DWS Group GmbH & Co. KGaA

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the DWS Q2 2026 results with investor and analyst conference call and live webcast. I am Sandra, the course call operator. I would like to remind you that all participants have been listened only mode and the conference has been recorded. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session. You can register for questions at any time by pressing star and one on your telephone. For operator assistance, please press star and zero. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it is my pleasure to hand over to Oliver Flade. Please go ahead, sir.

Operator, thank you very much, and good morning to everybody from Frankfurt. This is Oliver Flade from Investor Relations, and I would like to welcome everybody to our earnings call for the second quarter of 2026. Before we start I would like to remind you that the upcoming Deutsche Bank analyst call will outline the asset management segments results which have a different parameter basis to the DWS results we're presenting today. I'm joined as usual by Stefan Hoops our CEO and Markus Kobler our CFO and Stefan will start with some opening as well as closing remarks and Markus will take you through the main part of the presentation. For the Q&A afterwards please could you limit yourself to the two most important questions so that we can give as many people a chance to participate as possible. And I would also like to remind you that the presentation may contain forward-looking statements which may not be as we currently expect. I therefore ask you to take note of the disclaimer and the precautionary warning on the forward-looking statements at the end of our materials. And with that, I will now pass on to Stefan.

Thank you, Oliver. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to our Q2 2026 Earnings Hall. Let me start with the overall picture, and I'm going to borrow one from Formula One for this quarter. After the pit stop early in the year, we have re-accelerated and are showing very strong client momentum across the business. Assets under management reached a new record high, our flows improved significantly, and we delivered our best-ever first half. As we discussed on the last quarterly earnings call, we like to take pain early. As such, we made fundamental changes to our front office at the start of our new three-year strategic plan. What we've completed since the beginning of the year is significant. Let's start with clients. We reorganized our coverage around our clients. Two global segments, private wealth, which serves individual investors, and institutional, each spanning all asset classes and regions. and Anna Dürr-Gürgen, our new Chief Commercial Officer, we've tied client insight, solutions and revenue accountability together in one place. On the investment side, we brought our liquid and illiquid businesses under the single leadership of Vincenzo Vedda, our Chief Investment Officer, completing a transition we began last year. The result is clearer accountability, faster decisions and a sharper investment focus. We've set up the product division to differentiate between asset class expertise and a factory-like wrapping and product delivery function. And we combined various teams into one strategy and M&A function that encompasses strategy design, organic implementation, and inorganic growth. As you saw in our Q1 flow numbers, you cannot retool the car and set a personal best on the same lap, which we knew going in. However, Significant front office reorganizations can paralyze a company for long periods of time, and our deliberate decision to do everything swiftly at once meant that we could fully focus on clients, markets, and investing for most of Q2. You can see that momentum most clearly in our flows and AUM development. In Q2, we gained almost 100 billion euros of AUM, taking us to a record of 1.19 trillion euros. This was not just a market story alone. Long-term net flows were significantly higher quarter on quarter, comparing favorably with our peers. We are particularly pleased with our momentum in active equity, the heart of DWS, where we had our strongest active equity flows in six years. Our flagship funds, Top Dividend and Accumula led the way, with strong investment performance leading to net inflows of more than 1 billion euros across the franchise. Active SQI also continue to deliver, generating net flows of more than 1 billion euros this quarter. It also bears out what we said in Q1. Volatile markets are fertile ground for active asset management, and that is exactly when clients value it most. After a tough Q1, Xtrackers has regained momentum as our focused actions on client engagement, product innovation, and pricing take effect. We have sharpened our competitiveness in core exposures, stepped up client and sales activity, and continued to expand into higher value products and partnerships. This is now translating into stronger flows and an improved competitive position across key segments, particularly in usage. On alternatives, infrastructure remains our strongest growth engine. Capital raising remains positive across the franchise in both equity and debt, and our flagship European private infrastructure fundraise is developing nicely. In private credit, several strategies are approaching first close. While alternatives reported net outflows during the quarter, these were influenced by capital distributions to clients which are recorded as outflows despite reflecting value realization for investors. While we do not disclose our net new revenues earned through client inflows, I'm pleased to say that this has been the best quarter since we started recording this number. Financials in Q2 were solid. Earnings per share came in at 1.19 euros, which brings us to 2.51 euros for the first half of the year. Revenues were 773 million euros, up 4% year on year, the net result of two counterbalancing effects. Management fees grew strongly, up 13% year-on-year, on the back of higher average assets under management. This was offset by much lower performance and transaction fees, which simply follow a different timing pattern in 2026 than in 2025, as we flagged last quarter, with a large infrastructure performance fee recorded in Q1. Total costs were €468 million, up 6% year-on-year, Our cost-income ratio was 60.5% for the quarter, which is an increase of 1.3 percentage points year-on-year. Let me address costs head-on, as I want to be precise about how we think about it. Our controllable costs, which are the vast majority of our costs, were flat year-on-year, and we frankly do not see a reason for them to go up. However, the significant increase in AUM led to higher volume-driven costs, While our positive stock development increased share price link compensation. Combined, these two items amount to almost 30 million of costs, implying that our total cost in Q2 would have been lower than Q1, excluding these two items. I hope you'll agree that these are good costs. They come with growth and they leave us on a good path towards our medium term goal of a cost income ratio below 55%. Step back from the quarter. and a picture of the first half is one to be proud of. Revenues up, costs stable year on year, profit before tax up 16%, EPS up 21% and record net flows. That is the best half in our history. With that, let me hand over to Markus to take you through the financials.