Bank Of Ga Group Plc Ord

Hi, everyone, and welcome to Bank of Georgia Group PLC's conference call. My name is Ninia Arshagonia. I'm head of investor relations. Today, we'll present and discuss the group's financial results for the second quarter and the first half of 2022. Group CEO Archil Gachichiladze will start with an overview of the group's performance, and then we'll take your questions. Please be aware that this call is being recorded. And if you'd like to ask questions, you can use the raise hand feature in Zoom or the Q&A chat. And if you're dialing in, you can press star nine to raise your hand and then you'll be able to ask your questions. And now I'm handing over to Archil.

Thank you very much, Nini. Welcome to our second quarter results call. I think you may have seen already that it is... and extraordinary numbers that we've had in our second quarter, which is a record by many different lines, and as well as a combined net profit of roughly $100 million in the second quarter. So with that, let me dive in and touch on a number of things regarding the macro performance, because I think a great deal of this performance and increases is also due to macroeconomic strong performance. And then after that, we'll go into discussing some of the numbers of the company. So on the macroeconomic side, the second quarter real economic growth has been estimated at 7.2, which brought the first half real growth to 10.5. With that, we... which is way ahead of some of the predictions early in the year. The beginning third quarter performance of 14.9 was due to a low base last year because of the lockdown in 2021 first quarter, but overall 10.5 is a very good number. It's driven by very strong remittances and tourists and immigration flows, as you know, from the neighboring countries. But also exports have performed very well as well. So overall, very strong performance all around. So what that has caused is that we have updated our estimate for 2022 to 9.2%. And in fact, Fitch has just published an estimate for 2022 number of 10.9%. The World Bank and other IFIs are still projecting a 5.5, but I think that number will be updated to a high single digit, if not low double digit number for real growth for this year. Next year, we estimate growth, real growth of 5%, which is reflected what you see there on the chart. Overall, very strong performance versus the region and other peer countries. Georgia is experiencing high inflation like most of the world. June number was 12.8 and July number was 11.5, so slightly lower. But the core inflation was 5.08 and 7.1. So overall, I think there's still inflation and pressures are high. And that's why the tight monetary policy that the National Bank is implementing right now, as you can see, the refinancing rate is at 11%. We'll probably stay longer than we originally anticipated. And at the end of the year, our estimate of inflation is 9.5. which we estimate will bring the average inflation for the year of 11.7%. So all in all, I think this year we are experiencing a nominal growth of above 20%, which is really an extraordinary performance for the Georgian economy. Lari has been strengthening over this period of time, over the last few months. From the beginning of the year, Lari has strengthened by 12%. You may recall that we have been talking about Lari being oversold last year. And that has stabilized now. And as you can see, it's in fact a little bit stronger than the long-term trend. but it's only to reflect some of the shifts that have been happening in the economy as a result of geopolitical turbulence in the region. And you see that there's also some logistical and transport corridors are being rerouted towards southern Caucasus, which will have a long-term positive impact for Georgia. So there will be investments going into transport corridor of different types of logistical um, um, ports and, uh, logistical centers and so forth, because right now, uh, as this corridor was underutilized, in fact, right now it's, it's grossly overutilized and we are experiencing delays, uh, on this corridor because there's so much demand for, uh, for the cargo to go through this, uh, corridor, Southern Caucasian corridor, I mean, so, uh, this will have a positive impact on, um, for medium term because there will be investment going in that way now let's discuss some of the numbers company specific numbers as you know we the retail bank is composed of mass retail premium and MSME and there I think our leadership is strengthened and I'll touch on different numbers as we go forward The strategic focus is presented here, and let me go one by one what our progress has been. The mobile bank and iBank for individuals, our number of monthly active users is up by 31% year-on-year, and it's getting close to 1 million number. And as a proportion of our monthly active users, but not digital, the overall monthly active users that do business with us, which is not presented here, but it's also up by more than 10% to 1.5 million. Our digitally active, monthly active users to total clients, total active clients is 64%, which is a significant growth of 8% versus last year. And that makes us quite happy that we see that trend of our customers becoming more and more digitally active. In terms of number of transactions, the mobile and iBank, and it's predominantly mobile, is up by 57%, which is also quite strong growth. And in terms of the amount to DAO, the monthly active users to daily and vice versa, daily active users to monthly active users, that's almost 46% for any financial app, in fact, to have so much daily interaction. is a very good number, 46%. And that is important for us to have daily interaction with our customers so that the stickiness and the franchise value is stronger that way. The overall number of transactions was up by almost 33%, but as we described previously, our mobile and internet bank users were up by 57%. So that basically means that more and more people are doing banking with their mobile phones, and that has become 54% of total transactions. So you see that other channels are not growing as fast as mobile, which is very good for us. That shows that mobile is very comfortable. way of doing it, and people are finding it easier and easier to do more of their banking using their mobile phones. In terms of product offloading, we were at 33.8%, which is slightly short of our guidance of 36%, which was for June 2022. In fact, in July, we're slightly above 36%. Hamed Nademiya, There was due to the fact that we tightened the consumer loan underwriting as we as we were seeing high inflation, especially on the on the subprime segment. Hamed Nademiya, And that is highly digital product so as that was limited slightly that that we do slightly the automation but overall very close to the target. Our business internet bank and mobile bank has shown a significant increase in quality. So customer satisfaction score of our internet bank for our business customers has gone from 64%. It's an internal measure, but when you're doing it versus the previous time, it showed the progress. And it shows the progress that we have achieved integrated a lot of feedback that we get from our customers into the product development. And over the last one year, we've seen a significant increase in the quality of our product. We are also seeing addition of monthly active users to our internet and mobile plan for business, which is 31% and 39.5% according, which is very strong numbers, as you can see. Something which is very significant in my opinion and really reflects the strength of our franchise is also our payments franchise, which in the volume terms, we have seen 63% increase in our POS terminals and in physical POS terminals, our market share is 52. When you combine it with the e-commerce is roughly about 50%. which I think by any measure is a very strong position and the overall volume is growing very well. And in fact, I think we are contributing to making the economy more digital and cashless with our new products and the good coverage of our POS terminals throughout Georgia with merchants. Our NPS was broadly stable, but slightly down from 55, 54, 52. But overall, as you can see, the long-term trend is up. The slightly down was due to increased volume of flow in the branches due to more activity of remittances and immigration from the neighboring countries. we have taken measures to make sure that the flows are smoother and it's fine now. So we should see that trend restarts to grow again. Now, regarding some of the monetary numbers, because most of what we've described now is what is the basement for some of these figures that we will talk about. So here are some good numbers that we've been fortunate to have in the second quarter and first half of 2022. Something that I believe is noteworthy is it's the first quarter where we have seen return on equity higher than cost income, as one of the analysts have highlighted. And I hope that this will now be the last quarter to see those things. So we'll see. In terms of the operating income, in the quote, it's up year-on-year 47.7%, and on a half-year basis, almost 40%. Non-interest income, which was even higher by roughly 100%, and for the first half of the year, 70%. Expenses were also grew 32%. So it's not a small number, but still way lower than the overall revenue number and half year basis was 30%. Some of it was due to acceleration of expenses when we have done basically two senior directors have left us as we have announced to the market. And the way IFRS is done is basically that all the uninvested shares are expensed in the quarter when that kind of change happens. Partly that and partly some of the other changes. Overall, I think the expenses still grew strong, but I think given the inflationary environment, it was nothing unusual. Court income ratio has gone down to... 32.5%, well below our medium-term target of 35%. And for the first half of the year, it was 33.6%. And in fact, some of you may recall that when we were discussing the yearly results, last year results, we were predicting this year to have negative operating jobs given the inflationary environment. but obviously the revenue performance has been even stronger than the cost increases. So this is what we are seeing. And in terms of before going to balance sheet items, in fact, something that we closely monitor, and maybe we should put this in the presentation, is our performance of a pre-provision level, which for the half of the year was 46%, I think. Yes, 40%. 46%, but then for, yes, 46%. But for the quarter, the pre-provision was up by 60%. That shows a very significant growth of the business, as you can see. And this is in Lari terms. And obviously, because Lari has performed better in dollar terms, it's even stronger. Now, in terms of the balance sheet item growth, so the loan portfolio grew by 10%, but to show you the business release in constant currency basis is probably a better measure. It's 17.8%, Q over Q is 4.3, which is higher than our medium-term guidance, but given the strong nominal growth in the economy, that's still economy is still leveraging, in fact, because it's still lower than the nominal growth of the economy. Deposits had a very decent growth of 16% year-on-year and 9.1%, again, in total currency terms. In terms of net interest margin, we were flat QOQ and up by 60 base points year-over-year. And happy to dive in if there are any questions there. And loan yields and deposits you can see. In terms of cost of credit risk ratio, we registered 60 basis points for second quarter 2022. And for first half year, it was 0.7, which is closer. It's getting closer to long-term guidance of roughly 1% that we have, especially on the retail side. In corporates, we are seeing some recovery, and we'll see how that goes. But we may see some more recoveries, in fact. in corporate, but overall, I think we are getting closer to the normalized level as the time is progressing. We are seeing on the NPL level, largely flat, as well as coverage ratios slightly down, but overall, I think similar in terms of the long-term trend, what we have. So all in all, in the summary, the net profit was up by 36% versus last year. Also, we benefited from negative cost of risk, if you remember, in the second quarter 2021. And to show the overall business on a pre-provision level has grown by 60%. Return on equity, 32.8% and 31.8% for the first half year. Now, what's interesting is that this performance has been done with very strong capital ratios. In fact, core T01 is 14% above, 2.3% above the minimum requirement. They have similar kind of buffers on other requirements. And when we look at Basel III fully loading estimates that we have, which will happen end of next year, it's not much left. Let's say it's another 30, 40 basis points. So we are still already with the fully loading ratios. We have significant buffers above that. So what's interesting also, which some of the investors may not pay attention to is that our reported national bank standards right now is... is stricter than the IFRS. And National Bank has announced and has taken steps to make these numbers close. And in fact, we may have one reporting very soon. And from next year, we'll start reporting both numbers. And at some point, we'll just switch to IFRS, which NBG will do. And we will see roughly 2% higher core tier one ratios, which MBG has guided that they'll introduce additional buffers to absorb that. So it will not be a source of additional capital, but it will still be very positive because the investors, you will see that the bank's core tier one ratio is more like 16 to 17% instead of the current 14%. which by any IFRS comparison, in fact, by peer comparison, is very healthy capital position. And our return on equity is even more pleasant to see that it's done on a very healthy capital position. Liquidity remains strong, and we have very strong liquidity. Last year, we had too much, in fact, too much, which we've normalized, but still very high equity overall, very healthy, very healthy numbers there. So the long-term Long-term targets that we have of delivering through the cycle above 20% return on equity, we are performing very comfortably well above that target, as well as roughly 10% cost and currency growth, 10% portfolio growth, also delivering a bit more than that there. And regarding the capital distribution, as you've noted, we have announced the interim capital distribution of 1.85 Lari per share, as well as continuing the buyback of stock. So it's a combination of dividends and buyback, and it's only for the first half of the year. So it's an interim. And then... as the year progresses or in the beginning of next year, we'll discuss the full year dividend on top of the interim obviously. So that's about it. Thank you very much. And I don't want to take more of your time. And in fact, I'm happy to answer questions.

Nini, would you like to open?

You have the first question from Robert Sage.

Yes, thank you.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Yes, Robert. Thank you. Please. I've got two questions. The first relates to your very strong foreign currency gains. And clearly, I would guess they're not sustainable at the Q2 level, given... The volatility in the Larry, but I was wondering if we look beyond this. Do you think there's been any structural increase in your FX games on an ongoing basis or should we sort of expect they're going to fall back to historic levels of, I don't know, 100 to 120 Larry or something of that order of magnitude.

Thank you.

So that was the first question, I guess. Right. So let me take that one and then I'll wait for the second question. So the FX, yes, I agree that this, Robert, I apologize. There's a lot of noise coming in from your side. If you can mute, I can answer and then we can go back to the question. So the FX, yes, we have had a very strong number. which was significantly higher than our historic performance. Some of it is due to the economic flows which have increased, which we are experiencing strong economic growth, but also we have benefited from remittances and the immigration activities that we have seen happen in the country. That may not be sustainable, but the overall increased business will be. So roughly our estimate is, we will see what numbers will come, but we think that medium term, let's say roughly 30%, 35% less should be sustainable. Having said that, some of the economic activity is still continuing. I mean, as we are halfway through the, third quarter we still see very very strong numbers so that doesn't doesn't look like it's it's going very soon but obviously it is this component let's say one third roughly very roughly that may not be uh sustainable of that fx number yes thank you for that the the second question was very simply um that you drew attention and sort of pulled out of the cost increase

that some of that related to the termination of the service agreements with two of your senior directors. Could you just give some sort of idea of the quantification of how much that might have been in the second quarter, just so that we can get a feel for the underlying cost inflation number?

So there was roughly 11 million Lari, which was associated with the early termination in this quarter. So it was acceleration of those costs. Then you also had a change in the senior management compensation contracts, where basically we expense more upfront in the contracts than we used to. So that's having also an additional impact. component to it. So when you look, let's say, at the employee and other benefits that are, if you look at employee salaries, let's say, and cash bonuses, they're growing roughly 12, 13, 14%. And the rest is basically due to certain changes and extraordinary types of changes.

Thank you very much. Thank you, Robert. for your questions.

So the next question is from James Hamilton.

Thank you, too, if I may, please. Firstly on capital, clearly you've enhanced your buyback and you've raised the dividend. And you've also suggested that your core capital ratio will go to 16% once the RFS transition comes in. I was just wondering, should we be expecting any further capital bills from here? Or is it your strategy that as you are unable to deploy, obviously, 32.8% return on equity is very difficult to deploy. As you generate some excess return over what the balance sheet needs, will you be looking to return all of that to us one way or another, or will you be looking to see your CET1 ratio continue to increase?

Hi, James.

So it's a good problem to have plenty of capital, and we have increased, in fact, 2021, last year, off of that, whatever we returned was twice the 2019 level. And I think of 2022, we will significantly increase the... We have started, in fact, to increase significantly versus the interim dividend of last year that we announced. So I think overall, we are distributing. So we obviously will always make a choice between Distributing the capital and deploying it effectively. And between the choice, what we've indicated to the market is 35% to 50% payout ratio. That's what we'll stick to.

Okay, and secondly, I mean, at the beginning, you described the period as extraordinary, and clearly it was. I was just wondering if you could sort of give us a little bit of help looking forwards. If you can't comment on the performance in July, could you just sort of give us some indication of the direction of travel going through Q2? You know, is it getting better still? Was it brilliant at the beginning and it's slowing rapidly? How should we feel about the direction of travel of the core business?

So basically, you had a few months, about two, two and a half months of extraordinary activity that has slightly decreased, in fact. But overall, I think medium term investment is picking up in the country. So we had the first couple of months, which was very emotional. you had some activity increased and you have a lot of new sanctions coming in. So what's gonna happen and how are you gonna adapt and what processes you have to adapt to, et cetera. Now it's all stabilized. People have put in systems to make sure that this is controlled well and what you can do, what you cannot do and so forth. Plus some immigrants have also gone back to Russia and some to Ukraine because other parts of Ukraine got more stabilized. So we are seeing slightly less, let's say, remittance growth than we had a couple of months ago, but still very strong flows overall. So that's why when we are, let's say, estimating a first half increase of real GDP growth of 10.5%, and estimating a full year of 9.2, we are implying, I would say seven and a half, 8% real growth for the second half of the year. At a higher base though last year, because we had very strong last two quarters last year. So somewhat, let's say stabilized, but still very strong numbers. I don't know if I answered James, your question, and if you want to have more specific question on that, I'm happy to continue.

No, that's fine. Thank you.

So we have a question in the Q&A chat on the FX loan book. Did it drop due to prepayments or lack of demand? from Steven Gorelick.

Hi, Steven. So, Steve, basically, that drop happened partly due to the fact that they translated into Lari. It's a smaller proportion. So overall, I think de-dollarization of the banking sector is going very fast, given the fact that National Bank has built in different type of price incentives for bigger proportion of lottery, as well as bigger proportion of deposits. So every marginal de-dollarization percentage is beneficial for us and for any bank, basically. So that has... dreaming for the system that basically meant that we're down to 48% dollar loans in the total book. And to put things in perspective, a few years ago, basically, National Bank said that they would target roughly 40% dollarization, or they would be happy to see 40% dollarization over the medium term. And it's rapidly going from high 60s down to 48%. pretty fast. So it's partly due to the fact that there are more LARI issuance than dollar, plus, so that proportion is happening, plus you see that you had LARI strengthening is impacting, having a technical impact as well.

There is another question also in the chat. Do you think you'll be able to meet your midterm cost to income ratio of 35% this year?

from MW Compounders.

It's a bit early to say, but seems probable.

We have a raised hand from Simon Ellis from Citi.

Hi, thanks very much for the opportunity. Just hoping you could elaborate a bit more on the margin outlook. I think it's been stabilized. Do you expect it to stay at that level or do you see any upside, downside risks? And then just on loan growth as well, if you could walk us through how you see the outlook, what the pipeline looks like, maybe even a bit further along, like into next year and even afterwards. Thank you.

So first on the margins, we see it broadly stable. So what we basically are doing is that we are doing a lot of treasury operations, which basically has a very small margin, and that proportionally has grown significantly over the last one year. Had that not grown as a proportion of the overall portfolio and kept it constant, we would probably be looking at 30 basis points higher probably than what we have. So it's apples to apples. Let's say when you look at the market, that's probably, it would be more indicative, but it's difficult to separate that out because it's interest-bearing assets and it's on both sides. So it's basically... pushes the margin down. But overall, I think flattish, I would say, slightly increased as it would be if you didn't have that kind of technical impact. So that's the outlook on the margin. Regarding the long growth, as we basically said, as the economy performs strong and we are expecting a nominal growth of roughly 20% this year, we are looking at slightly below that long growth. As you can see, we have done a constant currency of 17.8. Having said that, what we are seeing is relatively soft demand on corporate and mortgage loans, but very strong demand on MSMEs. On corporate, though, I believe that as corporates are, let's say, experiencing very strong profitability this year, they will prepare for larger investments to come. And as the geopolitical risks subside, let's say, over next few quarters, then we may see a significant growth there because they are in a very good shape, corporates are. And And we are seeing MSME growth continue given the strong economic growth. So I think in line probably with nominal growth of the economy is more or less what to expect. And as the economy is doing roughly 10% or so nominal growth, that's what we should expect. That's what our medium-term guidance is. But it could be slightly more.

And just on the margin, to what extent has higher rates been supporting that? And I guess if you do see a bit of a slowdown and rates come down, does that present some risk to the margin outlook?

Well, there may be some of that, but then in dollar terms, the rates are going up. So it will probably compensate one for the other. So, you know, it will, there always kind of means both ways, and it should, it shouldn't be significant.

Okay, thank you. Thanks, Simon.

Thank you. Robert has his hand up, but I think he's had it all the way throughout this call.

Maybe he has a new question, I don't know.

Yeah, let's see.

Let's ask.

We have a question from . Good afternoon.

Thank you for your time and taking my questions. My question was about your exposure to Belarus. You had some write downs in first quarter. uh in general if you could share high level thoughts or plans how do you see this business going forward and uh in the extremely uh worst case scenario theoretically if you need to close the doors tomorrow what are the what is the exposure that we are looking at is it the equity or it's a bit more closer to assets net of cash maybe just Your thoughts would be helpful on this. And on a similar note, I remember years ago you had exposure to Ukraine as well. If you could confirm if there is anything left on your balance sheet.

Thank you, Otar, for that question. I will confirm that there's nothing and has not been for a very long time on Ukraine on our balance sheet. And should there be, then it would be reported, obviously, in our statements. On the Belarus, we have last quarter booked a significant provision under FRS rules to anticipate the economic downturn that may be coming from the regional political turbulence that could have a wide economic impact on Belarus. Having said that, we have not seen so far any significant impact and in fact, vice versa, increased flows in our bank has resulted in very decent results. Having said that, obviously, we understand that given the sanctions and limitations, we will react to whatever comes our way, and we are always ready to adapt what needs to be done, including provisioning or closing doors, as you described, if need be. Having said that, we are in compliance with all the sanctions as a UK company. And we have been able to implement all of this and increase the back office operation significantly to make sure that the compliance stays in check. So that's where we are. In terms of... anticipating any write-down above the equity if need be. I don't expect any other expenses associated, but it's a highly imaginary scenario, let's say, at this point. But we wouldn't expect any additional exposure. So there's no other credit lines or other things other than the equity from the group level at that point or any guarantees or anything of that nature.

Thank you. That's very helpful. And if I can have second question on a more positive note, you have quite strong liquidity. You had some, you continue the share buyback. You just announced the dividend. You continue to post strong loan growth. You did some debt buybacks as well this year, if I recall correctly. So, Just wondering, what do you see as a source of this high liquidity? Is it somehow related to the migrants or it's all organic? Or as you mentioned, exports are rising. If there are any ties between those.

It's mainly the overall economic flow. The migrants' deposits are there, but they're not significant because the national bank requirement on liquidity is such that if you take deposits from non-residents, you get additional marginal liquidity requirement is such that it doesn't go into extra liquidity basically above a certain level. So it's mainly the overall economic activities resulting in higher liquidity. Plus we have plenty of lines from our creditors which are not utilized and we've been in a good fortunate position to be in a place where we have a very strong capital and very strong liquidity, plus unutilized lines which are not included in those liquidity ratios.

Thank you, that's very clear.

Thank you. I don't see any questions at this stage.

Well, I don't want to take you away from, take you away from at least for some of you on location or take more of your time. I think results speak for themselves. In fact, we have been experiencing record revenue and lowest cost income ever in terms of Bank of Georgia history. But what makes me very happy is that our core numbers, which are part of the strategic targets that we have regarding our digital offering, especially our daily interaction, let's say 46%. Our monthly active users getting closer to 1 million, which a few years ago, it was just a couple of years ago, was 300,000. as well as something which was not in the presentation, but it is in our results on the seventh page. The number of active individual clients year on year going from 1.3 million to 1.5. And we're talking about a country where the bankable population is slightly above 2 million. So 14.6% growth in our number of active individual clients. So I think all in all, very strong numbers, not just in terms of monetary results that we have reported, but also on a number of strategic directions. And I forgot to say also on payments, where we have very strong growth in our acquiring business, and that business is increasing different types of innovation projects. and products that we are rolling out. So on that side, we will be increasing our offering as well. So all in all, thank you for your support and for your interest in our call.

And with this, we will... We have one question, one question, one raised hand from Firebird Management.

Firebird, Steve.

Oh, it's Harvey. Hi, sorry. I don't know if you can see me, but just a quick question. I mean, there is some... political concern about Georgia's walking a thin line between, on the one hand, maintaining relationships with, trading relationships with Russia, not joining sanctions. On the other hand, the people support Ukraine very strongly. And you can't check into a hotel in Tbilisi, as you know, without signing a statement of support for at least one hotel for Ukraine. Do you worry at all about any political flare-ups? People understand that Georgia and economic growth is so powerful. On the other hand, your feelings about Russia and Ukraine, do you see any possibility of a flare-up that could affect the business?

So I think what we are seeing is that although Georgia has not joined the sanctions, the financial system has. And in fact, the US government has published a detailed report praising the national bank as well as the local banking system for following those sanctions very well. So in terms of the sanction compliance on the financial flow side, it's all good. um now in terms of Georgia not joining sanctions uh that is there obviously Georgian population widely has uh is supporting Ukraine and you see Ukraine flags almost everywhere on on the balconies of people in the hotels in our branches and you know so forth uh uh and you know if if there are any let's say flare-ups as you described it's you know we see some of it on the Facebook Etc you know it's it's uh basically Georgia government is is trying to have a neutral though um is there a risk that could be but I don't I don't see this significant I mean we have had the largest demonstration um for many years a couple of months ago in support of the EU direction of the country But it was very peaceful. More than 100,000 people came out and there was a message to the government saying that Georgian population widely supports EU aspiration. But that was about it. It was very, very peaceful. And I don't see it growing into something violent. I don't see Georgians doing violence. We've done enough in history. So at least we don't feel it right now.

Thank you. Yes.

Well, and also I would also add that on international international let's say resolutions and et cetera, et cetera, Georgia is, you know, always for for for support of Ukraine, whatever those kind of decisions have been. So that's also important. Let me see this one more question in the chat, I guess. Do you see a risk that Russian immigrants might seek to bypass sanctions from Georgia as the bank at risk of being used as facilitating sanctions, et cetera? You know, we basically are aware of any of these risks, so we've bumped up our back office to make sure that the screening of such transactions, if there can be any, is done at a very increased level, let's say, because, you know, Russia is a highly sanctioned country right now, so any kind of transactions to, from, or any kind of cert countries is, is, uh, is screened, uh, a lot. So, uh, you know, is there a risk? Uh, there's always a risk, but we, we have taken measures in a major way in terms of the immigrants from Russia. Uh, most of them are, uh, let's say out of estimated 50,000, let's say the estimate right now is roughly half is IT specialists. And then you have, uh, but it's, it's really, uh, educated, mostly educated, uh, highly educated, let's say, uh, younger population and they are opening some bars and restaurants and some are doing IT companies, but there's not specifically, they're not large businesses relocating to Georgia, if that's what you mean.

So I don't see the significant risk, but we are aware of such risks and we've taken measures.

Well, with that, thank you very much for your attention. I thought it would be even a shorter call, but it's taken almost an hour. So I don't want to take more of your time. Thank you very much. And bye-bye.

Thank you. Thank you. Bye.