Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the K+S Q1 2023 earnings call. We hope you had a chance to review our posted slides, as well as our Q1 documents available on the website. After some opening remarks by Dr. Lohr, we will directly jump into Q&A. Some technical notes. Please refer to our disclaimer on page two of the presentation. A note on data privacy as always. Please note that the team session will be recorded, webcasted, and be available as a replay on our homepage afterwards. People asking a question in the team session have to be aware that by turning on their camera and microphone, they give consent to saving and replaying video and audio sequences. Now I'd like to turn over to Dr. Lohr for the opening remarks. Thank you, Julia. Good morning, everybody. Good morning and welcome to our Q1 earnings session. After brief opening remarks, we will directly start in the Q&A session, and all the three of us will answer. If you have not seen him so far, on my left side, Dr. Christian Meyer, our new CFO, will also be part of the answering team. We had a good start into 2023, with an EBITDA of EUR 454 million and an EBITDA margin of 38%, and a free cash flow of EUR 130 million. To put the free cash flow into the right perspective, you have to look at our trade receivable volume. This was still unusually high, no release from the year-end level of EUR 1.1 billion. This should happen during the next month. Some words about the potash market. The wait-and-see attitude of customers has lasted longer than expected. This was partially due to the lengthy Indian negotiations, which were finally done at the beginning of April. In the Northern Hemisphere, this meant that deliveries were not in time for spring application. We expect demand to pick up in the H2 of this year, and this is base for our outlook. We also expect overseas MOP prices to moderately recover from today's level in the H2. This would translate into a full year average selling price for our product portfolio tangibly below the level we saw in Q1. Now we are happy to take all your questions. If you would like to ask a question, please use the hand signal and write your name and the name of your research house in the Microsoft Teams chat function. We will then call you individually, and you can address your question to us live. Please switch on your camera. One more request as usual. We would like to answer your question one by one, so if you have multiple questions, please ask one question at a time, and we will answer it first. After that, you will have the opportunity to ask further questions. This brings us to the first question of Christian Faitz. Thank you. Good morning, everybody. I have two questions, if I may. First question first. You suggest a higher price level for Brazil from here on. Given that we have seen rather volatile prices in the Northern Hemisphere so far, with the U.S. sequentially improving stronger, but Europe pretty much doing nothing, can you give us an assessment of current market conditions and also your view on where you would see Brazilian prices in into H2? Thank you. Yeah, thank you for that question. I think that is the key question for this call because we really had a long way to a normalization in the market after this outstanding year 2022. It was good, but also it was a reason for some, yeah, unnormal behavior in some markets. That differs. Coming to Brazil, we are not seeing any reason to not believe that Brazil should come to a normal distance to the Indian contract. We have no China contract so far, but we know India is 422. This is standard product. We are delivering granulated product into Brazil, there's a premium for that, there is a good reason to believe that in the H2 of the year, prices in Brazil should be $30-$40 at least higher than in India. That, by the way, is base for our expectations as well. The regions have reacted differently so far. We saw a pickup in North America. We expect similar development in Brazil, when I talk about the volumes now, when the planting season in Brazil is starting, that means deliveries should pick up by the end of this month and in June. Europe. Europe. It's interesting to see that some farmers have now not applied or applied too short volumes of potash for three seasons. That means that they are really taking harm to their soils and we expect there must be a logical behavior in the future. Another reason to believe that the H2 could be a good one in Europe as well. Again, we lose volumes due to that behavior in Europe. At the same time, Europe is the area with the least deliveries out of Belarus and Russia. Okay. Thank you, Dr. Lohr. Second question, it's actually a rather provocative question. Another fertilizer company, OCI, which reported today, it looks like their major shareholders are not exactly happy with their own share price performance, also versus peers in other regions, listed regions, i.e. non-Europe. They seem to be musing about a delisting of their shares, at least in Europe. Any thoughts on that? Are you happy with your valuation versus your key peers? Of course, I'm not happy with the valuation. When I see the development of the last couple of days, we are facing another very strong year, 2023, with free cash flow of EUR 650-EUR 850. This is not in the right perspective with the share price from my perspective, but we know that the share price is that is true for us and true for our peers linked very much to the potash price development. A very short-term view on that. We believe that with all our strategic initiatives, Werra 2060, ramp up Bethune, and there's a lot of good news to come out of Bethune, that we can get another spin into it. Don't forget, we have the AGM tomorrow. After the AGM, starting early next week, we will see a buyback program. It remains to see what the reaction will be on that. A delisting is nothing we are discussing currently, like OCI. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, Christian. The next question is coming from Mubasher Chaudhry from Citi. Hi. Hopefully you can hear me. Just the one question, please. Can you talk about your take on why the Indian contract took so long to negotiate? When it did agree, it only agreed for six months. Any thoughts on why the Indians pushed for a six-month contract on that side of things? Thank you. Yeah, as you know. First of all, thanks for that question. As you know, we are not at the negotiation table. That's why we can only guess, it took long. What we heard, that there was an agreement and that was afterwards. Not both parties stick to that agreement. They had to come together again. Now they have the 422. I guess, the reason for the six months, that is not the first time, by the way, that we have a six-month contract, is the expectation of whatever volatility. I don't know which party was the one who was asking for a six-month contract only. I wouldn't read bad news into that. I would rather see we have potential in six months to see a higher price. Thank you. Thank you very much. The next question is coming from Andreas Heine from Stifel. Andreas, are you there? Can you hear me? Yes. Yes, we can hear you, but we cannot see you. Now I switch, yeah. Voice is good. Now we see you as well. See you. Okay. My question is on the volume side. You reduced the outlook for the volume by 100 KT. Is that due to production capabilities or is that a function of the lower demand in Q1 and potentially Q2 in Europe? Yeah. That's the first question. That is 100% due to the lower volume in the Q1. We have not assumed to make that up in the following quarters, and we are only talking 100,000 tons. Okay. Production capabilities are fine. It's nothing mentioned. Production capabilities are fine, and there's nothing on the horizon that could cause a significant issue. Even a hot summer or dry summer would not lead to any standstills. The second question is more on the agro-economics. When you fertilize less in spring, does it mean you have to do more in autumn or is that completely different so that for the next spring season you always have to come to the acre before you plant? Can you, what you missed in spring, do in autumn to prepare for the next season? That's always a function of the quality of the soil. We are now talking about, when I talk about Europe, partly three seasons in a row with not enough potash on the soil, and that definitely has to lead to a reaction in autumn. Lastly, we hear a lot from IFA and from all sources about the supply from Belarus and Russia. My feeling is that the recovery is underestimated, otherwise we would not see that the market is well supplied and that these two players undercut, especially overseas prices from Western producers. How do you see this situation going into the H2? Yeah. I think we all agree that the gap to normal production and normal deliveries of the two companies in 2022 was roughly EUR 15 million. The expectation for this year is somewhat between EUR 7 million and EUR 10 million. Still meaningful. What we see or what we saw in the Q1, and might see in the Q2 as well, because we said H2 should be a strong one, is more or less a still wait and see behavior, due to the expectation prices might come down even more. Fortunately, the North American market has now seen a strong development. Again, we expect the same for all the other areas as well. India is also strong after the contract, it's not all weak, and it's not a flooding of the market of Belarus and Uralkali. By the way, you know that Belarus is still sanctioned in Europe, and Uralkali is not using its headroom. Europe definitely is not impacted by too high deliveries from these two companies. Thanks. Welcome. The next question is coming from Alexander Jones from Bank of America. Great. Thanks very much. My first question, just following up on the India contract. I think on the call last time you talked about that as a catalyst for demand, and it'd be interesting to hear your sort of comments on how customers reacted to that and whether it was just too late in the season for them to then show any interest, or whether it has led to even a minor pickup in buying interest in your conversations. Yeah. That is what I mentioned earlier. It's more or less it was so late that buying and shipping into the running season in the Northern Hemisphere was not possible anymore. That's why the entire market has lost quite a volume. That's the reason for the whole story. Again, as this happened and it's had negative impact on the farmers, on the soils, we expect a strong half, H2 of 2023. Great. Thanks. The second question is on costs. You reduced it from a mid-triple digit million inflation to low- to mid-triple digit. Can you talk about what's changed there and maybe give us some quantification in terms of the different buckets of energy, personnel, logistics, materials? Yeah. We have seen different development. As you know, the gas price is for us the easiest to calculate because we have this 90% hedge. The unhedged volume went down significantly. Now we're talking in the spot about EUR 35. This is extraordinary cheap compared to what we saw last year. We also saw some freight items coming down, especially containers. That was not only a high price issue, that was also a question of availability that has changed entirely. Some materials are also less expensive than we expected, and that's why we only see roughly EUR 100 million inflation compared to last year. This is price related. Only price related, of course. Yeah. Thank you. The next question comes from Michael Schaefer from ODDO. Yeah, thanks for taking my questions. The first one is also on your outlook into the H2. You refer to MOP overseas pricing improving in the H2. I wonder whether you can shed some more light on your underlying assumptions on the specialties products, which has been still up, I think, pricing + 9% year-over-year in the Q1, and maybe also on the industrial product side. How should we think about lower MOP pricings filtering through all those specialties and industrial products throughout 2023? Yeah, thank you. Thank you for the question. One part of the answer is already known. We expect the Brazilian prices to come back to a normal distance to the Indian prices. On the other hand, we expect the European prices to come down a bit because they are still the highest prices in the markets. We should see a comparable development to our to some of our specialties, especially SOP, which are still on a very high level. That is the normalization we are talking about, and that is with the normal volume, the base for our guidance. Talking about the upper end and the lower end, if this happens quicker, we are at the upper end. If we don't see that development that I just described, we step more or less on the current pricing, then we are closer to the lower end. Okay. Thanks for this one. My second question is on your trade receivables collection. This was hardly unchanged number in the Q1 compared to Q4. I wonder, how should we think about this money flowing into your cash flow statement throughout the year 2023? What's the quarter when we see the most of the collection kicking in here? Yeah. With regard to this question, that's based on the maturity mix of our accounts receivables. We expect in the most of them to be collected in the Q2 and some in the Q3. You will see a big effect in the next months. That's based on the maturity mix. Thanks. That's all. Thank you. The next question, and that's I think a follow-up question, comes from... Oh, no, we had that already. No, we continue with Thomas Swoboda. I guess Andreas Heine is ready. Otherwise, just give me a signal via the chat. Yes. Good morning, everybody. I have two questions please. Good morning. They are rather... Good morning. They are rather hypothetical. Still, I think worthwhile asking. My first question is on the theoretical break-even price in the potash market. In the last downturn, I think the prices only bottomed out at roughly $250. I hear you that we are not, probably not going into this direction, and we saw a lot of inflation since then. Theoretically, where do you think the current break-even price for MOP lies today? That's a tricky question because then we're talking about a lot of moving parts. One thing is for sure, and this is what we are seeing currently, when the potash prices would move in such a direction, and I'm not expecting that at all, that is totally unlogical with the shortness in supply. Even if we have a further shyness of the customer, this is not going to happen. I don't want to shy away from your question. Even, even if we would see a development in this direction, then we would see also a significant decrease in costs. If we would take that into account, and you know that we said we want to be free cash flow, at least neutral on a price level which we had back in 2020, this is more or less the break-even point. Right. You're gone. I hope it's not due to my answer. Okay. No, thank you. Yeah. You're back. I'm back. Yeah, it must be my line. Thank you for that. You implicitly answered my second question. If I understand you correctly, your cash costs would be already at a level of this EUR 250 or whatever, that you could say cash positive in case we should see market prices going to this direction. Yes. As you know, our cash cost position is a moving target as we ramp up Bethune. We are getting step by step towards a better position. You're correct. With the assumptions I just presented, we should be fine with such a price level. Again, what I'm not seeing for years. Perfectly understood. Very helpful. Thank you. Thank you. The next question comes from Markus Mayer from Baader. Hi. Yeah. Good morning, Julia. Good morning, Dr. Lohr. Two question from my side. First of all, there are new salt capacities from Eastern European custom, companies, planned. Is this a threat for you? I understood that this is only 400 KT, but nevertheless might be also sold in your market. My second question- May I answer one by one? I'll ask afterwards. Mm-hmm. Sure. We knew a long time ago that this is going to happen. We have prepared for that. As you see currently, the salt business is really booming in Europe, although we did not have an extraordinary winter. You see that is not a threat to us at all. Where do you exactly expect to see the effects? Is this then more on the icing part or also in the consumer part? That's more in the chemical segment, but that is so big that an additional 400,000 tons is not really a threat to us. Okay. Thank you for this. Second question is, have I understood this correctly that there are changes with the cover or with the plans of the coverage of retiring facilities in Neuhof? Can you update us on this? Also, what is the potential CapEx effect from this? First of all, we are happy that we have an agreement with all parties, because having a publicly noticed fight is never good. Not everything you read was 100% correct. We only have agreed that we will look again into the best methodology to cover Neuhof, but we will have to cover Neuhof because it's an obligation for us. That we try to be quicker than the originally assumed 100 years. Again, I'm happy that we have calmed down the situation. We will meet regularly at a round table together with authorities, together with the ministries, and we will find the best solution, and we will have to cover it, and Rex will cover it, and it has no impact so far on it, on future CapEx. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So far, we don't have any further questions, so if you have any further questions, raise your hand. No further questions on the line. Yeah. Thank you very much. I think that was a very interesting Q&A session with very interesting questions. Again, I would like to use the opportunity to remember one more time that after the AGM, we start the buyback program and you see a optimistic management team, and I'm looking very forward to see you on the road or where else. Thank you and bye-bye.