UBS Group AG

Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. Welcome to the UBS second quarter 2024 results presentation. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. You can register for questions at any time by pressing star and one on your telephone. Should you need operator assistance, please press star and zero. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Sarah Mackey, UBS Investor Relations. Please go ahead, madam.

Good morning and welcome everyone. Before we start, I would like to draw your attention to our cautionary statement slide at the back of today's results presentation. Please also refer to the risk factors included in our annual report, together with additional disclosures in our SEC filing. On slide two, you can see our agenda for today. It's now my pleasure to hand over to Sergio Omote, Group CEO.

Thank you Sarah and good morning everyone. It has been a little over a year since the closing of the acquisition. We made significant progress and UBS continues to deliver on all of its commitments to stakeholders. Putting the needs of clients first during a challenging market environment has allowed us to maintain solid momentum while we fulfill our objective of completing the integration by the end of 2026. As a consequence, not only we have dramatically reduced the execution risk of the integration, we are also well positioned to meet all of our financial targets and return to the level of profitability UBS delivered before being asked to step in and stabilize Credit Suisse. I'm particularly proud to note that across the combined organization, our people are embracing the pillars, principles, and behaviors that drives UBS's culture. These include client centricity and collaboration and enable us to successfully manage risk and act with accountability and integrity. I'd like to thank all of my colleagues around the world for their dedication and hard work. Our second quarter result contributed to a strong first half performance reflecting the strength of our client franchises and disciplined implementation of our strategy and integration plans. Reported net profit for the first half was $2.9 billion with underlying PBT of $4.7 billion and an underlying return on CT1 capital of 9.2%. We strengthened our capital position and maintained a balance sheet for all season with a CT1 capital ratio of 14.9% and total loss absorbing capacity of around $200 billion. Our parent bank is well capitalized even after withstanding the removal of significant regulatory concessions previously granted to Credit Suisse. As a result, We are executing on our 2024 capital return plans and, as I mentioned last quarter, we are committed to delivering on our mid to long-term ambitions for dividends and buybacks. Turning to the integration, we have captured nearly half of our targeted gross cost savings as we restructure our core businesses and wind down non-core and legacy. where we have materially reduced risk-weighted assets over the last 12 months. As part of our de-risking efforts, we have also made good progress addressing Credit Suisse's legacy legal issues, including the Supply Chain Finance Fund and Monza Big Matters. Following these intense months of execution during which we obtained more than 180 approvals from roughly 80 regulators in more than 40 jurisdictions, we completed the mergers of our parent and Swiss banks and transitioned to a single U.S. intermediate holding company. This clears the way for the next set of critical milestones that will support the realization of further integration synergies. But let me reiterate something you have heard me say before. We still have a lot of work ahead of us to address Credit Suisse's structural lack of sustainable profitability. While we are encouraged by the significant progress we have made across the group, the path to restoring profitability to the pre-acquisition levels won't be linear. We are now entering the next phase of our integration which will be key to realizing the further substantial cost, capital, funding, and tax benefits necessary to deliver on our 2026 financial targets. We are following through on our plans amid heightened uncertainties in the markets. These are the moments in which UBS proves its strengths, resilience, and superior ability to serve and advise clients. This is reflected in the trust that our clients have placed in us every quarter since the close, with a total of 127 billion in net new assets. We have also remained focused on our strategic objectives to enhance our client offering and leverage the breadth, scale, and synergies of our combined franchises. In the investment bank, I'm pleased by the client response to the strategic additions we have made to reinforce our capabilities and competitive position. The first half performance is a positive signal that the investments are paying off. In global markets, we saw the highest second quarter on record. And in global banking, we have captured sizable market share gains. Importantly, We have achieved these results without compromising on our risk and capital discipline. We are also increasing collaboration across the firm as GWM clients continue to benefit from our IB products and capabilities. This drove the majority of wealth management expansion of client activity this year, particularly in the Americas and APAC. Another example is our newly created unified global alternatives unit, which combines our alternatives investment capabilities across GWM and asset management. In fact, this is not just an internal cooperation. We are reshaping the competitive landscape by effectively creating a top five global player and limited partner with 250 billion in invested assets across hedge funds, private equity, private credit infrastructure, and real estate. Unified Global Alternatives will offer our institutional wholesale wealth management clients a more comprehensive offering and enhanced access to exclusive co-investment opportunities. It will also provide general partners with a single point of access to the full distribution power of our firm. In asset management, we are offsetting margin compression by increasing operational efficiency, which is one of the key focus areas for the business. In Switzerland, we continue to enjoy the trust of our clients despite a very competitive and at times less than constructive environment. With around 30 billion Swiss francs in new deposits in the last 13 months and approximately 350 billions of loans extended to clients, we continue to maintain our role as an important engine of credit. Since the acquisition, we granted or renewed around 85 billion Swiss ranks of loans. Higher interest rates, the cost of increased regulatory, capital, and liquidity requirements, a changing macroeconomic outlook, and last but not least, the necessity to reprice some loans granted by Credit Suisse at unacceptable risk returns are adding an impact on pricing of new credit. Of course, those are not always easy discussions to have with clients, but we are constructively engaging with them, and I believe the vast majority understand the rationale. Switzerland is a key pillar of our strategy, and we are fully committed to maintaining our leadership. Swiss clients and the economy benefit from UBS's unparalleled competitive global reach and capabilities. In turn, our Swissness is a unique differentiator when serving clients around the world. A testament of this symbiosis, as a testament of this symbiosis, we were recognized by Euromoney as Switzerland's best bank for the 10th time since 2012. and the World Best Bank. As we continue our integration journey in the Swiss business, we believe it will be important to further communicate with all our stakeholders about our approach and strategy. To that end, in September, Tower Head of Switzerland Sabine Keller-Busse will present at our flagship Best of Switzerland conference, which brings together investors and corporate clients. Looking ahead and more broadly, ongoing geopolitical tensions and anticipation ahead of US elections will likely result in heightened market volatility compared to the first half of the year. In this environment, we have two key priorities. First, we must continue to help clients manage the challenges and opportunities that arise. Second, we must stay focused and not allow short-term market dynamics. to distract us from achieving our ultimate goal, which is to continue to execute on the integration and invest strategically to position UBS for long-term value creation. The mentoring appointment we announced in the second quarter will enable us to continue to progress on this journey. At the same time, we can put even more emphasis on our priorities and prospects for sustainable growth, particularly in the Americas and Asia Pacific. We are confident this will also help us to deliver better outcomes for our clients and the communities where we live and work. With that, I hand over to Todd.