Matthias Täubl here, CEO of AURELIUS Equity Opportunities. Welcome to our earnings call for the first quarter 2021. Thank you for dialing in. I am here in the Munich office together with my colleague, our Vice President for Financials, Florian Winkel. He will lead you through the numbers in a minute. Let me maybe start with the highlights. What did keep us busy in the first quarter of this year? First of all, we are very pleased with the financial performance of our portfolio companies and therefore also of the consolidated numbers or how this did translate into the consolidated numbers. We have seen already a really solid and rock performance in 2020, especially the fourth quarter, the operating EBITDA was lifted, and therefore what we have seen now in the first quarter is that this was not only due to year-end effects, but also this is a sustainable impact and sustainable strong performance of our portfolio companies. Quite pleased with the operating EBITDA of nearly EUR 56 million, which reflects an increase of 125 percentage points compared to the first quarter in 2020. This was mainly due to our, of course, existing portfolio companies, which are with us since some years already. As you know, all the companies in the growth phases are normally typically those who are more profitable as they have received some treatment and where we are more advanced when it comes to the improvement of this portfolio companies. Also our strategy, slightly adopted strategy in the recent years that we will start investing in more profitable companies is now paying off, and this is also where we can see the strong operating EBITDA is based on companies just recently acquired like GKN, like Nedis, Distrelec, but also NDS or Rivus Fleet Solutions. Typically, a strong operating EBITDA leads also to an increase in the net asset value. Therefore, the net asset value in the first quarter did go up by seven percentage points compared to the year-end 2020, and is therefore reflecting the very strong performance of the portfolio companies. Besides taking care of our portfolio companies and everything on the holding level, of course, one initiative which we have a strong focus on is the transparency initiative, which we launched in last autumn. Especially we were now focusing on the commenting of the net asset value. Florian will give you some more color in a minute. Also going forward, we will do a more detailed report on the financials in the first and the third quarter, as you are used to from the half year and full year numbers. This is something we will also build up on and give you some more details when it comes to the first quarter and third quarter in the near future. Needless to say, if you have seen our announcements in the last couple of weeks and months that we had a really transaction-heavy first quarter. Eight transactions so far have been executed. Besides our sweet spot investments in our own platforms and add-on acquisitions, we have already seen three co-investment deals with the fund, which is now close to up and running. This is part of our strategy to expand into even more profitable and therefore slightly more costly companies here as well. Nevertheless, where a strong operational treatment is needed, which means carve-out situation and also operational improvement afterwards, this is where our AURELIUS task force will come into play, and we are quite optimistic that we will see more of this co-invest deals with the fund in the near future. Overall, a very solid performance and, therefore, also the outlook for the full year 2021 we remain very confident. Now I would like to hand over to Florian, who will lead you through the numbers. Thank you, Matthias, and also a warm welcome from my side to our conference call for the first quarter of 2021. We came out with the Q1 figures this morning, let's have a look at the numbers beginning on page number five. Total consolidated revenues came in with approximately EUR 810 million, a slight decrease in comparison with the last year number. This is mainly related to our exits in 2020, in particular, Bertram Books, Metz, but also our hotel chain, GHOTEL, which was sold in the Q1 2020. The consolidated revenues on an annualized basis are almost unchanged compared with the previous year. The EBITDA of the combined group is down to EUR 74 million after roughly EUR 123 million in 2020. This is mostly related to the lower bargain purchase in the last quarter or a bargain purchase of zero in the last quarter. As all of you probably know, we always have three different sources of earnings. A bargain purchase is shown in our P&L when the purchase price we paid for a newly acquired company is below the net assets or the equity we acquired. With regard to the acquisitions we had in Q1, no bargain purchase have been booked so far, but goodwill was booked. The last year number was approximately EUR 72 million. Maybe one comment in addition to that, the closing of the Hüppe deal is planned for the second quarter of 2021, and for this transaction, we are expecting a bargain purchase again. The restructuring expenses went down from EUR 26 million- EUR 19 million and reflect the good operational performance of our portfolio in the last quarter. We end up with a very strong operational EBITDA of EUR 55.7 million for the first quarter. That means the last year operational result is more than doubles. This number underlines again our statements we made back in March when we had our conference call for the year-end figures. Our portfolio has come through the COVID-19 pandemic very well. Even if the revenues didn't increase compared to the first quarter of 2020, this shows that we acquired the right companies and made the right decisions with respect to all of the companies that were offered to us in 2020. Generally speaking, it's not our main goal to increase revenue only or to focus on revenue and buy as many companies as possible, but to identify the right companies with potential from an operational improvement point of view, and especially to create shareholder value at the end. The cash decrease is mostly coming from typical working capital swings in Q1. We made some add-on acquisitions with a lower double-digit million EUR purchase price. Moreover, we are always running through a distinct working capital management process at year-end. As mentioned, therefore, this development in Q1 is typical for us in the first quarter of a year. We end up with roughly EUR 360 million as of March 31st. Thereof, approximately 1/3, so approximately EUR 120 million is free holding cash, so non-operating cash. One part, so approximately EUR 29 million will be spent next week for the payment of the dividend. Even if you deduct an additional cash reserve of approximately EUR 30 million or EUR 40 million, we still have EUR 50 million up to EUR 60 million cash available for upcoming new acquisitions this year. Finally, the equity ratio went up again to 24.3% after 21.3% at year-end. On the next slide, page number six, you have the hopefully well-known cut through our portfolio, an additional insight we introduced back in 2020 as part of our transparency initiative. This table shows the revenues and EBITDA by sector, by stage of the portfolio status, and by vintage. The main topics here or the main messages here, when we come to revenue and EBITDA by portfolio status as well as by vintage, you see that 50% and more is coming from the companies in the improvement stage, as well as companies with a holding period of more than 36 months, respectively. This is what you normally would expect that the oldest part of our portfolio is in charge of the majority of our EBITDA distribution, and this is also a kind of proof that the business model works. Very interesting is that the new acquired companies, so companies in the growth sector or with a holding period of less than 18 months, are significantly accountable for the EBITDA as well. This again reflects the good operational performances of the 2020 acquisitions. Let's have a look at the net asset value of our portfolio on page seven. In comparison to year-end 2020, the total NAV went up to EUR 1,076.7 million, a significant increase of more than 7%. This positive development affects all sectors, while the segment other stays more or less unchanged. The overall valuation leads to an NAV per share of EUR 36.17 after EUR 33.67 at year-end 2020. Let's have a deeper dive into the different sectors of the NAV and move on to page number eight. This slide is completely new and I would say an outstanding new insight into our portfolio, because you will find detailed explanations regarding the NAV development of the different sectors, also as a next step as of our transparency initiative, as Matthias already mentioned. The increase in the industrial production sector from roughly EUR 343 million up to EUR 370 million, an increase of 8%, is mainly related to the good operational performance of last year acquisition Zentia, with its divisions of mineral fiber, ceiling tiles, and grid systems that we bought from Knauf International. In addition to Zentia, we still have a very good positive development of VAG, our supplier of water works for water infrastructure with production facilities in Europe, China, the U.S. Moreover, the stock price of our listed portfolio company, HanseYachts, went up compared to year-end 2020. There's also room for improvement because the valuation of ZIM Flugsitz, our manufacturer of aircraft seats, is still zero after they filed for administration in 2020. Besides that, the valuation of the 2020 acquisition, ConverterTec, a manufacturer of converters and electronic components for the wind power industry, is still very conservative. Furthermore, the valuation of GKN Wheels and Structures, our manufacturer of off-highway wheels, still based on the purchase price we paid. At half year 2021, we will perform our first DCF valuation for this portfolio company. Let's move on to the retail and consumer product segment. There we also have an increase of approximately 7% up from EUR 345 million to also approximately EUR 370 million. This is due to the very strong operational performances of our last year acquisitions, Nedis and Distrelec. Nedis is, as you already may know, a wholesaler of entertainment electronics and household appliances. Distrelec is a multi-channel retail enterprise with its focus on digital sales and shipping of electronic components. Both companies were bought last year from the Swiss listed Dätwyler Group. The new acquired Movement Group, an add-on acquisition of the Danish Conaxess Trade group, is valued at purchase price. Additionally, there's in general, an overall positive retail market outlook due to the progress we have in terms of vaccinations and a decline in corona incidences. On the other hand, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the related lockdown scenarios, we're still facing a challenging economic environment for Office Depot. Last but not least, we have our last operating sector, services and solutions. Here we see a significant increase of 28%, roughly from EUR 82 million up to EUR 104.5 million. This is mostly coming from our 2021 add-on acquisitions of GSB Gerüstbau, an add-on of our BPG Building Partners Group located in Berlin, and of AutoRestore, a second add-on acquisition in this sector made by our fleet operator and management service provider, Rivus in the U.K. As I already stated, the sector other stays unchanged compared to last year. As you probably know, the value of the sector other mainly consists of the cash of the listed AURELIUS Equity Opportunities and the other non-operating holding companies. Furthermore, the treasury shares of AURELIUS are included as well as our brand company and the nominal amount of the corporate bond, the so-called Nordic Bond, is deducted. The last bullet point on this slide that we would like to mention that in addition to our new commenting on the NAV development, we would also like to inform you already today that beginning with the third quarter this year, we will also publish a full set of financial numbers, including balance sheet and P&L at each quarter end. This full set of numbers, including comments, will replace the press releases as our Q1 and Q3 reportings. Again, a next step for more transparency. Okay, I would like to move on to the last slide with numbers, slide number nine, where we have the table which presents the NAV by vintage. You see that the largest chunk of the NAV is coming from the oldest part of our portfolio companies, so companies that have been with us for more than 36 months. This part reflects roughly 40% of the total NAV. In addition, you will find some more general information about the NAV calculations, but probably all of you are already aware of them. The NAV is still based on a DCF model. We use the actuals as of March 31st, including the budgets for the portfolio companies till year-end 2023. We still assumed a very conservative growth rate of 0.5% and end up with a WACC of 10.8% in average. This WACC is almost the same as at year-end, and still includes risk premiums for almost all of our portfolio companies. That means that there is still a lot of potential in our NAV, just from a WACC perspective. Yeah. Thanks a lot from my side, and now let me hand over to Matthias again for some more information about the transactions that already took place this year. Thank you, Florian. Yeah, some of them you might know already. We have introduced you to already some weeks ago when we have announced the full year numbers for 2020. Nevertheless, what you can see on page 10, we have announced some months ago that I would like to put even more focus on the add-ons, as this is definitely one of the bigger levers we do have when it comes to the improvement of the net asset value and the operational performance of our portfolio companies. This is what is reflected here. We have seen three add-on acquisitions in 2021 already. One was the Movement Group, around about EUR 20 million of additional revenue, but even more important, and quite impressive, post synergy operational EBITDA, which will be added to our portfolio company, Conaxess Trade. We have seen also another add-on acquisition for our Building Partners Group, the scaffolding business, GSB Gerüstbau, based in Germany, around about EUR 8 million. A very interesting add-on acquisition as it is another additional geographical expansion and therefore makes overall the equity story for GSB even more an interesting one. Also, Rivus has acquired AutoRestore, I will talk about in a minute. We have seen one smaller exit of a part of our portfolio company of Office Depot, which has sold its Italian business to a French strategic investor. Of course, we will still do our platform investments as we have done with Hüppe, typical carve-out situation from Masco and Michigan U.S.-based bigger enterprise with around about EUR 12 million of market cap. Therefore, a sweet spot still for AURELIUS Equity Opportunities. On the next slide, we have spoken a lot in the last sessions about the co-investment fund. The fund altogether around about EUR 500 million in size. This fund will invest in more profitable companies, bigger companies, but nevertheless, in pretty much the same segment, which means carve-out situation, special situation, with a lot of operational treatment needed. As I mentioned, bigger in size, therefore a little bit more costly, more equity needed to acquire such companies. This is the reason why we have decided as an expansion of our strategy, we would like to co-invest or take the advantage of co-invest together with the fund on a deal-by-deal basis. Have therefore committed EUR 150 million as AURELIUS Equity Opportunities to be invested in the upcoming years alongside the fund. The three deals you will see here, I will talk about in a minute in more detail. These are the typical sweet spot deals for the funds. They are all somehow headquartered in Europe. They have a long, strong track record, have a healthy underlying market. They are carve-out situations. There is therefore a lot of operational treatment and operational involvement is needed, and all of them are profitable and therefore exactly what the fund, and therefore we were also looking for. Hüppe on page 12, we have spoken about already the last session when we were introducing you to the 2020 numbers. Hüppe, producer of shower enclosures based in Germany. As I mentioned before, typical blueprint case for AURELIUS Equity standalone deals as a platform investment around about EUR 70 million in size. It's a very interesting niche market. Some keywords here is, of course, sustainable and barrier-free shower areas instead of bathtubs. This is where Hüppe took advantage of already in the past. This is something we do expect to go on further or even accelerate this trend. In addition, it's a very fragmented market. You do see a lot of normally, typically local players, not too big in size, family-owned businesses, very fragmented. Therefore, our strategy will be that Hüppe will become the supplier of choice when it comes to renewing or investing in the bathroom. Therefore not only shower enclosures, but we could think about a lot of different equipment which is needed in a bathroom. This is where this niche market, healthy underlying market, growing market, and the very heterogeneous supplier landscape is ideal scenario for us to play our buy and build strategy here. Panasonic on the next page 13, around about EUR 230 million in size. The first deal we have done together with the fund as a co-investment. Talking here about the overall consumer batteries business of Panasonic in Europe. Business is headquartered in Belgium and has a manufacturing site also in Poland as well. It's a very profitable business as of now already, and a very strong footprint in the renewable and rechargeable batteries business, which we do expect to become an even more and faster-growing sub-segment in this industry. Also driven by different green deals or part of the Green Deal of the European Union. Therefore, well-positioned, and this is where we would like to take advantage of when our operational task force will, together with the fund, make this company even more successful and even more profitable. Bring Frigo, the carve-out from the Norwegian post specialist in temperature control logistics based in the Nordics. Some deal we have spoken about already last time, revenue of approximately EUR 250 million in size and therefore again, very typical carve-out situation for AURELIUS with a lot of improvement potential left on the table so far. Page 15, let me talk about this in a little bit more detail. This is add-on acquisition for Rivus, where we have acquired AutoRestore. It's a carve-out from Belron, around about EUR 12 million in size, but quite interesting geographical and also strategic expansion for Rivus. This company, AutoRestore, is one of the leading provider of mobile accident body repair services based in the U.K. They are acting with around about 130 mobile repair vans and providing these repair services to B2B customers, including insurance and fleet management and therefore, of course, also is a very interesting not only from a cost synergy point of view, interesting add-on, but also from a growth potential for Rivus as to get access to additional B2B customers. On the next page, the third acquisition we have done as a co-invest together with the fund. It's SSE Contracting, so it's one of the biggest M&E contractors in England, Wales, Scotland, but also in Ireland, providing mechanical, electrical, rail, street lighting, and high voltage engineering services. Mainly to some regional local municipalities in the U.K. and in Ireland and therefore well-positioned to become a winner of the mega trends which are out there, like electrical vehicles charging topic and also the accelerated path of thinking about smart cities. This is something where SSE is very well positioned. They have a very long-lasting customer relationship basis and we do expect that this will become a growth story in the near future. Also here we have seen a lot in a very heterogeneous, nevertheless, landscape of suppliers. There are still a lot of smaller suppliers, typically more local suppliers and therefore also a very interesting platform for two add-on acquisitions then sooner than later. This brings me to the situation of the overall portfolio on page 17. Most of you might notice this chart already. On the x-axis, you will see the year when we have acquired a company, and on the y-axis, you can see the different stages of maturity, so from improvement phases to the optimization and growth phases. Typically, the companies which are in the growth phases are the more profitable companies as they are with AURELIUS since some years already. If there wouldn't have been COVID, some of the companies maybe wouldn't have been here on this chart anymore as they would have been exited already. Of course, these companies are typically the ones where we are thinking on a regular basis about when is the right moment for exiting this company. Of course, this was all postponed by 12- 18 months due to COVID-19. We do expect that we will see some smaller exits maybe already by end of this year. Definitely some next year already and then even bigger ones in the year 2023 and afterwards. As Florian outlined already as well, what is very promising for the future and also promising for the development of the operating EBITDA and also the net asset value, therefore, is that we can see at the bottom left-hand corner, the newly acquired companies are also contributing to the operational EBITDA in the first quarter in a very strong way, which means they are very profitable already. Companies we've mentioned like Zentia, GKN, Distrelec, Nedis. A lot of them quite profitable already, but nevertheless, still in the improvement phases, which means there is still a lot left of different improvement measures we will implement in the near future and then when it will come to the optimization growth phases, therefore become hopefully even more profitable. We will still focus, as outlined before, have a strong focus on add-on acquisitions. I think for nearly all of them, we have a very well-filled pipeline to do add-on acquisitions and this might lift the operating EBITDA of the existing portfolio companies as you can see them here, also more to the north in the near future. This brings me to the last slide of our presentation, the outlook. Based on the numbers we were discussing or we have introduced to you, we still are very confident when it comes to the full year 2021 financial year. The outlook remains very positive. We do have a strong field pipeline for doing acquisitions in all the three segments. Platform investments for AURELIUS Equity Opportunities only, add-on acquisitions for our existing portfolio companies, and co-invest together with the fund in the more profitable and bigger deals. We will still keep on working on our improvement and transparency initiative, which has been launched. Some more insights from Florian, our development on the net asset value outlook of how we will give you more colors on the numbers for the first and the third quarter of the year in the future as well, and still some more bullet points we are discussing internally and hopefully will come up with in the near future and therefore make sure that you will get an even better understanding of our business model of our portfolio companies and therefore the overall performance of AURELIUS. As just mentioned some minutes ago, I would expect that we will see some smaller exits, most likely by end of this year, and then stepping up to the more mid-sized and then even bigger ones than in the following years, 2022 and following. Thank you very much at this moment in time for listening. We will come to the Q&A session. Thank you. We will now begin our question and answer session. If you have a question for our speakers, please dial zero one on your telephone keypad. Now to enter the queue. Once your name has been announced, you can ask a question. If you find your question is answered before it is your turn to speak, you can dial zero two to cancel your question. If you are using speaker equipment today, please lift the handset before making your selection. One moment please, for the first question. Our first question comes from Gerhard Orgonas, Berenberg. Please go ahead. Your line is now open. Good afternoon. A couple of questions, please. My first question is, I am a little bit surprised with all the acquisitions you made in Q1 that you did not have a bargain purchase. In the P&L, could you explain why that is? Maybe it is a timing issue. Second one also was more towards the NAV. The significant effect from writing up Nedis and Distrelec from purchase price to what the operating value you think is right now, or has it already been as an operating entity in Q4? My third question is on the co-investment, how will they hit the P&L and how will they be accounted for in the NAV, please? Okay. Okay. Thank you, Gerhard, for your question. Maybe let's start with the last one. I had some difficulties to get the first question, so maybe you could repeat it in a minute. Maybe let's start with the last question you raised, the co-invest and how this will be translated into our balance sheet and our P&L. Florian. Yeah. Let me take this question. Right now at the moment, we are also discussing with KPMG, with our auditors, how to balance or how to account the 30% stake in the co-investments. They should be valued at fair value through profit and loss. That means that there will be valuations made on a quarterly basis by a third party, so by the fund. We will then book our 30% stake into our balance sheet. I don't know yet if we will have a complete new balance sheet item, but I guess it should be under financial assets in the balance sheet. No consolidation, because there's no control with respect to the definitions of control under IFRS 10. In general, we have no power over the investee, and therefore we have to book only or account our 30% stake. In your NAV valuation, will you have a separate line as well for these type, or will it be in other? I guess you will take the same external valuation quarterly and put into your NAV with a 30% stake. Yes, exactly. There will be an additional line in our NAV with the co-investments. Okay. Gerhard, may I ask you. The first question was about the bargain purchase. There was no bargain purchase item in Q1, even though you made a lot of acquisitions. Yes. You have to consider that most of the acquisitions, besides the add-on acquisitions, have not been closed yet. Okay. This is the reason why there was no bargain purchase so far. We do expect a bargain purchase in the second quarter. As there were no closing so far, or no closing of the platform investments, only the add-ons, we do not expect, or we haven't seen a bargain purchase in the first quarter. Okay. Maybe I repeat the second question as well. Nedis and Distrelec, has that gone from purchase price to operating valuation, or was it already valued as an operating business in Q4? No, it was already valued at fair value, so not at purchase price at year-end 2020. Okay. This is the organic development that you booked in Q1. Yes, exactly. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Gerhard. We have received one more question. The next question comes from Trevor Fitzgerald, Mirabaud. Please go ahead. Your line is now open. Hi. Good afternoon, guys. Can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you well. Good afternoon. Fantastic. Good afternoon. Well, great to hear from you, and great progress. Just two questions. The first one is, asset prices are going up. Have you put more assets into the auction process? You mean on the acquisition side or on the sell side? On the disposal side. Okay. No, we do not think that it is still the right moment in time to gain the maximum value for our portfolio companies. Why? Of course, there were some adjustments based on COVID. We have that, especially the companies in the growth phases, they haven't been too much impacted by COVID. Nevertheless, of course, there are some adjustments and so therefore we think to really make sure that we will gain the maximum value for these companies, we need to show some steady state months of current trading, unadjusted months of current trading. Therefore, we think that the right moment in time to think about starting the structure processes is by the end of the third quarter. Which means we will maybe see some exits, some smaller ones in the fourth quarter, and then beginning of next year again. Great. Thanks, Matthias. That's very clear. I love the transparency drive. When it comes to transparency, have you thought about any further thoughts about uplisting onto Prime Standard and maybe entering the CDAX? Yes. Of course, it is something we are considering internally on a regular basis and discussing it internally as well. To be honest, there are two sides of the medal when it comes to go to another standard or another market segment. First of all, what we are doing right now, we think the right thing to do is that we really make sure that we will increase our transparency and give as much color as possible to our investors without that there is a requirement necessarily from the market segment. Let's talk about the Prime Standard, for example. Of course, there are some requirements, and of course, we do know very exactly what exactly they are. We will take this as a kind of a benchmark and think how can we get close to this transparency as it would be required in the Prime Standard without it we have to take all the additional administrative effort and therefore we will do the work in this direction, getting close there. If we will do this uplisting once, to be honest, it's still not fully discussed or decided. Great. Very clear. Well, thanks very much for your time and thanks, Matthias. Thank you very much as well. Thank you. Thank you. Another reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press zero one on your telephone keypad. We haven't received further questions. I will hand back to the speakers. Thank you very much for listening and for dialing in. Thank you very much for your questions. I hope you are as pleased as we are with the results for the first quarter. Be reassured that we have a strong focus, of course, besides our portfolio and executing the pipelines, which means transaction in our pipeline, making sure that we will do some further acquisitions, keep a strong focus on the transparency initiative as well, and the overall generic development of AURELIUS. Thank you very much for listening, and have a good afternoon. Goodbye. Bye.