Evonik Industries Ag

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Q1 2026 earnings conference call. I am Matilde, the course call operator. I would like to remind you that all participants will be in listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session. You can register for questions at any time by pressing star and 1 on your telephone. For operator assistance, please press star and 0. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Christian Kohlmann, CEO. Please go ahead.

Thanks a lot. Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. Thanks, everybody, for joining our first Water Earnings Call. Today marks another special call for Ebonic Industries. I have not only one, but two CFOs sitting next to me. First of all, thanks a lot. Thanks a lot to you, Klaus. Over the last seven months, you have navigated our finance organization confidentially through rough waters, especially in crisis times like these. Your decades-long experience has proven, proven once and once again, to be incredibly valuable. This experience was also appreciated by capital markets. as we had two good earnings calls with you so far. And I'm confident we'll have another one here today. Luckily, you're not gone, but you will return to Singapore and continue to help our Asian operations. Second, welcome, Michael. Welcome, Michael. I'm looking forward to at least the next four years together. We have a lot of challenges ahead of us, for sure. But with your vast experience across industries, companies and roles, you will for sure make a difference for us. I have no doubt that when my renewed contract ends in 2030, we will have jointly created a different Evonik, a much better positioned and much more profitable company. With that, ladies and gentlemen, Let's jump into today's agenda. Klaus will start with our Q1 results, and I will then take over for the outlook. Klaus, the stage is yours.

Thank you, Christian. Thank you for your kind words as well. And as much as I enjoy sitting here with you, I am now looking forward to be back full-time in Singapore and Asia again. Asia is the center of our future growth and this is in these days, I think, even more important than ever. Michael, welcome to Evonik. I am happy that you decided to join us and I am looking forward to good teamwork with you. Now, let's have a look at the first quarter of 2026. Adjusted EBITDA came in at 475 million euros and with this slightly above our expectations at the beginning of the year. This result was supported by continued self-help measures. For example, we counted 410 employees less end of March compared to end of last year. But of course, the main driver was a better operating performance in March. After January and February had continued on the weak side. However, with the stronger than expected march, or without the stronger than expected march, we would have still delivered our guidance for Q1. After the war in the Middle East broke out, we started to see volumes picking up only in late March. was likely not an improvement in underlying demand. We believe this was rather pre-buying with customers aiming to secure volumes and potentially avoid price increases in the future. This was visible mainly in advanced technologies, the segment that clearly beat our end-year expectations. Next to pre-buying we also see notably weaker competition right now. For example in crosslinkers. PA12 was strong in Q4 already and continued this trend in Q1. In Q1 we saw only minor pricing benefits as we have a certain delay in price adjustments. Q2 is looking more promising on the pricing side. Our cash generation was strong in Q1. Free cash flow was at 183 million euros. This is almost on prior year level. Despite clearly weaker earnings. Support came also from customer payments and from a take-or-pay contract that we terminated about one year ago. We had recorded the corresponding earnings last year in Q1 and Q2. We also received a couple of customer prepayments and co-finance for investment projects. Networking capital was about 100 million euros outflow, so very similar to Q1 2025 and in line with our usual seasonality. Chart 7, when you look to it, shows how we are positioned in the current Middle East war environment. There are a lot of disruptions in global supply chains and chemical production. First and foremost, this impacts companies that are heavily export-oriented and that predominantly rely on feedstocks from the Middle East. These are mostly local players directly in the region, and also in Asia. So with our global setup in which we source and produce local for local, we are relatively better positioned. With the one partial exception of methionine in Singapore. Our production and our customer deliveries are secured and to a high degree also out of Singapore, but there is always let's say, fluctuation and changes which we have to take into consideration. And we have also balanced product mix, portfolio mix of specialties and more upstream products. This is also a great help right now. This means we will likely see a good advanced technology and a better than expected C4 performance in the short term. Beyond quarter two, The disruptions bear the risk of other effects, or more specific, the risk of inflation-led demand weakness. More details on this now from Christian in the audience. Christian, and back to you.

Thanks, Klaus. It's a pleasure for me now to convey to you the audience with some moral bits and pieces about what is going on. And I'm sure that this will interest you the most, our expectation for the second quarter and the full year. Ladies and gentlemen, given the steep increase in input costs, we are pushing hard to pass these through to our customers. And it is working. Consequently, we see strong price momentum in many businesses right now. At least in April, tree buying is continuing, so we will likely see higher volumes in the second quarter. That all sounds great. But please keep in mind, though, We also have significantly higher input costs and increased supply chain risks. And especially when looking at methionine, we have volume limitations from the fourth measure in Singapore, plus a plant maintenance shutdown in one of the two single programs in April. Both effects are limiting our volumes and enhance our ability to fully capture the attractive price and value. All in all, we record at least 550 million euros of adjusted EBITDA in the second quarter. This is a significant improvement, both, versus this year's Q1 and last year's second quarter. I guess this is a strong message in these days. But, honestly, I can hear you say, can't it get even better? Ladies and gentlemen, that is hard to say right now as things change quickly. But we are using the term at least, at least, so you can see we are aiming to strike a balance between on the one side optimism and on the other side the necessary caution given volume uncertainty towards the end of the quarter. In the third quarter and beyond that uncertainty, is increasing. So it is plausible that rising inflation can lead to end customers' demand softening. Consequently, demand for our products could fall again, possibly even amplified by destocking after current pre-buying. This could lead to lower utilization and hence could weigh on our performance in the second half of this year. But, and I guess it goes without saying, none of these developments are certain. though we take a balanced view. Let me say, a balanced view with confidence. In the short term, there are clear opportunities. Everybody at Evonik is working hard to capture as much of these opportunities as possible. Our outlook for the second quarter feels well underpinned by these. Do the second half of this year risks might increase? Against this backdrop, ladies and gentlemen, We confirm our outlook for the full year 2026. The adjusted EBITDA is to come in between 1.7 and 2.1 billion euros. We know that many of you see our earnings at the high end of this range, or even above. But, I guess, I hope, you will understand that given we just reported on the first quarter, and given all the uncertainties around for the second half of this year, it would not be true. It would really not be prudent to get too enthusiastic already now. But with a better first quarter of the year, the risk profile for the outlook is obviously developing into the right direction. The right direction. With a confirmed EBITDA outlook, we also reiterate our cash flow guidance. You know, we deliver cash in all waters. with a good start into the year, underpinning our 40% conversion target. Second quarter will see support from year-on-year lower cash-out for bonus payments, and our balance sheet will be supported by a new dividend policy. Given current price inflation, networking capital could temporarily turn into a headwind in the next few months, but as a weaker second half is a possibility, the year-end effect is possible. really hard to predict right now. Thanks so far for your attention and now we are happy to take your questions.

We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on the touch-tone telephone. You will hear a tone to confirm that you have entered the queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use only handsets while asking a question. Anyone who has a question may press star and 1 at this time. The first question comes from the line of Simon David from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Yes, David from BNP. So a few questions, please. Could you give an early view of the May order books versus what you saw in April? That's number one. Related but sort of slightly different, if you're seeing pre-buy continuing, how can you tell the difference between pre-buy and share gain? Have you had customers telling you they're stocking up or indications that stock levels are rising? And then finally, could you talk about the sort of mechanism of price increases in methionine, how much of the increase you'll see in the second quarter versus how much is coming through later in the year on contracts, et cetera? Thank you.

Yeah, David, thank you very much for your questions. The order book question goes to Klaus, also the pre-buying indication to Klaus, and then we continue with the signing question with Christian.

Okay. Yeah. Good morning, David. So, order books for me are still looking good, and we have a good order book in April. We don't have the final numbers of April yet, but it shows also a further improvement compared to March, and we also see a strong order book in May. Beyond May, it's already difficult to say, because there's also a tendency right now to place orders late or change orders. So that's currently order book for the next month. It looks pretty good. Identify pre-buying is, of course... difficult. We have so many different business lines, as you know, and we have a lot of markets, different markets. In general terms speaking, we don't believe that there is a fundamental improvement in the economy. So whatever we see right now, there is only two options. Either it's we buy or we gain market share. And from that point of view, we have also both components. We know in certain areas we have a split of where we leave 80% really pre-buying, but also a touch of market share gain because we are in certain areas able to supply where others are not. One prominent example is, for example, our oil editors business line. So here we are really in a very favorable position to be capable of supplying where some others are not. So, like I said, this is now a mixture of pre-buying and some, let's say, market share gains. However, having said this, the vast majority, we believe, is a pre-buying effect.

Okay. I think I'm answering the question about the signing. Let's keep it like this. 2026, as of today, is the third year in a row where we will have much better than expected sign-in performance. And looking into the second quarter, they're saying that we'll have a pretty good sign-in business, which is well underpinned already. Looking forward, it could be that the Let's keep it from the market perspective and find thought it could last also into the third quarter. So in a nutshell, for our outlook, the business is much better than at the beginning of the year, that our assumption has been during the beginning of the year. Maybe some are color about the background for it. For sure, we are market leaders. not only in terms of production, but especially with regards to our global setup, because we are the one and only methionine player having one world-scale capacity in each and every growth region, in Europe, in the United States, and in Asia, here in Singapore. So having said this, the current situation proves again how valuable this kind of methionine positioning for us is in other words that is really helpful in underpinning our position of let me say having a good raw material access which leads to a good position of fighting potential supply disruptions and you should keep in mind that from the second half of this year our of our capacity in the United States in Mobile, Alabama will ramp up, so that is another, let me say, kind of tailwind for our messianic. On the other side, the level of uncertainty is high, and therefore, it is prudent to say that we should not ignore that in the midterm, the normalization of prices we should expect. So, in a nutshell, second quarter, we'll see good homocyanin rates, could also last into the third quarter, and then let's see what is going to happen, and we should not put a blind eye on the potential, let me say, crisis normalization, which could occur. So, so far from my side.

Thanks, that's really helpful. It was also just to understand the amounts of refining pricing, which is on contract versus spot. So the spot prices that we see having materially increased, how much of your business is on those spot prices? And we'll see the benefit in Q2 and how much might come through later if prices hold up.

David, I can read you. David, I hear you and I could read you really from the bottom of my heart. But would it be true that you had to walk into the details I guess it would not. But as you know, the spot prices are not at all the contract prices. And if the spot prices get up, the contract prices will follow, but not to this kind of extent. And you should keep in mind, as you know already, because you're a methionine professional, that there is always somewhat like a time delay. from the, let me say, from the increase of the spot prices and then you have the respective or similar or running this direction contract prices. But I can really read you and please give me the chance to answer the question in the way I have done. Thanks a lot.

Much appreciated. Thank you.

The next question comes from the line of Anil Shenoy from Barclays. Please go ahead.

Hi. Good morning, everyone, and thank you so much for taking my questions. The first question is on the methionine market again. So I was just wondering if you could give us a sense of like what percentage of methionine capacity may be disrupted because of the raw material unavailability in Asia. Again, on similar lines, if these Asian operations stay disrupted, I mean, if the state of HOMOs were to open tomorrow, how long do you think these Asian operations may stay disrupted? So any on the disruptions in the Italian market would be very helpful. So that's my first question. And the second question is, is there any chance, and this is generally for the group, that the benefits from the Asian disruptions that you're seeing, be permanent? I'm asking this because a couple of companies have said that given the Asian disruptions, they're trying to get longer term contracts with the customers and customers would ideally be willing to pay premium if they're secured of volumes throughout the year. So, are you seeing, I mean, when you negotiate your contracts with your customers, would you be thinking from this point of view? Thank you.

Thank you, Anil. Christian is taking the Mattainen one and a clause maybe on the long-term implications and if structurally something has changed in the industry.

Sometimes I do feel like the Mattainen Pope of the company. So happy to take your question. First of all, by some rule, 80% of the crude oil of gas from the Arabian Gulf is transferred to Asia. Which means, in other words, the impact of the supply chain of methionine capacities in Asia overall is heavily impacted by this. Second, we, talking about our capacities in methionine are largely covered for the coming months, but not fully. That is why we have declared a force majeure for our capacities in Singapore, which is still ongoing. So we are largely covered, but for the coming months, but not to the full. And then you have asked how we would assess, how we would judge upon if the war... the Middle East would come to an end how long would the impact last would put pressure on the supply chains honestly I'm not an owner of a crystal ball but so far if I would give you with all the cautions of a German give you some ideas about I think for sure for sure several months Could I come closer to it? Maybe when we will meet in August, giving you our second quarter numbers and figures. But that is, let me say, best assumption. For sure, several months plus. With this, I hand over to Klaus.

Good. Good morning, Anil. So, yeah, your question was, are some of the benefits of the disruption permanent? So, generally speaking, we don't like disruptions. It's not good for the business. So we rather prefer to have a normal open market, no disruptions, fair competition. Here, the question is right now, so of course, we look into what is changing because of this disruption. There's another one that's pointing towards more regionalization. Supply chain security. So, of course, it has another impact that companies think about this, I think, even more intensive than in the past, but it's still in the general direction. That's why we believe this strategy we have put in place many, many years ago, one-third, one-third, one-third in the world, being the region for the region, which we have not fully mastered yet, but to a certain degree, of course, is the right way to go. That's one... One thing, answering your question, it is underlining our strategic approach. Then, when I go to a little bit more specific, there are, of course, some areas where we see it. Right now, we know supply security is playing a bigger role, again, also in pricing. But we also know from the past, we know COVID is not that long ago, it fades out. So, this element plays a role But over time, it fades away. So we would not bank on this. So what we are looking right now is in certain other areas where we will certainly have an impact. So biodiesel is something that is delayed. Our alkoxide business is not doing in the U.S. and in Europe as we predicted. Here we see now, and we see a trend, that this legislation will come in place faster. put more biodiesel into diesel to become less dependent on oil-based diesel. In Asia, it's already happening. Indonesia has just increased the mandatory amount of biodiesel that has to be put in place, and Indonesia is thinking about this as well, even though they have already high degrees. It gives you an element. So this will be a permanent thing to the benefit of our aircraft business. Our membrane business will also benefit because here we have the membranes for biodiesel plants, for biogas plants, sorry. And also here we really see it pick up much more interest now to use waste gas and purify it with our membranes, another permanent element. And last but not least, our oil editors group is also helping customers right now. You know, maybe you have wet base oil. High-quality base oil is becoming short-term. especially because the suburban plant of Shell in the Middle East is out of production right now. So here we have customers to reformulate, and by doing this, use our additives. So we have elements that will be permanent, and we will have others that are not permanent. Sorry to say, there's no general answer for your question. But there will be some benefits that we are going to keep, and others will go back to normal when it's over.

Thank you so much for the answers. It's actually very helpful. Thank you.

We now have a question from the line of Martin Rüdiger from Kepler Schifrin. Please go ahead.

Yes. Thanks for taking my three questions, please. The first two are on the guidance for the second quarter. Firstly, on OXENO and the expanding spreads in the C4 chain, is it possible that OXENO will contribute a large part of the 75 million sequential earnings increase from 475 million in Q1 in EBITDA to the guided minimum EBITDA of 550 million in Q2, and In connection with Oxeno, there are hopes by some market participants that Oxeno could reach record earnings this year. Do you agree on that bullish expectation? Secondly, the role of methionine for your guidance in the second quarter. It seems that methionine did not have a very strong Q1 party because of the force majeure in Singapore and some other things you mentioned already. Would you agree that due to the rising volumes and the rocketing prices from methionine in April and May, that a large part of the 75 million sequential earnings increase between Q1 and Q2 will come from methionine? And the third question is on the free cash flow of 183 million in Q1. This includes the 20 million cash inflow from the termination of a take-or-pay contract from Q1 2025, why did it last one year to receive that cash? And besides that, can you disclose the amount of the other two items which supported free cash flow, i.e. the customer prepayment and the customer co-financing of investments? Because I would like to know what the underlying free cash flow was. Thank you.

Thank you, Martin. Christian will start with more general comments on the Q2 outlook and including methionine. Klaus then takes the OXENO part and the comments or your questions on the free cash flow.

Okay. Hi, Martin. Good to hear you. Let's keep it like this. First of all, at least 550 million euros of EBITDA means at least 500 million euros of EBITDA So that is for sure significant improvement if I compare it to first quarter of this year and second quarter of last year. And having said so, I would say, as mentioned, it is a balance between optimism on the one side and the necessary caution on the other side. And coming now closer to your question, all of our three segments, will likely see an earnings rise if I compare it to the first quarter. And that will be, as you know, mainly driven, unsurprisingly for sure, in advanced technologies. Here we have seen continued pre-buying on a good level in April. So in a nutshell, April, I dare say, was quite sexy. And now, is it exclusively because of methionine? No, not at all. Look at our cross-linked businesses. For example, look at P.H. Wells. Here we have a really strong outcome. And in methionine, of course, you're right, saying during the first quarter, methionine was, let's say, quite okay. And then by the increase of demand, by the increase of the prices, we started to benefit from this from the last days of March, because as mentioned, there is a certain delay between spot on the one and then contract prices on the other side. So here we will see a better, a better, definitely better, the second quarter in respect of Messianin. But is it the only and exclusive growth pillar for Evonik in those days? No. No, no, no, no, no, no. Not at all. Here we are well positioned and are in a different, in a good amount of different pockets of growth. And by having said so, I hand over to Klaus.

Yeah, then let me continue with another element that, of course, will contribute to Q2 and the rest of the year, you ask for this, what is the oxyno part doing? And maybe one comment before I go into oxyno, please don't underestimate the huge increase. Don't get misguided by pricing only. We have a lot of cost increases on the raw materials side. And so that has to be really taken into account. which you also are not fully, we have not seen our pricing effect fully yet, but we also have not seen the cost effect fully yet. So, having said this, come back to Oxeno, your Oxeno question. Oxeno, we expect, of course, an improvement. However, it will also contribute to our guidance, no doubt. Will it come back to record level? That was the second part of the question. Absolutely not. Also here, I think what we feel in the markets is really over-exaggerated. There are many reasons for this, because in the old days we had different kinds of raw material contracts in place. We have also had at these times a full loan demand, which we don't have now. Now we have, of course, now a better spread on the NAFTA side, no doubt. We will benefit from this. But on the other hand, we also have minuses because if you have one example, we sell also quite a bit of material to the Middle East from Oclino. That's not happening anymore. The MTBE market is not as strong as before because in summer, usually MTBE is mixed with NAFTA. And if you put more NAFTA into the fuel, you need more MTBE. There is not enough NAFTA, so that's not happening. So I don't want to go into too much detail. But basically, you cannot just take the old numbers of oxynol many, many years ago, because there was also full-blown demand behind it. Now we have the NAFTA spec helping us, but we also have some demand components. Butadine is short in Asia. We, of course, have butadine that is helping us, but we also have other elements, like I just said, having support. the contrary effect. So, cutting a long story short, Oxino will contribute. Will it go to record levels or near them? Absolutely not. Cash flow question you asked about the contract we had, which we dissolved or take-or-pay contract. There was some dismantling involved. We don't disclose any kind of details here. The number you mentioned is not correct. The actual part is smaller. And also for the, let's say, prepayment of investments is nothing unusual. We have this all the time. We also have seen that we have quite a high level of investments, capex. So that goes always hand in hand. So high capex, but also gets, of course, lowered by payments of customers. But they are shown in different buckets, and that has to be taken into account. So I think we still believe we have a very strong underlying operational cash flow. I hope that's good enough.

Thank you very much.

The next question comes from the line of Tom Wigglesworth from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Thanks very much for the opportunity. Two questions if I may. Just coming on to the kind of competitive landscape that you see, you know, noting, could you just highlight where you felt more strongly the reduction in Asian exports? And, you know, any comments around the finding on that would be very useful. And on the other side of that, Are you now seeing any inputs drying up into Europe that you use or any of your products in Europe that you're now being asked to ship to Asia because pricing is more compelling in Asia than Europe? So I'm just trying to get a sense of the flows of chemicals that you see noting the feedstock constraints in Asia. Second question, if I may, is on Cinex. Can you share with us the timeline that you have for, you know, for any potential strategic review here. Clearly, it looks like regionalization of assets is becoming more valuable, which might suggest, at least to our eyes, that the value of Sinect is going up, not down, and the threat of further deindustrialization in Europe is reducing, not increasing. So, yeah, any thoughts there would be very helpful. Thank you.

Okay, thank you, Tom. Klaus will start with the trade flows and Asian competition that we see right now, and then Christian will comment on Cinect.

Yeah, so, good morning, Tom. Let me try also this very complex question because it's very, very different market segment and product by product. So, generally, you see, as you know, freight costs went up quite a bit. It's not only the freight crosswind app. Availability of freight is also a topic. This alone affects all the shipments from China. So that's an easing factor in general terms. I think we pointed out some areas already, like our business. We see quite a pickup in, well, let's say, a much weaker competition from Asia. That is something... that is transferred into better pricing in Europe. And this would be a specific one. I think Christian pointed out quite a bit already. Also here, the pricing increase is, of course, a question that comes supply-demand. So there's less supply. Most of the capacity... besides ours, is sitting in Asia. So there is less supply from Asia on that side. In other areas, we don't see a bigger impact besides the more general one I just mentioned. So we have specific areas where we can really point out cross-linker, which was really, really, and I think we reported on this in the last meetings, was suffering quite a bit. from heavy competition in Asia, this is softening. And that's the most to announce one, besides an assigning one.

Okay. Hi, Tom. I take the one about CENECT, maybe as a starter. I'm not on your page arguing that the infrastructure, that industry, the industrial infrastructure and Germany is coming tremendously under pressure. Why? First of all, we do have the infrastructure investment initiative from our government, which is helpful. Second, if you look a little bit more into the details of the NEC, you will see that two gas steam plants and a good amount of, let me say, piping and nets are elements of the NECT and in this respect it is even becoming more attractive because this is what we need in Germany and in Europe all the more to provide the industry and the inhabitants with a sufficient amount of energy and electricity. In detail, As you know, here we talk about 1.1 billion of revenues. Here we talk about roughly 200 million of EBITDA. So it is, let's say, well-placed and stable. Year-over-year stable positioning, stable development. And having said so, Carpout is done, successfully done, and we have not taken any decisions what to do next, but as you know, we are still evaluating several options for the future, JV, cooperation, trade divestment, and I will provide you as soon as possible when we have taken a decision, but as of today, we have not taken one. Thanks a lot so far for your questions.

Thank you.

We now have a question from the line of Chetan Udeshi from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.

Hi, morning. I'm just trying to understand your comment that the 25 million uplift in EBITDA you got for Q1 ahead of your guidance was from pre-buying in March. I'm just quite curious. If I look at your volumes in Q1 as a whole, they're down 2%. If I just do some math, you know, the the pre-buying probably contributed plus 2% in March. So the point I'm trying to get to is how bad was start of the year? That, you know, even after pre-buying, the volumes are still down 2% year on year. And second, is there an element of inventory write-up that may have contributed to Q1 at the top side as well? Because, you know, we I'm struggling to see that come through from the volume point of view in terms of the report and on this. Thank you.

Thank you, Chetan. Both points go to Klaus.

Yeah, good morning, Chetan. So, yeah, you have to always consider when you take the volume on a company level that we have super different businesses in terms of volume. And so we had a – I think in my – introductionary words I said, we would have reached our guidance without the pre-buy. That gives you a feeling for what it really is, the additional part in March. So it was not necessary for us to have to pick up in the end of March to reach the guidance. It was only responsible for what the over-deliveries. We had no write-ups of inventory in March. And so, also here, we did not support it. However, we had this very, let's say, very soft start of our oxyno business, which is big in volume. And we also have this very soft, let's say, start of our hydrogen peroxide business, which but only for the base part of the business going into the paper market. So these are big volume elements that contribute to the volume piece. And this maybe is misleading when you look to the volume part of the start into the year. I hope that answers your question.

That's good. Thank you.

The next question comes from the line of Georgina Fraser from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Hi. Thank you for taking my question. I just have one, and it's a bit theoretical, and I'm still trying to figure out how to phrase it. But if we do end up in an environment where we have such inflation that we see demand destruction, Is there a chance that capacities have been affected by shortages and too high feedstock prices in Asia don't come back online in the second half of the year? Like, if Evonik was facing that situation, what would be the conditions for ramping your capacities back up that you would need to see? Thank you.

Yeah, Georgina, thanks. I think this can probably go to Klaus. So, the question, if I get it right, is, Will capacities be permanently shut down, right, if there's demand destruction or what? Did I get that right?

It's more like why would capacities be rushing back to the market if we're in still a very weak environment with inflation? I think there's this assumption that we'll see a normalization of supply as soon as the straight opens and everybody working hard to bring capacities back, but, I mean, To some extent, you also need the economic conditions to bother doing that. And we were already in such a weak starting point at the beginning of the year before the conflict. So what's the risk that, yes, we have more permanent or longer lasting shutdowns because of economic conditions, not just shortages? Thank you.

Okay. Morning, Georgina. I hope you are well because you are sitting in the Middle East, right? And from that point of view, let me try to give, let's say, maybe my thoughts, I have to say. Right now, I think this kind of crisis is leading just into the opposite direction. When you look to where is the biggest overcapacity in the market, it's clearly China. And the profit margins, when you also look to the last statistics, in the markets went even further down. Three years in a row, profitability went down. So this, sooner or later, leads also to consolidation. And there's even the government in China, when you look to the latest 15th five-year plan, there is active measures to take old plans out. The pricing peak right now, of course, is just doing the opposite. Even weaker ones can still live if they have material. But this will go away. And if, let's say, theoretically, now we have inflation that's suppressing demand later, then I think you are right. I would think then the weaker ones will be forced to move out. Also now in the sign area, we know there are some very weak players that are not capable of surviving. But right now, this is, of course, super difficult to judge how that is playing out. But yes, and the second order effects are, from our point of view, not only inflation. When you look right now, there's a big debate on the farming side that the fertilizers are so expensive that farmers cannot buy them. And they're considering not to plant crops. So later down in the year, we will see problems in these areas. There's not enough food being provided. And this is just one of the second-order effects that we are going to see. And from that point of view, super difficult to judge. I can only say for us, what we have, we don't see any one of our plants being in that situation. This would become a question for us.

Thank you very much.

Thanks a lot, Klaus. Having said so, ladies and gentlemen, this concludes our call for today. Klaus, from the bottom of our heart and in the name of our company, thanks a lot for taking helm in the meanwhile and for your outstanding commitment. It's a great pleasure to have you and to have you as our CEO in Asia. Michael, next time it is your turn, and I appreciate very much to have you on our side So far, thanks a lot for your attention. Take care and hope to see you soon in person. Goodbye. Bye-bye.

Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now over. Thank you for choosing Coruscant and thank you for participating in the conference. You may now disconnect your lines. Goodbye.