Azimut Holding Spa Ord

Good afternoon. This is the course call conference operator. Welcome and thank you for joining the Azimut Holdings First Quarter 2026 Results Conference Call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, they may signal an operator by pressing star and zero on their telephone. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Giorgio Meda. Very first. Chief Executive Officer of Azimuth Holding. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for Azimuth's first quarter 2026 results presentation. As you know, I'm Giorgio Mera, CEO of the group, and I'm pleased to be here in Milan with Alessandro Zambotti, our CEO and Group CFO, and Alex Sopera, Head of Investor Relations. So following and defining a record-breaking 2025, I'm quite proud to say that the first three months of 2026 have proven that our growth trajectory is indeed structural and accelerating. We have started the year exceptionally well, setting a very powerful pace that underpins another year of expected high-quality growth. So let's get started and move to slide number three, please. Despite adverse and volatile market conditions during the quarter, our teams across the globe have once again demonstrated the true strengths, scalability, and resilience of our diversified business model. We closed the first quarter achieving a staggering 4.6 billion euros in head inflows, an absolute record alongside a highly solid net profit of 125 million euros. Importantly, I want to highlight that 4 billion euros of these inflows were entirely organic, making it our best result on record for organic growth, and this translates also in attractive double-digit growth in recurring net profit. Alongside these strong operating numbers, we are making steady progress on our broader strategic priorities. First of all, in the U.S., we have successfully integrated NSI, further strengthening our footprint in the world's largest wealth market. and where we are about to launch a suite of active ETFs, bringing our market-leading global asset management capabilities directly to American investors. Meanwhile, the TMB spin-off remains firmly on track. It is a transformational step, I remind you, for the group that will unlock significant value, and we are working diligently towards its completion, and Alessandro will discuss it in more detail later in the presentation. And on the back of this strong start of the year and our continued operating momentum, we confidently confirm our full year 2026 guidance of 10 billion euros in net inflows and 550 million euros in net profit. And with that, let us please move to page number four. Here we detail the financial metrics that underscore this robust start to the year. Total assets reached under 44 billion euros at the end of March, up 32% year-on-year, and this reflects both strong organic growth and the continued expansion of our global platform. In terms of net inflows, the story here is a sustained commercial momentum of our global platform with half of the inflows generated outside of our domestic operations remains strong and continues to be the cornerstone of our success. Importantly, this growth is translated daily into high-quality financial growth. Looking at the top line, we delivered 271 million euros of revenues. We have revenues up 14% year-on-year, and this is highlighting the resilience of our business mix. The same momentum is visible in profitability, with recurring EBIT increasing by 14%, a group net profit reaching 125 million euros, with recurring net profit actually being up 15% year-on-year. Let me also highlight that global operations have contributed 14 million euros of net profit, representing 12% of the group's total. This contribution is still below its long-term potential and was temporarily impacted by subsidiary items and business growth effects as we scale our platform. However, the direction is clear and we expect this contribution to continue growing as our global platform matures. In summary, Q1 2026 sets the page for another year of robust and sustainable growth. So turning to slide five, we look here at the bridge from our reported net profit of 115 million euros in the first quarter of 2025 to our current 125 million euros. As the title of this slide suggests, this is a clear story of high-quality earnings expansion driving record profitability. So we start from the left, and you can see here very clearly a strong 14% uplift in our recurring operating performance after cost. If you want to see that differently, we grew by 20 million euros. We also generated 4 million euros in value performance fees, split equally across both our initial funds and our insurance products. And let me remind you that this has been done during a quarter where market conditions certainly, you know, were not the easiest for everyone. However, it's important to know that, you know, the markets around the world and our global operations book performance fees on a semi-annual basis. Hence, you know, there will be certainly a better contribution coming at the end of Q2. These strong quality operating drivers were only slightly offset by 2 million euros impact from our strategic affiliates and the GP stakes. primarily due to lower dividends from the GDP stake in business and due to an 11 million euros impact from other items below EBIT and Alessandro will detail on those later. While this reflects higher gains on our own investments year on year and the continuous strong growth on NOVA, there were some negative fair value options, net of non-operating costs, finance expenses and higher minorities. So, yes, the ultimate takeaway from this bridge is that our retirement profit grew by an impressive 15% year-on-year, reaching 128 million euros. Now, turning to slide six and seven very briefly, we provide here a deeper look under the hood of our classified profit or loss statements by business lines and geography. So we start with integrated solutions like TIX, which is our core business dedicated to retail and affluent customers. Here, our clients, let me remind you, daily benefit from our full vertical integration and the direct synergy of our investment professionals and financial advisors. As a result of this, business commands superior margins, and as we are seeing robust growth here, coupled with disciplined cost control, in Italy, we see this vertical expanding across all metrics, and ultimately, our net profit margin increasing year on year to 71 basis points. In our global division, the higher net profit margin here over here reflects the scalability of our proposition across our key international financial hubs. and result in increase in recurring and ancillary revenues. Looking at our institutional and also business, we delivered a strong asset revenue growth driven primarily by NOVA and MSI. While the bottom line for this specific segment is temporarily impacted as we integrate the ladder and the science of our platform, we remain highly confident that the strategic value and future revenue potential will unfold in short order already during the course of 2026. So finally, looking at our strategic affiliates, we are seeing that strong business growth is progressively and finally translating into improved profitability, yet impacted by financing costs as investments are still in an expansion phase. So moving to slide seven and zooming in by region, the message is very much the same and consistent across our entire global footprint. seen outstanding resilience and commercial momentum with our net profit reaching under 10 million euros and our net profit margin remaining exceptionally strong at 67 basis points. Globally, top-line growth in America is being driven by the premier change. I mean, we said following the consolidation While the net profit contribution from this global operation is temporarily impacted right now, it's fully expected to unfold progressively as we bring disasters to scale. And all of these, while maintaining an healthy group, require net profit margin of 14.1 at this point. Ultimately, the takeaway from both of these slides is clear, continued platform expansion, resilient margins, supported by cost discipline are driving our net profit increase across Italy, the Americas, the Asian Pacific region, and Europe and the Middle East areas. So now moving to slide eight, more on the qualitative side of our business performance. We see that our commitment to global excellence and global and local expertise is benefiting not only our clients, but also recognized by the industry. On this slide, you see a selection of recent awards that we have won around the world. I'm particularly proud to highlight that Azimut was recently named the world's best independent wealth manager at the Private Banking Awards 2026 by Euromoney in Singapore. This prestigious global recognition highlights the strengths and consistency of our independent business model. It acknowledges our commitment to excellence and our ability to combine a solid international presence with a long-term strategic vision. And all this in turn allow us to deliver high-quality tailored advice services to clients worldwide. Beyond this overarching global award, you will see top recognitions across our entire asset management platform. For example, in Brazil, EasyQuest was recognized at the Mayores do Mercado 2026 Awards organized by Exame BTG Patrol. Furthermore, in the United States, North Square Investments was named as a winner at the 2026 Libre Fund Awards for its Prosperity Income Securities Fund. From the Americas, our specialized Islamic funds and our Asian wealth management teams, our investment capabilities are being celebrated locally and globally. This broad success proves that we are delivering superior performance and measurable client value in each market that we operate in. We zoom here on the performance of our Italian clients, and we look at the net weighted average performance that we have delivered since the start of the year, as I mentioned earlier, in adverse and, you know, volatile market conditions. We had a very solid start, and certainly, you know, the period was not easy for everyone in the market, but, you know, we managed, you know, to overcome, you know, the sharp turbulence in March triggered by the geopolitical anxieties that led to a sharp excited market correction. However, our teams have stayed highly disciplined and maintaining a constant dialogue between our portfolio managers, our financial advisors, and ultimately our clients, and we have successfully navigated this complexity. I'm pleased to report that despite the highly unpredictable market, our net weighted average performance delivered to clients here to date is at 2.1% that is currently beating the industry benchmark by about 50 basis points. So furthermore, our outlook remains confident with resilient global growth, solid corporate earnings, the potential easing of global trade tensions expected in mid-May. We are perfectly positioned to capture a further upside for our clients. At the same time, let me stress that we are driving forward our strategic expansion and continuous product innovation in private markets. And certainly here, empowered by our global ecosystem, we recently secured exclusive access for our Italian clients to a prominent U.S. artificial intelligence project, allowing them to co-invest alongside leading institutional investors. And including this club deal, our power market inflows in recent months have exceeded 950 million euros, projecting us firmly towards our goal of over 2 billion euros of power market funds raising by the end of this year. And with this, I hand over to Alessandro to give you more insight into our financials.

Yes, thank you, Giorgio, and good afternoon to everyone. So moving to slide 10, and let us break down the quality of the revenues. Total revenues reached 371 million euros, which represents a 30-50% increase year-on-year. This was primarily driven by our recurring fees, which grow by nearly 39 million euro, or 14% year-on-year. If we break this down further, our global business growth by 28 million, and this was significantly boosted by an 18 million euro perimeter effect from the successful integration of NSI, Kennedy Capital, Skypost, and NOX. And furthermore, our existing global business added almost 9 million euros by solid organic growth in Brazil, Singapore, and Egypt. It's also looking to Italy. We also deliver strong growth across the business line, adding over 10 million euros to our current fee. And this was supported by the usage perimeters of the public fund, the private market fund, our advisory service, and also our partnership of NOVA. And while we achieved impressive double-digit growth here on here, and let me spend also a moment comparing these figures against the fourth quarter, we achieved quarterly growth despite the natural trend of having fewer billing days in February. And if we adjust for those missing days and account for the adverse March market that Giorgio mentioned before, our growth is actually higher than compared to the So, therefore, we look completely ahead with increasing of the figures over the remainder of the remaining part of the year. Looking at the performance fees, we recorded a 2 million euro increase here on year. This positive result was mainly driven by momentum in Monaco, Singapore, Turkey and Switzerland, which successfully offset a 1.3 million euro negative footprint effect in Italy. Furthermore, looking to our insurance revenue, we reached €35.5 million for the quarter. This includes a very solid base of €28.5 million in highly stable recurring revenues due to the underlying asset growth and a favorable product mix. And also, as well, we benefit from €7 million in insurance performance fee, mostly recorded in January and February. Finally, our Central Commission income and the other revenues also showed a strong positive development, primarily driven by higher central fees across Dubai, Switzerland, Monaco, and Singapore. So overall, this is a picture of highly resilient and high quality of revenue generation that perfectly supports our growth looking also to the following quarters. So then moving to slide 11, we analyzed the evolution of our operating costs. Total operating costs for the first quarter amount to €206 million, which represents 15% increase year-on-year. These projections are entirely coherent with the expansion of our consolidation perimeter and the underlying growth of our business. Breaking down the main components, distribution costs increased by 4 million euro to 116 million euro, and this variation is directly correlated with the growth in our recurring revenues both in Italy and abroad. And within this line item, we observed a tiger social security and service payment for our Italian financial advisor, which were largely mitigated by lower provision for valuable incentives and reduced marketing costs and costs related to events. Looking to the personal and the SG&A expenses, we have an increase of 20 million euro year-on-year. to reach €82 million. I would point out that €19 million of this increase is entirely linked to our global business. This primarily reflects the changing perimeters that we just mentioned for the recurring fees and are related to the United States and Brazil for the amount of €14 million. On the other way around, in Italy, we have an increase of 1 million euro, confirming our ongoing cost discipline in our domestic operation. Finally, depreciation and amortization and provision increased by 2 million euro. This movement remains substantially linear and primarily reflects the perimeter effect that we just mentioned also for the previous line of the P&L. So in summary, our cost dynamics remain firmly under control and are directly aligned with the strategic expansion of our platform. So now moving to slide 12, we highlighted our operating and net profit figures that are stood by strong organic growth and geographic diversification. At our recording here, it rose to 157 million euro. And this represents a 14% of increased billionaires. Below the operating line, finance income amounted to 7 million euro for the first quarter compared to the 15 million euro in the same period of last year. This 7 million euro is primarily driven by a positive 10 million euro contribution from our assets and portfolio performance. And this positive interest was partially offset by a negative 4 million euro adjustment related to the fair value option and equity participation, alongside a negative 1 million euro interest from the IFRS 17. And then looking to the tax position, we recorded a rate of 22% in the first quarter, but our guidance for the full year 26 remained at around 25%. Finally, looking at the bottom line of our reporting net profit was 125 million euros, and our recurring net profit reached 128 million euros. This confirmed an highly robust 15% expansion here and there. So let us now turn to slide 13 and talk about the net financial position. Our balance sheet remains very strong and provides an highly solid foundation of our strategic initiatives. At the end of March 26, our total cash and cash equivalents stood at €980 million. On the liability side, you will note our bank loan figures stood at €45 million. This financial debt was coming up from the acquisition of an SI, and we are currently at the renegotiation of this debt. to secure better financing terms for the group. Looking at our cash deployment during the first quarter, we have sold 43 million euro in M&A and investment to support our expansion in the U.S., Brazil, and Italy. We also did a duty 60 million euro share by backup, which is approximately 488,000 shares and an average price of 33.4 euro. This outpost was partially offset by a positive 24 million euro influx related to the reimbursement of stamp duties and net of taxes that we paid in advance. Importantly, this robust 647 million euro net cash position doesn't yet include the upcoming cash dividend of 2 euro per share that will be paid the 20th of May. So now moving to slide 14, we outline our capital structure and shareholder remuneration targets. I will not go into full detail here again as we presented this plan in March. The key message is that we remain committed to returning approximately 25% of our current market capitalization to shareholders between now and the end of 2017. So as part of this commitment, the AGM has recently approved our share buyback program with cancellation of shares. This covers up to 10% of our share capital, equal to about 500 million euros at current prices. From the execution standpoint, we will conduct this share buyback in various branches over the next 18 months, and we expect to start the first branch after the dividend payment in May 26. But as usual, we progressively update the market regarding any buybacks that we will execute. So let's now move to page 15, where I give you a quick update on the TMB project. The project is currently on track, and also the TMB division is proceeding with the solid growth results. Since our last update, we have completed the remediation activities related to urban capital management, which have now also been reviewed by our internal audit team. The regulator is currently conducting their customary follow-up assessment, and our dialogue with them remain constant, transparent, and highly constructive. The prerequisite is that to continue and receiving the necessary regulatory approval from the regulators for the overall TMB transaction. Based on the current timeline, we remain confident that the project will be completed before the end of 2016. So I now hand over to Giorgio for the conclusion.

Thank you, Alessandro. So turning to slide 16, let me wrap up this presentation by looking at our guidance for 2016. You know, what is obviously a very clear, robust operational performance achieved today makes us very confident on the ability to deliver sustainable growth, and we are confirming our targets for the year. So let me remind you that under normal market conditions, we are targeting 10 billion euros in dollar net inflows and a core net profit of 550 million euros excluding extraordinary items. Let me give a bit of a spoiler. For April, a new money figure that will be published early next week. And let me anticipate that we have already achieved over 5 billion euros in net inflows to date. That means that we're already 50%, you know, halfway to our annual target in just four months. While on the profitability side, with under 25 million euros, we have already secured what is essentially a very solid first quarter, but we are absolutely on track to deliver another year of robust and sustainable growth for our And with that, let me thank all of you for the time today, and we will now open the floor to your questions. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. This is the Chorus Call Conference Operator. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and 1 on their touchstone telephone. To remove your question, please press star and 2. Please pick up the receiver when asking questions. The first question comes from Elena Perini of Intesa San Paolo.

Yes, good afternoon and thank you for taking my questions. I've got three questions. The first one is on your recurring fees as basically the growth versus last year on a life-for-life basis was quite limited and also compared to the fourth quarter, there was some of a drop, so I would like you to elaborate a bit more on the trend that you are expecting going forward, especially in terms of margins. Then I would like you to ask about your TMB project. So you are saying that you are confident to finalize it by year end. I know that you are under regulatory review for the remediation plan. Is there any other potential obstacles that you could find in your path? Yes, and finally, I was wondering about your JV with Unicredit. Unicredit is a looking for an alternative to Amundi for next year. How do you feel about this, and do you feel ready for potential replacement if it would come? Thank you.

So let me take the first two questions. So starting from TMB that I would say is the easiest one in a way that, as you know, there is no additional point to add compared to what I already mentioned. So there are two streams of work nowadays. There is one that is built by the fund, so by FSI. to let's say present and define and fix everything that is required to get the license. And on the other way around that is also important because it's part of the condition to get there is the stream that we are dealing with the Bank of Italy in terms of obtain the okay, you know, to proceed with the extraordinary transaction. So where we are, as I said, we finalized the remediation plan. We completed also the internal audit review. We present and provide everything to Bank of Italy, and now Bank of Italy is dealing to review and to get all the confidence to give us the okay to proceed. At the moment, there are no elements, no, to be negative. From the other way around, we continue to manage the situation with them, with their constant dialogue. So, therefore, we just, you know, try to work in the correct way to get the results within the end of the year. Referring to the recurring revenues, so first of all, taking consideration the same perimeters for taking out the effect of the global business evolution, so without having the contribution of the 19 million coming from the new acquisition. So the like-for-like comparison has to consider from the global business, €9 million of growth, and from the Italian business, €10 million of growth. So the current business compared to last year is producing €19 million more compared to last year. That means 10% growth. Obviously, as I also said during the presentation, we have seen an evolution compared to the last quarter that seems, you know, to be not in line with the expectation, but the key elements that we have to consider is the fact that February So the quarter in general, if we compare the number of days that is based on the calculation of the, let's say, the recurring fees generated by our fund or portfolio, discretionary portfolio, et cetera, has to be compared with two, let's say, two days more of the full quarter Q4. That means that we are missing in the revenues around two, three million euro of growth, so positive contribution obviously, and also we are impacted by a March that was a month very complicated from the situation outside the market that impacted the AUM. And also, one point more, when you look to the growth of the group in terms of AUM, you have to, let's say, maybe decide to allocate also the growth in terms of AUM or net new money that are coming from the strategic affiliates. So, a few elements, and as you know, sorry, the strategic affiliates are not consolidated line by line. Therefore, to only know as well, there are three elements I would say to put on the table to make the right comparison with the last quarter of the year. And therefore, from our, let's say, in terms of size and the numbers that we are managing, also the other way around, we are seeing a positive growth on the evolution of our recurring revenues. I'll let Ben Giorgio for the last question.

Yes, and let me tell you that, you know, we love all our clients, all our partners. Certainly, we can say nothing less when it comes to Unicredit. You know, we see this relationship working great. I think what is very important for us is that we are delivering to Unicredit clients top performance. I guess that strengthens our relationship for the future. And, you know, we stand ready should Unicredit need any help on their strategic focus on asset management. This is what I can say but certainly we read the press as you do and nothing has changed since we have seen the news regarding relationship that Unicredit has with other players in the market.

Okay, thank you very much. If I may, I would have a follow-up. It is a question about your private credit and the private market exposure. Just an update. If you are seeing any tensions in your exposure or everything is like... you said in March. Thank you.

Yeah, on this one, Elena, I think we have elaborated during our last earnings call on the fact that our private credit funds have very little to do with the areas of the markets that have created some troubles elsewhere, particularly in the U.S., One aspect that is certainly very important to highlight here is that, you know, our private credit strategies are essentially focusing on asset-based finance. So we talk about, you know, private credit with the strength of a very strong collateral. And second of all, most of the travels are related to the so-called evergreen fund structures, I mean funds that, or committed to provide liquidity to investors should, you know, investors redeem, you know, part of their investments in the funds and probably a bit of mismatch between, you know, the portfolio composition and these liquidity needs have created, you know, the issues that we have seen in the market. But none of our funds here in Italy are evergreen, in particular when it comes to private credits. We only have one evergreen portfolio in the private credits carried to institutional clients. But, you know, I can say that we always manage it with the liquidity buffer in line with you know, the potential liquidity that we need to provide. So all in all, we see no issues. We have no impact on our performance and, you know, this is related to the fact that what we do here is very different from what others do, right or wrong, something that anyway doesn't really create any issues for us or our clients.

Okay.

Thank you very much. Just for your question also before with regards to recurring fees and how to model them out. Actually, if you want to do it on a light-for-light basis, it's best that you would now take the Q1 numbers and would probably factor in about a 1% quarter-on-quarter growth for the remainder of the year. And this basically already are baking in that benign market, what we assume so far, and then, of course, the fundraising targets, which we have given out and then may potentially update in the course of the year.

Okay. Thank you very much. The next question is from Hubert Lam of Bank of America.

Hi, Ellen. Good afternoon. I've got three questions. Firstly, this is a follow-up on the Evergreen question I was just asked. I think, Giorgio, you mentioned that you don't have any Africans in Italy. I'm just wondering about any African funds you have in the U.S. through your various stakes and entities, any impact on them so far. That's the first question. Second question is, on the regulatory review for the Bank of Italy, just wondering when we should expect them to respond to you. What's the expected timing on that? And last question, a question around the NSI and how integration so far and how that's coming along. And you also mentioned about launching some active ETF funds through NSI. Just wondering in your view how much you expect to raise through these new funds. Thank you.

Okay. I shall respond to the first question. So when it comes to our GP states in the U.S., we do not have any manager in the market with the Evergreen Fund structure. So what I said earlier is actually true also for the U.S. Hence, you know, we see very little risk of contagion as opposed to what is troubling others. When it comes to NSI, yeah, we said very, very successful integration of NSI into our platform. Let me tell you, I mean, we don't provide many money figures by a single business. We actually consolidate everything into a geographic sort of aggregate. But NSI today is contributing significantly. approximately 200 to 300 million dollars of menu money. This is actually something even better than we expected considering our initial projections. Certainly, you know, every month is different from the other, but, you know, things are going great. We had a bit of integration cost at the beginning, hence a bit of impact on the profitability. The launch of this activity on July 1st certainly will mark, you know, an important and meaningful development, even for Azimut, as we have never been really active in this space. It's a great way for us to enter the U.S. markets with our global investment management capabilities. We are already registered with our Salesforce strong market interest. ETS will be available, will be made available, sorry, to a very large audience of RIAs, private banks, commercial banks, broker dealers. We have more than 6,000 investors. We tend to be always very, very conservative when it comes to this thing, so we are projecting by the end of the year many money into the ETS into the range of between $200 to $300 million. But, you know, certainly we are undershooting here on what is the real potential. a very hot topic in the U.S. in light of, you know, the very appealing tax treatment that, you know, the instrument has with the mutual funds. Last year alone, there have been more than 7,000 activities launched in the U.S. market against only 50 mutual funds being launched during the same period. And the fact that we are entering the market with these global strategies, what the Americans call international markets-focused portfolios, I think right now, looking at what's happening in the world, looking at investors' preferences, the U.S., people seeking diversification even when it comes to currency, I think, you know, this is a great opportunity where we see, honestly, little competition from, you know, the incumbents. stronger, better known for what they can deliver, you know, when it comes to the U.S. markets, but when it comes to global strategies, I think we have a bit of potential here because of our agility and always, you know, think different and disruptively as opposed to what the others do. So we are very confident, as I said, NSI was a transformational deal for us in the U.S., And we see this as a very meaningful engine of growth for assets and profits for the short, medium, and long term.

And taking the second question related to Bank of Italy and TMB, I mean, unfortunately, the time is an element that we do not control. From a regulatory point of view, there is no, let's say, kind of number of days within they have to answer. Therefore, what we know that we have not to do, let's say, the wrong way to approach to them, so make them pressure. So, therefore, we are keeping them As I mentioned before, updated on everything and keeping also the good dialogue that we build over the last few months. So we are just waiting, I would say, but on the other way around, we are, you know, keeping the dialogue open. Great. Thank you.

The next question is from Ian White of Autonomous Research.

Hi there, thanks for taking my questions. Just a couple from my side, please. I guess just around the sort of delays we've had on T&D, can I just understand whether that's causing any other sort of frictions or challenging conversations internally? I'm thinking about things like advisors becoming restless, unusual attrition, anything like that, just because I know that your advisors wanting to raise deposits was one of the reasons that you explored this in the first place. So that's my main question, please. And just secondly, is there any particular reason that you're stopping short of increasing the net inflow guidance at this stage? Is that just caution? Is there a specific reason that this run rate might not be sustained over the next eight months? Thank you.

Let me tell you, first of all, on the impact from what's happening in terms of engagement and constructive dialogue with the authorities, the regulators, vis-à-vis our entire advisors. I mean, Adimus has been operating as a non-banking financial institution for 36 years. It's not a couple of months changing the way badges are in the markets and you see the results in terms of new money, people that are still very effective, very strong. Our business at the end of the day is based on very strong personal and business relationships Certainly, we would have all loved to have, you know, the CNB transaction being closed by now for a number of bigger reasons that there's no need for me to elaborate on, but that is not impacting the determination and the commitment, you know, by advisors to keep delivering, you know, performance and service to clients. So we see no impact and we see no stress, as I said. In a way, as usual, we are waiting and working hard to make things happen, and, you know, we remain confident that it will happen within the timeline that we have been extensively commenting on until now. And then when it comes to name your money, so let me take this question with a light answer, but it says a lot. We have a tradition of overshooting our menu money targets, and we have always a tradition of upgrading our menu money by H1 results. So let's see whether we can keep the tradition of, you know, changing our forecast, you know, in July when we report on our H1 results. What we see right now is absolutely, you know, giving us all the confidence that we can't keep delivering. But, you know, we won't sort of do anything different that will sort of make us look, you know, too, I mean, rushing in changing things, you know. As I said, let's be a bit more patient for another couple of months, but, you know. As far as we can see, this might be another year where we will deliver better than we expected at the beginning of the year. Very good and clear. Thank you.

Next question is from Alberto Villa of Intermonte Sim.

Good afternoon, Giorgio and Alessandro. Thanks for taking my questions. I have a couple. I missed it, but it's a busy day. Did you give any anticipation about the April net inflows trends? That would be helpful. The second is on slide 14. I see that on top of the committed equity at the end of 2025, you also had another 300 million in the coming 18 months, and a fair portion of it would be potentially dedicated to M&A, so I was wondering if you can give us a sense of what might be of interest for AdMob in the M&A space. It's a significant amount of money that could be invested, so it would be interesting to get your view on that, and on the first tranche of the buyback, can you quantify what would be the amount that we start after the payment of the dividend. Thank you.

Okay, Alberto. You must have been very, very busy because we made a very clear comment on every menu money at the end of the presentation. So we will update, obviously, with the official figures early next week. But we can say right now that, you know, figures are pretty strong and that would make us certainly you know, closed the first four months with cumulative menu money above 5 billion euros. Let me tell you that was, you know, the result of strong commercial performance both in Italy and across our global operations. When it comes to, you know, committed equity and how much of that is earmarked for M&A, Look, I think here what we want to convey onto you is an approach when it comes to, you know, balance sheets and, you know, let's say financial management. You know, historically we have been sort of favoring M&A as opposed to, you know, shoulder remuneration when it was coming to making that decision of managing capital. What we have been saying now loud and clear over the last year is that we're going to approach this topic with a balanced approach. Both growth and shoulder remuneration are equally important. As it is a growth company, we will never retreat from a mission of growing the business, even if that is... non-organic, yet we want to have a balance sheet run efficiently. And, you know, our capital management strategy that we announced now a few months back, I think, is a testament to this commitment to manage its return capital to shareholders in multiple ways. Should there be any major M&A, you know, I think we will keep the same balanced approach and we will make recourse to fair-party financing, I mean, in the form of debt, and that we certainly prove an approach remaining consistent and certainly aiming at what is a disciplined management of our balance sheets, where discipline means also taking care of deficiencies, so an optimal balance sheet. leveraged structure that allows everyone, but shareholders in particular, to enjoy both earnings growth and capital return. When it comes to the share buyback and how we will be in the market following the dividends, I'll let Alessandro to comment on that.

Well, we are obviously looking to define a partner to, you know, to proceed with this process. It's going to, you know, probably split it in two tranches. The two means between six and nine months for the single tranche, so 250 and 250. And actually, the fit is something, you know, very linear in terms of approach.

Okay, thank you.

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Excellent. So we thank everyone for attending this call and look forward to seeing you all soon. Thank you.

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