Good morning and welcome to Cabka's 2025 Half-Year Results Conference Call. My name is Nadia Lubbe, Corporate Strategy Manager at Cabka. With us today are Alexander Masharov, CEO, and Frank Roerink, CFO. Alex and Frank will both make a short presentation, after which we will go to Q&A. For those of you following the call via the webcast, you will be able to submit your questions via the Q&A module. A copy of this presentation has been uploaded to our investor website at investors.cabka.com. At this time, all participants joining via conference call are in listen-only mode. To ask a question during the Q&A session, you will need to press star one one on your phone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Also, please be advised that today's conference call is being recorded. I would like now to hand over to Alex, who will take you through our operational highlights for the first half of the year. Thank you, Nadia. Hello everyone joining us. A very good morning and welcome to the H1 2025 Results Call. Before we get into the numbers, I would like to be clear that in the first half of 2025, we made real progress. Despite ongoing challenges in our end markets, we have delivered on our top priority. While our overall revenues were slightly lower than last year, we are now starting to see commercial momentum, both in Europe and in the U.S., which we expect to continue into the second half of this year. At the same time, our shift plan is delivering: lower costs, improved cash, and much wider execution. In the U.S., we are seeing early signs of recovery, with new client wins, improved utilization, and much better visibility. As we head into the second half of 2025, we are increasingly confident that full-year results will be at least in line with 2024. As I mentioned, headline sales were slightly lower year-on-year, down 2% compared to the first half of 2024. However, sales in the U.S. saw a genuine improvement, and we believe we are now seeing early signs of improved commercial momentum in both the U.S. and Europe. We are also encouraged by the positive development in our gross operating margin, which increased by more than 200 basis points. As we have highlighted before, during the first half of this year, our focus at Cabka has been on turnaround strategy, which I'm pleased to say has yielded measurable results. As a result of our shift program, our free cash flow generation improved substantially compared to last year, as we were able to reduce both costs and capital expenditure. Frank will go into more detail on these lines later in the presentation. You may wonder why our EBITDA performance was still lower, given the improvements I've just mentioned. EBITDA would have been higher if not for our deliberate inventory reduction, which supported cash but had a temporary impact on our P&L. I will let Frank go into more detail later on in the financial section of this presentation. Now, let me talk in a bit more detail about what has been going on in Europe and in the U.S. Starting with Europe, we have seen weakness in the first half of this year, as clients still remain hesitant. Revenues in our portfolio business were down substantially, but I would highlight that this is partially due to the very tough comparison base given last year's large contracts which fall into H1. Contract manufacturing, on the other hand, was a clear bright spot for us in Europe, with 24% improvement in revenues. Turning to the U.S., as you know, this has been a very difficult region for us following the flooding at our St. Louis plant three years ago and following a necessary reconstruction period of one year. I'm pleased to be able to tell you today that we are now seeing some early signs of recovery. The reorganization of our sales force and the investment in pricing are now yielding real results. We have seen new client wins, and we believe we are gaining market share. Our capacity utilization has improved by around 5%- 10% by expansions in our contract manufacturing lines. We expect this trend to continue into the second half of the year as well. Looking at our product development, we are launching two new products in the Cabka branch. We will give more detail on that development roadmap at our Capital Markets update that we will hold on November 19. As we announced in June, our current CFO, Frank Roerink, has decided to leave Cabka. I would like to take this opportunity on behalf of both the Management and the Supervisory Board to thank him. Frank has been a key partner in this journey, and we are grateful for his role in Cabka's evolution to a listed company. Our new CFO, Mark Lettrie, joins us as of September 1. Mark comes from Vinmar, where he was Finance Director and Group Controller. Mark brings his experience of the plastics and polymers market to Cabka and will work alongside Frank during the month of September to ensure a smooth transition. Now, I'll hand over to Frank, who will run you in more detail through the financial section of our results and presentation. Frank? Thank you, Alex. I have a few slides to explain the details behind our financial performance of the first half of 2025. Let me first take you through a summary of our key financial metrics for the first half. Revenues of EUR 90 million were broadly in line with last year, showing a 2% decline compared to the first half of 2024, primarily due to volatility in the Reusable Transport Packaging European market. However, we are seeing early signs of improved momentum, which supports our confidence in the full-year guidance and outlook. Our gross operating margin improved by over 200 basis points, rising from 49.5% in 2024 to 51.7% in 2025. This reflects the positive impact of our shift program, particularly in driving operational efficiency. Shift also delivered nearly EUR 6 million of inventory reduction in the first six months as part of our continued efforts on working capital management and cash generation. While this contributed to a stable net debt position, it also had a temporary impact on our gross profit margin and EBITDA margin that led to a decline from 11.3% last year to 10.1% in 2025, which we expect to partially reverse in the second half of 2025. Operating expenses decreased by 1%, driven by cost savings from the shift program and adjusting for a one-off release of prior year accrual. The underlying savings are EUR 1.1 million. Capital expenditure totaled EUR 5.4 million, which is a 42% reduction compared to the same period last year of EUR 9.3 million. This reflects our disciplined approach to investments under the shift program. Let me take a closer look at our European sales performance for the first half of 2025. Overall, sales in Europe declined by 8%. In general, uncertainties around the impact of the U.S. tariffs on business in the European Union and the higher cost of capital caused many smaller customers to delay investments in inventories. This impact was most visible in our portfolio business, which saw a 15% drop, reflecting broader market volatility. Despite this, contract manufacturing rebounded strongly with a 24% increase, signaling a recovery in demand and renewed larger customer engagement in this area. Customized solutions remain stable, supported by a loyal customer base and consistent order volumes. Our eco-product line continued to perform well, delivering 7% year-on-year growth, resulting in EUR 14.2 million in sales for the first half of the year. Next, we take a closer look into our U.S. sales performance. Portfolio in the U.S. saw a 2% decline as a result of an aggressive pricing strategy to regain market share and winning back customers we lost after the flooding. We grew our volume with 8%. Customized solutions have increased by EUR 800,000 in the same period last year, compared to the same period last year, to EUR 1.6 million in this year, primarily due to existing customer base. To increase our capacity utilization in the U.S., we successfully brought contract manufacturing volume into our operation. As I stated before, our profit performance in the first half of 2025 has been impacted by our inventory reduction program. At Cabka, we report movements in our finished and semi-finished inventory directly in our pure profit and loss statements under Other Operating Income. This accounting method ensures that production efficiencies or inefficiencies in our variable material costs, such as energy and raw materials, are reflected in real time. This offers a more accurate picture of how efficient our operations are performing. This is reflected in our gross operating margin, being gross profit divided by total operating Income, and we improved this by more than 200 basis points, rising from 49.5%- 51.7%, resulting from the shift program. When we then look at our gross profit margin, being the gross profit divided by sales, you notice a reduction of 80 basis points from 50.5% - 49.7%. In the first half of 2025, we were able to reduce our inventories with more than EUR 5.6 million. Although this has a direct positive cash impact, it also has a negative impact on our gross profit margin. For illustration purposes, if our inventories would have remained stable, our gross profit would have been up with circa EUR 1.5-EUR 2 million, bringing our gross margin 2% up and more than 1% above last year. Operating expenses decreased by 1%, supported by cost savings realized through the shift program. Most notable is a EUR 1.1 million reduction in personnel expenses. Part of this gain was offset by inflationary pressures and other fixed costs, such as in-store services and maintenance costs. Additionally, the prior year period included a one-off release of an expense accrual from earlier years. Adjusting for this non-recurring item, the underlying reduction in operating expenses would have been EUR 1.1 million. Operational EBITDA stood at EUR 9.1 million, representing 10.1% of sales. Adjusted for the aforementioned inventory reduction, our EBITDA would have been circa EUR 11 million or 12% of sales versus 11% of sales last year. The company's net debt position remains stable, amounting to EUR 72.3 million as of June 30th, 2025. Cash flow from operating activities substantially improved to EUR 200,000 compared to last year, -EUR 4.4 million. The operational EBITDA of EUR 9.1 million was offset by non-cash adjustments, income tax paid, and -EUR 6.7 million movement in working capital. This movement in net working capital was -EUR 2.1 million in our trade-related working capital, which I'll come to in a minute, and -EUR 4.6 million in non-trade working capital movements. Investing activities resulted in a net cash outflow of EUR 1.4 million, mainly due to EUR 5.4 million in capital expenditures, partially offset by EUR 4 million in proceeds from asset disposals through sale and lease-back agreements. Financing activities reflected cash outflows, primarily from interest payments and lease financing costs, adjusted by a positive impact from foreign exchange tax. It is important to highlight that we successfully obtained a waiver for this reporting period. Discussions with our syndicate of banks are ongoing to adjust the level of the covenants for the periods of at least the next 12 months. The Management Board expects to complete these discussions by the end of August and to be granted a new waiver, thus removing the material uncertainty and ensuring going concerted again. Let me talk about the net working capital position. It stood at EUR 28.6 million for the first half of 2025, representing 15.7% of sales, which is well within our medium-term guidance range and reflects a 26% reduction compared to the EUR 38.6 million as of June 30, 2024. The EUR 5.8 million decrease in inventories reflects the results of our shift program. Trade receivables increased with EUR 3.1 million due to the timing of customer payments, and trade payables decreased mainly due to payments for machinery and equipment at the Belgium plants, which were committed in the prior period. Overall, the slight highlights are continued disciplined financial management and a positive trajectory in optimizing working capital to support the company's liquidity. Looking at our capital expenditure for the first half of 2025, it amounted to EUR 5.4 million, which is EUR 3.9 million lower than the same period last year and well below the levels during the period of 2022- 2024. This reduction underscores our disciplined investment strategy under the shift program. As communicated during our Capital Markets Day in November last year, we aim to allocate about 50% of our annual CapEx to replacement and maintenance, with the remainder 50% directed towards growth initiatives. In line with this guidance, EUR 2.7 million was invested in replacement and maintenance, ensuring we continue to sustain our existing asset base effectively. Expansion and automation investments totaled EUR 2 million, focusing on next-generation solutions such as new molds and automation to drive further future efficiencies and profitability. Additionally, EUR 700,000 was invested in our eco-business, supporting our commitment to sustainable initiatives. That concludes the financial overview I wanted to share with you. Before Alex takes you through the outlook of 2025, I would like to briefly highlight our financial calendar for the remainder of 2025, key dates that are important for our stakeholders to note. First, we will hold an extraordinary general meeting in October to put the appointments of the new CFO and the new Supervisory Board member to a vote. A detailed agenda will be published on our investor websites under the Corporate Governance section. Next, our Q3 trading update is scheduled for the 21st of October. Finally, as mentioned earlier, we will host a virtual Capital Markets update on the 19th of November, where we will provide a detailed update on our strategic roadmap and medium-term goals. With that, back to you, Alex. Thank you, Frank. Before we move on to Q&A, I would like to discuss the rest of the year. As we head into the second half of 2025, we are increasingly confident we'll be able to meet our full-year guidance. This will also be with a much improved cash flow profile compared to last year as a result of a continuing contribution from our shift plan, which is expected to contribute around EUR 2 million in annualized benefits and substantially lower capital expenditure. Let me also briefly touch on the PPWR legislation. It remains hard to quantify by how much and by when this will boost our sales, but in our conversations with customers, we see that the subject is gaining importance. This will undoubtedly develop over time into a tailwind for our business. As I already mentioned, we'll be holding a capital markets update webcast on the 19th of November when we will share more information with you on our progress. With that, I would like to hand back to the operator. Could you please open the lines for Q&A? We'll be happy to answer them. Thank you, sir. As a reminder, to ask a question on the phone, please press star one and one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. Once again, please press star one and one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. If you wish to ask a question via the webcast, please type them in the question box and click submit. Thank you. We are now going to proceed with the first questions on the phone. The questions come from the line of Luuk Van Beek from the Degroof Petercam. Please ask your question. Your line is opened. Yes, good morning. Thank you for taking my question. First, I have a question about the order book you mentioned in the press release that gives you confidence in revenue growth going forward. Can you comment on the main areas where you see opportunities for the second half of this year? Is that in certain geographies or products? That's the first question. A question about the cost levels. Can you comment on the utilization rates? Where do you have much spare capacity left? The cost levels in H2, is there any further cost savings coming on or any other changes in cost that we should be aware of? Thank you, Luke. Let me take those questions. Where we see commercial opportunities is both actually in Europe and in the U.S. In the U.S., this comes from continuing to lower our capacity and utilization rates in our contract manufacturing. In Europe, we don't really see the details, but we do see opportunities in our portfolio basis of our business with some lately wins that we have encountered in the past two months that have not been yet delivered. We are quite confident in our guidance for quarter. As to your question regarding the utilization, we still have obviously free capacity in our U.S. factory. However, it's much lower than it was in December 2024, and we have improved it substantially in the last half a year. I would assume that we'll improve it even more during the H2. In Europe, our free capacity is not really something which is so substantial. We are producing at full power. We have capacity, and we know how to manage it well. From the cost perspective, the shift plan is a yearly program. It's an annual program. Obviously, we have managed to do a lot in H1 with much less. This trend is going to continue to H2. If you are asking, are we going to do any sufficient turnaround changes on the cost base? The question is no. We just need to continue to do what we started in H1. If we continue doing it through the H2, the results will be positive. Okay. One remaining question for now, then I'll jump back in the queue. You also mentioned a new commercial approach in the U.S. Can you elaborate a bit on that? There are two things happened. We had a big loss, as you know, in the past two years with a major customer in the U.S. We were looking for new customers, obviously, and there was a big focus on our sales team. We have acquired the new customer. We already shipped in April the first shipment for the customer. That's a long-term customer; earnings from that customer will be yielded in Q4, but mainly in 2026 as well. We also acquired a couple of customers in the contract manufacturing arena. A lot of them started already in H1. A few of them will be falling into H2. Obviously, I cannot name the customer this year in this webcast. Thank you. Once again, as a reminder to ask a question, please press star one and one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. If you wish to ask a question via the webcast, please type them in the question box and click submit. We are now going to proceed with our next question. The next questions come from the line of Thomas Martin from BNP Paribas. Please ask your question. Your line is opened. Hi. I just wondered if you could give us perhaps a bit more insight into the price and volume trends through H1. I guess by region, you know it sounds like you've reduced pricing in the U.S. and gained volumes. Could you just give us a bit more color on those trends between Europe and the U.S.? Second question just related to the debt negotiations. Can you confirm, will there be, will the current restriction on dividend payments whilst you're in breach of covenant or whilst you're operating under a waiver on covenants, will that be, or do you expect that to be fully removed once you've finished your debt negotiations later this month? Thanks. Thank you. Let me touch on the first one. The first question of yours is the second, Frank will answer. On the price volume in the U.S., part of the strategy was to regain customers that we lost during the flood. In order to regain customers back, we have intentionally given pricing a bit away to earn those customers back. In Europe, we have not given substantial pricing away in order to win volumes. This is also showing in the numbers. There is a pressure on pricing everywhere in Europe. I think we have our benefits as a company and our commercial advantages to keep that pricing on the level that it is. You can also see it in the gross margins that are stable, even higher. Frank? You want to? Yes. Thank you, Thomas. Indeed, your question was linked to the debt discussions with the syndicate of banks and what that would mean to dividend payments. Clearly, under the current discussions, and as you know, we've alluded to this before, while we are in a waiver period and not complying with the original agreed covenants, dividend payments will be put on hold. As soon as the company is in more financially safe waters, clearly, this will be back on the table again. That's great. Thanks. Could I perhaps just ask one other one? You noted in the results the small European volume customers who've been cautious in H1 for a number of understandable reasons. I just wondered if you have yet seen any suggestions or any changes in behavior there. Is there any catalyst that you think they're looking for in order to revise their outlooks? I appreciate it's been a rather challenging period on geopolitics and macro. Any insight would be helpful. Thanks. Let me try and elaborate on that. As we see, customers are very tight, holding their cash very close to their chest, I would say. This is why our order book and our visibility in terms of time is a little bit shorter than it used to be one year or two years ago. We keep ourselves on the same line, but our visibility in terms of the regular shipment is just a bit more tight. As we see, customers used to place orders 12 weeks ahead, 16 weeks ahead, two months ahead. Today, this happens sometimes three or four weeks ahead. Actually, what we have done to accommodate that is we are much leaner and much more efficient in planning our production. The fact is that our visibility is slightly lower. Only on big wins that we have, as I mentioned, in Europe and the U.S., we have a long-term visibility of half a year ahead, if that helps. That's great. Thanks. We are now going to proceed with our next question. The questions come from the line of Luuk Van Beek from Degroof Petercam. Please ask your question. Your line is opened. Yes. I have some other questions on the revenue mix. In the past, you talked about trying to move more customers towards standardized solutions so that you can produce larger shares and be more efficient. Can you explain how that is proceeding? I noticed that the contract manufacturing went up both in Europe and the U.S. Is it mainly to fill up any spare capacity, and do you expect it to continue in H2? Thirdly, on the inventories, can you comment on which areas you reduced them most and if you're happy with the current levels or if you should expect any further movements in H2? Can you also comment on the level of factoring if that has remained stable during H2? Let me start with the first three questions. We are still in the same strategy. We invest in what's called portfolio business, which is our bread and butter. This bread and butter is where our development also goes. The only thing is it doesn't yield results in three months' time. It's usually a 12-month project, and developments take time. Even when we develop a cupcube that we launched right now, the sales of that cupcube will reach its maximum in a year from now. It will start delivering today, but the level of sales out of those products will come in a year from now. On your second question about contract manufacturing, contract manufacturing plays an important role in our current setup, especially in terms of utilizing capacity and generating cash, maintaining operational leverage. While we continue to develop our product portfolio, contract manufacturing helps us to balance the business and ensure that our assets are working efficiently as we execute the shift plan. It's a valuable contributor, and we see the mix evolving in line with the demand in our long-term roadmap. I'm quite happy with the fact that we were able to increase our contract manufacturing both in Europe and in the U.S. In the U.S., it's especially a very important KPI for our company while we gained the market share back after the flood. Maybe on the factoring, I'll let Frank answer. Thank you, Luke. You had two questions. One up on factoring. You asked whether it was at the same level as at the end of last year, but indeed, we have further reduced the factoring. It's about 15%- 20% lower than we had by the end of 2024. That on factoring. Your question on the inventory reduction, where did we reduce the most? Predominantly, we had a first priority on reducing our semi-finished and finished product levels. Clearly, we targeted first the—we have a very large offering to our customers with many different SKUs. We first targeted the slow movers and the low-margin products where we've substantially reduced the inventory. Of course, our strategy remains to remain close to our customers. Shipping pallets from one place to the other is not economically helpful. We have optimized inventory levels on-site to be able to accommodate the customers much more elegantly than what we did in the past. In that sense, we have been able to take a lot of the slow movers. Next priority will be to further look into how we can optimize the raw material position of the company as well. I think in terms of the amount of inventory, we currently are at the levels which is healthy. I don't see significant further reduction. I do know that, and as we guided already, for the second half, we will partially reverse some of the inventory reduction to make sure that we are, with the growing volume, able to always accommodate customer demands. Thank you. We have no further questions on the phone line, so I will now hand back to you for the webcast questions. Thank you. Thank you so much. We have a question. This question is to Alex. Can Cabka benefit from the current tariff term wall under the Trump administration? Can Cabka be able to produce locally and therefore avoid import tariffs? Thank you, Nadia. Yes, to some extent. Our local-for-local production setup means we can supply customers from within their own region, avoiding most import tariffs. We do not expect a major immediate impact, but the structure could give us a competitive edge if tariffs lead the customer to favor local-produced solutions. We do, however, highlight it very intensively with our customers in our negotiations because going forward, you do see hesitance in the U.S. because the uncertainty is there. Obviously, having a production facility in St. Louis is a big benefit and I think will become a competitive advantage for us going forward. Thank you, Alex. We have another viewer question. It's also pointed to you, Alex. Q2 sales showed a deterioration versus Q1, but as you've also indicated earlier, signs of an improved commercial momentum, sales both in Europe and in the U.S. Has that already translated in overall sales growth, or when do you expect this to materialize? Also, the second part of that question, we also mentioned price investment in the U.S. to regain share. What was pricing in the U.S. for the group in H1? Yeah. We are indeed seeing early signs of improved commercial momentum in both Europe and the U.S., particularly in the U.S., where recent wins as I've mentioned are beginning to contribute. That said, the impact on overall sales growth will be more visible in the second half as these contracts ramp up and volumes build. On pricing, we have maintained overall pricing discipline at the group level. In the U.S., we did make targeted price adjustments where necessary to support customer retention, as I said before, growth and bringing the customers back. These were selective and balanced with our margin objectives. For the group, average pricing in H1 was broadly stable compared to last year. Maybe Frank can give more details, but I think this is where we are today. Yeah, I think it's a very good summary, Alexander. No further adding. Good. As a reminder, to ask your questions on the phone line, please press star one and one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. Once again, it's star one and one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to ask a question via the webcast, please type them in the question box and click submit. Thank you. Thank you so much. I think that as we have no further questions coming via our webcast module as well as on the online conference, that concludes our conference call for today. We would like to thank you for participating, and you may now also disconnect. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you all for participating. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you and have a great day.