Dear ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the conference call of AlzChem Group AG. At our customer's request, this conference will be recorded. As a reminder, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. If any participants have difficulties hearing the conference, please press the star key followed by zero on your telephone for operator assistance. May I now hand you over to Andreas Lösler, who will lead you through this conference. Please go ahead, sir. Yes, thank you. Good morning together. Thank you for joining us today, and welcome to our Q2 analyst call. As usual, we open with an executive summary and then move on to the figures after some strategic topics. Today, we have a big competition from my point of view. I think I counted more than 15 companies publishing their figures today. Among them are no lesser ones than Bayer, Adidas, Beiersdorf, Evonik, Merck, Wacker, and so on. Therefore, a big competition is going on. At the end of the presentation, we will be available for questions, as always. Let's skip the disclaimer and go directly to page four. I change the pages that you will see the right slide and can follow the conversation here. All in all, we can report another very positive quarter for the AlzChem Group. The recovery of business, especially from the steel and automotive sectors, has been faster than expected. Growth is visible across almost the entire product portfolio. We were able to raise our forecast for 2021 financial year to a turnover up to EUR 415 million and an EBITDA up to EUR 64 million a year. We have successfully commissioned the new nitriles plant after a construction period of around 15 months, within budget and on schedule. At the same time, we commissioned another waste gas purification plant, a so-called RTO, which stands for Regenerative Thermal Oxidation plant, with a project sum of approximately EUR 6 million to fulfill our sustainability targets as well. What we are already seeing, however, are the very turbulent commodity markets and the challenging logistics situation. So far, we have almost always managed to implement everything on time, both on the supply side and on the distribution side. This is, of course, where the strength of our Verbund comes into play because we produce our essential raw materials in the Verbund production in-house and can steer them through all production stages to the products with the highest demand here. In the second quarter, however, we also completed the share buyback program, for example, and increased our free float by approximately 17%, up to 43% through a successful share placement. In the spirit of ESG, we were also able, for example, to offer COVID vaccination to all our staff and even their family members, and we are almost done with it by the beginning of June. Nevertheless, we still run many processes in COVID mode, still wear masks and arrange many online meetings, but our motivation is high, and this has also paid off for quarter two, as we will see in more detail later. At this point, the obligatory strategic question, what happens next? Here are a few answers from Dr. Georg Weichselbaumer, to whom I want to hand over now. Yeah. Thank you, Andreas. A focal point of today's presentation will be Creapure. Due to its important role in the energy metabolism of every cell in muscles, brain, heart, and immune cells, the natural substance creatine is vital for humans. A sufficiently high creatine storage is crucial for the energy metabolism of the body, increases both the performance and the endurance of muscles and brain, is relevant for the proper function of the immune system, and improve the fitness and support healthy aging. In addition, scientific research shows the positive effects of creatine in post-viral fatigue syndrome and diabetes. As the body cannot synthesize its entire amount of creatine, we need to eat fish or meat in order to balance our creatine levels. This is a particular problem for the growing number of vegetarians or vegans, and it compounds their sometimes limited availability of vitamin B12, which impairs the natural synthesis of creatine. Supplementation with Creapure increases creatine levels in vegetarians and vegans, and therefore increases muscular and neuropsychological performance. In an effort to make creatine a component of functional food, AlzChem investigated the stability of creatine in various matrices. Application tests with Creapure in, for example, dairy products, showed very good stability results. In addition, Creapure can be added to bars, cereals, as well as to meat and dairy alternatives based on plant protein, with only very little degradation during the cooking process. Therefore, Creapure is an excellent ingredient for various foods, providing support for an active life and wellbeing, and completing the diet of vegans and vegetarians. This is the basis for the following decision. Consequently, AlzChem has taken the decision to invest approximately EUR 11 million in the expansion of the capacity of Creapure and its precursor. There are a number of compelling reasons which makes this decision second to none. AlzChem has worked on a good number of those already. Creatine used to be consumed mainly in Europe and the U.S. to build muscle mass. We observe and actively participate in a change in consumer patterns. It is possible to expand the market regionally into South America and Southeast Asia. New markets can be opened up in endurance sports like running and team sports like football. As already mentioned, Creapure finds its applications in functional food and lifestyle products. For example, for vegetarians and healthy aging. Creapure, as the purest creatine on the market, is a perfect fit for those applications. We received encouragement for our hard work as the winner of the NutraIngredients Award 2021. Another positive sign for the increased attention for creatine in the perception of consumers. Other reasons have emerged recently and commanded the timing of the investment. Currently, we observe a severe shortage of creatine in the market. This is apparently caused by ongoing policy changes in China, the only other production location for creatine, in a drive for a safer and more sustainable environment. A growing need for secure supply of the creatine precursor, sodium sarcosinate, in biodegradable surfactants for applications in cosmetics, household and metal cleaning, to name just a few. Time is of essence for this investment, and we work very hard to come to the market as early as the second quarter of next year. There is more interesting news on the next page. Much earlier, in the third quarter of this year, we will launch our new product, Eminex, into the market. As a recap, we have reported already that Eminex can virtually eliminate methane emissions during manure slurry storage. In the meantime, our results were independently verified by external research institutes like DEKRA and the Leibniz Institute for Agricultural Engineering and Bioeconomy. Methane remains in the slurry and ends up as fertilizer on the field. Therefore, with Eminex, we can tackle a persistent problem in farming. More than 50% of all methane emissions in Germany come from agriculture. However, Eminex can do more for farmers. It captures sulfide vapors and has the potential to reduce the number of severe accidents. As no methane gas is liberated, there will be no volume expansion during storage, and the capacity utilization increases by more than 20%. This is a huge advantage, as the application window of manure is only a few months. In addition, it may avoid a closed system for manure storage. Addition of Eminex increases the overall nitrogen efficiency of the resulting mixture. The product recently won the VCI Responsible Care Award 2021 in Bavaria and has a sales potential of several EUR 10 million. We assume that in the future, the storage of slurry will get a price tag, and Eminex can then be the solution provider to a significant improvement of the environmental footprint of farming. Now back to Andreas with the current number analysis. I have to change the slide to the financial overview. Here in the second quarter of 2021, sales jumped by 8.3% year-over-year to EUR 111 million in absolute terms. Again, the two segments, Specialty Chemicals and Basics & Intermediates, contributed almost equally to the sales growth here. The significant increase in turnover also had a positive effect on absolute EBITDA and margin. In the second quarter of 2021, this was EUR 19 million and thus EUR 2.2 million or 12.9% higher than in the same period of the previous year. Supported by the positive product mix in terms of margin and still raw material prices at the planned level, the EBITDA margin has now reached a level of 17.1% here. For the 1st half of the year, this means an increase in turnover of 9.2% to now EUR 215 million and an EBITDA growth of even 22.6% to now EUR 35.7 million here. Earnings per share rose from EUR 1.09 to EUR 1.68, and the increase is mainly caused by the very good earnings situation. The overall growth is volume-based, with a growth rate of almost 10%. What cost us profitability compared to the previous year, however, were unfavorable exchange rates, especially within the US dollar, and this single effect amounted to about minus EUR 3.4 million here. All in all, a very successful 1st half of the year. So much for the big picture and the overview. Let us now analyze more details into the segment, and therefore I change the slide to page 11. The Basics & Intermediates segment comprises the production of basic and intermediate products that are either required for the manufacture of Specialty Chemicals or market as standalone products. Only to remember, this segment also achieved in all profit centers, more than pleasing growth in sales in the first half of the year 2021. From the nitriles product range to DYHARD, mainly in the pharmaceutical applications to Perlka, the agricultural application and metallurgical solutions. Sales growth has around 16% for the first half of the year and even 18% for the second quarter. The process and cost optimization project, NCN Excellence, which has been running for more than a year, continues to make a significant contribution to compensating for the persistently rising external procurement costs. Quarter two, EBITDA reached EUR 3.8 million, following the very good quarterly turnover of EUR 45 million for the first half of the year. An increase in earnings of approximately 50% was possible, with an increase in turnover of approximately 16% here. The cost burdens of higher raw material prices and rising CO2 costs were still manageable. Nevertheless, we are in the process of identifying the CO2 reduction potential through our sustainability team, and on the other hand, we must also find solutions with our customers as to how we can jointly manage these additional future cost burdens here. This segment can therefore be summarized as sales are largely driven by volume and margins significantly improved mainly by economy of scale. Much for the Basics & Intermediates. Let's move on to the Specialty Chemicals segment on page 13 here. Only to remember again, this segment produces and sells high-quality specialty chemicals such as Creamino, Creapure, BioSelect, DYHARD, Dormex, to name but a few. Within the Specialty Chemicals segment, the trend from the first quarter of 2021 clearly continued. Sales volumes were increased in almost all business units, in some cases very significantly. In addition to high deliveries, the segment also benefited from economies of scale as well. The pandemic situation has calmed down to some extent. Accordingly, a decline in demand for PCR tests and thus for BioSelect products can be seen as an opposite effect. In the human nutrition business field, turnover almost doubled. The consistent expansion of worldwide marketing activities bore gratifying fruits, as we have already heard. Delivery reliability, availability, quality, and purity of the products are increasingly convincing on the market and therefore supported the growth in this quarter. The Creamino business, on the other hand, is currently still somewhat below expectations, so we are sharpening our focus again with an internal project called Fast Track, and we anticipate a positive development in the coming months as well. Turnover reached EUR 116 million, the best half year turnover for this segment ever. Despite the ongoing investment in the future and increased marketing activities, the EBITDA of EUR 28.7 million and the EBITDA margin of approximately 25% were significantly higher than in the previous year and at any rate, at a very good level as we think. In addition to continuously rising raw material costs, the current US dollar exchange rate had a particular negative impact on the segment results, but have been successfully compensated so far. The growth can continue. We will continuously drive the utilization and market development of Creamino, and as we have already heard today, we will add additional capacity in Creapure available next year. Let us now move on to the third segment, Other & Holding, which I have to turn the page to page 15. This segment comprises all activities not allocated to the other segments. In the first half of 2021, the Other & Holding segment was able to essentially repeat the development of same period of the previous year. Chemical Park customers purchased services at a similar level as before, and there was also no significant change in the individual services. In the case of supply chain products, there was a certain shift from warehousing service to shipping, foreign trade and logistics services, and increased demand for process utilities. Overall, the business can be described as stable. All in all, sales of EUR 6.5 million were approximately at the previous year's level, and earnings of EUR 0.4 million were in line with expectations here. Okay, that's so much for the business. Let us now take a look at the balance sheet, which is page 16. The balance sheet in total increased from EUR 354 million to EUR 365.6 million. What were the main changes within the assets? Tangible assets were more or less stable on the level of EUR 195.5 million, which is an indication of CapEx at the level of depreciation. Inventories were stable despite the good sales, and in the area of receivables, in addition to reporting dates-related reasons, among other things, the considerable increase in quarterly sales led to a significant increase in trade receivables, up to EUR 50.1 million a year. It can be assumed that at the end of the day, after a year, we will be back at about the same level as the previous year. What else is there to discuss about on the liability side? Equity increased by EUR 13.1 million to EUR 81.8 million. This led to an equity ratio of 22.4% compared to 19.4% in the previous year. The very good business performance could even more than compensate for the dividend paid of EUR 7.8 million after the annual meeting in May. The long-term evaluation interest rate increased from 0.5% last year and are now up on the level of 0.9%. This results in a decrease in the pension provision, namely to the level of EUR 135.5 million. The non-current liabilities decreased due to repayment of loans and the current liabilities increased slightly due to cut-off date deferrals. That's it for the balance sheet analysis. Let us now have some words about the very positive cash flow development. The cash inflow from operating activities amounted to EUR 25.7 million and thus more than doubled compared to the previous year. The starting point for the strong operating cash flow was a significantly increased consolidated net profit for the period. Furthermore, the significantly increased business volume led to positive inflows of liquid funds in the area of working capital. Cash outflow from investing activities has risen sharply compared to the previous year. Major individual projects were missing in the previous year. This year, the completion of the nitrile plant and the RTO plant are the main drivers here. Payments for AlzChem's financing activities amount to EUR 15.7 million in the first half of 2021, a significant increase of EUR 14.7 compared to the previous year. While the scheduled repayments of loan and lease liabilities remained largely unchanged, no short-term money market loans had to be taken out in the current half-year under review and due to the strong operating cash flow. In the same period of the previous year, this led to an inflow of EUR 13.7 million in financing cash flow. After this short and quick analysis of cash flow, a few words to our targets on page 18 here. In principle, on the target list, we are well on our way. With the general development towards sustainability, we have also included this topic in the top of our target list here. All analyses are running at full speed. We expect to be able to present our results and our analyses by the end of the year latest. Here, a few comments on the other targets on the list. Starting with the commissioning of the next capacity step of nitriles' product group. The nitrile plant started up on time and on budget in May, as we have heard several times now. The capacity utilization is on high level, which will support the growth of the Specialties in the second half of the year here. Increasing our involvement in sales in the pharmaceutical market, we have been delivering here since quarter one already and working on the topic of creatine for health and nutrition for the market development of Livadur target extension for a significant capacity increase of our creatine products has arisen here, as we have already heard today as well. Commissioning is already planned in stages from quarter two of next year. With regard to our Creamino sales, we also assume that our market activities will pick up more after the Corona restrictions in the second half of the year, and we think that we will see a good growth as well. The management of COVID-19 effect has been joined by other issues. We have to pay more attention to the security of raw material supplies and see what we manage the logistics in all directions so that we can facilitate all planned transactions and sales at the end of the day. Finally, let's move on to our outlook, which is the page 19 here. Due to the extremely pleasing business development in the first half of 2021, we have significantly revised our outlook for the year 2021 financials year upwards in an ad hoc announcement dated on 15th of July. The forecasts are now as follows here. We are able to increase our original revenue forecast from the upper end of EUR 15 million- EUR 114 million and raise our EBITDA forecast from EUR 57 million- EUR 64 million. The new forecast is based on the assumption that the economic recovery will continue unchanged, and that there will be no negative impact on the commodity pipeline, and there will be no severe constraints from the COVID pandemic in the second half of 2021. The planned growth in turnover will continue to be achieved organically. The main growth driver will continue to be volume effects. The current order situation shows sustained high demand for the coming months. With the full commissioning of our new capacities, we see a good opportunity to place the additional volumes. On the earnings side, we do not expect any relief in the short term to medium term. We continue to see rising or at least persistently high raw material costs, high electricity and EUA prices for CO2, as well as significantly increased costs in the logistics environment. We also expect the US dollar exchange rate to remain unfavorable in the sales area, and we do not expect any delivery failure due to logistics topics or COVID-related plant shutdowns. Also, a corresponding risk cannot be completely ruled out here. That's it from our side, with the information for quarter two and the first half of the year. At this point, we would like to thank you for your appreciated attention, and are now at your disposal for possible questions if there are any. Thank you. We will now begin our question-and-answer session. The first question is coming from Gerhard Orgonas from Berenberg. Please go ahead. Hello, good morning. I have a couple of questions, please. Maybe I go through them one by one. First of all, I was a little bit late on the call. Could you just tell us the timing of the Creapure investment again and maybe the CapEx guidance for the company for 2021 and 2022? Yeah, the timing is as follows. We have already started the project and commissioning will be latest or will begin in quarter two next year. The CapEx is about EUR 11 million, and therefore we expect overall CapEx this year and next year of approximately EUR 30 million as in the past or always in the past. Perfect. Second question is on the COVID testing product. How important is that for revenues and how do you see the future of that? Do you think this is a long-term product for you or a temporary tailwind? It's a combination of both. We already had reported that the income from the COVID related sales have come down. That was also our anticipation. We also think that it will remain as a product since the products, which are PCR kits, will remain on the market, be it with COVID, but be it also with other virus-related diseases. We have customers who use our products. It's mainly the guanidine salts also for tests which are not COVID related. In parallel, the traditional business of BioSelect is going to increase and we see ongoing positive effects here with additional growth in existing products and also new products. To summarize, the product is not so hot as in the last year, but quite on a very good level. Okay. Maybe an update on Creamino. Where are you standing right now? Do you have sales force in place? Are they visiting farmers? Are farmers testing it? What's the situation there? There, the situation is also improving. We have started to visit customers again, but more importantly, the test stables of customers have started to work again, and we were finally able after quite some time to get the test started at some very large customers, which makes us positive that we will be able to increase Creamino sales in the not too distant future. Do you see any market impact from Evonik or not so much? Evonik is definitely on the market, this is not a surprise. They work with us. They'd like to get some of the market share back. Evonik has not only negative effects, it has also positive effects because it will help us also to increase the overall market. We have the original product, we have the raw material behind us. We can deliver the market, we are the sustainable market driver here for Creamino. Because Evonik purchases this product only from China, therefore, it's more unsecured than our product. Okay, maybe a last question on commodity prices. You talked about it a couple of times, consistently high electricity, CO2, and logistics costs. A lot of it for 2021, I assume that you have hedged out. What is the situation going into 2022? How much of a hit should we expect from raw materials? 2021, the first half of the year was more or less hedged. We will see higher raw material prices ongoing in the second half of the year already. For electricity price, we expect some higher prices as well in the next year. Our target is to get solutions with our customers at the end of the day, and to keep the margin stable. That's how we try to solve this topic. In Basics, you think you can keep the margins stable, nearly? At least in the Basics & Intermediates. We have invented some formula prices already in the distribution contract. We have developed better products already, and at least in this segment. Therefore, we think that we are in the position to increase the prices, at least to keep the margin stable. Okay. Thanks very much. The next question is coming from Oliver Schwarz at Warburg Research. Please go ahead. Good morning, gentlemen. Woman. Thanks for taking my question. I ask them one by one. The share buyback program was concluded end of June. I don't see the numbers of shares outstanding budge. Why is that the case? Why is there no change in the number of shares outstanding? Why are the 4,600 shares not deducted from the shares outstanding? That would be my first question. To be honest, the share buyback was approximately 40,000 pieces, I think. They are deducted from my point of view. I don't know what your reference is, actually. Actually, my reference is your presentation numbers of shares outstanding, 10,176,335 unchanged from the presentation of Q1 2021. Last page 35 in today's presentation. Okay, it must be a mistake. Very sorry, we have to correct this. Okay. No problem at all. Creamino, you said that shipping was below expectations in Q2. Was that mainly due to increased competition from Evonik, or were other factors holding your sales and shipping back? No, this was lower than expected, because we have very hard targets from our point of view. This was a little lower than we have expected here, yeah. Yeah. No, not really a surprise. Yeah, I get that. What was the reason behind the shipping being below expectation? It was a combination of two things. I had answered the question before already that the testing did not occur as high as anticipated. Okay. It was pushed back by COVID. That was actually the main reason. Evonik is in the market, but that was not the biggest effect. Okay, thank you so much. Looking at balance sheets. Inventory level has been stable despite sales going up quite nicely, and also prices, and I guess also raw material costs rising in Q2. Is that a level of inventory currently that you deem to be sustainable, or are we expecting that number to inflate as higher raw material costs increase working capital requirements in H2? If so, what level of working capital would you expect at the end of the year? From the inventory part, there could be a slight increase due to the prices, as you have mentioned, yes. This will be only a slight increase. We are working hard to keep this figure stable. As you have seen in the past, we were really successful here. From the accounts receivable, we expect that this is more or less a seasonal effect, as always for the first half of the year, that the accounts receivable will increase due to the more agro business for the first half of the year. This will more or less disappear by the end of the year, and we'll go back to more or less the same level that we have seen in the last year. Thank you. Lastly, looking at the drivers of sales in H1, obviously, volumes were the key drivers, prices not so much. You alluded to raw material costs on the rise, probably also in H2. Will we see a change in that pattern? Will prices inflate quicker or at a higher level? Will volume, at least on a year-on-year comparison, likely go down in the second half of this year? Volumes will be slightly down compared to the first half of the year, since, as Andreas pointed out, our first half is always stronger also in terms of volumes due to the agricultural business. On the price side, that's one of our main targets to pass on the increases of raw materials to the customers. We work on that, and we have been successful in the first half of the year. We have been successful in Q1, even more successful in Q2, and we will continue on that. Okay. Very clear. A tiny last one. Can you specify the Eminex launch cost in H2? The expected ones. The launch costs are relatively low, because it's more or less marketing costs, and the development costs were already included in the quarters before. Therefore, the costs are relatively low. You will see in the quarter three. Thank you so much. Okay. The next question is coming from Nathaniel Zugin from Badajevia. Please go ahead. Hey, hello. I have three questions, actually. Firstly, I wanted to ask if you could elaborate on your assumptions for the upper and lower end of the guidance. Secondly, I wanted to ask why there was a gain in market share in the Specialty Chemicals segment. In the presentation, it said that not in the Specialty Chemicals segment, in the Basics & Intermediates segment. The presentation said that market shares in the metallurgical products increased significantly. Third here, I wanted to ask why in the Specialty Chemicals segment, price went down on a half year base. Okay, let me answer first on the question on which products we have gained market shares and what are the reasons for that. It is a number of products in which that happened. It was in the products where we supply into the metallurgical field. There, we saw that some of our competitors had problems, and we could take advantage of that. We also were able to deliver, and we not only gained market share, but we also significantly increased our overall turnover in that area. We have also seen increases in market share, for example, on our TCPA products, because there seems to be a shortage of material which is coming out of China, and we could take advantage of that also, and we are able to increase also the volumes which we supplied out of our plants. Those are the two main effects. You mentioned that the price went down in the Specialty Chemicals. This is an issue of a product mix, always because we have very different products in the sales portfolio of the Specialty Chemicals, and this is only a product mix effect. The assumptions of the outlook, as we have already described. We see higher raw material prices for the second half of the year, and the second half of the year is margin-wise always a little lower than the first half of the year. From our point of view, we try to keep the margin stable. Therefore, from our point of view, we try to hand over all the raw material price increases to the market as well. Okay. Thank you. As a reminder, if you want to ask a question to our speakers, please dial zero one on your telephone keypad now. There seems to be no further questions at the moment. For closing remarks, I give back to the speakers. Yeah, thank you very much for the questions. There has been more questions than expected due to the very hot day today. We can now offer you the opportunity to visit us again, more virtually than in person at the conferences as shown here. We are pleased to invite you to this event personally. I may now go on a couple of weeks holiday and will be available to you again from September in time for the planned conferences. Stay safe and sound. Stay in our good graces, and goodbye. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your attendance. This call has been concluded. You may disconnect.