Welcome to the SIG H1 2026 results conference call and live webcast. I am Matilde, the Chorus 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. Webcast viewers may submit their questions in writing via the related field. 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 Christoph Ladner, Director, Investor Relations. Please go ahead. Thank you, Matilde. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to SIG's half-year conference call. I'm Christoph Ladner, Head of Investor Relations. Hosting the call with me today are our CEO, Mikko Keto, and our CFO, Anne Erkens. In today's conference call, we will refer to the presentation that is available for download on our website. As always, I would like to draw your attention to the disclaimer and cautionary statement on slide number two. The call may contain forward-looking statements containing risks and uncertainties. These statements are subject to change based on known or unknown risks and various other factors, which could cause the actual results or performance to differ materially from the statements made in the call. Having said that, let me now hand over to Mikko. Good morning, everybody, and thank you for joining us. The first half of 2026 was characterized by challenging market conditions. These included uncertainty related to the conflict in the Middle East, higher raw material and freight costs, and continued softness in some of the end markets. Against this, we, SIG, delivered slightly positive revenue at constant currency and improved profitability and substantially a stronger free cash flow. Let me start with a few key takeaways. First, revenue increased by 0.8% at constant currency and by 0.4% excluding a resin pass-through effect in the bag-in-box business. aseptic carton, which is most of our business, grew by 1.6%, while soft market conditions continued to weigh on Chilled Carton, bag-in-box, and spouted pouch. Secondly, profitability improved further. Adjusted EBIT margin increased by 80 basis points to 15.6%. This was supported by improvement measures we initiated in 2025 and disciplined surcharges execution. Thirdly, free cash flow improved more than EUR 100 million to -EUR 32 million. Main drivers were improved operating cash flow, including lower customer incentive payments, given the low volumes of 2025 and lower capital expenditure. Based on this solid performance, we are confirming our full year guidance. While developments in the Middle East continue to create volatility in the freight and raw material markets, our surcharge mechanism are allowing us to offset the cost increase. We can say this has been successful in the first half of the year. A good portion of these higher costs only started flowing through our P&L during the second quarter and continue into the second half of the year. Since our last update, we opened a new business service center in Mexico, where transition is underway. Let us now look at the first half financials in more detail. Revenue was EUR 1.56 billion. Reported revenue declined due to the negative currency impact from the first quarter, while growth at the constant currency was positive, as we just discussed earlier. Adjusted EBIT increased to EUR 244 million, and margin expanded to 15.6%. We are especially proud of this point. Adjusted net income was broadly stable at EUR 133 million. Free cash flow improved by more than EUR 100 million year-on-year, despite the normal first half seasonality. Return on capital employed increased to 25%, reflecting stronger profitability as well as effect of impairment recognized last year. We were pleased with the progress achieved despite the geopolitical uncertainty. Revenue grew by 1.5% at the constant currency supported by strong performance in the Americas and resilient demand for aseptic carton. Currency impact was neutral for the second quarter. Adjusted EBIT margin increased by 100 basis points to 17.5%. Free cash flow turned positive at EUR 32 million compared to the -EUR 50 million in the second quarter 2025. Overall, the quarter demonstrated resilience of our business model as well as our execution capabilities in difficult market conditions. We have a few comments about markets. Europe remained challenging in terms of revenue. On the other hand, profitability benefited from a number of positive factors. Revenue declined by 3.1% at the constant currency and constant pricing in the first half. This reflected pressure in the ambient juice market and low participation by our customers in the UHT milk tenders. One clear positive was the continued success of our Terra aluminum-free solution offering. Volumes increased by approximately 25% in the first half of the year, demonstrating strong customer acceptance for this product. SIG Terra now generates about 10% of volumes in Europe, which means that there is a high demand for the product. Softer demand for non-system applications impacted bag-in-box and spouted pouch. Despite the revenue pressure, adjusted EBIT margin increased to almost 25%. The margin benefited from favorable raw material costs in the first quarter, positive hedges recorded in our program entity, which also belong to other segments, and low depreciation and amortization. We turn into IMEA. The India, Middle East, Africa region remained resilient despite the geopolitical situation. We are particularly proud of the team in IMEA, how they managed the situation. First half revenue increased by 0.3% at constant currency and constant pricing. Region successfully passed through the most of the increase in the raw material logistics costs. It also continued to win new business, securing 13 filler contracts during the first half, keeping the pace of last year. There was occasional supply chain disruptions related to the regional situation. Our teams managed them effectively and maintained service level to our customers. Adjusted EBIT margin improved to 17.7%, supported by efficiency gains and low depreciation and amortization partially offset by adverse currency impacts. Let me turn into Asia Pacific. First half revenue in Asia Pacific increased by 2.4% at constant currency. China and Southeast Asia continued to benefit from our pack size diversification strategy and premium innovation, including SIG DomeMini format. This supported further market share gains. In the second quarter, challenging market conditions for chilled carton and softer bag-in-box and spouted pouch portfolios weighed on performance, while aseptic carton demand remained resilient. Adjusted EBIT margin declined due to foreign exchange effects and price pressure, particularly in China. Efficiency initiatives partly mitigated these headwinds, while the Chilled Carton business delivered substantial margin improvement. The Americas. The Americas delivered excellent performance and delivered the strongest regional growth in the second quarter. Revenue increased by 4.4% in the first half and by almost 10% in the second quarter. On a constant currency and constant pricing basis, first half growth was 2.9%. Growth in aseptic carton was broad-based. It was supported by strong refresh demand in the U.S., continued momentum in dairy and market share gains in Mexico, and successful pricing and mix initiatives in Brazil. Bag-in-box and spouted pouch also returned to growth in the second quarter, driven mainly by syrup and dairy applications. Margin improved to 13.5%. Price increases and additional efficiency measures more than offset higher raw material and freight costs. Overall, regional picture confirms the resilience of aseptic carton and benefits of our operation and commercial access. At this point, I will hand over to Anne for more detailed financial performance presentation. Thank you, Mikko, and good morning, everyone. Let me start with the adjusted EBIT bridge. The improvement in adjusted EBIT and margin is one of the key highlights of the first half. Adjusted EBIT increased by EUR 11 million -EUR 244 million. On a constant currency basis, EBIT grew by around 10% in this first half. Note that while FX was still a headwind in the first quarter, it turned to neutral in the second quarter. Topline benefited from the timely implementation of surcharges to address the raw material and freight cost inflation that we saw following the escalation of the crisis in the Middle East. We believe that this underlines the value that our solutions deliver to our customers in our long-term partnerships. We appreciate the constructive dialogue in this challenging situation, as we expect more headwinds to be absorbed also in the second half of the year. As you might remember, sourcing contributed a positive EUR 5 million in the first quarter. This turned negative in the second quarter as the unhedged portion of higher raw material costs started to kick in and inventories that had been purchased at lower cost were consumed. Operational performance was particularly strong. Production efficiencies and SG&A savings from our improvement measures initiated last year, more than offset inflationary pressures and higher freight costs. Lower depreciation following the prior year impairments also contributed. As a reminder, the D&A impact will annualize after the third quarter, reflecting the timing of the impairments recognized last year. Overall, the bridge shows that our improvement measures are delivering tangible and increasingly visible benefits. Turning to the adjusted EBIT reconciliation. Profit for the period increased substantially to EUR 134 million. The main drivers were the unrealized gains on commodity hedges and the end of the Onex purchase price allocation amortization after the first quarter of 2025. Net finance expenses were broadly unchanged. Income tax expenses increased substantially versus prior year H1, mainly due to a higher share of profit in higher tax countries, higher non-deductible expenses, including interest in Germany, and also some phasing effects. The largest adjustment was EUR 21 million of unrealized gains on commodity hedges. The year-on-year comparison also benefited from the cessation of the Onex purchase price allocation amortization after the first quarter of 2025. We also incurred approximately EUR 4 million of restructuring costs related to a regional optimization initiative in Asia and the new business service center in Mexico. As in previous periods, we present these adjustments transparently to provide a clear view of the underlying operating performance. There's not a lot to discuss on this slide. Adjusted net income was EUR 133 million, largely unchanged from last year. As there are very little adjustments in H1 2026, reported and adjusted net income are almost the same. Moving on to CapEx. Net capital expenditure, including leases, declined to EUR 96 million, or 6.2% of revenue. The decrease mainly reflects the completion of major investments in India last year. At the same time, investments in filling lines increased as we sold more higher value filling lines to support customer growth and prepare for future volume opportunities. We continue to expect filler placements in 2026 to be broadly in line with 2025. Means in the lower half of our normal corridor of 60-80 placements. The Mexico expansion project is progressing according to plan. It will support regional growth and improve efficiency through greater localization. The project is expected to be fully completed around the end of 2027. Free cash flow was - EUR 32 million in the first half, an improvement of more than EUR 100 million compared to last year. This still reflects our normal seasonality, while free cash flow was already positive at EUR 32 million in the second quarter. The improvement was driven by higher operating cash flow, mainly due to lower customer incentive payments for lower volume growth in 2025, as well as lower CapEx. Let me take you through the main components of the year-on-year improvement. Number one, lower customer volume incentive payments had a positive effect of approximately EUR 40 million-EUR 50 million. Number two, the base effect in trade working capital in a similar magnitude. Number three, coupon payments had a negative effect of approximately EUR 18 million to H1. Number four, lower tax payments contributed approximately EUR 8 million. The inventory level increased as we intentionally built some safety stocks in response to supply chain uncertainties. Depending on developments in the Middle East, there may be an opportunity to normalize part of this position as the year progresses. Finally, let us look at leverage. Gross debt declined by almost EUR 240 million compared with June last year, while net debt declined by almost EUR 290 million. This reflects the improved free cash flow and the dividend pause. The bond issuance in April and the agreement signed in June to replace the US dollar term loan have largely completed our refinancing needs for 2027. They have also strengthened our maturity profile at attractive terms. Reported leverage remained at 3x, as last year's non-recurring charges still affect the last 12 months EBITDA calculation. Leverage under the group's covenant definition, which provides a clearer view of the underlying development, improved to 2.8 x from 3 x in June 2025. With that, I hand back to Mikko for the outlook. Thank you, Anne. Let me conclude with the outlook for the full year of 2026. Based on the solid first half performance, we are able to confirm our full year guidance. We continue to expect revenue growth of 0%-2%, an adjusted EBIT margin between 15.7% and 16.2%, net CapEx including leases of 6%-8% of revenue, and an adjusted effective tax rate of 26%-28%. Uncertainty remains around freight and raw material costs related to the developments in the Middle East. Our first half performance significantly de-risks our delivery of full year targets, but the risks remain in the business because of geopolitics. We remain focused on cost discipline, operational excellence, and accelerating growth in aseptic system solution, where we see the greatest opportunity for value creation. We'd like to invite you to our Capital Market Day, which is scheduled to be on October 27 at The Circle Convention Center in Zurich. We look forward providing a deep update on strategy growth and growth opportunities and financial ambitions. I would like to thank you for your attention, and Anne and myself are now happy to take your questions. We move into the Q&A, please. 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 and eventually turn off the volume from the webcast while asking a question. Webcast viewers may submit their questions in writing via the relative fields. In the interest of time, please limit yourself to two questions. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. The first question comes from the line of Joern Iffert from UBS. Please go ahead. Morning all, thanks for taking my question. This would be two and a half, it's okay. The first one would be please, on your volume outlook for the second half. You have easier comms, what indications you get from customers here, also, what is your initiative to stop the juice bleeding in Europe here, if there's anything you can do against this to tackle this? Second question would be, please, there are always, of course, the discussions with non-system suppliers, competitive environment. Can you give us an update what your volumes in aseptic carton actually did in Southeast Asia and in China over the last three to six months? The half question, just technically one, the EUR 10 million lower group function expenses. Is this now the new run rate, and what was driving this actually? Many thanks. The volume other system. On the volume outlook for the second half, let's first take a step back. I would say volumes in aseptic carton overall, if you exclude some one-off impacts that we have had in the first half of 2025, where we also had some equipment sales in aseptic carton, I would say we see mildly positive volumes in the first half, and we believe that this will also continue into the second half. Of course, as you said, Joern, the baseline, especially in the third quarter, is a little lower. Overall, I think we expect a sequential improvement. On the juice topic, indeed, the soft demand for juices in Europe, that is a topic that has been accompanying us for a number of quarters now. Difficult to say when this bottoms out, but we don't expect that this category will come back into full swing pretty fast. Nevertheless, also as a reminder, the share of the juices in Europe is the majority of the business, let's put it easily, is in the area, of course. I might take a question here for the system supplier and Asia Pacific China. We see our position to be extremely strong in China, which is one of our core markets, and our position as system supplier, and we've seen rather positive market share development than the opposite. The challenge more in China in particular is the price level, that it's more difficult to increase prices because of the competitive pressure. Our system supplier position, providing sophisticated fillers and feeding our fillers fully with our carton, is working well in China. China proves that we can be competitive, and the challenge there is more that the price increase opportunity is more limited because of the competition. I think we said earlier also in the script that in China, the volumes in aseptic carton have been pretty resilient. On Southeast Asia, maybe one to call out, which we also discussed in the first quarter, that is the new Indonesia skimmed milk program, where we see also in the second quarter a significant contribution, and we're very happy actually. We're optimistic about our Asia position, which is, of course, one might say, one of the most competitive markets, and I think if we do well there, then we typically do well in rest of the world as well. Last on the group functions overall, I think that's not a topic to really consider from my point of view. It includes, of course, some FX impacts also, and then there's intercompany and phasing of IT costs, but I would overall say it's not a new level overall. Thank you very much. Next question comes from the line of Gabriel Simoes from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. Hi, Anne, Mikko, thank you very much for taking my questions. My first one will be on the Americas division. We saw very strong growth this quarter, ahead of expectations there. It will be interesting to hear your thoughts on the reasons more specifically for the accelerated growth that we saw there and on the sustainability of this higher growth that we've seen in this region for the second quarter into the second half of the year. If you saw any one-off events that you would call out here as pushing your growth further there. The second question would be on the cost savings. If you could please give us an update on the actions you're taking to improve the margins, that would be great. I would like to particularly know if you've made any progress on the procurement side. As LPB is one of your key raw materials, is adding more LPB suppliers something you've been discussing, and if so, when should we hear news on that front? Thank you very much. Yep. I might first comment the Americas market. I think it's one of our strongest. Our market position is good in Brazil, and it's of course the largest market to us in Americas, and it has been for years going well. Of course, the success in Mexico is where we are particularly proud. That's the reason why we also invest in more to Mexico. We are building extruder line in Mexico over the next year and a half, a year, and to localize it even more. Americas or North America market is smaller for aseptic. Of course then, in the smaller market, we can still do well, but it's one of our strongholds. When you, of course, look at quarter by quarter the different markets, that's nature of the global business that depending on the quarter, one market is doing better than the other and vice versa in the following quarter. We are strong in Mexico and strong in Brazil and U.S. market for aseptic carton is still very small and of course we are hoping to do well there as well. Probably to add on this, that in the Americas, we have also been pretty successful in implementing pricing actions, including surcharges. The team has also done a very good job over there. Then the second question was on procurement and impacts from LPB supplier distribution. I might actually take that one because it has been defined to be our strategic initiatives, and there's always delay factor. Qualify a new supplier to new product or to us, it takes on average one and a half years. We are, as we speak, working with a number of liquid packaging board suppliers to diversify supply base and at the same time qualifying existing suppliers to new categories. It's ongoing work and typically, we will see benefit in competitive dynamics between the suppliers with some delay. This strategic initiative that we continue to do, and I would say the bigger benefits will be then visible in one and a half years of time on average. I think even before that, we'll see some benefits, but it's a long-term strategic initiative and delay is because of technical qualification is quite challenging in terms of technical capabilities of the board suppliers meeting all our requirement for selected formats. It's ongoing work, it's high priority, and we expect to see midterm significant benefits out of it. All right. Very clear. Thank you. We now have a question from the line of Cole Hathorn from Jefferies. Please go ahead. Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Could you just clarify on the 1H organic growth number, what's the split between price mix, and volumes? Apologies if you said that I just misheard it. Then on the surcharges, you did very well to pass along the higher polymer, aluminum, and logistics costs. I'm just wondering how do those surcharges actually work? Could you just give a little bit more color? Did you potentially get a little bit more benefit in 2Q with some more of the costs actually impacting, let's say the third quarter just because of a lag and we shouldn't extrapolate higher margins into the future or how do those surcharges effectively roll off if raw materials come down? I'm just wondering how that impacts your business going forward. Thank you. Maybe I can take that and combine both questions into one. Overall, how do the surcharges work? Different to a pricing discussion that you normally have, which we, as you know, have once a year, at the beginning of the year. For a surcharge, basically, you need to provide lots of documentation because you really want to discuss an impact that wasn't anticipated before. While when you have a normal pricing discussion, of course, we discuss the value that we deliver to the customers. That said that you provide lots of information and documentation also means that we really price for the impact that we have seen in those surcharges and not price for anything higher. Overall, you're totally correct. The surcharges have been ramping up throughout the second quarter, not much effective in April, but much more in June. We saw also a similar development, probably even slightly slower on the raw material side, as I also mentioned in the script, that in the beginning of the second quarter, we still benefited from old stocks, or stocks that we had bought at lower cost. This stock is now consumed. It's fair to assume that the material cost level that we're going to see in the third quarter will be higher, balanced by also the surcharges now being effective for a full quarter and not only two-thirds of the quarter. Overall, I wouldn't expect a further significant ramp up. It's probably more keeping a similar pace. Maybe just following up with the margin guidance. It's a very strong performance considering your business is seasonally stronger in the second half. I'd just like a little bit more color if the margins are robust in H1, what made you keep the margin guidance unchanged? Basically, I think if you look at all the factors, what we discussed, that we've been able to defend our margin, well, some of our actions in the first half, and particular in the second quarter, I think those challenges remain and not likely to see significant improvement in underlying conditions regarding various oil resin price and that type of thing. There's still the uncertainty in the market remains, and that will typically negatively impact some of the input cost and factors. I think we believe it's a good guidance and we didn't see at this point a reason to increase it. I think it's what we believe in. Thank you. No problem. The next question comes from the line of Ioannis Masvoulas from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Good morning. Thank you very much for the presentation. First question on the surcharges, could you quantify the actual benefit to your Q2 growth? That would be the first question. The second question is on bag-in-box and spouted pouch where we saw a contraction of 4.4%, better than what you had in Q1. The question here is, shall we expect that business to turn closer to a stable year-over-year development by the end of this year, or that's more of a 2027 story? Thank you. Morning, Ioannis. Let me start with the surcharges. It doesn't make sense to just look at this one quarter number. It's still building up, and it's a low single digit% as a contribution to the second quarter. On the bag-in-box side, I would believe we should rather look at 2027 to see a sustainable change there. Thanks very much. Welcome. We now have a question from the line of Pallav Mittal from Barclays. Please go ahead. Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions, two of them. Firstly, talking of Europe, clearly weaker on the volume side of things and some customers not participating in tenders, as you say. From a margin perspective, can you help us understand the split in terms of the benefit that you saw from lower raw material cost and the hedging? That's the first question. Secondly, so far it seems that you have been able to pass on higher input costs to a larger extent. How should we think about the price minus cost equation in the second half? Do you think you can still pass it on like you have done already, or do you expect it to be a headwind? Let me start with the second one. Price minus cost equation. I believe we have been pretty balanced in the second quarter. Again, also supported by the fact that we consumed stock that we previously bought at cheaper cost. I would expect the contribution to be slightly less positive in the second half overall. Of course, we continue to work on both the surcharge discussion side and second, also on further efficiencies. On Europe, indeed. As we have discussed, volumes were softer. We saw the exit rate of the second quarter is slightly a touch better than what you see for the total second quarter. We would expect that potentially into the second half, it would be slightly better, which then will also contribute to margins. As discussed, the margin improvement included more favorable costs in the first quarter on the raw material side. It also includes impacts from the restructuring efforts that we kicked off in 2025, and it also includes benefits from indirect procurement and so on. I think that's a good description. I think all in all, I think long-term, Europe is not a growth market. There it's important to maintain market share and profitability. As we commented earlier, we see volume up and down a little bit with our customers as well and their participation rate to certain tenders. Especially customers with large Filler install base, how their volume develop. In Europe, it's really a lot the profitability and market share game rather than underlying market growth long term as well. Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Chiara Di Giammaria from Berenberg. Please go ahead. Good morning. I have a follow-up question on China. Considering your margin decline in APAC, I appreciate your comment on competition, but can you give us more indication, is this competition increasing compared to last year's? Do you expect this to get worse going forward in terms of price sensitivity, therefore, seeing like China as less of a focus for you as a market? The second question is on D&A, this lower level in H1. Should we expect this to be a sustainable run rate for the full year? Thank you. If I would first comment, the China market, this is one of the most important markets to us, and we remain competitive there. The dynamics just in the market is that there has been a very much competitive pressure in the past, and it remains, but we don't see a fundamental change in what's happening in the China. Of course, when I mentioned earlier about the difficulty to price increase is that China has not seen inflation in the economy. If there's no, like in the Western countries, I think in the lower inflation environment, price increases are more difficult. We can do other measures in China, for example, reducing our rebate discount levels. We can look at the fixed cost. There are still levers that we can use also other than price to maintain our competitiveness and profitability. China is really a measure of how well we do long term in the world, and we are doing well in China, so our market position is extremely strong. Okay, let me take the question on the D&A. I said earlier in the script, we had the impairments recognized last year in September. Basically means it annualizes after the third quarter. Half of the impact that you saw for H1, you can also anticipate for H2 still to come on top. Thank you. Welcome. We now have a question from the line of Manuel Lang from Vontobel. Please go ahead. Thank you, good morning. I have just one or maybe two, but on the same topics on your Alu-free solutions. I think it's a highly attractive segment. You also gave us some numbers there, but I am interested if you could give a bit more color on the market in general, let's say in terms of competition. Then second, also maybe in more detail, could you share the volumes or the share of volumes you have in other markets, ex-Europe, and the margin profile also compared to Alu solutions, for example? Just to understand the acceptance of this format also outside developed countries a bit more. Thanks. I think aluminum-free format, the price profitability profile is similar to our core business in aseptic carton. It's in many ways cost-price neutral because we knew that when we bring something new to the market, competitive market, we cannot ask too much premium for that one. We are ahead of the competition in aluminum-free format, and we continue to ramp up in Europe. Europe is our focus at the moment. I think there will be other markets that we'll follow, but Europe is a lead market in that. Hopefully, over time it will become dominantly aluminum free, all the formats. The benefit of our solution is that the filler update to support aluminum-free format is extremely fast and cheap. When customers are looking at the alu-free format, the entry cost is very low. There's almost non-existent CapEx for that one. We can fast turn the filler to support the aluminum-free format. That's why we believe that in our install base, it will take over markets from traditional formats fast. It's more as market-making. We are ahead of the competition, and we believe it becomes almost standard format in Europe in the coming years. Of course, that creates stickiness of our product to our filler, again, and additional benefit from sustainability point of view. I think strategically that's super important development, and we are happy to work with a large volume of customers in Europe to prove technical feasibility of that solution. We are proud of that development. Europe is a lead market, and others will follow. All right. Thank you very much. Next question comes from the line of Alessandro Foletti from Octavian. Please go ahead. Yes, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. I would like to ask one on the aseptic carton. Is it in Europe just a weakness, most of that related to juice business or also this tendering is affecting that really substantially? Can you give a bit of a split of the decline there between the two elements? I don't think we really give that level of detail. If you look at the world, juice's consumption is rather on the decline than on increase globally, including Europe. The dairy part is more to do with our customers and their participation rate and success rate in winning tenders so that, of course, when they win the tender or participate, then more volume go through our install base fillers. If they don't participate, then less. I think structurally, I think juice market long term is weaker than dairy market. All right. Thank you for this explanation. Maybe a similar one on the system, non-system business in bag-in-box pouch. When you mentioned that it has been declining, I think in Asia and also in IMEA, I don't remember about Europe, you certainly mentioned the non-system business being weaker. By contrast, in Americas, when you mentioned it coming back to growth, you kind of underlined the system element and also the dairy, I understand also the syrup was a driver there. With respect to the system, non-system also there, can you share a little bit which direction this journey is going and how long it will take for you to be, I don't know, three-quarters system? Yeah. Good morning, Alessandro. I would say we follow very much what we have discussed last October on how we want to optimize the portfolio also, where we said we see the best value in either system solutions or aseptic solutions in the bag-in-box spouted pouch arena. Coming back to, Mikko has mentioned this in Europe, that non-system applications were softer and similar also for IMEA. I would say it's a mixture of really, or to a large degree, this is really the impact of portfolio management. That business typically is lower margin and also not so sticky, and this is what we have seen. I guess this portfolio optimization will still continue until the end of the year for sure. It is very much in line with what we wanted to achieve and what we have said in last October. Actually, I think it's going in the right direction overall. May I ask you a follow-up? Earlier, another question, you mentioned that you would not expect this part of the business to come back to grow this year, but maybe next year. Now you're telling me that you think this shift is going on until the end of this year, and then by next year, maybe you are closer to where you want to be. Are the two things connected then? The growth is kind of, yes, market-driven, but partially also homemade because you're doing this shift. I think we are actually preparing for the capital market, updating our plan for bag-in-box pouched products. Then as Anne said, in those both businesses, you have a system business, but there's also a component business. It's a component meaning that you can have a closer kind of injection molding business, then you can. I think we are also looking at the different markets. Bag-in-box pouched products, which are the markets where we are doing well, which are the market where we are doing less well and which are the market we focus on. All in all, it's a smaller business. One might say it's less global than aseptic carton. I think we need to be more selective there, which are the markets and which are the businesses we want to play and focus on to get basically biggest return on effort. I think that what Anne said, that we are looking at the global portfolio, there are areas that we do well, and there are areas we do less well. Then I think in the capital market there, we want to tell a little bit more about what's the future focus of that business. All right. Good. Thank you. Thank you. We now have a question from the line of Ephrem Ravi from Citi. Please go ahead. Yeah. Thank you. I've got only two questions left. Firstly, on the working capital increase, you flagged the inventory increase in almost EUR 80 million, which is a fairly big amount. Is this going to be structural? Are you planning to keep higher safety stocks going into the future as well, or is this like a one-off increase in inventory with the initial release, which then give you quite a lot of working capital headroom if you do? Secondly, in terms of the fillers, you called out the India 30 new filler projects, but could you kind of give us a sense as to how many new fillers that you sold in the first half globally, and what's your expectations for the full year? On the working capital, specifically the inventory, one component when you look at absolute numbers, of course, to also consider is the higher cost level. Of course, we also value the inventory at a higher price at this moment, and that also contributes to the absolute development. Nevertheless, also if you look at it in comparison to revenue, you see an increase, and as mentioned before, there is an element of safety stock in there. Depends a bit on how the volatility in the markets develop, whether we can build this down until year-end or whether we will keep it at the level. You can be sure that we monitor this very carefully and that we track it super closely. On the number of filler placements, we don't comment on the number for a quarter or even for the first half, because there's always moves from one quarter to another. It's not always the full year number just divided by four. What we can say or what we also said is we are optimistic that we will land in the usual guidance range, lower half of the range of 60-80, similar to 2025. We wouldn't be optimistic probably if the number for the first half would be significantly off. Maybe we can leave it there. Thank you. Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Leah Zeuss from AWP. Please go ahead. Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. You mentioned the impact of the Middle East conflict in terms of price, I was wondering how could it also impact consumer sentiment? Do you have any maybe ideas about the risks? Secondly, is there any update in finding a strategic partner for Chilled Carton? We haven't seen negative impact for the consumer sentiment yet. I think it has to do more toward the overall inflation in the countries. Of course, there has been concern that if the conflict will significantly increase inflation, for example, in the developed world. So far, I think from what we see, there's no significant negative impact. Also in the region, we've been doing, somebody might say surprisingly well in terms of end user demand. Challenge in the region has been more with the logistics that sometimes we need to have alternative routes for supply if the port of Saudi is congested. Then we use land routes, transportation by truck. I think the demand is there in IMEA region as well and Saudi and Egypt being the biggest ones. More impact on being innovative in how we get product there and logistics rules and that type of thing. Which has cost, of course, cost increase to us, what we have surcharges for. In that sense, that's in the good shape, I would say. We have no concern about consumer sentiment at this point is the clear answer. To follow- up on the question on the finding a strategic partner for the chilled business. That is not an easy project, and it's still underway. Once we have something to say, we're going to also say something on it. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. As a reminder, if you wish to register for a question, please press star and one on your telephone. The next question comes from the line of Christian Arnold from ODDO BHF. Please go ahead. Yes. Good morning, all. Thank you for taking my question. Just one on Americas. This 9.9% growth is fantastic, I would say. I wonder, is there any positive impact from the World Championship, Football World Championship? How do you see that? I think there was expectation in the market that it would impact a lot, but I don't think it did. I was actually there. I was happy to be present in the final, but I didn't see any out of ordinary behavior there. It was a fantastic final. We haven't seen it. I think there was expectation in the consumer businesses of maybe a bigger impact. I think, of course it's positive, it's never negative, but then I don't think it's impacted that much as a whole. The 9.9 of course also include a component of resin and pricing moves. That also needs to be considered. Okay. Thank you. Welcome. We have a follow-up question from the line of Cole Hathorn from Jefferies. Please go ahead. Morning. Thanks for taking the follow-up. A bit of a strange one, given all the droughts, et cetera that we're expecting, I'm just wondering if there's anything that we should be considering for your volume expectations in any of the regions just from a dairy category or anything like that, either a boost on the juice side or a negative impact on the volumes of the milk side. I think we want to steady the ship because I think it's quite a lot going outside our control in the market, especially in the Middle East. I think our effort has been to run a steady ship and then cover the input cost increases, logistic cost increases in the market. I think it's some of that uncertainty, as we discussed earlier, will continue in second half of the year. I think that's why we don't really expect anything out of ordinary, I think positive or negative. I think we want to run the steady ship for the second half. Thank you. We have a follow-up question from the line of Ioannis Masvoulas from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Thank you for taking the follow-ups. The first one is on Europe. Could you quantify the percentage of revenue that relates to ambient juice? Just to get a better idea of the exposure there. The second question, could you give an update on the Scholle litigation, please? Yep. Let me start with the second one. The arbitration process is ongoing and there's lots of back and forth and document submissions. Let's see when this concludes. Probably it will drag into 2027, but it's not possible to predict this really properly. On the question of the share of juices within Europe, I would say it's around 25%, 30% or something. It's the juice business within carton. Great. Thanks again. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question from the phone. We have another question via the webcast. It comes from Allegra Catelli from Bloomberg. What type of impact are you expecting the Swiss industry to have to deal due to this new duty level? Given that many products manufactured in Mexico continue to enter the U.S. tariff free under USMCA, does this increase the attractiveness of Mexico as a manufacturing location versus Switzerland or affect future investments decisions for SIG at all? Basically, does the new rate change where production is most competitive for the U.S.? Maybe let me answer to this. Overall, the flow of goods from Switzerland into the U.S. is not an important one for SIG. We are probably not prepared to comment on this one. Then on the second one, indeed, it's correct that goods can travel from Mexico to the U.S. under the so-called USMCA agreement, and which basically means they are tariff exempt, and which we are also benefiting from already with our carton production site in Mexico, into which we continue to invest, and where major extensions are ongoing, which should be completed by the end of 2027. That, yes, is a competitive location for us overall. Okay. There is also no more question from the webcast, therefore I hand over to Mikko for a closing remark. I'd like to thank you for participating our earnings call and all your questions. I think I would like to conclude by saying that the first half results demonstrate our ability to deliver value even in the volatile and uncertain environment. Revenue growth, improved margins, strong executions underscore our resilience of our business, race-to-race play the business model, also dedication of our teams. As we move through the remainder of the year, we continue to drive operational excellence and maintain disciplined approach to costs. Based on solid first half of the year, we remain on track to deliver the full year financial guidance. Once again, thanks for joining to the call and showing a high level of interest to SIG. Thanks for that. Ladies and gentlemen, the 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.