Thyssenkrupp AG

Hello everyone, this is Andreas Tosch from Investor Relations ThyssenKrupp. Also on behalf of my entire team, I wish you a very warm welcome to our conference call on the first quarter results 2526. With me on the call are our CEO Miguel Lopez and our CFO Axel Amann. Before I hand over to the CEO and CFO for their presentations, I have some housekeeping. All the documents for this call are available in the IR section on the website. The call will be recorded and the replay will be available shortly after the call. After the presentations, there will be the usual Q&A session for our analysts. We use Microsoft Teams for the call. In order to ask a question, you have to push the raise your hand icon and we will announce your name and open your line. If you are on mute, you must unmute yourself in addition. And with that, I would like to hand over to our CEO, Miguel Lopez.

Thank you, Andreas, and hello, everyone. Welcome to our first conference call in the current fiscal year. Let me start with an overview of our management priorities. First of all, portfolio. In terms of our strategic transformation, we continue to execute ACES 2030 with full focus, also in order to establish ThyssenKrupp as a lean financial holding company. With its successful spin-off of TKMS in October, a major milestone on our path towards this target picture, we created significant value for our shareholders. That is our clear ambition also for any portfolio actions ahead. For material services, we push ahead for capital market readiness and their respective standalone setup. At automotive technology, we defined and implemented a new structure with clear focus on the core businesses. Moreover, we also initiated the sale of the non-core business unit Automation Engineering in November. At Steel Europe, negotiations with Jindal about the majority holding are ongoing and the respective due diligence is on its way. And let me remind you that we have reached the collective restructuring agreement with E-Metal Union in December, an historic milestone for Tissot Group. And in addition, actually another very important historical milestone, just from last week, we have agreed on a term sheet on the new shareholder structure of HKM. So Skidder plans to continue to operate HKM as the sole shareholder from June 1st, 2026 onwards. That also means that the slab supply to ThyssenKrupp Steel will already end in 2028. Regarding performance, Q1 marks a confirming start into the new financial year, even though our markets remain challenging across many of our customers' industries. Therefore, we confirm our group guidance for fiscal year 2025-2026. On a relevant note, the likely positive implications from current political initiatives in Europe, such as CBAM or steel tariffs, have not yet translated into measurable tangible effects, but they do present upside potential for our businesses going forward. On the green transformation side, we continue to build momentum. Let's start with a recent announcement. Uniper and Ude have signed a framework agreement on ammonia cracking technology. The agreement covers up to six large-scale plants with a total capacity of seven 6,200 metric tons of ammonia per day. In addition, construction of the ERI plant at Steel Europe is moving ahead with full commitment. And more from an ESG perspective, CDP, so Carbon Disclosure Project, again honoured ThyssenKrupp for transparency and climate protection for the 10th consecutive year. With this result, ThyssenKrupp has once again secured a place on the annual Climate A-List, making it one of only 877 companies internationally with this distinction, including 34 companies from Germany. To summarize, a difficult market environment persists, but we are executing our strategy with discipline, reshaping our portfolio and improving our operational performance. Plus, where we are confirming our full year guidance. And now, Axel, the stage is yours for the financial section.

Thanks, Miguel. Hello everyone, this is Axel. Let me turn now to the financial overview for the first quarter. Despite the macro environment you just have heard about, we achieved a promising and confirming start into the new fiscal year. We've increased our EBIT adjusted despite the top line headwinds, which continues to serve as a proof point that our internal efforts and the respective performance management are paying off. While sales decreased to 7.2 billion euro, that means a 8% decline year over year, our EBIT adjusted increased to 211 million euro, which is 20 million above last year's level. That income came in at minus 334 million euro mainly