Astarta Holding PLC

Hello, everyone. Thank you very much for joining the call regarding Astartes six-month results. We started with an overview of our P&L. On the revenue side, we have decrease in agriculture and sugar production, and this is on the basis of lower harvest of last year. We are still in the process of selling last year's harvest, and this year's harvesting campaign is much later in the year. Stable... volumes and revenues in soybean processing, as well as in cattle farming. Gross margin retained at 40% at the level of last year, but we have positive development on the selling and distribution costs. and that allowed us to earn a higher EBITDA margin under IFRS. If we exclude biological assets remeasurement, our EBITDA margin is slightly higher than last year, 29%. Going into the summary cash flows, the focus this year are investment projects that we initiated on the soybean protein concentrate. We have a big investment in the soybean crushing segment. We started works on a new multi-seed crusher in the western area. of our operations. And that was the reason why we have higher investment cash flows, while operating cash flows also remain at reasonable levels, together with the leverage, which is still at one-time CBDA net debt. In the agricultural segment, we have positive pricing dynamics on corn and oilseed side. There is a new key crop in our table related to soybeans. This is related to us building our procurement network for soybeans as we prepare to launch soybean concentrate and the new multi-seed crusher in the next two years. So we not only increase production of oilseeds ourselves, but also building procurement volumes for further processing. With regards to grains, we have lower volumes because last year's harvest was lower and we accelerated our sales at the end of last year. But lower exports also can be seen in the lower salinity distribution expense. In terms of yields, we already report final yields for winter wheat and rapeseeds. They are at last year's level on wheat and lower on rapeseeds. For the late crops, the harvesting is starting now because of the later season this year. We also started preparing for winter planting season as well. The pricing situation remains positive for Ukrainian agricultural producers as global and domestic ex-work prices continue to converge. This is related again to the lower harvest last year, but also lower volumes which go through seaborne routes and Odessa-based ports. lead to lower logistics costs, which are favorable not for agriculture, but also for our sugar segment. In sugar, we see decline in the sugar prices, which led to lower revenues, but margins remain at good levels at 27% on the gross margin basis and 18% in EBITDA. We are one of the key exporters in the countries and our key markets are in the Middle East and in smaller markets of Eastern Europe outside the EU like Macedonia. This year, planting under sugar beet is down by one fifth. The industry continues to export actively despite the lower volumes welcome in the EU markets. The automotive trading regime finished on the 5th of June, but we are expecting more positive picture from next year, when the quota for sugar will be approved in the EU in September. There were recent reports that Europe might import about 1.4 million tons of sugar this year, and there could be a positive upside on the quota for sugar in September. But we'll have to wait for a few weeks to see more visibility on this issue. However, MENA markets, including Turkey, continue to be the key volume absorbers of Ukrainian exports, which is also the trend to continue for next year. Ukrainian and global prices converged to around $510 per ton. The convergence of the pricing is also a positive development for the Ukrainian producers. Soybean processing volumes of Krashen remain stable. There was a good uplift in the oil price, but the main product, which is soybean meal, pricing is down, and that led to lower margins, Krashen margin as well as EBITDA margin, which is down to 13%. We see increased acreage onto soybeans in Ukraine for this year, but the harvest is still to be seen. Cattle farming is also stable growth in milk production. The company continues to earn premium pricing for the high quality of milk it produces. Industrial milk producers continue to win market share from small households. Overall headcount in dairy cows is down, but industrial milk production is up and our share is growing currently at 3%. These are the results for the first six months in a nutshell, and we would go into the Q&A. Just a few seconds as questions will come through. We would like them to be seen in the box.

Ah, Marcin. First question from Marcin.

One second. With such low soybean segment performance, does a starter still consider its CapEx pipeline as viable? I will start to answer this question, but also will pass for more details to the commercial director. The first project that we initiated and we are more than in the middle of implementing it in the soybean concentrate, is targeted at a new value-added products. So in addition to meal and oil, we will target a higher margin and customer tailored concentrate and will target premium markets of aquaculture. So we are here for the long term and strategically we are going to the new niche of the market.