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Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Uniper Analyst and Investor Conference call, first half results 2023. 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 by dialing star 11 on your telephone. You will find the dial-in details to the telephone conference in your invitation. May I now hand you over to Stefan Joost, who will start the meeting today. Please go ahead.

Good morning, dear analysts and investors. A warm welcome to the Uniper Interim Results Call for the first half of the fiscal year 2023. I'm sitting here with our CEO, Michael Lewis, and our CFO, Jutta Dönges. I'm glad that both are with us today, and especially a warm welcome to you, Mike, as this is your first appearance as Uniper's CEO in a results presentation. We will start with Mike, who will present to you our new strategy, and we'll give you an overview over the key developments of the recent weeks. In the second part of today's call, Jutta will guide you through the interims, results presentation, and our key financials. As usual, there will be a Q&A session after the presentation. Over to you, Mike, please.

Thanks very much, Stefan, and good morning, everyone, and a very warm welcome from my side to this call. As Stefan said, I'm Michael Lewis. This is my first call as the new Uniper CEO, and it's a real pleasure to be here and to guide you through this call together with my colleague, our CFO, Jutta Donges. Some of you may know me from my time at E.ON, where I served the last 20 years in various leadership roles, most recently as CEO of E.ON UK, where I led the integration of Empower and the digital transformation of the business. But it also feels like I'm not entirely new to Uniper as I've met many former colleagues here at Uniper again with whom I had the pleasure to work at Uniper when it was still part of E.ON. So meeting new colleagues again and diving into the various businesses that comprise Uniper was very familiar to me and it made my start on June the 1st relatively easy. It also put me in a good position to get right to work in reviewing Uniper's strategy. Being conscious of the extraordinary events that UNIPA went through in 2022 and at the beginning of 2023, I can say that I'm deeply impressed with the resilience of the entire organization, the extraordinary level of expertise and the professionalism, all of which forms the basis for the next chapter of UNIPA as we embark together on the way forward. And on that note, I also look forward to meeting many of you in person on future occasions. So together with my colleagues, we've worked over the last weeks intensively reviewing Uniper's strategy and setting out a new course as to how we want to shape the transformation of the energy system towards carbon neutrality, and in so doing, also transforming Uniper. We will present to you today the results of this strategy review process, and we will also guide you through our half-year financials, which mark nothing less than an extraordinary positive development unique in our company's history and unique in terms of a financial turnaround. And this forms the basis of our ambitious new strategic direction. Jutta will explain the details of our financials to you, but let me already say, Uniper is back on track. We significantly de-risked the business. We stand operationally on very solid ground and we generate significant cash flows, which will allow us to focus on our future. So let me now turn to the core of our strategy update under the mantra, accelerating the energy transition, flexible, balanced, bespoke. As the energy sector undergoes a transformation, also the supply and demand buttons for energy will shift fundamentally over the coming years. This is driven by the decarbonization that Europe will experience and a significant growth of green electricity will be core to that. And while electricity demand is expected to double by 2030, the share of renewable capacity in the energy mix in Europe is expected to increase to more than 70%. And along with the significant build out of renewables, also the requirement for flexible generation capacity increases. Capacity which is capable of balancing renewables on which today, mainly run on fossil fuels, needs to be transformed into flexible, greener capacity. Not only will the electricity sector undergo this fundamental shift towards a greener future, but also gas supply will as well. And today the gas market is based on natural gas. In future, it will increasingly consist of green gases and hard to abate sectors will heavily rely on the availability of green gases like hydrogen or biomethane to meet their decarbonization targets. And already today, Uniper has these capabilities and assets and is ready to play a significant role in this transformation process right across Europe. But this means that Uniper will also change. In 2030, Uniper will look fundamentally different than it does today. We will transform Uniper into a leading provider of green energy in Europe, whilst at the same time continuing our traditional role of providing security of supply. We will predominantly produce green and flexible power and blend our gas with rapidly increasing shares of green gases and continue to serve our existing approximately 1,000 customers with bespoke energy solutions. All of this is supported by a trading and optimization platform, which originates and trades energy projects across markets and provides high-quality services to grid operators to help them balance the energy systems. Uniper set course to accelerate our transformation into a green company. And we commit today to first a coal exit by 2029, eight years earlier than planned. And even more importantly, to become a carbon neutral company for our scope one, two and three emissions by 2040. And Uniper will set aside a total of 8 billion euros by 2030 for investments to achieve this green transformation. And this means we will triple on average our annual growth and transformation investments compared to the average of the last three years. And our investments in growth and transformation will perfectly support our ambition to become an independent company again and return to a standalone investment grade rating. And to achieve the 2030 target, we will focus our activities on four pillars, namely First, we will continue to focus on customers. Our industrial and municipal customers form the basis of our services provided in transforming the energy system. Second, we will focus on our power generation portfolio and transform it into a green and flexible portfolio. Uniper today safely operates one of the largest power generation portfolios in Europe with 22.5 gigawatts. and we will invest with discipline in the transformation of our power generation portfolio to become a predominantly carbon-free generator. Third, we will reshape our gas supply portfolio to remain a reliable supplier and to make it increasingly green. So we will remain a key gas supplier in Europe, and while natural gas will remain the basis of our gas supply well into the 2030s, the share of green gases in our portfolio is set to steadily increase until 2030 and indeed thereafter. And fourth, we will strengthen our role as a trader and optimizer through maximizing the value of energy across our geographically diverse portfolio of energy commodities, originating new products as the energy transition evolves, and also by providing system operators with the services they need to operate an increasingly larger and more complex grid system. Now let me describe each of our four pillars in a bit more detail. And over to our first pillar, our customers. And our roughly 1,000 industrial and municipal customers form the basis for our services that we provide in transforming the energy system. And we strive to remain the supplier of choice for those customers. We have the ambition to grow our sales of green products, both in gas and power, by expanding our product portfolio, for example, through adding biomethane to our portfolio or through growth in green hydrogen sales. And on the power side, we aim to extend our current sales portfolio of roughly 30 terawatt hours to become a leading player in green power purchase agreements and to provide our customers with services to help stabilize grids, for example, with the provision of ancillary services and batteries. We have an extremely strong sales team that supports our industrial customers to embark on their own decarbonization journey. And we jointly develop decarbonization roadmaps and provide them with bespoke energy solutions. We are committed to continuously provide our customers with reliable and sustainable energy supply, as we have done so throughout the crisis, and we will do so in the future, whilst helping our customers move towards more sustainable energy supply by providing more sustainable energy solutions. I now come to the second pillar of our strategy, which targets the transformation of our power generation portfolio. And in an energy world that is predominantly run on renewable energy, the role of clean, dispatchable, flexible generation will play a vital role in the energy transition. Today, we operate a high-performance portfolio of 22.5 gigawatts right across Europe. And today, roughly 20% of Uniper's generation portfolio is carbon-free. Our hydronuclear plants contribute significantly to a reliable and sustainable energy supply. And in this area of zero-carbon generation, flexible zero-carbon generation, we want to and will do more. So by 2030, 80% of our portfolio will consist of low carbon or carbon free assets. One element to achieve this target is to phase out our coal-fired generation by the end of 2029. This is already eight years earlier than previously planned. The second element is our increased ambition to speed up the growth of our renewable asset base. Our renewable team has acquired a project pipeline at gigawatt scale and we will also grow our base of wind and solar power. Also, our portfolio of renewable PPAs is set to expand significantly to a mid-double-digit terawatt-hour portfolio by 2030. The third element is to transform our existing assets step-by-step into low-carbon or carbon-free, flexible, dispatchable power plants. Uniper has ambitions, for instance, to explore the potential for carbon capture and storage projects in the UK, or to make gas-fired assets capable for a fuel switch. And the fourth element is our preparedness to invest in new net-zero capable flexible generation assets at gigawatt scale, as well as in large battery solutions, as we already do in Sweden today. These investments decisions are subject to the right regulatory framework conditions, which in some markets are yet to be defined. So it's important to note that all of this investment is predicated on achieving a rate of return in excess of our hurdle rate. And it's therefore imperative that the regulatory environment in the markets in which we operate supports this transition towards zero carbon flexible power. Over to the third pillar of our strategy, our gas business. As you know, Uniper is today a leading gas supplier in Europe and will remain so in the future, but with a different portfolio composition. We have a strong gas portfolio consisting of more than 200 terawatt hour B2B sales, and our supplies are served via contracted pipelines or LNG volumes, as well as the wholesale markets. And Uniper is also a leading gas storage operator in Europe. And we will continue to diversify the supply of natural gas in our portfolio to ensure that we remain the supplier of choice for our customers. Our strong gas business is the basis for us to transform this portfolio and broaden it further over time into a greener portfolio, but without compromising our reliability as a supplier. The crisis of last year has taught us many lessons, and we need to ensure that we do not find ourselves in a similar situation again. And we will therefore de-risk our gas business model and further diversify our gas portfolio, for example, by gradually broadening our gas portfolio on the supply side and by adding gases like biomethane or hydrogen. And we will ramp up our hydrogen activities with the target to achieve at least one gigawatt of electrolyzer capacity to become a significant producer of green hydrogen in the future. A first signpost for our commitment is the final investment decision, which we've taken together with our partner for the innovative hydrogen project at Bad Laustadt, Saxony-Anhalt. Here, we will showcase the successful piece of the energy transition by tackling the entire green gas supply chain. We will blend our current portfolio based on natural gas steadily and in line with market developments with green gases like hydrogen and biomethane to serve our customers with a broad range of sustainable products. And we will further explore the potential to convert parts of our gas storage portfolio into hydrogen storage. And first test projects are already launched like our project in Crumhorn, Lower Saxony. So by 2030, Uniper strives for a similar size of our current gas portfolio, but will develop into a portfolio which consists increasingly of green gases and which will play a central role on our way to net zero in 2040. So now over to our fourth pillar, optimization. Here we see our role as pivotal in making the energy transition a reality in real time. So what do we mean by that? Well, as we decarbonize the energy system and electrify more and more of the economy, such as transport and heating, the electricity system will massively expand and the different parts of the energy system will become ever more tightly coupled. As intermittent and inflexible renewables become the backbone of the energy system, as more and more distributed generation will need to be integrated into the system, as long-duration seasonal storage and short cycle storage become increasingly important in balancing supply and demand, and as gas to power becomes power to gas to storage to power, and as flexibility moves increasingly downstream and demand side management plays an increasingly important role. This means that the relationship between supply and demand will become ever more dynamic, and this will be reflected in more dynamic and volatile pricing. And we'll use our cutting edge commercial capabilities to trade energy products across time spans and markets. And by maximizing the value of the energy delivered, we serve our customers needs for a reliable supply of progressively lower carbon power and gas. Our aim is to allocate power and gas and the future green gases to the highest value use at the right point in time and thus support the balancing sales and supply. And this will involve Uniper's recognized expertise in energy trading and origination and our capabilities in optimizing the energy system and the assets that supply energy into our system. So let me turn now to our sustainability targets. Uniper's accelerated green transformation is underpinned by tightened environmental, social, and governance targets. and our agenda encompasses increased environmental targets. And this means, as I already said, Uniper will accelerate the coal exit by eight years and close the last coal power plants by the end of 2029. And the last coal plant to close will be Maasvlakte in the Netherlands, assuming that Uniper fulfilled its obligations under the EU state aid decision, including the sale of Datel. Unipo also commits to a carbon reduction target of at least 55% of its scope one and two emissions compared to 2019 by 2030. And we'll also achieve carbon neutrality for the entire group for our scope one and two emissions by 2035. Our target before was only to deliver this for our European generation fleet. And this sets the stage for us to deliver by 2040 a carbon neutral company with scope one, two, and three emissions being delivered by Uniper as a carbon neutral company. And furthermore, we'll assess the introduction of a science-based target for Uniper. With regard to our social responsibility, we will continue to use our leverage as an energy company to engage with suppliers to minimize the negative impacts on human rights violations in our supply chains. And as an operator of assets and infrastructure, safety will be at the core of our culture. We set our target of zero severe accidents. And a high safety standard culture is particularly important when we are driving growth. And we want to build on our history of high quality health and safety manager in Uniper so that we continue to make sure it's part of our DNA as we transform and grow. And part of Uniper's transformation agenda is also a revision of our governance and steering of our sustainable investments. Uniper will develop a climate transition plan by 2025, which will define our strategy for our decarbonization in more detail. And we'll continue with our stakeholder engagement, for instance, in the form of stakeholder dialogues with NGOs, so we ensure a just transition in our supply chains. So after diving deeper into Uniper's portfolio, let's briefly summarize how we want to get to 2030 and what will be the driving forces to achieve our targets. As I said, Uniper has financially recovered after the critical year of 2022. We have stabilized and we have regained financial strength, and this is the basis for delivering our strategy. Uniper is ready to invest over 8 billion euros until 2030 in growth and transformation to deliver our strategy. Uniper has regained the financial capacity to finance this transformation with our own strength. And Uniper is fully capable without any further equity injections from the state to deliver this transformation and growth. And as presented earlier, our transformation will happen predominantly in three areas. First, we will decarbonize our existing assets and stand ready to invest in new, flexible, net zero capable generation assets. Second, we will step up our efforts in building out our renewables portfolio, predominantly in wind and solar, and by growing our PPA portfolio. And third, we will transform our gas portfolio towards a green portfolio without compromising on our reliability as a gas supplier by diversifying our supply base and by investing in assets like electrolysis as part of our overall decarbonization targets. This transformation will make Uniper a strong driver for the energy transition and make us more resilient in a fast-changing energy world. At the same time, the planned investments will deliver more predictable and greener earnings, thereby supporting our commitment to regain standalone investment grade rating and to become an independent company again. So our transformation process is already well underway. After the successful stabilization, Uniper has regained financial strength throughout the first half of 2023. We've presented to you the results of our strategy review from the past weeks, and this is for us the starting point to set course for our strategy implementation. As part of this, we'll continue to implement the EU remedy measures, and with the strategy implementation also pave the way for a successful exit of the Bund from UNIPA in line with EU requirements. And this means that by 2030, UNIPA will have achieved its strategic goals and will stand on a sound, independent footing. And Jutta will now present to you UNIPA's financial results for the first half of fiscal year 2023, which demonstrates that UNIPA has indeed regained solid ground. Jutta, over to you.