Alior Bank Sa Unsp/Adr

Ladies and gentlemen, a very warm welcome to our conference at Alior Bank where the management of the board will summarize our performance in 2023. The first part of the conference will talk about the performance of the company performance and that will be presented by Grzegorz Olszewski. In the second part of the meeting, we have concluded the presentation.

We will have a Q&A session and I encourage all of you to ask questions already during the first part to make sure that we move smoothly into the second part.

Good morning.

Let me welcome you to this summary of our performance in 2023 and of Q4. Let me move on to the figures.

First of all, at our bottom line, both in terms of our interest, profit and the commission revenues, in addition to the performance which you know, you have seen the figures, I would like to draw your attention to

the fact that we're on a trajectory that ensures that the bank has repeatable consistent performance. Certainly, the high interest rates have an impact, but we also have some improvement in terms of the quality of risk management.

And this translates to stability of the bank, which is improved.

And for the first time in history, it will be the intent of the board to recommend that the General Assembly of Shareholders pay out a dividend of 570 million. And this is our result from Q4.

And in line with the decision of the Financial Supervisory Committee, the income from Q4 can be paid out.

The first three quarters have become part of our capital bank. Now, this slide, I think, shows very well how the bank is developing. and I'll discuss the business areas in a moment. First of all, in terms of assets, we have exceeded 90 billion zlotys. The bank is growing and it's using its equity to grow the volume of credit lending. 5% and the working credits went up by 6% and this is a very good result against the rest of the sector. In terms of the volume of assets, this is also supported by a high NIM indicator, which is one of the highest in 2023.

Now, on the other hand, we have credit risk. This is the development of the bank's assets, which is based on good quality, on market quality.

So the development of the bank has been supported by a very good credit rating for our individual and corporates.

clients.

In addition to day-to-day banking operations we remember our history so we've been reducing the non-performing loans portfolio. The current figure is a very good one and it's taken a lot of work on risk and business side so the volume of credit has grown but we've also optimized the non-performing portfolio. In terms of our capital position, we are stable and also the C-I indicator is also very good, but Radek will tell you more about the cost structure in a moment. Moving on to our business results. In terms of mortgages, we got a very good result and we announced that when we introduced the strategy. We said we would use this fact and this is what happened. If there are opportunities coming up in the coming months, Google also wants to use them. But for cash loans, this has been stabilized in our portfolio. In some periods, there is price pressure that we feel.

And in Q4, we focused on mortgages as a result.

Consequently, this strengthened our position in terms of installment credit. Now, let me now move on to mortgages. In mortgage loans, we sell more than 2 billion. in Q4 and there's a larger volume and a larger number of clients. The 2% credit sales is connected with the lower risk for new payments and the lower cost of risk in our opinion. So there are the provisions to incentivize the customer to pay the installments regularly and also not to move the mortgage to a different institution we had identified that as an opportunity and that's why we are focusing on using it when we look at the market We have got a very good result considering our capabilities. We've never been the leader in mortgages. We are leaders in other areas. But mortgage loans is very important from the point of view of transforming our bank to become a more universal bank with a very dynamic portfolio of assets. and the past year has shown it. We are growing in terms of assets, we are growing in terms of the quality structure of our lending portfolio. Cash loans are stable in Q4 and we focused on mortgages more and due to the scale of customer service in branches, also the pricing issue,

All of that meant that we decided it was not a priority to go down with our pricing. That's why Q4 was slightly weaker than Q3.

For installment loans, 20% share in the market, which is a record. and the growth was 30% quarter on quarter. This is a great result and this is in consequence of our very good relations with the partners and also results from our technology which has allowed us to create a technological advantage, competitive advantage. becoming more and more important to sell online through the digital channels and that is where we have a lot of competitive edge because we've got the experience and we've got the processes that we had developed and we've got the experience in addition to the number of customers the relations are becoming better and the KPIs also show it.

We are competitive and the pricing is competitive as well.

This is because we are strengthening our relations with individual and business. I'll talk about the individual customer right now. You can see it in the number of bank accounts, bank transfers, blick payments. And all these figures have been going up. Q4 was the best in terms of the customers who are using services on the mobile application. And the development of the mobile application will remain critical for the bank. Both external and internal research shows that the customers support this and that this channel is developing very well. So it's the mobile first strategy and it's absolutely critical for the bank in the coming quarters.

The second pillar, support for the business clients.

And here we have a growth of lending and we are also emphasizing increasing the productivity, not just for loans. This is a very important target for us.

Our involvement grew by 5 million and our commitments, we have a 7% market share in commitments between 20 and 60 million.

which is a considerable amount for a bank of our size. And this is what we are focusing on and this is also a year when we saw an increase in the limits for the loans and that's going to convert into working assets. This is something that we can't normally see with the naked eye, namely the behind-the-scenes digitization of the activities, the result of which is supposed to be an increased productivity and efficiency in terms of how we provide our services to the customers without having to increase the headcount. Nearly 70% of all the transactions are done remotely. of small companies is close to 67%.

When I talk about the relations, the bars in the top right-hand corner show how good the last year was.

And this is the sales of transaction products that grew several fold. And this is a result of automation of all these remote transactions, which means we have more time to talk about the products, not just the lending products.

It's also

the other things we are working on, strengthen them in 24, which is our new mobile and internet banking systems that will be rolled out for business customers too.

trends in the business customer segments.

The balance of assets in regular servicing goes up. The balance of assets in collection goes down.

And this is something we have seen before. Now the lending appetite is quite low in the business segment but we are succeeding in making it and we want to use this new trend just like we managed to use the opportunities in retail.

90 billion thanks in part to mortgages. So the same is something we would like to see here in the business segment trying to get closer to triple digit assets. And the last year showed that this is possible as long as the transformation continues at the pace it has so far.

2023 business results. We are quite happy with that, quite good when it comes to the digital transformation. the new mobile banking unveiling for individual clients. What we are going to do is to alter and improve it on an ongoing basis. Clients' feedback demonstrates that they are more happy with this. It is going to be personalized. Please remember, Two very important announcements and implementations are on the horizon. We are going to start with the app for children and the other app for people that require a simplified version. We call it a senior type. However, in more general terms, it is targeted at clients who are more into a simplified version they want to have it more clear rather than comprehensive when it comes to capabilities we can see the chance of tapping into artificial intelligence some of the processes like chatbot have included the ai utilization it has improved efficiency however there is a quantum leap that we've made to date it was in 2023 we transferred the data warehouse into the public cloud this transfer will make it possible for us to be even more innovative with even greater scalability and cost efficiency. But what was the decoy beacon was the increase of safety and security. We are Poland's first bank that transformed this way. It was a swift transformation and we delivered our strategic goal in this area. Now we want to make the most of it. What needs saying is the fact that Alior plays in a different league when it comes to data related infrastructure. Being in a public cloud offers greater possibilities that we want to tap into to make the bank even more dynamic in its development. And on top of that, we increased safety and security of the bank's systems. Many of the offers and implementations have supported the business results. Blick has been made available for sole proprietors. We listen to clients' feedback and this feedback is most important to us and it boosts our relations. In addition to our business activity, we are also very much involved in CSR. We try to pay attention to most important questions. We use cutting-edge technologies. We and Mastercard have made it possible to support institutions that support disadvantaged people via a digital channel. Physical activity is of pivotal importance to us. Therefore, we develop a number of initiatives. Clients, prospective clients and people who are not our clients yet may encounter and become familiar with the Aliorbank that supports local societies. Corporate order, ESG ranking, this is what we joined in and we are turning towards green assets, another step in this direction. Not only is this a business chance, but also the answer to the regulatory questions that require us to meet the highest standards. It's of pivotal importance. 2023, from the point of view of governance, demonstrated it. It was the year of improvement of the bank management and financial Supervisory Board's consent to pay dividend to the level of 50% and increased rating indicate that we have assumed the right direction, direction of building a strong universal bank that is credible and ready for growth. This is the strategy that we have delivered. Let's speak about risks and over to Tomek. 2023, Q4 of that year, very good result in credit management, 17.15 TCR, 1783, which means 4 billion surplus in Tier 1 and 3 in TCR. Similar in LERL, we have exceeded the regulatory thresholds And there was a great demand for papers that we issued this year. It was the growth quarter, RCR, NSFL, 143% at regulatory minimum that were met at 100%. As far as the liquidity is concerned, it was a safe quarter. Liquidity and assets of our group. not working, not performing loans, DEX has improved again. You can see the figures on the presentation. And back in 2020, it was 14.5%. So it's taken us a long time. It's been a long way. There's still a long way ahead of us, but we have delivered measurable results. The project that we realized over the few quarters and which was partially settled in 2023 and in the first months of 2024 requires our attention. Non-working, non-performing loans incorporated section that is real estate supported has been sold. It is over 2 billion zlotys gross. and additional 300 million. It is very important because it is more difficult to reduce it on corporate clients. We've been the first bank to do this transaction. It's a lesson learned for future. Credit risk, we are below 1%, one of the best, if not the best result in Allure Bank's 15-year history. In previous years, 1.35 and over 2% in 2020 and 2019. This very good result is a consequence of sales efficiency and quality and assets mix on the other hand. It was also supported with positive NBL sales results in the corporate portfolio as well as regular sales that we use in mass retail portfolio and update of macroeconomic forecast in our portfolio. Another year, 2024, and we expect to deliver a similar result. The risk cost will circulate around 1%, going into greater details in credit risk quarter by quarter. loans impaired loans a decline npa retail segment npl four and four which is the market level pretty good business portfolio 1517 there is something to be done here but as you can see we improve the ratio every quarter and it declines by 1.5 percent on year-on-year basis 54% when it comes to coverage in retail and in corporate segment. Risk costs, cost of risk, we started with elevated level because our clients were getting used to high interest rates and internal quality improvement effect impacted the following quarters and we had one-off support Cost stable in time when it comes to business and retail improvement. Summing up the risk, capital position has been improving, liquidity similar credit risk, we've been quite consequent in our communication of improvements. Every quarter delivers measurable business results that are delivered in hundreds of millions of Polish zlotys. And over to Radek. Thank you. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Let's start with some general comments. Let's look at P&O. over 2 billion zlotys income. It needs to reverberate it when we speak about 2023, 200% increase compared to 2022. We need to remember what happened in 2022, the credit holidays and similar. So let me remind you. of this when making the comparison. Quarterly results. We also delivered record breaking level 587 million slots, 63% higher compared to Q4 2022. And a glance at the indices. they need to be highlighted when we speak about the income return on capital, 26% and average yearly capital much higher. It is worth mentioning here. Margin 6.2022, 5.89 for the whole year, if not the biggest, This is one of the biggest margins in the sector, which makes us happy, but we need to couple it with two other indices because they need to be presented jointly as Tomek said, the risk cost, this minus score difference. We are ambitious to make it even more attractive. And as you can see, a major role is played by risk cost. If we improve cost of risk, this makes us even more attractive in the eyes of investors. And another bit important information when we look at our balances, something that needs highlighting, the portfolio increase We are profitable, high margin business model and there is an increasing portfolio that retains profitability and margin. And in our case in 2023 there was 5% increase in our portfolio. And what is worth mentioning is the comparison and benchmark with the market that delivered 2% decline. So it shows how robust our numbers are and our growth, despite the externalities. And without returning to this slide, legal risk costs need highlighting. It is challenge number one for the sector. Swiss franc credits is what I'm speaking about. The balance value, 116 million zlotys, as you might remember. We have court litigation, December rulings of the Tribunal of Justice, and limited number of litigations have impacted on our decision. That is 46 million reserve for the Swiss franc portfolio. and we can say that we perform well when benchmark with the market and further data will be explaining the most important pnl lines we start with interest income upper right hand side chart. This is the economics and dynamics when it comes to income and interest costs. The reference third and fourth quarter, 100 base points, It has influenced the repricing of our portfolio. Credit portfolio, this is around 1%. The broken line shows you the interest cost. And we are getting better and better quarter to quarter by a dozen or so percent. It has been forced by our internal reaction to the market condition changes and the other factor, the influx of deposits from the market. We have seen the 10% increase in deposit base on annual basis. The two have been accommodated. 67 million quarter to quarter in our hedging strategy. These have impacted the better result when we compare it quarter to quarter. What is worth mentioning, we work on higher assets with the increase of 8 billion over the year. how it is invested. It's been mentioned by Grzegorz. We utilize safe mortgage tool. We are performing pretty well in the ranking when it comes to capital and performance and liquidity. So we grow in this sector. This is what we've done. And the rest of the surplus is secured by bonds.

All of the above means that the margin is slightly lower, but it boosts our lending portfolio. And you can see it by the figures that we have for the whole year, which is a very good level.

It's very high. I think we will be referencing it as a benchmark in the future.

In the corner on the right-hand side, the net interest margin is 6.22.

This is described in more detail in our statement. We had the so-called credit holiday and the rulings of the Court of Justice.

But nevertheless, this is a very good level, very attractive level, which shows that we are on a plateau as a sector and as a bank. The cost of financing is also very attractive below the market average. So if we look at the value of 6.08, it also shows that our deposit base is growing and we use it to develop our lending portfolio and then there's the securities. So All of that means that while the margin remains attractive it'll probably be at more or less the same level as in the past year. Now the loan to deposit ratio is over 80 percent and we are happy to keep it like that. This is our core business. which is combined with a growth of 5%, which you can see in the slide. Now, the demand for lending exists in our economy, and we are more than happy to participate in all the different sectors if only this growth materializes itself. for our commission's income. We should first look at the changes year on year. We can see that the difference is five percent or six percent actually. And we're very happy about it because especially on the retail side we believe we have very attractive conditions. So we are hoping for this relation based contact with the customer. And it seems this is happening. We are growing year on year. And like said, the number of relations and customers and the customers in the mortgage and installment loan segments, all of that is going up.

And we expect the line to continue to go up.

Now, as for the remainder of the data, which you can see in the slide, as we said before, in the coming quarters, we will be showing the commissions on FX. It'll be part of the commission's income to make things more easy to compare than they are at the moment. We are happy about the other commissions, including brokerage commissions. And this basically confirms what we talked about before. Now moving on to the costs. The operating costs are going up as they are everywhere in the economy but they are growing in line with the market. If we normalize the costs throughout the year on the left hand side it's kind of at the same level. But we had different other burdens in the past year, such as the fund to support the mortgage borrowers. So if we adjust that, we've got a growth of 16%. which is round about the inflation level. Now, if we dwell on the composition, first of all, in terms of employee expenses, this is a normalized growth of 18% or 25 million, which was an item in Q4. There's mostly sales bonuses, and what we call central bonuses, and also anniversary bonuses, because it was the 15th anniversary of the bank. So we wanted to celebrate this anniversary with our employees. So a normalized 18% is round about the average value for the market. Now then we have marketing costs growth because that correlates with sales. We've got IT costs as well as the lease and operation of property. Now we have other costs and other revenues when it comes to any disputes and the sentences for the disputes to make it more clear as a separate item. so these are values that are quite similar to competitors and given our interest income all of these are at historically very good levels our strategy always refers to our targets and our goals we wanted a short perspective we were quite conservative back in the day given the macro conditions in the past so financial efficiency the macro situation, all of these things mean that in terms of our indicators and KPIs, we are at much higher levels. So this translates into a better situation than a year ago. And that's why the regulator confirmed this recommendation to pay out a dividend. So this intent has been expressed by the management board in the current report. Now, questions might arise about any follow up to that. We will be working on the new perspective and these KPIs mean that there are many development projects underway. The main KPIs have already been met in terms of the target values, but these projects are underway. And that's probably going to be reflected by our future results. So this is a summary of 2023 and I'll give the floor to my colleague. 2023 was a very good year. And this is both in terms of our business performance with a record level of assets at 90 billion, which confirms that it is possible to attain it on the Polish market, even though it wasn't easy, especially that there was no appetite among the business clients. So you can grow your assets organically and that's very important because that's part and parcel of our strategy. At the same time, we managed our credit risk in a very responsible and safe way. We worked on reducing our non-performing loans and that translated into a better rating for the bank. S&P emphasized the fact that this rating has been improved in spite of a very difficult environment for the Polish banking sector. We're back into the WIG index of the Polish biggest companies. So this is our performance on the stock exchange. And we have managed to grow the assets while maintaining a high profitability. So our profitability is high. We had some space to reduce the cost of financing against the market average. and we are working on it on a regular basis and we want to maintain this work to make sure that the bank creates assets and reduces the risk by increasing the relations with both retail and business clients and basically improving the quality of the financing. I'm sure that the trends that we started in 2023 will continue in 2024. This is it and I think it's a good time to move on to our Q&A. Thank you very much. The first question is what was the impact of your sales NPL on your reserves in the past year and what was the impact of the recalibration of the portfolio parameters? The latter was about 120 million zlotys. The former, the impact on sales, on the cost of risk in both retail and corporate, it was 77 million.

Thank you.

What is the average value of a consumer loan given by Alio? 25,000 zlotys. How much gross profits did you get from selling your portfolio? What did you get in the first quarter of this year? This will be presented during the next conference, as will all of the results for the first quarter of this year. How serious do you think the situation is as far as potential litigation relating to the so-called free consumer loan? And are the consumers approaching the bank to hand over the documentation about that? And if so, how many have done that? We treat this just like any other attempt to undermine a business agreement, whether it's about Vibor or the Swiss franc or any other loans. And the whole sector is treating this very seriously. The impact on the sector is small at the moment. The sector and ourselves win the majority of cases. But learning from the experiences from other banks, we do not want to treat this lightly and we want to make efforts to maintain this at a very low level that does not impact the bank much. The impact is low at the moment, but if you think about it long term, if you imagine that you can get a loan and then not repay it, well, this attitude is already present at the moment, but this could infect other sectors as well. So I think this is the last moment to say no. If you have embarked upon these commitments to get a loan and repay it in your contacts with a bank, then this is the deal we have. Any agreement If it's faulty, then the principle of proportionality should be used and you should just remediate the fault rather than undermining the whole contract. No loan is free of charge. There is no such thing as free lunch. Someone is going to pay for it at some point. If we look at the scale of this, well, it's the taxpayer who pays for it. If this free loan thing grows, then it's going to be the taxpayer that's going to pay for all of it. because only a very small group of people will get richer at the expense of the economy. Thank you very much for your answer.

And another question. The perspective two or three years, the market rates declines are unavoidable as it seems. So how do you want to get ready to accommodate the situation? Thank you very much for this question. The market rates decline are expected in a long or short perspective. But before I answer your question, I'd like to point out that we would like to make the most of the decline in credit activity. As it was mentioned, we can grow in any situation and we want to grow despite of the declines in the situation that we are facing. We're getting ready for that. You might remember it from the previous conference, the trajectory liberal for the economy and the margin result. We've been getting ready for that for many years, fixed rate portfolio. of credits 16 million like 24 percent of our portfolio in 2021 it was 10 15 in 2022 so we keep increasing this natural hedging but we also remember about the swap site we've got 18 billion portfolio on the side, which answers your question too. And there are also requirements of an AI natural and swap transactions sides will see the hedging increase. Thank you very much, Radek. Another question. Recently, banks have increased investments in state bonds. Doesn't this threat the stability of the banking sector in your opinion? So let me answer from the point of view of the very sector. It's not a good phenomenon. It's a bad phenomenon from the point of view of the general economy with a hindsight when In the balance sheet, the state bonds were predominant. The situation produced more problems than benefits. The banking tax construction is preferable for state bonds. Poland versus European Union. This index is already low when we see the credit deposit index. It is not a beneficial situation. Is this already a threat today? No, it is not from the point of view of the banking sector, though from the point of view of economic development, this is a negative phenomenon. If the levels grow, some selected institutions might face a challenge. But today there's no risk of this kind. Aliorbank, our index is a paragon compared to others. Credit to deposit index is what I mean. A word of comment to this question. National Bank, NBP, informs that this risk is at the medium level. It's an average risk. We need to agree with this. With this deposit influx, banks, including us, want to locate it into credits. But there is the question of demand. If deposit base increases, and there is no demand for loans, for putting aside the safe mortgage. So this kind of investments into state bonds is visible, but capital-wise, liquidity-wise, sales-wise, we are always ready to accommodate the demand and make the most of all the chances that appear. Thank you very much indeed. what will be the impact of hedging transactions on the result in 2024. Let me return Q3, Q4, 70 million is what you see. It is related to the change of the market rates. We need to assume and the consensus is that rates will remain unchanged until the end of the year. 120 million quarterly is what we speak about on the side of the burden. Compared to 2023, the costs was 775 million, so it's positive 300 million zlotys a year in 2024 by comparison. Another question, what is gross balance value of foreign, of mortgage credits in foreign currencies and Swiss franc? And what is the reserve for it at the end of 23? We refer to the whole foreign currencies portfolio, 1.6 billion and the portfolio that I mentioned, 116 million zlotys. This is Swiss franc portfolio that I mentioned. it is 80% and the value compared with the rest is almost 4%. However, This is the derivative of the situation that there is much litigation risk on this portfolio, which is most important from the point of view of the bank and the whole sector. The total foreign mortgages amount is 150 million Polish zlotys.

Thank you very much.

Guidance on risk cost 100 pips in 2024. Does it consider the impact of NPL portfolio sales? Let us give you some context. We sell portfolios in the Polish market twice yearly on average. We haven't had this sale this year yet. And non-standard transaction in the European market that happened and was settled at the break of January and February. guidance accommodates what happened without taking into account the prospective risk of the sales in the two markets that i mentioned before the thing that happens every year thank you very much another question nim what will be the shape in 2024 Let me remind you of the freshest one, that is, one-offs have been removed, 6.08% Q4, but there is a number of assumptions related to interest rates. If we look at our portfolio and the places we want to grow in, as Gregorz mentioned, that is mortgages, leasing part, the secured assets. And if there is no demand, the state bonds investments smaller margin, but smaller cost of risk. So we should look at this in combination income taking into consideration the cost risk. So we are close to the level of 2023, but we are quite cautious in this assumption. Another question. It's about dividend. So what dividend is expected for 2024? Will it be 25%, 50%? What is the dividend policy that we can expect? This is the question from shareholders. It's a difficult question. It's difficult to be precise because there are many factors that impact the actual level. The dividend, or better to say the Board's recommendation, the intention that we have today, It's like 28% of the annual income, profit.

The bank is in the growth rate.

It should be the bank that keeps growing. In some areas it should grow faster than it has grown until now and faster than the general market wherever possible so that we build assets. The Board's assumption is as follows. The dividend shouldn't be very high. Long-term, it should oscillate around the levels indicated in your question. However, we need to bear in mind that there are so many externalities that may impact the bank's needs, risks, macroeconomic situation that might have adverse impact We might issue shares, the market might go weaker, so there is a multitude of factors that need to be analyzed on an ongoing basis. However, our recommendation, the Board's recommendation, has been supported with long-term perspective of the Bank. The Bank is mature enough to pay out the dividend. However, the level must be adjusted and accommodating the factors that are to come in the years to come. And also we need to bear in mind that we manage the bank properly. Costs for 2023, 1.35 is the level. Improvement in 2024, what is it the result of? How can you go down to 1%? Can you go down with NPL below 5% at the end of 2024? If so, when will it happen? Risk costs corrected for 2023, 1.35%. But when we see the quarter by quarter development, the first quarter was worse. The following one was better. So the starting point is better. If we speak about the improvement, the quality, the mix of assets, it is not visible. It is not the target level. We'll see further improvements. And we've seen the trends of the recent months that have indicated that 1% is the base scenario. It's the end of February 2024. We know more or less what will happen until the mid-year when it comes to our portfolio. NBL, less than 5%. We look at different scenarios. It's low or extremely low probability that we'll reach this level this year. We speak about the reduction of a few billion Polish zlotys. As the European market says, projects indicated, we've got the initiative that stands a small chance at the beginning, but it will develop. It will be discussed in the consecutive strategy. Five percent within three or four years, I believe it is attainable. If our initiative go flying, it will happen. Three or four years. Another question. what is alias expectation in credit volumes in 2024 in different parts of the market The previous question relates to this one. Optimalization and growth, on the other hand, in new areas, the working portfolio growth and interest rate, if they go down, this will revive the credit market. Mortgages area, My. undergo a revival. Therefore, we want to be active there. We want to develop in this area. Leasing, we have had very good results on a year-on-year basis. We want to be active here too. And there is a certain unknown in the corporate part, so the corporate demand for credits. We are in the midst of transformation. We are ready for that. We optimize processes. We develop the remote access channels. So if there is a greater demand, we'll make the most of it because we are very well prepared to offer loans, finance. We have stable capital position. We are one of the banks that enjoys this good starting position. to do our job and make the most of the chance. It's important to reach three digits result.

Thank you very much.

And we'll take the last question. What's the sensitivity to interest rate change of your interest income? Given the performance and assumptions in the presentation, we estimate it to be 200 beeps. Right, that's all. Thank you very much. There is no more questions. A big thank you to the speakers and to our audience. Thank you.