Yes, good morning, everybody here. I think it's important here today sharing some further information and clarification on our ABP Yes, good morning, everybody here. I think it's important here today sharing some further information and clarification on our ABP process. I think there was maybe some misunderstanding, confusion we want to further clarify. The focus is clear: it's here to manage and finance and support our growth on the service and parts business around the globe, especially in North America and India, as well the upcoming potential of the defense business, which is right now further knocking on our door. To get some further clarity, I'm handing over to Felix Strohbichler, our CFO. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Perhaps to recall again how we acquired the treasury shares, we got the authorization in the AGM of 2021 to acquire treasury. Ladies and gentlemen, the connection with the speakers has been lost. The conference will proceed in a second. Ladies and gentlemen, the connection with the speaker has been reestablished. You may now proceed. Yes, and I don't know how far you could hear what I said. I think it's important to get further clarification in our ABP process. I think there was some confusion and misunderstanding, and Felix will here provide—Felix Strohbichler, our CFO—will provide further information. The reason why we're doing this is to further grow our service and parts business here around the globe, especially in North America and India, and as well to support the growth of our defense business, which shows a great opportunity to Palfinger. Again, handing over here to Felix. Thank you, Andreas. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I would like to recall to you how we actually acquired the treasury shares. We got the authorization in the AGM of 2021 to acquire treasury shares. On this basis, we terminated the cross-holding with SANY in 2022 and acquired treasury shares in July 2022. We are talking about 2,826,560 shares, actually. In terms of accounting value, the share price was EUR 35.20. This is more a bookkeeping value. This was not a purchase price paid. At this point of time, when we actually exchanged shares of SANY against shares of Palfinger, the value of the Palfinger share, the share price of Palfinger shares was EUR 35.20. In total, the equity was reduced by EUR 99,493,363.20. The 2,826,560 shares reflect about 7.52% of the share capital of Palfinger AG. To date, we still have all of those treasury shares on hand. A few days ago, on the 1st of April, we made an ad hoc announcement that we are now starting to evaluate a private placement or an accelerated bookbuilding process regarding up to 2.8 million treasury shares. What we plan to do with the proceeds from a potential transaction has already been mentioned by Andreas Klauser. Let me just repeat that we clearly have a lot of growth potential, especially by further strengthening our service structures in EMEA and in North America. We have a lot of growth opportunities, especially in North America, also in Asia, where we are going to build an assembly factory, and we have several projects on hand in the defense business we want to invest in. There are further advantages of a potential accelerated bookbuilding process. We can increase the liquidity of the shares, increase the free float, which will also increase our chance to get into the ATX, which again could have a positive impact on the share price development. It would also improve our balance sheet KPIs. Our target is to implement the accelerated bookbuilding within 2025. It was an early announcement. We want to be here flexible. This does not mean at all that we are going to do this ABP process within the next days or weeks. Whether we do it and to which extent is clearly depending on the capital markets environment, what is the share price development of the share of Palfinger AG, and also how big is the interest of potential investors in the process. At the moment, we clearly see the share price was much too low. We believe that the fair valuation of Palfinger should be substantially higher than what we see at the moment. In our AGM of today, we will have a topic on the agenda to extend the authorization of the Executive Board to sell the treasury shares, to acquire the treasury shares, but mainly to sell the treasury shares. This is the basis also for a potential accelerated bookbuilding process. The next steps technically will be that we will publish a report of the Executive Board within the next few weeks, within April in any case. There is a need to wait at least for two weeks, which does not mean that the transaction would start within two weeks. It will be within 2025 if it will happen in 2025. We just decided to start the process right now to increase the flexibility. The key topic is that we have a lot of potentials to grow, and we want to make sure that we can really benefit from those potentials. In order to really have also the possibility to invest more than we actually had in our mind, this would be a perfect tool for us. Thank you very much, Felix. I think this quite well describes what we are planning here. Maybe on another note here, because as well last night, again, President Trump announced some tariffs. So far, we managed very well to get out of it. This is caused by the fact that based on our strategy, local for local and the U.S. footprint with four plants, we can deal with it quite well. We are monitoring the situation closely, but for the time being, the impact is quite at the minimum. Okay? I think this concludes our today's presentation. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wants 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 followed by 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 Marco Remis of Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead. Good morning, gents. Thanks for this clarification call. The first question I have is actually more a legal one. ABPs per se are nothing that is, how should I say, unknown to the market. Why was there the need for the ad hoc message? You have well flagged on various occasions that these treasury shares are not there to stay forever on the balance sheet and that it would be a means to reduce debt. I mean, just remembering the capital markets state presentation. Why this ad hoc message? Yeah. Actually, there is a practice of the FMA to expect an ad hoc announcement as soon as there are concrete evaluations of an ABP. Up to now, we always said that this is a potential transaction which could happen one day. We always said this is far away because the share price is far below what we believe is a fair valuation of the company. The market capitalization is far away from what we would expect. Now we have, on the one hand, seen a certain share price development from the beginning of the year. Even more so, we believe now that we are at the beginning of a new cycle. We will see probably next year impacts from the fiscal package in Germany. We expect that at a certain point in time, we will see major impacts from Ukraine. This will probably impact, on the one hand, our share price. On the other hand, this requires also investments on our hand in order to benefit from the opportunities we have. We believe that it's a good point in time to be more concrete on doing this. At the moment, or until now, it was more or less something where I, as a CFO in my resort, talked to banks, gathered information, talked to lawyers, but it was not an official project of the executive board. This is why this week on Tuesday, we had an executive board meeting where I proposed now that we, as a board, together really look into this transaction, evaluate when to do it, if we want to do it, what are the proceeds, what do we want to do with the proceeds. As this is now going to the next level, it's required to have also an ad hoc announcement. On top of this, I've been talking to banks. Now it's about also being more precise in who could be potentially a partner, et cetera, giving a mandate to lawyers in order to do this and also to share this within the board. It's required to make this ad hoc announcement. It's a legal requirement confirmed by lawyers from two different law firms. There is also a risk to confuse the market. Of course, if you compare it to a transaction where a shareholder is selling the shares in the ABP, you don't have this ad hoc announcement. This is specific for a transaction of a listed company. This is just a legal situation we are in, especially here in Austria with the practice of the [Foreign language] Okay. Thanks for the clarification. Just to get it straight, you said it could well happen in 2025. Not short term, but timing would still be 2025, which would also enable you then to finance the growth steps that you've described. Yes, however, again, it's depending on several circumstances, especially if the capital market environment is supporting this transaction. We won't do any stupid things, and we are not forced to do it. This is the good thing. We are not in a situation that our balance sheet requires some measures to raise capital. It's not that we couldn't finance the measures we have in mind, but it gives us the possibility to boost initiatives, to increase the speed, and to gain momentum even faster. Okay. Very clear. Essentially, the more than EUR 90 million that you've flagged in the capital markets day presentation, that's still kind of the goal or rather the EUR 100 million valuation that was implicitly agreed when you acquired the shares. There is no concrete value we can say today. What we can say is that we will not do it if the market capitalization is not at the right level from our perspective. The amount you mentioned right now is for sure not the limit for the Palfinger share price in our perspective. I can't tell you a value right now, but we are far away at the moment from where we believe a fair market capitalization should be. It can be a further boost here really on our business. This means in service and parts activities here we can further grow. We identified we have raised this as well at the capital markets state. Now as well, we could even further boost our defense activities. Okay. Third and last question from my side, the topic of defense business. I mean, it was not that relevant for quite some time now, apparently very hot. Can you remind us, I know it's about 4%-5% of your revenues, but can you remind us which products are specifically suitable for the defense business and which initiatives you're now setting to capitalize on this proposed spending? We are advancing certain activities like hook lifts, loader cranes, as well the truck-mounted forklift. We are doing certain activities here. We could here speed up the process in terms of dealing and talking here to the different forces we see here in Europe. We could add as well, let's say, some resources to get it faster done. That's all. We are dealing with them one by one, but we will put additional resources on that. It's mostly about the hook lift or suction head and as well the classical loader crane and as well the truck-mounted forklift. Okay. Is it fair to assume that competition is little, that there's little less competition because defense business requires, I don't know, higher or more sophisticated and requires qualification that might not be fulfilled by everybody? I mean, let's put it in other words, we are the preferred supplier to the armies. Okay? It's the German army, the Austrian ones, even Canadian, all these guys. Yeah, we are the preferred ones. Now we need to show that we are capable, but with all our industrial footprint we have globally, we can deal with that. I hope this answers your question. All right. Thank you very much. The next question comes from Jorge González from Hauck Aufhäuser. Hello, good morning. Thank you for taking my question, Felix and Andreas. I'm wondering if all these proceeds are now, in your mind, going to be directed for the defense business or taking into consideration the tariff situation that we have learned yesterday night. If these proceeds could be also interesting for you in terms of strengthening your position in the U.S., could you give us some color on this, please? Oh, certainly. We will as well further increase our business and our local footprint in the United States. I mean, for the time being, as I said, we managed quite well to overcome tariffs. We are having four plants. We already rolled out the strategy local for local a couple of years ago. This is now fully paying off. As well, we will further invest in localization of products of Palfinger. This is not something, first of all, we can do overnight and we do not want to do overnight. It is as well in the midterm. This is as well a part of the strategy local for local. Regarding the defense business, can you give us a little bit of color on how you expect the business to get to you? I mean, is there going to be options or is maybe, I don't know, one of the champions, defense champions in Germany like Rheinmetall ordering you directly for something? Do you have already any partner that is planning to work with you at this point? This is what is making you so optimistic on the demand for your products, specifically for defense? No, we are partnering with all these guys. We are everywhere the preferred supplier. It's not only Rheinmetall, it's about KNDS. It's Nexter. All these guys are customers of us, and they're using our equipment. They're installing our equipment. I think this is important to know. On the other hand, let's say the entire European countries need to protect themselves in a better way. They are further investing, and that's as well one of the benefits we have. I would say it's not only about Europe. It is as well about the Middle East. We are still supplying hook lifts and other stuff to the Middle East. I can't disclose it here, as you can imagine. It's not that open business here we can talk about. This is really something where we can substantially grow. As well, on another note, I think not to forget about our marine business. You have seen last year that Amazon is looking very positive as well here. We see some further growth potential. We just try to accelerate and using this opportunity of the ABP to be even faster and better than the others. Thank you very much, Andreas. I'll go back to the line. As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star followed by one. The next question comes from Daniel Lion from Erste Group. Please go ahead. Yeah. Hi, good morning. Thanks for the call. I would like to ask [inaudible] Daniel, you have a very bad connection. We cannot hear you. Okay. Now it's better. Now it's better? Okay, perfect. I wanted to ask if your thoughts are somehow limited to ABP to sell the shares, or are you thinking also about other means of selling the traditional shares? We did not consider no other means. The main target now, as we also communicated, is to evaluate a placement via a private placement in the process of an accelerated book building. This is what we have in mind at the moment. We have no other plans to use the treasury shares, for example, as an acquisition currency or whatsoever. Okay. Clear. Regarding your military business, do you have an ITAR certification? So can you also supply the U.S. military with your products? For certain products, yeah, we're in the process to get this again reconfirmed because you have by product line and by the different products you are supplying, you have to get this license. This is in process, yeah. How long do you expect this to take? I think sooner than later. No, we are in the process to close it, but as I said, it's difficult to disclose anything here, to be honest. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Regarding the proceeds, would you expect in case you realize close to around EUR 100 million from the sale, would you expect to sell or use the entire amount as an investment, or are you somehow thinking of also reducing your debt position? In the end, this will also help, of course, the balance sheet structure. To a certain extent, it will help us to reduce net financial debt because some of those investments we had in mind in any case, but just to make sure that we can show a stable performance from a financial point of view, we would have stretched it more. This means that we are pulling forward some of the measures. Of course, in the end, it means if we take the proceeds of those measures, it will reduce the amount of debt we would need additionally, for example, in the future to finance those things. Yes, in the end, it will also help to reduce net financial debt. Okay. The last one regarding the products. Are products for military basically the same as for industrial use, or are they somehow different, more complex, or do they need some additional features? No, they are modified certainly to the requirements of the different customers we have. It's not only about the color, that's clear. There are certain other elements, but as I said, again, here, we can't disclose anything more. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Perfect. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is a follow-up from Marco Remis, Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead. Just a quick one on the topic of U.S. imports. Can you remind us whether those products that you import or export from Europe into the U.S., whether the situation is the same for your competition, meaning that they also do not have local production on those products? Yeah. We have the big benefit that we have more local production, more localized products than competition. On the classical loader crane, it's similar to our competitors. Here we are having two opportunities. One is to go via Canada, which is also not a good option at the moment, or to go with direct shipments here from Europe into the U.S., where there were even no tariffs for the time being. We are quite flexible on that. We are as well further monitoring here what can be done in midterm. As I said, the impact for the time being was very limited, and we have different ways to play around. Okay. Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Andreas Klauser, CEO of Palfinger, for any closing remarks. Thank you for attending this call. Sorry for the short notice, but I think it was important to further clarify what we're having on our mind. I think you will as well see in the next couple of months quite a positive development of Palfinger, of our business. Stay with us, and thank you for your attention. Bye-bye. Ladies and gentlemen, this conference is now over. Thank you for choosing Chorus Call, and thank you for participating in the conference. You may now disconnect your lines. Goodbye.