Good morning, and welcome to the Henkel conference call. For the duration of the call, you will be on listen only. If you would like to ask a question during the Q&A session, please press star one on your telephone keypad. If at any time you need assistance, please press star zero and you will be connected to an operator. I will now hand over to Leslie Iltgen, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead. Thank you, and good morning, everyone, and a warm welcome to Henkel's Q3 conference call. Here with me today are our CEO, Carsten Knobel, and our CFO, Marco Swoboda. Following the presentation, as always, Carsten and Marco are happy to take your questions. Before handing over, please let me remind you that this call will be recorded and a replay will be made available on the investor relations website shortly after this call. By asking a question during the Q&A session, you agree to both the live broadcasting as well as the recording of your question, including salutation, to be published on our website. Also, please be reminded that this presentation contains the usual formal disclaimer in regard to forward-looking statements within the meaning of relevant US legislation. It can also be accessed via our website at henkel.com. The presentation and discussion are conducted subject to this disclaimer. With this, it is my pleasure to hand over to our CEO, Carsten Knobel. Carsten, please go ahead. Thank you, Leslie, and warm welcome to our conference call and to all participants today, and differently than in the past. Marco, you also want to say something? Yeah, good morning also from my side. So that was the torture test, and I hope you understand, if you hear that voice, that this time I take over Marco's part, and Marco will spare his voice in order to be fit for the Q&A. So let's get started. As always, we appreciate your interest in our company, and after walking you through the key developments of the third quarter, we will take a closer look at our business performance and also our expectations for the full year. And afterwards, as I said, Marco and myself are looking forward to take your questions. So let's turn straight to the key highlights of Q3. We are pleased to report a continued organic sales growth of 2.8%, for sure driven by strong pricing, but also, as expected and also as promised, by a sequential improvement in volume development in both businesses. Despite the fact that the overall macroeconomic environment continues to be highly challenging and volatile. Both Adhesive Technologies and Consumer Brands contributed to this growth, with the consumer business clearly standing out by delivering 6.2% organic growth and showing double-digit pricing. In Q3, we also successfully expanded our Adhesive Technologies portfolio in a highly attractive adjacent business with the acquisition of Critica Infrastructure, and I will elaborate on this transaction in a little bit more details in just a few minutes. Turning to our consumer business, we are highly pleased with the progress we have been making in merging and transforming the business. We are clearly ahead of plan, and we will generate the vast majority of the targeted Phase One net savings already by the end of this year. Also here, I will give some more color on that. In this context, let me also underline that we have made significant progress in our overall strategic approach in stringently focusing our portfolio on high growth and high margin businesses. It goes without saying that this doesn't come without a certain impact on volumes. However, this is a deliberate choice, and we will be temporarily in nature while still working on shaping a winning portfolio. In the meantime, we have already achieved a significant step up in gross profit, which allows us to increase and reinvest into the businesses and drive profitable growth going forward. In our hair business, where we started the transformation a bit earlier than in Laundry and Home Care, volume development already reached positive territory in Q3, clear proof that our strategy is paying off. And in regard to the prospects for the remainder of the year, considering the sustained strong performance and an encouraging start into Q4 and in expectation of a further sequential improvement of our volumes in both businesses in Q4 versus Q3, we raised our guidance for 2023, with an adjusted EPS expected to significantly increase by 15%-25%. Let me now give some more color around the most recent M&A transaction in our Adhesive Technologies business. I'm really excited that we have succeeded in acquiring Critica Infrastructure, a specialized supplier for innovative composite repair and reinforcement solutions. Critica is a great strategic fit. It allows us to create a new platform and significantly expand our existing maintenance, repair, and overhaul portfolio by a highly attractive adjacent business. It is thus strengthening our leading position in a sustainability-driven, fast-growing, and what is more, in a highly profitable market. Critica gives us access to more than 3,000 leading maintenance service providers and contractors, and certified technologies for critical infrastructure. The portfolio comprises composite wrap and reinforcement solution, as well as insertion valves for oil and gas transmission, refining, chemical, and water supply systems. Thus, we are adding new services and have the opportunity to bring existing solutions to the new customer base. The acquired business will add annual sales of approximately EUR 100 million and shows above-market growth of more than 10% when considering the CAGR over the past three years. Going forward, the new platform will allow us to add further adjacent business to it. With this acquisition, we clearly underpin our M&A growth journey in the Adhesive Technologies business under the new leadership of Mark Dorn. The acquisition will further enhance our general manufacturing and maintenance business, which is one of the two attractive market segments within our Adhesive Technologies business I would like to highlight today. In our general manufacturing and maintenance business, we serve our customers with a broad range of applications across various industries. Our solutions provide value by extending asset lifetime, increasing process efficiency, enabling sustainability. Building on what I said a minute ago, we continue to strengthen our portfolio in the highly fragmented MRO market with success. Year to date, we have achieved high single-digit growth in this business, which is clearly above the market levels. Innovations here in that segment are key, and I would like to point out a special one, which is a great example of how we are developing new digitally enabled business models. The team is currently scaling our new Internet of Things solution, LOCTITE Pulse. Thanks to smart monitoring, it enables predictive maintenance and prevents critical equipment failures, such as leakages. Another area which continues to stand out is our successful automotive business. As you know, our solutions can be found in 140 out of 150 cars, which are being produced every minute worldwide, and we are a globally recognized partner of all major OEMs. In attractive market segments, such as surface treatment and engineering solutions, we are significantly outgrowing the market with double-digit growth, and we continue to win attractive customer projects. We are also setting industry standards with our solutions for more sustainable mobility. For example, our thin-film pretreatment solutions enable substantial reductions in energy and water consumption, while emphasizing responsible chemical solutions. These are just two examples illustrating that we are well-positioned in highly attractive and appealing markets, and they also clearly show the potential of our business, shaping growth opportunities by supporting our customers in providing more sustainable solutions and by leveraging our unique technology know-how. Let's now turn to our Consumer Brands business. As already mentioned at the beginning of my presentation, we are more than pleased with the dynamic process made in transforming and also shaping the business along our roadmap so far, while really focusing on two global categories, which is hair and laundry and home care. The implementation of the merger is already ahead of plan, and we will have realized more than 80% of the targeted phase one net savings of around EUR 250 million already by year-end. We are able to find agreements for the targeted 2,000 positions by the end of Q3 and thus further optimize the organizational setup. Beyond that, we are also making good progress with the supply chain measures we had initiated at the beginning of the year, which are the clear focus area of the second phase of the integration. We already see the benefits of our portfolio optimization program kicking in, which includes the discontinuation of low-growth and low-margin businesses. To date, we have either discontinued or divested parts of the portfolio that account for sales of around EUR 0.6 billion out of the EUR 1 billion we had put under review last year. We are now stringently redirecting resources towards high-growth and high-margin products and brands, and we keep up with our increased marketing investments. All of these measures are already bearing fruit and translate into an improved gross profit profile, allowing us to reinvest more into the business and thus sustainably fuel profitable growth on healthy and solid grounds. However, this journey is by no means already at its end. We will continue to work on shaping a winning portfolio, investing into the brand equity and innovations, and working on our supply chain in the upcoming quarters. We are highly confident that this will lead us to an even more profitable and faster-growing business going forward, and that we are well on track in bringing this business back to mid-teens margin levels in the next years. You can expect a more detailed status update on this Consumer Brands merger with our full year call in March 2024. So let me also turn to two specific business segments, which have been showing sustained growth momentum in the quarter. Starting with our Laundry and Home Care business in North America. In the meantime, we have now seen the seventh consecutive quarter of organic sales growth. The implemented measures are bearing fruit, and we are pleased to see that top detergent brands like All or Persil are contributing with double-digit organic sales growth in Q3 to our performance in the region. And also, Henkel continues to gain market share in the important fabric cleaning category. Year to date, we gained 30 basis points with our U.S. brand All, clearly standing out, gaining here in that context, 50 basis points. Moving to Europe, and by that, to hairstyling. Hairstyling clearly stood out with double-digit organic sales growth in Q3. We have been further expanding Henkel's market-leading position in this region with market share gains of 60 basis points year to date, and got2b here over proportionally, gaining 90 basis points. Last but not least, let me also emphasize the importance of innovations to fuel growth. In this particular case, strong innovations from our top brands, Taft and got2b, were clear growth drivers. Bringing our innovation engine fully to bear and launching new, exciting products to the market is also something you should expect to see more going forward. This brings me now to our 2023 guidance and the prospects for the remainder of the year, which we updated this morning. Considering the sustained strong performance year to date, the encouraging start of Q4 for both top and bottom line, also for both businesses, Adhesive Technologies and HCB, and as well as a further sequential improvement of volume development in both businesses. By that, we raised the guidance for the year 2023. While the third quarter trading update does not include margin or earnings information, I would like to confirm that we have seen further improvement in our gross profit and EBIT margins, supported by both businesses, and that we also saw material improvement when it comes to free cash flow generation. We expect these trends to continue throughout the remainder of the year, and we now expect organic sales growth in the range of 3.5%-4.5% and an Adjusted EBIT margin between 11.5% and 12.5%. Adjusted EPS is expected to grow between 15% and 25%. So let me briefly summarize. I believe it is fair to say we continue to make good progress across the board in both businesses, and we continue to deliver on our priorities and also on our commitments. So now, that would be now the turning part to Marco, and let's see if I can also bring that to life. So going a little bit more into the details now. Let me start by sharing some more details around the drivers of our sales performance for both the group and our two business units in quarter three. Organic sales growth reached 2.8%, which was driven by continued strong pricing in both business units. While volumes were below prior year, their development sequentially improved, as I mentioned it before, in Q3 versus Q2, also in line with our expectations. And I will get back to the individual development in Adhesive Technologies, but also on the Consumer Brands in more detail in just a minute. Sales came in at around EUR 5.4 billion. In nominal terms, they were 9% below the prior year level. Two factors contributing to that, that is M&A and foreign exchange. M&A had a negative impact on sales, mainly related to the divestment of our business in Russia, as you all know. Foreign exchange were a headwind, too, mainly due to the appreciation of the euro versus our basket of currencies, particular versus the US dollar. Turning to the distribution of growth in the different regions, as you can see here on the chart, we delivered organic sales growth across all regions, with the exception of Asia Pacific, where we still saw softer demand in China. However, showing first signs of stabilizations to the end of the quarter, and also, I have to say, starting into Q4. Let me move on with the performance of our two business units, starting with Adhesive Technologies. The business showed organic sales growth of 0.8%, reaching EUR 2.7 billion in the third quarter. For sure, we can state that the business has proven to be comparably resilient over the past quarters, despite the continued softer demand in relevant end markets and taking into account that we had higher prior year comparables. In Q3, pricing was moderating, but still remaining at strong level, with 4.9%, reflecting the strength of our portfolio and our leading market positions globally. The expected sequential slowdown was mainly due to the pricing carryover effects fading out. Volume development was still negative, with 4.1%, however, showing a sequential improvement versus Q2. Also, in line with our expectations, we observe easing stock adjustments along the value chain. Important now, we are confident that this positive trend will continue moving into Q4, with volume development to sequentially improve to flat territory for the whole quarter of Q4. Let me now turn to the performance in the individual business areas of Adhesive Technologies, where we saw different dynamics in three business areas within our Adhesives business. Mobility and electronics, again, was the main growth driver, with a +4.6%. This increase was first and foremost driven by the automotive and industrial businesses, while the electronic business continued to trend below prior year levels, reflecting the still subdued market environment, particularly in China. But I mentioned positive signs at the end of the quarter and beginning of this quarter in that specific segment. Packaging and consumer goods saw the decline of 5% in quarter three on the back of the overall softer demand, but also high prior year comparables, which had been driving, driven by an inflated demand in relation with the COVID pandemic at this time. Craftsmen, construction, and professional delivered growth of 2.8, driven in particular by consumers and craftsmen and construction, despite persisting weak markets. General manufacturing and maintenance was slightly negative due to the softer demand. Overall, a very robust performance of Adhesive Technologies in comparison to our relevant markets and considering the overall still volatile and challenging macro environment, clearly reflecting the strength of our business.... Now turning to consumer business and to our Consumer Brands. The business generated organic sales growth, I mentioned it before, of 6.2%, which was to a large part still driven by strong pricing, which accounted for nearly 12%. Volumes decreased by 5.7, showing a clear sequential improvement versus Q2, which I would like to elaborate on in more detail on the next part. I already referred to the very strong organic sales growth, which we saw in the consumer business, which was first and foremost driven by strong double-digit pricing. Volumes, still negative, being down by 5.7 in Q3 standalone. However, as just mentioned, showing a clear sequential improvement as we had anticipated it, that in our H1 call. Portfolio measures and trade negotiations together made up for around 4% of the total volume decline in the third quarter, while about 2.5% deriving from ongoing portfolio optimization, approximately 1.5 relates to the trade negotiations. Although the vast majority of the trade negotiations, particularly in Western Europe, were resolved by the end of Q2, there is always a certain time delay when it comes to retailers restocking. Moving into Q4, we would expect the negative impact to become even less relevant. When it comes to portfolio measures, as you know, we are still in the process of shaping the portfolio, eliminating low growth and low margin business, and by that, refocusing on the faster and more profitable parts. We already see that these measures are bearing fruit, particularly when looking at the hair category. I mentioned that before when I was talking about the overall hair segment, where we are more advanced versus laundry and home care, and where volume development already reached a positive territory in Q3. This is a strong proof point that the strategy we are focusing on is really paying off. Entering into Q4, you should continue to expect an impact on volumes in a similar magnitude as in the past quarters, while we currently focus our activities more pronouncedly on the laundry and home care category. If you strip portfolio and trade effects out, volume decline would have been only less than 2% in quarter three. Overall, however, we expect to see a sequential improvement in volume, volume development, and to be more specific, really trending towards a flat level by the end of the year. And at the same time, we will continue to price where needed to compensate for still elevated input costs. In addition, we are taking additional pricing steps in the process of valorizing our portfolio with the strong brands we have, and in parallel, we keep up with the strong level of investment in marketing and advertising to strengthen the brand equity also now in half year two and, for sure, then also in Q4. Now turning to the performance by business area, with focus on our two global categories, Laundry and Home Care and Hair. Laundry and Home Care delivered very strong organic sales growth of nearly 6%, to which both laundry care and home care contributed nicely, and with particular strong growth in specialty detergents and toilet care, clearly. The hair business area, which comprises both the professional and the consumer business, grew by almost 9%. Within the hair business area, the consumer hair business clearly stood out with particular strong growth in the styling and care categories. Again, another proof point that what we are doing with our focus on higher margin and higher growth categories and segments is really the right way. The other consumer businesses showed an overall slightly muted development. While North America showed continued strong growth, Europe saw a decline due to the ongoing portfolio optimization measures. Wrapping it up here, Henkel delivered a very strong top-line performance in both Adhesive Technologies and Consumer Brands in the third quarter. I have to say, Wolfgang König and the team are really doing a fantastic job on that. We talked already about the guidance, but you know, let's get a little bit more into the details. We now expect organic sales growth of 3.5%-4.5% on group level. Before, we had anticipated 2.5%-4.5%. For Adhesive Technologies, we now guide 2.5-3.5, while our prior top line, range called for 2%-4%. For Consumer Brands, we are lifting up our organic sales growth expectations now to 5%-6% from the 3%-4%, 3%-5% level we had before. Our margins also continued to improve sequentially, supported by further contributions from the successful execution of our strategic initiatives, and we remain very confident that this trend will continue throughout the remainder of the year, which is why we also adjusted our margin expectations accordingly. For this group, or for our group, this translates into an adjusted EBIT margin expectation in the range between 11.5%-12.5%. For Adhesive Technologies, we now expect 14%-15%. The Consumer Brands business margin expectation now ranges between 10%-11%. Breaking it down to our adjusted EPS expectations at constant currencies, as always, we are lifting our former guidance range now significantly from previously 5%-20%, now to a range from 15%-25%. And with regard to FX, we continue to see a mid-single digit negative impact on sales. Restructuring charges are expected to amount to roughly EUR 300 million. Thus, we expect to end up at the lower end of our previous forecast range. CapEx is now expected to reach roughly EUR 650 million, instead of the EUR 650 million-EUR 750 million we had before. Even though we don't report a Q3 free cash flow number, I would like to share, I would have assumed Marco would have even been more happy to state that, that we have really seen here a significant progress, and that we expect this trend to continue also in Q4, and we will end up very clearly above the prior year level in that sense. Very good news. So overall, we are confident to continue on our growth path, and we deliver a clear improvement in earnings compared to the prior year. So let me summarize today's key takeaways. Henkel showed sustained growth momentum in both businesses. With the encouraging start into Q4, both top and bottom line, as well, when it comes to volume development, we are also very confident for the remainder of the year, which is why we raised the guidance for 2023 this morning. We are pushing ahead with our strategic priorities and commitments. We are pushing for further growth, not just organically, but also via attractive M&A opportunities, as just shown in our adhesives business, while we are implementing a platform which will also allow us to add further adjacent businesses going forward. Our journey in transforming the consumer businesses was clearly picked up in speed, and we are highly confident that we will successfully shape the business to become a sustainably strong, growing, and profitable business with a winning portfolio comprising global leading brands, backed by attractive innovations and flanked by ongoing investments in our brand equity going forward. Wrapping it up, we have set the stage for further profitable growth going forward, and with this, let us move to our Q&A. Marco, I hope I did well, also, on your part. Absolutely. Well done, Carsten. Good. So Marco is back here in the part. So whatever you have in questions, we are happy, both of us, to take your questions and, yeah, let's go. Thank you, Mr. Knobel. Ladies and gentlemen, the question and answer session will be conducted electronically. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. If you change your mind about asking a question, please press star two on your touch-tone keypad. We will take questions in the order received and will take as many as time permits. Please limit your questions to a maximum of two questions at a time. One moment for the first question, please. Our first question comes from the line of Guillaume Delmas with UBS. Please go ahead. Thank you, and good morning, Carsten, Marco, and Leslie. Two questions for me, please. The first one is on pricing. So wondering if you could shed some additional light on your pricing development in the quarter? Because Consumer Brands, it looks like you took additional pricing actions in the quarter. So curious to hear if it was only in emerging markets, particularly where you're seeing some hyperinflationary economies, or if it's more broad-based. And ultimately, you know, do you see that having an impact on demand? And Adhesives, by contrast, it seems pricing is much more stable sequentially on an absolute terms basis. So here, are you starting to see some pressure to roll back some of your pricing in some regions or some categories? And then my second question is on the margins for Consumer Brands. Savings are clearly coming through ahead of plan, yet you haven't changed the upper end of your margin guidance for the division, so it's still standing at 11%. So my question is, what negative factors are becoming more challenging in recent months and are offsetting this stronger than anticipated savings delivery? Or, or maybe, you know, you, you've decided to reinvest more of the savings than initially planned. Thank you. Good morning, Guillaume. Let me directly start with your second question in terms of margins. The short answer, because you ask, are there any negatives? Yeah, the clear and short answer is no. When you're saying, we have not gone, you know, above the upper end. First of all, we have changed the midpoint of the margin guidance for HCB, means that what we are seeing, the better coming in margins in terms of savings, and which also makes us confident that we can reach that. And I can even say under the expectations, or with certain assumptions we have taken, you can even expect that we are at the upper end, or the above the midpoint of that margin guidance. That's the first thing. For sure, and I mentioned that, during my presentation, we are investing sequentially and on specific parts of this business more than originally planned, because we are believing we are creating in a momentum. I was, you know, very much also giving you some examples in the hair area, where we have been accelerating because we started earlier with the portfolio adjustments. And by that we have identified the categories or the country, category, country category combinations where we can invest more, and by that, getting also better OSG and also get a better getting GP1 levels and all of that pays in. So there is no negative sentiment what we see for the Q4. And it's really we want also, and I think that's the other part that we are keeping up the investments also as a clear part of our valorization strategy, you know? It's not only about pricing increase because of the, you know, material part, but really bringing our brands level to a higher price level, and by that, attracting consumers with better innovations. So therefore, taking everything into account, I would like to underline that the margin performance is even stronger than we originally anticipated. So that's for the margin. The other part of your question was to pricing for both businesses. Maybe I start with Adhesive Technologies. First of all, I think if you look at Q3, we continued to see, and we have recorded, a strong price increase of 4.9%. While the carryover was clearly less pronounced versus Q2, there was still a considerable amount of carryover within our pricing in Q3. I think that demonstrates our strong positioning globally within our adhesives situation with our diversified portfolio and having leading impact solutions on the one side, but on the other side, we also made no major price concessions when it comes to our adhesives business overall. That's the first part. Second part was your question on consumer. Here, as pointed out, we saw a strong double-digit pricing of 11.9%. While here, the carryover was less pronounced versus Q2, there was still a considerable amount of carryover also here with within our pricing. We also implemented incremental price increases in selective areas. You had been asking emerging markets or overall, more predominantly in Middle East and in APAC. Going forward, we will focus here, a shift from input input cost-driven pricing to strategic pricing. As I mentioned it already before in the topic of the margin situation, to more valorising portfolio parts, and by there, and by that, repositioning our brands globally. Guillaume, that answers your questions? Very clear. Thank you. You're welcome. The next question comes from the line of Iain Simpson with Barclays. Please go ahead. Thank you very much. A couple of questions from me, if I may. Firstly, just thinking about the balance between price and volume for your business and how that's evolving, could you please remind us where you report mix? I think mix is in different places in consumer and in adhesives, but it'd be great if you could just remind us and give us an idea as to how mix is trending as well, given that you have a focus on premiumization in both consumer and adhesives. That would be my first question. And then my second question is, I wondered if you could give any idea as to how we should start thinking about I suppose cost pressures and the overall macro landscape into 2024. Firstly, macro and how you expect adhesive demand to trend, as that's clearly been quite volatile this year. And then secondly, I suppose we focused a lot on input costs, thinking about the margin, from a raw mats perspective, but anything about labor costs and how we should think about labor costs feeding into 2024 and potential consequences for the pricing landscape would be very helpful as well. Thank you so much. Good morning, Ian. Yeah, Marco, you want to start? Ian, if you can't get it, then Carsten has to take over. The question on balance, price, volume, your question on where is mix reported. On the Adhesive Technologies business, we do report the mix in the volume component, and for HCB, the mix would be part of the price component. So you're right, we have a bit of a slightly different approach, because of certain specifics of the businesses. Then I understood you said, you wanna get a view where mix is trending. So at the end, we don't report obviously separately on it, but in HCB, I would see mix a bit supportive, to the numbers. And in HAT, I would see it a bit slightly having a negative impact due to the portfolio composition we have. Thanks very much. Maybe when we talk about volume, maybe that's important to also note, when you look at the volume we report for Henkel as a whole, but also then for the two business units. You will see that the Henkel as a whole is not the average of the two business units. That is because we also have a negative mix impact—a negative volume impact in our corporate segment that stems from certain energy deliveries we provide, in particular in our German site, to third parties. So that is not, you know, an operating impact, I would say, from the two businesses. I think that's important because we got here and there already a question on that. So the volume we do report for the individual businesses is a bit more indicative where we really trend. Good. So, I take the second question. Okay, Marco could also take the second question, but I give him a short break. So, Ian, your second question was related to cost pressures in 2024, macro, demand, labor. I don't want to disappoint you, but, you know, today is not the day, you know, to give guidance on 2024. But, for sure, I can give you, you know, some insights what we see, and, nevertheless, first of all, for sure, very early days in that, but, maybe to give you something what we see today. Today, we see that, you know, volumes are weakening in the industry, combined with combined destocking initiatives at customers. The growth recovery, especially in China, is still muted. But I said, you know, during my presentation that we see, especially in the electronics business, you know, the things, yeah, positively developing in September, but also starting and continuing to do that in October. And by that, I think that's a first important factor. Second, if you look at the at the same time in the industrial production index, currently the forecast has been coming down from month to month within this year and reaching now or is currently forecasted with a level of 0.8% for the year. At the same time, we have for 2024, industrial production to be expected growing in the range of 1.7%. So that's definitely what we need to see or what we need to take into account. On the other side, you know, we have shown a resilient volume development in Q3, thanks to our strong and our well-diversified portfolio in adhesives, where we have seen a high share of customized solutions, and globally, with our leading market position, helping us in comparing also to our relevant markets. And when it comes to the potential pricing pressure, I think it's very clear, and I think we have seen that, you know, our products, our solutions are typically only represent a very minor part of the total bill of materials on our customers. Thus, we are not so their first priority when it comes to price discussions, and therefore, in that part, we are quite resilient. They are looking at Q4, and I have been. And that's the only thing what I can tell you. I was very outspoken on that, that we expect a volume development in Q4, in Adhesive Technologies, in the dimension of a flat trajectory. And if I would now turn a little bit to HCB, for sure, your question was more on macro or labor. I mentioned it also. We are also very positive in the development when it comes to HCB. You know, we had a significant volume improvement in the negative field from the level of double-digit minus now to -5.7. Out of that, I told you 4 percentage points are related to trade/portfolio measures, so pure volume in Q3 is -1.7. As I also mentioned, we expect now the volume in Q4 also improving sequentially, really moving to positive territory or flat territory, I said, to the end of the year. If you would adjust for the portfolio measures, 2.5 percentage points, which we also commented through the whole year, then you can make up yourself the point. If I'm saying towards flat in the end of the quarter, plus this 2.5 points, that means the base business is then on positive territory. Hope that helps a little bit. Very clear. Thanks. The next question comes from the line of Christian Faitz with Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead. Yes, thank you. Good morning, Carsten, Marco, and Leslie, and team, and Marco, I hope for a speedy recovery. Two questions, please. First of all, I'm pleased to see the success of Persil and All in the US. How is the performance on liquid portfolio performing in the US at this point? And then the second question is, I'm afraid one for Marco. You're raising your bottom line guidance, EPS more than sales or EBIT, where you move to the upper end of the previous range. Have you identified items below the EBIT line that are performing a bit better than previously anticipated, such as finance costs or taxes? Thank you very much. Marco, you take the bottom line. Christian wants to challenge you. No, I think he got it fully right. I mean, on the one hand, you know, EBIT, we have some improvements in predominantly financial result, because also, and Carsten indicated that also cash flow came in strong. So also net debt-wise, we run a bit better than assumed before, and some also incremental benefit from the tax side. But what you also have to see from the overall guidance change, we significantly raised the midpoints also on the EBIT margin, so that contributes. When we determine, you know, the upper and lower end, there's also judgment and a bit of rounding included what we think we can achieve. So it's, it's a mix of different factors at the end, clearly indicating that we are much more confident now, to a higher EPS range, than what we had before. Okay. Thank you. So, Christian, so my challenge was not meant Marco, on the topic. It was more meant the challenge on the voice, on your voice. So to your first question, in terms of North America, maybe, Christian, to put it, in perspective, I mentioned it, seven consecutive quarters with organic sales growth. We recorded four quarters of organic sales all in 2022, and now three quarters in the year 2023. Year to date, Dial, the brand, as well as our top detergents, Persil, Purex, and All, contributed with high single-digit organic sales growth, in that context. And, I mentioned it also before, in that challenging environment, we were able to gain the market shares when you look at the fabric cleaning by 30 basis points. And we also saw clear improvements, and I think that's important, again, in supply chain, with service levels further improving, and by that, reaching really now a satisfactory level, not only by ourselves, but in the context of our customers. On the very detailed liquid question, I hope you understand that I'm not going into that level, but looking at laundry detergents, looking at laundry additives, we see, you know, improvements, market share improvements. So really, yeah, I would say continuing that journey where we have really good performance factors. Hope that helps both. Yes, absolutely. Thanks very much, Carsten and Marco. Yes, you're- The next question comes from the line of Rashad Kawan with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Hey, good morning, Carsten, Marco, and Leslie. Marco, I hope you feel better. One for me on the consumer integration. How does the accelerated net savings that you've announced today play into your A&P spend in the second half? I know in the first half, you noted you're accelerating A&P spend, you touched on that in your opening remarks, Marco. But did that continue to accelerate into the second half, and would you expect to bring forward phase two of the integration, given how quickly you're getting through the first phase? Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, please hold the line. The conference will resume shortly. Thank you. Anybody hear me? We can hear you now. Can you hear me? We can hear you, sir. You may resume. Good. So that's good, after the technical problem. Rashad, can you hear me? Yep, I can hear you, Carsten. That's good. Can you please do me a favor and repeat your question again? Sorry for that. Yeah. No, no worries. I was asking on the consumer integration, how does the accelerated savings play into your AMP spend in the second half? I was saying, you know, in the first half, I think you talked about accelerating AMP spend, and you touched on that in your remarks. But did that spend continue to accelerate in the second half, and would you expect to bring forward phase two of the integration plan, given just how quickly you're getting through the first phase of it? Thank you. Good. Very clear, your question. So, first of all, yes, as I mentioned, phase one, the EUR 250 million what we expect to get, we're accelerating that, and we see the majority until the end of the year with 80% reaching that, and that's the first part. What are we doing with that, you know, accelerated savings? One part, we're putting it to the bottom line. As you see, you know, that we have changed our guidance from the margin with reach change the midpoint. But also what I stated before, seeing that under the assumptions, we're having more to the above the of the above the midpoint. That's the first thing. Other than that, for sure, we're investing, because we also want to valorize our portfolio further. That means we have also continued what we have seen in first half. We will also see in second half an acceleration or in continuation of our acceleration of our AMP spend in that context, and that's the first thing. Second, we will give a detailed update on phase one, but also on phase two with the full year results in March of next year. But to be also clear, phase one and phase two are really a little bit also separated. You know, phase one was concentrating of administration, marketing, organizational set-up, while the phase two is concentrating on supply chain, production and purchasing, and all related things on that which are one another basket. So, but also here we're doing good, good in terms of, you know, we have done our analytical work, we know where to move. On the other side, you know, if you have these kind of things, you need to have in that part also a very clear view, because the decisions what you make have a quite significant impact on your footprint on delivering on our customers. So therefore, we take that as planned, and we're moving really ahead, have promising points on that, and we are concentrating that. We also report during half year on topics like NGP, new planning, new generation planning, but also one with our approach of going to our customers, one bill, one delivery, and in that part. Hope that helps, a little bit, Rashad, on that part. Yep, that's great. Thank you. Very good. Thank you so much. We will now take our last question from Victoria Nice, Société Générale. Please go ahead. Good morning, everyone. I just wondered if you could go into some of the moving parts on the performance in Europe in the quarter, which was perhaps not as strong as some were hoping. I am keen to understand the different dynamics at play here in a bit more detail, and perhaps also, within that, some focus on what happened in laundry care would be helpful. Then I think I also wanted to ask on capital allocation and how you're thinking about cash returns with the material improvement in cash generation seen to date, please. Thank you. Good. So Victoria, if I understand it right, I could not understand everything. Your first part was, you know, on Europe. So in Europe, the OSG was at roughly a percentage point driven by strong pricing, while volumes were previous below prior year. And in that part, the OSG was driven by good growth in consumer brands, while the growth in adhesives was slightly negative. In the nine months, OSG was at 1.9%, so influenced by significant pricing, and the OSG was driven by strong growth in adhesives. In laundry, we are doing more work in terms of portfolio measures. I mentioned it before, while in the hair area, we started earlier with our portfolio measures in terms of focusing on higher margin, cleaning the portfolio, and by that focusing on high growth setups. We see that, or we have started with that with the merger in Laundry and Home Care, so it take later. You know, that, we only changed, you know, the organization with Q3 of last year, means September, when Wolfgang took over both businesses, which we merged. And by that, you also see when it comes to market shares, when it comes to the development, also in Europe, we see currently more impacts, in Laundry and Home Care. But that's, you know, an interim period because we are changing the portfolio measures or with the portfolio measures. And on top, you know that in Laundry and Home Care, the private label situation and the material price increases and the consequences out of prices have been a higher impact than in hair categories. And already in Q3, we saw a positive volume development, as I mentioned it before in hair. Hope that answers that part. Yes, thank you. And then I think you still have some of cash return, and I think, Marco, your voice is- Not sure how exactly you want to hit. Understood a bit into capital allocation, and obviously, we finished our first share buyback in the first half. So that was what we've done, particularly over last year into this year. And going forward, at the moment, our priority is investing into our businesses, as Carsten had alluded to. And when you look at it, that we report also on the acquisition we did, that is a substantial part, also how we now deploy the cash we generated. And we are committed to further grow the business, and that is, for the time being, the clear priority. Thank you, Marco. Good. So I think we're coming to an end, but let me still say one word related to the quarter four. We really had a good start into the quarter four, and I think that's really promising, what we have seen in both businesses and, and important across the P&L. Means good top line start, good bottom line development, and which is for sure, in these days, also very important, the volume development in both businesses. And I think that's very clear for us, setting now here the stage for further profitable growth. And with this, let me close with the overview of the upcoming financial reporting dates. We are really looking forward to connecting with you again in March, as I mentioned before, where we also go more into the detail of the status of our merger. And when we will also publish for sure, in that context, our financial report for the full year. And with this, I would like to thank you for joining our call today. Thank you, Marco, that your voice was also supporting me in that part. Have a good day, take care of yourselves, and see you soon. Goodbye. Bye. Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now concluded, and you may disconnect your telephone. Thank you for joining, and have a pleasant day. Goodbye.