Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to our Analysts' C onference on Bechtle AG's Q2 and H1 of 2023. I'm very pleased about your interest. In many respects, the Q2 was a kind of reflection of the Q1. For the group as a whole, we were able to report a pleasing development with good figures, and this despite the fact that the comparative figures from the same quarter of the previous year were already very ambitious indeed. We continue to see very different developments in the individual segments in the regions, but also in individual customer and product groups. One thing also remained unchanged: the macroeconomic environment and the challenging conditions also caused a strain on parts of our business. We will take a closer look at this in the further course of the presentation, with a view to some details of the business development. As usual, the contents of today's presentation are divided into four major parts. We'll start, as usual, with the description of our business development, with a view on key economic figures for the second quarter and, of course, the first half of the current fiscal year, 2023. This will be followed by comments on the share price development as well as some current news where we will talk about important events on news beyond the figures, and t o anticipate this, this time it will only be M&A topics, and before I close, we'll provide you with an outlook for this current fiscal year and talk about important assumptions and targets of the economic development in the current business year. Let's first of all talk about the business development. The overall development of the Bechtle Group was good in the second quarter. As I already mentioned before, we continue to see high and stable demand from public sector clients, but also from major customers, from big accounts. In particular, digitalization projects for the transformation of IT architectures were in demand across all customer groups. With regard to investments in the classic client IT infrastructure, so mainly PCs and monitors, however, we saw greater restraint, especially among our classic SME customers, and that's unchanged from the first quarter, by the way. Here, many customers tended to postpone pending replacements. This was particularly noticeable in our most important national markets, Germany and France. However, the fundamental willingness and necessity to invest in IT in the context of the digital transformation remained unchanged. We also saw this in our figures for the first half of the year. Let's first look at the development of the business volume. The growth of the business volume slowed down in the Q2. However, with a plus of 9.2%, we continued to grow strongly. After the numerous acquisitions we made in 2022 and in the Q1 of 2023, the acquisition-related share of growth was higher than in the past. It was 3.4% in the Q2, which means we grew organically by 5.5%. In the first half of the current business year, we therefore grew by more than 12% in the group. The development of the business volume, just as a reminder, is the only key figure by which the entire earnings power, the entire performance of Bechtle, can be read. Only in this key figure can we fully show our software business, which is fortunately currently growing disproportionately. This can be seen very clearly in the reported revenue according to IFRS 15. The development of revenues shows a structurally similar picture to that of the business volume. Here, too, we saw a decline in growth dynamics in the course of the quarter. However, the significantly lower growth figures compared to the business volume also showed the high relevance of the software business. At 6.5%, the growth in revenues in the second quarter was almost 300 basis points below the development of the business volume. Nevertheless, 6.5% was a good result, given the high basis for comparison from the previous year. After all, we had increased our revenues by 14.5% in Q2 2022, so the bar was very high, so to speak. Revenue growth for the half year was 9%, which was in the upper range of our guidance set at the beginning of the year. Incidentally, the organic growth rate was 2.4% in Q2 and 5.4% in the first half of the year. However, there were major deviations in the development of our business at the level of the segments and the regions. Just like in Q1, the IT System House & Managed Services segment was the growth driver. In this segment, we were benefiting from the high demand for projects and services relating to the digital transformation of our customers. These are frequently services and infrastructure projects relating to data centers and or network landscapes. In addition, the largest share of the surplus in orders on hand, so the order backlog that still existed in Q2, was in this segment. In the course of the corresponding reduction, this positively supported both our revenue and earnings development. In the IT E-Commerce segment, we were much more strongly confronted with a restraint in pure, more client-related infrastructure business. In addition, the proportion of medium-sized customers in this segment is even greater than in the other segment. However, it is precisely this customer group that was particularly reluctant to invest in replacement. This brings us to the development of earnings and a closer look at EBIT. EBIT growth in absolute figures was almost unchanged in the course of the quarter. A look at the margin shows, however, what sort of extraordinary development of earnings we achieved in Q2. We didn't only manage to maintain the very high margin of 6.3% of the prior year, we even managed to expand it slightly. Here are the reasons for this development. Firstly, as I mentioned before, there's a still very high demand for complex and therefore higher margin services around digital transformation. This leads to a disproportionately low increase in material expenses. Second, also the decrease in order book has had an effect because we managed to achieve certain positive price effects. Third, other operating expenses did increase, disproportionately so, but not quite as strongly as in Q4. Fourth, personnel expenses, compared to Q1, did not show any further growth. As a result, considering the organic growth of staff, we can say that we've leveled this out at a stable level. Also talking about EBIT, let's consider the development in the individual segments. EBIT in the IT System House & Managed Services segment increased by 18.3% in the reporting period. Many of the positive factors mentioned, such as the high demand for services or the reduction in the order backlog, were almost exclusively reflected in this segment. In addition, this is where we also saw the extended bonus distribution of the manufacturers, who were increasingly paying money for precisely such digitalization projects and the necessary upstream qualification measures for employees. Within the segment, IT E-Commerce, however, EBIT decreased by 9.9%. With declining revenue, for the reasons I just mentioned, it was simply not possible to compensate for increased costs. Overall, however, we are very satisfied with the development of earnings. With EBIT up 7%, we were exactly in line with our guidance. To conclude our analysis of the key figures, let's now, ladies and gentlemen, take a look at the operating cash flow. Cash flow from operating activities in the second quarter increased by a very strong +EUR 85.2 million. This was an increase by EUR 160 million compared to the prior year's quarter. This was a clear sign that the measures we had taken to optimize our cash flow, cash flow were taking effect. We saw improvements in two areas in particular. Firstly, we succeeded in reducing inventories. This was a first step. Inventories are still at a very high level, but as a result of the reduction, we were able to record a cash inflow of no less than EUR 95 million in the second quarter. We also continue to see success with our accounts receivables from our newly established centralized receivables management system. We can therefore state that both these developments had a very positive development to contribution to the development of our cash flow. We can therefore state that we are on a very good path in optimizing the cash flow, and that we don't have to worry at all about Bechtle's financing capability. This brings us to a look at the development of our employees. As of the 30th of June, 2023, Bechtle had 14,505 employees. This was 1,306 people, or 9.9% more than in the prior year's quarter. Through acquisitions, 450 new colleagues joined Bechtle. This represented almost 35% of the total increase I just mentioned. The pure organic growth of employees was 6.5%. This moderate increase was due to a conscious entrepreneurial decision not to overspend on personnel costs in challenging economic times. However, we must not forget that particularly in view of the shortage of skilled workers, hiring 856 colleagues was a strong sign of our strong employer brand. I am indeed very pleased to point out that we were named a Top Employer back in June, making us one of the leading employers in Germany. In the ongoing battle for skilled workers, in this war for talent, such high-profile awards are tangible encouragement to us. Let us now move on to the development of our share price. Uncertainty regarding the overall development of the economy and the stock markets, combined with inflation and the interest rate policies applied by the central banks, continued to present a burden, a burden that even intermittent all-time highs of the DAX or other indices are not able to gloss over. Share prices are volatile. Who am I telling this? We can see a reflection of this, both when we look at our Bechtle share as well as when we look at our indices. Year to date, our share price has, in fact, gone up by 21.1%, demonstrating an overall positive performance. Furthermore, over the course of the year, we have been outperforming the indices. However, this does not change the fact that ever since February, we have been stuck in a sideways movement, hovering at around EUR 40. As we were speaking with many investors and analysts, we often detected a sense of uncertainty as to just how strong the recession was going to be in Germany and just how much we, as Bechtle, might end up being affected. We hope that as a consequence of the positive figures presented today for the second quarter, these uncertainties, at least as insofar as Bechtle is concerned, will be figuring less prominently, which always has a positive impact on share price performance. Let us move on to a few additional current developments beyond the figures, which nevertheless are of great importance to our company. All of these current developments, this time around, as mentioned, relate to the M&A activities we are pursuing in the context of our strategy to internationalize. We have been saying for a long time that our pipeline was quite promising. We have now, within a relatively short period of time, managed to bring two acquisitions to a successful conclusion, as well as bring another one on its way. One thing after another. Let us begin with the target I mentioned last. In July, we had announced our desire to purchase French Apixit. The reason that this started with a mere declaration of interest had to do with French legislation. Prior to any purchase agreement getting signed, the employee representatives have a right to be heard. In the meantime, the labor bench has agreed to the acquisition. We are now waiting for the authorities to grant their approval. At this time, we expect that we will be able to complete the purchase by the end of September. Much for the legal context. Much more importantly, though, with Apixit, we have an IT service provider joining our ranks, who has 10 different locations and thus deep roots in the French markets and is very well established. Apixit has a headcount of 340, and in fiscal year 2021, 2022, generated revenues in the amount of EUR 85 million. It is worth noting that Apixit is generating more than 45% of its revenues with a clear focus in their portfolio on the field of cybersecurity, including a security operations center for the whole range of security-relevant IT services. The second acquisition is taking us even further west. Only last week, we had announced that Bechtle has successfully completed an acquisition in Spain. With Prosol, we are now adding yet another country to our system house map. Prosol has 50 employees all in all, and in 2022, generated revenues in the amount of roughly EUR 15 million. The company's two sites are located close to Madrid and close to Barcelona, respectively. Prosol has been serving industrial enterprises as a system integrator in the Spanish market since 1996. The plan is to take Prosol and merge it with the existing Bechtle entity in Spain. This means that their revenues will, despite the service share, be recognized in the IT E-Commerce segment. The third acquisition takes us back to Germany once more. At the beginning of this week, we announced an acquisition in our home market here in Germany. To put it in a nutshell, small but refined, Sastema GmbH specialize in Identity & Access Management, Governance, Risk & Compliance Management, as well as in information security. The company was founded in 2018. It's headquartered in Hünfelden, near Frankfurt, has a headcount of 21, and generated sales in the amount of just EUR 2.2 million in the last fiscal year. What is much more important than their figures, though, is Sastema's portfolio, for they specialize in Identity & Access Management. This allows us to strengthen our security portfolio in areas which are of great interest, especially for customers in the financial and insurance sector, which in turn is good for our system house in Frankfurt, into which Sastema will be integrated as a competence center. With that, ladies and gentlemen, we come to the outlook for the remaining months of the current year. Bechtle is known for being reliable and stable. That being the case, it should have been no surprise when, in this morning's press release, we, in fact, confirmed our guidance. In view of the uncertainties and the aforementioned nervousness in the markets, this message, nevertheless, seemed so important to us that we put it in the header of our press release. That we have confirmed our guidance, given our half-year figures, is not a surprise. With a view to the growth of our business volume, our revenue, our financial result, and even, and this one may have come as a surprise to some, to some, the development of our margin, we are in the range that we had expected and also within the guidance we had communicated. We are aware of the extent of uncertainty surrounding the future macroeconomic development. At the same time, we are aware of the need our customers have for continued investments in IT. This is why, as far as Bechtle's prospects for the second half of the year are concerned, we are optimistic and confident. Our confidence is based on certain assumptions, specifically, that the macroeconomic situation will not deteriorate any further over the course of the year, and that as a consequence, our SME customer base, too, will once again be somewhat more eager to make investments. The trend in our order intake figures for June and July is giving us confidence in this regard. It may yet be too early to speak of a turnaround, but at least we are seeing the first signs of revived demand in the second half of the year. Provided that business in the e-commerce segment were to pick up and that we'd manage to roughly keep our system house level the same, we will, in fact, achieve our targets of the whole year. Namely, we want our business volume and revenue to again grow significantly, as well as our earnings before taxes. We aim to keep our EBT margin at roughly the prior year level. Much, ladies and gentlemen, on our performance during the first half of 2023 and on the outlook on the remainder of the fiscal year. I'd like to thank you for your attention, and I look forward to questions you might have.