Good morning, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Mediobanca Full Year 2024-2025 Results Conference Call and Webcast. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To enter the queue for questions, please press star one and one at any time. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I will now hand the conference over to Mr. Alberto Nagel, CEO. Please go ahead, sir. Good morning, and thank you for joining the call on the full- year results. On many metrics, this year is the best of our history, and this is backed by a stronger commercial achievement, fostered by a stronger franchise, which is basically the trajectory we have in our plan to have a stronger industrial footprint at the end of the three-years plan. In fact, this year we have had EUR 11 billion net new money, which is +30% year on year. We have had an increase of 8% in average loan in CIB, up to EUR 1 billion, and we have further increased our extending capacity in printing new loans in Consumer Finance. You remember that our average trajectory was of EUR 2 billion per quarter. We have reached EUR 9 billion in a year, +9%. This reverted in a strong double-digit growing fees trajectory, which exceeded EUR 1 billion and is up 14%, and a very resilient NII backed by a strong Corporate Consumer Finance trend of up 9%. We have had also a lower cost of risk compared to our expectation. We had the forecast or budget of 50, 55 basis points of cost of risk. We ended up at 44. This reverted into a net profit up 4% and EPS up 7% on the back of buyback, which has been concluded, and basically very strong capital generation, 270 basis points, which allowed us to increase our dividend. The last tranche of the interim dividend is EUR 0.59 per share. It's going to be payable next November and brings the total dividend at EUR 1.15 per share, up 7% year on year. We have also approved the last tranche of buyback, which will be up to the shareholders’ meeting of October, and is of EUR 400 million. The solid progression continued also in the last quarters, where we have had basically a record net new money of EUR 3.8 billion, which then, of course, allowed us to reach EUR 11 billion. We have had a resilient NII. This quarter saw a further decrease in cost of risk. We had a cost of risk of 35 basis points, and hence we could end up with a higher net profit compared to the previous quarter. We have been growing steadily. If you see on slide five, we have brought our TFA to EUR 112 billion. This is an increase, an average increase of 13% in the last two years. If we stick to the AUM/AUA, this increase has been 17%. On the asset side, we have been growing loans by 2% in the last two years, but we have managed to decrease the RWA by 5%. It's a very profitable growth where we put much more attention on use of RWA, and hence we have increased substantial return on RWA. Basically, revenue went up to EUR 3.7 billion with an average growth of 6% in the last two years. The GOP, gross operating profit, as well, grew 8%. As I said, the return on risk-weighted assets was brought to 2.9%, which is steadily above the starting point of the plan where we were at 2.4%. Cost-to-income remained broadly in line at 43%. This is not happening by chance. It's happening basically following a precise trajectory. If you see on slide seven, our EPS has kept on growing steadily by 16% average in the last four years, as well as the DPS, which is up 15%. ROTE is in the region of 14% with an ample buffer of capital, as you see here in slide seven. This trajectory paves the way to the next phase of our industrial plan. We are going to lead our bank to EUR 4.4 billion of revenue in three years, up 6%. Our recurrent EPS will go up to EUR 2.1, so basically 8% recurrent. We will have a steeper increase in DPS because, as you know, we have been changing our distribution policy, moving from 70% cash and 30% buyback to full cash dividend next year, starting from next year. We will have a very important increase in dividend per share starting from next year, on top of the important increase of 16% we have recorded in the last two. This means that we will distribute EUR 5 billion in the next three years, and our ROTE, ordinary ROTE, will stand at 17%, while enjoying still a very important Tier 1 capital of 15%, 15.5%. Here we are going to have a lower core Tier 1, but issuing more additional Tier 1 capital, we will reach 15.5%. This is an optimization of our capital structure. Revenue went up in the last years 6% capital light and 3% overall. If we look at the different business, we grew all the business. The banking business in particular, revenue in Wealth Management went up 5%, 16% in CIB, and 7% in Consumer. Insurance was broadly in line to the previous one, net of some non-recurrent item. Stability of NII is an important differentiation element in our equity story. This is fostered by basically consumer and more recently by recovery in loan production in CIB. You see that in the last quarters, our NII was broadly flat on the back of the strength of new loan production and marginality in consumer and new loan production in CIB. This is something that we will see even in the next few quarters, as we will see a nice trajectory in fees. This year we have had, I would say, two major components, as in the past, of growth. One is wealth management. We have reached more than EUR 500 million of fees in wealth management, so definitely higher than all the other components. This is on the back of a 13% increase, with management fees steadily increasing, driven by AUM growth and upfront fees, supported by structured product sales and activity in IB. As you know, performance fees are very limited in our group. CIB had a remarkable performance, up 20% on the back of basically Arma consolidation, which recorded very good results, and also on the strength of the Italian advisory activity. Consumer Finance broadly flat compared to last year. We have had also an intense funding activity with important increase both in bonds and in deposits. We have been also managing down the bond stock spread. We were at 128, we are now at 122, as well as we are guiding down the cost of deposits from 1.84% to 1.64%. Cost inflation or cost increase is driven by basically ongoing investment in business enhancing factor. So business-related growth is made up by EUR 46 million additional cost, which includes platform growth. Headcount was up by 90 people. Increase in volume and product diversification and rebranding cost. We have had a further additional EUR 12 million in technology and project, and then we have had EUR 10 million in inflation and other effects. Cost-to-income remains at 43%. Core, here we have had better results than expected and also very limited use of overlay. What happened was that on the back of the new PD model and what is related to also scenario, I would say, forecast in terms of expected credit loss, we have had two very good quarters, one 39 basis points of cost of risk and the last one 35. This led to an overall 44, and which is more important is basically that this happened with very limited use of overlay. We started with an overlay basket of 222, and basically we have used only EUR 30 million or less than EUR 30 million in one year. We have also incorporated a stricter definition of default, including some foreboding UTP with less than 90 days past due. We reclassified them into NPL. Of course, these are of excellent quality. We are, notwithstanding this, we remain broadly flat at 2% gross NPE ratio and broadly flat at 0.9% in net NPE ratio. Solid capital generation. We have generated 280 basis points of capital. There was a minor inflation of RWA and optimization of RWA. We have had 50 basis points of additional charge from insurance, and then, of course, distribution. In dividend, 190 and share buyback by 90 basis points, the last one of 400, which we have already upfront in the ratio at the end of this year. We have further upgraded our ESG profile. If you look at ratings, we have achieved this year among the highest from some of the most important agencies. We have continued to reduce emission through finance, the finance emission intensity by 18%. We have done a significant activity in DCM, and we have also done important steps in the social, I would say, camp with basically renewing our partnership with UNHCR to support child protection program in terms of gender equality and certification and in terms of supporting macro enterprises and women-led business. If we look at division results, we see that both in terms of revenue and in terms of GOP and in terms of profit, we have seen a steady progression. Remarkable progression are Wealth Management, Corporate and Investment Banking, and Consumer Finance, increasing all of them return on risk-weighted assets. If we go and see the first division, the Wealth Management, the outstanding numbers are the net new money, EUR 11 billion. This is well above our expectation and target. We target between EUR 9 and EUR 10 billion, and we have had also EUR 1.5 billion of outflows in private, which is linked to the uncertainty stemming from the MPS offer. Notwithstanding, the strength of the franchise and the activity of my colleagues made it possible even to exceed the target of net new money. This led to material growth in TFA, and as you see, we have had a very strong recruitment. This year we have had basically 157 new hires, mainly in, of course, selling activity, salespeople, divided between bankers, but more in financial advisor. Out of this, 40 were added in the last quarter. Deposit materially up by 2.5% on the back also some campaign to convert them into managed asset. Revenue were up 5% with fees up 13%. Here we have had an impact in NII because there is, you may remember that one of our subsidiaries, in particular the Monégasque one, has distributed an extra dividend. Net net, basically the revenue were up more than 5%, but there is part of the excess capital that has been distributed and hence less NII was produced because of lower capital base. If we look at our trajectory, which is more important than the single year of results, you see on page 25, Wealth Management is our main growth option. We need to scale it up and become a leader, and we want to do it our way, basically using our brand approach, One Brand, One Culture, which is clearly producing excellent results. If we see in two years, Private Banking has had a net new money of EUR 8 billion, EUR 2 billion of liquidity events, a number of flagship initiatives with top-tier partners, and CMA introduced last year or this year. CMA is a new generation of discretionary mandates which have more flexibility and better fiscal impact. We think that with these features, Private Banking will continue to grow in the next few years steadily. As well, Premier Banking will do very, very important results. In particular, they had EUR 8.3 billion of net new money, but this year they were clearly the champion in the group in terms of net new money and in terms of commercial results. This is on the back of our repositioning. You remember this was CheBanca, it is now Mediobanca Premier. We have really put this entity into the ecosystem of Mediobanca, and this is now giving the expected results, and I would say even above expectation. We will continue with this, but we also need to underline asset management performance, in particular Polus, which is a product company having great quality in terms of offer product and in terms of attracting partnership and developing net new money. In the last two years, we have had a plus EUR 1 billion in new credit alternative funds, and we have placed a number of CLO both in Europe and in the U.S. Net new money this quarter was very, very high, EUR 3.8 billion, never achieved such a big amount. This is spread between AUM, EUR 1.5 billion, AUA EUR 8.8 billion, and important deposits because intake, because of also a promo campaign we launched this quarter. Clearly, going up in terms of AUM in particular means that we are growing Wealth Management fee at double digit. You see this on page 27. In particular, the management franchise fee is going up 14%. All fees are going up 13%. We are growing in terms of capacity. We are growing steadily as a Wealth Management operator in terms of ability to grow and generate net new money year by year. The numbers here are showing, as I said, plus 11% net profit, notwithstanding, as I said, a net interest income. Decrease of 5%, which was affected by another current item, which was the distribution of part of the excess capital from company Monégasque to the parent company. CIB was as well very strong. We have reached highest ever 12 months revenue, roughly EUR 900 million, up 16% year on year. Here we have had a very strong push by fees, up 20%, and also an increase in NII up 7%. We have resumed corporate lending. New printing. You see that we have reached EUR 19.2 billion in Q4, and we were up more than EUR 1 billion in the year. This is supporting NII, which is up 6% Q- on -Q. If you see the fee, we have had an important advisory contribution. Advisory fee reached all-time high this year, EUR 300 million. Only a few years ago, I have to remind, the group was producing EUR 100 million fee in advisory, mainly in Italy. Now we are at EUR 300 million, mainly non-Italian. This growth, in particular in CIB, has to be and is coupled with more efficiency in terms of capital use. In fact, RWA are down this year, EUR 1.6 billion, and in less than three years, we have materially reduced the capital injection in CIB, increasing the bottom line. Net profit and return on risk-weighted assets are close to the highest level. What's the trajectory of CIB and the plan? We want to have, as I said, a fee-driven capital line, more international diversified investment bank. We have to have a growth match with a strong RWA reduction, and we need also to leverage the new initiative to expand and to diversify the revenue source. The delivery across the business has been in advisory. As I said, now we have 50% of the transactions are international, and private capital is 84% of the total. We have had an increased net of Arma. Peer-to-peer comparison of 15% in terms of announced transaction. In lending, revenue stability was obtained through a higher volume and also fostered by the new PD model. Markets, we continue to enjoy growth and better profitability on the back of new initiatives like BTP, CO2 trading, and we are entering a new asset class in terms of trading, which will give us more revenue. Clearly, we have had great success in partnering with Arma. Arma delivered a very, very important revenue line, well above our expectation. This is an evidence of the quality of the franchise, of the quality of the partnership, and the fact that tech digital, of course, is a trend which is going to stay. Of course, we can have a better quarter or less better quarter, but the trend is there to stay. Energy transition as well was very strong. As well, it was private capital. Cooperation between private banking and CIB was more robust. We start to see the first sign of revenue production in Germany, in Spain, where we have started our mid-corporate activity. If we go and look at the numbers of CIB, as I said, total income up 16%. Cost up 8% on the back of consolidation, loan loss provision minus 18%. Hence, we have had a GOP risk adjusted of plus 24%. Then some item, non-recurrent item like adjustment in earn-out of some of our boutique based on their excellent performance led to a net profit of up 11%. When we look at Compass, we see that Compass was able to improve its outstanding trend even this year. We have had quite a robust new business. New loan business. We have produced EUR 9 billion. In the last quarter, we have had EUR 2.4 billion, another very strong quarter, which normally is not as strong in terms of seasonality. This also is fueled by a very solid new personal loan progression. New personal loan EUR 4.3 billion, they were at EUR 3.9 billion, up 10%. This led to an important loan book growth. Loan book now is EUR 16.1 billion. We are entering in the new fiscal year. We have entered the new fiscal year with a bigger loan book, and this is important also for the trajectory in the coming quarters. Core was stable. Overlay trend, as I said, with minor use. We have had 170 basis points and growing risk-adjusted profitability. In one year, we have managed to increase by basically some 18 basis points the profitability, NII minus core on average loan. This reverted into clearly record results, plus 7% in terms of revenue, plus 7% in terms of net profitability. The trajectory of Compass is to become even a stronger multi-channel Consumer Finance company. This is going to be obtained as it has been obtained the last few years, both investing in some proprietary distribution network enhancement at variable cost, but also investing a lot in the digital platform. Our digital investment, I shouldn't say are nearly done because they are never done, but we are quite advanced in terms of we have released the new digital, I would say, ecosystem. We are going to increase our investment to support buy now, pay later, which requires a continuous service 24/7. This is basically giving us a lot of support and, I would say, expectation in terms of an NII driver. Backed with very strict control on cost and asset quality. Of course, buy now, pay later has become and will become even more a very powerful instrument for new customer acquisition. Trends are, again, if you look at slide 38, you see how stronger is Compass compared to the previous year. We were producing basically EUR 1.92 billion. We are now in EUR 2.4 billion every quarter, and this is backed by a strong pricing capability, as you can see on slide 38. As I said, we have reclassified some portion, like EUR 110 million of higher quality loans, into MPS in the fourth quarter. You see that the mix at June 25 in terms of net MPS, it's of better quality because the vast majority, 87%, is with an overdue of less than 90 days. This means credits have good probability to be recovered. In the meantime, we continue to write off MPS and to sell them to maintain our net MPS stock in Consumer Finance in the region of 2%, 2.2%. Insurance has been giving very good support net of some extraordinary item last year, while, of course, holding function bears the cost of interest rates decrease, so has had, of course, as expected, lower contribution compared to last year. What do we expect for next year? We expect another year of important growth in a tougher scenario. The scenario is the scenario of lower growth in terms of expected GDP growth in Europe. We have still this turbulence of tariff impact. Notwithstanding this, I think we need to, and we will continue to, put a lot of emphasis on growth in terms of Wealth Management with the important recruitment target. We plan to add more than 100 salespeople, mainly at variable cost, mainly financial advisor, and we want also to continue our offering announcement. In CIB, a s you know, the market has had a slowdown in the last couple of quarters. We think that this slowdown may be somehow eased, and we see some sign of recovery. In the meantime, we are also basically addressing this with new initiative, as I said, international mid-market and new market products. In Consumer Finance, we will continue the buy now, pay later expansion, also thanks to our Swiss footprint and strict control on core. We expect also high single-digit growth in insurance. The guidance is to arrive to EUR 123 billion, EUR 125 billion of net new money of TFA with EUR 10 billion of net new money. We plan to have a low mid-single-digit increase in revenue even this year. We plan to have high single-digit growth in fees, in particular boosted by Wealth Management. We see basically similar trend in CIB, a touch less if we are prudent, taking into consideration the record results of Arma. Resilient net interest income, which is going to be boosted by, as we said, Consumer Finance. Basically, for the time being, we are reiterating core at 55. I'm hoping like last year that this number can be beaten as we did this year. We are forecasting EUR 1.4 billion of net profit with core Tier 1 in excess of EUR 1.4 billion, in the region of EUR 1.45 billion, and all distributed in cash. This is on the back of preparing or executing our plan to 2028, where we will see, as I said, revenue at EUR 4.4 billion, with a current EPS 9% growth and EPS stated at 14%. As we can see on page 46, this is something like 30% total yield ahead, divided into 9% in 2026, 10% in 2027, and 11% in 2028. If we look at what we have done, at least in the last 10 years, we see that across the different business plan, we were able to not only deliver, overdeliver, and this has been somehow incorporated in the performance of our stock. In particular, Mediobanca in the last 10 years, I said, something like 177% return and a total shareholder return in the region of 350%. This is well above any other competitors in Europe or the average of competitor in our area, and notably, of course, Monte Paschi, which has had a totally different trend in the last 10 years. This is why we think that sticking to our standalone trajectory, which can be particularly fueled and improved by Banca Generali transaction. On this, we have done some step ahead, sending a proposal to stabilize and to renew the existing agreement between Banca Generali, -- Banca Generali to Generali recently. Also, our board, based on this, has, I would say, thought about the 21st of August as possible date for our shareholders’ meeting on Banca Generali. We are very much focused on delivering on our strategy, having important increase ahead in terms of dividend distribution, so 10% without any risk of execution like a big M&A like Monte Paschi. On top, we have this option of transforming Mediobanca into a bigger, stronger Wealth Management with Banca Generali. We are doing a step ahead to make this possible and something that all our shareholders can decide what to do in the next few weeks. Thank you very much for your attention. Now it's your time for questions. Thank you. As a reminder to ask a question, please press star one and one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. Once again, please press star one and one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. We are now going to proceed with our first question. The questions come from the line of Manuela Meroni from Intesa Sanpaolo. Please ask your question. Yes, sir. Good Good morning. Thank you for taking my question. The first one is on Banca Generali. You mentioned the possibility to bring forward the shareholders’ meeting to the 21st of August. I'm wondering if you actually think that this timeline is feasible, if it is possible to launch the offer on Banca Generali before the conclusion of the bid of Monte Paschi, and if you could provide some update on the status of the negotiation with Generali regarding the distribution agreement involving Banca Generali. The second question is on the cost of risk. You guided for a cost of risk at 55 basis points next year, including the release of half of your overlay provisions. This implies a material increase of the cost of risk compared with this year. Do you see some sign of deterioration of the asset quality, or is this just a prudent assumption and there is some upside potential on your guidance? The third question is on your common equity Tier 1. I'm wondering if you can, let's say, disclose some, let's say, trends in your common equity Tier 1. What are the moving parts to go above 14% if you are expecting some regulatory or model changes that might impact your capital? Finally, you mentioned that you're going to issue some additional Tier 1. If you can provide some details on that. Thank you. Thank you, Manuela. On the first question, the date of the 21st of August is based on a number of, I would say, concurring factors. The first one is that the timeline of authorization from the competent authority is now envisaged on the 18th of August. This means that it's likely that the last authorization to publish our offer document by Consob will be within five days from the 18th, and so we need to have our shareholders’ meeting before Consob decision. Looking at the calendar, the 21st is the possible date. The second element is that we have made some progress in understanding the possible agreement between us and Generali Group. This is based on the review of the existing agreement, which we received from Generali. Basically, we arrived to the conclusion that a feasible starting point of negotiation is the consolidation of existing agreement, all existing agreement, and giving to all of them a maturity, a term of a longer term compared to the actual one. We think that something like 10 years of maturity can be something which is market standard. What we do expect is to have feedback from the insurance group within the 6th of August so that we can call the AGM of the 21. As you know, we need 15 days. We need to call the AGM 15 days before the due date. This is based on the rule of the passivity rule. If all this happened, to come to your point, our offer can be in the market before the end of the offer of Monte Paschi. This depends on the calendar we will set, and also we will discuss with counsel. This can happen depending on a number of factors that I mentioned to you. Basically, as you know, we have already in the plan, which we released some weeks ago, we have guided for a normalization of the industrial core of Consumer Finance. The core of Consumer Finance was in the region of EUR 150 million in 2023. It went up to EUR 180 million in 2024. Today, net of overlays, is EUR 194 million. This is ex overlay because, of course, what we have to see is the industrial trend. What we have guided is for an increase of basically 10 basis points in consumer from this year to next year. Now, is this going to happen? It's a matter of prudence. We haven't seen deterioration. On the contrary, we have seen a better than expected quality in core. For matter of prudence and for matter of mix, which is more action to personal loan, we are forecasting basically 10 basis points of core. We have to say that, as you know, Manuela, this kind of loan, personal loan, net of increased core, they yield more. Basically, as we said, Compass will continue to improve its bottom line, notwithstanding a higher core. Overall core of this year, net of the release of, as I said, PD impact is 50 basis points. If we go from 50 to 55, it's something that is, I would say, reasonable. In capital ratio, we don't have basically any regulatory headwind coming. What we are saying is that, okay, we started from a capital base which is very ample, and in terms of structure of this capital, it can be improved because we have only, I would say, quarter one today. We don't have Tier 1. What we can do is maintaining a Tier 1, which is in the 11 or 15, but press on with more distribution in cash. This is going to bring our capital ratio in the region of 14.5%, with an ample buffer to do even some M&A, because with the 14.5%, we are well above our possible target of 13.5%. As I said, this change in ratio is not stemming, is not coming from earnings. It's coming from more distribution and more growth of the group. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star one and one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. We are now going to proceed with our next question. The next questions come from the line of Luis Manuel Grilupatas from Autonomous. Please ask your question. Hey, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. I have two, please. The first one is a bit more a clarification on the 2026 net income guidance. If I remember well, on the Q2 presentation, you guided net profit to be above EUR 1.4 billion. Now you seem to guide around EUR 1.4 billion. I just wanted to confirm what led to this small tweak downwards in the guidance and whether the new guidance is relatively conservative with further upside. My second question is on the Banca Generali deal. If we assume that Generali accepts the combination and Mediobanca shareholders approve the offer in August, can you comment whether this makes the Banca Generali offer legally binding, meaning that Monte Paschi cannot back out even if they achieve control of any Mediobanca shareholder meeting later in September? Thank you. Yeah. There is a small difference, I think it's something like EUR 30 million, EUR 40 million, which I think was a matter of prudence for two reasons. One, of course, rates that are lower than expected, but I would say two other reasons of prudence which can over time be reversed. One is cost, cost of funding, in particular in private banking. Somehow not that much, but also in premier banking. It's higher than expected. This is in part coming also from uncertainty from Monte Paschi. I think as soon as we have a different trajectory, standalone or Banca Generali, we can lower this cost. The second is, honestly, I think Compass will do better in terms of NII. We are confident to basically improve this guidance during the year. When I look to Banca Generali, the situation is interesting. We have been doing a number of transactions in our professional life, and it's nice that we have always something to learn and something new situation. In fact, we will be on one end under a takeover and as a bidder at the same time. It has to be basically legally reviewed. Once the offer is published and most of the conditions, the conditions of the offer are met, this is legally binding. This is something that cannot be withdrawn at the will of the bidder. In other words, if the offer is in the market in September and we have the conclusion of Monte Paschi offer, and we have then the conclusion of Banca Generali offer, still, we need to check legally all the implications. As we know, once the offer is irrevocable, the offer is irrevocable. If the conditions are met, we will need, of course, to exchange our Generali shares, and we will need to basically get the Banca Generali tender share, of course, if they are above the condition of 51% plus, which is one of the conditions of our offer. This is regardless that Mediobanca is basically standalone or is part of Monte Paschi. As a final reminder, to ask a question, please press star one and one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. We have no further questions at this time. I will now hand back to you, Mr. Nagel, for closing remarks. Thank you very much for your attending the call, and we hope to have you all in the next one in October. Thank you very much, and see you soon. Bye. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you all for participating. You may now disconnect your line. Thank you, and have a great day.