GEA Group Aktiengesellschaft (G1A) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Ladies and gentlemen, as Chairman of the Supervisory Board, I hereby open this year's Annual General Meeting of GEA Group Aktiengesellschaft and in accordance with the Articles of Association, assume the chairmanship of the meeting. On behalf of the Supervisory Board and the Executive Board, I would like to extend a warm welcome to you, our shareholders and shareholder representatives. For the purpose of better reliability and a better flow of speech, we would like to refrain as far as possible from using gender-specific terminology in this Annual General Meeting. However, in the interest of equal treatment, personal designations and terms are naturally to be regarded as gender neutral. This year, on the basis of Section 118a of German Stock Corporation Act, in conjunction with the relevant transitional provision, the meeting will be held as a virtual Annual General Meeting that is without the physical presence of shareholders or their proxies, with the exception of the company's proxies who will be present on site. This year, after careful consideration of the advantages and disadvantages, the Executive Board and the Supervisory Board jointly decided in favor of the Virtual Annual General Meeting format. The main reason was that, under the current legal situation in Germany, the Virtual Annual General Meeting does not entail any restrictions on shareholders' rights compared with an Annual General Meeting that shareholders attend in person. At the same time, many shareholders benefit from the fact that the costs and time involved in traveling to an AGM in person are eliminated. This way, all of us make a contribution to protecting our climate. I would like to take this opportunity to inform our shareholders outside Germany that the entire Annual General Meeting will be simultaneously translated into English. However, speeches at the Annual General Meeting may only be given in Germany. The entire Annual General Meeting will be translated into English. However, speeches at the general meeting are only permitted in Germany. I would like to welcome Dr. [indiscernible], who, as notary public, will certify the resolutions of this Annual General Meeting as required by the German Stock Corporation Act. I would also like to welcome the members of the Executive Board who are present here as well as the members of the Supervisory Board who with the exception of Mrs. Lei are also here in this room. Mrs. Lei has joined us remotely from China due to other commitments that could not be postponed. Ladies and gentlemen, 2022 continued to be dominated by the COVID pandemic, and in particular, the Ukraine conflict. The exceptional commitment of all employees of GEA made a decisive contribution to this very good result. This year, we would, therefore, again like to thank the entire Executive Board, the employee representatives and, in particular, all employees of GEA Group. Before we move on to the agenda, I would first like to explain the rules of today's Annual General Meeting. The meeting will be broadcast live in its entirety for shareholders and the public on the company's website. Via the InvestorPortal, shareholders who have registered in good time as well as their proxies also have the opportunity to follow the meeting, cast their votes by postal vote, issue powers of attorney and instructions to the company's proxies, speak here at the meeting and record objections to resolutions or questions deemed unanswered. With regard to the exercise of the right to information on the items on today's agenda, I specify that as already announced in the Notice of the Annual General Meeting, this may only be exercised by way of a video communication. I will come back to this later. You can access the InvestorPortal using the data sent to you in the registration confirmation. Dr. [indiscernible] has convinced himself in advance of the correctness and functionality of the technology. However, should problem arise during the broadcast, we will, of course, make every efforts to rectify them immediately. If necessary, please check whether your Internet connection is stable and your Internet browser is up to date. If you have any questions concerning the use of the InvestorPortal, please contact our service provider, Computershare. The contact details can be found on the portal homepage under the menu item contact. With the exception of Mrs. Lei, who attends the meeting remotely, as already mentioned, all other members of the Supervisory Board attend in person on site. The Executive Board is fully present. The Notice of this Annual General Meeting with a complete agenda and the management's proposed resolutions on the announced agenda items was published by the Executive Board in due form and time in the Federal German Gazette on March 14, 2023. The Notice of the AGM was also disseminated throughout Europe. In addition to the announcement in the Federal German Gazette, the Notice of the Annual General Meeting was communicated to the group of persons specified therein in due form and time in accordance with Section 125 of the German Stock Corporation Act. The Notice of the AGM documents relating to the annual financial statements of GEA Group Aktiengesellschaft for fiscal year 2022 and all other mandatory documents relating to this AGM have been made available on the company's website since the AGM's convocation. Within the statutory period, the company received no motions for additions to the agenda and no countermotions to the agenda items requiring publication nor any proposals for the election of Supervisory Board members or auditors. Ladies and gentlemen, we are again maintaining an electronic attendance list for today's Annual General Meeting. This is currently being prepared and will be made available to you in the attendance section of the InvestorPortal before voting begins. The attendance list at today's virtual Annual General Meeting includes not only various shareholders who are represented by the company's proxies, but also those shareholders who are connected electronically. In contrast, shareholders who have voted by postal vote or who vote in this way during the Annual General Meeting will not be listed in the attendance list. However, when announcing attendance, I will also state the number of postal votes cast in each case. Please take into account that only the list visible in the InvestorPortal is valid. Information provided on other websites or by means other than this portal will not be taken into account. Any kind of photographing or other copying of the attendance register as well as misuse of the data contained therein is prohibited. In accordance with Article 19, paragraph 2, sentence 2 of our Articles of Association, I determine the manner and form of voting as follows: this year, voting during the meeting will take place exclusively via the InvestorPortal. Voting rights exercised in advance of the Annual General Meeting by postal vote or by proxy and instruction to the company's proxies will be taken into account. You can access the InvestorPortal with the data sent to you. There you can cast your vote by absentee ballot , issue powers of attorney and instructions to the proxies, objects to resolutions by minute or make other declarations. Proxies and instructions to proxies as well as postal votes can still be issued, revoked or changed via the InvestorPortal until the times announced by me during the voting process. I will inform you on this in good time. Please follow the corresponding instructions in the InvestorPortal. The proxies appointed by the company are Dr. Matthias Decker and Mr. Bastian Laue. They exercised voting rights exclusively on the basis of the instructions issued by you. Both gentlemen are present here today. We will vote on all agenda items in a single ballot. In the vote, we will use the accumulation or addition procedure, which I will explain to you before the votes. When we announce the results of the vote, we will include the voting results in their detailed version, but I intend to confine myself to stating that the required majority was reached, unless there are objections to this. Ladies and gentlemen, as in the years before the COVID pandemic, this year, we will again hold a general debate for the first time albeit in virtual form. The general debate will cover all items on the agenda and will be held after the CEO's, Mr. Klebert's speech, which you will hear following my remarks. In the run-up to the meeting, we received written comments from shareholders, which we have made available on our website. I would like to refer you to these. Requests to speak as well as procedural motions and point of order are possible during today's meeting via the InvestorPortal. I would ask all shareholders and shareholder representatives who wish to speak to register as early as possible via the InvestorPortal. Please make sure that you enter your contact details correctly. They are an important means for us to contact you, if necessary, and to explain the further course of action to you. After registering to speak, you will receive a request to join a virtual meeting, a waiting room. You can continue to follow the Annual General Meeting there. I will then have you join the general debate in due course via video communication. Please understand that this process will take some time depending, among other things, on the number of requests to speak. As already mentioned and explained in the Notice of the Annual General Meeting, we will carry out a technical check of the functionality of video communication. This is the only way we can ensure that the Annual General Meeting runs smoothly in the interest of all shareholders. If you wish to submit motions relating to the proceedings and thus points of order, I would ask you to also indicate this in the InvestorPortal. Please record one or more key words relating to your motion to describe the subject of your motion in more detail. This will enable me to check and decide how to proceed with the motion in particular, whether the move of the motion should be given priority to speak so that they can present and justify their motion. Once again, please make sure that you enter your data correctly. This is the only way we can contact you, if necessary, and ensure that you can be connected to the Annual General Meeting via video communication. Ladies and gentlemen, I now call up agenda items 1 to 11. With the exception of agenda item 1, on which no resolution is passed, the other agenda items will be called up later for joint resolution. I now come to Item 1 on the agenda. Presentation of the adopted annual financial statements of GEA Group Aktiengesellschaft and the approved consolidated financial statements as of December 31, 2022, the group management report for fiscal year 2022, combined with the management report of GEA Group Aktiengesellschaft, including the report of the Supervisory Board for fiscal year 2022. Ladies and gentlemen, the aforementioned documents also include the explanatory report of the Executive Board on the disclosures pursuant to Sections 289a and 315a of the German Commercial Code, HGB, and the corporate governance statement with the corporate governance report. The annual financial statements and consolidated financial statements as of December 31, 2022, and the group management report, combined with the management report of GEA group Aktiengesellschaft, were audited by KPMG Wirtschaftsprüfungsgesellschaft, Berlin, the auditors appointed at the last Annual General Meeting. The Supervisory Board examined in detail the annual financial statements, the consolidated financial statements, the combined management report and the proposal for the appropriation of net retained profits. The audit report was discussed in detail with the auditors at the Supervisory Board meeting on March 2, 2023. Neither the audit by the auditors nor the review by the Audit Committee or the Supervisory Board have given rise to any objections. The auditors issued the required unqualified audit opinions in accordance with Section 322 of the German Commercial Code. The Supervisory Board approved the annual financial statements and the consolidated financial statements presented by the Executive Board at its meeting on March 2, 2023. The annual financial statements are thus adopted in accordance with Section 172 of the German Stock Corporation Act. The written report of the Supervisory Board on its activities in the past fiscal year can be found in the annual report starting on Page 16. Last year, activities of the Supervisory Board focused, in particular, on corporate and growth strategy, financial reporting and financial development, including the effects of inflation, employee satisfaction, compliance, the war in Ukraine and its impact on GEA, the topics of markets, customers and customer satisfaction, competition as well as sustainability. As I was not appointed as a member of the Supervisory Board by the court until after last year's Annual General Meeting, I'm standing for election to the Supervisory Board by you, the shareholders this year, at the Annual General Meeting under agenda Item 7. For this reason, after explaining the formalities in connection with the conduct of this Annual General Meeting, this is now also the time for me to briefly introduce myself to you personally. After studying Administration in Munich, I started working at that time, one of the big 8 auditors are for young GmbH, today Ernst & Young. While working there, I was appointed tax consultant and auditor and became a partner. In 1991, I moved from the Ernst & Young partnership, first of all, as a member of the Executive Board to DATEV eG and one year later, I became Chairman of the Executive Board. In the period from 2005 to 2020, I was also an Honorary Professor of Business Administration at the University -- at the Friedrich-Alexander University of Nuremberg. Before joining GEA, I was also President of the Bitcom and President of the Federation of German Industries, BDI. I would be honored to continue as Chairman of the Supervisory Board of GEA. In particular, I would like to continue to use my skills to help shape GEA's future as an innovative company, together with the Executive Board and my colleagues in the Supervisory Board. I will continue to devote myself to this task with full dedication in the future. In the interest of continuity in the chairmanship of the Supervisory Board, the Supervisory Board has decided to propose to you, dear shareholders, a term of office until the AGM in 2026, so that I have the opportunity to chair the Supervisory Board for a full time of 4 years in accordance with the Articles of Association, taking into account my court appointment last year. As the current Articles of Association of the company would only permit my election for a further term of 2 years, the Executive Board and the Supervisory Board have also jointly decided to amend the provision in the Articles of Association governing special elections to the effect that the election need not be limited to the remaining term of office of the retired members. In the future, this would generally give the Annual General Meeting more flexibility in determining the term of office of the Supervisory Board members to be elected by the AGM. Even in such a constellation, however, it remains the case that the respective term of office of the shareholder representatives on the Supervisory Board must not exceed 4 years in line with the expectations of institutional investors at our general provision in the Articles of Association. As the proposed term of office of around 3 years, first requires an amendment of the company's Articles of Association. My election so is subject to the condition precedent that the amendment of the Articles of Association to be resolved under agenda Item 8 becomes effective by entry in the commercial register. Ladies and gentlemen, I would now like to give the floor to the Executive Board for its comments on the annual financial statements 2022 and the business development of the company. Mr. Klebert will explain the key figures for the 2022 financial year and then focus on the near future. Mr. Klebert, the floor is yours.

Thank you very much Professor Kempf, dear shareholders, members of the Supervisory Board and colleagues. I would also like to warmly welcome you to the Annual General Meeting of GEA Group AG. It is a pleasure to have the opportunity to address you today. I will begin by taking stock of the previous fiscal year. After that, I will speak about what actually lies behind all those figures, the very essence of GEA, what's important to us. I would like to close by providing you with an overview of what we aim to accomplish this year. Once again, we meet during extraordinary times as we look back on a challenging year. Various closely intertwined crises have placed great demand on us, both as members of society and as a company. War has returned to Europe. The plight and suffering of those affected is unimaginable. And all of us are experiencing firsthand how fragile peace and stability can actually be. The world has changed at a dramatic pace. Geopolitical tensions have risen. Moreover, we felt the impact of rising inflation, the energy crunch in Europe as well as persistent supply chain challenges. This is what we felt. All of these developments weigh heavily on us. It was a year of turbulences. Much of what was once taken as a given has turned out to be less certain. And nobody is able to predict how things will continue to unfold. Despite all these adversities, GEA can look back on successful years. We continued to grow organically. All key performance indicators showed a positive trend. And in turn, this allowed us to extend our forecast for the previous year. And as an organization, we have demonstrated that we are both agile and resilient. As a case in point, let's take a look at how we handled inflation: All over the world, our teams fought hard to contain rising costs. Where these efforts fell short, we had to raise our prices. We were able to do so because our CREATE organization launched back in 2020, enabled us and our teams to become entrepreneurs, where we, well, are empowered to act quickly and with resolve. So what we need is good teams that work well together. This is exactly what we've got. And that is how we were able to stay the course and assert our strength in difficult times. This is also manifested in our financial results. Please take a look at the key financials for 2022. Our order intake went up by 8.7% to EUR 5.68 billion. At year-end, the backlog reached a level of EUR 3.19 billion, that is 14.6% up on the prior year figure. Revenue grew by 9.8% to EUR 5.16 billion, while organic sales were up 8.9%. This performance resulted in a 14% increase in EBITDA before restructuring expenses, which amounted to EUR 712 million. At 13.8%, our EBITDA margin reached its highest level since 2016. Similarly, our return on capital employed, ROCE, continued its upward journey to 31.8%. To sum up, GEA has delivered once again, despite all the difficulties and a challenging environment. And this gives us a sense of deep pride and my sincere thanks go to all our really highly motivated and reliable employees around the world. In fact, we also managed to overachieve all forecasts for 2022. This holds not only true for our full year guidance, which we raised in the wake of a strong third quarter, it also applies to our medium-term targets for 2022, which we communicated already in the 2019 at our Capital Markets Day. At that point, neither the pandemic nor the war in Ukraine were foreseeable. And yet, well, despite these two major disruptions, we came out on top. This attests to GEA's resilience, even when the going gets really tough. Our positive financial results are just one part of the picture. The other is our commitment to sustainability and climate action. What we accomplish in these areas will be vital to our long-term success. Once again, our unwavering commitment was repeatedly recognized in 2022. We are particularly proud of being included in the Dow Jones Sustainability Europe index. By the way, last year, we were the only newcomer from Germany in this particular index. Moreover, we also made it back to the CDPs A list for climate change. And we were once again awarded Gold by EcoVadis. This places us amongst the top 5% of all companies in the mechanical and plant engineering sector worldwide. And I'm very happy that GEA was one of the finalists for the 2022 German Sustainability Award. All of these, well, recognition illustrates the importance GEA attaches to sustainability. It gives us added motivation to press ahead with our efforts. I'll come back to that topic a bit later. But first of all, let's turn to you, dear shareholders. You will also benefit from our positive performance. We propose a dividend of EUR 0.95, again, another EUR 0.05 more than in the previous year. Here, you can see our dividend payout in recent years. The steady increases emphasize how much you, as shareholders, benefit from our positive trajectory. We successfully completed our EUR 300 million share buyback program. And GEA now holds 4.5% of the registered share capital. And this is yet another way in which we express our confidence in the future performance of our operations. Our average purchase price was EUR 36.83. Yesterday's closing price was EUR 43.05. Small wonder that Manager Magazin voted us Investor's Darling in 2022. This means a lot to us. It shows how far we have come and how much confidence the capital market currently places in GEA. We are very pleased with our performance in 2022. But what's behind all that, what exactly made GEA so special? First and foremost, our dedicated employees. Day in and day out, they demonstrate their impressive commitment to GEA. And this applies to every area of our company, from development and production to sales, service and administration. Without their pioneering spirit, innovation would be impossible. Without their motivation, we would not have satisfied customers. And without their drive, there would be no sustained success. Over the past year, they have once again performed exceptionally well under difficult circumstances, making our purpose "Engineering for a better world" come alive. For that, I would like to express my deep gratitude and great respect to our entire workforce. And the motivation -- well, there are good reasons for the motivation of our teams. Everybody working for us can use their abilities and skills to make a big difference and contribute to a better world. GEA offers fascinating jobs. We are an attractive employer. In 2022, we made further headway in this area. In Germany, which is home to 1/3 of our workforce, we were recognized as a top employer for our efforts. Our ambition is to be certified as a top employer in other countries, too. This is corroborated by the results of our annual employee survey. Once again, employee participation went up from 81% to 82%. And compared to last year, we were able to make improvements in all dimensions. And this makes me particularly happy. It shows that our workforce is confident that we are on the right track. To continue our growth, we want to attract additional qualified colleagues. For this reason, we will place greater emphasis on recruitment this year. We are honing our profile as a top employer to make us more widely known as key address for engineers, IT specialists and other sought-after experts. One of our greatest strengths is our focus on the selected key industries. It is instrumental in driving our stable growth. We generated close to 80% of our sales in 3 sectors: food, beverage and pharmaceuticals. These markets enjoy steady growth with little fluctuation. They are favored by global megatrends, notably the world's growing population and the expanding middle class in many countries across the globe. In addition, we develop solutions for industries that also align to our purpose of "Engineering for a better world." For instance, this includes plants for the production of lithium, which plays a crucial role in battery technologies. Or the carbon capture systems designed for the cement industry. In other words, we assist these industries in reducing their carbon footprint. Moreover, our customer base is highly diversified. There are companies whose sales depend on just a few major customers. GEA's situation is completely different. This makes us less dependent. It strengthens our negotiating position and affords us additional resilience. In short, we are a technology leader with many customers in steadily growing markets. These are optimum prerequisites for GEA's continued and robust development. And well, as long as people living, eating and drinking on this planet, our products will be in demand. But it is also our engineering heritage that makes us strong. It gives us an enormous edge in terms of knowledge and experience. Let's take a look back at the year 1893. Back then, the merchant Franz Ramesohl and his cabinetmaker Franz Schmidt started making milk centrifuges in the Westphalian town of Oelde. These simple, manually operated centrifuges helped separate milk from cream. This marked the birth of one of our most important businesses. Today, 130 years down the road, GEA is one of the leading manufacturers of high-performance separators and decanters. Our separation technology is used in many industries: from food and beverage to marine and energy, chemicals, pharmaceuticals and environmental engineering. What began in a rented barn has blossomed into GEA's largest global site. In Oelde, we employ around 1,900 dedicated employees, including 180 apprentices. They are working on a production floor of 37,000 square meters, which is equivalent to about 5 soccer fields. Exports account for around about 90% of sales. No doubt, the two courageous founders would be very proud of this success story. We, too, take pride in this anniversary. It inspires us to leave our mark by using our engineering skills and pioneering spirit to positively impact the world going forward, which is true to our purpose: "Engineering for a better world." Ladies and gentlemen, Oelde is not the only place where we boast top-notch production facilities. Indeed, our entire global production footprint is top of the line and we continue to optimize it. This is another one of GEA's strengths. We made major progress in 2022. Four of our production sites are already carbon neutral. And their production in other sites will follow suit one by one. The opening of our first factory of the future in Koszalin, Poland, marked a special highlight. We managed to complete this state-of-the-art production facility on time and on budget despite pandemic-related hurdles. In 2022, we also began planning our pharmaceutical technology center in Elsdorf, near Cologne, where we will make an investment of EUR 70 million. This landmark project will meet stringent criteria in terms of environmental protection and production efficiency. It will strengthen our production in the attractive pharma freeze-drying market. These and many other measures allow us to set standards for sustainability and excellence in manufacturing. Sustainability is very dear to our hearts and linked to our continued success. After all, an increasing number of customers attach great importance to doing business in a more environmentally and climate-friendly way. And to do this, they need the right partners. You're aware that GEA has set itself ambitious targets. One of them is to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2040. We are rapidly implementing the corresponding measures. Since last year , 100% of our energy has come from renewable sources. In fact, we are even producing more and more of it ourselves. For instance, with the solar panels installed at our plant in Suzhou in China, as shown in this picture. And we are consistently pushing sustainability and mobility -- sustainable mobility. In more and more countries, including Germany, GEA's executives can only use electric vehicles as company cars. We also show our commitment to sustainability by connecting ESG targets to Executive Board remuneration. On top of that, we strive for greater sustainability and procurement. In 2022, we tightened the requirements for our preferred suppliers. By 2026, they must fulfill clear criteria, which includes an assessment by the EcoVadis organization. They must set themselves an emissions target confirmed by the science-based target initiative. And going forward, we also expect them to provide us with emissions data for their products upon request. In addition, we mobilized our workforce through climate-related e-learnings and company-wide sustainability weeks in 2022. What we do is well received within the company. Once again, sustainability was the highest scoring dimension in our 2022 employee survey. To further step up the pace, we are massively bolstering our in-house sustainability team. We have created numerous new positions to achieve even greater impact, both internally and externally. Apart from that, Dr. Nadine Sterley, our Chief Sustainability Officer, was recently appointed a member of GEA's Global Executive Committee. This emphasizes the significance and importance GEA places on sustainable management and business contact. We believe that acting responsibly also means getting actively involved in society. Our social commitment is focused on four areas: first, the promotion of education, especially when it comes to STEM subjects that is science, technology, engineering and mathematics; second, combating child poverty; third, we support access to clean water, renewable energies and health care; and fourth, we engage in acute disaster relief, like the 2021 flood disaster along the Ahr River in Germany or the earthquake in Turkey. We get involved both financially and through the know-how of our employees. For instance, we intend to donate 1% of our net income each year. In 2022, we made significant donations to organizations like the German Red Cross for helping Ukraine; the BILD aid organization, A Heart for Children; and Viva con Agua, an organization promoting access to clean drinking water on a global level. We also want to promote volunteerism to benefit at least 100,000 people by 2026. For this purpose, we are actively encouraging our employees to volunteer beginning this year. All of them are entitled to one day of paid leave per year for their involvement. Together, we want to help those in need. And by contributing the skills of our workforce, we are hoping to drive positive change in society. Ladies and gentlemen, in the third part of my speech, I want to focus on our ambitions. So where are we headed right now? The cornerstone of all our ambitions is our Mission 26 growth strategy. Everything we achieved in 2022 is firmly linked to it. And at the same time, it is our road map to chart our future. I already outlined Mission 26 a year ago. Given its importance for the strategic direction of our company, I would like to highlight it once more at this particular juncture. Our medium-term financial targets are ambitious, but realistic. To achieve them, we focus on 7 levers: sustainability, innovation and digitalization, New Food, excellence initiatives in sales, service and operations as well as targeted acquisitions. To implement them, we have developed detailed plans for all our business units. We are monitoring progress on the basis of a multitude of measurable performance indicators. This was instrumental in accomplishing our impressive performance in 2022. Mission 26 helps us stay the course even in troubled waters. It enables us to focus on what is essential, particularly sustainability. In light of the high relevance of this topic, we designated 2023 as GEA's Year of Innovation in Sustainability. We want to decisively advance our sustainability and climate action agenda and accelerate the transformation of our industry. Key emphasis is put on the development and marketing of GEA solutions that are even more energy saving or resource efficient. Recently, we dedicated a full 2-day top management workshop to this topic. The aim was to come up with new ideas and discuss how we can move forward quickly. All business units have pledged to make tangible contributions in the months ahead. This will step up our pace of innovation. We are also calling on our employees to become actively involved. As I mentioned before, we are keen to further enhance our resource efficiency. Here, we can build on smart solutions that are already available on the market, setting new standards. Let me give you 2 examples. First, we have developed a technology that allows our customers to save water and energy when operating our separators. Our new water saving unit is compact, low maintenance and will pay off within a short period of time. This is because the cooling water of separators is no longer discharged, but reused. Existing plants can be easily retrofitted. Each unit enables customers to save around 1 million liters of fresh water per year, while consuming less energy. Second, I would like to draw your attention to our process solution called SEnS. SEnS is short for Sustainable Engineering Solutions. It represents our holistic approach to resource efficiency. After all, we achieved the greatest impact by designing plants in a holistic way. This means that we systematically integrate cooling and heating requirements in the process design, because this often accounts for a large proportion of total energy consumption. Smart design enables us to conserve and reuse a lot of energy and other resources. A case in point is food processing, where energy efficiency during production can be improved by up to 30% in this way. This is what SEnS is all about. As an engineer, I'm fascinated and motivated to see how much we can achieve by means of continuous optimization and sound planning. Our know-how enables our customers to significantly reduce their energy and water consumption as well as their carbon footprint. Against this backdrop, I'm excited to introduce Add Better to you today. Going forward, we will use this new green label to showcase products that are much more resource efficient than their predecessors. It's all about verifiable savings in energy, water, emissions or waste. It assists our customers in making the right choice, while underlining GEA's special commitment to sustainable solutions. Add Better will help customers make informed decisions in line with their ecological ambitions. To facilitate calculations, we've set up a transparent standardized process. Add Better is independently validated by TÜV Rheinland. This green label offers genuine added value for our customers. And for us, it marks an important step by sharpening our focus on sustainability criteria beginning at the product development phase. We are mainly operating in the food, beverage and pharmaceutical sectors, three energy-intensive industries where GEA technologies can make a big difference. But as I mentioned before, we are also able to support other high-emissions businesses on their journey to carbon neutral production. Take the cement or glass industries, for example. We've engineered a process that captures CO2 from production before it is released into the atmosphere. This helps make industrial processes more eco-friendly. There are interesting options allowing for a sustainable use of the captured carbon. It can be safely stored, for instance, in depleted oil or gas fields, an approach, which is referred to as carbon capture and storage, CCS. Or the captured carbon may be used as a raw material in industrial processes. This is known as carbon capture and utilization, CCU. Both options help reduce the carbon footprint of the industrial sector. We offer our customers flexible, small- to medium-sized CO2 capture plants. The pilot plant shown in this picture allows our experts to continuously advance the system in cooperation with our customers. Of course, carbon capture is just one lever in an overall system of climate-friendly management. But we are convinced that it will take us a long way towards a more sustainable future. Let's move on to digitalization. It is key to boosting sustainability. Even highly efficient plants like those supplied by GEA can be further optimized while in operation. This is where our digital services coming. We are gradually connecting our installed base to GEA Cloud. This allows us to keep track of their entire life cycle, while unlocking their full potential. We offer a range of intelligent solutions that improve the availability, productivity and sustainability of our plants and equipment. Among others, our digital services reduce unplanned machine downtime. We succeed in doing so by permanently monitoring the condition of the machines by means of artificial intelligence. Thanks to other digital products, we increase the productivity of our customers while simultaneously reducing the consumption of resources like energy, water and chemicals. In other words, GEA does not regard maximum productivity and sustainable production as mutually exclusive. Instead, our digital solutions help align them. Ultimately, this will benefit both the environment and business operations. For this reason, GEA Digital plays a pivotal role within our organization. Here, we have more than 200 experts from different areas jointly working on digital products and services. They develop digital innovations and integrate them into new business models. This allows us to unlock the opportunities of digitalization to advance greater sustainability, while giving GEA and our customers a lasting competitive edge. Another topic that deserves the spotlight is New Food. We use this term to describe foods made from alternative proteins, which are quickly gaining in popularity. They can be produced more sustainably than conventional meat or dairy products. As a result, they will play an important role in feeding a growing world population in the future. Already today, many consumers are open to New Food and willing to change their eating habits. As a global leader in the food and beverage sector, we are proud to be actively involved in driving this change. Our technologies and equipment are ideal for producing plant and cell-based proteins. Likewise, the promising field of precision fermentation provides us with many new opportunities. This is why we already have a leading role in the emerging New Food market. Very soon, we will build the world's first industrial scale production facility for cell-based meat. If you want to learn more about the potential of New Food and its capacity to sustainably feed the world, I invite you to familiarize yourself with our New Food franchise report. It provides detailed and multifaceted insights into the topic. The link is available on our website. By offering sustainable innovations, we also hope to drive progress in the field of farming and thus ensure increased animal welfare and environmental protection. Our battery-powered feeding robot is a case in point. It uses cutting-edge sensor technology to feed animals fully autonomously. It replaces the tractor, which was previously used to distribute the feed, allowing our customers to reduce their need for fossil fuels. At the same time, farmers can improve animal health and milk yield through a precise need-based feeding. Furthermore, the new generation of our automated milking system stands out for its enhanced level of sustainability. An independent test confirmed electricity savings of up to 37% and a reduction in water consumption of around 13%. Another innovation that saves resources while increasing cow productivity is GEA's DairyNet. That's the name of our digital system for herd and farm management. It allows users to keep permanent tabs on animal health and welfare. Necessary measures can, therefore, be taken without delay. This too is conducive to animal welfare. Moreover, I would also like to showcase GEA's manure enricher. This is a liquid manure processing plant that raises the bar when it comes to climate protection. We jointly developed the unit together with Norwegian, N2 Applied, an agritech company. Using plasma technology, the plant transforms liquid manure into environmentally-friendly fertilizer. This eliminates any bad odor and rids manure of methane, which is damaging to the climate. Crop yield also increases by up to 40%. Dear shareholders, each and every day, we are confronted with so many bad news that any good news seems to pale into insignificance. And yet, we do have good news: higher crop yields, greater animal welfare, more environmentally-friendly foods, carbon capture and the conservation of resources. We -- at GEA, this is what we are good at. Therefore, we look forward with determination and confidence. Despite political turmoil and economic challenges, we are well positioned for the future and ready to seize new opportunities. In particular, when it comes to making the shift towards sustainability -- increased sustainability. We understand that we have to act now quickly and with resolve. As engineers, we shoulder a special responsibility since we have the expertise to enable technological progress. We can make a real difference, especially now. And this is exactly what we do with passion. That is why we, at GEA, are leading the way. We are giving it all to help create a better world. Let's continue GEA's success story together. Thank you for your trust. And now I look forward to our dialogue.

Thank you very much, Mr. Klebert, for your comments. I would like to point out that the text version of the speech has already been posted on the company's website in advance. So ladies and gentlemen, before we move on to the other items on the agenda, I would first like to announce the current attendance. From the registered, nominal capital of the company in the amount of EUR 520, 375,766 divided into 180,492,172 no-par value shares; 126,130,078 shares with the same number of votes are represented at the Annual General Meeting. This corresponds to an attendance of 69.8% of the nominal capital. In addition, postal votes were received for EUR 11,753,105 no-par value shares. This corresponds to roughly 6.51% of the nominal capital. In addition, we have registered shareholders and all their proxies. They are represented with 6,870 no-par-value shares. They are electronically connected via the shareholder portal. And so far, they have neither cast postal votes nor instructed the company's proxies. In sum total, this corresponds to 137,890,053 no-par-value shares with the same number of votes, or with 76.4% of [ ret ] nominal capital. Just for your information, I would like to add that at 10:27, 42 shareholders or their representatives were electronically connected at the moment, 41 shareholders or their proxies have electronically joined us. So, so far, we had a total number of 43 shareholders or they representatives electronically connected. Ladies and gentlemen, before we now enter into the general debate, I would like to explain the items of the agenda in due brevity, number one. And Mr. Klebert has already talked in detail about the annual financial statements and business performance. The Annual General Meeting is not required to pass a resolution on this matter. Agenda item 2 concerns the appropriation of net retained profits. The Executive Board and the Supervisory Board propose the distribution of a dividend of EUR 0.95 per no-par-value share carrying a right to dividends. Then agenda item 3 concerns the resolution on the approval of the remuneration report. Agenda items 4 and 5 relate to the ratification of the acts of the members of the Executive Board and the Supervisory Board for fiscal year 2022. Subsequently, the appointment of the auditor is to be made under agenda item 6. Based on the recommendation of the Audit Committee, the Supervisory Board proposes that KPMG AG Wirtschaftsprüfungsgesellschaft Berlin be reappointed as auditors of the company and the group for fiscal year 2023. As already explained before, well, agenda item 7 relates to my election as a member of the Supervisory Board for a further 3-year period. In this context, as already explained, the term of office of Supervisory Board members is to be adjusted in the Articles of Association under Agenda item 8. Agenda item 9 concerns the resolution on the remuneration awarded to the Supervisory Board members and the proposal to amend the articles of association in this respect. Let me briefly delve into the subject in more detail. The level of remuneration paid to Supervisory Board members has remained unchanged since 2011. It no longer reflects the increased demand placed on Supervisory Board members in terms of time and the subject matters therewith. In order to continue to be in a position to attract one of our candidates to supervisory -- the Supervisory Board here in the future, the Supervisory Board has come to the conclusion that it should propose a moderate adjustment to the remuneration to the Annual General Meeting. In doing so, we assured ourselves of its appropriateness on the basis of a market comparison. In this context, the Supervisory Board also decided to recommend that its members enter into a voluntary commitment. Under this voluntary commitment, each Supervisory Board member is to use 25% of their Supervisory Board remuneration to purchase shares in the company in the first 4 years of membership or from the introduction of the voluntary commitment for the first time for the remuneration awarded for 2023, and to hold these shares for the duration of the Supervisory Board mandate. However, this shall only apply in so far as the Supervisory Board remuneration is not to be transferred to third parties, in particular, to satisfy the interest of the employee representatives. With this voluntary commitment, we aim to increase the commitment and the identification of the Supervisory Board members with the company and also send out a strong signal to investors. In the future, the number of shares held by the members will be reported in the remuneration report. Agenda item 10 finally concerns the authorization to hold virtual shareholders' meeting and the resolution on further amendments to the Articles of Association in this context. Let me also make a few comments on this particular point at this juncture as the format of the Annual General Meeting is, of course, of central importance to you as shareholders. Based on the fundamentally positive experience with holding virtual Annual General Meetings in recent years, the Executive Board and the Supervisory Board of GEA Group Aktiengesellschaft would also like to have the opportunity of holding virtual Annual General Meetings in the future. As already mentioned before, holding the virtual Annual General Meeting also offers advantages from the shareholders' perspective as it eliminates the cost and time associated with traveling to the venue of a physical Annual General Meeting. According to the legal conception, the physical general meeting and the virtual general meeting are absolutely equivalent formats. In particular, the rights of shareholders, unlike under the special legal provisions applicable during the COVID-19 pandemic, are fully safeguarded by direct interaction between shareholders and the management during the meeting via video communication and electronic communication channels. Each -- the Executive Board will again carefully consider which format for holding the Annual General Meeting seems appropriate under the given circumstances, that is taking into account what's the interest of the company and those of the shareholders. Against this backdrop, a proposal will be made to today's Annual General Meeting to grant the Executive Board authorization in the Articles of Association to convene virtual Annual General Meetings until the end of the August 31, 2025. With regard to the term of the proposed authorization, the Executive Board and the Supervisory Board are deliberately falling short of the maximum term of 5 years in order to convince shareholders in the coming years that there will be no restriction of shareholder rights, even if the virtual format is chosen. But that these shareholder rights can be exercised in an absolutely equivalent manner. Under agenda items 10.12 -- 10.2 and 10.3, two further amendments to the Articles of Association are proposed. They relate to the authorization to convene virtual shareholders' meetings and the new legal situation in this respect. On the one hand, these are regulations regarding the members of the Supervisory Board joining the meeting by means of video and audio transmission. And on the other hand, it is a clarification regarding the possible restriction also of the right to ask follow-up questions, which, however, does not mean a change of the current right of the Chairman of the meeting. On this occasion, the possibilities of the Chairman of the meeting to structure the debate in the Annual General Meeting were described in more detail for reasons of clarification. However, this does not entail any material change in the powers of the Chairman of the meeting. Under agenda item 11, the authorization to require and use treasury shares under exclusion of tender and subscription right is to be renewed. This is because the authorization granted at the 2018 Annual General Meeting has been partially utilized by the share buyback carried out by the company. Well, it has also expired in the meantime, if I may add. Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to ask you, even if you only wish to speak on individual agenda items, to do so as part of the discussion that is about to begin now. Please register your request to speak on the investor portal. As mentioned, you will then receive a prompt to join a virtual waiting room. You will be guided through the technical process by our staff. In the virtual waiting room, the first step is to check the functionality of the video communication. And once there's a functional check successfully completed, I will call you in due course and have you admitted to join the AGM for your speech. We will then collect your questions as usual and deal with them en bloc. Speaking times are not limited from the outset. However, I would like to ask all speakers to present their remarks in a manner that is as concentrated as possible and to speak on all agenda items in one go. For each speaker, the speaking time will be displayed on the investor portal for orientation purposes. I reserve the right to limit the time for speaking and asking questions to a reasonable amount if this appears necessary in the course of the debate. In addition, we speak only on items on the agenda. I will now call -- sorry, the speakers. When the speaker is called, I will already announce the next speakers, respectively. I will announce them so that they can prepare, so to speak. So the first speakers will be 3. I currently have 3 speakers on my left, Mr. Tüngler, Mrs. Suzanne Schmidt and Mr. Tassler. I would like to ask Mr. Tüngler to take the floor and make a start.

Hello, ladies and gentlemen. I do hope Professor Kempf that you can hear me well and all the others too. Wonderful. Thanks for the feedback. My name is Marc Tüngler. I am Managing Director of the DSW German Shareholders Associations. Then well, I'm not only the Managing Director of DSW, I'm a jury member of the Manager Magazin of, well, the Investors' Darling competition. I would like to especially congratulate you on your achievement that GEA has really made it upfront in the end. And well, Investors' Darling will -- you are not investors darling regarding the format of the AGM. Professor Kempf, you explain repeatedly why in your opinion and in the opinion of the company, the virtual format is the right one. I do not want to molest you with all the arguments, too -- well, in favor and against. But when I hear that 41 shareholders have joined us on the stream and that 41 shareholders attend the AGM, then well, on your behalf, I have to ask, what sense it makes. We have brought [indiscernible] AGMs, [indiscernible] ASF in the Rose Garden in person completely 4 whole several thousand shareholders present. Well, then how you will go down with your 41 meager number of shareholders. You need to ask yourselves the questions, you will get probably the authorization to organize your AGMs in the future too whether that lives up to GEA's, well, ambition. I don't know. I simply want to ask a question. You know the answer I would give, but you have to answer this question for yourselves. I do not want to go into all the arguments. You are well aware of these arguments. But the question is what role does an AGM play of 40 shareholders? And I don't want to, well, speculate about how many of them are internal staff, but think about what it actually means regarding an AGM. You are a great company and you've got great figures. And indeed, we've got a feeling that story continues. Just the opposite, you explained it today, Mr. Kempf that we have brought on the right part, the right products at the right time, and the world should know about it. And not only 40 people present here, and I would like to welcome you very warmly the 40 of you, thanking you for [indiscernible] questions, and I would be happy if you could answer my questions for the benefit of the shareholders that joined us in the stream when it goes forward because we have got a feel that there's much more in there as gear, our gear. So let me start by, well, a topic that really kept you busy, well the inflationary environment also hits you, but so far you've been able to increase prices. The question is, will it be possible in the future to hike prices? So how price sensitive are your customers? Will there be a moment that they are price sensitive or is it completely irrelevant in your sector, all the better? But for us, it's not so -- well, it's better for us, all the better. So some information, well, is requested. How can you keep materials prices? How can you pass these on? So and then what about your competitors on the horizon, whether they come from China or wherever, we've still got this -- well, the entry barriers. Are they still active or do you see various competitors at the -- well, on the horizon? You offer so many products. It's difficult to pick 1 or 2. But in principle, do you have a feeling that you are well fenced off? This is very important for the shareholders. And then what we also see, and this comes from the old time but you show it, it's restructuring expenses. In my opinion, that should change very soon. You still pose adjusted EBITDA. It's not necessary. The shareholders don't like it. And this is to continue until 2026 even. So please explain us what restructuring measures you've taken last year to give us more than a price but to give us the measures and which add to our problems are still there, so which just divide that by the end of 2026? We will see these figures. So the message is no adjusted figures anymore I asked the question. And then cash flow, well, there you actually see how difficult, how challenging our times are because, right there special rules apply and you, well, of course -- well, the solution. So what would be a normal value for cash flow? Just to remind us in the standard times, in normal times, cash flow would be x or whatever, and working capital would be at so and so much. Just elaborate a little bit on that. And there is one thing we actually see that's consumer behavior on the retail side that they just spend -- tend to dispense with well branded products and move on to the private labels of the discounters. So is there a difference between whether you produce a yogurt for a brand manufacturer like Danone or for a private label? We know it's the same lines they are built on or might it play a role sometime because these products from the discounters are lower. And is it of relevance to us if the retailers, whether the consumer shift to well more affordable food and move away from the branded products? Well, just give the answer. Well, and it would be great to have it known that it doesn't impact, an impact. And then a topic, another topic. What about the risk profile of the major projects in recent years? You said that you worked quite a lot in terms of risk management. How far have you progressed? Any gaps, any problems, which are still outstanding. This is important for the future. And we want to understand what has changed out here. I'm very pleasing and favorable indeed and we are happy about it. It's the service business that you do not allow us to hear too much that you keep the information close to the your chest. We understand the most important thing is that it works out. But what can we expect in the service sectors? There are several triggers, why it's working so good, it's about efficiency and volume, too. And maybe you could give us a general idea regarding this fun business and how much more fun we have to expect in the future. That new food, you mentioned it before, you said that we should then read a little bit, but maybe you can tell us today what potential you attribute to new food and -- to me, well, actually I'm a shareholder representative who is not that young anymore. It's a little strange to me what's happening there. So the question is what role are we going to play and what role is the topic of new food going to play a few figures, where will we be in 5 years' time? Yes, a vision, not a forecast. We are not going to take you at your word and say, well, you gave us this and this figures back in 2023, but a vision? What does it imply, new food? Then the dividend, well, the version you say, okay, you are gradually moving up. The performance you had last year would have justified and warranted a much higher dividend and you went away from earnings-based payout from -- I believe that it will be EUR 0.05 plus all the time. This makes it very tangible and calculable for us as shareholders. But the fun factor is lacking, so to speak. So a few sentences on the dividend and then share buyback program. I think you well repurchased shares in the amount of EUR 300 million. You said it was successful. You said, well, the prices with the current share price, but maybe, well, you could tell us more about how you measure the success of a share buyback program that the Anglo-Saxon investors demand and then say leave the dividend we only choose share buybacks. I'm aware of that. Everybody is. But how do you view the success and measure the success of the share buyback program unless, well, then you well purchased at a lower share price than the common share price. Now let's talk about the balance sheet before I go to an end. The balance sheet ratios are excellent, nearly too -- almost too good. So we might be afraid and say somebody comes along and well, makes demands that runs counter to your strategy and the solidity of our -- our balance sheet. You want to make acquisitions. Just give us an outline of an acquisition. How deep are your pockets, so to speak, to give us a feel regarding your view of leverage? It might come up too much money is not a good thing. Well, the Bundesbank -- well, the state banks could feel that. And well, so the question is what does it look like to you? Then the last topic, ESG, sustainability. We have well understood what you described to us and that you are out there in indices and that you are well at the very top of these indices and awards, which are then presented. The market sees that give us 3 tangible examples. You talked about it a little bit before, but give us 3 examples of how you internally at GEA view this topic on what measures you see, regard us particular lighthouse project, the carbon capture you mentioned before, but give us another 2 or 3 to make it more tangible to us. There's not only -- well, to give us the information that you are well then receiving rewards for what you do. I elaborated on the virtual AGM. I dispense with it now. I would like to thank you the -- part of the Executive Board, the Supervisory Board and in particular, the workforce who made sure that we had such an excellent result. We had dark times but they are far away they seem, and you make sure that we have this. And I conclude, and I'm happy I have to underline that hopefully, we will meet in person very soon so that I'm not only looking at my camera and see you visually, hoping that you can hear me at all. So thank you very much wherever you are, and I'm looking forward to your answers.

Thank you very much for this contribution. We would have loved to pass on the applause to our staff. That will mainly be done by my colleagues from the Executive Board, and we understood you very well. Unfortunately, I heard that there is a minor technical problem with the 2 additional speakers that have been announced, the lady and the gentleman who were announced that they have a request to speak. That has been verified. Okay. Thank you very much. I heard from the technicians that I can call up Mr. Schmidt. Mr. Schmidt, can you hear me all right? Then the floor is yours. I can see you. The floor is yours.

I hope you can hear me all right. Okay. My name is Susanne Schmidt. I'm from the Association of Severely Disabled, hard of hearing people. So thank you very much for saying that people with disabilities are also heard here. The sustainability target, 8.5, also aims at supporting people with disabilities to have barrier-free access to the labor market. That helps all our customers and business partners as well. My question number one is, what are the international standards that GEA has defined for barrier-free access of disabled people? Question number two, what are the international guidelines with DR to employ more people with disabilities in order to fend off the lack of skilled workers and in order to allow people with impediments or disabilities to be kept in the workforce despite increasing age?

Thank you very much indeed, Mrs. Schmidt, for your questions. Now I have to ask the technicians, have the technical difficulties been clarified? No, this is not the case. Dear shareholders, then I come back to my original suggestion to, let's say, interrupt the meeting for 10 minutes when we try to remedy the technical problems, and then we will answer the questions that have been asked up to now. I do hope that the technical problems will be resolved soon. And then we will also be able to hear Mr. Tassler. Now according to my watch, it's 11:20, I will interrupt the meeting and resume at 11:30. Thank you. [Break]

Dear shareholders, first of all, let me please explain why the break was longer than originally announced. During the break proper, we tried to directly contact the speakers who were in the pipeline to help them remedy their technical problems. We succeeded in doing so with one of them. In the second case, we are still making an effort. That's why I suggest that we proceed as follows. First of all, I will call up the shareholder whom I see myself and we have succeeded in connecting with him. Mr. Wolf, the floor is yours. After that, I will try to contact the other speaker. And shouldn't we be able to do so, we will have a second round. But first of all, Mr. Wolf.

Hello, Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, a warm welcome to all of you. I'm pleased that the company has been so well off during the last year despite all the difficulties, and that's why I would like to thank the Supervisory Board and the Executive Board. However, Mr. Chairman, and that also concerns your colleagues in the Executive Board, what has happened just now and the small number of participants in the virtual annual meeting is the best proof that this is not the ideal format for AGM of a listed company. Mr. Tüngler has said so quite rightly. And I assume that Mr. Tassler is going to say the same, but I will repeat it as well. First of all, I used the 10-minute break to once again read the agenda. And I have 3 small remarks and/or questions regarding the agenda. We already signed the acts of the members of the Executive Board and of the Supervisory Board together, but this is not a socialist association, ladies and gentlemen. For the future, I request that with GEA, like with many other companies, we individually ratify the acts of the members of the Executive Board and the Supervisory Board. Only then the shareholder, the owner of the company, can attribute personal responsibility to individuals. That was my first remark on items 4 or 5 on the agenda. So what else do I see here? Well, item 9, resolution on the remuneration awarded to the members of the Supervisory Board. Well, I think this is a rather strong increase. You could have done that in a more cautious manner. Maybe would be better to slightly increase the remuneration every 2 to 3 years instead of such a massive increase in one go. So there's room for improvement here. That leads me to my contribution proper. So I have to switch the windows here, that's another disadvantage when you have virtual AGMs. When I go to your rostrum with an attendance meeting, with the in-person meeting, I can just go and take the floor, but now I need my glasses. I have to switch back and forth. All of that is less than ideal. Now my remark regarding item 10 of the agenda, my protest against electronic AGMs. Ladies and gentlemen, shareholders, I urge all shareholders to vote no on agenda item 10 concerning amendments to the Articles of Association to enable virtual AGMs in the future. The path taken with the help of the corona hysteria to remove us, the shareholders, further and further from direct decision-making and control processes of our stock operations, ladies and gentlemen, that is the wrong path. It is only a convenient solution for our Board members and the Supervisory Board members where the shareholders, the owners, can no longer communicate directly with the management in person, eye-to-eye in the meeting room. The virtual AGM, on the other hand, is a pain for many shareholders. And I can see that myself. I'm 79 years old and then you have to fill in the voting on the agenda of the computer. Before that, you have to inform yourself in front of your computer screen, you have to read the annual report, the financial report and all the other documents. You have to do that in front of the computer on the screen. And for many aged persons, this is difficult to read. So the old paper format was much, much better. This is very cumbersome, isn't it? Have you downloaded all the documents for the AGM to read them, to study them so as to be able to write down remarks? I mean what waste of time, what a waste of paper. I think that the Investor Relations department, at the individual request of shareholders, should also make the individual documents available on paper. In Germany's neighboring countries, there has long since been a return to the AGM in person with additional electronic participation for shareholders who do not want to travel or who live abroad. Yesterday, I was with AB InBev, one of your customers, the big brewery company. There was not even a transmission broadcast on the web. Everything was like before. Shareholders were present. There were discussions. And the in-person AGM ended after 2 hours. Last Friday, I went to Rotterdam to another food company. Here again, it was also an AGM with attendance in person. So it's possible. Why is Germany opposed to the classical AGM? So dear co-shareholders, I would request you to vote no on agenda item 10. And by the way, let me tell the investor relations managers and the media representatives, if any are listening, please make this topic the main focus of this year's AGM. Otherwise, this virtual direct shareholder participation will have died out in a couple of years. And I will give this presentation at all the virtual AGMs that I will participate in this year, which are not few. So that was my point of criticism with regard to the tendency in Germany to just have virtual AGMs. The minimum for me is to keep the classical AGM. And for the benefit of young people and those who do not want to travel or who live abroad, to offer them an electronic broadcast in parallel. It's possible. Then there is a remark on item 11, the share buyback. In former time, I thought just like the Americans and the British and the investment fund managers and others that this is a good solution. But today, I no longer -- I'm no longer of this view. I think that the share buyback with few exceptions, maybe those shareholders who share -- who stay with the company have a detriment. This is detrimental to the shareholders. And I will shed -- say so although the Executive Board might say that this is good business. That would be wrong if tomorrow the shares would be brought back to the stock exchange. But when you do sell via several months, the stock price is declining. So this is just window dressing, Mr. Chair. During the 2022 share buyback, 5,829,827 shares were repurchased at a cost of EUR 207.3 million or EUR 36.55 per share. Thus converted to the remaining shareholders, this share buyback costs EUR 1.20 per share. If, on the other hand, the dividend has been increased to EUR 1.50, this would have cost only EUR 98 million more compared to EUR 207 million. Nevertheless, we would still have had more equity on the balance sheet than we do now. We would have received a much better dividend. And the balance sheet, we would have had more equity than after the share buyback. So can the CEO and the CFO -- can't these 2 gentlemen do math? Where did they study financial mathematics? So my question is, why is the Executive Board destroying equity at the expense of the remaining shareholders? I am fundamentally against share buybacks, as I said before, just to increase the statistical figure of earnings per share. That's the target of financial analysts, but not of shareholders. All of that is just window dressing, Mr. Klebert and Mr. Ketter. There's one case where I accept the share buyback. That would presently be with banks where the stock price is much below the inner value of the shares. This is where this makes sense. But in all the other cases, it doesn't make sense. So Mr. Chairman, these were my most fundamental remarks regarding this year's AGM. I wish all of you a good continued AGM. And I wish the company, the Executive Board and the staff that this year, we will continue to do good business and do good work. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.

Mr. Wolf, thank you very much for your contribution. Thank you very much for these good wishes which we will pass on. Let me immediately ask -- or answer your request to not do the share buyback. We have taken note of your considerations, and we will integrate that into our further deliberations. That's what I can tell you already now. Now my question to the technicians, have we succeeded in solving the technical problems with the next speaker who wants to take the floor? Up to now, this is not possible, right. Ladies and gentlemen, so then let's start the round of answers. Now it's possible. Okay, then let's include the next speaker in our amount of questions. Mr. Tassler, can you see me? Can you hear me, Mr. Tassler? And I would like to give the floor to you.

Good morning, Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, shareholders, I have to start with something, which is not nice. We had some technical problems. And for 2 hours now, I have been trying to dial in. And up to now, I have not been able to participate in the first part of the AGM. This is regrettable. In order to render this virtual -- this type of virtual AGM more effective. But now let me ask my questions. My name is Dieter Tassler. I'm the spokesman for the German Association for the Protection of Investors, SKD. Let me start on a positive note. Out of 2 in-person AGMs last year, I can say that never before have I found such a willingness at all the levels to talk. Shareholders have the need to exchange in personal talks to talk to the Executive Board and the Supervisory Board, as I see fit, and I know about from many Executive Board members that they were not happy to look into the camera. But to handle us, somebody who just has to hand in questions, that's not -- no fun. Now talking about the GEA AGM. You have decided to have a virtual meeting once again. Shareholders and shareholder representatives may use technical means to participate in the AGM. Does that constitute progress? I don't think so. We are of the opinion that shareholders entrust the company with their money and they have the right to participate in an active exchange of ideas. And I urgently request you to have an in-person AGM next year. The management of SDK is considering in the case of your having a virtual AGM not to ratify the actions of the Executive Board. Open communication is a decision-making criterion for a share purchase. I have jotted down a few questions. I handed them in before in order to get efficient answers. In the annual report, you have clearly positive figures, balance sheet, order intake plus aiming for organic revenue growth of 4% to 6%. So the most important KPIs are developing in a very positive manner. That's what you write in your annual report. We can subscribe to that. We hear news that you didn't have any delivery bottlenecks, and were able to pass on cost increases. So the question for us is what's next? What are the growth targets that GEA is aiming for? Which segment areas have priority in terms of growth? Were there significant reasons for the EBIT margin declines of just under 1% in the following areas: Farm technology. What does GEA have in store for the newer market needs such as vegetarian nutrition or insect nutrition? Now regarding the segments, what were the 2 significant product innovations in each of GEA's 5 segment areas? Mission 26. You announced it last year, if I remember correctly. What is the status of the Mission 26 project? What does the use of newer economical components mean? Do we expect to replace individual components in the market? Or is it more likely to result in purchases of new equipment? What does the R strategy mean? How do we proceed with the [ transcouting ] process search, evaluate, observe? What solutions does GEA support in the area of CO2 capture? Where do you see the main areas of application in the field of CO2? Now regarding the auditors, what did the audited other services amounting to EUR 325,000 include? What is behind it? And finally, a question regarding the outlook. What is the outlook for 2023 in terms of order intake, revenue and of course, annual results? That it as far as my questions are concerned. I ask for your answers. And I would also like to thank you. In particular, I would like to thank the staff of GEA Group for their hard work that they've done. And I wish the company every success for the imminent tasks. And having said so, I would like to give the floor back to the chairperson. Thank you very much.

Mr. Tassler, thank you very much for your contribution. And just to be on the safe side, let me underline that the live stream of this AGM is also available in addition to the access -- well to the investor by the investor portal. So you can follow the proceedings live on the AGM. So it's a contradiction in such for those who heard this, well, they are quite obviously somewhere on the live stream or the investor portal. So at the moment, I do not have any further requests for the floor. And so I propose that we start with answering the questions posted so far. I give the floor to Mr. Klebert, and we will address the questions, hopefully -- well fully and satisfactorily. So Mr. Klebert.

Thank you very much, Mr. Professor Kempf. I start with Mr. Tüngler's question regarding GEA's vision well -- well, what happens regarding the virtual AGM, whether we only want to conduct one with only 41 shareholders and the role it plays. So in principle, what is they use when there are only 41 well shareholders. So we did not take decision lightly this year to have a virtual AGM. We discussed many points, and we are convinced that this year, at least, the virtual AGM is the right format. What was decisive, right, in here was that, well, the legislation for the AGM season 2023 didn't restrict shareholders rights in any way compared with a physical AGM. And that is different from virtual AGMs back in 2020 and 2021 under COVID legislation. So which format we will choose next year is something we will then decide in due course based on the experiences gained this year and then we will take the corresponding decision. So the next question proposed by Mr. Tüngler was well, do you see new competitors on the horizon. Maybe also from China? Is the ring fence you have though still active? Or do you have feeling that our well fencing off system is intact? We do not see any major dangerous competitors on the horizon, at least none who could pose a substantial danger to us. We benefit from high entry barriers in our market. So potential new competitors don't find it easy to have engineering product innovation or well experience and know-how of something we've had for decades and which we can build upon. So it's more difficult for them. Now I will continue with another question. Well, inflation. It's also impacting you. So far, you've been able to increase prices? Will you continue hiking these prices? How price sensitive are your customers? Will there be a point where they are price sensitive? Or is it completely irrelevant? In your sector, we also expect in 2023 that energy and materials costs will keep increasing, and we also anticipate rising wages and salaries, which together will add up to more than EUR 200 million. And this year, we are also confident that these cost increases can be compensated by our own price spikes just as we managed to do in 2022. Then a question by Mr. Tüngler, the increased prices of material and well personnel, can you pass these price hikes on? As mentioned before, the price increases was something we could enforce and do so successfully. And this is how we managed in 2022 to retain and even improve the margins. Then another question by Mr. Tüngler as well, our service area, well, involves very nicely and encouraging resellers, the development of the service area over the last few years where we can expect there are triggers like efficiency and volume, will make it more tangible to us, how much fun are we going to have with the service sector in the future? Well, the service business at GEA is a very important business indeed. And like with all the mechanical engineering companies, it's well above average in terms of profitability in recent years. We have been able to continuously rise this figure from a 33.6% share in 2020 to 34.2% in 2021. And now we have reached a proportion of 32.9% in 2022. Well, this doesn't, well, come without work. As part of our mission, 2026, we have defined the service business as one of our key levers, the 7 key levers. As we said, by 2026 we would like to see a service business that shows a 5% to 6% organic growth every year. And so by 2026, we would have reached a 36% share. And well, a part of this business will also be driven by recurring sales, service contracts in connection with newly installed machines but also digital offerings and the important spare parts business, which continues to be important. Then another question, well, the change of consumer behavior from branded products to private labels of discounters. Does it have an impact? Is there a difference whether a yogurt is produced for a branded manufacturer for a private label? Is it a relevance to GEA if consumers resort to more affordable products instead of the branded, well, products? What you mentioned is down trading and doesn't really concern us, and we're happy about that because even in an environment of prices we experienced over the past 3 years and still experience even in this environment, people have to eat and to drink. And indeed, people switch to more affordable products or to private labels. But these products are also manufactured on our machines, partly on the same machines and by the same manufacturers. And for this particular reason, it's not a disadvantage to us, just the opposite. The more consumers refer to processed foods instead of fresh product, the better for GEA because to that particular purpose, industrial technology in the food sector is required. Then further question, Mr. Tüngler refers to the new food and the potential is something he's very happy about. Please give us a vision, not a forecast but we could then well -- nail you with over the next 5 years, what can we expect? What does our success depend on? What potential do we see? Which role will be at play? In my speech, I partly covered this area already, and you are addressing a highly interesting, very important topic, Mr. Tüngler, because when we take the carbon reduction more seriously, then we will not be able to exclusively feed the growing world population with animal based protein. And for this reason, we are convinced that new food is a good sector. We are well positioned in there. We've got machines and plants for plant-based, insect-based and cell-based proteins. And in particular, when we talk about cell-based proteins, we see huge potential growth in the future. And overall, we expect our new food business to generate order intake of more than EUR 400 million in 2026. And going forward in 10 years time, maybe that would be in 2033, the market will certainly be significantly larger than now. Then next question posed by Mr. [ Tundler ]. The major project risk profile, you said over the previous years you will work on the -- worked on risk management. How much headway have you made? Are there still risks and problems? From today's point of view, we see a lot less risks in the project business, and this is mirrored by our LPT area. We are much better here than 4 or 5 years ago. When we look at our projects, in particular, this is due to newly structured project management, clear responsibilities and project management under control, but it starts with the acquisition of the project. In the past, we mainly have volume as a focus. We in sales, also, well, on the project margin or payment terms. Next question. Here in Europe, everything seems to align with the topics of ESG and sustainability. You said a few things about that, but please give us 3 examples or a lighthouse project in addition to carbon sequestration, telling us why GEA is already sustainably positioned for its own benefit, but also for the benefit of the customers on the product side when it comes to sustainability. And what we can expect even more? How does GEA view sustainability internally? It's wonderful to answer this question. Sustainability is a top priority for us, and I think my speech clearly highlighted this factor. It's not only 1 of the 7 important levers in our Mission 26, but the conviction that we are doing the right thing can be felt throughout the entire company. So the switch to sustainable mobility is in full swing in more and more countries, including Germany. All new vehicles for GEA executives must be 100% electric. In Poland, in Koszalin, we commissioned our climate unit for a factory which has got photovoltaics and CHP plants, LED lighting as well, is completely CO2 neutral in terms of operations, then low emission glassing is another buzzword. And the next factory is being planned in [ Esswald ] near Cologne to optimally support our customers. We also have given more pace to the innovation speed. We are focusing on more and more energy-efficient products like AddCool heat pump technology, where -- which we link up with our spray dryer. In this way, we can reduce energy consumption by 50%. Spray dryers need plenty of energy for turning milk into powder. And there are many more examples as to what we do in terms of sustainability. We are leading the way. We have set ourselves ambitious targets, and we are all also consistently working on making progress. And this is why in 2023 is a year we turned into the year of sustainability. And, well, we have a year of innovation and sustainability and we'll introduce a green label highlighting significantly more resource-efficient GEA products and let's call it out, [ better than everyone else ]. Now let's turn to the question posed by [ Mrs. Schmidt ]. Which international standards will GEA define worldwide in terms of [ value ] free access when there's new buildings and larger buildings? GEA has got meeting rooms, access so that, well, there are -- whenever we have got people with disabilities, they enjoy workplaces in line with legal provisions. This also includes state-of-the-art technology and all available public funding means are taken into consideration. So the workplace for a person with disability, not be barrier -- have barrier-free access there. GEA will immediately ensure barrier freedom and then, if necessary, in cooperation with the inclusion committee. This also refers to workflows, where should we find that it would be disproportionally expensive under both lots of work, at the end of the day, the not implementation reasons would be given to the inclusion committee, and the committee is included in the selection of means of work if we have people with disabilities. When we procure means of our work, we always initial barrier [ forever ] and access of freedoms, and our employees are also trained in this. So should means of work not be able to be used barrier-free, the countermeasures will be taken, and it will all be documented. Group inclusion agreement will probably be resolved on the meeting of the group. Well, the -- [indiscernible] works account us all and further measures are being checked. And then which international guidelines do we have at GEA group to employ more people with disabilities? And I believe that it's about combating the skill shortage and to employ and retain older and [ they deal this ] by health problems. Is there going to be a group inclusion agreement? So probably will be decided on. The group [ has got a ] meeting in summer, and then we will also spread it to other countries when the point will be settled. And now I come back to Mr. [ Tundler's ] questions that you want to, well, acquire. So what does an acquisition look like, the framework? How deep are your pockets? What about leverage? Well, we are continuously checking the market environment, and we are investing time. We follow attractive potential of acquisition which are in harmony with our Mission 26 program. We aim at investing in profitable growth areas, and we are consistently aligning our activities with Mission 26. So we focused on the strategic core markets in food, beverage and pharmaceuticals. And it's correct, GEA has got a strong track record. And in the future, the focus will be on medium-sized and larger companies, while in the past, we mostly acquired small companies. And GEA has got a net position as of the 31st of December '22 of EUR 346 million. The driver in particular is very -- the excellent liquidity position of about EUR 790 million. And then the low leverage of GEA gives us a lot of financial leeway regarding external financing. And then another instrument for financing acquisitions are the 8.1 million shares we hold. They can also be made available for this particular purpose. Now let's turn into another question by Mr. [ Wolff ], a comment on agenda item 10. That's the protest against organizing virtual AGMs is that we shareholders, we are -- that is the wrong [ park ]. The shareholders cannot meet at the year -- members of the Executive Board, eye to eye. I, myself, I'm 79 years old. I have to obtain information on the annual report on the computer. For all the elderly, this is very difficult. Time which is consumed is too high. And when you print out the papers, it's all -- it's asking too much of the shareholders. If the shareholders request, the documents should be made available in the printed version. So why does Germany come out against the classic form of an AGM? My request to the shareholders is, please, say no to the proposal under agenda item 10. I call upon the media to critically accompany this development, that think of the old people here. I initially answered the question that we haven't taken this decision lightly, and we did so after plenty of consideration. And this meeting, this AGM includes all shareholder rights just, well, equivalent to the past and the corona restrictions are no longer existence. And nonetheless, I told you, too, we are going to observe what's happening also with regard to other companies, and then we will take the decisions accordingly for the coming years. And now Mr. [ Tussler's ] question, all essential KPIs are clearly positive in 2022. The shareholders, they are happy to hear that there were no delivery supply bottlenecks and the prices could be passed on. What lies ahead? My answer to the question is we are moving upward, Mr. [ Tussler ]. This is our clear endeavor in terms of sales. The profit and the margin, this is based on the Mission 26 presented in November 2021. Next question by Mr. [ Tussler ], what growth targets is GEA aiming for? We are aiming for organic revenue growth of 46% for the year until 2026. And for the current fiscal year 2023, we expect organic revenue growth of more than 5%. So the question by Mr. [ Tussler ], what were the most important product innovations in the 5 GEA segment areas? All of our 5 GEA divisions launched new innovations in 2022 to live up to our motto, engineering for a better world. So in the Farm Technologies division, for example, we introduced a feeding robot and the DairyNet herd and farm management system. I mentioned both in my speech, and both make farmers' work considerably easier through automation and digitization. In the area of heating and refrigeration technology, we significantly increased the performance of our heat pumps by introducing our 63 bars [indiscernible] compressors, thus setting a further milestone for sustainable heating solutions. It's another milestone. Our heat pumps are also used in the Liquid & Powder Technologies division to reduce energy consumption by up to 50% in spray drying systems. I already referred to that. We refer to this process as AddCool. The second innovation in the LPT division is the AromaPlus PRO process. This newly developed method enables significant water savings to be achieved in the dealcoholization of beer using membrane technology. In the area of Separation & Flow Technologies, we launched our kytero disposable disk separator. In particular, in the pharmaceutical industry, the kytero achieved significantly higher efficiency thanks to higher clarification performance with a smaller filter area and less labor and material input. And in addition, we significantly expanded our range of hygienic valves in the valves and pumps business to tap new market segments. And last but not least, in the Food & Healthcare Technologies division, we reached a first milestone in the sustainable production of baked goods for our customers by introducing electric ovens in order to produce in a more sustainable way, and in order to help our customers save energy. Another example is the Oxy LeakCheck to significantly increase food safety with an automatic detection system for measuring oxygen content and checking the seal in packaged cheese or sausage that you find in the cooling shelves in the supermarket. A question by Mr. [ Tussler ]. I urgently request you for next year to have an in-person meeting. Well, they are considering to not ratify the action of the Executive Board. Open communication is a decision-making criteria for share purchase. I explained several times that we haven't taken this decision lightly. We weighed the pros and cons. And I also mentioned that after having gained experience here at this AGM, we will consider how to proceed in the future. Another question by Mr. [ Tussler ]. What is the status of the Mission 26 project? The implementation of Mission 26 is going as planned. At this point in time, we are still within the target corridor with respect to all 7 pillars of Mission 26. We track the progress of strategy implementation on a quarterly basis in the Group Executive Committee using a set of defined KPIs. Mr. [ Tussler ] asked, which segment areas have priority when it comes to growth? Due to the balance of our portfolio, we expect organic sales growth in the mid-single-digit percentage range for all of our 5 divisions by 2026 as part of Mission 26. For 2023, we expect organic growth of more than 5% for our Separation & Flow Technologies, Liquid & Power Technologies and Heating & Refrigeration Technologies, while we expect organic sales growth of up to 5% for Food & Healthcare Technologies and Farm Technologies. Mr. [ Tussler ] asked, what does the use of newer economical components mean? Selling resource-efficient components such as pumps, valves or compressors is in line with our purpose, engineering for a better world. It pays into our vision that we protect future generations with our sustainable solutions for the food and pharmaceutical industries. For our customers, more economical components mean valuable efficiency gains and at the same time, improved sustainability performance in the use phase of our solutions. Further question by Mr. [ Tussler ], do we expect to replace individual components in the market? Or is it more likely to result in purchases of new equipment? That also touches upon the question of sustainability. Whether an individual component is replaced or an entire new system is purchased requires a case-by-case analysis. In the end, however, it is the customer alone who decides. In general, however, it can be said that efficiency gains are most likely to be achieved by using sustainable overall solutions. For example, and to put it simply, replacing greenhouse gas-intensive steam with renewable energies in food production requires the replacement of an entire process. In contrast, more efficient switching operations can be achieved by simply replacing individual valve heads. Here we make its contribution to the introduction of a circular economy, step by step. We are already investigating modular design concepts that enable component replacement and also consider the secondary recycling of replaced modules. Next question by Mr. [ Tussler ], what does the R strategy mean? With the R strategy, GEA has operationalized the introduction of a circular economy in the spare parts business. The 5 Rs mean reduce, reuse, repair, remanufacture and recycle. The definitional framework for the 5 Rs to be applied was developed which is used both for service parts already in existence today and for the design of new parts, since the foundations of circularity must be layed as early as in the development phase. Examples include extended repair capability of separator [ nozzle ] and the [indiscernible] as well as the holistic service concept of the marine separator. Our goal is to fully introduce the R strategy in the service parts business by 2026. The transformation process is therefore supported by a system of KPIs that requires at least 3 ecological and 1 economic indicator for each R selected. Ecological criteria include energy, water and material consumption as well as greenhouse gas emissions. On the economic side, typical financial indicators such as sales, margin or costs are used. Thus ecological and the economic impact and thus the success of the chosen R can be measured directly. Further question by Mr. [ Tussler ], what does GEA have in store for the new market needs? In terms of vegetarian nutrition and insect nutrition, as a full range supplier, we offer almost the entire range of technologies and processes to meet market's demand for vegetarian products, alternative proteins and new foods. This includes technologies and processes for plant-based beverages as well as plant-based foods and ingredients or additives, but also process technologies and process know-how for precision fermented and cell-based foods. We support our customers such as start-ups, ingredient suppliers and food manufacturers on their personal journey by developing customized solutions for new food applications and helping customers scale their processes. Insect nutrition is also part of GEA's alternative protein business, which we can cover with our specialized technology and process offering. Another question by Mr. [ Tussler ], what is GEA -- how does they proceed in the trend scouting process, search, evaluate, observe? We have an established scouting process at GEA to identify market trends at an early stage. Our process starts with the identification of market and technology developments. To do this, we look at various trend sources and collect background information. We consolidate this information on a dedicated platform. And in the second step, GEA division experts evaluate the maturity and probability of occurrence of the trends as well as the impact on GEA's business areas. We follow up on promising trends and also identify potential competitors and business opportunities for GEA in this context. Another question by Mr. [ Tussler ]. What solutions does GEA support in the area of CO2 capture? Currently, we are using CO2 recovery in breweries, among others, to capture the excess CO2 from beer fermentation and use it for carbonated soft drinks. As I already mentioned in my speech, there are other interesting possibilities for the capture of CO2. On the one hand, it can be stored safely, for example, in this used oil or natural gas reservoirs. That's the approach known as carbon capture and storage, CCS. On the other hand, the captured CO2 can also be used as a raw material in industrial processes. This is known as carbon capture utilization, CCU. Those contribute to reducing the CO2 footprint of industry. We offer our customers flexible small- to medium-sized CO2 capture plants. Another question by Mr. [ Tussler ]. Where do you see the main areas of application in the field of CO2? Well, the primary objective is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions globally in order to limit global warming to 1.5 degree Celsius in accordance with the Paris Climate Agreement. We can and will provide the necessary technologies to achieve this. Among other things, this is possible thanks to our equipment in the field of heat pumps and heat recovery. At the same time, we also see that as our responsibility to minimize greenhouse gas emissions, both in our area of responsibility and in our upstream and downstream value chain. To this end, we are already engaged in intensive exchange with our suppliers, but also with our customers through various initiatives in order to constantly adapt our range of products and services to changing needs. Another question by Mr. [ Tussler ]. What is the outlook for 2023 in terms of order intake, revenue and your results? Where are we heading? Well, for fiscal 2023, we expect organic growth in sales of more than 5%. We do not give guidance on order intake for the full year, but we said on March 7 that we again expect order intake of more than EUR 1.5 billion in the first quarter this year. For EBITDA before restructuring expenses, we expect a figure of between EUR 730 million and EUR 790 million at constant exchange rates. This represents a significant increase on the comparable figure of EUR 691 million in 2020. At the same time, we are aiming for an EBITDA margin before restructuring expense of more than 13.8%, the figure of last year. I would now like to give the floor to my colleague, Marcus Ketter, to answer further questions.

Thank you very much. Question by [ Mark Tundler ], there are restructuring expenses that continue to be a new [ post to ] adjusted EBITDA, and this is to continue until 2026 but actually, and this is my message, it shouldn't be the case anymore. Please explain to us which restructuring measures you have conducted in the past year and which other areas are still up, and give us a price adjustment. Well, in 2022, the EBITDA before restructuring has got an amount of EUR [ 558 ] million. These restructuring expenses are in connection with the optimization of the manufacturing footprint, the strategic orientation of the business restructuring of the Russia business, and the announced and partly implemented portfolio pruning. And then another question for [ Mark Tundler ]. When we look at the cash flow situation and, in particular, working capital, it reflects the particular environment we have, which are the values which are normal with cash flow and, in particular, with regard to working capital. And what we had last year was a net working capital to sales ratio of 6.1%. That was a little bit higher than the 5.1% at the end of 2021. And we have issued a guidance where we say net working capital to sales should be between 8% and 10%, and this is why we are below this particular range and we plan to keep it below. And if we manage to do so, we will also reduce the range. Nonetheless, this range is retained due to the fact that we see that there are still supply chain problems out there and there might be a need for higher level of inventories. And then the normal position of cash flow, this is where we had a guidance that we have between 55% and 65% of our EBITDA as a cash flow. This is our target level, and in 2023, we were a little bit lower, 47%, but we can see that this year, we are back to the 55% to 65% of EBITDA. We see that we can make it and achieve this level, and it should correspond to a free cash flow of EUR 350 million to EUR 400 million. And then another question by [ Mark Tundler ] is here in front of me. You moved away from an earnings-based dividend, what's going to happen in the future? Our dividend policy says that the payout ratio should be around 50% of net income before restructuring expenses. In addition, each year, we aim to payout additional $0.05 per share compared to the prior year for sort of attractive dividend policy. So in the interest of continuously rising dividend, we decided to propose EUR 0.95 per share for 2022. This continuous increase by $0.05 is something we would like to retain in the coming years, underlining that our business model is resilient and is subject to further growth. Then the next question is also asked by [ Mark Tundler ]. How do you actually measure the success of a share buyback program? It's always difficult to say because there are various factors influencing it, supply/demand in the equity market and the share price is not only a development based on the share buyback program, but supply/demand and mainly based on the performance of your own company. And what we see, however, is that the share price is, well, a 17% over the average price of the shares that we purchased that was -- the average price was 36.83. So this is something -- the excellent performance of our company has resulted in our share price continuing even further than this average price. Then the next question comes from [ Dieter Tussler ]. There are significant reasons for the EBIT margin decline of just under 1% in the field of Farm Technologies. And, well, the decline by 0.2 percentage points is also due to the service margin, which has come under pressure, in particular in the hygiene field. Inflation-related high material costs in Q1 2022 could not be passed on immediately. And a lower margin in the new machine business, particularly in the second half of 2022, was due to the Russia business as well as global problems in logistics and shortages in the necessary materials. Then I've got another question by [ Dieter Tussler ]. What were included in other services by the auditor in the amount of EUR 325,000. This was mainly due to project accompanying audits in connection with the SAPS for [ honor ] introduction. So those were the questions I want to answer. I do have one open question by Mr. [ Wolff ], and Mr. [ Wolff ] said, I believe that a share buyback programs with few exceptions, then, well, were harmful to our current shareholders. So why does the Executive Board destroy equity to the detriment of shareholders? Clear answer, due to the share buyback, the remaining shareholders profit. They benefit because the repurchased shares, which do not have the right to dividends or to cost [ moats ], and the value of the share increases. No capital was destroyed. The average price was EUR 36. Currently, it's a share price of 43. Shares -- and all the repurchase shares are treasury shares that they haven't been canceled, and GEA's Executive Board is then convinced of the further positive performance of the shares in terms of performance. All questions are answered on the part of the Executive Board. And there is one I would like to pass on to the Chairman of our Supervisory Board, Mr. Kempf.

Well, there is one question addressed to me which hasn't been answered yet. And it's a question by Mr. [ Wolff ] regarding agenda item 9, resolution on the remuneration of the Supervisory Board members. And I quote, "I believe that this is a hefty increase and that could have been done more [indiscernible], and I prefer to have a slight increase every 2 to 3 years instead of a massive increase. I see room for improvement." And so this is the end of the quote. Well, the answer, Mr. [ Wolff ], the level, the remuneration of the Supervisory Board members, I mentioned that has been changed since 2011. And of course, this is not a reason for the increase -- the actual increase that was made. Apart from that, we also based it on a comparison with what is in line with the market for remuneration paid in an MDAX company. And we also use the changing framework conditions of Supervisory Board and Supervisory Board Committee work, and has implied, based on a legal changes, call for a governance index. And this mirrors significantly increased responsibilities and increase in the oversight and advisory activities of the Supervisory Board members. And based on this, we tried to come up with an adequate proposition. And the -- as a result, the Supervisory Board remuneration of GEA was then compared to the MDAX companies. And we were -- those comparable in the MDAX is something we used as a benchmark, and we align that with average pay of MDAX companies. And we believe that it's in line with the market and competitive this way and that the proposal put forward to you implies that it's a moderate increase. Of the way you said, well, it was -- even though it was a massive increase as you formulated it, please consider that the last rise dated back to 2011. So as far as I can see, all questions have been answered, and at the moment, I haven't received any further requests for the floor. So I ask whether there are any further shareholders or shareholder representatives out there who would like to take the floor. And ladies and gentlemen who during the discussion have taken the floor, I would like to ask them explicitly whether in their opinion, the questions posed by them have been sufficiently answered or whether you have still got question or a part of the questions have not been answered. I give everybody 2 minutes to move to the InvestorPortal and lodge a request to speak. If you think that your questions have been sufficiently answered or incompletely answered, please state so. If there are any further shareholder representatives who would like to take the floor and ask questions, please feel free to do so. And so at 12:45, I would continue the meeting and adjourn until then

Ladies and gentlemen, I have no further requests to speak. I note that all questions have been answered in full. I would like to ask the notary to put this on record, and I hereby close the general debate. Simultaneously, this means that Item 1 of the agenda has been dealt with, namely that the -- and your financial statements and the approved consolidated financial statements of the group management report, combined with the management report of GEA Group Aktiengesellschaft, have been taken note of. Ladies and gentlemen, we now proceed to vote on the proposed resolutions on our agenda. As already explained, no resolution is passed on agenda item 1. With the exception of the resolution on agenda item 11, all resolutions on today's agenda will be adopted by a simple majority of the votes cast or the share capital represented at the time the resolution is adopted. Only the resolution on the acquisition and use of treasury stock under agenda item 11 requires, in addition to the simple majority of votes, a 3/4 majority of the share capital represented when the resolution is adopted because it includes the authorization to exclude shareholder subscription rights. Votes may, if not already cast, be cast via the InvestorPortal, by postal vote, or by issuing instructions to the proxies of the company. I would shortly announce the exact times after which votes can still be cast, changed or revoked. Voting is carried out according to the beforementioned additional accumulation procedure. That means only the yes votes and the no votes are counted. Shareholders and shareholder representatives who wish to vote in favor of a proposed resolution, that is with a yes vote, must either click on yes under the menu item company proxies or under the menu item post the vote for the respective agenda item. Shareholders and charter representatives who wish to vote against the proposed resolution, that is with no, must click no under the relevant menu item for the respective agenda item. Shareholders who wish to abstain from voting need not do anything. We will now proceed to the vote on agenda items 2 to 11. The text of the proposed resolutions was published in the Federal Gazette on March 14, 2023. I will, therefore, confine myself to presenting the individual points to you by reading out the relevant heading. These proposed resolutions will be put to the vote in exactly the same way as they were published in the Federal German Gazette. We will start with item 2 on the agenda, appropriation of net retained earnings. The Executive Board and the Supervisory Board propose that the net retained profits of GEA Group Aktiengesellschaft for fiscal year 2022 amounting to EUR 164,753,585 be appropriated as follows: EUR 163,714,522.20 shall be used to distribute a dividend of 95% per no par value share entitled to a dividend, and EUR 1,039,063.32 shall be used as profit carried forward. The number of treasury shares held by the company that are not entitled to dividends is unchanged from the information provided in the notice of the Annual General Meeting. We come to item 3 on the agenda, approval of the remuneration report. The Executive Board and the Supervisory Board propose that the remuneration report for fiscal year 2022, which was prepared and audited in accordance with section 162 of the German Stock Corporation Act be approved. The remuneration report is printed in section III of the notice of the AGM. And in the annual report from Page 266 onwards, it is also available on the company's website, together with the auditor's report. The next item is agenda item 4, ratification of the acts of the members of the Executive Board for fiscal year 2022. The Executive Board and the Supervisory Board proposed that the acts of the members of the Executive Board holding office in fiscal year 2022 be ratified for this period. Item 5, ratification of the acts of the members of the Supervisory Board for fiscal year 2022. The Executive Board and the Supervisory Board propose that the acts of the members of the Supervisory Board holding office in the fiscal year 2022 be ratified for this period. And that -- and regarding agenda items 4 or 5, I would also like to draw attention to the existing suspension or exclusion of voting rights. Pursuant to section 136 of the German Stock Corporation Act, the members of the Executive Board and the Supervisory Board may not exercise their voting rights in connection with the resolution on their discharge, either from their own shares or from shares held by third parties. Similarly, third parties may not exercise voting rights from shares that belong to members of the Executive Board or the Supervisory Board. The members of the Executive Board and the Supervisory Board have been made aware of this exclusion of voting rights that ask to take precautions in this respect. And that leads us to item 6 on the agenda, appointment of the auditor for fiscal year 2023. To this end, the Supervisory Board, based on the recommendation of the Audit Committee, proposes that KPMG AG Wirtschaftsprüfungsgesellschaft Berlin be appointed as auditors of the company and the group for fiscal year 2023. I will continue with Item 7 of the agenda, my election as a member of the Supervisory Board. Based on the recommendation of the Nomination Committee, the Supervisory Board proposes that I be elected as a member of the Supervisory Board. The appointment is subject to the condition precedent that the amendment to Section 10 (6) of the Articles of Association proposed under agenda item 8 (2) is entered into the commercial register of GEA Group Aktiengesellschaft at the [indiscernible] of Local Court. On the basis of the new version of the provision in the Articles of Association, the election is to be made for the period after the Annual General Meeting that resolves on the ratification of the acts for fiscal year 2025. Let's move on to agenda item 8, amendment of the Articles of Association concerning the term of office of a Supervisory Board member. The Executive Board and the Supervisory Board propose that the provisions governing the term of office of Supervisory Board members in Section 10 (2) and Section 10 (6) of the Articles of Association be amended. The exact wording of the resolution proposed by the management can be found in the notice of this Annual General Meeting, of which you are aware. I will continue with agenda Item 9, resolution on the remuneration of the members of the Supervisory Board and the corresponding amendment to the Articles of Association. The Executive Board and the Supervisory Board, the letter based on the recommendation of the presiding and Sustainability Committee propose that the remuneration system as described by me that is printed in the notice of Annual General Meeting be adopted, and that section 15 of the Articles of Association be amended. The exact wording of the resolution proposed by the management can be found in the notice of the Annual General Meeting, of which you are aware. Let's move on to agenda item 10, the amendment of the Articles of Association concerning the authorization to convene virtual shareholders' meetings and other amendments of the Articles of Association in this context. The Executive Board and the Supervisory Board propose adding a new paragraph 5 to section 17 of the Articles of Association and amending section 16, paragraph 4 and section 19, paragraph 3 of the Articles of Association. The exact wording of the resolution proposed by the management can be found in the notice of the Annual General Meeting, of which you are aware. Finally, let's move on to agenda item 11, which deals with the authorization to acquire and use treasury stock and to exclude tender and subscription rights. The Executive Board and the Supervisory Board propose that the company be authorized to acquire and use treasury stock. With regard to the exact wording of the 2 authorizations, allow me to once again refer to the notice of the AGM, with which you are familiar. Ladies and gentlemen, if you have not already cast your votes, I will now call upon you to do so and cast your votes on agenda items 2 to 11. This is still possible on the InvestorPortal, by way of postal vote, or by authorizing and issuing instructions to the company's proxies. Voting is carried out according to the beforementioned additional accumulation procedure, that is only the yes votes and the no votes are counted. If you wish to vote yes or no for one of the agenda items 2 to 11, please click on the yes or no box for each agenda item on the InvestorPortal, either under the menu item company proxy or under the menu item postal vote. You click either yes or no. If you wish to abstain from voting on individual agenda items, you do not need to do anything. Please note that different closing times apply for authorizing and issuing instructions to the proxies of the company on the one hand, and for voting by postal vote on the other hand. From now onward, you will have approximately 5 minutes to issue, or, let's say, 7 minutes to issue instructions. That would be 5 past 1:00 according to my watch. Thereafter, the InvestorPortal will be closed for this purpose and the proxies will cast the votes as instructed. From now on, you have approximately 10 minutes to cast postal ballots, or let's say, a quarter past 1:00, 1:15. Thereafter, the InvestorPortal will also be closed for this purpose. So I will adjourn the Annual General Meeting for this period. That means until a quarter past 1. We will see each other at 1:15. [Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]