Bper Banca Spa Unsp/Adr

good morning this good afternoon this is the course called conference operator welcome and thank you for joining the presentation of the people groups results for the first half of 2022 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 the telephone at this time I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Pierluigi Montani, CEO of the PeopleBank Group. Please go ahead. Thank you, everybody, and thank you for joining. Before starting with the presentation of the results, I would like to remind you that as a consequence of the decree of the 25th of July, 2022, whereby the Court of Genoa ordered the suspension of the execution, among other things, of the resolution of the shareholders' meeting of Karija on 15th June, whereby the board of directors of Karija had been appointed, Karija could not, in fact, present its half-year results as of 30th June as originally foreseen, and therefore at its meeting today, the Board of Directors of Bipol Bank approved the Consolidated Financial Report at 30th June for the Bipol Group, of which Carice is part, in which the balance sheet data of Carice were incorporated as developed by Carice at managerial level according to the indications stated by the principles and according to the principles applicable. And this data was, in fact, reported by Correja. I would like to present the data and the accounts today. The first six months' results are extremely positive with increasing core business profitability combined with further improvement in credit quality and a solid capital and liquidity position. Results include the effects of the acquisition of Carige with the upside already visible in volumes and credit quality. Net profit for the six-month period amounts to $1,385 million and includes $1,068 million worth of non-recurring items primarily accounted for by Badwill, recognized following the acquisition of Carige. Of this amount, net profit totals $317 million. The net recurring profit for the second quarter amounts to $204 million, underpinned by operating income totaling $916 million, up 3.7% quarter-on-quarter, primarily driven by net interest income growing and net fee and commission income also increasing, respectively by 8.7% and 2.9% quarter-on-quarter. The operating costs for the quarter, a net of 33 million worth of non-recurring items, totaled 557 million in line with the previous quarter. In terms of volumes, they have increased significantly since the beginning of the year, benefiting from courageous acquisition but also from a forceful commercial performance. As a matter of fact, considering the scope on a like-for-like basis, direct funding was up 0.8% quarter-on-quarter, and also net loans were up 2.5% quarter-on-quarter. In lending, new loan origination in the second quarter amounted to $4.3 billion, up 34% quarter-on-quarter, and the trend started in the previous quarter, as communicated previously. As for credit quality, the MPE ratio is 4.3% gross, If I do not remember wrongly, it was 4.9% last time and 1.8% net, down further from the first quarter of 2022, benefiting from both the onboarding of Bank of Korea and from a still very low default rate of 0.8%. The annualized cost of risk is 47 basis points, down from 57 basis points in the first quarter of 2022. As for capital and liquidity, The bank's capital strength is confirmed with a pro forma fully phased CET1 ratio that, including the full benefit deriving from courageous DTAs, settles at 13.4%, broadly in excess of the ZREP requirement of 8.29%. And the liquidity position is likewise excellent with indexes well above the regulatory thresholds. The acquisition of Carige was finalized on the 3rd of June this year to an extent of 79.418% of its capital, successfully concluding a path we started in December last year. This transaction, which we strongly advocated, as we said on numerous occasions, has great industrial and strategic significance as it will allow us to further strengthen our competitive position on a national scale, particularly in geographies where our footprint was limited, including Liguria, and to increase our customer base by 20% to around 5 million customers. As already highlighted in the business plan presentation, as we said before, the acquisition rests upon a strong industrial rationale. We had declared that its impact on capital would be negligible, and so it is. The credit quality upside is already visible, and the acquisition will additionally contribute to increasing the future profitability of the BIPA Group thanks to synergies. These synergies were quantified at 155 million gross, 50% of which we expect will be achieved as early as in 2023, with 100% being achieved in 2024. And the synergies are accounted for by cost savings for an amount of $85 million, lower cost of funding for an amount of $40 million, and higher revenues for an amount of 30 million. Let me remind you that as part of the deal, in order to prevent antitrust issues, an agreement was entered into with Banco Desio for the disposal of 48 branches, of which 40 held by Carice and eight by the people group, specifically by Banco di Sardegna, with closing, which we expect will be finalized by February 20, 2023. As for volumes, as I said, volumes are on a significant increase, driven both by Caritas' acquisition and the forceful commercial momentum since the beginning of the year. In particular, direct deposits from customers totaled $114.5 billion, up 12.9% year-to-date, of which $101 billion mainly accounted for by site deposits and current accounts of retail and corporate customers up 10% year-to-date, on a like-for-like basis, that is to say, excluding the 14.6 billion contribution from Carige and including the volumes of the branches in scope for disposal, which are classified as other assets in the balance sheet, BIPA's direct deposits were up 0.8% quarter-on-quarter. In lendings, Net loans to customers amounted to $91 billion, up 15% year-to-date, with approximately $10.5 billion contributed by Carrije. As part of the aggregate, state-guaranteed loans totaled $8.4 billion. I would remind you that in the previous quarter, we had communicated $7.5 billion for Carrije. Now it's got $5 billion. and two is for Carrije. On a like-for-like basis, net loans to customers were up 2.5% quarter-on-quarter, underpinned by a pickup in loan demand, and as we said, a new loan origination in the second quarter amounted to $4.3 billion, up 34.2% quarter-on-quarter. As for indirect funding, it amounted to $163.5 billion, of which $15 billion from Karije. The stock has decreased by 1.7% since the beginning of the year due to the financial market's negative performance, but also due to the lower volumes at the branches that are being sold, which should be 1.1%. It is, however, noteworthy that... Net funding over the first six months of the year totaled $600 million and remained positive in the second quarter as well, in spite of financial market turmoil. As for credit quality, as we said at the beginning, it shows an additional improving trend. The MPU ratio was, in fact, down to 1%. 4.3% growth and 1.8% net quarter-on-quarter, benefiting also from the acquisition of Carige, whose growth MPE stock amounting to $148 million has been acquired. Net of the loan loss is already taken as part of the PPA, which we expect will sell by the end of the year. On this connection with Carige, in regard to asset de-risking, the amount of gross non-performing loans is expected to significantly decrease further over the next quarters in the wake of the disposal of additional non-performing loans for a total amount of $2.5 billion, which includes the bad loan servicing platform for which considerable interest was shown by specialized industry leading players. And in fact, the exclusive negotiations have been entered into with Gartner for years So the transaction has started, and NPE coverage remains high at 60.3%. And in particular, the coverage of BAT loans is 75.6%. If I remember correctly, it was 76.2%. And coverage of UTPs is 46.6%. Performing loans coverage is 0.66%. of which 4.2% for Stage 2 loans. Again, for credit quality, looking at the default rate, the annualized default rate is still very low and settles at 0.8%, slightly down from the default rate in 2021. And the annualized bad debt recovery rate remains high at 9.9%, up from last year's 6.7%. And the key contributors in this quarter were particularly the disposals of two exposures. And with regard to the securities portfolio, it totals approximately $31 billion, with $3.2 billion contributed to by Carice, and its risk profile continues to be Very conservative, 90% is accounted for by bonds with an average duration of 2.1 years. Italian government bonds amount to 10.9 billion, up quarter on quarter due to Correggio's onboarding in the group with 2.6 billion. And the Italian government bond portfolio duration is 2.2 years. Moving on to the income statement, I would remind you that The six-month period closed with a net profit of $1.4 billion and includes $1,068 million in non-recurring items, primarily accounted for by the badwill generated by courageous acquisition amounting to approximately $1.2 billion. Excluding one-offs, net profit came in at $326 million, of which $203 million million posted in Q2, up 81% on the previous quarter. In particular, in the second quarter, core revenues totaled 872.4 million, up 5.5% quarter-on-quarter, thanks to both a pickup in net interest income, which increased by 8.7% quarter-on-quarter, and net fee and commission income, which was up 2.9% quarter-on-quarter. Operating costs, net or non-recurring expenses referring to the acquisition of Carige, and adjustments to the cost for the workforce optimization effort totaled $557 million. Net impairment losses in the second quarter amount to approximately $104 million, down 8.2% quarter-on-quarter with a cost of credit for the six-month period, therefore settling at 47 basis points versus 80%. 67 basis points in 2021 and 57 basis points in the first quarter. As you can see in the slide on badwill, the details of the PPA are there. And the PPA led to the recognition of badwill for approximately 1.2 billion, inclusive of impairment losses for an amount of 306 million, including 105 million on loans, $69.2 million on property plans and equipment, particularly buildings, $60 million on disposal of branches, $56.6, almost $57 million on contingent liabilities, and $25.2 million due to positive tax effects. So factoring in the non-recurring impairment losses and provisions associated booked two courageous six-month accounts for an amount of $212.5 million. Impairment losses totaled $518 million. Net interest income is the following slide. And net interest income for the six-month period totaled $785 million. up 8.7% quarter-on-quarter, driven by higher interest rates, coupled with increasing lending volumes, and they're still growing after the closure of the reporting period. The quarter-on-quarter reduction in the TLT03 contribution, due to an increase in excess liquidity, owing to the onboarding of Carrija as well, was more than offset by the enhanced securities portfolio contribution, which benefits from higher yields due to the interest rate hike. Customer spread is now 1.4%, up quarter on quarter, including as a result of repricing actions, but that's not the only contributor. We had other actions contributing to that. Slide 17, net fee and commission income totaled $914 million, of which 463 million recognized in the second quarter and was up 2.9% quarter-on-quarter, driven by the traditional banking services segment for an amount of 263.7 million, up 4.3% quarter-on-quarter. And this is also the result of the growth-oriented policy, particularly in the corporate segment, that yielded positively, driven by the effects on the market. Commissions on indirect deposits and bank assurance totaled $173.2 million and proved resilient despite the strong volatility of financial markets, particularly noteworthy is the strong increasing fees on non-life bank assurance, which totaled $26.5 million. Not that much, but still we must emphasize that the increase was – was 92.2% on the previous quarter. So it's a segment that is growing rapidly, and we appreciate that. Then trading income totaled $84.4 million and showed strong resilience despite financial markets' headwinds. Operating costs in the first half of 2020, too, totaled $1. $1,148 million impacted by $33 million of non-recurring costs recognized in Q2, namely $24 million in adjustments to the cost for the workforce optimization efforts making use of the Solidarity Fund announced in December last year. This is due particularly to the fact that the catchment area has expanded, and so in terms of the number of users, so we had to adjust the amount, but it will... yields positively in the future. And then there's $9 million in one-off charges in relation to the process of Banca Caridia's acquisition, in particular in relation to advisory and consultancy. Excluding these costs, operating costs amounted to $1.1 billion, of which $556 million recognized in the second quarter, broadly unchanged as compared to the previous quarter. In particular, staff costs totaled $335 million down 4.7% quote-unquote, as we said before. Other administrative expenses amounted to $173 million, up 7.6%, reflecting the costs incurred for the startup of the new business plan projects, which we had planned, and so it's perfectly in line with our projections. Moving on to the cost of credit, as I hinted at before, I would repeat that... net impairment loss is a total of $216 million. Those that we took in the second quarter amounted to $104 million. But I would like to emphasize that a little bit more than 50% of these provisions were useful only to increase the coverage of loans. And provisions, however, have gone down by 7.4% quarter-on-quarter, which is reflective of the good trend we are observing in credit quality and which we can expect and declare today after the six-month period was closed. The annualized cost of credit was 47 basis points down from the normalized cost of 67 basis points in 2021. With regard to capital, the bank's capital strength remains high with the pro-forma CET1 ratio, fully-faced CET1 ratio of 13.43%. And so to conclude, we're very happy with the way this six-month period went. We had worked a lot on it, and we have observed a growing operating profitability driven by the good performance in both sectors. net interest income and net fee and commission income. There's an ongoing improvement in credit quality, which will additionally benefit from the planned disposal of MPLs for an amount of $2.5 billion. And another thing that we can observe is the sound capital and liquidity position, which will enable us to rise up to the challenge of a very uncertain external environment with confidence. All of this is to us a solid base to support the stronger future profitability, deriving from the enhanced competitive position. So we think we have a good, solid base to build upon, and we are now involved in the integration of Carrija, which we expect will be completed by the end of the year. Try to be as fast as possible so that you have more time for questions, and we're willing to take your questions now. This is the course co-operator. We will now begin the question and answer session. So for anyone who wishes to ask questions, they may press star and one on their touch-tone telephone. To remove yourself from the question queue, please press star and two. Please pick up the receiver when asking questions. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. The first question is from the Italian conference by Domenico Santoro from HSBC. Yes. Good evening and thank you for your presentation. I would like to know if you can give a scholar about the net interest income and net fee and commission income, and costs for the second part of the year, including, of course, the contribution from Karijai. Particularly with regard to net interest income, because there are, of course, some other elements that will be included, the TLTRO and the impact of interest rates, and I would like to know if there are some non-recurring items missing in the second part of the year, particularly with regard to the costs for restructuring. If you can give us further details about that and disposals as well. And what should we expect in terms of Court Year 1 by the end of the year? If you can give us details and the pluses and minuses, so to say. I do not know if it's too early, but I will make the same question that I may have made during the business plan presentation, considering the good results we made, can we expect an increase in the payout? You made one question after the other, and they are all very important. So as far as Courtier 1 is concerned, we reassert that the acquisitions impact is expected to be negligible, and it is, and so we do not expect any variations, any substantial variations on that. Of course, the second part of the year is challenging, and we'll see us involved in a number of transactions, but I was saying that the performance is good, The trend is good. I cannot say it's going beyond the expectations because we had worked on that a lot during the first part of the year. But we think the trend will continue as expected unless the market or the context deteriorates. But I can confirm what we stated in the business plan for payout. So we had given guidance. for the end of the business plan, so not for the end of the year. So not for this part of the year. We cannot confirm the second part of the year yet. So it will be more generous than in the past, but it will also have to take into account some transactions that are complex and that we will include, but I can confirm what we said in the business plan. As for net interest income, considering also Karija's contribution, we expect $450 million. So to be generous, it could be $495 million, but this is the range we expect. I hope I covered all of the questions. You said something about non-recurring items. As planned in the business plan, we have just started, so there's a number... of costs that we will incur and they are the ones that we had assumed so we will be more precise in the second part of the year but we do not expect any surprises on top of what we stated so I'm confirming what I stated during the business plan presentation. The next question is from Marco Nicolae. Good evening, and thank you for your presentation. I would like you to confirm that in the P&L you're not including any effects from CARIJ going beyond the bad wills. Yes, yes, I can confirm that, yes, Mr. Montani says. And then again on the bad will, can you confirm at this point that you have you have covered all of the badwill, including 100% of it, and not only the badwill that concerns that part of shares that you are already holding. And can you also say that in terms of M&A costs, everything was taken in the P&L and we should not expect any additional costs? And then with regard to the decree of the 25th of July, that you hinted at at the beginning of your presentation. This decision by the court of Genua, is it likely to delay the effect of the synergies? What should we expect out of this decision? What are the next steps that you will take to resolve this issue? And that's it. So these are my questions. My microphone was off. I'm sorry. Yes, for the first questions you made, my answer is yes to the three of them. Then as far as the write-downs and integration costs in the P&L section, are concerned yes for sure there will be some cost in the second part of the year because we've just started but they are the ones that we have envisaged and included in the business plan so there are no additional costs on top of what we had already mentioned and the last part of your question is that you know that more of a novelty to us as well because the decision by the court was a surprise to us caught us by surprise and so there will be a hearing on the 9th of August at 11 in the morning so I do not know whether we will have an answer during the same day or if we will have the answer and reply in the following days but of course we're hoping that the decision would be favorable to us even if it was not however we would then of course call another shareholders meeting so that we can establish a new board of directors and then of course this has delayed the process a little bit but in our plans and according to our plans we will still be able to close the transaction by the end of the year. This is our objective so we have a number of alternative plans in place that will enable us to close the transaction by the end of the year anyway. You know that a sell-out period has been opened. Now we are at more than 40% of the stake now, so we're confident that we will reach 95%. This, of course, will make things much easier because once 95% of the stake is reached, then you can go for the squeeze-out, and this will help. But I cannot tell you that this issue was not a surprise. It was, but it cannot revolutionize the entire plan. Thank you.

Next question is from the English channel.

Mr. Cruz, your microphone is open.

You didn't say it was me. So thanks for the time. Really, I have two questions. One is for the 2.5 billion of NPL provision disposal you want to execute, do you still need to book further provisions to get this disposal done or not? Anything material? No. And second, your NII was very strong, mainly on the commercial NII, Q1Q. I didn't see the similar effect with your peers. So what's going on here? Does this include anything like hedges that you put in commercial NII? Are you doing something different from your peers to grow basically the loan side so much? Thank you. That's it.

As for the $2.5 billion disposal, net non-performing loan disposal, there's no impact created by this issue. And so we have already entered exclusive negotiations today, regardless of the result, regardless of what happened, and regardless of the outcome that this will imply. Then as far as what we are doing compared to our peers, everybody is doing well. as much as they can, of course. And our position is probably a little bit different, though, because within one year we have really changed our DNA, so to say, because we have scaled up a lot, almost doubled our size in terms of volumes, customers, employees. Suffice it to think that we have included employees about 8,400 employees from Ubi, for instance, and Intesa, so with the previous transaction. So we have really changed. 2.5 million new customers have been onboarded. So comparing ourselves with our peers is difficult for us today. We are now including geographies that were new up to some time ago with a difference, though, because with Ubi's... onboarding you may have seen it from the churn rate that has remained stable there was no attrition and so we can say now after some time has passed that the acquisition has been settled down so to say and the same will apply to Karije because Karije went through a very difficult complex history and so the problem is not that of getting new customers but winning back those volumes that that bank had lost. And so we're working a lot and we will still work a lot on commercial activity. You may have seen it from the 4,300,000,000 new originations that we made, which is 32% more than usual. I can confirm that this trend is going on this year and so we are trying to acquire substantial volume. So I may say that our peers, we cannot compare ourselves to Intesa or to Unicredito because of the size and type of banks. But if we compare ourselves to Banco Popolare, which is more similar to us, I would say that we are a little bit more aggressive because we want to grow a lot. and we have activated a number of services that we didn't have before, like corporate and investment banking, which was there but was more of a residual type of segment, which is now instead counting and numbering 120 employees, and we aim at having 160 employees in that segment, and we are acquiring specialty, you know, and we're working to grow and this is confirmed by the transactional banking which is of course the result of a market that has favored us but also it is the result of a of the commercial momentum and another thing that we're doing as we announced in the business plan we have just started but we would also like to focus a lot on private banking and asset management in general and And in fact, we will give Banca Cesare Ponti that we are onboarding from Genoa. We are going to vest that bank with a mandate, so to say, that is working on this segment. And the other segment we're working on is insurance that, of course, is being pursued with, say, distribution agreement we have with Unipol that is our shareholder with a stake of 19.9% so I'm sure they are happy as well so these are the segments that we're working on and I can ensure that we're working intensively on all of these fronts and the first quarter results had already borne witness to that and now the results are confirming this probably the latest quarter, the last quarter bear witness further evidence and so I would say that a lot of these results are the consequence of the onboarding, I'm sorry, are the consequence of the activity that Beeper has made. Carrije to us was and is a very important investment because we think there are opportunities for growth there, significant opportunities for growth there and I'm saying this because I know the bank. The bank went through six years that were extremely difficult. And it has been able to retain 800,000 customers that were there when I was there and they are there now. So what I must say is that volumes have been, so to say, outflows of deposits. And it's quite comprehensible because people who had deposited their money there, when the bank started having problems, they started to take their deposits somewhere else. and instead the companies and businesses that needed financing turned to banks that could be more, you know, appealing. And so the customers left their accounts there but transferred their deposits. And so the task we will have to carry out together, my colleagues, with the colleagues we have there, and I know them, and I know that they are very much interested you know, willing to win back the volumes, is that of going on winning back those volumes that have been lost during these years. And so this is more or less what makes us different from other banks. Let's put it this way. Unlike other banks, this bank is being built. We are building it, and so we've got a more intense period of of work and activity, but probably more opportunities for growth than others.

Okay, thank you.

Please, if you want to make questions, as a reminder, if you wish to register for a question, please press star and one on your telephone. If you wish to ask a question, please press star and one on your telephone. Mr. Montani, ladies and gentlemen, there are no more questions registered at this time. Actually, there's a follow-up. from Domenico Santoro from HSBC. Please, sir, go ahead. I'm sorry, just for me to have all of the details. Going back to the restructuring cost, is it correct to say that you only have to make the accrual for those $70 million that belong to Carreger, that pertain to Carreger for the second part of the year, and 220 million were not included, 220 million, I'm sorry, of the penalties, of the penalties on the commercial agreements, on the distribution agreements. Okay, Mr. Montani says I understand. Yes, it's correct. what you say is absolutely correct so the cost of penalties has partly been set aside not all of that though because as you know on some counterparties with some counterparties there's a negotiation or discussion in place and so of course we're trying to resolve and terminate these contracts but we would like to terminate them at a more favorable cost and so part of the costs have been included some others have not and we will complete this process by the end of the year so this is my reply to your questions and can you give us guidance on the costs 70 million for Carice and 220 million for the penalties yes No, operating costs. That's what I was referring to. So you would like to know more of the guidance, to have a guidance for the operating costs for the second part of the year. We expect $640 million. I was thinking of operating costs. income and said operating costs $640, $650 million is our expectation. Next question is by . Net interest income is the first question. So my question is about the spread. When I look at the comparison between the quarters and the trend of the spread, is more on the asset side and not on the liability side. And so I would like you to give us color on the drivers for the improvement. And the other part is about volumes. So we have seen that the curve is steepening. And so how is this reflecting on financing and loans to the SMEs and the demand for loans in the next quarters? Well, as for volumes, we have observed this demand increase, and so we keep following this. The demand is there. The demand is going on. As for the spread, it has gone up to 1.42% in line with what we were expecting. We may even improve it, but it will depend on the trend on the market if this is the trend on the market then there may be an improvement but in this phase we only captured that improvement partly but it would not have been possible to do more so as far as customers are concerned as I said before we're growing a lot with new acquisitions and the new acquisitions however pay some sort of an entry fee because we are starting and but it's in line with what we expected considering the market trend and so we expect this will go on we have seen that the trend is going on well we saw that in July so we do not expect it will change abruptly and then we will see what happens after the summer because it's going to be based on the market trend. If I can make a follow-up question on this. My question was more on is there a level of rates on which it may become more difficult for you to operate, so to say? I was trying to reformulate what you are asking. Clearly, the rate increase is not a disturbing factor at all in this space, but it's more... the deterioration of the market or the recrudescence or exacerbation of some negative things, then that would have an impact. Next question is a follow-up from Marco Nicolai. Yes, I will seize the opportunity to make an additional question About risk-weighted assets, you are now at $50 billion, and you will get to $61 billion by 2025, but there are going to be reductions made between $4 billion and $5 billion, so coming from the disposals, partly from Carice's transition to the ARB models, the advanced interest rate-based models. So I was thinking that these levels that you have in your plan for risk-weighted assets is quite high. It's true that there may be some impact from the EBA guidance, but could you help me understand how we got to $61 billion? Have I lost something, probably? And then my question is, Is there anything non-recurring in the line other operating income in this quarter because I have seen $10 million of costs in there? And so if you can expand on that a little bit. Yes, I'm Roberto Ferrari speaking, CFO. So the $61 billion estimate considers both an increase in loans which is already visible as the CEO was saying and will continue to increase in segments like the large corporate that has a higher RWA density. And it also takes into account an estimate from the impact of Basel IV because we have incorporated between 4.5 and 5 billion RWA of RWA increases due to the EBA guidance and Basel IV and FRTB. So there's a margin of conservatism in there that is due to the impact of the full inclusion of the impacts of Basel IV. And as far as the non-recurring items in the other income line are concerned, there's a negative impact of about $20 million due to a pickup in CIV that had an impact on other income lines. Could you give us an update also on NII sensitivity, including CARIJ? Are there any new elements that you can provide compared to the last sensitivity data that you provided? No, there is nothing new. So it's what we communicated. I think we already communicated and announced 15%, which we confirmed today. Mr. Montani, there are no more questions registered at this time. I would like to thank you. It's very hot today, so I would thank you twice for you having been patient and listening to the conference call and for being, you know, patiently listening to us on this hot day with questions, and we are willing to take any further questions. My colleagues around the table are here. You can call us at any time. Thank you, and... Good evening, everybody.