Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the KWS SAAT quarterly report, nine months, 2025/ 2026. Let me now turn the floor over to your host, Jörn Andreas, Chief Financial Officer of KWS. Thank you, and warm welcome everyone. This is Jörn Andreas, CFO of KWS. Thank you everyone for joining us today for our nine months, 2025- 2026 update. Before I take you through our financial results, let me start with the big picture. Agriculture remains a challenging environment: ongoing political tensions, fluctuating commodity prices, and pressure on acreage and farm economics have reduced visibility not only for our farmers, but also by extension for our industry and y et, this is exactly where we as KWS prove our strength. In a challenging environment, we delivered a resilient top line, solid earnings, and a strong operational discipline. This is not a coincidence, it reflects three things: our diversified portfolio, our consistent execution, and our innovation-driven business model. Even in areas under pressure, such as the Sugarbeet acreage, we navigated the environment effectively. Importantly, our strong financial position and our leverage give us the flexibility to invest organically and also where it fits via M&A. With that perspective, let's move into the numbers. As always, at this point, a quick reminder, some of the statements we'll be making today are forward-looking and subject to risks and uncertainties. As always, please refer to slide two for the full disclaimer. Let me now walk you through the key figures. Net sales reached EUR 1.35 billion, slightly above prior year. On an organic basis, this translates into a 2.6% growth, this was partly offset by currency headwinds of -1.8% and a portfolio effect of -0.5%. EBITDA increased to EUR 386.8 million from EUR 360.8 million. I come back to the drivers, including the special items, in a moment. Net income from continuing operations rose to EUR 220 million from EUR 202.8 million, mainly driven by the improved EBITDA and a better financial result. CapEx decreased to EUR 56 million from EUR 73.6 million last year, reflecting a normalization of our elevated prior year level across segments. Free cash flow was at EUR -52.4 million compared to EUR -3.9 million last year. The main drivers were a lower operating cash flow due to higher receivables backlog, partially offset by a payment related to the divestment of our North American Corn business in Q1. Net debt remained essentially stable at EUR 179 million. Our trailing one-month leverage improved to 0.4x EBITDA, down from 0.5x. Overall, we are pleased with the result because in a nutshell, we see a resilient demand, a strong EBITDA development, and an expected seasonality in our free cash flow. Now turning to sales in more detail. Organic growth of 2.6% reflects a solid underlying demand across segments. Our quarterly performance was also influenced by pull-forward effects from Q4 into Q3 in certain regions, most notably in Corn, and to some extent also in Sugarbeet. Currency effects, mainly by the Turkish lira and the US dollar, amounted to a -1.8% translation impact. The portfolio effect of - 0.5% primarily relates to the absence of R&D services invoiced to our former joint venture AgReliant. Now on profitability. EBITDA improved to EUR 386.8 million and includes several special effects. Let me strip this out for you. First, EBITDA includes a EUR 29 million positive contribution from the sale of license rights in the North American Corn business. Second, a EUR 8 million effect relates to the reversal of a VAT provision at the Sugarbeet segment in the prior year comparison context. Finally, a currency effect of approximately EUR 50 million, again, mainly driven by the Turkish lira and U.S. dollar. Mostly of it was translational. Importantly, when adjusting for these special items, EBITDA increased from EUR 353 million to EUR 357 million, supported by active cost mitigation measures. While special items supported the reported figures, the underlying profitability improved slightly and t his reflects the continued discipline on cost and execution, which has been a key priority for us this year. Let's now turn to the segment review, starting with Sugarbeet. Sales increased to EUR 703.8 million, including negative currency effects of 2.7%. Organic sales growth was +4.2%, reflecting both pull-forward effects and a higher share of innovation-led offerings. Specifically, our leading innovations such as CONVISO SMART and CR+ accounted for 62% of sales, up from 57% last year so t he mix shift was differentiated premium priced products is continuing. This success speaks again to the strength of our portfolio as the global acreage in 2026 is estimated to shrink about 6% to roughly 4.3 million hectares for Sugarbeet worldwide. We continue to generate more value per hectare. Going forward, we expect and estimate that this negative trend in the global acreage has somewhat bottomed out with stable or slightly growing acreage expected in the next season. Considering the prior year positive one-off related to the reversal of a VAT provision and also some negative currency effect in the current period, we were able to defend our strong profitability in this segment despite the challenges I already described in the Sugarbeet market. Moving to Corn, sales were EUR 349.4 million below the prior year, but a 1.3% organic growth. We saw clear pull-forward dynamics that shifted part of the volume into Q3. Our sunflower business, which is also consolidated in the BU Corn, for which we expect substantial growth in the years to come, delivered encouraging double-digit growth supported by our renewed variety portfolio. Our EBITDA performance in Corn improved significantly and includes the EUR 29 million one-off effect from the disposal of the license rights in North America. In addition, we incurred also lower R&D expenses due to the absence of charges by our former JV AgReliant. Next, Cereals. Sales were stable at EUR 243.4 million. Organic growth was 0.7%. Oilseed rape performed strongly, with sales up 21%, driven by a high-performance portfolio. This was partially offset by hybrid rye, which declined 14%, impacted by comparatively low rye market prices. Wheat remained broadly at the prior year level. EBITDA was clearly below prior year, mainly due to increased R&D efforts, as well as a provision for a legal risk in the mid-single-digit million euro range. Finally, vegetables. Sales increased to EUR 46.5 million. Organic growth was 2%, supported by higher bean seed sales and a stable demand in spinach. EBITDA was more negative year-on-year, which is in line with our plans as we are investing in the expansion of our vegetable breeding capacity. Let me now turn to cash flow. Operating cash flow was lower, primarily because net working capital increased, driven mainly by higher trade receivables and t his is a typical seasonal pattern and also reflects the sales phasing I discussed earlier. Investing cash flow includes the partial payment of the purchase price related to the North American Corn business. As mentioned at the beginning, CapEx decreased to EUR 56 million below the prior year across segments. Free cash flow came in at around EUR 52.7 million, down from EUR -3.9 million last year. For the full year, however, we are confident to exceed the free cash flow figure of EUR 123 million for last year, driven by both better operating and investing cash flow. On net debt leverage, net debt stands at EUR 179 million. The bridge reflects a strong EBITDA contribution offset by working capital seasonality, CapEx, and the dividend payment, which was at EUR 41.3 million this year, compared with EUR 33 million last year. Our trailing 12 months net debt EBITDA ratio improved to 0.4x, down from 0.5x. We continue to expect net debt to be significantly lower at year-end, driven by the usual seasonal unwind in working capital. Coming to our forecast for full year 2025, 2026, which we are confirming today based on the nine months performance and our current visibility. While currency volatility and regional order patterns remain factors to watch, our underlying business performance and cost discipline support the outlook. Looking further out, while uncertainties remain, the underlying trend gives us confidence. Before we move to Q&A, I'd like to share a quick save the date with all of you. We are planning to host a KWS Vegetables Investor and Analyst Seminar at the end of September, on September 29, 2026 in Andijk, the Netherlands and w e will be very pleased if you could join us. We know that our vegetables business continues to attract a lot of questions, and rightly so. This seminar provides a fantastic opportunity to take a closer look at how far we have already come and where we are heading next. Being on site, you will be able to experience our breeding activities, meet the teams, of course, that drive the progress, and engage in discussions around strategy execution in vegetables. I have no doubt that this direct look behind the scenes will give you a much clearer sense of the progress and also the momentum that we have built in this business. We very much hope to see many of you there. With that, I would like to close my prepared remarks. Thank you again for your attention and for joining us, and I now look forward to your questions, together with my colleague, Peter Vogt, Head of IR. Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, please press star nine and pound key on your telephone keypad. If you would like to cancel your question please press star three and the pound key. You can also use the dial-in function to webcast if you would like to ask your question by phone then raise your hand to ask a question. The first question is from Mr. Christian Faitz from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead. The floor is yours. Yes, thank you. Can you hear me? Perfect. Hello? Yep. Morning, Christian. Go ahead. Yes. Okay. You can hear me, I assume. Thanks. Thank you very much. Dialed in via the webcast. Couple of questions, please. First of all, you had pull forward effects apparently in both Corn as well as in Sugarbeet, as you mentioned. Can you give us an idea of the magnitude, i.e. what would then be missing in your Q4? Second, in your Corn segment, sunflower seeds grew quite nicely, I believe double-digit. Can you give us an idea how prominent sunflower seeds are within your Corn segment in the meantime? My third question pertains to the sale of the license rights, i.e. the EUR 29 million proceeds. Is this stemming from the 2015 agreement with Syngenta, i.e. the Agrisure Viptera trait? Can you confirm that? Thanks very much. Perfect. Thank you very much, Christian. First on your question on pull forward effects. Yes. We have seen that orders business slipped into Q3 from Q4, and that, as you know, has always something to do with also the weather conditions in the different, you know, regions where we operate. Roughly, you can say that the pull forward effect in those organic growth was roughly EUR 30 million. Which means that if you, let's say, cancel, let's say, these pull forward effects, the growth was more or less flat, which is then also in line with our full year guidance. What you can also say is, let's say 2/3 of the pull forward effects were roughly in the Corn business unit and 1/3 in the Sugarbeet business unit. I think that gives you a good indication. Sunflower. Yes. We are really, you know, thrilled with, you know, how the sunflower business develops. I mean, we discussed this also last year in our capital markets day that, you know, we are now launching our own varieties. We have really some advantage on the R&D side with some gauge capabilities that we have to accelerate our capabilities or pipeline. So we've been able to increase our sunflower sales double digit, and we are now having a revenue of around about EUR 50 million in our sunflower business year to date in nine months s o I think that's really nice growth from where we've been and t here's also more to come in the years, of course, and we indicated that we want to achieve EUR 100 million, you know, revenue with sunflower by the end of the decade. Last, a question on the license. This is really related to the license that we provide for our germplasm to AgReliant in the past. This has been part of the overall AgReliant deal last year, meaning that we've not only, of course, sold our assets, our subsidiaries, our shareholding in our AgReliant business, but we also gave, you know, the buyer, GDM, also the rights for the varieties which were held, let's say, by our operations in Europe. For this license rights, we, you know, recognize this gain of EUR 29 million in the first quarter, 2025, 2026. Okay, great. Thanks very much, Jörn. Just a quick follow-up. Did you say EUR 15 million year- to- date for the sunflower? Yes. Was it EUR 15 million? EUR 15 million or- 1 Yeah. Great. Thank you. Yes. Thanks very much. Yeah. Congrats on the results. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from Mr. Michael Schäfer from ODDO BHF. Your line is open now. The floor is yours. Thanks for taking my question. Good morning, everyone. I have two on the Sugarbeet to start with. Well, the first one is, if I'm looking at your profitability and you reported that EUR 325 million EBITDA, so roughly 46% margin. If you compare this with last year and strip out the EUR 8 million one-off gain. I come to the virtually slightly higher 46.6% EBITDA margin just before. The question is, despite the 4.2% organic sales growth and despite the very strong, at least from my perspective, very strong mix effect you have reported, why have we seen on an operating basis margin walking backwards? This would be my first question. The second one is, Jörn, you indicated that probably on the Sugarbeet acreage side, we have seen the bottom in terms of, let's say, total acreage. Can you elaborate what do you expect into the next season across the different regions in your production planning for next year, t hen one final question on the Cereal segment. This kind of legal risk provision which you have put in place there, mid-single digits. What is this all about? Thanks. Perfect. Michael, good questions. First of all, on the margins, we are actually quite pleased of that we are able to keep the operating margins in our Sugarbeet at continuously high level. Yeah. With a contribution margin of around 66%, that's actually on the level of last year. As you can imagine, that we are operating in an environment where we have pressure on acreage. Being able to keep, let's say, that profitability on that pretty high level is, I think, also a real testament of the pricing power that we have in our markets, yeah. In terms of the changes, this really primarily relates to the regional sales mix that we have, yeah. We have also communicated that we had a significant translational, negative translational effect about EUR 15 million in our EBITDA, and a big part comes from the U.S. dollar. From our regional mix perspective, our U.S. business is, let's say, margin accretive within, let's say, Sugarbeet, and this has then, okay, a mixed effect on our overall profitability in the BU. Meaning on the country level, let's say, or region level, there's no actually change. It's really more a mixed effect than anything else. As you rightly said, with the mix shift, as I said, was our more innovative varieties, CONVISO SMART and CR+, that really effectively counterbalanced other, let's say, challenges that we face, of course, in this, in this macro, let's say, environment, yeah. The second question was, I think on acreage, on acreage development. Yes, we have seen, of course, in this season a pretty strong reduction in acreage to 4.3 million hectares. That's a - 6%, yeah. What we have seen, I mean, it's early days to be quite honest. Our customers, how they also plan for next year. It's early days, yeah, we feel, as I already said, earlier, tha t bottomed out, yeah. Our scenario right now is that we are either stable on current levels or see a slight increase, that's something we will probably give you more, let's say, visibility, yeah, further down in the year. Yeah. I think last question was on the legal risk in Cereals business. Yeah, in Cereals we recognize the provision for an ongoing antitrust investigation in France, for which we have made a provision in the mid-single digit million euro amount. I ask for your understanding that, of course, given the ongoing proceedings, we or I cannot comment really any further on the details. What we can say is that we are defending here our position, and we are not going for a settlement, so that is why it is an ongoing case. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. The next question is from Mr. Leon Mühlenbruch, from mwb research. The floor is yours. Hello, can you hear me? Hello, Mr. Leon. Hello. I have a question to the EBIT margins. Your target is 19%-21%. Do you see potential for even in the next years for even more than 21%, or is it Can we imagine that it's the limit? Well, I mean, of course, we are ambitious, and we always strive to, you know, increase our profitability, but we actually feel quite good with the 19%-20% range at this time, yeah. I mentioned at the beginning, we are still in, I would say, volatile times also in agriculture with, you know, farmers having had quite significant pressure also on the margins, I would say over last 12-18 months. Of course, with, you know, the increase in input costs for the farmers that is ahead, much of it is still ahead. Of course, as we all know, things like fertilizer, etc., have been already contracted most of it last year. There's still a way for us. In terms of also cost inflation for the farmers, I think there's pressure, we also have to see how much, let's say, leeway we have in our pricing activities. At the same time, what we really wanna do, of course, is to continue to reinvest our profits also in R&D, so that's a really a priority for us. I mean, if we would have the opportunity to gain additional, let's say, profitability, we'll probably reinvest this in R&D and stay within the corridor that we have communicated. Okay. Under the challenging environment, do you believe that the vegetables demand will already be a meaningful contributor for the growth in the near term, or is it more in the long term? What is really exciting, that's why we have decided to have this investor seminar next September or coming September in Andijk, is that we have a really pivotal milestone for us next year, next fiscal year 2026, 2027. Because in the next year 2026, 2027, we will be launching all foodie what you call the foodie crops. For all our, the varieties that we have, you know, invested quite a lot, of course, as you all know, over the last years, tomato, pepper, cucumber, melon, watermelon, all of these varieties will see market launches next year. Of course, for some of it will be a couple of varieties on the broad portfolio. We start small, and the contribution will be, you know, I would say mid-single digit million euro revenue next year to start with, yeah. It's really the first time that we are really out in the market actively selling, let's say, our varieties. The goal is to grow our business to EUR 100 million by the end of the decade from, you know, roughly EUR 70 million where we are today. That's why there is this growth, of course, definitely built into our plan, that's why we are also excited to really invite you to Andijk, see the team, see also the pipeline that is ahead of us, and that gives you all the confidence that we really have a nice growth engine that we have built over the last years. Perfect. Okay. Thank you. Okay. At the moment there seem to be no further questions. All right. I'm pretty sure that we will have, you know, plenty of opportunity today and over the next days to follow up on a few things. We will be also on the road. Thank you again for your interest in joining us this morning. I mentioned it already, we look forward to seeing you, of course, if not on the road, then latest at our Vegetables Investor Day in Andijk. With that, thank you, and have a good day.