Good afternoon, this is the Chorus Call Conference Operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Anima Holding nine months 2022 results conference call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, they may signal an operator by pressing star and zero on their telephone. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Alessandro Melzi d'Eril, CEO of Anima Holding. Please go ahead, sir. Thank you very much, hi to everybody. Thank you for attending our Q3 2022 conference call. I would start with our presentation as always. Page four. First of all, summary highlights. 175.5 billion of assets under management. Of course, the assets were impacted by the market effect, but the net new money remains in positive territory. EUR 800 million in the first nine months. On Friday, we released our results for October that are positive, almost EUR 300 million. Steady margins, increasing management fees, notwithstanding the fact that we're even strongly impacted by the negative market effect. Performance, of course, is negative but is positive if you look at the average of the Italian industry, as we will see in the next slide. Looking at the results in terms of economic results, total revenues are down 24%, if compared to last year, but the impact is fully explained by the performance fees. In fact, fixed fees are stable year-over-year. EBITDA margin well above 70%. The top line is very resilient, as we demonstrated in the last years, and our, let's say, historical cost efficiency. The drop in net profit is, of course, explained by the performance fees, as we said before, but is also explained by a one-off tax relief on goodwill that we registered last year of more than EUR 24 million. Resilient cash flow. This company generates a lot of cash, as we always said, and continue to generate a lot of cash. Enabled us to restart the buyback with additional EUR 30 million. Page five, looking at the business by segment. We are 50/50 almost between retail and institutional. As we see on the retail side, as always, the largest part of our assets are distributed through our main partners, BAMI and BMPS. We have an incredible reach in the country with many distributors, very important for us. Page six, mutual fund investment performance in mutual funds. As I was saying on the first slide, the weighted average performance is negative as for all the companies, unfortunately, but is above the Italian industry by almost 2%. If you look at the breakdown of funds by category, the important things to be highlighted is that we continue to focus on flexible and balanced funds, where we have most of our assets invested in funds. Page seven. We wanted to highlight the fact that even though we registered a negative performance in the year, both on the bond component and on the equity component, as all the sector, there is a lot of value in our bond portfolios. In this slide, we highlight the yield to maturity of all our major funds in the fixed income segment. As you can see, we have an average yield to maturity of more than 5%. This is to say that even though the clients suffer for a negative performance during 2022, there is a lot of value in the funds, in the portfolios we manage, going forward. This is, I think, a positive message for our clients, and this is what we are telling them in order to face the next few months. Page eight, this is partially linked to the previous slide. We continued, even in a tough environment, to produce new funds, new products. 23 new target-based funds launched until year to date in 2022, with gross inflows of more than EUR 4 billion. The most, let's say, successful fund in terms of fundraising was Anima Traguardo, which collected more than EUR 600 million, 2.5 x the average of the sample that we are showing here in the slide. In any case, we continue to produce this type of fund that continue to raise significant amount of money. This is also to say that even if the clients are scared, I mean, in a way, because of the situation and volatility of the markets, they continue to invest, and they continue to reinvest their money. Page nine. Recurring monthly flows. I mean, this is something that for us is very important, is very important for our client base and for our company. We always pushed a lot on this type of products that are so called PAC. I mean, these are accumulation plan, so are automatic plans where people are injecting money, investing money in the funds, automatically every month. As you can see on the right side of the page from the graph, in the last years, pushing a lot on this type of product, as I said, we grew by 9% in 2021 and by 8% in 2022, reaching more than 700,000 plans opened by our clients. Bringing the average monthly flows coming from this type of products from EUR 90 million up to over EUR 100 million per month. This is to say that every month, clients are investing in our funds automatically more than EUR 100 million. As I was saying, it's very important for our clients, these type of products, because typically the retail clients, they never catch the right moment to enter into market. This so-called market timing. PAC avoid to think, avoid the client to think at the market timing and reduce the volatility of the investment, protecting their portfolios also going forward from inflation. Some numbers. Page 11, our P&L. As I said, the first slide, the net revenues are, fixed revenues are stable, a little bit over last year. The drop in the total revenues is fully explained by the performance fees that went from more than EUR 90 million of last year to EUR 80 million year to date. Expenses, we are keeping costs as always, strictly under control. In this case, large part of the decrease is explained by variables, but then we'll have some more detail on that. EBITDA, EUR 193 million approximately for the nine months. Net income, more than EUR 86 million on net income in the nine months, as I said before. The margin, the margins are substantially stable, right side of the slide. This is explained by the fact that we. I mean, we are very stable on the richest part of our products, so we continue to. We don't have particular outflows from the richest product. While we had a significant reduction in the Class one, in the Class one assets, because of the increase of interest rates, and this has increased the average profitability given that this product has a very low profitability. We registered further improvement in the cost/income, excluding performance fees. I think that we continue to show our capability to keep the ability to keep the structure very efficient. And then looking at the tax rate remains high this year because we have two elements. First of all, in the first part of the year, we paid interco dividend higher than last year, and so we have the highest taxation as compared to the past. If you look at the comparison with 2021, as I said, we have this one-off tax relief on goodwill last year. Page 12, margins, and so the AUM evolution and the impact on margins. Class one, I was saying, Class one mandates decreased because of the negative mark-to-market due to the increase in interest rates. On this part of our assets, we register a very low profitability, and so the average profitability of the company increased. If you look at the ex-Class one Class one component, we had a significant drop, of course. Looking at mobile phones, the asset mix is positive because we, for instance, we lost money on the bond side, but we raised money on the balanced funds for the similar amount. Similar trajectory on flexible and equities. Overall, the asset mix is still very positive, also looking at the nine months, apart from the market effects. Page 13, net fees and personnel expenses. The fees in the quarter reflect the lower AUM, but as we can see, the placement fees are back to a normalized level. This was already clear from the first two quarters in the year, but I mean, we think that we are back on track in looking at placement fees. If you look at personal expenses, fixed personal expenses are substantially stable. The drop this year is totally linked to the variable component that was, I mean, historically, also linked to the performance fees. Page 14, looking more into details, on cost efficiency. Personal expenses, we already commented on that. The fixed component, I mean, substantially stable even though we invested a lot in new colleagues in order to increase our capabilities to stay on the market. While the variable component is strongly impacted by the situation. Again, if you look at the OpEx, the component more impacted is the marketing activity where we continue to invest. In fact, even though the situation is not easy, I mean, we know that the market situation is complicated in general, but our company is very healthy, and we didn't want to give up in terms of investments in high-level personnel and support to our distributors through marketing activities. These for us are investments, let's say, for the future. On the rest of the cost, we registered a limited cost inflation, and we expect in the short term to continue like this, so without major pressure. The limited cost inflation was mainly linked to the energy, and in general, I would say the energy. Page 15, consolidated net financial position. The net financial position is negative for EUR 55 million from the positive of end of last year, EUR 25 million. The net financial position was impacted by dividends and EUR 95 million, buyback until today, EUR 71 million and EUR 61 million paid in terms of tax. In any case, our cash position remain robust, and as we said, we already restarted with the buyback. We keep our strong flexibility in terms of extraordinary potential looking forward. Okay, some closing remarks to summarize the Q3. I think that at least the company continued to register incredibly solid economic results with a strong cash generation. I mean, the market we know is not easy. We registered the strong negative market effect, but the company absorbed it in quite in a very easy way. We are very happy of the results registered till today. We continue to produce cash. This is a company that is very resilient on this side, and we decided to restart share buyback. This is the third in the year. This, of course, will adapt on the 2022 ordinary dividend. We will see end of this year the idea is to cancel the part of the treasury share that we bought during this year. Of course, we'll present that to the board of directors at the beginning of next year, and then at the AGM. Net flows are still flattish in H2. We are positive looking at the full year. There is a cautious approach by distributors and clients. The negative performance is registered both on one side, and the FI affected the clients and the distributor. The strong volatility, I mean, we know very well what is happening and the difficulties. I think that our networks are resisting very, very well. There is a strong resiliency, and I think that in this situation, we normalize a little bit, we'll be able to to restart in a very positive way. If you look month-by-month, there is a lot of volatility also on net flows. Therefore, we suggest not look at the net inflows every month because, as we said, from September, we were negative. On October, we're positive. We are in a moment with a strong volatility, and so I think that look at the trend is more important to look at some month and not only one, just one month. We continue to see that the asset mix is positive. At least it's absolutely stable. We are raising money on products that we were interested in the prospects for the client and also interested profitability and margins for us. I think that, for the clients and for us, going forward, there are a lot of opportunities within the products we are managing on the market. We already had a strong shrinking in terms of performances this year. Going forward, there is a lot of value already sitting in the portfolios, as we showed in the slide with the maturity of our products. Last but not least, we invested, as probably you all know, EUR 25 million as some underwriters in the MPS rights issue. We contributed to the capital strengthening and the stabilization of Monte. That is one of our main distributors since ages. We are very happy that the subject transaction was successfully completed, and we will continue to work with them until 2030. The partnership is strong. I think the relationship with the bank is very good, and we are very happy that the bank was able to stabilize the situation. Thank you very much, and I remain fully available for your questions. Thank you. This is the Chorus Call conference operator. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. To remove yourself from the question queue, please press star and two. Please pick up the receiver when asking questions. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. The first question is from Elena Perini with Intesa Sanpaolo. Please go ahead. Yes. Good afternoon. I've got one question on your buyback. The fact that you are carrying out so many buyback transactions, well, does it mean that you do not see many opportunities in the short or medium term? Can you elaborate a little bit on this, please? Thank you. Hi, Elena. Well, let's say that the amount of buybacks we are carrying out are absolutely, let's say, manageable for us. Also, I mean, also keeping our potential for extraordinary transactions. The volumes of the stocks are not incredible in this period, let's say. Therefore, EUR 30, I mean, we can go on for quite a while in terms of buyback. If you look at the capability of the company to generate cash is absolutely, I mean, and sustain also potential external transactions. For us, it's a balance between remuneration of our shareholders, that is very important for us, and keeping the pursuit to keep our potential to grow. If you look at the, I mean, answering the question, we have nothing concrete on the table. We are looking at many things, but we don't have anything, I mean, on the table very hot, let's say. Anyway, as you know, in our DNA, there is also the. We always had the idea of growing also through M&A, so we look at the market carefully all the time. Okay. Thank you very much. As a reminder, if you wish to register for a question, please press star and one on your telephone. The next question is from Luigi de Bellis with Equita SIM. Please go ahead. Yes, good afternoon to everybody. I have three questions. The first one, can you give us more color about the solid trend on margins on management fees ex plus one in Q3, considering the challenging market, and how sustainable is this trend for the coming quarters? The second question on the retail flows, can you elaborate about any network that is performing particularly better or worse than expected? The last question on Monte dei Paschi, what changed for you after the capital increase in terms of strategy? Do you still see room for strengthening the distribution agreement? Thank you. Thank you, Luigi. Well, if you look at the management fees, looking at the last quarter, I think that the trend is very much similar to what we showed for the nine months. We are the profitability is, I mean, is doing pretty well in terms of asset mix. Of course, we were impacted by the drop of assets, but we are not looking at the net inflows. We are not losing profitability by the products we are selling today. I'm pretty positive on that. As I always said, I was more worried in the past with negative or zero interest rates. With positive interest rates, of course, there are other threats. On the margin side, it's much more easy to sustain returns for clients and margins for us. I think that going forward, the profitability in my mind is not a problem anymore. Retail flows. Well, retail flows, let's say, our partners, yeah, there are different colors. Different colors also on partners. In general, I would say they are doing pretty well, also because the retail is slightly negative year to date. We are resisting pretty well. Monte is doing. We are positive. We are doing well. We are suffering a little bit on the mutual fund side, for instance, with Banco, but they are doing better on the insurance component this year. Overall, we are positive. We are suffering still on retail recall. As you know, we are discussing a new agreement, and we hope that we'll be able to close it shortly. Even though we are doing new funds also with them. It depends very much from network to network, but in general, they are all resisting pretty well. The last question was Monte Paschi. Well, I think the relationship with Monte Paschi is very good. We decided to enter into the capital increase to provide and help to, as I said, one of our major partners, with whom we are partnering since 2008. We decided to do our part. We were also, as you know, available to discuss a potential capital injection for far more important, but in this case, we needed to have or to reach a strong strengthening of our partnership. For the time being, we are happy like this, and I think they are happy as well. Further strengthening of the agreement of our partnership, let's see. For the time being, we have a partnership until 2030. We are doing well. We didn't discuss it. I don't think it's something that will happen in the short term, but let's see. You never know. I mean, among partners, between partners, you're always discussing your relationship, and we will continue to discuss how to do things better. Thank you. The next question is from David Li with Lizard Investors. Please go ahead. Yeah, I have a couple of questions. One, how is the macro sort of the difficult, you know, bear market sort of environment impacting your fund flow, you know, so like October is actually pretty decent. I'm just curious among your different customer base, such as, you know, institutional or retail, pension, et cetera, right? I'm just curious how the environment is affecting that first, and then I have a follow-up. The impact was, well, it was tough, even though I think that the clients and the distributors demonstrated in this crisis a higher maturity compared to the past, because we never saw in this year, in this crisis, panic, the client base and distributors panicking and starting with sell off, strong sell off. They resisted at the beginning. I mean, we were totally flat, so nobody was moving really the position. After nine months, moreover, in September, we suffered a little bit more on retail because, after Jackson Hole, we had a drop, further drop in the market, both fixed income and equity, and so the clients. I saw the slide, the clients and the distributors more nervous. Again, they seems to me very rational in the approach, and in fact, the results are not positive. If you look at the sector in Italy, looking at our competitors, I mean, the net inflows year to date are flattish, while in the previous crisis, 2011, 2008, the sell-off was dramatic. I think that for the time being, the approach is a positive approach different from the past. That's why I think that if the situation will stabilize a little bit, we may see a further potential to get back to growth path. Okay. Also just on a cost structure side of the business, how is inflation impacting you? You know, if the difficult environment kind of persists, you know, how are you maintain sort of, you know, 'cause obviously the performance fee is no longer. Will you be able to manage the costs and maintain margins just on the, you know, on the annuity revenue? Well, the inflation will impact. Is impacting slightly at the moment. As I was saying, we see more, we feel more the pressure on the energy cost side. For instance, this year we will spend four times more in terms of energy costs. That That for us are not a very important item. EUR 300,000 per year. This year we spent probably EUR 1 million. Next year, EUR 1.2 million, let's say. These are pressure that we are facing in these months. Still, we don't see strong element to say that the other costs will increase, let's say, significantly. Probably the main item where we can see some increase are the info providers that we know that in these periods comes often with increases. I don't know in the sense that as of today, we are keeping the cost strongly under control, and we are not facing dramatic pressure, at least here in Italy. If we continue with such an increase in prices, of course we have to adapt a little bit our cost base. I don't expect in any case, in the medium short term, major increases. Let's say limited pressure, as I said in the presentation. In terms of course, M&A is something I don't know if this was part of your question, but, of course, if the growth in terms of assets and revenues will be more difficult and will have cost pressure on cost, M&A will be something that may become very important for all the sector. Mr. Melzi d'Eril, there are no more questions registered at this time. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you for attending our presentation and see you at year-end. Bye-bye. Thank you very much.