SGSOF - SGS SA (SGSOF) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript
2024-01-26 14:43:02 ET
SGS SA (SGSOF)
Q4 2023 Results Conference Call
January 26, 2024 04:30 AM ET
Company Participants
Ariel Bauer - Group Vice President of Investor Relations
Frankie Ng - CEO
Geraldine Picaud - CEO Designate
Calvin Grieder - Chairman
Conference Call Participants
Harry Martin - Bernstein
Suhasini Varanasi - Goldman Sachs
Simon LeChipre - Stifel
Arthur Truslove - Citi
Annelies Vermeulen - Morgan Stanley
Rory McKenzie - UBS
James Rose - Barclays
Carl Raynsford - Berenberg
Tom Burlton - BNP Paribas
Pablo Cuadrado - Kepler
Presentation
Ariel Bauer
So good morning, everyone, and welcome to the SGS financial results and strategic update. It's a pleasure to connect with all of you today. My name is Ariel Bauer, I'm the Group Vice President of Investor Relations, Communications and Sustainability. This event will be presented by our CEO, Frankie Ng; and by our CEO Designate, Geraldine Picaud, who will cover the strategy 2027. We also welcome the presence of our Chairman, Calvin Grieder.
A few housekeeping rules before we start. First, kindly put your mobile devices to silent as this event is webcast. We will open the floor to your questions at the end of the presentation. And as usual, we will take two questions per participant. And we aim to finish by 12 noon.
With this, I'm very happy to welcome Calvin Grieder, Geraldine Picaud, and Frankie Ng to the stage.
Calvin Grieder
Thank you, Ariel. Well, I would like to welcome you all here, and we will present to you our results of the last year and the strategic update. So thank you very much for your attendance. It will be a new chapter for SGS and it's exciting chapter. And at this moment, we will look forward to the future of the company, but also talk about our achievements up to this date.
As you heard this morning, today, also Frankie will step down as CEO from the date of our AGM in March. And Frankie informed me of his desire to step down some time ago, at which point, we started to -- we started the planning process for the succession. With this rigorous process, we considered both internal and external candidates and Geraldine emerged as the best candidate.
As of today, Geraldine will assume the role of CEO Designate alongside her existing responsibilities as CFO and strategic transformation. We will make a separate announcement concerning the CFO in due course. The Board of Directors is proud to point Geraldine as the new CEO and with her experience and track record, she is perfectly placed to lead SGS into the future. We now start the transition period, which Frankie will contribute his intimate knowledge of SGS built over impressive 30 years, a 30-years journey with the company. This is why Frankie and Geraldine stand up here together and will run you through the results, 2023 and the plan for the future. So enjoy today. And with that, I will hand over to Geraldine, which will give a few introductionary words. Thank you very much.
Geraldine Picaud
Thank you, Calvin, and good morning, everyone. I would like to start by saying that I feel extremely honored to be named as the next CEO of SGS. SGS is a fantastic company with both a wonderful heritage, 145 years of history and also huge potential for future growth. We have an unrivaled network of laboratory. We are present everywhere in all geographies, and we are covering almost all industries.
So we are the true partner for our clients. But above all, SGS is its people. It is their commitment, their expertise, their passion, their personal values. This constitutes an invaluable asset and it positions us exactly well to capture all the exciting growth opportunities of the testing, inspection and certification industry and I will detail this in a few moments in the strategy 2027....
SGS SA (SGSOF) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript