Alzchem Group Stock

Good morning, and a warm welcome to the earnings call of the AlzChem Group AG. I would like to introduce the company's CEO, Andreas Niedermaier; and CFO, Andreas Losler, who will guide us through the presentation in a moment, followed by a Q&A session via audio line and chat.

And with that, I hand over to you, Mr. Niedermaier.

Yes. Thank you for the warm welcome, and good morning to everyone. It's great to have you with us today. Thank you for joining for the first and quarter 2 analyst call. We will take you through the key highlights of the quarters first and then, as always, be available for questions.

So let's get straight to the business and turn to Slide 5 here. Yes. Here we go. So let me briefly summarize our performance in the first half of 2026. We have delivered a very successful first 6 months here with both revenue and earnings significantly exceeding the prior year level. Group revenue increased by 6% year-on-year to almost EUR 304 million. Growth was driven by both higher volumes and an improved pricing environment, reflecting the continued strength of our specialty portfolio. At the same time, profitability once again developed significantly better than revenue.

EBITDA increased by 14% overall to EUR 64.5 million, while our EBITDA margin expanded from 19.6% to 21.2% overall. So this strong earnings performance was primarily supported by the high utilization of our specialty production facilities and the continued shift towards higher-margin products. In particular, our Specialty Chemicals segment remained the key growth driver. As you know already, ingredients once again achieved significant growth, supported by robust demand in human nutrition, custom manufacturing and defense-related applications. Despite ongoing geopolitical tensions, we have not seen until now any material impact on our operating business so far.

Now this underlines the resilience of our business here and the business model and attractiveness of our end markets. In addition, we successfully secured a EUR 100 million growth financing facility together with our banking syndicate. This provides a strong financial foundation for the next phase of our expansion strategy. More on this later on in the detailed analysis.

On the operational side, the refurbishment of our carbide furnace is progressing according to plan and will further strengthen our production base then. At the same time, we have reached an important milestone for our international growth here and the growth strategy by taking the site decision for our future production activities in the United States.

Another important milestone has already been achieved in Germany, both the nitroguanidine expansion project and a new guanidine production project have entered into the start-up phase and are progressing according to plan here as well. So these investments will significantly expand our capacity base in strategically attractive markets and support future growth, particularly in defense-related and specialty applications. At the same time, they demonstrate our ability to execute large-scale expansion projects efficiently and translate strong market demand into sustainable earnings. So against this backdrop, we remain confident regarding the remainder of the year and confirm our outlook for '26 as well.

So overall, the first half of '26 demonstrates that AlzChem is executing consistently against its strategic priorities. With growth financing secured, major capacity expansion projects entering operation, continued momentum in Specialty Chemicals and the foundation laid for the U.S. expansion, we are well positioned to accelerate profitable growth and further enhance our earnings power in the years ahead.

So let me now briefly walk through the U.S. expansion project here. I brought with me some picture and some information here. With the site decision for Bushy Park in South Carolina, we have reached an important milestone in our nitroguanidine expansion for the U.S. Bushy Park offers us a very attractive environment, including an established chemical park infrastructure, strong logistics and access to skilled workforce because chemical plants are already there. And therefore, we think that we will find the skilled workforce here as well.

So the project has now entered into the next phase with feed activities already started and permitting as well as a contract finalization currently is ongoing with the DOW. We are targeting the start of construction in 2027. And what is particularly important to highlight is our 2-pillar production approach. We will continue to produce the key intermediates in Germany while establishing nitroguanidine production in the U.S. This setup allows us to combine our strong technological basis in Germany with a growing regional presence in the U.S., thereby strengthening both supply security of our customers and our overall production resilience here.

So let us now analyze more details in the basic and intermediates. Therefore, I turn to the next page, which is Page 9 here. And in the Basics & Intermediates segment, revenue for the first half of '26 amounted to EUR 75.4 million. Here, we saw a decline of only 4% compared to the prior year and fully in line with our expectations here. Demand remained weak in agriculture, while competitive pressure from Asian suppliers continued to impact nitriles and pharmaceutical-related products.

On the positive side, our metallurgical business showed initial signs of stabilization. So EBITDA reached more or less breakeven compared to EUR 1.3 million in the prior year period. Profitability was temporarily burdened by the scheduled refurbishment of our carbide furnace, including maintenance and shutdown costs as well as lower regulatory energy costs benefiting during the outage period. The furnace repair is almost complete and recommissioning will take place in quarter 3 now.

And looking at the second quarter in isolation, the segment delivered signs of some improvement. Revenue increased by 9% year-on-year to EUR 38.7 million, mainly driven by higher volumes in the steel business. While it is still too early to confirm a sustained trend, the development may indicate first positive effects from the European CBAM framework and recent Safeguard measures supporting the competitiveness of the European steel producers here. Overall, the segment performed as expected with the furnace refurbishment successfully completed and first signs of stabilization in selected industrial market. We are well positioned for improvement in the second half of the year. And that is more or less the information of the Basics & Intermediates.

Let us now turn to the Specialty Chemicals, which once again was the clear growth and earnings engine of the group. So let's turn the page to Specialty Chemicals segment here. Turning to the Specialty Chemicals. The segment once again delivered very strong growth and profitability. Revenue increased by 10% year-on-year to EUR 214 million in the first half of '26, driven by a combination of higher volumes and positive price effects.

You can see on the right corner, the analysis. Growth was primarily fueled by our ingredients portfolio, particularly in human nutrition, defense-related applications and custom manufacturing. Strong demand for Creapure and Creavitalis, continued momentum in nitroguanidine and further expansion in custom manufacturing all contributed to the segment's strong performance here.

Favorable product mix and high capacity utilization translated into 19% increase in EBITDA to EUR 64 million. At the same time, the EBITDA margin expanded to close of 30%, highlighting the scalability and operating leverage of our Specialty Chemicals business. Operationally, we continue to execute our key growth projects. The nitroguanidine expansion and the new guanidine production facility in Germany have already entered into the commissioning phase, while preparation, as already said, for the U.S. production footprint are progressing. So overall, Specialty Chemicals once again confirmed its position as the group's clear growth and earnings engine with all key performance indicators developing in line with our long-term growth strategy here.

So let me briefly complete the segment review by turning to the Other & Holding segment. So in that segment, revenue remained broadly stable at approximately EUR 14 million in the first half of '26 compared to EUR 14.7 million in the prior year. The development mainly reflects lower grid fee recharges to chemical park customers, while demand for chemical park services remained more or less stable here. EBITDA amounted to minus EUR 0.3 million compared to EUR 0.4 million in the prior year. The decline was primarily driven by energy regulatory settlement effects related to the electricity consumption of the chemical park customers here.

So overall, the segment development largely as expected and does not change the underlying earnings momentum of the group, which continues to be clearly driven by our Specialty Chemicals and Ingredients business. So that was all from my side and from the detailed view on the segment development.

Let us now take a look at more details and the overall group figures and hand over for that more details to my lovely colleague, Andreas Losler.

Yes. Also good morning from my side, and thank you, Andreas, for the insights on our segment development in the first half of '26. As always, I'll start my analysis with looking at our P&L. Our group sales within the first half of '26 reached EUR 304 million. This represents an increase of EUR 16 million or 6% compared to last year. As anticipated and already evident in the first quarter of '26, the 2 operating segments delivered markedly different performances over the course of the first half of the year. The details have been discussed by my colleague already. It's worthwhile to mention that sales development benefited from the pull forward of sales that had originally been anticipated for the second half of the year.

On a regional basis, the major sales increases could be achieved in Europe and the U.S. once again and can be allocated to the Specialty Chemicals segment. The sales portion of our segment Specialty Chemicals could be increased again and contributed 70% to our group sales after 67% within the comparative period. This increase in Specialty Chemical sales, combined with the continued cost discipline resulted in a significant increase in EBITDA and also our EBITDA margin. In the first half of fiscal year '26, we generated EBITDA of EUR 64.5 million, representing a substantial year-on-year increase of EUR 8 million or 14%. And this is completely in line with our expectations and met the guidance.

As mentioned, our cost structure is stable. Higher production volumes led to increased waste disposal cost, while the carbide furnace overhaul resulted in elevated maintenance expenses. In contrast, lower foreign exchange losses from currency valuation had a mitigating effect. Electricity costs remained slightly above the prior year level in the second quarter, driven by temporary disruptions in energy markets following the developments in Iran. However, a substantial share of our electricity exposure has been secured through forward hedging, while the ongoing carbide furnace outage is currently resulting in lower electricity consumption.

Our depreciations increased slightly and so did our financial result. The latter was impacted by noncash interest for noncurrent provisions and reduced interest income based on lower interest rates on surplus liquidity. All put together, we could also increase our net results up to EUR 35 million. This represents a significant increase again of more than EUR 4 million or 14% compared with the prior year period. And the same applies to our earnings per share. That was the big picture of our P&L.

Now let's move on to the balance sheet and cash flow figures. Our balance sheet and cash flow are still very healthy and developed as expected. Our balance sheet total increased by EUR 56 million since our last reporting date. On the asset side of the balance sheet, we observed contrasting development. While noncurrent assets increased due to our continued strong investment activity, inventories were reduced as expected, reflecting the effects of the furnace refurbishment. The strong sales performance resulted in a substantial increase in trade receivables.

Here, it's worthwhile to mention that this increase was volume-driven and not attributable to any changes in payment terms or customer payment behavior. Our equity increased by EUR 40 million, and our equity ratio slightly decreased to 40.3%. While our positive net income increased our equity, we had a decreasing impact from our dividend payments in May of this year.

Within the second quarter, we have strengthened our financing structure, which can be seen in increased bank loans, higher cash positions and within our financing cash flow. The new financing structure provides access to up to EUR 100 million in debt financing. This includes newly arranged loans of EUR 80 million as well as an additional EUR 20 million of committed term loan facilities, which can be drawn at any time without further conditions if required. EUR 30 million of the newly disbursed term loans were used for the early interest optimized repayment of loans that would otherwise have matured in late '27 or early '28. This refinancing establishes a solid foundation for AlzChem's continued growth and demonstrates the bank's confidence in the company's business model.

Our operating cash flow landed at EUR 51 million and seems to be lower than last year on the first view. However, the main reason for this decline were materially lower customer grants for our defense-related CapEx program compared to last year. Adjusted for such customer grants, the reduction in net working capital resulted in a substantial year-on-year improvement in operating cash flow.

As you can see, AlzChem is in a very healthy capital and cash position and ready for future growth. Future is a good keyword. Let's now discuss our outlook for the remaining 6 months of financial year '26. As already mentioned by my colleague, we confirm our guidance as set out at the beginning of the year and still see further growth for '26.

Sales are still expected to grow to approximately EUR 600 million and EBITDA is still expected to grow to approximately EUR 126 million. This represents a sales increase of approximately 7%, while EBITDA is expected to grow by approximately 8%. The planned sales growth shall continue to be achieved organically. The fundamental growth drivers are expected to be volume effects within segment Specialty Chemicals.

As already outlined, we do expect such volume growth in the area of Human Nutrition and Defense, the latter expected in the last quarter of this year. However, given that certain revenues originally anticipated for the third quarter were brought forward, revenue in Q3 may be somewhat lower compared to Q1 or Q2 of this year.

For the Basics & Intermediates segments, we expect overall sales to be at the previous year's level or slightly below. Our outlook is based on the assumption that possible raw material increases as a result from the ongoing conflict in Iran can be passed on to our customers. Our EBITDA increase for '26 is mainly driven by the developments in our segment Specialty Chemicals, and this also applies to our EBITDA margins. The industrial electricity price scheme adopted by the German government is expected to have only minor positive impact on AlzChem's cost structure from '27 onwards and has therefore not been included in the '26 guidance.

As you can see, we have still interesting times ahead of us. At this point, we would like to thank you for your appreciated attention and are now at your disposal for possible questions.

[Operator Instructions] And as I can see, there are already some risen hands. Mr. Christian Faitz, I will ask you to unmute yourself now.

Congrats on the results. Christian Faitz here from Kepler Cheuvreux. Three questions, if I may. First of all, when do you plan the start-up of the refurbished furnace? You mentioned Q3, but is this more in August or in September, just for modeling purposes?

My second question would be around your comments in your Basics & Intermediates segment. Can you elucidate a bit the weaker demand in -- particularly in agriculture? I understand the farmer side with China, but is this weaker demand in agriculture due to weaker farmer profitability on the back of higher fertilizer prices?

And third question, how is the business in creatine for dairy going? Can you share any underlying growth rates for this business or for this pocket of the segment?

So start-up of the furnace, first question will be precisely in September. But that year, we try to have only 1 kiln online. So from that point of view, we try to reduce stock level and only have always 1 kiln online. Actually, next year is planned that we run 2 kilns already.

Weaker demand in agriculture, yes. So what we have seen is that the prices of the farmers are quite low. And from that point of view, that's our picture about that, that they avoid already fertilizing because they don't earn the money back through fertilizing. So that's the situation as we see that year, probably next year, hopefully, it comes back on a higher level, because the second point, [ insecurity ] about the use case of Perlka through the ECHA process could be solved then and that could help supporting usage of the fertilizer as well.

And business for dairy, usually, we don't really disclose single information about that business. But what we see is that the interest is quite high of additional dairies, not only the [ German ] story. So the growth story is quite well online and in line, and that is the reason why we increased the capacities for our creatine. And we urgent need additional capacities, let's say, in that way around to fulfill all the market demand latest by the end of next year.

There is another risen hand from Julia Winckelmann.

Can you hear me?

We can hear you.

I have 2, please. One is on the NQ prepayment slide. The Q2 chart looks a bit different versus the chart in Q1. So to me, it looks like the self-funded contribution increased on the Q2 chart versus the one in Q1. Is this the right way to read this? And if so, is this because you expect higher CapEx or lower customer prepayments? And yes, maybe also I saw that in Q2, there were no new prepayments signed. So maybe it would be helpful if you could comment on this.

And then my second question is on the accelerated sales in Q2. Which contract or products does this relate to? And was this prebuying ahead of price increases? Or what was the reason behind this?

Julia, I'm going to take your first question. It surprises me a bit because we did not really change anything in our structure of presenting the contract liabilities. So our contract liabilities are now somewhat higher than EUR 90 million. We, for sure, get some new customers payments in the first quarter and in the second quarter of this year, which can be seen in the cash flow statement. So overall, in the first half of the year, we received approximately EUR 8 million of customer payments. Whereas in the comparable period, we received more than EUR 50 million, but nothing has slowed down here.

And as you know, some payments are based on milestones, some payments are based on monthly installments. So as we have now -- as we are now opening up the plant, you can be sure that some milestones are met now and that we do expect some more contributions in the second half of the year. But overall, the situation is completely stable, and we will start reducing the contract liabilities in '27.

Okay. So your overall contribution that you expect for the NQ plant, I guess it's the blue bar on Slide 21, that hasn't changed versus your estimate in Q1?

No, that hasn't changed.

And some words about the sales increase in quarter 2. What are the effects behind. So what we have seen is a good growth in nitroguanidine and creatine business because you may know that we have increased capacities for creatine last year as well, and that delivers additional quantities now. And what we have seen is a pretty good custom manufacturing business. But therefore, we have seen some effects what we have planned in the second half of the year that we have already delivered that customer demand in the first half of the year. And from that point of view, we are a little prudent by forecasting that business that is only contract that we have seen already in the first half of the year.

With this, we move on to the next risen hand from Peter-Thilo Hasler.

First, it's about the price effect of 4.9%. Is this all due to offset rising costs? Or is there also part of it a margin increase?

And the second question would be about the raw material prices or energy prices. Are there parts of that, that cannot be passed on to customers or only in part to customers? And do you see risks if this may happen in the second half of the year?

And the third question would be on your EUR 100 million funding finance, where EUR 80 million you already have disbursed and paid back existing loans and EUR 30 million. Will it be necessary to raise further debt if all projects are implemented as planned?

So let's catch the first question about the EUR 100 million funding. So from our point of view, we are financed for our growth, no doubt about that because you may know that the U.S. project is already financed and will be financed by the DoD. The German projects are financed as well, some through prepayments and precash assets, as you see on the balance sheet already and we only need additional financing for the creatine additional capacity. So from that point of view, no. But never say no. So if we have -- and if we see additional growth opportunities, then we can think about that, and we are really prepared for additional financing. Bank support is very high and from that point of view, we can do an M&A project or we can do additional growth.

So for raw material prices, a very interesting question. Due to the lower carbide production this year, we are not severely affected by the higher electricity prices and high price fluctuations here because we are living more or less from stock as well. And from that point of view, we don't see that high fluctuations that saves our business quite well. And usually, in the Basics and Intermediates, we can hand over the fluctuations to our customers.

So for the price effect, I will hand over to you, Andreas.

Yes. For the price effect, I think it's a combination of both. It's -- as you mentioned, it's a pass-through of cost increases. And additionally, there are some additional price increases, which have a small impact on the margin as well. So yes, you're right with your assumption.

And if I may, about the creatine, do you -- have you noticed any increase in capacity investment by competitors so far?

So for sure, the creatine market is growing like hell, let's say.

Not from China.

And the market has to be delivered, and there are only, let's say, 2 suppliers around the world. So there are the one German player, which is AlzChem with Creapure and Creavitalis, and there are many suppliers out of China. And to support and to supply the market, we see additional capacities growing in China as well. So -- but the demand is high for the highest quality, and we really urgent need our additional capacity for our growth.

The next person with a risen hand is Patrick Speck.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

First of all, congrats on another very good quarter. My first question is on your new U.S. plant. Maybe I missed it, but can you give us some information what production volume are you targeting for in the U.S.? And what will roughly be the sales contribution when it's running under full steam?

Yes. So we plan actually to start up production -- ramp up production in 2029. And we think it should be a turnover potential close to EUR 100 million, a little less than EUR 100 million from today's point of view.

So it's roughly the same size as the new plant in Germany, right, for nitroguanidine?

Yes, it's a little different. I think the German plant could deliver a little more at the end of the day from today's point of view. With some optimization, yes.

And my second question is on your guidance. I mean, how close did you come to raising your guidance in terms of sales? Because, I mean, growth was stronger than everyone expected or at least the consensus expected in the second quarter. And now with new capacities coming in, I know towards the end maybe of the year, but how close did you come to raising this guidance? Because it looks like you're, yes, coming in above the EUR 600 million.

Yes. So we nevertheless expect to remain within the outlook range even if the second half of the year turns out to be on a par with our slightly better than the first half. So we see us in the range. And from that point of view, we avoided to raise the outlook here. So -- but the second half could come a little better than the first half.

Okay. Understood. And last question from my side. I do not fully understand, to be honest, why we don't see any positive effect for your fertilizer business yet with this blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and all the results coming with it. What do you think is the main reason why you cannot gain from this yet?

Yes, that's an interesting question. But I tell you, if you haven't sold the fertilizer already, let's say, by the end of the year and you're available in the stocks of your customers, then it's really difficult and hard to sell your product. But the market is not so healthy and the farmers are, let's say, in a depression phase because they don't earn really money. So you can ask every farmer. If you ask dairy farmers or wheat and corn farmers, they don't really earn money. And from that point of view, they avoid fertilizing. And that's the first thing they can save money while doing that.

And we hope that farmers will come back and will receive higher prices next year that fertilizer business can go upwards. That's the first topic. And the second topic is that you still import nitrogen fertilizer on a very, very low basis, which is difficult to compete. So we have to pay CO2 prices while doing fertilizer production, which some competitors do not have to pay. If you're thinking about Russian and Middle East fertilizers, they have completely different production costs actually.

[Operator Instructions] And with this, I unmute the next person. Manuela Stuerzer, you should be able to ask your question now.

This is Manuela Stuerzer. So I have 2 questions. The first one is how did creatine pricing develop in Q2? And what are you currently seeing in terms of pricing trends and customer demand across the business?

And the second one is you indicated that some revenues were pulled forward into Q2 and that Q3 could therefore be somewhat softer than Q1 and Q2. So at the same time, the new nitroguanidine facility is starting to ramp up. So for modeling purposes, could you help us understand a little bit more the expected revenue contribution from the new capacity in the second half?

I think start with the first one with the creatine prices in Q2. You know us very well now, and you know that we are not commenting on product prices itself, but you can be sure that the price did not drop in the second quarter. So I would say, more or less stable.

And the second question to the guidance, yes, you are right. We will see lower revenues in the third quarter. But then we think we will see higher revenues again in the fourth quarter so that overall, the sales which were brought forward in the first half of the year can be compensated again by the increased sales out of the new nitroguanidine facility expected to come into the P&L in the fourth quarter. So for your modeling purposes, I would not adjust the full year sales guidance because this will be probably stable.

With this, we have a risen hand again from Julia Winckelmann.

I just have one follow-up on the guidance, but on the EBITDA level, the EUR 126 million implies that H2 is sequentially lower versus the first half despite, I guess, the carbide furnace costs rolling off and despite the start-up of the new NQ facility, which probably should be margin accretive. So I was wondering why? Is that because of ramp-up costs or general uncertainty?

Yes. So we have ramp-up costs as well for nitroguanidine and carbide kiln and from that point of view, we think...

So this will then also be in Q3 mainly, right?

Yes. Yes.

And can you quantify the ramp-up costs?

So usually, we don't do that. But that's yes, a low single million figure, let's say.

Okay. And maybe if I may, one last question on the Agriculture business. Is it still around 20% of your group sales? Or is there an updated end market exposure to Ag?

So usually, we don't give that very detailed information. But if you do that calculation, you have seen declining sales in Ag business and really growing sales in Specialty Chem business. And from that point of view, it's much lower than your figure announced.

So we see some questions in the chat. Maybe we can hand over to this one. The first one is, are there any supply chain or transportation bottlenecks that affected or could affect operations?

That's a clear no at the moment. As we mentioned, we managed to pass through the price increases from the -- which were coming from the Iran conflict. And at the moment, we don't see any bottlenecks here on that side.

And for the next question, I will read, what are your thoughts about the latest changes in the shareholder base? I'm handing over to my colleague -- my lovely colleague, sorry, Andreas.

Yes. So as already mentioned sometimes, we appreciate every supporting shareholder. And we think if a shareholder see that the company or is interested in a heavy growing company, especially as our Specialty Chemical business, then it could be a successful story at the end of the day if we have supportive shareholder base. We know the shareholder base quite well. We have good contacts to all of our shareholders. And from that point of view, we think that we welcome them if they support our strategy, what seems to be the case from today's point of view.

And the last question is, can you quantify the one-off effects related to the furnace refurbishment?

Yes, this was part of our guidance, and it's approximately EUR 10 million spread over the year coming from energy-regulated costs and from idle costs.

[Operator Instructions] Since there don't seem to be any further questions at the moment, we will come to the end of today's earnings call. And of course, should questions arise at a later moment, you can always place them into Investor Relations and contact them.

So thank you very much for your interest in the AlzChem Group AG. A big thank you also to Mr. Niedermaier and Mr. Losler for your presentation, the Q&A and your time. And as mentioned, if your question wasn't answered or should any further questions occur at any given time, feel free to contact Investor Relations. I wish you all a successful day and hand over to you, Mr. Niedermaier, once again for your final remarks.

Yes. Thank you. Thank you for your questions. All of your questions, we appreciate that very well. And for your continued engagement with AlzChem, we look forward to meeting many of you over the coming months, either virtually or at one of the conferences shown here on that slide. Otherwise, we will be back with our Q3 report on October 29. Until then, enjoy the summer. Have a restful break if you are taking time off, and thank you for your continued support. Have a great day, and goodbye.

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the Q1 Earnings Call 2026 of AlzChem Group AG. I would like to welcome the company's CEO, Andreas Niedermaier; and CFO, Andreas Losler, who will guide you through the presentation in a moment, followed by a Q&A session via audio line and chat.

And with that, I hand over to you, Mr. Niedermaier.

Yes. Thank you for your warm introduction. Thank you for joining us today, and welcome to our quarter 1 analyst call here. As always, we will go through the presentation first, and then we'll be available for all the valued questions at the end. So let's skip the disclaimer and go directly to Page 5.

I think, yes, you should see the presentation. Let me briefly summarize our performance in the first quarter of 2026. We have made a very solid start into the new year. Group revenue increased by approximately 3% on a year-on-year basis to approximately EUR 149 million, building on an already strong comparison base. So at the same time, profitability developed significantly better than revenue. EBITDA rose by 18% to EUR 32 million, and our EBITDA margin expanded to markedly 21.7%. This clearly reflects the success of our strategic focus on high-margin specialty ingredients.

In particular, our ingredients once again proved to be the key growth driver here. Growth was predominantly volume-driven with strong demand across Human Nutrition, Animal Nutrition and Defense-related applications here. As a result of this strong operational performance, net income after taxes increased by more than 20%, underlining the scalability of our business model and our disciplined cost management.

From a capital markets perspective, we further strengthened our equity story by increasing the free float to around 75%, improving liquidity and visibility of the stock. On the operational side, I am pleased to report that the scheduled overhaul of the carbide furnace is fully on track. Recommissioning is expected in early July as planned.

So against this backdrop and despite the still volatile macroeconomic environment, we are confident in confirming our full year outlook for 2026. We expected additional growth momentum, particularly in the second half of the year. So overall, quarter 1 has laid a strong foundation for another successful year here.

Based on this strong first quarter performance, I would now like to turn the key strategic projects that will further drive our growth in the coming years. Let me start with the nitroguanidine expansion in Germany. Progress in the first quarter was fully in line with our ambitious targets.

Construction and preparation activities continued as planned, and we remain on track to commission the additional capacity in the second half of '26. This expansion will allow us to meet the structurally growing demand from the defense sector and further strengthens our position as a reliable European supplier.

So second, in parallel, we advanced our plans for our nitroguanidine production site in the United States. During the first quarter, we continued to intensify the site selection process here. The site selection process is close to final and the basic engineering for the plant has already been awarded to the engineering company and has also already started. This project is a key strategic step to build a strong Transatlantic footprint, improve proximity to customers and enhance supply security for our international partners.

And thirdly, finally, let me briefly touch on our creatine investment program, driven by sustained strong global demand, we continue to execute our EUR 120 million investment program exactly as planned here. The construction of the new highly automotive production facility and the expansion of the surrounding infrastructure progressed smoothly in the first quarter. So the project is scheduled for gradual commissioning from the second half of '27 and will secure long-term growth in our premium brands, Creapure and Creavitalis and further reinforce our leadership position in high-quality specialty ingredients.

So let me now briefly walk through the development of our operating segments, starting with the Basics & Intermediates here. Let's turn the presentation page as well. You should see now all the respective figures. So in the Basic & Intermediates segment, revenue declined by 14% year-on-year to EUR 36.7 million, fully in line with our expectations and European chemical development. This development was driven by both lower volumes and prices and price pressures, reflecting the continued weak market environment, particularly in agriculture, pharma and steel-related end markets. Despite the lower revenue base, EBITDA improved a little bit to EUR 0.3 million and the EBITDA margin increased to 0.8% here. This clearly demonstrates our disciplined approach to pricing and cost management as we deliberately refrain from unprofitable volumes while safeguarding the integrity of our integrated production tree.

Operationally, the carbide furnace overhaul is progressing fully according to plan and the segment supply capability remained fully secured through inventories and our second furnace. Overall, the segment performed exactly as anticipated and continues to provide a stable backbone within our group structure.

Let's now go where we are already much more successful to our Specialties (sic) [ Specialty Chemicals ] segment here. This segment delivered another very strong quarter. Revenue increased by 11% year-on-year to EUR 105 million approximately, with growth predominantly driven by higher volumes, while pricing contributed positively as well.

The strong volume momentum was driven by our ingredients portfolio, in particular, in Human Nutrition, Animal Nutrition and Defense-related applications, reflecting robust end market demand and our expanded capacity base. This favorable volume mix, combined with the continued shift towards high-value ingredients translated into a 21% increase in EBITDA to approximately EUR 31.5 million. At the same time, the EBITDA margin improved further to closely 30% and underscoring the scalability and high operating leverage of our Specialty Ingredients business. Overall, Specialty Chemicals and its ingredients portfolio remain the core growth and earnings engine of our group here.

So let me briefly complete the segment review by turning to Other and Holding. Let's turn the page as well. So in the Other and Holding segment revenue came in slightly below the previous year, mainly reflecting lower pass-through revenues, in particular, reduced grid-free recharges to our customers. Accordingly, EBITDA declined modestly to EUR 0.2 million, largely in line with the revenue development overall. This segment behaves as expected and does not alter the underlying earnings momentum of the group, which continues to be clearly driven by our Specialty Chemicals and Ingredients business. That was all for the detailed view on the segment development.

Let's now take a look at the overall group figures and hand over to my highly valued colleague, Andreas Losler.

Okay. Also good morning from my side, and thank you, Andreas, for the insights on our segment development in Q1 '26. As always, I'll start my analysis with looking at our P&L. Our group sales amounted to almost EUR 149 million within the first 3 months in '26, an increase of EUR 4 million compared to last year. Compared to our guidance, we are exactly on the anticipated level, not only for the group, but also if we look at the segment stand-alone. The different developments within our segments have been discussed already by my colleague, Andreas.

On a regional basis, the major sales increase could be achieved in the U.S. once again and can be allocated to the Specialty Chemicals segment. Our EBITDA grew even more. After 3 months in '26, our EBITDA amounted to EUR 32.3 million. This represents an increase of almost EUR 5 million or 18% compared to Q1 last year. As already discussed, the major portion of this increase came from our high-value products sold within segment Specialty Chemicals. This development is also completely in line with our expectations and our guidance.

On the cost side, we have to report increased personnel expenses based on increased union tariffs and slightly increased number of employees for our growth projects. Our operating costs increased mainly resulting from higher maintenance costs in conjunction with our carbide furnace renovation and higher waste disposal costs resulting from our increased business volume. Our Q1 costs were not yet affected by the possible cost increases resulting from the conflict in Iran.

As mentioned already by my colleague, our sales and EBITDA development led to a further increase in our EBITDA margin in that reporting period, the EBITDA margin reached 21.7%, significantly higher than the 18.9% achieved in the corresponding prior year period. The improvement in the group's overall profitability was primarily driven by the continued shift in the revenue mix towards the Specialty Chemicals segment, which comprises highest value specialty chemical ingredients.

Our depreciation increased slightly and so did our financial results. The latter was mainly impacted by noncash interest for noncurrent provisions. All put together, we could also increase our net result up to EUR 18 million. This represents a significant increase of more than EUR 3 million or 23% compared with the prior year Q1. The same applies to our earnings per share. That was the big picture of our P&L.

Now let's move on to the balance sheet and cash flow figures. Our balance sheet and cash flows are still very healthy and developed as expected. Our balance sheet total increased by EUR 37 million since our last reporting date. The assets are mainly influenced by our growth projects and accordingly, noncurrent assets showed with EUR 22 million, the highest portion of this increased balance sheet total.

Major CapEx spending is related to our nitroguanidine expansion, but we also started with first payments for our creatine investment. Our inventory level increased slightly, reduced carbide stock levels were overcompensated by increased stock levels for our multipurpose business in preparation for production campaigns.

Our equity increased by EUR 18 million, and our equity ratio could be improved to 42.2%. That increase was supported by our very strong net result and increased interest rates for our pension valuation. Additional payments from customers for our nitroguanidine investment further increased our contract liabilities, which amounted to EUR 93 million by the end of March '26.

Our current liabilities increased as a result of our increased business volume in Q1 compared to Q4 of last year. As of our reporting date by the end of March '26, we can again report a positive net cash position of almost EUR 30 million. Our operating cash flow was EUR 12 million lower than in Q1 last year.

While we improved our net working capital with positive impact on our operating cash flow, the main reason for the decline in our operating cash flow was attributable to reduced customer grants for our CapEx program. Such payments amounted to EUR 6 million in Q1 '26, but almost EUR 40 million in the comparative period of last year.

Investing cash flow was highly above prior year and clearly shows the progress in our current CapEx program, especially for the nitroguanidine expansion. Despite this highly increased CapEx activities, we can still report a positive free cash flow.

Our financing cash flow shows regular loan repayments. Last year, Q1 was affected by our share buyback program. As you can see, AlzChem in a very healthy cash position and ready for future growth. Future is a good keyword.

Let's now discuss our outlook for financial year '26. As already mentioned by my colleague, we confirm our guidance as set out at the beginning of the year and see further growth for '26. Sales are expected to grow to approximately EUR 600 million and EBITDA is expected to grow to approximately EUR 126 million. This represents a sales increase of approximately 7%, while EBITDA is expected to grow by approximately 8%. The planned sales growth shall continue to be achieved organically. The fundamental growth drivers are expected to be volume effects within segment Specialty Chemicals.

As already outlined, we do expect that volume growth in the area of Human Nutrition and Defense, the latter expected in the second half of the year. For the Basic & Intermediates segment, we expect overall sales to be at the previous year level. We are currently experiencing increases on raw material prices as a result of the conflict in Iran.

Our outlook is based on the assumption that such increases can be passed on to our customers and that this conflict will not last for a very long period. Our EBITDA increase for '26 is mainly driven by the development in our segment Specialty Chemicals. This also applies to our EBITDA margin.

The recently announced industrial power price in Germany has not been included in our guidance as we are currently analyzing the new regulations and its accounting treatment. However, we do not expect a huge impact out of this regulation. As you can see, we have interesting times ahead of us. At this point, we would like to thank you for your appreciated attention and are now at your disposal for possible questions.

[Operator Instructions] And we already received 2 risen hands, one by Mr. Christian Faitz.

Congrats on the results. A couple of questions, please. First of all, Andreas, you mentioned the possible cost increases on the back of the Middle East situation. Can you elucidate this a bit and perhaps also put some numbers on it? I guess your remarks mostly considering raw mats as well as energy. And yes, I'm aware you try to pass this on via pricing. But just on the cost side, some comments would be helpful. And second of all, how is the retrofitting of the calcium carbide often going. Everything according to plan and schedule. Should we count on a ramp for July? That's it from my side for now.

So let me start. That's Andreas speaking. Let me start on the carbide oven. Yes, the start-up of the carbide oven is planned in July. So all things are in the right order, and we think that there should be no problem to open the carbide kiln there. So for the cost increases of the Middle East, Andreas, I don't know if you can elaborate a little bit on it.

From my point of view, so we will see higher transportation costs and some raw material increases, but we try to hand that over to the customers. But if you have some more details please.

That's completely right. As we mentioned, we did not see an impact in Q1 because it was too late for Q1, let's say. On some raw materials, we see slight increases, but we are managing on passing that through to our customers. And your question was also related to the energy prices, and this was -- the energy prices in Germany were not so much affected. And this is not as surprisingly as someone might assume because we have a very good renewable energy mix at the moment. We have wind, we have sun, which means that the portion of the energy or renewable energy production in the energy pricing is very high at the moment. So the energy prices did not increase that much as someone might expect.

And as a quick follow-up, in terms of your, let's say, nonrenewable positions in energy, are you -- how is your hedging there?

Yes. Good question. We have a very, very smart energy team who informed us on a daily basis about all the actions going on in the Iran conflict, and we managed to secure a certain portion of energy in advance. And during the conflict, whenever good prices for the next quarters were available.

So at the moment, I would assume, looking at Andreas, I think it's 25% to 30%, something like this is hedged at very good price.

For direct electricity, yes. But to be honest, we hedged a lot of carbide coming out from last year in stock because we overproduced for the standstill last year very much covered with lower energy prices, and that helps a lot to bridge that year.

And good luck handling all the supply-demand challenges in this current geopolitical environment.

We have another risen hand by Mr. Hesse.

I'd just like to start with one. Could we potentially see any positive surprises in the Basic & Intermediates segment, particularly due to supply chain disruptions in Asia on fertilizers. So could we potentially see more demand for your fertilizer solutions due to potentially lack of imports. Is there anything that could potentially surprise us there? That's my first question.

Constantin, that's a really good question, I tell you. So we crossed our fingers to receive that hopeful surprise or hopefully surprised. But to be honest, within short notice in the fertilizer business, I don't see that really within short notice. Within longer time period could be a positive development there. But farmers decided not to fertilize as much as last year. So from that point of view, I don't really see higher growth possibilities for that year.

Fair enough. Then the last 2 questions are a bit more short to medium term. One of them, could you potentially comment on, I mean, this U.S. facility, I think, we're all kind of obviously in anticipation of it. So hopefully, we'll see the announcement soon. But can I ask, beyond nitroguanidine, is there anything else that you see an opportunity for in the U.S. to expand capacity potentially?

Yes. So we think about that. And we have chosen within the site selection process site where is a possibility to develop more. But to be honest, we have 3 big projects running. We have an investment program running for more than EUR 400 million. And from that point of view, we will do that step by step. We will do first the German NQ-plant, second in parallel then NQ-plant in the U.S. and certainly, the creatine plant, and that will really fuel our growth a lot, and we will concentrate more, let's say, on that 3 big projects actually.

That's great. And the last question, just out of curiosity, I'm just keen to just quickly get a clearer picture again on Creavitalis, the opportunities there. So I know that you currently are in contract with Ehrmann, but -- and we discussed this also in other instances where you are talking to all the large consumer goods companies. But maybe you can just give us a bit more detail or a bit more color on timing. How should we think about that? So when does the contract with Ehrmann end? When could there be potential further opportunity to see larger players wanting to work with you or with Creavitalis?

So hopefully, the contract with Ehrmann does not end at any day. And I think that should be the position. Actually, we have several discussions with many customers, with many additional customers out of that branch. But to be honest, we have to develop the use case with them. It's not so easy to stabilize creatine within, let's say, dairy products.

And on the one hand, and on the other hand, we have to develop capacities for creatine that we can fuel the growth. So from that point of view, we should be ready next year really for the next growth step, and we try to develop all the customers when we have additional capacity available. And we think that, that additional capacity is really needed and could be fueled and filled up very quick then.

Okay. So just to understand, the contract with Ehrmann is not something that hinders you from doing business with other players because I had initially understood that the Ehrmann contract was an exclusive contract.

So it hinders, let's say or let me say it that way around, it does not hinder us to sell additional creatine capacities to additional customers. For some countries, they have exclusivity, but that exclusivity is very short. And I think when the additional capacities of creatine are available, then it should be no problem to sell the product in dairy use cases as well.

We have another risen hand by Mr. Speck.

And from my side, also congrats on the very solid results in the first quarter. My first question is again on your fertilizer business because I was wondering too why this did not have or not yet an impact on your sales in the Perlka. Could you tell us -- maybe -- do you offer 100% substitute with Perlka compared to urea? Or are there any structural factors maybe that might make it harder for farmers to just switch to your product?

Yes. So it's a very technical question, but let me answer that in the following way. So we have a real good fertilizer, nitrogen fertilizer with Perlka with some additional side effects. And that additional side effects are just under discussion with the EU at the EFSA process because we have this positive side effects of the nitrogen fertilizer here.

So which does not -- which you does not receive from the competitive fertilizers. So the competitive fertilizers do have only nitrogen or some additional phosphor or calcium on it, but not the side effects that we have. So what you have to take into calculation is additionally that very much of nitrogen fertilizer comes out of Russia and the Eastern countries on very low prices. And from that point of view, many, many farmers decided.

And the third point is that the farmers' products are on the lowest prices ever, I tell you. So corn, wheat and potatoes are so cheap actually that farmers does not use more fertilizer within a short notice. So I think that could be a chance for the future for the next season because in that season, fertilizer has been already distributed to farmers. And I think farmers decide really to stop fertilizing the last portion, they can spread out. And that's the reason why there is not that big growth story behind for us actually.

Very interesting. My second question is you're planning for price increases you said. Could you quantify that a bit? And maybe also quantify the cost burden we saw in the first quarter due to your oven maintenance?

Yes. So in principle, we managed it. You see that we have had some price increases in the Specialty Chemicals surrounding and that overcompensated already the cost increases. We think that we will receive low double-digit million cost increases, and we are prepared to hand over that to our customers. So price increases are already started, and we are in good negotiation phases so that we stick to our outlook here.

And the second question to your -- to the cost of the calcium carbide overhaul in our last call in our communication, we announced that we estimate the cost to be approximately somewhat like EUR 10 million over the year. So if you want to calculate, half of it will be recognized in the first half of the year and the other half will be spread over the whole year because it has something to do with energy price or energy cost regulations. But here, we are clearly, as Andreas mentioned in the first question, I guess, completely in line with our expectations.

Yes. So then I will take the chance to take one question, which was handed in written here. On the German nitroguanidine expansion, you indicate commissioning in half year 2 '26 with first deliveries from the new plant in half year 2, commissioning in half year 2 '26 and first deliveries from the new plant in half year 2 '27.

So that's misunderstood. So sorry for that. We will start up the plant in the half year '26, and we will start delivery in '26 as well.

So the question was then, can you walk us through the bridge in between specifically, how do you think about utilization rate in half 1 '27? How much inventory you can practically hold? And at what point do you expect the new line to reach full utilization?

So we will ramp up the production plant that year. We will produce first quantities, and we try not to build up huge stock level. So we try to sell all the material coming out of the plant directly to the customers. And we think that full utilization rate could be by the end of next year, beginning of the year to come in '28. And that's the reason why we really need the next capacity increase with the U.S. production plant.

Next question was on NQ pricing, are the long-term offtake contracts indexed to raw material and energy inputs? Or are they fixed price for the contract duration?

So here, we can disclose that in principle, we always try to increase index prices. And so we receive that and we received that in the NQ contract as well.

Third question, question on creatine. Quarter 1 segment performance was driven by a combination of volume and price effect with Specialty Chemicals pricing up 8.4% overall. Can you break out what you are seeing specifically on Creapure pricing, both the premium versus Chinese prices today and how that spread has evolved over the last 12 months?

So [ Nicolas, ] in principle, we don't disclose information on the product level, but I can tell you that we see many Chinese raw materials, not only limited to Creapure where the Chinese material undercuts us. But at the end of the day, our customers like the high quality, like our services and like the reliability of our product.

So if you take 2 products on the table, one from Germany and one from China and the customers know where the product comes from, most of the Western customers. And I tell you the Eastern customers as well will take the Western quality and reliability. And from that point of view, we see a good price development and sell prices within creatine for sure.

Creatine is available on lower prices than for us. But please think about that, the 1 year doses for creatine and for everybody is below EUR 100 a year. So from that point of view, it doesn't matter if you pay EUR 20 or EUR 30 more or less for the 1 year doses receiving the high quality out of our production.

Yes. Then that's understood. The outlook Slide 16 states that first NQ deliveries will be in half year '27. So then I'm very sorry if that is first quantities. Yes, that's a mistake. We have to correct that, and we will do that immediately after the call. Thank you for that.

We have one last risen hand by Mr. Hasler.

Thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to ask my 2 questions. I'm impressed by your coolness with regard to the electricity prices, which everybody is complaining about. You explained that by the high renewable energy ratio in Germany. Could a lower renewable energy ratio in other countries negatively impact the pricing power of your competitors there? This would be my first question.

And the second one is maybe a little bit an early one. You mentioned that you are evaluating the accounting treatment for the industry strong price. So which possibilities are there for you? And how could this have an impact on AlzChem?

Okay. Yes, let's take your first question, Thilo, on the competitor side. As you know, most of our competitors are sitting in China, and China is a completely different energy pricing than we have completely lower energy prices than we have at the moment. Maybe China may be affected by higher oil prices, but we don't know the exactly energy prices in China. So we do not think that there will be a big cost burden for our Chinese competitors out of this. And I don't know the part of the renewable energy mix in China for the energy supply. And the second question.

Second was the part of the industry strong price. That's a very interesting task, but I tell you.

Nice topic.

Yes, it's a nice topic. We are talking about a few millions, a very low single-digit million position for us. We calculated that between EUR 2 million and EUR 3 million for us. And you can ask for that subsidy up to the mid of '27, and you could receive that by the end of '27 or autumn '27. So that's not what we think it's an immediately effect. It's more or less a midterm effect and positive thing.

And the accounting treatment today needs to be analyzed whether it should be recognized in '26 or in '27 or even later if you fulfill all the complicated requirement, and that's what we mean that we are working on the accounting treatment.

We have not received any further questions so far. [Operator Instructions] But I guess if there are no further questions, we will come to the end of today's earnings call. Thank you very much for your interest in AlzChem Group AG.

A big thank you also to you, Mr. Niedermaier and Mr. Losler, for your presentation and the time you took to answer all the questions. If you should have any further questions at a later time, please feel free to contact Investor Relations. I wish you all a successful day, and I'm handing over once more to you, Mr. Niedermaier, for your closing remarks.

Yes. Thank you all for your questions. We can now offer you the opportunity to visit us again, as you can see here, virtually at the Annual General Meeting next week, May 5, or virtually in person at the conferences as shown above. Otherwise, we will be back with our half year and second quarter statement '26 on July 30. Stay safe and sound, stay in our good graces and goodbye. Thank you.

Good morning, and warm welcome to the earnings call of Alzchem Group AG. I would like to introduce the company's CEO, Andreas Niedermaier; and CFO, Andreas Losler, who will guide us through the presentation in a moment, followed by a Q&A session via audio line and chat.

And with that, I hand over to you, Mr. Niedermaier.

Yes. Thank you for the very warm introduction. Good morning together, and thank you for joining us today, and welcome to our quarter 4 and the year-end analyst call. As always, we will go through the presentation first, and then we are available for questions at the end.

Let's skip the first slides and go directly to Page 5. So how do we see the financial year 2025 here? The chemical environment is very challenging, at least here in Europe. There are really difficult conditions in Europe. But nevertheless, 2025 was again the most successful financial year for us. We are broadly positioned. And yes, we also make basic chemicals, which yield little profit, but we urgently need for the supply of... [Technical Difficulty]

We cannot hear you right now, unfortunately.

Okay. I'm very sorry.

Now it's better. Thank you. You are still gone. We cannot hear you. Sorry. [Technical Difficulty]

So now we should be back.

Yes, you're back. Thank you so much.

Yes. Okay. So then I go back a little bit to make sure that we have all information in our broadcast. Yes. So we think that we are really broadly positioned. And yes, we also make basic and intermediates chemicals, which yield little profit, but we really urgently need that for our supply chain and for the raw materials. So this broad market, the product tree and the focus on our niche markets has allowed us to grow against the industry trend. So with consolidated sales of EUR 562 million, the corridor for the sales forecast of approximately EUR 580 million was largely achieved. Group EBITDA increased disproportionately to sales and exceeded the forecast at around EUR 116.5 million.

So what else is to report about the year-end... [Technical Difficulty]

Sorry, I see that the technic is really bad. Do you hear me?

Yes, we can hear you.

Okay. So let's go to the next page, which is our page, let's say, 6. I will be here again, yes. So overall, we achieved our growth targets very well with growth in Specialty segment, in particular, leading to disproportionate earnings growth of 11% in EBITDA for the group as a whole.

For the first time, we are really proud to present. We have achieved and even slightly exceeded our long-term target of over 20% EBITDA margin, and we reached 20.7%. Our after-tax profit, which is relevant for a dividend, also grew by 17% from which we also derive our dividend proposal of plus 17% to EUR 2.10. A lot has also happened on the stock market with our shares and the free float. In the meantime, we have reached about 74% of free float, and this now puts us to the top of the SDAX or the beginning of the MDAX range already.

In 2026, we will now mainly be busy with our investment programs, which will then deliver another real growth potential from 2027 onwards. To this end, we released about EUR 120 million for the expansion of creatine in quarter 4 2025. More on that in a moment.

So the nitroguanidine growth project is entering its final phase and the interior work is currently underway with the installation of all the reactors, piping and at least the control system. Our goal is to put everything into operation by the middle of that year and then gradually ramp it up in quarter 3 and quarter 4. So far, we see ourselves absolutely in the schedule here.

Our U.S.A. site selection process is almost finished. We have already started to select engineering companies for basic engineering. So you can see that things continue quickly here too as well. In summary, we can proudly report Alzchem has delivered again.

But now more about the creatine information and the creatine CapEx project. Creatine is going through the roof right now. The level of awareness of Creapure is growing exponentially. In principle, we have all the prerequisites in-house, but the capacities for supplying the market need to be updated and to be added. In quarter 3, 2025, for example, we put an incremental expansion into operation, which will lead to a further growth in 2026. But that's not all. We decided on a comprehensive investment program at the end of 2025 to secure the growth strategy. In the long term, around EUR 120 million will be invested in the construction of a largely automated production plant for creatine and its precursors as well as in the necessary upstream and downstream infrastructure. Phased commissioning is planned from the second half of 2027.

At full capacity, we expect the investment to generate additional annual sales potential in the initial 3-digit million range with correspondingly positive earnings contributions. The focus is on the application areas of sports, nutrition and health, in which we successfully act as a quality leader made in Germany with the premium brands, Creapure and Creavitalis and probably more to come.

But let's now analyze the year 2025 a little more and go to the segment reports. Let's start here with Basics & Intermediates segment. The sales amounted to approximately EUR 155 million, which was approximately EUR 19 million below the previous year's level. Unfortunately, this development corresponds to our expectations and assumptions here. The decline in sales is mainly due to the volume effects. The main reasons for this was a weak economy in the European and German steel industries, which led to a noticeable decline in demand in the steel and product area.

The decline in revenue also resulted in a reduction in segment EBITDA, and this amounted to approximately to EUR 5.6 million and was thus about half of the previous year's figure. The EBITDA margin fell accordingly by 2.6 percent points to 3.6%. In addition to weak economy in the steel sector, the significantly higher electricity price level, in particular, contributed to the decline in EBITDA compared to the previous year here.

Nevertheless, the segment is very important as a supplier of raw materials for the specialties. This makes it all the more important to trim this segment for profitability in order to at least generate the cost of capital in the long term. This requires stable, calculable long-term framework conditions, which we are very much calling for in Berlin and Brussels actually, but we are also working on closer customer relationships and higher volumes in order to be able to ensure the main important utilization of the product plants.

So let's now go here where we are already much more successful to our next segment. This is the Specialty Chemicals, and it's much better to report that figures because we have been very successful. So here, we grew sales by 9.2% in the quarter and 8.8% for the year as a whole, reaching almost EUR 380 million in absolute terms. This increase was driven by a combination of positive price and mainly volume effects. This also successfully offset negative effects, as you can see here, from the weak U.S. dollar compared to the previous year.

The human nutrition, custom manufacturing and defense product areas, in particular, made a positive contribution to the year-on-year sales development. In Human Nutrition, the high sales level of the previous year was further increased. As already mentioned, the current trends in the global creatine market are providing additional growth influences in all application areas.

An example of this is the cooperation with Ehrmann, which is very successful, concluded last year. With Creavitalis from Alzchem at the center of the new high protein creatine product line. We have already presented the further capacity expansions for the creatine case, which will support further growth here as well.

In Custom Manufacturing, the positive trend reversal stabilized, and we see a further increase in demand contribution positively to the utilization and therefore, to the segment's results. In the course of the positive development, EBITDA also increased by 13.6% from approximately EUR 94 million here to up to EUR 107 million.

What comes next? In 2026, with the commissioning of nitroguanidine, defense capacities will grow and will also develop very positively in 2027 then. And in 2027, creatine capacities will then gradually come online. So we will continue to see nice growth there and here in that segment as well.

So much for the specialties. Now a few words about our third segment, which is very small and delivers only services on the sites. So sales were down here by 12% compared to the last year, mainly as a result of reduced regulatory grid fees, which we were allowed to charge to our external customers. And these price reductions also had the same impact on our segment's EBITDA here. The segment EBITDA was additionally impacted by some onetime year-end closing effects in connection with the reduced grid charges.

So that was all for our detailed review and detailed view on the segment development. Let's now take a look at the overall group figures. And let's hear some more detailed analysis from my nice colleague here, Andreas Losler.

Yes. Also good morning from my side, and thank you, Andreas, for the insights in our segment development in 2025. As always, I'll start my analysis with looking at our P&L. Sales amounted to EUR 562 million in '25, an increase of EUR 8 million compared to last year. Compared to our guidance, we have to admit that we ended up at the lower end of our anticipated sales level. The different developments within our segments caused the situation and have been discussed already by my colleague.

On a regional basis, the major sales increase could be achieved in the U.S. and Europe and can be allocated to the Specialty Chemicals segment. Our EBITDA grew by almost 11% or EUR 11 million, which means that EBITDA grew more than our sales did. Again, as we sold more within our higher-margin segment, Specialty Chemicals, we could also increase our EBITDA, while the sales decline within the other segments did not have so much impact on our group EBITDA. While reaching EUR 116 million, we slightly exceeded our guidance for '25. Cost-wise, we have to report increased personnel expenses based on increased union tariffs and slightly increased number of employees, which support our growth. Our operating costs increased mainly resulting from much higher FX losses due to the weak U.S. dollar and maintenance cost.

All put together, we managed to increase our EBITDA margin to impressive 20.7% after showing 19% last year. The actual margin development also exceeded our guidance, which assumed 19.5% EBITDA margin. With stable depreciations and supported by an improved financial result, we ended up on a group net result of EUR 64 million, representing an increase of 18%. The same applies to our earnings per share.

That was the big picture of our P&L. Now let's move on to the balance sheet and cash flow figures. Our balance sheet and cash flows are still very healthy, but further influenced by some special impact. By the end of '25, we showed EUR 134 million more balance sheet total as one year before. On the asset side of the balance sheet, this increase was mainly driven by increased CapEx spending for our nitroguanidine expansion in Germany, customer grants received and planned increases in our stock level as preparation for our furnace maintenance shutdown.

On the other side of the balance sheet, major impacts came from an increased equity, the initial recognition of contract liabilities as counterpart for our customer payments and receivables for nitroguanidine expansion and such contract liabilities amounted to approximately EUR 90 million at the end of the year. While our equity increased in total by EUR 51 million, our equity ratio dropped slightly to 41.8%. This was also part of our guidance as we anticipated the huge increase in total balance sheet.

Operating cash flow was highly above prior year, but was influenced by almost EUR 60 million customer grants and EUR 20 million increased working capital resulting from our scheduled stock level increase. Investing cash flow was highly above prior years and clearly shows the progress we made in our current CapEx programs, especially for the nitroguanidine expansion. Despite this highly increased CapEx activities, we can still report a positive free cash flow.

As of our reporting date, by the end of '25, we can again report a positive net cash position of EUR 31 million. And again, we were able to shortly invest our liquidity surplus in order to earn interest, also the reason for our improved financial result. Our financing cash flow shows regular loan repayments and increased dividend payments to our shareholders. Furthermore, we paid out EUR 4.5 million for our share buyback program, but received EUR 3 million from the sale of our treasury stocks to our employees in course of an employee participation program. As you can see, Alzchem is in a very healthy cash position and ready for future growth.

Future is a good keyword. Let's now discuss our outlook for financial year '26. From today's perspective, we see a further growth for '26. Sales are expected to grow to approximately EUR 600 million and EBITDA is expected to grow to approximately EUR 126 million. This represents a sales increase of approximately 7%, while EBITDA is expected to grow by approximately 8%. The planned sales growth shall continue to be achieved organically. The fundamental growth drivers are expected to be volume effects within segment Specialty Chemicals. We do expect further volume growth in the area of Human Nutrition and Defense. The increase in our creatine business will be supported by our last incremental capacity expansion back in Q4 '25. Our recently announced major capacity expansion will not add quantities in '26, but in the second half of '27.

For our Defense business, we expect volume and revenue growth from our expansion within the second half of '26, but we are not yet assuming a full utilization of the new facilities before '27. For the Basics & Intermediates segment, we expect overall sales to be at the previous year's level. We expect the prices for key raw materials, energy and logistics to remain stable at the level of '25.

The sales growth in the Specialty Chemicals segment leads to a further increase in the sales portion of this segment in our total sales. Consequently, the EBITDA of this segment and the EBITDA margin of Alzchem will also grow. EBITDA in '26 will be impacted once due to the 6 months maintenance shutdown of one of our carbide furnaces, and this measure will also result in lower energy cost reimbursement.

If we look one year ahead, our huge investments in '26 will lay the foundation for our next phase of growth. With the completion of our ongoing and planned investments, we see a significant potential for additional growth in '27 in the lower double-digit percentage rates for our sales and EBITDA. As you can see, we have interesting times ahead of us.

At this point, we would like to thank you for your appreciated attention and are now at your disposal for possible questions.

Thank you so much for your presentation. [Operator Instructions] And with that said, we have already received raised hands by Mr. Faitz.

Yes. Alzchem team, I hope you can hear me. Congrats on the results. Two questions, please, for now. First of all, can you share with us how the refurbishment of the carbide oven in Hart is going given the fact that this is, my understanding, an H1 project, and we are, for today, essentially 1/3 through H1?

And the second question would be, which growth assumptions do you have for creatine products for '26?

Yes. Let's start with the first topic with the carbide, let's say, CapEx or maintenance project. So the oven is already removed and will be built up the next month. The project costs approximately EUR 10 million, between EUR 9 million to EUR 10 million. But what you have to take into consideration is that we can't produce for the first 6 months. And for that, we prepared our balance sheet, as you have already seen that we increased the stock level to a decent level to support all the sales for that year. From today's point of view, we think that oven will come back into production by the half year, approximately in July. But the process is in time and in cost calculation from today's point of view. No surprises.

And what was your second question, sorry?

So the growth assumptions which you have for creatine products for '26.

Yes. So as already reported, we will see the additional capacities online, what we ramped up in autumn last year. And from that point of view, we have additional 20% to 25% additional quantities available for that year, and that will really support our growth. But if you look at the overall year, the first half of the year, we expect a little lower in sales than the second half of the year. The one reason is that the carbide kiln is down, but the second reason is that the ramp-up of the nitroguanidine will happen in the second half of the year and then will really support sales side. Yes.

We are now moving on to Mr. Schwarz.

Firstly, let me congratulate you on the good results. A couple of questions remain from my side. Mr. Niedermaier, you stated that you are, let's say, in the finalizing rounds of your U.S. investment. As far as I know, there is a subsidy from the DoD pending in the amount of USD 90 million if you are able to finalize that new production site by the end of 2029, the latest. Can you quickly talk us through whether that USD 90 million will be sufficient to cover your CapEx? Or is there additional CapEx required from your side?

And secondly, the timing of the subsidies, will they paid after the production has started? Or is that helping you along the way using milestones? That would be my first two questions.

Yes. Okay. So in principle, the project is going on very healthy, and there are no interruptions. As you can imagine that there are some interesting communications around between U.S., Europe and China or so on. So as a project, it's really in a healthy situation. It's ongoing. Site selection process is close to the end, and we will start up all the planning with the engineers in the months to come.

So we have invoiced the first cost to the DoD as well, and they went through quite well. For sure, there will be a little delay to get the costs back from the DoD. We calculate some months, let's say, what we have to finance by ourselves. But in principle, we are not talking about USD 90 million project costs. We are talking about USD 150 million, and that USD 150 million should cope the overall project and should be sufficient. If not, then we have to do the definitization of the project more with the DoD, and we have to report additional costs to the DoD and then probably we can be reimbursed or can get back that cost as well.

Another question is on Creamino. Maybe I missed it, but I didn't hear anything about the performance of that product. Could you elaborate on Creamino performance in 2025, please, and what do you expect for 2026?

Yes. Creamino was not the most successful situation, but it was successful as well. So the most successful situation for us was creatine and the multipurpose plants that year and defense business with nitroguanidine as well. Creamino, we saw a small growth effect. [Technical Difficulty]

I'm very sorry, it seems to be that we have some technical issues here and technical problems.

Can you hear me, Oliver?

Yes, I do.

You do?

Yes, we can hear you perfectly, actually.

Okay. I'm very sorry because I have seen that my mic could be not really in the right order. Yes, Creamino, we saw a small growth, but not as big that we have to elaborate too much on it. Yes.

And your expectations on that product for 2026?

So we will see additional growth because we have some customers out there, especially in the U.S., they like the product more and more. And from that point of view, we see a good growth in the low single-digit numbers, let's say.

We're moving on to Mr. Hesse.

Really great win, congrats. Look, three questions from my side. One would be on the cadence of the ramp of the creatine facility. I'm assuming that based on your commentary that you made around 2027 growth and beyond being in the low teens, we're probably looking at a pretty good utilization of that new creatine facility already in 2028. So if you could confirm that, that could be interesting.

Question number two, actually, let's just start with that question, and then we'll go to number two.

Yes. So for the creatine ramp-up process, we said that we want to do that step by step because we have to ramp up some infrastructure topics as well. But from today's point of view, the additional capacity for creatine itself should be available for the second half of the year. And therefore, we will see a good growth, let's say, for the second half. And then we will be fully available for the full capacity in 2028 then.

And from the demand perspective, you're probably looking at a pretty good utilization already in '28?

Sure, we are completely sold off actually, and we have to take the customers to the year 2027 when we have additional capacities available.

Yes. Great. And then just on the furnace maintenance, the shutdown, what is roughly the impact on the profitability in 2026?

Yes. So the repair and maintenance costs summarize approximately up to EUR 10 million, but it's already included in our forecast for sure. And we can't produce, but the stuff is there. And from that point of view, we calculate with additional approximately EUR 5 million standstill costs. And we try to lower our stock level and to use our stock level, what we have built up for that half year. And from that point of view, we will receive costs from the balance sheet in the P&L for that year. But the overall effect will be approximately EUR 15 million additional cost. So that would have been -- if you add that, but I don't really like that discussions, then we would have been more at the level of EUR 140 million EBITDA than EUR 126 million, yes.

That is exactly what I wanted to get to. That's great. And lastly, on the U.S. So you basically said that you're basically going towards the end around the site selection. You already contracted the EPC. What's currently holding off the project from going ahead? Is it -- have you already put in -- I'm assuming you already put in all the applications for the permits. So now it's all about waiting until the state provides you with the final permit. Is that it?

So to be honest, nothing is holding us off from the project. All things from our point of view are ongoing. So we are talking about the permits. Yes, that's a normal process. We have to elaborate on and we have to manage. And we have already had contacted the engineering companies to translate, let's say, German plants to the Americans. And yes, we are -- from our point of view, we are really on line and on stream, and we have no real problems, only the day-to-day business to do. Yes.

We're moving on to Mr. Speck.

Congrats from my side on the very solid results in 2025. My first question is about the free cash flow development. I mean, is it fair to assume that the free cash flow might turn negative this year? I mean, on the one hand, okay, inventories will come down. But on the other hand, I think also the prepayments from customers will be lower. And with CapEx spendings rising, yes, you could end up with a negative free cash flow. Is that right?

No, it's actually not right. And it's -- as you mentioned, we still expect some more customer grants for our nitroguanidine expansion in the next year, which will increase our -- or this year, which will increase our operating cash flow. On the other hand, we will have the final payment of the European Union subsidy for our nitroguanidine expansion once we commission the new plant. So those 2 figures will impact our cash flow. So we -- and clearly, we will increase our CapEx again this year, but we expect the cash flow to be maybe, let's say, even at 0, the free cash flow to be at 0 by the end of the year.

Okay. Good to know. But a follow-up question on that, if I may. What's the overall sum of prepayments that you expect from your nitroguanidine customers? Because I thought it would be EUR 75 million or roughly EUR 75 million, and you already got roughly EUR 70 million -- EUR 60 million, sorry, EUR 60 million, so what's the overall sum?

So Patrick, you could calculate that the project costs between EUR 140 million and EUR 150 million. And all that is prepaid on the one hand from customers or on the other hand, from the EU. All that should be covered at the end.

Secondly, a follow-up on my colleague's question on the outlook for 2027. I mean, in your press release, you mentioned that you see yourself well positioned to achieve growth in the low double-digit percentage range. So what does low mean from your point of view? Is maybe a 20% jump in sales a bit too much? Should we expect a bit less? Or is this still in the range you assume?

Yes. I would say don't overspeed here. The lower double digit end, in our case, would be between, let's say, 10% to 20% for both KPI figures, which we mentioned.

But we imagine that we can take another EUR 100 million to our P&L in turnover. That could be a good figure.

Yes.

And thirdly, I wonder if your business or your supply chain, at least is in any way affected by the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism in the EU, which was sharpened since January 1. Is there anything you -- we should expect any financial burden from that instrument?

Financial burden, let's say, definitely not. At the end, it could help us a little. But actually, we don't really see any additional effects from that point of view. That's the same as for the customs in the U.S. -- for customs duties. We have not really placed any additional burdens on us so far. According to our analysis, this is due to the high importance of our really nice products for the Americans, let's say.

We're having another raised hand by Mr. Hasler. Mr. Hasler, we unfortunately cannot hear you. You have the permission to unmute yourself now.

Yes. Am I not unmuted?

Perfect. Now you are. Now we can hear you.

Okay. So first, my apologies. I'm in train right now, and there's a lot of noise around me. So the first question is about the inventories that you built up in the last year. And I remember that you always spoke about shutting down your ovens if the electricity price is so high. So the question is, has this buildup of the inventory had an impact on your profitability because you did not shut down the oven because you needed that inventory?

And the second question would be if you could tell us in which segments the U.S. revenues increased the most. Is it also creatine, in nitroguanidine already? Or is it something else?

And finally, an update on Ehrmann. Last time, you mentioned that the quantities are already sold out. We think -- and do you think that -- you think of another extension. Are these thoughts still around extending the cooperation with Ehrmann?

Yes, in the first -- your first question, Thilo, about the P&L impact of the carbide furnace shutdown. As we increased the stock level, it did not impact so much our flexibility of taking the oven out if the electricity prices are high just because in the period when we increased our stock level the most, the electricity prices were pretty much stable, and there were actually no need to take the oven out of operation due to extremely high electricity costs.

Let's say that could be more an advantage because what we have seen in the first weeks in that year that the electricity costs have been much higher than in the previous year, and we can use our material from the stock. Yes.

So the electricity prices are already up again?

Yes. Yes.

The second question about the sales increase in the U.S., you are right. They were mostly allocated or coming from the creatine business in the U.S.

And your question, if we have enough material available to fuel the growth of our customers, for sure. So we will grow with creatine that year, for sure, with 20% approximately or hopefully a little more. And therefore, for the existing customers, we can fuel all the growth, hopefully.

And Ehrmann?

Yes, for Ehrmann as well. No, it's an existing customer, and we have planned the material for them. And from that point of view, it should be no problem to fuel that growth as well.

We have another question by Mr. Schwarz again.

First, a housekeeping question. Mr. Niedermaier stated that sales in the Basics & Intermediates segment were according to plan and expectations. So let's say, the EUR 18 million shortfall between the midpoint of your guidance of EUR 580 million for 2025 and the actual number seems to come from Specialty Chemicals, if I'm not mistaken. Could you elaborate where that shortfall actually happened due to the fact that earnings-wise, you exceeded expectations, but not on the sales side. And as you said, that was not the case in Basics & Intermediates. I'm just wondering about Specialty Chemicals. That will be my first question.

Second question, if I may. The U.S. tariffs, you stated that there's hardly any impact on changes in the U.S. tariffs on your company. However, this change in U.S. tariffs also affects your Chinese competitors due to tariffs on China also changing. Do you expect an increase in competition in the U.S. on some of your products, namely Creamino creatine as a result of lowered tariffs on China from the U.S.? That would be my second question.

And lastly, if I may, once again, back to nitroguanidine. Sales in 2026, I heard you say that you will be ready with your expansion by mid-2026, but your customers maybe not. And hence, there's only a small -- or small batches will be delivered to the customers. I was under the impression that the, let's say, additional volumes that you are able to produce might go into other products. Is that still the case? Or are you stockpiling? Or are you just, let's say, use a low capacity at your new site to match supply and demand? That would be my third and final question.

Andreas, do you elaborate a little bit on the Basics?

Yes, I will take the first question, Oliver. Your thinking is not really correct. On the Specialty Chemical segment, we ended up with the sales, I would say, on the expected level. And the major, let's say, downfall we had in the fourth quarter was in the Basics & Intermediates segment and was allocated again to the steel industry and maybe a bit to the pharmaceutical and agrochemical industry. So the whole segment was a bit less than anticipated. And as you can see, margin-wise or EBITDA-wise, we developed exactly as anticipated. And as I mentioned in my analysis of the P&L, we lost revenues in an area where it does not have so much impact on the EBITDA. So let's summarize, Specialty Chemicals was expected and Basics & Intermediates a bit less.

Yes. And the U.S. tariff topic is very interesting. So it can change every day as we have seen, and there is no real forecast possible. But what we saw is that we don't have to take any additional burdens. If you go to the situation of creatine, creatine from the Chinese resources already available in the U.S. So we deliver the highest quality, the best product to them, and they like that product much more than the Chinese basis because it's reliable and a reliable basis, and that's the basis of our growth, what we see and what we will see in the future. And from that point of view, we don't have to fear about that issue.

And we are talking about humans taking creatine, and they are thinking about qualities more than in the past. If we talk about Creamino, then we are talking about farmers and animals and there, the quality aspect is not as high as in the creatine. From that point of view, yes, the growth of Creamino could be a little lower because of the competition with Chinese material, but we don't fear about that as well. So we are good, prepared. We have good customers there. We are good in sales, and we have our people in the market and our product is well recognized. And from that point of view, it should not be a bigger problem for us.

And Q sales for 2026. Yes, we are a little ahead of the wave as we already are used to say. But to be honest, we have to be ahead of the wave because we are completely sold out of our material and every additional ton we want to grow and the market want to receive has to be from the new production plant. And thank God that if I think about my production staff, we don't have the -- yes, let's say, the other way around. We have time to ramp up the production, and we have time to take care about a safe ramp-up of the production from today's point of view. And then we are really prepared for all the big growth in 2027.

So then I take one question from the webinar chat. Here is the second question, you benefit from loss carryforwards in your cash flow statement. Where do these loss carryforwards come from and what years and what losses? So Andreas, I would like you to answer that, but I think it's very easy.

It's actually very easy. We do not have any loss carryforwards and especially not in the cash flow statement. So this is a wrong understanding.

Yes. So if you see additional information required, then you could precise your question, then we can elaborate on that a little more.

Then the second question was, can you walk us through the CapEx phasing of the EUR 120 million creatine program? Do you expect it to fully close the supply-demand gap? And how should we think about pricing dynamics as additional supply comes online?

So yes, thank you for that question. That's always very important to think about pricing. But to be honest, we don't see that prices will come down a lot. Probably for some customers could be that if they take more quantities that we have to reduce the prices a little bit. But at the end, the contribution margin will cover that much more from my point of view.

How do you expect it to fully close the supply-demand gap? Yes, we think that the market growth is big enough that we can ramp up the capacities quite well, and we can sell that to the market. And to be honest, we should think about additional capacities next year from today's point of view, how the market will demand and how the market will develop, and then we should be prepared for that kind of discussion.

Then I have a next webinar chat question. How do you expect evolving antidumping measures in Europe targeting Chinese chemical producers to impact your P&L over the next 12 to 24 months? Which product lines are currently most exposed to China's competition? And what would be the expected financial impact once tariffs are in place?

So Andreas, do you have a first idea about that?

Yes. My first idea would be our customers in the steel industry for our carbide business. We know that authorities are thinking about putting tariffs on Chinese steel imports. So this could help our customers in the steel industry. And as we mentioned, at the moment, we do not expect a lot of growth in the Basics & Intermediates segment for '26. But if our steel customers are recovering a bit coming or resulting from this tariff situation, we can imagine that we could deliver more into the steel industry in '26 than expected at the moment.

Yes. So then next question is, what is your current level of ETS exposure? Do you have a hedging strategy in place? And how would relaxation of EU commission reduction rules flow through to your cost base?

Very interesting question for sure. So we have some points where we have to take into consideration ETS exposures. The first is the raw material lime. So with the raw material lime, we have to purchase ETS here and to run our steam production, we have to purchase ETS as well. I think we have to -- how much ETS do we have to purchase a year? I question my back office here. So approximately 40,000 pieces we have to purchase. We purchase some in advance, but we don't really have a hedging strategy for, let's say, the next 3 to 5 years.

So we have enough ETS available for the next, let's say, half year or for the next 6 to 12 months. That's our idea about that. So from that point of view, if there is a lowering prices or something like that, then we would not have any problems. We would have positive effects in the P&L then.

Perfect. Thank you so much for your questions and your answers, of course. Ladies and gentlemen, we have not received any further questions so far. So I guess we're at the end of today's earnings call. So thank you so much for your interest in the Alzchem Group AG. And a big thank you also to you, Mr. Niedermaier and Mr. Losler for your presentation and your time, of course.

Should any further questions occur at any given time, please feel free to contact Investor Relations. I wish you all a successful day and hand over to you, Mr. Niedermaier, once more for your final remarks.

Yes. Thank you. I have additional technical issues, but will be solved. No problem. Yes. Thank you very much for your questions. We can now offer the opportunity, as always, to visit us again virtually or in person at the conferences as shown above -- as shown here on the slide. Otherwise, we will be back with our quarterly statement in first quarter 2026 on April 30. Stay safe, stay sound and stay in our good graces and then good bye.

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and a warm welcome to today's earnings call of the AlzChem Group AG following the publication of the Q3 figures of 2025.

I'm delighted to welcome the CEO, Andreas Niedermaier; CFO, Andreas Losler; as well as CSO, Dr. Georg Weichselbaumer, who will speak in a moment and guide us through the presentation and the results.

After the presentation, we will move on to a Q&A session in which you will be allowed to place your questions directly to the management.

And having said this, I hand over to Mr. Niedermaier.

Yes. Thank you for the warm welcome, and good morning together. Thank you for joining us today, and welcome to the quarter 3 call. As usual, we open with an executive summary, go forward with the figure analyzes and then move on to the new outlook. As always, we will go through the presentation first, and then be available for the questions at the end.

So, let's skip the disclaimer and go directly to the Page 5. So, I have to do that as well. Let's check Page 5. So, now Page 5, you should see that.

So, in a summary, it can be said that we are on a real good growth core, especially in the Specialty Chemicals product segment. So, from that point of view, it was an additional successful quarter 3 for us. For the third quarter, we recorded growth, which means that the group sales increased by additional 6% for the 9 months period by 2%. Once again, our Specialties were the main driver of the growth with a 9% increase in sales here, which more than compensated or overcompensated for the decline in sales in the other businesses. We will then hear more details about analysis later on, but that information is a teaser here.

EBITDA also grew by 12% to EUR 86 million, approximately mainly due to the positive volume development of Specialty Chemicals. The EBITDA margin across the group increased from 18.5% to 20.3% now. So, based on the real good development on the figures for the first 9 months, we can -- and we are able to confirm the outlook for the sales more at a lower threshold, but we will be able to increase earnings from the today's point of view and the reported figure is more the lower end than we can see today.

So, our CapEx activity is in full swing. The construction of the two new plants, including infrastructure is on schedule and on budget here. The roofs are currently being built and will also be closed soon. The first installations inside the plant have already begun.

In the U.S., we are in the process of talking about specific project situations with several locations. And teams are evaluating the individual locations so that the basis for a decision can be laid in the coming months here. And engineering has already started with the adoption and the translation of the layout to the U.S. standard.

The demand for creatine products remains really high in order to be able to benefit from market growth and incremental creatine expansion was successfully commissioned in quarter 3. In addition to the urgently required capacity increases, this investment also leads to greater efficiencies with an automatic packaging system. This shows the strength of Alzchem as I see that when sales potential on the market opens up, we size the possibility of growth and efficiency investments that are implemented quickly and consistently.

And we can report the cooperation with Ehrmann and a high protein creatine products with Creavitalis in stores since October. Let's discuss that in more detail on the next page.

So, Ehrmann in cooperation with AlzChem launched in expansion of its high-protein product line, which takes functional nutrition to the next level. The focus is on Creavitalis, the high-quality creatine made in Germany from us.

The Ehrmann High Protein Creatine range makes the proven ingredient available for the first time in the form of delicious everyday products for a broad target group. The new product line comprises three categories: puddings, drinks and bars. And delivers per portion approximately 1.5 gram of Creavitalis each. Since October, the Ehrmann High Protein Creatine puddings and drinks have become gradually available in German retailer stores. And in the Ehrmann online shop, the bars will be added to the range starting now in November.

Creavitalis stands for the highest purity and quality and therefore, also has convinced the customer Ehrmann to enrich its products with high-purity creatine and to provide it with a broad range of products for the first time for a broader market here.

The first creatine project in the Ehrmann products underlines a variety of applications of creatine also outside the fitness sector and confirms our strategy of investigating the further applications of creatine and thus opening up further market potential. And we believe in further growth here.

However, let's now move on to more figure analysis of how the business performed in the quarter and for the first 9 months.

And for that, I hand over to Georg Weichselbaumer.

Thank you, Andreas. As always, let's start with the development in our Basics & Intermediates segment, which managed to slightly reverse the downward trend observed in the first half of the year. The segment concluded the reporting period with sales amounting to approximately EUR 122 million. This represents a decrease of EUR 11 million or 8% compared to the previous year.

Only looking at Q3 standalone, sales showed a positive development and were 6% above Q3 last year as was EBITDA. Again, this development was not a surprise to us and part of our guidance. For the 9-month period, and as outlined throughout the year already the decline in sales driven by volumes effects.

The European steel industry remains in a difficult economic situation and is continuously producing lower volumes than in the previous year. Accordingly, our customers to ask for less quantities. In contrast and on a positive note, the development in the fertilizer segment, particularly with our calcium cyanamide fertilizer, Perlka, was encouraging.

Q3 sales were further supported by a new product in our midsized business, which was successfully placed with the customer for the first time. This product contributed positively to the sales and EBITDA development within this segment. We are now in negotiations with the customer regarding an additional production campaign, which could contribute to a further positive development of our Basics & Intermediates segment. This sales development within the third quarter of 2025 led also to an increased EBITDA for the same period. Nevertheless, this development did not contribute to an increase in EBITDA in the 9-month period compared with the previous year.

Even if we managed to pass on some portion of high electricity costs, we could not compensate to reduce quantities and tend to accept the decline in EBITDA, which also led to a decline in the EBITDA margin compared to the previous year.

On the production side, the facilities within our Basics & Intermediates segment could steadily and reliably produce all raw materials required for the growth of our Specialty Chemicals segment.

This brings me to the next page, where we analyzed the situation in our Specialty Chemicals segment. Specialty Chemicals is still on a very promising growth path supported by the recent development within our Creatine business, which Andreas described already.

For the 9-month period as well as for Q3 stand-alone, all major KPIs could be increased compared to the comparative periods. On a cumulative basis, we can report a sales increase of EUR 22 million or 9% and EBITDA increase of EUR 11 million or even 16% and an increased EBITDA margin of almost 28%.

Only looking at Q3 stand-alone, we can report a sales increase of EUR 7 million or 8% and EBITDA increase of EUR 2.4 million or 11% and an increased EBITDA margin of almost 28%. Main support for this development clearly came from the increased quantities supported by slightly increased prices for the 9-month period. It must be noted that this performance is very much in line with our guidance as set during the year.

Let me outline the development within three business areas: Human Nutrition with our outstanding high-quality creatine products, Creapure and Creavitalis, custom manufacturing with very specialized products and production facilities and defense with our propellent nitroguanidine. While the latter can only grow this year to the extent that our customers are able to purchase before completing their own capacity extensions.

The other two businesses made a significant contribution to growth. The demand for our creatine products made in Germany was much higher than last year, and we could especially grow in the U.S. but also in other regions. Andreas already mentioned the cooperation with Ehrmann brings creatine into the functional food market for the first time. The most current successful commissioning of our expanded creatine capacity will support our growth and the satisfaction of steady and increased market demand.

As already mentioned during our information in Q1 and Q2 of this year, the comeback of our custom synthesis area continues. We have seen increased and steady demand, and this development supports our belief that the volume declines over recent years were only a temporary phase and that the Traditional Chemical segment with its highly specialized products continues to offer further growth opportunities with a corresponding contribution to earnings, even in Europe.

EBITDA grew in line with sales, but a very good plant utilization led to an improved EBITDA margin. Again, we are mostly satisfied with this development within this group and confirm our growth perspective.

Let us now move on to our third segment, Other & Holding. As seen throughout the year, sales for the Other & Holding segment were below the previous year's level. This decrease is primarily due to reduced electricity grid fields for the chemical park customers, which AlzChem is allowed to charge the customers under electricity regulations. All other services provided to our chemical park customers are broadly stable. The segment's EBITDA followed the sales and the decline was mainly due to the reduction of grid fees.

That was all for our detailed view on the segment development.

Let's now hand over to Andreas Losler and take a look at the overall group figures.

Yes. Also good morning from my side, and thank you, Georg, for the insight in our segment development in the first 9 months of '25.

As always, I will start with a detailed look at our group P&L figures first. In terms of sales, we finished the first 9 months of the year with total sales of almost EUR 425 million, which represents an increase of 2% or almost EUR 10 million compared to the previous year. A closer look shows that this increase was mainly supported by the development in the third quarter of '25, in which we managed to grow by 6.5% or EUR 8 million.

Over the whole group and adding all segments together, the sales increase of over 9 months was driven by volume and price increases almost at the same level. As my colleague, Georg explained already, both operating segments contributed to this development completely differently that the quantities sold in our Specialty Chemicals segment could more than overcompensate the volume loss in our Basic & Intermediate segment.

On a regional basis, the major sales increase could be achieved in the U.S. and Europe. As already mentioned in previous calls, the ongoing discussions about U.S. tariffs did not affect our business that much. Our sales split for this reporting period shows 66% sales coming from the Specialty Chemicals segment, while this relationship was only 62% on the comparative period. This development underpins our strategy to grow within our Specialty Chemicals products in niche markets and finally, support and explained our ongoing good EBITDA development.

EBITDA is a good point. Let's talk about its development within the first 9 months of '25. Over the whole group, our EBITDA grew more than our sales debt and ended up at EUR 9 million or even 12% over the last year's reporting period. As seen over the last reporting period and in line with our strategy, this development was mainly driven by our Specialty Chemicals segment, supported by a steady and reliable raw material supply from the production plans in our Basic & Intermediate segment.

Also, electricity prices are still higher than last year. A good utilization of our production facilities compared with stable sales prices led to an improvement in our extended material cost ratio showing an improvement from 36% to 33% this period. Cost wise, we have to report increased personnel expenses based on increased union tariffs and slightly increased number of employees, which support our growth.

Our operating costs increased mainly resulting from much higher FX losses due to the weak U.S. dollar development. All put together, we managed to increase our EBITDA margin to impressive 20.3% after showing 18.5% last year after 9 months. With stable depreciations and supported by an improved financial result, we ended up on a group net result of EUR 45 million, which represents an increase of 20% compared to last year. Accordingly, earnings per share have increased by the same rate up to EUR 4.62 per share. That was the big picture of our profit and loss.

Now let's move on to the balance sheet and cash flow figures. Our balance sheet and cash flows are still very healthy, but further influenced by some special impacts, which we have seen and reported throughout the year '25 already. The increase of EUR 105 million in our balance sheet, total can simply be explained by two major impacts: increased CapEx spending for our nitroguanidine expansion in Germany and customer grants received for this CapEx program.

Non-current assets increased by EUR 57 million, primarily due to the investments aimed at expanding production capacity for nitroguanidine as well as customer grants capitalized in this context as non-current receivables. Approximately 67% of our investing cash flow within the first 9 months of the year was dedicated to this CapEx program in Germany.

In total, we received almost EUR 56 million of customer grants already related to our nitroguanidine expansion. These are based on milestones or monthly payments. As such payments increase our cash balance, they also do increase our contract liabilities on the other hand. As of September 30, '25, we showed contract liabilities amounting to EUR 85 million. Those will be released beginning in '27 as revenue when the products are delivered out of the new plant.

During our Q1 call in April this year, we gave a detailed explanation of the accounting treatment, and we refer to this presentation. Apart from this, we saw an increase in our inventory level in preparation for a scheduled extended maintenance shutdown of one of our carbide furnaces at the beginning of '26.

Equity total could be increased by EUR 28 million. This development was supported by our positive group's net result and the recognition of increased interest rates for pension valuation and reduced by the dividend payment of EUR 18 million in May '25.

However, as the balance sheet total increased materially, our equity ratio decreased from 42% to 40% but could be increased since our half year reporting date. This development was already outlined within our guidance and shows the expected ratio.

Based on the increased interest rates mentioned, our pension liabilities were reduced by approximately EUR 5 million, while real pension payments amount to only EUR 2 million. As of our reporting date end of September '25, we can again report a positive net cash position of EUR 37 million. And again, we were able to shortly invest our liquidity surplus in order to earn interest, also a reason for our improved financial result. Our operating cash flow is still significantly influenced by the customer grant received for our CapEx program.

As mentioned already, we received EUR 55 million in total. On the other hand, we slightly increased our working capital in preparation for the extended maintenance of one carbide furnace with a corresponding impact in our operating cash flow. We have already mentioned our materially increased CapEx activities compared to last year. Apart from the nitroguanidine expansion, we invested in expanding our creatine production capacities, the development of network operations and infrastructure matters. Anyhow, we can still report a positive free cash flow, which almost equals the amount from last year.

Our increased dividend payment in May '25 and approximately EUR 4 million cash out for the current share buyback program explains the increase in financing cash outflows. As you can see, AlzChem is in a very healthy cash position and ready for future growth. At the end of this call, I will now give you some updates on our guidance for the remaining 3 months of the year.

From today's perspective, we can confirm the outlook given in our last financial statements and the developments within the first half of '25 have confirmed our estimate. Sales are expected to grow to approximately EUR 580 million, while we expect them to settle at the lower end of our range, as Andreas already mentioned.

EBITDA is still expected to grow at least to approximately EUR 130 million. Our outlook is still based on the same assumptions as given at the beginning of the year. The fundamental growth drivers will be volume effect within segment Specialty Chemicals, which will overcompensate the sales decline in segment Basics & Intermediates.

Sales are supported by further increased demand in the area of human nutrition, custom manufacturing and possible positive developments within the metallurgy product area. As mentioned already, we still do not expect a material negative impact from the volatile tariff politics of the U.S. administration right now, but the further weakening of the U.S. dollar could have a negative sales and cost impact on our result.

So, that's it from our side with the information for the first 9 months of the year and the outlook for the remaining 3 months of' '25. At this point, we would like to thank you for your appreciated attention and are now at your disposal for possible questions.

Yes. Thank you very much for the presentation, and we now move on to the Q&A session. [Operator Instructions] And we already have some participants raising their hands. Mr. Faitz, you should be able to speak now and place your questions.

Yes. Good morning, everyone. Thanks. Hope you can hear me. Congratulations on the results. I have a couple of questions, please. So first, can you please talk a bit about the inventory development into the end of this year in preparation of the refurbishment of the calcium carbide furnace in heart. Should we expect inventories in your Basics & Intermediates to approach, let's say, a EUR 60 million level or even above and on the shutdown for refurbishment? We are talking about the bigger furnace being out for how long and in which time frame? Thanks very much.

Maybe I can answer the first question about the inventory development. Right now, we do expect to be on the level where we expect it to be at the end of the year. Also -- so, we have seen an increase over the year. But at this point in time, we should have reached the topline and inventory should not change that much until the end of the year.

And for the maintenance shutdown, it will take approximately 6 months.

Okay. Perfect. If I may, I have one more question for now. Can you please give us an update on the scouting for the location for nitroguanidine in the U.S.? Is there any recent updates? Maybe you can share some thoughts there.

I mean, as we said in the presentation, we have narrowed it down to a few locations. We have visited those locations, and we're currently also building P&L for all of those locations to make a very good decision based on figures by the end of the year.

Well, thank you for your questions. And we move on to the next participant, Mr. Schwarz, you should be able to speak now and place your questions.

Oliver, it seems to be that you are muted.

Yes. I just realized, sorry for that. The obvious mistake I'm making every time. Hopefully, it works now.

No problem. We can hear you.

Wonderful. Thank you very much. So without further ado, I also got some questions for you. Firstly, regarding the Q3 development in the Basic & Intermediate segment, obviously, what we saw in Q3 is a reversal of the trends we saw, especially in H1, but also in previous years, that we saw volume and price declines. And you said -- stated that this was mostly due to a new contract with a customer, I don't know whether it's an existing one or a new one that enabled you to break that trend in Q3, which would imply to me that the contract size of that customer regarding their product might be in the vicinity of EUR 5 million to EUR 10 million, probably.

Could you just confirm that the underlying trend of lower prices and volumes is still ongoing and is just offset or more than offset by this new product and the respective contract? And could you elaborate a bit how sustainable that is? So what kind of market potential you see for that product? And in general, how you see things going forward in that regard? That would be my first question.

The second one is for Specialty Chemicals. It's basically the same thing. We saw a bit of a trend reversal also in Specialty Chemicals. Given that at the half year stage, there was a flat pricing in Q3, there was a price increase of 7%. But on the other hand, you had strong volume growth in H1, and it declined a tad in Q3. Could you elaborate a bit, especially on the, let's say, less strong increase or the, let's say, the drop in momentum in volumes in Q3? I guess that might be a mix effect that we see strong creatine sales, which is a highly profitable product, but other products might have had a harder time. Could you especially talk about Creamino in this context, please?

And last but not least, congratulations on your cooperation with Ehrmann, which is quite a sizable diary operation in Europe. Could you give, let's say, your estimates or your feelings about what the market potential in the midterm of this cooperation and the resulting products could be, given that we are just at the very beginning of the rollout here in Germany and Europe will probably come, I don't know, next year or the year after, how is that timing planned in that regard? That will be my third and final question. Thank you very much.

So, Georg will you take the opportunity to answer the Basic & Intermediate question first, I think.

Yes. I'm not surprised about that question. To get some more information about the background of that as we think a turnaround, particularly in the nitriles portfolio, we are in cooperation with a blue-chip customer. And the first campaign, which we made was just a start to confirm when we did that in a very positive way that the synthesis works. And there will be quite some significant ramp up.

However, we are not privy to the information to which level it will grow, but the numbers which you mentioned were not completely wrong. It does not indicate that this is a reversal for the Basic & Intermediate segment. It is a good starting point, as I said, for the nitriles portfolio. But the underlying economics, in particular for the steel industry are still unchanged and will remain unchanged. We are positively surprised. I think we can say that for the Perlka development, because we could increase both volumes and prices.

Yes. So thank you, Georg for that analysis, some words to specialties. So, please don't overestimate the single quarters. So, you have to look more on the accumulated figures from my point of view. Because sometimes there is a little more quantity of that product in the last months of the, let's say, second quarter and then it's moved to the first month of the next quarter. And from that point of view, the underlying trend is really healthy for the already mentioned products like Creapure, Creavitalis, and the Specialty products here as Georg already reported.

So, NQ is stable and on stable growth underway. And you will see next year a big increase when the new plant will be ramped up and will be started. So from that point of view, we will see really a healthy and a good underlying trend for our Specialty Chemicals here.

So, the last question from you, Oliver was some words about Ehrmann. So, Ehrmann is very important from my point of view because it's the first step into the daily market and that interesting is quite big from other daily customers as well. And from that point of view, I think that's a trendsetting product actually. And that will help the creatine growth a lot. But that's not the only and single underlying trend for the creatine growth.

So, we see a good growth trend in healthy aging, in fitness sector as well. And from that point of view, we really think about adding additional capacities. We think about that actually. And hopefully, we can report in a few, let's say, months that we will increase the capacities again here. Yes. So, that's in a nutshell, hopefully, answered your question here.

Yes. Thank you very much for that. Just perhaps a clarification on the Ehrmann project that you did. I was just wondering, I mean, at the very beginning, when Ehrmann rolls out a product in Germany, obviously, due to the landscape of the German supermarket chains, the uptake will be choppy. That's normal because the products have to be listed and the respective supermarkets have then to display them in their shelves and so on. And that is very different, how REWE does it compared to EDEKA and so on and so forth.

And then, we have the rollout in other European markets because Ehrmann is not only strong in Germany. It's also very strong in other parts of Europe when it comes to their sales composition. So, I'm just wondering is that this Ehrmann cooperation has that -- is that basically just a tip of the iceberg, what we are just, let's say, seen and how big might that become just that cooperation. I'm not negating other growth -- pockets of growth in other parts of your business. I just want a better understanding about how -- what kind of lever on sales and earnings that might grow into when it's, let's say, fully fledged rolled out, roll it over Europe, how much of that would basically be reflected in your future earnings and sales?

Oliver, as you know, we can't display and can't get this detail, and talking about earnings and sales on a customer base. But let turn it that way around. So, from my point of view, you're right, that's only that the first small introduction into the daily business of creatine. Creatine will be, from my point of view, a standard product. But Ehrmann was very fast to introduce that.

And from my point of view, we will see many products out there in the future, but it could take time, let's say, from my point of view, 1 or 2 years, to introduce other customers as well, because you have to do your tests. It's not so easy to stabilize creatine in puddings and in milk products or in their products at the end of the day. And Ehrmann did it in a very fast and in a very, let's say, positive way from my point of view.

And at the end of the day, we will see here a good growth path and a good growth segment, which will support our growth for creatine much, let's say. But that's not only the one thing, as I already said. So, healthy aging, fitness trend, women health that will support the creatine as well. And from that point of view, I have seen another question here written down, if the additional quantities are already sold out of the creatine plant? Yes. We have already sold out all the quantities, and that's the reason why we are thinking about additional quantities here as already mentioned.

Yes. Thank you very much. And we indeed have questions in our chat box. I will read one out so that you know how to answer it. Could you please elaborate on CSG's strategic rationale for acquiring such a significant stake in AlzChem? Do you believe they intend to build a more substantial position over time?

So, interesting question. We know CSG as an investor. We do have contacts. But to be honest, I do not know the strategy of them. They are an investor as all investors, and we maintain the contact quite well, and they support from today's point of view, the strategy, and we will see what happens in the future. So, from that point of view, I can't disclose more because I don't know more about the strategy. Actually, from that point of view, I think you could go to them directly and ask them what's the strategy, because we don't know more about that.

Well, thank you. And I'll read out one more question from the chat box. Could you comment on the latest competitive landscape for nitroguanidine. Rheinmetall has publicly stated in recent earnings calls that it aims to build a vertical integrated supply chain for propellant powders, including NQ, how might AlzChem be impacted by such efforts?

That's a really very simple answer to that question, positively. I mean, just imagine Rheinmetall and in particular, our contacts are approximately 20 kilometers away from here, and we have a very, very good communication and we develop things jointly.

Yes. And as you know, Rheinmetall has an own nitroguanidine plant in South Africa. Yes, that is the case. But if you want to be backward integrated, you need guanidine nitride, you need dicyandiamide, you need the fertilizer business and at least you need to have the carbide business there. If you want to -- if you don't want to be dependent on Chinese material, then you have to build up all that chain. So, you can ask Rheinmetall if they will build up carbide furnace or if they purchase a carbine furnace. I haven't heard about that.

Well, there was a follow-up concerning this from [ Mr. List ] separately, what is management views on synthetically produced guanidine and NQ, since their ongoing efforts in the United States, do you have a perspective on those developments?

So, that brings question marks to our eyes and to our ears. So, we haven't heard about that actually. So, if you can give us that information and hand in that information, then you can do analysis on it, and we can probably answer that question afterwards.

Okay. Perfect. And we move on to -- well, there is a follow-up on this from [ Mr. List ] in the context of the U.S. expansion, are you engaged in discussions with particular states regarding potential subsidy packages, grants or tax incentives to support site selection?

Yes, we are.

That was pretty clear.

That's pretty clear. That is what we are used to receive from Georg. Yes, that was pretty clear.

Okay. Thank you. And if we move on to one participant raising his hand. Mr. Hasler, you should be able to speak now and place your question.

Of course, I have also questions on Ehrmann. You mentioned that Ehrmann was very fast on the chart on Page 6. There's only the end of the timeline mentioned was October '25, the market launch. Could you tell us when was -- when the beginning was and what fast is in that industry?

And the second question would be if you expect -- so I expect that you will not expect that the mass market entry will lead to a dilution of your premium positioning. But do you expect that this will increase the pricing power in your industry business?

And the third question is I haven't seen the yogurts and bars. And so yet in the supermarket. Could you tell us something about the pricing of the Ehrmann products?

And if I may ask a fourth question on that. You said that you will not comment on an individual client. But if it were Christmas today, how would you do such a partnership, as you call it, in your dreams? Would it be a true sale? Or would you get percentage of revenues of the products?

Yes, let's start with the last question. It's a true sale and it's not the percentage. From that point of view, we have been very quick in developing that. So, developing times or sometimes more than 5 years. But here, we have been much quicker. So let's say, between 20 months and a little more. We are talking here about the time framing. So unfortunately, you haven't seen the product in the supermarket, but come over to Trostberg, then we can display you that, no doubt about that. And what the very positive thing is that you will see television spots in the near future. Here, I think it has been already started. And you see advertising in all multichannels already about that product.

And so, from that point of view, that was only a setup of the logistics lines. They filled all the logistics and now are promoting the product in all channels, what you can see. So, I think the next quarter we can talk about that everybody should have seen the product in the supermarket and should have heard about the product, I think.

Yes. The pricing, I'm not really sure. I think it's approximately EUR 250 , but it differs from some offers and from some supermarkets. So, from that point of view, we don't really have a clear view about that.

If I may add, it is very rare from Ehrmann that they actually display logos of other products, on their products. And since there is such a good synergy between proteins and also creatine, which actually is symbiotic, not 1.1 is 2, but more than 2, because creatine can activate the metabolism of proteins, they actually agreed that the Creavitalis logo is also on their sales products and it was a joint development because, as I said, creatine and then Ehrmann really fits.

So, let's grab the next question. What's the development of Eminex. So actually, we are in the process of incorporating Eminex into the climate calculators. That's a very important that you are a piece of the climate calculator. We are not in there, but there are positive signs from our point of view. We have good contacts and hopefully, we will make it next year that we are a part of the calculator. And then from my point of view, it will much supported to take Eminex at the end of the day. But please be remind the farmers don't have to pay actually for their methane emission that will change in the future. And if that two things have been changed, then Eminex will go like a rocket.

Well, thank you very much. That was the last question from the chat box. No, there is one final question from [ Mr. List. ] I'll read it out. Amid the positive sales developments within the need trials product line, have you given further thought to potential portfolio rationalization given the new trials is not part of the integrated Verbund model. Thank you.

It is not part of the integrated Verbund model, but it strengthens our site. Also, nitriles operates our air purification or our exhaust purification plant. So, it would not be easy to shut it down. That's the more defensive answer, but the more offensive is, I think we can develop nitriles into a business which looks cook completely different from what it used to be. But with products were not so much making nitriles, but gas phase reactions can really make a difference. And the project, which is currently implemented is the first one, which we have and there are more to follow.

Thank you very much. And there is one participant raising his hands. Mr. Piontke, you should be able to speak now and place your questions. Yes, Mr. Piontke, you unmute yourself? You should be able to speak.

One question regarding the bird flu. We got a lot of information the last couple of days. Do you feel that here, this could bring problems for your product which is going to the feeding of these animals that if I remember 10 years ago, we -- in the last bird flu, Evonik had lots of problems and in sales and earnings. Do you have first impression what has happened to your clients? And how big is this business in the creatine business?

Yes. So it's a decent stack of our business, no doubt about that. So it's very important for us, the Creamino business we are talking about. But actually, I haven't heard that any of our customer had a problem with the bird flu now. So at least in the U.S., I haven't heard about some problems of our customers with the bird flu. So it's, from my point of view, more a German thing actually, and Germany is not that big for our Creamino business here. So, from that point of view, I don't see really a big danger, but you're right. That's always a topic.

So, if the birds are slaughtered down and brought away then we have a heavy impact or it could have been seen a heavy impact on Creamino business. But up from now, we don't see that.

Well, thank you very much. And there are no more questions by now. I'll wait a few moments. But no. So, ladies and gentlemen, we now come to the end of today's earnings call. You will find the presentation on the website of AlzChem Group AG and also on the Airtime platform by clicking into today's event.

Dear participants. Thank you for joining and you've shown interest in the AlzChem Group. Should further questions arise at a later time, please feel free to contact Investor Relations. A big thank you to Mr. Niedermaier, Dr. Weichselbaumer, and Mr. Losler for your presentation and the time you took to answer the questions.

I wish you all a lovely remaining week. And with this, I hand over to Mr. Niedermaier for some final remarks.

We'll thank you very much for your questions. Thank you for being here now. A message on our own behalf. So, because this was the last joint publication together with Georg Weichselbaumer here. As you already know, this is his last term as a Board member and his successor is already in the starting blocks. I would like to thank you, Georg, very much for the excellent cooperation on behalf of the Board and the employees. You were certainly a significant stable success factor with your know-how and your market knowledge here. Thank you for that.

So, our corporation will not be completely away yet. You will still take care of the success of the USA project for a while. But in this format, it was certainly the last appearance, and you can pass on your responsibilities now. Thank you very much, Georg.

So, let's now come to an end. We can now offer you the opportunity to visit us again virtually or in person at the conferences, as shown above. We will be available in Frankfurt. We will be available in London. Otherwise, we will be back with our full year reporting on February '27. Stay safe and sound, stay in our good graces, and goodbye. Thank you.