Grupo Aval Acciones y Valores S.A. ADR (Each representing 20 preferred shares)

Welcome to Grupo Eval's fourth quarter 2022 consolidated results conference call. My name is Brent and I will be your operator for today's call. Grupo Eval Acciones y Valores S.A.A. Grupo Eval is an issuer of securities in Colombia and in the United States, SEC. As such, it is subject to compliance with security regulations in Colombia and applicable U.S. securities regulations. Groupo Eval is also subject to the inspection and supervision of the Superintendency of Finance as a holding company of the Eval Financial Conglomerate. The consolidated financial information included in this document is presented in accordance with IFRS as currently issued by the IASB. Details of calculations of non-IFRS measures such as ROAA and and ROAE, among others, are explained when required in this report. Banco de Bogota executed a spinoff of a 75% equity stake in BAC Holding International Corp., BHI, to its shareholders, and Grupo Eval subsequently spun off its equity interest to its shareholders on March 29, 2022. Prior to the spinoff, Banco de Bogota was the direct and only parent of BHI. Furthermore, on December 19, 2022, Banco de Bogota sold 20.89% of the outstanding investment of BHI through a tender offer. As of December 31, 2022, Banco de Bogota held a 4.11% of BHI. This investment is reflected as an investment at fair value through other comprehensive income. As a result, for comparability purposes, we have prepared and present supplemental unaudited pro forma financial information for the 12 months ended December 31st, 2021 that assumes the spinoff was completed on January 1st, 2021. As a result of the sale of 20.89% of BHI, In this presentation, we have reclassified the BHI's equity measured method to discontinued operation for the second and third quarter of 2022. The supplemental unaudited pro forma financial information does not purport to be indicative of our results of operations or financial position had the relevant transactions occurred on the date assumed, and does not project our results of operations or financial position for any future period or date The pro forma financial information is unaudited and the completion of the external audit for the year ended December 31st, 2022 may result in adjustments to the unaudited pro forma financial information presented herein. Any such adjustments may be material. For further information, please see the supplemental unaudited pro forma financial information in our fourth quarter of 2022 earnings release. This report includes forward-looking statements. In some cases, you can identify these forward-looking statements by words such as may, will, should, expects, plans, anticipates, believes, estimates, predicts, potential, or continue, or the negative of these and other comparable words. Actual results and events may differ materially from those anticipated herein as a consequence of changes in general, economic, and business conditions, changes in interest and currency rates, and other risks described from time to time in our filings with the Registro Nacional de Villauras y Emisores and the SEC. Recipients of these documents are responsible for the assessment and use of the information provided herein. Matters described in this presentation and our knowledge of them may change extensively and material over time, but we expressly disclaim any obligation to review, update, or correct the information provided in this report, including any forward-looking statements, and do not intend to provide any update for such material developments prior to our next earnings report. The content of this document and the figures included herein are intended to provide a summary of the subjects discussed rather than a comprehensive description. When applicable, in this document, we refer to billions as thousands of millions. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question and answer session. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Luis Carlos Sarmiento Gutierrez, Chief Executive Officer. Sir, you may begin.

good morning and thank you all for joining our fourth quarter 2022 conference call last quarter was an eventful one colombia's economy lost its momentum inflation continued unabated christmas holiday consumer demand disappointed cost of funds skyrocketed and banks that concentrate on consumer lending couldn't reprise their loan portfolios quickly enough to compensate for the increased cost of deposits notably Bank of the Bogota accepted a tender offer to sell 21% of its remaining 25% participation in backholding International Core, BHI, the holding company of the Central American Banking Group, BAC Credomatic. Let's dive right into it. As you may recall, in March 2022, Banco de Bogota completed the spinoff of 75% of BHI in favor of its shareholders and consequently retained a 25% stake in this holding company. Concurrently, a lot spun up the BHI shares that it received from Banco de Bogota in favor of its shareholders, thus reducing our exposure to Central America to approximately 8.5% of our total assets. In December 2022, Banco de Bogota accepted a tender offer for common shares of BHI at virtually the same price per share used as basis for the March spin-off presented by a company controlled by Grupo Aval's principal. The price was acceptable to the bank considering higher discount market rates and because it represented a 50% premium to the then trading price of the stock. As a result, the bank sold 20.89% of BHI, lowering its stake to 4.11%. This decision was driven by the same considerations that had led the bank to spin off BHI in the first place. This transaction increased Bank of the Bogota's solvency ratio and improved its net stable funding ratio, NSFR, or CFN in Spanish. allowing for loan growth with reduced pressure on cost of funds. The transaction was well-timed, considering, as mentioned before, the accelerated adoption process of CEFEN in Colombia, which resulted in a steep increase in the cost of funds, as most Colombian banks competed, almost exclusively offering ever-increasing rates for longer-term deposits. As previously disclosed, Aval's first quarter 22 results included extraordinary net income of 724 billion pesos as a result of Banco de Bogota's spin-off of 75% of BHI. The fourth quarter 2022 sell of an additional 21% of BHI resulted in an extraordinary loss in a loss P&L of 678 billion. Net, both transactions resulted in a one-time gain of 46 billion during 2022. Moving on to the macro environment, during 2021 and 2022, the global economy consolidated a post-pandemic recovery driven by commercial activity and domestic consumption. Stronger demand combined with weaker supply, as the supply chain was disrupted by the zero COVID Chinese policy, led to higher inflation. In turn, central banks moved to contractionary monetary policies. As the supply chain has started to normalize, supply of gas and fertilizers, among others, affected gravely by the military conflict in Ukraine, have attempted against the normalization of inflation. In fact, according to the IMF's latest projections, global growth will slow from 3.4% in 2022 to 2.9% in 2023. Colombia experiences an outstanding recovery during 2021, which carried on to the first three quarters of 2022. However, the country's dependence on imports, complications to transport agricultural products, a steep rise in food prices, and the challenging political environment drove very high inflation, which in turn triggered monetary policy and the steepest increase in interest rates in this century. Strong growth during the first three quarters of 2022 boosted Colombia's GDP to grow 7.5% during the year, one of the highest growths amongst all the emerging countries. Growth was driven by the strength of private consumption that grew 9.5% and by robust investment dynamics that grew 19.5%. Net exports had a negative impact on overall growth due to a 23.9% expansion of imports that exceeded a 14.9% increase in exports over the year. On the supply side, growth in 2022 was driven by the recreation and entertainment sector that experienced a 37.9% annual growth, followed by communications growing at 14.2%, commercial activities growing at 10.7%, and manufacturing that grew 9.8 percent. Meanwhile, the agriculture sector contracted 1.9 percent over the year due to higher input costs and bad weather. Given the recent economic slowdown, the central bank has revised down its 2023 growth estimate from 0.5 percent to 0.2 percent below the 1.3 percent market consensus. Furthermore, the IMF now expects GDP growth in Colombia to be 1.1% in 2023, lower than its previous 2.3% growth rate projection. Economic activity is likely to be dragged on by higher interest rates, persistent inflation, a softer labor market, and uncertainty associated with a large pipeline of reforms, including labor, health care, and the pension system. Accordingly, we now anticipate GDP growth at 1 percent for 2023. As mentioned before, price pressures continued to build up in 2022, with food prices increasing more than 25 percent during the second half of the year. Accordingly, 12-month inflation reached 13.1 percent in December 2022, the highest since 1999. In January 2023, inflation continued to accelerate, reaching a 12-month inflation of 13.3%, with food prices accounting for 35% of the overall price increase. Going forward, lower global prices of fertilizers and better weather conditions should help to alleviate price pressures on the agribusiness sector, with inflation slowly easing during the next few months. While market consensus forecasts a 12-month inflation of 7.8% by the end of 2023, we expect it could reach 9%. In this context, the central bank's contractionary monetary policy has dictated continued hikes of its repo rate up to its current 12.75%. after a 75 basis points hike during January meeting, accumulating an 1,100 basis points hike since September 2021. Considering the persistence of inflation, we don't really rule out the possibility of one or two additional hikes bringing the rate to 13.25% during the following months, shifting to lower rates during the second half of the year, which could lead to a year-end rate of close to 10.5%. The labor market continued to improve during 2022, but lately this improvement has started to slow down. In any case, the average 2022 unemployment rate fell to 11.2%, improving from 13.8% in 2021. In December, the national unemployment rate reached 11.3% versus 12.1% in December 2021. However, we do anticipate a softening of the labor market during 2023, given a softening in the creation of new jobs at the end of 2022, the slowdown in economic activity, the 16% increase in the minimum wage, and anti-technical labor reform in the current contractionary monetary environment. We expect average annual unemployment to deteriorate to 12% in 2023. Regarding the exchange rate, during the last few days, the peso has been volatile in the 4,750 to 4,950 pesos per dollar range, as a result of market jitters regarding higher interest rates in the U.S. and their effect on the Colombian economy, given its dependence on external financing. Additional volatility of the Colombian peso has been driven by uncertainty regarding the mentioned reforms, which appear to be oriented towards reducing the role of the private sector in certain industries such as health, pensions, and utilities. This adds to previous rhetoric regarding reducing or stopping altogether oil and gas exploration as part of an energy model transition towards cleaner alternative sources. These reforms could reduce domestic savings and impact the country's external financing position, making it more vulnerable to external shocks. Market consensus suggests the country could end the year with a current account deficit of around 4.5% of GDP, which is likely to prevent the peso appreciating to its pre-pandemic levels. Finally, on the fiscal front, at the end of 2022, the fiscal deficit was 5.5% of GDP, an improvement versus the 7.1% recorded in 2021, reflecting the strong rebound of the economy and the positive effect of higher oil prices on tax collection. Net public debt to GDP fell to 59.6% in 2022, down from 60.8 percent in 2021 due to a higher GDP growth in nominal terms despite the weakening of the peso during last year. On the digital transformation front, during 2022, in accordance with our strategy, the vast majority of our traditional legacy products are now offered by our banks digitally. A material number of our internal operations have been digitalized. We're working to expand our ecosystems And in the second semester, we launched a drive to enroll new clients in our digital wallet, DALI. Our banks sold 2.2 million digital products and increased 43.7% versus 2021. Digital transactions represented almost 70% of total transactions and increased by 43% over the year. In the same period, transactions conducted in our branches decreased approximately 13%. Digital customers of Avalos Bank's approximate 5 million in DALI, our digital wallet clients are running close to a million. At this rate, we should end the year with approximately 3.5 to 4 million customers in DALI. DALI has also begun to participate in the dispersion of subsidies, which has been a decisive boost for the growth of other digital wallets in the market. Finally, it has also successfully closed several banking as a service agreements, including agreements with LifeMiles, Wallo, and Plural. Finally, our data analytics continue to evolve and our cost of acquisition of new digital clients continue to drop as we improve our spending effectiveness supported by our database platforms, Augusta and Mathilda, developed by Aval Digital Labs. During 2022, we continued strengthening our ESG efforts and improving our sustainability model. These are a few of our ESG milestones during the year. We reaffirmed our adhesion to the United Nations Global Pact, and along with other banks, joined the financial initiative UNEP-FI. Grupo Valence subsidiaries received the friendly biz recertification and Banco de Bogota, Banco Popular, Banco de Occidente, Corfe Colombiana and Porvenir have been recognized by Great Place to Work as some of the best employers in the country. The holding company measured its carbon footprint for the first time during 2022, analyzing the years 2019, 2020 and 2021 for scope, 1, 2, and 3. In 2021, we saw a reduction of 56% in our footprint when compared to 2019. Banco de Bogota designed its climate strategy aligned with net zero and published the first report following TCFD recommendations. Furthermore, Banco de Bogota is the first carbon neutral bank in Colombia. In 2022, the ESRAS diagnostic stage began in Banco de Occidente, Banco Popular, and Banco Avevillas. We expect to conclude the ESRAS implementation process in 2023. Banco de Bogotá and Corfe Colombiana were included in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index yearbook. Finally, in 2022, the CTIC, the Cancer Treatment and Research Center, began operations and attended approximately 2,500 patients. Regarding our financial results, Diego will refer next in detail to our financial performance during 2022. However, I would like to highlight the following. As addressed before, net income during the last quarter of the year included a 0.68 trillion pesos one-time negative effect caused by Banco de Bogota's decision to sell 20.89% of the stake it held in BHI in response to a tender offer. This negative non-recurrent loss was enough to offset the quarter's net income from recurrent operations of 0.31 trillion pesos. The $0.68 trillion non-recurring charge partially offset the $0.72 trillion non-recurring gain booked in the first quarter of 2022 after Banco de Bogota spun off 75% of BHI. During 2022, the net effect in Aval's P&L of BHI's transactions amounted to a $0.05 trillion positive non-recurring gain. Total attributable net income for the year amounted to $2.5 trillion. However, absent of income from discontinued operations, almost entirely related to BHI, Aval's 2022 attributable net income on a recurring basis reached $1.9 trillion. This result, however, is clearly divided in two. the positive macro environment during the first half of 2022, which led to net attributable income from continuing operations of $1.2 trillion, and the acute economic downturn during the second half of the year, which led to net attributable net income from continuing operations of $0.7 trillion. During the first half, our banking subsidiaries benefited from a rebound in loan growth, a favorable evolution of asset quality, and higher recoveries of written off loans. However, this environment changed materially during the second half of 2022, given the massive increase in the central bank intervention rate and the unprecedented speed at which monetary policy has been transmitted to the cost of funds of banks due to the accelerated implementation in Colombia of CEFN. In fact, the spread between the central bank policy rate and rates paid for time deposits widened by as much as 400 basis points as banks raised to lower time deposits exclusively via higher rates. The speed and magnitude of these rate increases compressed margins in banks in general and more dramatically in banks with predominantly fixed-rate consumer loan portfolios. On the other hand, higher interest rates favor NIM in our corporate banks, which have mostly variable interest rate commercial loan portfolios. This pressure should start to ease in 2023 as SFN requirements have been met, inflation subsides, and the central bank starts to lower rates while fixed rate loan portfolios start to mature and reprice. Obviously, The rising rates also affected the yield curve, which in turn negatively affected fixed income securities portfolios, including the proprietary fixed income securities portfolio of our pension and severance fund manager, Porvenir. Porvenir was also affected by a steep increase in life and disability insurance premiums, which directly lowered its fee income. Insurance premiums have been sharply rising after the pandemic accelerated insurance claims like never before. We remain highly watchful of the proposed wording of the pension reform, which has not been made public. During 2022, Forbidden Aid contributed 4.7% of our total net income. All in all, In line with our previous guidance, in 2022, Aval produced tributable net income of approximately 105 pesos per share, return on average assets of 1.6%, and return on average equity of 14%. Loan growth exceeded our expectations at 18%, and loan quality, including cost of risk, continued to improve. Growth for 2023 will probably be close to zero in real terms, which is equivalent to nominal growth of approximately 10%. However, cost of funding should rebound lower and NIMS should expand. The big question mark revolves around employment and the effect that this index could have over the quality of consumer loan portfolios. We will, however, continue to navigate through this challenging environment, revise and participate to the extent of our abilities in the final wordings of the proposed reforms, deploy capital, devise optimal funding strategies, and as always, maintain cost control and loan pricing discipline. I thank you for your attention, and now I'll pass on the presentation to Diego, who will explain in detail our business results and provide guidance for 2023.

Thank you, Luis Carlos. I will now move to the consolidated results of Grupo Aval under IFRS. Starting on page eight, assets grew 16.2% during 2022 and 3.4% during the quarter. Over the year, net loans and leases increased their share of our mix with a trade-off in the share of fixed income investments and cash and equivalents. Moving to page 9, loans grew 18.1% over the year and 4.1% during the quarter, with similar performances in commercial and retail loans. Annual loan growth rates accelerated to 18.3% in commercial loans and to 17% in consumer loans. 12-month growth in consumer lending was driven by personal loans with a 33.7% increase, followed by automobile loans and credit cards that grew 18.9% and 17.8% respectively. Payroll loans grew 11.2% over the year. Growth over the quarter was 4.5% for commercial loans and 3.1% for consumer loans. Those still high, the software, performance was proven by the impact of higher interest rates and loan demand and a deterioration in consumer confidence. Personal loans and credit cards, which account for 23% and 12% of our consumer portfolios, grew 8.2% and 5.7% respectively during the quarter. Federal loans and auto financing, our main consumer-secured products, grew 0.2% and 5.7% respectively. These products account for 56% and 9% of our consumer portfolio. Mortgages grew 21.8% year-on-year and 5.4% over the quarter. Loan growth has begun to decelerate in riskier products and segments. We anticipate slower growth of our loan portfolio during 2023 in line with a softer economic outlook both locally and globally. On pages 10 and 11, we present several loan portfolio quality ratios. The quality of our loan portfolios improved during the year, both measured by stages and by TDLs. This resulted in a lower cost of risk over the year. Stage one loans now represent 87.2% of our gross loans, improving from 81.7 12 months earlier and 86.3% three months earlier. Regarding delinquencies, 90-day and 30-day PDLs improved 38 basis points and 30 basis points year-on-year. Over the quarter, there was a slight deterioration in both metrics due to a slower growth rate of our loan portfolio, a lower level of charge-offs, and a higher 90-day PDL formation. Cost of risk, net of recoveries for the year was 1.5% down from 1.8% in 2021, and posted a 10 basis points increase over the quarter to 1.46%. Finally, the ratio of charge-offs to average 90 APLs was 0.56 times for the quarter and 0.57 times for 2022. On page 12, we present funding and deposit evolution. Funding increased 3.6% during the quarter, supporting loan growth. As a result, our deposits to net loans ratio remained high at 97%. The share of deposits in our funding mix remained relatively stable at 71%, while bonds lost space to banks and other funding. Deposits grew 17% year on year and 4.1% during the quarter. time deposits gained share in our mix, anticipating the high requirements for Net Stable Funding Ratio, NSFR, applicable at the end of this month. On page 13, we present the evolution of our total capitalization, our attributable shareholders' equity, and the capital and equity ratio of our banks. Our total equity decreased 21.9% over the year due to the spin-off of 75% equity stake in DHI on March 2022. Part of this transaction, our assets and equity decreased by 9.7 trillion pesos. The impact of this transaction on attributable equity was 6.6 trillion. In addition, OCI tied to fixed income portfolio lost 0.9 trillion net of deferred taxes. Quarterly performance was driven by a one-time negative effect of the sale of 20.9% of PHI in December. As of fourth quarter 2022, our banks reported tier one and total solvency ratios similar to those reported for September 2022. To strengthen Banco de Bogotá's and Grupo Aval's capital bases, their respective shareholders' meetings approved the distribution of stock dividends. Shareholders are required by law to accept stock dividends or else are paid in cash. Aval paid cash dividends of 0.1 trillion pesos in March of 2022. Banco de Bogota does not fully incorporate the benefit of exiting its investment in BHI given the deduction of its 4.1 minority stake in the company that poses a burden of 30 to 40 basis points to its primary capital ratio. Banco de Occidente increased its secondary capital to a $100 million increase in subordinated loans. On page 14, we present our yield and loans, cost of funds, spread, and NIM. Interest rate behavior for 2022 was proven by the contractionary monetary policy implemented by the central bank. The year-end benchmark rate in Colombia increased 900 basis points during 2022 to 12%, while the average rate increased 528 basis points to 7.2% relative to 2021. In addition, the speed at which monetary policy transmitted to cost of funds has been unprecedentedly fast due to the recently increased requirements of longer-term funding to comply with the net stable funding ratio, or CEFEN in Spanish, introduced by the migration of Colombia to Basel III. The pressure on demand for time deposits increased the spread between those and the Colombian sovereign debt up to approximately 450 basis points above historical levels. We expect a substantial part of this phenomenon to be temporary. In fact, for the last few weeks, this spread has come down to 250 basis points above historical levels. The magnitude and the speed of the increasing funding rate compress the name of retail loans. This was due to the fact that some of the higher credit quality retail loans, such as payroll loans, bear fixed rates. We expect this compression to recede during the second half of 2023 as funding prices are expected to fall driven by the reduction in the central bank intervention rate, loan portfolios continue repricing up, and as the banking system fully adjusts to the tighter NSFR regulation. In the meantime, we expect the pressure for higher funding costs on NIM of our fixed rate retail portfolio to persist over the next few quarters. The compression of margins happened mostly during the second half of the year as two-thirds of the central bank rate increase occurred during that period. During the fourth quarter, the NIM and loans contracted 40 basis points to 4.15%, and the spread between average yield and gross loans and average cost of funds contracted 39 basis points to 4.7%. The cost of funds of our non-financial activity is included in an overall net interest margin, distorting our numbers. In this context, Net interest margin on loans of our banking segments contracted 41 basis points during the year to 5.29% in 2022. However, the higher funding cost of our non-financial activity resulted in an overall NIM on loans of 3.68% that contracted 67 basis points during the year. Bear in mind that the increase in interest expenses associated with the funding of our non-financial activity was offset by a stronger performance of the non-financial sector presented on the following page that benefits from inflation. Tailwinds on our commercial lending activity that reprises promptly from a hawkish monetary policy led to a 125 basis points increase to 4.55% in 2022's NIM and commercial loans of our banking segments. In contrast, headwinds on our retail loans that have a longer repricing period led to a 228 basis points contraction to 6.2% in our 2022 NIM and retail loans of our commercial banking segments. NIM and investments for 2022 decreased 49 basis points to minus 0.1% reflecting the increase in cost of funds and the challenging performance of global capital markets throughout the year. NEMA on investments includes the performance of mark-to-market investments held by Porvenir under mandatory stabilization reserves, which posted negative returns during 2022. NEMA on investments of our banking segments decreased 22 basis points to 0.46%. On page 15, we present net fees and other income. Gross fee income for the year 2022 increased 2.1%, while net fee income decreased 5.2%. Gross fee income for the quarter fell 1.7% year-on-year and increased 1.3% quarter-on-quarter. Net fee income decreased 6.9% year-on-year and increased 0.4% quarter-on-quarter. Net fee income incorporates a substantial improvement in the banking and trust fees and a sharp decrease in the pension and severance fees. Gross banking fees for the year increased 17.1%, reflecting the recovery of bank insurance, merchant acquiring, debit and credit card fees, in line with strong loan growth and a dynamic domestic demand. Annual net pension and severance fees decreased 37%, mainly due to a higher insurance premium associated with increased mortality rates during the pandemic and to a lesser extent to lower performance-based fees in line with capital market conditions. Income of the non-financial sector was strong during 2022. Our infrastructure sector, that is the largest contributor to our non-financial income, grew 54.1% as financial assets from our concession agreements benefit from higher inflation and the depreciation of the Colombian pesos. Fourth quarter performance was negatively impacted by cost overruns in some of our road concessions. Energy and gas companies increased their contribution to our yearly non-financial sector by 4.6%, driven by higher gas transportation volumes, improvements in industrial consumption, and aided by the depreciation of the Colombian peso. In the fourth quarter, income was affected by tariff adjustments on gas transportation, lower income from construction activity in Peru, and lower volumes driven by a softer industrial demand and scheduled maintenance. Although low contributors to our non-financial sector, our hospitality and agricultural businesses had record high contribution to the non-financial sector in 2022. Hospitality business performance improved as room and food prices benefited from inflation and as occupancy ratios fully recovered to pre-pandemic levels. Finally, on the bottom of the page, other income during 2022 was lower than a year earlier, mainly because of lower results in derivatives and foreign exchange gains and in net gains on sale of investments and OCI realization. Regarding derivatives and FX gains, exiting its business in DHI changed Banco de Bogota's structural balance sheet from a long U.S. dollar position to a short U.S. dollar position. Given the prevailing interest rate differentials between the Colombian peso, The U.S. dollar, this change implied a net cost of managing this exposure through derivatives. Regarding net gains on sale of investments and OCI realization, some of our subsidiaries realized losses on fair value OCI fixed income instruments, particularly during the fourth quarter. as a positive for other operating income during the fourth quarter we continued our ppne optimization as in prior years resulting in other income from our operations of 85 billion pesos on page 16 we present some efficiency ratios our business units continue to implementing cost contention initiatives during 2022 Total office grew 9.1% during the year, well below inflation of 13.1%. Personal expenses grew 7.6% during the year, while depreciation and amortization increased 6.4%. General and administrative expenses increased 15.4% in 2022, of which six percentage points are explained by a 28% increase in operating taxes. In Colombia, the industry and commerce tax is based on gross income. As such, the base for taxes increased significantly during this rising interest rate cycle. In addition, this tax is determined at a local regional level. Given that the tariff structures were modified during 2022, allowing for each local government to set rates, some cities increased Their tariffs substantially with excesses in some cases where 2022 rates were five times those applicable during 2021. Quarterly OPEX grew 7% year on year of which four percentage points are driven by taxes. Quarter on quarter growth was additionally affected by seasonal defects. Cost to assets for 2022 was 2.7% down from 2.8% in 2021. Cost-to-income was 45.8%, up from 42.8% a year earlier. The deterioration in cost-to-income was mainly driven by the contraction in NIM and the decrease in pension fund fees. Finally, on page 17, we present our net income and profitability ratios. Attributable net income for 2022 was 2,483,000,000 pesos, or 107 pesos per share, 27.5 percent lower than the result for 2021. Attributable net income for continued operations was 1,889,000,000 pesos, 24.7 percent lower than in 2021, while attributable net income from the discontinued operations was 594,000,000 pesos. During the quarter, the net income from continued operations at the Aval level reached 310 billion pesos, while the losses from discontinued operations at the Aval level were 641 billion pesos. As a result, our attributable net income for the quarter was a negative 330 billion pesos. Discontinued operations for the quarter result from income from the equity method of BHI of 37 billion during October and November, and a one-time loss of 678 billion pesos associated with the sale of 20.9% of BHI. The total one-time effects during 2022 of exiting the investment in BHI were 46 billion pesos at the Aval level when considering the 724 billion one-time effects from spin-off recorded in first quarter. Given that we recognize 548 billion pesos of BHI net income at the Aval level in addition to the 46 billion pesos one-time effects of exiting BHI, the attributable net income from discontinued operation comes to 594 billion for the year. Finally, our return on average assets and our return on average equity for the year were 1.6% and 14% respectively. These ratios were negative 0.6% and negative 8% for the quarter. Before moving into questions and answers, I will now summarize our general guidance for 2023. We expect loan growth to be in the 9% to 11% range with commercial loans growing in the 9% to 10% range and retail loans in the 11% to 12% range. We expect our cost of risk net of recoveries to be in the 1.5% to 1.6% range. We expect full year NIM to be in the 3.75% area with NIM on loans in the 4.5% area. We expect cost of assets to be in the 2.5% to 2.6% range. We expect our fee income ratio to be in the 20% area. We expect our non-financial sector to be 70% of that for 2022. Finally, we expect a return on average equity to be in the 11% to 12% range. We are now available to address your questions.

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. If you have a question, please press star, then 1 on your touchstone phone. If you wish to be removed from the queue, please press star one again. If you are using a speakerphone, you may need to pick the handset first before pressing the numbers. Once again, if you have a question, please press star then one on your touchtone phone. Your first question is from Yuri Fernandez with JP Morgan. Your line is open.

Hi, guys. Thank you. Hi, Diego. If I may, just on the issue, Hello? Can you hear me?

Yuri, go ahead. We had a technical problem here, so we had two lines at the same time.

Go ahead. Okay, perfect. Guys, sorry. There was a line calling me here. I wasn't sure. So just on BHI, if you can provide a rationale for the sale, I guess there were some related part of the transaction. So just why you decided to tender and decide to sell this now, like the rationale behind this tender. And on margins, I would like to understand the impact of lower rates. In the past, we had the view that higher rates would be good for aval, but funding was a surprise, right? Was a negative surprise. And maybe rates will start to come down later this year, right? Maybe in the third Q, fourth Q. So my question is, should we start to see, you know, margins improving when rates come down? Like, what is the impact of lower rates for a vol? Thank you.

If I understood correctly, this is Luis Carlos. How are you? If I understood correctly, you wanted to, and I'm sorry I have to ask, but the thing is that we got a terrible communication today, and the call has fallen through about three or four times. So if I understood correctly, you wanted to know the rationale behind the sales BSI. Was that your first question, Yuri?

That's it. Like, why should I sell this now, maybe not sell this in the future? Like, what is the rationale for Avall to sell this now? OK.

Well, as we've said before, when you look back at BHI or back Chromatic when we purchased it back 13 years ago, 2010, The size of that bank was about one-third of Banco de Bogota. And as time passed, and obviously, as you know, those financial statements are converted into dollars when they get consolidated under IFRS. And then the bank kept its investment as a dollar denominator asset, converted to pesos. And so... via the increase in the size of the bank, the natural organic increase in the size of the bank in Central America, which is the bank has really done very well in that respect. And then additionally, with especially lately the devaluation of the peso against the dollar, the bank grew to be about the same size as its owner, Banco de Bogota. So that was the... the first concern that we had because it really didn't make a lot of sense to us to have a bank that owned another bank its same size. Secondly, well, that was making cumbersome and complicated capital allocation decisions, dividend decisions and others. So that was the rationale then. we finally said, listen, it really doesn't make a lot of sense to keep back under Banco de Bogota. So that was the reason that Banco de Bogota spun it off. Then once it, and obviously this was done concurrently, but once the bank was spun off from Banco de Bogota, again, it didn't make a tremendous amount of sense to have it as an aval asset anymore because we wanted to unlock some value. We, our, all our estimates showed that by keeping back sort of buried under the whole group of our structure, it wasn't reflected its real value. So that was the reason that we decided that we would spin it up and virtually go back to having under the same majority shareholder an international group and a domestic group. And, uh, so that's what led us to, to then, uh, have group one, which we will keep as a domestic group and then international investments that our shareholders were, uh, invited to participate in. And, um, but since, you know, there's been a couple of tender offers and people have, some people have sold and some haven't, but, um, So now that the structure, the remaining structure, as I said, is two groups, an international group and a domestic group.

Let me take the one on rates. And perhaps something I should have emphasized more when I went through the presentation was What we're seeing at this point is a combination of two different forces. Number one, what the monetary policy from the central bank looks like that has raised interest rates and that we expect at some point during the latter part of this year to recede back partially and then during 2024 go back to numbers that are more in the historical average. However, what has compressed our margins most during the last quarter of last year and into this year has been the adoption of the net stable funding ratio in Colombia that strongly distorted the time deposit market. To give you a very brief idea of the magnitude of this impact, the spread between time deposits and the zero Cuban sovereign curve has been around 50 to 100 basis points depending on maturity. What we saw during the last quarter of 2022 was this spread has gone up to 450 to 550 basis points. Late January, it was around 500 basis points and has dropped acutely since and is currently at around 200 to 300 basis points. So this means within what has happened during February, we've had a receipt receding in that spread of 200 to 300 basis points in different points of the curve. So what that did was, unexpectedly, it generated a much higher cost of funds due to the fact that the banks were raising mainly time deposits to prepare to comply with the net stable funding ratio requirements that we have later this month. So what we're seeing is something that should adjust much faster, and it is what is happening with this distortion of the market that seems to be going back to historical levels. And then on top of that, the third of the central banks. I went through a very extensive explanation just to say that what we expect to see is an adjustment over the next few quarters, initially from the impact of these time deposits that we had to overpay in the market to basically adjust to the net stable funding ratio, the CFN. And then we will be riding the rest of the curve that should do two different things. One, for our retail portfolios, it should improve the NIM that we've been seeing over time. And then, if it was only the central bank that was acting, we would see some compression in the commercial banking ratio, the NIM for the commercial banking side. However, given this distortion from the CFN, we will also see an improvement in the margins for the commercial banks. All in all, we expect to see improvement in NIMS later this year. It will not happen immediately because it affected mainly time deposits, so you need to renew many of these time deposits to be able to capture the price. This will add up to two different things. On top of that, it is fixed loans repricing in time, particularly the consumer lending side, plus the overall adjustment of the economy with lower inflation. I apologize for a very long experience, but I think your question is one of the four questions of what is happening in the banking sector nowadays in Colombia.

No, no, it's super clear, Diego. It helps a lot. So in the end, it was a competition for funding to adjust for the new regulation more than the central bank pressure per se, right? So once this competition and banks, they comply with the new liquidity requirements, things will play much better for the funding side. This is what I understood, right? So this is... Yes, perhaps you're talking about it right then.

And perhaps to add to that, what we've seen is a very quick adjustment to that, given that it's already March and the adjustment requirements are due end of March. So what we feel is most of the banks have already done what they need to do. Perfect. Thank you very much, you guys.

Again, if you would like to ask a question, press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. We have no further questions. Sorry. Your next question is again from Yuri Fernandez with JP Morgan. Your line is open.

Thank you, Luis Carlos. And Diego, just a final follow-up on dividend payout. Your ROE guidance and your loan growth guidance, they are somewhat similar, right? Both, you know, like the loan book growing like high single digits, ROEs 11 to 12. So my question is, what is your view for dividend payouts this year? Because given are we are we to be uh slightly under pressure maybe your potential for dividend payouts may be you know impaired by by by that right like maybe you know you you if you don't want to to build a lot of leverage your payouts should be lower so again how do you think about payout uh this year for about thank you and that's my final question okay and i i think there it's twofold

And you have some of our banks that, exactly as you described, need to be much more careful with sales, particularly the banks. Are you still there, Judy?

Yeah, I'm here. I can at least see you.

Okay.

Okay.

I thought we had the last connection once again. The retail banks, mainly the retail banks, need to be much more careful on their dividend payouts. However, the more corporate banks have much more room for dividends. So we are actually in the process. I can't be precise here because we are starting to give out information to the market at this point on how dividends will come out. However, we see that very broad distinction between a couple of our banks and the other two banks, basically based on how they are performing as of today and the whole idea that we have on how they will be performing.

Just to expand on... Sorry, go ahead. Sorry, just to expand, so as Diego was saying, The two consumer-oriented banks, Villas and Popular, were really taking a hard look at the convenience of their declaring and paying dividends. On the contrary, the two mostly commercial banks, Bogotá and Occidente, we've had dividend policies over the years that pay between 40% and 50%, and I don't think this year will be a big exception. And then we have a policy in Avalon that we usually pay out cash dividends out for the same amount that we receive cash dividends from the banks in Avalon. So maybe that'll help.

Okay. Thank you.

Your next question is from Juan Recalde with Scotiabank. Your line is open.

Hi. Good morning, and thank you for taking my question. I have two questions. The first one is related to the guidance. What is the effective tax rate that is incorporated into your 2023 guidance? And the second question is related to the sustainable ROE. What is your expectation for the sustainable ROE for Group Aval?

Thank you. Well, the ROE was your second question.

Yes, the second one is in terms of sustainable ROE or long-term ROE expectation.

Long-term ROE expectation, yes. Short-term ROE should be 10% plus, minus, or I'm sorry, 11% to 12%. Long-term expectation, we expect to be going back to 15% area once we see this adjustment in net interest margin that we described previously. What we're looking into for taxes is something in the order of magnitude of 36% in our consolidated figures.

Okay, perfect. And do you think that in the medium to long term the effective taxes will remain close to that 36% or do you expect a decrease in that?

Well, we expect numbers in this order of magnitude into the future as long as there's no adjustments in tax reforms. Bear in mind that in addition to the general taxes, we have a very heavy burden on local taxes that we mentioned before. Overall, our tax pay has increased in a very substantial manner when you add up the operational taxes and also the net income taxes.

Thank you for the comments.

There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back over to the Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Luis Carlos Sarmiento Gutierrez.

Thank you, Brent. Thank you. Thank you all for your attention. Rob, I can't see if I get you this way. I am speaking on a cellular phone now. So all that I was saying is thank you for having been on the call today. And as you can tell, we have been through some challenging last few months, not precisely because of our results as much as because of the environment here, the political and economical environment. It's tough to decipher. We have to see the wording of all the new reforms that are being talked about. The health reform is concerning. It won't affect us as much, but we will definitely be more affected by the other reforms, labor and pension, than others. So, the, hang on a second, we'll keep working on especially our cost efficiency, loan pricing responsibility, And we'll keep looking for pipelines to invest here and other places in the region for Corfe Colombiana as infrastructure projects here dwindle down. And obviously, in every call, we'll keep you abreast of what we're doing. And I think with that, I'll let you go. And I thank you again all for being in the call.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This concludes today's conference. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.