K+S Aktiengesellschaft

Welcome to the KNS second quarter 2026 earnings call. I will now hand over to Julia from KNS for some technical notes.

Ladies and gentlemen, also from my side, welcome to our call. We hope you've had a chance to review our posted slides as well as our H1 documents available on our website. After the opening remarks by Christian, we will jump directly into the Q&A session. Some technical notes. Please refer to our disclaimer on page 2 of the posted presentation. And a note on data privacy. Please be aware that the team session will be recorded, webcast, and available as an audio replay on our homepage afterwards. People who ask a question in the should be clear that by switching on their camera and microphone, they agree to recording and replay of video and audio sequences. Now I'd like to hand over to Christian, our CEO, for the opening remarks.

Thank you, Julia. And welcome from my side as well. Let's start with the quarter. Q2 EBITDA was significantly above the last year's Q2 at about 176 million euros. This was mainly due to the higher ASP, Higher volumes and cost discipline offsetting the pressure from price-related cost increases resulting from the geopolitical environment. In addition, please remember that we had part of the regular Bethune maintenance break in Q2 last year and will have it fully in the third quarter this year. Therefore, this did not wait on the second quarter this year as it did in 2025. Furthermore, Q2 last year was burdened by negative non-cash valuation effects on receivables related to the US dollar. In the industry plus segment, following the strong start into the year, performance continued to exceed expectations in the second quarter, even if seasonally on a lower level. Free cash flow. Free cash flow reached 40 million euros. It improved versus last year, but not in the same magnitude as EBITDA due to a higher tie-up in working capital, mainly receivables. Let's look at the full year guidance. We raised our 2026 EBITDA forecast to range from 680 to 760 million euros compared to 630 to 730 million euros before. This is mainly due to the strong performance in the second quarter. Midpoint is in line with VARA consensus that shows that the positive deviation in Q2 results is mainly due to a periodical shift between Q3 and Q2, caused among others by the described Bethune maintenance effect. The midpoint of the ABDA range assumes stable potash prices on average during H2, Current market price levels for logistical costs and a gas price of 45 US dollar per megawatt hour. We also raised our free cash flow guidance from at least break-even to mid to higher double-digit million euro amount, which is also in line with WARA consensus. After this brief introduction, I'm now looking forward to answering your questions with my colleagues Jens and Julia. And with this, I hand over to the operator to start the Q&A session.