Deutsche Bank AG

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Q1 2026 analyst conference call and live webcast. I'm Moritz, your chorus call operator. I would like to remind you that all participants will be in a listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a question and answer session. You can register for questions at any time by pressing star and 1 on your telephone. For operator assistance, please press star and 0. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Ioana Patronice, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you for joining us for our first quarter 2026 results poll. As usual, our Chief Executive Officer, Christian Saving, will speak first, followed by our Chief Financial Officer, Raja Akram. The presentation, as always, is available to download in the Investor Relations section of our website, stevie.com. Before we get started, let me just remind you that the presentation contains forward-looking statements which may not develop as we currently expect. We therefore ask you to take notice of the precautionary warning at the end of our material. With that, let me hand over to Christian.

Thank you, Joanna, and good morning from me. We are very pleased with our first quarter performance. We proved our resilience in an environment of heightened uncertainty and delivered record net profits as we continue to build on our strong foundations. Our financial strength enabled us to support clients to make a very solid start to this phase of our strategy and to create value for our shareholders. Both our key metrics improved over the already strong prior year quarter. Post-tax return on tangible equity rose to 12.7% and our cost-income ratio improved to below 59%. This gives us a strong start on our path towards our targets. We generated revenues of 8.7 billion euros, up 2% or 6% excluding FX impacts, even against the strong performance in the prior year quarter, driven by focus growth areas and improving business mix. Costs reflect disciplined execution of our strategy. We self-funded investments by realizing efficiencies as planned. Our capital position is solid. We finished the quarter with a C81 ratio of 13.8%, well within our operating range of 13.5% to 14%. Strong organic capital generation enabled us to support both business growth and deductions for distributions, which are in line with our new payout ratio of 60%. We also made good progress on the €1 billion share buyback we announced last quarter, Around 60% is already completed, and we will update the market on the next distribution in respect of 2026 in due course. Let me now turn to the progress we made on scaling the Global House Bank on slide 3. We see tangible progress across all three levers we outlined at the Investment Deep Dive last November. In respect of focused growth, in our asset-gathering businesses, we see clear momentum in both revenues and assets under management driven by continued net inflows from clients. Strict capital discipline enabled us to deliver positive SVA in the quarter. We continue to reduce sub-hurdle mortgages in the private bank and redeploy resources to wealth management and within corporate lending. We also made progress on a scalable operating model, particularly in the private bank and corporate bank. We are using AI to accelerate core processes, for example, to significantly accelerate the credit process in the corporate bank, thus improving client experience, supporting growth, and taking out costs. The franchise performance indicators we discussed in November are also demonstrating progress. Assets under management increased nearly 9% to 1.8 trillion euros year-on-year, or 1% during the quarter. as we attracted net flows of 22 billion euros, with around 11 billion euros each in private bank and asset management. Loans grew to 486 billion euros, up by around 4 billion euros since the year ago, or 7 billion euros since the last quarter. Deposits were 687 billion euros, up by €22 billion, or 3% since the first quarter last year, and were broadly stable compared to the prior quarter. These developments were accompanied by strong performance across our businesses, as you can see on slide 4. Looking at our divisional performance, two points are clear. First, earnings mix and balance are improving. Our non-investment banking businesses with more predictable earnings streams account for a larger share of group profits compared to the same quarter last year. Second, we have delivered strength across the board with all businesses firing on all cylinders. All four divisions achieved a return on tangible equity of either close to or well above 13%. In the private bank, we made strong progress on our transformation agenda. We hired about 100 coverage staff with 80 already on board and we are ahead of schedule on branch closures with around 75% completed for 2026. The private bank increased client assets by 30 billion euros since the start of the year with net AUM inflows of 11 billion euros primarily driven by investment products. Asset management achieved 11 billion euros of total net flows mainly in passive and cash. and DWS agreed to acquire a 40% minority stake in Nippon Life India Alternative Investment Fund, reinforcing our asset-gathering capacity. Corporate Bank saw sustained momentum in growing business volumes year on year, with loans up 6% and deposits up 2%. Investment Bank performance was again very solid this quarter. We continue to support our clients in volatile markets, with client activity up 8% despite a very strong prior year. And we are pushing forward the investment bank's commitment to innovative tech-led solutions. We launched a partnership with BlackRock, integrating our multi-award-winning house ethics technology suite into their Aladdin platform. This collaboration represents a significant step forward in delivering automated and cost-efficient ethics solutions to the global asset management industry. Before I hand over to Raja, I want to share my thoughts on our strategic direction in a dynamic operating environment, where recent geopolitical developments continue to underscore the importance of resilience and disciplined execution, but also underline our global house bank strategy. While the outlook for the global economy might be uncertain, the current conflict underlines Europe's need for self-reliance and strategic autonomy and investment in defense and other capabilities. When it comes to Germany, we want to reiterate that despite lower growth estimates in 2026, our medium-term view is unchanged, as there are tailwinds from fiscal stimulus and we see scope for further measures going beyond the reform framework announced earlier this month. And we will continue to actively leverage our leadership position in Germany. As we explained in November, we see significant growth opportunities, including private sector investments and reforms and defense and infrastructure plans. For example, Deutsche Bank is part of a €150 million long-term finance package for Quantum Systems, a Munich-based aerial defense systems company. We remain focused on supporting our clients in this dynamic environment. The strengths of our balance sheet, combined with our service capabilities and strategic positioning, means we are best placed to advise clients at European and global levels. From a risk perspective, we have very limited direct exposure to the Middle East, and our portfolio performance remains well within our expectation, and we continue to monitor clients across industries. And in line with our disciplined risk framework, we put in place a management overlay to reflect broader macroeconomic uncertainties. Looking ahead, we reaffirm our confidence in reaching our strategic goals and 2028 financial targets. Our first quarter results with returns of 12.7% show the strength of our strategy. And much of the upside we talked about in November is already visible, providing operational flexibility to reach our financial plan and create potential for further outperformance. We are encouraged by the progress made across our levers and the enhanced collaboration across our divisions. AI is advancing rapidly, and we are working closely across our businesses and functions to make sure we deliver maximum productivity, enhanced client experience. We see positive momentum in our operating environment. For example, EU policymakers continue to focus on European and banking competitiveness. including a more integrated capital market that would be very beneficial for European banks and particular Deutsche Bank. To sum up, we are strongly positioned to execute our scaling the global house bank strategy and deliver on our targets. With that, let me hand over to Raja.