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Dear ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the analyst and investor conference call of Uniper. At our customer's request, this conference will be recorded. As a reminder, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. If any participant has difficulties hearing the conference, please press star key followed by zero on your telephone for operator assistance. I now hand you over to Stefan Jost, who will start the meeting today. Please go ahead.

Thank you and good morning, dear analysts and investors. Welcome to the Uniper Interim results call for the first quarter of fiscal year 2021. Thank you for participating in our conference call today. I would also like to welcome our new CEO, Klaus-Dieter Maubach, and our new CFO, Tina Tuomela, who will lead you through the presentation today. After a joint introduction, Klaus-Dieter will take over the main highlights of the first quarter before Tina guides you through the financials. Right after the presentation, you will have the chance to raise your questions. Having said that, Klaus-Dieter and Tina, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Stefan. Good morning, everyone, and a warm welcome also from our side. I'm Klaus-Dieter Maubach, the new CEO at Uniper, and with me is Tina Turmela, our new CFO. We are pleased to to introduce ourselves to you today in our new roles. Some of you may still remember me from my E.ON times, during which I held various board of management positions between 2001 and 2013, the last one as E.ON board member responsible for technology and major projects. However, most importantly, I'm not new to the Unico world. Having served as Uniper's Supervisory Board Chair and a board member of the Fortum Group, I'm familiar with both organizations. This puts me in a good position to drive strategy implementation at Uniper while ensuring that our affiliation with the Fortum Group is clearly an asset in this context. Before I move on, please, Tina, a few words from you.

Thank you very much, Klaus-Dieter. I would also like to welcome you to our Q1 results call. It has been a great start for me at Uniper, and I'm pleased to have the opportunity to introduce myself to you today. My name is Tiina Tuomela. A couple weeks ago, I would have introduced myself as Executive Vice President, Generations at Fortum. I have been able to build and develop my management experience at Ford Tone Teams 1990. Within my previous role, I had the opportunity to participate in a handful of capital markets events. Therefore, I can say that I'm really looking forward to expanding this experience and most importantly, to getting to know you in the coming weeks and months. The IR team is preparing for meetings before the summer break, so please stay tuned in this regard. The onboarding in my new role as a CFO has been very good so far, despite the restrictions the COVID-19 virus has imposed on us these days. I see a lot of team spirit to drive forward topics that were initiated before my start within Uniper. Uniper's remarkable financial performance in the past was the result of a sound financial strategy being very well executed. I intend to continue this track record. Our motivated financiers will provide the financial support needed to execute the strategy. I would like to hand over to Klaus Dieter now, who will share his views here, followed by the main highlights in C1.

Thank you, Tina. Uniper recalibrated its core strategic course with the strategic and financial update in March 2020. Afterwards, Uniper and Fortum worked together to further align the strategies of both companies, The results were presented during Fortum's Capital Market Day in December 2020. Aside from the joint value potential of up to €100 million per annum for both companies, Uniper further refined its CO2 reduction targets back then. Let me be crystal clear. I fully support Uniper's strategy, which is essentially about taking the challenge of decarbonization into our own hands. It is ambitious, but it also takes into account where Uniper is coming from and where Uniper's capabilities and competencies are. However, while I fully agree on the strategic direction, we need to work on the speed of strategy execution. The news flow and the political actions from leading nations and institutions To move the decarbonization process forward more quickly and with more funding is a good reminder that we need to work harder on tackling transitional risks and opportunities that we have in our portfolio. In a highly competitive landscape, in the middle of the energy transition, things are moving fast. Both electricity and natural gas to be decarbonized in Europe. Above all, Central Europe will be the center court when it comes to decarbonization and the corresponding changes in technologies, markets, and regulations. Given Uniper's expertise and its strong presence in those markets, it is natural for Uniper to become the growth platform for the Fortune Group, especially if it comes to renewables, hydrogen, and providing decarbonized flexible energy solutions, both on the generation and on the commodity side. The new Uniper management team, consisting of Sina Shulamina, David Bryson, and Nikke Hollander, and me, will be working even stronger to capture the full value creation potential that lies in the joint Uniper fortune group. This includes a stronger focus on the one-team approach, where we create joint teams to bundle fortunes and universe capabilities in different business areas, to the benefit of all stake and shareholders. You can expect us to follow up on this topic over the coming weeks. I would like to leave it at these headline statements in today's call. At a later date, we will be happy to share more details on projects, timelines, and financial perspectives. Now over to Uniper's first quarter performance. Uniper's Q1 result is the strongest in its history since the Uniper's listing in September 2016. As already communicated in the ad hoc announcement two weeks ago, 94, which is an increase by 12% and 19% year-on-year. If one tried to find a common theme for the positive Q1, I think the last winter has served as a good reminder of the importance of secure energy supply. Don't get me wrong, we are very clear about the path of decarbonization in the future. But it also became very clear, once again, that Uniper's mostly gas-based portfolio plays an essential role in providing stability and flexibility in the energy markets and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. And this is what we did in Q1, both inside and outside of Europe. On the back of these strong Q1 results, we raised our earnings outlook for fiscal year 2021, i.e. for the adjusted group EBIT and the adjusted net income by 100 million euros each. Let's now turn to the development of Unifor's portfolio and its strategic evolution. Our European coal exit plan is ahead of schedule. In March 2020, we had communicated our intention to exit for after Juniper was already successful in the first German hard coal tender with the Heiden station. Now in April, also the 757 megawatt Wilhelmshaven power plant was awarded in the second tender and is earmarked to exit commercial operation by December, 2021. And communicated before our 900 megawatt lignite fire power station Skopau based in Eastern Germany, will exit our portfolio by October 2021 as well. For me, it is particularly important that we do not only exit assets, but at the same time expand into new businesses, having not only our shareholders, but also our employees in mind. Accordingly, Uniper has now issued several press releases announcing projects in which we are working to leverage our existing sites A few weeks ago, we also communicated our hydrogen plans for Maasvlakte. Speaking of which, as you might have read, Uniper is now seeking for a ruling from independent courts on whether the Dutch law is legitimate in forcing our coal-fired power station, Maasvlakte 3, to be taken off grid by the end of 2029 without proper compensation. To be crystal clear on this topic, Uniper does not question or challenge the Dutch decarbonization ambitions. The opposite is true. We see ourselves as part of the solution, as documented by our plans for large-scale hydrogen production at the Maas-Lagte site. However, unlike other countries, the Dutch Coal Phase-Out Act does not provide for proper share and stakeholders. For all European countries, the overarching story is not only on the stricter CO2 reduction targets for 2030, but also on security of supply, the context of the upcoming transition. This story has not yet been conclusively addressed in our view. One of the positive examples in this regard is the UK capacity market mechanism. The recent capacity auctions Juniper was successful with all participating power stations. For 2024 and 2025, Juniper secured further revenues of around 90 million British pounds for a spare capacity of 4.2 gigawatt. Finally, the Russian Berezovskaya Berio-3 lignite-fired power station, the last of Juniper's legacy growth projects, is back online. market payments from May onwards. I would like to express my congratulations to our Russian colleagues for bringing this complex project over the finish line. Now let's move on to our operational KPIs in the first quarter of fiscal year 2021 on the next slide. Let's start with global commodities business. Our storage facilities showed normal fitting levels of 38% at the end of after a particularly warm winter. Tina will pick this up later on, as this had a positive impact on our operating cash flow compared to the previous year. Looking at our European generation segment, we achieved a significant overall increased power generation of 20%. Hydro volumes were down 11% year-on-year. The Nordic generation volumes were down following last year's record precipitation, but remained above the long-term average. In Germany, generation volumes We're also slightly lower for full year 2021. We are on track Gas and coal fired power generation increased by almost 50% year-on-year. This was mainly driven by colder weather and less wind across Central Europe. Further growth in volumes resulted from the contribution of Dutton 4 power station, which has been producing since 2020, and the gas-fired power plants Irsching 4 and 5, which have been back into the merchant market since October 2020. Generation volumes in the Russian power generation business showed an increase negative COVID-19 related economic effects and stronger electricity exports from Russia were supportive here. A strong revival in electricity generation and changes in the fuel mix towards the fossil side of our portfolio ended up in 30% higher carbon emissions for the group. Looking at the full year 2021 and even 2022, there is a high likelihood that we'll see somewhat increasing scope 1 emissions in total due to Duffing 4, Yersin 4 and 5 and Berlioz 3 being in the market. It will take some time until our new strategy materializes in the form of lower carbon one and two emissions within the European generation segment and full group-wide neutrality by 2050. Now I would like to hand over to Tina for a detailed presentation of the different financial results.

Thank you very much, Klaus Dieter. Looking at Uniper's financial performance in Q1 2021, I can hardly think of a better starting point as the new Uniper CFO. One year ago, Uniper had recorded an adjusted EBIT of 651 million euros for the first three months, which was considered extra or extraordinary back then. This year, the Q1 adjusted EBIT amounts to 731 million euros which is even 12% above the excellent results last year. EBITDA increased in parallel with depreciations and amortizations being stable at 160 million euros. Just like last year, the strong earnings results are mainly due to the global commodity business, However, last year is the European gas industry business performing strongly during a warm winter. This year, it is commodity business outside of Europe benefiting from cold temperatures during the winter. I will go into the details of the earnings drivers on the next slide. Klaus Dieter explains the fall of the winter led also to significantly lower gas inventories, which explains why the increase in operating gas flows turned out to be even higher than the increase in earnings. The adjusted net income increased also stronger than the adjusted EBIT, while minorities and economic tax rate remained the same It was a positive effect in the economic interest rate stemming from a revaluation of our provision on the back of the higher interest rate. The unadjusted or reported net income shows the strongest increase of all. This results mainly from mark-to-market effects on unrealized derivatives, as well as lots of impairments which impacted negatively last year. Moving on to economic debt debt, which significantly decreased since beginning of this year. Seeing a decrease in economic debt debt in Q1 is nothing special given the somewhat seasonal pattern. The extent by which it decreased is noteworthy. I will pick up this later on. First, let's have a look at the underlying earnings drivers on the next chart. As usual, this overview breaks down the year-on-year development of the adjusted EBIT into business effects. Let's start with the main reason for the successful Q1 result. The contribution from global commodities, which increased by roughly 120 million euros year on year. The underlying driver is the international commodity business, which increased by almost 460 billion euros year on year. About half of this is related to our LNG and US gas and power activities, benefiting from market developments in Asia and the US in Q1 significantly stronger than anticipated. Looking at our LNG business, we were able to monetize the flexibility in our portfolio. Once price Despite, it was sometimes even beneficial to unwind prior hedges in Europe and resell into Asia. In the US, we saw a comparable situation, but instead of LNG, it was especially our flexible gas portfolio that provided security of supply and helped to balance the markets during this extraordinary winter season. The second half of the 460 million euro effect year-on-year is mainly driven by the fact that last year saw some significant inventory impairments, which negatively impacted Q1 2020, and its lapse is a positive effect now. This is more of a technical issue, but it needs to be mentioned. While the international commodity business saw a very strong increase of 460 million euros, the European gas mainstream, on the other hand, saw a decrease of roughly 400 billion euros year on year. However, this negative deviation sounds more dramatic than it actually is. In actual terms, the gas mainstream contributed an adjusted EBIT of more than €260 million. This is a remarkable result if compared to the first quarters in 2018 or 2019, which were both below €200 million. However, as last year's Q1 2020, so the extraordinary result of more than 600 million, we see technically a negative year-on-year effect in such a magnitude here. Then, moving over to UNICA's European generation segment. The contribution from the European fossil fleet increased by roughly 50 million euros year-on-year, This reflects, among others, the contribution from Datten 4, which was not yet in operation during Q1 of last year. Further positive impacts are coming from the cash-fired assets used in Forum 5, which are backing the merchant market since Q4 2020. Finally, High capacity premiums in UK also contributed significantly to the higher fossil results in Q1. Next is outright power generation, where we see a negative effect of roughly 15 million euros on the back of the lower prices and volumes. As mentioned by Klaus-Peter, the generation volumes are down both in hydro to the lower precipitation and snowmelt, as well as in nuclear, mainly to the greenhouse one, going out of operation at the end of last year. Overall, average prices were down by roughly four euro per megawatt hour year on year. The next effect is almost a Uniper classic. the so-called carbon phasing effect, which is a pure intra-year effect in adjusted EBIT and will fully revert in Q4. As you know, Uniper Hedges is merchants' fossil generation by selling power and buying fuel and CO2 in advance, oftentimes more than one year prior to delivery. If carbon prices increase, so do the provision for carbon emission rights burdening our adjusted EBITs within the year. However, at the same time, the corresponding carbon hedges gain in value as they get into the money. The value gains of hedges, however, are only shown in the adjusted EBITs once they've been settled, which is in Q4 of each year. Until then, the positive development of those hedges is only reflected in the unrealized mark-the-market results within our non-operating results. Last but not least, our Russian power generation business, which is down by roughly 23 million euros versus prior year. While the underlying electricity market earnings are more than solid, the negative deviation can be almost equally split in two effects. First, the loss of CSA payments. Two blocks of our generation assets, Turskaja and Javinskaja, moved from the CSA scheme into the COM regulation beginning of this year. accordingly decreasing the capacity income of those assets. The other half is the FX effect following the weaker rubles. Now over the operating cash flow on the next slide. On the slide seven, you can follow the reconciliation from the group's adjusted EBIT to operating cash flow. To make it more transparent, you'll find also prior year figures on this chart. As you can see, even though adjusted EBITDA increased only roughly 80 million year-on-year, the increase in operating cash flow before interest and taxes is three times as high. Accordingly, the cash conversion in Q1 increased significantly from last year's 18% to now 48%. Focusing now on Q1 2021, let's go from left to right. As already mentioned, we had roughly 160 million of depreciation and amortization, which brings the adjusted EBITDA to almost 890 million euros. Non-cash effective EBITDA items correct for things that had an impact on the EBITDA, but were not cash relevant, which is mostly addition and revaluation of provisions. It largely lets out with the next effect, which is the actual provision utilization, i.e. the actual payout on provision that has been built in the past. Basically, half of it is related to our nuclear obligations. The other half is split across different categories, including our gas business and personal related provisions. The next item reflects the change in the working capital, which is heavily driven by the gas nitrine business. Despite lower physical gas inventories, We see an overall negative effect here as operating receivables and liabilities, and the way how the individual assets and contracts have been utilized is also reflected here. Compared with the previous year, the picture improved significantly in this area, which is one of the main drivers for the higher cash conversion. The two last items are tax and cash interest payments. The latter are structurally low, given Uniper's net debt composition, which is essentially free of borrowed money. This is also highlighted on the next slide, which covers the development of the economic net debt. Uniper's economic net debt amounting to 2.5 billion euros at the end of Q1, which is almost 600 billion euros lower compared to the beginning of this year. Half of the reduction, i.e. about 300 million, are applicable to the net financial position, which decreased from 520 million euros to roughly 220 million euros. This positive development reflects the strong operational cash flow, but it also relieves to some extent a seasonal pattern. In Q1, it is usually rather low in terms of expenditures. CapEx tends to be geared towards the second half of the year. Additionally, the dividends for the fiscal year 2020 have not been paid out. The AGM will decide on the proposed amount of 501 million euros on May 19. Just like the net financial position, pensions and asset repayment obligations decrease also by roughly 300 million euros in total. This is mainly driven by higher interest rates on our pension provisions. Those increased for Germany from 0.8% to 1.2% and for UK from 1.5% to 2.3%. Given this low level of debt and the strong financial performance, it is clear that Uniper is in a very comfortable position when it comes to relevant rating KPIs needed to sustain the solid investment grade rating of BBB. Having said that, let's go over to the final chart for today, Uniforce updated financial outlook. As communicated in the ad hoc statements last week, Juniper has updated its full year guidance for adjusted EBIT and adjusted net income. In both cases, the existing rates have been shifted upwards by 100 million euros. Accordingly, we now expect the adjusted EBIT to end up between 800 million euros and 1,050 million euros at the year end. For adjusted net income, the updated full-year guidance is 650 million euros to 850 million euros. Please note that we have not narrowed down the ranges yet, as we are still early in the year. The reasoning for the increased guidance is quite straightforward. Year 1 adjusted EBIT turned out about 100 million better than originally anticipated. Uniper expected the Q1 adjusted EBIT to be in the ballpark of 650 million euro. As the expected earnings as well as chances for the remainder of the year remain largely unchanged on the net basis, This higher Q1 result feeds more or less directly into the updated forecast. However, even though we expect a stronger full year 2021, the upcoming Q2 will most likely be less overwhelming. Given the seasonality pattern, Q2 and Q3 are traditionally the weakest quarters in the year. Last year, isolated Q2 contributed only 40 million to the group's adjusted EBIT. This year, we expect this amount to be even negative in the mid-double disease area. Since Q3 is also usually negative, The gap to the full-year target will be widening until finally Q4 brings the necessary needs forward. Thank you very much for your attention. I would like to hand over back to Stefan.

Thank you, Tia. And we are now coming to our Q&A section. As always, the analysts and investors, please stick to the two questions rules. Operator, over to you.

So now we will begin our question and answer session. If you have a question for our speakers, please dial 0 and 1 on your telephone keypad now to enter the queue. Once the name has been announced, you can ask the question. If you find your question is answered before it is your turn to speak, you can dial 0 and 2 to cancel your question. If you are using speaker equipment today, please lift the handset before making your selection. One moment, please, for the first question. The first question is from Sam Airy of UBS. Your line is now open.

Thank you very much. Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the new team. Congratulations on a very good presentation, obviously a nice set of results today. I think, well, I hope you forgive me if my first question is a bit direct, but, well, of course, we're delighted to welcome a new management team today, but I think everybody's also a bit surprised that that's what we're doing. Certainly, if I look back at four-year results, which was not too long ago, I think we all understood that cooperation between Fortum and Unipo was going well, and Tasha and Andreas were kind of quite settled into what they were doing. So I think, you know, my question is, could you help us understand a little bit more clearly what has happened here that brought about the change in team? And perhaps, you know, what specifically you guys and the new team will be able to do that the previous team wasn't doing? I think, you know, maybe that's actually a question, Klaus-Dieter, for your side. And then I think my second one, which is connected, maybe this is one actually for you, Tina. But last time we heard from Sasha and Andreas, they were unable to give a forward view on the dividend, and they said that discussion with Fortin was still pending. I think that was the word. So just wondering if there's any update on those discussions and if you're able to say anything looking forward about where Uniprom might go now with the dividend policy. So those might be questions. Thank you very much.

Good morning to you, Sam. Thank you for your questions. I propose first each ever take both questions on the management change as well as on the dividend.

Good morning, Sam. Thank you for your questions. I have to say it's not a total surprise that these questions were raised. I hope this is fair to say. Now, when it comes to your first question, I also understand and acknowledge that what was kind of published end of March, I think it was, beginning of April, that we have some changes to the management board came to us as a surprise for many people, maybe also not only outside but also inside of the organization. What I can say is that the number one is that back then I was on the supervisory board, that we're grateful for the service of Andrea Schierbeck and Rasha Bivat. I mean, they have managed this company for almost two years. They were great in kind of dealing with the challenges out of the Corona crisis. I mean, let's face it, this was difficult, very difficult year 2020. So we're really grateful for their service. I'm also grateful for the fact that we have we came to an amicable solution to an agreement on how to terminate the contract, and I think we should be respectful of that, and I'm grateful that we had kind of this way of transition. I mean, what was basically clear is, and that was a discussion that the supervisory board had to take up, is the question on how will the future look like? How is the way forward? It was not so much about kind of looking back. It was about how the future would look like and how the management board should look like. And in that respect, the supervisor board had discussed and taken a decision. And you know about the decision that Tina and I had now an opportunity to join the management board. And Andreas and Sascha agreed to leave the management board. I would like to leave it on this note. With regards to dividend also, very good question. And again, not an easy one. Maybe you can next time select two more easy questions for me coming into this discussion, but I'm trying to kind of answer that question as well. I understand that Uniper has been seen as a dividend stock so far. And I do also understand that it was anticipated that management clear on how the way forward would look like. But I have to say today that we are not ready, at least not today, to talk about the dividend or the dividend policy or any dividend outlook for 2021, maybe in 2022. I think what I can say, though, is that in particular, Tina, I have to kind of understand the full situation. You've learned from the numbers that we have published that we had some tailwind from external factors, referring to a cold winter in Europe and also in the US. But what we do know is that it can be the other way around as well. So the most important thing for us is protecting our existing business. And you know that global commodities or business requires a certain rating. This is the most important thing that we have to defend. as I said we have high ambitions on growing the company into the renewables and hydrogen space so what are the funds that we need to have available for these kind of growth ambitions number two thing and we still do not know and have not fully understood the consequences of the corona impact in the course of 2021 so when it comes to dividend from my end It's simply too early to tell, and I would like to ask your understanding that we're not trying to release any indication on how the dividend would look like.

Okay. So my understanding from that answer, if I may just quickly follow up, is that you're leaving it open whether the dividend might go up or might go down. Is that fair?

That's absolutely fair.

Okay. Well, look, that's very clear, and thank you for your answer to my other question, too. I apologize to be so direct, but, of course, as I say, we will welcome you guys aboard and look forward to more results events with you.

Yeah. Looking forward to meet you in person anytime soon.

Likewise. Thank you so much.

The next question is from Wüder Schumacher of Faktion. Your line is now open.

Good morning, Klaus-Dieter and Tina. All the best for your new roles, also from my side. Two questions for me as well. The first one is going back to what Sam just raised, but in a slightly different way. In terms of the management change, I'm not really that much interested on why it happened, but I'm interested to hear your what you will be doing different? What is the plan? I mean, Fortum's press release said that Fortum believes more benefits can be realized and achieved faster within the current setup through deeper integration. Can you maybe elaborate a bit on what this deeper integration could look like? Should we be looking at the synergy target that Fortum announced at the Capital Markets Day last year as... as quite conservative. Could this go up? What are you going to do different? That's the first one. The second one is you had obviously quite another extraordinary Q1. If you're not careful, we come to expect this from you from now on. But if I understand the trends you described in driving this extraordinary performance, the cold weather, you've got fuel commodities, These trends, certainly in terms of temperatures for Northern Europe, in terms of gas prices, they are up another 23% since the end of Q1. Carbon is up another 15% since the end of Q1. Could this super strong performance in Q1 also slip over into Q2? What have you seen there so far?

Good morning, Luda, and thank you for your questions. And the first one, the management center cooperation with Fortum, that will be taken by Klaus Dieter. The second one on the Q1 performance will be taken by Tina, but Klaus Dieter first over to you.

Now, first, Luda Schubacher, we've met before, didn't we?

Oh, we certainly did, yes.

Oh, yes, I recall that. It was back in the old E.ON days, wasn't it? I mean, but you were with a different company, weren't you?

Oh, yeah, this changes from time to time.

Very good. Well, great to hear you, to hear from you, but with your question. Now, you were basically asking the question, what will be different now since Tina and I have taken over? I would say maybe a number of things that will be different, but the most important thing I would like to start with that is direction that Uniper has decided on beginning of last year that was confirmed by end of 2020 that is clearly something that I can confirm this is our strategic direction so in terms of strategic direction you should not expect major changes when it comes to implementing the strategy and executing our Goal is to accelerate that, and when it comes to the cooperation with Fortum, you were referring to a target that was set out at the Capital Markets Day in 2020, 100 million goal for both companies that I can confirm. I think we can do more. And we will definitely look into more opportunities beyond what we have already agreed. Too early to tell and put a number to that and too early to tell where we find that, but we're clearly also kind of looking again together with Fortum on how we can strengthen our collaboration and always eyeing on where we can kind of do this to the benefit of both companies. of all shareholders for Uniper. The second thing is that we would like to look closer into growth opportunities. I said this before that we are looking we are expecting growth opportunities in the renewable and the hydrogen space. I should also say that the renewable business is something that Uniper is responsible for, and we are happy to take that role, also as part of the Fortum Unifor group. And that is something that we are clearly targeting to find opportunities for organic and inorganic growth, in particular also in the renewable space. So this would be my kind of response to your first question, what will be different? It's not about strategic direction, but it's about the speed,

Very clear, thank you.

Good morning and thank you for your question and kind welcome. So first your question related to the kind of the volatility of the market and the big in a way swings. So I think this is the current market environment more frequently seen last winter, very warm. This winter, it was more kind of the normal winter, but also some very extreme peaks in US and in Asia. I think the key is that we capture these, in a way, moments and utilize our flexible portfolio and in a way be on the nerves and in the market and be able to react to these changes. And I think this in a way is shown now previously in last Q1 and also shown this year. But then if we look at the forward and the questions could be repeated in Q2. So at the moment we will see that Q2, Q3 Those are the lower quarters of the year. And once we updated our full year forecast, so we also reflected the following quarter. So of course, very happy to see if the market changes and we in a way capture the value, but for the moment we see more kind of the regular seasonality coming on and as indicated the Q2 mostly to be slightly negative.

Very interesting. Just to clarify this. So despite gas prices going up, carbon prices going up and temperatures being unusually low for this time of year, you do not expect the Q1 effects to go over into Q2?

So, as in normal cases, so even though the gas prices now are going up, so this is usually the time when we put the gas into the storage. And the demand also during the summertime is not so high, so I think there is not that big opportunity. So... injections and outcome is more kind of the neutral. So, accordingly, we don't see big upsides here.

Okay, thank you.

The next question is from James Hunt of Deutsche Bank. Your line is now open. Hi, good morning.

I also want to express my best wishes for both of you in the new roles and good luck. Two questions from me. The first, Dr. Dieter, you gave the impression that you were happy with Uniper's strategy and it was more about the execution. Can I ask on a slightly different note whether you're also happy with the overall scope of the group? There's sometimes speculation around Russian business. There's been kind of... discussions in the past around whether Uniper could sell stakes in some of the pipelines. Are disposals something that's on the cards for Uniper, or is it too early to make a judgment on strategic issues like that? And then secondly, on the growth opportunities, you mentioned renewables and hydrogen. On the renewables side... should we be thinking about a particular niche of renewables that you're going to be targeting, or is it really just a case of building up a big pan-European renewables business? Because obviously you're quite a late player to the renewables game in a kind of subsector where, particularly this year, there's increasing competition. I'm just wondering where you felt you could be adding the most values from a renewable development pipeline. Thank you.

Thank you, James. Great question. I propose to take the compliment and the question on the Uniper portfolio, but as well on the renewables. Thank you for your question.

I mean, again, you rightfully referred to the fact that there is, from our perspective, currently no need to very clear on this one. Now, when it comes to executing the strategy and kind of looking at what we could do and should do in future, the big headline for everything is decarbonization. I made that, hopefully made that point clear in my initial remarks. And looking at the opportunities and growth opportunities in the future. We'll come back in a second to your point on growth and renewables. That means at the very same time that if we have the intention to decarbonize our portfolio, it will mean that we also look at our existing portfolio. And I would not go that far to talk specifically about specific assets that we have in mind. But what I can say is that we're talking about decarbonization, we will look into every business of our portfolio. I think there's room to look at that and also take action in every part of our business and making sure that we live up to the expectation of our goals to decarbonize our portfolio. But I would refrain from talking about specific assets for the time being. When it comes to your renewables question, I To be very honest, I mean, we are newcomers almost to this business. We are, if at all, the new kid on the block. We have as a group, including now also activities from Fortum, a number of things developed over time, but there is, you can hardly see any portfolio that is on our balance sheet when it comes to onshore wind or solar. We are a strong renewables power generator when it comes to hydro, but with regard to onshore wind and solar, we're not playing a role. This is what we're targeting. It's more the, I would say, conventional part of the renewable sector. I think you can also expect us to look in particular, first of all, to countries in which we are already present, also providing opportunities not only in countries, but also with regard to sites on which we are active, maybe have an opportunity to not only turn some of the sites into hydrogen sites, but also looking for opportunities to develop renewables on these sites. So it will be an approach looking into that space carefully, but not moving outside of Europe or doing something us to look for opportunities organically and inorganically in Europe, and also with regard to onshore wind and so on. That's what our aim is. And I should also say that we know that we will start with these activities in a way that we're trying to develop, build, and then also sell keep those assets on our balance sheet. So it will be a cautious, and we have ambitious targets, but it will be a cautious step-by-step approach that we want to take on renewables.

Great.

Thank you very much. The next question is from Edwin Mamadoff of Bloomberg.

Thanks for taking my question. I have two, please. The first one is on the carbon and decarbonization. You talked quite a lot about it. We've seen some headlines from Germany's more ambitious emission reduction target. The carbon prices keep going up. What does it mean for Uniper in the longer term? Does it create more opportunities or threats? And the second question is on the borrowing costs. I mean, we're still in an uptick in bond yields and inflation. If that continues, what does it mean for Unipress borrowing costs in the next, I don't know, three to five years? Thank you.

Thank you for your questions. And I think the first one on the decarbonization is one for Klaus-Dieter. And the borrowing costs, Tina will tackle that. Klaus-Dieter, maybe?

When it comes to carbon pricing, well, we all know that with our outright positions that we have in our portfolio when it comes to our nuclear production, also to our hydro production in the Nordics and also in Germany, clearly every increase of carbon prices is helpful, if I may say so, because that is usually something that has been reflected by wholesale prices benefit from that. When it comes to our spreads, to the spark spreads, dark spreads, it's more or less neutral, wouldn't say too much out of that. The other aspect that you mentioned when it comes to carbon pricing and the way the entire political debate is being developed, I mean, it's in particular of interest to us to see how the decisions, how political decisions are being taken in Brussels, on EU level, but also in Berlin. And there are obviously a lot of moving parts that are difficult to assess from our end. But what I can say though is that it's a pretty dynamic development. I mean, you can see almost every day In Germany, we have federal elections coming up. It's also clear that climate protection, CO2 reduction issue is one of the key topics for the upcoming election and thereafter. So it's really difficult for us to judge, to make a final decision. invitation for conferences is that if the European Union or in particular German government would at any point in time ask us to come to the table, talk about an acceleration of cold exit, we are ready to talk, we are ready to speak. I was also referring to the situation in the Netherlands. We are ready at any point in time to discuss way forward when it comes to Constructor 3. We understand that action needs to be taken and we will not be a roadblock, we want to be part of a solution. Maybe that is what I can say to your question.

Thank you.

Good morning and thank you for your question. So coming back to our net debt position and the impact of the interest rate or bond rate increases. So firstly, I would like to mention that actually our net financial position is very small. So at the end of Q1, so 218 million, so practically nearly debt-free. Also, if we look at what is the impact of our cash flow, the interest payments for Q1 was minus five million euros, so basically, very, very small impact. However, what we have is the provisions, so both what comes to the asset, retirement obligations and pensions, so there, of course, the interest rates will impact, and as we saw, in this Q1, that's when the interest rates came down, so discounting with the higher discount rates, so the actual pension and other provisions went down, for example, pensions by 232, so impact is coming from that end and going down.

So the net impact from high bond use is actually positive. Thank you.

Yes, that's correct.

The next question is from Vincent Arol of JP Morgan. Your line is now open.

Yes. Good morning and best wishes in your respective roles. My question is we're not submitting any of the call already, so I'd like to take a slightly different angle. On the dividend, you're saying that it could go up, it could go down. It depends on the decision on the investment front, assessment of the public impact. I would say this is true for most, if not all, of the companies in the space. Ultimately, here we have a special situation, and it's clear there is a disagreement between Unica and Fortin. So maybe we can look at it this way. Who, could you help us understand who of Unica or Fortin is asking for a higher dividend than the other. If you were considering the same dividend, there wouldn't be a disagreement to start with. So that would help us understand the dynamics there. Hopefully you can help to enlighten for investors in areas like on this topic. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Vincent, great to have you on the call. And as always, any question is appreciated. A little bit of a question, obviously, is one for Klaus Dieter.

I understand that our answers with regard to the dividends is not fully satisfying, obviously, for everybody around. I do fully understand that, but would also be for your understanding that we don't want to go deeper into that topic today. And the question that you made, who would be interested in kind of a higher or lower dividend, would it be Fortune or Uniper, again, I think part of the question you need to ask our fellow colleagues in Helsinki, what their views are. So it's the wrong place, if I may say so. And when it comes to our view with regard to diffident, I try to outline and describe how we look at this. It's simply really too early. what I said before. We understand that this is an important topic to investors. We have to make up our mind clearly on this topic, but it's really too early to tell. I don't want to commit to any kind of outflow when it comes to dividends today.

All right. Thank you. At least we tried. I will leave the room for further questions. Bye.

The next question is from . Your line is now open.

Hi. Thanks for taking my question, and congratulations again from my side for a very successful few months. So my question, again, is somewhat on the strategy acceleration. Could you possibly give us some more color on maybe some specific initiatives that you're taking, especially in terms of inorganic opportunities that you might have already identified in Europe? And my second question is on the trading division. So you mentioned that a lot of the outperformance came from cold temperatures and especially in the U.S. So does this relate to the Texas freeze earlier in this year? So basically what was the sources of the outperformance and do you expect this to be repeatable in future? Thank you.

Thank you very much and thanks for joining the call. The question on the strategic acceleration, that's one for Cloud Theta, and then on the trading business in particular, the U.S. impact, that will be taken by D-NOW.

Decarbonization leads the way in every aspect. So you can expect from our end that we are looking at our petroleum, whether we can kind of accelerate, for example, Number one, we are, in terms of acceleration, we will look at synergies and fields of cooperation with Fortum going beyond what we've already disclosed. Lastly, also this element that you asked for, clearly we are not only looking for organic growth opportunities, but also for inorganic growth opportunities, but would not really like to disclose any. any specific targets that we have when it comes to inorganic opportunities, and I'm sure that you will understand that.

Good morning, and thank you for your question. So I said our trading divisions are very good, excellent performance capturing the kind of the opportunities in the market. And one part was also the Texas, in a way, called SPEL event. So from our overall, in a way, international commodity business, so increased the result year and year, 460 million euros, and roughly half of that is related to US gas and power and LNG we could say in a way weather or in a way winter impact. Of that number, roughly two-thirds is related to the Texas spell. So what actually happened is that market conditions in Q1 were very, very exceptional. So in February, as you know, there were roughly 10 extremely cold days, and It meant that, unfortunately, conventional power plants as well as wind and solar plants went offline. Also, some gas production fell more than 30%, and these impacted that the power and gas prices went to unseen very, very high levels. I think Juniper was able to utilize is flexibility, so we had a gas in the storage, so we could send that to the market in a way advanced, and we could also utilize our gas to power optionality to bring the gas and power to the market and bring the security of supplies. So I think this kind of gospel, I really, really hope it will not happen because it's a very difficult situation for the people, also our employees and everyone. So hopefully we can fight against the climate change and have more stable situations. So flexibility, yes, we try to utilize, but we can't say that that would be repeatable.

Okay, thank you. The next question is from Deepa Venkateswaran of Bernstein. Your line is now open.

Thank you. Sorry, I joined the call slightly late, so apologies for asking another question from the same firm. My question is on the speeding up of execution. So obviously one of the big aspects of the carbon footprint is your Russian division. So apologies if this question has already been asked. I was just wondering whether as part of speeding up your decarbonization plan, an exit from Russia is on the cards. I think the previous management team always looked at it. I think they called it the third leg of the Uniper strategy from memory. So I was just wondering whether you have a different view of how you see the Russian division. Thank you.

Thank you, Deepa, for your question. Good to have you.

Every business or segment that we are running needs to contribute to our decarbonization strategy, and that includes Russia. How this will look like and what we can do, that is something that we need to discuss in particular with our Russian colleagues to tell how it will definitely look like, but we also expect from our Russian business that they will contribute to our decarbonization. That is what I can say. precisely look like, but I expect also to Russia to contribute.

Thank you. The next question is from . Your line is now open.

Good morning, everybody. Thank you for the presentation and also from my side, best wishes in any new roles. I have two questions, please. So the first one would be on the renewable target. We actually learned the targets of Fortum Group, which are consolidated targets, which are 3 billion capex spent by 2025 and delivering up to 2 gigawatts. How much of this renewable target would be attributable to Uniper? And can you achieve it organically or M&A of pipelines is not... avoidable, so that's the first question. And second, on the mass fluctuation, what is your expectations regarding the timing of this process, and what are you looking to achieve? Is it just a simple plain compensation, or there could be other solutions? I don't know what that could be, like extension of the pipeline or anything like this. Thank you.

Thank you, Piotr, and I think that maybe we start

Thank you, Stefan. On your last question, I mean, we don't know how an outcome could look like. We are ready to talk. We are ready to negotiate with the Dutch government. What we're not willing to accept is the situation we are in, that we have a Dutch cold exit law in place. which is not compensating us for an early retirement of MPP3. I think we are ready to talk about kind of compensation in all kind of forms. There is some flexibility from our end and hopefully also from the Dutch government with regard to that. Could be also that we are developing something on site that is certainly well about security of supply and so forth. So maybe we need to be creative, but the first thing that we need to accept or they need to accept it from both sides is that the current situation is unacceptable to us and we have to see and we hopefully will see The second question on CapEx, I think we have also described what we're aiming for. Until 2025, I think our goal was one gigawatt of capacity that we're targeting. Clearly this can be not only achieved by organic growth, but most likely also by inorganic growth. wire, a kind of platform. Let's see. We, as I said before, the starting point, we're coming almost from zero from that one. And we have also said that we are targeting a higher number beyond 2025, because that is really beyond the next three years. In the next three years, we have said that we and they are of 1.5 billion for growth and that is basically generally what our framework looks like.

Okay, thank you very much.

The next question is from Iris Timon of Carnegie. Your line is now open.

Yes, hello, this is Iris from Carnegie, Helsinki. I have two questions, please. So firstly, just a follow-up question on Germany's plan to achieve carbon neutrality by 2045. Would it be possible for you to decarbonize your gas portfolio by 2045, or does it require more time? And then, secondly, this year, we will have more power-capable capacity coming between the Nordics and Central Europe and the UK. So what do you think how this will impact the Nordic and German power prices? Is it going to be positive for both prices or do you expect that the German price will decrease because of increased capacity? Thanks.

Thank you, Iris, for your question. On the first question, the decarbonization, the 2035, that's probably one. And the second one, the correlation between the German and the Nordic market, that's one for Tina. And maybe that's the one to start with.

Good morning. Thanks for your question. Quite rightly. So if we currently look at the prices in the Nordic and in the continental Europe, so there has been, in a way, pretty big gap. So prices in the Nordics, 25 to 30 euros were in Germany or continental Europe. Europe much, much higher to 50 to 60 MWh. I think it is very essential to get this new interconnection in line, and even get to more. There was one important link already, which went online last December, NordLink from Norway to Denmark. We also expect this year this North Sea link from Norway to UK. This is coming on the line, and then a bit later, 2024, the link between Denmark and UK. So very important to get the different marketplaces connected. However, how this gap will it be? decline or what will happen. So we depend on the progress of these building of the interconnections, but also how the future supply and demand will develop in both markets, particularly in the Nordics. So we know there is a lot of building up of renewables in the in the Nordic, but then on the other hand, a lot of electrification is going on, the carbonation industry is using more and more power, so all these, in a way, different elements will impact and it remains to be seen that what is the space.

So I'll take the first question on carbonation. Now we have set out a net zero carbon target by 2035 for our European generation. I can confirm that. And I can confirm that this would include also our gas fleet. Clearly this would mean that we have to take action on a number of things, in particular also looking for opportunities to feed not only natural gas but also hydrogen That's still a way to go. You know that we're working on a number of initiatives together with our manufacturers of gas turbines to see what we can do and what we should do in order to get them converted from natural gas to hydrogen. But I would like to stress at this point that that will become pretty clear in the next years to come for Germany in particular, but also for continental Europe, how important gas will be as the key transitional energy form that we need in order to run systems, power supply systems and energy supply systems in Europe with a very high and increasing share of volatile renewable cultures. we feel absolutely best positioned to provide solutions when it comes to transitioning natural gas to hydrogen and hence helping power supply systems to provide security of supply. Do we have all the answers today already? No. Is there still a number of things that we need to do? Yes. I'm sorry, for 2035, and I'm convinced that we can achieve that goal. That's maybe to your question.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Iris. Operator, to our understanding, there are no more questions. Is that correct?

Yes, there are no more questions.

Thank you all very much for participating in today's call. Thank you very much. Have a nice day.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your attendance. This call has been concluded. You may disconnect now.