Hello, dear participants. It's a pleasure for me to welcome you to our presentation of the Dätwyler Half-Year Results 2024. With me today is Judith van Walsum, our CFO, and Guido Unternährer, our Head of Investor Relations. In addition to the participants here at the SIX Convention Point at Zurich, I would also like to welcome 40 participants who have dialed in in the live web stream of our conference. These participants have already received an introduction from the operator, how to submit questions via the chat function for the Q&A session at the end of the presentation. And first of all, let me thank you for your interest in our company. I'm proud to guide you through this presentation for the first time in my role as CEO of Dätwyler together with Judith van Walsum. As you can see from our agenda, in the next step, I will update you regarding our business performance of Dätwyler during the first half of 2024. For the review of a more detailed financial perspective, I'll hand over to Judith. After having shared the outlook of our business with you, we will close the presentation and start the Q&A session. Before we go into it, as this is our first presentation in our new roles, let me give you a short introduction. Being a true gentleman, I'll start with our new CFO, Judith van Walsum. Judith brings in not only a remarkable educational background, including a PhD from the renowned London School of Economics and Political Science, but as well an impressive track record from an outstanding professional career. Just to mention, the last 20 years at Roche, in her last role, Judith served Roche Diabetes Care as CFO and Head of IT. She has been a member of the Dätwyler’s Board of Directors until 2024. We are pleased and excited to have Judith on board as CFO as of 1st June 2024. I took over the role as CEO of Dätwyler as of 1st of April this year as a mechanical engineer, an MBA. I look back on a professional journey of more than 20 years in different management and leadership roles within the industry, with a major in automotive supply. But I could learn a lot about different markets, different products, and different technologies. In my last role as CEO in the Eberspächer Group, I led the Purem by Eberspächer division. Judith and myself are looking very much forward to working with you. Now let's go into it. My start as Dätwyler CEO happens in quite a period of uncertainty and volatility in our markets. The global economic development was generally weak in the first half of 2024, and ongoing political tensions and geopolitical disruptions and recessionary trends negatively impacted the customer sentiment in our markets, and particularly in our business-to-business models. The further strengthening of the Swiss franc has also a negative influence on our results due to the translation effects. However, let me add that for many years already, Dätwyler fosters a natural hedge with revenues and costs in the same currencies. It is an extraordinary situation as Dätwyler being structured in a way that its Healthcare and Food and Beverage segments would normally smoothen more cyclical branches such as General Industry and automotive. This time, we experience a combination of one-off after-pandemic effects in Healthcare and a substantial impact of weak markets on several segments within our Industrial Solutions business area. However, Dätwyler's diversification across several markets is also paying off in the current market environment. Our revenues decreased by 5% to CHF 572.5 million. Adjusted for negative currency effects, this translates to a decline of 2.4% versus the half-year 2023. A five-year view reveals that the reported revenue of the current business has grown at a CAGR of 3.6%. However, adjusted for negative currency effects, this revenue CAGR amounts to 6.5%. Despite ongoing underutilization at several production sites, we succeeded in increasing our EBIT by 11.6% to CHF 67.5 million. Currency adjusted, the increase stood at 15.3%. As a result, the EBIT margin improved by 180 basis points to 11.8%. Dätwyler was again exposed to several weak markets and low volume demands in most businesses during the reporting period of half-year 2024. For instance, delayed volume growth in e-mobility applications, low demand in the oil and gas sector, and as mentioned before, the ongoing destocking in Healthcare. The improvement in profitability was driven by optimized cost and profit structures, by price adjustments and lower energy costs versus the previous period. Due to the higher EBIT, our net result increased by 20.2% to CHF 38.6 million. The net result per share increased by CHF 0.38 to CHF 2.27. Judith will provide you more details on our revenue and profitability development during the financial deep dive. In the global Healthcare market segments of primary packaging for injectable drugs, Dätwyler holds a strong number two position. For some years already, Dätwyler is following a growth strategy in its Healthcare business, which aims to increase the share of revenue generated by high-value products for modern injectable medicines. Dätwyler has systematically invested in the expansion of its global production footprint and in a wide product portfolio, as well as in market development and technical and scientific customer support. Since the beginning of 2023, the market is characterized by low demands due to the destocking of our customers, which is still ongoing. As I've already mentioned, this is an exceptional situation due to the positive effects of the COVID pandemic and the long-term growth drivers, however, they are still valid. As a result of the underlying market conditions, our Healthcare revenue decreased to CHF 230.7 million. Adjusted for currency effects, this equates to a decline of 6.4%. The prior year period still contained CHF 7.5 million revenue with components for COVID vaccines. A five-year comparison with the pre-pandemic year 2019 shows a CAGR in reported revenue of 2.7%, and adjusted for the strongly negative currency effects, the revenue CAGR amounts to 6.5%. In other words, in the first half of 2024, the currency-adjusted revenue of the Healthcare Solutions business area was around 35% higher than in the first half of 2019 before the COVID pandemic. Just as a reference, the five-year effects versus the U.S. dollar is -9.7%. Versus the euro, it's 11.9%, and versus the RMB, it's around 16%. So Swiss franc is a very strong currency. However, this is at least influencing our reported figures in the consolidation. Despite lower revenues and the current underutilization of production capacities, we have succeeded to keep the EBIT margin at 15.4%, almost stable compared to the prior year's period. A slightly improved product mix, consistent cost management, and operational improvements could potentially offset the effects from sales decline. In absolute terms, our EBIT decreased by 10.6% to CHF 35.6 million in Healthcare. The four business units, which together form the business area Industrial Solutions, recorded different demand and revenue dynamics in the reporting period. The market for passenger vehicles, as our second most important market, is trending sideways with a low expected growth in 2024 of 0.9% to around 91 million produced light vehicles globally. This is a little bit more than the pre-pandemic level on the global vehicle production. In the Connectors business unit, we achieved further operational improvements in our production sites, and this enabled us to largely compensate for the negative effect of lower revenue due to the slowdown of the expansion in the e-mobility market particularly. The General Industry business mainly suffered from a weak oil and gas industry in the U.S. and lower demand for products from some large customers in Europe in their particular markets. We have further optimized our production concept and reorganized product lines within existing plants. This will certainly improve our profitability as soon as the demand rises again. The Food and Beverage business area, or business unit, sorry, grew significantly faster than the market average thanks to the strong positioning of our customers. The new EU regulation on packaging materials underlines the importance of aluminum as material of choice for single-serve coffee capsules. Recycled aluminum equals paper capsules in terms of eco- balance while having significantly better functional properties. Revenues slightly declined to CHF 343.4 million in Industrial Solutions. Adjusted for currency effects, the business area achieved even a small growth of 0.2%. During the five-year period, again, we've reached a CAGR of 4.3% for the reported revenue numbers and 6.5% for the currency-adjusted numbers. By consistent cost and pricing management, improved productivity and energy cost levels, Dätwyler was able to increase its operating profit by 54.1% to CHF 31.9 million. Adjusted for currency effects, this corresponds to an increase of 60.4%. The EBIT margin increased accordingly by 340 basis points to 9.3% from 5.9% in the previous period. The Americas and Asia's share of total revenue decreased due to a temporary slowdown in e-mobility and oil and gas markets. At the same time, the share of revenue in Europe increased due to the strong demand from our European customers for single-serve coffee capsules. The Mobility business unit was able to maintain its revenue, rather stable in a weak market environment at CHF 130 million. Food and Beverage succeeded to increase its revenue by more than 10% to around CHF 101 million. And in Connectors and General Industry, the revenues declined as of the above before mentioned issues to CHF 74.8 million and CHF 37.8 million. In the first half of 2024, we've acquired new projects with existing and with new customers in all business units. The e-mobility could gain new business wins with large share in the e-Mobility segment for applications involving, for instance, air suspensions, brake systems, powertrains, and further strengthen its pipeline for vehicle battery components. This applies to all three major economic regions: Asia, Europe, and Americas. In our BU Connectors, 30% of our new business wins will be used in mobility high-voltage applications. In General Industry, we could win new projects in the area of water supply and renewable energy. One of our customers in Food and Beverage has requested a capacity extension in our facility. Our pipeline for new projects in Healthcare Solutions is growing overproportional with high-value products and more than half in terms of project numbers and even more in terms of the prospected revenue share. And this shows clearly that our strategic investments in the FirstLine plants were right. Encouraged by this, we're driving forward our growth initiatives in the Healthcare area and the transformation to e-mobility with high priority. Sorry. We are continuously developing our sustainability measures. The globally recognized rating agency EcoVadis awarded us the Platinum standard for our sustainability performance for the first time in the reporting period. This is the highest standard available and places Dätwyler among the top 1% of more than 130,000 companies from 180 countries that are rated by EcoVadis each year. Moreover, Dätwyler has committed by the end of June 2024 to having its efforts to reduce its environmental footprint validated by the Science-Based Targets initiative. The SBTi commitment and the EcoVadis ratings are highly important to our customers, especially in the Healthcare industry. We make powerful progress in our next generation of technology platforms. Examples of these include soft dry electrodes for wearable applications and electroactive polymers. Under the brand name SoftPulse, the electrodes can be used for easy, comfortable, and long-term monitoring of biosignals like brain signals, cardiac activity, skeletal muscles, and eye movement for consumer as well as for medical applications. Thanks to the low impedance and dry use, SoftPulse is perfectly suitable for applications on the head, on the body, and in the ear. In the wearable industry, smart earbuds are expected to have massive potential since the launch of smartwatches. Many big companies and startups are exploring business opportunities in this field and are looking for possibilities to integrate additional sensors in the earbuds. First examples of smart earbuds are coming in the market from devices measuring your focus while driving a car to highly sophisticated smart earbuds able to control a device like a mobile phone or a wheelchair and is hands-free and voiceless. For the electroactive polymers, we currently are in the midst of our industrialization phase. This new generation of actuators is characterized by a large and fast stroke, low weight, low mechanical complexity, simple integration, low energy consumption, and an intrinsic sensor technology. The very first industrial-scale pilot production line will become operational in the second half of 2024 in one of our facilities. The stacked electroactive polymers constitute an interesting alternative to conventional rigid actuators. They can be used as actuators and sensors in multiple industries such as automotive, industrial goods, medical technology, smart homes, and for various fields of applications. We are currently working with several customers from different industries. Judith will continue now our presentation with a focus on our financial review for the first half of 2024. Great. Thank you, Volker. Warm welcome also from my side. It's a pleasure to be here, and thank you for your interest in Dätwyler as an organization. I would like to take you through the whole-year numbers, and we start with the group revenue. As you can see on this slide, we have a bridge of the development of the group revenue between on the one hand side whole-year 2023 and whole-year 2024 on the other. There are three developments I would really like to highlight. First of all, our organic growth, so the FX-adjusted growth amounted to -2.4%. As Volker already mentioned, this reflects a stable sales development of Industrial Solutions and a reduction in sales of -6.4% organically versus prior year for Healthcare Solutions, reflecting obviously the reduction in demand as well as the resulting under-capacity utilization in that business segment. Second point, for the first time since 2022, you will actually not see in our numbers the positive impact of acquisitions that we have seen in previous years. The reason is quite simple. The two companies that we acquired in 2022, so QSR, our Connectors business, and a Chinese company called Yantai Xinhui Packaging Solutions in the pharma segment were already fully part of our reported results by that time. Then, third, last but not least, when we look at the strength of the Swiss franc, you can also see that this has an unfavorable impact on our overall results by CHF 15 million rounded. Overall, our sales amounted to CHF 572.5 million, which is a decline of 5% versus prior year in reported currency. When we look then at the EBIT, you can see from the bridge here that our EBIT is improving by CHF 7 million in absolute terms. Again, when we look first at the FX-adjusted growth, then we see a 15.4% improvement. Healthcare solutions was not able to compensate fully for the decline in volumes and is obviously going down by CHF 3 million in their EBIT. I will explain a bit further at the next slide. Industrial solutions, in contrast, were able to compensate for the weaker markets through cost improvements as well as productivity measures, resulting in a CHF 12.5 million growth of EBIT or a 60% improvement year-over-year. Also, our EBIT was negatively impacted by the strength of the Swiss franc, resulting in a marginal reduction in EBIT of CHF 2 million. When we look at the total, however, group EBIT improved by 11.6% versus a top line that was obviously more challenging. The next slide shows the development of the margin. I would like to spend a moment on this slide because it tells the Dätwyler story really well. What you can see is in the bars, the absolute EBIT development between 2020 and 2024, half year, and in the trend line, the development of the EBIT margin. After a start of the COVID period in 2020 and therefore a challenging year, we actually benefited as a company enormously from the pandemic. You can see that reflected both on the industrial solution side as well as on the Healthcare side. On the Healthcare side, our 2021 sales and EBIT and EBIT margin were benefiting from the increased demand for components that were used in COVID vaccines. On the industrial solution side, we had actually an increase in the demand and as a consequence, also EBIT and EBIT margin for coffee capsules. Apparently, we have all been drinking a lot of coffee during our home office and the forest working in a more refined setting. As of that point, the developments of Healthcare and Industrial Solutions diverge. In 2022, Healthcare is actually able to hold on to its EBIT in absolute terms and also largely in terms of its EBIT margin in relative terms. With the benefit of hindsight, that has been due to the increased stocking, the increased building up of inventories in the industry driven by two factors. One was an assumption at that point in time, yeah, that the vaccination requirements would continue. You have to imagine that in 2022, if you recall correctly, while Europe was opening up, many parts of the rest of the world were still actually in lockdown. Yeah. And secondly, the supply chain interruptions triggered by the start of the war in Ukraine. Reality kicked in in 2023 when the market corrected and the destocking started that has been impacting us, but basically is reflecting a normalization of the market post-pandemic. In half year one, 2024, in our Healthcare Solutions, we do see a continuation of the destocking trend. We see, however, on top of it, that the safety stocks that our clients are maintaining in comparison to the pre-pandemic period has gone down. The reason is that due to the overcapacity that is there in the component market, they are able to afford lesser lead times and therefore lower safety stocks. For some of our customers, we also see that vaccination fatigue is lowering demand for our products. Visibility for Q3 is somewhat, or visibility for year-end is somewhat limited. For For Q3, we still see no remarkable uptake in sales. However, that doesn't mean that for Q4 or 2025, that picture would stay the same. We have naturally invested in this time period in Healthcare Solutions in top-notch plants, notably in India and in the U.S. These plants remain an essential part of our strategy forward to support our customers in the Healthcare industry with the products that are needed for them to operate well in the future. When we look on the industrial solution sides, the post-COVID peak came to an end quite quickly in 2022 with the lifting of the requirements to work at home. But also, you may recall in 2022, inflation was extremely high, recessionary tendency set in, which meant that the end customers of our products, yeah, so the drivers of cars, for example, also lowered their demand, which naturally then impacted us as Dätwyler negatively in the year 2022. However, since that period of time, we have been able to effectively build up our EBIT again to the levels of 2021 and our EBIT margin, thanks to cost improvements, price increases that we were able to discuss with our partners, reflecting the value that we are bringing in to them. And last but not least, productivity improvements. Productivity improvements will continue to be essential for us also moving forward. When we then look at the consolidated income statement, I think you will be able to recognize the top part quite easily from what I've just discussed. Our net revenues went down by 5%. Our EBIT, however, increased by 11.6% year-over-year, resulting in an EBIT margin of 11.8%, which is 180 basis points higher than what we had last year. There are two cost lines in this functional income statement that I would like to highlight. One is naturally that cost of goods sold amount to the highest cost line in our overall P&L, so it really matters what happens there. And as you can see, our cost of goods sold was contracting faster than our sales. The reasons for that were already mentioned several times. Lower material cost, lower energy prices, lower volumes overall help as well. But particularly also those efficiency and productivity improvements and the synergies that we are currently unlocking in the organization matter for us. And that matters particularly because we have as a mandate that we need to continue to drive long-term profitable growth. And in order to do so, we need to safeguard that we free up enough funds to particularly also invest in topics like innovation and R&D because that basically represents future growth. Volker already mentioned a really good example in the form of SoftPulse, but that is just one of the many examples that our organization is working on. So from that note, I'm happy to say that the R&D expenses stayed stable versus prior year and still amount to around 3.8% of net sales. G&A went down slightly. G&A, sorry, sorry, my correction, M&S went down slightly. Spend in that area remains also important for us to drive our commercial prowess. What I can say here is that the reduction that you're seeing is the result of a better resource allocation towards those activities that add most value for us. Okay. G&A itself G&A itself remained relatively flat. When we then look at EBIT down to net results, then you can see that there are two lines that are worth highlighting. One is the improvement in the net finance results, which is largely due to further reduction in the interest expense. We improved our interest expense by CHF 2.9 million due to the amortization of our debt on the one hand and higher interest rates on our cash balances. When we look at the overall tax amount in absolute terms, that went up slightly. This is due to the withholding taxes that we have on our dividend payments. Typically, these fall in the first half of the year, and in the second half of the year, you see them flatten out. Yeah. So the effective tax rate that is currently at 29.9% over the course of the year will go down in the direction of 27%. Surtax on U.S. foreign-controlled entities is also contributing to the result. In the context of BEPS Pillar Two, we did not have to book any top-up tax. The reason is that all our countries were above the minimum of 15% income tax. When we then look at the net result line, we see an improvement of 20.2%. And as Volker mentioned already, a net result per bearer share that is currently at CHF 2.27. I continue to the balance sheet, and what you can see here is a reduction in the balance sheet in the asset side of 1.7%, driven in particular by a CHF 26 million reduction in the current assets. What matters there is the reduction of cash and cash equivalents, reflecting also the debt payments that we've made, as well as other receivables. And then I would like to highlight that our inventory and trade accounts receivables went up slightly versus year-end 2023. This warrants some additional discussion. The overall trend, if you look at it at a longer time period, is actually that inventories are going down and that also our accounts receivables are going down. Yeah. So while our accounts receivables increased versus year-end by CHF 6 million, overall they went down by CHF 17 million if you look at the June year-to-date 2023 figures. Similarly, with inventory, this went up by CHF 13 million versus year-end. But if you look at the longer-term trend, we see a reduction of CHF 20 million. Year-end was lower for us, mainly driven by the fact that we have production and delivery breaks and by the cash collection that took place in the December time period. Having said that, such a trend is naturally something that we are watching extremely carefully. We want to make sure that we manage our cash extremely tightly again so that we can free up the resources to support our overall results, to repay our debt, but most of all also to invest in our future. When we look at the liabilities and equity side, then the two big movements that I would like to call out is the payoff of short-term bond of CHF 150 million. That bond was due at the end of May 2024, and we issued a bond of CHF 120 million, so CHF 30 million less that you can find in long-term liabilities. Equity itself as a percentage of the total liability and equity did not change, aside from the impacts naturally of a better net result and the payout of the dividends of CHF 54 million, as well as a CTA of around CHF 10 million. What is important to highlight here is that Dätwyler puts its goodwill, offsets its goodwill against equity. That means that overall our equity will be lower than those companies that treat equity as an intangible asset. The advantage of that for us is naturally that the risk of impairment is very low. Let's have a look at the debt structure. Here you can see very well that the bonds that we have, including the 2024-2029 bonds that was issued this year. The two movements I would like to highlight based on the graph on the right is that we materially reduced our bank debt with a third-party bank by CHF 28 million. Our long-term bank debt as a consequence is at the moment only CHF 18 million. And from a financial point of view, that is naturally much more advantageous. We increased our loan with PEMA Holding, our majority shareholder, with CHF 27 million. Overall, CHF 608.5 million are captured by external debts. If we take out the cash and the cash equivalents, you get the whole year 2023 for a picture of net debt of CHF 508.8 million. That's a small improvement of CHF 8 million versus prior year. Last, the consolidated cash flow statement. Here you can see that we improved our free cash flow with around CHF 5 million. The biggest benefit came from the net cash used in investing activities due to a lower CapEx. Our net cash from operating activities deteriorated slightly due to more funds being captured in our operating net working capital. What is important to stress on the CapEx is that in the Industrial Solutions organization, we are at an average run rate. We are currently, however, in the Healthcare Solutions business at a CapEx level that is lower because we come from this enormous peak of investment, and therefore right now our needs are more limited. Over time, naturally, that will change, however, not before year-end 2024 or for that matter, unlikely for 2025. Our net cash used in financing activities has gone down due to the repayments of bank debt and other, resulting in an unfavorable development of our cash and cash equivalents due to the fact that on the 1st of January, our cash was actually at a very strong position. It in the end still led to an increase of our cash and cash equivalents. So in a nutshell, before I hand over to Volker again for the outlook, our EBIT margin improved. We grew our EBIT faster than the top line. We were able to continue to pay off debt. Very importantly, we continue to work on freeing up more cash to invest in our future. Commercial and operational excellence will continue to play a very, very important role for Dätwyler to further unlock its potential. And on that note, I hand over to Volker with the outlook. Thank you very much, Judith, for giving us that financial insight. Our outlook. We are very confident that Dätwyler is on the right way. Despite the current market environment, our reliable short-term forecasts are extremely difficult, as mentioned, compared to the previous cycles in some of the markets. And well, in addition to the geopolitical uncertainties, this year's presidential election in the U.S.A. already represents an extraordinary piece of history. It has an impact on some markets, clearly, and we assume that this uncertainty surrounding the outcome of the election will remain to have a negative impact on the economic sentiment worldwide and investments in particular markets such as oil and gas until the election date. Passenger vehicle production is back on the pre-pandemic level and is expected to grow further from this point, however, with clear uncertainties on the speed of growth and as well regarding the share of battery electric and hybrid electric vehicles, especially in the U.S. and in Europe. Assuming a WTI crude price level of more than $80, the oil and gas industry should be generating positive cash flows, which will most likely trigger new orders from the beginning of 2025. In Healthcare, as Judith has mentioned before, we can currently not see clear indications for higher demands and an end in destocking over this visibility we have from our business model. That concerns the second half of 2024. Maybe we would see in our updated orders on hand with usually maximum a three-month visibility, some changes in the next months, hopefully. Therefore, we do not expect significant changes to our market environment during the second half of 2024, particularly for Healthcare Solutions and General Industry. The Mobility and Food and Beverage business units are expected to maintain their positive development also in the second half of 2024. For the Dätwyler Group, we expect the business performance in the second half of the year broadly in line with the first half. For the full year 2024, we expect our revenues to be slightly below and the EBIT margin above previous year. In the medium and long term, we are convinced of the growth potential in our markets. As soon as the market demands go back to a normal level, we will benefit from economies of scale thanks to the advanced investments we have brought forward and achieve an increased performance driven by the recent improvements in our cost and profit structures as of most of them have a sustainable effect on our performance. The Dätwyler Group is well positioned in both business areas, Healthcare and Industrial Solutions. With our long-term business approach, we diversify in market segments with high barriers of entry, attractive growth perspective, and that we can serve based on the high core competencies we have acquired over many decades. In Healthcare, we have built an ideal combination of technologies covering an uncoated, spray-coated, and film-coated range of high-quality elastomer components for injectable drug packaging, a supply from our advanced first-line manufacturing sites, and a so-called pure-play approach in the market. In Industrial Solutions, we address different markets with customer-specific solutions and material design. These co-engineered solutions secure our access to fast-growing markets with above-average profitability such as vehicle high-voltage batteries, hydrogen applications, and especially all applications that would demand smart material applications. By delivering superior quality and reliability with our system-critical elastomeric components, we generate uncompromising value and demanding customer applications while representing at the same time only a small share in the customer's bill of material of the entire system. We do master the product from the so-called cradle to grave, capturing value from understanding the customer problem over solution and material design, the production process, flawless launches, and reliable supply. More than 8,000 Dätwyler employees and more than 25 sites around the globe are dedicated to make Dätwyler better every day. In the current market phase, we are further improving our commercial and operational excellence such as our process standards and cost and profit structures within our company. We are convinced this will allow us to unlock further potential and synergies in the short and midterm and improve our positioning for the next growth cycle in our industries. The large number of new orders from existing and new customers show that long-term growth drivers in our markets are there and that we are the preferred development partner for our products and services. Optimized cost and profit structures, as mentioned before, and an enhanced standardization will allow us to fully focus on the generation of value, strengthen our innovation capabilities, and accelerate the commercialization and industrialization of our next generation of product solutions. Along with the market transformation, primarily in our business units, Mobility, Connectors, and General Industry, we will further support the megatrends with new platform technologies, co-engineered solutions, and smart and clean materials. In the midterm, we will gradually move away from products with any commodity character to applications where we can capture the additional value we can cover and offer with our superior technologies. A massive acceleration of our go-to-market approach and the commercialization of existing innovation projects such as electroactive or magnetically active polymers or soft dry electrodes, as mentioned before, is on the very top of our agenda. In a nutshell, we will invest the unlocked potential in new technologies and capabilities to master our next generation of products and our sustainability journey, which is clearly underlined by our SBTi commitment. We consider sustainable business development as a key factor for long-term success and a competitive position because it is not only our duty to protect our resources, but it generates value for our stakeholders. Therefore, our agenda foresees as well to further integrate sustainability into all aspects of our business operations, while at the same time complying with increasing legal requirements in all regions as we focus on preparing for the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive. We do also actively work on the design of new, more sustainable materials and manufacturing processes. Dear participants, we hope that we could give you a conclusive overview about our 2024 half-year performance and our activities at Dätwyler. Before we will start our Q&A session, let me thank you for your interest in our company, also on behalf of Judith van Walsum, Guido Unternährer and the entire Dätwyler management team. Thank you very much. So, question and answer session. Guido, I propose we would start with the physically present participants here at the Zurich Convention Point. Thank you, Bernd Laux, ZKB. I have one question for each of you, and I would also start with Mrs. van Walsum. So, I've seen that for the first half, the depreciation charge continued to increase despite the fact that CapEx is already on the retreat for three semesters. Will the first half of 2024 be the peak in terms of depreciation? And if not, when do we expect that to roll over? Yeah. Okay. Okay. So, thank you for pointing that out. We are naturally continuing to, or we have to safeguard our production capabilities moving forward, right? So, as I mentioned, it is essential that we safeguard a certain amount of CapEx investments to maintain our facilities across IS and HS moving forward. And I do expect that the dip we currently see in CapEx in that sense will not continue in the longer term. Having said that, the enormous depreciation charges that we're currently still facing is naturally also a result of the peak investments we had notably in the Healthcare plants in India and in the U.S. What is relevant as well, and I haven't highlighted that in the overview, but you do not see immediately the impact of depreciation on our PPE, and that is due to a CTA adjustment of CHF 22 million that leads to a PPE that stays relatively flat. Thank you. Now the second question for you, Volker, please. You provided us with a couple of examples of project wins, in particular also the new products like the electroactive polymers. Can you provide a little more light on the timeline you expect that is required for those to generate meaningful revenues and also explain a bit in what final applications those products may be used for? Thank you. Thank you very much for that question as well. So, we have to distinguish in between new products that are about to enter the serial application in the short term. So, we have a couple of business wins, really serial business wins that would concern, for instance, battery applications in almost all regions for vehicle applications. Then we have a couple of innovations coming from the Connectors business unit that would concern a certain resistance of materials that could as well represent a very significant competitive advantage in the midterm and these applications. And then, I mean, going further into that, we need to distinguish in between these very close to serial application business wins and these innovations such as SoftPulse. I mean, this is a technology platform that we are currently investigating with a couple of companies what would be the most valuable application. I mean, at the end, this is a market that's in a very early stage. And what we are doing currently, we are positioning us in a certain range of applications where we think that they will allow us to scale and to generate the highest value in a later application for us. On the electroactive polymers, if you've, I mean, that's, I think, something that has been shared with you already before. I mean, the electroactive polymers, I think they have a very interesting application field in the automotive interior since we all know that an EV doesn't emit that much noise in the operation compared to an ICE vehicle a couple of years ago. And so, every movement, every setting and seatings and vent regulators, you can hear today, right? So, in order to replace the mechanical part that is the current application, we would, in that context, have a disruptive innovation in some of these mechanical movements. So, we are speaking here with different customers and different areas of application. However, I would just like to highlight as well some applications outside of the automotive market that could have a significant impact on our earnings in some years to come. And also clearly outline that the sales expectation and the revenues are not seen as a short-term impact to our P&L, but as something in the midterm. For us, it's far more important to find the right application in order not to end up in a commodity situation with our innovative product. Does that answer your question? Thank you. Thank you. Adrian Knoblauch, ZKB. You have reduced net debt last year by around CHF 80 million, and now in the first half 2024, by roughly CHF 8 million or 9 million. So, can you tell me what your deleveraging speed looks like in 2024, and where do you see net debt EBITDA by the year end? So, I think for the EBIT, we're following the guidance as was just shared with you, right? So, over the last year's EBIT, for the deleveraging speed, we naturally will continue to do the utmost to continue to pay. It depends. It's a trade-off in the end between where we stand financially and also what we would like to invest to safeguard the future. But there's a strong commitment to overall deleverage because that gives us, in the end, more financial flexibility. So, when you say you want to deleverage, where do you see then your ideal leverage level? So, we would like to get to, let me answer differently, we would like to get back to an equity of around 40% versus liabilities of 60%. And I think for the full year, you mentioned your midterm guidance on the profitability level of 18%-21%. Now, I don't see that anymore. Are you still committed to that? Yeah, the midterm guidance of 18%-21% stays. However, it remains midterm because in order to realize that, we absolutely need to see that our projects, in particular the Healthcare business, come to fruition as planned. And what is midterm? Midterm would be the 3-5-year time period. Okay. And when you say you have not full capacity, you're not running on full capacity for your Healthcare plants, can you give an indication what capacity level you're currently running? I'm sorry, we don't share capacity utilizations, numbers of our plants. All right. Thank you. Dominik Feldges from Neue Zürcher Zeitung. Yes, I wanted to ask the same question on the utilization. Maybe you can tell us about how many of your 25 or more than 25 sites are underutilized at the moment. And second question about the personnel. I mean, you've talked a lot about optimization. Have you reduced your workforce? And if yes, where and by what extent? And if you may ask, if you may allow one more question, I was intrigued by your mentioning this vaccination fatigue. I mean, what does that mean then on part of your customers? I mean, were they expecting to produce billions of syringes year by year? And this business has now just gone? What has happened there exactly? Let me take that question. So, you've asked how many plants are underutilized. I could give you a theoretical answer to that question because at the end, our plants are well interconnected in terms of production and piece flows. What I can clearly tell you is that, for instance, looking at the markets we have in oil and gas, clearly we have underutilized capacity in exactly these plants, right? So, and further than that, our underutilization, we have mentioned clearly through the fact that we have the destocking effects in our Healthcare plants, and that varies from region to region. Some regions are more impacted by these effects, and some other regions are less impacted. The second part of your question, the second question was regarding headcount. For sure, we have to adapt our blue-collar workforce according to the demands and the shift models we have to fulfill in our operations. That's point number one. But point number two is what we clearly don't do. As Judith has mentioned that before, we do not jeopardize our readiness to be able to catch and pick up supply when the demand is rising again. So, that's a very difficult process as well. You can imagine, on the one hand, we need really to adapt our workforce to the conditions we are in. On the other hand, we need to maintain our specific knowledge in the team. Second, we also need to maintain our capability to pick up the market when the volumes are rising. The vaccination fatigue, your last part of your question, I mean, if you maybe, I honestly, I took the vaccines at that time, and honestly, I also took all the vaccines for the flu many, many years before 2019. So, and it happens to me that I don't take the vaccines for the flu anymore because honestly, I felt a certain fatigue of taking vaccines, right? That's exactly what the branch is pointing out with vaccination fatigue, which means that obviously the sales and the volumes for vaccines in general are going down, especially for these vaccines that have not a clear recommendation, as for instance, in the guidelines that each and every country or region is issuing. Well, and the share of vaccine-related products, honestly, even if I wanted to, I cannot unveil that in detail because, as you might know, we are supplying packaging solutions, and some of these are concerning generics. And in these generics, we in any case don't know which drug and which medicine will end up in the final product. So, even if I would like to do that, I cannot tell you what is exactly the share that is allocated to vaccine products and to others. I'm sorry, but you have not answered my question now really about the headcount. So, has the headcount then stayed stable? So, you've not. No changes there. So, we have adjusted the headcount as well in our, I mean, you can see it basically at the end. I told you that we have made adaptations in our workforce, especially in the blue-collar. Then where? That was my question. But that was the first part of my question that I've answered. I mean, in all the plants where we are underutilized. So, in all plants where we are underutilized and we do not run the full shift model, clearly I have either to reduce the accrued hours for people that have been accumulated over a certain period, or I have to reduce temporary workers, or I have to reduce full workers, full blue-collar employees. That clearly depends on the area and the particular plant where we are underutilized. Can you just say the number? It's -4.9% both on headcount and FTEs. -4.9% versus prior year. The headcount average is 8,177, and the FTE average is 8,056. Okay. What Volker indicated, what is extremely important on our side is find that right balance between adjusting to the market conditions in which we're in and at the same time safeguard the capabilities, the knowledge, and experiences in those areas where we want to grow. Thank you. Fehrenbach, AWP. I'd like to come back to the EBIT margin. I'm not quite sure if I got it correctly. You say you expect an improvement versus previous year, which was 10.5%, I guess. We've learned in March that the base of improvements, further improvements would be this 10.9 of H2 of last year. And now we are at 11.8 already. So, is it fair to assume that the margins should stay over 11% or not far away from where it is now in the full year 2024? Thank you. I would prefer to leave the answer open. And the reason why I do that in full transparency is that over the coming months, we need to look, we're part of a strategy process that has started, and we really need to safeguard that we have the sufficient funds available to drive growth in the longer term. So, that it certainly will not be below prior year. That is something we can commit to. At the same time, we have to make sure that we do the right thing for the longer term. Daniel Koenig, Mirabaud Securities. I have a question on Healthcare Solutions. You were saying that there was underutilized and destocking. I was wondering, how is the pricing developing? Or like this, there is a revenue decline. How would you split this between volume and pricing? And then I had a little bit the normal question, like you didn't mention the magic word obesity, which is like the buzzword in the stock market. I was just wondering, what is now currently the position of Dätwyler? How big is it? Is it low single- digit? Is it low double- digit? You can say what you like to disclose. I was just wondering. And then finally, I had this question on Connectors because that used to be the segment with the highest growth CAGR of 9%. I'm just wondering if there has been a, if there is a rethink going on because 9% in any given industry is very high. I'm just wondering what the current thinking is because in general, I have this feeling, well, the start since the acquisition has been somewhat slower than hoped. So, I was just wondering what is the current thinking on the connector business. Let me pick up the Connectors question first, so we take it from the back. So, first of all, the opportunities we have today with the acquisition of the Connectors business unit is first, geographically because we are about to roll out that business in Europe because currently, and as you also saw from the structure of the acquired company, very strong in the U.S. and Americas, very strong in Asia, and still a lot of opportunities in Europe. So, that's what we're tackling. That's what we can tackle very well because our structures from the Mobility business unit with products that require a similar infrastructure and a similar technology is in a good position. So, vice versa, this fits very well together. So, the synergies that we can have in the U.S. and in some part, to some extent in China, however, we are already very strong or have been very strong in China with the Mobility business unit is the other way around. So, that fits very well. Growth, I mean, as I've mentioned before, sure, a lot of our customers and as well at the end, the OEM has clearly, especially in the BEV, and you can see that from all the statistics, they are clearly failing their sales targets on the share of battery electric vehicles. That in Europe, as we all know, may come from the legislation in some countries that has changed in terms of incentivization of BEV vehicles. In some other areas, it is just kind of a delayed development. I'm sure that we will have a higher share of BEVs. What is very important to us is that Connectors is really a strategic milestone in serving customers with our Connectors for high-voltage applications and as well as all other applications in the BEV and hybrid electric vehicle. So, we expect that this growth and since our project wins are very favorable, so we can really see a sound order intake for our products, as I've mentioned before. So, we are convinced that we will in that area of application be clearly overperforming the growth of the market. However, currently, the BEV market, as we all know, is far less fast as we all thought maybe a couple of months ago. The second, so obesity. Then I take the volume question. Yeah. I mean, we are working with top customers on GLP-1 products as a second source and as well as an exclusive development. And clearly, I cannot share any names and I cannot share any products, and that's what you clearly know. I mean, and as you also know, the mechanics in the pharmaceutical and Healthcare industry, I mean, this is about the validation of the end product from our customers. And second, it is clearly about the success of the end product later in the market. But we are very confident since our technology is well received at our customers. In some of these projects, we are in a very, very late stage of the validation already. Then it brings me to the third question that you asked. Our volume decline that we have seen is in the double-digit million range. Our price increases in the mid-single-digit range. When we speak about price increases, we naturally see overall that raw materials have gone down, energy prices have gone down. When we're dealing with indexed contracts, you obviously can see an impact in the selling price moving forward. However, our prices are not only determined by price indexes. It's also about the value that we bring in towards our customers. That's where you do see deviations versus a general price increase. So, do we have any questions from. Sorry, the price increase was a favorability, to be very clear. Yeah. So, the volume was a double-digit million reduction, single-digit increase on the price side. Yes, there are some questions from the chat as well. Some of them regarding the outlook. I think it would be best summarized if you could provide a short overview on the expected developments of the five business units in the second half. That would summarize several of the questions from the chat. Yeah. I wasn't sure if I gave that already in my outlook, but I can repeat it clearly. I mean, in Healthcare, as I said, we have a visibility that usually would comprise the Q3 of this year in terms of our orders and order visibility. So, we do not expect, as I've shared before, any significant change on the situation in Healthcare for the Q3. So, and as soon as we have a visibility range that goes further, we hope, clearly, we hope that it will start to, this destocking effect will start to disappear, but we cannot, it would be just a guess. I don't think we should spend too much time on guesses today. So then, clearly on Mobility, as I've seen, as I've said before, in Mobility, we're picking up. I mean, we have very attractive applications. We have some launches during the next month that will then pick up, hopefully, quickly in terms of sales during the course of next year. In terms of profitability, as well in Industrial Solutions itself, I think there are some opportunities and some, let's say, potential to be unlocked within the next months and years, clearly. Looking at Food and Beverage, we have a positive trend that we expect for the second half of 2024. In General Industry, we all know that is about especially oil and gas, particularly, and some end products that are significantly impacted by also markets that are in midst of geopolitical tensions. So that are weak due to these reasons. Does that answer the question, Guido? Okay. Thank you. There's one additional question on CapEx. It's mentioned that it has decreased significantly. How much of this was due to cutting on expansionary CapEx? What level of CapEx should be expected in the years ahead? Let me take that first part of the question because that's a clear statement from our side. So, we are not acting in such a market phase in a way that we would cut maintenance payments in order to jeopardize our supply safety and the supply stability to our customers, that's not what we are doing. Very clear no on that area. So, we are following preventive maintenance and all the recurring effects that are recurring expenses that we have in keeping our plants up and running without exception. Yeah. And if I can add to that, the reduction in CapEx is really due to the fact that we accelerated investments in CapEx over the last few years. And we're at the end of that cycle with the plants in India and the U.S. having been built. The level that we should get to, or that is more natural level, is probably around the 6%, 5%-6%. So, this is where I expect us to get to in due course. I don't expect that in the rest of 2024 and probably also not in 2025. Then there's an additional question on Healthcare Solutions. If Dätwyler wants to reach above 22% EBIT margin by 2028, what gives you the confidence? Do you have an order backlog? Do you have projects on hand which support that EBIT assumption for the time 2027, 2028 onwards? So, what we can see from our funnel of projects that is, I mean, clearly increasing all the time is that we have, first of all, a very high share of high-value applications versus a couple of years ago. So, that is clearly representing that the customers are valuing our first-line plants and also taking us very seriously for applications that are in the high-value segment. I mean, looking at the success of new orders that we are working with our customers, I mean, clearly one part of it is the serial supply and filling the overcapacities that we currently have. And the other part of it, and that has been called out to my knowledge since four or five years ago already, which is also materializing in a good way, is this gradual shift from low-value applications in pharmaceutical or Healthcare to high-value applications. So, the more high-value applications we have, the higher the margin is clearly. And with our overcapacities filled, we see it as a normal process to gain this profitability in due course. However, very much depending on the volumes in the market and the demand in the market. There's one last question from the chat regarding the Connectors business. The weakness in the connector business, is it more related to destocking or is it more related to recessionary trends? I mean, for us, as we have to understand the position of Dätwyler in this market, I mean, we are delivering a share of products where we can clearly see the end application. And some part of the products, since that kind of a standard application plugs and parts for standard application plugs, we cannot really see the end application. So, for the products we can see it, it's clearly a slowdown in ramping up volumes in the e-mobility since we see what is a high-voltage application and what is a more standard application. And the second part of it, it's clearly something that we see a gravity more in the U.S. area. As you also can see from our revenue split, from that point of view, it's clearly a kind of a recessionary trend in the combination with some end applications that are still not ramping up as fast as we've all expected. So, I don't know, are there more questions from the people in the room? If not, I think we would come to the end because there are no more questions in the chat. All right. Thank you very much, Guido. And I would like to express my thanks to the audience here in the ConventionP oint at Zurich and as well to all of the participants in the webcast. Looking forward to working with you. And thanks again for your interest in our company and hope to see you again soon, latest at the annual results in February 2025.