Thank you, and good morning, ladies and gentlemen. We welcome all of you to our conference call this morning and wish you all the best for 2025. The underlying presentation for the call has been published this morning on our website. Today, we released the statement for the first nine months of financial year 2024/2025. We are going to present the highlights of this period and revisit our full-year earnings guidance for business year 2024/2025, which is unchanged. Following the call, we are going to answer your questions. A recording of this call will be available on our homepage shortly after the call. Now, let me hand over to Südzucker CFO, Dr. Stephan Meeder. Stephan, please go ahead. Thank you, Sandra and Nikolai, for the introduction. Ladies and gentlemen, good morning, and also a warm welcome from my side. Happy New Year to all of you, and thank you very much for showing your interest in Südzucker today. As mentioned, we would like to give you a brief overview about the business performance in the first nine months of financial year 2024/2025 and the details about our confirmed earnings guidance for financial year 2024/2025. Thus, let me start, please, with the highlight of the first nine months. You will find that in the presentation on page number five. So let's move to page number five. We can see the financial highlights after nine months. And as already indicated, on 15th of October 2024, Q3 performance was not able to match the very strong previous year's numbers. So after nine months, this year, we have reached the following numbers. You can see top of the slide, starting with revenues. So group revenues came in at EUR 7.5 billion, slightly below previous year's level. Coming to the operational key figures, EBITDA and operating profit, group EBITDA was significantly down by 55% to EUR 502 million, and group operating result down by even 73% to EUR 236 million. Cash flow decreased correspondingly to EUR 368 million, and earnings EPS after nine months came in at EUR -1 against EUR 2.49 last year. Looking at net financial debt, you can see that net financial debt as of end of November 2024 came in EUR 93 million above previous year's level and decreased by EUR 82 million against the start of the financial year 2023/2024, thus reaching EUR 1.7 billion. Now, let's have a look into the segmental performance. This starts on page number six. On this slide, you can find an overview, third quarter isolated, and the first nine months on group level and on segmental level. And you can see that after nine months, group revenues, as just mentioned, came in slightly below prior year's level. Revenues declined in the special products, CropEnergies, and starch segments, but were at last year's levels in the sugar segment and rose slightly in the food segment. Looking generally on the group operating result, you can see that the decrease was driven by the sugar, CropEnergies, and starch segments, while the special products and the food segments showed an increase. Now, let's move to the segment sugar isolated. You can find this on page number eight. Here you can find the development over the last five years in the sugar balance world. Let's first have a look on the global view of the sugar market. We base our forecast and assumptions on the data of S&P Global, one of the leading consultancies. You can see that in the latest update of S&P Global, this latest update was from December 2024. For the sugar marketing year 2023/2024, which runs from October to September, S&P Global reports a surplus of 2.7 billion tons, significantly down against the former expectation of a surplus of 5.2 million. This per se is a positive news, and thus the stock-to-use ratio is slightly above 36%. Looking the following year, that means looking into sugar market year 2024/2025, here you can see that S&P Global expects no longer a surplus of about 4 million tons, which was the previous assumption, but now a balanced market. This is also positive news. This means the stock-to-use ratio is expected to decrease slightly to below 36%. Looking ahead into the next sugar marketing year, 2025/2026, which will start in October 2025, here S&P Global now expects in its first estimate a deficit of 1.8 million tons and a decrease in the stock-to-use ratio below 35%. If this is to be confirmed, this would be the first deficit on the world sugar market since 2021/2022 sugar market year. It is too early to say what this would mean for the global sugar prices, but as such, these assumptions of a decrease in the stock-to-use ratio and a deficit for the world sugar market should work in favor of market prices. Coming from the world sugar market analysis to the EU sugar market, you will find this on page number nine. Here you can see the graph of the price development, and let's start with a reflection on the ongoing campaign. In the EU, the sowing and growing conditions for this campaign have been so far favorable. Since Q1, there have been increasing indications that this will lead to a significantly larger harvest and corresponding sugar production than originally expected. This is on the one side, higher production. What happened on the consumption side? In combination with the sluggish sugar sales so far this year, this has led to continued high sugar inventories within the EU, although EU sugar exports have occurred in parallel. The third thing is that the already anticipated decline in EU sugar prices has therefore intensified further over the summer months, leading to decreasing prices. Additionally, there are now further sugar imports from Ukraine to be expected from January 2025 onwards to the extent of 109,000 tons for the first nine months. Sorry, so this rule is going up to June this year. For the rest of the calendar year, that means after June, it is so far unclear what the EU is going to decide when it comes to imports from Ukraine, but we have to be prepared that another 109,000 tons from Ukraine could come to the EU on a tax-free, duty-free level. What has also happened in the meantime, so we have followed that for the last year, so in early December 2024, the European Commission and the Mercosur countries have jointly announced the conclusion of the negotiations on the EU-Mercosur agreement. So this agreement, if at the end ratified, would not come into force before 2026. The implications for this Mercosur agreement are both on the sugar side and also on the ethanol side. Looking into the sugar first, so this agreement, if it would come into force, would mean that customs duties for 180,000 tons of sugar of Brazil's current CXL- import quota will be reduced from 98 euros per ton to zero. And Paraguay will be granted a new duty-free import quota of 10,000 tons for all cane sugar per year for refining. That is on the sugar side. What is on the ethanol side? For the ethanol side, this agreement would mean that imports of ethanol in the amount of 650,000 cubic meters could come gradually into the EU over six years. And this is assumed to have an effect both on the EU sugar market and on the ethanol market. Let's continue on page 10 with the development in the sugar segment of Südzucker Group. Here you can see, so we are now on page 10. You can see after nine months, the revenues in the sugar segment came in on previous year's level, reaching EUR 3.1 billion. On the one side, we have significantly higher sales volumes. On the other side, we have lower prices balancing the revenues. That means the significant higher sales volumes were no longer fully able to offset the falling prices. Prices in the EU have fell more and more sharply over the course of the five fiscal years and dropped again significantly at the beginning of the new 2024/2025 sugar marketing year, starting in October. Also, the increased exports to the international markets put pressure on our average sales prices. This is reflected then in the operating result. You can see here that there is a strong decline, and this happened particularly during the third quarter of 2024/2025 fiscal year, so the sugar segment for the first time in this year recorded an operating loss and thus showed negative figures for the entire reporting period of nine months this fiscal year. The significant decline in result was thus mainly caused by the sharp downturn in prices. On one side, on the other side, we had significantly higher manufacturing costs in the 2023 campaign, and this also had a negative impact from the beginning of this financial year. This means that the inventories produced at high cost during the '23 campaign were still being sold in the third quarter of fiscal year 2024/2025, and thus at prices that had fallen significantly again at the beginning of the new sugar market year, which placed an above-average burden on the third quarter of '24/'25 fiscal year. So let's continue going over from the sugar segment to the next segment, which is the special product segment. You will find this on page 11. Here you can see on page 11 for the special product segments, this comprises Freiberger, Beneo, and PortionPack Group. So here you can see that after nine months, revenues came in at EUR 1.7 billion, and so they decreased moderately, and this is due to lower volumes and prices. So in previous year's period, nine months, we recorded revenues of EUR 1.8 billion. Looking to operating profit, this is positive news, so here the operating result in the special products segment increased slightly, reaching EUR 152 million compared to EUR 150 in previous year's period. So what were the main factors for that? Here in the special products segment, we see higher margins. They were the main factor behind this slight overall rise in the special products segment. The divisions themselves experienced fluctuations in raw material costs with some rising or remaining at last year's level. Let's move over to the third segment, which is CropEnergies. You will find that on page 12, so after looking at nine months figures on the right-hand side of the table, you can see that after nine months, revenues in the segment CropEnergies were down significantly, reaching EUR 711 compared to EUR 848 in previous year's nine-month period. What were the reasons behind this decrease? So the decrease is mainly due to lower prices for ethanol as well as for food and animal feed products. On the other side, volumes have increased, so this is positive. This compares to previous year's low level of productions, which themselves were due to scheduled maintenance in this five-year's nine-month period. Coming to operating result, after nine months, there only stands EUR 8 million in operating profit. So operating profit was affected by lower prices, and we can see here that thus, in line with the revenues trend, the operating result for the reporting period, nine months of this fiscal year, was also significantly lower than last year. The key factor for this decrease were the prices for ethanol, which have been or which are significantly lower than in previous year's period. This is on the one side. On the other side, we see lower also net raw material prices and lower energy costs and increased sales on the positive side, but those three factors have not been near enough to offset the negative impact of falling prices. So to be precise on the prices, we can see that the average ethanol prices in the first nine months came in at EUR 682 per cubic meter, and this compares to EUR 782 per cubic meter in nine-month period of the previous year. Looking isolated in December, here we can see that prices have stabilized. So the average ethanol price in December was at EUR 663 against EUR 602 per cubic meter in December 2023. So from CropEnergies, let's move over to the fourth segment, which is the starch segment. You will find this on page 13. Also looking at nine-month figures, you can see on the right-hand side of the table that revenues in the starch segment declined significantly, reaching EUR 724 million after EUR 828 million in previous year's nine-month period. So this downturn was the result of significantly lower prices for starch products as well as for byproducts and ethanol. In contrast, sales volumes developed positively and increased in the reporting period. Coming to operating result in the starch segment, you can see that after nine months, we have reached EUR 24 million after EUR 58 million in previous year's period. So operating profit was also significantly down. What were the reasons for that? On the one side, we see a substantial decrease in raw material and energy costs, along also with higher sales volumes, but the same for CropEnergies. These effects were not enough to completely offset the significantly lower prices. Additionally, the third quarter was also affected by the several-week flood-induced shutdown at the Austrian Pischelsdorf in Austria. So this affected the operating profit with a EUR 7 million charge. So let's move on to the fifth segment, which is the food segment. You will find that on page 14. Also looking at the nine-month figures on the right-hand side of the table, you can see that the revenues in the food segment showed a slight increase, thus reaching EUR 1.2 billion in nine-month period. And this is particularly due to higher sales volumes in food preparations and higher prices in the fruit juice concentrates division. Looking to operating profit, so there's a positive trend, increased operating profits to EUR 75 million after EUR 66 million in previous year's period. So what were the reasons for this increase in operating result? So operating result came in significantly above prior year's level. This is due to a slight increase in sales volumes with moderately higher margins. The contribution of the food preps to the result was thus enhanced. In contrast, the contribution to the results from the fruit juice concentrates decreased despite slightly higher sales volumes due to slightly lower margins. So after having had this look on the five segments, let me now turn to the main points of the profit and loss statement on pages 16 and 17. So what is to come below operating profit? It is the result from restructuring and special items and the financial and tax results, which will be covered now in this part of the presentation. And let me start with the result from restructuring and special items. Here you can see that after nine months, we had to record a special restructuring and special items result of EUR 72 million. This negative result resulted primarily from the CropEnergies segment. What happened here? What had to be accounted for in the third quarter? At the time, the CropEnergies segment is currently investing in several large-scale projects with substantial capital requirements. This you're all fully aware of; that's the project that has been started in the CropEnergies segment over the last months. Amongst them is also the new production plant of renewable ethyl acetate at the Zeitz location. This is one of the big projects, and we see a challenging market environment and increased investment costs. All of this required that we had to reassess the profitability of the entire project pipeline. This reassessment of the entire project pipeline caused the suspension of the ongoing investing activities in the construction of equipment for the production of the protein animal feed product EnPro at the production location of the British subsidiary Ensus. This project stop for EnPro has induced an extraordinary expense due to the impairment of the CapEx already incurred for this project and the provision for contractual obligations also linked to that project. Due to the subsequently lower return expectations for the Ensus plant, an extraordinary partial write-off for the equipment on the existing fixed asset was necessary in Q3. In total, these elements led to a special item of EUR 76 million, which we had to account for in the third quarter of this financial year. After the result from restructuring special items, let's have a look on the financial result. You can see that after nine months for the financial result, we see a net interest result of EUR 73 million and another financial result of EUR 3 million. So the higher interest expense was mainly due from higher average interest rates, so they have increased on a net financial debt level, which remained almost stable on average for the nine months of this reporting period. So let's move on to page 17. On page 17, you will find taxes on income and earnings per share. After nine months, taxes on income came in at EUR 59 million after EUR 152 million in the same year as last year, with an increase of the underlying tax rate to 64%. So this tax rate is extraordinarily high. So the question is, what has moved up the tax rate, which normally is in the range of ± 25%? Now we had to account for a tax rate of 64%. What are the reasons for this increase in tax rate? We first have to look into it to explain this. We have to look into prior year's tax rate, and prior year's tax rate was supported by higher profits in the sugar segment that were partially tax-free due to non-capitalized losses carried forward from the past. This was a one-off effect positively in the 2023/2024 reporting period, and this one-off is not repeating in 2024/2025. On the contrary, the low results in the sugar segment in 2024/2025, with a negative outlook, they are now a burden for this year's tax rate. Due to this negative outlook, different tax assets have been impaired, which led to an increase in the tax rate. That was one effect explaining the higher tax rate, and the second effect explaining the higher tax rate is the negative impact of the restructuring result, as just explained, the EUR 76 million in the CropEnergies segment for the EnPro project at Ensus. And because those charges, they have not led to a compensating tax benefit, hence increasing the tax rate significantly. So those two items explain the increase of the tax rate to 64%, which going forward in a normal year should be in the range of 25%. Finally, earnings per share came in at EUR 0.01 compared to EUR 2.49 in the previous year's period. Let's move now on to page 19. You can find cash flow, working capital, and investment development. So now we are on page 19, and you can see that following lower EBITDA in operating profit, as just explained, also cash flow decreased. You can see cash flow after nine months reaches EUR 368 million. Working capital decreased by EUR 345 million, and investment in fixed assets reached EUR 417 million against EUR 328 million in last year's nine-month period. Let's move on to the balance sheet. You will find that on page 21. Here we have a focus on net financial debt and the equity ratio. You can see net financial debt at the end of November turned out at EUR 1.7 billion. So what are the effects changing net financial debt? On the one side, we have cash inflow from operating activities. This amounted to EUR 689 million, as you can see, and this includes in particular the cash flow of EUR 368 million and the decrease in working capital, as just explained, with a cash inflow of EUR 345 million. Investments in fixed and financial assets totaling to EUR 422 million and profit distributions of EUR 255 million, which we paid out in July this year after general assemblies, could be thus fully covered as a result. Thus, the net financial debt was reduced from EUR 1.8 billion as of 29 of February 2024. That means the beginning of this financial year by EUR 82 million to EUR 1.7 billion by end of November, and that means after nine months 2024. The equity ratio now stands at 44%, which is lower compared to the previous year level and still on a very solid level. So finally, let me now turn to the outlook. You will find this on the pages 23 to 25, and as stated at the beginning, we confirm our outlook for this financial year. So you can see we confirm our group guidance for financial year 2024/2025. We expect, starting with revenues, we expect group revenues to come in between EUR 9.5-EUR 9.9 billion by the end of February 2025 for the 12-month period of this fiscal year. When it comes to group operating result, we confirm that we expect a range between EUR 175-EUR 275 million, meaning a midpoint of EUR 225 million. Looking more detailed into the segments, starting with the sugar segment, in the segment sugar, we expect earnings range between EUR 150-EUR 150 million. Therefore, a loss has to be expected in Q4 too. And though we are not yet in a position to give a first guidance for the coming financial year 2025/2026, we wanted to point out already that now that a loss for the sugar segment has to be expected in fiscal 2025/2026 too. After sugar, let's have a look on the special product segment. Here you can see that the operating result is now expected to come at previous year's level. In CropEnergies, we now expect an operating result in a range of EUR 5 to EUR 20 million. The starch segment should see a significantly lower operating result compared to last year. And finally, fruit segment, here we now see that the operating result should moderately be above previous year's level, totaling all in all to a range of EUR 175 to EUR 275 million for group operating result. So after having explained nine-month figures and an overview of the outlook, ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for your attention so far. Together with Nikolai Baltruschat, we are now looking forward to your question. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on the touch-tone telephone. You will hear a tone to confirm that you have entered the queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use only handsets while asking a question. Anyone with a question may press star and one at this time. Our first question comes from Ben Theurer from Barclays. Please go ahead. Hi, and thank you very much for the presentation and for taking my question. I just have the one. Could you please share how Südzucker plans to address the upcoming EUR 500 million November 2025 maturity? Yep. Ben, thank you for your question, so our EUR 500 million bond senior debt is maturing by November, so you're fully right. We are in the process of preparing the refinancing of this bond. We are in talks with the banks. We are preparing, and we are optimistic to come closely to the market for refinancing that bond. Thank you very much. That's clear. The next question comes from Alex Sloane from Barclays. Please go ahead. Yeah, hi. Morning, all. A few questions from my side. Firstly, just on the Mercosur politics, any possibility in your view that the impacts that you outline could get watered down before this is ratified? And could you just repeat on sugar? I think you said that the tariffs on 180,000 tons of Brazilian sugar would be reduced from EUR 98 per ton to zero. Is that correct? And secondly, just a bit more color on the sugar division. In the short term, you talked about an above-average burden from higher production costs in Q3. Is it fair to assume that fades that impact in Q4? That's the first one. And then secondly, yeah, thank you for giving the early indication with regards to fiscal 2025/26, where you're still expecting a loss in sugar. I wonder if you could talk through some of the moving parts to that early expectation and whether that level of loss, as you see it as a base case today, would be similar to fiscal 2024/2025 or a lower level of loss? Thank you. Yeah. Starting with Mercosur, I mean, the discussions on the Mercosur agreement, I think in total this has over, is it over 10 years? So it took at least a very, very long time with ups and downs for this agreement. So now it seems that the EU Commission and the Mercosur countries have reached upon an agreement, but still this needs to be endorsed and ratified by all the EU countries. So still some disturbances could be there, but we assume that this deal is going to be closed. If it comes then finally into force, actually, it would mean that on the sugar side, there will be additionally 180,000 tons of Brazilian sugar coming in with no duty. So this has a negative price effect, but 180,000 tons on a market which is between EUR 15 and EUR 60 million is not too much. So on the sugar side, let's wait and see. On the ethanol side, 650,000 cubic meters is more percentage-wise for an EU market of ethanol being approximately at 11 million cubic meters. So all imports coming in typically have a negative sentiment on the prices. But we have to see because also in the ethanol market, also today, 3 million cubic meters of imports are coming in. So to be seen what finally comes out, it's earliest 2026 when we will see the effects. So could be some pressure on prices, but we do not expect this to be really material. That's on Mercosur. You're right, higher production costs for this year. If you look into our guidance, you can see that the operating profit for the sugar segment, as just explained, is between -EUR 150 million and -EUR 50 million. So if we take midpoint EUR -100 million, it's roughly EUR 650 million deterioration in operating profit compared to previous year. Those two effects of the EUR 650 million anticipated decrease in operating profit for the sugar segment has two main effects. One is higher cost and the other is lower prices. Those two effects, they are almost 50/50 with the prices being more important. So both of them over EUR 300 million and lower prices a little bit more. The EUR 650 million comes from deterioration in operating profit comes from higher cost and lower prices, approximately half-half. Your third question was, if I got this right, for the fiscal 2025/26 for the sugar losses, yes, as we have indicated, we need to be prepared for a loss situation. That's what we want to flag off today. But there's still a lot of uncertainty. We are not in the position to be any more precise than that because we finally will first have to see how the campaign comes out. There's still some weeks to go. The ongoing campaign is going until end of campaign. We see a stabilization of spot prices on the European market, and we are also confident that prices for the new sugar market year would increase as of 1st of October. There's not yet enough grip to be more precise on the figures. Yes, we do expect also a loss for the sugar segment in fiscal 25/26. Thanks. That's helpful. So your basis is an improving price outlook. How about on costs? Sorry, I didn't quite understand. The higher production costs represent about half of the full year impact, but have we seen the peak of that impact in Q3? That was the question. Yeah, yeah. That's right. So the main is in Q3 because in Q3, we had the above burden or the above-average burden that the sugar from the last campaign was still sold in Q3 and in the new sugar market years. That means on the reduced prices. Thank you very much. The next question comes from Oliver Schwarz from Warburg Research. Please go ahead. Good morning, gentlemen. Thank you for taking my question. First set of questions will be mostly attuned to the situation at CropEnergies. If I understood you right, you say the investment in EnPro at Ensus in the UK was suspended. If I'm not mistaken, that could mean two things. It's either permanently terminated or it is just put on hold until, let's say, further notice or until a later point of time. Could you please clarify which of the two options is the one you alluded to? That would be my first question. Secondly, do you want to do that one by one or? Yeah, we can do one by one. We can do one by one. Okay. Thank you. Yes, as I explained for CropEnergies, CropEnergies has evaluated the entire project portfolio. There are several projects ongoing, and this reassessment of all projects, they led to the decision to stop finally the EnPro project. So this is not put on hold. It is stopped. Okay. Understood. Thank you very much for that. Second one, in connection to that, I mean, the EnPro expansion or the investment in EnPro, which, as we can see by now, was rather, let's say, extensive. That was mainly targeted to bring the break-even of Ensus down to make it a more, let's say, integrated plant. Not similar, but close to what you have in continental Europe. So if you now scrap that part of the site, that obviously fixates your break-even point at a higher level. And at the same time, you alluded to the Mercosur agreement, which will have, from my point of view, let's say, a limited impact on the sugar market, but a vast impact on the bioethanol market. I know that the UK is no longer part of the EU, so the Mercosur agreement is unlikely to directly affect the Ensus plant. If I may pick your brain a bit about that, what will be the impact or the likely impact of the Mercosur agreement on the U.K. bioethanol market? And is Ensus in a position to, let's say, sustainably create or generate, let's say, profits in such a generation, or is the plant as such, let's say, perhaps slated for either, let's say, a temporary or a permanent closure from your point of view, as it is your highest cost asset in CropEnergies, I presume? That would be my second question. Yeah. I mean, for Ensus, we are in a challenging market and operational profitability and environment. So we have to be prepared that for Ensus this year, there's an operating loss. And so we evaluate all the cost positions with the management team. But there's no decision yet taken for whatsoever. But it is clear Ensus is in a challenging situation. When it comes to the Mercosur agreement, nevertheless, this will phase in over six years. So it's not by tomorrow that those volumes would come in, but we have to monitor very closely together with CropEnergies and Ensus management team what are the implications for the Ensus plant as a whole. But nothing has been decided going forward so far. Okay. But will that, or from your point of view, will those volumes that will go into the EU market probably also find their way into the UK? As I said, the Mercosur agreement obviously is not with the UK included, but is there already yet a distinction between the European bioethanol price and the UK price, or is that one and the same, you may say? The imports already come to the U.K. too, and with the plus pricing scheme, even the U.K. having left the European Union, the EU pricing scheme for ethanol in the U.K. is the same than in continental Europe, but it's true. Also, as of today, a lot of U.S. imports come to the U.S. market and to the U.K. market. Okay. Very clear. Thank you for that one. And secondly, if I may, could you elaborate a bit about the restructuring charges, not at CropEnergies, but at the specialty products? Which part of the business was affected and why? Could you go into more detail on that, please? When it comes to the restructuring, we see that after nine months, this totals to EUR -72 million, as Stephan explained, and there the main effect comes from EUR 76 million from CropEnergies. But for sure, there are also some minor restructuring items plus and minus in the other segments. If you ask for specialties, here we have a gain of the disposal of the Richelieu dressings and sauces business, which we have sold, and this has accounted for a positive special item of EUR 17 million. So this one was positive, but there are also other elements to a small extent in the other divisions totaling then altogether to -7. For example, it may be also of interest when it comes to sugar. We have a temporary closure of the refinery site of Agrana Sugar in Buzău, Romania, and this has accounted for roughly EUR 4 million charge in special items. Understood. Sorry for that. To press you on that point, I was, let's say, especially alluding to the 10 million or roughly 10 million in Q3 that, according to the quarterly report, it was due to a charge, especially in the specialty products portfolio, that there were to the amount of EUR 10 million, if I understood that correctly, restructuring charges, especially in that vicinity of your business. And that's basically what I wanted to find out, which part of the specialty products business was affected by the EUR 10 million charge. I got your point. Yeah, yeah. I got your point. After nine months in restructuring of special items, we have EUR 11 million+ in the specialty segments, and that's EUR 17 million positively coming from Freiberger, the sale, as I just explained, the dressing and sauces business of Richelieu. And there's a charge of roughly, I think, EUR 4 million for Beneo when it comes to, yeah, we had to devalue down the fava beans to market value. Okay. I step back into the lineup, but I have some additional questions, but I don't want to take all of the time here. So talk to you soon. Okay. Thank you. Thank you so far. The next question comes from Hartmut Moers from Martellon Capital. Please go ahead. Yes, good morning and happy New Year to you as well. Thank you. I would like to start with the outlook, and I mean, I've seen you've made some minor changes within the indications you've given for the individual segments. And I can understand most of them. There is one point I was noticing in your special product segment. You were down 6.3% in revenues by the nine-month period, whereas for the full year, you're still expecting -1% to -4%, according to your definition of the areas. That would imply that you have a major swing in the fourth quarter. You must have a positive change in the fourth quarter by 15% or something like that if you want to fall within that range, so is there anything that triggers that swing in revenue development? Could you also please elaborate a little bit on the three segments, how business is doing, what's doing better in terms of revenue development, but also in terms of margins? That's the first question. Yeah. Yeah. Generally speaking, as we said, for the specialty segments, we assume a slight decrease in revenues and a stable development for operating profits. When I look into nine-month figures, there is nothing special in Q4, so we typically foresee what has happened on the first nine months to continue also in Q4. So for the Freiberger division, but as you know, we do not disclose individual divisional figures, but as a trend, you can see that for the Freiberger business, we see a slight deterioration in margins and lower profits, but still on a high level. When it comes to Beneo, we have seen in the first nine months a very positive development, both on operating margin level, operating profit level, but turnover decreased also slightly. And PortionPak? PortionPack is stable. There's nothing meaningful to mention. This is a smaller business compared to Beneo and Freiberger division, but this is going on stable. Okay. Thank you. The second one relates to CropEnergies. So the first thing, I don't know when you reviewed the guidance you were giving, and I've seen that you've taken down the range. But what we've recently seen is that prices have increased. We're back to EUR 680 around for the ethanol, and at EUR 234 for the wheat, you should have a positive margin of around EUR 50 per ton, which is, well, not that bad. At least it should allow you to produce positive results again. So can you confirm roughly that things should improve in the fourth quarter and that we might look rather at the upper end of the range than the lower? Is that a view that's correct, or? It's a little bit too early to say because, as you know, the ethanol prices are very volatile. Looking into the last quarter, compared to other quarters, CropEnergies has a lower hedging rate for ethanol. That means we are more confronted also due to the lower hedging rate to the developments of the ethanol price. Typically, I would say there are good arguments for an increased ethanol price, as you might have seen that as of January 1st, the greenhouse gas emission reduction targets in Germany, they have been increased. The CO2 quota in the Brennstoffemissionshandelsgesetz have increased. The fraudulent or obviously under suspicion of the UER upstream emission rights from China, so these certificates, they have been put out of the market. So there are good arguments for increasing ethanol prices as of January. So far as this year goes, the average prices in January on ethanol, they stand roughly at EUR 607 per cubic meter, which is higher than January 2024, and so there are good reasons to believe that the price is supportive. But we have also seen downward trends on the ethanol price, but I would rather assume higher prices, and that means we also assume for CropEnergies to be midpoint. Okay. And the other one relating to CropEnergies would be I haven't really clearly understood what the EUR 70 million charges were for. I mean, you were relating not only to the Ensus project, but also to the ETAG project? No, no, no, no, no. You got me right. The EUR 76 million charge in restructuring item is fully to the end stop of the EnPro project. And to give you some more details on that, so I mean, what has already been constructed amounts to EUR 23 million. There have been obligations taken for the contract of EUR 5 million and some breakup cost of EUR 2 million that brings these charges completely, which are directly linked to the EnPro equipment, to EUR 30 million. And due to the lower earnings expectations, the partial write-off for the ethanol plant was EUR 45 million. So this together brings the charge to EUR 75 million. But this extraordinary charge is one and only to EnPro. There are no other projects affected from CropEnergies side. I mean, EUR 75 million would have been the entire investment, I mean, if you would have been able to stick to the original plan. Yeah, but not everything has to be EUR 75. One could argue, why haven't you done it? Sorry, I don't get that question. No. I mean, the original project, I mean, you said at the time you want to spend EUR 100 million, EUR 25 million for the. Energy savings. Exactly. For the refurbishing of the plant and EUR 75 million for developing EnPro. So if you now take a EUR 75 million or EUR 76 million charge for EnPro, the question arises, why haven't you invested? Why haven't you spent the money? If you now take a charge in exactly the amount which would have cost it for you to build the thing, one would think you should have done it. Yeah, but that's what I just tried to explain. So the EUR 76 million charge is not only related to the EnPro project. So EUR 30 million is directly linked to the equipment already installed or contract obligations already taken, and EUR 45 million is for the entire ethanol plant as a partial write-down to the lower profit expectation. It's not the foregone. No, no. It's not the foregone. Revenues from EnPro. It's for the lower. Right. It's a write-down of the plant. Exactly. In the amount of EUR 45 million. I see. Okay. Thank you very much. That was very helpful. Welcome. We have a follow-up question from Ben Theurer from Barclays. Please go ahead. Hi. Thank you so much for taking my follow-up question. I just wanted to clarify. If I recall correctly, on the last call, you mentioned that you were wanting to address the November 2025 bonds following the 3Q results. Is it still the intention to come to the market following this cleansing event? And how are you viewing the issuance environment at this point? Yeah. I mean, following Q3, that means in due course, that's one of the opportunities that we are investigating. But there are also options, but it's clearly on the table. One opportunity would be right now after Q3 figures. Thank you very much. I appreciate you taking my follow-up. The next question is also from Oliver Schwarz from Warburg Research. Please go ahead. Yes. Hello again. Thanks for taking my additional questions, gentlemen. Just as a follow-up to the recent set of questions we heard alluding to the Ensus plant, can you remind us the remaining book value of Ensus at the moment after the write-downs of Q3? How much is left of that? I mean, the partial write-down is EUR 45 million. I don't know what is then the remaining part. It's. You have to come back on this one, Oliver, to give you the exact number. No problem. No problem. Thank you for that. My second question, completely different topic, I'm afraid. Fruit. Obviously, performance was ahead of your expectations, and you also notched up the guidance for the full year, which is, let's say, a positive surprise, at least from my point of view. Fruit, as such, if I'm not mistaken, please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this is a Südzucker subsidiary, sorry, a subsidiary of Agrana, which is. crosstalk Which is not to 100% in the hands of Agrana, but partly owned still by BayWa in Germany. Is that correct? Not fully. I mean, the fruit segment or the fruit division, yes, it is fully under it is at Agrana, yeah, the fruit segment. And the fruit segment is comprised of two divisions. One division is the fruit preparations, which is the larger part, and this is 100% Agrana. And the minor part of the fruit segment or the divisions is the division of fruit juice concentrates. And you're right, this is a 50/50 joint venture with RWA, Raiffeisen Ware Austria. Yeah. RWA is where? But fully consolidated by Agrana. Correct. Thank you. But RWA, if I'm not mistaken, has been taken over from Agrana by RWA. So there basically has been a transaction. I don't want to go into the details here, which basically leads me to the question, would Agrana be interested in acquiring the remaining 50% of the juice joint venture to basically also, let's say, help RWA to finance the transaction price with BayWa? Yeah. This is part of the press release that BayWa has given in the course of their restructuring. They said they have sold the RWA to an Austrian consortium. And within this announcement, it also has been indicated that there could be interest of RWA of selling the 50% stake in the juice. This is so far press information. If this confirms to be materialized in a project, for sure, Agrana would have a look into. Yeah, but also other options are possible. This is in the course of the BayWa restructuring. There's not too much that we can comment upon. But if this would come to the market, for sure, Agrana would have a look into. Right. Thank you for that. And probably also one on sugar. I mean, the Q3 results was clearly negative because of sugar in inventory that was produced at very high costs that now needed to be sold at very low prices, hence most probably below production costs. Is there sizable inventory from high-cost production sugar left at Südzucker or was that all sold already at the Q3 stage? Almost everything is sold in Q3. I mean, Q3 goes until November. There is not much left. Or it should be. Let's assume it has been digested in Q3. Understood. So would I be correct to, let's say, imply that this might help not only Q4, but also the oncoming financial year in regards to the extent of the loss you were implying, meaning that this situation, as we had it this year with the high-cost inventory to be sold and hence creating a negative impact on your P&L, is not likely to reoccur in the next financial year? Too early to say. I mean, there are several aspects. So as we have flagged, we also foresee or have to be prepared to a loss situation for the sugar segment for fiscal 2025/2026. For sure, we assume that production cost in the 24 campaign would go down compared to the 23 campaign, yes. But on the other side, linked to the sugar market here, the prices for the sale of the sugar contracts, they are in place until October. So as sugar market year and fiscal year of Südzucker are not the same, sugar market year goes from October to September and our fiscal year from March to February. We will also have in 2025/2026, financial year, seven months of old contract prices. The key question which we cannot answer as of today is. The key question will be, what will be the new sugar market price contracts as of 1st of October 2025? There are good arguments to see based on what I have explained to the world market development and European market development. There are good arguments to foresee a price stabilization and a price increase as of 1st of October. We do not have as of today enough grip to really evaluate that precisely. Thank you for that explanation. I think I got that perfectly well. But I mean, that would imply that there is no, let's say, similar situation that you have to sell, let's say, high-cost inventory at low selling prices, especially if you are looking for or basically hoping for higher pricing points following the new annual contracts that go into place from the 1st of October this year. Would that be a correct interpretation of? That's our base case assumption. This is also underlined that we assume also a decrease in contracting hectares for 2025 sugar campaign. Understood. If I'm not mistaken, there are basically two rollover dates. One is the 1st of October that you mentioned. That's basically with customers from the food industry. But there's also a rollover on the 1st of January, which is with the large supermarket chains that you cater to. Is that still correct, or are all contracts, let's say, rolled or renegotiated on the 1st or towards the 1st of October of each year? Yeah. The main part is 1st of October, but you are right. There are also full-year, the calendar year contracts. That means that there is also for the new calendar year contracts, which have come into place 1st of January 2025, there's a lower price compared to previous year's 12-month calendar year period. But the major part is on sugar market year, but there are also calendar year contracts. Okay. Okay. Understood. Thank you for that. And the last one, I promise, starch also had less than optimal quarter in Q3. When looking into supply and demand, obviously a part of that is due to the construction sector. However, on the other side, let's say, in regards to demand, the packaging sector, so let's say Amazon packets and the like that use starch as a glue, that seems to be holding up fairly well or even expanding. Could you please elaborate why the decline in starch was that pronounced in Q3? One effect was a one-off in the flooding in Austria. As I said, that accounts for EUR 7 billion extra charge. Your analysis on the global supply and demand for the starch business is correct. We see an increase in volumes. Roughly 9% volume-wise. Businesses are recovering. From the volume perspective, this is positive. But we clearly see a downward trend on prices. The average price would be for native starches, modified starch, ethanol, and also for gluten, they are on a downward trend. The raw material prices too, but the downward trend on prices is more significant than the reduction from raw materials. Both raw material prices and prices for the end products go down while volumes go up. This explains the deterioration in operating profit. Got it. Thank you very much for that. Very clear. Thank you. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Nikolai Baltruschat for any closing remarks. Thank you, Sandra. And thank you for the lively conversation today and your questions. Please don't hesitate if you have further questions, just to reach out to us. And wish you a good day. Thank you. Goodbye. Thank you very much.