Bayer Ag S/Adr (BAYRY) Q2 2025 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

Good afternoon, good morning everybody and welcome to our conference call to discuss the second quarter results for 2025. You have already seen our release end of last week. Bill and Wolfgang will keep the prepared remarks focused today on the business drivers and market dynamics behind the figures and a few more clarifying comments on litigation. Together with the presidents of our three divisions, they are then available for the Q&A. Before we begin, please note the cautionary language in our safe harbor statement. And with that, over to you, Bill. Thanks, Joost. Hi, everyone. Thanks for joining our call. So as you know, we issued a comprehensive update on our 25 performance and outlook, as well as litigation provisions last week. And I'm sure those topics are of interest, and we're happy to address them in the Q&A. But to avoid repetition, I'll focus my remarks mainly on what we're seeing in our businesses and the bigger picture for Bayer. So Great, there's the first chart. So let's start with the numbers. As always, we'll speak about our sales growth in currency and portfolio adjusted terms. Across the group, sales remained flat throughout the first half of the year. Core EPS amounted to three euros and 72 cents. Our free cash flow is at minus 1.4 billion euros, and we're on track to reach our initial 2025 outlook. In crop science, we grew sales in Q2, primarily driven by our corn business, bringing our half-won sales to minus 1%. Our margin is at 26%, stable year over year, despite sales headwinds from the loss of both Dicamba and Movento due to regulatory events. Consumer health is up 1% on the year. Growth was muted due to soft market conditions in key regions and an allergy season that was weaker than expected. For the remainder of 25, we expect the softer ma...