UBS Group AG

Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. Welcome to the UBS third 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.

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 filings. On slide two, you can see our agenda for today. It's now my pleasure to hand over to Sergio Amotti, Group CEO.

Thank you Sara and good morning everyone. Our strong financial performance in the quarter with a net profit of 1.4 billion and an underlying PBT of 2.4 billion together with our year-to-date results demonstrates the power of our unique client franchises, diversified business model and global scale. It also represents continued progress on the integration. This brings us two important benefits. First, it increases our confidence level in achieving our short and medium term financial targets. Second, it allows us to offer the full range of services of the combined bank and to stay even closer to clients. We are better positioned than ever to help them navigate a market background that, while constructive, still exhibits periods of high volatility and dislocation. Our commitment to serving clients is reflected in a 9% year-on-year increase in underlying revenues with notable strength in the Americas and APEC. Invested assets across the group increased by 15% year-on-year to $6.2 trillion. This shows that our wealth and asset management clients continue to value the capabilities we provide across our advice platform. and the way in which we consistently innovate to meet their needs. One excellent example is the positive client and general partner reaction to the launch of our unified global alternatives unit, which has created a top five player in alternatives. In Switzerland, while we face the expected headwinds on net interest income, We continue to deliver on our commitment to acting as a safe and reliable provider of credit to the economy, with around 35 billion Swiss francs of loans granted or renewed in the quarter. Within the investment bank, our investments in global markets supported robust performance in equities, notably in the Americas. And in global banking, we maintain our momentum in advisory as we outperform the global M&A fee pools for the third consecutive quarter. As importantly, our M&A pipeline continues to build. Turning back to the integration, the finalization of our preparation work during the quarter allowed us in the last two weeks of October to successfully achieve another milestone. We moved all of the client's account and data in Luxembourg and Hong Kong onto UBS platforms. The next significant milestones for 2024 are the client account migrations in Singapore and Japan, expected by year end. We will then kick off the next phase of Swiss migrations in the second quarter of 2025 positioning as well to enhance the client experience and unlock further cost reductions towards the end of 2025 and into 2026. In non-core and legacy, we continue to simplify our operations through book closures and the decommissioning of applications. These have supported the significant year-to-date reductions in costs. And thanks to our active wind-down efforts, the natural runoff profile of the remaining positions is already in line with our 2026 risk-weighted assets ambition. At the same time, we remain focused on identifying opportunities to further improve the round-down profile, but we'll continue to do so without compromising economic value creation. The overall discipline progress on the integration, including the completion of the legal entity mergers has significantly mitigated the execution risk of the Credit Suisse acquisition. This, combined with the strong performance of our businesses, has allowed us to generate capital well ahead of our plan and guidance. As we prudently assess future capital requirements, business plans, and profitability for the coming years, we feel it is important our current group capital position better reflects excess capital available for growth and returns to shareholders. Consequently, we have voluntarily accelerated the phase-out of the remaining transitional capital adjustments agreed with our regulator, which we had disclosed upon the closing of the acquisition. This brings our CT1 capital ratio to 14.3%, more in line with our guidance, while remaining while maintaining a strong capital position and a balance sheet for all seasons. This buffer was never considered for distribution and its removal has no impact on our ability to execute on the ongoing 2024 share buyback nor on our medium-term ambitions for dividends and buybacks. As already communicated, we will provide more details on our 2025 capital return plans, including the continued execution of buybacks with our four-quarter results. Our ambition for 2026 capital returns to exceed pre-acquisition level is unchanged, subject to our assessment of any proposed requirements from Switzerland's ongoing review of its capital regime. I want to emphasize that our focus extends beyond meeting the current needs of our clients, executing on the integration and delivering on our short-term plans. We are also preparing for the future by continuing to invest in our people, products and capabilities to strengthen our client offerings and position our business for long-term growth. This includes investing in our industry-leading cloud infrastructure as well as our expertise in artificial intelligence and automation. This will accelerate generative AI adoption, increasing efficiency and effectiveness. One example of the many ways we are leveraging AI is through Microsoft Copilot. With 50,000 licenses being rolled out between now and the end of the first quarter, we are implementing the largest deployment of Copilot within the global financial services industry to date. Another example is RED, a proprietary new AI assistant that provides 20,000 employees in Switzerland, Hong Kong, and Singapore with easy access to UBS product information and investment research. In the investment bank, we are piloting a proprietary AI algorithm that researches and compiles potential merger and acquisition by site targets. In this and the many other AI deployments that are underway across the entire firm, we are focused on responsible AI as we provide our people with tools that will help them better manage their businesses. Even as new technology is changing the way we work, Our people will remain the most important driver of our success. That is why I'm particularly pleased with the positive results from a recent employee survey, which, by the way, it's an important testament to the progress we have made on the integration. 84% say that they are proud to work for UBS, and 83% would recommend UBS as an employer, both well above industry benchmarks. We have achieved a lot over the last 18 months as we are building a stronger and even safer version of UBS that all of our key stakeholders can be proud of. But there is no room for complacency. We are just about halfway to restoring pre-acquisition levels of profits and returns on capital, and the journey won't be a straight line. In the short term, in addition to seasonality, ongoing global macroeconomic developments geopolitical conflicts and the upcoming U.S. elections create uncertainties that are likely to affect investor behavior. We continue to help clients navigate this environment, and I remain confident in our ability to deliver on our financial targets as we position UBS for long-term sustainable growth and remain a pillar of economic support in the communities where we live and work. With that, I hand over to Todd.