Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Leonteq half-year 2023 Results Conference Call and Live Webcast. I am George, the conference call operator. I would like to remind you that all participants will be listen-only mode, and the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by Q&A session. You can register for questions at any time by pressing star one on your telephone. For operator assistance, please press star zero. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Mr. Dominik Ruggli, Head Investor Relations, Communications and Marketing of Leonteq. Please go ahead, sir. Thank you, George, good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Press Conference Call of Leonteq's Half-Year 2023 Results. The presentation material and the half-year 2023 report can be found in the Investor Relations section on our website. Here, we have also provided a comparison of the analyst consensus versus our actual reported results. Today, here with me are Chief Executive Officer, Lukas Ruflin, and Chief Financial Officer, Marco Amato. We'll start the presentation with an overview of the highlights from the first half of 2023, as well as the business model. Marco will then discuss the financial performance of the first half of 2023, our CEO again closes the presentation with a summary and a big picture outlook. The presentation will last about 30 minutes, after which we are happy to take questions. We intend to close the conference call at around 11:00 A.M. It's now my pleasure to hand over to our CEO, Lukas. Thank you, Dominik. Good morning, dear ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, analysts, and media representatives. The first half-year 2023 was characterized by geopolitical and macroeconomic challenges. However, such times also open up new opportunities and allow us to constantly adapt and move forward. In this environment, Leonteq's performance underlines its diversified offering and advanced platform services that resulted in a growth in fee income, while trading results normalized. That is, our client franchise remains strong, while we navigated through challenging markets with low levels of market volatility. This is where I would like to begin today's presentation. Moving to page 4, I want to provide you with an overview of the financial highlights for the first half 2023. Our client franchise remains strong, as evidenced by a number of factors. The number of active clients transacting on our platform remains stable at 960 intermediaries. We saw a 36% increase in new issued products to over 19,000, however, with lower average ticket sizes. This means that turnover remains stable at CHF 11.8 billion. Of that, we saw a 60% increase in turnover from new partners, which is a reflection of our increasingly diversified issuer base. In terms of revenues, our net fee income grew by 7% to CHF 123.9 million year-on-year, and by 17% compared to the second half of last year. Our net trading result of CHF 17.8 million reflects normalized contribution from hedging and treasury activities, which compares to a very strong performance in the prior year periods that was marked by unprecedented market conditions. On the cost side, we reported 15% lower total operating expenses of CHF 121.9 million, which illustrates the degree of flexibility we have when managing costs. At the same time, we continued with our strategic decision to pursue investing in key initiatives, as we also outlined to you back in February, when we announced the 2022 results. In line with the guidance provided on 26 June 2023, we reported a pre-tax profit of CHF 25.2 million and group net profit of CHF 28.8 million. Additionally, following the total distribution to shareholders of CHF 78.2 million in the first half of 2023, Leonteq maintained a strong capital base, totaling CHF 883.4 million at the end of June 2023. Moving on to slide 5, I want to put our first half-year performance in the context of the overall market environment, which continued to be challenging on various fronts. The first half of 2023 was further characterized by materially lower levels of market volatility, continued inflationary pressure, and corresponding interest rate hikes. Looking at the left-hand side chart, you see that market volatility decreased considerably throughout the first half of 2023. In particular, the last few weeks of June 2023 were challenging from a book point of view, given the materially low levels of volatility, which negatively impacted our results on the hedging side. In addition, on the back of continued inflationary pressure, particularly in the U.S. and Eurozone, central banks continued to increase reference rates, as you can see from the chart in the center. Finally, as shown on the right-hand side chart, the market for listed structured products in Switzerland was down by 48% in the first quarter, and 32% in the second quarter of 2023, compared to the prior year quarters. Whilst the majority of Leonteq's platform flow is done through OTC and private placement transactions, this publicly available data still gives an indication of the overall levels of market activity, which I said, were considerably down. Despite this, we were able to increase our market share to 11% in 2023, compared to 8% in 2022. This clearly also shows the resilience of our business model, even in times of subdued demand for structured products. As outlined, and despite the challenging market environment in the first half of 2023, Leonteq continued to focus on our core four strategic pillars of our Growth Strategy 2026. Let's take a closer look at our progress in the first six months on page 6. As we continue to grow our activities beyond the traditional structured products business, we are focusing on further expanding and diversifying our offering across products, asset classes, and issuers. Overall revenues from new business initiatives contributed 42% to overall revenues in H1 2023. This is a lower contribution compared to last year, but in line with levels reported for 2021. Looking at our second strategic pillars, which is our platform, we intend to continue to stay at the forefront of digitalization and want to further automate processes and services across the entire value chain, thereby servicing our clients. The first half of 2023, the number of intermediaries onboarded to LynQs globally increased by 11% to close to 1,000 parties. We also expanded our LynQs offering with a dedicated version for Leonteq clients in Asia. This version, of course, includes enhanced lifecycle management capabilities and new Asia-specific payoffs. We are also advancing our retail flow business initiative, as pre-announced, and in that context, we have made good progress in developing a core platform, which is required for market making and issuing a large number of flow products. In terms of KPIs, client transaction decreased from 106,000 in H1 2022 to 98,000 in H1 2023. They, however, remained substantially above the pre-pandemic level of 75,000, recorded in the first half of 2019, reflecting Leonteq's continued business expansion. In our third pillar, regions, we are taking targeted measures to strengthen our brand in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, with intention to increase our revenue contribution from offices outside of Switzerland. We maintained our strong position in our Swiss home market in the first half of 2023. Together with our platform partners, Leonteq remains the leading issuer of SIX-listed yield enhancement products, with a market share of 27%, and it currently ranks as the number three issuer of total SIX-listed structured products, with a market share of 11%. Underscoring our strong client focus, we won three awards at the Swiss Derivative Awards, including top service for the 13th year in a row. We also continued our progress in establishing a strong market position in Italy, as also recognized at the Italian Certificate Awards, where Leonteq won two product-related awards. As part of our ambition to further expand our offering to serve an international client base, we strengthened our regional management teams in Europe and Asia, which, as you know, includes in our definition, also the Middle East. Despite the challenging market environment, Leonteq registered solid client activity in all its regions. On the back of particularly strong performance in Europe, net fee income contribution from operation outside of Switzerland improved to 61% in the first half of 2023, compared to 56% in the prior year period. Under our sustainability efforts, we are further integrating ESG aspects into our service offering and business activities. We developed a sustainability framework, as well as a global tax policy in the first half of 2023. Work also continues to develop the Leonteq responsible investing methodology. As part of these efforts, we engaged in active discussions with relevant industry associations in Switzerland and Europe to agree on a common denominator when it comes to determining sustainability features in structured products. Our efforts in further embedding ESG considerations into our business activities continues to be recognized by ESG rating agencies. In April 2023, Leonteq received a rating upgrade from Sustainalytics. Under its newly introduced core framework, Sustainalytics assigned Leonteq an ESG risk rating of 12.3. This score categorized Leonteq as continuing to have a so-called low risk of experiencing material financial impacts from ESG factors. We rank among the top 5th percentile of Sustainalytics global universe, and in the top 5th percentile of its diversified financial universe. Of course, all our strategic efforts are ultimately, directly or indirectly linked to our ecosystem for investment solutions, which you can see on page 7. You can see that we have built over the past years, a unique ecosystem for investment solutions. In essence, all efforts are focused on providing our clients, that you can see on the top right, the best possible products and services. Going counter-clockwise, next you can see our digital solutions and connectivity. I would like to highlight here our award-winning digital marketplace LynQs, that helps clients manage their portfolio structured products in an efficient manner. We have our white- labeling partners on the left-hand side, that together with the 27 third-party issuers just underneath, help to diversify our issuer base and our overall product offering. On the bottom right, we also have our SHIP hedging counterparties in order to provide clients-based option pricing. On the right-hand side, content, product, and technology enhancers, which among others, result in broader range of product offering. In the first half of 2023, we welcome Swiss Fund Global Green Xchange to this list. Marco will now continue the presentation and go into more details about the drivers of our financial results. Thank you, Lukas. Good morning and warm welcome to all participants from my side. I would like to begin by highlighting three important points. Firstly, as mentioned also by Lukas, Leonteq's client franchise remains strong despite a challenging market environment, underpinned by a stable number of clients and a stable turnover. Secondly, we have seen an increase in fee income, combined with a positive contribution from hedging as well as treasury results. Last but not least, we continue to maintain a solid balance sheet with a strong capital position of almost CHF 900 million. With that in mind, let's move into the financial performance for the first half of 2023. This begins on page 9. Lukas elaborated in detail on the factors that resulted in difficult market conditions throughout the first half of 2023. Despite these challenges, we saw a 7% increase in net fee income to CHF 123.9 million year-on-year, and a 17% increase compared to the second half of 2022. This was particularly driven by an increase in client activity in the European region, as well as an increase in the number of large- ticket transactions. The first half of 2023 was further characterized by material lower levels of market volatility, continued inflationary pressure, and corresponding interest rate hikes. On the back of material lower levels of market volatility, we recorded a normalized net trading result, with limited but positive contribution from both our hedging and treasury activities, totaling CHF 17.8 million. This compares to a very strong performance with a net trading result and interest result of CHF 173.6 million in the prior year period, which benefited from unprecedented market conditions. As a result of this combination of factors, and as you can see on the far left chart, total operating income was CHF 147.1 million in the first half of 2023, compared to CHF 289.2 million in the prior year period. Moving to the right, total operating expenses decreased to CHF 121.9 million in the first half of 2023. This is a decrease of 15% year-on-year, mainly due to lower performance-driven variable costs and the absence of significant provisions for legal cases. At the time, we continued to support our Growth Strategy 2026, by continuing to invest in strategic initiatives to further enhance Leonteq's business and technology platform. Moving to the right, Leonteq reported profit before taxes of CHF 25.2 million in the first half of 2023, which is at the midpoint of our guidance provided on the 26th of June, 2023. In the far right column, you can see our group net profit results amounted to CHF 28.8 million for the first half of 2023. Our income tax were positive at CHF 3.6 million in the first half of 2023, benefiting from a release of tax accruals. Let's now look in more detail at the client activity on page 10. On the left graph, you can see that Leonteq's client franchise remains strong, with 890 clients that actively traded on our platform in the first half of 2023. Regionally, Leonteq registered solid client activity in all regions in the first half of 2023. Net fee income in Switzerland totaled CHF 48.2 million, compared to CHF 51.4 million in the prior year period. Operations in Europe delivered strong performance, generating 23% growth in net fee income of CHF 62.7 million, compared to CHF 50.9 million in H1 2022. Net fee income in the Asia region, including the Middle East, was CHF 13 million, which compares to CHF 13.3 million in H1 2022. Now, from a product offering perspective, you will see from the graph on the right, that we recorded an increase in our traditional structured products, which was particularly driven by higher amount of large- ticket transactions in H1 2023. Looking at the revenues we generated with our new business initiatives, we are pleased with the development we have seen. Our pension savings business performed well, driven by the increase in interest rate levels and the implemented product enhancements, which significantly improved product conditions as well as product attractiveness. Our asset management-like business generated stable revenues year- on- year, demonstrating its recurring nature of income contribution, even in a difficult market environment. Our balance sheet-like business attracted solid client demand in the first half of 2023. This is further evidenced by a 55% increase in balance sheet-like turnover to CHF 1.7 billion in the first half of 2023. This corresponds to a 14% of overall turnover, compared to 9% in the prior year period. Our fund derivatives business also recorded solid performance with stable revenues year-on-year. The reason for the absolute reduction in new business revenues was mainly driven by lower contribution from treasury activities and from the crypto assets business. Moving on to page 11, we report further progress in diversifying our partner base. Looking first at the total number of products issued on our platform, increased significantly by 36% in the first half of 2023, which underpins the ability to scale on our platform. This was achieved, however, with on an average, lower ticket sizes. That is also one of the reasons why total turnover recorded on the platform remained stable at CHF 11.8 billion in the first half of 2023, compared to CHF 12.1 billion in the prior year period, which you see in the middle graph. As a result of onboarding new white- labeling partners in the past few years, turnover generated with Leonteq's new partners increased by 60% to CHF 2.4 billion year-on-year. In relative terms, this means a contribution of 20% to total turnover, compared to 12% in the prior year period. Especially, we saw strong demand for our partners, Banque Internationale à Luxembourg, and Standard Chartered, while also Swissquote shows good progress, however, on a smaller scale. We further reduced the dependency from our two largest historic partners, which today account for 26% of Group's turnover. This compares to 29% in the prior year period, and 39% in the first half of 2021. Looking at our own issued products, Leonteq continues to be the single biggest issuer on our platform. With a reduced turnover of CHF 6.3 billion in the first half of 2023, compared to CHF 7.1 billion in the prior year period, reflecting a contribution of 54%. Let's now move to the discussion of our cost base on page 12. Leonteq's biggest cost block are personal expenses. As I mentioned in prior presentations, we have a certain degree of flexibility in our cost base to manage our performance with the view to deliver appropriate profitability, and this is evidenced in the first half of 2023. At the same time, Leonteq is continuing to invest in key strategic initiatives to support its Growth Strategy 2026. In particular, this includes projects such as LynQs, the AMC Gateway, and the SIGMA platform for pension solutions, as well as increased advertising activities in selected European focus markets. We are also investing in talent to further enhance Leonteq's business and technology platform, primarily through expansion of our service center in Lisbon and key hires in Germany on the back of the development of our automated retail flow platform. This has resulted in a 4% increase in the number of FTEs to 608, compared to the end of December 2022, and a 9% increase compared to the end of June 2022 number. Let's now take a look at Leonteq's capital base on page 13. We define the capital base as the aggregate amount of shareholder equity and deferred fee income. Shareholders' equity totaled CHF 821 million as of the end of June 2023, compared to CHF 870 million at the end of 2022. This decrease was mainly driven by total distribution to our shareholders, amounting to CHF 78 million. This also includes approximately CHF 6 million for our share buyback program. The program was launched on the 3rd of April 2023, and is expected to run until the end of the year 2023. Thank the Board of Directors for the trust they have placed in me in these past years. A special thanks to you, Lukas, as well as the rest of the team, for the great teamwork, leadership, and support during the past seven years that I've been with Leonteq. I also want to thank all of you stakeholders for the good relationship and dialogue throughout the years. Thank you. Thank you, Marco, for the presentation. During the past seven years, you, Marco, and your team have notably improved the Group's financial planning processes and delivered increased transparency in reporting. You were also a key contributor to Leonteq's Growth Strategy 2026, and the company's sustainability initiatives in recent years. You, Marco, were thus, in many ways, instrumental in Leonteq's development, and we owe you considerable thanks for that. Together with the members of the Board of Directors and the executive committee, I thank you and wish you all the very best with regard to your future plans. I also take the opportunity, ladies and gentlemen, to remind you that Hans Widler will take on the role of CFO ad interim, starting from 1st September 2023 until end of the year 2023. On January 1, 2024, Antoine Boublil will start as CFO and member of the executive committee of Leonteq. Before we end today's call, I would like to take a moment to provide you with an overview of the big picture as I summarize where Leonteq stands today. Let's please turn to page 15. Following two years of exceptional growth in revenues and profitability, Leonteq's performance normalized in the first half of 2023. As mentioned to you in the past, Leonteq will experience half-years with very strong performance, and half-years with less strong performance. As a management team, we are focusing on the long-term development of the company, whilst of course targeting a certain minimum amount of profitability in the short term. In terms of short-term outlook, we reiterate our full- year outlook for 2023, to continue to expect pre-tax profits of between CHF 40 million and CHF 70 million for 2023. Looking at the bigger picture, I'm pleased to be able to say that we have built a unique B2B, B2B4C, and D2C business model with a unique ecosystem for investment solution. This is operated on a technology-leading platform for structured products. We have strong international client franchise across Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. In terms of financials, we improved earnings quality due to increased diversification across our products, asset classes, issuers, and regions. We also built up a strong capital position and have no goodwill on our balance sheet. From an external perspective, we obtained investment-grade ratings from renowned credit rating agencies. Our sustainability efforts are acknowledged, among others, by a single rating assigned by MSCI. In summary, Leonteq has a strong client franchise, a very solid capital base, and a profitable business. All of this will allow us to further build out and grow our firm in the coming years. Thank you very much for your attention. I hand back over to you, Dominik. Thank you, Lukas. Thank you, Marco, for the presentation. We are now happy to start the Q&A session. We'll take the first question, please. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star one on their touch-tone telephone. You will hear a tone to confirm that you have entered the queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star two. Questioners from the phone are requested to use only handsets, and eventually turn off the volume from the webcast. Anyone who has a question may press star one at this time. We will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. Our first question comes from the line of Daniel Rey from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead. Good morning. I have basically two questions. One is a bit on the fee income, particularly from Europe, and the other one is kind of on the development from the volatility and trading income into H2. On the Europe income, you alluded to a couple of partners which have been developing quite well. Can you maybe give us a bit more color on what led to this significant increase year-on-year? Is this, like, more sustainable and a lot of little parts, or was this really major transactions you generated with some of these partners? Secondly, can you maybe give us some color about how you started into H2, particularly with regards, you know, to the trading line, and what do you kind of expect from H2 given the current environment we are having? Thanks. Thanks, Daniel. I'll probably take the first question and then hand over to Lukas for the second part of the question. To your first question regarding fee income Europe, I think you mentioned correctly there is different reasons for the increase. One is certainly also the increase of large- ticket transactions, which were done mainly out of European locations. I think the second one also goes back to our Growth Strategy 2026. As you know, we have done specific targeted investments also in our European offices in particular. Also, I want to mention here, Italy, and we have also seen here the benefits coming through now in the first half- year, 2023. I've also always stated that in terms of market position, we have a very strong position in Switzerland. We certainly have still room to grow and room to improve, further our market position in the European offices. I think that's a little bit the trend that we have seen also in the first half-year. I think overall, besides the large- ticket transactions which were done in the European offices, I think the investments done in the different European law offices, in particular also Italy, have started to pay off. Good morning, Daniel. On the volatility outlook, I guess if I knew the answer, I would consider myself very fortunate, and probably also be quite fortunate. The chart on page 5, on the left-hand side, which shows the CBOE Volatility Index and the development over 2022 and 2023, clearly indicates that as of end of June 2023, volatility was at quite low levels. If you go back further, say, the last five years, you can identify that volatility is slowly grinding lower towards the levels that we saw, I would say even pre-pandemic 2022. That, of course, now, is the big unknown and is to some extent, a reality that Leonteq does not take a particular view on, which essentially is when volatility is almost back at all-time lows. Make no mistake, it can go a little bit further down before we are there. Is that a sign, an indication, that there will be, the next six months, another volatility spike? Is that an indication that we kind of have a new world where volatility stays there? What we know from the past is that volatility itself is volatile, so I wouldn't say long term, it just stays low. Of course, we also know that periods of low volatility can last for quite some time. What do we do in that context? We essentially continue with our hedging approach, which is that structurally we keep a long volatility position on your books, as you are aware. That means that if volatility continues to go down and stay low, our hedging results would be subdued, but it also means that if volatility starts spiking again, we would see benefits, as we have seen very clearly in the last two years. The maybe additional comment to make on the last six months, is that it was not very obvious for someone like me, that we would find volatility levels at the level they were at the end of June, for the simple reason, and you also see that on the chart, that in between somewhere March 2023, we were facing possibly a very large additional or new financial crisis with major banks in the world being under severe stress. We have seen that, certainly during the 2007, 2008 financial crisis, first Bear Stearns and then eventually Lehman Brothers, events that the capital markets, the financial markets, when it comes to volatility, are reacting very sensitively and badly to the stress in the financial service providers. I would say, it is also from a geopolitical point of view, difficult to answer. I can't predict when volatility will spike again. It can well be only in a year or two. I know that our business model has proven successful over the cycle. We will have half-years where the structural long, long volatility approach pays off very well, and we saw that in 2021 and 2022. Of course, there will be periods such as the first half period, 2023, and we try to be transparent about that and let then you and our investor community, ultimately make their own judgments with regards to a highly unpredictable parameter such as volatility. Thanks. Maybe I need to clarify my question a bit, or maybe follow up quickly on. Maybe can you give some kind of, you know, sensitivity of the result, or let's say, what part of the net trading result in H1 was, you know, due to, let's say, volatility coming down, and what would have the net trading result been if volatility was more or less flat? Maybe also on the net treasury results, what is kind of the contribution on the net treasury results, and what do you expect kind of from the net treasury results going forward in a quotation mark, normalized environment? Last but not least, also a bit on the fee income, the fee income levels we have seen in H1 2023. Obviously, we have seen quite a solid growth versus 2022, but is this kind of the normalized level we have seen now, or would you still say that we have seen a subdued kind of environment for the fee income, and the normalized level would be a little bit above what we just saw? I'll let Marco respond to your sub-question on fee income. Just on the volatility position, you know, Daniel, that we manage our hedging approach by essentially decomposing the derivatives that we issue, and as a result, hedging by the different Greeks. It would not be appropriate for us to sub-segment and highlight individual Greek parameters, because it would not give you the overall picture. It would not be appropriate for me to answer the impact of the vol development, which of course I do know, but then not talk about other relevant parameters, such, for example, our gamma hedging positions or also our correlation positions. Having said, what I can confirm is to the extent, now very specifically to your question, volatility would not have come down, then we would not have had seen the need to come out with a new half-year and ultimately full- year results guidance. Indirectly, I guess I've given you a little bit an insight into that, but I'd like again to highlight that it would be disingenuous of me to just talk about volatility and not the other Greek input parameters, which we are also hedging. Marco, on the fee income side, please. I think there's also not a clear answer on that one, but as you know, Daniel, fee income is a result of the transaction and business done by intermediaries on our platform. I think what is certainly very positive also now in the first half-year, is that we have managed to issue 36% more products, almost 19,000 products, which is sort of a record high for Leonteq. We could also increase the market share from 8% to 11%, at least with regard to the turnover on the SIX Swiss Exchange. I think that's also a result of the different initiatives and growth initiatives that we have initiated a few years back. Hopefully this number will continue to increase, but certainly it's also a very unpredictable number, and it's very difficult to guide on that one, because again, it's not sort of a business that we can steer. It's sort of a offering that we can steer, and then hopefully the result will be that more and more clients and intermediaries do business on our platform, and we see the results in our fee income going forward. Great. Thank you very much for the additional detail. As a reminder, if you wish to register for a question, you may press star and 1. Our next question comes from the line of Reto Huber from Research Partners. Please go ahead. Good morning, everyone. Maybe a bit more, midterm. In this environment of higher interest rates, how do you see your competitive environment developing? Will it rather tend to become tougher or weaker as a result of the higher interest levels? Thank you, Reto, good morning to you. It's a very good question, and of course, it's also a bit the function of the interest rate outlook, which again, I would point to slide 5 of our presentation in the middle. It is a reality that if interest rates were to continue to rise, a very attractive alternative to any investment would be cash deposits. Just say interest rates were to go from 5% in US dollars to 10%, you would need to ask yourself as an investor, whether you are not just better off keeping cash on a bank account. Obviously, assuming the banks pass on those interest rate levels. Of course, some of our activity is also as a side parameter influenced by investors' decision where to allocate their investment, their cash they can invest. What we, however, also know from higher interest rate environments, and Leonteq operated in the first years of its build-up, 2007 to 2012, under such an environment, is that there is an increasing demand for capital guaranteed products, because of course, on the back of high interest rates, you can structure quite attractive risk- reward profiles for clients. We also know that transition phases are a bit difficult, short term, when there is a significant change, it takes time for investors and our clients are the intermediaries, who then ultimately sell on the products to the end clients to adapt to the new reality. We see an increase, a pickup of capital guarantee products and demands. To answer your question now very specifically, it is a bit difficult to answer because it's a bit a function of interest rates. Then, of course, you could also have a reality that interest rates in some markets would slowly start to go down again, which will probably bring, to some extent, positive headwinds. I'd like to just point out that we offer products which are giving investors the possibility to benefit from their respective views on the outlook. If people are interested in interest rate-related products or in products with relatively high yield as a function of interest rates, then of course we can, we will, and we are already also offering such products. It is probably for us, maybe even more a question of how we further develop the platform and how we can increase our market share than the specific global macroeconomic environment. Unless, again, we have a situation where interest rates were to go to such a level that almost any investor would want to keep cash and no other investments within its asset allocation. Yes, given interest rates stay high or increase even a bit more, how are your competitors, I mean, other providers of structured products, going to react? Do you see that scenario more as a positive for you or as a negative? As you know, we are competing again with our friendly competitors, who among them count some of the world's largest banks. This is, I would say, to some extent, a mature market, the market of structured investment products, and it has been throughout the interest rate cycle. Of course, our friendly competitors will continue to be focused on this market as much as we are and try to maintain, respectively, grow their respective market share. I'm not necessarily assuming that there is such a fundamental change that you would have some parties wanting to exit, as an example. I think we will see relatively stable overall competitive dynamics. Okay, good. Many thanks for your elaborations. Thank you, Reto. Our next question comes from Christoph Gaberthüel, from AWP. Please go ahead, sir. Good morning, everyone. I have questions to two topics. First, Raiffeisen Group, second, capital distribution dividend. Maybe to the Raiffeisen Group first, could you maybe give us an update on the status of the connection of the new Raiffeisen platform to your own platform? When will it be finished, maybe also a little bit of a likelihood that the existing cooperation agreement will be extended to 2030. Maybe to dividend policy, you announced that you're gonna pay dividends for at least half of the profit, and at least CHF 2 for the current year. Is that still valid, given that the profit now is on a lower level than you had previously expected? Many thanks. Thank you very much, good morning to you. Also, thank you for the first question regarding the Raiffeisen Group, because there might be a little bit of a misunderstanding here. As you are aware, this is a reminder, the extension of our cooperation agreement with Raiffeisen from 2026 to 2030, is subject to the successful completion of the technological connection between Leonteq's technology and service platform to a newly established Raiffeisen platform. The extension, therefore, is a function of the successful completion of that work. It's not a function of a discretionary decision by a party. Leonteq has developed the respective API and other connectivity tools and necessary services, at this very stage, these technological modules are being tested. Of course, we all know that when technological developments happen and testing happens, there is a bit of uncertainty with regard to the timing. I can confirm that as of today, the testing is ongoing, and as of today, we will update the market, when we have further information to report. With regard to the dividend question, I pass on to our CFO. Yes, thanks for the question. I think you stated it correctly, that with the full- year results 2022 in February, we announced that the capital return policy, we have a payout ratio, or we aim to have a payout ratio of more than 50%, including also the ambition to pay annual dividend of minimum CHF 2 per share, and if profits allow, also to combine it with an annual share buyback program. I think we are now at half-year. Usually the distribution topic is something which is decided once the Board of Directors, they have the full picture on the full- year results, means in February next year. As of today, I have no update to the statement made in February 2023. maybe I haven't done the calculation, if you end within your guidance of CHF 40 million-CHF 70 million profit and you distribute 50% of it, would that be enough to pay the CHF 2 or not enough? Well, our guidance was more than 50%. Just to take your numbers, we have roughly, we are always in the middle of a share buyback, so the numbers are reducing by the day in terms of outstanding shares, which are not within our treasury position. We have approximately 18 million shares, a bit less. If you pay out CHF 2 dividends, that would be CHF 36. If I take your range respectively, our guidance, 40-70, then of course you can see that with more than 50%, we would be spot on. I'd also like to stress again how strong our balance sheet and capital position is. If your ultimate question is, do we have the means to pay out dividend? I think the answer is very clearly given, when you look at our balance sheet and capital position, which Marco also spoke about in the context of our first half-year presentation. It would be on slide 13 of our presentation deck. All right, thanks. Our last question comes from the line of Samuel Gerber from Finews. Please go ahead. Yes, hello, good morning. I have just one question concerning personnel expenses. You said you were able to react there and to hold our costs in line. How did you react? Did you cut back the variable components of salaries, and how large were these cutbacks? Thank you very much, Mr. Gerber, for your question. Well, the short answer is we obviously want to manage our business in a way that, so that we have some embedded levers, which almost naturally address ultimately the question you are raising. One is, of course, variable compensation, which is a function of top line and bottom line. Of course, as a management team, we also have other levels we can focus on, and we have, of course, also done that, such as expenditure on the OpEx side or contracts with third parties. We also work extensively with very good and helpful consultants, but of course, when the numbers are a bit less positive, we can also take some adjustments there. I think the key point, however, and I'd really like this to be stressed, our net profit numbers could easily have been better if we had not decided, strategically speaking, to continue to invest in 2023 on the back of exceptional positive years, 2021 and 2022. We maintain that investment need and wish, and we will continue investing that money despite short-term, less revenues for the reasons highlighted. In that context, I'll remind you of our statement, which we made in the February 2023 results announcement, whereby we said we would expect to invest an additional CHF 20 million-CHF 30 million of investments per year. Of course, if you were to take those investments out, our numbers would have been better. However, we don't only focus on the short-term picture, we also want to see good progress mid-term and long-term, as I believe we have demonstrated in the last 16 years. It's really about the ultimate goal of Leonteq, of making itself highly relevant to our client base, of building out this unique investment and ecosystem we have been referring to before, and thereby also being able to service our clients at the quality level that they would expect from a party like ours. Okay, thank you. Gentlemen, this was the last question. Would you like to Excuse me, to conclude the conference? Yes, please. Thank you again, everyone, for attending. Thank you, Marco and Lukas, for the presentation. We wish you all a good day and speak soon. Thank you very much. Goodbye. Thank you.