Good morning, and welcome to the presentation of the results of the first half for 2024 of Compagnie Financière Tradition. We are happy to report some good numbers for the first half with a growth in terms of adjusted revenues, so including the joint venture of CHF 577 million, which is up 9.2%. Adjusted EBITDA of CHF 92 million, up 10%. The operating profits up 12%, reaching CHF 80 million, and net profit per share of CHF 60 million, which makes a basic earnings per share of CHF 7.98 per share. We always care about the shareholder equity, so we before deduction of the treasury stock, we achieve a level of CHF 492 million. The net cash position, including our share of the cash with the JV, is at CHF 252 million. So all together, and, you know, in our strategy, growth has always been a key element, and we will you will see later that if we are able to continue at that kind of pace the business model is very powerful. So we are happy to confirm that for the first half, we have been able to go above 8%, and during the summer, as we said, we are absolutely in line in terms of growth compared to what we have achieved for the first six months. So François is going to deliver the presentation now, and maybe I will come back at the end of the presentation. Thank you. Thank you, Patrick. As Mr. Combes has mentioned, the first half growth and the result are aligned with the long-term track record of the group. The market environment is favorable. The group strategy in developing the top line objective has been met, and therefore aligned with the long-term objective that have always been to start with the foundation, having the sound financial position with the cash position, with the level of shareholder equity, keeping low level of intangibles. At the same time, over the years, and in particular after the 2008 financial crisis, the development of the expertise in trust management, allowing us to change the culture gradually of the group without losing the market share, which was the important element, improving the performance management. Around one key indicator that you will see also in the presentation, the brokers' productivity. So focusing on high-producing brokers, managing the lower performing performers to improve overall that productivity. This has been consistent as well, and at the same time, the return to shareholders with the consistent dividend distribution, and which was complemented recently with the share buyback that we have initiated mid of last year. In that context and the evolution that we... I think this, it's a point that we've mentioned previously, but the normalization of the central bank monetary policies that have been supportive to the group, but at the same time, there's a number of opportunities that exist that we continue to develop gradually, that have an impact on the performance of the group. The first one being, obviously, the data analytics business. A dedicated team developing the sale of data. There's an increasing demand for those data, and we're well positioned to capture this part of the growth, so this is a key element. At the same time, with Dominique, the development of the Data Science Lab, and a key element core to this, in line aligned also with the data analytics, is the development of the data platform that is being developed from Lausanne, and then also the enhancement with data science people that have joined gradually the group. At the same time, the continuation, we say the transformation, but it's really the continuation of the change in the group operation with an approach of high- touch with high-t ech, driven around the customer needs. So this is a key element also, with opportunities to improve at the same time, the brokers' productivity and services to the customers. The last one, the blurring of the traditional market boundaries, which means that there's an access to an enlarged potential customer base over time, and this being gradual, but it's another element of potential growth. It's in that context that obviously we should analyze the first half results. Revenue that we're up, including the share of the JV, is effectively 9.2%. The important element when we look at the portfolio across regions, across products, it's a positive element that the growth was present in all regions and almost in all asset classes. There was also one in particular, the Energy and Commodities, that had a strong performance. But overall, I think it's a well-balanced portfolio across the regions. This was supported by the improved productivity of the brokers that now reach slightly above CHF 900,000 annualized Swiss Franc per individual. So, an important performance indicator for the group. And at the same time, the conversion of this growth into additional profitability. The business model is very simple, but at the same time, provides significant operating leverage. And I think this is what we were able to materialize in the first half, helping in improving the profitability of the group with an adjusted EBITDA. So an EBITDA, including the share, our share of the JVs, reaching CHF 92.2 million, an increase of 10.6% in constant currencies. The cash group position, so the improvement as we have mentioned earlier. And the progress also on the net interest income coming from the reinvestment of our gross cash that has improved compared to the same period last year by CHF 2.2 million. So this gives us a pre-tax result of CHF 81.5 million, compared to CHF 61.1 million last year, an increase of 22.8%. And the net profit group share of CHF 60 million, up 24.5% in constant currencies for the first half. And under basic earnings per share of close to CHF 8, 7.98 something. And the important element also, as Mr. Combes mentioned, the continuing momentum. What we've seen in July and August, it's a good level of activity that is following what we've seen in the first half. It's positive at the moment. Looking then splitting between the core element, IFRS, reported subsidiaries, and then the joint venture. What you can see, the joint ventures, it's mainly the most important is Gaitame.com, and then we have another one operating in the wholesale sector as our core businesses. Overall, an increase of 9.2%. The wholesale or the IDB business up 9.4%, and the retail, which is Gaitame.com, up 4.9% in constant currency. So you can see a slight decrease in reported figures. The difference between the two is obviously the impact of the Japanese Yen weakening against the Swiss Franc. But overall, in terms of underlying activity, it's growing as well. By geographies, EMEA remained the main region for the group. It represents U.K. plus Continental Europe, 43%. And it's the fastest growing in the first half, up 11% on last year. Then we have the Americas, that was up 8.7%, and Asia Pacific, + 7%. The Americas represent 32% of group revenue, and Asia Pacific represent 24%, including our share of Gaitame. When we look at the product overview, so mainly three main family of products: rates, currencies and rates, securities and their derivative, and then energy and commodities. All having a positive trend, led by energy and commodities, up 21.5%. But at the same time, we have the currencies and rates business that includes a number of product from the the derivative to FX the all FX products up 7.4%, and securities and their derivative which include go- the government bonds, corporate bonds, and so on. That is up 3.1% on the period, so an overall growth of 9.4%. Then we can see the rebalancing also in terms of the split between the different product families with rates now representing 40%. Energy that is growing in 2022 H1 was 20% now it's 27% of our revenue. And we have in between the securities and securities derivatives that represent 30%. The important element to look at to understand and to look at the development of the revenue but the business model as a whole. From the development of the revenue and the translation into the profitability. The first element revenue it's looking at cyclical and structural factors. It's based on the trading volumes that themselves are influenced by a number of elements that we can see from the macroeconomics, but also issuance, corporate issuance, government issuance, interest rate environment, commodity cycle. Volatility, obviously, that has an impact also on the overall trading volume. So this is the starting point. Then when we look at the direct profitability, the first element, it's the contribution, and that's where we're focusing all the attention, ensuring that the front office is developing the level of profitability that is needed. A number of elements are fixed costs, which are the brokers' fixed compensation, the communication costs, market data, and so on. It's the adjustment element, it's the variable compensation that is mostly driven by the production and our profitability. So we can see the level of leverage that is interesting in this business. And then the last element, it's to support the front office. We have more than eight hundred people across different departments, from finance, operation, legal, compliance, and so on. And this is what we need to control, making sure that it's mostly a fixed base. We should see it mostly as a fixed base cost. And it's this that we need to make sure that we manage properly to extract the profitability for the maximum profitability from the business model. A simple but a business model that can provide significant leverage when well managed. So from revenue, we can see on the EBITDA, so the increase, including the share of the JVs representing CHF 92.2 million, up 10.6%. And in terms of if we zoom on the IDB, it's 2,400 people, of which 1,500 are front office, 886 people are support people. So there's the increasing need on that side, but that's how we should look at it. And then in terms of ratio, the key element in all this, it's managing fixed costs. Then on the brokers' compensation, the operational, what we call operational compensation, at 56.8, so gradually improving, and that's a key element of the equation. And then on the bottom right, you have the evolution of the productivity. In H1 2022 was 780 per broker. Now it's likely above 900,000 annualized per broker. So that's the first key indicator, and then it's how it translate into direct contribution. And this is one thing that gradually is increasing, period after period by managing the front office costs, and at the same time benefiting from the operational leverage that exists in that business. A quick look at Gaitame. Yes, overall, there's continued growth, somewhat a stability in term of profitability. The deposit from customers is slightly increasing. The number of customers continue to slightly increase, and positives, slight, but a positive growth in the first half and obviously, in reported figures in Swiss Franc, it's coming from the conversion of the weaker Japanese Yen, but overall a good trend. In term of net profit group share, so between the operating profit, then we have the financial result, share of the joint ventures, the tax rate. In term of financial result, last year it was a negative result of CHF 4.5 billion. This year, it's positive by CHF 1.7 million. There's two key elements. One, it's we have improved our return on the reinvestment of our gross cash with the increasing interest rates, that now represent net of the cost of our debt. It represent an income of CHF 2.6 million, where it was close to breakeven during H1 2023. And the other element, the more the stability in term of FX, there it was a near result in the period, where last year we had a loss of three point three point nine million on those movement, which explains the result. And then stability in the share of associates. In the associates that are that are not included in the joint ventures, the main one is the investment that we have in mainland China, in Ping An Tradition, that continue to grow and develop nicely. This is also included in the share of profit of associates and joint ventures. And in terms of tax rate, the stability around 26%-27%. This is our expected effective tax rate from period to period in the current environment. This translates then in terms of balance sheet. No surprises there. The same fundamentals are there in terms of significant gross cash. The good level of shareholder equity, in spite of the negative impact, it has slightly improved in the period, but still a negative impact from the currency translation in terms of overall shareholder equity. The cumulative impact since the conversion to IFRS twenty years ago, it's negative CHF 272 million, so this is where we stand today. As always, the low level of intangible assets that represent only 51 million CHF at the end of June. Looking at the movement in term of those key pillar of the balance sheet, shareholder equity growing. I think it's 492 million in term of shareholder equity, excluding the treasury shares that is growing, including the purchase. Yes, the purchase of treasury shares that I'll come back in a minute. There was the positive in term of fluctuation, the positive element in the period from the currency as the currency translation reserve, and overall, the net profit for the period with the deduction then of the dividend that was paid in H1 at group level, but also at the minority level. Overall, a gross cash position of CHF 252 million compared to end of June, it's slightly down in absolute terms, but it's an increase of 4.3% in constant terms, for gross cash of CHF 465 million at the end of June, and gross debt of CHF 213 million. It's mainly two bonds, one coming to maturity July 2025, and the other one at the end of 2027. Coming back to the treasury shares, so it's the continuation. There are two elements in the treasury shares. There is the continuation of the share buyback program that we had announced last year, started in August 2023. That will continue until May 2026. The objective is to buy back roughly 200,000 shares. At the end of June, it represent about 63,000 shares and added to the 262 other treasury shares that we have. Altogether, it's slightly more than 4% of the share capital. The cost of acquisition of those treasury shares were CHF 35 million. Based on the share price at the end of June, the market value was around CHF 46 million, and the net number of shares outstanding at the end of June follow after deduction of the treasury shares, it's about 7.7 million shares that are outstanding. I think in terms of roadmap, it's the essential element, starting with the growth and in particular in the Americas. Now, let Mr. Combes maybe comment on the outlook. Yes, we have experienced a solid sales growth during the summer, which is good news. Number two, as François explained to you, growth is a key element, key component of our strategy. And therefore, we will continue to increase the number of good brokers or top-class brokers. And we have seen that the productivity by broker has increased up to an annualized basis of CHF 900,000, based on the figures of the first six months, which is very good news. It's about contribution margin. We have to make sure that we are around 34%-35%, and we try to optimize, we try to improve that level of contribution margin, which is an ongoing effort, step by step. And, of course, support cost, which basically is a fixed cost. And, we tend to focus on those to make sure that the growth in terms of those costs is really capped, really limited. At the same time, we invest quite heavily in terms of electronic businesses, digitalization, data science. As François mentioned, we sell data and we are going to sell more and more data as a by-product of our business model, which is very good news. Of course, we will continue to focus on the quality of the balance sheet, and with a good dividend policy. So currently, we were around slightly below 50%, and we have an average target of 50%. So to pay back to the shareholders, around 50% of what the company is making on a net-to-tax basis per share. So these are. This is really the roadmap. If you look at the track record of the group, since we joined back in 1997, so it's a long time, 27 years ago, but we have been able to achieve something close to 18% of compounded return, assuming that the investors were reinvesting the dividend into shares. 18% over 27 years is relatively. It positioned the group quite nicely. Therefore, we will continue to focus on growth, focus on contribution margin, focus on cost management in terms of support cost, but at the same time, of course, thinking about the future and being more digital, focusing on data, focusing on data science. Now all together in the team, by November, we'll have around 18 people working in Switzerland. Most of these people coming from EPFL, and we need to support the business, to support our brokers, to support our data business. I think it's absolutely essential, so we continue to invest, but while focusing at the same time on the support cost and try to optimize. The story of Tradition has been long stories because we started back in 1997. Of course, the group was created back in 1958, but since we joined, again, what we have been able to deliver on a yearly basis, close to 18%, is something really significant. The roadmap is very clear: growth, contribution margin, have the support costs under control, at the same times, invest, invest substantially from a future point of technology. This is the roadmap of the group, and as you have seen, you know, everything now is asset class. Energy has been, has been quite positive, quite high team in the group. Probably that will continue, but there are so many asset classes. Keep in mind the fact that we have roughly 300 profit centers, 300 desks worldwide. We have offices in 30 different countries, 1,500 front office people. So it's a very international business and with a well-balanced portfolio in terms of activity between Asia Pacific, between London and EMEA, and the U.S., and South America. So we try coming from Lausanne to be a global player. Without any merger, we rank number three in the sector. And in terms of quality of balance sheet, low level of goodwill, the level of profitability, I think we are in a very, very good position relative to our competitors. So thank you, and we wait for your questions. We will answer your question. Thank you. Yes, good morning, gentlemen. Good morning, Dominique. First of all, congratulations for these excellent results. Could you tell us a bit how your growth compares to your competitors, whether you gain market share with respect to your competitors? The second question, perhaps for you, Dominique Welter, how is the data science business developing, and what's the potential there from here? May I handle both? Yes. Over the first half in terms of market shares, so the leader in our sector is really only showing very low single-digit growth. And what is also very positive is that, over the long term, we have continuously gained market share against the leader in our industry, reaching, let's say, our objective in terms of relative size. BGC, which was quite sluggish in terms of growth until the end of 2022, has reactivated some kind of growth path. We are head-to-head with BGC in terms of growth in the first half, though they do have a part of their growth, which is explained by inorganic initiatives, where our growth is 100% organic. I would say we are in the top league in terms of growth rate. We intend to continue to remain in the top league, and what is really interesting is this very consistent market share gains against the leader in the industry, which was w e always benchmark our group against the best in our sector. So TP ICAP remains, for us, the reference, be it in brokerage, which was my point, and also, of course, as you know, data sales is a very large division at TP ICAP. So this is also against TP ICAP that we are benchmarking our data sales efforts, even though, as you know, we have also started later than them, and there is still a significant gap in terms of size of the data of the respective data business. We are growing faster than them, and this is really a leverage on our data sales initiative, which is not only there is a strong demand from the clients for OTC data, but we also know that we we can narrow the gap in terms of capturing this market share in data within our sector. We have also invested in people to accelerate their growth in that business, taking people that have leadership position from competitors both on the sales side, but also on the operation side, so from the BGC and the leader, that is TP ICAP. I think it's people that will bring additional ideas and energy in developing this business. On the size of the data business at TP ICAP comes from the fact that it has been a combination of, maybe more than a dozen of different companies, each of them, having some data businesses. So the combination which have really been a key element in developing the size of the business, which has not been the case with Tradition. Maybe you want to add some on data science as well, Dominique? Yes. So really, as you remember, it's a greenfield project, so we started three years ago. We are really every quarter, almost semester, building additional capabilities. It's not only data science, but it's also data engineering and data management. So we are really growing the team every time we can when we find the right expertise. I would say we are really working on three fronts in parallel. One is serving the front office with AI solutions around either market analysis and conventional prices or customer service, which is really what we've been doing since the start. So we are now trying to educate as many desks as possible around the potential of using these type of tools, and more to come. The second angle is for traditional data, where we have really a very close cooperation starting with just cleaning data, analyzing historical data, and then expanding on that through data science so that's a very well-established work stream, too and then what we have more recently started and which will become more and more important in the coming years, it's also to use AI for process optimization and cost efficiencies and we are discovering at the moment where it would be the best suited in our organization to think about such tools and deploy them step by step. Alongside, I would say, the rest of our digitalization efforts that François has mentioned, AI is really an enabler of digital transformation, more generally speaking. So this is where we also focus on complementing our skill set in order to develop our experience as we have been developing it over the last three years in the first two themes, I would say. Any other question? Then perhaps another question on, from my side. Could you tell us how the business is going in China? We understand that, well, China currently is in a slowdown, that certain foreign companies are having more challenges in China. And if I understand correctly, from the share of associates, that the Ping An business right now is about, without growth over the last twelve months. Is this correct? And how do you see it going from here? No, it's growing nicely, and it's growing at double digit, even in the first half. Okay. It's becoming a sizable business with nice level of profitability. Mm-hmm. Both at the contribution and at the operating level. So, and the interesting part also in a JV, like this, it's the level of distribution of dividend. So the payout to the shareholders is good also. So there's a good contribution to the group as well. We have to mention the quality of the partner- Absolutely Which was chosen by the Chinese government back in 2009 Mm When we got our licenses, and it's Ping An, which is one of the largest insurance company in China. So we have had a very, very good experience with that partner so far. So it has been a very good ride and substantial business. Very local business, of course, but with a good, solid partner, and we are able to extract dividends without any problems year after year from China. So we should not complain about what's happening in that country today. Yes, it's working well. Okay, very good. Maybe one last figure before the end, because I mentioned the 18%, close to 18% in terms of annualized return, compounded annualized return since 1997. But if we take US dollar as a currency, we are close to 20%. So for investors which are based and use US dollar, we have been close to 20% over 27 years in terms of assuming reinvestment of the dividend every year, of course, close to 20%. So this is one of our focus in terms of, you know, good dividend policy, a strong balance sheet, a minimum level of goodwill, net cash position, positive net cash position. As always, that has been, you know, one of our key elements of our roadmap, and, and of course, growth. Growth is absolutely essential, and we learned a lot after the crisis, after two thousand and eight, two thousand and nine, about cost management. There is more and more discipline in terms of cost management, in terms of creating a nice contribution margin. And I think there is room to implement over the next few years the contribution margin, because we have identified a number of key elements that could really improve the contribution margin, and of course, managing the best we can the support cost. And that business model is very basic, very simple, but it works well. If you, you know, if you make, you know, some assessment in terms of growth, let's assume that we continue to grow at 8% with the kind of contribution margin we have today, and support costs are growing just at 2% or 3% on a yearly basis, then if you make some projection, then, you know, the business model is quite solid. And on a yearly basis, we pay out close to 50% in terms of dividends. So that's the main roadmap we have tried to follow over time, and we will try to follow in the coming years. From a shareholder's perspective, your share buyback program has been very efficient tool to give better and tax-efficient returns to your shareholders. How do you view this in the future, your share buyback program, and given the current profitability of the group, what type of developments could we eventually expect there? I think, well, we have to deliver on that program, and you know that we are capped at 450 shares per day. That's the minimum-maximum. So we have to move forward and deliver the program, and then as soon as possible, depending on if we can increase the level of program, probably we will increase in the future, the developed program. The cash generation of the business is very nice François, you want to say a few words about? But in normal terms, the adjusted EBITDA is. It's a business that normally does not require working capital. So it's normally on a yearly basis, you have some adjustments at the end of June, and then it normalizes for the year, but on a twelve-months period, you don't need funding for any for the working capital. So the EBITDA is a good benchmark to assess the level of operational cash generation. That's Okay. Sounds very good. Thank you very much. That's good. No more question? In that case, we thank you very much for having attended-