Hello, and welcome to the Van Lanschot Kempen Analyst Call for 2024 half-year results. My name is George, and I'll be your coordinator for today's event. Please note that this conference is being recorded, and for the duration of the call, your lines will be in listen-only mode. However, you'll have the opportunity to ask questions towards the end of the presentation, and this can be done by pressing star one on your telephone keypad to register your question. If you require assistance at any point, please press star zero and you will be connected to an operator. I'd like to call on our host today, Mr. Maarten Edixhoven, Chairman of the Management Board. Please go ahead, sir. Thank you very much, George, and a very warm welcome to this update call on our earnings in the first half of 2024. I'm here with our CFO, Jeroen Kroes, and our Head of Investor Relations, Jan Willem Plomp, is also with us. A warm welcome on behalf of all of us. As usual, Jeroen and I will talk you through the highlights of the first half of the year, and then we will open the floor to your questions, and thanks for your interest. We spoke to each other, of course, shortly before the summer break on our investor day in June, when we set out our ambitious, yet also realistic financial targets for the next years. So I'm happy to share that the strong results we reported over the first six months clearly demonstrate we are off to an excellent start of 2024. We are seeing continued momentum with a strong growth in assets under management, especially via autonomous growth and also commission income. But also a very strong net result with positive contributions, and I'm especially pleased also with that fact from each of our four client segments. And let me elaborate a bit more on that. In the segment Private Bank in Netherlands, we recorded another consecutive period of net inflows, thanks to both existing and new clients. We see growth across all types of clients and entrepreneurs in particular. That's also why I'm very happy that we continue to be able to attract new private bankers and specialists to maintain our personal approach and to be relevant in the moments that matter for our clients. In Belgium, growth at Mercier Van Lanschot accelerated even further since the start of the year. More clients joined, and existing clients entrusted us with a larger part of their wealth. We're also excited to have the new colleagues from Accuro, that we acquired recently, on board and further strengthen our advisory management offering in Belgium next to our discretionary services, so solid momentum in Belgium as well. Investment management clients recorded a pre-tax profit, demonstrating our focus on cost and commercial strength are paying off. We were able to attract several new clients in fiduciary management in the Netherlands as well as in the U.K., resulting in healthy AUM inflows while keeping our margins. It's great to see our efforts were appreciated as well. We were named Fiduciary Manager of the Year in the U.K. Finally, investment banking clients also returned to profit after a challenging 2023 with a difficult M&A market. We advised clients on a range of high-profile transactions and intensified the cooperation with the private bank, resulting in additional inflows in terms of assets under management. These results confirm our growing further together strategy, as we shared with you on the investor update in June. It's our ambition to be a leading wealth manager in Western Europe with a solid foundation in the Netherlands and Belgium. We will achieve this by further capitalizing on the momentum we are seeing in private banking in the Netherlands, while unlocking additional growth engines in the near future. In Belgium, as the results also show, we are well-placed to reap the significant potential for growth and adding market share in the market, and investment management clients and investment banking clients are positioned for renewed profitability, enhanced support to our private banking franchise in the conversations we have with our clients. We have translated these ambitions into our new financial targets for 2027. All our client segments are well-positioned and have their own clear USPs, and a focus on how to contribute or drive scalable growth whilst achieving our targets. Private clients is the foundation of our business, and it's where we differentiate with our personal approach as well as distinctive investment solutions. We are able to maintain that as our single state-of-the-art IT platform ensures we can grow in a scalable way. Small enough to care, large enough to cope, as we say. In the Netherlands, we continue to see strong momentum and winning market share with clear growth opportunities in a growing market, as well as a unique position in Switzerland as an additional driver for growth. In Belgium, as we said, we launched Mercier Van Lanschot brand in January, following a successful integration of our two businesses there, and we have the ambition to be a leading player, and the results of the first half are a testimony to that. Investment management clients is our in-house investment engine, offering distinctive solutions to our clients, both in the institutional and the private market. With growth also coming from our alternatives and specialist strategies and pension fund consolidation. In this segment, we focused on scalable and profitable growth, and we are reaping, in the first half of the year, some of the benefits from the work done in the past two years by our colleagues. Finally, investment banking clients, this where we support our clients with specialist investment banking capabilities. We have a very clear focus on specific sectors in which we have built a strong track record.... Following a difficult year, we see momentum is returning, also showing through in the first half results. If we then look back to our results, as you will have seen, we had a very strong start of the year, and Jeroen will go through all the details shortly with you. I want to call out just a few of the key numbers. Net profit rose strongly with 44% to EUR 74.5 million, which is a great result. Operating expenses rose 6%, resulting in a cost income ratio of 69%, demonstrating our ability to achieve scalable growth and the result of cost control being top of mind among all of our employees. Also, our net inflows were strong. We added EUR 5.7 billion in assets under management from new and existing clients, both in private and institutional markets, and our total assets under management has reached over EUR 139 billion, almost EUR 140 billion. Finally, our capital ratio remains strong and well above our target, and as mentioned during our investor day, we aim to return the proportion of capital in excess of our target of 17.5% by year-end 2024 to our shareholders, together with the 2024 dividend. With these results, we are on track to deliver on our targets as shared in June. Zooming in on our 10% assets under management growth target, you will see that our current momentum is very strong and we have full confidence on delivering on those targets. Jeroen will elaborate more on those other targets later. Before handing over to him, a few words on our non-financial targets. We continue to work towards our carbon reduction targets. Our aim is to lower the annual weighted average carbon intensity of our discretionary assets under management with 7% from our two thousand and nine baseline. In the first half of 2024, we recorded an average annual reduction of 18%. So well on track there, but still also a lot of work ahead of us. A lot of focus is also going into measuring and reporting on sustainability, and I want to call that out. This enables us to navigate the transitions with more visibility, for example, and for instance, on biodiversity, but also data quality is a very important aspect here. Also, we are well on track to implement new legislative requirements such as SFDR, CSRD, and the new AFM guidelines on sustainability. Then, a couple of words on our client satisfaction, as that is the bread and butter of our franchise. Our results, the progress we continue to make on our targets, our ability to report and analyze, they are, of course, all driven by our talented teams. That's why I'm very pleased with our continued high engagement score, which I'm fully convinced also leads to high client satisfaction scores. We will continue to focus on attracting and retaining talent by offering development opportunities to our staff. This is key to our strategy as our people are very close to our clients. With that, I would like to hand over to our CFO, Jeroen Kroes, for more details on our first half numbers. Jeroen. Thank you, Maarten, and good morning. Let's go through the slides. Start with number nine. We had a strong first half of 2024. Net result increased by 44% to EUR 74.5 million on the back of growth in commission revenues and good performance in all of our client segments. We show good growth, with assets under management that rose over 9% compared to the end of 2023, and that is thanks to the strong inflow of EUR 5.7 billion, a positive market performance, and the acquisition of Accuro. As mentioned, all segments were profitable, all client segments, and we saw very good inflows at both private clients, Netherlands, as well as Mercier Van Lanschot in Belgium. The results at investment management and investment banking improved substantially with the investment bank returning to profitability. Our capital and liquidity position is robust, with a high CET1 ratio and an LCR of above 200%. If we compare the results to the one of the first half of 2023, it is clear that the main driver behind the increase is the commission income. We started the year with a higher base of assets under management than the year before. We had a good and continuous inflow. We were helped by positive markets and by the better results of the investment bank, and all of this together contributed to this good increase of EUR 47.8 million. As guided earlier, interest income was lower than last year, but it is in line with the second half of 2023. Good to note on this page is that the 2024 figures include the acquisition of the online investment platform of Robeco, which was not yet part of the figures of the first half of 2023. And, this means that in 2024, we have EUR 9.5 million higher income from Robeco retail, as well as higher cost of EUR 9.5 million, of which EUR 8.5 million are in operating expenses. Let's now zoom in on the client segments, starting with private clients, Netherlands. Commercial momentum is good at all parts of this segment, including the Swiss part of the business. On the back of a positive market, clients invested more, and we saw a shift of savings and deposits to investments. In addition, we welcomed many new clients, and this all led to an inflow of EUR 1.8 billion, which is a very strong number. The operating result before tax amounts to EUR 71.6 million, a small decrease compared to the first half of 2023, and this is due to the normalization of interest income after the very first, very strong first half of 2023. A few words on Robeco Retail, which is also part of this segment. We are making good progress in integrating Robeco Retail into Evi. In December of last year, we introduced a savings product to the former Robeco clients, and we saw the level of savings at our Evi clients grow this year by approximately EUR 500 million to a level of EUR 1.1 billion. In Belgium, Mercier Van Lanschot continued to gain market share, and in fact, growth accelerated in the first half of 2024. Net inflow of assets under management amounted to EUR 1.1 billion, and combined with market performance and the inflow from the acquisition of Accuro, we stood at EUR 13.7 billion of assets under management at the end of June, an increase of 25%, and as you know, the loan book in Belgium is smaller than in the Netherlands, as we do not provide mortgages. For this reason, the lower interest income had a limited impact on the operating result before tax, which came in at EUR 16.7 million, which is a good increase compared to 2023, then investment management clients. The last two years, we worked on restructuring this part of the business, increasing commercial strength, improving processes, and working on better scalability. These efforts led to a sharp improvement in operating results before tax to EUR 13.5 million from EUR 3.9 million last year. And also, if you would look at the segmentation of last year, and you, you know that last year we still worked with the old segments, when we had the wholesale institutional client segment. But also, if you would look at this segment, which was loss-making last year, that part of the business reported profit in the first half of this year. So inflow at investment management clients amounted to EUR 2.8 billion, mostly in fiduciary management, where we welcomed several new clients in both the U.K. as well as in the Netherlands. We also saw inflow in our funds and mainly at credits and small caps. The investment bank. In 2023, we had a historically weak market for investment banking, and this was also visible in our results. This year, we see the momentum return and on the back of this, our investment bank made a positive operating result before tax of EUR 3 million. Besides a number of high-profile transactions, we also see the cooperation between the investment bank and the private bank make good progress. In the first half of 2024, the collaboration led to an inflow of assets under management at the private bank of over EUR 100 million. Then, looking at the margins. We report stable margins, and especially at private clients, Belgium and investment management, clients' margins are virtually the same as last year. We see a movement at Private Clients Netherlands from 60 basis points to 55, and let me explain that. This is caused, for a large part, by the activities of Robeco Retail, that were added against a lower margin of approximately 30 basis points. So they were not there in the first half of last year, and as of the second half of last year, they are part of the business of Private Clients Netherlands. In addition, growth at Private Clients Netherlands consisted for 77% from growth in advisory asset management and 23% from discretionary asset management. And the margin on advisory is lower than discretionary, so this also had an effect. Then the graph on the left-hand side, I show that every time it shows the run rate of our recurring fees. You see that it grew in line with the strong growth in assets under management and now amounts to EUR 468 million. This, of course, gives us a good starting point for the second half of the year. The first quarter or the first half of 2024 shows resilient interest income. The graph on the left shows that the NII peaked in the first half of 2023. In the first half of 2024, interest income was slightly above the second half of 2023, and as you can recall from what we said during the investor day, we guided that interest income would be in line with the second half of 2023, and this is also what we report now. Looking a bit at the balance sheet, our total savings and deposits declined from EUR 12.6 billion to EUR 12.2 billion. And looking a bit further, we saw that our savings grew by EUR 0.2 billion. Deposits also grew EUR 0.1 billion, but current accounts decreased by EUR 0.7 billion. So those are the underlying movements. And we saw the interest income if we also would look at Q2 versus Q1, we saw a slight decline in Q2 versus Q1. And this is because modest decline in savings, which occurred in Q1 and had an effect on Q2. And a small part was also due to some declining margins. However, if we look forward and we run the models, we expect interest income both for H2 and for 2025, to be in line with the level of the first half of 2024. Then the other income. The other income consists of income from our investments in participating interest and co-investments in own funds, and the result on financial transactions. Here you see a good increase from EUR 4.1 million to EUR 16 million and, in fact, the reason for this is that across the board, results are better. And so almost on all lines you see better results. The biggest delta is in the line other results, and there you see that we benefited from good results from our structured products, activities, and a positive result from hedge accounting. Then, with respect to our costs. We operated with a positive jaw. Maarten already explained it, with income growing 14% and costs up 6%. Soft costs were up by EUR 9.6 million, and the increase is due to a larger number of employees, of FTEs, which is, among others, due to the acquisition of Robeco and Accuro. You're looking at the changes of the last six months. You see the growth of 33 FTEs and 10 from Accuro, and the 23 are because of strengthening of our front end, and from a shift from contractors to internal staff at our data management teams. The increase in other costs is fairly limited, but that was also due to lower regulatory fees. The increase in cost of other costs, we mentioned that it's from higher consultancy, marketing, and IT expenses. Give you some more idea on the IT expenses, a large part of that has to do with the acquisition of Robeco Retail and the IT expenses that came with that acquisition. Looking at our loan portfolio, it is stable. We see a small decline in the mortgage portfolio, while the average LTV remains very good and even improved to 61%. At the other end, we saw some growth in the portfolio of other loans, especially Lombard loans and current accounts increasing across Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland. Our loan portfolio is of good quality, with good coverage from collateral. Therefore, additions to provisions were limited with EUR 1.7 million. As discussed before, we believe the time of releases from this provision is behind us. We believe that the levels seen in the second half of 2023 and the first half of 2024 are a good indicator of our loan loss provisions going forward. Our CET1 ratio, you see on this page that we presented both the 18.8% with the Basel III figure, as well as the 18.5%, Basel IV. For the ones that also recall the investor day, there you see that the 18.5%, Basel IV, that we present now is very much in line with the figures that we presented before. At the other end, you see that the Basel III number for CET1 came down from the end of 2023, 19.6% to 18.8% in June. Let me shortly explain that, the delta between those figures, largely half of it is due to the Accuro acquisition, and the other changes have to do with the expansion of our portfolio of other loans, which I just explained, and the finalization of a share buyback program that was completed in May. At our investor day in June, we presented our target for the CET1 ratio, which is a ratio of 17.5%, based on Basel IV, fully loaded. The target allows for a temporary undershoot of 2.5% for M&A. At the end of June, as I just mentioned, our CET1 level at Basel IV, fully loaded, stands at approximately 18.5, and we aim to return to shareholders the proportion of capital, which by year end, 2024, is in excess of 17.5%. Of course, subject to regulatory approval. Then, the view on our targets. These are all the targets that we presented during the investor day, and these are targets for 2027. However, you can see that we are making good steps in the first half of 2024. Maarten already alluded to the very strong growth in assets under management, which stands for the first half year are more than nine percent already. Our cost income ratio is within the target range at 69%, demonstrating that we can grow in a scalable way, and our CET1 ratio is above our target of 17.5%. Then our profitability improved significantly, resulting in a return on CET1 of 17%, which is a step towards the more than 18% target that we have. So all in all, we are pleased with the results of the first half of 2024, and with that, I give it back to Maarten. Thank you very much, Jeroen. Now, summarizing, I think, a very strong set of results with the continued growth momentum across all our client segments, and I think also showing our growing further strategy that we launched two months ago in action. Now, let's open the floor to your questions. Important part of this morning as well, and thank you for your patience listening to both Jeroen and my view on the first half results of Van Lanschot Kempen. So who's first, George? Yes, sir. I'll just give maybe a reminder to the other people that might have joined a bit later. Ladies and gentlemen, just please press star one if you wish to ask a question. Here we go. Our first person this morning or today will be Cor Kluis, calling from ABN AMRO, ODDO BHF. Please go ahead, your line is open. Hello, good morning, and congratulations with the good results. A couple of questions. Maybe first on commission income. Our commission income in private banking was better than expected. Could you give some qualitative comments why that is? There was a little bit of a mix effect, of course, which makes it a little bit more difficult for us to analyze, but is there something one-off in it? Have you seen some extra security trade by clients, or is it just the normal run rate if you take commission income versus AUM per line? So that's on why the better commission income in private banking. Then the inflow, the net inflow was of course quite strong, at 10.5% annualized net inflow in the private bank. Last year we saw the same, and H1 was also extremely strong, but then we saw in H2 suddenly a low or almost no inflows in private banking. Could you give a little bit comments on why that was low last year and why that might be the similar or different in the second half of this year for net inflow in private banking? And my last question is about private banking in Netherlands. You had EUR 1.8 billion net inflow, which part of that was AV, and which part was the non-Evi and AV operations? Those were my questions. Thank you. Thank you very much, Cor. Let me take the first one and then over to Jeroen. In terms of the commission income, of course, we are happy with the increase of the annualized commission income, and also by the increase in general of 23% compared to last year. To your question, the mix is basically as it was, so it's regular. The only change that we also explained in one of the slides presented by Jeroen is that we now also fully account for Robeco adding to AV, which lowers the margin for the Netherlands. So it's noted under the private clients Netherlands margin. That's the only change. For the rest, it is a regular division between institutional, private, and within private, between discretionary and advisory core. So the only change is the full Robeco lower margins, which are part of private clients, Netherlands. Okay. So there was nothing exceptional positive for commission income. It was just this is normal run rate. Normal run rate. Yeah. Okay. Okay, yeah. Yeah. Jeroen, to you for the inflow? Yeah. Yeah. Yes, core inflow was strong both at private clients, Netherlands, as well as in Belgium. Last year, we saw the effect in the Netherlands of a shift from, especially in the second half of the year, from investments to savings. That shift returned a bit in the first half of this year for a part. This had to do last year with specific situations at our clients, but you also could look at tax regulations, et cetera. That at that time, our clients felt that it made sense to shift from investments to savings. We saw a bit of a return in the first half of this year. So in the Netherlands, there's no reason to expect that this will be fully different this year, so that effect might again be visible this year. But that being said, apart from this effect, we do not see any reason for momentum to change or for inflow figures to be very different going forward. Especially in Belgium, you see that such a effect is totally not visible at all, and you see that momentum remains strong. Then going to your question on what about AP? We do not disclose the specific figures for AP. Could it be a material part of the one point eight, or is it- Let me say that it's not a material part of the 1.8, and that the material part of the 1.8 is within the what you could call the private banking part of PCNL. Okay. Thank you. Thanks. Yeah. Any other questions for? Yeah. We do indeed, sir. Yeah, thank you very much, sir, for interrupting you, sir. Our next question will be coming from Benoit Petrarque of Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead, sir. Yes, good morning. Benoit Petrarque from Kepler Cheuvreux. Yeah, a few questions on my side. Just to come back on, yeah, the sustainability of the net new money, actually in both the Netherlands and Belgium. Yeah, I, you know, just to start with Belgium, maybe, you know, I was wondering if the very strong inflow is linked to some of the consolidation we have seen, not to mention it, Degroof Petercam, for example. I mean, is there a bit of exceptional maybe activity in the first part of the year linked to this, this acquisition? Or will you consider the current momentum sustainable into H2? Actually, same question in the Netherlands, just to refer to the tax effect we have seen last year. So, we might see that again a bit this year, but, you know, do you expect the momentum to continue into H2 in the Netherlands? That's the first question. The second question is on the NI guidance, so flat in H2 and 2025 at the level we've seen in H1 2024. I was wondering here, because, you know, market expect quite a drop of interest rates in 2025. I think the market is pricing something like less than 2.5% by mid-2025. So are you still confident, despite the ECB rate cut, that you will be able to maintain, you know, this level of NI? You know, what type of assumptions are you kind of making here on pass-through rate and deposit pricing? Because it seems that there must be a lower deposit pricing assumption in your assumptions. That's number two. Number three, just to the on the margins in PC Netherlands, so just wondering if the 55 basis points is the new normal? I guess so, but just wanted to get your view on that, or are we going to get back to you know, to the 60 basis points level. And then maybe just the final one will be on the annualized recurring fees. You know, you have a slide on that. It was EUR 468 million based on market at the end of June. Just wondering if you've done the math at the end, well, at the end of August now, or mid of August. So try to get a bit of a feeling where we stand as the market has been volatile. Thank you. Let me take the first one and the last one, and then, Jeroen, you the middle two. With regard to Belgium, and good morning, Benoit. Thank you for joining. With regard to Belgium, actually, what we see is that we are clearly gaining market share in Belgium, following last year's integration and early this year's launch of Mercier Van Lanschot. I think our story is exciting in Belgium. That's also we see. We see both new clients coming from competitors, but we also see that we get a bigger share of the wallet of existing clients. So where we, in the past, would both at the Mercier side and the Van Lanschot side, would get, let's say, 10% or 20% of the wealth. Now, with our bigger franchise and our 300-year history behind us, in combination with our market presence in Belgium, we see that we get a much larger part of the wealth to manage. Also, we see that with our approach in Belgium, that bankers like to work with us. They like to be part of this story. And that's not only related to the consolidation you're mentioning, but it's basically in general compared to our competition. So making sure that our bankers and relationship managers are in a place where we have an exciting story, a growth story, close to our clients, good solutions. in combination with the good performance of our discretionary funds in Belgium, that's actually how we win market share. We see that momentum continuing. Now, to your last question, that addresses as well. Of course, we saw a dip in the market, but then we also saw the market coming back. For us, that's, I would say, and you can do the calculations yourself, of course, but in general, changes within the month don't affect our numbers. Yeah, you could calculate that we're still on a regular run rate, and we don't have reasons to see that change. Yeah, in addition to that, we're still, of course, seeing the momentum of inflows. And, market being equal, that means that the number will grow every month. Then, as Maarten is saying, of course, we are impacted by market developments, but if you look at where we are now, it all seems to be quite stable in markets as well. Then, going to your question on the momentum in the Netherlands and net new money, and it's a bit in line with what Cor just asked. The momentum in the Netherlands is good. We do not see any reason why that would change. As I explained before, you have that effect at the end of the year in the Netherlands, that some of our clients decide to change from investments to savings, that might well happen again this year. But next to that, and the underlying momentum is good, and we do not expect a change in that. Then your question on the guidance of NII, how do we get to that? Yes, of course, we factor in the ECB rate cuts that are factored in by the market. But next to that you also look at other things. A large part of our savings money is in term deposits. With the term deposits, I explained it last time as well, we have term deposits with our client base, and we price them at a certain level towards the market. These term deposits move together with market movements, and therefore, we believe that especially there, that we can keep our margins. We also looked at margins expectations on our loan book, on our treasury book, and we take it all together and then come to the guidance that we said that we should be able to keep it at a stable level that all taking into account. The margins of PCNL, the fifty-five, is that the new normal? I don't really like to talk about the new normal, but I think the 55 is a level that you can calculate with, given the current composition of our portfolio. So I think it's a fair margin to use in your calculations. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Benoit. I'm sorry, sorry again, sir. Our next question is coming from Jason Kalamboussis of ING. Please go ahead. Yes, hi. I got first is a follow-up on the question that Benoit had. I mean, do you find that, you know, you say it's a fair margin, but do you see any potential in the next 12 months or 18 months to have some expansion, either on the Evi assets or on the Netherlands? The second question is on the Netherlands, again, a bit of a follow-up, the EUR 1.8 billion inflows. If you look at it at the second half, basically, you say, I feel comfortable that this could be the inflows in the second half, but at the end of the day, do keep in mind that in fourth quarter, we do have a bit of a seasonal thing with taxes, but at the end of the day, you also will not have that big shift that we saw due to the interest rate. So essentially, is one point, you know, above one point five net inflows, something that we could see in the Netherlands? The other thing is that for the costs, you had the CLA now, but is there any... Just remind me, is it for one year or two years? In general, for the costs, should we expect a hockey stick effect in the second half? The final question is on the Netherlands. You had your net inflows that were split 77% in advisory, 23% in discretionary. Is it something that is a usual, kind of, like, split, ballpark, or, you know, that can vary significantly? Thank you. Yes. Let me start with answering the questions, and Maarten will jump in where he can add. I think your first and last question I can combine those. The 55 basis points is a margin that's a good basis. And you say, is there expansion possible? Yeah, one of the things is that relates to your last question, the 77 versus 23%, advisory versus discretionary. If the percentage discretionary increases, that will of course help in the margin. And we do not set a target for that because it's of course up to our clients to decide which product they want to have. However, we are working on a lot of interesting and good, let's say our product offering, in discretionary. We're working on that. We also have a couple of good new initiatives in the private investment space, and those initiatives are certainly initiatives that could help this margin. So yes, we're working on a couple of interesting new products that could lead to some expansion in margin. Then the question is inflow going to be above EUR 1.5 billion in second half in PCNL? Of course, I'm not going to give you any forward-looking statement there, so I'm not commenting on that. Just repeating the fact that momentum is good and the effect of Q4 is expected again. That's it for now. Then on the cost side, yes, we were helped by not having to pay for the Single Resolution Fund in the first half of the year. Important to say that this cost always incurs in the first half of the year. So now it is not there, so it's a plus if you compare the first half of this year to last year. But in the second half, this cost element is not part of our PNL. So it will not occur in the second half, and it did not occur last year, so there is not a specific effect to be expected in the second half. Jason, does that answer your questions? If I may, have just a quick follow-up. So just so that I'm clear, though, that the effect in the Netherlands in the fourth quarter, it will come again, but it's not going to be as pronounced as we saw it last year, correct? Yeah, we don't know, Jason, of course. But it could well be the case. Last year it was pretty pronounced. This year might level more out across the year because last year it was the first year with the new tax legislation in the Netherlands, and this year is a new... So people have more time basically to prepare. So it might be less pronounced than the next year, but of course, we will have to see. Okay, very helpful. Thank you. Thank you. But as you explained, yeah, as Jeroen explained, there will be some effect for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry for interrupting you, sir. Our next question now will be coming from Henk Slotboom of The IDEA!. Please go ahead. Good morning. Thanks for the presentation, and congrats also from this side for the impressive results. I've got two questions. One is it is still on the margin development and the inflow of assets under management in the Netherlands. Maarten, in the press release, you say that research conducted by the Nyenrode University and the Rotterdam School of Management revealed that nearly 30% of the family-owned companies in the Netherlands are in the process of transferring ownership. Now, obviously, the current owners of these family-owned enterprises are a very important part of your core client group. Is it listening to what you say about momentum and that sort of things, is it the kind of do not sell the skin before the bear has been shot, a type of conservative or conservatism? Because obviously, if this pool of additional, incremental assets becomes available and knowing your position in this market, it should help you going forward to improve the inflow of assets under management and improve the mix as well. The second question perhaps is well, an old one from my side, and that has to do with the manageability of integrations. Is it how is the acquisition or the M&A pipeline? Let me put it in those phrases. Do you first emphasize the integration of Robeco and Accuro, or do you have sufficient resources in place to handle more deals as well? Those were my questions. Thank you. Now, we thank you very much, and thank you for the congratulations with the result. Henk, we will split the work evenly between me and Jeroen on your questions, so he will address your M&A question shortly, and your important remark/question on the Dutch family-owned businesses and clients. Yes, and you actually already stated the point. Often those are long-term relationships, sometimes even across generations. ... for our firm, and they are in two ways extremely important for us. One is that, indeed, like you're saying, of course, the part of the wealth that is in the family-owned business is obviously not managed by us, so we also don't charge a fee or money on that, and if that changes and there is what we call a liquidity moment for a family, then we are there to help, and we see that indeed increasing, and it explains, like we also said in our press release, the entrepreneurial families, we see that momentum being there with a lot of transactions, private equity, strategic buyers, and families making choices not to bring the family-owned business to the next generation. So for us, that is really a source of growth. And it's also, let's say, paying off on the long relationship we have with, often with those families, but sometimes also really new families that come into a new situation and are looking for a wealth manager, by the way. That's both in the Netherlands and Belgium, as well as in Switzerland, which is part of our growth story, and we expect that to continue in the future. So that's one part. The other part is that also we work increasingly on that, on our investment banking side. Our corporate advisory, of course, is also there to support those families in terms of the transaction, which also leads to fee income with us. And sometimes that's also the way how via a transaction we get to know the family. And actually, in the first half of the year, we had such a transaction where the family business was sold and next so that was a corporate advisory fee. And next, we were able to manage the assets and the management for that family. So that also deepens the relationship with the entrepreneur. So, that's indeed how it works and gives us also confidence for the future and fits also with our own partly family-owned type of organization in terms of DNA. So Jeroen, for you, the M&A? Yeah. Yeah, the integrations of M&A, and you're absolutely right, that good integration is as important as a good acquisition, as such. So we spend a lot of time and effort on that. Currently, it's Robeco and Accuro. First, Robeco, as I mentioned, I said we are well on track in that integration and even in some parts of it, a bit before the planning. So it's really going well. So that we plan to be up and running by next year. And that looks good. Then Accuro, of course, we're there in the early days of the integration, but Accuro is a relatively small organization, meaning that the integration is, let's say, a doable integration. That being said, the answer is yes, we have room for both on M&A, and we also keep a close eye on the opportunities that are in the market. So, that's Okay. I think that's- Perhaps a brief follow-up. The focus for the time being will remain on the Netherlands and Belgium, or could we also expect something because you're defining it as your territory of operations a bit wider than the Benelux countries alone. But I assume for the time being it would be more rational to do acquisitions in the geographies where you are active already. Yes, you said absolutely correctly. We focus on the geographies where we are already present. Okay, perfect. Thank you. Thank you, Henk. Thank you, Wouter. Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, if you wish to ask any questions or have any follow-up questions, please press star one at this time. We do not appear to have any further questions at this time. Mr. Edixhoven, I'd like to turn the call back over to you for any additional closing remarks. Thank you. Thank you very much, George, for your support this morning, and thank you all for listening in, and thank you for the questions, Benoit, Cor, Henk, and Jason as well, which is a good interaction and always keeps us sharp as well, so appreciated that. And let's close the call with the statement once again that we are very happy with the very strong results for the first half of 2024, as well as the momentum we see both with our clients as well as the energy or vibe in the firm. So let's continue to focus on that, and thank you very much for today. Thank you, Wouter. Ladies and gentlemen, that will conclude today's conference. Thank you for your attendance. You may disconnect. Have a good day and goodbye.