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Dear ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Uniper Analyst and Investor Conference Call, Nine Months Results 2024. At our customers' requests, this conference will be recorded. As a reminder, all participants will be in a lesson-only mode. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions by dialing star 1 on the headphone. We now hand you over to the Executive Vice President, Investor Relations, Sebastian Feitz, who will start the meeting today. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator. Dear investors and analysts, good morning. I am pleased to welcome you to our interim results call for the first nine months. Today, I'm sitting here with Jutta Dunges, our chief financial officer, who will lead you through the company's highlights and financial performance for the first nine months. At the end of the presentation, Jutta will comment on the outlook for the full year 2024. And as usual, there will be a Q&A session after the presentation. Now, let me hand over to Jutta, please.

Thank you, Sebastian. And good morning, everyone. A warm welcome from my side, and thank you for tuning in today. Before I start with the highlights of the nine-month report, let me comment on the increasing reports in the press over the last weeks regarding a possible German government exit of its stake in Uniper. We welcomed the press statement of the Ministry of Finance in September that the German government is examining all options available to fulfill the exit commitment. The central option is a sale via the capital market. Please be reminded that all decisions concerning the execution of the exit can only be made by the German government. Let's now dive into the update of our nine-month results. Turning to our nine-month highlights on slide three, let me start with the main operational developments before I go into the details of our financials. First highlights. Our business performance in the first nine months demonstrates our strong commercial capabilities and operational substance. We continue to make good progress in fulfilling the remedy measures obligations agreed between the German government and the European Commission, which must be executed by the end of 2026. Recently, we have formally launched the sales process for the German coal-fired power plant Tatteln IV and for our district heating business based in the Ruhr area. We are confident to fulfill the obligations before the given deadline. The decarbonization of the group also took a decisive step forward in the third quarter of this year. With the decommissioning of our coal-fired power plant Redcliffe in the UK and Haydn in Germany end of September, and in coherence to our communicated decarbonization pathway, we have closed coal generating capacity of 2.9 gigawatts out of 6.2 gigawatts in total. This moves Uniper closer to the end of our coal era. And we are driving the transformation by putting considerable resources into developing new businesses. One focus area is dispatchable flexible power, where we are preparing projects that can qualify under the regulatory schemes in the German and British markets. The German government has, in the meantime, presented a draft of its power plant strategy. Next steps after the recently completed public hearing procedure are the approval by the European competition authorities and the completion of the legislative process. And, to be very clear, Uniper stands ready to invest, but the final legislative steps need to be taken fast in order to realize the ambitious political targets. The flexible generation business is the DNA of Uniper, and we are preparing hydrogen-ready power plant new-build projects for the plant auctions, the first one scheduled for the first half of 2025. Now let's move over to the second topic, our nine-month results. Unipass operating business performed very well in the first nine months and is still well above the run rate of what we consider a typical financial year and fully in line with our expectations. After nine months, we report an adjusted EBITDA of almost 2.2 billion euros and for adjusted net income, a nine-month result of almost 1.3 billion euros. Please note that the interim result includes temporary effects that we expect to dissolve in the fourth quarter. The well-known carbon phasing effect had a positive effect of 140 million euros on our nine-month adjusted EBITDA, but will fully revert at year-end. Green generation performed better than last year, especially nuclear. Supported both by higher-than-plan produced volumes, and overall higher achieved average prices compared to the same period last year. Unipass financial base is solid after nine months of 2024. We had a net cash position of around 5.6 billion euros at the end of the reporting period. In this context, we made an initial payment of over 500 million euros to the Federal Republic of Germany in the third quarter 2024, as a result of the outcome of the arbitration proceedings regarding the long-term gas supply contracts with Gazprom. Coming to the outlook. As has been flagged previously, and as can be seen from the earnings data, the tailwind for the operating business, and this applies in particular to the two-star performing Uniper segments, flexible generation and greener commodities, is fading. However, Uniper's transition strategy pays into it. We will combine our strength from commodity trading and optimization with new investments, which aim to provide more stable and predictable earnings streams in the contracted and regulated businesses. With respect to full fiscal year 2024, we confirm our outlook, which we have raised back in August. Even though the earnings outlook for the fourth quarter looks unambitious at first glance, the weaker commodity price environment But even more so, the reversal of positive effects from the nine-month result forms the rationale to confirm our guidance for the full year. Before I will dive into the financial numbers, I would like to take this opportunity to update you on one of our strategic KPIs, our decarbonization targets. Slide four. We recently performed a review of our strategy adopted in the summer of 2023, based on a transition roadmap and prioritized growth projects. In particular, we are now less optimistic about the timeline regarding the implementation of a green hydrogen economy. We observe a mood of caution among potential B2B customers to make a commitment for significant green hydrogen or ammonia supply offtake volumes. Also, the ramp up of hydrogen power plants is expected to come slower than initially assumed 18 months ago. As dispatchable power plants are only expected to be operated in a CO2 neutral manner at a later point in time than originally assumed, according to current proposals by the federal government eight years later, this changed setting has an effect on our decarbonization roadmap in later years. We therefore are now targeting carbon neutrality for Scope 1 and 2 for the year 2040, in sync with our Scope 3 target. Considering our well-advanced phase-out of coal-fired power generation, we remain on track to achieve our carbon reduction target for Scope 1 and 2 emissions for the year 2030 of minus 55% compared to 2019. Also, our targets for Scope 3 remain untouched. With the next slide, I will underpin our firm commitment that UNEPA continues to pursue its efforts to achieve a decarbonized portfolio mix. In the third quarter of 2024, UNEPA took a decisive step towards lowering carbon emissions with a decommissioning of large coal-fired power plants in the UK and in Germany. By the end of September 2024, around 2.9 gigawatts of our coal-fired power generation capacity was permanently taken off the grid. In the UK, with the closure of the four power plant units at the Redcliffe site, the era of coal-fired power generation in the UK has come to an end. After the proposed sale of Gatlin IV, Unipower will operate only one significant coal-fired power plant commercially until 2029. That's Maaflakte in the Netherlands. At the order of Germany's Federal Network Agency and the TSOs, the coal-fired generation units Scholven B and C in the Ruhr area and Staudinger 5 near Frankfurt are put into a reserve scheme required until March 2031. Both plans are expected to be on standby with tiny generation volumes and carbon emissions. For Uniper's carbon footprint, coal would then no longer be a significant burden. Uniper, as one of Europe's major power producers with dispatchable coal and gas-fired power plants, is fully on track towards carbon neutrality 2040 and will have reduced our European generation carbon emissions by almost 80% in the 15-year period since the foundation of the Uniper company until 2030. And now to the highlights of the operating business performance on the nine months of 2024 and the outlook. As usual, let's start with a look at the financial highlights for the first nine months of the financial year 2024. As I said in the beginning, we have again achieved a very strong operating performance, which is below the record level of the previous year, but still well above what we would consider as a typical financial year. With an adjusted EBITDA of almost 2.2 billion euros and an adjusted net income of almost 1.3 billion euros for the first nine months, we have already achieved the middle of the outlook ranges for the full year 2024 that we updated last quarter. The IFRS net income came out below the adjusted net income. This gap stems from a variety of effects, including mark-to-market results of derivatives, impairments and provisions. The calculation of the clawback to the German government is breathing with the net result and has been adjusted accordingly. A provision of approximately 2.5 billion euros for the clawback is included in our latest balance sheet. We continue to have a strong economic net cash position of almost 5.6 billion euros at the end of September 2024. reflecting the good operating cash flow of almost 2.6 billion euros. I will now go into more details on the drivers that influence the respective financial results. Let's start with the adjusted EBITDA on the next slide, number eight. This slide shows the key changes in adjusted EBITDA for the first nine months of 2024 compared to the prior year's first nine months. As highlighted during previous calls, the earnings from the gas midstream and flexible generation businesses are returning to more normalized levels after exceptional results in the financial year 2023. Nevertheless, the operating and financial performance this year remains at a very good level, and we expect that the normalization of our earnings will continue. Now, let's go through the individual effects from top to bottom. The largest negative year-on-year change comes from the gas midstream business, which is mainly driven by the lower gains for the procurement of Russian replacement gas volumes in the amount of almost 290 million euros for the first nine months, 2024, versus about 2 billion euros for 2023 in the first nine months. Excluding these so-called curtailment gains, the gas midstream business delivered a result of circa 180 million euros, which is significantly lower than the previous year's earnings. Previous year, the greener commodities, our trading business also benefited from a very volatile price environment in an unrepeatable manner. The strongest segment compared to the nine-month 2023 green generation generated an adjusted EBITDA for the first nine months, which was roughly 150 million euros better than the prior year. This is mainly driven by nuclear, which achieved higher prices and more favorable hedging transactions, plus higher volumes due to the better availability of Oscarsan 3 and Ringhals 4. Overall, the nuclear result is 170 million euros higher than previous year. The green generation subsegment hydro is slightly negative year on year. we were able to achieve higher volumes followed increased water inflows. However, this positive volume effect was overcompensated by lower prices, especially in Sweden. Like in the previous quarter, flexible generation delivered an impressive operating contribution to group earnings, but below the previous year's record level. The extraordinary high spread we were able to lock in in 2023 were not repeatable, which also led to lower generation volumes for both coal and gas. Accordingly, adjusted EBITDA for gas-fired generation decreased by €170 million and for coal-fired generation by almost €370 million. Please note again that the interim result includes temporary effects that dissolve in the first quarter. As explained before, flexible generation is supported by a positive carbon phasing effect of 140 million euros on the nine-month adjusted EBITDA reporting line, which were referred at year end. Year on year, the effect is even larger as the carbon phasing effect was minus 140 million euros for the same period last year. Let's now have a look at the development of the adjusted net income on the next slide. Slide number nine provides a reconciliation from adjusted EBITDA to adjusted net income for the first nine months of the financial year 2024, starting with adjusted EBITDA of 2.2 billion euros on the left. First, depreciation and amortization amounted to 458 million euros, which is roughly 150 million euros below prior year due to significant impairments, mainly for our coal fleet which were recognized at year end 2023. Second, Uniper had a positive economic interest result of 86 million euros, which is well above a negative result of about minus 140 million euros for the first nine months 2023. As in the first half, Uniper benefited from lower financial commitment fees and the high cash position that was partially invested for instance, in short-term interest-bearing deposits. And third, taxes on the operating result amount to 507 million euros, which translates into an operating tax rate of 28.1% for the first nine months of 2024. Overall, this brings us to a comfortable adjusted net income of over 1.3 billion euros. Over to the operating cash flow. Slide number 10 shows the reconciliation from adjusted EBITDA to operating cash flow for the first nine months 2024. The operating cash flow came in at 2.6 billion euros, which translates into a cash conversion rate of above 100%. This is preliminary due to changes in working capital of 1.25 billion euros. The lower working capital requirements are mainly driven by lower prices on the commodity markets, leading to less capital employed in inventories for stored gas volumes and the reduction of coal inventories, mainly following the closure of Radcliffe. Quarter on quarter, the provision utilization increased by more than 600 million euros in the third quarter 2024. This reflects the initial payment of over 500 million euros to the German government we had to make as a result of the outcome of the arbitration proceedings regarding the long-term gas supply contracts with Gazprom. Let's now turn to the latest figures of Unipass economic net debt. Unipass economic net cash position has risen from over 3 billion euros as of December 31, 2023, to a very strong level of approximately 5.6 billion euros as of September 30, 2024. This increase is in line with the positive operating cash flow, which I explained on the previous slide. On top, Uniper has made investments of 379 million euros. The other block mainly includes the changes of the pension provisions, which decreased due to increased interest rates and a solid performance of the invested pension assets. With roughly 5.6 billion euros, we continue to have a very comfortable economic net cash level. However, as already flagged during previous calls, this cash position will be affected by the payment obligation for recovery claims to the Federal Republic of Germany because of expected overcompensation as of December of this year, 2024. The corresponding provision was reviewed and valued at 2.5 billion euros at the end of the third quarter. Please note, the exact amount of the payment obligation will be determined once the financial figures for 2024 are available. And the funds are expected to flow to the German government at the beginning of 2025. Speaking of full year 2024, let's now turn to our updated outlook for 2024 on my last slide for today. All in all, we achieved strong results for the first nine months 2024 that are fully in line with our plan. Accordingly, we confirm our full year outlook for the current financial year 2024, which had been raised with our half-year results in August. We continue to anticipate for adjusted EBITDA a range between 1.9 billion euros to 2.4 billion euros, and for the adjusted net income a range between 1.1 and 1.5 billion euros. As I said at the beginning, this outlook seems relatively unambitious compared to our nine-month numbers. Looking at the fourth quarter, we expect the operating performance momentum to further normalize until year-end, due to weakening tailwinds of the market environment. Accordingly, the very good Q4 result from the previous year will not be repeatable, especially for the flexible generation and greener commodity segments. And furthermore, the nine-month 2024 earnings were influenced by positive timing effects that will revert until year end. As I said before, a larger one is the well-known intra-year carbon phasing effect of plus 140 million euros, which currently supports the flexible generation segment. Ladies and gentlemen, as you can see, we have taken a major step towards phasing out coal. We are on track to deliver good results for the financial year 2024, which are below the exceptional prior year. but still above the run rate of a normal financial year. And with that, back to you, Sebastian, to kick off the Q&A session. Sebastian, please.