Hornbach Hldg Ag

A warm welcome, ladies and gentlemen. I would like to warmly welcome you on behalf of the Hornbach Group and the Investor Relations Team. Welcome both to Frankfurt and on the webcast for this year's Analyst and Investor Conference. I would also like to warmly welcome our members of the board, Albrecht and Johanna Kowalka. Erich Haasch and Dr. Joanna Kowalska, the latter for the first time. To begin with, Mr. Albrecht Hornbach is going to give you an overview on the general development of the Hornbach Group before Erich Haasch is going to share his insights into Hornbach-Baumach's AG. Following that, Dr. Joanna Kowalska is going to reflect these developments in her figures. For the end of the presentations, you have the opportunity of asking questions. This can be done in this room. You will be handed a microphone by my colleague. If you're watching on the webcast, please use the Q&A chat in order to convey your questions to us. We are going to read them out and answer them up here on the panel. At the beginning of the Q&A session, I am going to give you some more detailed information. Before handing over to Albrecht Hornach, I would like to briefly point out that this conference is going to be recorded. The conference language in this room is German, but feel free to ask any questions you may have in English on the chat. and we have simultaneous translation and interpretation for the webcast. For the end, there will be a transcript of our conference, so you can look it all up in detail. If you participate in this conference and if you ask any questions, you agree to the corresponding data processing. Please note our disclaimer. It applies to both the presentations and the Q&A session. And now it's my pleasure to hand over to Albrecht Hornbach.

Ladies and gentlemen,

This is the Analyst and Investor Conference of the Hornbach Group, and I would like to warmly welcome all of you. It's a pleasure to see you here in such large numbers. It's truly a competent circle. I would also like to welcome our participants on the webcast.