Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to AGRANA's conference call presenting our results for the first quarter 2026/27. You already got some insights last week when we published preliminary results.

Today we will provide you with more details, also on the segments. As announced in our conference call invitation, a presentation is available in reference to this call and you can find this presentation in the IR section of our website.

Our CEO, Stephan Büttner, will hold today's presentation, which is divided into three parts. We will start with an introduction and will focus on the highlights of the first quarter first, and then we will go on with a segment overview, and finally we will conclude with an outlook for the ongoing 2026/27 financial year.

The presentation will last about 20 minutes. After the presentation, the lines will be opened and we will be glad to answer your questions.

Now let me pass over to our CEO, Stephan, who will start with slide number four.

Thank you, Hannes. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

AGRANA had a very solid start into the financial year 2026/27. EBIT was significantly higher than in Q1 previous year, but this is logical because we had extraordinary expenses also in the previous year due to the closure of Leopoldsdorf and Ružovany.

Of course, the markets are still very challenging, especially sugar. Price pressure is still there, and also in starch, the economy still has not recovered yet substantially.

Nevertheless, we could significantly improve our performance in the sugar business. This is really due to the restructuring measures taken in the last two and a half years.

Geopolitical uncertainties and volatility in energy and commodity prices, of course, remain key factors for the rest of the business year, but we are currently very optimistic that we will be able to keep our performance also in the next quarters. When we look at the key numbers, we had €855.3 million revenue in the first quarter compared to €880 million in the previous year.

This is mainly due to the decrease in revenue in our sugar business. The operating profit with €33.2 million, significantly above the previous year's performance.

Exceptional items, €0.4 million, and EBIT €35.4 million. Here we see the very significant improvement versus prior year where we had €5.7 million.

AUSTRIA JUICE and Mercator-Emba were two projects, acquisition projects, both there we are working on the integration. It's also already in progress.

Both investments are performing as expected and this, of course, will help to further strengthen our diversified business model in the food and beverage solutions. The closing of the Mercator-Emba deal took place at the end of March 2026.

The initial purchase price was €35 million. This is an EBITDA multiple of 7.6, and there are two potential performance-related adjustments to come in '27 and '28.

The maximum of this earnouts is in total €5 million, and then always the EBITDA multiple and the purchase price will remain below 8. Of course, we also continue the working on the implementation of our corporate-level strategy.

We worked, yeah, very hard in the last months on our business-level strategies, we are implementing here our vision now with One Company, One AGRANA, One Culture, and One Brand. When we look at the different business areas in our ACS, Agricultural Commodities & Specialties, here we have our juice commodities business.

This is still reported in the Solutions segment. We are working on dividing the businesses into the commodities part, this is the fruit juice concentrate production, and the added-value business, which is flavors and beverage compounds.

This added-value business, earliest from the business year 2027 onwards, shall be reported in our Food & Beverage Solutions segment isolated, whereas our commodities business in the AUSTRIA JUICE company, the fruit juice concentrates shall be reported in our ACS strategic business area. As you can see, in juice, in the commodity part, we're also focusing on efficiency improvements.

Cost is key here, also the physical footprint. We need to be very close to the raw materials.

This is something that we are constantly working on to increase our competitiveness, but also to increase our share in the specialties product portfolio. Same in starch.

We are here really focusing on our strategy, which should increase the share of our specialties. We are now analyzing opportunities in the different products where we will be able also to win in the future.

This will be very important to stabilize the profitability in our starch business in the future. We are also currently working on the target operating model how the business shall be then also managed in the future.

In sugar, we are executing our strategy, local for local, which means we are producing sugar in our production plants for the local markets. We, as we already mentioned several times, we closed two factories and are still optimizing here our footprint.

The target is, of course, to increase our competitiveness in cost especially. On the other side, we're also working on our product portfolio.

Here we want to increase our share, our market share with our brand Wiener Zucker in Austria, where we have a very good market position. When we look at the FBS, Food & Beverage Solutions, here we have, of course, our core business.

We have Food Service and also, as already mentioned, our added-value product portfolio consisting of flavors and beverage compounds. Very clearly, we want to bring all these businesses closer together.

We want to create a platform, a recipe, a formulation business for food and beverage. Here we are on a very good way.

That this business is very much product development and innovation-driven, also co-creation with the customers. Here we want to increase our portfolio, especially also the flavors competence.

We want to increase our insourcing volumes, especially also in the flavors business, and we want to roll out via the physical footprint of our fruit preparations business our competence in beverage compounds. As already mentioned, we will also leverage the acquisitions here of Emba, yeah, getting a much better access, especially in Europe, to the food service sector, quick-service restaurants, coffee and tea shops.

This also gives us access to global customers and we will not only benefit here in Europe from Emba, but also on a global scale. The product portfolio, we already mentioned that, is sauces, toppings, syrups, and baking fillings, especially for the out-of-home channels.

Let's have a look at the financials. Revenue by segment, you see, yeah, a slight increase in our Solutions business, plus 1%, €448.7 million.

In Starch, yeah, a slight decline from €257.8 to €252 million. You see a further sharp decrease in revenue in Sugar from €170.1 million in the first quarter to €146.1 million.

This is mainly due to a further price reduction, is not due to a volume decrease in sales. This is really here influenced by the still ongoing price pressure in sugar.

This is something when we take a look at the next page, we see the enormous decline in sugar prices over the last, let's say, yeah, 1.5 to 2 years. This has a massive impact and still there is no release.

Triggers for this is, of course, the duty-free imports over two to three years coming from Ukraine. We have excess stocks in Europe still.

Also there is an expectation that we will enter the new sugar campaign in September with stocks of 2.6 to 3 million tonnes in the European Union. A normal stock level is around 1.5 to 1.6 million tonnes, here see an excess of 1 million tonnes.

Also due to a very good crop in the last sugar campaign in 2025. We saw a further reduction in acreage planted sugar beets for the campaign or the harvest in 2026, but now everything will depend on the weather conditions.

Far, we had a very dry June, but this is still not yet decided how the crop will look like. At the end of the day, it really depends on the weather conditions in July and August.

One thing is very clear: we need a further reduction in supply. The demand is getting lower due to consumer habits, and as long as we have a surplus in production, prices will not be able to recover.

EBIT by segment, here I must say we see a good performance. As already mentioned, fruit juice concentrates are still reported in our Solutions segment.

We had a deep frost last year, especially in Hungary, we lost, yeah, around 80% to 90% of our production volumes in Hungary. This had a negative impact on our P&L, also on our top line, but also on our bottom line in the Food & Beverage Solutions business, but this could be partly compensated by our formulations business, but not by 100%.

Therefore, we have a decline of 7.7% down to €33.6 million, but still a very solid performance for the first quarter. Starch, we have a significant improvement here in EBIT.

This is, of course, mainly due to the increase in ethanol prices. This has also to do something with the crisis or the war in Iran.

On the other hand, we are facing increasing raw material prices and energy prices, but the price increase in ethanol was able to overcompensate this increases in raw materials and energy. We are very happy about the improved performance in Sugar.

You see last year we had nearly -€30 million. Now, really from our point of view, a very good result with only -€2.7 million in the first quarter.

When we look at our competitors, they are also producing heavy losses in sugar, here we can also clearly see the improvement due to the restructuring measures taken during the last two and a half years and also the closure of Leopoldsdorf and Ružovany. These things are paying off already and we were able to, like-for-like, significantly improve our performance here.

Outlook for 2026/27, of course we expect a very significant increase in EBIT, but as already mentioned, here we had extraordinary items of more than €70 million in the last business year. We are not expecting this in the actual business year, therefore it's quite easy to say that we will be very significantly better off in 2026/27.

Revenue here, we expect a slight growth, but mainly also due to the still decreasing revenues in Sugar. Our savings program is also on a very good way.

Our target under the corporate-level strategy, AGRANA Next Level, is that we are implementing measures with a sustained annual savings impact of up to €110 million in 2026/27. Outlook by segments for 2026/27: in our Food & Beverage Solutions segment, we expect a moderate increase in revenue and a moderate reduction in EBIT.

I already mentioned the reasons for that. In ACS Starch, a stable revenue and a significant increase in EBIT.

ACS Sugar, a slight reduction in revenue due to still lower prices and a very significant improvement in EBIT. Finally, our outlook for the second quarter of 2026/27: in 2025/26, the EBIT was €22.3 million in the second quarter of the financial year, and actually in 2026/27, our forecast is that our EBIT shall be significantly higher than the figure for the previous year in the second quarter.

Thank you very much for your attention, and I hand back to Hannes Haider for the financial calendar.

Thanks. Before we go on with the Q&A session, I just wanted to remind you that after last week's AGM approval on dividend, the dividend payment date is on the 13th of July.

I would also like to inform you that our financial calendar for the next financial year, 2027/28, will be prepared during summer months and will be published in autumn. We will now go on with the Q&A session.

Yes, good morning. Thanks for taking my question.

I hope you can hear me. I have three questions.

I'll take them one at a time. Perhaps first starting with the sugar business.

In Q1, you saw a decline in revenues here of around 14%, but for the full year, you're guiding only for a slight decline in revenues. Just wondering if you could comment on this, and when do you expect prices to improve in coming quarters to sort of meet that full-year top-line guidance?

Then on the profitability within sugar, congratulations first of all on the excellent progress here on the margin. Just wondering if we can expect perhaps a similar margin going forward as we've seen in Q1 or perhaps even better in coming quarters as your restructuring measures continue to gain traction?

Thank you very much for the question. I understood that you are referring first of all to our sugar revenue.

There we saw, let me have a look at the numbers here. One second.

Of course, in the first quarter, we have a more significant reduction in the revenues. This is due to the higher prices in Q1 in 2025/26, whereas we see more stabilization in prices during the rest of the year also compared with the remaining months in the last year.

In total, then we expect only a slight decrease for sugar. Margins also, I think this was in combination in our sugar business.

I already mentioned that the prices are still under pressure, yeah? This is a fact.

We are currently in the marketing period of our sugar volumes produced in the campaign '26. We cannot really say what will be the outcome at the end of the day, yeah?

Still we have to wait for the weather conditions, especially what will be the production volume in the European Union, what will happen on the world market. This will also influence our pricing power for sugar for the new production campaign.

If the prices will come under pressure again, and this can theoretically only happen if we will see a bumper crop, which is not expected now, and also the acreage was reduced, therefore, we do not expect an increased price pressure here. Of course, yeah, the situation can also deteriorate a little bit further.

It all depends on how we will be able to market the production volumes out of the campaign '26. It's difficult to say, but we see currently stable market conditions.

Great. That's really helpful, very clear.

Congratulations again on the great progress there in terms of profitability. Perhaps just two quick follow-up questions.

The other one would be on the Leopoldsdorf plant sale. I was just wondering what sort of cash flow and P&L impact we should expect to see in the second quarter, yeah, and if there's a book value gain or whether it was sold at book value?

We signed the deal two weeks ago. Now we are in the closing period.

There are certain conditions that need to be fulfilled before we can close the deal. This will take, I think, around two to three months.

We do not expect the closing in the second quarter, but maybe more in the third quarter of the business year. Of course, there will be an impact on the P&L and also on the cash flow, but unfortunately, we are not able to give you more details about this now because we have an agreement with the buyer that we should not talk about the terms and conditions before the closing took place.

It will be a positive impact, this is what I can tell you now.

Great. That's good to hear.

Final one from my side would be just on restructuring expenses, which were significantly lower in Q1. Sort of just wondering what the, yeah, reasonable run rate would be going forward.

Do you expect restructuring expenses to increase again in coming quarters as you perhaps rightsize some more sugar plants, etc., or is this sort of sensible? Yes,

currently we do not expect significant extraordinary expenses. In sugar, we already had an asset impairment also last business year.

I cannot completely rule out now that further structure measures will be taken, but in that case, the extraordinary effect shall be very limited in comparison with the effect last year.

Great. That's all from my side.

Thanks a lot.

Yes, hello. Good morning.

Congratulations to the very solid start of the year. I would have a couple of questions.

First one would be related to your costs because the report is relatively restricted in this respect, I would be interested what was the major operating cost development in the first quarter, and this highlight maybe energy cost. What do you expect for the rest of the year?

Regarding your cost savings, you are highlighting €110 million. How this will impact individual segments and maybe individual operating cost categories?

Then I have some technical questions like what was the reason behind this steep increase in trade receivables? Also, you mentioned in connection with the transaction in Slovenia, this Mercator-Emba, that you already paid to the seller €40.9 million, but at the same time, you say that the initial price was €35 million.

What I'm missing here in this calculation? Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Urbankova.

Energy cost: you saw that the prices for gas especially, where we are a heavy consumer, especially in Starch and in Sugar, increased significantly due to the war in Iran. Therefore, we do not expect lower energy prices for the actual business year compared with the previous year, but we also do not expect a significant increase, we are very optimistic that we can keep our prices here for energy on a stable level plus/minus, yeah?

Also, of course, depends on the further development of the situation here in Middle East. Then you asked for Emba.

That the purchase price also always includes the final, how shall I say, balance sheet. What did we agree on when we signed the deal and what was the balance sheet looking like when we took it over at the closing date?

There also when we get, for example, more cash because the company generated more cash during the closing period, then of course we have to compensate the seller for that. This does not affect the net price, yeah?

If we pay more, we also get more. Then your question was the savings program: of course, the savings measures mainly concern our sugar business, our starch business, and the holding, yeah?

Especially in Sugar and in Starch, we are continuously adding potentials to the savings pipeline because we still have the feeling that we are not ambitious enough to bring our results in the direction where we want them to be. Your last question, I think, was that the development of the trade receivables: yeah, sorry for that, I do not have the exact numbers now.

We will come on that back later.

The trade receivables, according to page seven in the report, increased by 42% roughly versus February at the end of May. This is quite sizable increase,

just— That's the course of the business. We will analyze it.

I cannot give you a detailed explanation on that now.

Thank you. Maybe a little bit more if you can elaborate on the cost categories, major operating cost categories in the first quarter, what was the development?

I assume personnel costs were down, energy costs were up, and then some other material costs?

You mean versus the previous— Year on

year in the first quarter, what was just—

On group level or on—

On the group level, because I assume that looking forward, it's tricky still because we have the conflict in Middle East going in unpredictable way, but what was the first quarter development?

Mrs. Urbankova, we do not see a big challenge actually in personnel costs.

This is on track. Where we see the biggest challenge, of course, are transport costs, yeah, and, for example, cost for packaging material and chemicals.

This is more than related to our production costs as well, you cannot see this directly in the P&L. We are working on putting this on our customers, but it's not always that easy.

As I already mentioned, with personal costs, we are exactly on track with what we planned at the beginning of the business year.

Thank you.

Yeah. Yes.

Thanks a lot for your questions, and thank you for your interest in our call. We wish you a nice remaining day and a nice summertime.

Goodbye.