Sparebanken Norge

Good afternoon, everybody here from Oslo, and a warm welcome to this third quarter presentation for the Sperbank 1.0 Norge group. My name is Ingrid Andersen. I'm a group CEO. Together with me, Mr. Erik Bølmonsen, our group CFO, and also Mr. Morten Fogler, head of investor relations. Together, we will give you a brief presentation of the highlights from the third quarter, and also we'll be open for questions from the audience. Starting with one of the news this quarter, that we are sharply focused on the core operations. We have completed the sale of Verhetningspartner, our accounting company, reducing our ownership from 100% down to 45% and also with an option to reduce the stake. This gives us a gain of 80 million Norwegian kroner in the third quarter and we do this as we want to sharpen the focus even more on what we regard as our core, that means the core banking business and also our real estate broker. Just a quick brief look at the macro. Unemployment rate remains low. Inflation is on its way down, but still beyond the ambition of 2%, but it's coming down. Also, wage growth is on its way down, but very importantly, we've had real wage growth now for three years, which makes the The financial situation for the households is very benign. Also housing prices are ticking up and it is also expected to have a moderate growth for the upcoming years. Altogether this should be a benign environment for running a profitable bank. We measure PMI's three times a year in our main market area and as you can see for almost all of the regions we are in a positive terrain although expectations are a bit lower compared to the recent quarter. Of course this is a combination of the geopolitical uncertainty and also a bit increased unemployment rate although it's still on a very low level. Two years from the merger in between SR Bank and Stavanger 1 service Norge, we are almost We have almost realized the ambition on the operational efficiency on mergers arising from the personal synergies, operational synergies and funding synergies. As this shows, we are 87% and we are very much on our path for realizing these synergies up to the full potential. Financial targets remain unchanged. This quarter our long-term target on the return on equity is beyond 14% and also with a strong solvency and strong capital distribution to our owners in the combination of cash dividend and also share buyback and with an ambition of less than 35% cost to income ratio. During the last years we have become a very well diversified bank in the southern part of Norway. We have approximately 50 branches and we have a very strong distribution power arising from the combination of our physical presence with our branches and also a state-of-the-art internet banking services. Altogether This also is the explanation why we experience the steady growth, although we have come through a period with substantial reshaping of the organization due to realize or to gain the personal synergy. So I'm very We are satisfied with the fact that we have a growth that is beyond market growth, even though we have had this period of post-merger efforts to gain efficiency. If we look at the main figures, we deliver a 13.2% return on equity this quarter if we exclude the goodwill arise from the merger. It is equal to 14.2%, as commented on. The lending growth is strong, both within the quarter, and also if you look at the annual growth rate now, it's 7% in the retail market, which is well beyond market growth, and also a strong 6% growth within the corporate market. The common equity to bond ratio stands at 17.7%. which is equal to 99 basis points beyond the requirement from the Norwegian financial authorities. Impairments remain low on eight basis points, 30 million Norwegian kroner in collective impairments and 51 million in individual losses. This really shows strong credit The cost-income ratio this quarter is even below the ambition of 35% and stands at 34.8%. This gives the total earnings per share of 4.5 Norwegian kroner, which is stronger than the recent quarter.

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Haralds, I will give the word to Mr. Erik, so you notice that he will give us some more details on some of the topics in the PRM.