Hello, and welcome to the BayWa AG Analyst's Conference Call Q3 2022. Please note this call is being recorded, and for the duration of the call, your lines will be in listen only. However, you will have the opportunity to ask questions, and this can be done by pressing star one on your telephone keypad to register your question. If you require assistance at any point, please press star zero and you'll be connected to an operator. I will now hand the call over to Josko Radeljic, Head of IR. Please go ahead. Thank you. Good morning, everybody, and welcome to BayWa's conference call on the third quarter results of the fiscal year 2022. All relevant documents have been sent out this morning. I think the group EBIT result is not a surprise for you anymore. We have announced it on the 25th of October this year. Additionally, we have also raised in this ad hoc message our full year expectations for the year 2022, up to EUR 475 million-EUR 525 million. Today, Professor Lutz, our CEO, and Andreas Helber, our CFO, will elaborate on the main reasons for the strong performance of the year. I will hand over now to Professor Lutz. Good morning, everyone. The 58th quarterly report from my side since I'm on the board here at BayWa, and it's the last quarterly, and the last final presentation will be the end of March next year, where we provide the balance sheet and annual report to you for 2022. You were informed just this morning about the extremely positive development of BayWa over the last nine months in 2022. This is really extraordinary result, extraordinary development. Josko mentioned it already. This is the second time in one year and the second time in nearly 15 years where we provided a so-called ad hoc message to the capital market to make announcements regarding the potential increase of our profitability. So far, we are very proud of having such an extremely good extremely positive development. What is the reason? The first thing, and I tell you always the page which I am explaining. We come to page four. The revenue is up 42%, more than EUR 20 billion. This is really outstanding. Many years ago, we had EUR 7.5 billion revenue in a year, which is now more or less the quarter revenue. It's mainly driven by the price developments in our different business models and the different market segments. It's not volume driven. The interesting thing is more or less every business segment is providing its share for this revenue increase. The improvement of our profitability is also the result of the trading opportunities, especially in the Agri business, the open contracts, which are fulfilled now, and which we had at the beginning of the year already in the books, but not the results is key. Of course, our trading activity in the Renewable Energy Business, the solar module trading and all the devices is on an all-time high at this point in time. We do not see an end of this interesting story. Included in the result of EUR 460 million is also the sale of our climate greenhouse. We informed you last time already that we are going through this process and, July 31, we had the closing. Also our selling activity for the bioenergy sector to Macquarie. The closing was in the end of September 2022, where we created EUR 35 million profit on EBIT level. Interesting for you guys, of course, the development of the earnings per share. Just one comment because we have this change in the top management and the new CEO is sitting next to me, Marcus Pöllinger. Ladies and gentlemen, it's extremely important that the outlook for the next years, of course, the parameters are unclear. We don't know what's going to happen on the political side, on the global political side. We don't know what's going to happen in the natural resources business and commodity business. So far, it is not for granted that in the next years you will see a similar development and a similar upside. I do not think that this is realistic. So far, just enjoy the figures we have right now. What's going to happen is right now also in the budget process where I'm personally not anymore really involved because I'm going to prepare myself to become chairman of the Supervisory Board. We are in a type of exercising mode, Marcus and myself, that we are really well prepared then for the transition end of March 2023. Turn page five to see the comparison of the EBIT development in the third quarter over the last years. You see just a few years ago in 2018, we had a loss situation. We were relaxed at this point in time because we knew that especially over the last weeks in the fiscal year, Renewable Energy is going to provide nice profitability to our P&L statement because this is one of the key pillars of our business in the future, and it was the significant part of the business and the performance contribution over the last years. So far, our strategy came 100% through, which is exceptional as well. Page six, you see the comparison over the last years. Here again, we had years 2020, 2019, or 2018, where we were faced with really absolutely different figures regarding the first three quarters in a fiscal year. We come to the energy sector. Please turn to page eight. Renewable Energy market development. You know this comparison on the left side of this chart, it's always the same, more or less. The tendency is intact. There are no changes or so. The solar business has a really good future ahead. The average growth rate from the volumes to be installed on a global basis was 21%, and the expectation over the next years is going to increase as well. On the right side, you see the average electricity price. I'm still tired, by the way. I don't know. It's maybe the age. Electricity price, I need not to comment on that. You are more than familiar with the gas drop from Russian side and all these linked issues we have to handle. To me, it's very important, by the way, to explain to you that the overall picture of BayWa, and especially here in the energy sector, has nothing to do with windfall profits as a result of the war situation in Ukraine. This is not true. You are probably not surprised that we are also in different positions. We have, and especially myself as head and president of the Chamber of Commerce in Bavaria, that we are fighting such ideas of additional tax laws in Germany because our international and global competitiveness is already really under pressure. Turning page nine, you see here the average heating oil price development, where we have an excellent result and the fuel costs in Germany, the comparison over the last years. I do not want to comment that because it is self-explanatory. Page 10. First of all, the revenue, EUR 4.5 billion. This is really surprising. Was surprising to me as well because normally, the revenue is not so critical due to the main focus of this business pillar on the development of wind and solar facilities. This year, the trading activity, as we saw it already in the last fiscal year, the trading activity for our photovoltaic business and the modules and converters and all these devices has an up of around about 80%. The converter 61%. You see that in the explanation of the EBIT development. We had some disposals of key projects, but we are not through all these planned transactions already. As always, over the last weeks, this year, we expect two things. First, the first thing is, of course, that we sell some projects all over the world, more or less. That's important afterwards for Andreas Helber to explain the debt structure of our balance sheet to gain liquidity back from these sales activities. As I mentioned already, it's not only trading of PV components as a key factor of this good profitability. It's also EUR 35 million portion regarding the sale of the bioenergy business to Macquarie. End of fiscal year in the RE Business, we expect, again, a record high, not only in sale, but especially on the EBIT profit level. There's a lot to come still over the last weeks, but you are used to that because this is the business model. Turning just to page 11. You see here, just to give you a feeling, vibration, what's happening in this business. You see here a floating PV project in the Netherlands, which is very successful. This is an interesting technology developed by our colleagues in the Netherlands. I think this will have really a bright future as an export part of our business model in the RE sector in the future. In Germany, we are very restrictive with such type of PV projects because the legal situation is ridiculous, nonsense, stupid, and reflects the brilliance and intelligence of our federal government. Has to do maybe with education, by the way. Turning to page 12. The energy segment. Let me say the normal energy segment, fuel, heating oil, and of course, the lubricants. You see again an increase on the revenue side, EUR 2.4 billion and EUR 45 million EBIT. It has to do with the price development, but also the high demand from our customers in the heating oil. We have an uplift in the fuel business after the pandemic situation. There was an increase on revenue and also the margin situation was very, very positive. We have a lag in the lubricant business because the ingredients for this type of product has a decrease of around about 10%. They are not available in the global market and it's nothing to do with the outlook regarding the economy itself. It's just a question of procurement, logistic management, all that stuff. We come to the Agri business, turning page 14. You know, this is one of my favorite charts because here you can see what is going to happen in the commodity business. You see that we are really living from the stock, more or less. The storage is down -16 million. The production and the consumption is more or less on the same level. At this point in time, we do not, on a short-term basis, we do not expect any starvation catastrophes in northern part of Africa and in some Asian countries or in Black Africa. We do not expect that at this point in time, but maybe due to the significant reduction of production and the growing activities in the Ukraine, in the upcoming season, we can maybe see some really, from a human point of view, really big issues. At this point in time, all these countries have bought as much as possible and available in the global commodity markets, the grain they need for the fundamental feeding of the population. Turning to page 15, the market developments in the commodity side, you see the volatility from a principal point of view, the increase of the prices. We are, of course, a little bit in a positive shape due to the brilliant and intelligent trading activity, especially here in Munich, due to the open book situation we had at the beginning of the year. Of course, also our partners and our friends in the Netherlands, Cefetra. Also, we reduced significantly the volume to be traded because the main focus there is in the future and as it was over the last years, and you'll see it in a second, on the results side. The specialty business, turning page sixteen. Of course, the fertilizer, that's the key one from the agri resources business. The fertilizer business saw some high prices due to the energy costs and the availability, the logistic issues in the market. We handled that very adequately and properly. For us, it's one of the key driver for this excellent result. The fruit business, we were faced in 2022 with a loss of volume and some quality issues due to the weather in New Zealand and so far this is the only unit you will see that where we are behind the previous fiscal year. Coming to page 17, Cefetra Group, outstanding EUR 4.6 billion, EUR 52.8 million profit. The key driver is the specialty business, and here our participation or the stake we bought in Royal Ingredients some years ago. This is really outstanding. Their specialty strategy came more or less 100% true. Insofar, it was exactly the right step forward a few years ago to change a little bit the structure of the company coming from a pure procurement, supply chain management of commodities, especially soy from Latin America, to a more specialty-oriented trading organization with a global reach. The results show the success of this strategy. Implementation. We come to page 18. What is this? Okay, this is indeed, ladies and gentlemen, this is incredible. You see an increase of 40-something% on the revenue side, EUR 4.4 billion, but the profit is EUR 152 million. I tried to explain that already. Of course, it has to do with the good positions we have in our books for the commodity trading. The fertilizer business was supporting this excellent result. We had some strong earnings in our RWA in Vienna and the operations in Eastern Europe, where we saw over many years just losses, and now it's extremely profitable. We are happy with this development, and we don't see a downturn here in 2022 in the final quarter for this fiscal year. Turning page 19, the Agri Equipment Business is in a very good shape. Still in a very good shape, EUR 1.5 billion, EUR 47 million EBIT, the increase more than 80%. This is really outstanding. The reason for that is, we have growth in revenues and earnings due to the increase of the machinery business, especially with the tractors and harvesters and so forth. Also our service business is in a much better shape as the years before. There, at this point in time, we were excellently positioned already. That's interesting. The farmers are spending money for the machinery business. Has to do, of course, with the good earning situations in the farmers, on the farmer side, but also our handling with the stock inventory for the technology business within BayWa. Turning page 20. As I mentioned already, the global produce segment is a little bit behind the previous fiscal year, stable in the revenue side. The reason for that is the quality issue and the volume in New Zealand, but also the problems of Tropical Fruit Company in Maasdijk in the Netherlands with our tropical fruit procurement to the retailers here in Europe. The demand was not bad, but the supply chain was broken, more or less. We have a hard discussion with all these retailers because the low prices marketing approach is back. We will see what's going to happen here. Turning page 22. The Building Materials segment is still intact. Nevertheless, the increase of interest rates and inflation and so far, we believe that over the next years, we will see a little downturn here. Nevertheless, the change in our product segment and also the start of the project business development within the BayWa building project building company is the new mix is more. I would say the business model is much more resilient as it was in the past. Nevertheless, we will see some cooling down in this business pillar. Turning page 23, EUR 1.7 billion revenue and the EBIT is EUR 65.8 million. Really outstanding development over the first nine months. That's my general comment on the operational development, and I hand over to my friend, Andreas Helber, to explain now the real reason why it is as it is and it is not different as it is. Yeah. Thank you, Klaus, and good morning, everybody. Also from my side, turning to page 24 and beyond. Slightly going through some financial comments. On page 25, you have, as you are used, the other activities. I know you are not so much interested in what is in, but where will it be at the year-end? I will focus on that. Other activities include, as you know, all the general expense on corporate and overheads and things we do over the year. You see some comments on the increase, a slight increase of EUR 20 million compared to the year before. We took some very prudent approach on our real estate portfolio, going through increasing some provisions as you might consider this good result in our books. Considering some provisions for demolition costs that will come in the future within our portfolio. We took that in advance. One hit was, of course, the insurance premium on the D&O. We talked about that in earlier conference calls as well. That increased sharply from a couple of 100,000 to an amount of nearly EUR 6 million for the full year. This is also included in here. We took some additional costs for increasing IT through cybersecurity. That will be a project that will cost at least over EUR 30 million over the upcoming years. What we can do already in this year, we will take it in as we can. Finally, also that has been reported in prior calls already. We lack the bank dividends from our Austrian friends, Raiffeisen Bank International. They failed to pay dividends for 2020 or in 2022. Nevertheless, they have a wonderful result as you might see on their comments. We do not expect finally to get a dividend paid in 2022, but hopefully looking on 2023. Overall, not individual guidance given for the segments, but here for the other activities, I think you might think that we come out in a range of 90-95 for the full year perspective, being the relative number from the previous year at 81. It will be slightly increased, but of course, taking into account the measures we are taking now more or less in advance. The next three pages, I flip over the next three. Even they are lovely to look at, and we could spend hours to look at it, but I think it's just a summary of the individual segments we have been going through with Klaus. I can skip this. I will come back to the Renewable Energy sector in a minute when I'm going to look on the balance sheet. First, on 20. It's so small. 28, is it 29? Yeah, I need glasses as well. 29, the income statement, the summary of the income statement with the all-in numbers, revenues after three quarters already above EUR 20 billion. Interesting and also important for the view on our balance sheet KPIs is the EBITDA already increasing last year's full year number, of course, with EUR 650 million after three quarters, and that's important. I expect it to be over 800-something, 850 million maybe for the full year period. That is important if you consider the leverage. The leverage will stay even though the balance sheet numbers are somewhat higher on the seasonal topic of September results, but I expect it in a range of 4-4.5 for the full year number as well. I'm coming back to this in a minute again. The EBIT outstanding 460 million. All has been said on this. The earnings per share also only a snapshot, but it's such a lovely snapshot with over EUR 4 after nine months. It's important to mention. Turning back to page 30 on the balance sheet, you see a sharp increase of the total assets, the summary of the total assets on the balance sheet, after the nine months. This is reflecting sharply the very, very strong business that we had not only over the full nine-month period, but also in particular in the third quarter. Klaus showed it in the beginning that the third quarter, which is, and those of you running with us for many years know that, the third quarter normally is a working quarter or cost quarter. It's not such a big EBIT contributor normally because it is the harvest quarter in the Agribusiness, though mostly also from the renewable, the results have been expected to come only in the final quarter then. You know the story. In particular this year, with at least 130 million contribution only in the third quarter. This has been reflected in a very high level of accounts receivable. Accounts receivables are up by EUR 1 billion, in total by EUR 1 billion compared to year-end and last year as well. This is a very good portion because with the day sales outstanding of some 30 days, you might consider that this has already been turned partly down in October. Having this very strong business in the third quarter has been reflected on the accounts receivable side. On one hand, EUR 1 billion out of the EUR 2 billion increase in the sum total assets number, and then the other billion goes completely into the inventory side. This is the very high portion of inventory on commodities that we stored in. The harvest period was earlier this year. It has already been finished with the end of the third quarter. In total, we have an amount of EUR 1.35 billion on inventory, putting everything together, wheat, grain, feedstock, and oil seeds. This is comparing to a number of EUR 800 million the year before. This is one of the main reason the sharp increase. This is good news because this is the marketing potential that we see for Q4, but in particular from the Agribusiness also for the first two quarters in 2023. We are not so pessimistic also on the next year to come. These two aspects should be considered if we look on the balance sheet statement. Both are in the very liquid short-term assets. Both will be reduced by the end of the year. The inventory level is already on its mostly highest peak, so we expect it to come down by the year-end. In particular, that brings me to the last point, the Renewable Energy Business. We know that you always count on the megawatt sold so far and the megawatt sold to come. Just to give you an update on this, we initially announced some 1.2 GW, I guess, looking on Josko, 1.2 GW to be transferred over the year. You always know the story that it might come to postponements, it might be reconsidered over the year. Having this wonderful result on the Renewable Energy Business, mostly driven by the solar trade business and the energy trade business, some projects will be postponed in an amount of some 200 MW-240 MW into the next year, into the first or second quarter in 2023. Good news also for the result perspective on the Renewable Energy Business in the next year. In the fourth quarter to come, I just overlooked it, roughly 300 MW are still outstanding to come in the final quarter. Again, it will concentrate, I must say, we are already in the middle of November now, so these next six weeks or four weeks are very interesting to come again. At least, I think we are in a very good process-wise shape to bring these projects over the line and, at least this is for me as a CFO, mostly important, the cash back into the books. I think that is it mostly from that perspective, just on the snapshot for the nine months period. Given that we already had the outlook given mostly with the individual segments. We are through, and I guess now ready for questions. We are now ready for the questions. Thank you very much, Mr. Helber. Thank you, Professor Lutz. Now it's your turn if there are some questions left. Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question from the queue, it's star two. Again, please press star one to ask a question. We will take the first question from Oliver Schwarz from Warburg Research. Good morning, gentlemen. Congratulations on the impressive results. Very well done, I guess. However, this is a bit tainted with the, let's say, outlook for the full year, even given the increase in guidance that we saw at the end of October. If I take the lower end of the guidance, we are heading for only EUR 15 million EBIT in Q4. After all your comments on how business is progressing in the various segments you have, I'm still at a loss to explain how that decline is to be handled. Firstly, you stated that you are heading in the RE Business for give or take 1 GW of projects to be sold by the end of the year. So the 1.2 minus the 200 MW-250 MW. At the nine-month stage, you were at 423 MW, so that's give or take 550 MW to come only in Q4. This was one of the main drivers in the past, which is why Q4 used to be the seasonally strongest quarter in regards to EBIT generation. I'm still puzzled why this shouldn't be the case in this year. That would be my first question. Could you please elaborate a bit what conclusions are driving you to an outlook of EUR 175 million-EUR 525 million? Thank you. Mr. Schwarz, this is I take this question, if I may, the question that I expected, and I did not sleep the whole night because I was expecting this question. No, you're absolutely right. If you know, you have to give a guidance when it comes out, and we have a perspective, and I tune it out a little bit away from the megawatt numbers. I think we could deeply elaborate on the individual numbers, but there are project rights in the sales. The megawatt numbers that I mentioned, these are really projects being sold. As you know from the past, it's never that you can multiply 1 MW with a respective amount of EBIT. That is, that does not work. Nevertheless, I guess coming from the nine months result on renewable, that sums up to EUR 160 million, round about EUR 160 million. I guess that we will come into a range of EUR 220 million-EUR 250 million for the Renewable Energy Business. That's what is the potential of those projects that will go over the line. As I said, other projects will be kept back into 2023. To be honest, looking on this, I think these are the more profitable ones. Do not expect the trees to grow into the sky too much on that aspect. This is one thing that will, as we already said, considerably contribute to the final quarter. The setback a little bit is on the Agri business. If you look on the seasonal flow of the results, considering that we had very strong three quarters on the Agri business so far. The forecast that I have in the system is a somewhat prudent approach coming back from this EUR 150 into a range of EUR 90- EUR 95 to EUR 100. That is the one part that we have to reflect, and it always comes in the fourth quarter if we are looking on the results area, because the most part of the marketing potential is to be sold in the first two quarters in 2023. These two aspects are mostly offsetting a little bit, and that might be we are a little bit too prudent. I don't want to go back to the market in whenever early next year and then saying, "Oh, the situation was that we did not make it to this final EUR 525 million or EUR 500 million round about." Yeah, you are right. A little bit prudent, but I guess this is something that we really could achieve. The distance from to the lower gate of the guidance. Yeah, I know, that's really only a short distance to go. If I might c omment on that as well. To be honest, this is the reason or was the reason, as far as why we didn't provide to the market ad hoc messages regarding the business development. No guidance, just explanation of a potential result. Because we are in a very volatile business. We are careful. We take care of our shareholders insofar as we do not want to overstate it because this is very critical. My recommendation for the new management will be never give a clear guidance. Just explain what will be expected in a fiscal year and then you can avoid such type of discussions. It's not critical towards yourself now, of course. We highly appreciate your question, and it was so clear that it's coming from your side, that Andreas and myself at 6:00 in the morning discussed over the phone what should we tell Mr. Schwarz now if Schwarz comes. I'm very sorry to hear that. I don't want to be the cause of you missing your sleep. Well deserved. My- Sorry, the management gets up here at 5:30 A.M. normally. You had 30 minutes of additional sleep because you were aware of my question. That's good. My next questions are more or less housekeeping ones, probably also expected, but not so difficult to answer, I guess. Can you quickly elaborate on your inventory situation regarding fertilizers? We saw prices spike to new heights in the first half of this year. Prices in potash has come down considerably since, and nitrogen we saw a somewhat reverse situation compared to potash, with prices going up due to the high natural gas prices. Also input costs and idling of respective production facilities, especially in Europe here. Everybody is quite on the edge regarding whether to buy or whether not to buy. What was your plan? How is your inventory situation at the moment, and how do you plan to proceed from here? First of all, as always, you know, we are hurt. We were hurt many years ago with this fertilizer stock inventory, where we are faced with a loss of a few EUR 26 million or EUR 8 million or whatever within a few days. So far, we are very careful in building our stock inventory for the upcoming season in March next year. From a volume point of view, I don't have the figures. Who can share that with me? I'm not quite so sure, but I guess. Was it 75,000 tons? 75,000. Exactly. Compared to 100,000. 75,000 tons in comparison to around about 100,000 to 120,000 tons. Mostly sold. This already sold. Our risk, and that's the important one, affiliated to this is very small. Okay, wonderful. Last one, and then I go back into the line. Can you remind me of the gain you made from selling the greenhouse business in the Middle East? This is in this fiscal year around about EUR 8 million. Okay, thank you so much. I go back to the line. Talk to you soon. Bye. The next question comes from Guido Hoymann from Metzler. Yeah. Good morning. Good Good morning, gentlemen. Three questions from my side, please. The first one is regarding the Building Materials business. We are seeing obviously a sharp interest rate induced slowdown in the real estate markets, so housing and building markets. How high is the share of refurbishment and insulation products you're selling there? i.e. you know, how much of your business might prove to be more robust or resilient because of all the probably ongoing CO2 reduction efforts. What is the, let's say, robust share of your sales there? The second question is addressing the Renewables Business. What sort of price cap do you expect for the Renewables? I don't know if you have an idea there or some insight. Did you benefit from the high electricity prices in a direct way, so have you been selling to the spot market in last quarter? Last but not least, back to the building material. Could the residential developer projects you're operating run into problems? How much or what is the percentage of projects you have developed but not yet completed and sold? Let's start with the third question. There is no problem. We don't see any issue here, and we do not see that we can't sell anything. With residential, you mean residential as a whole and residential regarding the solar module on the roof? Is this what your question includes as well? No, that was actually really building construction. Okay. You mean the projects to build apartments and stuff like that? Right. Exactly, yeah. There's no problem at this point in time. We have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 big projects under construction at this point in time. Supply chain procurement and also the sale of the apartments is not really an issue. That's the answer for question three. Question one, interest rate. Well, our business was completely restructured over the last years to make the business outcome much more resilient as it was in the past. In the past, we were only a general building material distribution company, which is not anymore the case. We have a lot of specialties, so similar development as we have it in Cefetra in Rotterdam. The project development is very stable, very resilient. Of course, it has to do with the high and always higher demand for apartments and flats in the areas where we are in the business. Because of the growth of the population, people need apartments and so forth. So far, the interest rate will have an impact, of course. A real downturn or a crash or something like that is not to be foreseen from our side. Maybe we have a cooling down over the next years, but it is not so significant that we are falling back to a, let me say, even negative result or a low profitability, as we were faced with in, let me say, 10 years ago. The business is much more resilient due to the deep diversification of the building material sector. The second question, the price cap, RE. It's interesting question, of course, because it is at this point in time, absolutely unclear how the administration will be, how the structure will be. All is unclear. In so far, to answer the question would be real speculation, which we do not want. Just take for this, windfall profit tax. The basis for it is completely unclear. Why? Because we have different definitions of profitability. Some of them are talking about earnings. Well, I really don't know. I really don't know. It shows you the foolishness of the government and the people who are in charge. Second one is, of course, we are benefiting from the sale and the trading of electricity, of energy. So far, that's positive development for us. Okay. If I may add some numbers. We are of course, as Klaus said, carefully looking on the papers there that are coming through the Ministry of Economics daily, you might say. Every morning comes a new one. As Klaus said, it's completely unclear. Reflecting on what we do is affected here by this paper, by this discussion, is only the production of our own IPP here in Germany so far. If you look on the contribution of the whole IPP portfolio and this includes also the energy trading in the current year, some of the EUR 160 million profit that we had so far, roughly EUR 70 million comes off the energy trading and IPP. Thereof, the half of only the energy trading, which is not affected from this upcoming rule right now. The overall impact that we might see affecting our own operations is in a range, and that was the best guess that we got from the colleagues on the RE Business in a range of EUR 3 million - EUR 5 million. It depends on the definition of the basis for the calculation, which is completely unclear. The second one is, there are also discussions in Berlin to have a much broader scope of this approach. If this is the case, then we had really a problem if the distribution business would be part of it. There's an internal discussion. I don't know the outcome. My managing director of the Chamber of Commerce is part of this committees and task forces and blah, blah. The feedback I get there is really just from an intellectual point of view, a complete disaster. This is not surprising to us as citizen of this country. So far, I don't see at this point in time really a danger for our profitability coming from any super taxes and whatever. All right. Okay, thank you then. The next question comes from Sven Sauer from Kepler Cheuvreux. Hello, good morning, gentlemen. I actually only have one question left. I was wondering if you could maybe update us on the restructuring process in the Agri Trade Business. Is this completed now, or will it be completed by next year? That's a process which is meanwhile many years. A few years ago, we started with a process and it takes time, of course, because we have to close shops, sites, especially in the southern part of Germany, and to reinvest money in new high-tech sites. We are focusing on the areas where the Agribusiness will have a future, where we have enough farmers to provide the commodity to BayWa and also to buy our agri resources and the agri machinery business. So that's a process. We are, as we announced already several times, decreasing the number of sites in our reach. So far, that's an ongoing process. Important is that the steps the new management took under the leadership of Marcus Pöllinger, and maybe you have read that the Supervisory Board announced yesterday or appointed yesterday Dr. Marlen Wienert, the first female in the executive board of BayWa. She is in charge for that. The key success, and that's one of the reasons why she got the job, is during this restructuring process, to combine the machinery business and the classic agriculture sector, to create synergies and cross-selling and omni-channel activities in the market. This is not. You know, we are in the Agribusiness. The people are very conservative. Also, the e-commerce business is going to increase, but not with the speed you are familiar with in other industries. It will take time, step by step, to move forward. We need to be very careful with our customer base because BayWa as the, not moderator, but the distribution partner of the manufacturers, BayWa's USP is the close contact and the personal relationship to the farmers and to the Agribusiness. We must be very careful how fast we restructure this business segment. Okay, thanks. Maybe just one quick follow-up question. I was wondering if you could provide some info on why you sold the Bioenergy GmbH to Macquarie and why it didn't fit into your portfolio. Because we are focusing on wind and the solar business. That's the one thing. The second one is, as an agri trader, you have always the discussion of which is much more important, food or fuel. Food, of course, and then fuel. That's clear. But this can create also some turmoil within our customer base, but also for the capital market. You need to be focused on what you are doing in the Renewable Energy Business. Our plan, the budget till 2028, which we agreed upon with our partner, EIP in Zurich, includes the project development of solar and wind facilities plus IPP and some trading activities. The main focus is the development of projects, to sell the projects and to create over the years a IPP division, to have a running income, which is very, from a calculation point of view, easy to be calculated from your side, from our side, and also to make the business to use this fashion word, resilient. So far, that's just a logical point. We have still some biogas facilities left in our portfolio where we are in the sale process, which is not really a stock exchange relevant, because there are minor issues. Nevertheless, we are divesting all activities which are linked to the biogas business. Okay, thanks very much. The next question comes from Knut Hinkel from Pareto Securities. Please go ahead. Yeah, good morning. Thank you very much for having me. I got four questions left. First one is a follow-up question on Agri Trade and Service. I would be interested to learn if the current good earnings situation changed a little bit your restructuring program. If you, let's say, consider that maybe you don't cut it back that much as you have intended back to when you started it. That would be my first question. Second question, Mr. Helber, you began to give a breakdown on the Renewable Energy contribution from different activities. I want to encourage you to go ahead with that and maybe say something, how much did the projects just ballpark numbers would be helpful. How much did projects contribute? How much trading? How much IPP? You already said that EUR 35 million came from a one-off profit. That would be also helpful. Third question is on the dividend. You paid, if I'm not mistaken, EUR 1 last year. I know that's up to the Supervisory Board, that's clear, but you will propose something. Do you intend to yeah to raise the dividend as much as the bottom line? Is that something you can imagine? Final question is on the development of equity. That is only up by EUR 50 million. I just skimmed over your Q3 report and couldn't see anything. Maybe if I have to dig deeper, why it's just that small amount, compared to the fantastic numbers you presented. What's the reason why equity is just up by EUR 50 million? That would be it from my side. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you for your question. Start with number one. Change in the restructuring process, due to the good earnings situation, of course not. We are encouraged to move on faster. The third question, the dividend. The second one, Andreas is going to answer. The third question, dividend. We paid EUR 1.05 last year for 2021. Now for 2022, of course, we are in the preparation mode to discuss internally an increase of the dividend, which will take place because this is tradition in the BayWa dividend policy. By the way, we don't have an official policy. We just give the money to the shareholders where we think it is adequate and useful on the basis of the decision of the AGM, of course. I just want to say, yes, there will be an increase, but no, it is not proportionally to the increase of the profitability, because we must be careful. We don't know what's going to happen over the next years. We need to keep our business together, our act together, and No one knows what's happening in the global markets, what's happening with China. If I listen to some of these brilliant politicians, what they intend to do in China, this will affect, of course, our business. What's happening with this awful war situation in Ukraine, the sourcing for the international agri markets. Big question mark. How is the supply chain broken or not or whatever. I mean, well, that's a, it's a really black box. Insofar, there will be, of course, an increase because the shareholders will and should and have to participate in this great success. But you can't use a formula. Last year, a profit like this, dividend like this, and now, let me say, the same logic behind. Wouldn't be the right approach. The two questions, Andreas, equity and the other one, you are going to answer, please. Yeah. Starting with the breakdown on the renewable. It's not a secret. I mean, I already mentioned that the two largest EBIT contributor after the nine-month period is the solar trade, the module trade business that comes along with EUR 100 million to total EBIT. This was really an outstanding business here in 2022. The second one I already mentioned, that is the IPP, including the energy trading business that comes with EUR 70 million. If I take all the others together, you might say we sold the one or the other solar project, but taking also the cost side. This was a nil contribution so far as planned. The contribution for those projects will come in the final quarter then. Yeah. All right. More or less, we said some EUR 5 million in the solar project so far sold and little in wind. We have the cost against it. It sums up the two big contributors for the first nine months were solar module trade business and the IPP business. Lastly, the equity. Very well seen. I hope I can get through it without commenting on this. Of course, if you look on the statement of changes in equity in the reporting, you will see it very clearly. There is one effect in the OCI which comes out from the energy trading business, and that comes along with a mismatch of this business. I don't know if you're familiar. Maybe you saw it also with other companies from the IFRS9 treatment of contract that we made. You know that we are trading through energy contracts, buying from one side, selling it immediately off to the other side. It was very successful in 2022, also contributing into 2023. There is an effect on that that goes into the OCI with some EUR 232 million downturn on equity in the nine-month statement. Finally, we are overlooking if we could change the treatment into year-end, but nevertheless, the OCI change at the end of October is only EUR 65 million. That will go down or will go out of the equity for the full year period, I guess. in the nine-month period, this effect has been accounted fully into the equity. It's cash neutral and it's result neutral, but it affects the equity. You see all the other going ups and going downs. We had an increase again from the pension accrual, from the interest rate increase. We have dividend payments against it. Of course, we had this wonderful nine-month result, net result, net profit coming in. By chance, it mostly net off, as you said, and leads to an increase of only EUR 50 million, but that's a snapshot only per September. Okay, thank you very much. The next question comes from Heinz Müller from Dr. Kalliwoda Research. Yeah, good morning, Heinz Müller speaking, Kalliwoda Research. Yeah, unfortunately, there's only one question left. I'm wondering that the sales in the innovation segment are declining despite of the fact that the new ag machinery, where you had an increase in revenues, is equipped with software. Perhaps you can give us an explanation of this trend. Thank you. Mr. Müller, if I may, this is not a decline in the investment in the FarmFacts or smart farming business. It has to do with that we took the e-commerce activities that we had included also in this segment into the operating segments now. It's just a shift from that line into the operational lines of agriculture, building materials, and energy. Nothing to do with lower investments on smart farming. Okay, thank you. The next question comes from Anne Margaret Crow from Edison Group. Good morning, gentlemen. Thank you for taking my question, and congratulations. I'd just like to say, please don't complain about your politicians too much. You should try living in the U.K. right now. Yeah, exactly. My question's on fertilizer prices, because I was speaking with the chief executive of Origin Enterprises earlier this year, earlier in the summer. He commented that actually, at that point, fertilizer prices were so high that it was actually discouraging farmers from investing in fertilizer. They really weren't certain that they were going to get sufficient return from application. My question, has that changed? Are you seeing a different situation where you are? First of all, due to the high earnings of the farmers, we do not see a downturn in the fertilizer business at all. That's also the reason why we have this positive impact in our P&L statement. You also see that the farmers are really significantly investing money in machinery, in the machinery business. It has to do with their earnings. Their earnings are extremely high here in Germany. You know, we are the farmers of the last years, they did not have such a high profitability, and they were not used to that. Due to the fact that the earnings are good, the question for a farmer here is, because we are much more fragmented than, for instance, the business in U.K, where you have the consolidation process behind you, so to say. The farmers are very skeptical regarding the political situation and the development on the political side. This means always they are investing in assets. They are investing, so to say, a little bit in buying machineries just to protect the money. Whether that's right or wrong. Oh. This is a different question, you know. So far, we do not see really a downturn. Yesterday we had a discussion with [Mrs. Lina], our new board member, and she was also for the next year positive, maybe not on the level we have at this point in time, but we are still very positive. So far, I really appreciate and see the colleagues in U.K. very, very, very positive. I know they are really experts, but I believe that we have a real different market situation in the middle of Europe. This is not only here in Germany the case, it's also in Austria and some smaller Eastern European countries like Czech Republic and well, Serbia and so forth. That's very helpful. Thank you very, very much. My pleasure. The next question comes from Bernd Lepping from Bernd Lepping. Please go ahead. Good morning. I'm very impressed of the management and of the company. My question is answered. I had the question, the equity, the EBIT is +EUR 250 million and the equity only +EUR 50 million. This was my question. It is answered. Thank you very m uch. Okay, thanks. We will now take a follow-up question from Oliver Schwarz from Warburg Research. Yeah, gentlemen, thank you for taking my additional questions I threatened to pose on you in the beginning. Firstly, my beloved segment, Other. Mr. Helber was able to once again grow this segment in regards to its negative EBIT contributions. It now totally eclipses the Building Materials segment EBIT contribution. It's probably the third most important segment BayWa has in regards to EBIT development. I appreciate your remarks on the dividend income, especially from your Austrian participations. My first question would be the 2021 dividend of Raiffeisen Bank that was due payable in 2022. Has that been scrapped by Raiffeisen Bank, or has that been deferred to a later period in time? Firstly, Mr. Schwarz, thank you for your positive comment on my performance. That's, I really try my best. Herr Schwarz, I'm going to call the chairman of the Supervisory Board. I think we have to increase the negative bonus for Andreas. I have to pay back, guys. That's good. good. We reached the upper end of the guidance range, right? Absolutely. Final destination. Decrease. Yeah. No. The dividend exactly. In the COVID years, it was that the first COVID year, I guess, the dividend has been banned or limited from the ECB regulation. That has been different thing this year. I think, as far as I know, it has come through the Austrian the banking oversight system, I don't know how they call it there, that they forced them because it has to do with the Eastern European business, partly also with the Russian business. That was the reason why they did not pay the dividend out. Maybe, this is what we expect, that it will become on a higher level next year, as we saw it last year. Understood. Thank you for that. Can you point me or try to guide me to a, let's say, run rate for that segment for the years to come? Because obviously there's a lot of moving parts in that. Some of them are of one-off nature, like the dividend we just discussed. Mm-hmm. When taking into account, let's say, a more normal development, if there's something like that, could you guide us on how the financial impact on the EBIT line is projected for the years to come? Yeah. I have a very clear view on this, since I know the run rate of the overhead costs and things that we always put into this other segment, also things where we make provisions, as I said before, on the real estate portfolio, for example. This is completely included in here. It's not divided up to the operational entities. This is the way how we treat this whole portfolio. I guess if it's in the range of EUR 70 million-EUR 75 million in a year-wide level, that would be a good one. Okay. Got it. I'm not trying to increase it for my personal benefit. Okay. I got that. That includes the running IT projects which could amount to EUR 30 million of costs over the next years. Is there a timeframe attached to that EUR 30 million? It comes through the next three to four years. Okay. Got that. Perhaps another comment on the tax rate, please. Because obviously around about EUR 43 million of Q3 EBIT was by this divestment of the biogas activities and also of the greenhouse facilities. Still the tax rate for the quarter is close to 30%. Or let's put it that way, it's close to the level of Q1 and Q2, which didn't have this distortion, at least not to that amount. Yeah. in the EBIT. Absolutely right. For the quarterly reviews, we normally take the calculated average tax rate, which is 29.8%, or something like that. That would be a reducing effect when it comes through at the year-end when we have a proper tax calculation in. On the quarterly result, it's only the, how do you call it? The standard tax rate. Okay. Got that. Lastly, I'm still trying to get my head around your guidance for Q4, and you know that. I'm doing my best to explain it to myself. I came up with another idea where some sunk costs might be found. Obviously we all know that BayWa is heading for a major anniversary, 100 years of BayWa in 2023. I saw that you have a lead agency coordinating all the festivities for that event, Zeichen & Wunder. I know that Zeichen & Wunder did also the 100 years of BMW Group festivities. That was. Let's put it that way. That was a very lavish thing to do. That obviously did incur some costs. Have you already made provisions in 2022 for the costs you are expecting in connection w ith these festivities, or are there any special bonuses, especially for management, obviously, earmarked for 2022 in that regard? It may be also, something for the employees. I don't know whether you are able or willing or both, to talk about that already at this stage. Mr. Schwarz, you're really well informed. What should I say? You got it, more or less. We don't have provisions for the spending to come for the 100-year celebration programs. It's not only one. By the way, all of you, of course, are invited, or you will be invited for the 8th of February for our start act here in Munich in the Isarphilharmonie, which is going to be really great. It will be a great event. I try to avoid the word party because it's not only a party. It's really event with good politicians. The Prime Minister will come, maybe the Federal President, depends a little bit whether he's available or not. His speeches are so boring that I prefer just Mr. Söder, the Prime Minister of Bavaria, and that's sufficient. We do not want to have the usual performance of people talking to us and speeches and so forth. That's going to be a great event, as I said, with superstars singing, making music, and so forth. In so far, there are costs linked with but it's not included here. The other thing I got some hints from Mr. [Radeljic] is, of course, we are discussing plans, how can we give some benefits to the employees? There are some- Hopefully that we can do it this year because the result is very strong. Yeah, that's the point. This is already included in the forecast. We are not going to make announcements here. Yeah, we can't do that because we need to negotiate that with the works council, with the union. There is not yet an agreement. You know, we must be very careful what we are communicating here, because what we want to contribute, so to say, to the employees is a tax-optimized payment. Got that. Okay. Thank you so much for that. The next question comes for a follow-up question from Knut Hinkel from Pareto Securities. Please go ahead. Yeah. Thank you very much for your patience for another, hopefully final question. Yeah, I would be interested to hear what you think about the interest environment. Interest rates have gone up sharply in the last couple of months. You have some debt on balance sheet, so maybe you can give us a ballpark. Your impression how interest costs will develop over the coming years, maybe. Thank you. Yeah. Let's say maybe I take this question. Of course, it increases. We are very happy that we closed the syndicated loan just the year before, that we are mostly or with a large extent in long-running financing structures, which reduces interest costs for the mostly near future. We already made these sensitivity analysis over the interest development, which we see in worst-case, base-case, and whatever it will be the most realistic case. Interest rates are going up. We expect an additional burden for 2023 of around EUR 7 million to come if it is on a more or less base-case scenario as we see it today. I'm not worried that we can carry the additional interest rates by the coverage. Results are very good and also the potential for the next years are good. As you know, the bank debt or the debt position that we have currently in, I mentioned it in the beginning on by the end of September, these are short-term running debts on financing, on inventory and receivable. That's not the big long-standing impact on the interest results. All right. Thanks. Yeah. We will now take the next question from Norbert Dr. Kalliwoda from Dr. Kalliwoda Research. Please go ahead. Yes. Hello, good morning. Yeah. I'm always interested in technology and, I'm impressed by your so-called Dino chopping robot, also Hackroboter for maize. It's nice because it's electrically powered and it's 10 hours fully autonomous, so without any driver. I read that you can treat 5 hectares per day, and it's a weight of 1 ton with satellite navigation. The question is, when is this finished, the R&D? I think this product is almost finished. How do you see this market potential for this nice product? Yeah. Klaus Lutz here. Well, you know, we are selling this for years already, so the R&D process in principle has been finished already, and the market potential is more a niche market, so to say. Nevertheless, from a technology point of view, that's part of the future, the future technology of agriculture itself. What we see is more satellite and data-based evaluation process for the farmers, which we are providing through the company Vista GmbH to the farmers. For that, we need also more optimized technology devices just to execute the results of the evaluation for the benefits of the farmers. Well, that's a very general remark now, but we are used to all that. The R&D process itself is not part of our business model. That's made by the manufacturers, by Fendt, AGCO, CLAAS, and all that, all these companies. Mm-hmm. In so far, we are part of it, of course. It's important to have the skill profile of the service people, the project managers on the highest possible level. Mm-hmm. So far, education and HR development is extremely important, only just from a technical point of view, of course, and product point of view, and we are investing a lot of money there. That's part of our normal business. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Welcome. Okay. Are there any questions left or? There are no further questions in this one. Okay. We are at the end of our conference call. To stay in agri terms, thanks for that fruitful discussion. The next conference will take place on the 13th of March, but as we have heard, we will see you before at the great event here in Munich in February. Until then, I wish you all the best. Thank you very much. Bye-bye. Thank you. That will conclude today's conference.