Thank you and a warm welcome, everyone. This is Jörn Andreas, CFO of KWS.

Thank you, everyone, for joining us today for our 9M 25/26 update. Before I take you through our financial results, let me start with the big picture.

As you are aware, agriculture remains a challenging environment. Ongoing political tensions, fluctuating commodity prices, and pressure on acreage and farm economics have reduced visibility not only for our farmers, but also by extension for our industry.

Yet, this is exactly where we as KWS prove our strength. In a challenging environment, we delivered a resilient top line, solid earnings, and a strong operational discipline.

This is not a coincidence. It reflects three things: our diversified portfolio, our consistent execution, and our innovation-driven business model.

Even in areas under pressure, such as the sugarbeet acreage, we navigated the environment effectively. Importantly, our strong financial position and low leverage give us the flexibility to invest organically and also where it fits via M&A.

With that perspective, let's move into the numbers. As always at this point, a quick reminder that some of the statements we will be making today are forward-looking and subject to risks and uncertainties.

As always, please refer to slide 2 for the full disclaimer. Let me now walk you through the key figures.

Net sales reached €1.35 billion, slightly above prior year. On an organic basis, this translates into a 2.6% growth, and this was partly offset by currency headwinds of -1.8% and a portfolio effect of -0.5%.

EBITDA increased to €386.8 million from €360.8 million. I come back to the drivers, including the special items, in a moment.

Net income from continuing operations rose to €220 million from €202.8 million, mainly driven by the improved EBITDA and a better financial result. CapEx decreased to €56 million from €73.6 million last year, reflecting a normalization of our elevated prior-year level across segments.

Free cash flow was at -€52.4 million compared to -€3.9 million last year. The main drivers were a lower operating cash flow due to higher receivables backlog, partially offset by a payment related to the divestment of our North American corn business in Q1.

Net debt remained essentially stable at €179 million, and our trailing 12-month leverage improved to 0.4 times EBITDA, down from 0.5 times. Overall, we are pleased with the result because, in a nutshell, we see a resilient demand, a strong EBITDA development, and an expected seasonality in our free cash flow.

Now turning to sales in more detail. Organic growth of 2.6% reflects a solid underlying demand across segments.

However, our quarterly performance was also influenced by pull-forward effects from Q4 into Q3 in certain regions, most notably in corn, and to some extent also in sugarbeet. Currency effects, mainly by the Turkish lira and the US dollar, amounted to a -1.8% translation impact.

The portfolio effect of -0.5% primarily relates to the absence of R&D services invoiced to our former joint venture, AgReliant. Now on profitability.

EBITDA improved to €386.8 million and includes several special effects, let me strip this out for you. First, EBITDA includes a €29 million positive contribution from the sale of license rights in the North American corn business.

Second, an €8 million effect relates to the reversal of a VAT provision in the sugarbeet segment in the prior-year comparison context. Finally, a currency effect of approximately €15 million, again mainly driven by the Turkish lira and US dollar, mostly of it was translational.

Importantly, when adjusting for these special items, EBITDA increased from €353 million to €357 million, supported by active cost-mitigation measures. While special items supported the reported figures, the underlying profitability improved slightly.

This reflects the continued discipline on cost and execution, which has been a key priority for us this year. Let's now turn to the segment review, starting with Sugarbeet.

Sales increased to €703.8 million, including negative currency effects of 2.7%. Organic sales growth was +4.2%, reflecting both pull-forward effects and a higher share of innovation-led offerings.

Specifically, our leading innovations, such as CONVISO SMART and CR+, accounted for 62% of sales, up from 57% last year. The mix shift towards differentiated premium-priced products is continuing.

This success speaks again to the strength of our portfolio, as the global acreage in 2026 is estimated to shrink about 6% to roughly 4.3 million hectares for sugarbeet worldwide. We continue to generate more value per hectare.

Going forward, we expect and estimate that this negative trend in the global acreage has somewhat bottomed out, with stable or slightly growing acreage expected in the next season. Considering the prior-year positive one-off related to the reversal of a VAT provision and also some negative currency effects in the current period, we were able to defend our strong profitability in the segment despite the challenges I already described in the sugarbeet market.

Moving to Corn, sales were €349.4 million, below the prior year, but a 1.3% organic growth. We saw clear pull-forward dynamics that shifted part of the volume into Q3.

Our sunflower business, which is also consolidated in the BU Corn, for which we expect substantial growth in the years to come, delivered encouraging double-digit growth, supported by our renewed variety portfolio. Our EBITDA performance in Corn improved significantly and includes the €29 million one-off effect from the disposal of the license rights in North America.

In addition, we incurred also lower R&D expenses due to the absence of charges by our former JV, AgReliant. Next, Cereals.

Sales were stable at €243.4 million. Organic growth was 0.7%.

Oilseed rape performed strongly, with sales up 21%, driven by high-performance portfolio. This was partially offset by hybrid rye, which declined 14%, impacted by comparatively low rye market prices.

Wheat remained broadly at the prior-year level. EBITDA was clearly below prior year, mainly due to increased R&D efforts, as well as a provision for a legal risk in the mid-single-digit million euro range.

Finally, Vegetables. Sales increased to €46.5 million.

Organic growth was 2%, supported by higher bean seed sales and a stable demand in spinach. EBITDA was more negative year-on-year, which is in line with our plans as we are investing in the expansion of our vegetable breeding capacity.

Let me now turn to cash flow. Operating cash flow was lower primarily because net working capital increased, driven mainly by higher trade receivables.

This is a typical seasonal pattern and also reflects the sales phasing I discussed earlier. Investing cash flow includes a partial payment of the purchase price related to the North American corn business.

As mentioned at the beginning, CapEx decreased to €56 million, below the prior year across segments. Free cash flow came in at around -€52.7 million, down from -€3.9 million last year.

For the full year, however, we are confident to exceed the free cash flow figure of €123 million for last year, driven by both better operating and investing cash flow. On net debt and leverage, net debt stands at €179 million, essentially stable with prior year, and the bridge reflects a strong EBITDA contribution offset by working capital seasonality, CapEx, and the dividend payment, which was at €41.3 million this year compared with €33 million last year.

Our trailing 12-month net debt/EBITDA ratio improved to 0.4 times, down from 0.5 times. We continue to expect net debt to be significantly lower at year-end, driven by the usual seasonal unwind in working capital.

Coming to our forecast for full year 25/26, which we are confirming today based on the 9M performance and our current visibility. While currency volatility and regional order patterns remain factors to watch, our underlying business performance and cost discipline support the outlook.

Looking further out, while uncertainties remain, the underlying trend gives us confidence. Before we move to Q&A, I'd like to share a quick save the date with all of you.

We are planning to host a KWS Vegetables Investor & Analyst Seminar at the end of September, on 29 September '26 in Andijk, the Netherlands. We will be very pleased if you could join us.

We know that our vegetables business continues to attract a lot of questions, and rightly so, and this seminar provides a fantastic opportunity to take a closer look at how far we have already come and where we are heading next. Being on-site, you will be able to experience our breeding activities, meet the teams of course that drive the progress, and engage in discussions around strategy execution in vegetables.

I have no doubt that this direct look behind the scenes will give you a much clearer sense of the progress and also the momentum that we have built in this business. We very much hope to see many of you there.

With that, I would like to close my prepared remarks. Thank you again for your attention and for joining us, and I now look forward to your questions together with my colleague Peter Vogt, Head of IR.

Yes, thank you. Can you hear me?

Perfect.

Good

morning, Christian. Hello?

Yes, please

Yes, okay, you can hear me I assume. Thanks very much.

Dialed in via the webcast. Couple of questions, please.

You had pull-forward effects apparently in both corn as well as in sugarbeet, as you mentioned. Can you give us an idea of the magnitude, i.e., what would then be missing in your Q4?

Second, in your Corn segment, sunflower seeds grew quite nicely, I believe double digit. Can you give us an idea how prominent sunflower seeds are within your Corn segment in the meantime?

My third question pertains to the sale of the license rights, i.e., the €29 million proceeds. Is this stemming from the 2015 agreement with Syngenta, i.e., the Agrisure Viptera trait?

Can you confirm that? Thanks very much.

Perfect. Thank you very much, Christian.

First on your question on pull-forward effects, yes, we have seen that orders have slipped into Q3 from Q4, and that, as has always something to do with also weather conditions in the different regions where we operate. Roughly, you can say that the pull-forward effects in terms of organic growth was roughly €30 million, which means that if you, say, cancel, let's say, these pull-forward effects, the growth was more or less flat, which is then also in line with our full-year guidance, yeah?

What you can also say is that two thirds of the pull-forward effects were roughly in the Corn business unit and one third in the Sugarbeet business unit. I think that gives you a good indication.

Sunflower, yes, we are really thrilled with how the sunflower business develops. We discussed this also last year in our Capital Markets Day that we are now launching our own varieties.

We have really some advantage on the R&D side with some DH capabilities that we have to accelerate our breeding capabilities or pipeline. We've been able to increase our sunflower sales double digit, and we are now having a revenue of around about €15 million in our sunflower business, yeah, year to date in nine months, yeah?

I think that's really nice growth from where we've been, and there's also more to come in the years of course, and we indicated that we want to achieve €100 million revenue with sunflower by the end of the decade. Last, a question on the license, this is really related to the license that we provide for our germplasm to AgReliant in the past.

This has been part of the overall AgReliant deal last year, meaning that we've not only of course sold our assets, our subsidiaries, our shareholding in our AgReliant business, but we also gave the buyer, GDM, also the rights for the varieties which were held, let's say, by our operations in Europe. For this license rights, we recognized this gain of €29 million in the first quarter 25/26.

Great. Thanks very much, Jörn.

Just a quick follow-up: Did you say €15 million year-to-date for the sunflowers,

or

was it 50? 15,

1-5. 1-5,

great, thanks.

Yes,

thanks very much,

and

congrats on the results.

Thank you, Christian.

Thanks thanks for taking my thanks for taking my question. Good morning, everyone.

I have two on on the sugarbeet to start with. The first one is if if I'm looking at your your profitability and you're you reported at €325 million EBITDA, roughly 46% margin, if you compare this with last year and strip out the €8 million one-off gain, I come to virtually slightly higher 46.6% EBITDA margin adjusted.

The question is, despite the the 4.2% organic sales growth and despite the very strong, at least from my perspective, very strong mix effect you have reported, why have we seen on an operating basis the margin walking backwards? This would be my my first question.

The second one is, Jörn, you indicated that probably on the sugarbeet acreage side, we have seen the bottom in terms of, let's say, total acreage. Can you elaborate what do you expect into the next season across the different regions in your production planning for next for next year next year?

Then one final question on the Cereals segment, this kind of legal risk provision which you have put in place there, mid-single digit, what is this all about? Thanks.

Perfect. Good questions.

On the margin. Overall, we are actually quite pleased also that we are able to keep the operating margins in sugarbeet at continuously high level, yeah, with a contribution margin of around 66%.

That's actually at the level of last year, and as you can imagine, that we are operating in an environment where we have pressure on acreage. Being able to keep, let's say, that profitability on that pretty high level is I think also really testament of the pricing power that we have in our markets, yeah?

In terms of the changes, this really primarily relates to the regional sales mix that we have, yeah? We have also communicated that we had a significant translational, negative translational effect on our EBITDA, €15 million in our EBITDA, and a big part comes from the US dollar.

From our regional mix perspective, our US business is, let's say, margin accretive within, let's say, sugarbeet, and this has then, okay, a mix effect on our overall profitability in the BU, yeah? Meaning on a country level, let's say, or region level, there's no actually change.

It's really more mix effect than anything else. As you rightly said, with the mix shift, as I said, towards our more innovative varieties, CONVISO and CR+, that really effectively counterbalanced other, let's say, challenges that we face of course in this macro, let's say, environment, yeah?

Second question was I think on acreage, on acreage development. Yes, we have seen of course in this season a pretty strong reduction in acreage to 4.3 million hectares, that's a -6%, yeah?

What we see, it's early days to be quite honest. We are talking to our customers how they also plan for next year.

It's early days, yeah, but we feel, as I already said earlier, that things have bottomed out, yeah? Our scenario right now is that we are either stable on current levels or see a slight increase, but that's something we will probably give you more, let's say, visibility further down in the year, yeah?

I think the last question was on the legal risk in Cereals business. In Cereals, we recognized a provision for an ongoing antitrust investigation in France for which we have made a provision in the mid-single-digit million euro amount.

I ask for your understanding that of course given the ongoing proceedings, I cannot comment really any further on the details, but what we can say is that we are defending here our position, and we're not going for a settlement, so that's why it's an ongoing case.

Thank you.

Hello, can you hear me?

Hello, Mr. Andreas.

Hello. Hi.

I have a question to the EBIT margins. Your target is 19% to 21%.

Do you see potential in the next years for even more than 21%, or can we imagine that it's the limit?

Of course we are ambitious and we are always strive to increase our profitability, but we actually feel quite good with the 19% to 20% range at this time, yeah? I mentioned at the beginning, we are still in, I would say, volatile times also in agriculture with farmers having had quite significant pressure also on their margins, I would say, over the last 12 to 18 months, and of course with the increase in input costs for the farmers that is ahead.

Much of it is still ahead, because, as we all know, things like fertilizer, etc., have been already contracted mostly last year, so that's still ways for us. That's also of course inflation for farmers.

I think there's pressure, and then we also have to see how much, let's say, leeway we have in our pricing activities, yeah? At the same time, what we really want to do of course is to continue to reinvest all profits also in R&D, yeah?

That's a really a priority for us. If we would have the opportunity to gain additional, let's say, profitability, we'll probably reinvest this in R&D and stay within the corridor that we have communicated.

Okay. Under the challenging environment, do you believe that the vegetables segment will already be a meaningful contributor for the growth in the near term, or is it more on the long term?

What is really exciting, that's why we have decided to have this investor seminar next September or coming September in Andijk, is that we have a really pivotal milestone for us next year, next fiscal year 26/27, yeah? Because in the next year 26/27, we will be launching all foodie, what you call, the foodie crops, yeah?

For all our, let's say, varieties that we have invested quite a lot of course, as you all know, over the last years: tomato, pepper, cucumber, melon, watermelon. All of these varieties will see market launches next year.

Of course, for some of it will be only a couple of varieties on broader portfolios, we start small and the contribution will be, I would say, mid-single-digit million euro revenue next year to start with, yeah, but it's really the first time that we are really out on the market actively selling, let's say, our varieties. The goal is to grow our business to €100 million by the end of the decade from roughly €70 million where we are today, yeah?

That's why there is its growth of course definitely built into our plan, and that's why we are also excited to really invite you to Andijk, see the team, see also the pipeline that is ahead of us. That gives you also the confidence that we really have a nice growth engine that we've built over the last years.

Perfect. Thank you.

All right. I'm pretty sure that we will have plenty of opportunity today and over the next days to follow up on a few things.

We will be also on the road. Thank you again for your interest and joining us this morning.

I mentioned it already, we look forward to seeing you of course, if not on the road, then latest at our Vegetables Investor Day in Andijk. With that, thank you and have a good day.