Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining. Our half-year call today will last 60 minutes, with an opportunity for Q&A after the presentation. To give as many of you as possible the chance to ask questions, please limit yourself to one question each. With this, I hand over to Thomas. Thank you, Dominik, and thank you also for the introduction video. It almost says everything. We could go into Q&A straight. I think we still follow the program. First of all, also from my side, welcome. Good afternoon, good morning to all of you, and thank you also for joining us for our presentation of the half-year results. It has been a strong half-year, and it has been a strong half-year despite that we have still muted markets conditions and supply chain disruption on and off over the course of the first six months. I think the strong results that we are capable to present today are the results of Sika's differentiation power. Differentiation that is convincing customers that their business in our hand is providing them more value. That has driven our outperformance in the industry, and it's the backbone of our results that we are going to present in more details in the next few minutes. Let me start with the highlights of the first half year, and here, as also highlighted in the video, it starts with the top line, CHF 5.59 billion reported sales. A slight decline, but looking into local currency growth, 4% local currency growth. That's a tremendous momentum going from Q1 over the course of the half year into Q2. It is also coming with an improved profitability, starting again on the material margin, which has expanded by 60 basis points to 55.7 percentage points. Adrian will go into more details behind those elements. It is also very visible in the results that the Fast Forward program that we kicked off last year with some costs in last year is delivering excellence to performance in the first six months and also for the remainder of the year. It's a significant contribution also to the bottom line, to the profitability element. I would also like to outline here that this share gain and this outperformance is across the board. It happens in all geographies. It happens in mature as well as in emerging markets. We are playing on all the elements to drive growth. When we look at the last element, what's the full-year expectation? With the momentum that we have seen piling up over the first six months, we have been confident, we have raised our expectation on the local currency growth from 1%-4% to 3%-6% for the full year 2026. When we look into the regions, clearly outstanding here, when we look in the center, EMEA has contributed 7.7% growth in the first six months. EMEA was also the region that already had positive organic growth in Q1 and has further accelerated on that element. EMEA has also been the region that has been the earliest challenged by the Middle East conflict and the escalation, therefore also has been early on in modifying the supply chain setup, making sure we have stayed available to our customers, also have started to adopt surcharges and pricing as the evolution of the input cost took place. Here, especially the Middle East has been a fantastic journey, starting with a lot of confusion with the breakout of the war. A few days of confusion, going back to almost a normal procedure, supporting our customers, also delivering to our customers the confidence that they do not need to stop any activities because they are with Sika, with a trusted partner that makes everything possible to bring in materials to the construction site while they continue to build. Based on that, we have also seen a recovery of the growth trend in the Middle East, actually even an acceleration in the Middle East. When we look at the Americas, we have seen a rather soft start in Q1. We still had some issues, weather-related, also the government shutdown had still some limitations, we see a strong rebound in Q2, which is to a large degree also volume-dependent and has contributed very nicely also to the group advancement. When we look into Asia-Pacific, we still have a slight negative growth, this is mainly related to our rebasing of our China construction business. It's over at the end of the middle of this year, we will expect also that we see in the second half a stronger contribution from Asia-Pacific overall. Besides the China construction, in the first six months, we have seen very solid, high single-digit growth of the rest of Asia-Pacific here, in particular, Southeast Asia, India. Our growth engines, in particular, Vietnam, has been absolutely blasting the performance in Southeast Asia. Here we have a good momentum, when we look at the group overall, the 4%, this gives us the confidence also for the second half that we can raise our local currency growth expectation. I think as at the backbone of these results here, we have to clearly say that the trust element being available to the customer, not only for valued performant solutions, the competencies that we provide the customers, ultimately also the confidence that Sika will never let you down. Sika is capable to support you in all aspects, including making the supply chain available when others are failing cannot support the needs of the customer. This is also becoming more and more visible in our famous slide, the slide that shows the outperformance of Sika versus its peers. Here we continue to aggregate the numbers as they come in. We have only Q1 figures in here, but very soon we are also going to update this slide. As you can see, the outperformance is more pronounced in Q1, and we are also quite optimistic that this outperformance in Q2 and in the remainder of the year will further expand and contribute in a visual way to underline our market share gains in a still muted environment. While we have, let's say, our challenges from the market, Sika is investing. Sika is investing in the cycle into mature markets, into automation, into efficiencies. Here we have three elements in North America and in Europe. Clearly, best-in-class automation in full scale. A large-scale mortar factory in the New England territory, giving us great opportunity to leverage there. Also our expansion into emerging markets in South America, in Africa, in Asia. Clearly, investing where the demands are strong or where we also see outperformance possibility by leveraging our competencies in operations and supply chain. It is also worthwhile to mention here, supply chain availability, our footprint, global footprint, has enabled us to also benefit from the challenges that recently have been seen globally, and this is also one of the core strengths of Sika, to utilize new routes in case needed to best serve our customers. Acquisitions, absolutely a core element of our strategy. The bolt-on acquisitions that enhance our organic growth. Two great examples. The one closed, Finja in Sweden, closed end of January. It is a fantastic acquisition. We also see in the first few months already a strong contribution and reconfirmation and an expansion of our integration targets and synergies. This clearly also giving us a broader platform in Scandinavia, in the Nordics, and we also see the first wave of implementations in Denmark, in Sweden, in Finland, and in Norway. Fantastic typical bolt-on acquisition to build on. On the right-hand side, you see the Akkim acquisition, an acquisition that very much builds on our strengths on the sealant and adhesive side. Akkim, a Turkish-based manufacturer with a strong footprint in the Middle East, in Central Asia and Africa, and here also enabling to leverage our European as well as our American and Asian business with these skills and with these possibilities that Akkim brings to us. We still expect closing in Q3, as we have announced earlier, and we will further update you on Akkim in the near future. I have to come back to Fast Forward, as Fast Forward has been the program that set the tone in the second half of 2025 in two ways. One way in addressing some structural elements, in particular our China business, but also some other larger markets opportunities, driving more efficiency. Also, implementing these initiatives in 2025 with one-time costs that are behind us, that we have applied in 2025, giving us already in 2026 a great opportunity to leverage, and we are full on track to get to CHF 80 million in savings in 2026. In the first half, we have good momentum. We have a run rate of around 80% by the middle of the year, and we are confident that we see the full impact of Fast Forward in the second half. It is also clear that Fast Forward is an investment program in future efficiencies. Here, mainly also driven by the investments into digitalization, sales excellence, supply chain excellence, and innovation excellence are the three contributors also here. We have shaped our understanding and our investments since we last have talked about it, we will also here in the near future, communicate further on how Fast Forward is going to provide, in the next 18-24 months, decisive elements of efficiency, but not only efficiencies on the cost side, but also gain market shares by having digital solutions for our customer, enabling them for better, shorter supply chain, but also in their project business, helping them to be more successful in their field. We have been all excited about the World Cup in North America. I think that has been a global event. For us at Sika, for me personally, I like to watch the game, but I must say I also like very much to watch the stadiums. I think here, a remarkable contribution from Sika, all 17 stadiums in North America have been built or have been substantially renovated for the World Cup this year. It has been a great journey to see how our Mexican, Canadian, and American workforce have helped to create these wonderful stadiums, these impressive stadiums for the games. When you look on the screen, you see all the contribution. It's a wide portfolio of solutions that Sika is providing. You can go either from the roof down to the basement. You have all the flooring. You have also the concrete in there. You have the specialty solution, the sealants. You have the fire protection, the specialty grouts. It goes across many, many application fields. I would say probably dozens, if not 50-100 different solution s go into such a renovation or new construction. It is a fantastic landmark contribution that Sika has. Here, this is also relevant in terms of contribution. When we look from, let's say, the World Cup 2026 into the near future, the World Cup 2030 is around the corner, we have a lot of activities in Morocco, in Portugal, in Spain already lining up for making sure those stadiums are also properly up to date. The latest one we just finished is the Bernabéu Stadium in Madrid that is ready for the World Cup, which is fantastic stadium as well. Even if you look a little bit further out, in 2034, Saudi Arabia will be the host of the World Cup, they have already started also here with big projects, making sure they are ready when the games are on. A more internal highlight for us is clearly also the feedback that we got from our organization. As mentioned, markets are challenging, supply chain is challenging, the organization is on their toes, making sure customer are served. At the same time, we have asked our organization how they feel, how the engagement level is, we had a fantastic outcome. 88% participated in the survey, the engagement level went up by two points to 88 points. This is outstanding. It's far above industry standards. It is also higher than two years ago, and it is, for me, a clear testimonial of the strength of the organization that pulls together, serves the customer, but see also the purpose and the meaning of the individual contribution, and highly tied through our strategy and our initiatives on local level, regional level, on group level. Makes me very proud to have this achieved in times where many things are challenged, but this is a continuous strength of Sika. Building trust inside is also building trust to the outside, to our customer, and that delivers the results that we have seen in the first six months, which leads me over to you, Adrian, to talk a bit more about the results. Yeah, very good, and thank you, Thomas. Thank you for sharing here the highlights of quite a successful business execution in the first half of 2026. I would like now to provide further details on the financial performance of the first half year, starting again with the top line and the bridge of our first half year revenue performance. As you can see here, driven by a very strong Q2, as we have heard, organic growth was 2.9%, adding close to CHF 250 million of organic growth in the first half year. A further 1.1% of acquisition contribution, taking Sika to a 4% local currency growth in the first half year. Excluding China construction, which, as we have anticipated, continued to be about a 1.5% headwind to the first half top line result. Outside of China, we grew 4.4% organically compared to the 2.9% of the whole group on a reported basis. If we look at Swiss Francs, we delivered revenues of CHF 5.59 billion, just slightly below the previous year, driven by still a very strong adverse foreign exchange impact of -5.5% or more than CHF 300 million. Foreign exchange impact softened a bit in Q2. From today's perspective, we expect less headwind in the second half from foreign exchange. We have an approximate 3%-4% negative foreign exchange impact for the full year on group level. In the second half, we will also face somewhat easier comparatives in China, given the actions we undertook from mid-last year onwards. So far, we continue to see a subdued market, so no help from a market perspective overall. If we look at growth on a sequential basis, here we show a clear trend reversal with an organic growth of 2.9% in the first half-year. This marks a change in trajectory versus the previous three periods. If you look at M&A contribution, fairly stable, one percentage point here across all the periods. Also, that's how you should think about Q3, whereas in Q4, following the closure of the Akkim transaction, which is planned or expected for late Q3, then a step-up in acquisition contribution in the fourth quarter. Now let's look at the full P&L here on a summarized basis and move down from the sales line. In the first half-year, we delivered a further expansion of the material margin to 55.7%. This is up 60 basis points from the same period last year, which reflects obviously procurement scale efficiencies, but also pricing amid increasing input cost, but also includes here the higher cost pass-through of, for example, transportation costs, which do sit on the OpEx line, but are passed through and have an impact here on the gross result. If we move down, personnel costs declined by 3% as our Fast Forward execution is well on track and is compensating underlying wage inflation and also M&A-related headcount additions. Adjusting for M&A, our headcount is down by more than 1,000 year-on-year. On the other hand, other operating expenses increased by 2.7%, largely due to the significantly higher transportation and supply chain cost, directly and indirectly related to the situation in the Middle East, but with a corresponding pass-through, as just alluded to here on the top line, positively impacting material margin. As a result, EBITDA came in at CHF 1,063 million, pretty flat year-on-year, given here foreign exchange translation with margin expanding 10 basis points on EBITDA level, also here including a further 20 basis points drag on foreign exchange. Also on EBIT level, pretty similar improvement, 10 basis points versus last year, on marginally lower depreciation and amortization charges. Net profit of CHF 552 million, in line with last year. Here, the foreign exchange impact was partially offset by lower interest expenses being reflective of a good cash generation, and correspondingly, EPS slightly down CHF 3.43 versus CHF 3.45 in the same period of last year. Operating free cash flow of CHF 139.6 million, which I will cover later. Maybe first, looking here at the EBITDA bridge and sort of peeling out a bit better the various profitability buckets here, delivering the 30 basis points profitability improvement on EBITDA level on a constant currency basis and 10 basis points on a reported basis. Clearly here, the strong material margin was the main contributor, but also here with 50 basis points improvement, our Fast Forward program, both elements were offsetting here the increase in certain costs, largely related to the conflict in the Middle East, notably transportation and supply chain cost, alongside some one-off items. We passed through these transportation cost increases to our customers as mentioned, and this recovery sits in the material margin. Executing the first half, the run rate of our Fast Forward program is about 80%, as Thomas mentioned, so well on track to deliver here the full CHF 80 million in 2026, as anticipated. On the M&A side, we continue to see a good synergy capture relating to MBCC with an incremental positive margin impact of 20 basis points in the first half of 2026, bringing trailing 12 months synergies to CHF 195 million up from CHF 182 million in the full year of last year. Also here, well on track to deliver the CHF 200 million-CHF 220 million, then in 2026. On the new acquisition, a small initial dilution of 10 basis points, largely related here to initial purchase price accounting impacts. Excluding the 20 basis points FX impact, our first half-year margin expanded 30 basis points year-on-year, which underlies here the solid execution both on the Fast Forward as well as on M&A-related synergies. On cash flow. Here, a very similar cash generation as in the first half of last year, although against quite a different backdrop compared to 2025. Here in the first half year, the only difference here is a one-off tax payment, which reduced here operating free cash flow below previous year level. If we look at the components here on profit, pretty similar as well, while obviously impacted by foreign exchange as well. On working capital, same seasonal increase, although here against a very different backdrop, very strong growth compared to the previous year. As sales accelerates, receivables rise with them. Given the Middle East and input cost increases here also, our materials are valued at the higher level, and we are also carrying somewhat higher inventories to service our customers. At the same time, very, let's say, diligent working capital management, overall. On the tax line here, the increase is purely related to a one-time payment that has been accrued and was now paid out, which makes the difference. If it was not for that payment, we would have been slightly above the previous year level of CHF 186 million. Net working capital typically calms down in the second half, which we also expect in 2026, and we also do not expect any further one-time tax items of any significance. For the full year, very confident to deliver an operating free cash flow in line with our strategic target of more than 10% of net sales, as cash generation here is heavily skewed towards the second half due to seasonality. With this, I will pass it back to you, Thomas, for the outlook. Thank you, Adrian. On the outlook, we raised our full-year guidance for local currency growth from 1%-4% to 3%-6%. This is not based on expected market recovery. This is purely based on our industry outperformance in the given market. We expect the market to remain muted in the second half of 2026. We also expect that we will see more inflationary costs coming through throughout the year. As well, that the pricing element compared to where we started in our assumption in February, is going to have more weight in the full-year contribution. Our EBITDA margin, we guide for 19%-19.5%. At the same time, we feel comfortable with the consensus in absolute Swiss francs level as put together yesterday. With that, I would like to hand over to you, Dominik, and open then for the Q&A. Thank you, Thomas. We start now our Q&A. Please turn on your camera for the Q&A. First question goes to Ben from Goldman Sachs. Well, good afternoon, Thomas, Adrian, and Dominik. Thank you for the questions today. My question was just on the outlook for top-line growth. If I think about some of the sequential drivers into the third and fourth quarter versus your second quarter, you should benefit more from pricing I guess some of the headwinds from China should become less, and should also have some of the scope contribution from Akkim in the fourth quarter. These all sound relatively positive when you think about the bridge off the 7% constant FX growth you delivered in 2Q. Is there anything that you're seeing in terms of volume momentum or any areas that you're cautious on into the second half that may drive the top line performance too slow versus what you saw in the second quarter? I guess, is there some element of conservatism baked into your full year guidance of 3%-6% constant FX growth? Thank you. Yeah. Thank you, Ben. Yes, I can follow absolutely your logic on the evolution. Also we have a pretty strong confidence into the Q3 performance. We have to be realistic. We have seen Q1 very different than Q2. We're confident about Q3, but Q4 is too early, really, to name. Anything that happens in the Middle East still may have a ripple effect. We have the midterms in the U.S., we have elements that are difficult to calibrate. I would say yes, it has a bit this unknown included, that we don't just build on the Q3 an extrapolation into Q4. We don't see anything in particular, but we also don't have the visibility for Q4 like for Q3. Very clear. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Ben. Next question goes to Ephrem from Citi. Thank you. Sorry for the delay. Some tech issues. Two very quick questions. Firstly, on your revenue growth, I know you don't particularly split out volume and price, as it's quite difficult in your business. Would it be fair to say that almost all the growth that we have seen in first half and what you expect in the second half has largely come from price, given that your competition has been quite muted in terms of what their revenue growth they have reported? Second one, in terms of the increase in other operating expenses, from the chart, roughly half of that is transportation cost, which I suppose is diesel. In a scenario where oil prices come down, would you expect that kind of cost to reverse around CHF 300 million, if I read the chart correctly? Thank you. Yep. Thanks, Ephrem. Happy to answer this. In the first half year, we have here also reported in the first quarter that we had in Q1 about a flat price and a slightly negative volume. Here for the full first half year, we have seen both. There is about one and a half, slightly higher price for the first half year and one to one and a half percentage points of volume growth in the first half year. Yeah. On the transportation cost, yes, this is also a cost that has obviously hit us very quickly. It is largely fuel related. We also have some other topics, for example, in the U.S., in terms of availability of drivers. Largely speaking, yes, this is also something that can or could reverse. We have been quite quick and transparent in including that into pricing or surcharges. Thank you. Let's go now to the next question. The next question is from Elodie, JP Morgan, please. Hi. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question. I'll follow up on the previous question on costs. My question is: if costs actually do come down at some point, what will you do with pricing? We understand pricing is on the rise as costs have increased. There is hopefully a scenario where costs will finally ease. What would we do with pricing, and how much of that will be linked to fuel surcharges? If I can squeeze one on current trading in July, that would be quite helpful to have some color. Thank you. Okay. I take the first one. I think, Elodie, the proactive pricing measures that we have taken and all input costs, we talked about the transportation and with a certain delay also then the raw material cost increases. We have seen that prior to the restart of the activity that there was some plateauing on the cost side. Since the war has started again, we see the reversal. It is really difficult to predict in which direction it goes. To answer your question, it is also very clear we have been communicating openly to our customers about the input cost, and we applied through surcharges and to price increases, the cost towards the customer. Of course, if there's a significant cost decline on transportation or on the raw mat side, then there's also a certain relaxation to be expected. At the moment, I don't think we are going to see any of that in Q3. It's rather, again, a bit on a escalation mode. You're right, this is a sensitive topic. We are with our customers, but we also have to be here balanced in our approach to offset the input cost. We have a positive price-cost ratio, but we also have to be conscious about not going there too far. On current trading, I'm really not big in shifts in pattern. Of course, summer months are always a bit difficult to predict, for example, here in the south, obviously with holidays, but also the quite extreme heat. Overall, not really a different pattern. Thank you. Thank you very much, Elodie. The next question goes to Priyal from Jefferies. Hi, thanks for taking my questions. Sorry, I'll just ask on China. I appreciate you've obviously said that your rebasing annualizes out as we go into the second half, but I just wanted to see if there was any comment, in terms of current trading with regards to the underlying market being down double digits, in H1, but also just the latest in terms of pricing dynamics there as well. The market's still challenging. You've had scenarios previously where pricing has been used as a mechanism to gain share amongst some of those competitors. Any sort of update on that would be very helpful. Thank you. We just recently have been to China, Adrian and myself, to follow up, and we came back with great confidence that our measures that we took last year in Q3 and also the structural adjustments, bringing on the construction side, the element of renovation or refurbishment more pronounced into the play, is showing first signs of progression, which is good. The market itself is still not showing any recovery. The market is still down. Our internal measures are showing both on the top line as well as on the profitability line that we are progressing in line with our expectations. Here we have seen, on both sides, on the direct business as well on the indirect business, a momentum that is reconfirming our assumptions. We also have recently seen that the central government is considering a massive investment program on the infrastructure side, meaning infrastructure in a broad sense, including the tech industry, not only roads and transportation. I think the central government certainly is not pleased with the evolution and is planning also here to further stimulate. Yes, it's currently still muted. It's still in a declining mode, not as much as last year. We also have our business, our controllable, under control. We also see that the government is here also pushing hard to make here a turning point for the construction industry overall. As you mentioned, China is a very challenging market also when it comes to price expectations. Here, I think we have found our way out of this dilemma as we turn this around. We have made calibration to our offering. Let's say the lower add value products have been taken off. That's part of the reason why we have this rebasing. The middle and the higher value offerings are going well, and we can also defend the price, and we can increase our margins in that field. Thank you. Perfect. The next question goes to Vitushan from Baader Bank. Hi. Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for taking my question, and hope you can hear me. Just a question on Americas, please. In Q1, you indicated that the backlog of approvals following the U.S. government shutdown had largely been processed and should become more visible in project execution during Q2. Given the sequential improvements in the Americas this quarter, could you tell us if you have seen any contribution from these projects into Q, please? Yes, that's very much to the point. When you look at the sequential change on the organic growth side, it's actually Americas that is leading the pack. It has a sweep of 7.4% to the prior quarter. It's very clear that here, not only, let's say, the normalization on the permitting and on the implication of the shutdown, but also the strong winter that we have seen in January and February was then catching up. It is very clear, North America has seen a good, strong momentum here, and it is especially on the commercial side, on the commercial building infrastructure. Of course, data centers are still going super strong, this is helping a lot throughout the year. We expect here further acceleration, but also the general part of the commercial construction has seen volume growth, and that's also what we expect to continue in Q3. Thank you. Thank you for that. Yeah. Now, the next on the line is Martin Flueckiger from Kepler Cheuvreux. Good afternoon, gentlemen. Just one question on my side with regards to a statement I believe to have heard from Adrian earlier on. Adrian was talking about one-time effects in the EBITDA margin bridge in H1, I was just wondering whether you could elaborate a little bit on that and also on the main reasons for lowering your EBITDA margin guidance for 2026. Thanks. One I can point out, we do sort of a regular review here of the provisioning for bad debt, according to the aging brackets, and how we collect. We have done this last year in June with a positive impact of about CHF 7 million, which is something that's missing this year. That was a one-time impact in this category. In terms of the margin guidance, and I think we've talked about this in terms of, obviously, we continue to drive here our programs on Fast Forward with also good traction as alluded to on the M&A side. On the other hand, we have seen these input costs increasing. Transportation cost is one of it. Whilst if we look back to sort of the beginning of the year, clearly the pricing element is going to be higher compared to the expectation. Whereas on the volume side, we're doing quite okay, maybe a bit skewed to the downside overall, which in the end also has an impact on the relative margin if the price element is higher. That is here the reason for this adjustment overall, whilst we are very confident on, let's say, the absolute EBITDA delivery as we continue to protect our margin and have stronger top line. Okay. Just to clarify, if I understood you correctly, you're arguing that it's mainly a mathematical effect due to input cost inflation being passed on. Yeah, exactly. Okay, thanks. The next question goes to Arnaud from Bank of America, please. Hello. Good afternoon, gentlemen. My question is on the gross margin outlook. You've done very well in the first half. With I think 60 basis points gross margin improvement. Is there a timing effect to consider, i.e., you've got maybe you had inventories of raw materials that you could use the second quarter, but suddenly, or heading into H2, there's potential for the raw materials cost to increase a bit more meaningfully? Or are you confident that you can maintain similar level of gross margin for the second half? Yeah. Maybe two points here, Arnaud. Firstly, there is always the second half is seasonally in terms of material margins, slightly lower than the first half. That's the first point. I don't see All other things being equal, not different this year. Secondly, again, going back here to the price element being stronger, we will see an impact here on the relative material margin in relative terms. The expectation is the material margin should in the second half year be a bit lower than the first one. Of course, we continue to manage here all elements of the equation. I think on input cost, yes, they have gone up. We have been quite active and proactive in price increases. There may be a small timing element, but it's particularly the two factors I mentioned. That's clear. If I may just follow up on one of the previous questions. Do you believe there was any pre-buying effect in the second quarter? Any customers trying to anticipate some of the price increases? I appreciate that's not possible in all the products, but in some product categories. Yeah. I think very limited, of course, you may have it from one month to the other in a full quarter. I think not very realistic. Of course, going into Q2, we also had some catch-up from the quite low start. There is different elements, but in terms of meaningful pre-buying, I don't think so. Thank you so much. The second but last question goes to Ebrahim from CIC. Please. Thank you for taking my question. If I may, the first one is about your free cash flow generation. In 2026, you seem confident. Which dynamics in terms of working cap should we expect in H2? Maybe could you please remind us your exposure to the data centers in terms of sales? I'll take the first one here on working capital. As I mentioned, quite a different dynamics. Obviously, stronger top-line development also meaning here increase in receivables, which we're managing well. There is also here a seasonality. We will continue to manage that also in the second quarter. I would expect from, let's say, working capital, obviously here a clear contribution where there was a build-up in the first instance. On the inventory side, also here, let's say higher value raw materials, somewhat higher raw materials. In June, compared to last year, the build-up was only about CHF 40 million, against sort of a different growth pattern. I think very much under control here as well. Also on the payable side, actually managing well, which is a continued effort. This will also be a contributor to basically delivering here a free cash flow, which is here in line with our targeted level, which is above 10% of net sales. Maybe on the data center. The data center contribution is still growing. We have a strong momentum, especially North America. It's contributing in a double-digit way to our overall revenue. On a group level, it's already at the mid-single digit. The contribution also growing, here, especially also Southeast Asia has major investments on data centers being kicked off. Also in Europe, we have a good penetration into the data centers, we see also the next 12- 18 months with fully loaded projects lining up for execution. With our value add proposition on data centers, we are also here confident to capture a lion share of that potential. I would also like to mention here, data centers are very energy-intense, we also have seen quite a strong increase on the energy provider side, and this on renewables on one hand, but also on the nuclear side, we have strong activities there. We have here also hydropower, I think in Pakistan. One of the largest hydropower dams is under construction with our support. I think also when you look at cycles, the next probably strong cycle is coming based on the data centers, energy consumption from the energy sector. Here we already see here good pick-up, and we are ready for the next wave of growth related to the tech evolution that we expect in the next years to come. Thank you very much for your answers. Now the last question goes to Olli e from RBC. Ollie, please. Hi, Thomas, Adrian, and Dominik. Thank you for taking my question. Organic growth in APAC, excluding China, was very strong in Q2. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on the progress on the distribution outlets rollout in Southeast Asia, as well as the progress on the distribution and production site consolidation within China. Thanks. Good. The two points are very much lining up for the overall Asia Pacific progression, especially in H2, where we have then, let's say, a like-for-like comparison. Talking about the non-China construction business, it is in Southeast Asia and India, and one of the growth engine is our retail journey, the adapted retail journey that we exported from China, adapted to the Indian needs and Indian markets. Here, our point of sales expansion and our distribution network expansion is well on track. The same happens in Indonesia, is also in Malaysia and in Vietnam, a key contributor to our growth. In this regards, it's the project on one side, but also then on the other side, I think the retail business, that's a great opportunity in those markets, is showing good progression and overall almost double-digit growth across the region, especially in those markets. As mentioned, we have double-digit growth. Back to China, the China recon. We have closed factories in line with our program, and we also have adjusted our portfolio to take out the low value add offering. This took place in Q3 last year, going into Q3, we will not have that element anymore. Therefore, we are confident also to show you in the second half that our China construction business is back on a growth path. Even so, the market still is challenging. We are confident that we will see here good progression based on the initiatives and the adjustments that we made in the business. Very clear. Thanks. Thank you. This brings us to the end of our 60-minute call, just in time, actually. We take this opportunity to highlight the date of our next Sika Investor Day. It will be on the 1st of October. We will do a deep dive into our adhesive business, showcasing a top adhesive factory, and our new acquisition of Akkim. With this, we wish you some wonderful summer days. Take care, and goodbye