Good afternoon, welcome to Ahlstrom's Third Quarter Earnings Call. My name is Johan Lindh, and I'm responsible for investor relations. We will start the event with a presentation from our CEO, Hans Sohlström, and our Deputy CEO and CFO, Sakari Ahdekivi. After the presentation, you will have the chance to ask questions using the chat box or in person over the lines. With these words, Hans, over to you. Thank you, Johan. Good afternoon, good morning, ladies and gentlemen. We had a strong performance in Q3 with all-time high net sales, up 29% from last year, as well as, all-time high Q3 comparable EBITDA generation, up 45% from last year. Before we go to the presentation of the Q3 report, I would like to highlight our strategy and the core of our strategy, which we have defined and launched during the summer. The purpose of Ahlstrom, why we exist, is that we purify and protect with every fiber for a sustainable world. All our products have the properties of purifying air, liquids, waters, emissions, and protecting people, products, and the planet. With every fiber, we are referring to the fact that Ahlstrom has the best knowledge about fibers, most likely globally. In our research center in Pont-Évêque, we have in-depth knowledge of more than 1,000 different fibers and how to combine those fibers into high added value, technically advanced, sustainable materials. Most of the fibers we are using, 95% are natural fibers, but we also use today some synthetic fibers to achieve certain demanding functionalities and properties. With every fiber is also referring to the engagement of our employees with every fiber of your being, with every fiber of your body, and for a sustainable world. Sustainability is really driving the demand for our products globally and across all our businesses. The vision of our company is to be the preferred sustainable specialty materials company. I want to underline two words here. Number one, sustainable. Our materials are environmentally friendly, biodegradable, renewable, and they have functionalities, which helps to protect environment and protect both people and the planet. The other word I want to underline in our vision is specialty materials. Specialty. We are producing highly technically advanced, high-performing materials, specialties. The more demanding, the more technically advanced, the better it is for our company. Our values describing how we work in our company internally, but how we also work with our stakeholders are accountability, growth mindset, one team, and care. These form the base for our behaviors as well as our leadership principles. We are focusing on five attractive growing end markets, which are also forming the five business divisions within our group. Filtration, mission-critical air and liquid filtration materials. Food and consumer packaging, materials for improved food safety and product preservation. Healthcare materials, serving medical, laboratory, and life science end uses. Building materials for protecting building buildings and technical materials, highly technical applications, including protective materials. The vision for Ahlstrom in 2025 is to be the preferred sustainable specialty materials company, the undisputable global leader in combining fibers into technically advanced, high-performing, sustainable materials. Our ambition is to be the clear number one, number two leader in selected global and attractive growing niche markets with industry-leading margins and a resilient and broad mix of businesses. We want the company to be an engaging and safe place to work. We want to be the preferred company in the industry for our customers, for our employees, for investors, as well as other key stakeholders. These are our strategic priorities: customer centricity and commercial excellence, the execution of commercial strategies, the go-to-market strategies, the way how we are dealing in a very customer-centric way throughout the whole organization. Sustainability, which includes both our handprint and footprint, sustainable products and offerings to the market as to handprint, as well as a sustainable energy material, efficient way of producing. Technically advanced and innovative products, as well as operational excellence, which covers world class procurement as well as efficient supply chain and networking capital management. Active portfolio management to develop our portfolio, to acquire businesses which are synergistic bolt-on to strengthen our core. Last but not least, people and team. High-performing people and talent, as well as a high-performing team. Now I will move to the Q3 result. We delivered an all-time high third quarter result, in terms of comparable EBITDA EUR 120 million, 45% up from last year third quarter, as well as the second-ever best quarterly result after a record Q2 in this year. The year-to-date EBITDA generation is now EUR 357 million, which is 37% up from last year with a 14.2% EBITDA margin. Our performance was strong, supported by successful transformation-related commercial and operational excellence initiatives. Due to the economic slowdown worldwide, we can see a gradual change in the business environment with lower demand in certain end uses, which represent about one-third of our business, but continued stable demand in other end uses representing about two-thirds of our total net sales. We have launched the newly defined purpose and vision, as I just referred to. We divested 75% of our Decor business in the beginning of October, this is the business which historically has been the most volatile out of all our businesses. The 75% divesture of the business generated cash in excess of EUR 200 million. At the same time, beginning of October, we changed our business name from Ahlstrom-Munksjö to Ahlstrom, whereas the Decor, stand-alone Decor business then adopted and took the Munksjö name. Our sales increased to all-time high levels, slightly above the second quarter net sales levels, 29% up from last year third quarter. If we look to the various business divisions, which you can see in the pie chart on the right-hand side, the strongest growth we experienced in food and consumer packaging, our biggest division. In Q3, a 42% increase in sales, and year to date, 39% increase. Technical materials increased both, 30% both for the quarter as well as year to date. Filtration top line increased 23% for the quarter as well as 25% year to date. Building materials was 12% up in Q3 and 16% year to date. Healthcare, which is the more stable business throughout the pandemic and over the business cycles, top line increased 4% in the quarter and year to date 11%. Now I hand over to our Deputy CEO and CFO, Sakari. Over to you, Sakari. Thank you, Hans. As usual, I'll take you through a little bit more detail on the figures, coming back to the net sales, first of all. Before I start, actually, just as a reminder, Hans already described the new operating model, new divisions that we have, and Q3 is actually the first quarter where we report following our new division structure with five divisions in our continuing operations and excluding Decor, which is in discontinued operations in this report. Net sales up 29%. The components there were that volume slightly decreased, -3%. The pricing was the big driver, obviously of the sales growth at 24% increase, and then we had a positive FX translation impact of 8% in net sales. When we then move on to the EBITDA of the quarter, yes, it was a record high third quarter for the company, albeit, you know, lower than the record quarter of Q2, where we made EUR 131 million. Now, in Q3, we made EUR 120 million of EBITDA, and that was up from EUR 83 million in the corresponding quarter for on a comparable basis. The positives on the EBITDA side were higher selling prices and improved variable cost efficiency, which led to the increase in our margin on variable cost. The negative impacts came from higher input costs, higher personal costs, and somewhat lower volumes. The main story here is that the cost inflation was successfully managed with commercial and operational excellence initiatives leading to the higher margin on variable cost. When we look at the year-to-date EBITDA, it's very much the same story. The same dynamic that was true for the first two quarters of the year was consistent also in Q3. You see the same positive and negative impacts on EBITDA as you saw for the third quarter. Still on margin on variable costs to deep dive a little bit into that. Margin on variable costs, the difference between our net sales and our variable cost per ton. On a per ton basis, we improved year-on-year as well as quarter-on-quarter, albeit now somewhat less of an improvement step than we have seen in the previous quarters. Still a very strong testament to the fact that we have been further able to increase selling prices through price increases to offset the higher input costs. Also our cost efficiency through our procurement and operational excellence programs have contributed to this development. When we look at the reconciliation of comparable EBITDA to adjusted EBITDA, the first point I would like to raise here is that our LTM comparable EBITDA, and this is now including the discontinued operations, exceeded EUR 500 million for the first time at EUR 501.3 million. The adjusted EBITDA, including discontinued operations, was EUR 611.5 million for the last 12 months ending September 30th. This is compared to EUR 463 million in the second quarter, up by EUR 38 million. Comparable EBITDA up EUR 38 million, and then the adjusted EBITDA up by EUR 36 million. Really, it's the increase and improvement of comparable EBITDA which explains the improvement in the adjusted EBITDA. The full year impacts from our initiatives are roughly at the same level. Of course, the completed initiatives show up in the comparable EBITDA, and then the full year impacts of the ongoing initiatives then in the lines for the impacts shown here and broken down into the years. On cash flow then, the net cash from operating activities was EUR 84 million. This is up from EUR 46 million in the corresponding quarter in the previous year. The negative impacts were the high items affecting comparability, and these relate to our transformation initiatives. On the other hand, we had higher EBITDA generation and also a positive development in our working capital management in the quarter, which contributed positively. While capital expenditure, excluding acquisitions, totaled EUR 44 million, this was up from EUR 38 million in the corresponding quarter. Our CapEx was mainly related to some growth initiatives, efficiency improvements, and then our usual maintenance capital expenditure. At the end of the reporting period, our adjusted net indebtedness was EUR 1.953 million. This translates into a net indebtedness to adjusted EBITDA ratio of 3.2, compared to 3.3 at the end of the second quarter and 3.6 one year earlier. On the operating costs, this is the housekeeping slide that those of you who have followed our presentations will recognize well. The changes here are perhaps slight on the pie chart, but there are of course some dynamics playing into this. The relative weight of fibers has increased as a result of the pulp inflation that we've seen, and also to some extent due to the Decor exit, which also plays into some of the other raw materials. Relative weight of energy has increased due to the sharp increase in energy costs. In 2021, our energy accounted for about 8% of the cost base, while it's now 11%. This is, this pie chart is for the continuing operations only. The pulp price. Pulp is the most important raw material for us. You see the regional development in pulp prices for Europe, North America, and China. On the bottom of the page, you'll see the percentages. Whether you look at Q3 versus corresponding Q3 or the year to date versus year to date, you'll see that the increases have been quite substantial. As we saw the marginal variable cost continuing to improve, again, it shows how well we have been successfully able to pass through the increases into our selling prices. Energy has, of course, been a very volatile input cost for us. This chart shows the market prices for European gas and German power as a reference for that. On the following page, you'll see the same or similar graphs for crude oil and polypropylene, which is an ingredient in some of our medical products. On the debt structure, there is actually no major developments here compared to previous. The components remain the same. Our interest expenses for the last 12 months were EUR 118 million. Our liquidity is good with cash and cash equivalents of EUR 225 million at the end of the reporting period. We have no major refinancing needs immediately for the company. That concludes my section of the presentation. Over to you, Hans. Thank you, Sakari. All in all, as a conclusion, we had a strong performance in the third quarter, all-time high net sales, as well as all-time high Q3 EBITDA generation and the second best quarterly EBITDA in our history. There is a gradual change in the business environment, which has affected some businesses representing about a third of our net sales, while our diversified global market and business structure ensure continued resilience. The reorganization of the Decor business ownership was completed on October first, generating cash in excess of EUR 200 million. We changed our business name to Ahlstrom as of third of October. We have launched a newly defined purpose, vision, as well as corporate values and a new operating model and reporting structure to effectively carry out the strategy work. Finally, I would like to highlight that we have today informed about changes in the Ahlstrom executive management team. Jorn P. Jensen is appointed Chief Financial Officer and member of the group executive management team as of the 1st of December this year. Jorn has 27 years of experience as CFO, most recently as at Dyson Limited and earlier at Carlsberg A/S. CFO Sakari Ahdekivi leaves Ahlstrom in December to pursue new opportunities outside the company. Jorn brings with him an extensive international CFO experience for the continued transformation and profitable growth of Ahlstrom. We welcome Jorn to our team. I also thank Sakari for his valuable work during 9 years as CFO of Ahlstrom. During this time, Ahlstrom has more than tripled in size and transformed into a much stronger and more profitable company. In fact, when Sakari started his CFO tenure at Ahlstrom generated about EUR 60 million of comparable EBITDA on a net sales of EUR 1 billion. As you saw, LTM end of September, EUR 3.7 billion sales and EUR 501 million of comparable EBITDA. Sakari's contribution has been material to the success of Ahlstrom, and we wish him all the best for his future endeavors. Back to you, Johan. Thank you, Hans. Thank you, Sakari. Let's move on then to the Q&A session and to the operator. Do we have any questions on the lines? If you wish to ask a question, please dial star five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial star five again on your telephone keypad. Please state your name and company. Please go ahead. Hi. Ryan O'Hagan, Blackstone. Hi, guys. Can you hear me? We can hear you. Fantastic. Thanks for taking the question and congrats on a very strong quarter. I just want to come back to some of the comments you made during the presentation. I think you noted that you'd seen a slowdown affecting around one-third of the business. Could you maybe elaborate on kind of the extent of that slowdown you're anticipating going into four Q and next year? Yes. We have seen a slowdown in some of our businesses, and we see that the main reason for this slowdown is the fact that there has been a significant inventory buildup at our customer end. This is the result, first of all, of supply chain disturbances which occurred as we came out from the pandemic, and secondly, as a result of the previously never seen before cost inflation. So costs increasing to all-time high levels and also steeper and faster than ever before, which has led to a situation where customers have been building security stocks. And we now see as there is a cost deflation environment approaching, we can see that some of our customers have started to destock and reduce their inventory levels. This is affecting our demand, and certainly also the general economic slowdown has a certain impact on, let's say, lower underlying demand in certain business segments. I do want to underline that historically, Ahlstrom has performed a very strong resilience throughout various business cycles, and which is thanks to the fact of that we have a diversified business structure, and we have a global worldwide business structure. As I mentioned before, we have in fact divested 75% of our most volatile business, which is the Decor business. Still, we are a very resilient business, and we are moving into the next quarters and future with confidence. Got it. That's really helpful, and I think it leads quite nicely to my next question. You guys have been able to capture quite a bit of incremental margin in this year and passing that through to your customers. Well, what should we expect as we go towards a more deflationary environment, and we see some of those core segments reducing, you know, pulp, the polypropylene resins, and some other costs? Are you expected to hang on to some of that incremental margin, or how do you see that kind of developing as the kind of commodity cycle shifts? Yes. Thank you. We don't give specific guidance for the future, but in general, as you know, our businesses are highly differentiated. We have leading market position in global market leading market positions in niche products, niche markets, which are quite tailor-made and differentiated. This, of course, gives us also, let's say, a better, you know, price stickiness also in a deflationary environment. So, a part of the success in pricing is, of course, thanks to the degree, high degree of specialization, and that will also benefit us in a deflationary cost environment. Got it. Got it. That's really helpful color. I suppose the kinda last question, and I'll jump out of the queue. Just looking into the kinda next quarter and for 2023, could you maybe give us a breakdown of where you see network and cap going in four Q and next year and what you kind of have in mind for transformation costs in 2023, and what kind of CapEx spending you have maybe split out by the three buckets you referenced in the call? I think it was growth, transformation costs, and just core maintenance. Yeah. Sakari here. Thanks for the question. On working capital, I can generally say that there's a somewhat of a seasonality in the working capital, where towards the end of the year, normally, working capital is lower than it is in the middle of the year. The seasonal pattern is that, I would expect working capital to decrease during the fourth quarter. Of course, a little bit depending on the volume development, of course, into the new year. Typical seasonality would be then for a working capital build up during the first half, peaking around the summer months, the end of second quarter, beginning of third quarter. That's the normal buildup. On CapEx, we haven't given specific guidance on CapEx for this year or next. However, there is an acceleration of CapEx spend towards the end of the year. You should expect a higher CapEx in the fourth quarter than you've seen run rate this year. We haven't actually split out the different categories in our financial statements. That one I'll have to leave without comment. Got it. Got it. That's all really helpful color, guys. Thanks again for taking my questions and Sakari, very best of luck with the next role. Thank you. Thank you very much. Please state your name and company. Please go ahead. Hi, it's Samu Wilhelmsson from Nordea Markets. Thank you for the good presentation. One question that I had that of course we all know that the energy situation is quite challenging. For example, the European Commission has imposed measures for energy consumption curtailments in Europe. We are seeing some tissue producers already curtailing production due to high energy costs. Are you seeing any negative effects in your operations at the moment or going forward towards the winter? Thanks. Yes. Thanks for the question. In fact, we have seen some positive impacts of competitors curtailing their production. In some of our business segments, competitors have curtailed, which has led to a situation where we have been able to gain some additional business. I would also say that the fact that we are a globally global company with 38 plants in three continents also gives us the possibility to optimize the and really to see to it that we are producing the highest possible EBITDA margin on the energy available at different cost levels in different regions. Clearly here, our global presence and large asset footprint gives an optimization benefit. All right. Thank you for the clarifying answer. No further questions from me. Thanks. The next question comes from Teo Lasarte from Marathon. Please go ahead. Good afternoon. Congratulations on the numbers. My question is, the first one is the following. In terms of the proceeds from the disposal of the Decor business, any sort of guidance in terms of how that's gonna be used for? Is it right to assume that it will be spent mainly on acquisitions? Yeah. Thank you for the question. We don't give any specific guidance for the use of those proceeds. They are now strengthening our balance sheet and we will use them in a way which maximizes the value of our company. Okay. When you referred earlier, this is more of a general strategy question about the portfolio optimization. Could that be taken to mean that you could also look at selling some existing parts? When you're talking about portfolio optimization, is it more about, you know, buying new businesses? Well, as we stated in the strategy section, one of our six strategic priorities is active portfolio management. Of course, we are all the time looking into synergistic value creative bolt-on acquisitions to strengthen our most attractive core businesses. We are also, of course, constantly evaluating our business platform. You know, how we can develop our company in order to maximize the value and attractiveness of the company. Okay. Got it. Just on apologies if you've mentioned this before, but just on the energy side. Have you stated roughly what% of your energy needs are hedged in 2023, and maybe 2024? Yes. We don't give any specific number on the hedging levels. In general we have a hedging policy in place where we have a rolling approach so that the majority of our costs are hedged, you know, for the coming year. We don't give any more specific guidance on that. Okay. Let me follow up on that then. When you're saying that you have a rolling policy, is it fair to assume that you know, you're hedging on a 12 month basis, at this point you wouldn't have any hedging in place for, say, 2024? We are gradually also, let's say increasing hedging, beyond 2023, but at on a very minor level currently. We are mainly focusing on the next 12 months. Okay. So what in that part of the presentation when you make the point that energy costs are now 11% of your operating costs, is that on an unhedged basis or on a hedged basis? That's both hedged and, and spot. It's a combination of the costs that appear in the P&L. Okay. Okay. Is it fair to say that again, you're providing information, but if you don't give us the context, it's very difficult for us as investors to understand the impact of the energy crisis. I mean, is then again going back to that 11% of operating costs being energy, so we assume that that is accounting for the majority of your energy costs being hedged. Is that what you're saying? According to our hedging policy, that would be the case. Yeah. Okay. All right. Okay. Just a follow-on question from the previous one. Just to clarify, you're not curtailing any of your own production. You made comments regarding your competitors, but it was unclear if you've curtailed any of your own production in Europe. Of course we adapt our production and our cost to demand. In case of lower demand in some segments, we are taking market related downtime. We also strive to flexibility in fixed costs through temporary layoffs and various ways to reduce our fixed cost base and adapt our fixed cost base to lower demand. When it comes to the curtailment, we have not taken any, let's say, longer term curtailments, longer curtailments as some of our competitors have been doing. Even we have also seen actually lately some definite plant closures as a result of the high cost levels among our competitors. Okay. Okay. Got it. Just a last question, promise. I mean, I don't expect a number, but maybe some comments or some guidance. Again, as people are very focused on the energy crisis. If you were to look at your energy use on unhedged basis, I mean, roughly where would it be as a% of your revenues given compared to the figures that you released? Yeah. I don't have a% of revenues in my head, but I think the graph that we were showing there was of course the market energy prices for the couple of examples there for the European side that were in the presentation. That's probably the best reference. Yep. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. The next question comes from Roger Spitz from Bank of America. Please go ahead. Thank you. Good afternoon. One more on, energy. How much of your European energy is advantaged, perhaps based on hydro or perhaps based in Scandinavia? Thanks for the question. A very small part is hydro-based or based. The majority of our European capacity is based in Central and Southern Europe. Right. Okay. And then, regarding your fiber requirements, what% are you back integrated into your own mill? I'm excluding the Abaca fibers. We are about, if we look into the total, our total capacity, we are about 40% backward integrated into fiber production. Taking into account, let's say, all the fiber production we have, also the fiber that we are selling to the market from the Aspa pulp mill, so about 40%. Around that number, yes. 40%. Great. Yeah. Okay. Lastly, propylene. What products do you manufacture that you're buying propylene or polypropylene? I mean, I don't think you're making polypropylene-based nonwovens. I think you're making fiber-based nonwovens. Perhaps you can tell me what propylene is used for. We have certain products, where we are using synthetic fibers. As said, 95% of the fibers we're using are natural, mainly wood-based fibers. In some products, in order to achieve certain properties, for instance, in medical applications, we need to use also synthetic fibers. Okay. Thank you very much. As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial star five on your telephone keypad. Please state your name and company. Please go ahead. Hello. Hi, can you hear me? Yes, we hear you. Hi, it's Daniel from Boya. Do you have an update on the minimum amount for the minority buyouts? I think you said maybe previously that you might be paying EUR 192 million by year-end. Is this still possible or it might be delayed? Concerning the proceeding, it is still ongoing, and a judgment is expected from Helsinki District Court mid-2023. There is a possible, a possibility that up to the undisputed amount will be paid during the proceedings, but a judgment or decision about that might come by end of this year. As such, no additional news or reason for updates here concerning the process. Okay, thanks. For the declining part of the portfolio, that you mentioned, I guess you were referring, you know, the current trading, maybe Q4. You know, can you share some ranges of declines? Like, are you looking at 5%-20%? Then can you specify what kind of end market, is it from? No, we don't give any forward-looking statements. It mainly relates to the, let's say, to the industrial end use areas where, you know, there is, we can see that destocking and some underlying slower demand. As I pointed out before, the majority of our business is very resilient and has proven very stable over the business cycles. Okay, thanks. You know, about this point on overstocking and now destocking effects, is it your understanding that, you know, the more stable demands that you see in two-thirds of your businesses, your customer are still, you know, trying to overstock? Or their ability to stock was lower since the beginning, so they are effectively just buying because they, you know, they need to sell? We have reasons to believe that there is good underlying demand in for instance food and consumer packaging which has proven stable and growing over the cycles, and many other of our businesses and end use areas also. We believe that there is a solid underlying demand growth, you know, despite of economic slowdown and cycles, and that's correlating with our earlier experience from for instance the pandemic or, let's say, the financial crisis 2008 and 2009. All right, thanks. You know, just one follow-up on CapEx for next year. Understand there's no guidance still. Is it at least possible to know if it is, below or above EUR 200? Yeah. Yeah. I think the answer is no guidance on CapEx for next year. Right. All right, thanks for your time. Thank you. There are no more questions at this time, so I hand the conference back to the speakers. Thank you. Let's then move on with questions in the chat box here. The first questions concerns the floating rates and can you please update the hedging policy for our floating rates? We have a significant portion of the debt is actually either fixed or capped. That's the status of the floating versus fixed rate at this stage. The second question concerns the EBITDA development sequentially. The question is, why did EBITDA decline by 8% from second quarter to third quarter? Yes. If we look at the cyclicality of our business, normally, you know, the third quarter is somewhat slower than the beginning of the year and the main reason is, let's say, some of the maintenance shutdowns and which are planned typically for the summer period. Basically, the lower volumes would be one main reason for that. There's a question concerning maintenance CapEx for next year. Would you like to comment on that one? Maintenance CapEx as such is quite stable from one year to the next because the plants require a certain number of maintenance. Maintenance CapEx is not really the component which swings CapEx. It's more growth and other development initiatives which would make the difference between the years in capital expenditure. There's the following question concerns M&A activity and if you would like to comment on the outlook, if any. We are naturally, as a part of our strategy and our active portfolio management, we are actively looking for value accretive, attractive acquisition targets which would strengthen our most attractive core businesses. The next question concerns the rating agencies and whether we have been speaking to them lately. We speak to them on a regular basis as a normal routine. On energy, there is a question concerning government gaps and assistance. Are we expecting such benefits to receive such benefits? That's of course always a little bit unpredictable and, dependent on political decisions. Little bit difficult to predict. We don't count on any government subsidies. I mean, we build our business success on underlying fundamental business performance. There is a question concerning the volumes in the third quarter and if we disclose those by segment. To that question, I can say that, no, I'm afraid we're not disclosing volumes by segments. There's also a follow-up question concerning volume development for September to November, but normally we don't disclose that as well. That would then conclude the questions, main questions in the chat box. Hans, over to you for final remarks. Well, thank you, Johan. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. As said, we had a strong Q3, both in terms of net sales and comparable EBITDA generation. We are continuing to develop our company, improve performance, building a better company with speed and determination. Thank you very much. Have a good day. Take care. Bye.