Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. I'm Moritz, your Chorus Call operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the DHL Group conference call. Please note that the call will be recorded. You can find the privacy notice on dhl.com. Throughout today's 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 touch-tone telephone. Please press 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, sir. Thank you, and good morning, and welcome to everyone out there for our Q3 2024 call. Following last week's release, we are today looking at the full set of Q3 figures, which I take it you have in front of you. I have here with me our Group CEO, Tobias Meyer, and Group CFO, Melanie Kreis. And we will follow the usual procedure, and that means we're kicking off with the presentation. Over to you, Tobias. Thank you, Martin, and good morning to everyone joining from Bonn. Start with page two, the highlights for the group for the third quarter. What we observe globally is still a very heterogeneous development of B2B trade. We have some trades and some modes that have been growing more and quite pronounced in the third quarter, but we also still see markets with contraction, particularly also the freight markets in Europe have been rather disappointing given also the macro environment is falling short of the expectations that others, as well as us, had for this year. What is positive, we do see the eCommerce trend affecting our B2C parcel business being fully intact. We see good volume growth in the different markets where we're present with last-mile delivery services and also the peak season looking quite positively from today's point of view. We had to adjust guidance slightly last week to now above EUR 5.8 billion EBIT for the year from what was the lower end of EUR 6.0-€6.6 billion before. This still implies an at least 8% increase in EBIT for the last quarter, which we're confident to deliver. We have a great focus on yield management across the different divisions, particularly also Express, where we have a Demand Surcharge for the first time in place, as have many of our competitors. Similarly, for the parcel business in Germany, as well as some of the other domestic business we are present in, we have such a surcharge for the fourth quarter or slightly longer. So this is providing us with confidence that we'll see progress on yield, and we also are generally positive about the cost measures that we've put into place. Productivity shaping up quite nicely. There are definitely areas where we could also see a bit more positive development. That's particularly true for the GP in air freight, which we're going to talk about in more detail later. The strong free cash flow generation is the basis to provide attractive shareholder returns, so we remain committed to that. The fourth quarter is traditionally a very strong quarter when it comes to cash, but that is important as we stay committed, particularly to our dividend policy. On the following page, you see a chart that we've shown for previous quarters as well, the progress in the economic cycle when it comes to the B2B freight markets. We do see a lift in air freight and ocean freight volumes, particularly out of Asia. China playing a strong role, especially when it comes to ocean freight. We've seen quite tight air freight markets out of Taiwan, out of Vietnam, for instance. But we also do see that the TDI market, our premium Express product on the B2B side, remains quite subdued. So here, it is particularly our yield measures that contribute to the earnings. On page four, you see the overview for the different divisions, starting with Express, a slight increase in EBIT year on year. That again, on relatively subdued volume and weight development, we have stabilized the EBIT at a solid margin of 11%. Obviously, we expect the seasonal impact in the fourth quarter to the positive, but generally trading in line with our expectations. Global Forwarding Freight, we saw volume growth again. That also provided a positive revenue momentum for the group. We have some structural effects. We have, for instance, more exposure to beer, wine, and spirits, which traditionally trades more on backhaul trades, which have been less dynamic as it relates to rate development, but also some work to be done, particularly on air freight. We still had some contracts on the buying side that were quite elevated. On the other hand, we had some contracts that we still carried with us last year that now cycled out, and particularly out of Asia, some imbalances in our buying and selling that was not as advantageous as we would have liked to see that developing, so not satisfied as it relates to the quarter in air freight, but overall, also if we look at the productivity development in Global Forwarding, I think that is developing on a very continuous and positive trend. Supply Chain, very steady positive development despite some lower economic activity that we do see with existing customers. So a lot of the growth, both in revenue as well as in EBIT, is based on new business wins. The pipeline there continues to be strong, also in the right sectors with the right GP. So again, a good quarter for Supply Chain. eCommerce, 7% organic growth, similar volume growth, so we do see still some yield pressure. We have some very strong markets, the Netherlands and the US included. We have some other markets where we still have a lot of competitive pressure and us building out a B2C network where we still have some scale effects to overcome. So that will continue for a while, but the volume growth in eCommerce again shows that the trends there are fully intact. On Post & Parcel Germany, we had another very good quarter as it relates to parcel. It has generally been a success story in the last years, as many of you are familiar with. On the other hand, we had quite some shortfall of mail volumes. Some of that accelerated decline was expected. This is also why last year we applied for an early increase in the tariff on the stamp price. So net of one-offs and earnings of around EUR 100 in the quarter, which is not satisfying, and we are obviously still in the process for the stamp price increase in 2025, 2026. So that is something which is still ongoing. If we go to page five, the factors influencing our guidance, you have those structural factors that I already talked about as well as the cyclical factors. I think we can conclude, and you also see this in the small graph on the bottom right hand of this page, that we are progressing in the economic cycle. We have seen stronger revenue growth already in Q3 after five quarters of reducing revenue, a slight growth in Q2, 6% growth on the top line in Q3, and also on the EBIT side, we are basically flat for Q3 year on year, but do expect in excess of 8% increase for the fourth quarter, and based on the trading we see in October, we are confident to deliver that. On page six, the guidance as we have now adjusted to with the announcement last week, greater than EUR 5.8 billion EBIT for the group with a split of greater than EUR 5.5 billion for DHL and P&P now around EUR 800 million, as well as this being reflected in the free cash flow. On the midterm, we adjusted that to bigger than seven, mainly for two reasons. One being the slower economic recovery, especially in some of the B2B freight markets, which we obviously have a significant exposure to, not only in Express, but that is obviously an important factor in our overall earnings situation, but also the preliminary decision of the Network Agency that is falling short of what we should be granted as margin in P&P by law. So that is still to be seen whether that now fully materializes, but that is a factor that we came to know end of September, which now is reflected in this updated guidance. Looking a bit further into the future with the Strategy 2030 on page seven, you have again the summary of our assumptions as it relates to that time horizon. So we assume that we return to normal GDP growth of around 2.5%-3% in real terms, which then translates into underlying volume growth that is shown on the right-hand side of this graph. In terms of our development relative to the market, our aspirations are summarized on page eight. We want to further but gradually increase market share in Express. We do see that also in the last three months, we have delivered really good quality above our internal thresholds, and that is a key driver of customer loyalty in this segment. So that is going to continue to be our strategy that we focus on the premium end of the market and do not compromise on quality and combine this excellent service offering with the yield discipline that I think we've shown in recent quarters. On DGF, we need to still prove that we are able to outgrow the market. We are very much aware of that. We have done, as you know, work on the system and process side. We are well on the way as it relates to productivity development, but we still need to show that we can outgrow the market also in terms of yields and the measures that we're going to present how we are going to do that. Supply Chain can build on a strong track record already with a different combination of levers ranging from supporting real estate development to the extensive deployment of robotics and automation. So we'll continue that strategy with a focus on specific sectors, which we see as particularly attractive. eCommerce, again, as you know, a heterogeneous portfolio of last-mile activities, some of them performing very well, other work to be done and also patience to be applied as we grow our market position. And then with P&P, with stable market shares to continue the transformation into the leading parcel player in the German market. We are roughly three times the size of our next competitor in the parcel delivery market, which obviously is critical as economies of scale matter in this game. And we have, through our legacy in this market, a structural factor cost disadvantage. So the relative scale has actually improved in recent years due to the stronger fragmentation of volume onto our competitors with the entry of Amazon Logistics. Page nine summarizes what our short-term focus is. You will have seen that the CapEx flexibility continues to work out well. We flex down CapEx in those areas where we do not grow. We are very mindful of not increasing capital intensity further. We think we're at a healthy state. We did good investments in the fleet of Express, for instance, which are paying off. But especially on the real estate side, we need to focus on purely owning strategically important assets, and we'll do that. Cost management, I think, is well underway. We do this with a steady hand, and we're not in favor of abrupt changes. But also, if you look in the Stat book on the development of staff in areas like DGF, despite consolidation of the Dubai activity, the development is down year on year. So I think we're showing good development on productivity. And obviously, the peak season is on everybody's mind now. It's critical, especially in those areas where we do charge a surcharge, be that a peak season or a Demand Surcharge, that we deliver quality, and we see ourselves well underway to do so. As it relates to Strategy 2030, the focus for the division and the common denominator remains quality, driving customer loyalty, and also the ability to charge premium yields. We would want to further accelerate growth. We've shown 6% top line growth in the quarter, but that obviously needs to be broader, less dependent on rate developments. And we want to achieve that by continued focus on eCommerce, but also markets that are fast growing from a geographic perspective and some specific sector, Life Sciences & H ealthcare and renewable energy being two of them. Decarbonization continues to matter. We continue to buy, even in this economically more demanding situation, sustainable aviation fuel and to continue to invest in carbon neutral assets, be that electric vehicles or alternative heating systems. We do see a gradual pickup of customer demand and willingness to pay for such low carbon or no carbon services, but we're obviously still investing ahead of the curve also to ensure that we have sufficient supply, especially as it relates to sustainable aviation fuel. We'll further, and you see that on page 10, deep dive on the divisional plans and development in a Capital Markets Day in April, early April of next year, where we'll then give a granular overview of what strategy 2030 means for each of the divisions and particularly how we're going to accelerate growth in those different businesses. With that, I would hand it over to Melanie for some more details on the developments of the different divisions. Yeah, thank you, Tobias, and good morning also from my side to all of you out there. I will now take you in some more details through the most relevant business developments focusing on Express, Global Forwarding, and P&P, as well as on our cash generation and capital allocation. So let me start with some overall good news, and that is for me the Express Q3 performance on page 11. My summary of the Express performance in Q3 is that we continue to cope well with a still subdued macro environment. B2B volumes stay volatile, hovering around a flat year-over-year development, while B2C volumes are down year-over-year, also reflecting our focus on the right TDI shipment profiles at the right price. Against this volume development, you can see on the right side that our compensating levers are effective. We have constantly flexed our total air capacity up and down through the years to adapt to the volume fluctuations. We, of course, keep our focus fully on the premium TDI segment of the market, and as a result, weight per shipment is up year-over-year, or said differently, total weight is down less than volume as we maintain high discipline on which volumes we take on board. And this is also reflected in yield, where we see continued strong contribution from pricing, also in the current volume environment with the implementation of the peak surcharge fully on track. Of course, we look forward to a pickup in volumes to drive EBIT growth again, and we expect in Q4, at least from a seasonal perspective, some volume growth. But Q3 has once again shown that we are also able to adapt the Express network to maintain a solid double-digit margin even in a prolonged volume weakness. So overall, for Q4, we expect good year-over-year EBIT growth in Express and a strengthening of the margin. That was it on Express. Let's now turn to what has not worked out as planned in Forwarding Freight on page 12, and Tobias already mentioned some of the points. So on the positive side, forwarding volumes continue to recover from the double-digit declines last year. We have seen a good peak season in ocean freight, and that has also driven a good profit contribution from ocean freight in Q3. However, in air freight, we had been preparing for a stronger peak season demand uplift than what we have seen in the last weeks. You see that reflected in the Q3 GP per ton development and based on the volume development so far in Q4. We also do not anticipate that this will significantly improve in Q4. We have reflected that in our 2024 guidance update accordingly. So DGF was the main disappointment versus initial 2024 expectations, and we have now less EBIT contribution from the peak season embedded in the new guidance. Importantly, and Tobias also mentioned that already, we are working on the more structural topics, and there is good cost discipline, and DGF remains focused, for example, on productivity, which you can also see in our numbers. Turning to page 13, P&P, I want to quickly talk about what happened in P&P in Germany this quarter. On the one hand, to explicitly point out again to the roughly EUR 70 million positive effect that we had in the numbers here related to positive developments in some legal proceedings. So once you strip that out, EBIT was clearly disappointing in Q3, with the main reason being a stronger than usual decline in mail volumes, in particular in dialogue marketing, which means advertisement volume. While this has some cyclical aspects, it is, of course, most of all part of the bigger structural mail decline trend. So continued network adaptation and cost cutting is one part of the answer, and of course, getting an appropriate price increase, as Tobias has already pointed out. In terms of outlook, you have seen that we took the P&P guidance down to around EUR 800 million for this year, but we continue to expect to reach the EUR 1 billion minimum threshold as of 2025, driven by cost and yield measures and, of course, parcel growth. So to finish on a positive note on that side, not to forget about parcel growth, parcel performance was good in Q3 with a combination of volume and price growth, and the colleagues are, of course, gearing up for a significant peak season acceleration as we speak. That was a quick snapshot of what happened in three of the divisions. Supply Chain and eCommerce were more in line with expectations, so I'm not going to dive into detail here. I will turn to our cash flow statement instead on page 14, and this is actually, from my perspective, quite simple to explain. I think the main message is the CapEx flex is working the way we had always talked about. So we are adjusting our investments to the more subdued macro environment, and in that way, we are offsetting in the cash flow statement the slower EBIT progression. The one negative thing to point out in the Q3 cash flow statement is that we have seen a working capital build-up in Global Forwarding. That was partially to be expected given the revenue growth. You have also seen that with peers, but particularly in Q3, it was slightly stronger, also driven by the ocean freight growth pattern, which we have seen. This is going to normalize again over time, but not necessarily in the short term, and that is why we adopted our free cash flow guidance, as Tobias showed earlier, to the range between EUR 2.8 billion and EUR 3 billion for the year 2024. Let me perhaps also add at this point in time that we have consciously decided against any short-term optimization measures that would have allowed us to uphold free cash flow and also EBIT guidance just for the sake of confirming guidance. We all know that these measures have a short-term benefit, but then quickly reverse at the expense of the 2025 performance, and that is not what we would consider sustainable profit or cash generation, and we have therefore decided against such measures. CapEx management, we already briefly talked about it, but we have included page 15 to once again illustrate the just mentioned CapEx flexibility, also putting that into a multi-year context. In line with the prolonged volume weakness, we have reduced CapEx spending in the last two years with another step down year to date, and that is also true for our most capital-intense division, DHL Express. But that is again done in a balanced way. This does not mean that we are forgoing investment opportunities that address attractive structural growth opportunities going forward, as outlined under our Strategy 2030. Talking about sustainable value creation, page 16 gives you an update on our Return on Invested Capital with two additional perspectives. Firstly, on a 12-month rolling basis, Return on Invested Capital is declining year to date 2024, which is actually not really surprising as we have seen this year-over-year decline in EBIT, while the asset base is not shrinking. So mathematically, that gives you a small deterioration in ROIC. The key to ROIC increase will be the EBIT recovery in the shorter term, while in the long run, the metric will, of course, help us to optimize capital returns across the cycle. The second observation is that we provide you with a kind of ROIC ranking on the right side, with the three big DHL divisions being the ones producing return on invested capital above group average, and a technical reminder once again, our return on invested capital number fully includes both goodwill and leases in the invested capital. Some competitors do it slightly differently, but we are taking this very harsh perspective where particularly on the lease assets, you can have a lengthy philosophical debate whether that is the right approach, but we are doing it consistently in this way. Turning to page 17, capital and shareholder returns, I think nothing fundamentally new on page 17 regarding dividend and share buyback numbers. However, it's important for us, given our guidance update and the fact that we already had a 59% payout ratio last year, to emphasize here that dividend continuity is a very important element of our finance policy, and of course, the dividend will ultimately be voted through the usual process next year, but we want to reiterate that this dividend continuity, ensuring that this year's dividend is at least on the same level as last year, is explicitly written in our finance policy, and therefore, we are not hard bound by the 60% upper end of the normal payout corridor. I think what we also have to bear in mind is that naturally, both our cash flow and our balance sheets position are at a significantly stronger and very solid level when you think back to where we were five years ago, so we clearly have the foundation to honor the dividend continuity. That already takes me to a very brief conclusion on page 18. Yes, there is a continued cyclical downturn out there, and it's more prolonged than all of us had expected and hoped for, but we can weather this very well with all the established and sensible levers, which we have also used in the third quarter of 2024, especially to protect free cash flow, and we have a clear strategy there and how to accelerate sustainable growth based on this strong basis going forward. With that, Martin, over to you and to your questions. Thank you, Melanie, and the operator will now please initiate the Q&A round. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touch-tone telephone. You will hear a tone to confirm that you have entered the queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use only handsets while asking a question. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. One moment for the first question, please, and the first question comes from Muneeba Kayani from Bank of America. Please go ahead. Good morning, Melanie and Tobias and Martin. Two questions, please. Firstly, just on eCommerce. So in Express, B2C volumes are down over 10%. Can you talk about what's driving that? Is it kind of all the Chinese eCommerce volumes coming out from last year? And why do you think it's underperformed parcel volumes in P&P, which are up 5%, and in eCommerce, which are up 8%? So that's my first question. And then secondly, you talked about clearly the guidance being lowered for this year and 2026. And I know you don't have a guide for next year, but can you talk about just the building blocks for next year and trends for each segment and your expectations currently? Thank you. All right. Thank you, Muneeba. I will take the first, Melanie, the second question. In terms of the development of B2C volumes and the difference that you rightly observed between Express and the domestic segment, I think it's two elements that play out here. In the current situation, we still see a lot of e-com players being rather focused on cost, and this has to do still with the after-COVID situation of capacity and fulfillment and other areas being built out and markets not being as strong yet, and thereby being quite some pressure in the system also on the side of the e-tailers, which then often, and again, we have seen this in previous cycles as well, leads to a greater focus and cutting more premium shipments, and in this part of the cycle, putting more into the deferred space. That is definitely something that we do observe also for some domestic Express shipments. You're aware that we're also in some domestic markets, even though not a volume player, but again, at the high end. The other is indeed that we actively have focused on what's profitable for us and also not went into risks for the peak season in being burdened, particularly with volume on the Trans-Pacific, which is high risk as it relates to its volatility and then the resulting need to procure air freight charters at very high prices. So we have reduced our exposure very consciously in some of those trades, and that is reflected in the Express B2C volume figur es. Yeah, and I would have said overall, I think, I mean, whether it's now 8% or compared to 10%, I think there is clearly good growth in the domestic e-com businesses. So I think the fundamental structural growth driver here has proven its validity both in Parcel Germany as well as in the e-com division. Yeah, with regard to guidance 2025, I mean, as usual, we will give the guidance in March. We are now very much focused on concluding the year 2024 with a strong fourth quarter. As Tobias already said, the lower end of our new guidance range implies that we will grow in the fourth quarter again with 8%. And I think now with Q3 being roughly on last year's level in terms of EBIT, getting back into EBIT growth and finishing the year 2024 on this positive dynamic will, of course, then al so give us a good basis into 2025, and then we will give you the guidance in March. All right, Muneeba? Thank you. Great. Next caller, please. And the next question comes from Tobias Fromme from Bernstein. Please go ahead. Good morning, Melanie. Good morning, Tobias. Good morning, Martin. I have two questions, please. The first is on the P&P letter volumes. In 2022, you still expected market letter volumes to decline between -2% and -3% per year through to 2025, but now, according to the regulator and your numbers, it appears that the decline will be substantially above that. What exactly was driving that? Maybe could you comment on that? And do you expect sort of a catch-up decline of volumes in Germany that have significantly sort of undergrown or that declined less than other European markets? Do you expect the catch-up decline of those volumes going forward? And then are you going to buy GXO? Thank you. So thanks, Tobias, for both questions. As you know, we generally don't talk about acquisitions, taking your second question first, and specific targets. However, if you go through our criteria list, and I think we had an earlier case which had similar characteristics, you will find that it's not matching our criteria very well, and we feel quite attached to those criteria. So that might address that question regarding GXO. On the letter side, I think we need to distinguish between mail communication and advertising mail. On mail communication, we see a gradual increase due to also certain government agencies getting some progress underway with digitalization, which has been extraordinarily slow in Germany, which has a lot to do with our federal and, yeah, with our structure of public administration from community level to state level to federal level. But the community level and district level also playing an important role as a lot of the rule setting there is not aligned and making it difficult to have standardization and thereby digitalization across those. So we've seen some areas where this is now progressing, and this is leading to a faster decline than we traditionally had. I don't think it will lead to a catch-up effect that we make step changes to the level that other countries have already achieved because, again, if you look at the digitalization of particularly public services and authorities in the Nordics, for instance, it's a completely different level than what we have achieved here. On the advertising mail, it's more also in our hands, and it has always been quite cyclical and also volatile, but obviously, we need to look at pricing there to make sure that it remains profitable, and we have taken certain yield measures to also elevate the yield in this segment, which then is a conscious decision that we know drives also some substitution. The elasticity to pricing is significantly higher for advertising mail, given that you have also digital alternatives there than it is for mail communication. So this is more in our hands as well as influenced by the economic cycle. We don't expect for advertising such a sharp decline as we have seen in Q3, but going forward, we'll also see more decline than we have historically observed. All right. Tobias, thank you fo r your questions, and we continue with the next caller, please. Next question comes from Cristian Nedelcu from UBS. Please go ahead. Thank you very much. Hi, thank you for taking my questions. Maybe the first one on the 2025 moving parts in terms of profitability. We had this mail volume weakness that you discussed and as well as the air GP per unit. How should we think of the potential headwinds to profitability from these two factors in 2025? And equally so, I think some of your peers have also admitted that GP per unit in Ocean has been maybe artificially high due to the Red Sea in Q3. So how do you think about the development into 2025 here? And secondly, just zooming in on Express, could you give us a bit of color on what you're seeing or your expectations in B2B and B2C volumes into Q4, excluding the China eCommerce players? And moreover, how you're managing your resources there, your capacity and number of employees going forward in Express? Thank you. Yeah, thank you, Cristian, for both questions. On the moving parts for 2025, especially mail, I think it is important to note that we will be allowed to increase prices in mail. The current proposal of the regulator is 10.6% for the bucket of private mail across all buckets, which also then includes parcel shipments from consumers, so out of our retail networks. That is roughly 9.6% what we would be allowed to increase in prices. We do not think that this is all that we would be due by law, so there is still an ongoing debate, but we will see a price increase, and that will obviously support 2025 earnings for P&P relative to this year, even if we have a continued slightly accelerated decline in mail volumes. As it relates to the GP development in Global Forwarding, first of all, in the cross comparison, many of you know that, but just to remind everybody, it is important to see not only the GP we report under the product air freight and ocean freight, but we, different from some of our competitors, only report transport-related GP there, whereas customs clearance, handling, some of the haulage is in others. So for those of you who do a comparison there, it's important to take the other bucket into account. Nonetheless, as Melanie said, we're not particularly satisfied on the air freight side, and that effect is going to continue in Q4. As it relates to the GP per unit on Ocean and the Red Sea effect, it is always the case that a very calm, undisturbed Ocean freight market with a gradual influx of overcapacity is not good for forwarder yields. The topic we have, and this is now continuing since many years, is that there's always one or the other disruption coming, coming back, be that port disruptions, and we definitely have a lot of infrastructure constraints, not only strike-related, but also structurally, that lead to more waiting times of ship and thereby capacity absorbed. We obviously have the significant detour of the Red Sea. We have some carriers who've accumulated quite old vessels that are due for scrapping. So there's a long list of things. If you believe that the world is going to be calm and without any disruptions and the Red Sea situation being resolved, that will not be good for ocean freight forwarding. It is very difficult for us to predict that. Experience shows that there is one or the other disruption, and volatility is inherently good for the Global Forwarding business or the forwarding sector at large. So that's all I can say. It's very difficult to forecast ocean freight rates, and it's also rather difficult to forecast our development of GP per unit in that sector. And then on the Express question, so clearly we expect volume decline in the fourth quarter, very clearly also driven by the e-com development, which we also projected already early in the year, and we don't bank on a very dynamic B2B development in the fourth quarter. What we are focusing on is, first of all, having great service quality. So you will have seen in our Stat book that headcount is down in Express, but we are doing that in a balanced way because we are asking our customers for a significant Demand Surcharge in the fourth quarter, and that is why good quality is paramount. At the same time, we are, of course, managing cost and capacity in light of the volume and rate development. On balance, the clear expectation is that we will see good EBIT growth in Express in the fourth quarter and also a margin expansion. Thank you very much. Thank you, Cristian. And on to the next caller, please. Next question comes from Satish Sivakumar from Citi. Please go ahead. Thanks again for the time today. I got two questions here. On the Demand Surcharge, obviously, in Q2 results, you did send out. It is based on different trade lanes, and can you comment on the evolution of this Demand Surcharge across the trade lanes, where it has been the most sticky and where it's seen a big increase? Then the second one is around the potential for DHL freight forwarding from, say, potential gain in customer on the back of DB being bought up by DSV. Can you quantify what is your expectation on volumes or customer gains from that transaction? Thank you. Yeah, maybe I start with the first one on the Demand Surcharge. What we have said from the start is that our approach in Express is that we don't do piecemeal. We have announced the Demand Surcharge, which is, of course, differentiated by trade lane, as you rightly pointed out, and we have held that stable. What we have seen in competition is that they have now gone through multiple rounds of adjusting their Demand Surcharge. So overall, on most lanes, when you now look at it, the orders of magnitude are quite comparable. The feedback we get from our customers is that they do appreciate the fact that we told them early on what to expect and that they were able to plan on that basis. And I think that together with the good quality is one of the reasons why we see a very, very good stick rate on the Demand Surcharge. On Schenker DSV, I think it's too early to tell. We do see this as an opportunity. I think we have a lot of the homework done and are ready to onboard additional customers on the Global Forwarding platform. We do see a lot of talent being in the market, maybe getting more knocks on the door than we would naturally expect or maybe even like. So there is some disruptive element of that, I think, to be observed currently as it relates to talent in the sector. How this translates into customers diversifying away from a combined DSV-Schenker entity, I think, is too early to tell. We do see some customers that are concerned about this, but I cannot yet quantify to which extent we can benefit from this. I do see that we will benefit, but the amount is difficult to quantify. Okay, good. Yeah, thank you. Great, Satish. Thanks, and we continue, please. The next question comes from Kulwinder Rajpal from Alpha. Please go ahead. Yeah, good morning, everyone. So I just wanted to come back on the Demand Surcharge. So when you say high compliance rate, how high is it? Are there any pockets of reluctance across your customer base? And then how does it relate to your 2024 EBIT guide? Obviously, you have said that you will get EBIT over EUR 5.8 billion, but is there a possibility where the Demand Surcharge takes you maybe towards 6 billion, or is 6 billion not at all possible no w? Well, thank you for that question. I think the Demand Surcharge surpasses our expectations. There's always reluctance with customers to pay more. That's quite natural, but generally, this is fully in line or better than our expectations, and we don't see that now changing in the weeks to come. The hot weeks also for Express are yet to come. And as you know, after the Christmas season in the Western world, we have Chinese New Year, which creates, particularly out of those head haul lanes, the additional demand that typically then also leads to customer stickiness. So again, fully in line or exceeding our expectations and thereby not a big variable from our perspective anymore. Whether we'll do better, I think, more depends on the general economic development across all divisions. We discussed the Global Forwarding, air freight, and ocean freight. I think there's a lot of volatility in both of these markets. We do see the Shanghai Freight Index last week picking up to Europe nearly 10% week on week. So I mean, we have seen volatility like that before, but it's uncertain how this will unfold until the year end. And similarly, air freight markets like Taiwan, Vietnam, being extremely tight for some weeks, which at times also, and we've seen this in Q3, on the negative side also leaves us exposed to some very expensive buying, but obviously, on some lanes, also presents significant opportunity for us. So this is more what still drives some potential upside in the fourth quarter. Okay, thank you. Wonderful. And we continue with the next question, please. The next question comes from Andy Chu from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead. Good morning. Two questions for me, please. Good morning. Two questions, please. The first one is around the guidance, and could you just confirm whether Q4 is going to be a clean quarter? Should we expect any sort of one-offs? And when I look at your bridge in terms of Q4 requiring more than 8% year on year, I'm a little bit confused. Maybe I'm running the wrong numbers, but Q3 last year, I think you had an underlying EBIT close to EUR 1.5 billion. And I think you need close to EUR 1.8 billion to hit the EUR 5.8 billion minimum for the full year. So that kind of implies maybe double the sort of 8% growth year on year. So maybe you could please clarify what I'm missing. And then secondly, on the air freight buying patterns, I guess typically air freight is asset light. You shouldn't really be exposed to kind of forward buying. What's actually happened this time around, and is that definitely going to be ruled out going forward? Because typically, you try and match, obviously, your revenues to your cost in terms of purchasing. Thank you. Yeah, thanks, Andy. I'll start with the second question first. So while it's asset light, it's not uncommon, not for us and not for competitors, to have different exposures on the buying and the selling side. We typically, specifically here, had some contracts still out of COVID that are at relatively elevated rates, which are not entirely back-to-back with customer commitments. So that is one factor. But it's also on the other side that we had some quite favorable buying where we had carriers walk away due to the Boeing issue, which leads to a force majeure for us. So that is, for instance, also a piece of that. We, as we said, are still not satisfied by the GP development in the air freight business, also relative to our competitors for the quarter. And we've obviously spent time to look into this and to define corrective actions. We'll carry definitely some of that into Q4 as well. So it will stay with us on this level pending other market developments this year. Else on Q4, Melanie, you might add to that. We're generally expecting a clean quarter with that reported growth that we mentioned. Yeah. So can confirm that clearly expectation for Q4 is that this will be a clean underlying increase. I think you're making reference to the one-off effects we had in the fourth quarter last year from the revaluation following the Danzas Dubai acquisition, which gave us about EUR 114 million in positive tailwind on the Global Forwarding numbers. And mathematically, it's of course correct. If you take that out, we expect even higher EBIT growth in Q4. But again, that's based on underlying growth. Thank you very much. Thank you, Andy. Thanks, Andy. And still five names in the queue. Next caller, please. Next question comes from Alexia Dogani from JP Morgan. Please go ahead. Yeah, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. I have three thoughts. Well, just firstly, on Express, you've helpfully talked a little bit about the B2C development and your expectations for volumes in Q4. But if I look at the third quarter being flat Q and Q, it's actually quite an improvement versus normal seasonality. So then can you just help us extrapolate that in Q4, given you are doing self-help on cost and yield management? Volumes, I infer from what you were saying, should be kind of broadly at same kind of year-over-year level. And then the Demand Surcharge, yeah, can you kind of discuss the building blocks if we are starting from a flat Q and Q this quarter? Then secondly, on the post and parcel, can you just discuss whether you're still confident in recovering EBIT to 1 billion in 2025? And do you think, given kind of the advertising mail comments you made, you will be able to capture the full price increase with the business customers? And then just finally, maybe a quick comment on clearly, it's a big day today. Should there be some protectionist measures potentially in the cards for global trade? How should we think about the multiplier to GDP going forward? Thank you. Yeah. So on the different questions, starting with Express, I think your observations are correct, and we do expect basically a normal seasonal development in Q4 topped up by the Demand Surcharge, which we didn't have in previous years. And that is obviously a big contributor to the EBIT growth that we've talked about. So I mean, the developments by region and B2C versus B2B are all a bit different. But if you look across Express, the seasonal pattern that we do observe is normal. It's not excessive, but it's also not, as it relates to the seasonal pattern, subdued. And we are very well prepared for that in terms of the capacity deployment across the different lanes, but also the required flexibility to shift if needed. That especially is clearly visible in the good quality that we've had in recent weeks, also with seasonal surging volumes across all the lanes that we are present. But again, the Demand Surcharge obviously plays a big role in the financial performance of Express in the fourth quarter. And just sorry, just one technical clarification. So we are tracking very thoroughly the development of the peak season region by region compared to historical patterns, and we do see that there is a typical peak season volume development. However, because of the many times discussed pricing measures we took on some of the Chinese e-com players, we will see a volume decline in Q4 year over year. We saw that in Q3, and we will see shipment per day down in the fourth quarter, but that is fully included in our guidance. Sorry if I interrupt. Yeah. I hope that was understood. Otherwise, please re-ask that question. In terms of P&P, yes, we are confident to at least meet the EUR 1 billion level in 2025, and the price increases, obviously, that are relevant go across. So we have also the business customer parcel, which obviously has also in the recent years played a strong role. But we will get a price increase also for the regulated product, and we'll apply also a price increase for advertisement mail, and that will all contribute on the yield side to achieving the EBIT number for 2025. In terms of protectionist trends, this is a very difficult question, and I think we shouldn't. I mean, obviously, the big trade lanes, Asia, Europe, Asia, U.S., do matter. And we do see that protectionist measures, they have an impact. You could argue that trade is astonishingly resilient if you see how much trade is left despite high tariffs. And we also obviously do see that some of the trade finds different routes via Mexico and other places to circumvent direct exposure to such tariffs. But it's also important to see that in the part where we are quite well represented, maybe even stronger than on trades like the Trans-Pacific, the trade from Asia with the rest of the world and the trade from China with the rest of the world is growing. It's growing this year. It's a key driver of the volume trends that we have seen, but it's also structurally growing in the last four or five years. And that is obviously something that will influence the multiple going forward. So we would, I think, expect with protectionist measures potentially coming into place, if they would come into place, that on those trade lanes, we fall below a multiplier of one. But we do see on other trade lanes, especially China trading with the rest of the world at a multiplier above one. So that leads us to the belief that on a global average, even with those measures, we'll stay with a multiplier of around one, but it's not going to go back to the two, two and a half that we've seen earlier. Alexia, does that address your questions? Yes. Thank you very much. The next question t hen comes from Parash Jain from HSBC. Please go ahead. Thank you for taking my question. I have two first on the Express. And obviously, I think around the full year result, around the first quarter results, there was a hope that we will see a B2B recovery going into the second half of the year. The volumes have flattened out. Could you talk about which region, which industry segments need to deliver for us to see the recovery in a B2B volume and as a result, help us with the operating leverage for the Express business? Secondly, for the freight forwarding business, I mean, there is a disruption time to time, but is it fair to say that your Sea GP per unit has found a floor? And as we go into 2025, 2026, even with an expectation of sharp decline in the ocean freight rate, you're comfortable maintaining these kind of GP level and probably somewhat improvement in your air GP? Thank you. Yeah. So on the Express side, I do think that we see on the one hand side progress in the economic cycle. So we do see lanes also on the B2B side that we're getting out of the trough and slowly back to growth for us. Some lanes, they're matter more due to their profitability than others. On the Trans-Pacific, for instance, due to a high share of air freight cost as well as our structural disadvantage through delivery density or lack thereof in the US, that is a lane which is not as contributing than some of the intra-Asia volume, some of the Asia to Middle East, intra-Middle East and Africa, and also intra-Europe has a high contribution margin given the relative fixed cost of a regional air network. Those areas seeing growth in those areas is particularly important for us. Again, on intra-Asia B2B, I think we have seen progress now quarter over quarter. This all being said with the caveat that you need to see the B2C overlay that we now repeatedly talked about, and that is obviously impacting shipment count in particular. With DGF, I do think it depends on the product, and again, comparability is not easy. If we start with ocean freight, we have a beers, wines, and spirits business that we are structurally very happy with, but that has a different cycle than the typical dry cargo, given that it's a backhaul business and does not benefit from rate spikes like we've recently seen on the Transpacific in particular, but also on the Asia-Europe trade, so this is a bigger component in our portfolio than for some of our competitors, and on this side, I definitely see the floor being found and progression going forward on some of the headhaul lanes. That might not be the case, especially the Transpacific. I think is more questionable, but it's for us also not the biggest exposure, especially relative to some of our competitors. On the air freight side, this very much depends also on the development of different sectors. Generally, I would agree that for 2025, the outlook should be more positive there. But again, we've seen this again and again. Freight markets are volatile, and certain events, developments of single customers don't want to remind everybody what fidget spinners once did to the air freight market. So these type of things we have seen again and again, and that obviously is an element that is hard to forecast. Thank you so much, and have a good evening. Have a good day. And thanks, Parash. We're almost there. Next question comes from Cedar Ekblom from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Thanks very much. Thanks. Hi, everyone. Can you talk about what recourse you could have if the pricing in your post and parcel business in Germany isn't aligned with your assumption of more than EUR 1 billion, particularly if we continue to see cost inflation and only limited efficiencies that you can put through there? What can you actually do with government or the regulator to get you over the line there? And then just on freight forwarding, what kind of visibility do you actually have in that business? Because it feels like some of these shifts in the air freight market out of Asia might have been a bit unexpected. And obviously, there's stuff that's in your control and stuff that there isn't. But I'd just like to understand a little bit more on sort of the reporting robustness in freight forwarding so that this kind of stuff maybe doesn't happen as much in the future. How regularly are you getting reports from your guys on the ground? How dynamic are they in terms of contracts? That would be really helpful. Thank you. Yeah. So on the P&P question first, I think it's important to note that the law foresees or translates into an earnings level for P&P of EUR 1.3 billion-EUR 1.4 billion. If you go through details, particularly also the justification of the law, that is what you come out with. The regulatory margin is after a share of corporate overhead, and that's 6.5%, which then translates into a margin around 8%-8.2%, depending on that allocation of the overhead for P&P. So with EUR 1 billion, we are already quite a bit away from that. Now, the recourse is not so easy. It mainly lies in the next regulatory round to look into the assumptions that the regulator has made. And obviously, if the actual numbers are deviating from what we are granted by law, that requires then adjustments going forward. There's also the theoretical, maybe also practical potential of legal actions. We'll look into that once we see now the final decision. This is tricky in multiple ways, so it needs careful consideration whether we would pursue that. I think in DGF, we—and I think that is also important to be said—we are satisfied on the productivity development and also on the system development. You always, also in the past, you have good calls on the market and sometimes not so good calls in terms of where you buy capacity from which carrier and how reliable a customer is in its volume commitments. Because customers hardly ever give us a fixed commitment. They always want to obviously have flexibility depending on how much product they sell. So to have some volatility in that is not unusual. I think our transparency on this is quite good. But again, the third quarter had some calls and also some external developments that were unfavorable for us and will obviously, with a team, look into that and try to avoid that going forward. But it's not a matter of transparency. It's more a matter of making a call in a certain market for buying and selling one or the other way. Okay. That's helpful. Sorry, just on the P&P point, so the EUR 70 million benefit from legal claims that you had benefiting the quarter, is that linked to recourse on previous legislative frameworks that didn't go in your favor? What I'm trying to understand is if you don't get to the EUR 1 billion, and it sounds like you should be actually getting to more than that, but if you don't get to the EUR 1 billion, how long do we have to wait before there is any potential negotiation with government? I mean, it just kind of feels like you guys are not in the winning position here. Government has it all, and you just have to hope that you get paid. And maybe if you don't, then in the future, you can get the money back. It just seems like a very disadvantaged position for the division. But maybe I'm being unclear. I think we're still in this country believe in the application of law. The law was passed in July that foresees the margin that I've mentioned. I think there's no ambiguity around that. It wasn't easy to get there, and the modernization of the postal legislation took us 25 years. There is a new base, and it's now about the application of that base. If you have a change in law, there's always a bit of uncertainty how certain things are treated. That is what we see in this round. I do think that obviously the regulator will look also at the actual numbers and compare that with what is in the law. I have no doubt that the regulator and the authorities here will aim to fulfill what was the will of the legislator in passing this law. The period that we've now applied for is two years, so it's 2025, 2026. So next to the question whether there could be changes within the period, which is naturally difficult but not impossible, the next regular cycle would then be 2027 onward. It is upon us to apply for one year, two years, three years, two and three years being more common, also more w elcome, so that there's not too often a change in the stamp price. Got it. Thanks so much. Thank you, Cedar. And if I'm not mistaken, there's the last caller now on the line. Next question comes from Marc Zeck from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead. Yeah. Good morning. I've got two questions, if I may. One on Express B2B volumes and in relation to the automotive sector. I guess companies like Volkswagen have kind of shocked the German government, maybe German people, by announcing maybe some plant closures. I would be interested in to what extent the development of the German auto sector and Volkswagen announcement have changed your B2B volume assessment going into 2026. That's my first question. And second question is on what in Germany is called the E-Rechnungspflicht. A, is there a proper translation for this term? And B, I would be interested what's the, let's say, market of business invoices currently in the mail division that might be lost until next three or four years. Thank you. So on the Express question, automotive is not a dominant segment. It plays a certain role, but as you know, Express is extremely diversified across multiple sectors. In sectors like automotive, but all the industrials, we're typically more part of the spare parts type of value chain rather than to the inbound to manufacturing. So while any decline in a major industry has a negative impact, we don't see this as pronounced, and there was not any way an explicit factor in our midterm guidance viewing. On the second item, we don't know, and we're not allowed to know, so what is the exact content of each letter and whether a letter that an invoice would now going forward be potentially affected by that E-Rechnungspflicht, electronic invoice obligation that applies to a certain subsegment of invoices. We do see, obviously, as in the past, that digitalization gradually progresses. We had that with the declarations or the certificates that medical doctors sent to employees for kind of sickness confirmation for their employer. So that is something that came into effect last year and is surely having one driver of the structural decline in mail volume that we observed this year. So we do not see major discontinuities through a single change, but more these things as in other countries gradually progressing in substituting certain business communication mail. Thank you. Great. Well, operator, I think that concludes our Q&A round. Yes. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Martin Ziegenbalg for any closing remarks. And I'm handing over to Tobias for his closing remarks. Yeah. So first of all, thank you for this great set of questions. I hope we could address them in a transparent way that is helpful to you. I think what you see in the third quarter, while the environment continues to be challenging, that we are progressing in the economic cycle, that we have returned to solid top-line growth and also are now at the same level of earnings than in the previous quarter with an outlook of returning to growth also on the earnings and EBIT side in the fourth quarter based on that progression in the economic cycle, but also a set of self-help measures, including the Demand Surcharge, but also many others. I think especially on the cost side, we see this continued gradual progress with a steady hand that we apply to this topic across our divisions, and that is important because that's a lasting lever and positive element also going forward. So with that, we're looking forward to putting all our attention to the peak season now, delivering great quality for our customer, which is the basis for growth in 2025 and beyond. Thank you very much for your attention. Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now over. Thank you for choosing Chorus Call, and thank you for participating in the conference. You may now disconnect your lines. Goodbye.