang, Analyst, JPMorgan: It’s a more natural synergy? Okay.

André Lacroix, Chief Executive Officer, Intertek: No, of course. We are working with global brands, right?

Victoria Chang, Analyst, JPMorgan: Okay. That makes sense. Thank you.

André Lacroix, Chief Executive Officer, Intertek: Of course.

Moderator, Call Moderator, Intertek: Our next question comes from Virginia Montorsi with Bank of America. Please unmute your line and ask your question.

Virginia Montorsi, Analyst, Bank of America: Thank you very much for taking my question. Just a quick one. Could you remind us what was the M&A contribution in Health & Safety in Q1, and what contributed mostly to it? Thank you.

André Lacroix, Chief Executive Officer, Intertek: Yeah. Essentially, we bought a business called Envirolab, which is an Australian-based environmental testing assurance business, and that was the main driver of the difference between organic and total revenue.

Virginia Montorsi, Analyst, Bank of America: Perfect. Thank you very much.

André Lacroix, Chief Executive Officer, Intertek: You’re welcome.

Moderator, Call Moderator, Intertek: Our next question comes from Geoffroy Michalet with ODDO BHF. Please unmute your line and ask your question.

Geoffroy Michalet, Analyst, ODDO BHF: Yes. Thank you. Two questions from me. First one on the TT business. We’ve seen that this deal is still affected. Do you have any change in the tonality of your client about when they speak about, let’s say, coming back on the market within this division? The second question is on the Middle East disruption. Can you describe us some positive side effect that you are seeing? You talked a bit about oil and gas in the U.S. Is it something that we witnessed already in Q1, or is it more something that you anticipate for Q2 and going forward? Thank you very much.

André Lacroix, Chief Executive Officer, Intertek: Yeah, it’s great questions. Look, TT remains very challenging for our clients. Look, we expect that our clients are going to resume investments in R&D based on the discussion we have. They’re not obviously reducing their innovation investments over time, but at the moment, they’re still on a short-term cost and cash management. It remains very tough, and we’ll take it a step at a time. We’ll see how the second half unfolds. As far as the positive effect outside of the Middle East, in Q1, yeah, clearly, we had a very strong performance for Caleb Brett in the Americas, I suppose North America and LATAM. Why? Because of course, Europe is importing more from the U.S. and LATAM, and we’ve seen some benefits from it. No question. All right.

Geoffroy Michalet, Analyst, ODDO BHF: Yeah. Thank you very much.

Moderator, Call Moderator, Intertek: As a reminder, if you’d like to ask a question, please use the raise hand function at the bottom of your Zoom screen, or star nine on your telephone keypad. Our next question comes from Joe Brent with Panmure Liberum. Please unmute your line and ask your question. Joe Brent, that is star six on your keypad. Thank you.

Joe Brent, Analyst, Panmure Liberum: Good morning. Can you hear me?

André Lacroix, Chief Executive Officer, Intertek: Of course. Yeah.

Joe Brent, Analyst, Panmure Liberum: Yep. Hi, good morning. Two sort of related questions, really. Firstly, you’ve helpfully given a divisional split of revenue for the potential demerger. Could you give us some indication of what the profits of those two businesses could look like? Secondly, I appreciate it’s early in the process, but just thinking about potential extra costs from having two businesses versus one, is it fair to say that you’d expect the extra cost to be less than 1% of total sales?

André Lacroix, Chief Executive Officer, Intertek: All right. In terms of the margin of the two businesses, when you look at our full-year disclosures, essentially you have the contribution margin by division after all overhead allocations at the Group level. As I said earlier in the call, we do not have a lot of overheads in the center. We operate a decentralized market-focused business model. If you do crudely the margin calculations based on these disclosures, you will get a sense of the margin of both Intertek Testing & Assurance and Intertek Energy & Infrastructure. Of course, Laura and I are going to need to do some work on overhead allocation and absorption, which obviously will change this margin profile a bit, but it’s not going to be something that we believe is going to be materially different.

There will be some, obviously, change of economics based on overhead absorption, depending on the formula that we use and where we put the overhead. As far as how much incremental costs are going to be added to the business, look, this is something that we’re going to do diligently during the strategic review. Of course, if you do a demerger and you list two businesses, i.e., we have to list another business in addition to Intertek today, they will have a certain level of cost. If, obviously, you do a sale, it’s a different level of cost. This is going to be part of the work we’re going to do. I’m not going to say much more than that for now.

Joe Brent, Analyst, Panmure Liberum: Thank you.

Moderator, Call Moderator, Intertek: There are no further questions on the webinar. I will now hand over to Management for closing remarks.

André Lacroix, Chief Executive Officer, Intertek: Well, thank you very much for being on the call today. I know it was on short notice. We really appreciate you making the time for Intertek. Denis will be available if you have any more questions. Thank you very much.

Moderator, Call Moderator, Intertek: Thank you for your participation in today’s call. You may now disconnect.

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