K+S Aktiengesellschaft

Welcome to the KplusS third quarter 2026 earnings call. I will now hand over to Julia from KplusS 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 Q3 documents available on our website. After the opening remarks by our CEO, Christian Meyer, we will jump directly into the Q&A session. Some technical notes as always. Please refer to our disclaimer on page two of the presentation. And then a note on data privacy. Please be aware that the team session will be recorded, webcast, and be available as an audio replay on our homepage for public. People who ask the question in the team session should be clear that by switching on their camera and microphone, they agree to the recording and replay of video and audio sequences. Now I'd like to hand over to Christian Meyer for the opening remarks.

Thank you, Julia. And welcome from my side as well. Let's start with the quarter. Our Q3 results are in line with market expectations. EBITDA in our maintenance quarter Q3 was at 108 million euros after 111 million euros in Q3 2025. On the one hand, revenues increased due to higher prices in both customer segments and Yogi Ising for pre-buying. On the other hand, we had to face higher logistics and energy costs driven by geopolitical factors, despite our continuous cost discipline. Additionally, we had our scheduled maintenance shutdown at our Bethune site in Canada, which, unlike in the previous year, took place in the third quarter entirely. Adjusted free cash flow reached 18 million euros in the quarter, As expected, a decrease versus last year's numbers due to higher capex. Let's look into our full year guidance. We got more precise on our 2026 EBITDA forecast and raised the midpoint slightly, which is in line with VARA consensus. We now expect full year EBITDA to range from 700 to 750 million euros compared to 680 to 760 million euros before. We increase the lower end by 20 million euros at the demand scenario previously assumed for the lower end is losing relevance due to supply-side constraints in the global potash market. At the same time, the upper end of the range has only been reduced by 10 million euros as the previously anticipated potential increases in overseas prices has not materialized until now. The midpoint of the ABTA range assumes an oil price of $100 per barrel for logistic costs, a gas price of 19 euros per megawatt hours, and an on average stable potash price development compared to current levels in Q4. As always, the final EBITDA within the range will depend on several factors. These include the winter weather in the fourth quarter, sales volumes, average selling prices in the agricultural customer segment, also with regard to ESX developments as well as gas and oil prices. We confirmed our free cash flow guidance to reach a mid to higher double-digit million euro amount with capex between 580 and 600 million euros which is also in line with our consensus. After this brief introduction, I'm now looking forward to answer your questions together with my colleagues Jens and Julia With this, I hand over to the operator to state the Q&A session and I also already see a lot of hands raised.