Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Q2 2025 Fixed Income Conference Call and Live Webcast. I'm Moritz Zakowicz, Call Operator. I would like to remind you that all participants will be in a listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a question and answer session. You can register for questions at any time by pressing star and one on your telephone. For operator assistance, please press star and zero. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Philip Teuchner, Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir. Good afternoon or good morning, and thank you all for joining us today. On the call, our Group Treasurer, Richard Stewart, will take us through some fixed income-specific topics. For the subsequent Q&A session, we also have our CFO, James von Moltke, with us to answer your questions. The slides that accompany the topics are available for download from our website at db.com. After the presentation, we will be happy to take your questions. Before we get started, I just want to remind you that the presentation may contain forward-looking statements which may not develop as we currently expect. Therefore, please take note of the precautionary warning at the end of our materials. With that, let me hand over to Richard. Thank you, Philip, and welcome from me. Our first half results demonstrate clearly where Deutsche Bank stands today. We delivered a pre-provision profit of EUR 6.2 billion, nearly double the same period in 2024. Robust revenues reflect our well-diversified business mix, with 74% coming from more predictable revenue streams in the corporate bank, private bank, asset management, and fixed financing. Net commission and fee income increased by 4% year-on-year, in line with our goal to boost revenues from fee-based and capital-light businesses. As anticipated, net interest income in key banking book segments and other funding also remained resilient. Adjusted costs remain flat, and as we intended, significant progress on our operational efficiency measures is offsetting business investments and inflation. Let us now look at the divisional developments on slide three. All four businesses delivered double-digit returns in the first half of this year. Our diversified business mix is poised to perform in a fast-changing environment, particularly as our focused investments to serve clients are paying off across the platform. Our corporate bank has a leading market position in Germany, and with deep roots in our home market, it is perfectly positioned to help clients capitalize on opportunities created by investment programs in Germany and Europe, as well as improving business momentum overall. The investment bank is focused on consolidating its position as a leading European FIC franchise, whilst origination & a dvisory is looking to grow market share, specifically in advisory aided by recent investments driving further revenue diversification. In the private bank, we are pleased to see the progress on our transformation, reflected in the improvement in returns seen year to date. Personal banking continues to drive efficiency through workforce reductions and branch network optimization, mainly in Germany. These steps, combined with increasing digitalization, are enabling us to streamline operations and innovate our offerings. Asset management stands to build from its diversified assets under management of more than EUR 1 trillion, and we believe it is ideally placed not only to serve German and European investors but also to act as a gateway to Europe for global investors. Let us now turn to our progress towards 2025 delivery on slide four, starting with revenue growth. Since 2021, we have achieved a compound annual growth rate of 5.9%, in the middle of our target range of 5.5%-6.5%. Second, we have achieved around 90% of our EUR 2.5 billion target for operational efficiencies, with EUR 2.2 billion either delivered or expected from completed measures. Third, capital efficiencies have reached a cumulative total of EUR 30 billion, already at the high end of the bank's target range for full- year 2025 and contributing to our strong CET1 ratio. We delivered another EUR 2 billion of RWA reductions this quarter through securitization transactions and already see opportunities to deliver further capital efficiencies in the second half of 2025. To sum up, our first- half results demonstrate that we are on track to meet our 2025 financial targets, and we are fully focused on delivering them. In parallel, we are working on the next phase of our strategic agenda to further increase value generation beyond 2025. Turning now to net interest income on slide five. NII across key banking book segments and other funding was EUR 3.4 billion, up 5% quarter- on- quarter. Private bank continues to deliver strong NII, supported by our structural hedge portfolio, while corporate bank NII remains stable, supported by the ongoing hedge rollover, loan income, and a one-off benefit from hedge portfolio optimization. FIC financing benefited from loan growth in the first quarter, with strong lending margins offsetting FX effects. With respect to the full year, we confirm our NII guidance for key banking book segments and other funding of EUR 13.6 billion, as we continue to see a tailwind versus 2024. The underlying contribution continues to be driven by the long-term hedge portfolio rolling over at higher rates and volumes, combined with stronger lending income in FIC financing and lower funding costs. Together, those factors more than offset margin normalization and FX headwinds. Looking at slide six, which is based on the market-implied forward rates at quarter end, we can see that our hedge portfolio continues to position us well. In the second quarter, we have further reduced our short-term interest rate risk by turning out more of our deposit hedges, bringing the total volume invested longer term to around EUR 245 billion. As a result, a larger proportion of our future NII is now locked in, and in addition, the absolute NII contribution of the hedge portfolio is increasing steadily year- over- year, while the long-term EUR rates remain above 1%. Let us now turn to quarterly developments, starting with our loan book on slide seven. During the second quarter, we have seen loan growth of EUR 3 billion, adjusted for FX effects. The underlying quality of the loan book remains strong, with around two-thirds of clients located in Germany and Europe. While our loan portfolio in the investment bank has further increased in line with our strategic objectives, we have also seen slight growth within our corporate bank segment. In the private bank, our focus remains on targeted mortgage reductions to optimize capital allocation. For the remainder of the year, we expect growth momentum in FIC financing to continue, while the corporate and private bank are well positioned to benefit from the expected growth in Germany and Europe. Moving now to deposits on slide eight. Our well-diversified deposit book has slightly grown by EUR 4 billion during the second quarter, adjusted for FX effects. The strong presence in our German home market and a significant share of insured deposits continue to demonstrate the high quality and stability of the portfolio. In the private bank, we continue to see strong momentum from our retail campaigns in Germany. We are pleased with the strong deposit levels in the corporate bank and the encouraging underlying growth in sight deposits. Looking ahead, we expect further campaign-driven growth within the German retail segment, while strategic objectives in the corporate bank are centered around portfolio optimizations. On slide nine, we highlight the development of our key liquidity metrics. The Liquidity Coverage Ratio at the end of the second quarter increased by around two percentage points to 136%, mainly driven by lower net cash outflows. We continue to maintain a high-quality liquidity buffer and hold about 95% of HQLA in cash and Level 1 securities. We are comfortable with our current liquidity position but remain focused on further strengthening the resilience of the balance sheet and growing liquidity levels. As such, we aim to conservatively align our liquidity position without having specific external liquidity targets. The Net Stable Funding Ratio slightly increased to 120%, with a surplus above regulatory requirements of EUR 107 billion. This reflects our stable funding base, with more than two-thirds of the group's funding sources coming from our global deposit franchise. Turning to capital on slide ten, strong second-quarter earnings, net of AT1 coupon and dividend deductions, combined with diligent resource management, led to a CET1 ratio of 14.2% at 42 basis points sequentially. Lower risk-weighted assets were driven by credit risk, benefiting from continued execution of capital efficiency measures, predominantly through securitization transactions during the quarter. Market risk remained flat. Increases at the beginning of the quarter, reflecting market turbulence at the time, have been offset through strict risk management and hedging. Moving to slide 11, you can see that our capital ratios remain well above regulatory requirements. The CET1 MDA buffer now stands at 299 basis points, or EUR 10 billion of CET1 capital. The 47 basis points quarter-on-quarter increase reflects our 42 basis points higher CET1 ratio and a 5 basis points lower systemic risk capital buffer requirement, where a reduction in Germany was partially offset by an increase in Italy. The buffer to the total capital requirement increased by 53 basis points and now stands at 371 basis points. Moving to slide 12, our second-quarter leverage ratio was 4.7%, up by eight basis points, principally driven by FX effects, as higher Tier 1 capital was mostly offset by higher trading inventory. We continue to operate with a significant loss-absorbing capacity, well above all requirements, as shown on slide 13. The MREL surplus, our most binding constraint, increased by EUR 1 billion to EUR 23 billion. Our surplus thus remains at a comfortable level, which continues to provide us with the flexibility to pause issuing new eligible liabilities instruments for at least one year. Before we turn to issuance, let me quickly refer to slide 21 in the appendix, on which we offer our perspective on the bank's CRR3 disclosure. As we have laid out in the analyst call yesterday, we have a strong, incredible path to mitigate the potential impacts arising from the output floor. The implementation of CRR3 is a multi-year journey, including several transitional arrangements that are subject to reviews and which will mostly apply through 2032, and we are not planning franchise-changing decisions today for an outcome that is almost certain to change. Moving now to our issuance plan on slide 14. Despite geopolitical tensions and macro volatility, credit markets remain resilient in the second quarter. Our spreads developed constructively quarter- on- quarter, tightening by roughly 10 basis points on average in senior non-preferred, allowing us to further progress with our issuance plan at attractive funding costs. We confirm our previous guidance to issue between EUR 15 billion and EUR 20 billion to meet 2025 funding requirements. With year-to-date issuances of EUR 10.9 billion, we have already completed a little more than 6% of our 2025 plan, with remaining residual funding focused on senior non-preferred and preferred instruments. Since the last Fixed Income call at the end of April, we issued EUR 4.6 billion, primarily in senior non-preferred format. The most notable transaction during the second quarter was a EUR 1.5 billion senior non-preferred transaction, which attracted over EUR 9 billion in total orders. In addition, we issued a multi-tranche Japanese Yen transaction across both senior preferred and non-preferred. Concerning our EUR 1.25 billion US Dollar 6% AT1 security, with an upcoming call date in October 2025, we will take a decision closer to the call date at the end of October. Several factors will be taken into consideration, including capital demand, refinancing levels versus reset, FX effects impacting CET1, as well as market expectations. This security was issued at a stronger US Dollar exchange rate and hence would have a small positive revaluation impact at current FX rates. The coupon would reset around 8.5% at currently roughly 50 basis points above current market levels. In terms of the timing of any call announcement, we always need to balance the desire to provide the market with certainty as soon as possible against the loss of capital at the time of the announcement. We are still assessing whether we will replace the transaction and will provide further details later in the year. Before going to your questions, let me conclude with a summary on slide 15. We are on track to meet our full- year 2025 targets and remain comfortable with our trajectory to deliver an ROTE of above 10% and a cost/income ratio of below 65%. Our asset quality remains solid, and despite uncertainty from developments around commercial real estate as well as the macroeconomic environment, we currently anticipate a reduction in provisioning levels in the second half of the year. Our improved profitability, sound risk profile, and strong balance sheet were recognized by a rating upgrade from Morningstar DBRS in June. In the same month, Fitch has raised our short-term rating on the back of improved investor confidence and resilient liquidity. Our strong capital position and second-quarter performance provide a solid foundation as we head into 2026. We have already completed around 60% of our issuance plan for the year and plan to issue primarily more senior instruments in the second half of the year. With that, let us now turn to your questions. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their telephone. You will hear a tone to confirm that you have entered the queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Questioners on the phone are requested to disable the loudspeaker mode and eventually turn off the volume from the webcast while asking a question. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. One moment for the first question, please. And the first question comes from Lee Street from Citigroup. Please go ahead. Hello, good afternoon. Thank you for taking my questions and well done on the results yesterday. Three questions from me, please. Firstly, on capital, you've obviously got a new operating range. Based on that, am I supposed to think of 14% CET1 as being the floor for additional shareholder distributions and 13.5% as the floor for your MDA buffer? Is that how I should think about it? That's question one. Number two, any thoughts on ratings and ratings direction from here? You've had upgrades from DBRS and Fitch. Are you expecting anything else this year? And any comments on the changes from Moody’s relating to their request for comment and/or the CMDI? And then finally, a bigger picture one. You've mentioned on various calls in the past about playing some role in banking consolidation in Europe. Obviously, that's alive and well. I guess at the moment, it seems to be a lot easier to do deals within one country rather than cross borders, I mean, just based on what we see. The question is, do you think that DB will be involved in any form of M&A over the next 18 months? Can you see any angle there? They'll be my three questions. Thank you. Thanks, Lee, and happy Friday, and thanks for joining the call. I guess taking your first question around capital. What James and Christian was kind of saying yesterday was that our distribution policy remains unchanged. We intend to repatriate 50% of our earnings via dividends, share buybacks, as we communicated. This also applies in the case our CET1 ratio will be at the lower end of our target range of 13.5%-14%. In addition, if we sustainably report and project a CET1 ratio above 14%, then this provides the flexibility for additional distributions. When considering these excess capital distributions, we'll make our assessment after consideration of projected business growth and the regulatory environment at the time, no different to what we have done in the past. And finally. In terms of share buybacks, they typically involve a three to four-month regulatory review before they're announced, and we can execute it further. I just want to sort of make that point as well, just in terms of timetables. What should be most relevant for fixed income investors, as you were asking about, is the fact that we have increased our MDA buffers steadily over time. Now we're around 300 basis points above CET1 MDA, which is much more in line with peers. Given our own views of the world, we kind of feel that that gap will continue to grow over time. In terms of rating actions, yes, we're very pleased with Morningstar DBRS upgrading all long- and short-term ratings for the bank at the end of June. That was based on continued progress of our strategic transformation and our general path towards medium-term targets. Separately, Fitch upgraded our short-term ratings. We see that as proof of improved investor confidence and our resilient liquidity position. We're confident that the continued delivery of our targets should result in further positive rating revisions over time from other rating agencies. Of course, we are monitoring potential ramifications arising from various industry-related events. Obviously, there's a Moody’s Request for Comment process ongoing, which the agency is seeking feedback regarding their banking methodology. From what we can see right now, we're not expecting any rapid questions on the baseline credit assessment for ourselves. On CMDI, there are still a few open items, including the availability of the final legal text. Delivery of that is still uncertain, but sometime in the next few quarters. They'll take some time to transpose that into national law. Moody’s will need to reflect that in their ratings. The long and the short of it, from our perspective, is our base case is we do not see any impact to our senior preferred ratings, given just the overall size of our senior preferred layer we have in the stack. That'll be how I'm thinking about the ratings picture. James has joined us very kindly, so maybe I'll let him handle the M&A question. Sure. Thanks, Richard. And Lee, thanks for the question. Really, nothing's changed about our perspective. I mean, point one, as you point out, we've always sort of subscribed to the industrial logic of mergers, consolidation, scale in the banking industry. We've also been consistent about saying that we were working on our own homework and improving Deutsche Bank before we'd consider anything. Nothing's really changed in that regard. I wouldn't sort of commit to a timeline. You mentioned 18 months. As time goes on, I think we feel better prepared as the company goes from strength to strength and we get through some of the investments and remediation work we've been doing. I don't think there's any change in terms of. Our thinking that we want to remain focused on self-help for now. As to your comment about cross-border versus domestic, I'd sort of say right now, unfortunately, Europe is showing itself to be, I'd say, whatever. Mixed about both. If you look at the transactions that have been in the market, there's been national resistance to national mergers, and there seems to have been political resistance to cross-border mergers. I'm not exactly sure what the preference is. You'd like to see a world where Europe genuinely wants to function as a single market, that some of the preconditions are created in terms of the legislative environment, things like capital markets union, banking union, remove some of the frictions. In essence, the political sensitivity around the role of banks lessens somewhat to allow that industrial logic to take over. One can still dream, but that's hopefully the direction of travel ultimately. Nothing in all of this changes Deutsche Bank's view that we just remain focused on executing on our strategy and focus on self-help. All right. That's very clear. Thank you both. Thanks, Lee. The next question comes from Dan David from Autonomous. Please go ahead. Good afternoon. Congratulations on the results. I have two sets of questions, two topics, I should say. One, CRE, and the second one just on AT1. One, U.S. CRE, I guess. U.S. CRE and scope of the severe stress test has reduced year- on- year to EUR 16 billion to EUR 13 billion. A year ago, I think you said EUR 12 billion was modified. What's the figure now? A year ago, provisions in the U.S. book were EUR 614 million, so roughly 4% cover on the EUR 16 billion or 5.1% on the modified part. Can you tell us what the cumulative provisions are currently? Any color on the drivers of the reduction of the books or sales and redemptions would be interesting. Thanks. The second one, I just wanted a quick one on the AT1. If I look at your issuance plans, it says that you're done. It says you've maybe got a little bit more AT1 to do. You made reference to reset levels versus new issuance levels, I guess, when you assessed the decision. Should we assume that you need to print new AT1 to be able to call the October 30 AT1 that's coming up, or could you call outright? Thanks. Yeah, sure. I'll take maybe the second one first, if you like. The answer is pretty simple. I think on the slide, it shows we've issued EUR 1.5 billion year- to- date. I think the range we kind of gave as guidance as part of the overall $15 billion - $20 billion of issuance was EUR 1.5 billion -EUR 3 billion across AT1 and Tier 2. The comments I kind of made earlier were basically just outlining, as you rightly said, that the current market. In terms of where we are versus where we'd issue in terms of consistency reset spreads, obviously suggests we'd likely call. Also, the FX risk that we were talking about at previous AT1 calls is also positive. I think from our perspective, from a rational perspective and how we kind of guide it forward, I think the market's kind of thinking about that the right way. In terms of what does that mean in terms of our plans around if we decide to do that and where we want to replace, that's really still our ongoing planning process around what we kind of see as internal demand for leverage, whether that makes sense. No decisions being made on that. That's why we're still working through that process. We'll obviously update you guys as soon as we kind of decide what we want to do. Essentially, we need to make some sort of decision in the next couple of months or so. On CRE, Dan, I'm not sure I got each of the questions that you asked. I guess point one is the stress, the portfolio reduces with paydowns and to some extent with charge-offs. There is a modest reduction in the portfolio over time. You saw that the stress test outcome is still EUR 1.1 billion. I think right now we're showing cumulative credit loss allowance against that of EUR 700 million. It's less than the cumulative amount of provisions we've taken because we've charged off against the allowance. I don't have the modified number just to hand, but the modifications are slowing down. As we have chewed through the maturities, the number of loans now still to be modified in the next, say, six months has declined to a pretty modest number. We're working to extend the loans. Whenever there is a loan that can be refinanced or modified, the goal is now to extend and put them on a stable footing. That a bit gets to the last part of your question. Are we taking action to sort of stabilize the portfolio? For sure. It's through those modifications, refinancings, also sponsor support for the positions. We've also, as we did last year, looked at specific loan sales or portfolio sales. That's something we'll continue to do so that over time, we shape and manage that portfolio down. Yes, we're taking a series of risk management actions to sort of minimize the footprint. As you say, the allowance level has continued to build over time against the remaining exposure. I won't say we're out of the woods. As I said in yesterday's call, it's a little bit path dependent on each of the individual buildings and projects and sponsor behavior around those buildings and projects. It's something we're still working on. Again, to your question, yes, we're doing what we can in terms of risk minimizing actions. Thanks, both. The next question comes from Robert Smalley from Verition. Please go ahead. Hi. Thanks very much for taking my question and doing the call. A couple of questions. One, with respect to the results, the trading lines were very strong. Could you talk a little bit about investment banking pipeline coming up, particularly in Europe for the second half of the year? And if we'll see that start to come through as well. Secondly, we talked a little bit on the last call about NBFI lending, and there is a lot of nomenclature issues around that. So specifically, could you talk about your lending to alternative asset managers and BDCs? And let's winnow that out from asset-backed products, etc. And then third, just as a follow-up on the CRE point, now that we're starting to see more visibility around price, as you go through this portfolio, which is admittedly lumpy and has its own quirks, can we see a more accelerated timeline to get through this? And maybe in a quarter or two, provisioning, etc., will start to come down meaningfully. Thanks. Robert, I do not have the pipeline broken down by Europe. We tend to look at it on a product basis, but it is strong. Remember that the most visible pipeline we have is either M&A transactions that are announced pending closure or where we are signed up and are working with the client to bring it to announcement and then closure. Equity pipeline, those two look strong in terms of mandated pipelines. As you saw in the equity pipeline, and is true also of the advisory pipeline, clients need to see stability in the markets, kind of visible prices in order to transact. There has been a sort of delay and therefore an increasing backlog. As you have heard from us and other competitors, we like how the pipeline is shaped up, and it is stronger than it was this time last year considerably. Of course, transacting is a different question, and there have been delays and in certain cases, transactions that did not get to market. The debt capital markets pipeline is much shorter term. From being mandated to transaction execution and fee realization, there you saw in the second quarter really a stop for practical purposes. There was a very significant decline in activity in April and then a recovery through May and June. We do see that market as normalizing a little bit. As we talked about yesterday, the leveraged debt capital market was especially quiet, and we also stepped back a little bit in terms of risk appetite. I think as we get through July and then after the summer pause, our expectation is that debt capital markets will also recover. We are optimistic about how that can move from here. We also noted that there were some transactions ready to close that we had initially thought would close and. Sort of produce revenues in the second quarter, which were moved to the second half and, in a couple of cases, already closed in July. That timing is also helpful in terms of revenue momentum and O&A going into Q3. I hope that helps, although, as I say, I do not have the geographic pipeline in front of me. Yes, it does. Thanks. Ladies and gentlemen [crosstalk] There are a couple of questions that Rob was asking about, which I guess were more around N BFI lending. I think we have to get back to you with some sort of breakdown that you are looking for. Off the top of our head, I think our BDC exposure is de minimis, but we can clarify that. I think we just need to make sure that we are talking on the right terms when it comes to alternative asset management. If you do not mind, we will come back to you offline on the response to that question. Then on commercial real estate, as I said to Ben's question, I do not know that there is yet full visibility on pricing, I have to say. I think what we see is weakness in certain geographies, but it is often idiosyncratic to an individual project where there might be leasing activity or the lack of terminated leases and so on that impact the value of a specific building. We have called out the weakness on the West Coast. Does the current market environment give you an opportunity to accelerate a workdown? It is mixed, I would say. As I said in answer to Dan's question, we are absolutely looking at that, at alternatives to do that. It is often idiosyncratic to individual investments, which makes it a sort of a granular activity. Our hope remains, and expectation is, that as we get more visibility into the economic developments, especially in the United States, interest rates, and secondary market activity, the situation will ameliorate, we will be able to transact. Of course, with that, the credit loss provisioning or the allowance can come down again. Thank you. Thanks for the detail. Greatly appreciate it. Sure thing, Robert. Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one at this time. It seems there are no further questions at this time, so I would like to turn the conference back over to Philip Teuchner for any closing remarks. Thank you, Moritz. Just to finish up, thank you all for joining us today. You know where the IR team if you have any further questions, and we look forward to talking to you soon again. Goodbye and have a nice day. Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now concluded, and you may disconnect. Thank you for choosing Coruscore, and thank you for participating in the conference. Goodbye.