Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and a warm welcome to today's earnings call of SNP Schneider-Neureither & Partner SE. The Executive Board of SNP, CEO Jens Amail and CFO Andreas Röderer, will speak in a moment and guide us through the figures of Q1 2025. After the presentation, we will move on to the Q&A session, in which you will be allowed to place your questions directly via audio line to the management. We're looking forward to the results, and having said this, I hand over to SNP's Director of Investor Relations, Marcel Wiskow. Please, the stage is yours. Thank you, Judith, for your lively introducing words. Hello, everybody. I would like to add that the documents regarding the Q1 figures can be found on our website, section Investor Relations, as you know it. As always, the first part will be presented by Jens, our CEO. His part contains a compact overview of the Q1 figures, and he gives an outlook for the rest of the year. The second part will be held by Andreas, our CFO. He will get a little bit more into the details of our numbers. The third part will be focused on the Q&A session. With these short introducing words, I will hand over to Jens. Thank you very much, Marcel. Hello, everybody, also from my side. Thank you for taking the time to join this call. As always, thank you for your continued interest in SNP. Thanks to the continued trust of our customers and partners, and thanks to the fantastic work of our global team, we really had a good start into the year. We are very pleased with the results of Q1, particularly in front of the backdrop of record achievements in the last couple of years. I would say, Marcel, let's jump right away into the numbers, and let's keep this rather short. First, as always, looking at the five-year trend, we see that we are moving in the right direction, literally in all areas. We see strong improvements in all key financial indicators: order entry, revenue, EBIT, and operating cash flow. When we look at the key headlines to summarize the quarter, I would say also here there is no need to read out everything. As Marcel indicated, we will put this on the homepage very soon, including a recording. We are very pleased that we see progress both in the top line and in the bottom line. Looking at the EBIT, we particularly like that the margin improved significantly from 7.4% to 11.9%. We are happy with the impact of our strategic growth levers. We also like that the transaction between Carlyle and Mr. Marguerre and many other stakeholders, that this transaction has been closed in early April. We are very happy to keep our guidance for 2025 stable in a macroeconomical environment, which is rather volatile. Here you see the summary of our key Q3 figures in the view you are already familiar with. We like that both software order entry and software revenue have been growing stronger than the rest of the business overproportionally, which means that the software share in our overall business has improved by three percentage points to be precise. We, of course, do not like that the order entry in our partner business has declined year- over- year. However, we don't see any systemic issues here. If we maybe look for the one reason which might have played a role here, then I would say that after the announcement of the change of control, there was a short phase of reassessment of evaluation by a handful of partners, but it became very clear, very fast, that the partnership with Carlyle is actually strengthening our ecosystem strategy. Again, it was deliberate. It was a conscious decision from our side to partner with a strong global financial investor, while quite a few other players in the market are getting integrated in big system integration companies. It was very important for us to stay independent, to drive our ecosystem strategy to the next level. We are very excited by what's possible here in the future. The good news on the partner business is that the revenue with our ecosystem has been growing by more than 50%. We continue to see a very positive momentum with our partners, with a very strong pipeline for the rest of the year, and more and more partners investing in our technology, enabling their consultants based on our platform. Looking at the deal bans, the first comment I would like to make is that we see more transactions. We see 8% more transactions than last year in the same time, particularly with existing customers. This means that the evolution of our strategy from supporting singular transformations, from providing singular transformation capabilities to an ongoing enablement of business agility, that this evolution of our strategy is spot on. Midterm, this will help us to increase our recurring revenues. The second point I want to highlight on this slide is that more and more customers are working together with us strategically, and they put their trust in a long-term relationship with SNP. You see here three bigger deals on this slide with a total order entry volume of EUR 22.8 million. When we look at the regional split, I want to highlight that we had a good year in North America with very high growth in 2023. We had a very strong year with high growth in 2024. In Q1, we were more than doubling our business in North America. North America is by far the biggest IT market of the world, by far the biggest SAP market of the world. We are very happy with the performance of the team in North America. We have big dreams for this region, and we are very excited about that. We are also very happy with the strong growth in Central Europe, in EMEA, and in LATAM. As some of you know, I have been working and living in Asia for quite a few years. Asia is always a long game. It is also a long game for us. We see great progress in Australia, and we will get there in Southeast Asia and Japan very soon as well. Looking at the year-over-year EBIT bridge, first, of course, the key EBIT driver is the increased revenue. Out of the EUR 12.5 million more revenue compared to Q1 2024, around half of it is more software. EUR 6.2 million out of the EUR 12.5 million is more software. All cost increases you see, be it COGS, personnel expenses, OpEx, they are in line with our expectations, and they are within budget. The last comment I want to make on this slide is that within the other cost category, so you see the EUR 2.3 million, which is OpEx and other, that within the other cost category, we see actually even a negative currency impact of EUR 1.6 million. Finally, coming to the outlook, as already indicated at the beginning, nothing has changed here. We are very happy that we can keep our forecast stable in a market environment in other industries, which is very volatile at the moment. That is it from my side. Again, we are pleased with the start into the year, particularly after the record results of 2023 and 2024. Thanks again for joining the call. I am looking forward to our discussion at the end. With that, Andreas, I hand it over to you. Thanks a lot, Jens. As there are not too many further surprises that have not been mentioned, I really tried to keep it short, just focusing on a few aspects. The personal expenses, as Jens has already indicated, have increased as expected. We did some hirings last year. We also did some salary increases last year to also let our team participate in our successes from last year. On the other expenses, as Jens has indicated, there are no real surprises. There is a bit of a negative hit from the US dollar because this seems to be very volatile, but this is changing then again in Q2. At the end, we just can summarize as we are very happy with the margin development, as Jens has already indicated, with an increase to 11.9%. If we go to the next slide, let's have a brief overview on the revenue by segments. EXA once again had a strong quarter. We finally made another big sales cycle that took quite long. We brought it to a successful end. Also, the pipeline looks promising, but keep in mind, we never know when exactly such a big sales cycle will close. We were very happy with the development from EXA. On the services side, we had many successful go-lives, and we also see that reflected in the increase in revenue. On the software side, we could increase our growth, accelerated much faster than on the services side, as Jens has already indicated, and this finally led to the increase in the margins. If we go to the next slide, let's have a look at the software and EXA. I think the developments here are really good. We are really happy with what we see. On the services side, I just want to comment on that. On the operational side, everything is on track. Everything is on track on the operational side. The question kicks in, why does the margin nevertheless decrease? I think this is a result of certain investments we did primarily in sales colleagues just to drive our further internationalization. Overall, the story starts to kick in. As you see, we are selling more and more software. That is it to the segment margins. If we go to the next slide, I just want to reiterate what Jens said. We are very pleased with the very strong growth we have seen in North America and also the S/4HANA boom and the rise from SAP is also still ongoing. This is also reflected in the order entry that we can have to our backlog. If we go to the backlog, there is just something I want to highlight briefly. Once again, the message is our backlog is stable. There are certain remeasurements that are bigger than usual. We have carefully checked our backlog and identified some contracts that do not relate to our core business. We find very good solutions with partners from us that are in the best interest from our end customers, our partners, and us. We have handed over certain contracts that do not relate to our core business. This is why the project remeasurement or the negative impact is slightly higher than usual. Overall, we are very happy with the book-to-bill ratio of 1.13, as you have already seen on the slides before. If we go on to the balance sheet, there is not too much to explain. Once again, we are very happy with the increase in our cash and cash equivalents. We have a very, very solid cash position. Receivables developed in line with our growth in the business. There have been some reclass from certain loans that we need to repay in the near future. That is why there is a bigger movement between non-current liabilities and current liabilities. I think that is it to the balance sheet here. If we go to the next slide on the cash flow statement, I think you have seen it on the five-year overview. We are very happy with the development of the operating cash flow. Usually, in the past, in the first quarter, the operating cash flow has been negative, as you have seen, and we have been able to grow it significantly by EUR 4.7 million. On the investing cash flow, there is not that much happened. Just as a reminder, last year, we got the last payment from our sale of our SNP Poland business from AFO. That is why there was a bigger number in the last year. If we go on to the headcount, also there, no major surprises. We are still growing our business, so we also need to grow our headcount. We do reasonable and careful additions, but the team has also grown last year, and there is nothing spectacular just to mention. With that, I would like to hand over to Marcel for the Q&A session. Welcome, Andreas. Thank you for your explanations. Back to you, Judith, to open the Q&A line. Yes, thank you very much for your presentation, gentlemen, and congratulations to your growing numbers. We will now move on to the Q&A session. For a dynamic conversation, we kindly ask you to ask questions in person via audio line. To do so, click on the raise your hand button. If you have dialed in by phone, please use the key combination star nine followed by star six. Please notice questions via chat box cannot be submitted today. We already have one hand up, Mr. Lukas Spang. The stage is yours. Yes. Hi, good afternoon, gentlemen. I would like to start with one of the first slides or bullet points on your first slides you mentioned concerning the new partnership with Carlyle. There was one point regarding inorganic growth opportunities. I would be interested in how your M&A pipeline is developing. Did you already have some, or are you building up a new M&A pipeline now together with Carlyle? What are the targets you are looking for, and what size in terms of revenue are you looking for? Let's do the questions one by one. Thanks, Mr. Spang. We already had an M&A pipeline. Now we have more flexibility with Carlyle, so we are expanding this pipeline. There are quite a few different scenarios, right? We do not only look in one direction. Let's say software, North America only, but we are very open also for some smaller tuck-in acquisitions across the globe. This is an important topic for us to bring the company to the next level, but we are not only looking in one direction here. Do you expect the M&A to close within this year? That's very difficult to forecast. Okay. You mentioned the decline in order intake with partners in Q1. You also mentioned that there were some, let's say, talks around the takeover due to Carlyle. How did the order entry with partners develop right now in Q2 so far? Was there a recovery? Yeah, we do not see any systemic issue. We are very pleased with the pipeline. We do not externally forecast direct versus partners, but again, we do not see any systemic issues. It is a very positive signal to our ecosystem. Again, when you look at some of the recent transactions of companies who do something similar like we are doing, right, they get integrated in big SIs. We had, of course, a few asks here and requests in our direction as well. I was very clear from the beginning when Mr. Marguerre started to explore the market that we want to stay an independent company, that we want to continue with our partner-agnostic strategy. There was a quick phase of re-evaluation, particularly amongst the Big Four. Carlyle has 290 portfolio companies, so they needed to do a few compliance checks. We might have seen a few delays here. It is a very, very positive signal to our partner community that we stay an independent company. Mr. Spang, if you have the time, I would like to invite you to Transformation World. Here you will see an impressive showcase of the power of our ecosystem. Would you expect that the decline we saw in Q1 will disappear in Q2 in the order intake for partners? Again, we do not forecast direct versus partner business externally. On the earnings side, that was a very positive development. Besides the FX effect, were there any positive or negative one-offs or extraordinary effects within the EBIT? No. It's really everything that was extraordinary has been cleaned up last year. As we have already outlined, there are no other unusual things included there. I think we really tried to keep the costs on the level there where they have been. There is this EUR 1.6 million FX topic, but beside that, everything is planned. Did you have any consulting costs regarding the takeover? Yeah, there were some costs, but this is nothing of an unusual size. We had it also last year. It is nothing where I would say we would need to break that out. Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much for your questions, Mr. Spang. Thank you. In the meantime, we have received no further questions. I will hold on. There are two more hands up. Mr. Thomas Kaiser, you should be able to speak now. Hello. Welcome from me. Mr. Kaiser, can you come closer to the microphone because. it better now? Yes, that's very good. Thank you. Yeah, fine. Welcome from my side. Exceptional numbers again. My question, the first one to EXA, do you see a stronger interest in the market for the solution of EXA after the U.S. tariffs announcements? How big is the runway business by EXA in 2025 recurring revenues? It looks like the ideal moment to double down on the EXA business and expand in other business segments like industrial, logistic, etc. Have you plans to do so? Last, EXA, can we expect to pay the last chunk of the EXA deal in 2025? How much will it cost? Should I start maybe to your last question, here Kaiser? Yes, that's the plan that we get 100% of EXA so that we do not have any further minority interest. The current assessment is still ongoing on the absolute size because this depends also a bit on the previous business. We are in discussion with the previous founder of EXA, and this is most probably something we can share in detail then in Q2 in the press release. The clear plan is that we get all the shares. From a business perspective, we need to be very mindful because the projects that we have closed do also need to be delivered to the customer. Similar to our SNP business, also the EXA business is a very specialized business. The deals that we have closed and the projects that we will deliver successfully do, of course, help us to spread the word that this is a great solution that we have there. We also changed a bit the sales approach to sell the transfer pricing solution and the GVC, the value chain solution, together. This seems to be much more successful than in the past. To the best of my knowledge, the CEO of EXA, we have not discussed any extension in other industries because there is enough volume in the industry that they are currently tackling. The run rate, I do not have the number precisely, but the run rate goes up because EXA has a typical software-driven business. All the deals that we have closed in the past will bring the run rate up similar to the business approach, for example, SAP had when they were selling software solutions in the past. Can you name a ballpark number or? I do not know it off by heart, but this is something we can share after the fact. Do you expect to cash in the order backlog in that area in this year? This is a backlog that is spreading across several years. Because the backlog from EXA is adding up from the support portion, and it is adding up from a services-related portion. The services-related portion will go into revenue in a way as the projects will be delivered. I do not know in detail when the projects will now be delivered. The support will go into the P&L over a longer period of time. We cannot say that the whole EXA backlog is going into revenue this year. Okay, thank you. Do you expect your long-term goal to bring the software business to 70%-80% vs service share ratio? Is this still valid? What timeline would you consider to reach that goal at least? Yeah. We never talked about 70%-80%. This was always a reference to individual deals. We do have deals also in our core business with a software services ratio of 100/ nil or 90/10. The ambition at one point in time is to be around 50%. We have been always very consistent here, and we do not want to put ourselves under unnecessary pressure. We also have a lot of homework to do to develop a profitable services business. There are many opportunities here as well. We never talked of 70%-80% for the company. Yeah. Okay. Under 50%. Yeah. We also do a co-innovation business where we might see lower software share. At this point in time, it is very difficult to predict the timeline. What we can say, the direction, as you can see, it has increased by 3%. It is difficult, and we really want to develop that, but it is just something that is very hard to predict. What we commit is that the thing is going in the right direction. This is what we have proven over the last quarters. Yeah, thanks for clarification. Do you step into new markets in 2025, regional, maybe South Korea or India? How do you see China in the current business and going forward? We are stepping into new markets this year. We just opened a legal entity and a new office in Paris. We will not enter any new strategic markets. We want to start to grow our business in Italy. We have not made a decision if we will be a legal entity and an office this year, but we have a focus on Italy beyond the four strategic markets we have identified last year. There are no plans to proactively enter Korea or India at this point in time. We do business there opportunistically, but these are very unique and very individualized markets. In China, we have two legal entities, and we are, as I said, at one point in time, I believe two years ago, we are always exploring options. There are no immediate plans to change anything in China. Okay, thanks. In the last call, you mentioned to train 75% more people in your partner network. What are your plans here for 2025? We want to further increase the share. Again, this is not the number we forecast externally. You develop with 10 partners co-innovations with IBM, the application layout, the Transformation Suite. Can you give us some color about what developments on the timeline and what impact you see for your revenues in the? We are not forecasting this, Thomas. I appreciate the questions, but we are not forecasting that. Okay. On the acquisition side, what do you expect for possible buy prices? What range do you target in this area? We are focusing on innovation, on content, and maybe on regional considerations. We are not limiting ourselves with a certain purchase price. The business case must work. Again, with Carlyle, we, of course, have now a little bit more flexibility here. Last, do you see after the acquisition from Sumiti, from Gemini, a change in the market environment, maybe positive effects for you to get more business in that area? We are focusing on ourselves, right? We are very, very happy that we are an independent company. This helps us with a lot of customers. We are very much focused on our partners, on our ecosystem, and what we can do to serve our customers better. Okay, fine. That was from me. Maybe see you at Transformation World. Of course. I hope you're coming, Thomas. Let me know when you're here. All the best. Thank you, Thomas. Thanks. Bye-bye. Thank you very much for your questions, Mr. Kaiser. We have one more hand up from Hannes Mueller. Yes. Hello. Thank you for taking my question. I would have one also on the takeover, although it's a pity that this takes more time than the great operational process, but progress. Do you have any indications you can give to us as to what you expect when, for example, the delisting or IR activity? What's the timeline from here regarding the takeover and the delisting? I think this is an ongoing process. I think the next big step is then the annual shareholder meeting. As we have communicated, and this is something I cannot comment at this point in time. What I can confirm is that the plans that we have made public at the very beginning of the takeover process have not changed. The dates, the exact one, I cannot comment on at this point in time. Okay. Understood. Thank you. Thank you so much, Mr. Mueller. In the meantime, we have received no further questions. I will hold the room for just another moment. We therefore come to the end of today's earnings call. Thank you, everyone, for joining and your shown interest in SNP Schneider-Neureither & Partner SE. Should further questions arise at a later time, please feel free to contact Mr. Wiskow from Investor Relations. You can also find the presentation and the recording of this call afterwards on airtime. A big thank you also to you, Mr. Amail and Mr. Röderer, for the dive into the numbers and the time you took to answer the questions. I wish you all the best and a lovely remaining day. With this, I hand over again to Mr. Wiskow for some final remarks. Yeah, thank you, Judith. I guess there's nothing not so much to add on. You summarized it very well. Any further questions, don't hesitate to call me, to contact me, as always, as you know. Thanks for the lively Q&A session. With these words, I will terminate this call and say goodbye and have a nice rest of the week. Bye-bye.