Operator

Welcome to the Scandic Hotels Group Q2 2026 Report Presentation. [Operator Instructions] Now I will hand the conference over to the speakers, CEO, Jens Mathiesen; and CFO, Par Christiansen. Please go ahead.

Jens Mathiesen
President & CEO

Thank you very much, and good morning, everyone, and thank you all for joining us for this Q2 presentation. My name is Jens Mathiesen. I’m the CEO of Scandic. And together with me, I have our CFO, Par Christiansen, as always. Let’s dive into the highlights. So please turn to Page 2.

We delivered a good quarter with solid growth. We improved our earnings and also higher profitability. The business is performing well across most of our markets, with Finland remaining the exception. Market conditions were favorable, supported by a busy event calendar, strong leisure travel and stable demand for business travel and meetings. Demand was particularly strong in the capital cities of Sweden, Denmark and Ireland. Finland remained challenging throughout the quarter, while the Norwegian hotel market was affected by a hotel strike lasting more than 6 weeks. The recovery in Finland is taking longer than we had expected, but we remain focused on turning the performance around. We now expect a gradual improvement with a stable second half of the year with a financial performance on same levels as last year.

During the quarter, we expanded the hotel portfolio, continued to grow

Ace investor Ashish Kacholia, widely known for spotting emerging small-cap winners, has pared his holdings in two chemical stocks during the first quarter of FY27, locking in gains after the stocks delivered returns of up to 114% so far this year.

The latest shareholding data available on the BSE shows that Kacholia reduced his stake in Yasho Industries to 2.08% from 2.37% at the end of the March 2026 quarter. He also trimmed his holding in Finotex Chemicals to 2.06% from 2.60%, indicating a reduction of 0.54 percentage points during the quarter.

Yasho Industries’ stock price has delivered a staggering 114% return in 2026 while Fineotex Chemicals has risen 58% in the last six months.

Kacholia is among India’s most closely watched small-cap investors, with his portfolio moves often drawing significant attention from the market. Kacholia’s investment decisions are widely tracked by retail and institutional investors alike, as they are often seen as indicators of emerging opportunities and evolving market sentiment.

Also read: Ashish Kacholia’s picks: 12 stocks rally up to 130% in CY26, 3 turned multibaggers; 2 new Q4 bets

Kacholia, fondly called the ‘Big Whale’ by media, Kacholia started out with Prime Securities and later joined Edelweiss before incorporating his own broking firm, Lucky Securities in 1995. He co-founded Hungama Digital with Rakesh Jhunjhunwala in 1999 and started building his own portfolio from 2003.
As per the Trendlyne data, Ashish Kacholia publicly holds 50 stocks with a net worth of nearly Rs 3,000 crore crore.

Why is Kacholia selling chemical stocks?

Iran war supply constraints – In the fourth quarter last financial year, companies continued to face raw material shortages due to disruptions caused by the West Asia conflict.
India’s chemicals industry, primarily through higher crude oil prices and supply chain disruptions. As many chemical manufacturers rely on crude-derived feedstocks such as naphtha, benzene and methanol, elevated oil prices increase raw material costs and put pressure on profit margins. Disruptions around the Strait of Hormuz also raised freight and insurance costs while delaying shipments of key inputs. Although a weaker rupee may support export realisations, persistent geopolitical tensions and higher input costs are likely to outweigh the benefits, particularly for commodity and petrochemical-linked chemical companies.

Although raw material prices have eased since end-May and availability is gradually improving, JM Financial expects supply chain constraints to persist in the near term, with normalisation likely over the next one to two quarters.

Softening demand – JM also observed that discretionary demand has weakened due to higher prices, although non-discretionary demand remains stable. While pent-up demand could emerge once supply chains normalise, the brokerage believes chemical prices are unlikely to return to pre-conflict levels, supporting a healthier spreads environment for the industry.

Also read:Ashish Kacholia exits, Madhusudan Kela trims stake in smallcap NBFC stock that’s up over 50% in 2026

China’s muscle power – InCred Equities said China’s persistent capacity expansion continues to exert significant pressure on the global chemicals industry. It noted that Chinese producers, particularly in petrochemicals, intermediates and commodity chemicals, have added capacity well ahead of demand and are exporting surplus output at lower prices, forcing global competitors to either cut prices or lose market share.

The brokerage believes Indian chemical companies should leverage China’s cost advantage rather than compete directly in commoditised products. It noted that Indian specialty chemical manufacturers have traditionally imported key intermediates and raw materials from China, where production costs remain substantially lower. InCred said the opportunity lies in moving downstream into higher-value products such as specialty chemicals, formulations, pharma intermediates, agrochemical formulations, food additives, electronic chemicals and customised CDMO products. It added that companies focused on differentiated, value-added offerings can benefit from lower Chinese input costs, while those remaining in commodity chemicals are likely to continue facing pricing and margin pressure.

Chemical stocks Q1 outlook – Axis Direct expects a mixed earnings performance for the chemicals and agrochemicals sector in Q1FY27. The brokerage said the delayed onset of the southwest monsoon pushed Kharif-related agrochemical demand into the second quarter, resulting in a relatively subdued quarter for domestic formulation companies.

At the same time, it expects companies with exposure to CDMO, fluorochemicals and refrigerants to outperform on the back of healthy order execution and a favourable product mix.

The brokerage believes pricing pressure from Chinese competition will continue to weigh on commoditised chemical manufacturers, limiting margin expansion. However, within the mid-cap universe, Axis expects companies supported by strong domestic infrastructure-linked order books to deliver healthy growth through robust execution, even as uncertainty persists in export markets.

Ashish Kacholia trims stake in NBFC

Shareholding data available on the BSE shows that Ashish Kacholia’s stake in NBFC SG Finserve fell below the 1% disclosure threshold from 2.37% at the end of the March 2026 quarter, indicating a likely exit.

(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of The Economic Times)

A fleet of more than 150 robots is already laying bricks on real construction sites across the UK and Europe, and the company behind them has just raised $32 million to put more of them to work, in a deal that says as much about Britain’s vanishing trades as it does about the rise of physical AI.

Monumental, the Amsterdam-based construction robotics company, announced the Series B led by Khosla Ventures, with participation from Plural and existing investors including Hummingbird. The money will grow its engineering team, scale the fleet across Europe, deepen its UK presence and fund a US launch this year.

For UK housebuilders and the small firms that supply them, the timing is pointed. The Home Builders Federation estimates the country needs at least 20,000 more bricklayers to hit the government’s target of 1.5 million new homes, yet only around 1,990 completed apprenticeships in 2024. It is a gap Business Matters has tracked closely, with a skills crisis already threatening the 1.5 million homes target and 76 per cent of construction firms struggling to hire.

Monumental’s answer is not to sell machines but to work as an autonomous subcontractor. General contractors hire the company and pay for finished wall, an outcome-priced model that spares builders, many of them SMEs, the financial and technical risk of owning and operating the equipment themselves.

The robots are electric and autonomous, using advanced sensors, computer vision and cranes to lay brick and mortar with millimetre precision, all orchestrated by the company’s AI platform, Atrium. The fleet has built the walls of more than 100 homes across the Netherlands and the UK, along with a school, a community centre, a hotel and canal walls. The pace is accelerating: nearly half of those homes went up in the past three months alone, up from just eight the quarter before.

“The world simply does not have enough people to build what it needs, and that shortage will not be solved by another app or another robot doing backflips on stage,” said Salar al Khafaji, co-founder and CEO of Monumental. “It takes machines that turn up on site and lay real brick all day, to spec, which is what our fleet already does today. Every robot we deploy expands the industry’s capacity to build, bringing a future of beautiful, affordable, bespoke buildings and infrastructure closer to reality. Khosla’s investment lets us put many more of them to work in more countries while expanding beyond bricklaying.”

The backdrop is an industry that technology has barely touched. Since 1945, manufacturing productivity has risen more than eightfold while construction productivity has gained roughly 10 per cent, and has fallen since the 1960s. The result is a housing shortage the Centre for Policy Studies puts at 6.5 million homes, with just 446 homes per 1,000 people, the second-worst rate in Europe. In the capital, where London built just 7 per cent of the homes it needed last year, the delivery gap is starker still.

“Construction costs have exploded while the industry itself has barely changed in decades,” said Vinod Khosla, founder of Khosla Ventures. “That combination has produced the housing crisis: we know how to build, we’ve just made it too expensive and too slow. Monumental is solving this by bringing robotics into the physical world, and the proof is already standing: canal walls, houses, a school, 100 structures already built by robots. Beautiful buildings, built at scale, don’t have to cost what they cost today.”

Founded in 2021 by al Khafaji and CTO Sebastiaan Visser, whose previous company Silk was acquired by Palantir in 2016, Monumental was the first to bring Palantir’s forward-deployed engineering model to robotics. It has recently appointed a dedicated UK country manager and is growing its on-the-ground team here.

Nor is it an isolated bet. From bricklaying to fruit picking, where Dogtooth raised £14 million this month to help growers beat labour shortages, investors are backing robots to do the physical work Britain cannot find the people for. Monumental says its crews move up into safer, higher-skilled roles operating the machines. The bricks, it seems, will get laid either way.

ATLANTA — England and Argentina meet Wednesday in a World Cup semifinal that revives one of soccer’s oldest and most storied rivalries, bringing together Lionel Messi and England’s dynamic scoring duo of Harry Kane and Jude Bellingham with a place in Sunday’s final on the line.

The match kicks off at 3 p.m. ET at Atlanta Stadium, also known as Mercedes-Benz Stadium, marking the sixth World Cup meeting between the two nations and the first in 24 years. The winner will advance to Sunday’s final in New Jersey to face either France or Spain for the championship.

A Rivalry Steeped in Controversy

Few fixtures in World Cup history carry the historical weight of England versus Argentina. The rivalry is forever tied to Diego Maradona’s “Hand of God” goal during the 1986 quarterfinal, along with David Beckham’s red card for kicking Diego Simeone during their dramatic 1998 round-of-16 clash. England holds a narrow edge in their World Cup head-to-head history, with three wins to Argentina’s two across their five previous meetings on the tournament’s biggest stage.

Wednesday’s match also marks uncharted territory for one of the sport’s greatest players. At 39 years old and playing in his sixth World Cup, Messi has never faced England in more than 200 international appearances, adding a fresh layer of intrigue to the historic rivalry.

Golden Boot Race Adds Extra Stakes

Beyond the semifinal berth on the line, Wednesday’s match doubles as a direct battle for the tournament’s Golden Boot. Messi leads the race with eight goals, tied with France’s Kylian Mbappé for the tournament’s high mark, while Kane and Bellingham each sit one goal behind with six apiece.

Remarkably, it marks the first time in men’s World Cup history that two players from the same country have each scored six or more goals in the same tournament. Kane and Bellingham have combined for 12 of England’s 13 total goals this tournament, an extraordinary level of reliance on two players that mirrors Argentina’s own dependence on Messi, who has personally scored eight of his team’s tournament-leading 17 goals.

Contrasting Paths to the Semifinal

The two teams have arrived at this stage through very different routes. Argentina, the defending champions seeking to become the first team to repeat as World Cup winners since Brazil in 1962, has needed extra time in two of its knockout matches, requiring additional time to get past Cape Verde in the round of 32 before rallying from a two-goal deficit against Egypt in the round of 16. In the quarterfinals, Argentina needed extra time again to beat 10-man Switzerland 3-1, with Julián Álvarez scoring the decisive goal in the 112th minute.

Messi reflected on the significance of reaching another semifinal at this stage of his career.

“Getting to another semifinal is not a normal, mundane thing, so this is something we should really enjoy because we don’t know if it will happen again,” Messi said.

England’s own path has also tested the squad’s resilience. The team needed extra time to beat Norway 2-1 in the quarterfinals, with Bellingham scoring both goals to continue his rise as one of the tournament’s standout performers. That victory followed a difficult stretch that included criticism from manager Thomas Tuchel, who had earlier described aspects of England’s play as “sloppy” following an uneven display.

Key Storylines to Watch

Bellingham enters Wednesday’s match on the back of consecutive braces, having scored twice in each of his last two World Cup appearances. According to tournament statistics, only Kane, with four such matches, and Gary Lineker, with three, have more multi-goal games for England at the World Cup than Bellingham now has. Across World Cup history overall, only Peru’s Téofilo Cubillas has more two-plus-goal games among midfielders than Bellingham.

Kane, England’s all-time leading World Cup goalscorer, struggled in the heat during England’s win over Norway but returns to Atlanta, where he scored a brace against Democratic Republic of Congo earlier in the tournament. Should he remain healthy throughout the match, Kane will earn his 121st England cap, which would stand as the most of any outfield player in the program’s history.

England does enter the match with some injury concerns. Midfielder Declan Rice, who has been battling illness, remains a doubt for the match, while veteran Jordan Henderson is unavailable due to a wrist injury. Argentina, by contrast, reported no injury concerns heading into the semifinal.

Confidence Despite the Pressure

England goalkeeper Jordan Pickford addressed the mounting pressure surrounding the squad’s pursuit of what would be the country’s first World Cup title since 1966 and first ever won on foreign soil.

“You’ve seen throughout the tournament our desire to win tackles. We’ve not got into any scuffles or anything,” Pickford said. “We’ve been very well respected within the game. Decisions go our way [or] they don’t go our way, we just reset, we go again, and we let the football do the talking.”

A Statistical Coin Flip

Predictive models have struggled to separate the two sides. Opta’s supercomputer gave England a roughly 39% probability of winning in regulation time as of Tuesday, compared with Argentina’s 32% chance, with the model estimating a nearly 30% probability that the match extends into extra time. Updated projections including extra time and penalties put the overall win probability closer to an even split between the two nations.

Argentina’s attacking output has been historic in its own right. The team’s six wins so far this tournament mark its longest outright winning run in World Cup history, and Argentina has scored exactly three goals in each of its last four matches, putting it within reach of matching the all-time Argentine World Cup scoring record of 18 goals, set at the inaugural 1930 tournament.

What’s at Stake

Whichever team advances will carry significant historical weight into Sunday’s final. Argentina is chasing back-to-back titles for the first time since Brazil’s consecutive championships in 1958 and 1962, while England is seeking to end a 60-year wait for a second World Cup trophy and its first on foreign soil, powered by a Kane-Bellingham partnership that has already rewritten the record books for England at a single tournament.

England and Argentina meet Wednesday in one of the most anticipated matches of the 2026 World Cup, and fans around the world have multiple free options to watch the semifinal live, depending on their location. Here’s a country-by-country breakdown of where to catch the match without a subscription.

Match Details

The semifinal kicks off at 3 p.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday, July 15, at Atlanta Stadium, also known as Mercedes-Benz Stadium, in Atlanta, Georgia. The winner advances to Sunday’s World Cup final at New York-New Jersey Stadium against either France or Spain.

Kickoff times vary significantly depending on time zone. In the United States, the match starts at 3 p.m. ET. In the United Kingdom, kickoff falls at 8 p.m. BST. Viewers in India will see the match begin at 12:30 a.m. IST on Thursday, July 16, while fans in Australia will need to tune in early, with kickoff scheduled for 5 a.m. AEST on Thursday.

United Kingdom: Free on BBC

British fans have the simplest path to watching for free. The match is being broadcast live and free-to-air on BBC One, with coverage also available online through BBC iPlayer and the BBC Sport website. All three options are accessible without any additional subscription cost beyond a valid UK television license, making this one of the most straightforward free-viewing options available anywhere in the world for Wednesday’s match.

Australia: Free via SBS

Australian viewers can watch the match for free courtesy of SBS, which holds broadcast rights to the tournament in Australia. Cord-cutters and those without traditional television access can stream the match through the SBS On Demand platform and mobile app, both of which are free to use without a subscription.

Canada: Free on CTV

In Canada, the match will be available for free on CTV, though viewers will need to log in using their television provider credentials to access the broadcast. Canadian fans who prefer additional coverage options can also watch through TSN, the country’s dedicated sports network, or its streaming platform TSN+, though the latter requires a paid subscription.

United States: Free Broadcast on Fox and Telemundo

In the United States, the match airs nationally on Fox for English-language commentary, with a Spanish-language broadcast simultaneously airing on Telemundo. Because both Fox and Telemundo are major over-the-air broadcast networks, U.S. viewers can watch either feed completely free of charge by connecting a standard digital TV antenna to their television, without needing any cable subscription or streaming service.

For those who have cut the cord entirely and prefer to stream on a smart TV, tablet or mobile device, several streaming platforms offer free trial periods that could cover the match at no cost. Fox’s dedicated streaming service, Fox One, offers a three-day free trial that would encompass Wednesday’s semifinal. Streaming service Fubo, which carries Fox, ABC, ESPN, CBS and more than 100 other channels, has also offered a free one-day trial that could be used to access the broadcast without payment.

India: Coverage on Zee5

Viewers in India can access the match through Zee5, one of the country’s major streaming platforms, with kickoff scheduled for 12:30 a.m. IST early Thursday morning local time.

A Historic Broadcast Slate for a Historic Rivalry

Wednesday’s match carries significant historical weight beyond its broadcast details. This will be the first meeting between England and Argentina at a World Cup in 21 years, and the first time in his career that Lionel Messi has faced England, despite having made more than 200 international appearances for Argentina.

The rivalry between the two nations remains one of the most storied in World Cup history, forever tied to Diego Maradona’s controversial “Hand of God” goal during their 1986 quarterfinal meeting. England holds a narrow historical edge in their head-to-head World Cup record, though both teams have needed extra time in multiple matches to reach this stage of the tournament.

England advanced to the semifinal following a dramatic 2-1 extra-time victory over Norway in the quarterfinals, powered by a Jude Bellingham brace that included a 93rd-minute winning goal. Argentina, meanwhile, reached the semifinal with a 3-1 extra-time win over Switzerland, continuing what has been a five-win, unbeaten run through the tournament for the defending champions.

What to Expect on the Pitch

Both teams enter Wednesday’s match with significant firepower up front. Messi leads the tournament’s Golden Boot race with eight goals, while England’s Harry Kane and Bellingham sit tied for the tournament lead among teammates with six goals each, marking the first time in men’s World Cup history that two players from the same nation have each scored six or more goals in a single tournament.

England will be without midfielder Jarell Quansah, who remains suspended for the second game of a two-match ban following a red card in the round of 16, and veteran Jordan Henderson, who is unavailable due to a broken arm. Argentina has reported no significant injury concerns heading into the match.

A Note on Accessing Streams While Traveling

For fans traveling outside their home country during the tournament, some streaming services may restrict access based on location due to broadcast licensing agreements. Travelers looking to access their usual home-country coverage while abroad can typically do so using a virtual private network, or VPN, which allows a device to appear as though it is connecting from a different location. It’s worth noting that streaming access and blackout rules vary by provider and country, so fans should check the specific terms of their preferred broadcaster before relying on this option.

With so much on the line and such broad global interest in the fixture, Wednesday’s England-Argentina semifinal is expected to draw one of the largest global television audiences of the tournament so far, as fans across multiple continents tune in through their respective free and paid broadcast options to watch one of international football’s most storied rivalries renewed on the sport’s biggest stage.