Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome, and thank you for joining the DEUTZ AG First Half 2023 Results Conference Call. Throughout today's recorded presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. The presentation will be followed by a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, you may press star followed by one on your touchtone telephone. Press the star key followed by zero for operator assistance. I would now like to turn the conference over to Christian Ludwig, Senior Vice President, Corporate Communications and Investor Relations. Please go ahead. Thank you very much, operator. To you all, welcome to our H1 2023 conference call. Please note that this call is being recorded, and a replay will be available on our website at deutz.com later today. Your participation in the call implies your consent with this. Joining me today are our CEO, Sebastian Schulte, as well as our CFO, Timo Krutoff. As usual, Sebastian will walk you through the highlights of the performance of the group and then hand over to Timo, who will provide some more details on our financial figures. Sebastian will close the presentation with our current market outlook and our guidance. After this introduction, we will be happy to answer your questions. Please note that management comments during this call will include forward-looking statements, which involve risks and uncertainties. For the discussion of risk factors, I encourage you to review the disclaimer contained in our annual report and this presentation. All documents relating to our H1 2023 reporting are available on our website. Without much further ado, I'll hand over to Sebastian, who will kick it off. Thank you very much, Christian. Also from my side, a very good morning to all of you joining us for the H1 '23 results call. Yeah, let me start, as usual, with giving you a brief outline on our key operational strategic developments and highlights, if I may say so, because looking back at this H1 '23, I can say it was a good one. Achieved a lot, made significant progress, obviously this is also reflected in our numbers. In a structured way, our order intake, recorded just shy of EUR 1 billion, went down 8% if we compare it to the previous H1. We'll come to that later a bit. This is mainly driven by the development in China. The development, well, there's a different dynamic in terms of regions, and one reason is that, and the other reason is also that the order behavior, that's more towards Q2, gets a bit more normal from the customers, because supply chain disruptions have eased up significantly. Moving on, unit sales, we increased by 1.1%, selling our DEUTZ engines to 91,450 units, so that's also a plus. Even more importantly, we raised revenue by 10%, up by 10% to EUR 1,024 million. That is the highest figure we've had in more than 15 years. If you combine order intake and revenue, we'll come to a book-to-bill ratio of 0.97. Yes, slightly below one, but given what I said earlier when I spoke about order intake, this is, let's say, not a point of concern. We'll see also later that our order backlog is still very, very high level. We all look very forward and very positively to the rest of the year and beyond. Backed up obviously by particularly positive development and profitability. Adjusted EBIT grew by another EUR 20 million in the first half to EUR 62.5 million, which translates into an EBIT margin of 6.1% for the group, another 1.5 percentage points up. Where we're particularly fond is, is that the classic segment, we went up to 8.7%, so that's another two percentage points up. For the classic profitability of almost 9%, I think we've shown here the proof that we are on a very good level with the bread and butter business of DEUTZ today. Free cash flow were also positive, EUR 33 million up to EUR 8.3 million. Obviously, not in the same, the same push as we had on EBITDA, and that's due to due to also the growth of the business, particularly in terms of inventories. We'll hear about that later. Looking at 2023 guidance, we confirmed already earlier this year, we stick to that for the time being. We'll have, we see a revenue of EUR 2.1 billion on the full year basis. We see an EBIT margin of 5%. We see here already, first half was a little up, a little up towards that. I'll come to the outlook at the end of the presentation. In terms of strategic developments, achieved milestones, we'll just focus particularly on the further expansion of the service network. We did acquire two service partners, one in South America, Mauricio Hochschild, and another one in the Nordics of Europe, Diesel Motor Nordic. I will speak a bit more detail about that in a few minutes. We also made further progress with our green strategy. The project pipeline, both in terms of electrification as well as in terms of hydrogen, is continuously being filled, we are getting positive that we can announce in the near future, first specific projects also to the public. Moving on to the pillar of classic. See in the picture here left, I think that's our Dual+ strategy, classic, green, and then as plus, the service. Let me walk you through, starting with classic. Margin remains high thanks to the success of our performance initiatives, it not only remains high, you know, we're actually as you said earlier, up two percentage points. What's behind that? We're making operational progress here, particularly in Cologne, our biggest site. We've established a new logistic concept, where we make substantial progress with the consolidation of our warehouses. That makes us better in terms of speed and also reliability, obviously, it also reduces costs because we are we are reducing interfaces in this very important area of the supply chain. By that, we made further stabilization, or we achieved further stabilization of the supply chain, but also the production processes. We spoke a lot in the last 12 months when we talked to you guys individually, also, or as part of conferences, on that very strong demand for the sub-4-liter engines. In the last 1.5 years, demand really exceeded what we could supply in our current production configuration. That's why we have now initiated, now ramping up the third shift on our assembly line five here in Cologne for sub-four-liter. That ramp up has been performed fairly successful, not, not fair, very successful, actually. Got the people aboard, and we're slightly ahead of ahead of the KPIs here, so that's good. With that, we are very confident that we can further improve our delivery performance and do what we want to do, making our customers happy with our products and also with the delivery. We also further rolled out our fixed-volume program in line with what I just said, the demand for sub-four-liter exceeded supply significantly. We were able to agree with a lot of our most important customers, fixed volumes for this year, almost in a take or pay situation. With that program, which we coupled also with our pricing strategy, we achieved that roughly 75% of the now expanded capacity, i.e., including the third shift in the second half of the year, is now booked, and that clearly backs up and supports the high order backlog, which makes us looking actually very, very comfortably to the rest of the year. To sum it up here, our classic business provides a very strong foundation for also the implementation of the green strategy, because that's what we need. We're very convinced of this classic business to be, play a very important role over the next five, 10, potentially 15 years, depending obviously on the displacement of the engines. We're gonna make best use and all the best out of that to turn this business really into a profitable pillar of DEUTZ. Let me move on towards green. In green, we're growing. We're growing in terms of project pipeline. We're not yet translating that into top line numbers significantly. There's a lot going on, both in the field of battery electric technology, where we're currently pursuing 10 very concrete projects with OEM partners across several areas of applications. Here, we are currently bound by confidentiality agreement, not to be able to name or to provide names and details of these partnerships, but as soon as we can, we will obviously announce. Also, with hydrogen, pretty much build around our hydrogen combustion engine, the TCG 7.8 H2, we're pursuing five projects, not only in stationary energy generation, but obviously with a strong focus on that, but not only, also in terms of mobile solutions. We did, we informed already earlier this year, we did sign an LOI for a small-scale production run of H2 gensets towards Asia, and that's something we're pursuing here with high efforts, and as soon as we can provide more information, we will do so as well. Important is obviously, whenever it comes to a transformation and developing not only new technologies, but new markets, new business models, that we have now established a process to evaluate such models and partnerships, and that's going well, and that involves more and more people in the organization to really build here the future of DEUTZ. As a, as an example, also, because obviously has impacts on the supply chain, and here we teamed up with Mahle, German automotive supplier, where we have achieved an agreement for parts for our hydrogen product, which is great news for both Mahle and DEUTZ. When it comes on numbers and commitments, we're, we're happy to reiterate here our commitment, that we're gonna invest more than EUR 100 million between 2023 and 2025. When I say invest, that's a combination of investment in the strict terms of the word, but also focusing here on R&D, mainly on battery, electric, and hydrogen. I think that's clear. That's a very strong commitment of us, that we are building here the future. Because, you know, with all the focus on the current classic business, which I said earlier, is very important, we also want to play a vital role to establish and bring emission-free technologies into the market. That's why we committed here to be emission free across the entire process chain no later than 2050. Let me move on. The third pillar of our strategy, the plus of the Dual+, the service, DEUTZ. Here, first report back on how the numbers were. First half year was very, very strong. Revenue rose further to EUR 237 million, up 6.4%. Order intake also went up to EUR 241 million, up 5%. You, you, you see here order intake revenue pretty much on par, showing it's a stable growing business. That's exactly what we want of that, because it, and you know that it's a very profitable business. It's not only a profitable business, it's also a business which has been so far very important for us to really underline the important, the, the, the USP of DEUTZ towards our customers. Because what they want to have is not only the engines, but also the, the certainty that if there is a problem with the engine, DEUTZ is there to fix that. We get very, very positive feedback from our customers, also on our recent growth path. The volume rose significantly, particularly for parts sales and the DEUTZ Xchange product line. We've also, we have also made further progress on the expansion of the in-house service network. I will speak a bit about the two acquisitions in South America and Northern Europe in just a moment. These two acquisitions is not the end of the line. We have quite a few projects here under evaluation right now, and that's a good thing, because with a lot of projects under evaluation, we will ensure that we pick the right ones for implementation. Let me sum up here on on, on service. We are well on track to achieve our EUR 600 million revenue objective for 2025. We closed last year with EUR 450. We're significantly above that, as you see, with almost EUR 240 after the first six months. Well on track for this profitable business of ours. Let me, let me say a few words on our expansion, our sort of anorganic expansion. First of all, you see that here on the left, we did manage to open another DEUTZ service center, DPC, called DEUTZ Power Center in the U.S. The U.S. is currently our strongest market, we've done a lot over the last two, three, four years here, and the ninth DPC is really another success point at the Great Lakes. Revenue, the DPC revenue in 2023, we see around EUR 50 million, profitable business. Now we are really in a position that wherever you are in the country, in the U.S., takes less than 90 minutes that you can have access to a DEUTZ technician or vice versa, and that is a very strong promise from us to our important customers. Let me move on to South America. We did sign a share purchase agreement to purchase a long-lasting, long-term service partner of ours, Mauricio Orchards in Chile. The transaction is also completed now. Closing has occurred end of July, with that, with that acquisition, we will grow consolidated basis, the revenue by EUR 15 million per year on a consolidated basis as that. That's another pillar to move here further, further towards the EUR 600 million. On top of that, we pretty much just signed a contract for the acquisition of another long-term service partner of DEUTZ called Diesel Motor Nordic, with a presence in Sweden, Finland, and Denmark, where we also expect on top revenue on a consolidated basis, profitable business, EUR 10 million per year. This, this, this, this acquisition is not closed yet, but we expect it to be closed in the course of the coming months. So to sum up here, we are continuously expand our global network, and we also, and that's important to mention, we also include here some third-party business. All the acquisitions have a strong DEUTZ foothold, but they also have third-party activities, and that really opens up another part of that very attractive service and parts market box. Having said that, I would hand over to Timo, our CFO, who will walk you through the numbers in a bit more detail. Please, Timo, go ahead. Yes. Thank you very much, Sebastian, and a very good morning to everyone here from Cologne. Let me start with our key KPIs on the sales side. I would today start on the right side with the revenue numbers. I think it's very important to mention how good the year so far was on the revenue side. With a little more than EUR 1 billion on in sales, we do have a new record sales for a half year, so that was a very good start. Revenue is up therefore by pretty exactly 10%, which is driven by two main factors. One is the price increases, which we've done in the last year, the other one is also a mix effect. Having said mix effect, if we look at the unit sales, unit sales in total would do look a little bit going down with just a minus 1.3%. If we look into it in a little more details, we can see that our classic business, the engine business of DEUTZ, with 91,400 compared to the 90,400 of the previous year, is actually up. This means we did have a slight increase compared to the year before, which was mainly limited by our own capacity if we produce in a two-shift system, especially here in Cologne. There were no big issues on the supply chain anymore, which was a good thing. Last year, we were a little bit constrained on that side, but so far we could pretty much produce on max capacity. That is very good, especially since Sebastian said that we are going or we did start the third shift beginning of the month, so we will have additional capacity available and therefore additional possibility of higher sales for the upcoming months. The reason why unit sales is down a little bit is due to our TAFE business. We can see it here. Last year, we did still have 18,300, roughly, pieces, down to almost 16,000 pieces. Here we do have two effects. One was the very strong years, especially, in consumer goods, during the COVID time, which is slowing down a little bit, in this year. There's also some change in technologies where some new products need to be or will be introduced, and we're just in the time of the change of these products. Looking at new orders, new orders, yes, have gone down by 8%, but, with a book-to-bill rate of 0.97, we can say, that we are very, very close to a 1. That is still an extremely high number for us. If we look here in a little more detail, we can say that Europe is still doing good, America is doing very good, the main reason why we do have a decline here is coming almost exclusively from China. China is down by a little more than EUR 80 million, which explains almost the whole difference here. Important to notice is, though, that our orders on hand remain on a very high level. We have EUR 740 million as of June 30th. That's if we look into the last five or six years, or pretty much probably whatever number we looked in the past, that's still one of the highest numbers we ever had. We are very well positioned for the next months coming up. Let's now look into it in a little more detail. From the revenue side, there's really one key message, and this is that it doesn't really matter if we look at it by regions or by application segments. In all areas, we're up. That is a very, very positive thing to say. We see on the left side, the revenue breakdown by region, that we have, if we look at Europe, without Germany, we're up 7.6%, Germany, 7%, Asia Pacific, still plus 3.5, Africa, Middle East, plus 19.5, and then the Americas, which is the strongest growth rate right now, as it has been in the last years, with, again, 20.4% up compared to the last year, which is extremely good for us. Looking at the segments, that's also, of course, always very interesting. Are there some segments where we see a decline or not? As I said, no, there is no decline in, in any of these, but of course, there are differences. In some of them, we can especially look at material handling, which is one of our, the bigger segments, and here we're up 26.7%, so that is going very strong. Also in the stationary equipment, for example, we're up 17.4%. That's very good. The ones that are not going, growing as much anymore, but still growing, construction equipment being our biggest segment with 3.3%, we still see growth here. Service segment is a little special. Sebastian talked about it. It's extremely important for us. ss volatility in general in this market, and the service segment is up 6.4%, even though there's no consolidation so far of the two acquisitions Sebastian has talked about. We are going to see these, the first one for sure in the next quarter and the second one, hopefully then, by the end of this year. Looking at profitability, we did have an extremely strong first quarter, EUR 32.1 million, so absolute record quarter. We can say with some pride, I would say, that also the second quarter was very, very close to that. Yeah, another, again, over EUR 13 million in profit, even compared to the very strong second quarter we had last year, which was the strongest of the year. We're still up by EUR 3.5 million. If we look into this in, for the numbers for the first half-year in total, we did achieve an EBIT of EUR 62.5 million, which is EUR 20 million more than the first half-year of the last year. What were the main reasons? Yes, a little bit, of course, because of economies of scale. We're still up a little bit on that one, but then, of course, mainly our performance programs now really kick in, in profitability. Pricing was part of it, in all directions, keeping costs down, of course, and the expansion of our service business always helps also on it. Looking at the margin, 6.1% in total is a very, very solid number, also compared to the last year, where we already were pretty happy with the 4.6%, but again, a good increase, and we're well on track, therefore, for our guidance for this year. Great. Looking at some of the spending, starting with the R&D side, which especially if you're in a transformation, of course, is an important number to look at. We can say that we again increased our number in R&D spending in the first half year. We are now very close to EUR 50 million on the R&D side for a half year, up by another EUR 2 million, so we are still significantly investing in our future. On the capital expenditure side, if we look at the, I would say, call it normal capital expenditure, then we are very close to the number which we had last year. We did have the big acquisition of the IP and license rights from Daimler Truck, which made our EUR 52 million, which we see here in this light red numbers, which put capital expenditure in total to EUR 88.5 million. Working capital is up almost EUR 40 million. We mentioned that earlier. We did start our third shift, so therefore, we did have to build up some stock for this. And this is mainly the reason what is reflected here in these numbers, but there's also some other smaller topics, like, for example, that we're increasing our business in the US. We do have then therefore, more parts on the ships going over to the U.S., therefore, a little more inventory on hand because of that. Luckily, that's also another very good number if we look into the cash flow. We are positive, EUR 8.3 million, significant jump compared to last year, up EUR 33 million. Whatever we just saw in the working capital increase, of course, always has an effect on the cash side, we could overcompensate that by far due to the much higher EBITDA that helped support the free cash flow. On the net financial position, we're a little below where we had been for the end of the last year. Of course, we do have the dividend payment always going out in the first half year, in the part of the first half year. This is reflected in this number. Balance sheet, luckily, or, there's really not much to say to that, that because we are in a very comfortable level and still with an equity ratio of 44.6%. Balance sheet in, in general grew, so there is a slight decline in the percentage, but in general, a very strong number. Also, if we look at our credit lines, we do have EUR 180 million available here in unused credit lines. Even if there would be any opportunities in the market or any downturn, we are very well-financed and don't see any risk in these numbers. Some short comments also to our segments. Again, I think on the classic side, there is really one main thing we need to look into it, and that is the EBIT and especially the EBIT margin. 8.7% is what we reached compared to the 6.8% which we had last year, a significant increase. Our classic business does really support the business here, and therefore, also gives us a good foundation for the transformation that we are having in front of us. Revenue is up almost 11%. Unit sales still 1.1% up, so here again, a mixture of price and mix effects that are very positive, and the order intake is pretty much what I've already talked about on the first page. Green segment, order intake and unit sa-, order intake is still up, unit sales and revenue is down, though, so this is what I mentioned earlier. The Torpedo site, there is a little less sales in the first year, but as we see on the order intake here, it's compared to the year before, so we might see some improvement there in the upcoming months. If we look at the EBIT number, that in the first aspect, looks like a fairly high number with a loss of EUR 24.4 million. Unfortunately, yes, our Torpedo business has a big stake in that one. The rest of it is mainly driven because we do spend a lot on R&D in our green segment, and we are not capitalizing this, so this goes directly into our EBIT, and therefore, we see it more as an investment into the future than a loss-making business unit. That's all from my side for the details and to the numbers, and I would give back to Sebastian for the outlook. Thank you very much, Timo. Before going to the outlook on 2023, as well as on the midterm targets towards 2025, let me really look back at the first half year and conclude that we're actually very pleased with the first half year. We have recorded very high revenue, the highest revenue in more than 50 years, and despite the small backdrop in order intake, still a very, very high order intake, both order intake and revenue, roughly EUR 1 billion. Yes, it's true that book-to-bill on a half year basis, just just below 1, so the dynamic may have slowed a little bit, but we also know, it's as we heard earlier, it's very clearly associated with the China situation, EUR 80 million down year-over-year. Is that a point of concern for us? I mean, unlike many other industrial players or in the automotive segment, for DEUTZ, China is not a strong basis. It's more that we obviously want to participate in the chances China brings, but, you know, at the moment, our strongest regions are Europe and particularly Americas. It's not a point of concern for, you know, losing business, but obviously we want also to participate more in China in the future when the market picks up. This is the way we look at China. For 2023, it makes a lot of sense when obviously looking at, looking at the current year, we are pretty much fully booked, especially Sub-Volita, with this high order backlog of 740. You know, going beyond particular Americas, as I said, is our fundamentally strongest market, backed up by the, the various governmental programs. That's also, that's also supporting it. There are some really mega projects ongoing in semiconductor business, LNG. There's a new airport terminal with JFK. This all drives further up the demand for rental equipment, and that's exactly where we are strong positioned in the, in the US as a supplier of the, of Terex, GLD and, and other players there who, who themselves serve the rental companies. That's why, for 2023 as well as for the year beyond, we are fairly optimistic. But now let me really go through the guidance for 2023. Unit sales, we're sticking here to our earlier this year announced guidance that we are seeing 195,000 DEUTZ engines to be sold after the 181,000 in the previous year. We're seeing here still the revenue of EUR 2.1 billion to be achieved. We see the EBIT margin of approximately 5%. Looking back at H1 again, we were already at 6%, right? We are quite, quite substantially above that. Maybe there is some room for improvement in the rest of the year. We're looking still a little bit cautious on that. Free cash flow, we confirm the outlook of mid-double digit million EUR amount, excluding M&A. Let me conclude that the guidance 2023 is confirmed after this very successful first half of the year. We move on to the midterm targets, also the outlook for 2025. In 2025, we aim at a top line of exceeding EUR 2.5 billion, and out of which service business grows, takes a substantial growth path, going to the EUR 600 million I said earlier. We do that organically as well as on- and organically, and you see here increasingly our proof points to, like today, mentioned the two acquisitions. EBIT margin, we see a range between 6%-7%. Yes, we are already at the lower, at the lower part of the range in the first half, so I think what you also see here, that these are, let's say, ambitious, but yet realistic, targets where management is fully committed to achieve them for 2025. We confirm also the midterm targets for 2025. Yeah, what's, what's out still this year? Looking briefly at the core parts of the 2023 financial calendar. We'll have planned a couple of roadshows, the virtual roadshow in August and two, one in Munich and one in Paris, where we'll probably see most of you. What we also have planned as a highlight is on September 12th, the Capital Markets Day here in Cologne this time, which is under the title Moving Value. Moving, connected to, we ensure the world keeps moving. So obviously we want to also move upwards the value of the company for our investors, and that's why we really hope to welcome, ideally, all of you at the Capital Markets Day here in Cologne in September. Having said that, thank you very much for dialing in and listening. Let me hand over to Christian. Thank you very much. Yes, thank you very much, Timo and Sebastian. Operator, we would like now to open the line for questions. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star followed by one on their touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star followed by two. If you're using speaker equipment today, please leave the handset before making your selections. Anyone who has a question may press star followed by one at this time. The first question comes from the line of Jorge, Jorge Gonzalez Adornil with Hello, good morning. Thank you very much. First of all, congratulations on the results, Sebastian and Timo. My first question will be around the guidance. Although you have just confirmed now that the guidance is unchanged on some cautious view for the second, for the second part of the year. Still you are keeping the 195,000 engine productions that obviously is pointing to a stronger second part of the year compared to the first one. Can you help us a little bit to understand if there is any different mix or different cost base in the second part of the year to be more cautious? If, on the opposite, if anything changed, there is good room to, to improvement to the adjusted EBIT margin target. My second question will be around the order intake. It will be interesting if you can guide us for the rest of the year, what is your view, if you can keep the 1-time or the close to one time book to bill, especially taking into account that after the summer is normally when the construction companies put more orders for equipment, or if this negative trend in general in construction, especially in Europe, might still impact you a little bit in the second part of the year. What can you tell us about this? Finally, on these acquisitions that you, you completed and, and you are in the way to complete for the service business, can you give us an approximate figure for the total investment? Thank you very much. Thank you, Jorge, for the questions. First on the, on the outlook on the 195, and you, you, you said correctly or you asked the question, if I got it correctly, to compare it with the numbers in the first half in terms of production output, but then also in terms of profitability and cost base, right? First of all, I mean, what, what changed in terms of our production outlet outline is for the second half, we actually started operating with the third shift here in Cologne now. That enables us to bring up a stronger second half than the first half, particularly in the sub-four-liter production, where we actually, well, will simply increase capacity significantly by adding a third shift. We do not increase capacity, let's say, by, by 50% for that, because we will also be able, at least that's the plan, to optimize a little bit of the, the, you know, the, the shifts, so we use, we use fewer, fewer weekends and fewer extra hours and so on. That helps us driving down, so to say, the base two shifts, but on the other hand, the third shift is a little more expensive, due to the fact that it happens at night, right? That's so that's that, that gives that changes the, the cost structure, to an extent. Obviously, in terms of margin, yes, we are a little cautious still because we have now, we're in August, so July, August are typically the weaker months, because of the vacations and holiday stoppages also at some customers, and we are ramping up that third shift right now. When you ramp up an additional shift, you cannot expect it to work immediately from day 1 at the same efficiency as the base shifts. But what I can say already that the ramp up so far is slightly ahead of plan, but it's only one and a half weeks in, so it's too early to, too early to call it this summer. That's, that's sort of the, the view on the, on the, on the production, cost side. Then we are still, and that's, I think, also a known topic, that the, the tariff, the, the salary increases of the IG Metall in Germany, they did not start immediately with the beginning of January, they started slightly delayed. Sort of the blended salary costs are in the second half, a little higher than the first half. I, I hope that answered briefly, or that answered essentially the question on the production capabilities as well as cost structure and thus margin. Moving on to order intake, it's a different dynamic in different regions. Most cautious, we are really at China. China, after the lockdowns stopped in February, March, there was a brief period of boom, but only a very brief period, since then it went down very significantly. I would not be really in a, in a, let's say, solid position to say, "Okay, in Q3 or Q4, we expect here, a strong, strong, order intake." We do have to say that we have fairly long order range. I think it's 40-41 weeks in, in, in Asia at the moment. That's, so we are still, let's say, solidly positioned, but China, we continue to look carefully at that. EMEA is, is a mixed bag, both in terms of industries, but also in terms of product lines. For sub-four-liter in particular, we are still seeing strong demand, and we also expect, the customers to position themselves still bullish, when it comes to 2024, because 2023, it's already, it's already booked pretty much. There's in the sub-four-liter, we're fully booked. In the larger engine, in the larger engine series, we see also a little bit of a mixed picture. Yes, there are some older engine series which we're phasing out, but that's, for us, actually a positive thing because these are typically older engine series with very low margins. Some from towards our biggest customer, where it's in the interest to actually not continue further with that anymore. On the other hand, we also see in some low-regulated markets, quite a strong order intake. It's a mixed bag in EMEA. Americas, I mentioned earlier, is really strong. What we see here, particular from Q1 to Q2, we saw initially a little, a drop in order intake, but that's not structurally. That relates to our fixed-volume program that our American customers placed due to our fixed-volume program. They placed orders for almost a full year in the first quarter, and that obviously means they do not place these orders in the second, and in the third, and in the fourth quarter. Before we introduced the fixed-volume program, they typically placed the orders, let's say six to eight months before production, and obviously that is disturbed right now. Depending on whether we're gonna continue with the fixed-volume program for 2024, we have not made that decision yet. We may either see another strong, strong order intake in, let's say, December or January, depending on when we get out with that program, or we will return back to the typical order behavior of the customer. That's, I would say, the key, key view on the order intake situation ahead of us. Oh, M&A. Sorry, third question, M&A. Yes, we do not disclose, we do not disclose the, sort of the detailed numbers on that level, but if you look at both, both together, it's somewhere between EUR 25 million and EUR 35 million. Thank you, Sebastian. Only to, to follow up on the order intake, your equipment is, is, is more or less, if I remember well, doing 30%, 30%, 31% of your sales. Although we were commenting on the, the order intake now is not very represent- representative now because of the normalization. Are, are you, are do you think that the growth in North America can for now compensate? With the, with the numbers you are seeing is, and, and, and take into account that you, you might not continue with this, with the first shift, but is, is the picture is enough to, to see at least a flat year next year or, or similar levels or is it still too early to comment on this? Let me take that question. Of course, we are monitoring the U.S. market very closely. I do believe that a lot of the Inflation Reduction Act still has a positive effect on our business, also for the upcoming years. If you think about how many big or mega projects are in this business, a lot of them have just started or haven't even started. A lot of the construction equipment that is needed for actually making that happen, is going to be needed in the next years. Also, if we look at the bigger numbers for the U.S., doesn't matter if we look at the labor market, which is still a good number, inflation is down on the other side, even though the interest rate has been increased. We do, of course, as I said, watch that closely, but everything we hear from the market and still is, demand is high. We are going to also need it in the construction business for the, at least, near future. Thank you very much, Timo. I go back to the line. Thank you. As a reminder, if you wish to register for a question, please press star followed by one. The next question comes from the line of Stefan Augustin with Warburg Research. Please go ahead. Yes, hello. Thank you very much. I want to briefly get into the demand side again, because I understand that you have placed the larger, let's say, for the fixed mining program ordered in Q1. There is a shift between Q1 and Q2. Overall, if I would then strip Q1 a little bit out, we're definitely running slightly below the sales volume here, and a lot of economic indicators have turned down. If the headline numbers to me, look a little bit more, let's say, cautionary. Yet, I hear you, that you are quite positive about the demand side. Again, could you help us to square that a little bit up from, is there, is there a lot higher frame indication to, let's say, for, for, for the tender that you see than the actual call off on the order intake implies to? Where is that little difference coming from? Maybe also here, how is currently the pricing situation? We, we have the increased prices now in the sales side, but how does the order intake currently develop? Is it still stable, or do you see any, let's say, slight, slight movement here? Let me start with the second part of your question, Stefan. Obviously last year, 2022 was the year where across the value chain, prices had to be increased significantly. That's where the biggest push came from our suppliers, but also from factor costs, like energy, logistics and so on. That's why last year, in the end, we succeeded of raising prices across the board, somewhere between 8% and 12%, with some exceptions below and some others above, taking into account also the profitability of various products. That dynamic of cost increases towards us and price increases from us towards our customer, have slowed down. I mean obviously, right? The, the energy prices are now on a higher level than they were in 2021, but they are not, we don't see these peaks anymore as we had last year. That means supply chain is in principle easing down a little bit, right? We are still, we are still benefiting from the adjustment of our prices. We are still also negotiating with, with a few customers where, and obviously, I will not disclose with whom, on what level, I think that would not be the right forum to do so. But, there is certainly still the necessity to pass on increased costs, which are affecting us, but, the results show that we're doing that, let's say, in a, in a, in a, in a good way. We still have a few product lines, a few products where the profitability is not where it should be, but that's what we're working on. I do not expect for the next year another range for 20- I'm talking 2024 now, you know, where I do not expect something at a very high level anymore. You know, we need to be here, we need to be here in a, in a, in a sense, dynamic, that if the, if the frame conditions change, we do not wait too long to act. That's why we were successful last year, that we didn't wait six months or nine months, but we started immediately. We have learned a lot over the last 15 months to be very close to the markets and the factor costs. We continue or we expect to benefit from that knowledge and the processes also going forward. Order intake, I think I mentioned most of it, and Timo also when on the previous question. Maybe one thing obviously on top is we have, we have our sales force is out. Also for future projects, now this is nothing we'll see in 2023 or 2024, but after the acquisition and the partnership with Daimler Truck on the medium and large engine HDEP engines, our teams are out in the market and to hunt customers and projects for those engines, because the big new contracts are being won pretty much in the next one to two years. Here we make substantial progress, but, well, that's nothing which will, will lead to production this or next year or even 2025. Other than that, what said earlier, it's, it's just to be confirmed. Americas will drive very strong on the new engine side. EMEA with that mixed bag, and on the service side, well, we have not talked a lot about that, but on the service side, we see here an, an unbroken record of demand and also, also order intake, which we back up with the inorganic expansion as, for example, mentioned today. I hope that answered both the two of your questions. Would it then be fair maybe to have something like an implication? Would you think that Q3 order intake differs significantly in any direction from Q2? It is too early to say because we have only the July concluded yet. In order to assess, 3rd quarter is always a bit of a difficult quarter to be assessed because of the holiday period. Mm-hmm. July is always a rather low month, simply because the buyers of the customers are on vacation, or the customers have their production sites partially closed, and they're simply not pulling products. That's why July is never a good month. What we typically do over the last years, if you look at July and August combined, at the end of the two months, then you have a better indication. That we don't have yet. At the moment, we don't see any significant deviations due to compared to previous seasonal effects right there. Thank you. Then maybe a little bit on the inventory, where you outlined that this is still increasing because you have engines in transit. Could you somehow quantify that element that is in transit, and will that be further increasing when we look into the second half? Or is it then staying roughly on the same level? The last one is actually more of an housekeeping question: Is there a significant ABS program or anything else running? Right. First of all, inventory, yes, inventory is high, as Timo explained it earlier. It's high for the two reasons of still having lots of engines in transit towards the US, but also components. I mean, we are ramping up our main production line from two to three shifts. For that we need components. Inventories have gone up, DIOs have gone up, but not significantly. We are foreseeing here in the third, in particular the fourth quarter then, a normalization and going back to lower levels. That's right, I think in terms of AWS and financing, I'll hand over to Timo. Yeah. If I did understand you correctly, the line was 100% clear, you asked if we do think about an ABS program. Was that the question? I assume so. Yes, or if you have one in place. Now, right now, we are using factoring as our main vehicle for this kind of financing, where we can say that we have very good contracts in place. We are in regular discussions about our financing structure, of course, with our banks. Have done a lot of workshops over the last months here, but so far we can say that we are very well placed with the with the factoring program. In the long term, with also increasing the business further, we do think about maybe changing that, but that would really mainly be a change which wouldn't have a big effect on the balance sheet, because right now, factoring volumes are already in the area of roughly EUR 140 million. Okay. Thank you very much. We have a follow-up question from Jorge Gonzalez Adornil with Hauck & Aufhäuser Investment Banking. Please go ahead. Hello, Sebastian and Timo. A very quick one regarding China. I forgot to ask if you can give us some color on how much it was weight in China last year, or if you can give us some data on this quarter, that will be also great. Also, if you can update us a little bit on SANY. Canobrence this morning commented that in his results, that China is doubling for truck production. I was wondering if this can also positively impact your production there, or if it's still to or to link to the construction and not yet linked to the transport, so on. You are not seeing any, any improvement, so far? Thank you. Yeah, thank you, Jorge. On China, on the joint venture, it's true that the heavy duty truck business there from SANY is increasing, but it's increasing on a very low baseline. That means for us also, I mean, you know, our JV with SANY focuses both on excavators, which is the traditional or the main business of the JV, and heavy duty trucks. We do see this effect, but it's almost marginal because the baseline is so low. That's why we do not see a major impact in the China joint venture. It's still sailing on a, let's say, low level, on a low level. Yeah, the expectations in China, we talked, I think we spoke a lot about in the last 2 years. They are not there, or the, the reality is not where the expectations used to be. Okay, thank you. Regarding the, the sales that you are currently, having in China, the, the, the weight in sales of the, of the region? Volume, Peter. Yeah, let me just check. All right, so sales in total in China, if we exclude the SANY joint venture, we were in our first half year by, at roughly EUR 64 million, pretty stable to H1 2022, where it was EUR 66 million. If we include the SANY joint venture, we are at EUR 122 million compared to EUR 124 million, so pretty much flat. Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, there are no further questions at this time. I hand back to Christian Ludwig for closing remarks. Well, thank you very much. Thank you all for your questions. If any questions should be left open, please contact the IR department. We'll be happy to help you there. We hope to see you either at our Capital Markets Day on September 12th, or at the latest, talk to you again with our Q3 numbers on November 9th. Thank you very much, and goodbye. Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now concluded, and you may disconnect your telephone. Thank you for joining, and have a pleasant day. Goodbye.