Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to AGRANA's conference call presenting our results for the first three quarters of 2025/2026 financial year. A Happy New Year and all the best for 2026.

As announced in our conference call invitation, a presentation is available in reference to this call, and you can find this presentation as always in the IR section of our website. Our CEO, Stephan Büttner, will hold today's presentation, and as you can see on page 2, the presentation is divided into three parts.

We will start with a general introduction focusing on the main topics of the first nine months. We will go on then with comments on the financial performance, especially on segment level.

Finally, we will conclude with an outlook for the remaining financial year 2025/2026. The presentation will take about 15 minutes, and afterwards the lines will be opened and we will be glad to answer your questions.

Now I may pass over to our CEO, Stephan, who will start the presentation with slide number 3.

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

Happy New Year also from my side. After three quarters in the actual business year, we are on track with the implementation of our corporate strategy, Next Level, also regarding our financial targets for the business year 2025/2026.

In Q3, EBIT we saw a significant increase as forecasted. Also for the first nine months, we have a stable result despite that the €20.4 million extraordinary expenses in the sugar business for restructuring in Austria and the Czech Republic, the sites Leopoldsdorf and Hrušovany.

The operative performance in sugar is still negative, but we see a slight improvement during the business year, mainly due to our restructuring or, let's say, cost savings. Starch, a market-driven decline in earnings.

Still, the economy is under pressure. We see this also especially in the paper industry, but also in the food industry and the construction industry.

Here we are now working on our operative business-level strategy to focus also in the future even more on specialties. Food & Beverage Solutions again delivered strong earnings, and this is very important for stabilization of our group EBIT, as also already in the previous year.

Key figures, revenue €2.494 billion in the first three quarters. Operating profit amounted to €73.3 million.

Exceptional items, already mentioned, -€22.8 million. This comes mainly from the restructuring or the social plan in combination with the closure of the sites Hrušovany and Leopoldsdorf, and therefore then this resulting in an EBIT of €48.4 million.

Free cash flow positive with €76 million, close to the €87.8 million last year. Net debt increased up to €470 million, but there is already included the cash-out of 50 around €50 million for the acquisition of AUSTRIA JUICE.

Gearing 42.4%, up a little bit versus prior year, and equity ratio still very solid with around 44%. When we look at the implementation of the AGRANA Next Level strategy, of course, already mentioned, the termination of sugar production at the sites Leopoldsdorf and Hrušovany.

We acquired the remaining 49.99% of AUSTRIA JUICE shares from RWA. The deal was closed mid-October 2025, and now we are working on the integration, especially of the specialties, the added value business, beverage compounds and flavors, natural flavors, and bringing this closer together with our solutions business from the fruit preparations.

Also, in summer 2025, we announced the acquisition of the Slovenian food company, Mercator Emba, also very important for growing our food service business in our Food & Beverage Solutions segment. We expect the antitrust approval in the course of January.

Last, but not least, we were also successful in negotiating a new contract with the Austrian beet farmers. It's a three-years contract with a new pricing formula for the raw material, reflecting the actual pressure on the sugar market, but also the higher input factor costs like energy, but also personal costs.

I think this was a very good compromise, and we are very happy and we are sure that this will secure our sugar production in Austria in the remaining site Tulln for the next years. Let's move on to the financial.

I again want to inform you that we have this new segment reporting since March 1st, 2025, but you for sure already know this. Now we have the new structure with Food & Beverage Solutions—this was the former Fruit segment—we have our Agricultural Commodities & Specialties segment, Starch and ACS Sugar, and we are separately reporting the holding.

Now let's move on to the revenue by segment. Total revenue, €2.5 billion, I already mentioned that.

This is a decrease of around 8% versus prior year. We saw a growth of 2.3% in the FBS segment, -1.4% in Starch, and a significant decline in Sugar by 34%.

This was, of course, volume-driven, but also price-driven. It clearly shows, yeah, the reduction of our footprint in the sugar business.

The market in sugar is still and continuously under pressure, also due to the, let's say, good crop in 2025. The reduced beet growing areas are compensated by this good harvest.

Therefore, yeah, there is enough supply of sugar in the market and, therefore, the sugar prices are still under pressure. In Starch, of course, lower sales volumes of saccharification products.

Saccharification products are somehow always linked to the sugar market. If sugar market is under pressure, also the market for saccharification products from our starch production is also somehow under pressure.

Ethanol still very volatile. We saw an increase in the recent month, but then it went down again, and now it's somehow stabilized during the last weeks at around €630-€640 per cubic meter.

Food & Beverage Solutions, we are happy that we again saw a growth this year in the first nine months. When we look at the sugar world market prices, but also in the European Union, you see in the graph the massive decrease of sugar prices in the last month.

Now we see somehow a stabilization. Will be very very interesting to see what happens now in March, April when beets are seed for the production processing campaign in 2026 autumn.

One thing is very clear: we need a further reduction of beets planted in the European Union, otherwise the market will not be able to stabilize, also facing this hard pressure on the world market side for sugar. Outlook for 2025/2026, we confirmed our outlook with a significant increase in EBIT and a moderate decrease in revenue on group level.

Outlook for the segments: Food & Beverage Solutions, a slight increase in revenue and a slight increase in EBIT; ACS Starch, a slight reduction in revenue and a significant reduction in EBIT; and in Sugar, a significant reduction in revenue and a significant improvement versus prior year in EBIT. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, and let me hand back to Hannes Haider for the financial calendar.

Thanks so far. Before we go on with the Q&A session, just one remark.

I wanted to remind you that our annual results for the full year will be published on the 12th of May, and the Annual General Meeting will be held on the 3rd of July. We will now go on with the Q&A session.

Yes, hello. Good morning and Happy and successful New Year to you as well.

I would have a couple of questions. Looking at the performance of the individual business areas, if you could little bit elaborate on the 3Q slowdown in the FBS segment while quite significant improvement in the starch?

I know there was in the starch low comparative base, but still because these divisions developed little bit not as it is indicated for the full year, I would like to know what were the major reasons for the 3Q developments and if these reasons continue to affect the fourth quarter as well? Then my next question would be related to the sugar area.

Here you pointed to a new pricing model. Maybe if you can in a nutshell share with us what is the major difference between the old pricing model, new pricing model, where do you see the key factors which will affect performance of sugar segment?

Last, but not least, what are, in your opinion, preconditions for sugar segment return to profitability, in particular with which price levels at your currently streamlined structure will allow you to get out of the red zone? This would be it for now.

Thank you.

Thank you very much for your questions. First question, Q3 performance Food & Beverage Solutions segment.

We see no significant decline versus prior year. In the year 2024/2025 in Q3, we had an EBIT of €22.5 million in Q3, and this year we have €21.8 million.

This is a normal, let's say, normal development. It's a seasonal effect.

Third quarter is always weaker than the quarters before in the FBS segment, there is no significant change. In Starch, I think it's always very important to know that the wet corn season is taking place in Q3, which gives us significantly lower costs on the raw material side, and therefore the performance is higher, but also ethanol prices were significantly higher than in the Q2 and Q1.

Your next question, sugar business. It's not a new model, but it's the model is more or less the same that we negotiated with the beet farmers in Austria, but it's a different curve.

It's a different price curve for the raw materials. This means the raw material price, the beet price, is directly linked to the sales price of sugar.

Then I think it's very simple to explain it in that way that you say, okay, now we have a different increase in the beet price if the sugar price goes up by €50 per ton than before. We significantly flattened the curve.

This is very important. The old agreement was made in 2017, 2018, and this was a time when we never expected an inflation that we saw in the recent years, and therefore we were not expecting sugar prices of, let's say, around €500, €600, €700 per ton, and therefore, yeah, the curve was not appropriate, let's say, for these price levels from our perspective.

We were successful in renegotiating this. Now we have a much flatter curve than before when we're talking about the price range between €500 and €750 per ton of sugar.

When you ask me for the preconditions, please let me also mention we do not see any sugar producer currently in Europe having no losses, clearly saying that, yeah? We don't think that with the actual price levels of €500, €550 the industry is able to survive.

We think that at least €600 per ton are necessary for growing beets, on one hand, for the farmers, and on the other hand, for the processors to leave the so-called red zone, yeah? This is our perspective, yeah.

Thank you very much.

Yes, hi, Stephan. Hi, Hannes.

Happy New Year to you. Thank you for the presentation.

Most of my questions have been answered previously, but maybe one question about the M&A. Can you just remind us the cash flow impact of the acquisition of the remaining shares of AUSTRIA JUICE and also of the acquisitions of Mercator Emba?

Also, can you give us some explanation on the rationale of the acquisition of Mercator Emba, maybe going a bit deeper on this, and the profile of the company, and what do they do, and what is the size of it? That's the first question, and then I will have a second one.

Thank you.

Yeah. Cash flow impact from the acquisition of AUSTRIA JUICE, we said that the payout for acquiring the shares is around €50 million.

This is the direct cash flow impact. For Mercator Emba, yeah, the size is around €35 million cash-out if the transaction will be approved by the antitrust authorities.

The rationale behind this: clearly, we want to grow our Food & Beverage Solutions segment. AUSTRIA JUICE, we already mentioned several times that we want to bring together our competencies of AUSTRIA JUICE in the added value business with natural flavors, but also beverage compounds, with our fruit preparations business and the global footprint.

We roll out our competencies there globally. Let's say primarily these are market-driven synergies that we are looking for.

Mercator Emba is a, yeah, is a very important supplier of large quick service restaurants in the food service segment. Food service segment is one of our growth pillars in our Food & Beverage Solutions segment, and this is very strong company with huge skills in the production of dessert toppings and sauces, and it matches perfectly well with our competencies in our fruit preparations business.

Thank you, very clear. The second questions is, yeah, regarding sugar.

You seem very clear about the fact that there would be no rebound if the surface of beets does not reduce. When will you have more visibility on this?

In March, April, you will have a good visibility on this? Yeah.

We already see some signs, yeah, we expect a reduction. Of course, we have more visibility in March, April, and then it depends on the weather conditions.

We saw already a significant reduction in the beet planting areas in the last year. Unfortunately, or yeah, we must say unfortunately, the weather conditions were so good, yeah, that the campaigns are now really big in Europe, and the production volumes are much higher than in the previous year.

Therefore, the reduction of the surface was compensated by that, and therefore, there is no outlet because the world market prices are so heavily under pressure. Everything is coming together right now.

We have excellent, yeah, harvesting conditions or expectations in the major countries of sugar production like Brazil, India, Thailand, and so on. We have a very good crop in Europe.

There is no space for, let's say, exporting sugar to the world market for good prices. The sugar stays in Europe and leading to heavy price pressure in European market because there is an oversupply.

Therefore, we need a significant reduction of sugar production in 2026, otherwise the markets will not stabilize and the prices will not go up. I think we need to wait for March, April and then see what happens in the summer.

When you look at the curve of the development of the sugar prices in the last years, it's up and down. We had a massive downward trend.

I think it was also triggered by the high import volumes coming from Ukraine during two years, more than significantly more than 1 million tons duty-free. Sugar can easily be stored, this is weighing, let's say, on the sugar balance in Europe.

Therefore, we have all these problems now.

Understood. Thank you.

Thank you, Stephan.

Yes, good morning. Thanks for taking my question.

Just a question on your guidance, your EBIT guidance for this year where you're still guiding for €45 million to €60 million, I believe. Given you've reported around €48 million year to date for nine months, that would leave quite a big range for Q4, I calculate around -€3 million to +€12 million.

Just wondering if you could comment which assumptions are baked into this guidance and whether you expect to end up closer to the top end of that EBIT guidance or closer to the bottom end?

Yeah. It's not so easy to predict right now.

We still have volatilities, especially in ethanol, it depends what happens in the last three months or in the last quarter in ethanol prices. Then, of course, it also depends on the evaluation of our stocks in sugar.

It is also depends on the sales volumes in Q4, which means how big will be the demand, what will be the final stock situation in sugar, how do we need to evaluate it? These are, let's say, plus/minus the variables here.

Our expectation is an EBIT for Q4 of between €5 million and or €6 million and €12 million, I would say. We will come closer to the upper range than to the lower range, and therefore this means our EBITDA should amount between €190 million and €200 million for the business year 2025/2026.

This is our actual estimation. It really depends on all these things happening in Q4.

It's not so easy to predict, especially in sugar and ethanol.

Understood, that's very clear. Very helpful.

Just a second question on the tariff impact. I believe your FBS business is quite exposed to the US.

Could you just give us an update here in terms of the impact you're seeing from tariffs in the current financial year and whether we should expect a similar impact in the next financial year as well?

No, it is not impacted. Our FBS segment is not impacted by the duties from the US because we have a local business there, yeah?

The major impact comes from duties on goods that we import to produce especially our fruit preparations in the United States for the customers, the local customers. All the price increases are passed on to the customers, there we see no negative impact, and we also do currently not expect a negative impact in the next year, provided that things remain as they are, yeah?

If there are new ideas coming, potentially new tariffs on products from Mexico, Canada, and so on, then we need to reassess the situation. Currently, we see no impact, no major impact.

Perfect. Thank you very much.

Just final question from my side on the savings as part of your Next Level strategy. I was just wondering, are we still on track to achieve around €50 million of savings this year or where do we currently stand?

Of course we are still on track. We can increase the number up to €60 million already.

Perfect, great. Thank you.

Thanks. As there are no further questions, thank you for your interest in AGRANA and your participation in the call.

We wish you a nice remaining day. Goodbye.

Bye.