Siltronic Ag Ord

Hello everyone and welcome to the presentation of the Ziltronics Q2 2024 results. Please note that this call is being recorded and streamed on Ziltronics website. The call will also be available as an on-demand version later today. Your participation in this call implies your consent with this. At this time, I would now like to turn the conference over to Verena Stütze, Head of Investor Relations and Communications of Ziltronic AG.

Thank you, Moditz. Welcome, everybody, to our Q2 2024 results presentation. This call will also be webcast live on filtronic.com. A replay of the call will be available on our website shortly after the end of the call. Our CEO, Michael Heckmeyer, and our CFO, Claudia Schmidt, will give you an overview of our financials, the current market developments, and our guidance. After the presentation, we will be happy to take your questions. Please note that management comments during this call will include forward-looking statements that 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 Q224 reporting are available on our website. I now turn the call over to Michael for his remarks.

Thank you, Verena, and a warm welcome also from my side. As usual, let's start with the key messages of today's call. There were no major surprises in the second quarter of 2024, which continued to reflect a challenging demand environment for waivers due to elevated inventory levels in the chip industry. Therefore, end market growth is not translating into our order intake yet this year. Despite these challenges, we are on track to meet our full year guidance for 2024 and can even slightly upgrade it today towards the upper ranges. To bridge the period of weak demand in the wafer industry until growth resumes, We already transitioned our production from max output to high productivity and efficiency when the demand weakness started last year. Accordingly, our labor costs were adjusted to the lower output, for example, by using working time accounts, reducing the number of temporary employees, and implementing a qualified hiring freeze. Additionally, we are continuously working on strict and effective working capital management. Our capex has been further reduced compared to the previous guidance. As previously communicated, the dividend for 2023 was halved, and we have an even more intensified cost management in place. Now let's take a high-level look at our Q2 developments. and Claudia will present a detailed overview in a minute. The operating figures are in line with expectations, and we managed to slightly increase our sales quarter on quarter. Our profitability remains solid with an APTA margin of 25.8%. Although we have passed the peak of our investments, the capex primarily required for the ramp of our new prep in Singapore has, as expected, led to a continued negative cash flow. On the positive side, prices were almost stable quarter on quarter. Claudia will now give you a deep dive into our financial performance before I report back with updates on the market development and the guidance. Claudia, please.