Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Aareal Bank 2023 earnings call. Throughout today's recorded presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. The presentation will be followed by a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, you may press start followed by 1 on your touchscreen telephone. Please press the start key followed by 0 for operator assistance. I would now like to turn the conference over to Jürgen Junginger, Head of IR. Please go ahead. Good morning, everybody, and thank you for joining our conference call. Today's agenda covers our results, the prelim results for 2023, and the outlook for 2024. I'm joined by our CEO, Jochen Klösges, and our CFO, Marc Hess. They will take you through the presentation, which will be followed by a Q&A session. Now I'm pleased to hand over to Jochen. Jochen, the floor is yours. Thank you very much, Jürgen. Good morning and welcome. Today we will, of course, be talking about our company, about figures, markets, and trends, and we will certainly also be talking about U.S. property markets, which are currently warm, of course. But let me first take a look at the political and economic environment in which we operate. 2023 was a difficult year. We have all learned that nothing is certain and nothing can be taken for granted. Neither peace nor freedom are guaranteed. We continue to find ourselves affected by the deep suffering that war has brought upon the Ukrainian people. In addition, last year another war erupted in the Middle East, which shocked us deeply and made the global political situation even more uncertain. All of this affects us during a period which is challenging from an economic point of view as well. That also applies to the commercial property market, which brings me to our business. There's no doubt that 2023 was a challenging year, especially regarding the performance of the U.S. property market. You know us, we are used to dealing with these adverse conditions, and we have succeeded before in difficult markets. In times like these, it is not German angst, but German perseverance that is needed. We proved this throughout the coronavirus pandemic when nobody believed in hotels anymore. We carried around EUR 10 billion of hotel exposure through the crisis, and it is these hotels that are helping us now through the cycle because they are contributing to our strong funding power. The U.S. office property markets have turned down over the last year. Why is that? The combination of working from home, soaring interest rates, and excess capacity, which already existed beforehand, explained this development. We are assuming that the U.S. office markets will continue to experience change for quite some time. However, in the fourth quarter of last year, the markets turned out to be even more challenging than anticipated. As a result, we recognized a loss allowance of some EUR 190 million in the fourth quarter. This will enable us to reduce our NPL portfolio by around EUR 500 million in the first quarter of this year. As I already pointed out in the past, we have been dealing with the challenges and burdens resulting from downturn in the U.S. office property since the spring of 2023. We have been working with our clients and partners on resolving every individual case, restructuring exposures, and recognizing loss allowances where appropriate. As we reach the end of this cyclical downturn, will the markets turn around quickly now? Frankly, it doesn't look like it yet. While we have not seen any new NPLs in January and February, we are preparing for more to come, just to be on the safe side. This means that even though 2024 will remain challenging, we are prepared in the best possible way. Structuring we have completed so far, plus the EUR 500 million which we will resolve in the first quarter, are evidence of exactly this. The challenges posed by the current market situation are substantial, without any question. But we can deal with them. Thanks to our significantly increased earning power, we are able to weather developments such as those seen last year while showing respectable profitability for the bank at the same time. In fact, our profitability was very close to the previous year's level for the bank. We not only have the financial resources necessary to deal with such a situation, as a further strength, our bank has an experienced team that has seen such cycles several times before in different markets, and has the knowledge and the tools to implement customized solutions for each individual case. Everyone is talking about U.S. offices today, but the problems in this segment overshadow the perception of the entire commercial property finance business. The vast majority of our widely diversified commercial property financing portfolio is stable and healthy. This was also true in 2023. One thing that's particularly important to me is that there are clear differences between the office markets in the U.S. and in Europe. We saw one single new NPL exposure in Europe last year, which needed to be restructured. The case involved a retail property in France and will be settled, or is already settled, in the first quarter of this year without a substantial loss. As part of the overall picture, we have also used 2023 to invest heavily into Aareon and into the reduction of legacy NPL exposures. We consciously accepted these additional non-recurring charges on our annual results in order to further strengthen the position of Aareal Bank Group. Following these comments, let us now turn to the figures. As you know, our group consists of two parts, whose development we have illustrated here on this slide. On the left, the banking business, which comprises our commercial property financing portfolio and our services to the housing and energy sectors in Germany. On the right, our software business, which comprises all of Aareon's activities, plus generally speaking, the ERP systems and other digital services for the European property and housing industries. First, the bank. The strong growth in earnings was a very positive factor for the year under review. The aggregate of net interest income and net commission income exceeded EUR 1 billion for the first time, an increase of 31% over 2022. It was thanks to this strong profitability that we were able to offset the provisions arising from the U.S. office market and to afford significant investments. We increased the loan loss allowance to EUR 510 million. This item is largely driven by write-downs on U.S. office property loans, which amounted to EUR 360 million. But it also includes conscious expenditure of EUR 115 million for running down our exposure to Russia and some legacy non-performing loans. Our NPL ratio, which has risen slightly as a result of the new NPLs related to U.S. office property financings, will markedly decrease again as a result of the restructurings I mentioned. By the end of the first quarter of 2025, NPLs will have roughly returned to the prior year's level, that means to 2022 levels. We have continued to keep costs fully under control. Our cost-income ratio, which is excellent by comparison with our peers, stands at 32%, with costs stable within the bank. As far as capital is concerned, despite growth and turbulence on the markets, we were even able to slightly increase our CET 1 ratio to 19.4%. Despite a substantial loan loss allowance and proactive investments, the bank's 2023 operating profit amounted to EUR 221 million and was close to target and prior year. This is evidence of the bank's strong operating profitability and resilience, and a very important aspect, especially in times like these. It also puts our consolidated operating profit of EUR 149 million into perspective. Without the investment of around EUR 100 million in our software subsidiary Aareon, we would have reached the target corridor, notwithstanding a loss allowance for exposures in the U.S. in 2023. So let's take a look at Aareon. We used last year to make these significant investments into Aareon, as already mentioned, of just under EUR 100 million, a good EUR 60 million more than originally planned at the beginning of the year. We have thus optimized our product range, invested in sales and processes, and have also enhanced efficiency. When you asked me at the 2022 annual press conference two years ago why I was not complying with some shareholders' demands to spin-off or sell Aareon, I said the company was not ready yet. Today, I can tell you that we achieved the targets we had set for Aareon for 2025 already at the end of 2023. The share of recurring revenues compared to total revenues continued to increase last year from 74%-81%, bringing a high degree of stability to the income structure of Aareon. Aareon has enjoyed strong organic and inorganic growth since 2021. It has consolidated its structures and expanded its business throughout Europe. In addition to the DACH region, it is in France, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, the U.K., and now also in Spain. On the earnings side, Aareon is also well on track. Adjusted EBITDA, which is a key indicator, increased by 33% to EUR 100 million last year, reflecting Aareon's strong operating performance. At the same time, its adjusted EBITDA margin climbed from 25% to 29%. This has enabled us to evolve Aareon into a Rule of 40 company faster than originally planned. This key performance indicator for software companies means that the sum of Aareon's adjusted EBITDA margin, last year 29%, and revenue growth, last year 12%, exceeds 40. Aareon has now passed this threshold. Moreover, we succeeded in refinancing our subsidiary last year. The facility previously provided by Aareal Bank to Aareon was replaced by external long-term debt, and we strengthened Aareon's capitalization via a capital increase in the last year as well. These facts tell us that Aareon is or is ready for the capital markets sooner than planned. One of the things we want to do in the future is to exploit further growth potential by strengthening the partnership between the bank and Aareon over the long term. To this end, we have placed the collaboration between Aareal Bank and Aareon on a new footing via First Financial Software, which is at the heart of a new joint venture between Aareon and Aareal Bank. The bank and Aareon will benefit from this in equal measure. Together, we want to offer even better solutions to the housing and commercial property industries in Germany and in Europe, and realize significant efficiency potential for our clients. What does it mean specifically? Firstly, we want to tap into the additional growth potential that Aareon's German client base represents for the bank's deposit-taking business. Secondly, we are exploring opportunities to expand the deposit-taking business to Aareon's international clientele. Thirdly, we are investing in First Financial Software, which provides software and payment services, thus creating the basis for Aareon Pay, a new product group for integrated payment solutions within Aareon. By taking the partnership between the bank and Aareon to a new level, we have created an important new approach that will contribute to continued profitable growth for both parts of the group. At the same time, we have established new strategic options for our group. Let me summarize. We made substantial investments in the substance of the group during the financial year under review and shouldered a heavy burden in the US. Nonetheless, thanks to our strong operating performance, we achieved a respectable, consolidated operating profit of EUR 149 million. At the same time, we significantly strengthened the bank's operational resilience and further improved Aareon's position. We are thus well placed to continue growing profitably. We want to more than double. We want to really more than double our consolidated operating profit to between EUR 300 million and EUR 350 million in 2024, and do it in an environment that remains challenging. I would now like to hand over to Marc Hess, who will talk about our financial results for the year under review in more detail. Marc, please. Yeah, thank you, Jochen. And good morning to you all from my side as well. As Jochen has already pointed out, the bank and Aareon achieved an impressive operating performance in the past financial year, especially driven, let's say, by the earning momentum that we have seen. And you can see on page 5 an overview of the main indicators. First, the bank. I think we can say it was a very difficult market environment. Nevertheless, the bank generated an operating profit of EUR 221 million. This is not only close to the original target, but it's also close to the prior year, despite the active NPL management that we were pursuing and an unbundling charges, some unbundling charges of Aareon. Over two years, we have more than doubled the pre-provision profit of, or to now, EUR 731 million. That's up 67% or EUR 300 million only in last year. We believe this is clear evidence that we have a significantly improved what we call operating resilience since we launched our new Next Level strategy back in 2021, early 2021. On that basis, we are also able to slightly increase our CET 1 ratio to 19.4% despite of the portfolio growth and, of course, despite of the market headwinds. When we're looking at the fully loaded figures, so Basel IV fully phased in with an RWA growth of 72.5%, we would be at 13.4 already. That's also up compared to 2022 by 0.1 percentage points. So we were at 30.3 at the end of 2022. Looking at Aareon, we originally announced investments for 2023 of EUR 35 million. During the year, we even found more opportunities. So we invested EUR 61 million more than originally planned, all in all, EUR 96 million. And therefore, we are now ahead of plan, and we expect a contribution of EUR 20 million from these investments already in 2024 going on. And therefore, the EBITDA, which did perform nicely on an adjusted basis last year, will even be up this year to EUR 160 million-EUR 170 million in that range. Turning to the next page, looking even in more detail at the bank, it generated an operating profit of EUR 221 million as I just said. We had additional expenses for restructuring the Aareon third-party debt facility, which was originally given by the bank to Aareon and now financed externally. That was another EUR 10 million burden here last year, which was obviously unplanned. So if you include that, we would even have been at EUR 231 million. This is why I'm saying really not far away from the original plan and also not far away from 2022. And this despite of the really significant risk provisions that we built, which I would like to explain. For 2022, they totaled EUR 510 million. That is including the Fair Value P&L line always, so a little bit more than only shown in the risk provision line. Two-thirds of that, obviously, applied to the U.S. office loan book. But these provisions enabled us to really actively manage our NPL book and thus significantly reduce the NPLs, one on the legacy side, which we announced when we went into the year. Here, we said we wanted to reduce them. We finally did by EUR 500 million, more than we expected. That was also a little bit taking more risk provision than we originally expected. And I think in these times, that's even more important; we prepared the way for solution of another EUR 500 million non-performing U.S. office loans now in the first quarter of 2024 already. Here, we booked another, let's say, EUR 75 million in Q4 to really accelerate this process. So as I just said, we want to restructure them. We want to reduce the NPLs by EUR 500 million U.S. office in the first quarter this year. And this is 50% of the total U.S. office NPL book. So we believe a clear market test. Coming to the outlook, we are targeting an operating profit of EUR 300 million just for the bank in 2024. Next page shows you Aareon. How did it develop in the recent years? Well, revenues have been rising from, as you can see here, EUR 269 million in the year 2021 to now EUR 344 million. So a dynamic development. Jochen will elaborate on that in more detail later on. And we are expecting, as you can see, a strong growth, not even to continue, even to accelerate in 2024. So we are targeting a range of EUR 440 million- EUR 469 million in revenues. That also has, of course, positive implications on the adjusted EBITDA, which was also performing nicely. So obviously, here, all the investments that we took are not reflected. It increased by 75 from EUR 75 million to EUR 100 million in 2023. Here, we expect another increase to the EUR 160 million-EUR 170 million range in 2024. As I just said, we had significant investments, which we did in 2023 deliberately. We planned 35, as you can see in the chart. At the end, it was EUR 96 million. And that led to a negative EBT or PBT contribution in our second reporting of -EUR 72 million. But we will have a strong turnaround given that these investments, of course, will not be continued, and they will show positive effects. So all in all, from -EUR 72 million to +EUR 50 million in 2024. If we are looking at the summary of the income statement on page eight, we had an original and operating profit target of EUR 250 million for the group. This included the EUR 95 million of investments that you can see on the table. As I said, we invested more in a swift NPL reduction, more in Aareon. So I think this explains the deviation. In total, EUR 221 million spent in 2023. So I think we can really say that we invested into the future basis of this bank heavily. So this is the reported results on the operating side. As I said, the momentum remained really strong. And this is why we are targeting an operating profit target of EUR 300-EUR 350 million for 2024, as Jochen just explained. And this includes loan loss provisions that are expected to remain above average, or I would even say significantly above average, but below what we saw last year with this swift reduction program. So we are sorry. We think we are really prepared to be we are really prepared the best way for 2024. Back into 2023 and the individual items, you can see here, strong momentum and net interest 39% up, so just under EUR 1 billion. Same is true for net commission income. Fees were up 11%, most of that obviously coming from Aareon. And these are new record levels for the bank. In NII, this reflects both segments of the bank, I have to say, RSF and BDS. In the RSF business, commercial real estate lending, we had portfolio growth, but we also had very good margins. You will hear that later on. And in BDS, our deposit business, of course, we benefited from the normalized interest rate environment. As I just said, fee income mainly driven by Aareon. Risk provisions, EUR 510 million. This, as I just mentioned, includes the EUR 69 million of the Fair Value P&L line. As also said, the significant risk provisions are attributable to the persistent headwinds, of course, of the U.S. office market, but also to the investments in active reduction of NPLs. So also to mention, we are out of Russia. So we sold our Russian exposure last year, which also, let's say, cost us like EUR 35 million at the end. Admin expenses, well, at first sight here, increased by 13% to EUR 645 million, as you can see. But this is only attributable to the investments in Aareon. If you're looking at the bank, costs remained mainly stable. The cost-income ratio even improved significantly from 40% to 32%. We had a high tax burden last year. That's a, well, I wouldn't say technical effect, but a result of the takeover. Because here in Germany, when you're taken over by another company, which we were, Atlantic BidCo, as you know, you have to write down the deferred tax assets. And that's simply the fact. And this is what brings the tax ratio up this year. With that, back to Jochen. Thank you, Marc. Thank you, Marc. Let's turn to our business lines and start with structured property financing. You see here on that page 10, with a portfolio size of EUR 32.9 billion, we reached our portfolio target for the past financial year. Average loan-to-value ratios in the existing portfolio remain at a healthy 56%. Our portfolio composition has not changed much compared to the end of 2022. Hotels remain our largest asset class, and Europe remains our largest region. Germany accounts for only 7% of our total business. And we are no longer involved in China or Russia. We have only minimal involvement in property development that accounts for less than 1% of our portfolio. However, we do continue to finance buildings that are being renovated to enhance their energy efficiency. This is evident in our growing green loan portfolio, which now stands at EUR 4.8 billion and which we want to grow between EUR 6 billion and EUR 7 billion by 2026. Our total lending volume, classified as green, rose to EUR 9 billion, now accounting for 28% of our portfolio. On the next page, you see we hit our new business target of EUR 10 billion. In doing so, we've grown across all asset classes, but especially in hotels and especially in Western Europe. We also selectively underwrote this in the markets we cover. Although the office the second downturn, offices account for the vast majority of the global commercial property markets. There are excellent properties that require upgrading to the latest ESG standards in this sector. That's why just under 1/3 of our total new business was green loans, of which EUR 1.3 billion went into offices, representing around 70% of our new business in office properties. However, the bulk of our business continues to be in hotel financings. A good example is the financing of the Le Méridien Étoile in Paris for Henderson Park. This hotel enjoys a prime location opposite the Congress Center, just minutes from the Champs-Élysées and the Arc de Triomphe. We have also grown in newer asset classes. Last September, we formed a dedicated team to finance alternative living properties. The objective is to further expand our business in this growth segment, which comprises student housing, micro-apartments, and co-living. We are already one of the leading providers in this sector. For example, we financed a GBP 380 million portfolio comprising three student accommodation properties in London last year. The bank has also been active in New Zealand since last year, a good complement to our already established market coverage in Australia. This enables us to serve clients who are active in both markets from a single source. Principal financings in New Zealand are eligible for inclusion in fund-based cover, offering attractive financing options, especially for hotels and in the alternative living sector. What is important for all new business is that we continue to assign high priority to conservative risk standards. Loan-to-value ratios for new business averaged 54% in 2023. We also continued to achieve very attractive gross margins, averaging approximately 290 basis points, clearly exceeding 2022's margins. Let's now take a look at the key indicators in the loan book. The KPIs in our portfolio remain in a healthy range and are better overall than in 2019, the year before the pandemic. Despite the strong headwinds from the U.S. office market, the average loan-to-value ratio of 56% is at a very conservative level. Debt servicing capacity, yield on debt, once again improved significantly to 9.6%. Hotels, in particular, are doing very well with strong cash flows thanks to the clear pickup in travel after the pandemic. The retail sector has also recovered faster and more distinctly than many expected. Overall, much of life has returned to normal after the pandemic, and we are seeing the effects. At this point, I would like to point out a parallel between retail and office properties. Retail properties had already been declared dead because of the trend towards online shopping. However, we have held and continue to hold the opinion that the market is changing, with differentiating factors, which is why we have continued to finance very well-positioned retail properties. Now, the office property markets are changing due to the trend of working from home. And here, too, new criteria for measuring quality will have to be applied in the future. Of course, location remains the most important differentiating factor. But sustainable, carbon-efficient properties with flexible space concepts will play an increasingly important role. And this has also been a factor in selecting new business for us in 2023 already. The next slide shows the breakdown of our performing office property finance portfolio by country. The U.S. accounts for the largest share, followed by France, the U.K., Poland, Sweden, and Belgium. Germany only accounts for 3% or roughly EUR 250 million. In this context, it is notable that average loan-to-value ratios for our U.S. office portfolio stand at 70%, whereas in Europe, the figure is 55%. This is a clear indication that developments in the U.S. office market are not spilled over to Europe. Why is that case? Certainly, a different interest rate environment and lower vacancy rates in European markets. For example, we see in Paris 8%, which is a much lower number compared to certain cities in the U.S. Also, ownership structures differ between the continents. In Europe, this often leads to longer investment horizons. This means that there is a greater willingness in Europe to repay debt through new equity injections in order to maintain equity positions and keep the properties. In European real estate financing, we see tighter interest rate hedges. Additionally, commercial real estate in Europe is generally not financed by different layers of debt, leading to lower LTVs and a very limited market for junior and mezz tr anches. There are also some so-called soft facts. For example, in the U.S., it generally takes much longer to get to work from home. People in the U.S. also tend to have larger houses or flats than here in European cities, which makes working from home a lot more attractive from a U.S. perspective. In addition, European cities often offer a better mix of areas where you can live, shop, and work at the same time. This means that you may live a little closer to work in European cities compared to in the U.S.. The quality of life in central office locations can be higher in Europe. It is, I guess, fair to say that overall, we currently see no signs that developments in the U.S. are directly spilling over into Europe. This is due, in particular, to the structural differences between the two markets that I have just described. However, it should be noted that poor properties in poor locations will also face problems in Europe. But this is a universal principle in commercial property that has nothing to do with the current market development. On the next page, now let's take a look further at our U.S. office loan portfolio. A large part of the portfolio is located in New York, with the rest mainly spread through other major cities. We concentrate on high-quality Class A properties in A markets. Most of our performing loans have maturities in 2025 or later, and only EUR 240 million is due in 2024. The values of all the office properties were reviewed in 2023, and around 80% of these valuations were undertaken externally. We found that a little over half of the market values had decreased by up to 20% since the end of 2022 and that the others were down by between 20% and 55%. These market value decreases are reflected in an increase in the average LTV, which is up from 62% at the end of 2022 to 70% for the U.S. office property loan portfolio at the end of 2023. The revised level includes new business with an LTV of 50% and outflows in NPLs. On page 15, you see we are monitoring all U.S. office loans closely and have regular interaction with our borrowers. We expect high-quality buildings in A locations to recover first. And this is the category where our loans are focused. Additionally, we expect the level of interest rates in 2024 to take pressure out of the market and help to stabilize values. At the end of 2023, we again stress-tested our portfolio for a further 20% decline in value. The stress test showed that the average LTV of our U.S. office portfolio would increase from 70%-88%. One correction, please. Please read on the chart, on the upper part of the chart, the LTV of the performing U.S. office portfolio, not at 92%, really, please, 85%. But again, on the basis of the stressed market value, only around EUR 75 million would have an LTV of over 100%, and around EUR 260 million would have an LTV in the range of 80%-100%. The result shows that we have headroom even under very conservative stress conditions. Now, I would now like to expand a little on a topic that is likely to be of interest in view of the current situation, the development of non-performing loans, and how we deal with them. We really reviewed our strategy in early 2022 with a view to resolving NPL cases much more quickly than we used to. And more recently, by the way, we hired U.S. industry experts to support our team. And these are our colleagues with great experience and track records from large U.S. banks. But again, back to the year 2022. At the beginning of 2022, you see that here on the chart, we had a non-performing loan portfolio of totaling EUR 1.6 billion. Some of these NPLs had already been in the portfolio for many years. And then in 2022, we reduced these old NPLs by around EUR 800 million. In 2023, we made a further reduction of EUR 400 million out of that bucket of EUR 1.6 billion. Only a residual balance of EUR 100 million will remain from these legacy exposures by the end of this year of 2024. In 2022, new NPL cases totaling EUR 370 million were added, of which we had reduced around already EUR 300 million by the end of 2023. The remainder will be almost completely removed from the NPL portfolio by the end of this year, too. Next to the year 2023's NPLs, developments on the U.S. office property markets, combined with other factors, required significant NPL additions of around EUR 1 billion on a net basis last year. Some of these cases were solved quickly that same year. The only European exposure of around EUR 100 million will be settled or is already settled without a loss in the first quarter of this year. 150 million in U.S. office NPLs have already been resolved in 2024, and we have in total scheduled around EUR 0.5 billion for solutions in the first quarter of 2024. So why am I explaining all this in such detail? Well, it is important for me to convey two messages to you. Firstly, we actively address these situations and have both the people and the resources to work out a variety of solutions with our clients. And secondly, despite all the challenges, it is about really making real progress in the management of non-performing loans. This costs money, but it is an important prerequisite for success throughout the cycle. Please note that we are on the same page as our owners in this respect. Our investors expressly support the strategy and share the associated short-term consequences for the bank's financial results, for example, in the last year. All in all, our NPE ratio, in accordance with the EBA's risk dashboard definitions, was 3.4% at the end of the year. However, given the reduction of NPLs that has already been prepared, we expect the NPL ratio at the end of March 2024 to be back down to end 2022 levels. We will change over to calculating the NPE ratio in accordance with the EBA's definition this quarter, which most of our competitors use, establishing a better comparability. On the next page, I would now like to talk about BDS. The average volume of client deposits from the housing industry rose to EUR 13.6 billion, exceeding the target level of around EUR 13 billion set for last year in 2023. Our solutions are nowadays used to handle the payment transactions of more than 4,000 clients in the housing and commercial property sectors, who, between them, are managing more than 9 million rental units. The deposit business this generates is granular and very stable, given that we are deeply, really deeply integrated in our clients' payment processes. We have had firm roots in the housing industry now for decades, a business we have maintained even in times of low interest rates for our clients. Today, we are benefiting not only in terms of funding but also on the earnings side. At EUR 238 million, net interest income for this segment was more than one and a half times the previous year's figure. While this increase reflects a normalized interest rate environment, it is also the result of a consistently high volume of deposits, demonstrating strong client loyalty. On average, our clients remain loyal for more than 20 years. But it is not only net interest income that continues to gain traction. Net commission income also did well, rising to EUR 33 million in the year under review. This business gives us a second, stable, and profitable pillar in the bank and, as you all know, things stand better on two feet. Now let's turn to Aareon. As I mentioned a few minutes ago, Aareon has seen an outstanding performance over recent years. It continues to grow at an accelerated pace, with sales revenues rising 12% and adjusted EBITDA up by 33% in 2023. I've already discussed Aareon's capital markets readiness and the long-term partnership between the bank and Aareon. In terms of business activities, Aareon has further expanded its geographical footprint in Europe by entering the Spanish market in 2023. Furthermore, during the past financial year, Aareal acquired Embrace, the Dutch provider of CRM solutions, and UTS, a company for managers of Condominium Owners' Associations here in Germany. The M&A credit line previously provided by Aareal Bank, which we referred to as a hunting line, has been replaced by Aareal's external long-term debt financing. Even though the change will cost a low double-digit million EUR charge per annum, it shows that Aareal is capable of raising finance on its own, and that's a further important milestone. So Marc will now look at our funding activities and, of course, our capital base, and then explain our outlook to you. Marc, please. Yeah, thank you, Jochen. Turning to page 20, the pie chart here, I think, shows very well how diversified our funding structure has become. That was one of the major cornerstones of our strategy to really diversify the funding more than originally and has become more independent from the capital market. I think we can really say today that we made good progress. Of course, as you can see, BDS is one major source of our funding. Pfandbriefe are, of course, still the most important capital market instruments. In total, also you can see here at the chart, we had to tap capital markets by EUR 2.4 billion last year, significantly less than in the previous year, despite the growth, what we have seen. And I can also say today that there's no need to raise any senior preferred funding at the capital markets in 2024 and 2025, and we did not tap the capital market here in 2023 as well. That was only private placements, the 0.2. To get more independent from the capital market, I think one major element is raising. We started the comparison in 2022. We had EUR 600 million deposits at the end of 2022, and this has been grown to EUR 2.6 billion just at the end of last year. So very important. And these are all term deposits, fixed interest, and more than 90% have a term of two years and more. So very reliable source on that end. We even plan to further strengthen our cooperation with Raisin. We are the first German bank to go on their international platform. So in early February, I think it was the 6th, we started to be on their Dutch platform, and we want to expand that during 2024 even to other European markets. So I think very stable situation on that side. And this can be reflected if you look on page 21. Here you can see the liquidity ratios. They're all well above the minimum regulatory requirements. We have, as can be seen here, considerable buffers. The LCR and the NSFR have been kept basically on the same level despite the volume growth that we have seen. So what we also can say, I think it's also important to note here, that the terms of our fundings have longer terms than our property financing. So the funding terms are around four years, whereas the property finance portfolio has typically a term of three years. So very balanced and with a buffer on that side. I think also good news on the capital situation, very solid. Page 23, you can see that we have a CET 1 ratio that has been increased over the last couple of years despite all the crises that we have had to face. So no, sorry. I'm not jumping one page. I'm going back. I'm going back to page 22. Looking at the Pfandbriefe, as I just mentioned, obviously, it's one of our main funding instruments at the capital markets. What you can see here, we have a AAA-rated Pfandbriefe with a Moody's rating of AAA. The cover pool is EUR 16.5 billion, diversified over 20 countries, and we have an LTV in this cover pool of 33.5%. So as you know, the Pfandbriefe standards are very conservative, and we are, of course, in line. To reach the Moody's rating, we are relying on over-capitalization even on top. That's 16.5%. And we even are above that threshold with 19.6%. So also here, very comfortable buffers. So now to CET 1 capital on page 23. As I just said, we have been improving that despite all the crisis that we had to face, be it COVID, be it Russia, be it now the U.S. crisis. And we are now at 19.4%. So despite portfolio growth, despite the LTVs coming under pressure on the U.S. offices, we even increased it by 0.1 percentage points during 2023, 19.4%, very sound ratios. Also happy to give you the fully loaded ratio with the 17.5% output floor. That's 13.4%. So I think also very comfortable, also an increase by 0.1 percentage points. And leverage ratio, also to be mentioned, 6.6% that compares to 6.0% end of 2022. So now, not to get confused again, I'm going to the outlook. I think we can say that the environment will remain challenging from different aspects. The economic development, most likely sluggish, inflation persisting. I think there was more optimism in the market at the end of last year. Nevertheless, we will see first interest rate reductions. That's good and bad for our bank, obviously. We benefit because we do have a diversified business model in our two segments. We benefit from higher interest rates, as you have seen in the net interest income of our BDS segment from the deposits. On the other hand, of course, higher rate weight on the valuation of commercial real estate, which leads then to higher risk provisions. So all in all, we expect first rate cuts by mid of this year, as many others do, which I would say has a neutral effect then on us on both sides if you add it up. All in all, with regards to the U.S. office property market, we only expect little improvement, certainly not in the first half of this year. This is also reflected in our risk provisioning planning. Nevertheless, we are optimistic about the group's performance in 2024. As you can see here in the bank, we want to continue to grow our credit portfolio but less than in the previous years, so just by EUR 1 billion. That also means less new business is needed, EUR 8 billion-EUR 9 billion, which means that we can continue to be very selective here. We expect stable deposits on the BDS side of around EUR 13 billion. All in all, the bank's operating profit, as Jochen already mentioned and me too, should increase to EUR 250 million-EUR 300 million despite the risk provisions, which are projected to remain at above-average levels. We mentioned today, this morning, in the press conference, that we expect that we plan for around EUR 350 million of risk provisions for 2023, so significantly below for 2024, sorry, significantly below 2023, especially the swift NPL reduction for the legacy portfolio. Of course, it's not necessary. This gives us some relief here. Of course, the markedly increased profitability is one factor why we expect to reach these high levels on a PBT basis. When it comes to Aareal, we will continue to grow. As I already said, we expect really impressive from my point of view increases in the revenues. As I said, the foundation was laid in 2023 and the years before. EBITDA should, of course, benefit from that here. In addition, we will benefit from the efficiency measures, so the investments that we did in 2023. Therefore, on a group level, EBT, PBT, however you want to name it, we expect a positive contribution of EUR 50 million for 2024. That all in all leads to our expectation that we can have a pre-tax profit on the group's level of EUR 350 million in 2024. Now I would like to hand back to Jochen for his closing remarks. Thank you, Marc. Firstly, we finished the 2023 financial year with a respectable result, which was characterized by strong growth in income, a high level of investments, and, of course, significant challenges from the U.S. office market. Secondly, we have invested in the substance of Aareal Bank Group and further strengthened the foundations for profitable growth, both for the bank and for Aareal in the years to come. And thirdly, we are confident that in a still challenging environment, we will more than double our consolidated operating profit in the current year. This confident outlook holds a fundamental message. Yes, the current situation is very challenging indeed. But as we have shown this year, we are actively managing these challenges. And since we are pursuing long-term goals, we are continuously working on improving our business models. And we are convinced that the investments of recent years will pay off. Marc and I will be happy now to answer your questions. Thank you very much. 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 touchscreen 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 followed by one at this time. One moment for the first question, please. The first question is from Christian Leukers from CQS. Please go ahead. Good morning. Thank you. You have a very strong frontbook margin. So there's obviously a good organic opportunity to sort of grow your book, and you've got lots of capital to do that. How would the shareholders or your sort of owners look at you did mention M&A for Aareon. About for Aareal because there might be some opportunities in the market there on the M&A side as well. Thank you. Yeah. I I must say it's today way too early to talk about that. Regarding Aareon, we are quite happy with the development we saw in the last year in terms of growth on the sales side, recurring revenues, and EBITDA. Marc explained that we are also having very ambitious targets for Aareon for the year 2024 and to really execute on the success of Aareon and to see the results of the business basically then delivering on these targets is our clear focus. It's way too early to talk about M&A. I guess that's also the view of our shareholders. With regards to the bank, I think that was your question. We don't believe really that it's needed to further develop our business. As you have seen, we can grow organically. Here, we very strongly focus on profitability. I think this is reflected in the margins. So on the BDS side, yeah, I can say so not looking for any M&A opportunity on the RSF side. So we are not looking for any M&A opportunities. On the BDS side, you have seen very, very small. And [purchased] a company in order to really support our services in the single-digit area in terms of acquisition price. If we have something here at the market that would really help us to improve our services, we would look at that, but no broader M&A side. Yeah. If I look at your new business outlook in structured property finance, it's slightly lower than the 2023 number. Given the new margin, are you sort of just being conservative, or could we outperform there on the new business side? You've got EUR 8 billion-EUR 9 billion. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I just mentioned. It's a little bit lower than last year. Last year, we grew by EUR 2 billion. This year, we want to grow by EUR 1 billion. As I said, the focus is very much on profitable growth. So we want to be selective. This is just reflected in these figures. Great. Thank you very much. The next question is from Stuart Graham from Autonomous Research. Please go ahead. Hi. Thanks for taking my question. I had a couple. You said you haven't seen any new NPLs year to date, but you want to be conservative. Can you talk a little bit about your new NPL inflow assumptions for 2024, please? And then secondly, on this disposal of EUR 500 million of U.S. office NPLs at 26% coverage. I mean, I guess I've always thought about coverage levels of 50% to get rid of CRE NPL. So what comfort can you give me that 25% coverage is really the right level to exit these loans, please? Thank you. Yeah. Hi, Stuart. Thank you for your question. I will take the two. The first question or let's answer the second question first. What comfort can we give you? Well, we want to solve and therefore reduce our NPL on the U.S. office book in the first quarter this year, so the first month, if April is even included, whatever. So really now, actually, by EUR 500 million. That's 50%. We are already in the negotiations. We have provisioned them in the fourth quarter. And we don't expect additional loan loss provisions for that reduction. So I think that is a market test. And therefore, we can say we are confident that our provisioning levels are right. Of course, this is a very swift, a very quick reduction. So this is why we took, let's say, another EUR 75 million on top in risk provisions in Q4. That is, for me, really an excellent valuation premium. It's like with a car. You have a value of EUR 20,000. If you want to sell it next week, yeah, probably you have to accept a little bit lower price. So this is exactly what we are doing here. And this is why I'm saying, I think overall, that's a good test. And first, do you want to? Yeah. Yeah. Then the other question, I guess, here was about the potential NPL inflow in 2024. And yeah, this is pretty complicated to give you a forecast about that. You see, Marc already elaborated on our overall forecast for 2024. That includes still a pretty high number of LLPs as a budget for 2024 compared to normally. So that's a little bit lower than last year, but still a significant number. And you could probably also take away from our explanations that we are still pretty much cautious about the development of the U.S. office markets in 2024. Our focus is clearly on restructuring all the single cases together with our clients. When I take a look at our European portfolio, including office, so far, I can say that also the office markets in Europe close to higher interest rates and to the work-from-home issues. But so far. Reflect our portfolio, new NPL in the regions, which has paid back I guess it was yesterday that it was paid back in substantial losses here on our side. Yeah? So you see me here. Nobody knows exactly what the future will bring. But currently, we see clear distinctions between the dynamics, U.S. office markets and European office markets. But we are still cautious and carefully monitoring everything. Okay. Thank you. Maybe if I can just go back to your first answer again. I mean, you're saying you're going to get these NPLs ready in Q1. I mean, we're almost in March. So you must have had some pretty detailed conversations. I mean, can you just confirm these are professional real estate investors who, if there was going to be an allergic reaction to your kind of pricing levels, you'd already had that kind of allergic reaction just to give me comfort that this isn't something where you're going to come back and say, "Sorry, it ended up going nowhere." Yes. You can confirm that. Yeah. Cool. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And again, rest assured, when we are now talking about these EUR 0.5 billion, talks about that. Negotiations already started. I don't know, in fall or in late summer or now in last year. So we are in constant conversations with the clients. So this is nothing which can be realized within one week. Yeah. That's what I want to say. Yeah. Yeah. Got it. Thank you. The next question is from Sajan Shah from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Hi. Thanks for the call. A couple of questions from my side. On Aareon, just trying to understand how, if ever, it was disposed, it could affect capitals. Would you be able to give us what the current mark of your share of Aareon is currently marked at, effectively on a deconsolidated basis, the RWAs associated with that, and then also any CET 1 goodwill deductions that are occurring because specifically of Aareon? That'd be the first question. The second question, when I go through your CRR disclosures, the RWA densities, I think I last had on the CRE book close to 25%. That seemed a lot lower than a number of peers. Just wondering, could you just help me understand what the reasons behind that are? And as kind of PDs go up and LGDs typically creep up, what are your views on how those RWAs move over the course of 2024 and 2025? And then the third question is just around the BDS deposits. Are there any kind of ratings triggers where any of that will kind of move to other providers or things like that? Yeah. So let me start with the last question about BDS deposits. We are doing the deposit-taking business with our BDS clients here within the bank for decades now. Finally, we're talking about trying to speak about two types of deposits. One kind of deposits are rental deposits and deposits for the condominium associations here, which is very stable, very granular, small amounts. We basically are able to help our clients to process these deposits in the most efficient way. That's why they're doing the business with us. The other things are the sight deposits. They basically represent the working capital of our clients. Again, we are also pretty deeply involved into their payment processes. That's why we saw and see currently the very stable development of the deposits. I'm not quite sure whether I understood your first question. I guess Marc will take the question about the RWAs. The first question was about Aareon and potential valuation of Aareon. Is that right? No. So just the book value. So above what level, effectively, do you trigger the P&L gain? And then also, there must be on a consolidated basis, there would be some CET 1 deduction for the goodwill. Just trying to understand what those amounts are. So let's say you removed Aareon on a book value, effectively, how the capital would change? So again, Marc will take the question about the RWAs. And sorry, we do not disclose the book value of Aareon. We did that not so far, I guess. And yeah, you see the amount of money we finally invested into Aareon in the last also 3 years. Secondly, you see a very impressive EBITDA development. I guess in 2021, it was roughly 65. Now we're targeting. That shows you that we clearly have the targets to create a significant amount of value. But please forgive me that I'm not willing to speculate about the potential value of Aareon nor disclose our book value currently. Sorry. Yeah? And this, of course, then goes hand in hand with the RWAs. I mean, what I can confirm is how you look at it. Aareon is not consolidated for regulatory purposes. That means that we only have to account for their book value as RWA. But obviously, if we now would disclose the RWA, we could recalculate the book value. So sorry for that. We wouldn't like to give the details. And then I think your last question or it was. It was on the risk entities. When I last saw the CRR disclosures, they were coming in 25%. That seemed lower versus some peers. I was just trying to understand how that is expected to develop over 2024 and 2025 as PDs and LGDs kind of increase. It's a very difficult or a very bad line. So let me interpret what you said. You said the RWA weighting. Yeah? Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. The density. You mean the RWA density. That's what you're talking about. And you say it's below other competitors? Correct. Yeah. And I just want to understand how that would progress as kind of PDs and LGDs went up. Well, of course, we are running in-book. So we are on an IRBA model, IRBA, of course, model here. As you can see, we are already taking the higher off. Yeah? So we are calculating the standard approach under Basel IV currently with a 50% output floor. And we are also calculating the revised IRBA and then compare and take the higher of in RWA. So this is the 19.4%. Well, what is in there and why are they, as you say, or interpret them, comparatively low? Because we have high collateralization, and we have good values, good LTVs especially. This market development had some impact. Yeah? You can see that we are up EUR 900 million this year. Of course, that reflects the growth of our portfolio. But it also reflects the LTV changes. Yeah? Of course, we also have given that the Aareal funding line is now out. As said, it's a non-consolidated entity from regulatory purposes. So it was fully backed with RWAs. Here, we had a relief of around EUR 200 million. And this was consumed, basically, by higher charges due to the value development of the total book, which was influenced by U.S. office. But as we have seen before with the LTVs, the LTV of the book only went up by 1%. So don't be surprised that this was hardly a development. For me, it's difficult to compare that to others. I don't know what others do and how their models look like. These are our models. And of course, they are reviewed by the supervisors. If we go to a Basel IV full view, here, you can see we have given full transparency. Commercial real estate, obviously, is hit most by the introduction of Basel IV and the 72.5% output floor because the collateralization is not taken into account in the way it was before. So here, I think that's very comparable then. Yeah? We are at 13.4 and therefore still, I think, on comfortable levels. Thank you very much. Thank you. The next question is from Jérôme Legras from Axiom AI. Please go ahead. Yeah. Good morning. Thank you for taking the question. Actually, two questions on capital market funding. The first one is you mentioned no senior preferred needs but possibly senior non-preferred. So I'd be happy to hear your thoughts about senior non-preferred benchmark issue with the current spread environment, which is, of course, quite challenging. And the second question is on your fundraise points, whether you have issues with U.S. office loans, which are in the cover pool. If you have to remove them, if you have had to remove some, or if there is a risk that you might need some new assets as collateral for the cover pool, if the LTVs go above a specific threshold, either for regulatory reason or because of the rating agencies. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you very much for your questions. As I just said, for liquidity purposes, we don't need to tap the market with a senior preferred issuance. We still would like to do a senior non-preferred issuance this year. So benchmark size, EUR 500 million. This is to keep the subordination of the Moody's rating. Yeah? So it only has rating purposes. It doesn't have any liquidity purposes. Therefore, as you said, in the current market environment, which is certainly seeing accelerated spreads at very low turnovers and hopefully, after the presentation of our set of figures today, they will come back to somewhat normalized levels. But in the current environment, that wouldn't be, I think, possible or at least not from a commercial point of view. Interesting. Yeah? So as I just mentioned, most likely, we would tap the market if the conditions are right. Is there any plan for the next six months? No, there is not. So potentially, at the end of the year, if the market has normalized, then we would look for that senior non-preferred benchmark issuance. What we do regarding the cover pool, of course, we always manage it actively. That means we always take out NPLs. So as you have seen, we have EUR 1 billion NPLs in U.S. office new in 2023. Presumably, some of that was in the cover pool. That's always replaced. And there's no NPLs in the cover pool. And of course, also, let's say, we have to manage it according to all the other thresholds that have to be matched. My question is more on performing loans. If beyond some kind of LTV threshold on performing mostly offices' loan, you have to take them out even if they are not NPLs? To be honest, I have to clarify. Yeah? So we would like to come back to you. If you just call our IR department, we will give you the answer right away. I'm aware of the policy regarding NPLs, but we will clarify that. Okay. Thank you. Of course, all the thresholds, as I just said, have to be met. Yeah? And the LTV on the pool is 33. The next question is from Jakub Lichwa from TwentyFour. Please go ahead. Hi there. Thanks for joining the call and the Q&A session. So the first one is actually just on the timing of the sale for the U.S. book. I mean, obviously, you're indicating Q1. We are nearing March. Is this something? Jakub, there's a lot of background noise with you. We can hardly hear you. Sorry. Can you hear me any better now? Just trying to put a mind. Not really. We try. We just try slowly. Then maybe we will chat. Okay. So what is the timing on the sale of the U.S. book? Well, as we said, that's time for now for the first quarter. I'm not saying that this may not take until the 15th of April. But we would certainly like to give you a positive message then with our Q1 results. So it's time for now. Okay. What is IPR on the new business at the moment, please? We have a look. So let us check that. Maybe we take the next question, and we come back to that still during that call. The next question is from Alexei Lougovtsov. Please go ahead. Good morning. Thank you very much for the results and the encouraging guidance. I have a couple of questions. So on the NPL formation, EUR 1 billion of NPLs were added in the U.S. last year. How did it happen? Were those loans maturing in 2023, or did they go into non-performing because of interest payment default and subsequent acceleration? And my second question is, is there a portfolio slide 10, 37% of loans classified as in Western Europe? Is it the most. Are in Western Europe on the chart. And also, you exposed it quite low. Positive or is that negative? Yeah. Interesting question. I think in these days, we view it as a positive. I think you have all read that the German market is also under pressure. Also, important from our side to stress, yeah, we are not financing any development. Here, you know that in Germany, there is stress in particular. And we also do not have any senior exposure. So when it comes to Western Europe, I can just give you the figures. It's Belgium, EUR 600 million. It's mainly France, EUR 3.7 billion. It's EUR 5.3 billion. We have very little in Luxembourg, Netherlands, EUR 1.7 billion. And then Austria and Switzerland, both EUR 300 million. So this is how Western Europe is comprised. Germany, as you have seen, is then in addition, EUR 2.2 billion. So that was total commercial real estate. Yeah? All the object classes. Yes. Yes. I understand. Okay. Yeah. And regarding your question about the NPL evolution in the U.S. last year, yeah, so multiple things can happen that finally a loan is qualified as an NPL. The trigger is not really, "Is the loan due?" It's more about, "Is there an assessment that it's unlikely to pay?" Then obviously, if it's 90 days past due, then finally, if the client and the property together can't meet our cash flow requirements, meet the debt service cover requirements, or in some cases, we see then breach of covenants. And so all these events are monitored, valued, and then negotiated with the clients. But they are clear when a performing loan has to be reclassified as an NPL. And that is always also checked and tested by our auditors and by many, many involved parties. So hope that answers your question. It does. Thank you very much. It is very helpful. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from Paul Fenner-Leit ao from Société Générale. Please go ahead. Hi, team. Thank you very much for the presentation. But two kind of add-on questions to ones that have already been asked. On the issuance of NPS, you mentioned loss given failure specifically. You've got a negative outlook at Moody's. It's been on for a while. Do you think the prospect of the issuance of that bond protects your A3 senior rating? Is that the idea? What are you hearing? What are the latest conversations with Moody's? Or is it a given that that gets downgraded? And could that change if you do get downgraded before you issue this year? Does that mean that you're less likely to need to issue? Question number one. Question number two is you've got an AT1 outstanding that you didn't call a couple of years ago. You've got decent regulatory capital position. You're well above your SREP. The bond is trading well below par. Can you just update us on your philosophy around the potential call? And what's your appetite for liability management of that bond? You could get a decent gain out of it. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you for your questions. Well, of course, when it comes to Moody's, these are confidential conversations we have with them. So obviously, I talk about the discussions we have with them. Obviously, as I just said, we would like to place the senior non-preferred still this year, at the end of this year, in order to support the subordination and therefore to keep the upnotching. I think that's somehow independent from the yearly review of the rating that will take place, let's say, on a regular basis here. As you know, we have a negative outlook now for, I think, more than two years. Yeah? On the one hand, obviously, the situation on the U.S. office market is difficult. Yeah? That weighs on commercial real estate finance. That weighs on us. On the other hand, of course, we have today presented, from our point of view, a decent set of figures. I think we have provisioned comprehensively on the one side. We have certainly shown very good momentum on the revenues. Costs are under control. Liquidity offers very. Of our CET 1. This should also all be reflected. Hopefully, we can keep our A-rating given this. This is certainly what we're working on. With regards to the AT1, what's our philosophy? Well, you've seen, we have not called them last or then the year before. That was always quite difficult markets in the past. And we are still. Environment. I mean, last November, exactly at this point in time, there was Credit Suisse. There was the U.S. regional banks. The year before, Russia just invaded Ukraine. Yeah? The year before, COVID started. Yeah? So very difficult market environment. This year, well, we are still talking about U.S. And you have seen the elevated spreads on AT1. I mean, it's very clear. If we call it, we have to replace it. Yeah? So would you, let's say, advise us to do it now? Probably not. We have not taken the decision yet. But I think you can read my words here. Thank you. The next question is from Anke Reingen from RBC. Please go ahead. Yeah. Thank you very much for taking my question. There's two more excellent good questions. First is with respect to there being a few articles or comments that the regulator's supervisor is focusing closely on commercial real estate, do you expect that might accelerate potentially the pace at which you have to take provisions, anything on capital requirements or higher risk ratings, or what could be the implications be given that there seems to be some focus? And then with respect to U.S. commercial real estate, what do you think will sort of eventually stabilize the market? Is it the oversupply, or is it rates coming down? Is it just time? just think that would be great if you can maybe just shed some light on your thinking. Thank you very much. Yeah. So let me take these questions. So when you talk about the regulator, you know that we are regulated by the ECB, Bundesbank, and BaFin. And we are in constant talks with them in every situation. So this is something which is for us, this is as usual. And obviously, when something extraordinary happens, then we provide them with extra reports and have conversations. But that is for us currently, this is as usual. And they are obviously fully in the picture of everything that's going on here. So nothing really extraordinary for me to mention today about that. And then, yeah, what could stabilize the markets? Again, and I'd really like to emphasize again, if we're talking about Europe, if we're talking about logistics, if we're talking about hotels, if we're talking about retail, that all is stable. As I mentioned, we saw no issues currently within these parts of our portfolio. We're still talking about the U.S. office portfolio. And for me, I guess, the next important step is that everybody will gain some confidence that we will not see further increasing interest rates. That basically, we all get a grip on inflation rates. And that everybody can then now calculate in a much better and sustainable way what are the key parameters for future investments. That's currently very important. Second point is obviously that we do not see any new projects coming to the markets that will stop or. To and which each and every quarter, which not provides new property to the market, finally will decrease and will then find something in the future. And thirdly, even in the U.S., we see an increasing trend for people going back to the offices. When you talk to our colleagues in the U.S. last spring or summer, everybody was pretty much convinced, "Okay. Most people would like to spend as less time as possible in the office." Now we see increasing numbers. People are coming back to the offices. And not only because the employers are asking for that, because also people would. These are the trends which we say stabilize. And then we're going to see a stabilization of the whole market again. But forecasting when will be the turning point, this is the 64th question currently, which I unfortunately can't really answer. Thank you very much. Welcome. Last question of today is from Galia Velimukhametova from Pictet. Please go ahead. Hi. Hi. Good morning. Just one question. Most of them have been answered. What is the average cost of your new deposits in 2023? What kind of rate are you paying for those deposits? Thank you. If you're talking about the BDS deposits, we wouldn't disclose that because this would finally then, let's say, disclose our total margins and everything. So please, hopefully, understanding that we wouldn't. When it goes to Raisin, of course, you can see the current prices that we pay on their platform for each and every time band. So I think that's very transparent. And let me add about the BDS deposits. Of course, we are in a competitive environment. Our customers are corporate customers. Of course, they know what are the market conditions. And we need to manage that. This is true for each and every bucket of the deposits. So I would say nothing which really differentiates us from other banks. Everybody here is in a more and more increasing environment in terms of clients asking for higher interest margin for deposits. That is something which is, I guess, a development which was expected. Right. But from what you said, this should be comparable to the kind of interest rates you're offering on your platforms currently. I mean, there shouldn't be much huge differences, right? Well, yeah. On On the platform, it's basically term money, as we stressed. More than 90% has more than two years. Obviously, when it comes to BDS deposits, a large part of that, more than EUR 5 billion, is current accounts. You don't pay any interest on current accounts. There is overnight money. Yeah? Here, obviously, that is very close to markets, so to short-term rates. There is more longer-term accounts. So it's a mixture. Yeah. It's a mixture of all. Okay. Okay. Thank you. So I guess no further questions. Thanks, everybody, for attending this conference call. We hope that we answered all your questions. If there are further questions, don't hesitate to call Jürgen and his colleagues. They will come up with follow-up answers. So we wish you all a further good start into this year. And thanks for participating. Thank you very much. And bye-bye. Thank you. Bye-bye. Thank you. Bye. Done. The conference is now concluded. And you may disconnect your telephone. Thank you for joining. And have a pleasant day. Goodbye. Goodbye.