Morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Deutsche Pfandbriefbank AG's Analyst Call regarding its results for the second quarter and half year, 2025. At this time, all participants have been placed on a listen-only mode. The floor will be open for your questions following the presentation. Let me now hand over to Kay Wolf. Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, a very warm welcome to our Analyst Call and Investor Call today. Great that you are taking the time again, and thanks for that. As you can see, and as we have mentioned in our communication over the past few weeks, there is a lot that we are currently moving forward. The transformation of PBB is taking shape with concrete steps that we've had. Today, our CFO, Marcus and I want to provide a closer look at the different directions that we have taken. I will focus on the strategic update. We are going to see this regarding the acquisition of Deutsche Investment Group and the impact, of course, of our withdrawals from the U.S. market. Marcus will then walk you through all the figures and facts of our half-year results. As always, unorthodox but reviewed and based on IFRS and for the group. Of course, we will then have plenty of time for your questions. Moving to page three, first news, and an important achievement for us is the acquisition of a majority stake in Deutsche Investment Group, which we have just started. It represents a giant leap forward for our real estate investment solutions business. Deutsche Investment Group has approximately €3 billion in assets under management and a track record spanning over 25 years. It is specialized in equity funds, primarily investing in residential real estate across Germany. We have a broad institutional investor base. Let me stress, it's a perfect strategic fit for PBB. Second important news, the withdrawal from the U.S. real estate market will have a significant and one-off impact on our 2025 half-year results. The total cost expected from this withdrawal amounts to €340 million and leads to a loss of €249 million in the reporting period. Excluding this one-off impact, the fact profits would have been at €65 million at the half year, which confirms we remain on track in our strategic business. PBB is well capitalized to sow both the acquisition and the one-off cost from the U.S. exit. The exit will only have a moderate impact on the CET1 ratio, amounting to 40 basis points. CET1 now stands at a solid 15.3%. The closing of the acquisition of Deutsche Investment Group, which is not expected before the first quarter of 2026, will impact our CET1 ratio by not more than 30 basis points. The issuance of our Tier 2 bond in June marks a successful return to the subordinated unsecured capital market. The €300 million bond issue was oversubscribed 6x. It was even more than successful. Plus, a clear confirmation that we are on the right track. Issuance significantly improves our capital structure. Marcus will go into that later. Including the one-off U.S. effect, PBB's operating performance remains stable. Adjusted operating profit amounts to €119 million in the second quarter of 2025. Our risk provisions in the second quarter are significantly influenced by the one-off risk charges for the U.S. exit, on which we will provide more details later. As you can see, the second quarter marks an important milestone in PBB's transformation under Strategy 2027. When we move to page four, where are we with the implementation of our strategy? We have made good and adventurous progress in all three pillars, and we reaffirmed our goals for 2027. In our core business, real estate finance solutions, we are becoming a truly European bank, diversifying our property types with an unchanged, specifically a focus on profitable business. In real estate investment solutions, we are taking a great step forward with the acquisition of Deutsche Investment Group, generating provisionary fee income fully accreted for our target of larger than 10% fee income in 2027. We continue to build a leaner organization with a target operating model, promoting our strategic goals, always assuring strict cost differences. We move on to the next stage. Let me start by taking a closer look at real estate finance solutions, our core commercial real estate lending business. Ladies and gentlemen, in Europe, new business volume grew by more than 50% compared to the first half of 2024 and amounts now to €3.5 billion, including extensions of more than one year. We expect new business between €6 billion- €7 billion for the full year 2025. An overall stable real estate finance portfolio between €28 billion- €29 billion. I hope I could expect new business of €6.5 billion- €7.5 billion for the full year. Portfolio at around €28 billion- €29 billion. Our new business's return on tangible equity, our main profitability KPI, rose to 10% at the end of the first half of the year. It is well above the bank's 8% ROTE target for 2027. We maintained our cross-interest margin at a high level of 240 basis points in the second quarter. I'm scared to say that we expect this to be the property type for which we expect particular growth, accounting for a growing share in our new business pipeline. Our lending business for hotels, data centers, and senior and student living now accounts for more than 20% of the pipeline. Let me go into more detail regarding our withdrawal from the U.S. market. As you can see, we have been significantly reducing our U.S. portfolios since the end of 2023. Starting at €5.2 billion, we now stand at €3.7 billion. This is a reduction of almost 30%. From our perspective, the medium to long-term outlook for the U.S. market remains difficult to predict. Unchanged from our assessment in our last quarter report, we expect volatility to remain high. Despite currently good stability of our performing portfolio, measured, for example, by the development of property value, some of the promising figures in our portfolio show that the strategic decision to withdraw is fully in line with our core targets for 2027, aiming to build a more profitable and more resilient bank. First of all, the risk profile of our U.S. portfolio is notably higher than in our markets in Germany and Europe. Although the U.S. business accounts for only 12% of our total portfolio, it represents around 45% of our non-performing loans. This is not a well-balanced ratio. Second, capital consumption of our U.S. business is 1.7x higher than for our comparable European transactions. Third, we have been able to further increase profitability in Germany and Europe. Profitability of the U.S. business is markedly negative. Ladies and gentlemen, all of this clearly underlines that our future lies in Europe. Here, we are not only growing. We are growing corporately, and we are growing in a diversified manner with a good stress across property types. All this in markets that are more predictable for us and that are expected to grow more sustainably in the coming years. As we move to page six, take even a closer look on the impact of the U.S. exit. The risk chart that links to the U.S. exit has a significant and one-off impact on our half-year results. Our U.S. group is now marked and expects an exit cost with a total one-off impact of - €314 million. This mark is confirmed by a detailed transaction-by-transaction assessment, including multiple macroeconomic scenarios. In addition, these assessments were verified by several attributable external market players as well as, of course, our auditors. As a result, the coverage of our U.S. portfolio significantly increased in Q2 2025. This applies for our performing books, but even more for our NPL portfolio, where coverage now stands at 33%. If I would include the fair value adjustments, this would increase even more with about 40%. The effect on our CET1 ratio is limited to 40 basis points. For the end of June, CET1 ratio stands at a solid 15.3%. As the one-off risk charges were compensated by existing residential backstop according to CRR booked in previous quarters, we expect to reduce our risk position noticeably over the next 6- 12 months. We already have initiated appropriate measures, including different taxation, sales, and, of course, also wind downs. Capital, which is freed up as a result, could be redeployed to more profitable business, as well as enhancing our flexibility towards equity-building strategies by different accounts. All of this underscores our strategic path of becoming a fully focused European commercial real estate bank. We remain committed to our targets in 2027. Let me now come to our real estate investment solutions business, moving to page seven. The acquisition of Deutsche Investment Group is a giant leap forward in our aim to establish a fee-generating, capital-light real estate investment business. Deutsche Investment Group has been operating in the market for 25 years and has successfully placed 11 equity funds for German institutional investors. The investment manager has its headquarters in Berlin and Hamburg and is present in five further German locations. The diversified institutional investor base includes pension funds, financial institutions, and insurance companies. The group is specialized in managing residential and local retail real estate, both property types with sustainable investor demands and excellent cost perspectives. With this 360-degree approach, Deutsche Investment Group is a well-established real estate expert, delivering fully integrated services along the whole chain of real estate investment management. We move to page eight. Deutsche Investment Group is a perfect fit for us. With assets under management of around €3 billion, it materially contributes to our target of €4.6 billion assets under management by 2027. With 100% recurring fee income of €34 million in 2024 and a compound annual growth rate of 7% over the last four years, it forms a strong basis for achieving our strategic goal of larger than 10% fee income on total operating income for the group. Furthermore, the capital-light nature of this business will support us in reaching our ROTC target for 2027. We already expect to see an earnings per share accretive impact in 2026. Deutsche Investment Group also offers further strategic synergy potential for our organic growth ambitions and for scaling our business activity with institutional investors in Germany and beyond. The value chain of Deutsche Investment Group ideally complements PBB's financing expertise with its investment and asset management, property, and facility management. Acquisitions include the German-regulated AFEM, in which we acquire an 89.9% stake, as well as certain other group entities, which we will acquire in full over the maturity stake. Senior Management and other key personnel will continue to develop this business with us over the coming years. The purchase price is in the mid-double digit million range, including performance-related price components. No own book investments are required for this acquisition. The impact on the CET1 ratio will be no more than 30 basis points. Closing of the transactions is subject to customary closing conditions, such as regulatory approvals, and is not expected before the fourth quarter of 2026. With that, I'll hand over Marcus to you for giving us a closer look on our figures. Thanks a lot, Kay, and good morning also from my side. As you'll let me start with the operating and financial highlights, which when taking off a lot of U.S. risk charts, continue to show a solid underlying performance. Starting on slide 10, the rescue business volume, including extensions of more than one year, is significantly up by 37% or €700 million year-over-year to €2.6 billion in H1. Also, on a quarter-over-quarter basis, rescue business volume is up 32%. This growth was achieved in Europe. A strict focus on profitability reflects the ongoing gradual recovery of commercial real estate markets. The average cross-interest margin is stable at around 240 basis points. This translates into a new business loyalty of around 10% in the third half of 2025. I.e., new business continues to play into our Strategy 2027 profitability target of 8%. The rest of the portfolio is still coming down from us to €28.2 billion per quarter end. This reflects both our ongoing selective new business approach, but also our active balance sheet management and significant de-risking of the portfolio, especially in the U.S. and for German development zones. However, the quarter-over-quarter decline from €28.9 billion in Q1 to €28.2 billion in Q2 is mostly explained by the U.S. dollar depreciation effect of -€500 million. Limited for the time I'm skipping ordinary non-core assets and resale recovery developments. That brings me to keep the P&L overview on slide 11. As already mentioned by Kay, Q2 and thereby H1 2025 was strongly impacted by the decision to book upfront a total of - €300 million one-off risk charges for the U.S. exit. With marking the U.S. book at expected exit cost in the second quarter, we booked €283 million in risk provisioning and -€31 million in the fair value and equity accounting lines. These fair value charges of -€31 million for the U.S. exit are part of operating income, which on a reported basis is therefore clearly down to €206 million in H1 2025. When normalizing operating income for these one-off U.S. fair value risk charges, adjusted operating income amounts to a solid €237 million in the third half of 2025. As such, adjusted operating income is now stable for the last three quarters. It should not come as a surprise that it is down from the €278 million in H1 last year. The year-over-year decrease with recently more plateauing income is reflecting the already known deliberate choices of active portfolio management and de-risking. Together with selective new business, they are resulting in a reduced but incrementally more profitable portfolio. As a result, NRI/NCI decreased year-over-year from €249 million in H1 last year to €215 million in H1 this year. NRI/NCI is now gradually plateauing and only markedly down from the €221 million in H2 2024. Our adjusted realization in other incomes of €32 million in H1 this year simply is a reflection of less extraordinary income. In H1 2025, we had less non-core asset stakes and liability benchmarks compared to a year ago. As expected, general and administrative expenses are significantly down to €115 million in the first half of 2025, up to €130 million in the second half of 2024, driven by the successful finalization of our IT transformation. The fact that G&A are stable at €115 million year-over-year is particularly noteworthy as most acquisition-related site costs for the Deutsche Investment Group acquisition are already reflected in H1 2025. In the second half of 2025, we, however, expect a moderate G&A uplift, mainly from administrative costs related to the U.S. exit and further investments into our strategic transformation. As already said, risk provisioning of -€323 million in the first half of 2025 is predominantly driven by one-off loan load provisions of -€218 million booked upfront in Q2 2025 for expected U.S. exit costs. I will, of course, come back to that in more detail, but let me stress already here that the U.S. risk charges are based on expected exit prices and do include transactional discount eminence over previous holding valuations. Adjusted for the one-off U.S. loan load provisions of -€283 million in Q2, risk provisioning in H1 is actually down to - €40 million from -€67 million in H2 2024 to -€103 million in H1 last year. This reflects our ongoing de-risking of the portfolio and overall bottoming out of play markets. All in all, this resulted in a pre-tax loss of -€249 million in the first half of 2025. Adjusted for the entire one-off U.S. risk charges of in total €314 million booked in Q2, we have stored a rather solid underlying pre-tax profit of €65 million in the first half of 2025. To put it briefly, adjusted for the U.S. exit one-off charges booked in Q2, the underlying operating performance remains solid with adjusted income starting to plateau and operating expenses well managed. Underlying risk costs, excluding one-off U.S. charges, continue to gradually come down, and as a result, underlying profitability is increasing. This key takeaway becomes even clearer when we look into the quarterly detail of free provision profits on slide 12. As already said, reported operating income is impacted by the one-off U.S. fair value risk charges of -€31 million in the second quarter of 2025 and is therefore down to €88 million in Q2. Adjusted for the one-off fair value charges, operating income remains on a stable plateau since Q4 2024. It is actually up by €1 million quarter- over- quarter to €119 million. NRI/NCI is slightly down by €3 million quarter- over- quarter to €106 million, due to lower portfolio volume despite increased portfolio margins. At the same time, realization income is up by €4 million quarter-over-quarter to €6 million, also benefiting from a non-core asset sale. Excluding U.S. risk charges, other income is stable quarter-over-quarter at €7 million. Operating expenses, including depreciation, remain well managed and decreased by €2 million quarter-over-quarter to €62 million in the second quarter of 2025. Personnel expenses came down by €5 million. Non-personnel expenses are only slightly up by €2 million, and most of the acquisition-related site costs have already been booked in Q2, as mentioned. Although the cost base was lower, the cost-income ratio rose to 70%. This increase was entirely driven by the lower operating income base, which was dragged down by the mentioned -€31 million U.S. fair value risk charges. Adjusted for these one-off charges, the cost-income ratio actually came down quarter-over-quarter to 52%. In total, free provision profit adjusted for the one-off U.S. fair value risk charges of -€31 million has come down by a moderate €3 million- €51 million quarter-over-quarter. Now to our detail on risk provisioning on slide 13. Risk provisioning in Q2 is almost entirely driven by the decision to exit the U.S., as the U.S. portfolio has now been marked at exit prices, i.e., through an exit of sales prices. These reflect return expectations of customary buyers of performing and non-performing U.S. commercial real estate loans and therefore include significant discount elements versus previous hold valuations. As a result, -€283 million of one-off loan loss provisions were booked upfront in Q2 to reflect the decision to exit the U.S. As I mentioned, actual sales of secular diverging below cost happened in a value-preserving manner over time, and some part of the portfolio will actually be marked down by the bank itself. S1 and S2 additions of -€75 million are fully related to a management overlay for performing U.S. loans in the context of the planned U.S. exit. The overlay is calibrated to U.S. exit prices for the performing U.S. group. I I will come back to that. S3 additions of -€22 million include one of S3 loan load provisions of -€208 million for the U.S. exit, which are by far the dominant driver of U.S. exit-related risk charges. Moderate -€14 million S3 additions relate to a European loan, predominantly existing non-performing German development. Looking at the total stock of loan loss allowances on slide 14 now, we see that the U.S. coverage has increased substantially. For U.S., for performing U.S. loans under S1 and S2, coverage has now increased to €177 million, i.e., from 2% as per end of March to now 5% per end of June. For U.S., non-performing loans, S3 and S3 have increased strongly to €292 million. Therefore, the NPL coverage ratio has almost doubled from 17%- 33%. With that, the total NPL coverage ratio is now at 30%, up from 23% as per end of March. Let's now take a brief look at the developments in the portfolio. I'm starting with the total performing portfolio on slide 16. Irrespective of the risk charges booked for the planned U.S. exit, the underlying quality of the performing portfolio stabilized further, reflecting a continuous bottoming out of the commercial real estate market, as well as our previously exiting de-risking in the U.S., and for German developments. On slide 16, we show the development of three key risk parameters in our performing U.S. portfolio: for the total U.S. portfolio and for the European portfolio. All previously shared risk KPIs show a further stabilization of portfolio quality. Average entities remain stable quarter-over-quarter, 66% for the total performing U.S. portfolio, 55% for the European. 12-month rolling valuation adjustments stay below fee levels, having stabilized in the total performance for portfolio and have even further improved in the European portfolio. Also, when looking at layered SEVs, the exposure and risk declined actually by 11% in the total U.S. portfolio when compared to the previous quarter. Overall, these indicators continue to show improving risk dynamics, underpinning our ongoing active de-risking and a further stabilization in free markets. Please note that the stage one and two management overlay of -€75 million for the performing U.S. loans in Q2 has been booked despite that stabilization in the underlying performing markets. Management overlay for the U.S., performing book has been calibrated to exit prices, reflecting transactional charges based on investor return expectations. Our full usual portfolio disclosure can be found in the appendix. I would now just briefly comment on the area of focus, starting with NPLs on slide 17. Total NPLs are slightly up in the second quarter by €71 million- €1.95 billion, mainly driven by three NPL additions of in total €238 million: two U.S. loans and one European office loan. It was not fully met by two NPL reductions of €103 million: one repaid through an office loan and one repaid through a European hotel loan. NPLs were also held by positive exits, again namely the depreciation cost. For previously recorded three U.S. loans, which were economically healed but not regulatorily cured, probation periods were invoked in connection with the planned U.S. exit. They remain included in the NPL wall but are no longer stone steppers. The U.S. makes up for a disproportionately large share of 45% of NPLs, while the overall U.S. portfolio sales are only 10%. The development of U.S. STL continues to show the previously mentioned trend, as some investment markets in the U.S. remain hesitant in light of ongoing uncertainty and volatility. Thus, ordinary cost of business clearing of U.S. NPL has been lower than previously anticipated. As you know, this development also contributed to our decision to exit the U.S. Now marking the U.S. NPL book and exit prices, irrespective if loans are booked at amortized cost or fair value, we perform a thorough bottom-up assessment for each individual loan and assess exit prices under challenging market conditions for U.S. non-performing loans. As mentioned, the NPL coverage rate for the U.S. therefore almost doubled from 17% as per end of March to now 33%. When also including the one-off U.S. fair value exit charges of -€31 million, NPL coverage would actually be more around 40%. Moving to the risk profile in the development portfolio, which has further improved. Portfolio has been reduced by €500 million in the first half of this year, €300 million more crucial in the second quarter of 2025. Development portfolio is now down to €1.7 billion. The second quarter of live loans has been replaced with unsure interim investment loans. Our focus remains on managing the risk in the construction phase. We further de-risked this phase, now accounting for 19% versus 21% per end of Q1. As development remains part of our overall strategy, we also did two new developments in the second quarter. We had no new development NPLs in H1, but two reductions. Just briefly on the European office portfolio, as office makes up a large part of our portfolio and Europe is now our third focus in new business. I'm on slide 19. All in all, the portfolio is of solid quality, reflecting our focus on prime properties in inner city locations fixed with parameters. NPVs in the performing investment portfolio are coming down slightly to an average of 69%. Looking at layered NPVs, the exposure at risk is rather low, at 3.6% of that portfolio. The overall European office market is expected to further stabilize based on stable demand and below average supply pipeline, supporting demand for existing office products. With that, I'm moving over to capital, which is also positive news. Even though booking one of the U.S. risk charges of -€340 million in Q2, the regulatory capital effect of - 40 basis points compared to Q1 is moderate. This is because the now booked accounting risk charges had already been partially deducted from regulatory capital through prudential backstop, including, amongst others, the expected loss shortfall. RWA remains stable in the second quarter. Decreases from internal rating downgrades have been compensated by assets and portfolio effects. All in all, we maintain a solid capitalization with CET1 ratio of 16.6%. Our overall emission level through the cycle of at least 14% suspended CET1 remains unchanged. Our very successful partial buyback of existing legacy Tier 2, with a parallel €300 million Tier 2 new issue, was done in June but settled in July. Both tender legacy and new Tier 2 are not considered in Q2 for regulatory accounting purposes. On page 22, we therefore show the pro forma effect of the successful Q2 tender new issue per end of June. Buying back €250 million legacy Tier 2, which has amortized down to less than 60% regulatory capital content and more than replacing it with €300 million new Tier 2, almost doubles the Tier 2 bucket from 140 basis points- 270 basis points after the transactions. With that, we make our capital structure more efficient, created more own funds, and improved overall strategic flexibility for the bank. After eight years of absence in the debt capital space, the new issue was very positively received with a high-quality order book and €1.9 billion demand for a €300 million no-grow offering. As PBB has addressed its debt capital exit appetite for the foreseeable future, our debt capital products remain an integral part of PBB's capital and funding strategy. In that context, let me mention that with €2.1 billion, our available distributable items remain very comfortable, also after having taken the first one-off U.S. risk charges. This brings me to funding and liquidity on slide 23. Just briefly, all in all, we will maintain a resilient and balanced funding mix with focus on efficiency and cost optimization. In the first half of the year, we already executed €1.6 billion or 80% of our planned funding for 2025. Our secondary issuance has continued to track across all credit products, including the recent new Q2. As you can see on page 24, also our liquidity remains strong with the LCR up to 330% per Q2 from 211% in the previous quarter. That's it from my side, and I would now hand back to Kay for closing remarks. Thank you very much, Marcus. Ladies and gentlemen, as I've said at the beginning, yes, there are a lot of things that we have moved forward over the last couple of months, in particular in the second quarter. Transformation of CDB is taking shape. Very concrete steps that we have been taking. Before we move in our Q&A session, please allow me therefore to summarize on page 26. In the first half of the year, we really have accelerated the transformation to achieve our strategic 2027 target. On the one hand, the acquisition of Deutsche Investment Group is a substantial step forward for our real estate investment solutions business and an important step that will refine our income stream. On the other end, the real estate finance solutions business, the exit from the U.S. market had a significant but one-off impact on our half-year results. This is expected to free up capital within the next 6- 12 months, enhancing our strategic flexibility. We are focusing even more on becoming a truly European bank. Our new business's ROTE of 10% in the first half of 2025 in our home markets confirms our strategic direction. Our exacted operating results are stable. We expect a significant positive fintech result for the second half of 2025. Our capital base remains solid with a 15.3% CET1 ratio, and throughout the cycle, we confirm our ambition of a core capital ratio of more than 14%. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for your attention. Marcus and I are now very much looking forward to your questions. Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, please press nine and Star on your telephone keypad. In case you wish to withdraw your question, please press three and Star. Please press nine and Star to register for your question. One moment for the first question, please. Answer for Borja Ramirez from Citi. Over to you. Hello. Good morning. Thank you very much for taking my question. I have two. Firstly, if you could please provide some guidance on the net interest income going forward, should we have seen the trough or if it stabilized? My second question would be related to the provisioning. If you could kindly provide some details on what accounts you have behind the U.S., or if you assume you have some disposals lined up or some HR keys. Also, if you can, lastly, if you could please provide some details on the expected evolution of the NPLs ratio going forward. Thank you. Hi, Borja. Good morning. Thanks for your question. On NRI, look, you're rightly saying I think we've been seeing a kind of plateauing for the last three quarters. Essentially, we saw for NRI/NCI 108, 109, 106, meaning that we think that we have now come to a plateau where we now have had that more new business. We continue to see healthy margins, which may have peaked on the one hand. On the other hand, of course, you saw that spreads for our funding product come down. As you saw, we also have been doing some free funding. Overall, we think that we should have reached the plateau here at this kind of level. Borja, also hello from my side. Thanks for your question. I take the question on the U.S. exit. Look, it is a very diversified portfolio. It includes performing and non-performing assets in very different markets in the U.S. This will be our strategy: to use the set of tools that are available to us on that. Of course, there are projections on the book, whether that we expect to wind down because it comes due, and we have a clear view on that. We will also look, as you know from last year, we do have our experience on loan sale, on the performing loan side in particular. We also, of course, are looking into tools like securitizations that you also mentioned. We are trying to make sure that we use the entire toolbox. Progress-wise, we have already started working on that, literally on not only one, but multiple of those tools, as our clear focus is over the next 6- 12 months to substantially review the risk decision out of our performing and non-performing booking. Thank you. The next question comes from Tobias Lukesch from Kepler Cheuvreux Yes, good morning. I have a couple of questions on my side, please. Firstly, on the U.S. margins, could you please share with us the kind of gross margin, the net margin of the U.S. business, and compare that to European business, preferably excluding in Germany? Again, any on the NAI, maybe you can help us with a% what is coming initially from the U.S. business. On the portfolio size, as a second question, you said you managed the exit basically and were replaced by European exposure. I was wondering how this change should happen over the next 6- 12 months and how we should think about the period over the next two to three years there. Another one on the funding front, you just mentioned that these spreads came down. I was wondering, I think you funded quite well on the short-term side recently. Please correct me if I'm wrong. I was really, again, wondering if the funding impact for the margin could be a positive, neutral, or negative. I understand it's more defined as neutral to positive. You're seeing that to give a bit more flavor on that would be great. I have a couple of more, but I would just go for another outlook and dividend question. With the press release on the 18th of June, you mentioned the U.S. exit for the first time. The daily said that you will announce new guidance for 2025 in due course. I was just wondering, is there a bit more guidance you would do for 2025 except for the total result to be negative on dividends? You haven't talked about dividends really. What should investors expect here on the distribution side? Thank you. All right. Let me take a couple of your questions, and the remaining one, Marcus, we're going to answer. On your questions around U.S. margins and the comparison to the European book, when we look at the portfolio, it's not from a margin perspective, but it is from a return over capital. When you only look at margin, you can be, from our perspective, wrongly guided. Yes, we always talk about our forced interest margin when it comes down to new business. The key driver for us is return on tangible equity. When you look at the book and the numbers that we have been given, you see that our U.S. book on debt measurement is potentially negative in terms of profitability compared to our European books. Therefore, our key focus is on net case UI. That's why we also have put that into the presentation to outline the fact that the exit for the U.S. economically will free up capital as it's consumed at the moment, much higher capital compared to our European business. At the same time, it will be profitability enhancing as the way our U.S. business is currently being on the books is unfortunately destroying them. On your questions around the portfolio and how you should think about that for the next 6-12 months, but also more on the medium-term side with regards to replacing exits out of the U.S. with European business, probably best to answer that, Tobias, is we clearly set a host point on our overall portfolio with our guidance and strategic direction for 2027. We want to run our real estate finance business with a portfolio of around €29 billion. We are currently at €28.2 billion. Marcus explained why it has come down from a currency perspective. To your question how you should think about that for the next 6-12 months and into the 2027 target, we can think about that on a strategic perspective. We want to ensure that, and we see opportunity there, to increase our business in Europe to do that profitably or that the U.S. exit in itself will be replaced. Of course, there is one element to it, and it has to do with the Boira question as well, which toolset we are using, and this will be a driver for the portfolio. As I said, we are using, we are looking into different toolsets, and therefore, have not yet finally decided which one we are using. What we can confirm for 2027 is definitely that we want to have a real estate finance book of around €29 billion. I would take the last question as well before the funding question, Marcus, and then hand over to you. Tobias, with regards to dividends and all of that, we feel at the moment it's too early to say anything about that. The one-off loans, definitely, we will not be able to fully recoup in the second half, although it's easily expected with our favored performance of the first half to keep that continuing or that we are clearly making, expecting to make, a profit in the second half. This will not fully compensate in our expectations, Marcus. We have not yet made a final decision on dividends, nor have we made the decision finally with regard to share buyback. This is also a component that is left open. We want to make sure that we understand the direction of travel for the next 6-12 months better around the U.S. exit and the capital that is going to be released out of those transactions. With that, I'll probably hand over to Marcus. Yeah. I'm going to read that again. Basically, on the headquarters, always consider various effects to your questions on the funding impact of NRI. I think, positive clearly, if you look at where we funded our countries, you know, because we offer 16 May, 48, 16 January 48 in May, and now, you know, most recent steps and all that is public work 38. We've been now doing and also that we can construe €1.8 billion versus the €1.6 billion that are shown in there for the H1. The message here is, not only have secondary spreads come in a lot for the country, but also primary clearing levels for our countries have been coming in sharply. We can now be very opportunistic in terms of doing the residual funding that we need, including pre-funding for the next year. Also, the important message is we've been front-loading funding, meaning that, of course, also that is a burden that we have in NRI so far that will gradually come down because we, of course, now reduce the phase of country funding. On the other hand, of course, we will have, and we always said that, and you can see that on the slides, we have the plan to come every year for the senior benchmark. Also for senior, I think it's almost fair to say that our spreads have kind of halved since we did our last issuance in November last year. Of course, you know, that will be coming at a cost, however, substantially lower than we planned for. Lastly, of course, we've been doing the Tier 2 issue, which again came slightly lower than expectations, but it's, of course, now burdening NRI with the 480 basis points that we had around reoffer. There's different effects. The actual funding should be a relief, also because we will be selective on deposits. The score we've been coming down from 7.6- 7.5. I think with the senior that we would be planning to do, we can afford to go down also here opportunistically to perhaps 7.3 as we guided previously. That shows again, and you can see that in that one chart, that we can also be very opportunistic on deposits, and have effective margins on that business as well. Thank you. Very clear, if I may, one follow-up on the margin side. Just thinking conceptually, now you have taken all the risk costs in terms of the U.S. business upfront. Let's assume both U.S. business and European business is risk-free. You obviously have a high margin also after funding costs and hedging costs and correct costs on the U.S. side. I was just wondering, in terms of capital consumption, if, in order to have sustained revenue contributions from European business going forward, if you do not need more capital allocated actually to the loan books than it was the case with the U.S. business as it is today, basically, market to market at fair value. Could you maybe elaborate on that, lastly? Thank you. I hope, Tobias, that I get the question right. I think what you are looking is into top line, yeah, and how to think into top line of adjusting U.S. with European business, right? Is that just to reconfirm the direction of your question to get that answer? Exactly. I mean, the thinking is to keep the revenue base stable, right, and replace U.S. business with European. I'm just wondering if that doesn't need more RWAs since the U.S. business was just getting higher margins, basically. Look, we will have to balance that out. Why do I answer it in that way? Because if you ask us right now what would be the priority, the priority would be to ensure that the business that we take in gets the right return on the invested capital. What I'm saying with that, Tobias, is we are not primarily guided by the top line numbers, but we are steering the business towards capital efficient return. Why that? Because that allows us to free up capital to then invest that capital into our Strategy 2027. You know that there is a different level of that strategy that, by the way, includes as well, capital distribution. Yes, and not to forget that this is part of the capital. That will probably be my guidance. It could be, in certain situations, that, on a net-net basis, the top line, on the same volume number, might be a bit lower from an NRI perspective. As said, we stick to our guidance for 2027. Honestly speaking, we have demonstrated in the first half that we are able to generate very profitable business, by the way, also at a level that we would not have expected already. It shows that the markets are there. Certainly, I can't really say on the margins that they might have peaked, that might have, depending on funding costs, also an impact on overall profitability. This is the primary theory of that. Looking at Marcus, it's something to add from your side as well. That's only, you know, two half thoughts. I mean, the one is, I think, Kay had that in his chart, which I think is illustrating the point of the capital consumption quite nicely, which, again, as we know, is not only driven by RWA, but it's also driven by, you know, credential backstops, which means that, you know, the capital density for the U.S. business is more like 100% and for the European is 58%. That basically reinforces Kay forward. You know, it's by a factor of 1.7x higher. That makes the efficiency better on a kind of like-for-like top line on the one hand, and the other thing I'll remark is that we only, of course, have to not only look at the substitution of business on balance sheet, but also to the substitution of business to our European off-balance sheet proposition, which, as we know, it started to be 10% in 2027 and where we've made a move head forward with the acquisition now. Very clear. Thank you. Next up is Jochen Schmitt from Metzler. Over to you. Thank you. Good morning. I have two questions, please. Firstly, could you provide a figure how loan loss provisioning for the U.S. loan book would have developed in Q2 if you have not booked the extra provisions for your planned exit? Second question, again, on net interest income. I mean, obviously, this is difficult to model bearing in mind that you aim to sell and/or run down your U.S. loan book. My question is, what do you consider to be the bottom of quarterly group NRI in your plans? Thank you. Right. On your first question, Jochen, thanks very much. Welcome to you as well. Around the how to think about the LLP, if we would not have considered that move, honestly speaking, that is hard to judge. Why? Because on our side, you know, the way we have looked holistically at the portfolio is exactly on the strategy that we now have put in place. Yeah. Therefore, in terms of the figures, you know, I would not go into that. What you see on the NPL work is that when you look and exclude the U.S. number, the trend on LLP remains the same. You know, we see a lower LLP figure coming through the European books. On the U.S. side, honestly speaking, we have had to look holistically at the strategy reflecting the exit. Yeah. We have not yet, we have not split that across and don't want to split that in that view. Marcus, handing over to you on the second part. On the second part, I would just say it's easy for that, as we said. I think we've been seeing now with the different trends I described about that question at the beginning, we've been seeing a plateauing of NRI/NCI around that level, which we are right now, slightly down quarter-over-quarter on a similar level than in Q4. As I mentioned, even with the various effects on the asset sides, on the liability side, we think that we kind of should have reached the plateau here at that kind of level. Of course, you know, looking into next year, commission income would help to take in, because Kay mentioned the fee income, which is, of course, a substantial, positive impact on that, starting next year. Thank you. Jochen, allow me to add, because please bear in mind, the reason why we have also made a strategic decision on the U.S. market has been that we have seen volatility. Therefore, bear in mind, I wanted to add that we have seen more challenging conditions. That's why, from an exit perspective, in particular on the NPL side, I think I mentioned that also when we communicated around making the review on the U.S. business as part of our first quarter results. Of course, we have seen those challenges. I want to add that, but we don't fit that in a true path that you are looking for as we have made a decision, and we have reflected that decision now on the holistic of the entire portfolio. Thank you. We have a follow-up question coming from Tobias Lukesch from Kepler Cheuvreux. The floor is yours. Yes, thank you. Two quick follow-ups, if I may. One on the capital. There was a positive €200 million RWA effect, and you said this comes from the CRR3 regulation. Maybe you can give a quick elaboration on that, and also give a bit of guidance, you know, like if you think that kind of methodology changes, regulatory issues would still impact on H2 or next year. On the Deutsche Investment Group, you provided an average EBITDA number of €5 million over the last years. Maybe you could give here the 2024 number, maybe also net profit number. Also, is it fair to assume that by 2027, we could assume a currently formally pre-tax contribution from that acquisition? Thank you. Let me start on your second question. First of all, we deliberately had informed periods. Why? Because the Deutsche Investment Group was profitable throughout that period, which, when you look into investment managers, in particular investment managers of that size, but also bigger ones, in particular 2024 and also 2023, have been more challenging. The 2024 number in terms of top line is fully 100% recurring, which is important because the revenue mix and therefore the stability of the profitability, you always need to look at what is one-off transaction-related and what is recurring. Deutsche Investment Group 100% recurring revenue. That's a reflection of the market. Of course, that has also a reflection of profitability when we look into 2024. The way we should look into it is, yeah, it is below the €5 million, but it's essentially positive underneath that. That's the way I would look into that. In terms of outlook, we have been targeting more than 10% of our income coming from fee and commission income. The majority part of that, or a good part of that, out of the PBB Invest business, we continue to grow. We still have also our organic growth, so therefore, I would not want to jump into more guidance on the bottom line other than saying this investment is really an accelerator for us. Inorganically, we set that. We've done the next few pieces, and also, it will be an accelerator for our organic growth because we can combine the strength of our team with the strength of the growth investment team, and that will move us well forward in our PBB Invest business. Yep. To your other question, I think you're referring to the fact that, you know, when we have presented to One Reserve, we were reflecting a 15.5% CET1 ratio. At that point in time, there were still some details of the CRR regulations, including comments, becoming clearer over time. We had a correction, an upward correction, because we have been taking a several stance mainly on operates, but also CBA charges, which meant that the actual Q1 figure, assuming these later incoming CRR interpretations, was a better 15% than compared to the 16.5% GSB deposit. That was your question, I believe. Yes, there's nothing more to find then, right? We are clean H2 next year. That's correct. Thank you. Also, I would like to add, of course, we are monitoring any development that is out there. We are a foundation-based bank. New CRRs are in place, so we are monitoring that. What we see at the moment, there is nothing that we need to reflect right now. Certainly, there is a consistent change, and once there is anything, we will, of course, reflect that in our number. Thank you very much. That brings us to the end of the question and answer session. I now hand the floor back to Kay Wolf. Thank you very much. Thanks for your questions. Thanks for taking the time again on us. If there are more questions afterwards, which might come up, you know, Michael, Axel, and the team are available for you as well. Let me put today one additional closing remark, right? We are making substantial steps forward in executing on our strategy. That is the key takeaway on the one-hand side with the decisive actions around our real estate finance business, exiting the U.S. market at the same time, paying a lot of attention on growing our business in Europe. The second part, and I think for this round, even more important, with the clear decisive action on our real estate investment solutions business, which, you know, from a strategic perspective, is a core pillar of the transformation of the bank. Therefore, Q2, with all the numbers and everything, and Marcus said it's up right there, really marks an important milestone on our strategy in 2020 to reach our goals for 2027. Thanks for your participation and looking forward to see you in the one or the other occasion. Thanks very much. Thank you. Bye-bye.