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Yeah, thank you very much and good morning and a warm welcome to all of you, this time from Greenville, Tennessee. So I'm not standing next to Oliver in our normal room, but I'm here with our US people. I'm still looking forward to present to you the Q2 numbers for 2024. So let's look at the financial highlights that we've had in 2024 Q2. Our sales have reached 298 million euros in this quarter, partially supported by M&A contribution of 21 million euros. Our adjusted EBIT reached 34 million euros, and the adjusted EBIT margin remained strong on the prior year's level of 11.3%, despite the declining sales that we had due to the much softer markets in Q2. The free cash flow grew to 61 million euros in the first half year of 2024. And our leverage, and that's important to us, remained below the one time factor, even after the dividend payment of 22 million that we have done in Q2. Our adjusted earnings per share reached three euros and seven cents in the first half year. and the adjusted net earnings to sales rate ratio remained high at 7.8%. Even though the markets were much softer than the previous year, we confirmed the outlook that we have given for the year 2024. So these have been the financial highlights, but I would also like to present to you a highlight in a technology investment that we've done. We have acquired 10% stake in a mature startup called Trailer Dynamics. With this investment, we become a strategic investor in this startup, and that strengthens our R&D cooperation in the field of e-trailer technology. We're investing 15 million in the financing round, and with that investment, we're bolstering the industrialization of the market-ready plug-and-play axle electrification kit that can be used to build e-trailers, electrified trailers. It also strengthens our R&D position in e-traders, and we support this matured startup because we're planning to be an integrated partner into that startup as a supplier, as a distributor, and as an industrialization partner. So this partnership will lead to new products and systems, and these will accelerate the decarbonization and the economic efficiency of transport and logistics. So we're quite excited to not only develop our own products, but also engage in strategic partnerships to support future technologies. So that's another highlight of Q2. And then let's go to the market outlook. I already mentioned that the markets have been much softer than previous year. In the truck markets in Europe, minus 9%. In North America, minus 8%. Asia Pacific, plus 4%. um trailer markets um minus 20 percent 25 minus 5 respectively um in the different regions and also the tractor markets have been below previous year even though they already had the downturn a little earlier than the truck markets um with uh minus 15 minus 11 and plus one so our um Organic growth has been impacted by that, minus 17% in the region Europe, minus 22% in the region North America, and minus two in the region Asia-Pacific Africa. I think we've weathered that quite well, but the details to the financial numbers will be presented by Oliver Gansert.

Thanks Joachim and also welcome from my side to our second quarter and first half year investors conference. Indeed, let's have a dive into our financials and start with the regional overview first. So let's jump into the European numbers. So the European markets, as Joachim was mentioning, are quite a challenge. He mentioned that minus 17 organic decline in sales so from 178 last year's second quarter we were down to 166 million sales this year's second quarter and this is more or less the same organic decline that we have seen then for the full first half year reported wise this is minus 6.2 percent and the impact is here as stated to the right the consolidation of our acquisitions that we did mid of last year they are now ramping up into our sales numbers from a full year point of view and that impacted the sales by 20 million in the region um europe um within sales we had this quarter no material fx impact so that we consider as a positive mark on that side if you go down to the second um second quarter EBIT results for the region Europe we see that we have a significant decline in absolute EBIT down from 14.3 million last year's second quarter down to 8.3 this second quarter and probably as you know and are aware now we are hit here by the higher proportion of fixed costs in our region Europe to versus the other regions um as um the region europe is uh incorporating the headquarter costs and has in general higher um snj s sgna proportional costs which also relate to a corporate function so that means with the lower volume of minus 17 percent organic wise we see a lower utilization in our european plants and that has um for sure an impact on our absolute ebit in the european What we have already initiated in the first half year, and this should give us a backwind for the second half, is a cost takeout program for the region Europe. We are indeed working with instruments like short-time work. We are reviewing temporary worker contracts. We have a strict cost discipline implemented. And also looking on our projects pipeline for the second half, is there potential for shift? What is top priority and what could potentially shift it to next year? So that, as I mentioned before, should give us some tailwind result-wise for the second half of this year in Europe. And if we now go to North America, we see definitely the full opposite. As Joachim mentioned, the sales declined organically by minus 22%, as shown on the market slide. Report-wise, a little bit less. But more or less in line with this and as we mentioned before, we are hit here by the strong decline in the trailer business segment and also the compact loader segment within our business line agriculture is still suffering versus a very good prior year's comparison. On the other side, and we also see this then down in EBIT, we see a recovering demand for premium loaders, which for sure have a much higher margin than the compact segment. And also we had some smaller FX tailwinds within the sales. And this turns then for the second quarter into a fantastic EBIT margin of 17.4%. And even for the full half year, it's 14.3%. So a significant increase of almost 32% versus prior year second quarter. And this boost is driven by various reasons. One reason is the very favorable products mix, as I mentioned before. And one impact is here, as I mentioned, the higher sales share of premium loaders within our X segment. That helps a lot. and also in both business lines transport and agriculture we see a still strong and solid aftermarket business and then share wise that contributes more to the profit and helps here as well and ongoingly as we mentioned in previous calls also we are still benefiting from a good efficiency momentum in our plants as we can run with that kind of volume very efficient both transport and agriculture plants and also are benefiting from a good price momentum in the North American region so again despite the significant sales decline a fantastic result and we also expect for the second half margin wise that a good margin development should here continue for the remainder of the year. If we then go now to our Asia Pacific Africa region, We see a slight decline of minus 1.3 reported sales and minus 2.3 organic sales. So from 55 last year, second quarter down to 54 now. We see all in all still very robust markets in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. We see a good and increasing business in China. China here is benefiting from a higher export business. On the other side, there is a slight opposite, and this is India. As you are probably all aware, there were big general elections in India in spring, and that affected especially the transport business a little bit in the first half year. But here from what we see at the moment is we definitely expect a full recovery until end of the year for the Indian business. And we also had some slight tailwind from the consolidation of LH Lift in our region APAR, an acquisition that we did last year. We also had some slight negative sales FX headwinds in the region of almost 1% point. But all in all, we are happy with the result. EBIT has come down by minus 10%. from 11.0 million euros last year second quarter down to almost 10 million this year but as i said this is driven by a less favorable regional mix as with the increasing share of china business china is predominantly on highway business for us that comes with slightly lower margins that our off-highway business comes with. So that's the main effect here, nothing structural, just sales mix driven. And on the other side, we are benefiting from the ramp up of our agricultural business in India, where we are still quite successful underway with our customer Mahindra Mahindra there. And this now turns into the group picture for the second quarter and the full half year. And as Joachim pointed out in his summary, profitability remains very high despite the cyclical sales. We report a reported decline of sales by almost 10% and organically. by 16% for this year's quarter versus prior year's second quarter. If you look into the organic numbers for the business lines, we see for transport roughly minus 17 and for agriculture minus 11%. All in all, no material FX effects as they are netting each other out. and the total m a impact is for the second quarter 21 million in that sales number leading to an organic decline of minus 16 percent in line what um your arm has presented regarding the market overview um and for ebit this means as he mentioned before we could remain a very strong EBIT margin also for the second quarter was 11.3% exactly on prior years level. And also for the full half year, that means that we could still achieve the same margin in like in our record year last year was 11.5%. So we are very proud of this. um and all in all this means um with a reported sales decline of almost 10 percent we only declined in ebit by minus uh 10 percent or a little less and i think that shows again our resilience of the business as i pointed out before we have a good aftermarket share in both business lines this quarter and the full first half year they had a very strong North American business by various effects and lots of them should remain throughout the year and also with district cost control and active portfolio management that we have implemented we should continue to support a strong just even margin going forward We then go to our typical adjusted net income and adjusted EPS pitch. What you see here, as I have shown on the slide before, adjusted EBIT for the first half year comes up with 68 million. If we then deduct our finance result and our adjusted tax rates, which is slightly higher than the reported tax rates for the first half year, we end up with 46 million adjusted net income. If you transform that into EPS numbers we see for repopulated EBS 2.31 versus 3.01 and for adjusted EBIT we see 3.07 versus 3.79 of last year. Main impacts here below EBIT are that interest payments have raised versus the first half year of last year, and this is just purely driven by the URI board that has risen versus last year. Still a little bit, and as I mentioned before, taxes raised for the first half year a little bit versus prior year. All in all, we are still proud of this, and Joachim mentioned that the adjusted net earnings to sales ratio remained very robust and very high at almost 8% of sales. Then if we have a quick look on our KPIs, ROSI, equity ratio and leverage, ROSI is still very high, around 20%, slightly reduced versus the full last year, driven by the lower run rate of the LTM EBIT, driven by the sales decline. Our equity ratio is at 39%, so clearly above 35%. And despite the dividend payments, et cetera, et cetera, we had some slight negative FX translations effects. But all in all, I'm very happy with the numbers. And as Joachim pointed out, leverage stayed. Exactly below the 1.0 mark, which is quite interesting for us because that gives us a huge interest benefit going forward for the next months. and also is quite in line with the strong free cash flow development, although that we had to pay 22 million earn outs and the dividends that we could achieve that ratio in this quarter. Then have a quick look on cash flow and working capital development. Free cash flow, as mentioned in the summary, 61 million for the first half year. So, a result of the very strong cash flow development of the first six months. It is supported by some factoring that we did and ramped up versus last year. This is just purely opportunistic to reduce our finance costs. So, there's nothing else behind that. For me, this is just a mix of instruments, of financing instruments. and the cash conversion ratio then results into 1.3 for the first half here so well above our target level of 1.0 capex with 13.8 million in the first six months remains a little bit below our corridor for this year of 2.5 or a little bit above that's i mean part of the cost Takeout program in Europe that I'm mentioning, we are reviewing the projects, but it's more or less in line what we have achieved in the past as well. So nothing special here. And the networking capital ratio is with 17.7% by end of June. Very positive development here driven by the working capital management and slightly by the factoring and well above our guidance of below 19% for the full year. So we should be very confident to achieve that here. Then I think that's it from my side and I would hand over to Joachim for our closing outlook.

Yeah, thank you, Oliver. And yes, how does it continue from here? Let's look at the market expectations that are based on the market consultant institutes. And they expect the markets to be a bit weaker than initially planned. So in the last slides, you saw the truck markets a little stronger and the tractor market's a little stronger than on this one. So they've updated the market outlook and expect somewhat weaker markets for truck and for tractors. Overall, for trucks in Europe, minus 10 to minus 15%, the same in North America. And in Asia, a slight increase between 0 and 5%. On trailers, decline in Europe, 5 to 10%, 20 to 25% in North America. And in Asia, a growth of 10 to 15%. And on agricultural tractors, minus 10 to minus 15 in both Europe and North America. And more or less a flat market in Asia Pacific Africa. So we have to keep in mind that we are comparing this with an extremely strong market in the financial year 2023. And that's, you know, despite the fact that these numbers look dramatic, we are comparing it to a very strong previous year and we will be able to weather that quite well. We've analyzed that data and we've reviewed our outlook and we can confirm that our outlook as we've presented in Q1 remains unchanged. Despite this, we expect our sales to decline single digit from last year's 1.25 billion euros. our adjusted EBIT also to decline single digit a bit more than sales because of the scale effects that we have and the fixed cost effects that we have. And with that, the EBIT margin, the adjusted EBIT margin, we expect a slight decline versus year over year. But well within the strategic corridor and in the upper half of the strategic corridor that we us to be in the upper half of that corridor capex remains at the usual rates between 2.5 and 2.9 of sales and working capital will be below 19 percent of sales last year we were at 18 so to summarize like the messages for the q2 2024 um yours remains uh or maintains its strong profitability in the second quarter but also in the first half year and achieving a high adjusted EBIT margin despite a considerable sales decline. We are improving our working capital and the operational excellence is strengthening the free cash flow and with that we kept the leverage below the one times threshold. We are investing in strategic opportunities to grow our R&D capabilities like we've done with Trader Dynamics. And we continue to create strong shareholder value with a ROC of 20% and the cash conversion rate of 1.3 in the first half year of 2024. We confirm our outlook. And we are using the current market environment to continue to strengthen our market positioning and to leverage our group's business resilience, which works quite well between the different regions, as Oliver has explained, and also across the two business lines that we're operating in. Last not least, just a reminder to the Capital Markets Day that we will have on the 10th of September. We're looking forward to present to all of you a bit more details, a bit longer outlook, more strategic insight of what we're planning and developing, and we're all looking forward to your interest to that Capital Market Day on 10th of September. With that, thank you very much for your interest, and we're open for Q&As.

Ladies and gentlemen, At this time, we will begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may click the Q&A button on the left side of the screen and then raise your hand or submit a text question. If you are connected via phone, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star for two or please lower your hand. For written questions, please click the Q&A and text button and type in your question. One moment for the first question, please. And the first question comes from Fabio Holscher from Warburg Research. Please go ahead.

Yes, good morning, gentlemen. And congrats on the continued strong profitability. I have two questions for now. First on segment profitability in North America. The 17.4 is obviously very strong. Everything seems to have come together with a mix. Has there been anything structural that positively influenced profitability as well? My question is aiming towards what's the result of structural measures and what's the one-off and which margin level you refer to when you say you expect it to stay strong in the coming quarters. That's the first question and the second question on the agriculture outlook. Your high horsepower demand in North America has improved somewhat. Compact is still weak. The ag OEMs are still rather cautious for next year. do you continue to expect a broader recovery around early 2025 and what are perhaps the factors which we should look out for there thank you yeah maybe i could my i start and then i'll hand over to oliver for some details on the north american numbers

So we did not have any large structural impacts in North America. So we continue with the three plans. We've obviously adjusted the personnel to reflect the market outlook. And we are quite flexible in those plans. And we're not carrying a lot of overhead costs, even though we have reduced some of that overhead costs. There has been no structural adjustments in that sense that we were closing plants or we shifted the business model.

Oliver explained already a little bit the mechanisms.

I'm sorry, Mr. Du. It seems your internet connection We could not hear you.

I can continue the question. um so you are right now so we didn't do really structuring uh like footprint and so on and so forth it's a combination fabio of different things now we did a lot of portfolio clean up and optimization in last year and in both business lines there in transport and in agriculture and now we see the full ramp up effect of that measures as well and the secondly and that shouldn't be underestimated now with the very high demand last year in some of the plants now we were at 11 We were at a level like 24-7 production, etc., where you are a little bit more inefficient than when you run the business from Monday to Friday and could use the weekends for maintenance and so on and so forth. We are also benefiting from that. So the operating leverage in the plants now to use a standard shift model, etc., etc., has a huge profit impact there as well. We keep a very good price momentum. That's probably a little bit something that might fade out a little bit over the next six to 12 months. That means those sales prices are still healthy. whereas input costs are partially global input costs and have gone down now but we we fight for this now to keep this incremental margin as long as possible um and the the probably especially for the first um for the for the second quarter a very important impact is the the higher share of premium loaders that we have sold in the business line x so that has definitely an impact And that's something, okay, I mean, that can continue, that cannot continue. We have to look from quarter to quarter. But overall, there are a lot of influence factors within the margin that makes us quite confident that North America will stay definitely well above the historical average of its margin before.

Joachim, now you're back, probably you can... Yeah, there was a Wi-Fi glitch here, so sorry about that. Yeah, so nothing to add to that. And for the egg outlook, I mean, a year ago when we had the big egg fair in Hanover, AgriTechnica, the egg players were still quite bullish, especially the OEMs for the agricultural tractors, despite the fact that the market was already um weakening somewhat and the dealers were already mentioning that they have a very high stock now everybody is like in the other mood um very depressed and and i personally and i think that was the question how do i see 2025 um yes absolutely the oems still have a very low outlook but i think it will actually be a bit better than everybody expects today so i i do expect slight recovery in the markets in 2025, just because the dealer inventories have been reduced. And right now, I think the mood is a bit too pessimistic, because at least in Europe, the farmers are still making good money. The interest rates are not going up. The big hurdle is that the pricing, especially of the tractor equipment, is still very high. But I think if they're if some adjustments will be coming there, then we will see the markets come back in 2025 more than everybody expects today. There will not be a big kicker, but I think you will see, you know, reasonable growth rates in starting 2025 again.

And the next question comes from

George Gonzalez Zadoni from Investment Banking. Please go ahead.

Hello. Good morning. Hello Joachim and Oliver. So, a couple of questions from my side. The first one regarding agriculture. The results were clearly above my expectations. So I am wondering if you have gained some market share in North America or if you are already enjoying some revenues from India. If I remember well, you were going to ramp up production there. So that would be interesting to understand and how this can help you in the second part of the year. Also, it would be very interesting if you can give us a gross view on the market share, sorry, on the aftermarket in Europe and North America independently to understand well this decline in volumes. And also, and related to that, if I look to your outlook, it caught my eye that you have reduced the outlook in track for the year, that it's quite in line with your peers. Everyone is expecting this now. But in trailer, you are maintaining the decline of 5% to 10% in volumes, where some of the peers have reduced this to 20%. And in the first part of the year was 20% decline, now for you too. so here i'm wondering if this is because the comparable base is easier in the second part of the year or if you are already seeing some pickup or at least some stability in the volumes in trailer for the second part of the year that will be very helpful thank you start or yeah i i was disconnected briefly but i got the i got the first question right

and i think i also have the gist of the second question so um i'll just start um with agriculture yes um we have a positive mix effect especially in north america and that is that's the the large loaders um have a much bigger weight now but mainly because the compact loaders are also reduced and and that has helped us um we have you asked for market share in general we have very positive market feedback market share feedback from our customers so we are winning customers what they do like is that we are a global player i always say that the consolidation that we have seen in the truck industry is also happening in the ag industry so the big groups uh be it echo be john deere they take over a lot of the smaller manufacturers and they all develop global platforms so they really um support our strategy of being able to globally supply the same loaders to all their plants in north america europe brazil and so on and with that we have a very positive market feedback and the may also be a slight effect of that. We are winning business, but mainly the results and the positive results from an EVIT level are due to the positive mix of products that we have. India is a factory for compact loaders and it's running as planned, but the positive surprise really came out of the Lotus that we produce in our Swedish factories. So that's maybe the quick summary of it. um concerning um trailer markets we've just presented the numbers that we have seen uh from clear in in europe and um they they may be a bit more pessimistic now than than they should be especially when you when you take into account that the markets here have already um declined also in uh in even

Yeah, I think we have lost Joachim.

I see. Okay. So let's wait for him for coming back for the trailer explanation. But you're right, we reduced truck in Europe or in general the outlook, which is probably in line what you've seen before. Trailer, we need to see our comparer basis have already been down since mid of last year. So that is definitely in effect now. I wouldn't say that we see a huge recovery. What we see is a stabilization of the current level at the moment. So we need to wait and especially wait for the summer break when everyone comes back, what happens here. But I wanted to add also on your question regarding the ag margin. So the mixed effect, as you, Achim, described, And a little bit of the ramp up India, the India ramp up of our J&A plant is also indeed a little bit higher than our investment case here. So Mahindra is quite pushing here, wants to gain market share and then we grow with Mahindra. Mahindra, that's one effect. And also in the business land act, we are consolidating Yaksa. the Brazilian company that we acquired. And besides the inorganic effect that the EBIT is now included in that segment, they are also performing better than our business case and acquisition case. They are very strong at the moment with the construction business in South America. One big customer we have there is Caterpillar. That industry is booming and we are well positioned at Caterpillar here. So that helps the business line here, EGG, as well. So indeed, yes, we are very happy at the moment, despite, let's exclude the sales decline for the moment with the EBIT contribution that EGG has at the moment for the whole business. It's quite supportive.

Let me make a couple of follow-ups on that. So in agriculture, then, it is, well, first, the margin is still accretive in comparison to the group, even with the ramp-up in India. Can you share more or less if it is in the low single digit or how much was India contributing this time in agriculture?

I would say it's a mid single digit number.

Perfect. This is expected to continue or you still don't know? Or this is maybe seasonal and then the second part of the year is... I mean, we need to see.

Seasons are different in agriculture as it's more about harvesting, etc. And as this is a ramp up with a customer, we also need to see how successful is Mahindra finally with his own plants. So we are quite confident for the full year that the ramp up remains fully in line with our investment case for this year. The run rate could be probably a little bit lower than missed in the first half year. On the other side, now we will see a recovery in the transport business. As I said, the general elections are over. Everyone gains now confidence again for India, etc. So overall for total India, we are quite confident. are quite supportive for the okay so that could be from quarter to quarter slight movements not just because it's a ramp up and sometimes the customer now says okay i need to stop i need to wait until i see my success etc etc okay very interesting and two last for me regarding agriculture and the comments that joaquin did were indeed very interesting we can say that now the demand

is below replacement levels because the stocks were very high. So this is why you are optimistic that when a stock are clean, we are going to see some levels above where we are now. So it is a little bit the reading on the... Exactly.

Now that's what Arne was mentioning with that. Also in the agricultural industry, everyone seems to be overoptimistic when we are at the last stage of a boom and everyone is too pessimistic when we are really down. And what we see is from our insight that we have in the supply chains is we should be really at the low level. Stock levels are really down, et cetera, et cetera. That's all the signals that we get. So we definitely expect that. it has to start now step by step to come back again. So there might be also support starting end of the year, but especially for 2025. Regarding your question about market share, if we gain or lose market share, I would say in general we increase our market share through the crisis. Um, probably more in us than versus Europe as, um, we are already very mature in the European market. Uh, and then us, we have definitely much more, um, much more chances to grow, but what we see from a customer feedback and what orders come in, although they are not directly sales, but are more from a long-term point of view, once the market recovery, we want to do it with you and not with this guy. We definitely expect an increasing market share.

Yeah, and Holger, I switched off my camera because it seems like everybody's waking up here in the hotel and starts streaming. So the Wi-Fi is weakening. But your reading is absolutely right. We expect that with the stock levels at the dealers going down, that there will be a refurbishing starting and we should see that effect in 2025.

And following this, I was just wondering, is this similar in track in Europe? because here we have less data in North America and the demand has been super strong after COVID. So in which states we are for tracking in Europe? It's also demand probably below replacement level. So here it's different. We should see some stable demand in general in the coming quarters.

For Europe, it's hard to read. I mean, in the US, I would say that we expect the markets to come back because they're already preparing for the pre-buy for the next emission regulation. So we expect the market, because of that pre-buy effect, already to come back in 2025. In Europe, it's a bit harder to read, I would say, because last year we had still replacements going on from years before where there was not enough availability of trucks. The current level, I would say, I'd be cautious to say, is that a sustainable level or is it below replacement need? We see the kilometers going down. We see the industrialization in Europe not growing. So industrial production is not growing. So this may actually be a healthy level compared to the industrial output that we're having at this point in time. But this is a very cautious answer, but more a gut feeling. In North America, I think we are below the level that we're seeing for the coming years. In Europe, this may actually be the level that we should plan for the coming years.

Thank you very much. I'll go back to the line and maybe later I come with a question on the Capital Market Day. Thank you. I think we have Nicolai.

And the next question comes from Nikolai Kemp from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Yes, good morning. Thank you for taking my question. Let me start by following up on your truck market assumption for next year. I mean, at the beginning of the year, the sentiment got very excited that the pre-buy effect could already start next year. Then we got some updates over the last days and weeks saying this will maybe be still start again in 2006 and actually some market forecasts like act is now expecting that truck market down next year instead of up um so that would be interesting to hear and then also on europe because sentiment seems muted we got some very soft sales numbers from mercedes trucks if they're safe almost halfing in q2 um do you see that om's are kind of prolonging their summer break and my last one would actually be on the vocational um strong assault in h2 typically h2 is in h1 typically h2 is stronger um would you expect a similar figure to come h2 or could it then be lower because we had already some positive effects in h1 i don't know are you online okay yeah i'm online um so uh the

From the market, Nikolai, thanks for the questions, first of all. I think your question concerning the pre-buy was concerning the North American markets. We've seen a lot of excitement almost a year ago when they actually expected the market this year not to decline because of the replacements or the pre-buy effect already kicking in. I think that was totally overestimated. So the decline that we see right now is probably healthy in a way. The new regulations are supposed to be in 2027. Everybody expects that these trucks will be less reliable and will be much more expensive. So I'm sure that in 26, we will see a pre-buy effect. And I also expect that even in 25, we would see that. Even though FTR has now reduced the numbers somewhat, but in line with all of us comments, the whole industry seems to be overly optimistic when things are at the end of the positive cycle and overly depressed. when they are at the low of a cycle. So I'm not so concerned about North America in the next year. And as stated already earlier, I expect North America will be stable and maybe even a slight plus as compared to this year for next year. But we will give you more guidance, of course, for the next year when it's due time to do that. We have not even started our budget process and therefore we're not guiding for 2025 right now. But that's kind of the midterm expectation that I'm having. And I think the rest of the question can be answered by Oliver.

Yeah, so Nicola regarding your free cash flow question. You're right structurally, normally first half year free cash flow is a little bit lower than second half and let's say organically I expect that to happen as well in the second quarter. In the second half of the year, one topic here is that we still have a little bit too high inventories. I expect that in the APAR region that they should come further down based on the initiative that we have started here. So that should support free cash flow for the second half year as well. On the other side, you have to, and probably you can discuss with Romy based on the official financial report that we have disclosed this morning, a bit more adjustment as a certain portion of the arbitration payment that we made beginning of the year for the earn out of ALU is included in free cash flow. Not everything, but a certain portion. And on the other side, we had a ramp up of factoring. So we used some kind of factoring end of last year, but it increased throughout the first half year, as I mentioned. And that's also an impact on the free cash flow. If you adjust both, probably you should end up as a free cash flow around 45 or something like that for the first half year on a, let's say, pro forma adjusted free cash flow basis. I hope that answers your question, Nikolai.

yeah perfect thank you and uh yeah looking forward to see you in about a month's time okay ladies and gentlemen as a reminder anyone who wishes to ask a question may click the q a button on the left side on the screen and then raise your hand or if you died in by telephone we may press star followed by one and we have one follow-up question coming from investment banking please go ahead

Hello, can you hear me? Yes. Okay, Oliver and Joaquin, so just a clarification. So you said 45 million euros free cash flow adjusted by the receivables?

Roughly, no. If you exclude somehow the free cash flow impact of the earn-out payments beginning of the year and the ramp-up of the factoring program, which for sure decreases accounts receivables.

so around 45 with those two effects for the full year not for the first semester no no for the first semester for the first half okay okay okay perfect no um so so my follow-up is is around the capital market day obviously i imagine you don't want to um to anticipate many things but uh can you summarize us the the main highlights highlights we should expect in terms of um m a or agriculture opportunities or transfer opportunities that you want to discuss on the on the capital market day that will be very interesting thank you you i'm do you want to take that question first no whatever i think i mean you're you're leading the cmd so uh

You're closer to the topics.

But you are probably speaking more at the capital market stage than myself. So we believe it's a very interesting agenda, Anna. And it covers the topics that you mentioned before. So for sure, Joachim, in the beginning, we'll give a... probably a little bit longer introduction into our overall new, let's say, our refreshed corporate strategy for mid- and long-term outlook, giving a first indication about the new guidances in terms of sales growth, EBIT growth, adjusted EPS growth, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And then, for sure, in detail, how should it come in place? What of this is going to be organic? and what are the initiatives within that organic topics. And also, we will give a definitive M&A strategy overview. As we mentioned in several sessions before, we have implemented a clear M&A strategy. There's a dedicated M&A team working on this. We have built several clusters where we say, okay, probably do something in this area, in this kind of size, et cetera, et cetera. So that's going to be disclosed by Joachim in introduction. And the idea is we will have a podium discussion, roughly an hour or a little bit less. And there also some kind of our C-1 suite level will be involved. So we will meet and greet and can discuss with our head of the business line agriculture. She will give us a guidance on, okay, what's the current trends and how in the industry itself or in the business line. How are we going to explore that and exploit that with our corporate strategy in this? So this is one topic. Then we will have our head of global R&D. for a quick session, Mr. Fischer, giving us lots of insights about also the organic pipeline, what are the projects that are currently working for, also how that ties into why have we acquired a commodity loan in autonomy or that 10% stake in Trilight Dynamics. You should see then why this ties into our overall activities at the moment, so to speak. He will also put a insight on from a customer's point of view. What are the topics from a customer point of view for the next four to five years in terms of where does the customer sees value synergies across certain business lines that we are serving transport agriculture infrastructure slash construction um and what does this mean for yours and uh this is then um something you are him and mr fisher will do both together to say okay and let's just transform this now into the picture what yours needs to do within the next years and what is our action plan on this I will give a full range of a new mid-term outlook in terms of, as I said, sales, EBIT, leverage guidance, capital allocation guidance. We will also give a quick overview on how successful was the ALO slash Business Line Act introduction for us as Yoast over the past years. That's a valid request by our analysts and especially also by our investors to get a little bit more insight on that. So we will do that. But also we will give them finally an outlook on what do we expect out of that activities in terms of shareholder value creation for the next years. And then probably we'll do a quick roundup. And also we'll offer a planned tour with this guy, Mr. Fisher, our head of R&D, to give you an insight and all the attendees on where we are at the moment. So from my point of view, definitely worth to come in person. Thank you, Oliver. Thank you very much for the detailed agenda. I don't know, Joachim, something to add or?

No, really nothing to add, but we're all looking forward to it because we think we have a lot to show in that regard. And we're also looking forward to the sessions where we have a little bit of interaction and discussion. So I think that will be a lot of fun and a lot of insights and inspiration for both parties. And we expect also inspiration for us out of that discussion. So we're all looking forward to that. And as Oliver said, Yanni Federiksen, our head of Business Line AG, and Michael Fischer, head of R&D. They're also looking forward to that day. I hope to see you all.

Thank you, Joachim, of course. Thank you, Oliver. We'll go back to that.

Ladies and gentlemen, this was the last question. At this time, I would like to turn back the conference to Joachim Dürr for closing comments.

Nothing to add. Thank you for an interesting comment, for your interesting comments. And as we mentioned, we are quite happy with the performance. We were able to show that even in softer markets, we are able to perform well. And that's the overall strategy of balancing our business across the regions and across the business lines is working despite the fact that we have... the markets in both agriculture and and transport so uh really and thank you for your attendance and we hope to see you all on september 10th at the capital markets day thank you very much have a nice day