Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. I am Stuart, your Chorus Call operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Deutsche Post DHL Group conference call. Please note that the call will be recorded. You can find the privacy notice on dpdhl.com. Throughout today's presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. 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 touch tone telephone. Press the star key followed by zero for operator assistance. I would now like to turn the conference over to Martin Ziegenbalg, Head of IR. Please go ahead. Thank you, and a warm welcome from our side to anyone out there to our Q3 conference call. As flagged, I have got with me Frank Appel, CEO, Melanie Kreis, CFO, and we go with the procedure you are all familiar with. We are going to start with the presentation and leave sufficient time for Q&A. With that, Frank, over to you. Good morning as well from my side, and welcome. Thank you for joining us. Let us go straight away to page three, the executive summary. Of course, we are very happy that we have seen in the third quarter, again, profitability for the group of more than EUR 2 billion, a lift up year-over-year. Despite that, Q3 last year was already very strong. I am particularly happy about the free cash flow performance, which is even stronger than in our preliminary announcement, so that is very good. 45% up year-over-year. I think that shows that we really are focused on free cash flow generation. Going forward, we have increased our guidance to around 8.4% on the EBIT level and more than EUR 4.2 billion on free cash flow, which shows our confidence in this year's numbers. Going forward, of course, there will be challenges, without a doubt. We have seen that already in the development of B2B volumes in the third quarter. We expect as well that there will be a cool down of the economy, but we feel that we are well equipped to manage that and start from a very strong standpoint. On the next page, you can see what happened to B2C volumes. As we have predicted, we will see a recovery of year-over-year development. You can see that here. Two out of the three divisions have seen a B2C growth in the third quarter. That is in alignment with the reduction in growth we have seen last year. As you remember, the first half of 2021 was extremely strong volume growth over 2020. Of course, that has led to the decline in the first half of this year. We are very happy that we have now a stabilized situation overall. On the right, you can see how much more volume we now move in our networks than before COVID. I think particularly impressive is Express and eCommerce Solutions. Parcel Germany is more or less in alignment with what would happen anyway if you think about a 5%-7% growth from 2019 to 2022. The other two divisions have grown significantly stronger, and that shows how well we are positioned in both in the respective markets. That's good news. The more challenging news is on page five. You'll see that we have seen a decline in volumes year-over-year in air freight and ocean freight, if you exclude Hillebrand on ocean. Even in comparison to 2019, we have not such a strong volume. We have even the decline. That might show as well that a recovery could come faster than we think because we are moving already less volume in 2019, and the world is not smaller than it was in 2019. I think customers are concerned short term, and we will see how Christmas comes and then what happens in the new year. On Express, this is more resilient. The B2B shipments has dropped less than in air freight. In particular in the area of weight, we have mentioned that several times that this is something which has supported our growth quite nicely. That's the reason why we have seen a strong EBIT in Express and in DGF. We have still seen a very good conversion rate. Of course, that is a consequence as well of our deployment of a new IT system, which will help us in the rest of this year and next year as well. In Express, we see the benefits of the virtual airline because we can really adjust volumes to a lower level if it happens by stopping than using third-party suppliers. Overall, we see the same what the market sees, that B2B volumes are dropping. Maybe too fast and too much if you compare that to 2019. Since we don't see a recession in consumer demand, that can't go on forever because sooner or later, the warehouses will be empty again. Maybe it's a good sign, and it's particularly a good sign for us because we still have traded very well despite the volume decline we have seen. That confirms on page six what I've just said, that we are very good in yield management. We have increased prices consistently, and we have a very good established surcharges mechanism. We do the same in the other divisions also in Supply Chain eCommerce Solutions. We have done well in adjusting our pricing. In P&P, we always are more limited because the stamp price regulation is as it is. On the cost side, we are well-positioned as well. That's not the first time that we see change, and in particular, I remember very well the drops in 2009 in volumes were even bigger than what we observe at the moment after the financial market collapsed. Despite all of that, we have not stopped to execute our ESG agenda well. Our Alice, our electric airplane, which we want to use soon, had its maiden flight. We have continued to enlarge our electric fleet. We also sell our products to customers, which is encouraging to see, last week, we signed another deal on buying even more sustainable maritime fuel to really make a big step forward also on the ocean front. On social, the employee opinion survey was in alignment with last year. As you remember, we had record numbers last year, we kept that high level. That's great news. DHL Express became another time Great Place to Work number one, which no other company has ever done before. On the highly trusted company, we have revamped our sustainability advisory council, and Melanie, Thomas O'Keeffe and I have recently had a session with them, which was very encouraging because we got good feedback, but very encouraging words as well that they are very happy and impressed about the progress we have made. On compliance, which of course is important, I'm very proud that we have, through a very tight process, very high compliance. I talked to many other companies. Typically, you have 50%-60% of mandatory trainings done. In our case, it's above 97%. That's fantastic news, and I think that shows that we are really serious about that subject. On the next page, we celebrate again our success. The good news is that not only Express is Great Place to Work number one, we see tremendous progress on others. The CEO of Great Place to Work had a session recently with us, he said really what he sees in our company is that we are really employee-centric and doing a lot of stuff, that is not just PowerPoint. That it's really embedded in the culture because he exchanged with our top 100 team. That is encouraging to see if an external person says what we are doing is really a role model. Let me conclude before I hand over to Melanie. Yes, we are Great Place to Work number one. That's a base for our great service quality, that great service quality enabled us to win market share in the last couple of years and drive the performance up. We upgraded our guidance for this year. Melanie will show later on the detail. Overall, we are confident that we can keep a very high level, even if now the next quarters will become more challenging. But still, if you compare that in comparison to the pre-COVID level, we believe that we can keep a significantly higher level than before COVID, despite all the risks we face. With that, thank you very much for listening, and I hand over to Melanie to give you more detail on the numbers. Thank you. Thank you, Frank, and hello to all of you also from my side. I will start the numbers section with this pretty straightforward Q3 group P&L, which you can see on page 11, which simply shows double-digit growth from top to bottom line. As Frank just mentioned, this performance includes an already weakening macro environment. The increase is not volume driven, but mainly the result of our effective yield and cost management, as well as the often mentioned balance provided by our portfolio, which gives us resilience also in the current environment. One thing to point out is the accelerated top-line growth includes currency, fuel surcharges, and passthrough of other cost increases. This is important for the margin perspective. These measures help to offset higher cost inflation, but they also technically lead to a margin dilution as EBIT is divided by a technically inflated top line. We see the expansion in revenue, but no corresponding increase on the EBIT side. You can see that quite clearly in the margin development in DHL Express. Turning now to the Express figures on page 12. Full year-over-year margin decline is attributable to higher revenue due to FX and fuel surcharges without equivalent EBIT contribution. On the contrary, in the case of Express, fuel surcharges and FX actually had a combined net negative effect on EBIT in Q3. Currency and fuel inflated the top line but actually led to some headwind on the EBIT side, hence the margin dilution. When you look at the EBIT number overall, EUR 1 billion, I think that's a very strong number in the current environment. I think that number reflects that we have been able to adapt our network timely to the volume and rate developments, which Frank talked about earlier. I think maybe a little bit of a forward-looking, how do we prepare for Q4 statement. We do expect currency and fuel to potentially also have a negative EBIT effect in Q4 and have also factored that into our 2022 guidance upgrade. Turning to Global Forwarding Freight. I think we all knew that there would be a normalization in freight markets eventually, and it turns out that it got started by weakening end demand in the third quarter. Page 13 still shows tremendously strong Q3 numbers for our freight forwarding operations, even if volume continued to weaken. In line with general expectations, we also expect these numbers to soften in Q4 and into 2023. Again, this normalization was well expected, and we will remain on structurally higher earnings levels versus the pre-pandemic profitability levels in this division. I think one very important factor here is that we still see increasing benefits from the fundamental internal changes we have implemented based on the new IT systems and improved processes. That should help us to manage the normalization in the forwarding market, with really putting some further internal improvement measures against the market normalization. Turning to DHL Supply Chain, page 14 shows the expected continued top and bottom-line growth, with also here margins somewhat technically impacted by successful pass on of cost inflation. When we think about this division going forward, we see a continued strong order intake, structural growth as fulfillment, long-term contract structures. I think overall, DHL Supply Chain is well-positioned for structural continued outsourcing growth, and it's clearly one of the divisions which will provide resilience to us also in a downturn. Turning to DHL eCommerce Solutions on page 15. I think the numbers here reflect the expected normalization of B2C volumes, where we obviously saw volume declined in the first half of the year, as Frank already showed earlier on. In the third quarter, the division was back not only to reported but also to organic top-line growth. We saw positive volume trends, for example, in the Netherlands, but we also saw very good yield management. As you know, eCommerce Solutions is, for us, one of the growth divisions, which is why we are really investing here with a very structural, long-term perspective. When you look at the EBIT development, it was slightly down in the quarter, reflecting general cost inflation, but also the conscious investment to enlarge our networks for further long-term structural eCommerce growth. Turning to Post and Parcel Germany. Our German parcel business has seen similar B2C trends, as you already saw earlier from Frank's slides. With Q3 volume and revenue also up again year-over-year in Q3 after the normalization on the volume side in H1. However, despite intensive focus on productivity measures, this was not enough to offset the accelerated cost inflation as well as the structural mail decline, that is also reflected in our 2022 guidance update for the P&P division. That was a quick overview over the five operating divisions, I look forward to discuss some of these divisional developments in more detail with you in the Q&A. I think overall, when you put it together, I hope this overview of what is happening in the different divisions was also a bit of a reminder on how the different divisional drivers provide diversification across our portfolio and why we are confident to have effective cost and yield levers to also weather a tougher market environment relatively well. This confidence that we are well-positioned to whatever comes next also relies on our strongly improved cash generation and our strong balance sheet. We have summarized some key figures on page 17 and 18. Starting with the cash flow. This third quarter free cash flow, excluding net M&A, was up to EUR 1.9 billion, a very strong result. That was driven by strong operating performance, as you can see in our OCF before changes in working capital, but also supported by working capital inflows as the freight market normalization also drives a reversal of the higher capital that was tied up in receivables. In line with our strategy, we keep investing into the structural growth of our leading core logistics operations. Of course, also for us, CapEx is one potential lever to affect free cash flow generation in a downturn. We know how to do this. We have shown that in the past. However, so far, we have not decided to rein in CapEx spending. The second major cash use probably does not need much explanation for you. Given the balance sheet strength in line with our finance policy and with what we have announced, we have completed the first EUR 800 million tranche of our EUR 2 billion share buyback program and have now launched the second tranche of EUR 500 million. On that front, we are executing quite swiftly. Page 18 shows our key balance sheet metrics. I'm not going to go through all the details here, but I have to say, whilst we remain very confident in our ongoing cash generation, it is, of course, a comforting feeling to go into the current uncertainties with such a strong liquidity and debt profile. One element that I want to point out on this page is our net pension provision, which has reduced significantly with the rise in interest rates. Even rising interest rates can have some positive side effects. Some of you may remember times when our net pension liability was above EUR 6 billion. Now it's down to EUR 1 billion. That is obviously further strengthening our balance sheet. Let's get to the part which I guess you are all most interested in, our updated outlook. Turning to page 19, we had shared three potential scenarios for the year 2022 with you in August when we presented our half-year figures. Based on the strong nine months, EUR 6.5 billion in EBIT, the first lowest scenario has turned out too cautious as we have not seen any sudden sharp GDP deterioration. The Q3 business trends described earlier show some continuation of positive momentum, for example, in Supply Chain and regarding the eCommerce normalization. At the same time, we also clearly see the slowing macro environment and higher risks and a lot of uncertainty. Consequently, our new 2022 EBIT guidance of around EUR 8.4 billion sits between scenario 2 and scenario 3. At worst, in the upper half of our initial guidance range, but potentially also above. Page 20 shows the full guidance picture. As expected and also reflected in recent consensus evolution, the guidance upgrade is driven by the DHL divisions, while we expect P&P to only reach the lower end of its initial range. With EUR 3.7 billion of free cash flow, excluding net M&A achieved by end of September, we also raise our 2022 free cash flow guidance to more than EUR 4.2 billion. Looking beyond the current year. I know you're all interested in what will happen in 2023. We will, as usual, provide the comprehensive 2023 guidance at our full year release in March. However, I don't want you to misinterpret the strong numbers in our 2022 and 2024 guidance as us not seeing what is happening in the world around us. We are well aware that there are some quarters with a tougher economic environment ahead. In combination with the expected freight market normalization, this may well lead to some step back in 2023 despite our proactive cost and yield actions. Such a potential development is actually meanwhile also reflected in the 2023 consensus, which anticipates a step down for 2023, but also clearly foresees a significantly higher level than before the pandemic, which is also very clearly our own internal expectation. You can, of course, also make different assumptions to come to other numbers, but overall, we are convinced that our group will deliver relatively stronger absolute numbers in a downturn and recover even stronger. This confidence is ultimately based on the few undisputed facts that we have summarized on the last page of the presentation. These are just some hard numbers on our strong market position, on our cash generation, our balance sheet, as well as our shareholder return profile. We are not immune to what is happening in the world around us. We are well aware of the challenges, but we feel that our broad portfolio, our experienced teams, and the internal improvement levers we can still further play, will help us to weather whatever development lies ahead quite successfully. With that, over to Martin for your questions. Thanks, Frank. Thanks, Melanie and Stuart. Initiate the Q&A. Thank you, Martin. 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 touch-tone 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 lift the handset before making your selections. Anyone who has a question may press star followed by one at this time. One moment for the first question, please. The first question is from Alex Irving from Bernstein. Please go ahead. Hi. Good morning. Three from me, please, all on Express. First on the network, how are you currently planning your flying activity as the economy softens? What cuts, if any, have you made to the network so far or are planning into 2023? Second, on Express pricing, we're seeing reports of a General Rate Increase in the high single digits. Is this what appears to be sub-inflationary level enough to offset cost pressures? Why is it the right sort of level? Then third, a little bit longer term, we've seen an increase in the global order book for freighter aircraft over the last couple of months. How concerned are you about the global supply and demand balance as it evolves into the 2020s? Thank you. Thank you, Alex. On the first question on our aviation network, I'm actually glad that you're asking that question because I think what really sets us apart is that we have a lot of flexibility built into our aviation network. We always kept a healthy balance between owned aircraft and leased aircraft, and on the lease side, we have short, medium, and long-term leases. That allows us to really make adjustments to the aviation capacity when volume patterns change. We have indeed already canceled some capacity in the third quarter. Our Express team has been extremely proactive on that end, and that has been an important factor for the Q3 profitability of Express. Looking at the Express yield measures and the announced GRI, we have announced a GRI of 7.9%. That's, of course, a gross average number. This is a decision which is really taken country by country. It's a top priority for John Pearson himself. He really goes through the country pricing calls and for each country, the decision is taken based on inflation on the ground, currency development, competitive situation, and so on. What is the right GRI per country? Now you could say is 7.9% enough in the current environment? I think what must not be forgotten is that this is the core price increase. On top of that, we have mechanisms like the fuel surcharge, which allow us to deal with volatility, for example, on the energy side in a separate way. We feel quite comfortable that on that basis, we should be able to manage inflation for Express. On the last question with regard to freighter aircraft, I think the situation is different to what is happening on the ocean side at the moment. I think the orders are going up, but in a more palatable order of magnitude. I think we also have to see that there is still less passenger space available on certain routes. Also that with the new incoming passenger aircraft types, belly space going forward will probably be more limited. We don't see the additional aviation capacity as overly concerning. Super. Thank you very much. Thanks, Alex. The next caller, please. Next question is from Muneeba Kayani from Bank of America. Please go ahead. Good morning, everyone. On your guide for this year, the EUR 8.4 billion implies 4Q EBIT would be down 16% year-on-year, which is a significant worsening. Can you talk about what trends you've seen post the end of 3Q to suggest a worsening in the fourth quarter and a sense of what you're assuming for the holiday peak in Express and Parcels? Secondly, on slide five, you showed B2B Express volumes are down -1% while Air Freight volumes are -11%. What do you think is driving the B2B Express volumes holding up better than the Air Freight volumes in forwarding? Is this a timing impact? I am curious to know. Thank you. Great. Thank you, Muneeba. Maybe I'll start with the second question. I think that's very, in this uncertain world, fact-based and straightforward. I think what we are seeing on the Air Freight side is clearly that volume, which had moved over from Ocean Freight, is also going back into Ocean Freight. That is combined with a general weakening of demand. On the B2B side, the volume decline sees less of a back. I think that is something which me and John have always talked about. Yes, of course, there was some stuff in the Express network over the last two years, which is not going to be there forever. Tires and so on, and they are pretty much gone. We are able to successfully hold on to quite a lot of the heavier stuff. It's a different normalization pattern between Express and Air Freight. Now coming to the guidance question. Of course you are technically correct. The 8.4 implies Q4 down year-over-year, more so on the P&P side than on the DHL side. Also on the DHL side, I think that also reflects that the trends towards the end of the third quarter have not gotten any more positive. Obviously, the volume decline on the Air Freight and Ocean Freight side is continuing into the fourth quarter. There is a lot of uncertainty out there. What will happen to fuel? What is going to happen to FX? I think in this environment, it is probably the right approach to be a bit on the cautious side. Maybe let me add on B2B. We have seen in the past as well, when economies got weaker, that we have seen downtrading to Ocean, uptrading to Express. I think that will happen now as well. The reason is that customers are saying, "Okay, I don't need that now very rapidly in the destination market." Therefore, they put it on Ocean, but if they make a misjudgment, they want to have that delivered on time, and that's Express. That's a normal pattern we have seen. The second is what Melanie mentioned. I think a lot of customers on heavyweight have learned that the service quality on Express is significantly higher than Air Freight, the price differential doesn't compromise on using that for longer term. We expect as well that there is higher stickiness because COVID helped there to let customers experience a much better service quality. These are probably the two drivers, that's the reason why we are pretty optimistic that we can keep a lot of Air Freight on our Express freighters. Are you not happy with that? Thank you. Great. Next caller, please. Next question is from Satish Kumar from Citigroup. Please go ahead. Thanks again for taking my question. I got a couple of questions. One is around the seasonality impact, and the second one is around the CapEx. On the seasonality, obviously last year, there was peak season surcharges. The general expectation this year is that there won't be any peak season. What is your expectation on the margin unwind that we'll see in Q4? Also related to that is that if you see previous years between Q3 and Q4, there's normally EUR 400 million to EUR 500 million in step-up in staff costs. Obviously, that is related to seasonality. How should we think about this evolving this year, given the softening demand? The second one is around the CapEx. You did mention in your presentation that there is some flexibility. Out of this EUR 12 billion, right, what type of flexibility are we going to see? It's like deferring some of your freighter orders or cutting back CapEx within the solutions, supply chain, on warehouses, and so on. How much do you think that you can actually defer this CapEx out of this EUR 12 billion? Yeah. Thank you. I think on the seasonality, it is quite clear that on the forwarding side, the peak season in ocean freight did not happen, nor are we seeing a peak season on the airfreight side. I think the big unknown at the moment is on the B2C e-com side of things. How is that going to play out? There will probably be regional differences. I think there are many hypotheses around are people now going to wait till last minute in December to see how they're coping with the household income, and then there will be a super peak in December? I think that is really a crystal ball reading at the moment. I think fundamentally, we are not preparing for the big dynamic peak increase we saw in the last two years when this was obviously also influenced by the COVID situation. We do expect a seasonal increase in the B2C businesses. That takes me to the second part of your question, which is, of course, a very good and relevant question about how do we prepare on the staffing side for that. That is something which we are really, of course, planning on country-by-country level. I think fundamentally, we do expect the seasonal uptick, but with less buoyancy, and that is what we are preparing for on the staff side. I think in specific situations, like for example, here in Germany, we are very much focusing on the quality aspect, and also at the expense of potentially incurring slightly higher costs. That's one of the reasons for the reduced P&P guidance. In terms of CapEx, for this year, the EUR 4.2 billion, that is kind of basically done. There may be some phasing on, is an aircraft coming in December or January? Or is a real estate transaction closing on the 25th of December or the 5th of January? Fundamentally, this year it's in the books. The flexibility going forward is obviously on the aviation side and Express. Very clearly in the speed with which we build out further sorting capacity in our network businesses in Express, in P&P, in eCommerce Solutions. It's less so on the supply chain side, as you mentioned that, because here CapEx is really very much driven by customer implementation. When we win a big outsourcing deal for a customer and we need a new location for that then brings the CapEx along. I would say overall, we have done that in the past. We know how to postpone and cancel CapEx projects. I think what we have also experienced over the last two years is that this is something where you shouldn't rush into decisions. I think we have the list of things we could do, but we are taking a conscious, regular assessment of what would be the right triggering point to actually execute on it. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Thanks, Satish. Looking forward to the next caller. Next question is from Sam Bland of J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead. Thanks. Interesting question. I have two, please. The first one is, we're seeing weaker B2B volume, still B2C actually staying quite strong. Is your thinking that this at the moment is more a sort of a destocking cycle rather than lower volume because end consumer demand is falling? The second question is, volume's clearly getting a bit worse. I think that started around maybe August time. Could you just talk about, does it feel as if volume has reached a bottom yet, or is it still kind of getting worse month-on-month, week-on-week? Thank you. Yeah. Two good and difficult questions. I think on the first one, is it kind of like destocking and consumer demand is still strong? I think it is clearly driven by the fact that in certain areas, inventory levels are quite high, and there is a focus on destocking. I think in many cases, that is coupled with the fear that winter is coming, and that consumer demand will slow down. I think many of our customers at the moment see high inventory levels and are speculating on reduced demand going into the new year and are hence pulling back on orders. I think we have seen in the past how quickly such an assessment can turn. That is also one of the reasons which gives us some medium-term confidence. Yes, there may be some further challenging quarters, but once the tide turns, we have also experienced quite a swift uptake again in volumes, which is again, one of the reasons, coming back to the previous questions, why we really try to take a medium perspective also on the capacity we held available in the networks. On the Q4 volume development, I think at the moment, the cautious approach has to be to expect a further decline in the B2B volumes in the fourth quarter. On the B2C side, as said, we don't expect a big mega peak, but we expect some seasonal development on the B2C side. Maybe this is actually the first question is the unknown, of course, it's interesting to see despite that we still have very little rise in unemployment as you know. That means people are still in their jobs. We have seen in many markets salary increases. Energy costs are going up. A lot of governments are supporting, I think, the citizens, particularly in Europe, in getting over that point. Gas reserves in Europe are full. Weather in Europe helps quite a bit at the moment, as you can see. The warehouses are full, and they'll now probably get empty again, and that's a consequence of supply chain disruptions we had. Many customers have said, "Okay, we have to sell stuff and we have to order more because there might be problems in the supply chain." If you see what happens to the ocean freight rates, they came down to the pre-COVID level almost, at least on some routes. You see that there's obviously not enough demand at the moment, despite that consumers have not dropped demand. That is what I said at the beginning. We might see a much faster recovery on B2B than we expect if Christmas season is normal. We don't see many insolvencies due to the energy crisis. Nobody knows what will really happen, but the massive decline, it can't go forever that we have 15% less ocean containers and no decline in consumer demand. That will not work out. That's the reason why it's interesting to see what will happen the first or second quarter next year already. I think this is where we are thinking all the time, how can we create enough flexibility? I think we have proven that we can easily adjust to 50% more volume and 25% less volume in the last two years. The COVID crisis was a really test case for our company to adjust their capacity to more and less demand on a very short notice. I think we have proven that our business is pretty resilient. It's unknown, but this is the ultimate question. I think that recession is not there yet, despite volume in ocean and air has dropped, is encouraging, not discouraging. If a recession doesn't come, that will not go forever, that volumes in ocean and air are low. Yep, understood. Thank you very much. Great. Thank you, Sam, and the next caller, please. Next question is from Andy Chu from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead. Thank you. Good morning. Three questions from me, please. First one's on P&P and with the step down in guidance now to EUR 1.35 billion of EBIT. In the past, you've talked about maybe sort of one and a half billion being a sustainable level. You've clearly got some potential cost headwinds with the wage deal yet to be sort of renegotiated. Just wondered what your thoughts are and how you feel about the sort of sustainable one and a half billion P&P EBIT. Secondly, I wondered if you could quantify maybe the year-on-year effects in DHL Express for fuel and FX. Then in terms of CapEx and free cash flow, that balance that you mentioned for 2023, are you basically thinking of cutting CapEx to meet your sort of midterm guidance of around three and a half to four billion of free cash flow? If so, why are you kind of thinking about adjusting CapEx? I guess you've got a lot of network businesses. The balance sheet's in a good position. You kind of want to be investing and have invested in sort of downturn, sort of take advantage of downturn periods to emerge stronger. Just interested in more sort of comments around CapEx and free cash flow. Thank you. Yeah, maybe I take the first. Of course, since we said one and a half billion might be the level, we have seen tremendous inflation pressure. Of course, it very much depends what will happen in the next quarters. Also, our negotiation with the union, and of course, the expectations of the people is pretty high. That pressure doesn't go away. We have a stamp price set for three years that limits that somehow. EUR 1.5 looks now much more ambitious than it was looked probably at the beginning of this year. We have to see what really comes out of the negotiation of the union, and we know that before we give a guidance for next year. Of course, what might change the postal law, where we are still in discussion, of course, with not only we but many with the legislator, how that works out. If we get decent results on both, then it might be possible again. If we don't get, then it might be more risky to get to that level again. That we can only see, but hopefully we have more foresight in that in March. On investments, Andy, the nice thing about our balance sheet is that we can potentially take advantage of a situation by building capacity where we think we might gain market share long-term. We don't have to cut investments just to deliver numbers. We would do that if we say it doesn't make any sense to spend money now unnecessarily, and, of course, we have done that in the past. The strong balance sheet gives our company opportunities to do the right moves in organic investment, but also inorganic investments if they come across. I think that is something we always should consider, and we have done that in the past as well. Crises are the moment where strong players take advantage and get stronger out of the crisis. I'm deeply convinced that at the other end of whatever happens in the next 12 months, we will be relatively stronger than the competitors. Maybe, Melanie, you take the middle one. The middle one, around the fuel and FX impact on the Express numbers. If you strip that out and you look at underlying revenue growth, excluding currency and fuel, that actually would've been around 4.3%. Nicely actually in line with the EBIT development of 4%. Again, that is even more remarkable because, on the EBIT side, the strong dollar, and the high fuel price was actually an EBIT headwind for us. And maybe because we have not talked about that, of course, I have traveled physically now again in the last weeks, to Europe, Asia and Middle East, Africa. If you visit these countries, despite all the challenges, you sense a tremendous energy level. The people are not looking, "Oh, it's a crisis." They say, "Okay, let's roll up the sleeves and do the best for the company and best for our customers." That is amazing consistently across the divisions and across countries. I think that's something which is reflected in Great Place to Work, number one. That goes beyond that somehow. That makes me confident, despite we don't know what will happen, despite that faster drop now might be better for 2023 than such a never-ending slowdown, which comes in small steps. We don't know. We have seen very sharp recoveries in the last 15 years, as you know. COVID was even sharper than the financial market crisis. The financial market crisis, I remember well the times, if you saw, are we in a L recession or a W recession, and you name it, the same with COVID. Nothing of that happened. The world recovered pretty rapidly from the challenges somehow. The spirit of the organization is tremendous. Thank you. Andy, thanks for your questions. Juan, please. The next question is from the line of Sumit Mehrotra from Societe Generale. Please go ahead. Thank you. First on Express. Melanie, I hear you state the dollar and the fuel has been a net negative, EBIT headwind for you, which I kind of sense has been disappointing for you. Splitting, I see fuel, you have got proper support, from indices and transfer mechanisms, offsets apart from the timing effects. But currency, I remember Melanie saying earlier that you should ignore the percentage margin impacts, the timing effects. But to see an absolute impact on the EBIT levels will be worrying. Is FX that uncontrollable that is hurting your earnings more than expected now? Secondly, again, on Express, how are you positioned from the air capacity perspective, really? We understand the flex that is there, but how do you feel placed with more air freighter aircraft deliveries through this year and the next year that have come in? last, thirdly, I understand fully your message on earnings, but what is really the reason for the free cash flow being a bit light for fourth quarter? I see a EUR 250 million implied decline. Can you share thoughts on how much support we could expect from working capital release from DGFF from here on? Thank you. Yeah, thank you. With the first question, Express FX and fuel. Yes. First of all, you're absolutely right. On the fuel side, we have a mechanism which allows us to pass on fuel price increases to customers with a two-month time lag. I think what is really quite unique is that, over the last month, we have seen an increase in fuel and at the same time, a massive strengthening of the dollar versus euro. That's a movement we have not seen in such a way before. That is, of course, a challenging situation for us because fuel has to be paid in dollar. More fuel in dollar, with a weaker euro. What are we doing about this? What we are always doing, on the currency side, if we see a fundamental deterioration in certain currencies, we have to make sure that we include that in our GRI. That was a very important element By discussions country by country. It is something we have to master in the short term. I think here again, the fact that despite this very unfortunate combination in the third quarter, we delivered the EUR 1 billion, I think is a very reassuring message. Over time, we will recover currency on the pricing and yield side. On the aircraft flexibility, indeed, we are still receiving new aircraft and will continue to do so throughout 2023 and beyond. What we always have as a basis of our aviation refleeting plans is making sure that we still maintain the right balance between own aircraft, medium, short-term leases that is not going to change fundamentally. If we now have new aircraft coming in, we will still have enough flexibility to further decrease capacity should that be necessary. I think this is again, something where we benefit from the fact that we have a super experienced team here who also in this third quarter reacted extremely proactively. They were not caught off guard, but they really adjusted very early on. In terms of free cash flow and why does Q4 look a bit light? I think it's a combination of two factors. The first thing is that compared to previous years, when you look at the past 2016, 2017, 2018, we quite often saw all our free cash flow coming in only in the fourth quarter. We worked very hard in having a more consistent cash flow performance over the year, including, not only doing year-end working capital measures, but doing that on a much more ongoing basis. That has now led to the very strong 9 months free cash flow. But of course, that also means that compared to the past, there are less low-hanging fruits now for Q4. It's a more evenly balanced phasing over the year. That's the one element. The second element is when you look at our CapEx guidance, there is of course, still quite a bit of CapEx, which is going out in the fourth quarter, and those are the two reasons for the Q4 free cash flow guidance. I missed a bit about the working capital expected from DGFF, if you're willing to share. DGFF was actually one of the divisions or the main division now also in the third quarter. We had this very strong increase in forwarding revenues about a year ago, Q3, Q4, that led to the very strong working capital build-out. Whilst we still had a strong year-over-year revenue growth in forwarding, when you look at what happened between Q2 and Q3, that was already flattening out. On that basis, we already saw a very good working capital development in forwarding in the third quarter. It's more evenly split across the years and not all just coming in the last days of December effect. Danke. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks, Sumit. I can see we've got two more callers waiting. Next question is from the line of Johannes Braun from Stifel. Please go ahead. Yes. Thank you for taking my questions. I have two on Express and one on the kind of 2023 outlook. On Express, can you elaborate a little bit on the geographical trends in Express? I can see that the slowdown on the Asian trade lane has actually slowed down in Q3 while the Americas has now turned negative with volume declines. I would actually have expected it the other way around. Maybe some explanation on that one. Secondly, the revenues per day in Express TDI were up by 19% in Q3, which is actually up versus Q2, which was 15% up, and this comes despite the volume decline. Can you elaborate on that? To what extent has that been driven by, I guess, rate increases, surcharges, mix, currency maybe? Lastly, on 2023, you mentioned that you would expect in line with the consensus, a decline in EBIT next year. Is it fair to assume that you, at this stage, therefore feel comfortable with the, I guess, EUR 7 billion or so that consensus has penciled in so far? Thank you. I think on the Express, geographical question. I think at the moment we see again that we are not overly dependent on one specific region. I think the one region I would actually positively want to highlight here is Europe. I think Europe, in terms of volumes and revenues, has been much more resilient than you would assume looking at what you read in the news about the state of affairs in Europe. I think fundamentally now, maybe also looking broader between Express and Global Forwarding, clearly the weak area at the moment is outbound Asia. Americas, the number is a bit impacted on the volume side by certain B2C volumes, which you can also see in the fact that the revenue development was still quite positive. I think my general message is for Express volumes, very surprisingly strong and resilient in Europe. I think concern area is outbound Asia and Americas also holding on overall. In terms of revenue per day, I think that goes back to what we talked about earlier, the effect from fuel surcharges, currency, and so on. That is, of course, impacting also the revenue per day number, and leading to the stronger increase whilst volumes are less dynamic. Coming back to the 2023 outlook. Obviously, there is a lot of uncertainty out there, right? You can look at the depressing macro outlooks, or you can think about previous recoveries where, when volumes came back, it actually turned out more positive. We will give the complete 2023 guidance in March. At that point in time, we will know what start we had into the new year, where we actually ended up with the current year. I think the prudent approach is to prepare for some tougher quarters, particularly on the forwarding side with the volume sluggishness and the rate normalization. Also for us, compensated by internal improvement measures. We also have to see what is happening on the Express side. On that basis, when I look at a consensus which foresees a step back in 2023, but to levels which are still significantly higher than what we had pre-pandemic, I can follow that logic. Okay. Thank you. Okay? Hans? Yep. Clear enough. Great. I think there's one last caller. Two, actually. Next question is from Nicolas Mouter from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead. Hi. Good morning. Three questions, if I may. First one, you were quoted on the ticker saying that current business environment creates takeover opportunities. From a competitor, we heard in an earlier call that sellers were still reluctant to write down price expectations. Could you elaborate, please, what kind of assets could become takeover opportunities, perhaps in terms of size and geographies? Second question is, minimum wage increase has become reality in Germany since the 1st of October. Have you already seen some impact on the business quality at your parcel Germany competition? And the third question, there's numerous press reports out there on mail delivery issues in Germany. Is there any read-through for Christmas service quality levels? Thank you. Maybe on M&A. Of course, if a crisis comes, maybe some assets become under threat. With our balance sheet, we have opportunity. We have a very clear M&A policy, as you know. We were looking to what makes strategically sense for us. We are not buying just companies for the sake of buying them. We want to do that. They should be straightforward, integratable, and they should be accretive. I think we have demonstrated it for supply chain. You will see that very soon for the three acquisitions we made recently, and also for Hillebrand, where we are well on our way, and the integration is working, and we will keep that policy. You're probably right. So far, we have not seen that prices for assets came down quite a bit. That remains the policy. We see some signs of the minimum wage, because there is cost pressure for some. They are looking for price increase, and they have announced that already. We see some pressure on the mail companies as well, because they struggle as well to remain profitable. It's too early to judge. We are only in that now four or five weeks or so. Therefore, I think the impact so far is limited. Of course, we will see that in the next quarters. Of course, it should have impact. You can't create miracles if your salary costs are going up by 20%. That has impact on your P&L. Yes, on the other side, we have challenges. We had significantly higher COVID infections than the year before. Just in July, for instance, we had last year, 100, and this year, 7,000. That has impact on our operations. The labor market is very tight, particularly because many people went back to their previous profession and supply stopped. Ukrainians can't work here as much, and Russians. That has impact on the overall labor market. We work at our best possible way to find enough people. It will be definitely a challenging fourth quarter for us operationally as well. That's a priority at the moment, that we provide the best service possible and might even compromise on profitability for P&P in the fourth quarter. Thank you. Thank you, Nick. Now I think we come to the last caller, at least the last caller on the list. Last question is from Alexia Dogani from Barclays. Please go ahead. Thank you. Thank you for taking my questions. I had three. Firstly, following on Frank's opening remarks that the world is bigger now than in 2019. How do you assess the semiconductor industry's efforts to reshore production to the West and diversify away from the East? Is this something that would have kind of material implications to some of your businesses. That's one. Secondly, in terms of the emergency service surcharge for DHL Express, given air freight capacity is recovering, is this service surcharge still in place, and what would be the trigger for its removal? Finally, on Melanie's comments about the differences in demand from different regions. If we think about the weakness outbound out of Asia, is that where Express has already reduced third-party capacity? Would you say the reduction in capacity is in line with the volume decline, or have you taken preemptive kind of lower third-party capacity out? Thanks. May I take the first, Melanie, then the second and third? If I understood the question correctly, we don't believe that there will be a massive reshuffling of supply chains from one region to the other. It might be for some, but for most, it will be more reshuffling in the respective region. When I was recently in Asia, I heard that consistently in the markets I have visited. I was not in China because it's still, as you know, difficult to travel, but I was in other markets, what you hear is that many customers are looking for diversification in a more resilient supply chain for their business. That's a consequence of the COVID policy of China, which doesn't look to be changed soon anyway. There are very few customers who are saying, "I want to transfer everything from Asia to Europe." If they go somewhere else, they go to Africa, Middle East, or South America. That is good news for our business because we are well-positioned to capture these opportunities because we have the most balanced global footprint of all players. What happens here is it creates more resilient supply chains for our customers, which are typically more complex, that's good for us because we can manage more complex supply chains better than many others. That's what I refer to. Hopefully, I understood the question right, but that would be my outlook for what happens to globalization. Actually, it's confirmed by our trade atlas, which we published recently, which shows exactly these kind of things based on the New York University assessment help from us as a company. With that, Melanie, may you answer the second and third question, please? Alexia, as you had particularly asked about the semiconductor rebalancing, I think that's an industry where with all the incentives now, CHIPS Act, U.S., Europe, it will take a very long time to reverse things. I think in the '90s, 80% of the chip production was in the West and 20% in the East. Now it's the other way around. Obviously there is a strategic interest to reduce dependency, particularly in the semiconductor business, that will take quite a long time. On your other two questions, ESS, is it still in place? Yes, overall it is because we also still see elevated costs on the aviation side. That was the reason why we introduced the ESS in the first place in Q2 2020. That is, of course, under a permanent observation and revision. The intention is when the aviation cost comes down as air freight rates are normalizing, we will also make adjustments on the ESS side to make sure that it's EBIT neutral which has worked quite successfully over the last two years. On the Asia outbound weakness and the question, have we made adjustments to the aviation capacity there? Clear answer is yes. Obviously if volumes remain sluggish, that will continue to be a focus for us. Great. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thanks, Alexia. Stuart, I think that's completing the Q&A round. Yes. There are no further questions at this time. I would like to hand back to Martin Ziegenbalg for closing comments. Please go ahead. Thank you, and thank you to all of you for this very concise and focused session. Just above one hour, that's a very good comparison. Looking forward to see you over the next couple of weeks on conferences and road shows and the likes. With that, I want to hand over to Frank's closing remarks. Yeah. Thank you for listening first and your questions second. It's always reassuring if we have delivered now another very strong quarter knowing that things are getting more difficult. I think it's important to go with maximum strength into a crisis, which definitely is coming if I see the volumes. How long the crisis might last is, I think, the big unknown. As I said, B2B and B2C are behaving very differently at the moment, we will learn more in the next eight to 12 months. Maybe the outlook might be much better than we believe now as a global economy somehow. That's the reason why we go into that with a high motivated workforce around the world and with a very strong balance sheet. I think that gives me comfort that the next quarters will be difficult, but we will get through them, and we will be stronger after that in any case. With that, thank you very much and see you soon, I hope. Bye-bye. Thank you. Bye-bye. Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now concluded, and you may disconnect your telephone. Thank you for joining, and have a pleasant day. Goodbye.