Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and a warm welcome to Ottobock's conference call following the publication of our financial results for the first half of 2026. Today's speakers are Oliver Jakobi, CEO, and Dr. Arne Kreitz, CFO of Ottobock. Before we start the presentation, please note that the call will be recorded. After the presentation, we will open the line for questions. If you wish to ask a question, please use the raise hand function at the bottom of your Zoom screen. If you dialed in via phone, please press star nine on your telephone keypad to ask a question. Further instructions regarding the Q&A session will be provided later by the moderator. With that, I hand over to you, Oliver. Yeah. Thank you. Also from my side, a warm welcome from Duderstadt. Let's start with the headline. Strategically and operationally, we are fully on track. In the second quarter, we have seen a strong demand in our key markets, and the timing effects we have seen beginning of the year are normalized now. Second key message we want to deliver is our organic core revenue. We grew with 6.7% in the first half year, with 8% in the second quarter. This is driven by EMEA on broad base, as well in B2B, as well as in B2C. The underlying EBITDA margin improved even more strong than the revenue. We are now on 25.3% in Q2, 27.9%. On the M&A side, we also fulfilled our plan. We acquired one technology company, FES, Functional Electrical Stimulation company from Spain. We acquired a leading patient care company in Norway, and the signed Human Mobility divestment also took place. That what we already discussed during our meetings earlier. Everything well on track. With this, we decided to narrow our guidance. We are lifting the low end from 5% to 6% growth, and keeping the upper end with 8%. We are increasing our EBITDA margin guidance from above 26.5% to above 27%. If we have a look into the regions, I would start then probably with the left side, with the Americas. Here the key message is that the main market, the U.S. market, is actually on a positive side. We have on the B2B side in the U.S., the 1% growth in the first half of the year with 4% in the second half of the year. B2C still with good growth momentum in H1 in the U.S. A little bit different, the situation in Canada and especially in Latin America. In Canada we had last year so-called War Amps program, which in the moment is on hold. That's why the Canadian numbers are below gray here. We do have timing effects in Latin America. In the main market, Brazil, there are elections ahead, therefore, there's lack of period and no tenders performed. We do expect here also better development from the surgeon force especially. EMEA, now accounting for 75% of our revenue, performed very strong. We had a very strong B2B business, double-digit growth in the first half of the year, which was driven, first of all, by many different markets. Western Europe, but also export, and the EMEA markets, Russia and Ukraine, but also really important to note are the innovations. The patient care business in Western Europe had a very good momentum in the second quarter. With 6.3%, 6.4% growth, we are back on track. Growing slightly above the market in the second quarter. APAC, 3.6% growth in the first half of the year. There are two factors important to mention. First of all, we had a very strong comparative year or comparative period last year, with high growth momentum. Then we have this year some timing effects. With a relatively small sales in this region, a tender which was postponed, like for example now in India or a reimbursement gap, which we have seen now for one, two months in Australia, have a direct impact. These are timing effects, so the catch-up will follow, and therefore we are confident also to overperform there the second half of the year. Next. Regarding the acquisitions, I mentioned already we acquired Blatchford in Norway. Norway was a white spot on our patient care landscape. Norway is a very attractive market for patient care, very profitable. And we had the unique chance to acquire the market leader. That has happened in May, and the integration is already going forward and so far, very good momentum we can see there. With Fesia, we acquired a company which is leading in the electrostimulation. We are already in this business, so we have a distribution business in this field. But what we were missing was the possibility to influence also the innovation path, then the regional expansion. Of course, what we do have here now is higher margin. Coming from the distribution business towards your own business, we also of course have higher margin. We are very much looking forward with this business. Definitely a growth driver for the coming years. And the divestment of our wheelchair business. We spoke about this. They had a signing with DHCare in June, and the closing is expected to be at the end of the year. We are in the moment in the operational separation of the business. We are very happy to have a partner who is a strategic buyer. That means the business will continue, a nd it's going very well forward. For us as a management team, but also for the organization, it is really good to focus even more now on our core business, prosthetics and neuro-orthotics. Because the wheelchair business, anyhow, we had a lot of projects running there and was a bit of distraction from the core business. This is now gone. Therefore, we will focus on the core business and also report from next year on only the core business. This core and non-core will be not there anymore. And now I'm handing over to Arne, who will guide you through the financials. Thank you, Oliver. I am happy to take you through a bit more of the details of the financials. Again, starting with the big picture, where we are looking very positively on. We have reached our plans for Q2, which means strong organic growth of 8% in Q2, leading to an H1 growth of 6.7%. So exactly the acceleration that we also highlighted in our previous call. Previous call, we had been discussing 5.1% in the first quarter. I think it is good to see that we now have reached 8%. So being on a very good track on the top-line development. Same was true for the underlying EBITDA side. We arrived at EUR 207 million in the first half of 2026, which means a 25.3% margin. What is always important is the comparison to the comparator year or half year last year. Here we can see a 2.2 percentage increase. If I am looking specifically into the second quarter, we are talking about a 2.8 percentage increase to 27.9%. I want to say the pattern that if we are growing strong on the top-line side, then we can immediately see this also in the strong EBITDA performance, and that we have been seeing in Q2, 8% on the top line translating into a strong margin of 27.9%. Free cash flow and the cash conversion actually strong. So good operational performance, but we have a special effect on the tech side. So we have a bit of timing effects, which will normalize in the course of the year. All in all, we can see in Q2 a special effect of EUR 35 million, EUR 25 million of that will normalize in the course of the year. It is the timing of the pretax payments, which last year had been at Q3, and now this year in Q2, but that will normalize. There is a second effect also on the income tax, which is in some of the tax refunding that we are expecting will move into the next year. So also a timing effect, but most likely only happening next year. If I am normalizing for the tax effect, we would actually see also a strong performance on the free cash flow development. Going a bit deeper into the revenue development, if we are looking into the development in B2B and B2C, we see an 8.7% increase in the first half year, with 11.7% in Q2. So very strong development on the B2B side. Please keep in mind that we are looking into a strong comparator quarter also last year. We are actually happy with the 11.7% and think it's showing really the strong momentum that we are continuing to see on the B2B side. On the patient base side, we are looking at 4.2% of a year-to-date performance. The first quarter we had been at 4.7%, so a bit slower on the second quarter. If I am looking a bit more into the details, then we can actually see that the core regions in Western Europe and North America actually had been performing very well with beyond 6% growth in the first half of the year. We had a bit of special effects and timing in the smaller regions, specifically in APAC and LATAM, and that is a little bit mixing up the picture. But from our point of view, that will also normalize in the course of the second half of the year. So if we are looking into the core regions, which is clearly Western Europe and North America, and we are also looking into a strong top-line development on the B2C side. Moving on to the regions, 9% in EMEA, already explained by Oliver. So continued strong momentum, broad-based, and we also again have been seeing some momentum in Russia and Ukraine. I know that there are typical questions around that. So we can see 1%-2% of a spike event impact if we are looking into the numbers. But if you look into that, you can see that the majority of the growth is really broad based and not spike event driven. From that end, we are looking into a strong performance all in all in EMEA. Americas, a bit mixed. Actually good recovery on the U.S. side, we had been a bit lighter on the first quarter. Now we are seeing a catch-up arriving at 4% on the B2B side, and even stronger on the B2C side. So we think a good momentum on the U.S. side, which is a bit mixed up by Canada and LATAM and by the effects that Oliver already explained. So again, bit of a mix of effects. But the key message is that in the most important market, in the U.S., we think we have seen in Q2 the positive development that we also had been foreseeing when we talked about Q1. On APAC, 3.6% and a bit slower growth in the second quarter. Here you just need to keep in mind that if I am looking into Q2, and we are talking about EUR 26 million of revenue, if we then have some tender business moving into the third quarter, that already has a relevant impact then on the relative growth rate. So nothing structural, no change in the general market condition. This is a bit of timing, which we will see recovering in the second half of the year. Underlying core EBITDA set up by 2.2%. If we are looking into the regional split, then we can see again that all regions have improved in their profitability with a good growth that we can see in EMEA. Of course, we can also see the strongest impact then on the top-line side, with reaching 36% in the EMEA region. But all in all, you can see that our efficiency measures are really broad based and across the organization, and that is why we keep seeing this positive margin development basically across the entire organization. Underlying net income, we are also seeing continued good momentum. Keeping the big picture, top line we have been growing by 6.7%. EBITDA have been growing by 18%. Now looking into the underlying net income, we are growing at 24%. That is again the typical logic in our P&L. When we are growing strongly on the top-line side, this translates into an over-proportion growth on the EBITDA side. Then everything which is coming below the EBITDA is pretty stable. So depreciation is stable. Financing costs have been lower because of the lower debt level that we saw in H1, and also lower interest rates that we have been facing. Then the tax rate has also slightly improved compared to last year. So I want to say, if the top line is growing well, the EBITDA is performing, and this translates nicely into strong net income development. Free cash flow, already described. Again, not an operative topic. We are seeing that the cash conversion continues to be strong and improving. If you take the tax effect into consideration, then this normalizes. There's a little bit of working capital effect also in the first half year, specifically on the receivable side, which had been a bit up. That is more like also now a bit of timing. On the specific date of when H1 ended, receivables been a bit up, but that is a timing effect which will normalize also in the second half of the year. So really, the impact that you need to understand for the free cash flow is the tax effect, and that's what I already explained earlier. Net debt and leverage. You can nicely see the trend that we have been on now for a long time. In Q2, we see a slight increase towards 2.5 x, which is driven by the acquisition but also the dividend payments, which had happened in May. We're expecting for the full year that we are going below 2 x. If you recall, that's exactly our capital allocation policy. We always said during the IPO our target is to go below 2x. Despite the large amount of acquisitions and dividend payments that we have been doing this year, we'll see that we're continuing to move into our targeted below 2x range. That brings me to the guidance, which with all the positive developments that we've been seeing in Q2, we decided to narrow. We are foreseeing, on the top line, 6%-8% increase in the course of the year. As you recall, the way we're setting the guidance, we always want to have a good chance to end up in the upper half of the guidance, and that's why looking into the 6%-8% and also into the narrowing of the guidance, we're actually looking very positively into the second half of the year. On the EBITDA side, we've raised from beyond 26.5% to beyond 27%. Also to put this into context, last year we had been arriving at 26%. We always said for the midterm guidance that we're expecting a 1 percentage point increase per year. That we're now putting the guidance to go beyond 27% is clearly indicating that we are on a good track regarding the EBITDA margin development. Yeah. To sum it up, I think the second quarter, we saw the growth and improved profitability, as we said it would. As Arne said, we are very positive for the second half of the year. The innovations are coming to the market, so the demand is continuously high. Therefore, we narrowed our guidance, still keeping in mind that we want to be reliable and of course, deliver to our promises. With this, I think we open up the session for questions. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin our question -and- answer session. If you have a question, we ask that you please use the raise hand function at the bottom of your Zoom screen or star nine if dialed in by phone. When it is your turn, you will receive a prompt. Please unmute or press star six to ask your question. If you want to withdraw your question, please lower your hand using the raise hand function or by pressing star nine. Thank you. A moment for the first question, please. We will take our first question from Hugo Solvet with BNP Paribas. You may now unmute your line and ask your question. Hi, guys. Hope you can hear me okay. Thanks for taking my questions and congrats on the [release]. Just a few, please. On the guide range, thank you, Arne, for already pointing to the top end of that new 6%-8% guide. Just wanted to understand why you guys put the low end at 6%, which would imply the significant deceleration into H2. In other words, what needs to go wrong here for us to start thinking about low ends? Second, on M&A, EUR 112 million deployed year- to- date. Your guide was EUR 40 million-EUR 50 million. Should we assume that you will pause here into H2 and possibly also into 2027? If you can update us on what the funnel for acquisition is looking like. You mentioned Norway being very attractive market. Can you expand a bit on that? Lastly, if I may, just in terms of the directionally, the margin for between B2B and B2C, obviously strong uptake in H1, but can you help us understand if you are also seeing an increase in Q1 and in Q2? I am not sure that we have been provided with the details back in the Q1 interim statement. Thank you. Yeah. The guidance, 6%-8%, as I said in my last words, we want to deliver to our promise, and of course, we would like to end up in the upper half of the range we are giving. That is why we do not foresee any major hurdles. But as we said before, we have to deliver. We have to show that we are reliable. That is why we picked up the 6%-8%. If something is clear more towards end of Q3, then of course we will change the guidance accordingly. Second question regarding M&A, we always gave range. But we also said if there are good opportunities, then this range might exceed. We do have the financial flexibility that was from the very beginning also important for us to note. If we can see that there are good targets on the market, then we also would react accordingly. That doesn't mean that now we exceeded our M&A budget and we have to stop. We are still looking and if there are good opportunities on the market, we also will continue. It doesn't mean that we put it now on hold for the second half of this year or maybe even 2027. Therefore, everything is fine there, a nd margin. Yeah, the third one, B2B, B2C margin, I can share that we are continuing to see the improvement both on the B2B and on the B2C side. Along the same logic that we set when B2B is running well, we'll see typically good mix effects, and a bit more of scalability on the B2B side. That's why good development on the B2B side, and B2C is continuing to show the step-by-step improvement on the margin side. From that end, that is well on track and margin improvement is coming from both businesses. Thank you. And on what makes Norway attractive market? Thank you. What makes Norway? The reimbursement system. You know that normally our B2C business has a lower EBITDA margin than the B2B business. In this case, the B2C margin is similar to the B2B business. It's very attractive, and the point is there that we have a very good reimbursement in neuro-orthotics. At the moment, there was no one really covering this area. Now, we have the opportunity with acquiring the market leader, really to set the standard and grow in the field of neuro-orthotics in Norway. Very clear. Thanks so much. Our next question comes from Oliver Reinberg with Kepler Cheuvreux. Please unmute your line and ask your question. Oliver, please feel free to unmute your line and ask your question. Yeah. Hi, good afternoon. Can you hear me? Yeah. Perfect. Two questions from my side. One on this kind of spike events. Thanks for clarifying. I think you mentioned there was a kind of 1%-2% contribution from that year-on-year. But I think this is a year-on-year comparison. Can you just give us a flavor, like what kind of contribution from Russian, Ukrainian sales you now see versus the pre-war baseline, just to get a flavor there. Can you just talk to, I think large part of this is funded by your present kind of developments. Also, I think you mentioned, or it sounded like there is an upside to the scenario. So far you have not incorporated any kind of more spike events into your guidance, because now we are seeing kind of some contributions coming in. Have you now incorporated with the kind of top-line change or not yet? That would be question number one. Secondly, also on the Norway deal, it looks still like a reasonably full price for the asset. Can you just give us a bit of flavor when you expect to earn your cost of capital on this kind of acquisition? Whether we should expect any kind of similar deals going forward of that kind of magnitude. Thank you. Okay. I will take the spike topic. Pre-war and now, very difficult to assess. We didn't have an infrastructure in Ukraine at all. It was a relatively small market for us, we have to admit. Therefore here we definitely have seen a major uplift, but from a very low base. We normally do not provide any market details, but here we have seen quite a huge impact. On the Russian side, we were there already. We had quite a valid business there. I think we are growing there with the reimbursement in the civilian market. I think the overall information, which is important to note, is that basically nothing has changed in Russia in terms of market participants competition. Everybody who was there before is still there. But also in Russia, the reimbursement grew, which doesn't mean necessarily that a lot of new patients are served in the civilian sector. But the level of reimbursement per patient grew quite significantly. This we have seen, so there's an upselling effect more than a quantitative effect. We separated several times, so we are not taking part in any military tender or whatever. This is more a part which is closed for foreign companies, so it's more served by Russian companies. Therefore, for us, we do not see really more and more of this spike impact in Russia, while we do see it in Ukraine. So there, definitely, we have this increased patient base. To give you maybe an overview, we had a pre-war quantity of 8,000 to 10,000 prosthetic fittings per year. We have now, since the beginning of the war, roughly 150,000 new amputees, so additional to the pre-war number. You're right, at the moment, due to infrastructure constraints, they are not all yet fitted. If we're talking about a year, one and a half year now time period, there is quite a backlog. Plus additional, now we are coming into the refitting phase. It means besides those who are not fitted yet, the ones who were fitted in the very early stage of the war, they're already due to a new fitting. So there we do expect further acceleration, and increasingly, as longer the war continues, a nd Norway. Norway, happy to talk a bit about it. First of all, the mechanics of the Norway deal. First of all, it's a strategic deal. Like Oliver said, it was a white spot on the landscape, but we had not been present. Following our invest strategy and looking for market-leading players in order to further evolve in our integrated B2B and B2C business, I think this is a deal which is really spot on and where we've been looking for a longer time. It's clearly following a strategic rationale. Regarding the financial parameters, I would consider it to be a good deal. You need to understand that the standalone margin of the patient care business in Norway is already very high. It's probably the highest that we have in the network, and one size that we have in the network. Then you need to understand that the pre-owner has been Blatchford, so you can understand that they have penetrated the products into the channel. We see a good opportunity to bring our high-margin products better into the market, and keep that share up. As Oliver said, this whole field of neuro-orthotics, which is a clear future growth field for us, and where reimbursement has been established also for the high-end solutions, that is a completely, I would almost say, untapped field that we can now penetrate into Norway. It has a lot of good parameters on the profitability of the business and the synergies and upsides associated to it. Regarding the capital cost, we clearly will be earning our capital cost with that deal. If you take the 8.5%-9% of WACC, then we're clearly expecting that we're going beyond the capital cost. It's a strategically sound deal and will give us a good upside on the top line, but also on the margin side, B2B and B2C, and it will also earn its capital cost. Okay, perfect. Thanks so much. Thank you. Our next question comes from Anna Ractliffe with Bank of America. Please unmute your line and ask your question. Hi, thanks for taking the questions. I wanted to dig in a bit on Americas. I appreciate the commentary on LATAM and Canada, but on the 4% organic growth in the U.S., it seemed maybe a bit below expectations. Is there anything to flag on the U.S. MPK K2 reimbursement? Is that still a meaningful tailwind for 2026, and how do you see U.S. growth playing out through the balance of the year? Then just on the margin guidance raise, how much of that is favorable mix through just an increasing number of MPKs being sold, versus an improvement in cost savings and different initiatives? What do you expect for inflation through the second half of the year? Thanks again for taking the questions. Regarding the U.S. business, no, we do not see any headwind in terms of penetration of the K2 population and others. But you have to keep in mind, we had last year mid double-digit or in the high -teens growth in the U.S. market. So it means we are growing this year from a very high base. That's something what we, of course, always have to keep in mind. The penetration of the K2 population is continuing. We do see still roughly 20% growth rate in this area. But we do have in other areas, of course, a lower growth rate because there the penetration is already on a different level. So nothing structural. We also do believe that in the second half of the year, we will see a little bit more momentum, because we have seen the fourth quarter last year was a little bit slower than the first three quarters. Therefore, we expect also here to see a steady uplift on the organic growth rate. Margin. Regarding the margin. You can see, year- to- date, we are up 2.2%. Then also in the guidance, we're reflecting that we're expecting the second half of the year, that there will be a good margin development. The effects are, yes, there's a bit of a marginal impact, and there's an impact on efficiency gains. But you also need to keep the scale effect in mind. I keep repeating that. If we're growing beyond 5%, I would typically assume the normal year cost growth is around 4%-5%, 2% or 3% of inflation. Then as a growth company, a bit of investment into the company. So when we are growing beyond the 5%, it typically brings us into a good scaling opportunity because, again, the global fixed costs are pretty set. And then if we're growing with the high-end components, that gives us a good scale effect. So if I say, how does that split, I think there will be a bit of marginal upside in the overall year. And then scale and mix, scale and efficiency is probably 50/50 on the drivers of margin improvement. Yeah, so scale, if I'm looking into the 2.2%, then I would say that is 1% and 1% on the efficiency side, and then a bit of additional mix effect that we're seeing. Then, sorry, the last question was on inflation in the second half of the year. When we've been just running through our forecasting, I have to say, we're not expecting a larger impact of inflation in the second half of the year. So, oil price development, we did the calculation, how is that running through into our material cost? That is pretty minor. So we're expecting maximum EUR 2 million to EUR 3 million on an impact, so that's negligible. And then also on the other supply side, we're not seeing a lot of the push at the moment. So from that end, we expect a normal inflation for this year and no impact on the margin side. Our next question comes from Falko Friedrichs with Deutsche Bank. Please unmute your line and ask your question. Thank you. Good afternoon. I have two questions, please. The first one, could you provide a little bit more color again on the strong 12% organic growth in the B2B business with respect to which products have been driving this the most? And would that be a good indication for what you might deliver in the second half as well of this year? Then my second question, and sorry if I missed that on the B2C business, which you mentioned was a tad softer in Q2. Do you expect that to recover now in the third or fourth quarter? I saw the comps are not too easy, but is there still the potential that this bounces back in the second half? Thank you. Yeah. So regarding the B2B growth, it's actually across the products. We do see still a strong growth in our high-end products, in the mechatronic area of prosthetics and neuro-orthotics. But we also do see over-market growth rate in feet and liner. We launched also some new mechanical knee joints, which are picking up very nicely. So it's actually a broad range of products which are fueling the growth. We have in the upper limb prosthetic field, we launched the Michelangelo Hand. There we can see quite a good growth momentum. So it's not specific one or two products. It's actually on a broader range, which is for us, of course, also a very good indicator for the future. So it's more sustainable. On the B2C side, as we mentioned, this is coming more from timing effects of emerging markets. We always have in emerging markets or in some markets, we have periods where tenders are on hold or they are a little bit delayed. And that is actually happening this year, or it happened in the second quarter. So one of the markets, Australia, but especially in Latin America, we have seen here a bigger impact in the second quarter. But as mentioned before, we do expect that this is only timing, so it means in the third and also in the fourth quarter, this will resolve. The core markets or the most important markets, we have stable reimbursement system in North America and Western Europe. We are actually on track. Okay. Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please use the raise hand feature. When your name is announced, please unmute and ask your question. Our next question comes from Beatrice Fairbairn with Berenberg. Please unmute your line and ask your question. Hi. Thank you for taking my questions. I just had a couple on the kind of gross things. Firstly, could you specify how much of the B2B growth was impacted by these kind of special or timing effects that you just mentioned? Then just to clarify on kind of spike event impact, you mentioned about 1 percentage point. What is your kind of expectation for the remainder of the year and how much is that guidance? Apologies if I missed this earlier. Then finally, how much impact was FX on gross margin? In Q2, would you be able to specify that? Thank you. If I got the first point right, B2B and timing effect. There in the B2B business, there were not too many timing effects. There was something in the end of the first quarter, with the war in Middle East, we had some deliveries delayed. So this was all realized in the second quarter. Therefore, the B2B side, we are actually more or less on track. The timing effect was on the B2C side. I j ust saw Falko asking now, I hope I explained it, so this will be resolved in the third and fourth quarter. Regarding the spike topic, Arne mentioned it. It's on the EMEA gross. We're talking about 1%-2% of the 9%. 1%-2% are affected by spike events. But as I also mentioned, this effect is getting smaller and smaller. As more the Ukraine is fitting their patients, this spike event will be. Because the refitting cycles, they are then already considered normal fittings. It's not very often not done anymore by the military because people are retiring from military, so they are civilians. They still have the status of veterans, but they're civilians. So they're moving into the normal reimbursement, and therefore, that's already for our industry. This is a normal course of business. That's what we mentioned before. We are talking about increased patient base, which stays now for the next decades in the system. Therefore, this spike impact, we'll see decreasing all the time. And effect on margin, on gross margin, I think you asked, right. It's probably low. It's - 0.1%. Okay, thank you. This concludes the Q&A session. I will now hand back over to Oliver Jakobi, CEO, for closing remarks. Okay. Then thanks a lot for taking part in the call. You cannot see, but you can hear us. The management is satisfied with the first half of the year and optimistic for the second half of the year. I hope we answered all your questions, and we are looking forward for the next call after the third quarter. Thanks a lot. This concludes today's call. Thank you everyone for joining. You may now disconnect