Good afternoon. Thank you for joining our Conference Call on our Financial Results for the First Half of the Year. I have with me Gert-Hartwig Lescow, CFO, as well as Tom Fischler and Nikolaus Hammerschmidt, both investor relations. I would like to take you through the results of the first six months of the year with a presentation that we made available on our web page this morning. Following the presentation, we will open the floor to your questions. We already published the preliminary PS two weeks ago. In the final PS we published this morning, there are no meaningful deviations to the pre-release. Let's get started on page five with the business highlights. 2023 is the year we will return to growth and profitability. To achieve this, we are focusing on leveraging intact market growth, improving our supply capabilities, increasing our prices, optimizing our free cash flow, and strengthening our cost awareness. Far, we have made good progress in this. In the first 6 months of 2023, our business development has improved significantly after the disappointing year 2022. With a strong boost in net sales and clearly positive earnings, we are well on track to return to growth and profitability in 2023 as planned. Our recovery was supported by several factors. On the sales side, we benefited from our orders on hand, which were extraordinarily high at the beginning of 2023. This was due to the strong demand for our products in 2022, combined with the global supply chain disruptions, which hindered us from completing and delivering the orders to our customers. Therefore, we had to shift a noticeable part of the orders from 2022 - 2023. In addition to the high orders on hand, we are benefiting from improved delivery capabilities. Thanks to our easier procurement of electronic components, we were able to complete and deliver many products more quickly again and in the end, generate more net sales. Last but not least, our net sales benefited from the temporary boost in demand for ventilators in China, which increased significantly after the relaxation of the COVID policy and the sharp rise in infection numbers at the end of 2022. That said, it is important to notice that in the meantime, the impetus has weakened and demand has normalized again. The net sales boost in the first half of the year was a major reason for our improvement in earnings, but also our active price management paid off. Inflation remains high, but our price increases have largely offset the negative effects. This had a positive impact on our margins. When it comes to our order development in the first six months of 2023, we are not quite satisfied. Compared to the strong previous year's demand, orders declined slightly due to the weaker demand in the medical division. We do not consider this to be Dräger-specific nor being structural. In general, our markets are intact and demand will recover, but currently, demand development, particularly in the AAA region and our medical division, remains below our expectations. Our European business is performing well overall, especially in our safety division. As of now, our order book remains high, a good basis to continue our growth path in the second half of the year. We possibly also could see better demand in the Americas region following the recent approval of new products. In the first half of the year, we received FDA clearance of several products, such as the Babylog VN600, Babylog VN800, the Savina 300, and the Evita V600, V800, as well as VentStar Helix. Last but not least, earlier this week, we received the important FDA clearance for our Atlan anesthesia devices. Speaking of new products, let me give you two examples of innovations that we have launched in the first half of 23. In our safety division, we expanded our offering in the field of mobile gas detection by launching the portable multi-gas detector, X-am 5800. The device is optimized for personal monitoring of people and, depending on the sensor configuration, measures up to 6 gases simultaneously. A newly developed CatEx sensor is very robust and can be set to measure chemical vapors such as gasoline, diesel, and nonane, as well as gases such as methane, propane, or hydrogen, as well as many others. The sensor is particularly resistant to poisoning by silicone or pollutants. The X-am 5000 can be used with our cloud-based software solution, Gas Detection Connect. Digitized with device management enables live data transmission. The gas detector transmits data via Bluetooth to a smartphone, which sends it to the Gas Detection Connect cloud. Users can securely access their data at any time via the Internet. Another innovation in the first half of 2023 was our medical software solution, Lung Protective Ventilation Analytics, anesthesia LPVA, which empowers clinicians to analyze intraoperative ventilation for a wide range of patients, helping to improve patient outcomes and overall safety during anesthesia. In addition, this software facilitates training to improve adherence to lung protective ventilation strategies. This is beneficial for patients because it can reduce post-operative pulmonary complications and support faster recovery. For healthcare providers, it can result in cost savings by helping to reduce the occurrence of costly cases by proactively monitoring and identifying ventilation problems. Both products are great additions to our portfolio. Ladies and gentlemen, as you certainly know, quality and innovation is at the heart of our company, which is the reason why Dräger has an excellent reputation all over the world. Our products are developed to meet and even the highest standards. When we become aware of a potential risk, we do everything we can to fix potential problems with our products and keep harm away from our customers. One such case is the recently published corrective actions on our Carina ventilator. The Carina is a ventilator produced up to the year 2019. During standard tests, concentrations of a particular volatile compound were measured and exceeded the acceptable uptake level during continuous use of over 30 days in pediatric patients. While there has been no injuries or deaths related to this issue, we moved quickly to implement corrective actions once we became aware of the potential risk from the front use. Meanwhile, the TÜV SÜD has conducted a special audit and confirmed the appropriateness of our action. We are well on track to implement these actions, and the expected cost for this field action is in a low single-digit million euro figure. In May, our annual general meeting approved the dividend proposal, which, due to the operational loss of last year, only was the minimum dividend. I would like to reaffirm that we are going to increase the dividend forward if we succeed in delivering our planned return to profitability in 2023. Another point I want to highlight again is our progress in regards to sustainability. We have recently established a global sustainability office that reports directly to me. This is to manage our sustainable activities in the future in a targeted way that is aligned to our impact. We are expanding our plans to achieve climate neutrality, preparing for the requirements of the CSRD, and implementing the ESG criteria step-by-step in our operations. With that, I turn over to Gert-Hartwig for a review of the financials before I will come back with the summary and the outlook later. Gert-Hartwig, please. Thank you, Stefan. I also would like to welcome everybody to our, to our conference call for our results for the first half of 2023. Please turn to page 7 for a view on the Dräger Group. As usual, I will be stating currently accepted figures whenever referring to growth rates. Following the trend of the first quarter, order entry was around 1% below the high priority figure in the second quarter. When we look at the first 6 months of 2023, order entry amounted to some EUR 1.6 billion, which is slightly down 0.5% below the prior figure, but well above most preceding years. Growth from Europe in Q2 was offset by a decline in the Americas and in AAA region. There was a pronounced difference in the demand development of the 2 divisions. Orders in the medical division declined by 5.3%, while orders in the safety division rose by around 5%. I'll get into more detail in a minute. In contrast to order entry, net sales increased strongly against the prior year. In Q2, net sales grew by around 21% to approximately EUR 771 million, bringing the total after six months to more than EUR 1.5 billion, an increase of 20% against the prior year. Both divisions achieved considerable growth in all regions, thanks to the very high order backlog at the beginning of the year and the improved delivery capability. In addition to this, the medical division also benefited from timing, which Stefan mentioned earlier. Gross profit margin in the second quarter was also well up from the year earlier. This improvement of 4.5 percentage points to 43.1% was due to a more effective price management and higher capacity utilization and production service. This brings the gross profit margin to 44% after six months, an improvement of 3.6 percentage points. Based on the higher net sales, which came with a higher margin, the absolute gross profit grew strongly to EUR 332 million in the second quarter and to roughly EUR 675 million in this first six months, a growth of around 28% compared to the first half of 2022. Cost control remains our priority throughout the organization. In the second quarter, financial costs were actually more than 2% lower than in the prior year quarter, resulting in a stable cost development, constant currencies for the half year. As a result of significant increase in sales and gross margin and effective expense management, our EBIT in the first half of 2023 was clearly above the prior year period in both quarters. With EUR 18.7 million, our EBIT in the second quarter led to an EBIT margin of 2.4%, bringing the total EBIT up six months to roughly EUR 48 million, 3.1% of net sales. Our Dräger Value Added also improved over the course of the first six months, but is still negative territory since the DVA takes the learnings of the last four quarters into account, including Q3 and Q4, 2022, which contributed negative results. We achieved good results in the first half of 2023, especially against the backdrop of headwinds on currency effects as the Euro strengthens against several foreign currencies that are relevant to us. Despite currency hedging, our earnings were burned, particularly by the exchange rate development of the Chinese yuan, the South African rand, and the development of the two hyperinflationary currencies, the Turkish lira and the Egyptian pound. The reported nominal top line figures roughly 2%-3% below the currency-adjusted pace. Considering the usual seasonality attribute, the last 5 years of the operating results of the first half of the year was only positive with the exception of Corona years, 2020 and 2021. The current H1 development is a very good result. Let's now take a closer look at the development of the 2 divisions, starting with the medical division on page 8. In the second quarter, order intake of the medical division fell by around 5% year-over-year, due in particular to a significant decline in AAA, as well as lower demand in the Americas, with which the only slightly higher demand from Europe was unable to offset. Looking at the first half of 2023, order intake decreased by around 10%, as demand did not reach the high level of the previous year, especially with regards to anesthesia devices and patient monitoring. By contrast, demand for our services increased noticeably. Sales in Q2 remained strong in all regions, thanks, above all, to the high orders on hand and the better supply situation. Overall, medical sales rose up by roughly 16% in Q2. The first six months growth was even higher, as net sales increased by almost 20%, driven by double-digit growth in all regions, but particularly in Europe as well as AAA, where sales in the first quarter benefited from the China effect. This demand for ventilators in China has returned to normal in Q2. Overall, in addition to ventilators, anesthesia devices, thermal regulation and hospital infrastructure products were the main growth drivers in the first six months. The improved production and service utilization, as well as more effective pricing, led to an increase in the gross margin by 1.7 percentage points in Q2 and 2.4 percentage points in H1. This improved gross margin on the higher net sales resulted in a strong increase in the absolute gross profit in both quarters. The increase of around 18% in the second quarter led to an increase of 24% after six months. Constant cost containment continued to be effective. The quarter financial cost decreased by around 3%. Higher net sales and improved gross profit margin, slightly lower expenses, left an improved profitability compared to the prior year period. In Q2, our EBIT in the medical division was around -EUR 13 million, corresponding to an EBIT margin of -2.9%. After the first half year, we are close to breakeven at around -EUR 2.6 million, a substantial improvement against the prior year value of -EUR 80.3 million. Coming to our safety division on page 9. In the second quarter, business development in the safety division continued to be favorable. Order intake increased by more than 5%, with a decline in AAA, offset by growth in Europe and the Americas. Product wise, demand was driven in particular by our service business and anesthesia devices. After 6 months, order entry is up by more than 6%. In line with the further normalization of supply chains and with an increase of almost 30%, sales growth in Q2 was significantly stronger than in Q1, when sales rose by roughly 11%, lifting the net sales growth after 6 months to 20%. This celebration of growth is due to the improvement in delivery capability, as well as a positive order trend. After 6 months, all regions recorded high growth. The gross margin went up due to effective price enforcement, as well as better production and service utilization. The increase of 8.1 percentage points in the second quarter led to an overall increase of 5.5 percentage points after 6 months. As a result of the strong net sales growth and the higher gross margin, gross profit results increased by over 52% in the second quarter, leading to an overall increase of more than 1/3 after 6 months. Financial costs continued to trail favorably and were roughly 2% below the prior year, mainly due to lower administrative costs and reduced interest expense. Higher sales and improved gross margin and lower expenses support a strong EBIT improvement in sales. The EBIT margin consequently increased by nearly 20 percentage points to 9.5%, and the EBIT amounted to EUR 31.5 million in Q2. The improvement from the first quarter is thus continuing at a stronger pace. After six months, EBIT improved significantly to EUR 50.4 million, coming from -EUR 31.4 million in the prior year period. At the same time, the EBIT margin increased from -6% to +8.1%. Let's move on to some key ratios on page 10. Starting with cash flow. Earnings after tax were more than EUR 100 million after the weak last year's quarter. This improvement drove a substantially higher cash flow generation. Operating cash flow increased by more than EUR 200 million. Positive effect on cash flow from the higher earnings was further supported by working capital development. While inventory levels have slightly improved, working capital management remains our focus for further improvement in the coming months. We therefore expect to see further improving cash flow conversion in the current quarter. Investments were on planned level, mainly for replacement investments. While still negative in H1 with a -EUR 44 million, we expect free cash flow to be plus positive in the second half of the year. Next, free cash flow. Our liquidity development was further impacted by the high cash outflow to redeem the remaining participation certificates in the amount of roughly EUR 209 million, which was only partially financed by a new loan of EUR 100 million. Both transactions took place in the first quarter and concluded improvement of the capital structure. Dräger's balance sheet is in good shape. Net financial debt to EBITDA has further improved quarter-over-quarter. After 4.6 at the end of the last year, mainly due to the weak earning development last year, leverage improved to 2.4x in Q1 and further improved to 1.5x at the end of Q2. Thus, the company is back to healthy leverage levels. The equity ratio has improved as well and climbed by roughly two and a half percentage points to just about 45% in the last six months. That's it from my side. Back to you, Stefan. Thank you, Gert-Hartwig. Let's move on to our outlook. As I said in my introduction, we are well on track to return to growth and profitability in 2023. Further efforts are needed to achieve this goal. Therefore, we will continue focusing on leveraging intact market growth, improving our supply capabilities, defending and increasing our prices, optimizing our free cash flow, and strengthening our cost awareness. We expect the economic environment to remain challenging overall, particularly due to the continuing high inflation, the Russian war against Ukraine, and the slow growth in the global economy. On the other hand, we see opportunities, for example, through a further reduction in inflation. This could, in particular, reduce the increase in our procurement and logistics costs. We also expect supply chain problems to decrease further. The resulting improved availability of electronic components could enable us to complete our products even faster, deliver them to customers, and generate corresponding sales. In the first half of 2023, we have already seen progress in regard to this very issue. Our business performance in the first 6 months of 2023 makes us confident to deliver within our guidance. We confirm our expectation that in 2023, we will return to positive net sales growth of currency adjusted 7%-11% and report higher profitability with an EBIT margin between 0% and 3%. The first half of the year has been on the upper side of our expectations. There are some headwinds to consider for the second half of the year, like current order intake rate in medical, FX headwinds, and a higher cost runway due to higher labor costs and tariff increases, effective in June. If business development continues as expected, I would say that the upper end of the guidance is more likely than the lower end. With this, I would like to end the presentation and hand over to the operator to open the floor for your questions, please. 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 your touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star followed by two. If you're using speakerphone today, please leave the handset before making your questions. Anyone who has a question may press star followed by one at this time. One moment for the first question, please. The first question comes from the line of Felix Dennl with Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead. Thanks very much for taking my questions. Four, if I may. The first one relates to orders. Your medical orders were down in Q2, despite a non-challenging comparable base in the past year's Q2. This is now the second quarter in a row where medical orders have contracted. Given that medical orders, for example, in China are soft, how do you plan on overcoming the softer medical orders for the rest of the year? The second question relates to the Atlan. First of all, congratulations on receiving FDA clearance. When do you plan on generating the first revenues with the Atlan in North America? The third question relates to costs. You are likely to face a higher functional cost rate in the second half of the year, especially in light of German personnel cost inflation in Q3. Could you provide some color as to what percent increase in COGS and OpEx you are anticipating for the second half of 2023 compared to the first? Finally, guidance. As you just said, the upper end of the EBIT guidance seems very likely now, given the strong H1 and what is required in H2 to achieve it. Are you confident to assert that the upper end of the margin guidance for the full year is now a real possibility? Perhaps you could further explain what potential headwinds could pose a challenge in achieving the upper end of the EBIT guidance. Thanks very much. Okay, that's definitely a start. The orders in the medical, you are correct, it's down in the second quarter, while it was already down in the first quarter. However, we coming from a very high level in the previous year. The magnitude for the downshift is far less than it was last year up. It's still at a level that overall I would consider reasonably good and would not prevent us from meeting the plan and fulfilling the guidance that we gave. Now, the second question on the Atlan, where we are quite happy to report that earlier this week, we received the FDA clearance. We can now start with the preparations of the launch by actively selling it in the US. My expectation is that, yes, we will see some revenue from Atlan in the US in 2023, but not significant, because just it the ramp-up time that it takes for making it happen. You can be assured that our colleagues in the US are very happy, and so am I and many others involved here, and we will do it as fast as we can. However, to be realistic, that the expectation should be too much for the remainder of the current year. Third question, the cost for the second half of the year, I pass this on to Gert-Hartwig. The question was, how much increase could we expect for the second half, taking into account the wage increases from the IG Metall and other factors? Yeah, it's a very good point. In fact, we expect this higher cost base, it translates of an increase in personnel costs of around 6%-7% against the current run rate. That by itself is a low, I will give just a EUR 1 million figure, which will be added to our cost base. From that, we do not expect that the current positive trend of cost development against the prior year will continue, undiluted, in the same way. For the outlook, I start. Stefan Dräger can add to that. The question is what factors or how do we view that? As Stefan Dräger has already pointed out, we view the higher end as somewhat more likely. On the flip side, please keep in mind the cost increase we just talked about. There is a changing unfavorable FX development that has started the second quarter. If this continues, it will also add against our original expectation, and that to be subtracted from the positive results in the Q1, in the Q1 results. We already see that without the positive demand from China in the medical, the EBIT for the medical alone has turned negative in the second quarter. The first quarter was still strongly and positive. In addition to that, not only is the China ventilator business going away, which is a positive mixed effect, we also expect a higher project, higher share of project business in the medical in particular. That has 2 consequences. One is that also translates into a negative mixed effect, because that's a large part of the order book, and it has a higher execution risk in and of itself. The once in a while, the equipment business has a higher likelihood of being executed on time. Project business relies on the hospitals to be ready, and there is a risk that that may shift into 2024. We will have more color on that as we progress. This is Stefan Dräger. That is the major factors. The first currency effect, plus what we have with professor is project business is actually infrastructure projects. Sometimes we is confused because a large number of ventilators in a single hospital, we also call it project, but in this case, we mean infrastructure project, which has a different nature. In generally, there are lower margin than device business, plus the risk of not being completed in this year because some elements of the building pressure are not ready for installation. That's also a high risk to our institution. That's about it. Very helpful. Thanks very much. The next question comes from the line of Alexander Galitsa with Hauck & Aufhäuser. Please go ahead. Good afternoon. Thank you for taking the question. I'd like to ask on order intake. As you already mentioned, Q2 is somewhat weaker, although comparably strong, given the base you're facing. Could you maybe share any indication or what signals do you get in terms of order dynamics going now into Q3, please, in particular in the medical division? Nothing beyond what we already said. Our intake is weaker. However, in general, the market is intact. That about it, not every quarter is exactly the same. Understood. Also on Atlan clearance. With this product now being due for a launch, w hat does it mean for your profitability in the coming years? It's a plus, definitely, when that comes into play, to a small extent this year, but then more in the years to come. We benefit already in other regions, and there was also a larger share of anesthesia product, so in the orders processed in the first half of the year, because of backlog from last year, because of missing components. These are, say, minor factors. We, there's no significant overall change in the market environment here. Okay. Last, on the, I guess in the context of the Atlan clearance, because I think, the FDA warning letter, at least in part, had to do with this product. Could you just provide an update, where do we stand in terms of clearing the FDA warning letter? Good question. It has nothing to do with the Atlan FDA 510(k), plus all the others that I mentioned, the VN 600 and 800, and the Babylog, which are all important to clear this that we received. The delay that we had experienced here was due to the new cyber security guideline that had to be implemented and required a different operating system, hardware, and software to be able to fulfill the authentication requirements coming with the new standards. The warning letter is on a different subject. The warning letter is on the utilization of the Letter to File approval procedure from the past that was not in full accordance with FDA requirements. It still has some work to do. I think we now have the fourteenth letter going back and forth and working on all the different points being remediated, and it's still work in progress. However, it has no current effect on the business. It's just more work to get this historic deficit, say, eliminated and corrected. Thank you. Once again, if you wish to register for a question, please press star 1. The next question comes from the line of Oliver Reinberg with Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead. Thank you so much for taking my questions, if I may. Firstly, there have been some discussions around China in the industry that the demand trends there have significantly softened. Wondering if you just can share if you can share with us your observation, what's actually happening currently in this market environment? Secondly, in your press release, you talked twice about a stronger services business. Just wondering if this is normal fluctuating, or if there any structural trends that are driving this situation? The second question would just be, if you think longer term, I fully acknowledge obviously the early days, but I'm just wondering if you can share any thoughts in terms of margins for next year. I mean, I'm just trying to get a feeling for the puts and takes. I nflation, which will kick in on the cost side in the second half, will carry over into next year, and overall inflation continues. The China Q1 benefit is not going to recur. I guess we have also seen a support this year from a stronger order backlog conversion to sales, and you try to be slimmer on costs. I'm just wondering, what are the elements that are offsetting this headwinds moving to next year? T he launches including the Atlan is one element, but just trying to get any color, what is the potential support factor for next year? Thanks so much. g ood point, Mr. Reinberg. I start with China. There is very, I would say, weak signals of what's happening, actually. The one-time effect of the extra demand from the 180-degree change in corona policy is now a thing of the past. What we see and observe is a long-term trend that medical technology is now considered strategic by the Communist Party and the government. However, you will never find any point where it's really put on paper or in written. It just, it's the general impression that it seems are becoming more difficult. I know it from other industries, where previously, say, world market years have had a hard time, because China wants to push this industry and puts up difficulties for non-Chinese companies. We are currently, sorry, following all these extra restrictions and hurdles we could so far pass, I guess, for the localization of our products and the extra requirements for approval. However, we see the point coming that when we would no longer, say, feel comfortable when we are asked to provide the source code for the approval, for instance, this is something we will not do. It's a greater uncertainty in China than in the past, with the possibility that the medical technology goes the way of the railway industry, for instance, in the past, which has become strategic 20 years ago. It is not affecting all of the business, but some. And some other may develop still quite well. I'm not in a position to give you a more exact or hard-proven answer. I wish I could, but that's some uncertainty left with the possibility of a downturn. Your second question was on the development of services in general. Services are developing better than a device business. However, I see there is still quite some room for improvement that we have in some geographies. We can and will continue to develop our services faster than the device business. With this, I would include data business and data-driven business, which is also in our focus. Perhaps to add to that, I think your question also was, was there anything specific that drove that, or is that the regular expansion of the business? I can confirm that it is in fact the regular growth and trajectory on which we are with our sales business. There's no specific effects to be included in the prior year or this year that which if you would explain that, there is just generally better, less volatility with the result of consistent working with the markets. On your last question, a general outlook on the margin for next year and beyond. I say, of course, first, please understand that we are not giving figures for next year. With this, we will give the figures when we publish a preliminary result for 2023. In general, from the trend, I would think of 2 contrary elements. The first is that you should not underestimate the effect of our efforts that we took for the better price defense. To establish a culture of price defense and selling value. For this, for instance, we started 1.5 years ago with a direct call from me to all the country managers. We set out awards for the best price increase. Last week, I was in the U.K., handing over the first price increase award, and it had quite an effect. These effects are here to stay. Clearly, I hear from friends in other industries that sometimes they have to now lower the prices, like in the logistics business, food industry as well, and very famous in Tesla, lowering the prices, but not us. I don't see that coming in the near future. Higher prices are here to stay. That will improve the margin. However, cost is also on the rise. As you have already mentioned, the tariff increase for the IG Metall is 8.2% wage increase, of which the largest part is now becoming effective in the summer 2023. This is also here to stay, plus the energy price. For instance, here, the kilowatt hour of electricity in our Lübeck main plant went from EUR 0.069 to EUR 0.46 in New Year's Eve. Both effects are probably about the same magnitude. They fight each other, doing our best to increase prices as much as we can and to have other efficiency improvements to increase the margin, the deteriorating effects that we see in other places. That's some light on that point. Super. That's very helpful. If I can just squeeze in one more, can you just provide any color where the ventilation business is currently tracking? I f we exclude the kind of China business, if you want, what was the demand for ventilators? Is that similar to the pre-pandemic level, or is it above or below? It's around the pre-pandemic levels. The fear that I had that we would see a big saturation effect, it did not materialize. That's the good news. However, the same as I would say, bad news and at the same time, opportunity, is that in my point of view, it does not reflect the position where we should be in, in the market. We the past couple of years did not fully exploit the potential, and we are not in a position where we already were during the time when I, myself, in the year from the year 1999 to 2002, when I was responsible for Dräger's intensive care ventilation business. I think there is still some possibility to catch up and to regain some position. This is why we still have high spending on innovation on NVP. Okay, super. Thanks so much for this. Once again, if you wish to register for a question, please press star followed by one. There are no further questions at this time. I will hand over back to Gregor for any closing remarks. Please go ahead. Okay, then, if there are no further questions, then we close this call here on time. Everybody got a few minutes left from the hour. Thank you very much, everyone, being with us today for your interest in Dräger, and look forward to hearing from you again, and then hopefully meet you sometime in the not so distant future. Have a pleasant rest of the day and happy summer!