Evonik Inds Ag Unsp/Adr

Thanks a lot, and welcome to our Q1 earnings call today. This is the first time within 10 days that we're going to meet. Today, virtually for our Q1 earnings, and next week, Thursday, for a more strategic view ahead at our Capital Markets Day. My board colleagues and I are really looking forward to welcoming quite some of you next week in Essen. So I guess you agree. that we focus today in our opening statement and during the Q&A session mainly on the current year. At our Capital Markets Day, we can then take a look ahead and cover the more strategic topics. With that, let's come to the key message for today. After a pretty good last year with 25% of earnings growth, we have further increased EBITDA in the first quarter. The same for free cash flow. Already in the last, already in the first quarter, we managed to outgrow the pretty good prior year level by more than 50%. We are confirming our full year guidance today. And, more importantly, it is well underpinned by our positive Q1 performance, as well as a solid start into the second quarter. several supporting factors for the upcoming quarter. This is a strong message, I guess, a strong message in these turbulent times. So, we are confident to deliver on our full year guidance range, driven by our own strengths. As you can see in the first quarter numbers, we have a strong portfolio. The resilient businesses and specialty additives and the strong growth in nutrition and care differentiate our portfolio in the current environment and from most of our peers. Our cost programs are in full execution and further supporting our solid operating performance. And our high share of local production with major production platforms in each and every region shields us from the rise in protectionism and might even offer the one or other opportunity with our local presence behind the tariff borders. I think our performance and our numbers in the first quarter are pretty, pretty straightforward and stand for themselves. So let me hand over directly to Michael for our full year outlook. The stage is yours, Michael.

Thank you, Christian, and good morning from my side. And yes, it's obvious that the risks around us have increased since we have given our outlook range back in March. We are expecting a lower global GDP growth for 2025, now only 2.2% and down from 2.5% two months ago. And FX is turning from a tailwind into a headwind. But even if we take these sectors into our calculation, and at the anyway low direct impact from tariffs, our guidance range is still very much intact and realistic. This is because we can confirm virtually all positive factors and assumptions supporting the current year. We will deliver high double-digit million additional net savings. We expect lower energy costs from our hedges as well as decreasing spot energy prices on smaller unhedged parts. And our animal nutrition business continues to do better for longer. The methionine market will remain tight also in Q2 and demand continues to be very strong. We have delivered an all-time sales record in Q1 and the price trend continues to be intact, especially in Asia. So, we are more and more optimistic for that business, also looking into the start of the second half already. It is clear that there are some risks around us, and that we cannot fully assess all of them at the moment. Weakener customer and end consumer confidence further escalating trade and tariff tensions or even a global recession are scenarios we have and we do prepare ourselves for. But while the visibility is very low at the moment, there are currently no indications that things are getting significantly worse. April is already in our books and the good news is EBDA in April continues more or less stable on the average monthly level of Q1 across virtually all our businesses. There is no pronounced macro slowdown and no significant drop in volumes or orders visible yet. But again, important to highlight, visibility is very limited at the moment. So much from us, and now we are ready to take a question.

We will now begin the question and answer session. Our first question comes from Martin Rüdiger from Kepler Schubert. Please go ahead.