Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm pleased to be joined by Christian Sewing, CEO of Deutsche Bank, this afternoon. Welcome, Christian. Thank you. Before I ask you questions, I want to ask a question to the audience, the usual polling question. What RoTE do you think Deutsche Bank can target sustainably by 2027? Below 10, 10, 11, 12, 13, or above 13? Okay, 12 seems to be between 12 and 11. We will go back definitely to talking more in detail about RoTE and profitability, but I want to start with a broader question. We are living some unprecedented times in Europe, and you are very close to politicians in Germany, in Brussels. You were also the Head of the European Banking Federation until very recently. What is your wish list from a banking perspective when you talk to politicians, and how likely do you think that is to come through? First of all, thank you very much for the invite. Secondly, before I come directly to that question, I think it's actually good what is happening in Europe. You can see that Europe is waking up. Europe is moving. I would even say, including my home country, is moving quicker and more determined than I thought six or eight weeks ago, which is, first of all, good. We can come to Germany later. I can also see that on the regulatory side because we have far more discussions, open discussions. By the way, I mean, we all know that there are also letters from central bankers to the European Commission, to authorities, to think about simplification of certain routes. Therefore, I think there is an openness. This is all based on one item. This one item, which is discussed in Brussels, which is discussed in Berlin, the questions I get or the advice, the questions on advice I get is all about how can we further improve the financial autonomy of Europe. I think this is exactly what now needs to happen. Therefore, I'm actually quite pleased with the developments over the last couple of months. By the way, it's not only in Europe what happened since January. Actually, with the new Commission starting in November, December, you could really see a change. You have seen the announcement just, I think, an hour ago on the Savings and Investment Union. I do believe that that really goes into the right direction. If the strongest economy in Europe, i.e., Germany, is finally making, in my view, the right moves, though they also need to work on structural changes, so we shouldn't forget that, to be honest, Europe is on the right path. That is net positive for all of us. In terms of your direct question, FRTB, for instance, I firmly believe if there is a further delay in the U.S., there will be also a delay in Europe. I think that conviction on that side is clearly there in the European Commission and in Europe. Perfect. Thank you very much. If we move on to strategy instead, the Global Hausbank strategy started in 2022, and 2025 is your measurement year, so to speak. Can you elaborate perhaps on where you are in terms of the overall transformation process and what was achieved so far, what is still ahead of you, which perhaps can be summarized in 10% RoTE in 2025? What's your confidence on that? Broader question. Yeah. First of all, I think I really would like to stress that, yes, it is a measurement year. It is a very critical year for us. We are all aware of what we need to deliver. The confidence I gave to the market, I think on January 30, when we talked about the full year 2024, I can only repeat today. We are absolutely on the path to be above 10%. We are absolutely keeping our promise to give back more than EUR 8 billion to our shareholders. Everything I have seen in the first quarter so far is supporting that. I am really happy about that. On top of that, that is based on the items which we discussed, the waterfall from the adjusted 7.1% RoTE to 10% via the revenue increases, cost decreases, a reduction in loan loss provision. That all is true also after the first two and a half months. I think we made good progress, actually, and this is not really yet priced in, and we need to deliver on that, is everything what we are doing on capital. That was the page which we showed for the first time end of January. A lot of good work. We had the last two days of management board meetings where we went through each and every portfolio on the capital allocation. That comes on top. I really feel this bank is there to deliver in this critical year on the 10% or larger 10%. The most important, Julia, is that is an interim step. Therefore, while we are delivering on that critical year, we are now in parallel working on a far more optimized capital allocation per client, per transaction, per business unit, sub-business unit. We are redesigning the target operating model of the bank because the debt story is done. Now we are working on the equity story. All that comes on top of that. I can see the 10% as an interim step in 2025, full confidence. From there on, we need to go into another territory, which you were asking for in the first question. Absolutely. If I unpack perhaps what you are talking about, and I start with revenue, you are targeting EUR 32 billion, consensus expects EUR 32.8 billion even for 2025. It seems like from Dealogic, at least, the year is starting a bit slowly in IBD. What can you tell us that would reassure us or give us confidence in Deutsche's ability to meet this revenue level? The first thing I can reassure you is that the EUR 32 billion is exactly the number which we as much firmly believe in today as we did on January 30. You are right. The composition within the IB, the IB, when you look at today's consensus and we look where we will end at Q1, I think the consensus is broadly in line with that, what we see. In the composition, there is a little bit of a different composition. We are stronger in the trading business. We see, I think, as this was the theme for the last 24 hours, a little bit of a weaker start into the O&A business. Also there, actually, I'm not unhappy for two reasons. Number one, we have a double-digit markdown on one leveraged finance position. If I exclude that one, we are even up versus last year in O&A, which tells me that actually in a weaker market, we are doing quite good. The nice thing is in O&A is the pipeline, which is for Q2, Q3. Now, it still depends on the market that this is coming through. I have to say how the pipeline is filling and how actually the results for the Q1 in O&A have come in and are coming in, taking this markdown into account, it's actually a very solid quarter. Other business are doing really fine. Private Bank doing very well and also based on the assets under management, as we showed to the market on January 31. Corporate Bank in line with our expectation. Asset Management doing well. I am very happy, actually, with the revenue momentum. The nice thing is that with all that, what is now happening, in particular in Germany, there is actually something coming on top. You will see from the Private Banking side, we have for the time being the highest saving rates on our deposit accounts because Germans are not spending. There is uncertainty. With all that, what is happening, I think this uncertainty will reduce. Similar on the corporate side, everybody's always talking about the DAX 40 companies. The backbone of the German economy are mid-caps and family-owned companies. They have actually reduced their spending and their investments. I'm absolutely sure with the new coalition coming in, with the spending program, which was announced yesterday, with structural reforms, which will come in the coalition treaty, I do believe there will be far more activity. Now, a lot of that will be then seen in the revenues in 2026, but you will see the start in 2025. That is even coming on top of that. Good start, and therefore we can confirm the revenue guidance. Do you have any early, just to follow up on this, do you have any early evidence that the momentum is improving in terms of Germans spending more or perhaps corporates taking more loans because they are taking investment decisions, etc.? Or is it too early to say? No, but it's too early to say now that I can give you that and that evidence. If you have, and this is at the end of the day, in an economy which is so much driven by family-owned and mid-cap companies, psychology is playing a far bigger part than you think. If the largest think tanks, the largest universities in Germany are now actually increasing based on the debt package, are increasing their economic growth forecast for 2026 in particular, but saying this will have an impact, it changes something in the way people think about their outlook. This is important. You see already in the client discussions we have, be it on the corporate side or on the Private Banking side, that the people are actually getting a more optimistic view. That will actually further spark also our revenues. Clear. If I move into cost income, with Q4, there has been a reset of expectations. You have a 65% or below 65% cost income target now. What makes you confident on the cost side? Of course, it is relative to revenues, but on the cost side, what makes you confident that you can now meet the new target and deliver on this below 65% cost income? A couple of things, Julia. Number one is that I really do believe that we have shown also in the year 2024, when it comes to the adjusted cost, the operating cost of the company, we told everybody in the first quarter of 2024 that we will run this company on adjusted cost of EUR 5.0 billion, of around EUR 5.0 billion. We did this in Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4. We had a cost miss clearly in the year 2024 on the non-operating cost, in particular on litigation costs. This is fortunately behind us. We have a clear way ahead of us. The day-to-day cost management and also what we delivered out of the package of EUR 2.5 billion cost reductions, EUR 1.8 billion is already done. We are on a very good path to deliver on the EUR 2.5 billion by the end of the year. The day-to-day cost management was in order in 2024. As much as I can see it now, because I have my eyes obviously not only on the revenues, but also on the cost side, we are also delivering on this. Now, what changed? Why did we go from 62.5% to 65%? We choose on purpose to further invest in 2024 beyond our initial expectations, partially into controls, but in particular in growth, and that in particular in corporate banking and in the Investment Bank. That will actually drive our revenues in particular beyond 2025. Therefore, we think this was reasonable investments. Therefore, the cost management is absolutely in order. If I can see from the first two months how FTE are behaving, what we are doing in the Private Bank to further get costs under control and down, I'm actually very optimistic that we will hit our cost line this year. Very clear. Thank you. Cost of risk. Deutsche has guided for EUR 350 million-EUR 400 million per quarter. However, rates are higher in the U.S., and also the macro environment is deteriorating, which might impact CRE. How are you seeing asset quality developing since the beginning of the year? I would say that the guidance which we gave EUR 350 million-EUR 400 million is exactly right. You should not take from one quarter. You should relax and say that's all fine. That will be exactly the case for the rest of the year. If you look into the underlying portfolio development, it's actually very resilient and very stable. Never forget, we had three kind of not extraordinary, but three items last year which particularly hit us on the loan loss provisions. All of the three are either reduced or are not happening again. On the CRE side, we see clearly a better portfolio behavior. The real difference is if you go into the details of the CRE portfolio is that last year at this point in time, but also still in the fourth quarter of 2023, i.e., before 2024, most of the new loan loss provisions which we had in that portfolio came from new names. Over the year 2024, we did not have an inflow of new names requiring a loan loss provision. What happened actually is that you sometimes had to further increase a loan loss provision. Actually, I think we have a pretty good grip on those names where potentially they are on watch list problem cases where you might have to adjust the loan loss provision. Overall, CRE, we clearly see a declining trend on the loan loss provision. Also, when it comes to now interest rate outlook, actually it does not change our outlook on the loan loss provisions for the CRE part. Second part, which was different last year and which will be different this year, is all about the Postbank portfolio changes and the way the former Postbank portfolio was accounted for and is now accounted for where we took additional loan loss provisions also from the operational misses which we had given the IT transformation in 2023 and 2024. I think this is now really under control. We will see less loan loss provision in the private bank. And then you know that we had three names, in particular three bigger names last year where we had hedged against, but where from across loan loss provisions, we had higher loan loss provisions than usual. I do believe that looking at the structure of the loan loss provisions and what really hit us in 2024, we have a different picture in 2025. As I said, in particular, the German portfolio behaving very resilient. Actually, all that what happened now yesterday over the last two or three weeks over time will be credit positive. You will see that this is actually at least not deteriorating the portfolio. It is stable or even credit positive. Similar actually on the Private Banking side. I am very confident that the guidance of EUR 350 million-EUR 400 million, where I can see that number being somewhere there in the first quarter, will also be the right guidance for the full year. Very clear. Thank you. If I can ask you a question on Private Bank. When I look at the return on allocated capital by division, I'm always surprised by this division. It stands at 5% in 2024. I think it should be double- digits looking at peers. How do we get there? Yeah. I mean, first of all, your expectation is exactly right. I think over time we need to achieve in the Private Bank overall, i.e., consistent of the Personal Bank ing and the Private Bank /Wealth Management, we need to go to mid-teens. There is no doubt that is the expectation to Claudio. That is the expectation to me personally. That is what we are working on. If you dissect the portfolio and the way how it really develops, it is actually quite nice because we know exactly what to do in which part of the portfolio. On the Wealth Management and upper Private Banking, we are really doing well. We are nicely increasing the revenues. We have costs under control. If you go there into the cost/income ratio of that portfolio, but also of the RoTE, it is running really well. It is essential that we further grow. Part of the investments which we have done last year and which we are now executing are actually going also into the one or the other additional relationship manager in Wealth Management to capture market share because the brand name Deutsche Bank is there. People see us as the European alternative, not only in the Corporate Bank and Investment Bank, but also in the Wealth Management area. We can see assets under management coming in. We can see a clear growth path in Wealth Management, which we want to benefit from. Now, where we have to turn around the ship from a profitability point of view is clearly in the retail Personal Bank in Germany. I can tell you, we spent yesterday just another one and a half or two hours just on Germany from a cost point of view. Lots of programs underway. We will reduce again branches like we had planned this year in a quite significant number, Deutsche Bank, but also Postbank. We will take out almost another 2,000 people in the Personal Bank this year, which is already, i.e., provisioned in terms of restructuring costs, but is executed now. If you see how much cost actually Claudio took out in his direct business, in his direct costs in the fourth quarter 2024 versus the fourth quarter of 2023, we are talking approximately 8% or 9%. You can see that this is actually the track which he is following. At the same time, he is digitalizing his business. I can tell you that from a cost point of view, full focus on that. Secondly, and this is a nice thing where I think people actually underestimate the potential in this bank. You can criticize us that we have not focused sufficiently on this one in previous years. Even in the Private Bank and also in the Personal Bank, the focus and depth of work on shareholder value add, on capital allocation is significant. We are running six different work streams in the Personal Bank in Germany to lift the SVA contribution to the overall group, and it is quite exciting. It consists of repricing. We could not reprice for three years because of the Unity transformation. We are doing it now. We also have the brand name now to do it. We have the credibility to do it. We are thinking about the sub-pockets of certain mortgage portfolios where we come to the conclusion to actually close the one or the other, which was already announced in Q1. We are thinking about some regional portfolios where we will reduce. We are repricing from a credit point of view, transactions in the Personal Bank ing, whether it's consumer or mortgage. All that will lead on top of that to a far more profitable Personal Bank. Now, if we then capture the growth and simply continue with that, what Claudio is doing in the Wealth Management and Private Banking, and we realize the cost and SVA potential on the Personal Bank ing side, it will be definitely mid-teens, not in 2025, but honestly in 18-24 months. Very clear. Thank you. Let me address a couple of questions on capital before I open it to the audience. Deutsche has launched a buyback, EUR 750 million with Q4 results. The consensus is expecting another one, about EUR 400 million in the second half. How do you feel about these expectations? I like expectations. I mean, that's your right. I have to be measured against expectations. Look, I'm not saying anything different than what I said end of January. We are, I think James and I are known for that. First of all, we start from a very solid capital ratio. We also said that after the year 2024 and the setback we had from the legal issues on the Postbank side, we want to deliver and show the market and all stakeholders that we can deliver on a larger 10% RoTE. That is our focus for Q1 and Q2. Once we are delivering that and we have a good capital ratio, and to be honest, I have all the confidence that we do this, this management team will absolutely review that option. That is then a discussion with our regulators. That is the understanding and that's what we are going to do. First deliver and then ask. Clear. If I can follow up, still another question on capital. I think you mentioned the potential for capital add-on on German mortgages to potentially come off at some point. The ECB seems very supportive of SRTs. I think you've done one recently. What more can be done to optimize your capital usage? That is a lot actually. Because on the one hand, if you think about the mortgage buffer, that is actually with the regulator. I mean, we can lobby for it. We can give all our data. I have to say we have, in my view, fair and transparent discussions. We are trying to show that in our belief, this mortgage add-on is sort of saying now outdated. At the end of the day, this is a regulatory decision, by the way, not of the ECB, but of the German regulator. That is a combination of BaFin, Bundesbank, and the Finance Ministry. I think we have fair discussions. Let's see what is happening this year. You are right. I think we have very good discussions actually with the ECB and with all stakeholders on SRTs. I think we will see more of that. We will see and we see very active markets. I think the biggest lever, Julia, is coming from our own work. That is on the one hand, and these are again two streams. On the one hand, we promised to the market EUR 25 billion-EUR 30 billion of risk-weighted assets reduction until the end of 2025. We were at the end of 2024, oh my God, now I have ellipsed, but I think we have EUR 24 billion. We achieved EUR 24 billion. We made another EUR 2 billion in Q4. Everything I can see, and again, having James at my side being very conservative, I would be very surprised if we are not hitting the EUR 30 billion from that one. On top of that, everything is coming from the work which we started in January on the page nine of the presentation which we gave to you on SVA. Everybody in this firm in monthly meetings have to show to us which portfolio is SVA positive and negative. We are tracking action by action, whether it's in the Corporate Bank, the Investment Bank, the Private Bank. We are tracking each and every action. I think the way we are allocating capital, it is one of the biggest treasure boxes which we have to further actually optimize our capital and increase our RoTE. That is actually something which will drive the profitability of this bank over the next two to three years because that is a mindset change in the way we are managing this bank. That is sort of saying new, but a real opportunity. You can see me, I'm really happy with the way the bank took this challenge. It's actually exercising us. It really energizes me. I can see. Good. Let me see if the audience has any questions before I continue. Yes, there are two. Let's start at the back. Yeah. Hi, Christian. I mean, it's a bit early and unfair on you, but if you were to say, sorry, I'm small. If you were to say, what would you be most excited about from what we've seen on the budget in Europe, Defense, and what you can do to that, would it be issuance and lots of things to do through the Investment Bank? Could be, I don't know, savings, reallocation from cash into other assets. I mean, what will get you more excited? Would be lending to the SMEs, working capital? I don't know. What's the thing that will get you happiest? Very hard to say because there are so many things now, which is a real opportunity. I do not want to get too excited about that. There are opportunities which are opening up for us, but in particular for a capital markets bank in Europe, which were clearly not there six months ago. If you read today's decision or presentation on the SIU, there is actually a very interesting quote in. The SIU is not only mentioned in terms of what Europe needs to do in the European market in terms of the old Capital Markets Union. Actually, there is a request to each member state to deepen their domestic capital markets. That is, and that is what we have told the former government and where we are in very close discussions with the potential new government. That is a huge opportunity for Germany. I think Germany has the biggest potential to deepen its domestic capital market. That obviously from a Private Banking point of view, from a Personal Bank ing point of view, with 19 million clients, with retail deposit and saving accounts, thinking about what we can do over the next years to think about investment business in the retail and Private Banking is huge. Therefore, everybody always thinks about the Investment Bank and Corporate Bank, but we should not underestimate the potential for the retail bank and the Personal Bank when it comes to pension plans, other options for our clients to really save for their retirement. I think this comes more and more through in the society, and we need to be there. That is the reason why I want to be in the retail banking. That's the reason why I'm happy to have 19 million clients. That's the reason why I'm happy to have them all now on one IT platform and that the Postbank clients can finally benefit from the investment products which we have in Deutsche Bank. That's huge. Number two, honestly, I think it is the role of Deutsche Bank when you think about not only the EUR 500 billion of infrastructure investments or the defense investments, but the role Deutsche Bank can play in order to leverage on the public debt package which is out there. Leverage in terms of obviously that we can lend to our clients, but also attracting foreign capital on top of that in order to make these programs go. There are not so many European investment bank s left with that network and with that product suite. Wherever I am in this world, now even more than ever before, also with all the geopolitical uncertainty and questions we have out there, in each and every meeting, the comment comes to me. Just this noon again when I saw a big U.K. company, we want to have an alternative capital markets bank in Europe to the U.S. banks. That is our chance. That is why we invest in that, and that is why we keep investing into it. The third one is clearly that I do believe that if we are doing it right, and again, I am supportive of the debt package as long as structural changes are coming in Germany. If we get this right, I think we see a revival actually of the German corporate business, and that obviously will also help us in terms of revenues. Before I go to Jan, I just want to follow up on the first part. You are excited about the potential for deepening the capital markets in Germany. If you just look at the metrics versus the U.S., of course, there is a ton of upside. In my experience, you need tax incentives to convince people to move from deposits into investments. Do you think that's coming? That is again, I do not know what the next government is deciding, but I think there is an openness to think about that. I think that the understanding of the incoming government that they need to change on these items is pretty high. I am confident. Look, we have to sort of say push for that. We have to ask for that. We need to show tangible advantage why they should do this. We see in a lot of other European countries who are in terms of depth of capital markets far ahead of Germany. I do at least see an openness, and that is our opportunity. Clear. I think we had a question here. Thank you. We just listened to the ECB before you talk about the various aspects of banking. One key point they were drawing was the importance of operational resilience in this world in which we live. Unfortunately, over the longer-term history, Deutsche Bank has had some unfortunate incidents with operational resilience. Could you talk to that now, please, and how much change you have done and whether that's where you would benchmark yourself relative to the other European banks? For us on the outside, it's an extremely difficult topic to have an objective view on. Yeah. First of all, I cannot stress enough how important risk resilience and controls are for a bank. Look, I grew up on the credit side. I was running audit for two years. I think I have a basic understanding why this is important. I think we have come a long way since 2018 to turn this bank into a bank which is sound, robust, not only from a balance sheet quality, but also from a risk control. I can see us improving and improving. To be very honest, have we done everything? Have we remediated each and every part of certain deficiencies? No, we are still doing this, but the progress is clearly there. To be honest, you can also see it in kind of all external metrics which we have, whether it's external ratings and so on. Now, I can give you an example why I think we really turned around the bank from a risk and from a control point of view. This bank was very much centrally organized since 2018. I did it on purpose because I also had my concerns that we don't have the risk mindset, the control mindset, in particular in the first line of defense. The changes which we have seen in terms of front-to-back processes, in terms of clear controls, automated controls, in terms of policies, in terms of risk appetite, be it for financial risk or so-called non-financial risk. I don't like this expression non-financial risk because it turns into a financial risk, operational risk, is significant. The most important what we have done is that I, in the meantime, have the impression that everybody who is running a business has a deep risk mindset. If I think about, for instance, our FIC business, if I think about the person everybody knows him, Ram Nayak, Ram Nayak could be the CRO of Deutsche Bank. He knows exactly what risk return is all about. That is my expectation to each P&L person in the front office. If I do not see that control, that discipline, then we need to do changes. Now, can we do mistakes? Of course. Everybody can do mistakes. I want that this risk mentality is embedded in the first line of defense. That is what we have managed. Are we perfect? No. Are there still areas where we need to get better? Of course. I do think that also from a peer comparison, and look, I only look into Deutsche Bank, we have caught up a lot. Thank you. Can I check if there are any more? Okay. Otherwise, I'm going to ask you two more. One on NII, the curve in Europe at this time is clearly pointing to ECB rates staying at two or slightly above two, and especially there has been a steepening in the 10-year in Germany in particular. How does that benefit Deutsche Bank? First of all, we gave the guidance for this year and said on the NII, we have compared to last year EUR 400 million tailwind. Again, looking at James, maybe also a little bit more. I'm a good conservative CFO. Now we actually have to see what is happening because a lot of people always think that the mortgage business in Germany is priced on the ECB rate. The mortgage business is far more linked to the 10-year bond. This is quite interesting. I think it's an opportunity for us. Also not only in terms of what is actually happening on that spread, but what can we do in terms of strategy when it comes to deposit taking. We discussed it yesterday. I think from that what we are seeing now in Europe, that potentially there is even more upside, not only this year, but in particular in the years to come. Yes. Clear. Then on private credit was my other question. There was an announcement, I believe yesterday, about DWS and Deutsche having a cooperation on private credit. This is a big theme globally, mostly in the U.S., but I think it is definitely coming to Europe as well. How do you see the space? How is Deutsche positioned to capture this opportunity? If it is an opportunity, maybe it is a disruption. No, no, no, no, no. It is an opportunity. I don't think that there will be any slowdown on the private credit side. I think Deutsche Bank is a house which has shown that on the credit side, also on complex transactions, we have a lot of experience. We have done very good business. If you look at the numbers, just on the credit numbers in the Investment Bank, it's a very, very stable business contributing approximately around EUR 3 billion in top line each and every year, SVA positive. Really nice business. Now, we want to further leverage that. The most important is only that we are not losing our underwriting standards. That's, I think, key for that business. I can see in the one or the other cases, not what we are underwriting, but in the industry, that you need to keep your eyes open. Therefore, I think most important going forward is that you stay in line with your credit standards. Clear. Let me see if there are any further questions. Okay. M&A is a topic for the industry. Of course, something is happening in Germany as well. Plus, there is a lot of discussion on the Danish Compromise, which does not impact Deutsche because you do not have it. What are your thoughts on what you are seeing on the M&A scene and could Deutsche Bank participate at some point? No thoughts because if you have that potential, which you can do by yourself, you shouldn't put your thoughts on M&A. I just told you, A, you started this interview with 2025 is the measurement year for Deutsche Bank. That is what we are all focused on. It is an interim step to a profitability which must be clearly higher than 10%. I tried to outline what we are doing on SVA, how we are actually reorganizing the target operating model of Deutsche Bank. We were very much centrally organized. Now we are moving far more into front-to-back processes. We get duplications out. We get more efficient. I think we need to capture those opportunities with the full management attention on these items. I simply want to achieve with all that what we have that we get to a return on equity which is in line with our European peers and which is obviously higher than the 10%. Whatever comes then after that, we can talk about. Now it's on us. It's in our potential. I don't want that any of my colleagues is actually focusing away from that task. It requires our full management attention. I said in another interview, for that, what Deutsche Bank can achieve in two to three years' time compared to today, we are rowing at 70% of our potential. There is so much we can do within ourselves. With that, what has happened over the last four or six weeks in Germany with the geopolitical changes, there is so much momentum and tailwind for Deutsche Bank. Let's focus on ourselves and get this bank really profitable. On that positive remark, thank you very much, Christian. Thank you, everyone.