AAK AB (publ.)

First of all, our annual general meeting was held on May 8th in Malmö, Sweden, with shareholders representing 75% of the total votes. A strong turnout with thoughtful questions from investors both ahead of and during the meeting. We highly value the dialogue with our engaged shareholders and we will continue to welcome further constructive exchange going forward. Secondly, we recently published our principal adverse impacts or PI report for 2025. It outlines AAK's ESG performance through a set of standardized metrics, helping to increase transparency and making it easier for investors to assess our progress. This marks the third year in a row that we are releasing the PI report, following positive feedback from the investment community. The report is also part of our broader effort to help investors better understand our overall sustainability approach. The full report is available on our website. I'm also pleased to announce that Neshe Tagma has been appointed president sourcing, trading and sustainability. Neshe brings extensive international experience from the agri-food sector, having held senior roles across sourcing, trading and general management in markets such as France, Turkey, Romania, Belgium and the Netherlands. She succeeds Tim Stevinsson, who is retiring after a long and successful career with AAK. We all thank Tim for his outstanding contributions and wish him all the best in his well-earned retirement. Lastly, I want to briefly address the fire that occurred at our Kalsam site on the night of June 19th. The incident affected two external tanks at the fatty acid plant, which is used for non-food production. Fortunately, the fire was quickly extinguished and the situation was very well managed. No one was injured and the damage was limited to the insulation on the tanks. All other operations at the site continued as normal and there was no material impact on our financial performance for the second quarter. Any disruption to volumes was limited and an investigation into the root cause is currently ongoing. So with that, please turn to the next page to review our performance per business area. On page or slide six, we head into food ingredients. Volumes excluding hillside were down 3% year on year, mainly due to lower sales in bakery. Including hillside volumes declined 11% year on year. Despite the volume decline, the business delivered a strong margin performance. Operating profit per kilo increased to SEC 2.47, up from SEC 2.30 in the second quarter last year, again excluding the hillside investment. This came despite the currency headwind of SEC 0.23. At fixed exchange rates and excluding hillside, operating profit per kilo grew by 18%. In absolute terms, operating profit excluding hillside increased by 4% to SEC 764 million, despite a negative currency translation effect of SEC 72 million. At fixed foreign exchange rates and excluding the hillside investment, operating profit increased by 14% year on year. So overall, despite the softer volumes in bakery, the business area continued to perform well through a strong margin delivery. With that, if we turn to the next page, we go into chocolate and confectionary fats. The volumes in the quarter were down 7% year on year, following a strong 14% growth in the second quarter of last year. This decline was primarily driven by Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, and Europe, while the performance in the Americas was roughly flat. But within the Americas, we had a really good performance, a good growth in Latin America. Operating profit per kilo was strong, increasing to SEC 3.95, despite the currency headwind of SEC 0.32 per kilo. At fixed foreign exchange rates, operating profit per kilo increased by 20%. So in summary, the business in CCF continues to demonstrate resilience and strong profitability, even in a due to the impact of high cocoa prices. Next slide please, technical products and feed. Volumes grew by 18% compared to the same period in 2024. This was driven by higher sales in feed, while technical products remained flat. The strong year over year performance or growth reflects low comparison due to a production disruption last year. So it was last year that was low. Call it a bit more back to normal. Operating profit per kilo reached 0.37. Absolute operating profit came in at SEC 25 million. With that, we have now covered the three business areas, and I will hand it over to Thomas to provide an update on the optimization programs, as well as further details on the second quarter financial results. What would you Thomas?

Thank you Johan. Good morning everyone. Please turn to slide nine. As many of you recall, we presented our updated 2030 aspiration at last year's capital market stay in Callsum, with a clear focus of reaching profitability of three plus SEC per kilo and outgrowing the underlying market on volumes. The roadmap to achieve this remains largely unchanged and is centered around six key programs. One, production process optimization. Two, portfolio and price management. Three, procurement excellence and four, cash to grow. In addition, and to ensure we stay on track to deliver on our aspiration, we also introduced two additional programs at the CMD. Number five, cost performance and number six, commercial and innovation excellence. As announced in connection with the Q1 2025 results, we have launched the cost performance program called Fit to Win. Before diving into Fit to Win, I'd like to provide a brief update on the current status of the broader program portfolio, starting with production process optimization or deep dives, as we call them internally. We're now in the final stages of completing deep dive number nine, which is in China, and we now cover a total of 73% of the current production volume. The local team in China, together with the central expertise team, expects to present their findings and conclusions by mid-August. The next step will be to develop a prioritization matrix to rank all of AAK sites and identify where there's still potential for cost and capacity optimization. Based on this, we'll decide which site to focus on next, which could mean revisiting a site that has already gone through the deep dive process to focus on identified but not yet realized opportunities or moving on to a new site, depending upon the estimated potential. We expect this to be a reiterative process. As previously communicated, the portfolio and price management program has successfully concluded its project phase, and while efforts to optimize our portfolio mix and pricing will continue, the tools and processes have now been implemented across all relevant sites, and the focus is now to maintain the achieved structure and drive results. Procurement is now in the second phase of its rollout. In June, we moved accountability for the operational performance of procurement to the decentralized regional teams, while continuing to provide global support through the development of category management for key spend areas. Recent milestones on this program include rolling out our global supplier code of conduct and aligning our systems for the source to pay process. Next, we will complete the implementation of our procurement spend analysis tool to further strengthen decision making, performance, and follow-up. The cash to grow initiative is now entering completion from a project perspective with the most recent workshop held in China in June of this year. We expect to finalize the project phase during the second half of 2025. By then, all major sites will have been reached and key initiatives launched to structurally improve working capital. That said, the work continues at local levels to realize the identified actions, as effective working capital management remains an ongoing priority, and we have yet to see the full impact of the program materialize in our numbers. Commercial innovation excellence. At the start of 2025, we began rolling out our CRM system as part of the commercial excellence journey. With one unified tool, we're connecting application experts with local sales and customer innovation teams. This is improving both the speed and quality of our customer interactions, helping them to innovate and drive efficiencies with AAK solutions. The feedback from customers supports our strategy of building a more differentiated, specialty-based portfolio that as a result enables our customers to make their products better. Please turn to the next slide. Turning to our cost performance program and provide a brief update on our fit to win program. I am very pleased to report that we're on track to deliver on our target of approximately 300 million SEC in annual savings. For 2025 specifically, we expect, as previously announced, to realize around 50 million SEC of the 300, with the full run rate of the 300 million SEC anticipated by mid-2026. A small part of the 50 million SEC was reflected in our second quarter results, with a larger portion impact expected over the remainder of the year. As previously communicated, this process is being driven by a combination of organizational simplification efficiency improvements and targeted initiatives across the business, as well as a headcount reduction of up to 5%. In the second quarter, we recognized a one-time restructuring cost of 250 million SEC related to the program, which is in the upper range of what we guided during the introduction of the program in April. This has been booked under group functions and reflects our commitment to make the necessary changes to position AK for long-term success. As illustrated on the left side of the slide, the transformation is centered around moving towards a future that is more aligned and performance driven, while maintaining our decentralized model. This journey will enable us to realize both cost efficiency and capacity improvements. Next slide, please. Operating cash flow in the quarter amounted to a positive 524 million SEC. Working capital increased slightly and had a negative impact on cash flow in the quarter. Accounts receivable increased and were impacted by higher sales and an increase in overdue. Inventory increased slightly in the quarter as well, mainly driven by a mixed effect, impacted by higher levels of Palm inventory. Overall inventory levels by volume were down. Account payables increased in the quarter, partly driven by timing of sourcing activities. Excluding these activities, account payables still increased in the quarter. Paid taxes increased, largely attributable to timing effects between quarters. Other working capital was negative by close to 350 million SEC, mainly driven by changes in accrued and prepaid expenses, partly related to taxes and lease costs. CapEx amounted to 376 million SEC in the quarter, comprised as in previous quarters, mainly of investments related to maintenance, productivity improvements, capacity increases, and de-bottlenecking. For the full year, we expect CapEx of around one and a quarter billion SEC. Free cash flows, you can see, amounted to a positive 157 million SEC. Please turn to the next slide. Return on capital employed is in line with the last few quarters, following the continued strong development of operating profit and the level of capital employed that remained fairly stable throughout the quarter. This resulted in a return on capital employed of 21.9%, adjusted for the one-time restructuring costs, and at par with Q1. Excluding or including items affecting comparability, the IEC, the 250 million, return on capital employed was 20.9%. Please turn to the next slide. The net debt to EBITDA ratio increased to 0.63, excluding the IEC, up from 0.43 at the end of Q1. The increase was mainly driven by the 1.3 billion SEC of dividend paid in May of this year. The ratio remains at a level that is with continued stability and financial flexibility, including the IEC of 250 million. The net debt to EBITDA ratio was 0.66. And with that, I will hand it back to Johan for some concluding remarks before we open up for questions.

Johan, go ahead. Thank you, Tomas, for those details and clarifications to our performance. And now just to wrap it up on the last page before we move into Q&A. Our operating profit increased by 16% at fixed exchange rates, excluding the hillside divestment and the one-time restructuring costs related to our Fit the Win program that Tomas just explained to us. This was delivered despite a 2% decline in volumes, also excluding the impact from hillside. So profitability remains solid with operating profit per kilo, excluding the restructuring costs reaching SEC 2.37. So even in a more challenging market environment, where global trade dynamics and softer demand continue to impact parts of our business, we are seeing clear resilience in our financials. As we look ahead, we remain prudently optimistic about AAK's long-term potential, and we are committed to delivering on our 2030 aspiration. At the same time, we continue to focus on driving volume growth through stronger commercial execution and deeper customer engagement. All in all, a strong quarter from AAK. And with this, we hand it over to the operator, and we are happy to take questions from the audience.