Hugo Boss Ag S/Adr

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Q22026 results conference call and live webcast. I am Sandra, the course call operator. I would like to remind you that all participants have been listened only mode and the conference has been recorded. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session. You can register for questions at any time by pressing star and one on your telephone. For operator assistance, please press star and zero. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it is my pleasure to hand over to Christian Stohr, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to our second quarter 2026 results presentation. Today's call will be hosted by Daniel Grieder, CEO of Hugo Boss and Yves Muller, CFO and COO. Before we begin, please be reminded that all revenue growth rates will be discussed on a currency-adjusted basis, understated otherwise. Also, as usual, during the Q&A session, we kindly ask all analysts to limit their questions to two. And with that, let me hand over to Daniel.

Thank you, Christian. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for joining us today. The second quarter marked another important step in the execution of our strategy Claim 5 Touchdown. While consumers' demand remained weak and market conditions continued to be volatile, we made further progress on our key priorities, strengthening brand equity, enhancing earnings quality, and driving long-term value creation. As we outlined at the beginning of the year, 2026, In the year 2026 is a deliberate year of realignment. We are talking targeted actions to build a stronger and more productive Hugo Boss, even if these measures temporarily wait on volumes. The progress achieved in the second quarter confirms that these actions are working, especially when it comes to gross margin expansion, inventory optimization, and cash generation. While there is still work ahead of us, these improvements strengthen our confidence that our strategy enhances the quality of our business and positions Hugo Boss for sustainable value creation over time. Before we discuss the quarter in more detail, let me briefly touch on the voluntary takeover offer by Fraser's Group. have been a long-standing partner of Hugo Boss for many years, both as a customer and as our single largest shareholder. We value the constructive relationship we build and appreciate the continued support for our strategic direction. Following a comprehensive review process, supported by two independent external opinions, both the Managing Board and Supervisory Board concluded that the offer price of €38 per share does not reflect the long-term potential of Hugo Boss. We therefore jointly recommended that shareholders do not accept the offer. Our assessment reflects our conviction in the standalone value creation potential of our company. The progress we have achieved under Claim 5 Touchdown reinforces our confidence in our ability to strengthen profitability in the long run, increase cash generation, and create sustainable value for all shareholders. Against this backdrop, our focus remains unchanged. We execute our strategy with discipline and unlock the tremendous potential of our two brands, Boss and Yugo. Let me therefore briefly revisit Claim5 Touchdown We often describe it as a shift from scale towards value creation, being more selective in how we drive growth, placing greater emphasis on profitability and fostering cash generation. From a value creation perspective, three elements are therefore particularly important. Strengthening our brands and distribution by enhancing consumer relevance, sharpening our product offering, and driving distribution quality. Second, improving profitability through gross margin expansion and disciplined cost management. Third, enhancing cash generation through simplified operations, lower working capital, and disciplined capital allocation. Taking together Claim 5 Touchdown is designed to strengthen the quality of our business while laying the foundation for long-term shareholder value creation. As outlined in our release this morning, the second quarter was characterized by both a volatile market environment and deliberate realignment actions. Sales declined by 9%, which reflects off the consumer demand as well as our strategic realignment measures. At the same time, we delivered improvements across key value drivers of the business. Cross-margin improvement by 200 basis points to 64.9%, operating expenses declined by 4% and free cash flow before leases reached 105 million euros. These improvements demonstrate that our priorities are translating into measurable outcomes. As part of the first Strategic Pillar Brand Excellence, our priority is to strengthen the relevance of DOS and Yugo and deepen consumer engagement. Throughout the first half, we continue to invest in our brands while further improving marketing effectiveness. Our Brand Spring-Summer 2026 campaigns Together with activations like the BOSS Open and the BOSS Summer Club supported brand visibility worldwide. This contributed to an increase in our social media community to almost 30 million followers. Beyond marketing, we continue to sharpen our product offering and reduce product complexity for the upcoming 2026 Winter Collection. These actions will strengthen brand equity, drive efficiency, and create a more focused assortment architecture. And we remain committed to further investing in our brands. In the second half, marketing investments are expected to increase in line with our plan facing. We will support key commercial moments across BOSS and Jugo, including our winter and holiday campaigns, additional BOSS by Beckham activations, and the launch of our new fall authentic luxury campaign featuring Japanese baseball superstar Shohan Ohtani. Together with our more focused product offering, these investments will further strengthen consumer engagement and brand desirability. Under our pillar distribution excellence, we remain focused on improving distribution quality, strengthening full-price sell-through and increased store productivity. Our loyalty program, Hugo Boss XP, continues to gain momentum in the first half. Membership increased by 16% year-over-year to more than 14 million members. Particularly encouraging is the growing relevance of Boss and Hugo among younger consumers who accounted for nearly half of new member acquisitions. At the same time, we remain disciplined in prioritizing full-price sales through and maintain tight control over markdown activity. This contributed to the strong gross margin development achieved in the second quarter and supports our focus on enhancing earnings quality. We also continue to optimize our global store network. In the first half, Hugo Boss recorded a net closure of 21 stores. At the same time, we continue to refine our store portfolio, including the opening of the first dedicated boss green store in the US market. While these actions temporarily affect volumes, they support higher productivity and a healthier distribution footprint over time. In our third pillar, operational excellence, we are building a more agile, efficient, and productive business. We continue to simplify process across our value chain, reduce complexity, and improve buying decisions. Increasingly, we embedded AI into planning and inventory management, which helps us improve forecasting accuracy and product allocation. Together with a more focused operating model, these efforts support productivity and better full price execution. Inventory management remains A key focus area for us. Discipline buying, more focused assortments, and ongoing inventory optimization are improving inventory efficiency as demonstrated by our first half performance. At the same time, we remain selective in our investment with a clear focus on our strategic priorities. An important milestone in this context is the successful go-live of the extension of our distribution center in Filderstadt in the second quarter. This investment of more than €100 million will further strengthen the efficiency of our logistics operations in the year to come. And with that, let me hand over to Yves for a more detailed review of our financial performance. Yves, over to you.