This conference will be recorded. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the KWS SAAT SE & Co. KGaA Conference regarding the publication of the financial results 2024/2025. At this time, all participants have been placed on a listen-only mode. The floor will be open for your questions following the presentation. Let me now turn the floor over to Dr. Jörn Andreas. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our analyst and investor call for the fiscal year 2024/2025. I'm very pleased to share how KWS has delivered in a challenging agricultural environment with a robust operational performance and a number of deliberate strategic choices that set us up well for the future. Before we begin, as always, a brief reminder: today's remarks include forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties, and you will find the full disclaimer on this slide. With that, let me take you through the year's highlights. Over the past year, we navigated weaker agricultural market conditions with resilience, and we delivered our full-year targets in line with the latest guidance. Two signals stood out: a strong increase in free cash flow and a low net debt position. Both underline KWS' earnings power and balance sheet strength. We also sharpened our focus, we streamlined the portfolio, we repositioned the corn segment as we also anticipated and communicated earlier, and set a new financial framework designed to drive sustainable, profitable growth. As a leading seed specialist, this means targeted long-term investments in growth areas and in our innovation pipeline, and continue to help to address the real challenges facing agriculture. At the same time, we want our shareholders to participate in the company's long-term success. We're aiming for a higher payout ratio while maintaining a strong commitment on dividend continuity. Looking ahead to 2025/2026, we are confident in the resilience and the trajectory of our market-leading businesses. Even if market headwinds unfortunately won't disappear overnight, we expect to stay on our growth path and create sustainable value for all our stakeholders. Let's now take a look at our key performance indicators for the last fiscal year. The figures presented on that slide relate to the continuing operations of KWS following the sale of our South American corn and sorghum activities that we closed the first quarter of the last fiscal year. Net sales of €1.68 billion were at previous year's level, including a slight negative currency effect. On a comparable basis, so on a constant exchange rate basis and without portfolio effects, organic growth was +1%. Overall, I find this quite remarkable as an outcome given the declining acreage that we've seen in our global ag markets, in particular in our core European markets. EBITDA was €351 million, down 13.4%. This reflects special items and operating developments. Keep in mind that the previous year included a positive one-time effect of €28 million from divestment of our Chinese corn business. We also had higher costs on the industry side, increased R&D, and selling expenses. Net income declined to €140 million, mainly due to lower EBIT and a higher tax rate. The financial result, however, improved significantly, driven by higher interest income after we materially reduced our net debt. A very nice result is our increased gross margin, which grew slightly to 63.1%, benefiting from positive performance in sugar beet. This development really demonstrates our pricing power even in times of challenging commodity markets and the premium innovation portion of our market. Free cash flow from continuing operations improved substantially to €123 million, mainly due to higher cash from operating activities and lower CapEx. As a consequence, our net debt fell significantly from €385 million to €62 million, or 0.2 times EBITDA. All in all, this is a very solid picture against the industry backdrop. A quick walkthrough of the sales bridge. We achieved slight organic growth despite the continued headwinds and lower acreage, organic growth of plus 1%, mainly driven by sugar beet and vegetables. With this, we slightly exceeded our latest sales outlook where we guided around 0% growth. On the other hand, FX effects had a negative effect of approximately 1%, primarily related to the Turkish lira. Overall, this underscores our ability and our resilience to deliver stable sales under challenging conditions. Our two differentiators: the economic value of our varieties and the broad portfolio that balances opportunities and risks. To illustrate, in the last fiscal year 2024/2025, we generated two-thirds of our sales with new varieties, with a strong indicator of our innovation power and also a clear evidence of our R&D effectiveness. We also achieved a new record: 584 new varieties approved in the last year, the last reporting year. That's an increase of more than 4% versus the previous year, which means with this, we're also laying the foundation for future growth. Our income statement reflects both robust underlying business performance, but also several one-off items. Let me walk you quickly through the special items that impacted our results. First, prior years included a positive one-time gain of €28 million from the sale of our Chinese corn business. This year, we benefited from the reversal of a VAT provision amounting to €7.7 million in our sugar beet segment. This provision was established in the previous fiscal year related to a claim which we successfully fended off. Another one-off effect is the €20.7 million write-down related to the divestment of our North American joint venture, AgReliant Genetics LLC, that we completed in June 2025. Despite these effects, we maintained a strong profitability of an adjusted EBITDA margin of 20.4% while continuing our high level of R&D investments that are crucial for our long-term competitive advantage. Net income from continuing operations reached €140 million or €4.24 per share, and taking into account the extraordinary gain of €96 million from the sale of our corn and sorghum business in South America, earnings per share increased sharply to €7.16 per share. Let's now turn to our segments, and we're starting with sugar beet. Sugar beet net sales rose to €872 million on an organic basis, plus 2.2%, even though acreage declined by roughly 3%. The context matters here, as European producers reduced contracted areas from last season's very high base, moving essentially back toward normal levels. Growth was driven primarily by Northern, Western, and Eastern Europe, and also, but to a lesser extent, from North America. Our sustainable product innovations: Conviso, Smart, and Sea Plus continue to lead. Together, they account now for 61% of our segment sales, which is up from 56% last year. We also launched unique combination varieties, a combination of Conviso and Sea Plus across several European countries, which will also support the future growth. EBITDA increased 5%, including the 7.7% one-time provision reversal. EBITDA margin rose to 45.5%, so overall profitability improved, supported by portfolio mix and sustained pricing power. Moving on to corn, I mentioned it earlier, corn saw a fundamental strategic change, which I address later. Market-wise, Europe moved lower with reduced acreage. In our continuing corn operations, which includes the pro-rata contribution of AgReliant Genetics LLC, sales declined 2.7% to €683 million. Adjusted again for FX and portfolio, the decline was minus 1.6%. Europe held stable, and the decline came mainly from North America, reflecting FX, but also corn volumes in a pretty competitive market. EBITDA was at €53 million, below prior year's €82 million, which had included, however, the €28 million one-time gain that I mentioned. The EBITDA margin was 1.8%, accordingly below last year. Let's now turn to cereals. In cereals, net sales declined as expected by about 4.6% to €263 million, driven by weaker commodity markets and a declining business in sub-areas that benefited from one-time sales in the previous fiscal year. Our largest crops, hybrid rye and oilseed rape, were slightly down versus last year, while wheat was stable. EBITDA declined to €43 million, reflecting the softer top line and continued high R&D investments, in particular with regards to our hybridization efforts in cereals. On the other hand, vegetables continue to perform very well. It was our fastest growing business unit in the last fiscal year, toppling 16.2% to €72 million. This increase was primarily driven by spinach seeds, which accounts now for two-thirds of the segment sales. We added sales activities across key European markets. We improved our go-to-market, which supported the dynamic sales growth and also strengthened our global leadership in spinach seeds. The bean business was flat in a slightly softer market, so also here we were able to gain market shares. EBITDA was at minus €22 million, below last year due to the planned step-up in expenses for breeding and sales expansion. These are, as you know, deliberate investments to build a significant long-term position in the vegetable seed market. Operating cash flow increased significantly to €228 million, mainly because cash outflows for inventory and receivables were lower. Cash outflow from investing activities was at €105 million, slightly above last year. However, last year included roughly €40 million proceeds from the sales of our Chinese corn activities, so that is important for comparison purposes. Investments focused on production R&D capacity, including the completion of our lead seed storage in Einbeck and the opening of an R&D center for vegetable seeds in the Netherlands. Overall, free cash flow improved substantially to €123 million. As a consequence, our net debt position improved substantially from €385 million to €62 million, or 0.2 times EBITDA. In practice, that puts us close to a net debt-free position. Two main drivers: first, our annual EBITDA of €350 million already covered a large share of the starting debt, and our M&A proceeds of €277 million from our divestments further in the debt. Networking capital did build through the year, but it remained significantly below the prior year period, supporting free cash flow. Our capital structure is now fundamentally stronger, giving us flexibility to invest in growth, advance our strategy, and of course, also selectively pursue M&A from a position of strength. I'm pleased to report that beyond the operational delivery, we reached key strategic milestones in our positioning. Most notably, we realigned our corn segment, streamlining the portfolio with divestments in North America and South America and in the prior year in China, of course. The result: higher profitability and a much stronger financial position. Going forward, KWS will focus on the profitable European corn business, where we already today hold a market leadership position. We are deliberately exiting sales outside Europe in exchange for higher margins, in exchange for reduced currency and market risks, and also lower capital intensity. By exiting the corn GMO markets, we've also reduced our dependence on external IP and can concentrate on our own proprietary breeding technologies. This focus supports our goal of sustainable, profitable growth. It supports our goal of entrepreneurial independence, and it also fits very well to the growth opportunities we see in Europe, in particular in grain corn. With the portfolio adjustments behind us, we are now entering a new phase of corporate development, and that's why we have refreshed our strategic framework and reset new medium-term financial targets. Our priorities rest on three pillars. First, expand our market leadership in established crops. We want to scale activities where we see additional value potential, such as vegetable seed. We want to continually push innovation and plant breeding. These three drivers: lead, build, advance. They form a clear framework for our profitable, sustainable growth in the future. Over the next three years, so over the midterm period, we're targeting a 3% to 5% organic net sales growth and EBITDA margin of 19% to 21%, alongside our 2030 sustainability ambition. In this context, we have also updated our dividend policy. KWS values continuity, and we are committed to stable and increasing dividends. We are now aiming for a higher payout ratio of 25% to 30% of earnings assets, adjusted for portfolio and other one-time effects. For the last fiscal year, 2024/2025, the Executive Board and Supervisory Board will propose a dividend of €1.25 per share, up 25% year over year. That implies a 26% payout ratio of adjusted earnings after taxes. As always, we will balance dividends with investments in organic growth and potentially M&A. That balance is important to us. Let's now turn to the outlook for the current fiscal year. In line with our midterm visions, we expect comparable net sales to grow by approximately 3% year over year in 2025/2026. Despite a still subdued agricultural backdrop and an expected decline in Russia due to import restrictions and localization of seeds, I think that's a strong statement. We also expect an EBITDA margin of 19% to 21%, consistent with our midterm target range. This excludes a positive special effect of around €30 million from the sale of our license rights as part of the divestments of our North American corn activities that we will recognize in the first quarter 2025/2026. With that, and before I close, I would like to invite you to our Capital Markets Day on November 18, 2025, in Einbeck. My fellow Board colleagues and I will share deeper insights into our goals and our growth ambitions. While we offer virtual participation, I will be delighted to see many of you in person. You can really expect a full day of presentations, Q&A with deep dives on strategy, business, financials, and also on pipeline and innovation, plus on-site insights into our innovation capabilities. We'll talk about genome editing, we'll talk about hybridization, and of course, you will have a look also at our sugar beet production backbone. There will be ample opportunities to have direct conversations, and I look forward to welcoming you on November 18 in Einbeck. That concludes my prepared remarks. Thank you for your attention, and I look forward to the Q&A together with our Head of Investor Relations, Peter Voigt. Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, please press 9 and star on your telephone keypad. In case you wish to withdraw your question, please press 3 and star. Please press 9 and star now to register for a question. First up is Oliver Schwarz from Warburg Research. Over to you. Good morning, gentlemen. Thank you for taking my questions and congrats on the past results. I've got two questions here on the results. Firstly, I saw that earnings were boosted by a reversal of provisions to the amount of €7.8 million. Could you elaborate on that one? Secondly, I saw that or realized that the outlook is now basically performed on when it comes to earnings on the EBITDA level, no longer on the EBIT level, but still you tend to record the EBIT as the prime earnings figure in the segmental overview. Is that going to change in the future? What's the rationale in regard to switching from an EBIT guidance to an EBITDA guidance? That would be my questions. Thank you. Thank you for your question. Yes, correct. On the VAT provision, we basically reversed the VAT provision in the amount of €7.7 million that we took earlier in the previous fiscal year. It relates to a dispute in Russia regarding the applicability of a certain VAT rate, and we successfully fended this off in front of the court. That put us in a position to reverse this provision, and that had a positive one-time effect that we recognize in the sugar beet segment. On the EBITDA, correct, yes. We are switching essentially from EBIT to EBITDA, and that is mainly driven by two factors. First, we had a longer discussion in the first half of this year, a market perception study where we talked to many people in the financial community, and there was the preference and the request to be more comparable to our peers in our industry. That is why we switched to EBITDA, and also internally that provides us with a much cleaner view on our operating performance because it strips out accounting effects, in particular with regards to the purchase price allocation in our vegetable segment. We want to make sure that we are consistently reporting internally and externally with a true view on our underlying operating performance. This will also be the guidance going forward, both on the group level as well as on the business unit or segment level. Thank you. The next question comes from Christian Seitz from Kepler Cheuvreux. Thank you for taking my question. I just have a question on your relatively cautious outlook for this current fiscal year. Is that because farmer profitability in your relevant markets continues to be low, or what's the background to essentially a flat development minus obviously the 3% envisaged organic sales growth? That's a good question. Exactly as you're saying, we are still in a period of, I would say, subdued agricultural commodity prices. When you look at the price development, we are essentially on 2020 commodity price levels, which has, of course, an impact on the producer margin. There is not so much, of course, incentive for our customers to increase production, to increase acreage under these, let's say, commodity price conditions. That has also an effect on our guidance. We still believe with the 3%, we are actually making also a strong statement because we believe the market will be more in the area of 1% to 2% growth for the current fiscal year. We believe with this outlook, actually, we would be able to grow faster than the relevant markets. What we also took into consideration in our outlook, and I mentioned this, is that we will have also a lower or smaller growth in Russia going forward based on the current activities to increase the localization of production and the reduction of the import quota. That has an effect that has been built also in our guidance. This is very much also with what we guide for the midterm. We actually feel good with that. Okay, thanks very much, and see you later. Next up is Michael Schaefer from AutoBHF. Thanks for taking my questions. The first one is on your outlook statement for sugar beet. I mean, you're looking for a slight organic growth. This is, if I understand, despite what you're expecting maybe from Russia, maybe some clarification to what extent you expect the Russian business or how this to evolve in sugar beet primarily, and then also related to the sugar beet business. You are forecasting basically a lower margin in the sugar beet segment for the current fiscal year. This is on the back of the special effects, which are sort of VAT recovery, basically, which you accounted for. However, if I strip this out, I'm getting to something like 44.6% margin for last year. The question is, how do you see basically this on a more comparable basis, the margin to evolve on sugar beet? This would be my first question. The second one is on the vegetable side. You, thankfully, if I understand this correctly, provided some undistorted sort of profitability target of a number of around 20% margin for the vegetable business on that one. If I strip this out compared to your reported negative number, I'm getting to something like $36 million, $35 million of extra OpEx, which you are basically earmarking for investing into further growth. I wonder how this number is evolving in the years to come and what's baked into the midterm guidance for the segment or for the group in general, how this is evolving. This would be my two questions. Very good, Michael. Very good questions. Maybe first on sugar beet. As you said, we believe that the market, of course, the sugar market is still under pressure. I mentioned already the very weak commodity price situation still. Of course, as a seed producer, we are only indirectly affected by these commodity price movements. However, we believe on the acreage basis for sugar beet in our relevant markets it will be more stagnating in the current fiscal year. We initially had a more optimistic outlook, but I would say right now what we see in front of us, it's rather stagnating. What we've also demonstrated in the past, and that's really important, is that even under those conditions, we're able to grow and we also increase our profitability thanks to our innovative product portfolio. These pricing powers that we have, the portfolio effects of the further penetration of our innovative varieties, Conviso, Sea Plus, and also our unique new combination varieties always put us in a position to be able to grow and also deliver value even under, let's say, adverse, I would say, market conditions. That means we are confident that we will be able to maintain also the profitability. You rightfully said we had in the last fiscal year the reverse of the provision, which is a positive one-time effect. We do not, of course, have that in the current fiscal year. That's basically to our guidance. We still have profitability well above 40%. With that, I believe we are well positioned also to navigate this more challenging environment that we see. You mentioned Russia. For Russia, I would say our outlook is stable. For us, you know, sugar beet remains a valid business for us. Also in the current fiscal year, for the other crops, it's more an opportunistic business because here the localization of the activities in Russia has already progressed quite a bit. That's also baked into our guidance that in particular when it comes to corn, for example, we have a much lower forecast for our business. This is more on the opportunistic side. So far, I would say the situation in Russia is neutral. It hasn't worsened. It hasn't improved. That's also how we react to this market picture. Vegetables, yes. We are really happy also with the operative profitability. You can imagine with a 16%, we're able to really also turn this into a very nice operating effort for our underlying business, so spinach and beans. That's really on the positive side. At the same time, we need to hit our go-to-market structure. We need to build our breeding infrastructure. We are roughly halfway through, let's say, the innovation cycle of what we call our foodie crops: tomato, pepper, cucumber, melon, and watermelon. You will see also, I would say, until the 2020s, an additional build-up of expenses in order to build that structure. Our goal is over the midterms, over the next three years, to launch basically products, launch varieties in each of the foodie crops so that you see also now traction when it comes also to the years. That's what you can expect. Further build-up of structure in the next years, but also a bunch of key varieties that will be the driver of our future growth in the years to come. Can I have a follow-up on vegetables, please? I mean, you reported a strong organic sales growth in the past fiscal, 15%+, but guiding for flat organic sales growth for the current or for the ongoing fiscal year. What's holding back? It's more a comparable topic. Of course, we are now comparing ourselves against pretty 16%. It's a significant growth, and we've been able to capture really good market share, particularly Italy, other parts of Europe. We also saw nice growth also in North America. That's why we've been a bit on the cautious side and saying, okay, based on that high comparable level, I think it would be for us already a good result if we can sustain this, also given, of course, the pressure that also consumers have when they choose these products. I can, from my side, I mean, I would not be surprised if you can maybe put a little bit on top of that. We said, okay, based on the very good, let's say, landing of last year, that is basically what we see in front of us. Okay, cool. Appreciate it. Thanks. At the moment, there are no further questions. If you have any additional questions, please press nine and star now. Nine and star for any additional questions, please. There are no further questions. All right. If there are no further questions, then again, thank you very much for your interest in KWS. As I said earlier, please, you know, have a look at your inbox to see the invitation to our Capital Markets Day. We look forward to welcome you in Einbeck, continue the dialogue on site, and of course, also over the coming weeks and months together with our Investor Relations team. Thank you and all the best until then.