Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today for our full-year '25/'26 results call.

Before we dive into the numbers, let me start with a brief perspective on the year. So '25/'26 was certainly a challenging year for the agriculture sector.

We've seen lower acreage in several crops, cautious farmer sentiment, and also adverse currency developments that created quite some headwinds across many of our markets. Against this backdrop, we delivered, actually, a very resilient performance.

While sales were affected by market conditions, we maintained a strong profitability, we generated excellent cash flow and further strengthened our balance sheet. At the same time, we continued investing in innovation and in executing our strategic priorities, and we're very happy about that.

In short, the year once again demonstrated the resilience of the KWS business model and the strength of our diversified portfolio. Before we dive into more details, as always, please note that some statements made today are forward-looking and are, therefore, subject to risks and uncertainties.

Please refer to the disclaimer on slide 2. Let's start with the group highlights.

Sales reached €1.63 billion. Organic sales declined by only 1%, despite significant acreage reductions in sugarbeet and corn.

In addition, currencies and portfolio effects each reduced reported sales by roughly 1 percentage point. EBITDA came in at €343 million and remained at a strong level despite softer market environment.

Net income increased by more than 13% to €158 million, supported by a significantly improved financial result. Free cash flow remained strong at approximately €123 million and was virtually unchanged from last year.

As a consequence, net debt declined further to less than €9 million, leaving us with an exceptionally strong balance sheet. While market conditions affected growth, profitability, cash generation, and financial strength remained very solid for us.

Let me now put this result into the perspective against the targets that we set at the beginning of the year. Looking at our guidance, sales development was clearly more challenging than anticipated at the beginning of the year.

We initially expected around 3% organic growth and later adjusted our outlook to roughly flat development. The result of -1% reflects weaker than expected acreage development throughout the year, but we, to a large extent, mitigated by our portfolio strength.

At the same time, we continued to focus on what is in our control, we implemented efficiency measures that contributed roughly €25 million in savings in fiscal '25/'26. In addition, we also actively managed head count development, generated efficiency gains that could also continue to support profitability going forward.

As a result, despite weaker than expected acreage development and also adverse currency effects that were also significantly impacting our EBITDA, we successfully delivered an adjusted EBITDA margin within our guide range of 19% to 21%. In addition, the disposal of our North American corn license rights, with that we successfully completed the strategic alignment of our corn segment, that contributed another €29 million to our EBITDA, also in line with our expectation.

Finally, we intend to increase the dividend to €1.30 per share, reflecting our ambition to deliver stable or rising dividends every year. Taken together, we delivered three out of four targets in a challenging environment.

Turning to sales, looking at the bridge, three factors explain the reported sales decline. First, lower acreage reduced organic sales by 1%.

Second, currencies, they created another percentage points of headwind, mainly the US dollar, the Turkish lira, and the Ukrainian hryvnia. Third, portfolio effects accounted for the remaining decline and were largely related to the absence of R&D service revenues from our former AgReliant joint venture.

The key message is here that the decline in reported sales was not driven by our portfolio; rather, it reflects a combination of acreage reductions, currency effects, and portfolio-related changes. Turning to profitability.

As in last years, we record a few one-time items as shown on this slide. The current year benefited from a €29 million gain related to the disposal of our North American corn license rights, while the prior year included the reversal of a VAT provision.

The largest year-on-year improvement came from the financial result, mainly supported by positive effects from the sale of our participation in AgReliant against the corresponding negative effect in the previous year. Including those effects, net income and earnings per share, as previously mentioned, increased by 13%.

Let's now dive into the segments and start with sugarbeet, our largest product segment. '25/'26 was another year in which our innovation-driven strategy clearly paid off.

Global sugarbeet acreage declined by roughly 10% as high sugar inventories prompted producers to contract lower beet volumes, especially in Europe. This reduction was higher than we anticipated at the beginning of the season last year and reduced our ability to achieve growth in the last financial year.

Nevertheless, against this backdrop and against this market contraction, the organic sales decline of just 0.6% for the sugarbeet segment provides a compelling evidence of a resilience of our world-leading sugarbeet business. Here, innovation remains the key driver.

CONVISO SMART, CR+ continue to gain traction and now account for 63% of segment sales. This ongoing shift towards more differentiated, higher-value solutions remains one of the most important drivers of long-term value creation in the segment.

Profitability also remained exceptional. Even after this reduction in acreage, sugarbeet delivered an EBITDA margin of almost 42%.

Looking ahead, high sugar prices and expected lower sugar yields in most of our sugarbeet regions this year should support a stable or even growing acreage in the upcoming season, which would allow us to generate top- and bottom-line growth in the sugarbeet segment again. That makes us confident for the current fiscal year.

Turning to our corn segment. The headline sales decline primarily reflects lower acreage across markets as well as portfolio effects stemming from the AgReliant transaction.

However, looking beneath the surface, the development was actually encouraging. Excluding Russia, comparable sales growth reached 2%.

More importantly, we continued to gain market share both in grain and silage across Europe, which confirms the competitiveness of our portfolio. Another highlight was clearly sunflower, where sales increased 35%.

While still a relatively small business today, this development confirms our conviction that sunflower can become an increasingly important growth driver for the years ahead. Remember, our ambition is to deliver €100 million revenues by the end of the decade.

Profitability improved also significantly in corn. Reported EBITDA benefited from the disposal of license rights, but even excluding this one-time effect, the segment delivered meaningful improvement in operating profitability.

That is important because it demonstrates the quality of the remaining portfolio and also the decision behind the recent portfolio changes. Turning to cereals.

Sales remained broadly stable despite continued pressure in several crop markets. Rapeseed was once again the clear standout performer, sales increased 24% in oilseed rape.

Our market share continued to rise and further strengthened our position as one of the leading players in Europe. I would say, this coming season, we will be the leading player in Europe.

By contrast, rye, wheat, and barley continued to face weaker market conditions, largely reflecting lower commodity prices last year ahead of the planting. Profitability was additionally impacted by a provision that we already flagged after the nine-month results related to an antitrust investigation in France.

Excluding this effect, the underlying earnings development remained broadly in line with past levels. Overall, cereals once again demonstrated the value of a diversified crop portfolio.

Lastly, vegetables. Sales were below prior year's level, mainly reflecting developments in spinach and timing effects in certain markets.

Our focus remains unchanged. It remains firmly on long-term value creation, and we continued investing heavily in breeding capabilities, infrastructure, and new crops while further expanding our innovation pipeline.

This rationale remains fully intact, and we are all looking forward to providing more details during next week's vegetable investor and analyst seminar in Andijk in the Netherlands. Let me now turn to cash flow.

Despite lower sales volumes and a more challenging market environment, we once again generated free cash flow of approximately €123 million. The composition of the cash flow differed, however, from last year.

Operating cash flow was lower, reflecting both declines in EBITDA and higher working capital requirements. At the same time, investing cash flow improved by the same amount, which is due to two reasons: first, the payment of the first tranche in the context of the AgReliant divestiture; and second, somewhat lower capital expenditures, mainly due to project phasing.

Even in a year characterized by lower acreage and adverse currency developments, KWS continued to convert earnings in cash very effectively. That has, of course, positive implications.

Our balance sheet improved further during the financial year and remains one of the key strengths of KWS. Net debt declined significantly to less than €9 million at year-end, and I think few companies in our industry operate with a balance sheet as strong as ours today.

As a result, we enter the financial year with exceptional financial flexibility, and this gives us considerable scope to continue investing in R&D to support the growth of our existing businesses and pursue attractive opportunities if they create long-term value for our shareholders. Our balance sheet is stronger than ever and provides a very solid foundation for the growth of KWS.

We remain committed to predictable and sustainable dividend growth. Based on the results achieved, we proposed to increase the dividend to €1.30 per share.

This represents another year of dividend growth and results in a payout ratio of approximately 29%, which is fully in line with our dividend policy. Since the financial year 2019/2020, our dividend has actually increased from 70 cents to the proposed €1.30 per share, which represents a compounded annual growth rate of approximately 11%.

I think that is a very strong commitment to creating sustainable value for our shareholders over time, and we will continue on this path. Let me conclude with outlook.

For '26/'27, we expect organic sales growth of around 3% and the resumption of better market conditions, which is what we currently see. Commodity prices have recovered substantially over the last weeks, driven by various factors.

Current levels bode well for better acreage development and improved farm profitability in the upcoming season. In combination with our diversified portfolio and our strong market positions, we feel well prepared to return to stronger growth next year.

For profitability, we expect an EBITDA margin between 19% to 20%, and this also remains fully aligned with our mid-term ambition and continues to include also substantial investments in R&D. Overall, we enter the financial year with good confidence in profitable growth.

Before moving to Q&A, let me briefly remind you on our vegetables and investor analyst seminar in Andijk next week. We have fantastic participation, and we really look forward to discussing the development and long-term potential of this business in much greater detail.

You will see this on-site, you will get to taste and feel our products, and that will be, I think, a very great event. Looking forward to this.

For now, let me close with three takeaways. First, we delivered a resilient profitability despite significant market headwinds.

Second, we generated strong cash flow and further strengthened our already very healthy balance sheet. Third, we continue to invest in innovation, in future growth, while maintaining financial discipline.

Taken together, I think these achievements leave us well positioned for the year ahead, and that makes us really confident. Thank you very much for your attention, and Peter and I are now happy to answer all your questions.

Good morning, gentlemen. Thanks for taking my questions.

The first one would be on your sugarbeet segment outlook. Jörn, you mentioned the 10% decline in global acreage in the past season, and obviously, we have seen sugar prices did rather strong recovery in recent months.

I wonder what you have baked into your slight organic sales growth outlook on the top line. Shall we think about some more price pressure or, for me, it looks like a rather conservative statement on that one.

This would be my first question. The second one is on cereals, on rapeseed.

You said that you gained market share, and you may overtake the number one position in the next season. Can you just give us a bit of color, what's the delta in terms of market share to the number one in the segment?

Last not least, on Russia, obviously, there was some setbacks in corn. On a more, let's say, general, more broader terms, how should we think about your Russian business in general?

Is there also a risk to the sugarbeet segment or so what's your view on the region and how it's affecting the respective segments? This would be my three questions for the beginning.

Thanks.

Yes. Thanks, Michael, for the questions.

Yes, sugarbeet outlook, so that's all the estimates, that's on the acreage reduction last year that were mentioned. Exactly because of let's say this, we were a bit more cautious, to be honest.

You might label it conservative, we would say more cautious, let's say, on when we put together the outlook, let's say, yeah? Our current data that we have, let's say, is more positive, that's what you also said.

That's true. We saw a strong increase in sugar prices, also reflecting some El Niño, let's say, effects in India and Thailand.

We have here not a great harvest, which is, yeah, putting more bullish, let's say, factors, let's say, on the prices. We see also not good or not great yields in Europe, talking about the heat wave in certain parts of Southern Europe or the southern part of Germany.

That leaves also clearly a mark on the supply. That bodes well for us, yeah?

A big driver of the acreage reduction last year was the supply and demand balance, because we came from two years of very good harvests. We believe that actually this year Europe will be, yeah, completely balanced out its inventory, will also be a net importer because they're not having enough, let's say, own produced sugar supply.

That means we have a rebalanced, let's say, supply-demand situation after this season, and that provides us with a, yeah, good starting point for the upcoming growing season, yeah? We've been a bit more conservative and said, "Okay, in our outlook, we work with a stable acreage," means we have not put in, I would say, very optimistic assumptions in our outlook, in order to be here also more on the safe side.

If that trend then continues and if we see in October really as a result of the harvest that we see already today in the trial harvests that are already of course happening, then I think that this gives us also some opportunities, because we will also continue to further increase the penetration of CONVISO and CR+, which anyway will also then help us on the growth side, yeah? Oilseed rape, yes, a fantastic situation for us, yeah?

That this is basically the first quarter of our fiscal year is most important quarter for oilseed rape. That's when all the planting happens, let's say, for the current season.

We had a fantastic start, I have to say, yeah, to the new fiscal year. Strong growth in oilseed rape.

When we say, "Hey, we want to become the leader, let's say, in Europe now in the upcoming growing season," I have to say it actually happened, yeah? We are now number one.

We have gained market share from all key markets, and that is for us, really a, yeah, situation where stars align, because commodity prices are high. There's naturally an incentive for the farmer to move into oilseed rape if the crop rotation allows.

That's hits, let's say, a market or a portfolio where we have the best product in the market. That helps us really good and get a good start, yeah?

Russia, yeah, Russia is, of course, still a moving target, if you want, a dynamic situation. It is largely unchanged, I would say, yeah, compared to all the previous calls when we were discussing the situation.

It remains for us still a revenue contributor with less than 10%, let's say, to the overall KWS portfolio, so that has also not changed, let's say, yeah. For our sugarbeet business, I told you already that for cereals and corn, that's anyway anymore an opportunistic business, let's say, yeah, so that's anyway very low, let's say, in terms of revenue contributions if at all.

Sugarbeet is the remaining key business that we have, and we do not see, let's say, that any local production would be able to match the performance requirements necessary in order to supply the demand, let's say, in the domestic demand, yeah? We don't see that.

Currently, it's operating, it's pretty stable, but, of course, no one can predict the future, but so far, good.

Thank you very much. Thank you very

Yes, thanks. Good morning, Jörn, Peter, and team.

A couple of questions remaining, please. I'll ask my veg questions next week.

You talked about, obviously, the oilseed rape business, which seems to be going well into the new season. Can you talk a bit about your cereals business, such as, for example, winter wheat, how that is going, also given higher wheat prices into the seeding season?

Second, just a minor question, but can you please elucidate a bit the antitrust investigation you seem to be facing in France? Thanks very much.

Very good. Of course, we look forward to your veggie questions next week, Christian.

Now for cereals in general, I would say that we have very diversified portfolio in cereals, and in all crops that we operate in cereals, we are the leader in Europe, yeah? Oilseed rape, we've now gained number one position and have rye anyway be by far number one, and same for wheat and for barley as well.

It's really good position to be in. For the other winter crops, last year was a bit, I would say, more challenging because of the low, let's say, commodity prices last year.

Farmers opted more to farm-saved seed, so that our revenue was more or less stable. We were not able really to increase, let's say, revenue in this situation.

For the coming year, we're more confident, yeah, because at some point in time, the farmer needs also to purchase fresh, new seeds and also catch up also with the yield expectation. On that side, we are also, let's say, confident.

I would say, overall, let's say, if you look at the crop rotation, the winter cereals business is a possible residual loser, let's say, if you look at the overall agriculture crop rotation, yeah, because sugar prices are going up. Anyway, if the farmer would be, let's say, completely unconstrained, would plant as much sugarbeet as possible.

Oilseed rape, very good, so that will be also very strong drive to plant more oilseed rape. Corn prices have increased, so that might also help also to move some acreage to corn.

I would say overall, let's say, the other winter cereals are a residual loser, let's say, yeah, but within this market, which we believe will be stable, maybe slightly increasing, we hope that we can gain more share by our business coming from this more stronger farm-saved seed situation last year. That's, I think, how I would describe the situation, yeah?

That's also what we see at the start to the year. Rye is pretty stable.

After the decline last year, that's already stabilized and also it's slightly growing. That's what we see for the others as well.

Overall, I think, a practical start, yeah. Second question, antitrust, oh, yeah.

That is basically, yeah, unchanged to what we also discussed after nine months. There is a situation that for the cereals business in France, there's a certain mechanism that's also transparent and public, everyone can see it on website, where prices for royalties and the basic seed are set, that is also done in conjunction also with French authorities.

There is a question whether this mechanism, let's say, is, let's say, compliant and so future-oriented or not, let's say, yeah. In order to be prudent, we took a provision of €5 million, but we, as well as all other market participants, will reject this claim because it's in practice since 30 years.

It's been looked at many times, it's public, let's say, yeah. It is what it is.

It's now on our balance sheet as a provision, and then we will see how it develops, but we're defending also our position and reject this claim.

Great. Thanks very much, Jörn.

If I may, one last question. You talked about Russia, but how's the business going for you in Ukraine at this point in time?

Look, Ukraine is actually going well, I have to say, yeah, and and I say this with, yeah, with some some tonality, let's say, yeah, because we are very close contact with our people in Ukraine. Last week, a board member basically was also in Ukraine visiting the teams and the sites, which is of course an important one for us for us.

I can tell you, the pressure on the teams locally is is is significant, and and we are, just very grateful and a lot of respect for people that within this, let's say, conditions, we again, let's say, increased our revenue in Ukraine in a significant, I would say, single-digit amount, yeah? Business is valid, is growing, and and of course, we have, also a portfolio which helps us a lot also in these in these days in in Ukraine.

If you think about oilseed rape, if you think about corn, etc., if you think about sunflower, where also the growth is coming from that area. It's actually going well despite, of course, very very challenging conditions, yeah.

Thank you very much. See you next week.

Thanks, Christian.

Hello, everyone. Thank you for taking my question.

You already answered my question on the market environment and the drivers of your expected recovery. My follow-up on this would be, as you mentioned, the potential impact of El Niño and the potential improvements in sugar, could a strong El Niño event also negatively affect your business overall, especially the other segments?

My second question would be to the margins. Your current margin target is 19% to 20%.

What could be a driver to move above the 20% in the long term?

Very good question. El Niño, of course, you all read this also in the news, we have a very pronounced El Niño this year that already affected some of the important growing regions in Asia, in particular India and Thailand.

Those are also the key regions for us that influence, I would say, global sugar prices. That has already left a mark on the commodity prices, because the harvest is not going as expected, because you have a lot of, let's say, drought, you don't need the rainfall, and that has impacted, let's say, on the harvest, yeah.

You have then the countereffect basically in Latin America, where you have the heavy rainfall in parts of Brazil, you have also heavy rainfall in Argentina. For some the areas, it could be then also beneficial, let's say, yeah.

Usually, Argentina is the winner from El Niño, and in Brazil, it can be both directions, because you have also very different growing regions in Brazil. I would say for sugar, it's a positive, let's say, driver, and that's already materializing.

For the other crops, you cannot really say. It's really mixed bag, if there could be one or the other direction, because losses in one side of the, let's say, globe could be compensated theoretically on other sides, which then is dependent really on the conditions.

If you have super heavy rainfall, then you can also not harvest the better yield, for example, yeah? I would say on the other parts, it's really more balanced, I would say, the effect, and we don't expect any big, let's say, movement.

That's also experience that we have looking in the past, because we have this El Niño effect, of course, yeah, every few years. That's also the experience that we've made in previous situations, yeah?

On the other ones, we are more, let's say, neutral, I would say, yeah. In terms of margin, yes.

We continue to invest in our business. That's why we said, "Okay, we want to keep the margin expectation between 19% and 20% for the time being."

Of course, if we are benefiting from a better acreage, this will have a first a significant operating leverage in our business, yeah, and that will help us clearly to move also the margin above 20%, yeah. Our mid-term targets between 19% and 21%, means midpoint is 20%.

That's nothing what we want to achieve in the far future, but this is something that we want to achieve every year, yeah? That's why we're a bit cautious more at the beginning of the year, but we feel confident that with what we have in our hands, we will be able to get there.

Perfect. Thank you.

See you next week.

Exactly.

Thanks for taking my follow-up. Coming back to vegetables, and I don't want to preempt here on your next week's CMD, however, on the numbers.

Looking into obviously, you reported -6.8% decline organically on the sales side, but looking into the details, I realized that you cut back significantly on the marketing spend, even on a relative basis compared to, let's say, historical levels. I wonder whether you can give a bit more color, let's say, how challenging '25/'26 was for the segment, and maybe on those kind of metrics, how we should think about going into '26/'27.

No, absolutely. We had a organic decline last year, but also this is also against very high comparables, because the previous year we have grown the business 16%, yeah?

Over two years, it's still a high single-digit growth. We were having, I would say, two, yeah, or let's say three, let's say, headwinds.

First was that we had lower market demand in North America. Food service segment was with lower, let's say, in terms of demand.

We had an order phasing, which seems to be order phasing, because an order slipped from June into July, yeah, so that also made an impact because, okay, the business size is not as big as then it's not fully, let's say, I would say, unaffected by this order phasing effects. Then we had these high comparables that I mentioned in the previous year, yeah?

I think in that context, this is an okay result, and we definitely plan to come back to growth this year also in that segment, that's very clear, yeah. On the question selling expenses, it's a bit of an artifact, Michael, because we actually increased also the selling expenses.

However, last year, we had this one-off write-off of the Pop Vriend brand, yeah? This basically was a €10 million write-off coming from the purchase price allocation, and that is a bit, let's say, polluting the figures here.

If you take out this €10 million brand write-off last year, then it's actually a slight increase in selling expenses, which means very consistent. We continue to build infrastructure both on the R&D side as well as on the go-to-market side.

That's well understood. Thank you very much.

Thanks.

Yeah.

right, thanks again. No, just thank you again for interest and time, of course, joining us this morning.

As already mentioned, by you also several times, looking forward to, yeah, seeing you next week at our vegetables investor day in Andijk. Looking forward to spending some time with you.

With that, thank you and have a good day.