Salzgitter Ag Akt Shs

Hello and welcome to the Sal's Gitter nine-month results conference call. For the first part of the call, participant will be in listen-only mode. During the question and answer session, participants will be able to ask questions by dialing pound key five on their telephone keypad. I would now like to hand the call over to Birgit Petrovsky, CFO of Sal's Gitter AG and Marcus Heidler, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Yes, good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to our nine-month conference call. We have quite some nice information to deliver to you. Since we last met in August, a lot has happened in our industry. The most impactful news is definitely the new trade defense instrument proposed by the EU Commission just a few weeks ago. If it were to be implemented as presented, It would bring imports back to levels from a decade ago and thus strengthen the long-term viability of the steel production in the EU. International trade uncertainty has persisted over the summer and in some areas new trade turmoil arose. Last Thursday, there was a steel summit in Berlin to discuss ways to improve the competitiveness of steel production in Germany. it is very encouraging that there was broad agreement between federal government, industry, and unions on three main areas that have to be addressed quickly. First, trade protection. Second, an industrial electricity price. And third, green lead markets. We are particularly pleased With that now, the German federal government also supports the trade defense measures recently proposed by the EU Commission. What has not changed is that general economic conditions have hardly improved since the beginning of the year. Against this background, let us look at the results of the first nine months of 2025. Unsurprisingly, sales are markedly lower than the previous year's level. There are three reasons for this. First, following the divestment of Salzgitter-Manessmann Stainless Tubes Group, its sales are no longer included in the current figures. This stands for roughly 240 million euros. Second, The average selling prices are still lower than last year. And third, our trading business unit recorded lower volumes and sales, also in part due to the restructuring of this operation. Despite the negative nine-month pre-tax result, the performance in the first nine months of 2025 can be considered however positive overall in light of the effectiveness of the programs. This is demonstrated by the slightly positive quarterly pre-tax results achieved. By the way, the first since the first quarter of 2024. In addition to the Arubus contribution, and a steady strong performance of our KHS group, the main drivers for this encouraging development were the results of the Earnings Improvement Program. The Trade and Business Unit was able to consolidate the turnaround initiated in the second quarter, thanks to cost adjustments and restructuring measures. We are also pleased to see that the steel production segment achieved a balanced quarterly result. The net financial position was virtually unchanged versus the end of the first half and even 78 million euro better than one year ago. This was mainly due to the release of working capital and the restrictive approval of investments. We therefore anticipate now to arrive at a net financial debt of slightly above €1 billion at year-end. This is a significant improvement against our initial estimates from the beginning of the year and even slightly better what we communicated last quarter. This reflects the effectiveness of our self-help measures. Concerning financing, on October 2022, we have successfully placed a 500 million euro bond exchangeable into shares of Aurobis AG to diversify our financing structure. As you have seen from today's earnings release, we have narrowed previously guided ranges for 2025. We now guide for sales slightly above 9 billion euro, an EBITDA of 300 to 350 million euro, and a pre-tax result between minus 100 and minus 50 million euro. And this exactly in line with your forecast. I am now looking forward to your questions.

Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key 5 on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key 6 on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Tristan Gresser from BNP Paribas Exane. Please go ahead.