Siltronic Ag Ord

Hello everyone and welcome to Siltronic's second quarter 2023 results conference call. Please note that this call is being recorded and streamed on Siltronic's website. The call will be available as an on-demand version later today. Your participation on this call implies your consent with this. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Verena Stutze, Head of Investor Relations and Communication of Siltronic AG.

Thank you, operator. Welcome, everybody, to our Q2 2023 results presentation. This call is also being broadcast live over the internet on Siltronic.com. A replay of the call will be available on our website shortly after the conclusion of this call. This is the first quarterly call of our new management team, consisting of our CEO, Michael Heckmeyer, and our CFO, Claudia Schmidt. Both will introduce themselves in this call and will give you an overview on our Q2 financials, our guidance, and the current market developments. After the presentation, they will be happy to take your questions. Please note that management comments during this call will include forward-looking statements which involve risks and uncertainties. For a discussion of risk factors, I encourage you to review the safe harbor statement contained in today's press release and presentation. All documents relating to our Q2 reporting are available on our website. I now turn the call over to Michael for his introductory remarks.

Thank you, Verena. A warm welcome also from my side. For those of you who did not have the chance to hear my short welcome message during our Q1 call, my name is Michael Heckmeyer, and since May, I am the new CEO of Siltronics. As you might have read in the press announcements, I hold a PhD in physics and most recently worked for Merck for almost 25 years in various management positions. By my side today, also for the first time as a member of the Siltronic Executive Board, is Claudia Schmidt, our CFO since July 1st. She has been with Siltronic for almost 14 years. Today's financial results will be presented to you in a new structure and in a different way than in the past. This reflects our ambition to give you a clear and transparent picture of our company. Besides this, Claudia and I will further develop Siltronic on the basis of a strong track record. Therefore, you can expect more evolution than a revolution from us today. As some of you might have seen in the first slide, the central theme of today's presentation is sound basis for future growth. What does this mean and what can you expect from us today? We'll of course explain the figures for Q2 2023 to you in detail and give you an outlook for 2023 as a whole. A year which shows a very pronounced weakness in demand from the semiconductor industry with a noticeable impact on our financial performance. But what is more interesting for all of you and also for the value of our company is to look beyond this year. Most experts including us see very promising prospects for strong medium and long-term growth in view of several megatrends that we enable with our products. Today we will shed some light and share our perception of this and how we are preparing for the next upswing and will shift our company from an investment to the next harvesting phase. Today actually is my day 83 on my learning curve at Siltronic and this learning curve couldn't hardly be steeper. On my journey through the Siltronic world I have learned that our group is European But nevertheless, a truly global company resides in Burghausen, Freiberg, in Portland and in Singapore. During my field trips, I met hundreds of Siltronic employees and I'm impressed by the unique skills, the deep technological understanding and commitment of everybody. They are proud to work for a high-tech company with such a pronounced and strong innovation focus. This was also confirmed and underlined by many customers I met on my tour. who made the special importance of Siltronic as the only leading Western wafer producer very clear to me. Based on this, and being one of the technology leaders in this industry, Siltronic offers fascinating products with huge future potential. We will make sure that we are prepared for the future and invest to further develop our USPs. So that's what we do at Siltronic, to leverage our USPs to take our company to the next profitable growth level. Ladies and gentlemen, I think we all agree that siltronic is an important player in a market that is central to the future of the global economy. Already mentioned is our market position, with an estimated market share of roughly 14%, a position which has not changed in the recent downward trend. The future of the semiconductor industry and wafers are the fuel for this industry, is driven by megatrends such as artificial intelligence, digitalization and electromobility. I can promise you today that Siltronic is primed to seize the future opportunities resulting from these developments. But now let's have a look at developments in Q2 2023. A quick summary of the quarterly highlights. The operating figures are in line with expectations. Despite difficult conditions, pricing is stable Our profitability is solid and in this year we will see the investment peak. Our market share is stable and our investment focus tab next is on schedule. Claudia will now present all important details on the financials of Centronic before I will report back with the outlook for the full year 2023 and beyond. Claudia, please.