Noah Holdings Limited

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to NOAA's 2023 first quarter earnings call. I'm Melo Xi, Director of Investor Relations at NOAA Group. The presenters joining us today are Ms. Wang Jingbo, our co-founder, chairlady, and CEO, and Mr. Graham Pan, our CFO. I'd also like to inform you that we're currently live from our new headquarters, NOAA Wealth Center, located in Hongqiao, Shanghai. Before we start, we would like to kindly remind you that during today's call, we may make forward-looking statements based on our current expectations of the business. Please keep in mind that these statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause NOAA's actual results to differ from these statements. We do not undertake any duty to update these statements. For discussions of some of the risks that could affect results, please see the Safe Harder Statement section of our 6-K filing. will also refer to certain non-GAAP measures and you'll find reconciliations in our 6K report made available on the financial report section of NOAA's investor relations website. Also, please note that nothing on this call constitutes an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to purchase any interest in any NOAA or NOAA-affiliated products. This call is copyrighted material of NOAA and may not be duplicated with our consent. With that, I would like to welcome our Chairlady and CEO, Ms. Wang Jingbo, Chairlady Han Yingjun.

Hello, everyone. Today is the first part of the phone call meeting. I would like to first talk about the thinking of Hongguan, and the internationalization of Longya, and report on the overall performance of the first quarter and the development of several major U5 units. Next, I would like to ask Pan Qing to introduce the financial information for this quarter, and finally, the interactive questions. China, China, China, China and Zhe Yin. China Market After three years of epidemic control, with the release of control restrictions and the opening of borders, we believe that China's economy will return to the path of growth. But economic recovery takes time. We see that although the consumption of tourism, catering, and other industries is declining, the sales of cars, real estate, home appliances, and other large-scale products are still declining. This indirectly reflects the cautious attitude of the residents to the growth of income. We believe that China's wealth management and asset management industries, which are dominated by capital market products, will encounter some challenges. Weiguo Wu, Hong Li, Wing Shan Ng, Melo Xi Weiguo Wu, Hong Li, Wing Shan Ng, Melo Xi In 2019-2022, after three years of organizational change, Weiguo has formed three more mature product BUs, namely Gefei, Weixiao, Yongyao, Baoxian, and Xintuo. The three product lines are divided into international and domestic organization structures and relatively independent operations. In 2022, Weiguo began to actively build overseas sales capabilities and overseas online customer service capabilities, achieving better progress.

For the agenda of today's conference call, I'd like to first talk about the macroeconomic environment, known as global expansion progress, and then report on the overall performance of the first quarter, as well as our various business segments. Then, Grant Pan, our group CFO, will present the financial information for the quarter. And lastly, we'll end with a Q&A session. After an extremely complex macro environment in 2022, the macro challenges still persist in 2023. Heightened interest rate levels and a tight credit environment in the US not only limited the recovery in economic activities, but also significantly impacted the stability of the European and financial systems. The loss of depositor confidence in small and medium-sized banks and regional banks spiraled into an accelerated withdrawal of savings and bank rents, also causing shareholders of these banks suffering significant losses. While US regulators provided timely protection for client deposit in these banks, the restoration of investor confidence in the capital markets was inevitably delayed again. In the Chinese market, after three years of pandemic control, we believe the Chinese economy will get back to trajectory for growth, as COVID restrictions were lifted and borders opened. However, it will take time for the economy to recover, and we see that while consumption in sectors such as tourism, restaurants are picking up, Sales of big-item tickets such as real estate, automobiles, and home appliances are still weak, which indirectly reflects the cautious attitude of consumers towards future income growth expectations. We believe that China's wealth management and asset management industry, which is dominated by capital markets products, will encounter great challenges as the bank deposit portion of consumers' financial assets might be held longer. and China's wealth management industry will shift back to bank dominance. On the bright side, we believe the rising savings rates also provides growth opportunities for diverse investment products in the future, benefiting distinguished independent wealth managers like us. As overseas inflation and U.S. dollar interest rates remain high, we have seen a substantial increase in overseas Chinese demand for global asset allocation. As an independent wealth manager, NOAA's overseas offices in Hong Kong, Singapore, and the U.S. have become substantially more attractive to overseas Chinese Hannaworth clients as they can offer a more diversified range of global wealth management products. From 2019 to 2022, after three years of organizational reforms, NOAA has internally formed three established product business units, namely Gopher Asset Management, Fun Smile, and NOAA Glory, which provide insurance, family trust, and other value-add services. Each of these product BU's has relatively independent domestic and international operations. Starting in 2022, NOAA has also begun to actively build overseas direct sales capabilities and online client service interfaces to better serve global Chinese investors.