Astarta Holding Aktie

Good afternoon. Thank you very much for joining the call, everyone. Welcome to he can next year. So we would like to ask 1 to be out while we do the main part of the presentation. And then we will ask to send us questions through the Q&A or so that we can handle it more efficient here -- so we comparing our results for the first quarter this year to the previous period. We see the nice growth in control revenues.

On back of higher volumes of pulp sales, sugar production in dollar due to the pricing environment despite the higher volumes. Soybean processing is flat and capital funding revenue decline was lower prices. That cost margin conversion and the growth level from 27% to 14%. We also have the creation in the EBITDA for our key segments. First of all, tissue production of minus EUR 55 million and we see of minus EUR 2 million.

Also, we -- so our results is on the impact of the asset treatment in accounts. And the margin compression is also evident here, but not as steep. If we are turning to our cash flows even the create an environment in the market for our core products. Our focus was on increase in operating cash flows. The year did some disposing in the first quarter this year, and that allowed us to increase our operations by 43%.

We also reduced our CapEx discretionary profit apart from continuing the investment in our main projects in the STC plant, which really land to this year. Lower profitability and EBITDA resulted in our leverage ratios increasing to 2.6% by first quarter.

And let me move to our segmental results and look on the at agriculture, we can see higher volume sales, especially for on for white some flower seats. But the prices are lower than last year, and that also match to reduce profitability overall for this segment. Coexist used to the maintenance level of EUR 1 million.

Looking ahead for this season, we have relatively stable come, but there is a room to rebalanced over 4. We increased it of or at the expense of lower acreage of fleet. There is some reduction in very significant for sure. And we keep the increase on the table as this is our capro for the processing segment. Currently, we are finishing plant here. We only have a view in the prime plant fill the back underway. And we, of course, prepare for the winter harvesting starting quite soon.

Looking at the global market sentiment, the prices are down both in the domestic and the global level for the core grain from the plan such as corn and -- our core destinations for experts in Middle East and North Africa, but we do also retain our same presence in the EU markets where the quotes mid-of June. Sugar mobile and domestically going through the adjustment period, which we haven't seen since 2018. We have low mobile prices also because mitiproduction is higher than local consumption, and we faced a reduction in the EU failure quarter last year. We have suppressed margins at gross margin level, and we became EBITDA relative in the first quarter of this year.

The same past is quite significant with average selling prices down by 1/3 compared to the previous year. Exports continue and our main destination is mean North Africa in the absence of prior quarters in the year. If we are looking for this year ahead, we have several public sources for the acreage there is an optimistic number coming from the military economy. We do dispute it a lot. But there is an indication on which forecast much lower acreage and recently NDA with the number somewhere in this year. As explained, we do continue to export and our peer solar producers also try to rely especially in the domestic market by being exit in the mobile market, especially in India region.

For the intersection. -- also came under some pressure as prices for new remain quite low.

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As more precise, and they are reflecting the situation on the field. Thank you.

Thank you. The next question from Tomas attention increased significantly to EUR 81 million what are our priorities for capital allocation. So this question will metafoorto line remarks from the CFO.

Thank you, Julia. The temporary increase was driven by our loan drawdowns PAUSE just in the end of the first quarter. And all cash will be allocated for our huge operational and capital expenses.

Thank you. I don't see any more questions in the chat box -- just wait for a couple of seconds is I see no increase on the life average prices of Sobi oil interest quarter, any change at -- the prices on futures are up by loss compared to the start of 2026. This question is to our conversion to next.

Thank you, Julie. We see that the oil segment health is very proud the situation, which is basically on the Middle East. We see that the prices are very fluctuating. And periodically or in between different periods, it could be higher or lower. But on average, the increase is not so huge. So we have some increase, but that is small.

Yes, Second question is also initial there are any signs in tote margins are realized to the prices both in sales improving compared to the first quarter.

We see that current sugar prices are better than it was in the first quarter of this year. Again, the export market is very dependent on the stock exchange from the London contract 5 and New York 11 contract. It's also very fluctuated. And again floating from period to period..

Okay. I probably was on the signal for a while, but I just wanted to ask to the broader picture for investors, which almost cycle of prices, look back to 2018, '19 '20 to see that the growth is unfortunately takes a couple of years. So this is a very cyclical industry, and we are in year 2 of this process. The next question is on SPC. We will be commissioned quarter 3, quarter 4 or due to low bonding production margins, how should we think about its EBITDA up to bill?

I'll start answering this question in to add anything, but we addressed this recently during our annual report retail we expect will be commissioned in the second half of this year. We will not be providing precise base. The situation in Ukraine. -- you should bear in mind that we operate in our effective environment. It will also take on some time to production -- so in terms of our size of the EBITDA contribution, we will see it much better in the quarter in the first quarter of next year and the crushing margin for Sobi will be replaced with the margin that we earned on SPC. -- give us some time to -- we launched the facility and to see the words, which will translate into the margin,

Or #4 covenants is this lower due to the increased cash position after first quarter? The question is to our CFO, Lina, please.

Thank you, Julia. We estimate our liquidity risk is rather low. Of course, every sector first to all prices are increased on our covenants. But we review our forecast as soon as we know or get new information.

Okay. So -- the next question on at in the premium, just going to transfer this one. What we are expecting in terms of evolution. You have some in 2026, taking into account brand jumps, single fuel and setons. We purchased our inputs, given our size, margin and loss more than 6 months and not.

So this recent past, like will have a limited impact, although there will be some impact, which we estimate between 5% and 10%.

I don't see any more questions. Just wait for users. Well, thank you very much. We hope we invest more questions, and we will be happy to further discuss any timing of interest just under the email or the range for pots -- thank you very much and have a good weekend. Bye-bye.

[Operator Instructions] Without further ado, we would like to evolve to our first highlights on the P&A. We had quite a difficult year last year on the harvest front. Practically all crops, except sugar beet, were lower than in the previous period. and that was reflected in the reduction of our revenues of the Agricultural segment and also lower acreage for sugar production also resulted in lower revenues for sugar along with the price decreases.

We had a good growth in soybean processing and the cattle farming, the 2 segments which remained robust on the revenue line. In terms of profitability, we had EBITDA margin contraction from 26% to 21% we do provide the picture without biological asset remeasurement in the lower part of the slide. And the margin contraction was less dramatic here, but also down to 23%.

On the cash flow situation, operating cash flow were down by 3 quarters. But if we exclude the impact of the working capital, the fall was not as dramatic. So it was down to over EUR 100 million. Investment cash flows doubled in 2025 as we continue to invest in our main project soy protein concentrate facility, which we are planning to launch in the second half of this year.

We also started our works on the multi-seat crusher, although the timetable for this project has been moved and we also continued our maintenance CapEx in other segments. These investments led to increasing our leverage, which as of year-end was over 2x net debt to EBITDA.

Agriculture, along with some lower crop prices, we had lower volumes of sales by 1/3, and that was the main reason for contraction in revenues and EBITDA. If we are looking at the harvest of last year, corn was flat, but all other grain and oilseeds were down. Sugar beet was a higher yield, which resulted in the same amount of sugar produced despite the lower acreage of 34,000 hectares.

Looking ahead into the current year, our crop preparation mix is almost stable for the key strategic growth like sugar beet, it is there is a slight decrease. It stays flat for soybeans. And we have a slight increase of corn and expense of wheat for this year.

If we are looking at the global market situation, there was a convergence between domestic and international prices. But we had a big change in the trading regime with the EU, which affected us not only for the sugar segment, where quarters were imposed at 100,000 tonnes, which is only 1/5 of Ukraine exports in the previous years to the EU. But green quarters were also reinstated at prewar levels for the key grains.

Therefore, the exports to this market was reduced and Ukrainian producers including a start to increase their presence in South Europe and North Africa region, Middle East as well. Continuing on the sugar topic, there was a reduction in acreage because reduced quarters for the European market meant that there is a bigger oversupply in the domestic market.

That was coupled with downturn in prices in the global markets. And that resulted in lower profitability for us which continues in the beginning of this year. The selling price over 12 months was down by more than 15% and if we are looking at market prices for the beginning of this year, this downturn unfortunately continued.

As we mentioned, the much reduced quarter for Ukrainian sugar and European markets, led to reduced acreage last year under sugar beet this year, our expectations are also for sugar beet acreage to reduce by at least 20%. So from almost 200,000 hectares in 2025, we expect it to go down to 160,000, 165,000 hectares that should help relieve pressure on the domestic market.

Soybean processing is our stable segment in terms of market access to the EU in terms of the volumes for our 2 core products, meal and soybean oil. However, there is a amortization of the crushing margin we saw elevated margin for the 3 years from 2022 to '24. Now we can see crush margin and EBITDA margin coming back to the prewar levels, which can be seen in the 5 years preceding 2022.

In order to increase profitability for this segment. We initiated a project to produce soybean concentrate. We plan to launch it this year and to have a positive impact on our margins from next year. Last but not the least, we also initiated a new multi-seed crusher construction in the Western Ukraine but we would like to focus on launching the SPC facility before significant CapEx outlays for the multi-seed crusher which we communicated in our annual report.

Cattle farming we had good operating results in terms of the volume and revenue growth in terms of productivity for this segment. However, there was a cliff edge fall in the milk price. And this led to a big loss on the biological revolution side of EUR 13 million.

In terms of our strategy, it remains intact during the war times. We are focusing on the oil seed side by launching the new facility by implementing design work for the next multi-seed facility and this will remain our core strategic focus for this year and next year.

With this, we would like to conclude the main part of our presentation, and we would welcome your questions in the Q&A area. Quite a few of them already.

The first question is from Carol. What was the reason that book value of pieces of clouds decreased from [indiscernible] When prices milk look like not changed much. One second, let me have another look. The book value of pieces of cows. If we are talking about biological evaluation of cow heads it is related mostly to the milk prices this year.

And I would like to pass the floor to our Finance Director, who will provide more color to this topic.

Thank you, Yulia. It is the influence of revaluation according to our forecast on new prices and the effect is EUR 13 million. So it is cost only by our expectations of milk price for next 12 months.

The next question from Carol has the company observed annual late damage to crops due to cold weather in the last few weeks, especially in mixed seed? Yes, we will report in Ukraine regarding damage to rapeseeds. But in our case, there is the areas which we damage are not material to be mentioned here.

So we are on track for our plant team season, and we are in the final stages of it.

Next question from Martin. Any confirmation from the market that sugar beet area locally would be cut by 20% as commented. Yes, there are some conflicting messages as usual. There is data, which was provided by the Ministry of Economy, which shows acreage steel at the level of close to 200,000 hectares.

However, we have a more reliable data, which we believe is coming from [indiscernible] And this is not just related to the current year. We saw them as more precisely reporting and estimating acreage under sugar beet in the previous seasons. So until there is a final number also made public, we trust [indiscernible] as more specialized in our industry more on the estimates.

Next question, what exact factors in the company's opinion drove weak fourth quarter, first quarter '26 sugar price. I would like to pass the floor to our Commercial Director, Viacheslav Chuk.

Yes. Good afternoon everybody. So the main factor was the oversupply on the markets, both Ukrainian and European because you can see even from the London sugar, white sugar benchmark so that with lower acreage, everybody received better yields and better sugar content. .

So even in Ukraine, it was 20% of decrease on the land bank carrier under sugar beet, we still have the same amount of EUR 1.7 million tons of sugar. So this general oversupply cost to sharp decrease starting from October in the fourth quarter to decrease the sugar prices.

Next question, how much up stocks of sugar that are right now in domestic market? And what is the projected ending stock for end of September.

We still cannot predict the ending stock as of September because we see that the balancing of the market due to middle East conflict disappearing. As of now, we can consider that ending stocks could be and actually the stock, which is considered as a surplus could be around 250,000, 300,000 tonnes.

Next question, do you expect to report positive EBITDA in the Sugar segment in 2026? I would pass the floor to Liliia Lymanska, Commercial Director -- sorry, Financial Director.

We expect that EBITDA of the sub segment to be approximately 0 or more likely it will be positive.

Next question from Carol our company plan to postpone selling rest of sugar in warehouse to time where higher prices potentially may be higher.

Carol, thank you much for your question. Of course, this strategy will depend on price development and cash flow requirements. So we would be considering this after season when we see the final acreage of sugar beet in Europe, in Ukraine, and actually the use regarding the rebalancing of the market.

Next question, what caused weak soybean EBITDA attributed for the fourth quarter '25.

I'm passing the floor to our Finance Director. It was caused by a combination of factors, including the short-term decrease in crush margin. together with increasing of production costs. And [indiscernible] it was caused by as expenses due to some accrued losses.

It should be noted that this winter -- well, last winter in Ukraine was very difficult. People are probably aware of severe energy shortages, and we have backup energy facilities at our production assets. Obviously, these backup facilities, which are operating on diesel rather than take electricity from the grid comes at a higher price.

Therefore, energy blackout in Ukraine, during winter times led to the cost inflation on the energy side.

Next question regarding covenants, do you expect to have some issues with them across 2026. This question is also addressed to Ms. Lymanska.

Yes, and we reported that we expect some divisions from established covenants and those banks who have corners, which will be breached, was already informed by us, and we started proper negotiations.

Yes, we expect to obtain all appropriate waivers. Next question, could you please provide more details about potential acquisition of farming assets mentioned in the current report. Yes, I think given the historical performance of the company, I think people would -- should not expect any major acquisition of land lease assets in terms of major, we mean within 5% of the current land bank.

We always optimize our land assets, focusing on more productive diversity, less productive, but this is within 5% churn what was put in the current report is in accordance with our public obligations because we apply to the antimonopoly approvals. With regards to one particular area we consider for acquisition.

But again, this is not above several percent points of the total land bank area. Last time company announced to take over to where this process and how it will increase land size. That's exactly what I was referring to in the previous question. We applied for antimonopoly approval to acquire these 2 legal entities, but the acreage under Operations is not more than 5% of our total land area, and we are still in negotiation stage.

Next 2 questions from [indiscernible] How active are you in the market for farmland. Second, do you observe any M&A activity in the agricultural sector. Yes, there are quite a few sizable transactions in the agricultural sector. One of them was agro regions. I think it was one of the major M&A deals in the Ukrainian agriculture last year.

But in terms of our activity, our land bank is more or less stable. We are focusing just on areas which are adjacent directly to our operating processing assets. And if we have a good opportunity, we would negotiate land leases or acquisitions of corporate rights with land leases attached to it.

But overall, our size over 200,000 hectares is sufficient for our core strategic areas, which is sugar beat, and the land bank is directly related to the 5-year [indiscernible] requirements and soybeans, which is another crop, we are currently processing at own facilities. So more or less stable over 200,000 hectares.

Next question. Any chance you mentioned some material related with progress of building new plants, crush and so processing during today's call or other one via company page. On the further processing of meal into the soybean concentrate, this is a project we have been investing for the last several years.

It is coming to fruition this year, and we will launch production and hopefully, we will have publicity when we launch this production in the second half of this year. But in terms of the margin uplift, we expect to see noticeable effect beginning of next year because people should appreciate it takes time to scale up production and product to get the product quality to the request specification.

In terms of the new multi-ship crush, it is our strategic goal to expand crush and for soybeans, but also we are one of the major growers of rapeseeds, and we lacked capacities to crush those as well. This is our next project that we would like to focus after soybean concentrate, but it will be located in another region.

And we would like to focus on launching the current considerate facility before we give more details on the next project. But overall, we see the second facility to be 'actively developed over '27 and 28. 'next question. During one of the recent conferences, you mentioned plans to introduce incentive program and issuance of up to 5% checkup in the form of shares, which is the current status?

Is this topic still underground consideration. Yes, we are moving towards the management incentive program by establishing -- we already established an employee benefit trust but the first step in this program is transferred of the treasury shares currently on the balance sheet into the trust for the benefit of top management.

The next step we will consider is additional share issue. But again, we already have plenty of shares on our balance sheet, which can be utilized to kick start this program. So the trust is established, and we are currently in the technical phase of transferring treasury shares into it. Is there any consideration management board to increase the yearly dividend amount that is paid by 10%.

I think this is not a very timely question because we are operating on the wartime conditions. We have one of very few players, which continue to invest and build in new processing assets and also the nature of agriculture means a volatile business cycle and pricing cycle.

So our dividend situation is reviewed on an annual basis. And such considerations should be viewed within the current operating context. I think since the war in Ukraine entered its fifth year, people probably think that there is some normalization, but I can assure you, there is nothing normal to operate in what time conditions.

So let's consider this issue a bit later. You can see the announced a dividend policy in the near future. Not in the near future because you appreciate that we are in difficult conditions of the war -- so that's not on the agenda for the near future. Our focus is on cash flows and on the investments.

Are you considering to increase own energy power supplies, solar, wind power where the topic we discussed already by the Board. We do have own energy production to start with the nature of sugar making means that these assets operate 2 to 3 months per year and we produce electricity and steam required for sugar making in-house.

So each of our sugar plants is a big energy producer, producing energy from coal and from natural gas. However, in addition to natural gas, we have our own in-house biogas facility which produces around 10 million to 15 million cubic meters of biogas we also burn planned pellets in our boilers in addition to coal.

And our goal before the war was always to increase share of renewable energy in the energy mix, but that proves very difficult during the war times. However, after we launched the new facility for soybean concentrate, we hope to have mobile products, which can potentially increase production of biogas and that will allow us to have more in-house energy production.

With regards to renewable energy from solar and wind, this is not our core area of expertise. However, at our dairy farming operations, we do have small solar energy projects. This is part of our sustainability drive, but this is not to say that we are -- we want to become an independent energy producer or our core area of expertise.

Next question, could you update us on the SPC project, how much CapEx is still required? And when do you expect commissioning Third quarter, fourth quarter, first meaningful contribution to the results. I will reiterate regarding the meaningful contribution production will start in the second half of this year, but it will take time to ramp up production.

And receive product quality required of the accordance with the volumes we contracted our product already. On the CapEx side, I would like to pass the floor to our Finance Director. We started CapEx into SPC facility 2 years ago and 2024 that was around $17 million and last year in 2025 and 2026, I will ask Liliia to comment.

It's in 2025, we spent about EUR 28 million. And this year, we expect to spend EUR 18 million.

Next question is related to the multi-seed crusher. How much was spent already on the multi-seat crusher and how much was contractually committed. On the multi-seed crusher, we are at the design and architecture stage. It also takes longer than usual in current conditions in Ukraine. So we expect the time line for CapEx to be no shorter than for the SPC over several years.

But we are only at the beginning of our process and design stage is not usually very CapEx-intensive. Could you comment on First quarter cash flow and working capital development after the pressure seen in 2025, particularly where the inventory levels, cash conversion, liquidity headroom improved versus year-end.

We are 2.5 weeks away from our financial results reporting on the 21st of May. So we would like to ask you for your patience. We will report financial data then. On the operating data with regards to our volumes and prices that has already been published in the trade date. So bear with us for the next couple of weeks.

Given the potential remaining SPC spend, the planned multi-seed crush are the increase in net debt in 2025, what level of total CapEx do you expect in 2026. It's a short answer. We will spend half of -- less than half of CapEx in 2026 compared to EUR 25 million bearing in mind the market downturn for our key products, especially sugar.

Next question regarding the logistics, whether it was worse in '25 than in 2024 as on the floor to Viacheslav Chuk.

I would say that logistics into 2025 was disrupted in the fourth quarter of the year. That was caused by both damages made by war and also having the crop delay with exporting because farmers were expecting for better prices and not exporting.

So and the volumes were coincided with logistic disruptions.

That's probably the next question also related to this logistics disruptions. Have there been significant operational disruptions due to the ongoing war in 2025, we mentioned logistics. And are there any new expected war-related challenges in 2026.

I think it is worth noting that war-related challenges and maybe related not just to Ukraine, but what is happening now in Iran because Ukrainian agriculture is directly affected by the higher cost of energy, especially diesel and also by the higher cost of fertilizers.

Here, we would like to underline that as a large-scale agricultural producer we procure large volumes, and we create our stocks required for planting well in advance, at least 6 months in advance. So we are in better conditions.

But overall, the wall conditions are not just in Ukraine but affect Ukrainian agriculture globally.

Hello and thank you, everyone, for joining today's call devoted to the 9 months results of Astarta. We started with the P&L overview.

Our top line was down by 1/5 on account of lower revenues in agriculture and sugar production, in agriculture due to lower harvest of last year, which we are selling as well as sugar -- lower volumes of sugar sales. In soybean processing, our top line is stable and we have a good increase in cattle farming. Profitability this year is lower at gross level of 35%. At EBITDA margin, it is stable year-on-year but we do have lower results at the bottom line of net profit of EUR 44 million. We also show our results without IAS 41 impact in our P&L. And here, EBITDA margin is at 28%.

Switching to cash flows and balance sheet. We have lower operating cash flows but largely stable if we exclude working capital changes. Our investments are more than double on last year because we are actively developing the soybean processing segment. We are on track with launching the new plant next year. We also had significant investments in the agriculture segments, including replacing the field machinery. Still, the leverage is at acceptable level of 1.5x net debt-to-EBITDA. Agriculture results are still affected by lower harvest from last year and this is mostly evident in our lower volume of sales of corn, as we grow less corn and devote more acreage to strategic crops such as soybeans and sugar beet, which we process in-house and less growth in corn but we also are traders of grain. The new line in our key crops is related to soybeans and this is reflect in trading activities because we process soybeans at our crusher but we also started building our procurement volumes for the multi-seed crushing plant that we plan to build within next couple of years.

The pricing situation was favorable on the grains side and that can be seen in corn and wheat. It was also favorable in the oilseeds area but soybean prices were down this year. If we are talking about physical volumes, we are still in the process of harvesting our key crops such as sugar beets, soybeans and corn. The weather conditions were very difficult this year, not just during the growth stage but also during the harvesting stage. Crops are collected much later. And our sunflower seeds harvest, this is the only late crop for which we have already final results, which are lower on a yield basis of 2.1%. At the same time, we are in -- we completed winter crop planting already and our planted acreage for wheat is at 40,000 hectares and rapeseeds at 15,000. Regarding the overall market sentiment, we mentioned that there was a price uptick favorable for us, although global prices were stable or declined for wheat recently.

There was a positive convergence between domestic and international prices, meaning that Ukrainian producers obtain more. On average corn prices for Ukrainian growers were up by almost 50% and wheat by 1/3. Logistics through seaports operates at good levels, around 3 million to 4 million tonnes per month. And that allows Ukraine to export grains and oil seeds without any delay, although the harvest is coming at a much later time during this season. Sugar, we are still in the process of selling last year sugar volumes, which is reflected in the 9 months results with EBITDA margin at 17%.

But as we speak, we are already 3 quarters done in the sugar producing season this autumn with all 5 plants operating and already 234,000 tonnes of sugar production, largely in line with last year despite the later sugar beet harvesting. Exports brought 44% of the revenues. The volumes are lower because of the uncertain situation with the trading regime with EU. The autonomous trade measures or total free trade in sugar, unfortunately, came to closure. And we have a new or renewed mechanism under free trading quarters for sugar in place until end of this year at 40,000 tonnes and 100,000 tonnes annually for several years until 2028.

These volumes of trade with EU are much better compared to the volumes which were in place before the war but unfortunately, several times lower than Ukrainian potential. And that means that Ukraine has to react to the lower global and domestic sugar prices and reduce acreage. This year, sugar beet acreage was reduced and we expect further reduction around 20% for next year. Global prices are currently declining due to better estimates for the EU, better harvest in Europe as well as more positive output focus for Brazil. That also affected Ukrainian sugar prices, which for this season, we see converging with European prices. Soybean processing is stable on the revenues side but there is contraction on gross margin as soybean meal prices declined by nearly 1/3. But soybean prices as raw material were down only by 9%. There were somewhat -- these prices were somewhat offset by soybean oil growth but it still resulted in a lower margin of 20% at gross level and EBITDA margin at 13%.

There is renewed push from the government of Ukraine to motivate crushing of oilseeds in Ukraine as opposed to exports of raw materials, There is a new export duty of 10% in place for soybeans and rapeseeds from this year. And that should help the domestic processors such as Astarta to have higher availability of soybeans and rapeseeds. Therefore, our strategic direction to expand soybean and oilseed processing remains intact. We are preparing to launch soybean protein plant from next year to launch production next year. And we also started working on the multi-seed crushing project, which we announced also last year. Cattle farming is also a segment which we developed quite actively. There has been increase in volume of production and the herd year-on-year, including for the last quarter. profitability is lower and that is also related to the recent change in the trading regime between Ukraine and Europe.

But still, as industrial milk producer in Ukraine, we are mostly winning market share from backyard households and we continue to increase production and obtain good prices for our product. This is in a nutshell regarding our 9 months results and we welcome your questions. [Operator Instructions]

Thank you for the first question from Carol. What is company prediction about sugar market in '26, '27?

Yes. I will probably repeat the points I made earlier but also add some more color. What we are seeing now globally, there are production growth in sugar, which is forecast in Europe as well as in Brazil. But there are signs that Europe will reduce its acreage in the '26, '27 season by 3%, 4%. So that there is reduction in sugar output by 1 million tonnes. Imports into Europe are at the level of 2 million tonnes and Ukrainian inputs are only 100,000 tonnes. Since EU is our closest neighbor, our sugar price is very much linked to the prices in Europe and how -- our fortunes are also very similar to those sugar producers in Poland and Germany. Downward trend currently continues. This is a cyclical business. And currently, the prices are at 4-year lows. We've been for this cycle in 2018 and '19.

How the Ukrainian sugar industry responded to this? Usually by reducing acreage like our European peers do. So we largely expect approximately 20% in sugar beets acreage reduction next year and that will become visible by April next year. And hopefully, that will support the domestic market. For global markets, we will obviously see what developments will take place in Brazil, India and obviously, the EU.

We don't see any more questions in the chat box. But we would welcome them via e-mail or you can call us any time. We can organize meetings and explain more should there be any more questions. With this, we would like to conclude the call. Thank you very much. Bye-bye.

Hello, everyone. Thank you very much for joining the call regarding Astarta's 6 months results. We started with an overview of our P&L. On the revenue side, we have decreased in agriculture and sugar production, and this is on the basis of lower harvest of last year. We are still in the process of selling last year's harvest. And this year's harvesting campaign is much later in the year. Stable volumes and revenues in soybean processing as well as in cattle farming.

Gross margin retained at 40% at the level of last year, but we have positive development on the selling and distribution costs, and that allowed us to earn a higher EBITDA margin under IFRS. If we exclude biological assets remeasurement, our EBITDA margin is slightly higher than last year, 29%.

Going into the summary cash flows. The focus this year are investment projects that we initiated on the soybean protein concentrate. We have a big investment in the soybean crushing segment. We started works on a new multi-seed crusher in the Western area of our operations. And that was the reason why we have higher investment cash flows, while operating cash flows also remain at reasonable levels, together with the leverage, which is still at 1x EBITDA net debt.

In the agricultural segment, we have positive pricing dynamics on corn and oilseeds side. There is a new key crop in our table related to soybeans. This is related to us building our procurement network for soybeans as we prepare to launch soybean concentrate and the new multi-seed crusher in the next 2 years. So we not only increase production of oilseeds ourselves, but also building procurement volumes for further processing.

With regards to grains, we have lower volumes because last year's harvest was lower, and we accelerated our sales at the end of last year. But lower exports also can be seen in the lower selling and distribution expense. In terms of yields, we already report final yields for winter wheat and rapeseeds. They are at last year's level on wheat and lower on rapeseeds. For the late crops, the harvesting is starting now because of the later season this year. We also started preparing for winter planting season as well.

The pricing situation remains positive for Ukrainian agricultural producers as global and domestic export prices continue to converge. This is related again to the lower harvest last year, but also lower volumes which go through seaborne routes and Odesa-based ports lead to lower logistics costs, which are favorable not for agriculture, but also for our sugar segment.

In sugar, we see a decline in the sugar prices, which led to lower revenues, but margins remain at good levels at 27% on a gross margin basis and 18% in EBITDA. We are one of the key exporters in the countries, and our key markets are in the Middle East and in smaller markets of Eastern Europe outside the EU like Macedonia.

This year, planting under sugar beet is down by 1/5. The industry continues to export actively despite the lower volumes welcome in the EU markets. The automotive trading regime finished on the 5th of June, but we are expecting a more positive picture from next year when the quota for sugar will be approved in the EU in September. There were recent reports that Europe might import about 1.4 million tonnes of sugar this year. And there could be positive upside on the quota for sugar in September, but we'll have to wait for a few weeks to see more visibility on this issue.

However, MENA markets, including Turkey, continue to be the key volume absorbers of Ukrainian exports, which is also the trend to continue for next year. Ukrainian and global prices converged to around $510 per tonne. And this pricing is -- the convergence of the pricing is also a positive development for the Ukrainian producers.

Soybean processing volumes of crushing remains stable. There was a good uplift in the oil price, but the main product, which is soybean meal, pricing is down, and that led to lower margins, crushing margin as well as EBITDA margin, which is down to 13%. We see increased acreage unto soybeans in Ukraine for this year, but the harvest is still to be seen.

Cattle farming is also stable, growth in milk production. The company continues to earn premium pricing for the high quality of milk it produces. Industrial milk producers continue to win market share from small households. Overall head count in dairy cows is down, but industrial milk production is up, and our share is growing currently at least at 3%.

These are the results for the first 6 months in a nutshell, and we would go into the Q&A.

Just a few seconds as the questions will come through. We would like them to be seen in the box. Marcin? First question from Marcin. One second. With such low soybean segment performance, does Astarta still consider its CapEx pipeline as viable?

I will start to answer this question, but also, we'll pass for more details to the Commercial Director. The first project that we initiated and we are more than in the middle of implementing it in the soybean concentrate is targeted at a new value-added product. So in addition to meal and oil, we will target a higher margin and custom-tailored concentrate and will target premium markets of aquaculture. So we are here for the long term. And strategically, we are going to the new niche of the market.

Thank you very much, Yuliya. I would also add that different -- on the cost side and on the revenue side, it's hard to judge the project within the just 6 months performance. So when we are making the project, we are considering an average result of the segment for the last 5, 10 years. So it seems to us that between -- inside of this period, some fluctuation of margins could appear.

I will also add something that we don't put in our presentation, but you might appreciate that European soybean market and the product ratio will be significantly changed because of the new regulation which comes from 1st of January related to deforestation. So we see there will be high compliance risk for the major importers into the EU. European consumption is covered by local production by only 4%, which means 96% of soybean products are imported primarily from U.S., Brazil and also from Ukraine.

Ukraine is the closest market. Ukraine has similar agricultural requirements, which are very close to European ones as opposed to American ones. And the country has been assigned a low risk rating under EUDR. So we believe that we will be even in a better competitive position vis-à-vis Brazilian and other exporters who have higher deforestation risks.

Next question. With global sugar price as of now, is exports to Africa and Middle East profitable still? I'll pass the floor to Viacheslav again.

Thank you very much. Thank you very much for the question. I would say -- I would repeat maybe the -- Yuliya's words, but the reality is that the logistic cost decreased as it reflected also the price decrease on the global market. But still, we are on the positive side on the main regions, considering our logistic advantages which we made during these 2 years.

I will also add that according to the most recent report by the Ukrainian sugar association, they expect exports to be at least 1/3 of Ukrainian production. So overall, the industry reduced acreage on the sugar beets by 1/5, but the export potential is still considered to be quite strong.

Which quarter of 2026 is the SPC expected to be commissioned? You said both the new crusher and the SPC are to be commissioned in the next 2 years. Does that mean that multi-seed crusher is expected to be operational in 2027?

Yes, the SPC should be launched in the first half of next year. We plan to launch it in the second quarter as close to the new processing season as possible. And the multi-seed crusher is expected to become operational in 2027 with, hopefully, just a 1 year distance or lag between the 2 facilities.

I don't see any more questions coming into the Q&A box. Perhaps there is still a [ summer little season ], but we look forward your questions one-on-one or via email. Please don't hesitate to have any follow-up with us. Thank you very much, and have a nice weekend.