Bper Banca Spa Unsp/Adr

Good afternoon. This is the Corsco Conference Operator. Welcome and thank you for joining the BIPER First Quarter 2024 Consolidated 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. Nicola Spongi, Investor Relations Operations of Vipr. Mr. Spongi, please go ahead.

Thank you. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for joining our first quarter 2024 results conference call. Before I give the floor to the CEO Gianni Franco Papa and the CFO Gianluca Santi for the financial result presentation, please know that our slide set and press release can be found on our corporate website. Please remember that the Q&A session is reserved for financial analysts whom I would kindly request to only ask two questions. so we can get around to everyone in good time. Thank you very much, Mr. Papa. Please, you have the floor.

Thank you. Good evening. Welcome, and thank you for being with us today. I'm pleased to open this call as the group's new CEO. Let me first express my gratitude to the board for the trust they placed by appointing me to lead this extraordinary company for the next three years. And let me thank the former CEO and all my colleagues for their outstanding work, and for leaving a company stronger and more performing than ever. Despite my 40 years of professional experience, I see this as a very special challenge which I'm embracing with particular excitement. After just a few days since my appointment, I'm quite impressed by the quality of this institution, its people, and its clients. Our presence across the country combined with the professionality of our people is undoubtedly our main asset that enables us to build quality customer relationship and create value over time for all our stakeholders. This is why I wanted to spend my first day as CEO with our commercial network that will be central for achieving the future ambitions of the bank. We are today presenting the results of the first quarter of 2024. Before I leave the floor to Gianluca Santi, Group CFO, who will walk you through the details, I would like to express my satisfaction for the positive results achieved by the bank in the continuity with the last quarter's performance and above the aspirations set by the 2022-2025 plan. If you turn to slide four, in this first quarter, we delivered over $300 million in recurring net profits, with an ROT of 14.4%. Positive progress has been made across all the most relevant KPIs. We have grown our revenues by 2% year-on-year, improved efficiency with cost-to-income of 51.7%, and continued positive risk management with a net MPE ratio of 1.2% and a total MPE coverage of over 54%, with an annualized cost of credit standing now at 43 basis points, down from 48 basis points registered at the end of 2023. The bank's capital and liquidity profiles remain strong, thanks to the organic generation of capital, which drives the CET1 ratio to 14.9%. The same applies to the bank's liquidity position, with regulatory ratios being broadly in excess of the minimum thresholds required even after the $1.7 billion repayment of the last year's TRO tranche. Despite a very uncertain and volatile geopolitical and macro scenario, our balance sheet is solid and resilient and allows us to look into the future with positivity and confidence and to sustain the future growth. Results of the last years are certainly impressive, and despite the interest rate scenario will most likely become challenging, I'm profoundly convinced that even greater potential is ahead of us, in particular in terms of growth from commission fees and of a structural productivity increase and modernization of the operating machine. We will continue to work on ensuring that the group is on a virtuous path. I thank you for your attention and will now give the floor to Gianluca Santi for the rest of the presentation. I will, of course, take your questions in the final Q&A sessions. Please, Gianluca.