Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the AGRANA results for the first half of 2025-2026 conference call. I am Valentina, the call operator. I would like to remind you that all participants will be in listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session. You can register for questions at any time by pressing star and one on your telephone. For operator assistance, please press star and zero. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Hannes Haider. Please go ahead. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to AGRANA's conference call presenting our results for the first half of the 2025-2026 financial year. You already got some insights in our figures when we published in our talk announcement on the 10th of September. Today, we will provide you with more financial details and also on the different segments. As announced in our invitation, a presentation is available in reference to this call, and you can find this presentation, as always, in the IR section of our website. Our CEO, Stephan Büttner, will hold today's presentation, as you can see on slide number two. The presentation is divided into three parts. We will start with an introduction and will focus on the highlights of the first half. We will go on then with a segment overview and comment also on the financial performance. Finally, we will conclude with an outlook for the remaining business year. The presentation will take about 20- 25 minutes, and afterwards, we will be glad to answer your questions. Now, I may pass over to our CEO, Stephan, who will start with the presentation on slide number four. Thank you, Hannes. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. The first half of the business year was quite challenging still. In the second quarter, our decline in EBIT was less than expected, fortunately. In September, therefore, we raised our forecast for the full year 2025-2026, and we now expect our EBIT to be significantly higher than in the previous year. We have to mention that this is still on a low level. AGRANA is still in a challenging transformation phase. On one hand, our Food and Beverage Solutions business is developing in a very positive way. On the other hand, our activities in the agricultural commodities business, so sugar and starch, are still in a very challenging situation. When we look at the key figures, revenue went down to EUR 1.691 billion in the first half of the business year. Operating profit was EUR 52.2 million, close to the result in the previous year. We also had exceptional items, but this was already expected, and it's due to the closure of the sites in Leopoldsdorf, Austria, and Hrušovany, Czech Republic in sugar. Therefore, the EBIT amounted to EUR 28 million, significantly down versus prior year, but this is mainly due to the exceptional items. Our sugar restructuring is on track. You know the background, so we have significant challenges throughout Europe, also in combination with the Ukrainian import volumes duty-free in the last two to three business years. Now there is, again, at least normal crop for sugar beets in the European Union expected. This is still, therefore, pressure on the market prices. The pressure came back recently due to the very good outlook of the sugar produced in the European Union, and also in combination with the very low world market prices. They declined further in the last two to three weeks significantly. Looking back, our decision to close the site in Austria, Leopoldsdorf, and also in the Czech Republic was absolutely the right thing to do. We are here on a good track concerning our restructuring activities. We are further pushing on cost reduction, and we are also in negotiations with the beet farmers for the, let's say, models for getting the beets in the coming season. Key figures, part two, EUR 83.5 million free cash flow. This is a positive number, I would say. Also, in combination with the difficulties on the profitability side, our net debt declined to EUR 407.8 million, also down versus 28 February 2025 by around EUR 20 million. Gearing ratio 35.5% stable, and the equity ratio increased to 47% versus 45.4% prior year. We also want to mention here that, again, the 100% acquisition of the Slovenian food company, Mercator-Emba. This is a company with around EUR 30 million revenues, actually, but we have concrete plans to bring this significantly up in the next three to five years. Emba employs around 100 people. They are producing syrups and dessert toppings. They are a big supplier of the food service industry in Central, Eastern, and South Europe. This goes hand in hand with our strategy to get more access to the sales channel food service. We think this is an excellent add-on to our capabilities in the fruit preparations business. Therefore, we are very happy that we could realize this acquisition. We also had an enlargement or will have quite soon from the 1st of November 2025 onwards, the enlargement of the AGRANA management Board. Franz Ennser was appointed as a new member of the management Board. He has a long history already in AGRANA. His last function was the CEO of Austria Juice company since 2014. I personally already did with him the integration and restructuring of Austria Juice company after the merger of YBBSTALER and AGRANA Juice in 2012. We already have a joint very good track record, and I'm very happy that we can welcome Mr. Franz Ennser from 1st November 2025 onwards in the Board of AGRANA. His responsibilities will be agricultural raw materials, operation excellence, including occupational health and safety and CapEx, and also purchasing, logistics, and supply chain. A quick update on our strategic priorities for the external business year or financial year. In Food and Beverage Solutions, of course, we will now work after the approval of the competition authorities and the closure of the transaction, the closing of the transaction, which we expect in the external calendar year. We will work on the integration of Austria Juice into AGRANA. Of course, also have an eye on how to grow our core segments. We will make a good strategy to leverage our flavors capabilities. This is also then the rollout via our footprint in the fruit preparations business. Of course, also together in the Food and Beverage Solutions segment, we are looking for overhead reduction, which means additional synergies. In the agricultural commodities and specialties business, we are still working on a cost reduction program. Site optimization is very important in sugar, but also in starch. Also, sustainability, which means decarbonization here, plays a very important role. Cost is always a factor. In sugar, we need to bring down the cost further to be competitive for the future. Overall, securing our financial flexibility and creating more headroom for future growth is also a very important factor for the next months. We'll further work on the reduction of our working capital and overall cost optimization. We also have a new segment reporting since March 1, 2025. As we already reported, the new structure is that we changed the fruit segment into Food and Beverage Solutions. The reason is quite clear. Fruit is not the right, let's say, has not the right meaning anymore. We're doing much more here than fruit. We are in fruit preparations. We are doing brown flavors. We are doing natural flavors. We are doing beverage compounds. We want to enlarge this business in the future. This is our growth engine for the future. Therefore, it's Food and Beverage Solutions from now on. We have our agricultural commodities and specialties segment. It's not a segment. It's a business area with two segments. One segment is starch and the other segment is sugar. Separately, we will report the holding. We think that this is the right way to present the financial performance of the business areas in the future. It's even more transparent and meaningful. This is our understanding. It also shows clearly our path in executing our AGRANA next-level strategy. On the next page, this is an even more comprehensive picture of how this looks now for the future. We move on to the revenue by segment. I already mentioned that our revenues went down by 9.1% for the group to EUR 1.691 billion. We had a growth of 4.2% in the FBS. Food and Beverage Solutions in starch declined by 5%, down to EUR 506.5 million. This is mainly driven by lower prices. We saw ethanol prices heavily under pressure in the first half year of the business year. Also, other main products like the sugarification products, whole sugarification products, also native starches, especially wheat starch going into the paper industry, are also heavily under pressure due to lower utilization rates in the paper industry. All these factors together resulted in this decline in revenue. In sugar, you see the massive decline of 36.7% in revenue. This, of course, has to do with significantly lower prices and also lower volumes that we sold into the retail business, especially in Eastern Europe. The development of the sugar world market prices, you can see on the next slide. A constant decrease, we must say, now since last year. Still going on in the last two to three weeks, the world market prices further declined. There is an expectation of good harvests in the main regions for raw sugar, especially Brazil, India, but also Thailand. Everywhere a good harvest is expected. This, of course, leads to further pressure on the world market prices. In Europe, I already also mentioned that we are expecting at least a normal crop. Therefore, the reduction in the planted areas does not have the effect that we were expecting, which means a stabilization of prices or increase in prices. Now the pressure is a little bit coming back, we must say, and now we need to see how this will go on in the next sugar marketing year, especially when we see what will be the acreage planted in the coming spring season in Europe. Ethanol prices also are really a challenge during the first half of the year. You see it here also in the curve. Recently, prices increased significantly up to EUR 800 per cubic meter. Everything obviously has somehow to do with the import volumes, but potentially also with volumes coming from the U.K. to the European Union due to the duty-free imports in the U.K. from the U.S. for ethanol right now. Recently, the closure of the Associated British Foods capacity in the U.K. was announced. This could cause some relief, I would say, on the price pressure in Rotterdam due to the lower supply. At the end of the day, the biggest impact comes from the United States and the importing volumes into the European Union. As long as we see these low prices for corn in the U.S., it will be difficult to increase the prices further in the ethanol business in the European Union. When we look to the EBIT development, yeah, very, very good performance in our solutions segment, EUR 68 million, so up 34.9% versus prior year. This is really a very good development. Unfortunately, in our other businesses, so in starch and also especially in sugar, we again saw a massive reduction of our profitability, whereas we have to mention that in sugar, it's mainly coming from the exceptional items due to the closure of the sites in Leopoldsdorf, Austria, and Hrušovany, Czech Republic, and also additional restructuring measures related to a reduction of headcount. Outlook for 2025-2026, yeah, we raised our guidance. I already mentioned this at the beginning of the presentation, significantly higher than previous year. Revenue should be moderately down. This goes hand in hand with what we reported already for the first half of the business year. When we look at the, one second, at the different segments, then here the guidance for our Food and Beverage Solutions is a slight increase in revenue and a slight increase in EBIT for the whole business year 2025-2026. In starch, we expect a slight reduction in revenue and a significant reduction in EBIT. In the sugar segment, we expect a significant reduction in revenue and a significant improvement in EBIT. We have to mention in the second half of the business year 2024-2025, we had the exceptional items due to the closure of the sites in Leopoldsdorf and Hrušovany. Let me come to the outlook for the third quarter 2025-2026. There, we expect a very significant improvement in EBIT versus the third quarter prior year. There, we reported a loss of EUR 5.5 million. A significant improvement is not very difficult to reach. Investment plan for 2025-2026, finally, we expect an investment of around EUR 100 million. As you can see, the focus is actually very much on our Food and Beverage Solutions segment. There, we have the best performance, actually. Therefore, we also invest in growth projects as well. In starch, 18% of the EUR 100 million, and in sugar, 10% of the EUR 100 million. Therefore, due to the very poor profitability right now, we also need to save. Therefore, also, we are going for a reduction in our investment plan in these both segments. This was my presentation. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen, for your participation and attention. I hand back to Hannes Haider. Thanks. Before we go on with the Q&A session, I just wanted to inform you that our financial calendar for the next financial year 2026-2027 was published recently. You can find all details on slide 23, but also on our website. Additionally, you can find there the current brochure table. We will now go on with the Q&A session. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their telephone. You will hear a tone to confirm that you have entered the queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Questioners on the phone are requested to disable the loudspeaker mode while asking a question. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. The first question comes from Vladimira Urbankova from Erste Group Bank. Please go ahead. Yes. Hello. Good morning. I would have two questions for the beginning. First one would be related to your guidance for the third quarter. You mentioned it's not so difficult to achieve a significant improvement year on year. I would be rather interested if you expect to see any progress compared to the second quarter of this year, if you could maybe comment on it. My next question would be related to the sugar segment, where you moved slightly to better EBIT and such EBIT improvement compared to your previous guidance. I assume we will still see sugar in negative territory on the operating line this year. Maybe if you can confirm. When do you see that the business could turn out profitable and what would be key prerequisites for that? Thank you. Yeah. Mrs. Urbankova, thank you very much for your questions. Maybe I start answering your second question. Yes, you are right. From the operative view, we will still be facing negative results in the actual business year. On the other hand, we see, of course, an improvement there from the operative result, but again, still negative. This has somehow to do with kind of a stabilization in terms of prices and the cost of goods sold because last year also we had a carryover of inventories with the high prices, or let's say cost of goods sold in the inventories. This was also a price effect from volumes on stock. Now it's more, let's say, on a level. We are selling what we are producing, and therefore, the operative profitability is not as bad as last year. What do we expect in the future? I already mentioned that sugar is still somehow under pressure. What we need to see is a further reduction in planted acreage for the coming sugar marketing year 2026. Is this going to happen? I cannot tell you. The only thing I can tell you is that currently, everybody in the sugar industry is reporting negative results as far as I can see. Is this now a sustainable situation? We don't think so. How long it will take till the markets will recover, this is not easy to predict because, of course, also the weather conditions play a very important role. What will be the acreage planted? What will happen on the world market? It depends on all these factors, but we need, of course, a decrease in supply in the European Union, and we need, therefore, then an increase in prices. Otherwise, this will not be turned around soon. For the third quarter, this is somehow you can do the mathematics when you look at our guidance for the full year where we stand with our results after the first half of the year. Then it's clear that we are still not expecting very high results for the remaining two quarters, and therefore, we expect the third quarter to be below quarter two. Thank you very much. As a reminder, if you wish to register for a question, please press star and one on your telephone. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Hannes Haider for any closing remarks. Thanks. If there are no further questions, thank you for your participation in the call and have a nice remaining day. Goodbye. Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now over. Thank you for choosing [CORUSCO], and thank you for participating in the conference. You may now disconnect your lines. Goodbye.