Lanxess Ag Ord

Thank you for joining our Lanx's full year IR conference call. The conference will be recorded. I will hand over to Eva Hussmann, Head of Investor Division, for opening remarks.

Thank you, Mandy, and welcome everybody to the call from our end as well. As always, I have our CEO, Matthias Sachat, and our CFO, Oliver Schradmann, with me. please take notice of our safe harbor statement. We will follow our usual procedure. Matthias will start with the short presentation, and afterwards we will open the floor for your questions. Matthias, please go ahead.

Thank you, Eva, and welcome all of you to our full year results Q4 conference call, and we will start directly on page number four on the document that has been distributed or dispatched on our internet. So here you see Q4 EBBA. Q4 was down as expected compared to Q4 2024. The previous year was, of course, also influenced by pre-buying, as we've indicated, and 2025, due to tariff escalation throughout the year, led to lower volumes. Noteworthy also, the negative FX I referenced to the dollar. and the portfolio effect as we have sold our Eurothanes business effective 1st of April. EBITDA for full year at 510, so we landed according to guidance, and I take pride on making reference to net financial debt, which another year in sequence, we lowered and have now come down to roundabouts 2 billion net debts. An area that should be looked at as well is networking capital. We've managed that nicely. Oliver keeps his hands tightly on that, and we will continue doing this going forward. Page number five, as we've communicated recently, Advent has declared not to be able to finance the acquisition of the Lanxess stake in Invalior. And for that very reason, the mechanism that we have highlighted September 25 is now going to be followed with reference to 27 and notably to the put optionality without any conditions at all of 50% of our participation. We have a very good and strong contract in our hands, and therefore it's not a question of if we sell, but rather when we sell. Page number six shows you the implication that the downgrade by Moody's is going to have on us. We would shed here simply light on this for clarification. We have put in place many, many, many years ago and this was always a strength of Lanxess to have a sound financial platform and financial structures. This becomes very obvious also right now. Our issued bonds that we have outstanding in the markets have all fixed coupons without any financial covenants at all, and therefore our external bond financing costs remain the same as far as credit commitments are concerned and we have ample of these for the revolver for instance for many many years duration here the incremental costs will be round about 1 million in total through the downgrades stemming from the commitment fees that we have in these embedded contracts. Neither bonds nor credit lines, as I stated, have financial covenants. And, of course, as I highlighted before, future monetization still is clear and will come, of course, from our value of put optionality. Slide number seven shows you the liquidity position that we have. If you look into the balance sheets that we've just published on full year numbers, we have roughly a half billion of liquidity on our balance sheets. Lanxess is known in the bond market pretty well. The market is liquid. We have a solid track record in the fixed income markets, and therefore, This is obviously a market we always will assess when we do liability management. On credit facilities, I've mentioned the Revolver, which has 800 million of liquidity undrawn. On top of that, Ulrike and Oliver have made sure that we have further committed be natural credit facility in order to have further opportunities in terms of financing diversification. So as far as the upcoming maturity on our fixed income bonds in October is concerned, we've already, through our instruments that we are showing here, ensured that refinancing is not a problem at all. Page number eight, I would like to address the current geopolitical issues and I refer to the situation in the Middle East. This is of course leading to a volatile situation for the geopolitical setting. I would however now be specific to how we look at this from the economic business standpoint. political scenery, I think you can assess all through the media pretty well. As far as Lennox's direct exposure to the Middle East is concerned, we have saved less than two percentage points, so this is not really relevant. What we have started instantly after the conflict escalated, like we've done in in 22 when the Ukraine war broke out. And whenever we had crises, we put specific teams together. We've done that here as well. We are daily coordinating on logistics, on raw materials, regional volatilities. So today we can clearly state to you that our supply chains are not disrupted. Of course, here and there, we see when problems occur, we go for second, third supply alternatives, and we've managed that reasonably well. So today, touch wood, there has been no disruption at all, and we see as far as the next weeks are concerned that our supply chains remain robust. Of course, we take note of the fact that gas energy prices are moving upwards. And of course, the precursors on oil and gas products are also moving upwards. And that is something that has instantly led on our end to price increases. And if you look into our internet, we did not start with this just this week. We've started this already last and the week before. So here, wherever we see that substantial precursor prices on the oil and gas derivatives move upwards, we see that this can be addressed in an instant, swift way. On the gas side in Europe, of course, here we monitor that very clearly as well, but we don't see here that due to the sourcing that Europe is not going to be confronted with a gas shortage. I alluded to the countermeasures we are doing on contractual clauses, on pass-through clauses that we have. Of course, I allude to the fact that Oliver and I have mentioned over the last six to 12 months that we have put strategic energy hedging also in place. And therefore, let me sum up. As of today, we don't see visible impacts, but of course, the volatility on geopolitics and the uncertainty worldwide are high. But let me allow to make a final comment on this and to put here things into perspective. While the Iran conflict is leading to energy uncertainty and cost increases, this is not comparable to the Ukraine war. Europe was heavily impacted through the aggression war in the Ukraine. Because of the gas and oil supply, being given, provided by Russia. The Iran conflict is different. Europe is not the prime dependent economic region of Iran. This is Asia. This is India and notably China. So whilst we take note of the fact that the Iran conflict is going to lead to pressure, pricing pressure on worldwide energy prices. On the supply side, we don't think that this is going to be the issue for Europe. This might lead to difficulties and precursor difficulties for supply chains, notably in Asia. And I think if you look into macroeconomic analysis, this is pretty much being stated very clearly there as well. So we monitor the situation and we see clearly that this is leading to uncertainty and therefore we have to be alerted and focused. But at the same point in time, this cannot only be a area where you talk about risks, you have to look at chances at the same point in time. Let's come to chances stemming from structural savings, page number nine. You know about the program Forward that we started in 2023. Forward has been by and large implemented by end of 25. In summer last year, Oliver and I communicated on optimizing the production network. And November we flagged that another 100 million will be taken out of the, notably out of the administration costs. And today, as promised, we give you the phasing, which is shown on page number nine. We show you the cash outs and the amount of headcount reduction that will be implemented over the next few years. So we are talking here about a headcount reduction of 550. Of course, this time we will also make use of the fact that many of the baby boomers are going to retire. And here we are making use of this as well. So we have the benefits this time to more use normal demographic change and that leads to lower cash off in cause of this year, next year. Ladies and gentlemen, I would now like to take the liberty on page 10 to talk about the segments. On consumer protection, let's start from left to right, we see the operational performance of the segments stable. However, you are aware about the fact that we last year had some one-timers, not only on take or pay, but some insurance payments, and that is, of course, not factored into the projection here for 26. Editors, slightly above 25. A game changer could be if construction comes faster and stronger than we currently have. Currently, we only assume that a modest improvement will come in the second half. But here you see that there are some indicators on the macro scene that already lead to positive momentum in the construction field. I reference here Europe. We see that the developers are starting to be more active, have more momentum, and we see that this could be continuation and also in the successive parts of the value chain. Of course, many of you watch the bromine pricing. It's strong, especially if you look into the spot market in Asia. So pricing is at a healthy level. If volume comes back, it would be a good financial equation. Good volume, higher volume, sitting high price normally is attractive. Intermediates, slightly above 25. That is... not great, but we see here that in some cases, in some products like diptych assets, we have obtained a positive ruling by antitrust. We see that peer consolidation is happening as we speak. So while all in all, we are still fighting hard here, we see some elements that should make this business stronger. Now I turn your attention to page number 11 on guidance. On the macroeconomic scenery, I think you know everything that is not worthy. I would here like to shed light on two elements. On the Lanxess outlook first, I know that normally with Q4, we give qualitative guidance. In light of the high volatility, we would like to start with a Range already now with Q4 numbers, the range we see between 450 and 550 as far as EBITDA is concerned. The consideration for Q1, we've started the year in a soft momentum like many other of our peers have also confirmed. Beginning of March, We clearly saw an uptick in volume. And this uptick in volume was happening throughout the month before the conflict in Iran broke out. But we've also not seen that afterwards there was a disconnect. So the current order momentum in March is positive. But I think in English you say one swallow. does not make a summer. So we look on Q1 with not really operational sequential improvement, but as far as the trading pattern is concerned, March gives some positive momentum, but clearly it's too early to make a call on this basis for the year in light of current geopolitical volatility. And with this, ladies and gentlemen, I would close the call with one slide, page 12. The overall economic environment remains tough. I think you see that for our chemical industry now for the last three years. Overall, very tough environments. But I would look at the positive elements. Our group, Lanxess, has restructured its portfolio. We left the polymer businesses, if it relates to rubber, if it relates to polyamide, if it relates to the urethane business, we left polymers behind us. Many of our peers have just started with this consideration last year. Therefore, as far as Overall portfolio is concerned. We have a good basis in all of our business units with very strong market positions. But we need volume. If volume comes, you will see the impact. Boom. In order to mitigate the current low volume environment, we address costs year on year. And of course, this is something we are now implementing also with the announcement we made last November on the 100 million euros. You all talked about the government stimuli. We see that this is being processed in Germany. And therefore, it's for me not a question of if it will come, but when it will be more visible in the order books. Anti-dumping, Chinese competition, this is being processed in the European Commission. More and more rulings are happening, and we also, whilst not counting on it, of course, are working on it. And I think you will see more rulings on anti-dumping in the course of 26 and 27. Now, if you look at market and supply chains, The consolidation has started already, and in some of our business units, we will see that this will be an area where we will come out stronger than before because our competitors will cease to play in our areas. And last but not least, in value, we have a strong contract. It's not a question of if, but when the monetization happens. will occur. So these are some food for thoughts. And with this, we open up the call for your questions.

Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, you will need to press star, nine, and the pound key on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. So please press nine, star, and the pound key if you would like to ask a question. We will now begin with the first question from Peter Spengler.

Thank you for taking my question. Could you provide some color on the profit development of Benvalio and clarify how it is accounted for in the P&L? And maybe a second question, if I may, on China. Sorry. What is your assessment of the Chinese government's position on the high overcapacities in the chemical industry, and are you seeing any policy actions being taken to address this? Thank you.

Well, Peter, thank you for your attendance and your questions. I will take the China one, and then we will move to , Oliver will start, and I might step in. Of course, China is an economic system, governmental system. They want to grow. They have done that over the last two decades. And they've also seen now in the last 12, 24 months that in many areas where investments have been made, this is leading to substantial overcapacities, which put pressure on the Chinese system as well. So, not only that China exported pricing pressure on the European market, which was accelerated through the tariff escalation between United States and China, but also the overcapacities have led to price erosion in the market China itself. And the tougher price reduction is, the lower the income and the cash flow is to make innovation and to reinvest. I think this is something that the Chinese government has seen and understood by now, so this is being now taken into consideration for a variety of industries. If I look at China in general, I think the approach will be taken to consolidate, but consolidation is not happening over a quarter or two. This will take a multi-year approach, and I assume that this is something, therefore, we are going to follow over the years to come. With this, I chip over to Oliver on Invalior.

Yeah, happy to take that on board. Peter, thanks for the question. Invalior, first of all, is considered in our P&L as an equity investment. And the way that works is that the tax net income of our joint venture is shown with a 40.94% stake that we own in our P&L. And I bet you've also not looked only at the performance, but how it is reflected. And as you know, we are somewhat limited to what we can report on Invalior, I'd clearly like to point first of all to the nine-month numbers where you could see that our equity line and our P&L was actually around about 20 million ahead of previous years, so better performance apparently coming from Invalior. And maybe the one hint I can give in order to better understand the full year numbers is that not only in our books, but also in various books, there was an impairment of assets. And I think that helps to understand and better look at the numbers. I don't know, Matthias, if you'd like to add something.

Yeah, that was a perfect answer, and there's nothing to add on my end. Thank you very much. Thank you, Peter, for joining and for your time. So let's go to the next one.

Next question comes from Martin Rödinger from Capital Gerul. The floor is yours.

Thank you for taking my two questions. Firstly, you say in your handout on page 14 that the utilization rate was exceptionally low. In your report, you say that utilization rate was down by 200 basis points year over year from 67% to 65%. However, this is far better than the trough level of 58% in 2023. So EBITDA in full year 2025 is on par with the trough level of 2023, but the utilization rate is 700 base points above the trough level of 2023. Is the mixed effect so horrible, or did the utilization rate collapse sequentially from 67% in Q3 to 50% in Q4 to explain that? And secondly, it's more to Oliver, regarding the 500 million bond, which expires in October 2025, You say that the refinancing is ensured. I have three clarification questions. Did you already sign a bank loan which starts to be effective as of October? If so, did you fix the interest rate for this bank loan already before the downgrade by the rating agency? And C, do you intend to tap into the bond market this year? Thanks.

Well, Martin, Thank you for your questions. I think both of them will be handled well by Oliver.

Yeah. Perfect. Martin, first of all, I think we need to be very precise on what we comment in terms of utilization rates with regard to quarter and full year numbers. What you've stated is correct with regard to the full year number. However, the fourth quarter number was really the exceptionally low number. and without that we go into quarterly updates here with regard to utilization, but it again was substantially lower exactly as your analysis said in Q4 compared to previous quarters. And with regard to the refinancing of our 500 million bonds that becomes due in October 2026, Look, what we wanted to make clear here is that there is no refinancing risk. It is not only that we have liquidity on our balance sheet in the magnitude of just short of 500 million, but it is also that we have fully committed and, at the same point in time, fully unused credit facilities of 1.35 billion. Now, I won't talk about the interest rates. One thing, though, is clear. If the market that is obviously open to us, if we were to tap it, it goes without saying that we are in a different environment than we used to be when we established our average 1% interest rate. That is clear and correct.

Thank you.

So I hope that clarifies. So just an add-on from my side, Martin. You gave reference on utilization to 23. Let me here give you simply also the feedback. In 23, we had urethanes fully consolidated for an entire year. That's one. The second, in 23, we did not have on top tariff wars and a situation where China just dumps many of its products. into the European market. So here the overall macroeconomic environment in 25 was a tough one, ugly. And therefore, that might give you a little bit more color. And then on your questions in terms of credit lines, our contracts are signed. They are committed. So we don't now need to decide on drawing the credit line when we don't need them. But we have the flexibility to draw whenever we want to. And of course, we might use them when it comes to refinancing the bonds maturity in October. Taking now liquidity on board on top of the 500 million we have would be economically absurd, and that's what we are not doing. I hope that clarifies everything, and thanks for your participation. Next question, please.

Thank you.

Thank you. The next question comes from Matthew J. from Bank of America. The floor is yours.

Everyone, thanks very much for taking the questions. I've got two, please, and I think it follows up a little bit on what Martin was talking about, about the evolution of profitability. So the forward plan was executed and delivered 100 million of cost savings, but it's obviously not apparent in the bottom line results of the company. Is the way to think about that that it's simply been absorbed by price concessions over that period? I guess my question is to what extent the next wave of cost savings would drop through. And then my second question is around liquidity. I appreciate what you've been highlighting in your remarks and the slides about access to credit lines. But given the low level of profitability you're guiding for this year and the restructuring charges, I assume the company won't be generating free cash flow. I was also looking back at the experience of 2021-22 when we had that spike up in energy costs. And Lanxess consumed almost a billion euros in cash from working capital. So at what point, given the debt that needs to be refinanced between now and 28, when you aim to monetize your value estate, at what point do you worry about a reputational risk that suppliers and customers wouldn't want to do business with Lanxess because is perhaps not perceived as a going concern, and at what point do you think it would simply be prudent to raise more capital in the form of equity, given that these credit lines you're highlighting obviously only have a finite duration by nature? Thank you.

Well, thank you for your presence and your questions, all valid. I would like to address both of them from a strategic standpoint or higher level. Oliver will step in if further granularity needs to be given. So forward, you're fully correct. 23 was a extremely tough year. And here for reasons that are known, prices on energy skyrocketed. We had concerns on overall demand. And, of course, we have seen in 2023 also something that was hitting our company pretty hard. That was the change of the ERP system, which was sending shockwaves internally. So, we started forward. And I think all of you know that 24 was not a great year economic wise either, but we implemented our cost savings and jumped in terms of profitability from 500 to 600. So forwards left its mark in the P&L. It led to profitability increase. If you now look into 2025, I reference again, we have urethanes that are out. We have pricing pressure after anti-dumping. Q1, 25 was on a solid or better trading pattern, and then the respective liberation day and tariff escalation happens, which was sending shockwaves through the system. Therefore, as far as cost implementation of Forward is concerned, it did help us, but overall economic environment and portfolio adjustments left its mark. Now on working capital. You give reference to 23 that inventories or working capital massively skyrocketed. Indeed, if you look at nine months numbers in 2023, we were close to 2 billion and had a substantial increase in net working capital because of the ERP change and ERP release. Instantly, once the ERP situation was solved, we released substantially working capital, and Oliver will correct me, I think we had a cash inflow of 500 million and 24. We are not having any system issues anymore. We are not having, therefore, by any means currently in our simulation, a working capital increase of the neighborhoods that you have mentioned. Looking now into second quarter, we monitor the price escalation. We see that TTF has gone up to 50, 60, but we are not at 300 or 350 as in 22, 23. Oil price has gone up from 70 to 100, 105, 115, but not above 150 and elsewhere. So therefore, we are monitoring the situation. We don't rule out that working capital can increase over the next two to three months by 100, 150 to be seen. but we are far away from a situation in 23. That we have ample of liquidity for that, I've stated very clearly. And last point, there is no customer that has called us since we were downgraded from BBB- to BBB, or in Woody's language, BA1. We have a negative outlook. There is not a single customer or supplier that has called us. And I hope that clarifies your question or potentially your concern. Capital raise is not on our agenda in light of the ample liquidity we have. Oliver, any further comments?

There is nothing to add other than maybe stressing that in the period that you have mentioned, we have decreased our indebtedness by 47%. And not only have we had a negative cash flow in 22, of a bit more than 200 million, but as Matthias said, we had 526 million positive free cash flow right afterwards because we managed our working capital. Also, big thanks from my end for your questions. Next question, please.

Next question is from Tristan Lennart from Deutsche Bank. The floor is yours.

Thanks. First question is, you implied you don't see a pre-buy driven by the conflict. I think in some of your businesses, you're the last man standing in the Western world or that was the kind of terminology that you use. Do you see an opportunity to increase market share and how material could that be on the 2026 results?

Tristan, here we have to rather look into the respective businesses and then product lines. And here I start with the business that is, from our point of view, very clearly perceived to be one of the last men standing. In some areas, the last man or woman standing, and that is advanced industrial intermediates. plants that we have here are all worth scale in nature, so they should be able to compete. Some of the plants, however, had some remaining smaller competitors here in Europe. I refer, for instance, to hydrofluoric acid. Here we are definitely the biggest player in continental Europe, and we have seen that over the last 12 months, Two players have the remaining players on the small sides being number three, number four in the markets have gone out of the markets. There is one player remaining who is smaller than us, and our assumption is if the competitive situation remains as is, this competitor will step out as well, and then we are the only one left. This kind of situation we have in a few other plants as well, where we are talking about being the last or the last two men or women standing in the entire western hemisphere. That's the reason why our plants, for instance, in chlorbenzene, if this plant is gone, there is no producer anymore in the entire western world, meaning Europe and North America. We don't think this is going to happen. We think that this plant is one that can be a stronghold going forward. Then there are other plants, like adipic acid, where eventually there will be two players left in Europe, and other capacities are fading. And therefore, that gives you some color, whilst, of course, I will not give you a market share for the entire Lanxess group. That would be not the right way to handle it. We have to be business unit specific. So that was your first question. The second one was relating to.

I was going to follow up with another question. I was wondering on pricing pass-through, do you think that overall, you could expand margins by pushing prices above for material cost increases. I'd be interested in a comment by a business and also maybe a link to comment on the impact on spreads for Invalio given the conflict as well.

So, Tristan, I think our aim is to pass on input costs. That has always been the case in the past. That will also be the situation right now. And therefore, we have already gone out with respective price adjustments on some of the product rates that you see on our internet. So now your second point implies structural price increases. So adding price adjustments on top of input cost inflation. I would like to answer this in the following way. We've seen 2025 that a lot of products were dumped in Europe, pushing prices substantially down. Pushing prices in some areas into the direction that this was leading to anti-dumping cases. Now, what we are seeing right now, that in some of the product lines in the markets or in the areas we are competing, there is no Chinese offering anymore due to supply chain disruptions. This started just recently, not one day after the Iran conflict broke out, but it has now started last week. Some areas, in some areas and provinces, crackers have gone down. This is being reported. In some areas, raw materials are on allocation. This is something we need to monitor. This is something we monitor very closely. If we suddenly see that the overload of products being dumped in Europe like last year, comes to an end, then we might have again a more balanced supply-demand situation like in the years before. But this is too early, Tristan, to make a call on that. The markets, as I indicated before, are highly volatile. The name of the game is now to be operationally very close to the markets, the customers, input costs volatility and to act swiftly. And that we do that, you can see on the price increases in the Internet. I hope that clarifies your question.

Very helpful. Thanks very much.

Thank you. The next question comes from Andres Casanos-Molor from Burenberg. The floor is yours.

Hello. Could you please explain your Q1 outlook considerations when you state that there is no progression and improvement in Q1 versus Q4 sequentially? Is that a reference to the absolute EBITDA levels or to the volume or utilization levels or maybe to both?

I think we, I tried to give you the indication on this in a qualitative way in my, So we don't, we state here in our outlook, we don't see a sequential improvement versus Q4. And then we give reference that if you go make a comparison to 2025 first quarter, the urethanes business was still included and Q1 this year, urethanes is out. I've given you qualitative color that we started the year with a soft momentum, January as well as February. But we clearly saw a change in underlying momentum in course of March. Now one month or one swallow does not make a summer. I've heard that this is the English saying. And therefore, in a current volatility environment that we see out there, there is no reason to be anything else but cautious, humble, but very focused and agile, and that's the approach we take.

Thank you. Can I also ask on consumer protection performance as well? So I see 7% down in prices there, but how much is that in sequential terms? When you look at Saltigo in particular, is the price level still at risk depending on where we are or we continue to be in the demand cycle in your view?

Yeah, we will not give you a pricing bridge, volume pricing on business unit level. That would be not reasonable from the competitive side. And Oliver will give you some color in general on the approach taken.

Thank you. Yeah, but Matthias has already mentioned, you know, that with regard to raw materials and also with regard to energies, wherever it really matters in terms of the production and the contracts, with a certain time delay, we are pressing on and have passed on in several years in the past our pricing. And I guess you also know that in consumer protection, with regard to pricing, raw materials matter way less with regard to the price setting, then it matters in other segments. So I would confirm what Matthias has said. We won't be looking at the analysis in a sequential way on business unit level, and I hope for your understanding.

No, that's fine. Thank you, Oliver.

Thank you. The next question comes from Christian Bell from UBS. Floor is yours.

Thank you for the opportunity to ask questions. My first one is on just your guidance, 2026, 450 to 550 EBITDA. So if we normalise for 40 million of one-offs in 2025 and consider your comments around a weaker first quarter, can you please just help us bridge what your assumptions are to reach the top end of your range? And I guess part B to that first question, within that, what are your assumptions around energy costs and any potential impact from Middle East disruptions? And I'll ask a second question after.

Yeah, Christian, tough questions that you're asking, specifically with regard to Iran. Let me revert back to what Matthias has mentioned. First of all, this is the time to be cautious with... a little bit more than two weeks into the war, it remains to me a not really professional attempt to try and tell you what the impact on a full year level could be without having an estimate on how long this war would really end. I'd like to reemphasize that Matthias has mentioned clearly due to the distribution of the burden, basically by the closing of the street of Hormuz, There might be occasions where we can benefit versus the Chinese, but I don't see a sensible way and a credible way right now to put that into any numbers. If you ask me what would have to happen for us to get to the upper end of the bandwidth, You know what the biggest driver is in our business? It is volumes. So if north of our expectations volumes were to pick up, then we have given this deliberate bandwidth and we would then certainly move to the upper end.

Yeah, but clearly we have communicated today not a qualitative but a range. And my feedback to you is range means we look at 450. And we look at 550, but currently we don't specify wherever we are. This is too early in the year to make any further specification. We will do that in course of 2026.

Okay, cool. Thank you for that. That's useful. And then just my second question on the revolver facility. Are you able to confirm just how the pricing is structured to give us a bit of a sense of – what to expect, I guess, as you go to refinance. Is it a benchmark like Eurobore plus margin framework? And then following that, how should we think about a margin step up following the move to BA1?

Yeah, what I'm very happy to do is to tell you that the additional cost for the commitment are really limited on an annual basis to below 1 million. And what I'm not happy to disclose is what our cost structure in that element is. So I'm not prepared to talk about that.

Okay. No worries. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. The next question comes from from Jay. Morgan. So I'm not sure if you have moved around your question, but you can speak now.

Hi, can you hear me?

Yes, we can hear you.

Okay, cool. I just had one question. You know, Matthias, you mentioned the increases that you are seeing in raw material prices, and we can see that as well in some of the quotes that we see on different providers' platforms. I'm just curious from today's perspective, if you have any sense on, firstly, are you willing to pay these high prices or you are taking an approach of not, you know, committing to something that may be short term? Second, is there a big gap, you think, between, you know, in some cases we've seen, for instance, you know, like you know benzene prices going up by 40 50 percent in in some regions how realistic are these i mean are you are you seeing these prices actually coming into your contracts or your contracts are seeing much smaller price increases what i'm trying to get to is just get a sense of how disruptive the current environment could be not just on sourcing perspective, but also from pricing perspective, not just for Lanxess, but for the whole supply chain. Thank you very much.

Yeah, I will be straightforward on the first question. We don't source at prices where we know that our customer is not going to pay for these prices. So when you say prices are that high, do we stop just buying? We continue buying if the customer accepts to pay for the products. And therefore you can see right now, we, especially in areas where prices are moving up, we are posting price increases in some cases regionally, in some cases globally, because we know this is something where the market is there. And if we cannot sell, we, of course, would stop to buy and stop to produce, which is not the case as of today. On benzene prices, you make reference to this one price. We can, of course, use a different example as well. You need to see if this is a global market or a regional market. Most of these products are the oil derivatives. are local products because they are locally cracked. So benzene, for instance, or toluene, or what have you, cyclohexane, and the like, have regional prices in general. Global arbitration sometimes leads to over-quarters to an alignment or leading to the fact that prices are not completely disconnected. But in general, you start locally. If you have supply, if you don't have oil, which cannot be cracked, you have no derivative. So you need to look specifically if you see that benzene right now goes through the roof in China or Asia, it might be because of there is no oil anymore available. And then you cannot export. And then you might see that pricing in Europe goes up because pricing power is there. So it's not that easy to simply make a call on the derivatives. You need to be locally pretty specific. And that's the beauty of a global player like us. We are in all markets. We look in all markets, monitor, and take respective actions. We might be in a situation that in the last three years was different. In the last three years after the Ukrainian war broke out, we saw that there were not one oil price, one global barrel oil price that was monitored, but you basically had two. You had one in the Western world, and then the, let's put it like this, sanctioned Russian oil, which was being sold to Asian markets, notably India and China, at $20, $30 less. So there was a kind of artificial benefit for a certain period of time until the Iran conflict broke out. Iran has been a clear supplier exporter of oil and gas to Asia, notably China. And this supply source is, of course, going to be reduced. Now, what the implications of this are, I think we are too early in the situation right now. We need to monitor the markets for the next two, three months. But if China has supply issues on oil, the derivatives of oil will definitely rather be on the rise than going down. I hope that gives you some color around the question. That's great. Thank you. Most welcome. Next question, please.

Thank you. The next question comes from Gemini Kincaid from Van Lenshardt Campen. The floor is yours.

Hi, good afternoon. I just have one follow-up question on your covenants and debts. Obviously, your current bonds don't have any covenants, but I was just wondering if you were to – get more bonds in the future or refinance with more bonds in the future if you think you'd still be able to get bonds with no covenants given that you said that the interest rate environment has changed and obviously your credit rating has also changed?

Yeah, well, thank you for the question. Here clearly we will decide that when the question will arise. The question currently is not to be answered. And we have ample instruments in place that gives us the luxury to decide when we need to decide. Thank you.

And we have the last question from Tom from Morgan Stanley. The floor is yours.

Hi. Good afternoon, everybody. Thanks very much for the opportunity. Hopefully you can hear me. First question, obviously, you've strayed away from making forecasts, but if everything stays as it is now, based on your experience, maybe you can highlight the similarities to previous cycles that you could call out and maybe the differences that we need to be aware of that you see that maybe we don't. And the second question, just on the free cash flow, for 2026. Obviously, you haven't given us guidance, but can you be free cash flow positive in the range that you've given? And, you know, what needs to happen to be free cash flow? Let's ignore working capital moves. Thank you.

Tim, for the importance of cash, I will hand this over to instantly to Oliver to be answered.

So let's address priority one, cash. Tom, then let me run you through the building blocks, and I'm actually relieved that you mentioned yourself. Let's leave out working capital. Too much of uncertainty there. We've given an EBITDA guidance, 450 to 550. We've also guided the building block of CapEx being around 330. And when you look through our presentation, you will find an expectation of up to 60 million of exceptionals. You can assume that they can be considered cash out as well. And then maybe the larger, the last larger building block from a tax perspective, I would be comfortable to tell you that also on the basis of the previous years, I wouldn't expect more cash out for taxes than 20 or 30 million. That leaves you with some room here in the absence of working capital movements. And maybe last hint from my end, also when you look at the typical seasonalities that we have, In the first quarters of 25 and 24, you've seen a ramp up of working capital in any first quarter with rising prices. Now, I think it's a fair assumption that you also have to consider that.

So I hope this gives you clarity on your free cash flow questions, Tom. And then I would like to answer your first question on cycle. I would say if you look at the current situation, you can definitely say this is a severe crisis that we have seen in the industry for the last two to three years. Ukraine war. Tariff escalation. Now the Iran Middle East crisis, you cannot compare that with the financial crisis. You cannot compare corona pandemic with the current situation. I think every severe external shock is different. However, what you need to prove is can you manage that? And I think you've seen in the financial crisis, you've seen in our internal rubber crisis, you've seen in the pandemic, you've seen with Ukraine war, Lanxess always swiftly acted and managed the crisis. What I've seen is when people think that the world is going to fall apart, like in 28 when we were trading down at 10 euros the share, people did not give us a chance. They thought this is it. And then 12 months later, our stock was back to 40 euros the share. So what I would like to highlight is that It depends all on if you are agile, if you are swift, and if, as a team, you get your act together in a speedy way. And I think this is what Nexus and my leadership team has proven over the last several years. We can manage crises. And you see that we've done that over the last few years. We mitigate it. On costs, we accelerated on cost improvements. You see now that we swiftly act. We are passing on prices. You see that from the platform, our financial structures are healthy, prudent, and farsighted, so we are protected in this regard, and therefore with everything it takes to also manage this crisis. I hope this answer helps you.

Okay. Thank you very much.

Thank you. And this was the last question, so back to Matthias Sachert for closing remarks.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation, for your questions, and we wish you all the best and hope to see you all on the road in course of the next few days when management and investor relations will be coming and make the effort to visit you. Thank you so much. Take care and bye-bye.