Welcome everybody, and welcome back to those who have attended some of the presentations before. I am now happy to introduce Catharina Kaiser of Lanxess. She is with the investor relations department. As always, there will be a presentation, and at the end there will be a Q&A session. If you have any questions, please put them into the chat box and we will address them after the presentation. Katharina, the floor is yours. Thank you so much, and good morning, everyone. Happy to have you virtually with me. Unfortunately, my colleague, Jens, is on sick leave, so today you will have to make do with me today. I hope you already heard some inspiring, interesting company presentation as of today. I am glad to do the presentation on Lanxess with you, so upfront, thanks for your interest in the company. Actually, I do not know how familiar all of you are with Lanxess, so let me start with a brief introduction. I will jump quickly on the third page here. Most of you might know Lanxess was built in 2005 as a spinoff from Bayer, and today operates as a global Specialty Chemicals company with annual sales, at least as the end of 2025, of around EUR 5.7 billion, and approximately 11,700 employees worldwide. Our portfolio nowadays is rather focused on Specialty Chemicals than on the commodity products. Our business is split into these three segments: Consumer Protection, Specialty Additives, and Advanced Intermediates, which are in turn subdivided into nine business units. We offer a huge portfolio of chemical products in attractive niche markets. In most of those niche markets we are among the top three players. To a larger extent, in these niche markets, really state-of-the-art specification, application know-how, customer relationship and service alongside the whole customer journey is what matter. At the same time, we operate also with a broad geographic footprint across Europe, North America, Asia, in which we provide diversification both regionally and also across the end market. I would say the current strategic focus lies on profitability or improving our profitability and increasing earnings resilience and also strengthening our competitive position in the markets where we operate. With a comprehensive portfolio transformation over the past years, I think we have laid the groundwork to achieve those objectives. Talking about the portfolio, we have gone through a quite comprehensive portfolio transformation, I will touch on this later a bit, which leaves us with the portfolio, with its three segments, that looks fundamentally different from how the company looked years ago. A clear goal is to focus on higher margin industries, and we also target to operate in a more end consumer-focused market. Market conditions in the past years were challenging. I think we are all aware of this. But we have put a lot of effort in restructuring and right-sizing the portfolio to become a pure Specialty Chemicals company. Importantly, this portfolio is not dependent on a single industry or demand driver. We serve customers in consumer-related markets, in agriculture, in construction, in industrial and electronic applications, and in several other sectors. However, I mentioned we all read the same news. Market conditions in several of these end industries are not the easiest nowadays. In particular, persistently weak agro and construction industries are tearing our earnings down. Anyway, I dare to say that we would not be where we are today if we had not gone through this transformation. Another important aspect is sustainability. ESG targets are embedded in management incentives and financing structures. This reflects also the fact that sustainability considerations are increasingly integrated into how we operate and also create value over the long term. Speaking about sustainability, chemicals are often overlooked in sustainability discussions, but many sustainability solutions are not even possible at all without advanced chemical products. At Lanxess, we contribute through a range of applications to this. Just to name a few, you find our product in the mobility sector, or they support technologies related to batteries and electrification in your renewable energy and Specialty Additives are used in applications for energy generation. We are also active in water treatment, where ion exchange technologies help to provide clean drinking water and improve wastewater treatment. Our technologies also support circular economy solutions by really enabling recovery and reuse of valuable materials. I think it's fair to say the point is not that Lanxess is a pure sustainability company, but rather our portfolio participates in several structural growth trends and also opportunities that I expect to remain relevant over many years to come. I already mentioned, this slide illustrates how far the portfolio transformation has progressed already. Several years ago, Lanxess had a significantly higher exposure to mobility-related end markets, particularly tires and automotive applications. Today, that exposure has been reduced significantly, and simultaneously, our presence in the consumer-related end markets has increased through a series of acquisitions and portfolio measures. We systematically moved away from traditional commodity chemicals and rather towards growth in specialty, higher value segments, creating a leaner and more future-ready portfolio. We have also sold our CO2 and energy-intensive mass market businesses, and as said, we've decreased our exposure towards the cyclical industries. At the same time, I think we've also deliberately maintained diversification across our end markets, and I would say this balanced structure helps to reduce the earnings volatility and creates multiple sources of value creation when the conditions across the cycle improve. We have not only diversified in terms of end markets, but also in terms of regions. Since 2016, we have significantly increased our exposure to the U.S. market from formerly 15% to almost one third of our sales in 2025. Over the last decade, U.S. sales have almost doubled on an adjusted portfolio basis, supported by the acquisition such as the Chemtura business, such as Emerald Kalama Chemical, and also the microbial control business we acquired from IFF. We view this as strategically important because the U.S. remains one of the most attractive specialty chemical markets globally. It offers a large customer base, innovation opportunities, and given the ongoing uncertainties related to tariff discussions, I think a local presence in the U.S. is maybe not the worst approach here. Today, Lanxess has a much more balanced regional footprint than in the past, which also helps us to reduce the contraction risk and positioning us to really participating in growth opportunities across the key global markets. Anyway, we all know what is going on around us. The industry is still facing several challenges and uncertainties. I guess, might persist for an extended period. Therefore, in these turbulent times, we have to steer even better from inside. I think you all know there is a saying, "Never waste a crisis." This is what we do right now, really improving our competitiveness through structural cost reduction. We already have actively adjusted our cost base in the past. The so-called FORWARD! Program, already generated approximately EUR 150 million of savings by end of 2025. In addition, further measures are being implemented through 2028. These include organizational efficiencies, production network adjustment, but also reduction of positions worldwide. In total, additional savings are expected to amount to roughly another EUR 170 million over the period. We continue to streamline our assets and take measures to counteract the demand weakness. We already closed individual plants, as, for example, our hexane oxidation plant in Uerdingen in the Advanced Intermediates business unit. We also closed one of our Widnes plants in the flavors and fragrances business unit in the U.K. In Germany, further savings potential was just recently added to our measure list. We are planning adjustment in the production network that are related to the Saltigo business, and they should bring savings of EUR 20 million. However, we just do not solely, I would say, shut down capacities, but we also relocate or differentiate within the existing portfolio. In Saltigo, for example, we strive for shifting capacities from the big but in the end weakened agro segment, towards the higher margin and more resilient pharma industry. Same we also do in other operational fields in other business units. What shall be important to you, I think, while a cyclical recovery will eventually help the industry, we really want to control what we can control by ourselves. We do not only rely on a potential demand recovery, but we also take internal measures to rightsize the swimsuit, so to say, with the clear target to strengthen our portfolio throughout the cycle. Another central priority for us is net debt reduction and, with this also an improved and healthy balance sheet. On the deleveraging effort, it is to say, you are probably aware through several M&A activities in the past years our net financial debt and with this also our company leverage has quite increased. Therefore, one of our strategic priorities is to bring down our net debt to EBITDA ratio to below 2.5 times and also restore sustainable investment grade status. The path toward this goal combines both operational and strategic levers. Operationally, I would say we continue to focus on cost savings as outlined, disciplined capital allocation and working capital management and strategically monetization of our stake in the Envalior joint venture. With this, the repayment of the related shareholder loan are also important contributors. Maybe on Envalior, we can go into more details later in Q&A session if you are interested. Obviously, deleveraging on current EBITDA and cash flow levels is challenging. However, we want to emphasize that our debt reduction is not only dependent on a sharp economic recovery, rather opposite. The management is really actively pursuing a range of measures to strengthen the balance sheet regardless of market and macro environment. Quickly, after looking on general topics and strategic priorities, let me lose some more words on the current financial KPIs and the recent operational performance. We are finding ourselves still on muted earning levels. However, second quarter demonstrated quite encouraging progress. In particular, if you compare the second quarter to a very muted first quarter of the year, EBITDA pre increased to EUR 152 million from EUR 94 million, which was supported by higher volumes, by positive pricing and contributions also from cost-saving initiatives. Improved earnings translated also into cash generation. Free cash flow improved from a negative EUR 29 million in Q1 to a positive EUR 56 million in Q2. Working capital remains tightly managed, and the net financial debt on an absolute level has declined significantly already compared with historic levels. While knowing one quarter does not really define a trend, we believe these figures demonstrate that the actions being implemented are gaining traction and converting into visible financial improvement. However, we also must not forget that underlying demand generally in the chemical industry is not visibly improving. Also in this quarter, we benefited from certain shifts in demand due to the Middle East crisis and supply and value chain disruptions, in particular for our Asian competitors. Therefore, we remain realistic about the broader environment. I would say based on today's perspective and evaluation, we have confirmed our full year 2026 EBITDA pre-guidance range of EUR 450 million to EUR 550 million. We also expect the third quarter EBITDA pre to be a bit lower than the second quarter, but roughly in the range of EUR 130 million-EUR 150 million. Why? I think macroeconomic uncertainty continues. Visible improvements in several end industries are not in sight yet, and FX might also remain a headwind and geopolitical developments add further complexity here. Important point is that the guidance and overall for the second half of the year, we do not assume a material improvement compared with the first half. Cost savings and operational measures remain the primary drivers. I think to sum it up, this reflects a disciplined and prudent planning approach in an environment that remains highly volatile as of now. Talking about uncertainty, I mean geopolitical tensions, tariff uncertainties, regional conflicts, and ongoing market consolidation continue to influence industrial markets globally. Of course, competition is still strong in a still rather subdued market environment. Our approach is not to predict these developments, but to react quickly and overall pragmatically. We've built dedicated task force to monitor supply chain risk and tariff developments, while our commercial teams really work hard to capture market share opportunities that could arise from industry consolidation, but also from new trends and developments. The reality is uncertainty is likely to remain elevated. However, we believe that the portfolio, geographic footprint, and organizational flexibility we've developed over recent years have made Lanxess more resilient overall. I would like to conclude with what we believe is core to look at Lanxess now. Currently, industry utilization levels remain well below historic averages. We have seen a bit of an improvement as of Q2. However, the demand in several end market is still subdued, and uncertainty remains elevated. Yeah. However, I already touched on this over the last several years, Lanxess really has fundamentally repositioned itself and we optimized our portfolio, we strengthened our regional footprint, and we significantly reduced our costs and also improved our balance sheet resilience. As a result, we believe the company is structurally stronger than before the downturn. Also if demand gradually improves through factors such as industrial recovery, maybe German stimulus measures or greater trade stability, Lanxess should be well-positioned to benefit from higher utilization levels. Yeah. In short, while we do not control the cycle, we really have worked hard to improve what we can control, and I think that combination of self-help measures and operational leverage is what makes Lanxess interesting today. With this, I conclude. Thank you for listening, and I am happy to take your questions if now audio and technical environment allow this to do. Thank you, Catharina. I hope you can hear me now. Yes, I can hear you via the phone, but we try to help out ourselves. Wonderful. Very good. We all managed. Actually, we have three questions on Envalior. I will take one by one. Yeah. The first one is, how and when does the right to require Lanxess' stake in 2027 or 2026 continue? Yeah. The first question is not really exactly, has Advent that right? Yeah. First of all, and before we dig deeper into all the Envalior questions, I cannot go into too much or on a too detailed level when it comes to all the contractual content. Obviously they have to tell us upfront the contractual effective date, which will be somewhere equal to the date that we had in 2026, meaning end of March next year, beginning of April 2027. But I cannot give you the fixed date, but it must be upfront, the contractual fixed date. Okay. Let me just go to the second question. As Envalior last year, EBITDA should be known to Lanxess now and also to Advent International, and the multiple is defined, so you should know the exact valuation for this stake if sold in 2027. Is that correct? Can we share that number? Yeah. I cannot share that number because Advent International is a private equity company, so they do not underlie same reporting duties as we do, and they didn't publish their EBITDA. As an indicator and what you can maybe read out of our balance sheet or out of our reporting figures is to which extent we reported the equity results from Envalior, which is based on net income, not on the EBITDA pre-level. We all know this, in particular private equity, they have made some adjustment also in terms of debt, in terms of lower tax duties, et cetera. But the equity result was a bit lower than in the prior year. Where did this come from? At Envalior, they had an impairment end of last year. Furthermore, in the first quarter this year, they announced that they are shutting down their glass fiber plant, which eventually also lead to some earning decreasing bookings and adjustments on their end. However, what we still see is, and where we still see the potential that we saw when building this joint venture, is that overall, on this value creation and will benefit through synergies at Envalior that were built through this joint venture, those synergies might extend over the time, and benefit stronger than in the beginning phase of this joint venture. We also see that in particular in the environment where Envalior is operating, there are currently several consolidations also on their competitor side happening. This is something where we can look quite optimistic on. Anyway, Envalior's exposure and product exposure is still quite extended to automotive industry, and we all know that automotive entire industry is still not one of the best performing industries, I would say. This is what I can give you as information on EBITDA pre-development. However, we still see there might, as already said, a positive spin from the value creation through synergies at Envalior and also an improved competitive environments, but I cannot give you the exact number, unfortunately. Okay, fair enough. We have two questions regarding cash flow and the debt level. First of all, if the Envalior monetization slips to 2028, Yeah can we delever sufficiently from internal cash flow alone in 2027, or would that not be a priority? If we are honest to ourselves, at the current EBITDA level, it is difficult to generate a huge amount in cash. As a rule of thumb, I can give you, we guided EUR 450 million to EUR 550 million EBITDA pre for the full year 2026. If we just take the midpoint, just for the sake of calculation, at EUR 500 million, we also guided that we expect CapEx of roughly EUR 330 million. We have tax expenses of, I do not know, EUR 30 million, EUR 40 million. We have interest expenses of another EUR 40 million, EUR 50 million, leasing obligations of. This is, in the end, you can do the math by yourself how much excess cash might be, say, left over at the end of the year to deleverage. However, just on an absolute level, if you only look on the net to EBITDA ratio, this looks quite elevated because of the current EBITDA levels. But on an absolute level, we are really doing everything that we can to get our net and we are still in a quite, let's say, comfortable mode that we still have a strong access to the debt market. We just issued a new bond, with a coupon despite being downgraded on a non-investment grade, with a coupon of 3.3% or 5%, which with regard to the current interest level and the downgrade from Moody's, quite a good achievement to us. So this also shows that Lanxess is very well perceived in the debt market also as a bond issuer. Overall, we still can sleep quite well at night, I would say, with the current maturity profile we have. But yes, we have to see in 2027 also with upcoming maturities, what opportunities we have. But as of today, we are quite well-positioned. Our bonds are all without any financial covenants, so there's no in this end either. And overall, I think we still find ourselves in a quite comfortable situation. But we are obviously assessing and evaluating all opportunities we have to bring net financial debt further down, but it might not happen from one day to the other. Okay. I think that also answers the second question, which was about the free cash flow performance in 2026 and the debt trend in 2026. So basically, you gave the relevant figures. We have two questions with regard to utilization. So what was your capacity utilization in the last quarters? How much room is for volume-based growth with the current production set up? The set up on first. Yeah. On utilization, I mentioned, I think that is visible on that slide. I think on average utilization in the past quarters vary between 65%-70%. In last year or end of last year, beginning of this year, we found ourselves rather in the lower end of this range. Now in Q2, we've seen a quite an improvement rather towards the 70%. But as you also see, we are not where we have been in the past. And those of you who are familiar with utilization in chemical industry know that as a rule of thumb, a healthy level is at roughly 80%. So we're still far away. And then on the second question, if I recall it correctly, it's on capacity overall in our plants and what are generally our plans are here. I've touched briefly on this. We are continuously evaluating where we have excess utilization, where we can maybe take out utilization, and we still have quite a buffer to fill existing utilization whenever demand recovery might happen, hopefully. Overall, there is always quite a balance where to improve on our asset side, where to take out different or where to improve efficiencies here. There is no need also, if you look at our CapEx plans, to invest too much here on the capacity expansion side. I think there we are well-equipped and well prepared for a potential demand pickup. Okay. Thank you very much. We will have to take that as the closing the Q&A session because we are running out of time. Yeah. The next presentation will be by Buglas, and the link to attend that presentation is in the chat box if you care to do so. Otherwise, we would be very happy if you would fill out the feedback form to the Lanxess presentation so that we can give some feedback to Catharina and her team. With that, I would like to thank you, Catharina, for the presentation. Yeah. Maybe just as a last remark- Closing remarks. Yeah, maybe just as a last remark. Sorry, I did not want to interrupt. I have a bit of a disruption here. But, in case there are still some questions that remain unanswered, here you find our contact details. You also find those details on our website, and we are always happy to catch up also for deeper and more detailed discussions. So whenever there's interest or, as said, open questions, happy to answer them, happy when you to reach out to us. So thanks for your interest. Thanks for listening. Thanks for questions, and I hope you have some more fruitful discussions, fruitful sessions, and thanks to you for organizing this, the call. Very welcome, Catharina. If you just stay in, I'm going to end the public part. Wonderful.