Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and I warmly welcome you to today's earnings call of Bertrandt following the publication of the first half-year figures of 2024-2025. I'm delighted to welcome CSO Michael Lücke, CFO Markus Ruf, as well as Head of Investor Relations and M&A Björn Voss. The gentlemen will speak shortly and guide us through the presentation and the results. Afterwards, we will move over to our Q&A session in which you will be allowed to place your questions directly to them. Having said this, Mr. Voss, I hand over to you. Yes, thank you very much. Also, a warm welcome from my side. It is a special day today for us and quite an odd moment to have a conference call very early in the morning. Thank you for all of you who are or who is able to join us. We will have our annual Capital Markets Day today as well. If you still want to join, you can send me an email so I can send over the invitation to you. The Capital Markets Day will start at 10:00 A.M., and we will have quite interesting speakers here. For example, one representative from the German BDLE, this is the German Aerospace Industries Association, who will give us an update, for example, on the billion-euro spend plan of the German government. Nevertheless, now we will speak about our first half results. Today with me is Markus Ruf, who will guide you through the figures. Afterwards, Michael Lücke will give you a market and customer update, I think very important in these times. With this, I hand over to Markus. Thank you for the introduction. Firstly, I would like to present the business development and the general conditions. First of all, we started really well or as expected in the first quarter. We see the second quarter was more challenging than expected, especially as we have seen much lower call-offs of catalog business. The second quarter should have been better, but positive. We see we are on a really good way with our cost optimization program. We achieved the saving targets at the upper end of the saving range. The cash flow is really positive for the whole six months. We also see the automotive market is under pressure. We have seen a lot of profit warnings from our customers. We see much more pressure on the cost side in the second quarter. On the other side, we see a record level of offer volume from around about EUR 4 billion. The exciting question is how many offers become orders in the next three-six months. In the first six months, we achieved sales of EUR 560 million, so minus 18% year on year. The number of employees developed fell by 1,345 to 13,181. We see the effect from our redundancy program and EBIT from minus EUR 14.4 million after minus EUR 2.1 million in the first quarter. We see the second quarter was really under pressure and much more than expected. The positive free cash flow from EUR 27.6 million. We have a solid and stable equity ratio with 42.6% and equity from EUR 347 million. A stable balance sheet. Q2 is related. We achieved EUR 250 million sales. Year on year, - 22% and quarter to quarter, - 6%. Here you can see the problem. The first quarter had 61 working days, also the second quarter. In the first quarter, we achieved EUR 266 million revenues. You can see lower call-offs impacted our EBIT, especially in the second quarter with minus EUR 12.2 million, EPS from minus EUR 1.10 and free cash flow from minus EUR 10.6 million. Free cash flow was as expected as in every second quarter is more under pressure. The first quarter is normally the strongest free cash flow quarter. CapEx really reduced from EUR 2.2 million. As I mentioned, the total sales impacted by lower capacity call-offs and in result with a lower capacity utilization. We see also the revenues abroad are stable. We see also in Germany, we are under pressure. You can see here also the decrease from our employees from 14,526 in Germany down to 13,181. In Germany, a minus from 1,486. In rest of world, we are growing. We see much more potential abroad. I think the question is also, as I mentioned, you see Q1 and Q2 and the decrease. The exciting question is what happens in Q3 with the call-offs and positive for Q4, much more working days. Normally, Q4 is our strongest quarter. The exciting question is what happens with the capacity utilization and what happens with short-time work. Today, short-time work is higher than expected. It is not really clear. The visibility is much more unconcerned than three or four months ago. We are also satisfied with the diversification. We confirm our strategic target to grow outside of automotive to 25%. You can see we are on a good way. We also realized increasement in defense and automotive. I think my colleague will explain much more potential in this area. Also, as I mentioned, we are satisfied with the implementation of our cost optimization program. We reduce capacity and we see the savings. For the whole year, we expect savings at the upper end of our saving range, which means around EUR 85 million-EUR 88 million. We will also see additional effect in the second half year from around EUR 22 million-EUR 25 million. We see Q3, Q4, it is possible to optimize the result clearly based on the cost optimization. The important thing is we need higher capacity utilization and we need more volume in the top line. The routine is segment performance. We see every segment is under pressure. Physical engineering more, but also digital engineering because digital engineering, we need more projects. We are in negotiations about larger projects, but they will start in July, in August, in September. Today, it is not really clear. We are in a lot of negotiations. We see also potential in the electronic area, but there is also pressure because more demand for best cost country capacity and so on. As I mentioned, we are really satisfied with the implementation of our cost optimization program. We see we are really in line and we achieve the upper end of the saving range. We will also see the additional impact for the second half year, as I mentioned, between EUR 22 million-EUR 25 million. We also see the situation with the powertrain solution. As we mentioned, Bertholt Ehrlich idled and we had a first hearing and it was positive for Bertrandt because the court or the judge confirmed our calculation model. The next step is a hearing in September and there are a lot of, sorry, the next hearing is at the end of September, but we were really satisfied with the first court decision and so on. Profit and loss in detail. As I mentioned, compared to the previous year, we achieved EUR 516 million. Also, material expenses were below compared to the previous year. We can see the cost optimization program also in the personnel costs. Based off our redundancy program, also depreciation and amortization. We see also positive impact in other operating expenses. You can see the cost optimization program reflects the cost positive. Stable balance sheet. We have also optimization on the working capital from around about EUR 50 million and cash position from EUR 150 million. It's on a fine level. Strong equity with EUR 347 million and the equity ratio with 42.6%. I hand over to my colleague. Thank you, Markus. Good morning and welcome from my side. I will give you an insight in a very dynamic customer market. What we see, nearly all of our major customers announced in their earning calls a drop in the revenue and in the profit line. This is unique for our situation. In the past, there was one or another customer who had challenges. In the last month, nearly all of our major customers reported in this manner. A second topic, which has an impact on our business, is also all of our customers reduce their workforce mainly in Germany or in Europe. Normally this goes with a long-term process because they all have to start negotiations with their unions. Until they finish these negotiations, it is really hard for the customers to outsource engineering work to engineering service suppliers. Normally, most of the unions use this as an argument in their negotiations with the customers. This is an ongoing topic at the moment because it has a direct impact on our workload and the outsourcing volume. Let's dig a little bit deeper into what are the root causes and the impacts on the engineering market. What we see is a combination of a deep transformation in the industry and an economic crisis, especially in Germany. As mentioned before, all the customers, independent if they are OEMs or system suppliers, are working on a downsizing process to reduce the workforce, especially in Germany. They have to reconsider what is the innovation program and the product portfolio, more EVs, more combustion engine, range extender. This is really a strong discussion going on on the customer side to define their product line in the future and where they want to produce or develop the project. This is driven by the latest discussions regarding the tariffs of the US. It is really also a difficult situation for our customers to see where they want to produce which cars. Until this negotiation or this conversation is not ended, it is really hard for us to predict what will be the volume for the future in the outsourcing projects and where the products will be developed. With the decline of the earnings, all of the customers started with the cost-saving programs already in the last quarter 2024. It is still an ongoing process. Let's have a look at what is the consequence on the R&D budgets. In the past, until 2023, we saw really a peak of the R&D budgets on the customer side driven by the case trends, the R&D ratio in the vehicles, the electromobilization, and the intention of the customers to deliver premium cars to China. What we see until 2024 and 2025, this peak goes down a little bit. We are now seeing a decline of around about 5% in 2025. For 2026, it is not clear what will be the level because it depends directly to the arguments I mentioned before. What is the revenue and profit line of the customer? What is the product portfolio, the budgets, and how they succeed in the negotiations regarding the reduction of the workforce? What is clear, and this is announced in all the dialogues we had with the customers and the management, that they want to continue with the outsourcing ratio. Independent of the R&D budget in total, they will stick to a high outsourcing ratio. This is very important for our business. All the crises in the past showed that when the discussion is over, the workforce reduction is done, the product portfolio is defined, and the budgets for the vehicles are clear, normally there is really a steady increase in the outsourcing demand. This is really hard to define when it will happen under the described circumstances. What we see also, and this is what we mentioned the last years, we still have an ongoing consolidation trend on the customer side regarding huge engineering service providers. The RFQs and the projects are getting bigger and bigger, and the responsibility is higher, and only a few engineering service suppliers are capable to handle such huge projects. Let's have a look at another perspective. I mentioned before, all the difficult negotiations with the customer start at the end of Q4 and it's still ongoing. It's really hard to predict how it will continue in 2025. Hopefully, step by step, OEM by OEM, we finish this discussion. What we expect really is that we have a steady increase in the second half of the 2025 calendar year, not our business year. This is what Markus Ruf explained before. Our first assumption was in the second half of our business year, there will be a recovery. Especially the tariff discussion triggered by the US really delayed all the decisions, and we are still not defined with our customer what will be the picture for the future. Let's see what is the situation with Bertrandt. Here we dig a little bit deeper and show you some facts. What we see is we do have a huge and a high level of RFQ volume, EUR 8.8 billion. This is a little bit lower than the year before, but it's still on a good level. What we see regarding the discussion on the customer side, we see a lot of postponements of the projects and the budget cuts. In a normal business, the customer decides upfront if he wants to outsource a project or not. There is an ongoing process, six to eight months until they nominate the project. You do a calculation, you do an offer, you do a presentation, then there is an iteration, a second, a third, and then normally it is the nomination. What we see in the last month, we start this process, and in the middle of a process, there is a stop in this RFQ process, and the project is postponed or a decision on the customer side regarding the cost-saving programs. It is not an outsourcing project any longer. It is really difficult to rely at the moment on the decision of the customers if there is really an outsourcing going on or not. What else is a major important topic for us? We saw a lot of withdrawals of inquiries over time. It is the process I described before. If we have a look at our key performance indicators, we see that our hit rate, so the order rate, is better than the year before. This means if a process went through and there is a decision, we are really successful, better than we improved a lot, we are better than the years before. During these times, even if you are nominated, it is not secure that a project will start. We saw a lot of nominations. Regarding the uncertainties of the customer side regarding the tariffs, it is still under negotiation if or where the project will start, not for all, but most of them. Another topic, and this is in line with what I explained before, we see a lot of undecided offer volume. We did all the process, and there is still no decision on the customer side. This open volume is around EUR 4 billion. This is higher than the year before. This is at the moment the situation in the sales pipeline. This is new business and new business acquisition. In total, it's really hard to define when the work will start. The second topic, which has directly an impact also on our overall business, is what's happening in the existing business. This is not a sales topic. We already won the order, we won the project, we started, we are working on the project. With the budget cuts, it could be that there is a huge drop in the call-offs in the existing projects. This has directly an impact on our occupation. In the last month, we have to handle both sides. The existing business with the call-offs to protect our existing business, and on the sales side, managing the uncertainties in the process and the delays on the customer side. This is mainly true in the automotive business, or it's the situation in automotive. Let's have a look at the other segments. Aerospace, civil aviation, all the customers are really very focused on the production of the airplanes. Their backlogs are full for the next years. There is not a lot of pressure to develop a new plane. This will drive the outsourcing for engineering a lot. Here, what we expect is that maybe a new airplane or the development of a new airplane will start in end 2026, 2027. We do not expect that this will happen earlier. Our forecast is more or less flat. The space area is getting more and more important. In Europe, there is really a huge reorganization. Some of the customers laid off a lot of employees in the space area in 2024 and 2025. I think there is a reorganization. With the support of the government, there will be an increase over time. It is still a very fragmented market. What we saw as well is a new segment in aerospace, which is the eVTOL business. Here we have an insolvency of Lilium and Volocopter. We worked for them as well in the past. It is really not an increasing market at the moment, a good volume, but more or less stable. A different situation we have in the defense market. We see a positive development here driven by the political support. We have to consider the industry is learning working in a fragmented product development, I would say, or working with partners in the engineering service. Because in the past, there was nearly 100% insourcing, maybe a little bit of flexibility if it's necessary. Today, they have a lot of pressure to deliver, and they start preparing their organization to work with external partners in the engineering market. We are pretty sure it will be a significant market, but it takes time until the customer sets up their organization to work in a very efficient way with the engineering service providers. There are opportunities for Bertrandt. We are in close contact with the main players. We do have work, increasing work, but it will not increase rapidly because of the mentioned situation on the customer side. The other segments, medical is also a small fragmented market, but it's driven by digitalization. This is interesting projects, but on a smaller scale. The same is with the rail business. We started this a few years ago, and steadily we are increasing our footprint. Here as well, it's a smaller fragmented market, and it's from the beginning an international market. What is our position in these circumstances or under these circumstances? At first, we do our homework. We worked on our optimization program, Fit for Future. Markus Ruf explained that we are on track to this. This has a huge focus on our side that we do all what we can influence on our side because on the customer side, we depend on some decisions. Nevertheless, we continue to focus on our 2027 strategy and adjust the prioritization on the timeline. Let's have a look at the major topics. We drive the diversification in branches here, especially defense, but also in the automotive segment. We are working on a diversification regarding the customer portfolio. We started one and a half years ago acquiring a new OEM in Europe. I'm pretty sure you will see a press release in the next weeks. I'm very confident that we are successful with one major OEM who brings us a new potential in the future as well. What we see in the development of our customer is the globalization. They distribute their engineering centers driven by the taxes, but also with the budget programs. For us, it's clear we follow our customers, independent if this is Poland, Czechia, Mexico, Sweden. This is a huge topic at the moment to drive the growth abroad. On the technology side, what we see more and more is our customers are organized in domains. This will be the RFQ scenario in the future. If they want to reduce their engineering product development process, then they have to think differently. Organizing in domains is one topic. Asking the supply base to end-to-end support in these domains is a clear driver we focus on. Everything regarding virtualization to speed up the development is a huge topic. We continue to prepare ourselves. Working on the cost structure, of course, our major focus is scaling the existing platforms we established in Romania and Morocco, and finding a further partner to work on our cost level in order to support our customers here. What we see is digitalization and AI gaining more and more momentum. Here is our focus to having the right technology stack and scaling the opportunities we have in the AI business. The intention is to bring this to all our employees and engineers to improve the productivity. So far from my side, thank you very much. Thank you, Markus. Let's come to the fourth kind of guidance you have seen. We see today in the current situation weak economic environment starting in Germany, but we are a little bit optimistic. We see also additional investment programs could be helpful. We see also ongoing and accelerated transfer of R&D into international locations. We are prepared for this situation. We have other locations in China, in the US. We are close to the customers and to our existing customers in China and in the US. We are optimistic. For H2 it is really important. We need more top line, and we need a normalization of capacity utilization. We are also optimistic because we see we have a high level of offers in the market. We see also much more regulatory requirements. The exciting question is also which decisions are coming from Brussels and from Berlin. In total, we see our business model is in line and is also for the future in line. We see also a stable outsourcing strategy from our customers. As I mentioned and as my colleague mentioned, Michael Lücke, high level of offer. The exciting question is, as I mentioned, how many offers became orders. We hope we see the normalization in the second half year of the calendar year, especially in our fourth quarter with 65 working days. It is really helpful for our development. You have seen we adjusted our forecast based on the news forecast. We are doing a forecast every month. The last forecast showed a decreasement of sales from 13%. We have to inform the capital market. Today we confirmed also the guidance for the EBIT. We have a more uncertain situation about the positive EBIT. It is much more uncertain, but it is possible, as I mentioned, based on the cost optimization program. We need the top line and we need the normalization in the fourth quarter. We confirmed also the operating cash flow. We see the margin level based on the normalization in the top line between 6%-9% is possible after complete realization from our cost optimization program for the fiscal year 2025-2026. Let's come to the summary and outlook. As we mentioned, EBIT impacted by underutilization and short-time work. Internationalization, we are increasing our international footprint. As we mentioned, we are close to our customer. We are close to the Chinese market and also to the US market. As Markus explained. We try further the diversification. As I mentioned, we depend on the readiness of the customers. In some areas, it's a small fragmented way. Our sales approach is different than in automotive, but it's a steady increase of our engagement. We will achieve the benefits from our cost optimization program in the second half year with roundabout additionally EUR 25 million. For the next fiscal year with roundabout EUR 85-88 million, that's also positive. Yeah. As I mentioned before, the tariffs, it's really difficult for our customers as well to find the right setup, the regional setup. We depend on this, but we have to handle it. Of course, we see still an uncertainty in the market, but we hope that in the second half year of 2025, we see a steady improvement of the overall situation. Let's come to Q&A. Hi, and to Björn. Yeah, thank you very much, Markus, Michael, Ms. Malloch. We are now open for the Q&A session. We still have 10 more minutes to go before we have to flip over to our Capital Markets Day. If you have more questions than we can answer within the next 10 minutes, just drop me an email or give me a call, and I will reply to you as soon as possible. Thank you. Absolutely. Thank you so much for the presentation. Now let's move to the questions. If you would like to speak directly to the management, just raise up your virtual hand. If you're not able to speak freely today, you can also submit your questions in the chat box. By now, we have one virtual hand from Bastian Voss. Please go ahead. Thank you. Can you hear me? Yes. Hi, Bastian. Hi. Three questions for me, but I try to be quick. The first one is on the potential postponement of the petrol ban. The speculations there gained a bit of traction in the last few months. How does this impact your powertrain business and especially the discussions with your potential customer in that area? Yeah, ICE van, the potential cancellation of the ICE van in Europe. Oh, okay. I think most of our customers are really close to the politicians, and they already considered, okay, how they want to handle this. They worked in the past on different scenarios. What we estimate is they will support all the different drivetrains, so from combustion, range extender, e-mobility. They are at the moment discussing what is the intensity and the dimension to do this. It is an ongoing discussion in my point of view. Okay. Thank you. The second is on the EBIT reduction quarter over quarter from Q1 to Q2 was quite strong with minus EUR 10 million, given that the revenue was down EUR 16 million, and you further reduced headcount compared to Q1. Could you provide an indication why the EBIT decline was overproportionate? Was it even worse capacity utilization compared to Q1, or which line item was the main responsibility for that? Yeah, so primarily the lower capacity utilization impacted the EBIT. The amount of short-time work was a little higher, so we had to assume the personnel costs because short-time work is not for free. We have to pay also a certain share. Yeah. Okay. That's it from my side. Thank you. In case of short-time work, we have also 50% from the personnel cost in our profit and loss accounts. That impacted the EBIT. Okay. Thank you, Bastian. Thank you so much. We have a question in the chat box from Markus Hermann. Given the lower utilization than expected, are you taking more measures beyond the EUR 70 million-EUR 90 million cost savings to align the workforce with demand? Yeah, sure. We are checking. We are looking every day which additional measurements are necessary, and we are looking to the market. On the other side, we see also we did a lot, and now we have also to secure our knowledge and also the capabilities also for the future. This is on the table every day to check what is sensible for the future and what is necessary for the future. I can confirm this is really an ongoing discussion, and we depend on the strategic decisions of our customers as well. If they move a major part of an engineering segment to another country, we have to consider the impact on Germany and consider how we follow them and what measures we have to take. It is really a dynamic process. You have to balance. You have seen we have more than EUR 4 billion open offers, and you have to balance capacity and capability for the future and what is realistic, realistic revenue level. Thank you so much for answering. We have received no further questions. That means we will come to the end of today's earnings call. Thank you, everyone, for joining and your shown interest. A big thank you to the gentlemen for your presentation and your time today. I wish you all a lovely remaining day, successful Capital Markets Day, and hand back to you, Mr. Voss, for some final remarks. Yeah, I can also only thank you very much for your interest, for your patience with us, and for your trust in our company. Yeah, talk to you soon and see you at the latest in August with our Q3 call. Thank you very much.