Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Jürgen, as announced, I'm with Aareal Bank for I think a long time now. I'm really happy that you can join now our Q2 conference call, where our CFO, Marc Hess, and our CMO, Christof Winkelmann, will present you the figures, and afterwards we would be very happy to answer your questions. Marc, the floor is yours. Thank you, Jürgen. Good morning to all of you from my side as well. Thanks for attending today's analyst call. Let me just start with giving you an overview regarding the latest developments in Q2, this can be found on the highlight slide on page three. We had, as I think we can say, a very good operating development. We are happy that our growth initiatives show their first positive effects. Still, we can all see some light at the end of the tunnel with regards to the successful vaccination campaigns. The environment remains uncertain, as you know, especially due to the Delta variant. However, what we can observe is that the smooth recovery scenario that we always expected is intact. We have nevertheless shown an encouraging operating performance. You can see that here. The top line growth definitely drove the bottom line up. We had a strong NII development with the profitable portfolio growth that has been shown. Christof will give you all the details later on. We had cost discipline. That means we were able to grow here at very low marginal costs. We had moderate loan loss provision despite the successfully concluding Italian de-risking activities. With regards to the outlook, we are confirming our operating profit target. However, we have to cope with a higher tax ratio this year due to a non-recurring tax effect that we communicated 10 days ago. With regards to the deferred €1.10 dividend tranche for 2020, we intend to distribute that in Q4 if the conditions that are well known to you are met, which we would currently expect. The decision, however, will be taken in Q4, as I just said. Let's go to the P&L on page five. As said, we had a good operating profit of EUR 41 million, showing strong signs of recovery despite of the net EUR 13 million burden from concluding the de-risking in Italy. Without the EUR 11 million burden from the tax effect, we would have been at EUR 52 million. Apart from risk provision, the good underlying performance was clearly driven by the top line, as I just said, and as you can see in the NII and in the NCI line. Details can be found on the next page. Regarding net interest income, we had a significant increase of 16% or EUR 20 million quarter on quarter based on the strong new business. This is not only materializing now, this is certainly also the base for future earnings. Also to say that very clearly, we have of course, written this new business under our risk standards, which are strict, and you can see that later on in the LTVs, which were very good. The portfolio increased towards our goal of EUR 29 billion, and I think we can say that we are very confident that we will be there at least at year-end. Fee income was up EUR 5 million, so nearly 10% whereas the second quarter last year. Aareon was contributing with EUR 5 million, including of course the M&A, which contributed with EUR 2 million in that increase, but also good underlying performance. In BDS, we had a positive development half year over half year, but we also had a limited impact from the German High Court ruling on GTCs. That was a relatively low number, relatively if I compare it to other German competitors with around EUR 1 million that has been digested in Q2, and we expect a final effect of less than half a million for the second half. Costs on the next slide. The cost increase overall is mainly attributable to Aareon growth. When we look at the bank, we were only EUR 1 million higher, despite of EUR 2 million of the transformation costs that we announced regarding the implementation of Aareon Next Level. As I just said, I think we can show that we can grow the book at comparatively low marginal costs. In Aareon, we are EUR 8 million up. Main contributor here is the M&A. You know that we have been successfully executing our M&A pipeline. This is associated with one-off costs and also some investments in our value creation plan as we announced. The remainder is then attributable to the normal growth. Risk provisions in the second quarter, in the line itself, you can only see the risk provisions for those loans which are not classified as at fair value. Including the fair value P&L line, we had risk provisions of EUR 40 million in the 2nd half of this year, compared to EUR 65 million last year. Significantly lower. We have, as I just mentioned, successfully concluded our de-risking initiative in Italy that we started in 2019, netted with a loan loss reversal in one single case. The extraordinary burden in Q2 was EUR 13 million net in the risk provisioning line. You can find a financial summary of the de-risking program on the next page. As you can see here, since we started in 2019, we reduced our Italian legacy exposure by EUR 1.6 billion within this initiative. The overall decrease was even higher, Associated to the de-risking, it was EUR 1.6 billion. The NPLs that we reduced were EUR 730 million. A reduction of 65% of the total NPLs in Italy from the de-risking. Apart from de-risking, we also had reductions, Therefore you can see the 80% decrease number in the chart below. We did not only focus on NPLs, as you know, but also on high LTVs loans. Here, the amount was EUR 350 million with an LTV of more than 90%. This was pre-crisis LTV. I don't think that we would like to know where the LTV is today. On that respect, I think we were early movers, and this was good. Also the BTPs were reduced by EUR 530 million. What is at least as important is that by this de-risking, we have not only seen an NPL reduction, but also a net capital release. If we net let's say the P&L burden with the capital release, we have net reliefs here of EUR 150 million in the economic ICAAP, EUR 140 million under Basel III, and EUR 110 million under Basel IV phase-in. I think we can say that we had a successful program, which we now concluded. Including these last two loans that we sold on page nine, the effect of the de-risking program on the NPLs can be clearly seen. We have taken the risk provision just to avoid any misunderstanding already in the second quarter P&L. The derecognition was now in August. This is why we have shown you numbers on slide nine as of today, and you can see that we reduced the NPLs since end of second quarter significantly, mainly driven by these de-risking activities. We are now at an NPL ratio back to just below 5% at EUR 1.44 billion. On that positive note, I would like to hand over to Christof. Yes, hello. Thank you, Marc, and a warm welcome from my side, likewise. On slide 11, as anticipated in our swoosh model, the rate of fully vaccinated individuals is rising across the board, also in our countries, with some of them being a good portion above the 50% mark already. With positive economic forecasts strengthening in North America, Europe, and parts of Asia, we do see that real estate values are stabilizing in most markets, with first very initial signs of slightly increasing values in parallel. As always, individual declines cannot be fully included in the light of a COVID development, but for the time being, this is a very positive momentum in this respect. The assumptions are underlined by a lot more market confidence by all the market participants that are in and investing with real estate, as evidenced by a largely increasing real estate transaction volume across those three continents. On the next slides, I want to give you a brief overview of our different markets. While they all do have a couple of things in common, such as an increasing vaccination rate, very positive GDP development, and an increasing transaction volume. North America has managed at this point in time to approximately reclaim 70% of the jobs lost due to COVID-19-related issues and closures. Europe has experienced strong economic growth despite of the Delta variant. London has finally managed to go back into pole position in terms of CRE transaction volumes within Europe, a place that it didn't hold for quite some years now because of Brexit and of course COVID-19. That is also a good sign for the U.K. and especially London. In Asia, we are seeing first signs of increasing cross-border activity. A very positive sign with China already being at pre-COVID-19 levels when it comes to GDP. On slide number 13 new business doubled this quarter over last quarter at EUR 2.2 billion, leading to a total volume of EUR 3.3 billion for the first half of 2021. Average margin at the upper end of the range that I did communicate at 215 basis points for the first half year, with a very acceptable and good LTV of 56% based on, mind you, post-COVID valuations, which are fully in plan with our 2021 target. It is to mention, because it does make a difference, that 63% of the transactions closed in Q2 were portfolio transactions, of which 23% were cross-border shares. Should one of, let's say, 20 assets not perform as planned, the other 19 will pay up for that asset and guarantee adequate debt service. As always, a crisis also yields opportunities, and we are willing and able to take them. Furthermore, last but not least, as promised during our Q1 call, we have successfully implemented and underwritten our first green loans totaling EUR 220 million for the first half of the year. On slide 14, as I said, we are making progress on our green financing activities. In detail, we have also, in parallel, enhanced our portfolio transparency and have integrated the respective data fields into our IT systems. We are aiming to at least double our green financing loans by year-end to EUR 500 million or even more at the end of December. As our clients get more familiar with the process from whom we do have very positive feedback and demand, we are expecting volumes in this field to further grow and increase. We are, at the same time, in the midst of preparation of our inaugural green bond with internationally renowned rating agency Sustainalytics that have already accompanied us in our green financing definition and practices. On page 15, as I said, we are continuing to foster our ESG transparency. It does, I can tell you, take a lot of effort on both sides, that of our clients and as well as on our side. We, to date, have identified certificates for approximately 60% of the total CRE portfolio, which, as I said, would also be partly feeding our inaugural green bond. Forward-looking, we will focus on further financing and also enabling green assets. You can't change that from today till tomorrow, but we are one of the facilitators of this trend going forward. We are going to improve our data quality together with our clients and are looking to regularly and transparently, as we have in the past, report on the progress thereof. On slide 16, what does all of this new business lead to? Our portfolio volumes sit at €28.5 billion at the end of June, in line with plan. For the benefit of a sneak preview, this volume stood at EUR 29.2 billion with KPIs in or, mind you, better than plan at the end of July. Therefore, the targeted portfolio size of EUR 29 billion per year-end seems a lot more than just realistic. We are sticking to our diversification and strict risk parameters with an acquisition pipeline well-filled going forward from today and KPIs again in or better than plan. At this point, I do and would like to take the time to thank both teams, the ones on the market side and the ones from the credit risk management side, for contributing diligence, efforts, and expertise so far, despite this being a holiday season and a lot of people have kids in school that need to be taken care of. They have shown a tremendous involvement also in July and in August to make this possible. Thank you very much. I do believe that being there, supporting our clients in existing as well as new engagements, which is very important throughout the cycle and not just at point in the cycle, has further strengthened our many relationships and has enabled us to acquire this high-quality new business. On slide 17, just a quick recap. You've probably gotten used to this slide at this point in time. As I've mentioned earlier, the LTVs across the board are and have stabilized and are even increasing slightly in value in parts. The average LTV on the portfolio has improved to 59%, with an average yield on that slightly up at 6.4% at the same time. With the visibility improving and performance slowly picking up across the different asset classes, the demand for liquidity lines and amortization postponement is continuing to decrease, as you can see in the chart that we provided on the right side, and we are expecting that, albeit any other significant changes, to continue as buildings open up, travel resumes, and business gets to somewhat more of a, in parentheses, normal level. On page 18, also something familiar to you, but we wouldn't want to miss the transparency. Both of the above asset classes were largely subject to many closures and focused on by many stakeholders in and externally. As visible, LTVs also in these asset classes have stabilized at good average levels with first initial signs of improvement year-to-date. Yes, just to take that away, the Maldives also had a very good first half of the high season, which starts 1st of January to about March, and the books are filled for the second part, which starts in October, going to the 31st of December. Actually, the first half of that season was the best for many of the properties that we have financed in their history. Also good signs on that part. On that high note, I will hand it back over to Marc. Marc, please. Thank you, Christof. I would like to continue on page 19 with a brief comment on the BDS segment. After the strong increase of net commission income in the first quarter, the second quarter was diluted by the negative effects of roughly EUR 1 million due to the German High Court ruling on GTCs that I just mentioned, but as you can see, it was a comparably limited effect on Aareal Bank. Deposits, in contrast, continued their increase from EUR 11.6 billion-EUR 12.2 billion. That is a good contribution to finance the growth of our loan book, as you have just seen. In Aareon, on the next slide, we kept our momentum executing our M&A roadmap. Since we have established our successful partnership with Advent, we have already closed four acquisitions and there is more to come soon, I can say. With Twinq in the Netherlands, we substantially increased our market share there by 700,000 units in the private housing market. In the U.K., we have acquired three companies so far with high synergetic potential to build up a base for our planned European expansion in the SME property management segment. In Germany, the launch of Wodis Yuneo end of last year has been a success. Since then, already 33% of our Wodis customers have subscribed, and even more, 42%, if you look at the units. At the same time, our intended license to SaaS shift is gaining momentum, even more than planned. Of course, this is slightly diluting this year's ERP revenues, but that's clearly beneficial for future growth. I can say that the CEO of Aareon, Manfred Alflen, is here with us today. If there are more specific questions in the Q&A session, he will be at your disposal. With regards to the revenue growth of Aareon in the first half, next page, it was still diluted by the lower consulting revenues. Recovered from the lows in the first quarter. You can see it here. Second and third bullet point. Digital revenues, excluding professional services, grew by 17%, slightly below our target. In ERP revenues, ex professional services up 6%, so even slightly above our target. All in all, the adjusted EBITDA, however, increased by another EUR 3 million to EUR 29 million, in line with the plan. Adjustments increased to EUR 11 million, mainly due to the M&A related costs and the investments into our value creation program. Another supporting factor was the further increase of the EBITDA margin by another 100 basis points to 22%. Looking at the capital ratios on page 23. Capitalization remains sound, close to the year-end levels. Slight dilution versus Q1 is mainly related to the growth of our portfolio. Not a surprise. The leverage ratio remained on a very solid level of 5.72, despite of the balance sheet inflating effect of the TLTRO. You have also seen the results even after the very severe scenario of the ECB stress test, with a further reduction of commercial real estate values by more than 30%. That from the already COVID-impacted levels of year-end 2020, where, for example, in hotel and in retail, we had already been down 10%, 15%. I think we can say that we are, even in this very stressed scenario, well above our thresholds. Let's move ahead to the outlook on page 25. As I already mentioned, we confirm our operating profit target range and remain cautious on risk provisions due to the uncertainties related to the Delta variant of COVID-19. We are, however, very convinced that we will meet our ambitious top-line growth targets without diluting on our strict risk standards. As you're all well aware, we have to digest a one-time tax effect, unfortunately, and have thus mathematically adjusted the EPS range accordingly. Let me summarize on page 27. Significant profit increase in the second quarter, driven by revenues up 14%, especially by net interest income, despite of the persisting low rate environment. Significantly lower LLPs, despite of the conclusion of the accelerated de-risking measures in Italy. An operating profit of EUR 41 or EUR 52, if one excludes the one-time tax effect. I think that shows that our growth initiatives are starting to pay off in all our segments. On that basis, we were able to confirm our operating profit target, and we are still planning for a second dividend in Q4 if the conditions are met. On that basis, I would like to hand over to the operator back again to collect your questions, and we are happy to answer them. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star followed by one on their touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star followed by two. If you're using speaker equipment today, please lift the handset before making your selections. Anyone who has a question may press star followed by one at this time. The first question is from the line of Johannes Thormann with HSBC. Your question please. Morning, everybody. Johannes Thormann, HSBC. three questions, if I may. First of all, could you elaborate a bit on your new business, relatively high share of new German business? What's behind that? And also in terms of margins, and probably if you can elaborate also on the high share of the logistics business in terms of margins. Secondly, please, on your NPL reduction efforts. Surely nice to get from whopping 6% - 4.9%, which is still a very high level compared even to peripheral banks in Europe. What are the next steps there? Where is your targeted level to get down to in the next years? Last but not least, on page 21, the Aareon story, which I consider not positive, but rather poor and disappointing. If you could elaborate a bit more how you want to come back to your old growth CAGRs and want to catch up this because you target, in the digital space, 22%-25%. Then you're even on an adjusted level now, even with catch-up from a very weak Q2 at 17%. How do you want to catch up this? Thank you. Sure. I will start in terms of your questions of the share of German business and the logistics and the corresponding margins. As you know, Germany is a highly sought-after market with very high density of banks, very large competition, usually leading to a not very favorable risk-return matrix. Sometimes there are opportunities, as we have seen over the past four to five years, which we will then take, and we have taken one larger portfolio transaction in Germany, which came to fruition in the Q2. That is where the German share comes from. The second one, when it comes to logistics, we are planning to increase our share in logistics, but it's not that we have just started financing logistics. As you know, we do have a logistics team in place since 20 years. Sometimes when opportunity leads the way, we will invest more in the one asset class than the other. I think that there are a lot of opportunities currently with an undersupply in many markets when it comes to logistics space. Also, one of our KPIs, as you know, are larger portfolios with granularity, mostly spread across different countries with either pension funds or some wealth funds, which do need the expertise in structuring and being able to come to the closing line in time, which we have done successfully. We have already announced some of them. Some we've just concluded and are looking to announce them once the client has agreed to do so. Therefore, yes, we would like to grow that further. However, it's not a never-ending volume. Also there, we are trying, and we are in competition. Yes, you are right. The share is growing, and we would like to grow that a bit more still. The margins, please. The margins are in line. Above average, below average. It depends on which country and which asset class, because we plan for every country and every asset class. It is in line with our planning, as you can see from the overall margin at 215 basis points for the first half year. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, Manfred Alflen here. Thank you for your question. Coming back to the digital solutions growth rates. We have seen two aspects. On the one hand, given the COVID situation, our customers still are very much focused on their business. We do see that all those companies which already do have a high digitization rate do much better in the crisis. In addition, we have now launched a couple of new products in the digital solution space, like the predictive maintenance. We have the assistant and just launched the Digital Agency and have very positive feedback from the market in there. With this existing and with the new product base, we expect that we will increase the digital solutions revenues here and come back to the growth rates we have promised before. If that answers your question. Not really, because I can't see how you want to catch up. You need to probably for the next year, 30% growth, and then just via new products. The core business is struggling. The core business is doing well. We've always said that we will have additional investments in our Aareon Smart World portfolio. We would expect that this will pick up soon. We see high interest from the markets, and that's why we believe that we can make this up again in the years to come. There is no deviation from the commitments we have given earlier on the midterm. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen. Oh, sorry. There's a third question to be answered. Hi, Johannes. Thanks. Hi, Marc. It's Marc. On the NPLs. I think we were quite successful in reducing the NPLs to around EUR 1 billion before the crisis. We have seen the inflation. I believe we have reached the top now in Q2. As you can see, we are already, within the last 1 and a half months, significantly down. I think our next target is to be back at around EUR 1 billion over the next quarters, certainly not this year. Also let me state that this is not a defined program that we would need for that. That is within our normal workout and within our planned risk provisions. We have to work it down again from this inflated level due to COVID-19. We are also very confident that we can go down to that level. What I would like to mention, however, is that if you look at our PDs as it is, let's say, basis of our modeling. For example, for calculating the RWAs, et cetera, and the typical workout time, then a level of EUR 1 billion or even slightly above is not unusual for a portfolio like ours, which is a mature portfolio. I think going to around EUR 1 billion is a good target for the next quarters, years. Okay, thank you. Thanks. Ladies and gentlemen, for further questions, please press star followed by one on your telephone. The next question is from the line of Mengxian Sun, Deutsche Bank. Your question please. Yes. Hi, thank you very much for taking the question. Hello, good morning. Two questions from my side as well. The first question is on the cost side, as you stated on the presentation that the Q2 is still benefits from the COVID underspending. Would you mind telling us how much of the cost benefit is coming from the underspending from COVID in this quarter and also in the last quarter? The second question is I'm trying to figure out the organic growth on Aareon. Could you please tell us what are the financial contributions from the M&A from the four newly acquired companies in this quarter, both in terms of revenue contribution and profitability? How do you see the run rates for the fee income on Aareon for the next two quarters? Thank you very much. Yeah, sure. Thank you for your question. First of all, when we're looking at the bank, we gave you the number for the transformation cost. This is around EUR 2 million, the COVID related underspend is not much. It's around EUR 1 million or EUR 2 million in the second quarter compared to around EUR 4 million in the Q2 last year. This is coming down. What we had on top was the fluctuation of the provisions for the share price-related issues. That is around EUR 3 million in the second quarter. With regards to the fee income growth, we had out of the EUR 5 million increase in Aareon, EUR 2 million from M&A. Can you give us a breakdown of the revenue contribution and the EBITDA contribution on that? Well, the revenue contribution is the EUR 2 million. They only generate fee income. The profit contribution from the, let's say, ongoing P&L is still very low. It's below EUR 1 million, much below EUR 1 million. We have just done these acquisitions recently, many of them are more in a startup mode. What was your last question? Sorry. The run rate on the fee income from Aareon for the next two quarters The run rate. Well, we typically don't give an outlook here on the NCI. What we have given in our target number, and this is confirmed, is the revenue contribution of Aareon. You can see them on page 25 with the EUR 276 million-EUR 280 million for this year, and this is what we have confirmed. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, for any further questions, please press star followed by one at this time. We wait some seconds for any further questions. The next question is from the line of Philipp Häßler, Pareto. Your question, please. Yes. Good morning. Philipp Häßler from Pareto. I have three questions, please. Firstly, on your green loans, how is the margin situation on the green loans? Is it below or above those of non-green loans? Secondly, on the U.S. portfolio that declined by 6% quarter-over-quarter, if I calculated it correctly, was it a strategic decision or is it just due to higher maturities or lower new business? Last but not least, on the BTP reduction, why now? Have you lost confidence in Italy or was it just due to attractive pricing? Thank you. Yeah. Thank you, Philipp. Let's start with the question towards the green loan margins. It is always assumed that giving a green loan or green bond has a benefit for the ones that do take it. I think it has a benefit for all sides. What we have seen is that we have an interest to foster the development of green buildings, of ESG, and likewise to our clients. To be very honest, there is no difference in the pricing of these loans. Whether that's going to stay that way or not, or whether the other way around, let's call it badly a brown loan will be priced differently than a green loan. Green loan is the new standard when it comes to planning. I think that's a question to be answered going forward. For the time being, we do not provide, in any way, shape, or form, higher or lower margins because the actual work involved in these green loans on both sides is quite a lot and also bears costs with it because these are strict covenants that borrowers on an ongoing basis will have to comply with over the term of the loan. Everybody, both sides, have to monitor that. For the time being, there is no difference in the green loan margins per se. When we go to the U.S., first of all, the clear answer, no, it's not a strategic move. The only strategic idea behind it is that the U.S. has been much quicker in terms of assumed recovery. The competition that we have seen for the high-quality buildings that we like to focus on in the U.S. has been as fierce as we haven't seen that kind of competition since 2006, 2007. I think that has slowed down again a bit. Things are getting more to normal levels. We have entered one other transaction, but the only strategic move behind it was that opportunities were much more attractive in other parts of the world at the same time. Also, I can let you know that there's been a very large amount of time spent on the U.S. portfolio, with making sure that that stayed in tame, which we have been very successful, and as you can see with the overall LTV decreasing and just as a preview there, likewise, U.S. is seeing a turnaround in many pockets of markets when it comes to valuations, but also in terms of performance, because they're simply ahead of us in terms of opening. Yes, some states have reintroduced or are reintroducing masks. It is very heterogeneous in this respect. For the time being, we have not seen any impact on the performance there. On the contrary, I think the performance looks up quite nicely. As I said, that is more a bit opportunity-driven, and that's the only strategic reason behind it. Other than that, we're not changing our point of view on the U.S. in any way, shape, or form. Yeah. Hi, Philipp. Your question on the BTPs. The bulk of that reduction was already executed in 2019. We also communicated that at that time, for several reasons. One is that we simply had a bulk risk with a BTP exposure of EUR 1.1 billion, which we considered as being too high. There was also some legacy because we inherited that from one of our acquisitions. I think it was WestImmo, if I remember it correctly. This was working that down at that time. We had further reduction steps last year, this year as well in the first quarter, but this was a double-digit million EUR figure. As I just said, we also looked very much in this program on the capital efficiency. As you can see, even the ICAAP, we were able to free up EUR 150 million in capital. As you all know, BTPs don't have RWAs, so they don't really contribute to the relief on the normative level. The market risk attached due to the volatility of the spreads was quite high. The reduction was also driven by this optimization idea for the ICAAP. Okay, thanks for the clarification. The BTPs you are still holding, you are happy with those? There are no plans to further reduce them? Well, we now have around $500 million, which I think is justifiable from a size point of view. If there are some opportunities, if spreads are contracting more, we could also think about reducing further. It's not planned. This is then opportunity-driven. It's not a part of a program. Okay, very clear. Thank you very much. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, there are no further questions at this time, and I hand back to Marc Hess for closing comments. Thank you very much for participating today. Of course, our IR team is available if you have further questions studying what we have published today. Happy to talk to you soon. Have a good day. Bye-bye.