Good morning, welcome to our Q1 update call for HORNBACH Holding. My name is Antje Kelbert, Head of Investor Relations. Earlier today at 7:00 A.M., we published our financial results for the first three months of fiscal year 2026, 2027, covering the period from 1st of March until the end of May 2026. I extend my warmest welcome to our CFO, Dr. Joanna Kowalska, who will be our host today presenting our latest set of numbers. Please note that this conference call, including the Q&A session, will be recorded and made available along with the transcript on our company website. Kindly also take note of the disclaimer, which applies to the entire presentation as well as the Q&A session. After the presentation, we will take your questions. The technicalities will be explained by our operator at the beginning of the Q&A session. With that, I'm delighted to hand over to Joanna to walk us through the key developments of the first quarter of this year. Over to you, Joanna. Good morning, everyone. Thank you, Antje. It's a pleasure to be back to share our latest results with you. Before turning to the details, let me briefly outline the broader macroeconomic and retail environment we faced over the course of the first quarter. Consumer sentiment remains subdued, particularly in Germany, but also across other markets. GDP growth and forward-looking expectations remain modest overall. Against this backdrop, we have made a successful start to the new financial year. On a personal note, I'm incredibly proud to be serving as CFO at a time when we have recorded the highest quarterly net sales in our company's history, with May being the strongest month ever. This positive development was driven by solid like-for-like sales growth in our existing stores, along with additional contributions from newly opened stores. The spring season went well, with customers appreciating our broad and product-focused assortment and services, as well as our everyday low price promise. While these achievements belong to the entire organization, it's rewarding to see our strategy, execution, and teamwork translate into record results. Overall, I can say we are happy with our figures, especially against the backdrop of the challenging macro environment I have just outlined. Let me now guide you through today's results. We will cover three topics. The first one, an overview of the Q1 key financial figures. The second one, details on the P&L, balance sheet, and cash flow. The third one, the guidance for the current fiscal year. Let me start with the key financial figures. HORNBACH Group net sales reached EUR 2 billion, an increase of 4.9% from last year. This was mainly driven by international sales at HORNBACH Baumarkt AG. Like-for-like sales at HORNBACH Baumarkt grew by 2.8% outperforming the DIY sector as a whole. The DIY sector in Germany saw significantly weaker figures from March to May compared to our results. This is based on data by the industry association BHB. Additional market research data proves that in our other European countries, we at least matched or outpaced the overall sector performance. Gross profit increased by 4.0%, or EUR 27 million to EUR 700 million. This resulted in a gross margin of 35.0%. Adjusted EBIT reached EUR 161 million, matching last year's level. We opened a new store in Trnava, Slovakia, and continued to invest in further future growth. Overall, we remain very much committed to our organic expansion plans. Despite recording higher CapEx, our free cash flow was only slightly below prior year's level. What do our Q1 figures look like in detail? Let's start by taking a closer look at our sales performance. As yet mentioned, group sales increased by 4.9% to a total of EUR 2 billion. Looking at sales at HORNBACH Baumarkt AG, we saw an increase of 4.7% to EUR 1.9 billion. We are benefiting significantly from our diversified European footprint. Sales in our other European markets grew by 7.5% and now account for 53% of group sales. However, Germany also achieved sales growth of 1.8%. We further strengthened our international presence, and our business resilience is resulting from a well-balanced geographical mix. We remain firmly committed to this strategic direction and continue to push ahead with our expansion plans in a controlled manner. Also, Baustoff Union, as you can see, contributed to our growth, increasing in sales by 6.8%. Now let us take a look at market shares in the DIY retail segment. Once again, we were able to further expand our market shares in all HORNBACH countries for which data is available. The left side shows our top three regions in term of market share growth. In Czechia, we are number one and were able to further increase our market share to above 40%. This is a continuation of a strong momentum of recent years. In the Netherlands, customers value our product-focused offering. This had led to an increase in our market share to 40.4%. We also continued to improve our position in Switzerland. The right side of the slide shows that we also achieved gains in highly competitive markets such as Germany and Austria. In Germany, our largest market share rose further, an increase of 0.5 percentage point year-on-year. We also recorded further gains in Austria. Overall, these results underline that HORNBACH is very well positioned in its market, and our ambition is to continue strengthening and expanding our presence across Europe. This is not only about expansion, but also very much about driving profitable growth in our existing retail space. We were yet successful in this regard in the first quarter of 2026, 2027. As you can see, sale on like-for-like basis, excluding new open stores, increased by 2.8%. This was preliminarily driven by bigger basket size, but also customer frequency developed positively. You can see that our international regions are growing relatively faster on a like-for-like basis. However, Germany also recorded growth of 1.0%. This means that we once again outperformed the German DIY market, which developed negatively from March to May. The other European countries achieved growth of 4.4%. We achieved this growth rate against a very strong prior year quarter, underlying our resilience. Our top three performance in this respect are Slovakia, the Netherlands and Czechia. Slovakia recorded strong growth of over 9%. In the previous year, local purchasing power had been subdued due political changes. The Netherlands continued its successful development, achieving growth of just under 9%, and Czechia grew by 5.6%, showing even stronger growth than in the prior year quarter. All other countries performed also very well. At the bottom of the table, you can see a decline in Romania, where customer sentiment is temporarily impacted by tax increases impacting consumer spending in general. Overall, like-for-like sales growth trends give us confidence for the future. Considering that sales development was also affected by negative calendar effects, this performance is particularly encouraging. We had two business days lower than in the previous year. Also our e-commerce contributed to the increase in sales. Here we recorded an increase of EUR 20 million, which is a plus of 9%. Direct delivery accounted for the largest share of our online business, growing by 5%, and click and collect recorded an increase of 18%. This development shows us that our click and collect offering is meeting customers' demand. As you can see, the e-commerce share of HORNBACH Baumarkt sales rose to 13.6% in the last quarter. Compared to the pre-pandemic period, we have nearly doubled our e-commerce sales. By seamlessly integrating our e-commerce offering with our stores, we are able to provide customers with a truly interconnected shopping experience. We were among the pioneers in Germany in the e-commerce space, investing in this business more than 15 years ago, and this is now paying off. Let us now have a look on the profits for the period. Our gross profit increased by EUR 27 million. The gross margin was slightly below the prior year at 35%. The development of gross profit was preliminarily driven by sales growth. At the same time, challenges in logistic and increasing purchase prices driven by the current geopolitical environment put pressure on the margins. We are monitoring, of course, these developments very closely and aim to mitigate the impact through prudent planning. On the right side, you can see the total costs, which increased overall by EUR 27 million or 5.2%. We were able to fully offset the increase in cost through higher gross profit. Where the increase in costs come from? Mainly from selling and store costs. Those rose due to new stores and increases in operating costs, mainly maintenance, cleaning, and payment transaction costs. The cost ratio remained stable at 22.6% of sales. As you can see also, general and admin costs also increased. Here, too, higher personnel expenses were the main driver as expected, and in addition, costs for our IT infrastructure have increased. These investments are essential for us to future-proof our business model, optimize processes, increase efficiency, and consistently drive forward our digital transformation. The central cost ratio remained at a comparable level to the previous year. Reopening costs were slightly before the previous year's level. As personnel costs are the key component of both store and central costs, let me briefly provide you here some further details on that. Total personnel costs across all mentioned cost categories amounted to around EUR 370 million, an increase of 5.5%. This increase was mainly driven by a higher number of employees as a result of the new open stores compared to Q1 of the prior year, as well as salaries. Let us now turn to adjusted EBIT. Adjusted EBIT amounted to EUR 161 million, remaining largely in line with the prior year level. There were no non-operating effects to adjust for the first quarter. On the right side, you can see the contribution from Germany and the rest of Europe to adjusted EBIT. Countries outside Germany contributed 62% to adjusted EBIT. This share increased and is two percentage points above the previous year's level. Let us now take a look at the cash flow statement. Operating cash flow plays an important role in our strategy of organic expansion, which is largely financed by our cash flow. The slight increase in operating cash flow to EUR 199 million was mainly driven by increased funds from operations. CapEx amounted to EUR 56 million and increased by EUR 11 million compared to the previous year. This is in line with our strategy of organic growth. Around 46% of investments related to land and real estate, preliminary in connection with the development of new store locations. 34% of investments was allocated to store equipment for new and existing stores. The remainder was invested mainly in software to further advance digitalization. In this context, migration to SAP S/4HANA should also be mentioned, which is being driven forward with high priority. Free cash flow after CapEx and dividend payments amounted to EUR 143 million. The elevated cash flow from financing activities includes new promissory note loan. This will be used for refinance the bond of HORNBACH Baumarkt, which will be redeemed early at the end of July. Due to the new loans, the balance sheet total increased to EUR 5.3 billion. The equity ratio decreased to 42.3%, in line with the higher balance sheet total. However, it remains at a very solid level. Net financial debt decreased by 9.2%. This was mainly due to the higher liquid funds. The leverage ratio, defined as a net debt to EBITDA of 2.5, was below the year-end level. Looking ahead, we will continue to manage our leverage prudently. At the same time, we will ensure efficient financial flexibility to support further organic growth. This brings me to our guidance for the current fiscal year. We made a successful start to the 2026, 2027 financial year. We also saw a good customer response in the first weeks of Q2 and expect to benefit from the selling days that were missing in Q1. At the same time, there exist many uncertainties. Challenges in logistics arising from the current geopolitical situation as well as rising raw material prices are expected to persist for the time being and continue to put pressure on margins. Discussion on wage arrangements with trade unions are currently still ongoing in Germany. Based on the outcome, this might have an effect on personal expenses. Against this backdrop, we remain prudent in our forecast and confirm the guidance issued in May. For the HORNBACH Holding Group, we currently expect net sales to be at or slightly above the level of the prior year financial year. Adjusted EBIT is expected to be roughly at the previous year's level. We will continue to maintain a controlled pace of further organic expansion. Therefore, we expect increased investment in the coming financial year. CapEx is likely to be significantly above the prior year level, and for sure, this will put some pressure on our free cash flow compared to last year. Nevertheless, our operating cash flow remains solid. As long as this holds, investing in future growth opportunities justifies a somewhat lower free cash flow in the current fiscal year. We continue to see significant medium and long-term growth potential in the home improvement sector. All in all, we are pleased with the results in the first quarter, and Q2 has started and we are well-prepared. We are doing our best to maintain our positive momentum and continue delivering a strong performance. Just in line with our motto, there is always a job to be done. Thank you for your valuable insight, Joanna. We are now happy to take your questions. In the interest of time, please limit yourself to one or two questions. Please state one question at a time. Now I hand over to our operator to explain the technicalities of our Q&A session. Please go ahead. Dear participants, we are now moving to the Q&A session, and if you want to ask a question, please use the raise your hand button. If you have dialed in by phone, please use the key combination star nine and follow the instructions. There is Mr. Maul raising his hand, and so you should be able to unmute yourself, Mr. Maul, and ask your question. Mr. Maul, you can unmute yourself now and then place your question. We might move to another participant, Mr. Bosse. Mr. Bosse, you should be able to unmute yourself and place your question. Can you hear me? Yes. Now we can. Perfect. Okay. Sorry. Thanks for the presentation. I would have two questions. You speak about cost increases in general, but you also mention negotiations with the trade unions, so also potential cost increases. Could you give us here an update? What kind of negotiations are currently running and what kind of outcome do you expect from these trade unions negotiations and from the overall cost inflation trend which we see? To get your view here. A second question would be on the two openings. Congratulations on the first opening in Q1. Where and when will be the mentioned two other openings in the year to come? Thank you. Volker, thank you very much for your question. Let me start with the first one on personal costs and the development there. Personal costs increased by 5.5% in the first quarter. As I mentioned, there are some negotiations in Germany. Yeah. The situation is that the negotiations start always once a year, and we never know how will be the outcome. Yeah. Therefore, it's very difficult to make any clear statement on this matter. Of course, we plan with the increase, and for the full year, with 4% nearly. The prediction is very difficult. Yeah? To be honest, the cost increases are in line with HORNBACH strategy and the growth agenda. The increase in expenses reflects two factors. The wages increases, as always, to keep pace with inflation, and also the increase in headcount, which is a natural consequence of our ongoing expansion program with the opening new stores. To be honest, I see it, we investing in our employees, and this is really an asset of HORNBACH. Investing in employees is essential to expand our customer reach and to continue providing first-class service at every location. If you consider that we performed such as we performed, even in this strong competition, even in these challenging times, having the best quarter results ever in the history, our strategy to really invest in the people is, I think, very, very good. Of course, we always are committed to finding the right balance between investment in our people and maintaining the cost discipline. Therefore, also we monitor all costs and try to find efficiency gain going forward. Yeah. Thank you very much for this explanation. I do not complain about your strategy, and I see the reasons for investing first. Just for clarification, you mentioned you have 4% full year cost increases. This is on personal costs or cost increases overall? If you say in personal costs, this includes also new employees, of course, on the back of the store expansions? I mentioned the 4.4% increase, it relates only to the personal costs. Includes new employees as well, right? Of course, this is total. Yeah. Yeah, this is a rough prediction. You know? Never know what it will come. Would you say that overall cost inflation is also in the range by 4%, so including personal overall costs, so to say, OpEx in general? Is this a rough. It's difficult to say, to be honest. Of course, as I mentioned, we have also pressure in the gross margin logistics cost and to make any prediction on the increase of this cost or energy. It's very difficult. Yeah. You know. Understood yeah. 60% of our total costs are personal costs. Yep yeah. Mm-hmm. Understood. Yeah. Thank you. Volker, you mentioned also the question, too, about other openings, yeah? Please, yeah. We plan two new openings. The first one is in Vloeren in the Netherlands. The second one is Graz in Austria. When to come roughly? Summer, autumn, or next year? Yeah. Both are planned for autumn this year. Okay. Crystal clear. Thank you very much, and all the best. Thank you, Volker, for your questions. We move to another participant dialed in by phone. Mr. Heider, you should be able to speak now and place your question. Mr. Heider, we should hear you. Good morning. It is Michael Heider from the Berenberg Bank. I hope you can hear me. Yeah, that's better. Very good. I have two, three questions, maybe first to CapEx. Excuse me, Mr. Heider. Oh, sorry. If you follow in English, could you- Yes. Sorry. Okay. Sorry for that. I have two, three questions, if I may. First one on CapEx. We had EUR 55 million, or you had EUR 55 million in the first quarter. Last year was EUR 220 million. You say this year you expect significantly higher CapEx. I suppose that's in relation to the two more openings coming. Can you be a little bit more specific here after the first quarter? Yeah. Is my assumption right here that this is going to accelerate in the rest of the year? That would be my first question. Second question on the Baustoff Union, which saw a nice acceleration in growth. Can you give us the reasons behind this? The last one, you touched upon it, but maybe you can elaborate a little bit more on the current pricing environment. Do you think we have reached the peak here now with the political situation currently, or what is your expectation here? Many thanks. Mm-hmm. Thank you, Michael, for your questions. I start with the first one about the CapEx. Yeah, the CapEx grow by EUR 11 million, and it reflects the higher investment in expansion. To your question, to be more specific on that, unfortunately, I appreciate your interest in this topic. However, this is not information we disclose, and I can only tell you our strategic growth strategy. Yeah. We have in this year many opportunities and also many options to invest. I announced that the CapEx will be on higher level than the last year. Yeah. Let me answer as like- Yeah. Thanks. Yeah. The second question was Baustoff. Baustoff Union. Yeah. Here we are really happy and very, very satisfied with the development in this quarter. This is really something which we for a long time waited for. Yeah. Both driven by existing location, plus the M&A transaction. Maybe you remember St. Wendel, we bought a small store or, yeah, location from Baustoff Union. The most impact of the grow are coming from existing location, and we are very happy having this situation now. Of course, the situation stays tense in the building sector. Yeah, we hope that the next months will develop as in the same line with the last months. We hope. We will see. Is this related to increasing construction activity in the area, or you gaining market share or something? We see a little bit of the recovery in the building sector. Last year, we see that the permit, how to say? Building permits. Building permits are rising, it was last year. Therefore, I think this is a result of that. Of course, good weather. Yeah. We have to see how the next months will develop. Yeah. Okay, thanks. Your question three was the current situation on the market and the price increases. Let me answer in this way. The situation remains volatile. Of course, supply chains from Asia continue to face extended lead times and higher container rates. More and more suppliers really are demanding higher prices nearly each day. We are continuously in negotiations with them. Not all claims are justified, but in some cases we need to make concessions. What we value, long-term supplier relationships, and it is important to us that our supply chain remains stable to provide our customers with everything they need. To make some details on the price increases, this preliminary affect all freight intensive product ranges, such as building materials, garden constructions materials, as well as all oil-based products. Yeah. This is only a part of our product range. What we see is the increase in freight costs, and this affects not only HORNBACH directly, but also our suppliers. Therefore, the pressure on the gross margin is expected to continue in coming quarters at a similar level, I would say. Of course, we all know the current situation is very volatile and each day we have new news. To be honest, I expect too that we will face the pressure on the gross margin and higher logistics costs and purchase prices. All right. Thank you very much. Very clear. Thank you. We move on to the next participant. Mr. Saripalli, you should be able to unmute yourself. Mr. Saripalli, as you are dialed in by phone, you should be able to unmute yourself following the instructions. This seems not to be able for him, unfortunately. We therefore get to Mr. Miro Sutak. You should be able to unmute yourself and place your question. Please go ahead. Hello, can you hear me? Yes, we hear you. Hi, good morning, Miro. Hi, Miro. Good morning. I have a question regarding the reverse factoring program. I would like to understand how it works. I see from basically the balance sheet that you repaid EUR 149 million during the quarter, and I would like to understand against how this is booked, basically whether this moves through the P&L, or how it moves through the P&L and the cash flow statement. From how to understand the reason of that, I think this is a normal procedure we see for the last couple of years we are conducting this instrument. In Q4, we normally start with that. We then fully repay in Q1, this is the pattern. In the end, it is to prolong our paying terms to industry standards. It is a procedure I think we have taken over a couple of times now to make a balanced cash flow situation. This is just to smoothen our cash flow structures. I think the booking will taken by Joanna. Of course, the EUR 150 million from the last year was recorded as our payables. When we repay this, we have this not on our balance sheet. This is a matter of cash. In the P&L, we only see the cost for this program. The benefits of the program clearly exceed the costs. In the last year, we have EUR 100 million of the reverse factoring, and now in this year, we had the EUR 150 million. In the current financial year, we plan to use it at the same level. Sorry to ask again. If you repay the roughly EUR 150 million, basically it reduces your liability? Yeah. Is it booked against cash, or is it booked against another balance sheet position against, I don't know, inventories or? No. This is like payables to suppliers. With this instrument, we just postpone our payment terms, yeah, and have a little bit air to balance our season. The account would be payables? Exactly. Okay. Yeah. Good. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you very much. Due to the fact that we don't have any risen hands, I hand back over to Antje Kelbert. Okay. Thank you. Those who had some technical issues can always come back to us. For those who were unable to mute and post their questions, so we are here at the Investor Relations team, just come back to us. The other questions, it looks like all those have been addressed now. With that, also thank you for Joanna for her contribution today. After the summer break, we will have already scheduled participation in several capital market events and conferences, and we look forward to engaging in personal conversations with many of you there. You can also find an overview of the upcoming Investor Relations activities on our website. As already said, if anything comes afterwards or you were not able to post your questions during the call, just don't hesitate to come back to the Investor Relations team. All the others, thank you very much for your interest and time this morning. We hope to see you soon, and we wish you a great summertime. Thank you very much