Welcome to this year's annual press conference and capital markets update of Metro AG. My name is Anastasia Kaluzhyna from Investor Relations, and together with my colleague Martin Behuet from Corporate Communication, I will guide you through this event. As you can see from the title, this is a special event today because we will not only explain the most important figures and developments of the last financial year, 2023-24, but we will also take a closer look on the progress we have made since the launch of the sCore strategy at Capital Markets Day 2022 and provide an outlook for the coming years. As in the previous year, we are delighted to welcome community from both financial side and media today, and the event will be again in hybrid format with both on-site and virtual participants. Before we get started, here are some organizational information. Due to the special focus on the capital markets update, the session today will be in English, but we will also provide the opportunity for a German interpretation throughout the event. The press release and annual report are available in both English and German as usual. As in the previous year, there will be an opportunity for live questions after the presentation for the participants here in the room, and they are welcome either in English or in German. We will answer them accordingly. Written questions can already be written via the tool during the presentation, and we also answer them after the presentation. If you use the tool, please enter one question at once so that we can better respond to them. Those were our introductory remarks. I would now like to give the floor to Dr. Steffen Greubel, CEO of Metro AG. Thank you very much, Anastasia. Thank you very much, Martin. Hello and warm welcome from my side to this year's annual press conference and capital market update. Schönen guten Morgen also hier in the room in Düsseldorf. What will we talk about today? We will talk about the last financial years, or year, and the last financial years. We also have the opportunity now to look back three years on our sCore plan, which we have introduced in this very room roughly three years back from now. Let's also take the opportunity to look back and see how we performed against the targets that we have set ourselves. Then, of course, after the evaluation of the business year and the three years look back on sCore, we also would like to talk about the future and the guidance that we will see for the upcoming years. Together with me is Eric Riegger here on my right-hand side, CFO of Metro AG, who is going to run us through the financial performance and the numbers way more in detail. Let me start with the strategic update and the look back on sCore. So what will we talk about today, the both of us? So first, let's look at Capital Market Day, what we have announced exactly three years ago, and how we are delivering against what we have set. Second, let's look also a little bit on our performance, especially in the situation of external headwinds, because apparently after February next year, which was one month after the Capital Market Day, the world has changed, and that also had generated an impact to the company that we managed by a focus on our sCore strategy. Then we will also see around the KPIs that we have communicated how we are going to, or how we delivered against the KPIs that at the end describe the wholesale transformation of the company. And we would also like to share some very concrete examples from our country to illustrate a little bit the progress, not only in numbers, but also in company performances. And then, of course, we will go through the last business year way more in detail around the financials, which is then going to be performed by Eric, and also then we will look at our ambition and the plans that are there for the upcoming year. So that's more or less the agenda, and let's directly jump into the content. And let me start with a reminder, so to say, what is sCore and what is it all about? Our strategy, to just remind everyone, and this picture has been the same now since three years, completely unchanged, not a word changed. sCore is at the end the idea to transform a business that still has a lot of retail elements in it from a mono channel hybrid retail wholesale company to a multi channel fully wholesale company. We are taking our stores, more than 620 of them, and we are using the space. Usually, the stores are too big, and we can optimize the space. We are organizing the delivery, what we call FSD, Food Service Distribution, out of those stores. We are connecting everything with digital, and that's mainly consisting of two elements, which is the digital marketplace. You can buy actually online, mainly non-food. And the second is the digitalization of the gastronomy, which is DISH, which is right in the middle of it. And then on top of that, we have an app with 1.2 million active users that we can use for communication. And we are also driving our order intake for the FSD very much towards the online world because we see that's more efficient. So in the combination of this, we have analyzed and we have seen that a customer that moves from one channel to two or even to three is generating a multiple in terms of sales, up to 10 times more. That one customer that is only cash and carry moves to FSD and digital is up to 10 times more. And why we are sure that we will be successful? 80% of the market, especially in Horeca, is sitting in delivery, is sitting in delivery. With only focus on Cash and Carry, we will never be able, especially when we have circumstances of labor shortage, to grasp that market, to attack that market, and that was the reasoning why we said, listen, we take this fantastic position that we do have with our stores, logistically highly valuable and highly suitable to organize a delivery business. So let's take that in a capital-efficient way, and let's push actually the delivery forward and connect everything by digital to actually also gain those multi-channel effects. That's basically the strategy in two, maybe four sentences, and that's what we have communicated, and we didn't change, and that's what we have also delivered. What we also have done is we have set ourselves clear KPIs that are a bit beyond the regular revenue EBITDA cash flow ones. Of course, we're focusing on them as well. But we want to be a growing company again. We want to achieve a significant growth that was unprecedented, and we want to be a company that is more wholesale and has a better wholesale quality than ever before. So that means to proactive sale, we need to have more sales for us, for the FSD especially. FSD sales share, as I said, is a very important KPI to assess the quality of a multi-channel company. So digital customer share, do customers like what we are doing. And digital sales share, own brand share, that all goes in that kind of wholesale everywhere, every time. You see the ones who are in the room, our fundamentals here. This is the first one that are describing more or less on a second level, so to say, the journey we have embarked. And we are, if you are following us on the quarterly updates, continuously reporting on that KPIs now since three years in a very consistent and clear way. And I'm also happy today to share also the three-year perspective, how we have actually developed against those targets. Of course, we had to also adjust our investment behavior, so to say, because growth costs money. So what we have said is we will temporarily adjust the CapEx spending and invest in technology, roughly EUR 100 million a year, network EUR 200 million, and sustainably EUR 100 million. Especially on the network, we have seen, and that's what we have learned, and we can come to that later, that we are way more efficient, especially when we are doing the out-of-store delivery, because in our original plan, there was a lot of depots, so single standing units planned, which actually we learned that we can use our stores way more in a way more capital efficient way. And then, of course, when we—I just need to check if this is now coming along. Yeah, here. And then, of course, I mean, Metro, to be frank, is nothing where you would see the impact of the transformation in the next quarter. Of course, we are measuring the quality of the company always on a quarterly basis, and we try to achieve the best outcome possible, but it's a transformation. And this transformation is a big transformation. This transformation requires time, and it requires a long-term orientation. All the strategy apparently is aligned with the supervisory board because this long-term character of the strategy and the transformation needs to be acknowledged. We also set ourselves long-term goals, more than EUR 40 billion sales in 2030, more than EUR 2 billion in EBITDA, and more than EUR 600 million cash flow. Those have been the targets. We've been asked, why are you setting such long-term targets? Capital market is ticking differently. Yeah, we are also looking at next quarter, next three years, but we need to have this long-term view because the transformation will require time, and it's just something that is rather a marathon than a sprint. Let's continue, and let's look at what we have done in terms of growth. We are a growing company again. That is actually clear. 20% we have grown in the year 2021, 2022, apparently influenced by inflation, but there's also volume growth inside. On top of this growth, we added growth of 9%. And on top of this growth, we added again growth of 6%. And the growth figures, and you can adjust for everything possible. FX portfolio, inflation, still you will see that the company is ensuring an all-adjusted inflation adjustment, everything growth that is unprecedented, that the company didn't see for years. So we have proven that the sCore strategy, the multi-channel strategy is working, and it's generating growth, real growth, which is the first proof that the company had to give and sCore had to give, which we actually have gone. I would not deny that, of course, on the bottom line, we have to upgrade. There have been a lot of externalities that were in the end impacting also the logistics, bringing the growth to the bottom line, which, and I will touch on that one in a second, but of course, when we are entering now the next phase of sCore, after we have proved the companies can grow again, we now need to focus way more on cost efficiency and productivity, which is a very natural phase after you have proven that the company has now a superior business model because we are winning market share, outgrowing the competition, so this is now proved Now we need to focus on top of that, and growth is going to remain king, but on top of that, we need to focus now on costs and efficiency, and Eric is going to talk a lot about that later on, but so far, the company is growing again. As I said, after Capital Market Day, right away, there was then a lot of turmoil in the world. The war in Ukraine has started. We have significant business in Ukraine, also in Russia. You all know that. And of course, it created a lot of tension, not only here for the management board, because we have decided to stay in Russia, and we still stick to that decision for several reasons that you all have heard. But also the operational business had big challenges. I'll give you an example. In Russia, because of sanctions, they had to replace more than 20,000 articles on the ongoing business. In Ukraine, of course, we had the operations are no more normal. There are air raids. We have stores that are no more online. It's a different way to do the business there. And these things we had to compensate for. sCore helped us actually. I can tell you that Ukraine, Russia, all the entire portfolio was really able to compensate for the impacts that we had there that were actually significant. Inflation and cost development, of course, inflation helps with growth, but it doesn't help with cost. The costs are kicking in now quite significantly. That's why we need to work on them significantly. The increase in structural cost is quite significant. Therefore, we had to also compensate for that. That is especially true when I look at the last year and the year before the last year, because then inflation and sales prices are coming down. Then, of course, with some time, the inflation and the cost is coming up. We had to maneuver actually that influence that is coming from the external world, so to say. Then we had a cyber attack. Cyber attack was a severe one. October 22, it costed us, I would say, a low three-digit million EUR number in sales, and a mid-digit or mid-two-digit million EUR number in profit that could only be partially compensated by the insurance. The bigger impact is that we were then afterwards investing really a lot in cybersecurity. We are looking really at an investment, kind of a cost increase per annum of a mid-two-digit million EUR number that is significant, but we felt it is right to do now to protect ourselves and to invest the money. I would not blame for that. Of course, we are all accountable for what we are doing, but I just would like to explain that apparently in the last two years, Metro with the sCore strategy had to deal with all of those things. And on top, had to do a transformation and the execution of a sCore strategy that apparently also puts a company that was struggling quite a bit under tension. COVID, we don't remember it. It did really something severe to the company and to our customers. And we also had to compensate for that one. So that was the external influences that we managed. We also worked a lot on the portfolio, so the where to play, so to say. And I have to say that the portfolio work for now is done. We are, of course, evaluating on a constant basis. But nevertheless, we have divested our businesses in Japan, Myanmar, Belgium, and lately India, because either the business was not bringing money, was too far away, too far away from profit, but too far away also sometimes geographically to really manage that. Too many retail elements still in there. The effort to really turn that around financially, but also from a management issue, was just too big. We have decided actually to streamline the portfolio on the countryside, so to say. On a positive note, we have dedicated acquisitions that are exactly fitting into the strategy, and it's helping us really growing the FSD and the digital faster. Intake, learnings and experiences from the company that is just increasing the speed of our wholesale transformation because there are great best practices that the entire Metro, the existing Metro world, can learn from. Let me pick on two, maybe. It's Eijsink. Eijsink is a technology provider. They are focused on POS system for gastronomy. They've done an innovation, which was called Booq, still is the number one in Netherlands. We took that and we disseminated that to our countries under the name DISHPOS. And that was the reason because it just gave us speed and superior technology that we could actually use with our existing infrastructure, maybe Salesforce or maybe the stores, to really push that now in the market. So that was number one. And the second is JHB. It is in Scandinavia, Sweden-based. They are an FSD specialist on animal protein, so fish and meat. And you learn a lot from them because when you are doing the delivery in gastronomy, this is where 80% of the market sits. You want to be good in the center of plate. And how they are actually tackling that is actually fantastic. You see a very profitable, very cash flow rich business, but you learn also a lot how they are actually generating that for the rest of the business. To just give you two examples why this acquisition has been exactly fitting to the strategy. But I also would like to underline that our strategy is an organic growth strategy. It's not that the strategy is built on M&A. The consolidation of the market will happen by crowding out the smaller competitors, but not by doing the acquisitions because the structure of the market is just not suitable for that one. You need to see that almost in every market we are operating in now. No, in every market we are operating in now, we are number one or two in our market. In no market, but France, we have a two-digit market share in the relevant target group. And that means the market is not consolidated. It's very fragmented. And that's also the reason why we think with our superior strategy, multi-channel, that cannot be copied by anybody who is not working at scale, that this organic strategy is a better one than an M&A strategy because the targets would be too small. So that was the logic. And we are still continuing that, but apparently, opportunistically, we're looking always at additions to our portfolio that make sense strategic-wise. Then let's talk customer first. We are a customer-centric organization, so let's talk customer-centric first. And this is the first KPI we have committed. We want to increase our strategic customer share to more than 80% to the year of 2030. What is a strategic customer? A strategic customer is either a Horeca customer, hotel, restaurant, caterer, or a trader customer. In Germany, you would hear say Späti or Büdchen, but in Eastern Europe, a significant part of the grocery environment is kind of the around-the-corner mom-and-pop that have a way higher share of groceries than we do have here, for instance, in Germany. So those customers are strategically, this is B2B customers, and they also have requests for volumes that are suited to a wholesale value proposition that we are having. And we have moved, as you can see, the strategic customer share from 66% to 76% in those three years. And that's on a growing baseline, apparently. So you see that we are way more relevant now for professional customers. And you might ask yourself, who is the rest? This is the so-called SCO customer, small companies and offices that are also relevant, but they are more kind of complementary. And we are really focusing on the needs, on the core target groups of Horeca and trader customers. And if it's relevant for small companies and offices, they are apparently welcome, but we don't focus with mainly retail elements because they're buying a lot in retail behavior on those customer groups. So it's a dedication now, and you see it's going in the right direction. Customers are also giving us good feedback. You see the NPS, 10 points better. This is a very, very good number in three years. 10 points better, NPS from way more strategic customers. And we're only asking the strategic customers, apparently, for the Net Promoter sCore. So we see really that the feedback of the customers is very, very good for our strategy and for our offering. You also see that the multi-channel customers are on the rise. We started with 6,000 customers in the entire group that are shopping online, getting delivered, and going to the store. We have now moved that to 20,000 customers, and still it's a small fraction of all the customers. But we see that these 20,000 customers, depending on the country, they purchase between five and 10 times more than a mono channel customers. And still, more than 80% of our customers are still cash and carry mono channel customers. And we are now using Salesforce a lot to push the FSD, to push the digital and the stores as well, to really push that multi-channel thinking. And since we have streamlined the board, we all have taken more operational responsibilities. And I, for myself, have also taken the direct responsibility for our biggest country, which is France. And what you see in France in terms of dedication to multi-channel is amazing. It's amazing what you see. So you see really that the stores that are sales machines are pushing the digital. You see that the digital is helping the FSD and the sales rep. You see the sales rep pushing again other digital things. So you see really that the things are getting connected. And we are now looking at already 5,000 multi-channel customers coming basically out of nowhere. So you see this direct sales focus that France always had really embedded now into a multi-channel logic. And all the things around incentivation, around technology are geared up to really move a customer from this mono channel cash and carry to a multi-channel FSD and digital customers. And we see that there's five times more potential for our French organization than before. And even them, which they have 15% market share, which is by far the highest in the group, we see that they can also grow significantly, especially in the FSD. They are sitting now on a two-digit growth number. And the business is also profitable. The business is profitable in adding value now to us as a company. Let's move on to the next strategic KPI, which is own brand sales share. But let me start with a very remarkable number from my perspective. When I was introducing the strategy, I said, "Listen, we need to free up space in our cash and carries to repurpose for delivery, to repurpose for delivery." We did that a lot with reduction of articles. So we have reduced in Europe 400,000 articles, which is roughly 40%. And you have seen our growth figures. That means with 40% less articles, we have grown the company to EUR 31 billion. That means also we have now space. We can give more visibility to products that make more sense for our customers. What we also can do, we can take the space and really reorganize a store into what we call a multi-channel fulfillment center. It's no more a store only. It's, of course, a store, but it's also used now with the freed-up space as a hub for our FSD operations. Apparently, it's way cheaper than building a depot somewhere Greenfield to use a logistic completely accessible plot as we are having it here with our stores. Visibility means also we're putting things way more on pallets. That's more efficient for us. The productivity is growing with that. And we introduced also to get the turnover a new pricing model that's called Buy More Pay Less, BMPL. And we have now 120,000 articles on this program. And what it does actually, it's giving a special discount if you buy the logistical unit to simplify it now. So if you buy the carton instead of the single pack, you get a discount that is significant. That's good for us because that allows us to have the turnover. We can put things on pallet. And the productivity apparently for the euro is way higher if we are selling things in logistical units and on pallets instead of doing this supermarket one ketchup bottle in the shelf. And so it's very kind of people and personnel cost heavy. This one is way more efficient at wholesale like. And that was the reason why we are doing that. Own brand share plays a very important role in that because we can then design the packaging that is actually completely suitable for our purposes, but also for the customer purposes. We see that it's increasing loyalty. The relative margin is better, is better, 5%-6%. But the sales apparently we need to give a value to the customer is also a bit lower. You see that really the customer can make for the same quality because the aspiration is always to be at the same quality level than an A brand. This is roughly whatever 15%-20% cheaper at the end. But at the end, he's getting the same quality. You see the rise of our own brand. You see that 2020, 16%, 15%. This was idling around for a decade. Now we see it really on fleek. We see it's moving. We see it's 24% now. This is, I mean, roughly EUR 7.5 billion already in own brand sale. Yesterday, we looked at a store. The biggest own brand store is doing EUR 70 million own brands only, which is in Portugal. It's amazing what we are doing with our own brand, and it creates more loyalty, it's better margin, and it's better for productivity in the BMPL, so that's why we are pushing it so much. We are in the moment in the year of own brand, how we call it, because we even want to grow faster, and I'm sure we're going to deliver our 2030 values because we are exactly on the right track to go there, so that's story positioning, article management. Why are we sure we can reach the 35%? Because we already have realized the future today. Not everywhere, but for instance, in Spain, which was the first country that has achieved the 2030 goal now. 35%, the Spanish operations are doing in own brand. They have, based on their customer target management, which is at the end, the restaurants, the different ones they are selling, traditional Spanish restaurant, Chinese restaurant, and so on and so forth, come up with a development of own brands that are completely dedicated to those customers and to their needs, and that's not only for the packaging, but also for the recipes and how good it can be also used in the cooking, and with the dedication, own brand, the Spanish team has really achieved a 35% 2030 goal already as of today, and it really serves as the North Star for all the other countries. It gives me a lot of confidence that all of those figures that we are seeing are possible, are possible because we have the proof in the company. Given the development status of our countries, I mean, no country is optimized for everything. Every country can grow and contribute to sCore. We have for every element a best practice that is already creating the future status that we are aiming for for the entire company as of today. That's a very good sign because that proves also that it's all possible we are talking about. It's not on PowerPoint. It's not coming from a consultant. It's reality today that we need to scale up. That's the logic that we also see for own brand here in Spain. Store infrastructure. We're talking a lot about productivity. I've introduced the a bit complicated word of multi-channel fulfillment center. For simplicity reason, I call it now MFC, which is nothing else than we are repurposing some space in the store for delivery. And we are also optimizing the processes. And it has three main and relevant advantages. Number one, the space management. I touched this one. So we can efficiently allocate the space to more operations. So the square meter productivity overall is going up. The stock management. With help from digital tools, we have now possibilities to really optimize working capital and stock because we can double use the end stock. And with the help of digital, we can also make more efficient picking processes and replenishment processes. And that means in the in-store logistics, we have a significant advantage because we can do two things that have been separated in once. To give you an example from Poland, and that also serves as the North Star for the rest. Poland has improved the productivity of the inflation by 10% in implementing exactly that one, and what it does is when they are pre-picking the orders for delivery on the next day, and they are usually taking the products in the dry categories from the upper shelves, and they're bringing them down, and then they are using the possibility to also replenish the shelf at the same time, so they have implemented those kind of processes that are now able to do the replenishment on shelf and the pre-picking for the order in once, and that creates apparently significant productivity increases that we are now peu a peu rolling out to the other countries, so another example why multi-channel fulfillment centers are really adding productivity. Of course, we need to invest in that. I said that, but what we see is then we can do it way more in the existing infrastructure. We call that M&T Projects. That means at the end, we are shifting walls in stores. We are repurposing space. You sometimes have to also comply, of course, to the different temperature zones, so you have to invest in cooling and freezing, but we can still use the surface, and we have executed 42 of this network transformation projects, so rebuilding of stores, repurposing of space in the last year. That's almost one per week, and we will upgrade also the speed of those transformations in that very year because we have 70 of those transformations now in our Booqs for this very business year, so we really also continuing to repurpose our entire logistical infrastructure. And in more than 500 stores now, we already have delivery capacity, and we will grow that furthermore. FSD. FSD is the growth engine. When you look at where's the growth coming from in absolute terms, mainly from FSD, mainly from FSD. Roughly EUR 15 billion from baseline to target is coming from FSD. And we have a good business now in FSD. It's cash flow generative. We are getting better and better in terms of profitability. So we can now, with a lot of self-confidence, now really double down on rolling out the FSD. But even until now, we have significantly increased our FSD sales share to 26%. And I'm sure we're going to reach the target to get over 33% for the year 2030. The thing is, and that's why sales force is important. Metro is a pool system, is a store system, is a passive system as a heritage, so to say. We are now making this pool system into a push system, and we need sales reps for that. You can say we can also use digital. We are also using that, of course, CRM and so on and so forth, but at the end, our customers, small, medium enterprises, they buy from individuals. They trust individuals, so you got to cover them with individuals, and that's the reason why we have upgraded our sales force by 2,000 people. We want to double them until 2030. Now we have really added 2,000 people, and this 8,500 sales force people that are in contact with our customers each and every day, they are now a great and big and powerful army to conquer the market for us of FSD. This is already now one of the biggest sales force in Europe, in the markets where we're operating in our business. We really continue to build on that and to also now, as a next step, also increase the productivity of the sales force with technical tools and with performance management. Nobody is coming to a store to ask to get delivered. That's the reason why we had to invest in the sales force. I mean, I'm coming from Würth way back, which was the biggest sales force of the world. I think if you understand once how important this personal relation between an entrepreneur and a sales rep is, you understand that it is exactly the right thing for Metro to push this multi-channel business now forward because also the digital tools, you have to sell. You have to use analog ways to sell digital business. And that's especially true for the B2B environment. Croatia is the example I would like to share with you coming to FSD. Why Croatia? The biggest problem of Croatia is it's only four million people. It's one of our best countries we are having. I mean, I wish that they could be 40 million, right? So whenever you have a chance to travel to Croatia, please do. You are going to help us a lot. It's one of our best countries. They have an excellent store business, but they really have executed sCore by the playBooq, especially in FSD. They have only used the stores to repurpose. They have most probably the best sales force that we are having with a lot of dedication, with a fantastic leader, with the right incentive system, with a dedication. I was walking through the streets of Zadar with one of the sales rep. For me, it was eye-opening. He knew everyone. He says, "This is doing 200,000. This is 100,000. Oh, Oh, this guy, we have problems. We need to sell the meat. We need to make better price." He knows everything. And this is an example for how you can run a sales force because they are also incentivized. When they are doing more than the target, they are really benefiting a lot. And you see that the FSD, the delivery business, which is very important, especially when they have seasonal business because they don't have time during season to go to stores. You see really that they are doubling down on that and they are super successful with that, right? So they have now installed a central FSD team. They're using the stores. They're really doing the multi-channel fulfillment by the Booqs. And they have, as I said, a fantastic sales force. And it's complementing it. And you see, in our during the season, we have 85% healthy customer. Healthy means it's not that the others are sick, right? Healthy means high drop size, high margin. And that's usually for established customers. And then the other customers often are new customers that need to develop. But for us, it's a very good KPI to measure if the customer base and the way they are doing business is helpful. And then they are able to deliver 5% EBITDA, which is not dilutive at all because you also need to understand in the EBITDA, there's, of course, a cost allocation from the existing store. So we are also helping by growing the FSD, the existing channel of the store in terms of profitability. So that's very important to understand. And we are very happy if Croatians are listening. Thank you very much for really being the North Star in FSD and sales force. Everybody's learning a lot from you, and I'm always happy to go. Good. Metro Markets. We shift now from Croatia to digital. Metro Markets is the last circle we didn't touch upon, which is the center of digital. What it does, it is a gastronomy marketplace for non-food articles. The market of professional non-food for gastronomy in 2030, according to a McKinsey study, is going to be 50% online. So if we want to be relevant for our Horeca customers, we need to be there. We need to be there. And the idea was, let's not only do it as an e-shop. Let's really have an open marketplace with now 1.3, no, 2.4 thousand partners that are selling in a kind of an Amazon way, marketplace way on this B2B marketplace for gastronomy. So you could think about it as the Amazon for gastronomy, Amazon for gastronomy, the Metro Amazon for gastronomy. And we have 1.3 million products there, which is a significant choice for our customers. So whenever something is not available, there's always a possibility to get it shipped on the next day. We have said we will do one new or two new countries per year. We are almost there. You see there on top of Germany where we have started now five additional countries that are covering roughly 60% of the markets we are in. We learned that every country we are hooking up is first generating some startup losses, to say. And since we are now focusing more now on profitability, we will now leave that portfolio for some while and focus really now on profitability and cash flow generation and optimization because also here the potential is big enough. And then you can see on the performance that the growth is still sitting at 50%. And when we look at the non-food of a market where Metro Markets is in, so you look at the overall non-food development, you see usually that the store-based non-food is declining and that the online-based non-food is growing. Overall, we are then growing non-food. If we would not do that, this market will be lost. And we are sure it's going to be a relevant topic for a customer to also get delivered in the non-food assortment. So that's why we are focusing Metro Markets. In the very beginning, we thought we can generate a marketplace volume, including the business coming from the external partners. So just the volume over the marketplace of EUR 3 billion. After our reassessment of the situation, we will correct it to EUR 1.5 billion because we want to now really work with the countries that you see here, plus Germany, to really see if we can grow more on this portfolio and optimize more for profitability on a short-term basis. DISH is the next, is the center, so to say, of all the circles. And at the end, it is the ecosystem, the digital ecosystem for the digitalization of gastronomy. So reservation, payment, POS system, website services, this is all around DISH. So with Metro, you can basically set up all the processes in a restaurant in a digital way with us. To just give you a couple of facts and figures, DISH POS. I mentioned Eijsink. So remember that was the acquisition in the Netherlands that we are doing. This is now called DISH POS. It's a cloud-based system for cashier. And we have now rolled that out to two new countries last year, Italy and Spain. And now we have started to roll it to France and to Germany, which is now quite significantly. And we are really pushing that forward. And we can very nicely combine that with the existing business because we understand apparently when you see what is going over the POS system, you understand what products the customer is using and buying. 350,000 DISH customers are out there. So this is one of the biggest gastronomy ecosystems, digital ecosystems that is existing. We are really moving forward because we see also a very positive effect once DISH tools are used for, let's say, the wholesale business. You could say simplified, as more digital customers are with us, as more tomato and beef fillet they are buying. You see a clear correlation. This correlation is, it depends a bit on the market, is significant up to two digits. Good. Bless you. Ramp up of digital tool usage. The 40% digital sales share that we are aiming for feels surrealistic almost. It's very ambitious, 40%. That means 40% of all the EUR 40 billion is coming in a digital way. You look at our figures now, they are right now sitting here at 14%. I know the last figures, they are already a bit higher. We are on a good way actually to go to the 40% because there's a natural effect in it. The main driver for that is that the FSD orders are coming in electronically. Roughly 50% of all orders are incoming electronically in the moment. So they are coming in via an ordering tool. It's called M-Shop. And the customer is just keying in the order, and it goes then directly to the warehouse to get shipped or to the store to get shipped. Because we don't want to pay our sales force for taking orders. We want them to sell. And the time that we are freeing up, they can use for new customers, new products, and so on. So that's the kind of logic behind the digital. And we see that right now, 50% of the FSD customers are using this. We assume we can bring it to 100%. And then on top of that, and that's why I'm looking at this progressive or overproportional increase, is that the sales share of FSD is also overproportionally growing. So we will push our sales force more and more to educate, to motivate the customers to order online because there's also a lot of benefits for him and for the sales rep. Plus, you will see an overproportional growth of the FSD share, which is at the end the biggest driver for the electronic or for the digital revenue share incoming. So that's why we are confident that it's able to, that we are able to achieve the 40%. Although right now, this seems surrealistic, but look, we are coming from 6%. We are now at 14%. Right now, we are even higher. And I mean, in the last year, we almost added a billion in digital sales, almost a billion. So when we are doing things, a couple of percentages, it means something. That's the good thing about wholesale. To sum it up, ladies and gentlemen, my dumb tongue, let me summarize. We are, as Metro, more wholesale than ever. We are more FSD than ever. We are more digital than ever. We are more relevant for professional use than ever. And I guess that's very important because we have proven that we can grow. We have changed, when you look at our fundamentals, the attitude and the culture of the company. At least we have done a significant step. And I think that the quality now of the company is very, very good. And we are now most probably 40%, 50% through our way of transforming. Now we need to work on efficiency. Eric is going to talk about that. But I feel that we are in a very good shape and set up for the future. I always compare that to an old timer. We are restoring and renovating an old timer. We have started with the engine. It's now running smoothly. The car is getting faster. What we have discovered on the way, there's rust there. You need to make the brakes there. You need to do the shock absorbers. So the structure of the company, IT systems, cybersecurity, network space, optimization, all those kinds of things, this is the structure of the company. And we are about to renovate that because you can have an engine that is running like crazy. If the brakes are not working and the shock absorbers are not working and it's full of rust, I mean, you can look at the value of this car then three years from now on. Of course, it will not drive one mile per hour faster if we are building new shock absorbers or if we're building new brakes or if we are exchanging rusty parts of the body, but it will make a better company, and that's what we are doing. We are not only tuning the engine, we are also renovating the entire car, so that's the analogy I would like to also use when you look at Metro, but then, of course, I mean, usually when you look at old timers that are running good and that have a good bodywork, good shock absorbers that are renovated, the wealth, or the value, increase is going to be there for the future. Let me end before I hand over to Eric with a movie that is describing a bit the strategic transformation that we are in so that you have a couple of pictures also to my speech that is illustrating the journey we are in. So thank you very much, and let's look at the movie. Metro, the name stands for food wholesale, for the international flow of goods, for big packs, quality, and freshness. We've been implementing a new strategy since 2022, sCore, our ambition to further refine our wholesale profile to connect all sales channels with each other and to grow sales to EUR 40 billion by 2030. So where are we on this journey? Today, Metro is more wholesale than it has ever been. The foundation is formed by the consistent wholesale focus of our stores in all Metro countries because our professional customers want to find what they need quickly and easily. For this, we rely on a simplified product presentation, relevant product ranges, digital processes, and good pricing. Consequently, we further increased our stock availability in the last years. Food service distribution is a key growth driver and building block of our multi-channel strategy. We are converting our stores into multi-channel fulfillment centers in all countries so that we can also supply our customers from there. In regions with particularly high demand, we are complementing our network with dedicated depots. Moreover, delivery requires personal contacts, our customer managers. That's why we are doubling our sales force. As a result, we have already significantly increased our delivery sales share with a goal of tripling it by 2030. We consistently drive digitalization forward for us and for our customers. More than half of all customer orders are already made via our M-Shop platform. And our Metro Markets online marketplace already offers non-food products for restaurateurs in six countries. Our DISH products can also be found in more and more restaurants and businesses, whether for websites, reservations, or POS and payment solutions. Consequently, our digital sales share has already increased visibly and is set to continuously grow in the coming years. Own brands are also becoming increasingly important in wholesale. At Metro, we develop our own brands together with our professional customers. By this, we meet their requirements, constantly improve the product quality, and create long-lasting customer loyalty. As a result, we are selling more and more own brands and are well on the way to achieving our sales targets by 2030. More pallets, more delivery sales, more digital offers, and more own brands. By this, we want to achieve one thing above all: more sales with more professional customers, primarily restaurateurs and traders. And the facts show that we're getting it right as our strategic customer share has risen continuously since 2022. sCore, the strategy comprises a wealth of measures. Together, they make Metro an increasingly successful multi-channel wholesaler, day after day, in more than 30 countries. Welcome also from my side here to the Capital Markets Update and the annual press conference. I will guide you through the financial development from the sCore strategy over the last couple of years, looking also in more detail into the financial year 2023-24. We will give our guidance for 2025 and then finally confirm our goals for our ambitions for 2030. Let's have a look at our guidance. And you already saw some numbers here from Steffen. Our sales development Booqed us really well over the last couple of years. At the beginning, supported really heavily by inflation, but we are still growing on an inflation-adjusted number. Our guidance was 3%-7%. We increased by 6% for the year. All regions, all channels contributed to this increase. For the adjusted EBITDA, we gave a guidance of EUR -100 million to EUR 50 million. We ended up at the lower end, portfolio and currency adjusted with EUR 67 million. But we still continue on our adjustment regarding our product profitability and want to move forward on this. More to come in a couple of minutes. Let's have a look at the segments. Segments, actually the growth here, the 6% increase. Without the portfolio adjustment, we were at 4%. Germany at 1% in a deflationary environment. So there's an improvement of 1% and a negative effect of EUR 27 million compared to last year in the EBITDA. For West, 2% increase in sales, mostly driven by markets like Spain, Italy, but our FSD companies as well, and is on a similar level as the last year. For Russia, 14%, of course, currency adjusted, 14% increase. And then we have EUR 13 million increase for our EBITDA in Russia. For East, 6%. But here, if you adjust the portfolio, actually increase of 11%. Steffen just brought some examples, but also Romania, Ukraine, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, they're all growing really well with their strategic customers. Turkey as well, developing really well, supported also on their side from hyperinflation, but even so inflation adjusted really well developed. Others were impacted in the EBITDA from our license fees from the last year. So that's done now. So you see kind of improvement in the fourth quarter on the EBITDA level, EUR 9 million here compared to last year, still minus EUR 89 million, and sales growth mostly driven by Metro Markets and DISH. Again, all channels developed really well, even so our stores still growing 2% increase here. Then we have our FSD business, close to EUR 8 billion in total sales with FSD, 17% improvement. Metro Markets on high percentage increases, 49%, so they have EUR 165 million there, and then DISH also growing really high in new subscriber, so really also support from all the channels on this side. Diving deeper now into the P&L, so we have EUR 1,058 as our adjusted EBITDA. We planned this. We guided that. We said, okay, we have cost pressures. We have transformation and post-transaction effects as expected. And you can see here transformation gains and real estate gains, they shrink compared to last year. So that at the reported EBITDA, we ended up at EUR 1,122, which is lower than last year. Moving further through the list here. So we have our net financial result. We had last year really high impact on the ruble as well, positive effect. We didn't have that this year anymore. Taxes, we had high profitability in some countries. We're paying high taxes there. But on the other hand, we had a positive effect in Turkey, deferred taxes here. So that the taxes actually went down compared to last year. At the end, we're ending up with a negative earnings per share, minus EUR 0.33, as announced already in October that we will be in a negative area, lower than last year, but mostly driven by the big effects by the sale of India and the sale of our campus here. So the 1,122 reported EBITDA, let's keep that in mind when we go through the cash flow statement here. So 1,122 is lower than last year. But we worked on several areas to improve our cash flow, free cash flow, which is better than last year, actually. A lot of work went to working capital. Steffen explained as well. We reduced our SKUs, our items in stores from 900,000 to 500,000. So that helps in our working capital, less inventory. We have less non-food items as well. So that is really supportive. We worked on payables, receivables on all ends regarding FSD as well, so that helped a lot here in working capital, and we continue in that area to work on. Other OCF, this is more technical topics regarding our India and real estate sales, so that we come up with a 1,079 OCF here. Investments are on a similar level to last year, actually exactly how we wanted to do this with our growth strategy with sCore, and I come to that in a second as well. Divestment, the campus transaction here, and so actually other points so that we actually at the end come to a free cash flow of EUR 24 million, slightly negative as guided. But that's an improvement of EUR 123 million, mainly driven by work on the working capital here. Our net debt increased. As you know, most of our net debt, 85%, is from our leases. But here we increased through additional leases. And the negative free cash flow, we paid out our dividend last year. And that was also compensated by the sale of the China business. So I just mentioned our investments. So we will continue our investments. So we will not stop on this one. Continue our investments. So that's really consistent over the years in technology, network, and sustainability. So we said in technology, we want to invest EUR 100 million. That's mainly Metro Markets, DISH, but also additional solutions to improve our business here with Metro Digital. So we spent there EUR 120 million on this. On the network, also here already explained, network really a focused investment in our network. We use our current stores. We use it as an FSD hub and as a store. So being much more efficient in the investments we're doing here. We planned around EUR 200 million. Actually we are lower than originally anticipated at EUR 130 million. The sustainability investments are continuing as well. We said we want to be around EUR 100 million. We had EUR 95 million. That's mostly F-gas exit on our cooling systems, helps on the other hand on energy savings. This brings me actually to our sustainability goals. We're investing EUR 100 million and they are paying out. We are on track on our sustainability goals, especially carbon neutral. We want to be carbon neutral by 2040 compared to 2011. We improved so far by 52%. Plastic, we wanted to reduce by 2,000 tons by last year actually already. We reduced that by 4,000 tons already. We had also the Consumer Goods Forum resolution that we want to reduce our food waste by 50% by 2025. We are working in this direction. We had 27%, though there's more work to do. We're working with donations, with food banks, streamlined assortment, dynamic price reduction. So working on this number. But on the other hand, we are really well on track with the other KPIs on this one. I mentioned the net debt development. So we increased our net debt and mainly driven by payout of the dividends, increased leasing. And then we had a positive effect by selling the China business, last amount received there. Most important last year was kind of to secure the financing on this. So we extended actually with really attractive terms. In February 2024, we issued a bond, EUR 500 million, 4.6% interest rate for five years. Now in October, we placed some promissory notes, EUR 300 million as well, really well accepted in the markets. So really good feedback on there. We have one bond upcoming now in March. We want to refinance this one, EUR 600 million, planning to refinance, but we also extended our syndicated loan. We have a fixed credit line of EUR 1.1 billion. We extended this to 2029, and this one is unused so far, so actually we are well balanced in our financing so far. Steffen mentioned it as well. We're working now on our costs, so maybe let's start first. Our sCore implementation is on track, so you saw that today. I think that that's proven. Sales is on a steady growth. Our EBITDA is under pressure, and we are really honest on this. This is not where we want to be. We want to improve on this area. Cash flow has to improve, so this is the areas we want to continue, but most important, we don't want to interrupt our really strong sales momentum we have so far. We want to grow, continue 3%-7% last year again. So we really want to continue. So all measurements we want to implement should not interfere with anything hindering the growth. We still want to invest in our sales force. We still want to invest in our MFCs. So we still want to invest, but we have to have a cost leadership, as mentioned here, for a successful sCore implementation. So we need to improve our EBITDA to really meet our targets in 2030. We really want to improve our personnel expenses, our non-personnel expenses, and our cash flow. So that's our goal. We discussed that a lot. We got feedback as well. So we worked on this. The first thing, and this is ongoing activity, is store. We have a big workforce there. So we're working on productivity. Productivity, and you can see that's inflation-adjusted improvement of nearly 5% in store improvement, and the assortment planning helps adjusted replenishment and more efficient picking, so this is a process in store where we can adjust, so therefore close to 5% improvement in admin productivity, and admin includes everything outside sales force and outside of our operations, that's including everything, our offer management, marketing, finance, IT, everything, so the improvement here is 2%, and this is not enough from our perspective, so we have to work on improving our administration productivity, so we improved this already and reduced admin functions already last year of 500 people, so you see that in our annual report, and so we will work further to improve these processes, so therefore we have here developed five initiatives. We don't have a big cost program. These initiatives really pointed on certain topics. With these five initiatives, we want to save EUR 300 million by financial year 2027/28. This is a ramp up till then. We will have the first benefits because we started to implement that already now. But the final payoff will be financial year 2027/28. First, we start here with refocusing IT. As you know, I also have the responsibility for Metro Digital. We want to get Metro Digital and our IT closer to the business. We want to have a business driven by the IT driven by the business. We define our processes and our IT supports this. We have a really good workforce in IT supporting this. Therefore, we will focus on this even more. That's here written as a new target operating model. We have to harmonize our system. We have so many different countries and different systems in place. So we're working on this. One example is just our SAP rollout, but also kind of AI-driven initiatives on this end. Second, accelerate our global solution centers. So we're bundling our processes here in different locations to optimize our processes, make them more efficient, and getting this together. Our headquarters in the countries. And here we have to find a good solution that we really have the right process in place and be optimized by bundling these processes. Reducing non-personnel expenses. So there's a lot of potential in all cost buckets across the Metro universe where we're currently working on processes. We already identified many areas of improvement. We're working on this already. So we can confirm this is really achievable that we can improve our goods not for resale. Then transforming our buying department. Steffen mentioned as well our own brand item, our central sourcing. We want to do that more. But we have to see that we don't have double functions and so on. So we're optimizing this as well, being more efficient, drive more of the Own Brand items, getting actually our one Metro approach more implemented here. Then the fifth is everything outside of this, optimizing structural costs. So we want to be more productive. We want to be more wholesale. Sometimes I say I want to be more discount coming from my history. So we really want to be leaner in our organization. So we are currently working on this unit by unit, country by country, using fluctuation over time. We will restructure processes and organizations. So we're working on this topic as well. And you saw in our annual report as well that we are saying that we have transformation costs. And this is EUR 150 million. This is what we're investing here. So the EUR 150 million you see is what we invest in these projects. And this is kind of one-time transformation cost we will invest mainly in this financial year. We might have more in the upcoming years, but mainly this year. And then we already see a bigger positive effect from the coming years. And as I said again, EUR 300 million by 27/28, positive impact of these cost savings. And again, these cost savings coming on top what we're already doing outside improvement on the store profitability, on productivity, on sales force productivity. So that's outside coming on top from savings. So therefore, the guidance for next year. The guidance, maybe, so we adjusted our adjusted EBITDA. So we have what, EUR 31 billion in sales. And the EBITDA we showed you is 1,058. We already have transformation costs. I mentioned that we're already working on these projects. So we are already investing in these projects. And so therefore, we already have transformation costs of EUR 40 million, which comes up to an adjusted EBITDA of 1,100 here. For next year, guidance is we want to grow. And this is kind of our number one. We want to continue to grow in all segments with 3%-7%. Our adjusted EBITDA on the new adjusted EBITDA, we see that we have a slight increase there. So that's a plan for the coming year. And then we have adjusted by these EUR 150 million transformation costs. For the segments, for the sales, 3%-7%, Germany and West will be below this level. Russia will be in the range of that level. East and others will be above. Then for the EBITDA, Germany and Russia will remain roughly at the previous year level. West, we see a slight increase. Others, slight decrease. And then East, we will see kind of a growth moderately. So that's our guidance for this year. Looking at our soft guidance as well. So we plan with EUR 100 million real estate gains. Our reported EBITDA, despite all the transformation costs I mentioned, will be on a similar level to our 2022, which I mentioned before. So this is actually the reported EBITDA will not be impacted here. So we have our net financial result will be on a normal development. Tax will be on a similar level. But at the end, due to the transformation costs, we will have again a negative earnings per share in our guidance. We want to continue. Nevertheless, the cost initiatives we have will not stop us from growing and not stop us on our sCore transformation. That's really the key message I want to bring here. We want to continue in a growth investment. We will not stop on this one. But this results in a negative free cash flow for next year and the increase in net debt. We will continue on this path, on our growth path. We want to trim the company on a bit more on a more profitable growth for the coming years. By the way, it was absolutely the right way focusing now to bring the company in this growth mode over the last three years. Now is the right time to say, "Okay, we want to continue this growth and make it more profitable from now on." We want to confirm our 2030 ambitions. I'm happy to say so. We are confident to achieve these numbers. Sales absolutely on track. Sales ambitions, EUR 40 billion. This is what we want to do. The adjusted EBITDA ambition is EUR 2 billion. I mentioned beforehand we will have a slight increase for next year. Then with the initiatives coming over the years, we'll increase here. For the free cash flow, we will have a negative effect next year. Then from there on, it will improve afterwards again. I'm really happy to confirm with all the initiatives we're doing that we can reconfirm our 2030 ambitions. With this, I want to hand back to Steffen. Yeah, thank you very much, Eric. Let me now take opportunity before we come to our Q&A session to summarize. What are our key messages of today? We are growing again. Metro is a growing company again. And the growth that we are enjoying is unprecedented when we compare to the past performance. sCore has proven to be successful and is helping two things: the quality of the company in terms of wholesale value proposition and the resilience against also the externalities that I have mentioned. Portfolio network strategic KPI are fully on track. That's why also our last IR report was called on track. So we are going in the right way as proposed in our multi-channel wholesale transformation. And now, as Eric said, we come to the next phase where we now really take some money to update our cost position significantly because now is about the time without jeopardizing the wholesale transformation and the growth ambition that we are having. And we do have very concrete initiatives. It's not like we are having this big number of people or something like that. It's very targeted initiatives. We have 30 countries. We have very different organizations. We are dismantling some organizations that we don't need anymore for the future. In other things, we are using fluctuation. We are focusing a lot also on goods not for resale costs. So there is a big variety of measures that are at the end helping us to achieve a better cost position for the company so that you also can see that the growth is transforming way more efficiently to the bottom line. So we can confirm 2030 targets, and we are confirming that we are going to execute sCore in a very consistent way. And that you will see also for the next updates the same numbers, the same logic, the same updates that we have also given you consistently in the last three years. Let me end with something that is, from my perspective, a bit beyond the numbers and the business and the facts and the figures. It's around the purpose of the company. And it's about the, how do you say, the meaning of Metro in society. And that's why we say, you see, there's enabling moments. And you will shortly see a video because that's our new claim. That's our new purpose. And I would like to underline that we are working in an industry, gastronomy, hospitality, that is really creating moments for you, for us, for everyone who likes to have social life outside the four walls. And we think that's a very fantastic thing. You cannot imagine a vacation without going out to dine. You cannot imagine a city or a location somewhere without a restaurant or without enjoying good food and the company of other individuals. We are social animals, so to say. And we are working exactly in the right spot for that. And we are super proud as Metro to really be a part of this community, to be a part of the community that is creating such moments. So we are really very proud, actually, that we are helping enabling moments that you also enjoy when you're going out for dinner or on vacation. So let's look at this movie. What do we enjoy? Moments we can remember forever. What can't we get enough of? A variety of really good products our professional customers can rely on every day. So how have we managed to supply the quality and freshness our customers need for the past 60 years? By thinking big and getting things done. For our customers in the hotel, restaurant, and catering industries, for traders and the self-employed. Top quality, unique product variety, and strong own brands. We offer expert and personalized advice, as well as tailored digital solutions. We're right there where our customers need us, be it in store, via the app, or with flexible food service distribution. Our service is reliable and fast, an important pledge for our many customers, as well as their customers and guests, for extra special, unforgettable moments. That's why we will always go the extra mile. Day after day. Metro, enabling moments. Thank you very much, Steffen. Thank you very much, Eric. Ladies and gentlemen, we now come to your questions. As said in the beginning, the questions will be answered in the language used, either English or German. Martin and I will read out the questions, and they will be answered by Steffen Greubel and Eric Riegger. Firstly, we will start with questions here in the room. So please wait for the microphone to be handed to you if you have a question. Please state your name and the institution you work for, and then ask your question. For all those participants attending today virtually, please use the chat for your written questions. Please formulate your question, including your name and institution. So who would like to ask the first question? Alexander Braun from Montega, please. Also, [Foreign language] They are too German. So you wanted to reform the buying department. I get the impression that your success with Buy More Pay Less did not yet receive the praise they should. The margin did not drop any further this year for the first time. But what exactly are you talking about here? Well, let me answer that question. Let me respond to the margin first. If you look at the food wholesalers worldwide and what their margins are, then it's roughly between 18 and 20, maybe a few more percentage points, but it's somewhere there. So that's a different margin than in retail because there's a higher share of the total income with all the counterparts and so on. They are too German. So you wanted to reform the buying department. I get the impression that your success with Buy More Pay Less did not yet receive the praise they should. The margin did not drop any further this year for the first time. But what exactly are you talking about here? Well, let me answer that question. Let me respond to the margin first. If you look at the food wholesalers worldwide and what their margins are, then it's roughly between 18 and 20, maybe a few more percentage points, but it's somewhere there. So that's a different margin than in retail because there's a higher share of the total income with all the counterparts and so on. They are too German. So you wanted to reform the buying department. I get the impression that your success with Buy More Pay Less did not yet receive the praise they should. The margin did not drop any further this year for the first time. But what exactly are you talking about here? Well, let me answer that question. Let me respond to the margin first. If you look at the food wholesalers worldwide and what their margins are, then it's roughly between 18 and 20, maybe a few more percentage points, but it's somewhere there. So that's a different margin than in retail because there's a higher share of the total income with all the counterparts and so on. They are too German. So you wanted to reform the buying department. I get the impression that your success with Buy More Pay Less did not yet receive the praise they should. The margin did not drop any further this year for the first time. But what exactly are you talking about here? Well, let me answer that question. Let me respond to the margin first. If you look at the food wholesalers worldwide and what their margins are, then it's roughly between 18 and 20, maybe a few more percentage points, but it's somewhere there. So that's a different margin than in retail because there's a higher share of the total income with all the counterparts and so on. They are too German. So you wanted to reform the buying department. I get the impression that your success with Buy More Pay Less did not yet receive the praise they should. The margin did not drop any further this year for the first time. But what exactly are you talking about here? Well, let me answer that question. Let me respond to the margin first. If you look at the food wholesalers worldwide and what their margins are, then it's roughly between 18 and 20, maybe a few more percentage points, but it's somewhere there. So that's a different margin than in retail because there's a higher share of the total income with all the counterparts and so on. They are too German. So you wanted to reform the buying department. I get the impression that your success with Buy More Pay Less did not yet receive the praise they should. The margin did not drop any further this year for the first time. But what exactly are you talking about here? Well, let me answer that question. Let me respond to the margin first. If you look at the food wholesalers worldwide and what their margins are, then it's roughly between 18 and 20, maybe a few more percentage points, but it's somewhere there. So that's a different margin than in retail because there's a higher share of the total income with all the counterparts and so on. They are too German. So you wanted to reform the buying department. I get the impression that your success with Buy More Pay Less did not yet receive the praise they should. The margin did not drop any further this year for the first time. But what exactly are you talking about here? Well, let me answer that question. Let me respond to the margin first. If you look at the food wholesalers worldwide and what their margins are, then it's roughly between 18 and 20, maybe a few more percentage points, but it's somewhere there. So that's a different margin than in retail because there's a higher share of the total income with all the counterparts and so on. They are too German. So you wanted to reform the buying department. I get the impression that your success with Buy More Pay Less did not yet receive the praise they should. The margin did not drop any further this year for the first time. But what exactly are you talking about here? Well, let me answer that question. Let me respond to the margin first. If you look at the food wholesalers worldwide and what their margins are, then it's roughly between 18 and 20, maybe a few more percentage points, but it's somewhere there. So that's a different margin than in retail because there's a higher share of the total income with all the counterparts and so on. They are too German. So you wanted to reform the buying department. I get the impression that your success with Buy More Pay Less did not yet receive the praise they should. The margin did not drop any further this year for the first time. But what exactly are you talking about here? Well, let me answer that question. Let me respond to the margin first. If you look at the food wholesalers worldwide and what their margins are, then it's roughly between 18 and 20, maybe a few more percentage points, but it's somewhere there. So that's a different margin than in retail because there's a higher share of the total income with all the counterparts and so on. So for us, it's important at the end of the day not only to drive the margin with Buy More Pay Less and own brands, but to have a better price positioning for our customers so that we have the additional volume. So black and white, it's not a margin, but a volume and cash environment. And talking about the commercial aspect of the transformation of buying, there are two different dimensions. It's non-food and food. Non-food is the topic that is much more focused on central sourcing in Asia for the own brand fields. So much more non-food buying and activities in a centralized manner. And we will also continue to eliminate items that are not relevant to our customers. So if you move to the first floor in some of the stores in Germany, like fashion, will disappear because they're just remainders of earlier times. So for us, it's important at the end of the day not only to drive the margin with Buy More Pay Less and own brands, but to have a better price positioning for our customers so that we have the additional volume. So black and white, it's not a margin, but a volume and cash environment. And talking about the commercial aspect of the transformation of buying, there are two different dimensions. It's non-food and food. Non-food is the topic that is much more focused on central sourcing in Asia for the own brand fields. So much more non-food buying and activities in a centralized manner. And we will also continue to eliminate items that are not relevant to our customers. So if you move to the first floor in some of the stores in Germany, like fashion, will disappear because they're just remainders of earlier times. So for us, it's important at the end of the day not only to drive the margin with Buy More Pay Less and own brands, but to have a better price positioning for our customers so that we have the additional volume. So black and white, it's not a margin, but a volume and cash environment. And talking about the commercial aspect of the transformation of buying, there are two different dimensions. It's non-food and food. Non-food is the topic that is much more focused on central sourcing in Asia for the own brand fields. So much more non-food buying and activities in a centralized manner. And we will also continue to eliminate items that are not relevant to our customers. So if you move to the first floor in some of the stores in Germany, like fashion, will disappear because they're just remainders of earlier times. So for us, it's important at the end of the day not only to drive the margin with Buy More Pay Less and own brands, but to have a better price positioning for our customers so that we have the additional volume. So black and white, it's not a margin, but a volume and cash environment. And talking about the commercial aspect of the transformation of buying, there are two different dimensions. It's non-food and food. Non-food is the topic that is much more focused on central sourcing in Asia for the own brand fields. So much more non-food buying and activities in a centralized manner. And we will also continue to eliminate items that are not relevant to our customers. So if you move to the first floor in some of the stores in Germany, like fashion, will disappear because they're just remainders of earlier times. So for us, it's important at the end of the day not only to drive the margin with Buy More Pay Less and own brands, but to have a better price positioning for our customers so that we have the additional volume. So black and white, it's not a margin, but a volume and cash environment. And talking about the commercial aspect of the transformation of buying, there are two different dimensions. It's non-food and food. Non-food is the topic that is much more focused on central sourcing in Asia for the own brand fields. So much more non-food buying and activities in a centralized manner. And we will also continue to eliminate items that are not relevant to our customers. So if you move to the first floor in some of the stores in Germany, like fashion, will disappear because they're just remainders of earlier times. So for us, it's important at the end of the day not only to drive the margin with Buy More Pay Less and own brands, but to have a better price positioning for our customers so that we have the additional volume. So black and white, it's not a margin, but a volume and cash environment. And talking about the commercial aspect of the transformation of buying, there are two different dimensions. It's non-food and food. Non-food is the topic that is much more focused on central sourcing in Asia for the own brand fields. So much more non-food buying and activities in a centralized manner. And we will also continue to eliminate items that are not relevant to our customers. So if you move to the first floor in some of the stores in Germany, like fashion, will disappear because they're just remainders of earlier times. So for us, it's important at the end of the day not only to drive the margin with Buy More Pay Less and own brands, but to have a better price positioning for our customers so that we have the additional volume. So black and white, it's not a margin, but a volume and cash environment. And talking about the commercial aspect of the transformation of buying, there are two different dimensions. It's non-food and food. Non-food is the topic that is much more focused on central sourcing in Asia for the own brand fields. So much more non-food buying and activities in a centralized manner. And we will also continue to eliminate items that are not relevant to our customers. So if you move to the first floor in some of the stores in Germany, like fashion, will disappear because they're just remainders of earlier times. So for us, it's important at the end of the day not only to drive the margin with Buy More Pay Less and own brands, but to have a better price positioning for our customers so that we have the additional volume. So black and white, it's not a margin, but a volume and cash environment. And talking about the commercial aspect of the transformation of buying, there are two different dimensions. It's non-food and food. Non-food is the topic that is much more focused on central sourcing in Asia for the own brand fields. So much more non-food buying and activities in a centralized manner. And we will also continue to eliminate items that are not relevant to our customers. So if you move to the first floor in some of the stores in Germany, like fashion, will disappear because they're just remainders of earlier times. With food, we do much more centralized buying. We're managing more. We have a common sourcing, a central buying department, and the countries can say what the product portfolio should be like. We're trying to centralize it more and more. We won't be as good as Lidl or Aldi because we have a much wider assortment. But the idea is to use the benefits of the large group. I hope I responded to your question this way. A comment additionally with the 300 million, we only have the improvement of the structure, not the margin or the Buy More Pay Less. It's not. It's just the cost-oriented view. The margin we do expect to improve also. Any more questions here in [Foreign language]. thank you for introducing me. because we have a much wider assortment. But the idea is to use the benefits of the large group. I hope I responded to your question this way. A comment additionally with the 300 million, we only have the improvement of the structure, not the margin or the Buy More Pay Less. It's not. It's just the cost-oriented view. The margin we do expect to improve also. Any more questions here in [Foreign language]. thank you for introducing me. because we have a much wider assortment. But the idea is to use the benefits of the large group. I hope I responded to your question this way. A comment additionally with the 300 million, we only have the improvement of the structure, not the margin or the Buy More Pay Less. It's not. It's just the cost-oriented view. The margin we do expect to improve also. Any more questions here in [Foreign language]. thank you for introducing me. because we have a much wider assortment. But the idea is to use the benefits of the large group. I hope I responded to your question this way. A comment additionally with the 300 million, we only have the improvement of the structure, not the margin or the Buy More Pay Less. It's not. It's just the cost-oriented view. The margin we do expect to improve also. Any more questions here in [Foreign language]. thank you for introducing me. because we have a much wider assortment. But the idea is to use the benefits of the large group. I hope I responded to your question this way. A comment additionally with the 300 million, we only have the improvement of the structure, not the margin or the Buy More Pay Less. It's not. It's just the cost-oriented view. The margin we do expect to improve also. Any more questions here in [Foreign language]. thank you for introducing me. because we have a much wider assortment. But the idea is to use the benefits of the large group. I hope I responded to your question this way. A comment additionally with the 300 million, we only have the improvement of the structure, not the margin or the Buy More Pay Less. It's not. It's just the cost-oriented view. The margin we do expect to improve also. Any more questions here in [Foreign language]. thank you for introducing me. because we have a much wider assortment. But the idea is to use the benefits of the large group. I hope I responded to your question this way. A comment additionally with the 300 million, we only have the improvement of the structure, not the margin or the Buy More Pay Less. It's not. It's just the cost-oriented view. The margin we do expect to improve also. Any more questions here in [Foreign language]. thank you for introducing me. because we have a much wider assortment. But the idea is to use the benefits of the large group. I hope I responded to your question this way. A comment additionally with the 300 million, we only have the improvement of the structure, not the margin or the Buy More Pay Less. It's not. It's just the cost-oriented view. The margin we do expect to improve also. Any more questions here in [Foreign language]. thank you for introducing me. Well, you were very positive just now with your example of the classic car. If we look at the stock price, it's only a minus of 5%. Would you say that's a response to the dividend? And you also said that Russia is also putting pressure on the stock price, but that hasn't changed in recent years. If you look at the current year with a minus, can you explain what you believe the reasons are for this? Is it changing? Because this is opposite to what you're saying. Let me underline again that the share price continues to be marked by the issue of Russia and the free float, the 25% that are managed there or traded there. The share is not that liquid, and there are smaller trades that cause large changes in the share price. That continues to be the case. If there are news, if you look at the quarterly report where we talked about FSD, we had a positive development. Their reactions based on news we're issuing that do cause quite a large jump in price, but it is not a structural effect, as you mentioned. At the end of the day, we're doing what's right for the company. We're following the strategy that is the right one in the long term for Metro. This is 100% supported by the supervisory board and the Anchor shareholders. I have a second question, if I may. You also talked about the currency-related impact. Now, the ruble fell so much. I don't know whether that has an impact on the figures you reported just now. What do you expect? Will that have a stronger impact? In the long In the long term, it has an indirect impact. We have a hedge between Russia and China, so the majority has been hedged, and where it does have an impact is with the sales and the profit because that's covered by the ruble, so it has a smaller impact on the so we have a natural hedge between Russia and here. Thank you. We don't have virtual questions until now, you. We don't have virtual questions until now, [Foreign language]. With the questions in the room. I saw the one. Oh, okay. Both. Ladies first, [Foreign language]. If I may, I only have two questions. Following the question with the buying department, which you want to centralize more, isn't that a dangerous game you're playing? Because Metro was so proud to also source locally, and do you want me to ask the second question immediately? Yes. If I understand it correctly, with the marketplace, you reduced your targets. What kind of losses were incurred there? And when do you expect to make progress? You're not expanding it to new markets, are you? Okay, ich nehme die zweite mal als erstes. I'll answer the second question first. Also, [Foreign language]. The marketplace volume with the EUR 3 billion was adjusted because we want to focus with the 60% of market and potential to turn the business into positive figures. We're not reporting it separately, but you can expect that we will be faster and the outlook will be better with the overall approach. And regarding the buying department question, if I may, you always have to look at the dimension. We have 40% ultra-fresh products, and they are all locally sourced. You can't buy potatoes centrally somewhere. And with the own brands that are locally also developed, if we buy jointly, then this is a limited part of the entire portfolio. We can never essentially purchase 80% or 90% of our assortment. That wouldn't work. But what we can do is look at the buying of commodities like olive oil, sunflower oil, some meat, salmon. There are just a few manufacturers, and not all going to the same provider or manufacturer. That wouldn't make sense, but we do all together. So the sourcing or the product would never be given up. But everyone is happy if the frying oil is a bit cheaper because we were able to bundle our purchasing power. If you say it is only a smaller share, what are the buying advantages? What are you referring to? What the saving potential? The saving potential is mainly from buying things together. Let me calibrate that. We're talking about the buying department. That's the smallest share of all the things here. We're talking about a smaller adjustment, mainly in the non-food department, because we do things together, negotiating together, and we're not buying fashion anymore, for example. So we don't need buyers for fashion. That's the biggest lever. And on the assortment competence, we're not giving that up. That is what makes us strong: fish, meat, fruit, and vegetable. And it would be a failure if we would centralize all that. But it's different in non-food, and that's what we were talking about. Georg Winters. Georg Winters. I also have two questions. If I look at your guidance, we can see that you have a negative result that you're expecting and an increase in net indebtedness. So the dividend for the coming year will also not be paid out. How much will the net debt position increase next year? Our dividend policy won't be changed. Between 40%-55% will be the figure. Mathematically speaking, we just know when there will be no dividend. The EPS, if that is changing to the positive, then there will be a dividend again. We're not handing out any guidance on this, but a result from a negative free cash flow and a corresponding increase in leasing liabilities that will have its impact on the net debt. Can you give us a rough direction? It's a low three-digit million amount. Any further questions in the room? [Foreign language]? Your buying department. How will that be organized differently? You have buying competence in the countries, and you have buying at the headquarters. Will the weight be shifted? Will there be an increase? Or will people be reassigned with new tasks? What will it be like? Well, we're currently working this out. It would be too early to communicate it here and now, but there's a difference between food and non-food. I think in the non-food area, we have made some progress that will be a strengthening, and the central buying department will be established soon, and then some categories will not be in the assortment locally anymore, and we won't need the local buyer for that anymore. In the food area, we still have the trading offices, so we have a central fish buying office, one for meat and one for fresh fruit and vegetable. They get more mandates for these commodities, and in the local field, we will consolidate so that we buy locally for those areas. It's not an efficiency measure in the food area. It's not that we don't need them anymore. We're just shifting towards more Own Brand, which is organized in the country, and a shift to the coming sourcing. And it's also important, maybe let me explain that now. We will be in a situation in Europe where we have to make sure that we have a supply security. So if we currently look at meat, fruit, and vegetable, and the production in Germany and Europe, what's happening there and what kind of changes and shifts take place, the stock of farms, for example, is changing, and we need to react to that. We need to have a simple approach and also talk to the manufacturers, the farmers. The availability of food is what we need to look at. And I think that will be the bigger challenge in the long term. Thank you. Alexander Braun. [Foreign language] Thank you for that. [Foreign language] Alexander Braun, Montega. Alexander Braun again. On the real estate gains, you did not say that much. 100 million EUR this year. And with real estate projects, they're usually taking a bit longer. And can you tell us where it comes from? I'd like to know about that. And the transformation cost, the 150 million EUR, is that something that can be broken down at this point now? What is shifts in personnel? And just to give us a feeling on the first question on real estate, we have some concrete projects. We have a pipeline until 2030, which we have fully planned. So we expect this trend to take place every year. We have projects here in Germany, but also abroad that we're currently working on, and I can't be specific there yet, but the pipeline is full. Then on the second question, the transformation cost. One project was just mentioned, Metro Digital, where we're intensely working on this topic because it's a big enabler of our businesses. We already had a staff reduction, and we're heading in the right direction here. We will have a harmonization of systems here, which are very different in the different countries, where we say we can have cost savings here, and there will be no own developments in the countries. It will be done centrally with our Metro Digital sites, so there is a lot we can do in the field of IT. I think we can summarize it. Where customers don't notice it, we will become more centralized. Thank you. Any further questions? Yes, please. [Foreign language]. The point which you just mentioned about the security of supply, this is going to be a very important topic. Does that also have an immediate effect on the price? So when to make sure that supply is guaranteed, or how do you want to tackle this strategically when we talk about it? Say that vineyards, for example, will move further north due to climate change, your sourcing change. Well, if you don't do anything at all, of course, this will have an impact on the price. So you definitely have to open up new sourcing markets. It has to do with regulation, the political agenda, etc., to make sure at the end of the day that we are able to supply for our customers who also depend on our price quality to make sure that we have supply guarantee and also price security. I would like to give you two examples. Right now, we see that the cattle stock, feed stock in Germany is reducing. That has, of course, also an impact on our sourcing behavior because we have to go to other markets like Spain. And therefore, we have to be very agile and swift. If everybody or every country did that on their own, it would get difficult because we have to have the entire view of the sourcing market. The region around Malaga in the south of Spain, for example, don't have enough water. Therefore, we have to go to North America to procure meat. Both things are important: price security, but also security of supply. If you look at the butter prices at the end of the day, everybody's asking, why are the butter prices going up? Well, because there is less cattle. Milk has a lower fat content. That's just, and that has impacts actually on the butter price at the end of the day. I mean, if this is something we cannot influence, then prices will go up. But on the olive oil production, for example, it's getting better. The prices are reducing. You know, there are always crises and diseases each and every year, be it birds, flu, or weather conditions. The meat industry, Tönnies, etc., always say that it's important to make sure that we still have it in Germany to have a future perspective also for the farmers if they have to retrofit their stables, etc. Will Metro also play a role in that? The food traders like Aldi, for example, say that they would like to go over to more biological and production. Will this also have an impact on you? Is that important for your customers as well, the organic perspective? You don't go into a restaurant and say, well, you don't ask normally when you go into a restaurant whether it comes to its origin one, two, or three. So this is a question you wouldn't normally ask in a restaurant. Where does the meat come from? Well, we see this with the customers in. They in the price. It's always the same, the same factors: price, quality, availability, stability of supply and assortment. These are always the same topics in all the countries. There are some minor subordinated criteria. There are more and more restaurants who actually look into where the food comes from, where the meat comes from. We will need an additional assortment for those. This will increase, but it also has a price implication. And for others, quality and price are the most important factors. And we also have to make an offer for them because otherwise we will not be able to cater to the real need. This is still the bulk, still the mass business. And just like in a supermarket, where you go as a private person, you also look into sustainability, etc. The guests in the restaurant don't necessarily do that. That's true, but that's just the way it is. But things are changing, maybe a little later. And we have to try to make sure that we are prepared to give answers and responses to these topics. Any more questions? Don't see any hands. There are no questions in the system yet. So last chance for the virtual participants. Type in your questions. So if not, I think then. Yeah, one, I think one question. [Foreign language] I saw that on LinkedIn. You had a video. [Foreign language]. In one of your stories where it was about the general mood in Germany and we should really tackle things, do something and become more active. [Foreign language]. Question regarding the elections in Germany. How important is it for you to also reflect the mood, the general mood in Germany? Is it something that has to do with your customers or with your employees? So how important is the political situation and the government for your business? Because it's really a German thing, so to speak. [Foreign language]. Me, to me, personally. It's been important to make sure that we get out of this mood of complaining, this attitude of complaining. I mean, I could talk about regulations for hours and complain, but this doesn't help, right? So we have to start to rethink. And I would like to make an example. I wanted to make an example, say, in our microcosm. Can we actually show something positive which reflects a little bit a better atmosphere, a better mood to become more positive and in an incredible way, of course, and not just say in an ad in a newspaper, this or that is important for us, but do something, do something concrete. And there are 10 things that we would like to do and communicate one each week in order to make a contribution to get a more positive attitude and more optimism in our country. Whether it works or not, I don't know, but I think it's credible. It's important to make a difference in catering and gastronomy. It's much better than just giving statements, saying things. I think becoming active and being a role model is far more important to influence optimism, to embark on performance and doing something and action instead of just complaining. These double-sided adverts in newspapers are also a very important tool. Don't forget, yes. We don't have virtual questions, but we're really, very happy that we have so many participants today, the full room. And if you want to ask something, feel free. We still have 10 minutes. Otherwise, you can also talk a little bit by catering with Steffen and Eric for sure. But please, if you want to ask it now here, just raise your hand. Ja, Alexander? Sorry, [Foreign language]. Maybe it's too detailed, but the tax impact in Turkey. [Foreign language]. Can [Foreign language]. Can you explain that to me again? What happened in Turkey and why? And what does this have to do with hyperinflation? Yes, in the different assessments of the tax balance sheet and the trade balance sheet, the tax impacts have now shown so that we've been able to Booq deferred taxes. So that this has had a very positive effect, but it's a one-off effect. It will not be repeated. Otherwise, your tax impact will decrease if you become more profitable in Germany, right? But this is something you hadn't announced for the ongoing business yet. That's right. That's right. I have yet another question. [Foreign language]. It's a very, it's been a long time that Germany has been underperforming and everybody's very pessimistic. But there is only, I mean, management, exchange, etc. on an ongoing basis, but you don't close stores, you don't close markets. No, I absolutely contradict. There are a lot of important restructuring steps that we made. If you look at the stationery business, some stores or the store here, please go to the first floor. It's empty. The first floors with the non-food supply, which is no longer relevant, will be closed. The employees who work there will go downstairs or will get redundancy payments to leave the company, and the focus then will be on everything around food in the first place. And this is something you can really see when you go into the market. And also the investments we do in Germany. We still invest in Germany because we also have growth here. Our market share is low, but we are optimistic because we see that the supply activities, etc., FSD is getting better, but it takes some time. It requires time. We have in the stores, the cost base is too high, and this is something we have to tackle, and we do, and we have to do this in the first place so that in two or three years' time we see an impact, and I absolutely agree. Each euro which we invest now or which we earn here is more or less tax-free. We have these carried forward losses, which are just immense and which we can use actually to set off our profits also from, you know, Walmart times, etc., and this helps us actually, so we share your opinion that profits in Germany are twice as important for various reasons, and we have to do this for the entire Metro organization. Transformation is key. In Germany, in the last few years, the transformation was rather slow. That's true. That was too limited, but we are in a good way. No more questions in the system, so I think let's close at this point. Thank you very much. Should you have any further questions, especially the virtual participants, please feel free to contact your familiar investor relations colleagues afterwards or the press team if you are a journalist. Yeah. On On behalf of all our colleagues who have been involved today, both in front of and behind the scene, we would like to say thank you to you for this very active discussion, even in the whole year 2024 that is coming to an end. Thank you very much for your participation today. We wish you a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year, and a very peaceful 2025. And finally, we'd like to invite everyone who is here today now to join us for a lunch, snack, and further conversations. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.