Aurubis Ag Unsp/Adr

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and a warm welcome to the analyst call. At this time, all participants have been placed on a listen early mode. The floor will be open for questions following the presentation. Let me now turn the floor over to your host, Elke Brinkmann, Investor Relations.

Good afternoon, and welcome to our call on the results of the first three months of fiscal year 2025-26. We are here with our CEO, Tuva Sark, and our CFO, Steffi Hoffmann, who will walk you through the figures for the first three months of 2025 and 26 and current developments at Aarhus. We will first take you through the presentation and then open the line for your questions. If you would like to ask a question during the Q&A session, please use the nine-star key segment. Before we start, a short reminder of our disclaimer on forward-looking statements. Today's capital market presentation contains forward-looking statements about Aruba's plans and expectations. These statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ naturally from those anticipated. Let me now turn the floor over to Tugha Saq.

Thank you, Elke. And good morning, good day, good afternoon from Hamburg. Arubis started the new fiscal year with a sound result that was in line with market expectations. Operating EBT was satisfactory at 105 million euros, driven mainly by higher metal prices and consequently a higher metals result. Declining TCRCs, however, partly offset the positive metal result effect. EBITDA was 164 million euros compared to 184 million euros last year, which reflects anticipated higher costs in the overall group. Net cash flow was slightly negative at minus 8 million euros compared to 178 million euros in Q1 of last year. Free cash flow before dividend was minus 103 million euros compared to 39 million euros the year before. Higher working capital at higher metal prices was the main factor in lowering cash flows, and both figures should be viewed as snapshots, as Stefan will explain further later in the presentation. Operating RSE on a rolling four-quarter basis decreased to 7.8%, down from 11.7% the year before, This reflects lower earnings in prior year quarters and higher capital employed from our growth investments. Looking ahead to the remaining quarters of the fiscal year, we expect positive effects on earnings, in particular from higher metal prices and strong demand for copper products. In light of these factors, we raised our full year guidance for operating EBT to between 375 and 475 million euros. The previous range was 300 to 400 million euros. Once again, our production figures show the broad scape of our multi metal competence. I would like to briefly highlight the key drivers. Starting with our input, concentrate throughput went up 5% year over year to 630,000 tons carried by a good operational performance. Copper scrap and blister copper output, on the other hand, went down by 5% to 115,000 tons. This was caused by our input mix in the quarter. Other recycling materials totaled 125,000 tons, slightly above last year. On the output end, the stable performance of our tank houses resulted in 285,000 tons of cathodes produced. Sulfuric acid output increased by 5% to 583,000 tons, right in line with concentrate throughput. Wire rod output remains stable at 201,000 tons, while copper shapes output dipped by 15% to 34,000 tons. Lagging demand, trade barriers, and imports were the main factors here. In contrast, federal products and specialty wire increased slightly to 22,000 tons. Our output of other metals is another indication of the complexity of our heat materials and varies based on the content of those materials. Let me now take you through the market environment. This chart shows the development of four key indicators since September 2023. based on market intelligence. On the downstream side, European spot copper premiums remained widely stable at a high level in fiscal year Q1. Please bear in mind that premiums for annual contracts differ from spot premiums and will become effective only from fiscal year Q2 onwards. Sophoric asset prices showed another increase, a move supported by strong demand, especially from overseas markets. On the upstream side, RCs for recycling materials improved in Q1 of the fiscal year because higher metal prices increased the availability of scrap. We expect that this trend will take effect in our results with a time lag. Spot TCRCs for copper concentrates stayed at low levels in fiscal year Q1, reflecting the tightness in the concentrate market. Our long-term supply contracts and diversified sourcing, however, help us manage this challenging environment. Let me now turn to the price environment for key metals and the US dollar. As all of you have taken notice of in fiscal year Q1, gold and silver prices continue to rise and reached all new time highs. Copper prices also moved up notably as well with an increase to close to $1,000 per ton in December alone, with an increase of $1,000 per ton in December alone. The favorable development of these three metal prices positively contributed to our metal result, as we see later. Compared to Q1 of the last fiscal year, the U.S. dollar depreciated against the Euro. The rubles long dollar position remains unchanged at approximately 530 million U.S. dollars for the fiscal year. 54% of our U.S. dollar exposure is hedged at 1.125. For fiscal year 26-27, around 40% of the exposure is hedged at a rate of 1.188. As a reminder, please note that there is no direct one-to-one correlation between our P&L and the price development shown here. We hedge part of our earnings, and some of the effects are only visible with a time lag. Before we move on the details of our financials, I would like to share an update on our contracting season. Despite the challenges in the concentrate market, we have already secured a very high share of our supply for calendar year 2026. Through long-term contracts that target complex raw materials, we ensure reliable supply to our primary smelters. This also allowed us to close additional long-term contracts, including agreements with new mining projects. At the same time, we also ensure we have the flexibility to obtain additional volumes and steer our market presence as needed. For recycling, the market is still short-term. In nature, invisibility is limited. Copper scrap availability still improved compared to the summer, a development supported by higher metal prices. This, in turn, allowed us to secure a supply of scrap that is enough to cover our needs until the end of the second quarter of 2025-2026, at the very least. In the U.S., we are focused on securing the supply for over-srichment, in line with the plan's ramp-up. Finally, we are expanding our sourcing presence beyond Europe to broaden our supplier base at the same time as well. In the downstream business, we have mostly wrapped up a very successful sales campaign. Demand for our copper product remains high. This is especially true for wire rod, which we largely supply to the energy, infrastructure, and communications sector. We remain on track, moving in the right direction with sustainability. Our Tomorrow Metals commitment fosters customer relationships and helps generate new business. Demand for copper shape and flat roll products lag somewhat behind the high demand for wire rod. This was mostly due to the reasons I already mentioned in detail. Looking at sulfuric acid, we're still seeing stable demand from the European chemical and fertilizer industries. Demand from overseas has also stayed high and is supporting the current market terms. Our acid sales bulk give us good visibility in the summer despite the higher volatility on the spot market. This reinforces our confidence that we will be able to maintain this high level during this fiscal year. And now let me hand over to Steffen Hoffmann, who will take you through the details of our financials.