Good afternoon. This is the Chorus Call Conference operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Aquafil first half 2023 results web call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the presentation, there will be a Q&A session. For operator assistance via web call, please press the headset icon on the bottom left. For conference call assistance, please press star and zero on your telephone. Now, I would like to turn the conference over to Karim Tonelli, Investor Relator. Please go ahead, sir. Thank you, operator. Good evening to all, and thank you for joining us for Aquafil video conference on the first half 2023 results. Before going ahead, let me remind you that this presentation might contain certain statements that are neither reported financial results nor other historical information. Any forward-looking statements are based on Aquafil's current expectations about the future events and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause results to differ from those expressed by the statement. For a discussion of these risks and uncertainties, you should review the disclaimer in the presentation we issued today. Say that, allow me to give the floor to Mr. Giulio Bonazzi for his remarks. Thank you, Karim, and good evening to all, and thank you again for attending our video conference. The first half of the year was marked by extreme volatility. As already announced in the first quarter, and at the beginning of August, the context of reference was more challenging than expected. In EMEA, there was a considerable slowdown of the end market, with a consequent impact on the group's volumes sold. Moreover, the high unit value of inventories stocked in the previous year, coupled with the strong reduction in raw material prices, led to a temporary, yet significant, decline in margins. In the U.S. and Asia Pacific, demand generated satisfactory results, confirming the previous year's levels despite the slight decrease in the U.S. textile fiber sector. The engineering plastic project progressed well and is expected to reach the targets set by the end of the year, with excellent growth potential for the future. Important results were also achieved by regenerative ECONYL branded products. Volumes sold remain essentially in line with the first half of 2022, confirming their strong resilience. The debt cutting measures continue to be an important objective that the group keeps pursuing through actions aimed at rationalizing working capital and investment, thanks to the conclusions of the cycle launched in prior years. With regard to the second half of the year, Asia and the United States are expected to confirm a substantially stable market demand. In EMEA, the market for fibers for garment remains slow, with an expected recovery of volumes sold for fiber for carpet and polymers. Now. Now we are open to receiving your eventual question. This is the Chorus Call conference operator. We will now begin the question and answer session. To enter the queue for question, please press the Q&A icon on the left side of your screen. Please make sure to enable your audio and video connection. If you are instead on the phone, please press star and one on your telephone keypad. The first question is from Nicolò Storer of Kepler. Please go ahead. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my two questions. The first one is on the trend you discussed related to Europe and European weakness. Can you give us an idea of possible differences between sell-in and your clients sell out? Because it seems that your figures are much worse than what we see in the end on end markets, both on BCF and also on garment threads. Maybe if you can elaborate on whether the difficulties you are facing is something broad-based, or do you think you have some company specific issues which make things worse for Aquafil compared to broader competition? The second one is on measure. You talked about debt cutting measures, and referring to CapEx. What should we expect for 2023? Considering that you already spent EUR 18 million in the first part of the year, if you multiply this by two, we end up very close to 2021 and 2022 levels. I was wondering here if we can have some room to optimize these expenditures. Thank you. Thank you, Nicolò. I will start from the second question. You should not multiply by two the first half of the year, because in the first six months, we have got some cues from the past financial year that we had to complete during the first semester. Also, please consider that inside the EUR 18 million that you are, let's say, mentioning, there are also IFRS 16 contribution. That, of course, whenever you renovate, for example, a rental contract for a building, you have to, let's say, write the entire amount that you have to pay during the timing of the contract. With regard to weaknesses, sell out, end market or company. Well, we believe that we have not performed worse than the market. For example, on garment, on the sellout of, let's say, the retailer part of the industry, this is not the part that we normally confront ourselves. On top of that, normally, the more you go upstream, the more there is a trend of reduction of inventories that is creating a temporary demand which is lower or, let's say, much lower in this case, than the actual market demand. According to our, let's say, elaboration, we don't see a worsening of our market share, but eventually even an increase. For example, in automotive sector, we are quite sure that we are still, let's say, gaining market share and not losing momentum. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from Dave Storms of Stonegate Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Good morning. Just two quick questions from me. One around timeline of margin recovery. It looks like it's mostly just a mismatch, like you mentioned, between previously higher expenses and lower material prices. Any sense of when that could normalize? Additionally, the ECONYL revenue is still showing really strong as a% of your total revenue. Is there a thought on what the runway for that is? Is there a goal to get that to a certain% of your total revenue? Any guidance you can give us there would be very helpful. Well, the ECONYL% is in line with our expectation. We are not caught by surprise by the resilience of ECONYL products. This is normally, let's say, giving us good results. With regard to the margins, when it should stabilize, we believe that 2023 will continue to be affected also by the mechanics of, let's say, writing the balance sheet that is taking into account the average purchasing price, not the punctual purchasing price of the month or of the quarter. Clearly 2023 will be an exceptional year, because last year, 2022, was equally exceptional on the other side. Last year we experienced a tremendous growth in raw material prices that has created a higher evaluation of our inventory. This year we are seeing an equally tremendous decrease in raw material prices that actually we were figuring out to be much lower than it happened during the first semester. We are seeing now a stabilization in these raw material prices, even a beginning of slight growth. We believe that this will not have a major effect on our inventory evaluation for 2023. Maybe in 2024 and 2025, we will see different numbers. 2023 is practically digesting the hangover of last year. Very helpful. Thank you. Welcome. As a reminder, if you wish to register for a question, please press Q&A on your left and send your request, or press star and one on your telephone. The next question is a follow-up from Nicolò Storer of Kepler. Yes. Thank you. On volumes, putting together all the indications you provided on the second part of the year, do you think that the minus 11%, which we are seeing in H1, could slightly improve, could remain at similar levels? From the wording, it seems we should not expect a worsening at least. Is this correct? Yes. Hopefully, this is what we are expecting. We have been assisting during the summer already to some kind of bounce back of certain, let's say, end market, like the carpet yarn market and the polymer market. Still, the nylon textile filament is slow, but I believe also because it had a different seasonality. Carpet and polymers are much more reactive to the momentum, to the month, or to the quarter, while the fashion and garment industry are more, let's say, reacting to the season. Secondly, the de-stocking in carpet and polymers started earlier. We have seen a decrease of demand of polymer already starting from last year, if you go and see the numbers of 2021 with 2022. We believe that 2023 will be substantially in line with 2022. While the carpet yarn market experienced a big drop during April and May and started to bounce back already in June, and even, let's say, even better feelings during July and August. Clearly, this is an evident sign that inventory has been reabsorbed. Now we should be in a better gear with the demand of the final market. We hope that the demand will keep a certain resiliency, and at this point, we should keep the present running rate, which is not, let's say, lower than the one of last year. Maybe even slightly better. In Europe. Okay. Of course. Okay. Maybe on carpets, so BCF, can you give us a sense on which is the mix that you're seeing in current, say, summer's bounce back? Yes. The current trading of our BCF carpet demand, yarn carpet demand, is more related to automotive. Also you have read during these days that the official numbers about sales of cars in Europe is giving a positive trend. Also in residential, it's holding. It's not improving, but not decreasing. While the commercial market, so the one related especially to the office business, has seen a drop in demand. We will see what is the result of the rest of the year, but prudently, we're still considering that this part will remain, let's say, lower than last year and the second part of 2021. Perfect. Thank you. For any further questions, please press Q&A on your left and send your request, or press star and one on your telephone. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press Q&A on your left and send your request, or press star and one on your phone. Gentlemen, there are no more questions registered at this time. Okay. Thank you very much. Stay with us during this call, and see you for the next one. That will be in November. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining. The conference is now over. You may disconnect your devices. Thank you.