Good morning, everybody. I'd like to thank you for joining our Q3 conference call. Even in the light of the news and the rumors, let's focus here in this call on our Q3 performance. As you are already used to, our CFO, Marc Hess, and our CMO, Christof Winkelmann, will present you our figures. We have our new CEO, Jochen Klösges, is here with us. After the presentation, we would be happy to answer your questions, where Manfred Alflen, CEO of Aareon, is also available for deeper insights into our IT subsidiary. Now I want just to hand over to Jochen, please. Thank you very much, Jürgen. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I've now been on board since the 15th of September, and after almost two months, I'm delighted to be speaking to you today for the first time, even if it's just by phone, but I hope to meet you in person very soon. My first few weeks at Aareal Bank Group have been anything but business as usual. You know why. We confirmed on the 7th of October that the management board had entered into open-ended talks regarding the potential acquisition of a majority interest by a group of financial investors, Advent and Centerbridge. As already emphasized at the beginning of October, we did not initiate these talks. Instead, the investors approached us with their request. In such a case, we are obliged to examine the strategic options that could arise from a possible new scenario. This is exactly what we are doing currently. With great seriousness and diligence, always keeping in mind the interests of the company and its stakeholders. I clearly understand that you want to hear more from us about how things stand at the moment. However, I must ask you to please understand that I cannot really comment on this. The only thing I can say today is that talks are ongoing. When we have something to report, we will, of course, inform the market and the general public immediately. Life will not stand still until we have something to report, of course. A few days ago, we invited for an extraordinary general meeting to vote on the second dividend tranche for the financial year 2020. By their very nature, the ongoing talks with the financial investors could have an impact on this. In the event of an offer, and depending on the content of the offer, the dividend proposal for the extraordinary general meeting could be put to the test. However, right now, this is pure speculation. As you have seen yesterday, we have once again received a request for extension of the agenda of this general meeting in December by one of our shareholders. The supervisory board has commented on this in its statement in detail, and we published a press release in this context, too, yesterday. We have nothing to add in this regard. What is important to me is that we must not neglect our ongoing business or the implementation of our successful strategy because of the ongoing talks with the potential investors. Regardless of the outcome of these talks, Aareal Bank continues to be an attractive company with a sustainable business model. This is exactly what I perceived during the first two months here in Wiesbaden. I've been very impressed by the high levels of competence and commitment that employees and my colleagues on the management board show when it comes to evolving the company. This shows me that it was the right decision to join Aareal Bank Group. What excited me about Aareal Bank was the fact that it's not just a bank active on four continents. We are also a prominent player in the housing industry. With Aareon under the same roof, we have a software subsidiary that is set to achieve strong growth in what is a very attractive market for the future. It goes without saying, together with my colleagues on the management board, I will also set new focus points in order to make Aareal Bank Group even stronger in the future. This applies regardless of whether a deal is concluded with the financial investors or not. In the short time that I've been here, I've had many intensive and interesting discussions on this matter. In the future, our main focus has to be on exploring further growth opportunities for Aareal Bank Group and, of course, increasing the efficiency of our operations. The foundation for this is Aareal Next Level, our strategy. The potential to achieve these goals is clearly visible in all three segments. Ladies and gentlemen, our third-quarter figures, which we present to you today, are clear evidence that Aareal Bank Group is on the right track. This despite the continued high level of uncertainty caused by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, which has unfortunately intensified again in recent weeks and days here in Germany. Our performance over the year to date, and especially for the third quarter, is encouraging. The income-driven increase in results continues. That interest income is particularly impressive, rising to its highest quarterly level in four years. This is also attributable to the controlled, risk-aware, and strategic growth path we took during challenging times. Additional levers from our NextLevel strategy are also contributing to this positive development. We are fully committed to seizing the opportunities that present themselves to a specialist such as Aareal Bank Group, even in the current situation. Our new business is developing successfully and offers an attractive risk-return profile. As expected, loss allowance is still above the normalized average of the past years. This is clearly due to the ongoing uncertainties caused by the pandemic. Our net commission income continues to rise, and the volume of deposits, which is particularly important for our refinancing, remains at a high level. Last but not least, Aareon continues to make good progress with its growth program. All this shows that our strategy is clearly bearing fruit. We can see today that the path we have embarked upon with Aareal Next Level is the right one. We will continue to further implement our strategy. However, the big unknown, especially in view of the current situation, is how the pandemic will evolve in the future. We therefore remain cautious regarding our loss allowance. This is the line we are taking in our business in general, opportunity-driven, but at the same risk aware and always in accordance with our strategy. In terms of outlook, this means that we will leave our current forecast unchanged and see what the fourth quarter will bring. My colleagues, Marc and Christof, will now present a detailed report on the results and developments for the third quarter. I will then conclude with the outlook, and after that, we will be available to answer your questions. Marc, over to you. Thank you, Jochen, and good morning to everybody from my side too. I'm happy to present the details of our P&L now. You can find them on Page five. I think the figures reflect what Jochen just said. The performance within the first nine months has been very promising, especially the momentum we created in our net interest income, both from the asset and from the funding side, shows that we are well advancing in executing on our adjusted strategy, Aareal Next Level. With the operating profit of EUR 50 million in the third quarter and EUR 123 million in the first nine months, we are absolutely in line with our guidance and managed the turnaround as promised after a difficult Corona-impacted year, 2020. Looking at the net interest income on the next slide, I think it becomes obvious that we are using the opportunities in the current environment, I would say more actively than others. Of course, strictly respecting on our risk standards, and that is paying off, as you can see here. The portfolio is already ahead of our EUR 29 billion target for the end of the year. As Christof will explain to you later on, we are probably already reaching the target that we had set for next year in this year. The NII, as I just said, increased significantly more than 20% quarter-over-quarter. That is EUR 27 million. In this EUR 27 million, most of that is really organic. There's only a EUR 3 million support from the TLTRO in the quarter-by-quarter comparison. On the nine-month basis, we are up EUR 62 million, which is 16%. On the fee income, the fee income is still affected by the pandemic, especially the professional service consulting business of Aareon, longer than we had originally expected, to be frank here too. On top, we had a shift between Q2 and Q3 in Aareon from earlier recognition of fees generated by BauSecura that was around EUR 3 million, distorting the quarterly comparison of Q2 and Q3 this year. On a nine-month basis, the NCI was up by 4% to EUR 174 million. On the cost side, we are also absolutely in line with our guidance. You can see that quarter by quarter, the bank is up EUR 5 million. This is easily explained, EUR 3 million from the COVID-related underspend last year. That is basically the phantom shares. We had share price going down last year, up this year, so that makes a difference of EUR 3 million and another EUR 1 million for Aareon Next Level, as we had communicated. On Aareon, costs are up EUR 6 million. 4 million are M&A-related, and two million are the investments in our VCP program. As you know, here again, we are investing this year to generate future growth in the years ahead. Risk provisions are well below previous year with EUR 95 million, including fair value P&L after EUR 185 million in the first nine months of 2020. We are 50% down, but still, and Jochen just mentioned that, slightly above the pre-crisis levels as expected, I have to say. With regards to the winter quarter, fourth quarter, we remain cautious. This is why we are keeping our outlook unchanged within the communicated range. In the NPL volume, you can see the reduction already indicated in August due to the successful completion of our de-risking in Italy. This is why we are now significantly below the peak of mid this year, and we consider that being the peak at an NPL ratio of just below 5%. That said, I hand over to Christof for more details on the real estate market and on our portfolio. Yes. Good morning from my side as well. Thank you, Marc. On slide number 10, as expected, vaccination rates have further increased, and many countries have their rates between 70% and 90%. In total, the economic recovery is underway across the globe. However, even because we have different degrees of infection rates and the fact that supply chains have been largely impacted as a result of COVID, there is still uncertainty in the development. In line with our expectations, transaction volumes have further increased significantly, bringing liquidity and deal flow to our markets. After the global reopening, our portfolio, of course, has benefited from people wanting to meet in person again to socialize, conduct business, to travel, to go shopping, and to spend more time in the office again. To summarize, pressure on our CRE portfolio is declining with KPIs picking up again. On slide number 11, as just said, we do see promising performance increases, and booking trends for our financed hotels are trending up, especially also when it comes to conferencing, which does have a catch-up to do and is looking very promising for the next two years to come. Also, just as a matter of fact, this Monday, on the eighth of November, the U.S. has finally opened up their borders again to let international travelers for business and pleasure into their country. I can tell you that the planes going to the U.S. on the first day were all fully overbooked. Contrary to some beliefs, by the way, people are still surprisingly buying product offline, and that, as a result, indicates that stationary retail sales are picking up across the globe. Although some countries, like the U.K., are still lagging behind. Logistics, a favorite asset class, apparently still is completely undersupplied and is a highly competitive market, especially for us on the financing side as well. With the support of our USPs of structuring large, well-diversified cross-border multi-asset deals, we have once again shown that we can be good and increase our market share. Despite the increasing infection rates, as I said, there's a trend to come back to the office, and it's accelerating. Just as a side comment, because nobody apparently thinks that offices will be needed again in the future, I wanted to cite Brookfield, that has just made an offer to take over alstria, a pure German office REIT, at an all-time high in terms of share price. Maybe they see something that some people don't see or that we at least tend to agree with to a large part. When it comes to the new business, by not stopping to support our clients, as I've mentioned many times on the last calls, in their new acquisitions and refinancing throughout the cycle, we're able to continue to originate good risk-return business. Our clients want us to accompany them through the cycle, not just when things are good, but as opportunities arise for them. At the same time, this enabled us to build a solid deal pipeline going forward. So we're not just looking in the rearview mirror, but are looking at attractive opportunities already going forward. That pipeline is filled with equally good risk return parameters in line with our credit risk guidelines. The pre-effect margins for Q3 were above 230 basis points, leading to an average 225 basis points year to date at an LTV of 57%, which I believe is a very good level and in line with planning. We further increased our green loan volume, and we do continue to see more opportunities with our clients. New business overall, I can tell you that much, will be expected at the upper end of our communicated range of EUR 7 billion-EUR 8 billion. On page 13. For green loans, we do not only look at the quality of the building and certificates there too, but we are agreeing on rigid requirements and undertakings that need to be fulfilled throughout the tenure of the loan. If I can briefly explain, there are conditions in loan agreements to upkeep the standards to make sure it is operated in the right way. Should the client fail to do that, there is a default covenant which would basically make the loan due. It is a very strict guideline. We have identified 65% of our portfolio as having certificates, and 20% of our portfolio do fulfill our rigid requirements that we have developed together with Sustainalytics that I had alluded to in the last call already. These are the certificates, and they are the very basis upon which we can eventually provide our clients with green loans. To date, we have EUR 275 million of green loans, and they are further to come by the end of the year and starting next year. On page 14. As mentioned before, the continuous dialogue with our clients enable us to use the market opportunities with excellent risk-return profiles. Thereby, we were able to increase the portfolio target for the year-end to up to EUR 30 billion, achieving the original target, as Mark had just alluded, of EUR 22 billion, one year in advance. As visible, we are sticking to our diversification, both in terms of geographical location and asset types. Our logistics portfolio is slowly growing in share as a part of our portfolio. We are always keeping risk-return aspect in the back of our minds when underwriting a loan, and we do believe that there's further room for growth in our company going forward. On slide number 15, as you can see, our somewhat bell-shaped LTV curve has further shifted to the left, yielding an average LTV just slightly below 59% on average. As I had envisaged in the Q2 communication already, values overall have stabilized and are continuing to improve month-over-month on average. Another indicator that has continued the same trend is our overall yield on debt for the portfolio. While Q2 had shown first signs of turnaround, Q3 has reinforced this trend. It increased by 60 basis points to 7% from 6.4 in the prior quarter, which I think is showing very good tendencies in one quarter only. One effect of the improving performances is also the continuously decreasing liquidity support needed and/or asked by our clients, as you can see on the graph on the bottom right side. Backed by favorable demand, we have again broken up the hotel and retail segment to show you the timeline of the past quarters and as to how LTV and yield on debt develops in these asset classes that are always discussed and a point of focus. The same trend also here, as I described before, is clearly visible when it comes there. The yield on debt for hotels managed to increase 50% - 4.1% in one quarter, I think showing and continuing the trend that we have seen from the lowest point in Q1 2021. While average LTV has also improved to 61%, getting closer to its pre-COVID levels. Yield on debt for the retail has also improved to a very acceptable 9.1% on average, with LTV stable and slightly bettering at 60%. I think to sum it up, we are expecting this trend to continue with all the uncertainties that we cannot predict ourselves, and unfortunately, nobody can. We're looking to increase our undertaking path. With this, I would hand back over to Marc. Thank you, Christof. Let's follow up with BDS. Here you can see that it also performed well in line with its targets. The fee income increased by 10% to EUR 20 million on a nine-month basis, despite the burdens from the ruling of the German Federal Court of Justice that cost us EUR 1 million. Really well in line with our midterm targets. Even more important, as we are growing the portfolio, the growth of our deposits. Here we are now at EUR 12 billion. The original target was EUR 11 billion, and we are happy to increase that target now to EUR 12 billion by year-end. Let's come to Aareon. As you have seen in our various deal announcements, in the course of the year, Aareon has successfully expanded its portfolio by M&A activity. Let me remind you, on top of that, we still have a full pipeline. The company has also benefited here clearly from the M&A network and the expertise of Advent. We as Aareon, as you also know, have provided a Hunting Line, a loan of EUR 250 million to finance that, inorganic growth. As you can see here on the slide, we have already successfully completed those 6 acquisitions. The most recent one was made in October. Here, Aareon took over GAP Group, a provider of ERP software for the German housing industry. This gives us significant cross-selling potential, as GAP Group has 550 customers, who operate 1.5 million units in Germany. We will also be able to benefit here from cross-selling potential, especially with regards to our digital solutions. In August, Aareon took over the PropTech Wohnungshelden, a company that offers software solutions for the housing companies to fully digitize their entire letting process. Together with Aareon, these solutions can be further developed and marketed even better. The customers of the two companies will benefit from the expanded product range. Aareon also has access to non-Aareon customers through Wohnungshelden, and this gives us additional cross-selling potential. We have Manfred Alflen here, the CEO of Aareon. In case you have more detailed questions on Aareon or these specific M&A deals, he's also happy to join in to answer your questions in the Q&A sessions. With regards to the operational business, both the further expansion of the product range and the implementation of the value creation plans are well underway. As part of our ERP 2025 product strategy, Aareon has achieved a milestone with the new Wodis Yuneo product generation. Marketing continues, particularly with a view to using Bordir Neo as a SaaS solution. That's another significant step, by the way, in Aareon's transformation into a SaaS company. Having looked on revenues and EBITDA on page 19, you can see that the revenue increase continues despite the consulting fees still being impacted by COVID-19 and the fact that due to the successful subscription to our Wodis Yuneo product, many customers are hesitant in investing in their own systems. This is why we are expecting consulting to pick up significantly along the implementation of Bordir Neo, starting next year. However, due to the muted professional services fees in 2021, we have lowered expectations slightly. Nevertheless, we have kept Aareon's adjusted EBITDA guidance unchanged as we have already implemented some countermeasures, especially on the cost side. Let's look at capital, page 21. Here you can see that despite of the growth in the loan book, we were able to increase the Basel III as well as the Basel IV phase-in ratio to 21.5 and 17.8 respectively. Quite a strong increase. The reason is that, we have compensated that loan book growth by positive effects from the retroactive collateral recognition. Here we ran a campaign and from the NPL reduction in the third quarter, as we have just shown. Very positive effects on that side. Looking ahead, you as you know, the commission proposal for the implementation of Basel IV has been published recently. Therefore, it becomes a fact that Basel III will need to be replaced in the foreseeable future. This is why we are currently discussing internally to adjust our internal steering to, and we may adjust the Basel III ratio calculations, for example, by applying an input floor going forward. To align it more with the new Basel IV phase-in standards. That means that Basel III would convert to Basel IV phase-in levels. As you have seen that with other competitors already, I think it really makes sense when we are providing a loan today for five years that we basically focus on the new standard and not on the current one that will be replaced. With regards to funding and liquidity here, if you're looking at this chart, you can see that in parallel with the portfolio growth, our funding chart is also ticking upwards, obviously. Here, as I just mentioned, a very welcome support is the increasing deposits from our housing industry. Here we are up EUR 1 billion in the course of the year. On top, we were a successful issuer of EUR 3.5 billion at the capital markets, EUR 2.3 billion covered, including a sterling and a US dollar Pfandbrief, and EUR 1.2 billion in senior unsecured. Well on the way. The liquidity ratios are, as you know, overfulfilled both in the NSFR as in the LCR world. That also already brings me to the outlook on page 24. As year-end moves closer, we have adjusted some of the lines, as already explained in detail. You can see it here in the summary. Our main target, the operating profit of EUR 100 million-EUR 175 million, however, is kept unchanged. That underpins from our point of view that we are delivering the promised turnaround after the challenging Corona year 2020. Where we will end up exactly by the end of the year, within that range, will mainly depend on the loan loss provisions. As Jochen already said, we want to remain cautious here, and we are keeping that range unchanged too, due to the recent pickup of new corona incidents in the running winter quarter. That said, Jochen, back to you. Thank you, Marc. Thank you, Christof Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I will briefly summarize the main points. Aareal Bank Group continues its positive development with a good third quarter. That's the main message, of course. Our third quarter consolidated operating profit rose to EUR 50 million, mainly driven by a very pleasing increase in net interest income. This reflects the successful implementation of our Aareal Next Level strategy, which is clearly focused on controlled risk-aware growth. Risk is the keyword here. Our loss allowance is significantly below the previous year's level, but still above the normalized level in the context of COVID-19. Our growth initiatives have an impact, and that's important. In the Structured Property Financing segment, we have already exceeded our previous annual target for portfolio volume after just nine months, and we will continue to increase it through to the end of the year. As you know, our focus lies on a healthy risk-return profile. That means attractive margins, good LTVs, and of course, stable cash flows. In the Banking & Digital Solutions segment, we have further increased net commission income and the volume of deposits has continued to grow at a high level. Aareon has consistently implemented its M&A activities and is also on track in other important areas, including the transformation from license fees to SaaS and increasing the digital solutions business. Our full scenario of a gradual strengthening in economic recovery remains fundamentally intact. However, uncertainty regarding the future development of the pandemic has recently increased again, especially during the last days. In light of this, we are sticking to our forecast for 2021 as a whole, both in terms of loss allowance and consolidated operating profit. Looking beyond the current year, we can confirm that our strategy is bearing fruit. We are on the right track for the future, and we see many opportunities to grow further. Thank you very much for your attention. My colleagues and I will be happy to answer your questions now. 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 the touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star followed by two. If you are using speaker equipment today, please lift the handset before making your selections. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. The first question comes from Nicholas Herman from Citigroup. Please go ahead. Yes, thank you for your presentation and for taking my questions. Hopefully you can hear me okay. Yeah. Great. Three from me, please. Just firstly, on the bid, you said that you're evaluating the bid seriously and are considering from the perspective of all stakeholders, excuse me, from the perspective of all stakeholders. I realize that you are limited in terms of going into your thoughts right now, but it would be helpful if you could go into the factors, please, that the Board and the Management are considering in respect of the bid. And then secondly, and third, the next two are more numbers questions. Firstly on real estate portfolio. You have noted that you expected to achieve a EUR 30 billion portfolio by year-end, even though the new business target is unchanged. As part of that, I mean, that would firstly imply a significantly lower new business in Q4 versus Q3, which I guess is not typical seasonality, but also implies quite limited redemptions in Q4. If you could just detail the moving parts there, that would be helpful. And then the last one is on the SPF net interest income. Clearly, there was an impressive pickup in net interest income and in margin. I mean, if you could just help us by breaking up the moving parts in the EUR 13 million NII uptick between Q2 and Q3, that would be very helpful. Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, please hold the line. The, the-- we lost connection with the speakers. Please hold the line. Thank you. Okay, I try again. Three questions. I would like to take the first one. If I understood correctly, you're referring to the ongoing talks with the potential investors and about the EUR 29. Of course, this is finally something which has to be decided by the shareholders in the future, if there might be a binding offer of that group of investors. Currently, we are still in open-ended talks, so I guess it's way too early to speculate about that. Again, our view is finally that this is, of course, a decision which has to be taken then by the shareholders of Aareal Bank. Second question was relating to real estate, the EUR 30 billion and development. Christof, would you like to take this? Sure. Absolutely, yeah. Thanks. You ask how we will get to EUR 30 billion by year-end, considering where we currently are. The fourth quarter, as I understood you, was the question, is usually not one of the strongest quarters. Depends very much on which jurisdiction you do business in. The fourth quarter could be stronger in some jurisdictions than others. However, we do business as we always do, quite granular. The case this year is, as I've mentioned beforehand, we did not stop to acquire new business, to chat with our clients, to be close to them and look at new projects in parallel to the crisis. These are the benefits that are arising at this point in time. As I've mentioned, we have a well-filled pipeline going forward, not only looking in the rearview mirror, but also looking at the actual month, and that is lasting into the next year. The pipeline definitely shows that we have a very good likelihood of achieving the set numbers of EUR 30 and/or around EUR 30 billion by year-end. We're very confident. Maybe because we did not stop contrary to some of our competitors, but continued, I think this is the case and is achievable. Okay. If I understood your last question correctly, it was regarding the pickup of the net interest income Q2 versus Q3, so how these EUR 13 million split up. Is that correct? Yes, that is correct. Okay, good. This EUR 13 million can be broken down into EUR 5 million increase from the portfolio growth. That is 1.2 billion on average, that results in EUR 5 million. Then better margins and better refinancing costs, that is net margin, so to say another EUR 6 million. Then we have around EUR 1 million from the fact that the third quarter has one interest day more than the second quarter. Great. Thank you very much. Thank you. The next question comes from Johannes Thormann from HSBC. Please go ahead. Morning, everybody. Johannes Thormann. Three questions, please. First of all, on your net interest income outlook. I would have with the portfolio growth and the current margin trends that it should be stable or up. If I look at the nine months level, the increased guidance, it is at best stable. Why are you so cautious on this? Probably can you also elaborate a bit on the outlook for the de-recognition result in Q4, what you've currently seen or already have seen as repayments and so on. Next thing is looking at the performance of Aareon. Can you honestly really talk about progress if revenues in both revenue lines of Aareon declined quarter-on-quarter and the overall sales declines as well year-on-year despite M&A, which probably like for like would have made it even worse performance. You even don't show the quarterly trends in your presentation on page 19. You promised double-digit positive growth, not negative growth. When do we finally see a turnaround like that the tech business is really accelerating? Last but not least, you showed very strong capital ratios, but still you put the dividend special risk according to your statements today. Can you at least elaborate a bit about the dividend policy for 2021? Thank you. Hi, Johannes. I take your questions, and I think I will also have Manfred Alflen, CEO of Aareon, join in on the second one. With regards to the NII fourth quarter, you're saying that we are at most, I think you said at most equal to the third quarter. I think we have really seen a good increase, as I just explained, from the second to the third quarter, which we don't think will be repeated. However, I wouldn't guide net interest income down towards the third quarter. We will rather be probably at the upper end of our guidance. I'm quite optimistic that still with the portfolio improvement and portfolio growth, we will even see a slight increase in net interest income for Q4. Derecognition income, as you know, yeah, is always very difficult to estimate. I think we are back on a normalized, on a healthy level. Please, as we have always done, it's difficult to forecast really individual quarters, therefore I would refrain from that. With regards to Aareon, you said we would not give you more details. I will try to give you those, and then I think, Manfred will join in explaining the development. If you're going to page six, for example, on a nine months comparison, if you break down the fee income, first of all in the group, yeah, you can see we are up EUR 6 million. So EUR 2 million of that- Yeah, sorry. We knew that it's about Q3, the drop in Q3, not about the performance of the nine months. I can break up the Q3 as well. That's not a problem. If you're looking at Aareon in Q3, we are down EUR 3 million. Out of that, minus EUR 3 million come from the professional service fees. As said, there are some issues here that we have to consider. One is still a dilution of the demand of our customers due to COVID-19. Second, as I also mentioned, is the successful pre-sales of Wodis Yuneo. I think here it's understandable that customers don't currently invest in their old systems and rather wait until they implement the new one, which of course also goes along with consulting demand, and therefore we are optimistic for the next year. Another EUR 2 million is attributable to license to SaaS shift, so - EUR 2 of course. This is deliberate, yeah, because this brings us future stable earnings supply and also slightly higher margins on that side. Another EUR 3 million is what I mentioned before, is the BauSecura, which was a little bit less than EUR 3 million recognized in the second quarter. Last year it was in the third quarter. It's a little bit of shift between those quarters. Maybe Manfred, you can add on that. Yeah. Can everyone hear that? So just commenting on the quarter-to-quarter. Yeah. With regards to your question on capital and the dividend, first of all, what I wanted to bring across, I think looking at the Basel III ratios, I'm not saying they are overstated. Yeah, they are of course calculated correctly, but I think their importance will still fade. Yeah. This is what I mentioned before, that we are currently thinking about, let's say, converting them on a Basel IV phase-in level, which just from a steering point of view, providing long-term loans, I think makes sense as these loans will definitely go into the new regime. From that point of view, I think Basel III may not be the midterm reference anymore. With regards to the dividend policy, here we have always talked about dividends, dividend expectations only in our full-year press conference, and we wouldn't change this. Now you can see that our dividend policy has, is still part of the appendix and therefore is unchanged. You know, we have the 50+ a supplement. Of course, the supplement only paid under certain conditions. As you can see, we are aiming a little bit more towards the growth angle. But as said, this is something that we should discuss next year if there is no offer. Of course, if there would be an offer, and this is the hint that Jochen gave could be a game changer. Please go ahead. Hi. Good morning. Thank you very much for taking my questions. Also two questions from my side. The first one is on your new business margin. If we look at the breakdown of the new business by properties that we see that there is some deviation from the last quarter and your back book that office and logistics are taking the major part of the new business. These are the properties where we actually see high competition currently. It's difficult for me to understand where the good margin is coming from. Can you explain what the major contributor for the good margin level for this quarter? The second question is on the cost inflation. We see a jump in the cost inflation in the banking segment and around about EUR 5 million increase against Q3 last year and EUR 9 million against last quarter. What was the main driver for that? Thank you very much. Yes. Thank you. If I may take the first question as towards the new business margins. Yes, absolutely. As I said, we are shifting and trying to shift a bit more into the logistics segment, trying to grow that share in our portfolio. As I've said, it's a highly competitive market. However, as I alluded to, what we are focusing on is not single asset transactions that are highly bid up too with probably 20 banks and/or finance providers lining up, in Germany by the way. These would be in the double-digit basis points for a regular logistics. You can by now buy logistics assets if you buy single assets between Germany and Amsterdam. Yields are going as low as 2.6%. I don't think that is the market that we are in. We are in the market of financing larger, complex multi-jurisdiction cross-border portfolios, at low leverage points and then syndicating portions thereafter whereby we do get very acceptable risk limits and by providing services to our syndication partners also do earn the one other basis point more at the end of the day, always transparently disclosed to our syndication partners which definitely benefit of our expertise, fees, and underwriting capacity. When it comes to offices, a similar trend is absolutely as you said, offices usually tend to yield a lower spread. As I said beforehand, the fact that we did not stop acquisitions throughout the cycles as many others did that are now trying to scramble up new business by the end of the year, trying to be highly competitive in order to increase their book volumes to where they need to be. We have built up our pipeline over the past month in parallel, dealing with the crisis. These deals, as I had also alluded to in one of the prior calls, do take between six-12 months depending on size. The simpler transactions might take three months. The larger cross-border portfolios take 12-18 months until they're finally signed. What we are signing today is not deals that are coming to market today, where other banks are scrambling to quickly get a deal done till the end of December, but are really long-term developed pipelines. As I've said, the same is true for our pipeline looking forward, and that extends beyond 31st of December. We're very confident to reach our target and around the EUR 30 billion mark. As I've said, there might be options to grow that further as we go along. Yeah. On the questions on the cost development, first of all, let me say that we are absolutely in line with what we communicated at the beginning of the year as a guidance. This is not a surprise, but I'm happy to give you the details. First of all, you asked for a quarter-to-quarter comparison, which is comparatively easy. On the bank, we have EUR 5 million costs more, EUR 3 million from the phantom shares, given the increase of the share price in the third quarter and the valuation of the outstanding phantom shares that we have to adjust accordingly. That's three out of the five, and another EUR 1 million is from the transformation costs that we have also communicated for this year here. For the total year, we are expecting around EUR 5 million, and therefore they are off EUR 1 million. In the third quarter, that was the bank. On Aareon, we are up EUR 6 million, EUR 4 million here from the M&A activity, and EUR 2 million from the VCP. On a nine-month basis, there is one more element which especially drove the bank costs up. That is the higher costs for the banking levy and for the deposit protection scheme that we typically book in the first quarter. This didn't show up in the Q3 comparison. That is, for the nine months, EUR 6 million. Out of the EUR 5 million for the full-year, we have already recognized EUR 3 million transformation costs. We have 13 million from the phantom shares. As the share price, and we communicated that transparency at the end of last year, was down significantly, the phantom shares value decreased. Therefore, we had a relief in the P&L of EUR 10 million last year in the first 9 months versus EUR 3 million increase now. In the comparison, that is EUR 13 million, and I think this explains most of the EUR 23 million increase that we have seen in the bank. In Aareon, we have EUR 18 million. Out of that, EUR 11 million from M&A and EUR 5 million from the VCP. Thank you very much. The next question comes from Tobias Lukesch from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead. Yes, good morning. Three questions from my side as well, please. I would go one by one, if I may. Firstly, on the real estate portfolio and the potential growth, you mentioned the further growth aspects basically for the bank, and you now expect the EUR 30 billion portfolio basically to be achieved in 2021, so a year earlier. With regards to the portfolio growth in the coming years, what do you see for 2022, 2023? Also under the aspect which you just mentioned, that there's no excess capital basically left as of today under the stricter Basel IV rules, which are then fully loaded. Yeah, Tobias, I'm taking your question. Thank you very much. First of all, we are of course currently in our planning session. This is exactly what we are looking at and where we assess where we have potentials going forward. Therefore, please allow me to say it's a little bit too early to talk about that today. We would, as always, present new plans to you in February. However, what I can say is we are of course confirming our midterm targets that we presented to you in February last year. If you're saying there's no excess capital with look on Basel IV ratios, well, we will see the phase in, as you know. We are planning, of course, along these ratios. I wouldn't see today that if we had, let's say, a step-by-step growth, that we would not be sufficiently financed. This is not what I can see at this point of view. If we would really talk about a massive acceleration, could be different, but step-by-step should be feasible. All right. I interpret that kind of step-by-step as a kind of flattish then for next year. On the second question, on the NPL shift, the actual amount of EUR 1 billion, well, EUR 1.44 billion was basically unchanged since mid-August. Retail a bit up, hotels down, OCS down 3%, Spain up 4%. Could you maybe give a bit more color on what happened in Q3 and what you currently expect basically for Q4 and also for next year? Also, may there be any further NPL sales? Thank you. Yeah. The de-risking itself, which was focused on Italy, has been completed, so we currently have no program. To further reduce non-performing loans by sales. That doesn't mean that we are working, let's say, on each and every NPL loan. If there is an opportunity, of course, a sale would also be considered. With regards to the gross development, I think net you have seen or already said it's flat. Also I think on the gross side you're right. We had a reduction in hotels around EUR 100 million. In the U.S., two deals. We had a slight increase in an office building in Italy, but a very minimal or small loan. We had a shopping center in Southern Europe that also became NPL in Q3. On a net basis since August, basically unchanged. What is the outlook for the future for the fourth quarter from today's point of view? You know the fourth quarter is always longer than the typical quarter, so it's more difficult to predict until February. We would guide, let's say, for a stable development here, being at an NPL ratio of slightly below 5% most likely. Currently, we don't see any major changes. Okay, thank you. The last question I would also split into three shorter ones, if I may. On the potential takeover, again, I'm not looking for details, but could you just maybe outline the framework under which you currently operate? You opened the books for potential buyers, so what are expected or especially the next steps up until the EGM on the 9th of December? That's the first one. Yeah, please. I would like to take that question. Finally, it's important to mention that before we entered into talks with these potential investors and gave them insight into our data, we agreed upon a certain framework. To grant access to data, I can say the hurdles for such approach are quite high. We clearly got a common understanding about a future strategy that was already discussed, and secondly, about potential governance structures and of course, valuation. At the end of the day, you come up to a point where you, being on the board, have to decide whether the whole package gives a certain amount of deal certainty. If this is the case, after diligent check of all these matters, then you step into the next phase in which we are currently. Of course, being in these talks and discussions, it's very important to put quality and diligence over speed. That's my view finally. Therefore, we're still in conversations with Advent and Centerbridge. As of today, I can't tell you when these talks will be finished. This could lead to two possible outcomes. One is end of the talks, second is they are going out with an offer. Again, it's way too early to give you more information about that today. Talks are constructive, of course, but I can't give you any more flavor today. Sorry. Yeah. No, that's absolutely good. Thank you. The second one would be you as the Management Board, basically, would you give a recommendation on a potential takeover bid if there was one? This is also something which is of course, part of the current talks. Again, sorry, I'm currently not really able to comment on that. You would not say if you have an opinion, a public opinion, basically. Because before you mentioned that it's the shareholders decision basically right upon an offer. I was just wondering if there's the kind of need to really give a management recommendation, such a thing. Yeah, to give you some insight into possible next steps. If the investors come up with an offer that will be announced, then they have to hand over their documents to the BaFin. The BaFin will then check these documents, and after clearance of these documents by the BaFin, they will say that the acceptance period will start. From that point in time, the board has the duty to give a reasoned statement within two weeks' time. This is basically the normal flow of things in these things. Therefore, it's way too early today to give you further comments on that. Well understood. Thank you very much. Last one, on the dividend that you mentioned, or the impact on the dividend. I mean, we are talking here about a kind of catch-up dividend. One could say that the current shareholders basically deserve that kind of payout. I was just wondering, what is the concrete reason really to stop that or to put it into question at first place? Thank you. Yeah, as I mentioned before, the talks with the potential investors are ongoing, and finally they are basically two options. They could put an offer in place if they want to, which includes a dividend or which excludes a dividend. Both things, both ways are in general possible. These, the best possible way has to be debated. Again, we just want to flag today that this is a possibility which could arise even though we have no concrete hints currently in which way this will lead in case there will be an offer. Again, these are open-ended talks. Okay. It's not 100% clear to me why this kind of requires you to already put that kind of covenant on the dividend. I mean, there was an offer- Yeah, sure. Okay. There is an offer you can decide on. I mean, the EGM proposal, I mean, could stay as long as, I mean, you could pay out a dividend being there an offer or not, at the end of the day you as a management, I guess. Of course, you're right. There's no requirement today to say anything about that, but we wanted to flag this and provide some transparency about some what-ifs. That's basically anything I could mention regarding your question. Is it okay? Yep. Thank you very much. Thank you. The next question comes from Nicolò Tamburi from Petrus Advisers. Please go ahead. Good morning. Two questions, please. First one on LLP. We saw a higher loss allowance, especially compared to what we have seen from other banks and also a sequential uptick on a quarterly basis. Just wondering if you could give us some color on LLP and possibly also the split between stage one, two, and three. The second question, could you please detail what was the total consulting spend for both the quarter Q3 and also year to date across the business? Yeah. Hi, Nicola. You were a little bit difficult to hear, but I think you were asking about the loan loss provision development. No. Split in the stages. In Q3, we had a release in stage one of EUR 1 million, in stage two of EUR 1 million, and in stage three, EUR 34 million, and then some other effects as well. This is on the loan book. With regards, what was the second question? Consulting. Yeah, consulting. Sorry, I don't have the split here, and we typically don't provide any further drill downs here on the cost side. I think we have just answered several elements. You have seen that most of the cost increases, as said, which was planned and therefore in line with our guidance, are attributable to extraordinary effects. Which also shows you that despite of the growth, we are mainly flat in the underlying cost trend. Coming out with a cost income ratio of 43% in the third quarter in SPF. As you know, this is mainly reflecting all of our banking business. As said, I think this is well in line with the benchmark, if not ahead. Thank you. The last question for today's call is a follow-up from Mr. Nicholas Herman from Citigroup. Please go ahead. Yes, thank you. I just had a couple of follow-ups, if that's okay. Just, firstly, did I hear you correctly that we could even see a slight increase in NII for Q4? That was number one. Number two, on Aareon, look, I think your point that underlying trends are encouraging. Surely you'd agree that you are slightly behind on plan. But I guess do you see Aareon getting back on plan for next year? Or could you say longer than that, given there's those positive underlying trends. And then finally excuse me. You're currently generating a run rate NII in Banking & Digital Solutions about EUR 44 million. I guess based on the current forward curve, how much incremental NII do you think you could generate, please? Thank you. Sorry. You were quite difficult to understand. Was your first question on net interest income and the outlook I just gave on Q4 that we still expect a slight increase towards Q3? Yes. I just. Um. I just wanted to clarify whether I heard that correctly? Yes, that is correct. That was all. Yeah. Okay. I think Jochen will take your second question. Could you remind me of your third question again? Because it was inaudible. Sure. I said you're currently generating a EUR 44 million run rate NII in Banking & Digital Solutions. Based on the current forward curve, how much incremental NII, ex, I guess ex volume growth, could you generate over the next few years, please? Okay. Let me start with the Aareon question, and then Marc will answer the other questions. Aareon, I guess, has already been discussed today, and I would like to add something to Manfred Alflen's comments a couple of minutes ago. From my point of view and my perspective, Aareon is currently clearly from a strategic point of view, an investment case for the bank and of course for Advent as well. Roughly a year ago, when Advent took over a 30% stake in Aareon, a strategy was developed with a term of roughly five years until the end of 2025, with the clear goal to develop Aareon to a so-called Rule of 40 company. However, this requires significant investments. The year 2021 was, from my point of view, the first year of starting exactly with these investments. When I take a look at the success of Aareon this year, I'm always trying to answer the following for me, most important questions. Question one is, are we successful in implementing the M&A deals, which are a vital part of the strategy. That leads me automatically to the second question. Is the question, are we in a position to increase the number of recurring revenues. Especially the shift from license fees to software as a service. In this regard, I could tick the boxes in two ways. First is the organic business, where we saw a shift from licensed to SaaS. Secondly, I guess, Manfred roughly 80%-90% of the new acquisition M&A these years are also paying exactly into that pocket. That's very important for me when I try to value these deals. Third point is of course the increase in the digital business, which is a vital part of the future growth program, is also important. There I see also growth, and we are on track. However, you're right. The next year will be very important to then see a clear growth on revenues and EBITDA. Again, the adjusted EBITDA is still on a planned level, and keep that on a certain level is also important when we're executing the strategy. This is clearly an investment case and we are fully aligned with Advent. Advent, I can say, is also very happy with the development during the course of this year. Marc. On your last question regarding BDS. If we're looking currently, and this is certainly based on last year's plan, into the development of the net interest income of this segment going forward, it would be rather flattish. As said, we are currently in the planning session. I think there are two influencing factors. One is the level. As you can see, level will be higher of deposits, which is good because it finances our growth in the book. Second, and I think this is where you pointed at, we probably see a more flattish curve. However, given the long-term duration of the replication that we model, I don't expect greater impacts from that side, if the longer end comes down a little bit. I'm not quite sure about the assumption we have taken in last year's planning with regards to a 10-year or five-year curve, which are more important for us on that side. It may even be that they are above what we assumed last year, still despite of the flattening. But if you're asking me today, I wouldn't expect greater impact on the NII in that segment. That's helpful. Thank you. Just to follow up on the Aareon point. Your point, yeah, indeed the point being that 2021 was a year of investment. That was clear. You said I guess I take from your comment that next year is very important to see growth as we should therefore see a reversion towards plan. Thank you. Okay, thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, this was the last question. I give over the call to Marc Hess for any closing comments. Yeah. Thank you very much. I thought you would hand over to Jürgen, but I'm happy to do that as well. Thanks for joining in this morning. Of course, we and especially our IR team is happy to take follow-up calls if you have further questions. Have a good day. Thanks for listening. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Thank you.