Deutsche Boerse Unsp/Adr

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Deutsche Börse AG analyst and investor conference call regarding the preliminary Q4 and full year results of 2025. At this time, all participants have been placed on listen-only mode, and the floor will be open for questions following the presentation. Let me now turn the floor over to Mr. Jan Strecker.

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for joining us today to review our financial results for the fourth quarter and the full year of 2025. Present on today's call are Stefan Leitner, our Chief Executive Officer, and Jens Schulte, our Chief Financial Officer. Stefan and Jens will take you through the presentation, and following their remarks, we will open the line for your questions. The presentation materials have been distributed by email and are also available for download on our investor relation website. This call has been recorded and a replay will be made available shortly after the conclusion of today's session. With that, let me now hand over to you, Stefan.

Thank you, Jan, and welcome, everyone. In 2025, we achieved record-breaking top and bottom line financial results, successfully executing our strategy and delivering on our guidance. This demonstrates the strength and resilience of our diversified business model. Net revenues without treasury results increased by a strong 9% reaching the targeted level of 5.2 billion euro. Importantly, we showed significant and operating leverage with EBITDA without treasury result growing even faster at 14%. This performance was underpinned by our very disciplined cost management with operating cost growth held at just 3%, right in line with our expectations. These record results confirm that we are on the right path, successfully executing our strategy despite headwinds in some areas. Our strong performance and confidence in our strategy directly translate into significant shareholder returns. We are proposing a 5% dividend increase to €4.20 per share and will shortly launch the €500 million share buyback program on an accelerated basis. In total, this delivers a record distribution of 1.3 billion to our shareholders in 2026, a total payout of around 63%. The positive momentum of the full year was also visible in the fourth quarter performance. Q4 net revenues grew 7%, driving a 10% increase in EBITDA without treasury results. This was primarily fueled by outstanding double-digit net revenue growth in two areas. First, in the SimCorp software solutions, which was up 18% on a constant currency basis, driven by client wins and the continued expansion of our SaaS offering. Our performance in the Americas in this context was a standout, with 47 annual recurring revenue growth. This was driven by a major client wins, including a tier one US asset manager, which will bring all asset classes onto our platform with a full front to back coverage. This is a powerful validation of our SimCorp One platform and our strategy in this key market. The acceleration of our SaaS transformation at SimCorp is also a core driver of this success. SaaS net revenue grew 50% in the fourth quarter. What a number. This is the secular growth we are focused on, and it confirms we will have over half our clients on our SaaS platform by 2026. This performance puts us clearly ahead of our key competitors, as I can proudly report. Altogether, 2025 was a year of strong execution for SimCorp, and we have delivered excellent results. Our strategic path is clear, and we are delivering on it. The second area that performed exceptionally well in the fourth quarter was our security services business, which grew net revenue without treasury results by an outstanding 17%. Again, what a number. We achieved new all-time highs across custody, settlement, and collateral management, which drove this exceptional result. The record-breaking activity was fueled by a confluence of powerful market trends, including continued strong fixed-income issuance, which increased the overall amount of debt outstanding, equally as a second driver, persistently high equity market valuations, and thirdly, a significant uptick in retail investor activity and flows into Europe. Finally, and furthermore, a heightened demand for safe and efficient collateralization propelled our collateral management outstanding up by 28% to a new record of €932 billion, demonstrating the essential role our infrastructure plays in a dynamic market environment. The future growth of our Security Services Division is driven by three core strategic drivers, as we also outlined at our Capital Market Stay. First, we are focused on business scaling by expanding our client footprint with direct plug-and-play infrastructure access and innovation with our collateral management as a service platform. Second, we are leading the European capital market transformation by leveraging our unique position as a top CSD and ICSD to consolidate the fragmented post-trade landscape and capture new capital flows into Europe. And finally, a third trend and the most transformative, we are pioneering asset class expansion by driving the digitization of finance, building on our D7 digital issuance platform to create the trusted market infrastructure for tokenized securities, digital cash, and institutional crypto assets. Our strong performance, as you can see on the second chart, gives us the power to execute our strategy and make decisive moves to solidify our leadership position for the long term. The slide highlights two examples of this in action that we are tackling this year. First, an update on our acquisition of all funds, a truly transformational step for our fund services business in our leading the transformation strategy. The strategic commercial and financial rationale for this move is exceptionally compelling. With all funds, we are not just acquiring a business. We are building a European investment fund champion. This isn't just about getting bigger. It's about getting better and creating a fully integrated end-to-end service offering for the entire fund industry across different markets. This combination is powerful because our businesses are highly complementary. We are bringing together Clearstream strengths in Central Europe with all funds leadership in Southern Europe, These positions are at the heart of pan-European ecosystems, significantly reducing market fragmentation and establishing a harmonized, global-reaching business that plays a pivotal role in facilitating the investment of retail savings into productive capital. This is a significant step forward for European capital markets and also addresses the goals of the savings and investment unions that are so often talked about. From a financial perspective, this transaction is designed to create substantial long-term value. We have identified significant synergy potential, expecting to deliver annual cost savings of 60 million euros in operating costs and 30 million euros in capital expenditure. Approximately half of the run rate synergies will be realized in the current strategy cycle by year-end 2028. The acquisition is valued at 5.3 billion euros, structured at 8080 per share. Initially, we proposed a balanced mix of cash and shares. However, we have since refined this financing structure to increase the cash component. The strategic adjustment allows us to fully utilize our debt capacity. Due to our strong financial performance, our credit rating metrics at year end 2025 were all very well within the established thresholds, leaving room to increase the cash component. Speaking to you today on the analyst call here, the result is a transaction that delivers high single-digit cash EPS accretion from year one based on the run rate synergies while preserving our strong credit rating and maximizing immediate value for you, as our shareholders. I would like to emphasize, however, beyond the financials, the partnership nature of this transaction, which from my perspective will make it so transformative and a unique opportunity. The compelling concept was developed through close dialogue with the All Funds management team. The transaction had the anonymous support of the All Funds Board of Directors. We have also already received irrevocable undertakings from All Funds' largest shareholders. We are now proceeding with the UK scheme of arrangements process and obtaining the necessary regulatory approvals. We are highly confident in securing antitrust clearance because our businesses really are complementary. ClearStream mainly drives post-trade fund processing infrastructure, while AllFunds is a fund distribution platform. We also have a distinct geographical and client focus across the fund's value chain, as I already outlined earlier. We anticipate completing the transaction in the first half of 2027. In closing, this is a landmark transaction. It strengthens our capability, accelerates our strategy, and reinforces our commitment to building the future of capital markets infrastructure. We are creating a world-class player that will better serve clients and drive the evolution of the global funds industry. You hear my passion. I think this is a very strong story. Now, let me expand on the second situation. for which I know many of you have been persistently looking for clarification. I recall many of our meetings around this. We are now taking full ownership of our data analytics and index champion ISS stocks. As we announced overnight, we have reached an agreement with GA to acquire the remaining 20% minority stake held by our partner. The move creates clarity around this topic and is the natural and planned culmination of our successful partnership, which began with our joint investment in Axioma back in 2019 and continued through the strategic merger that formed the integrated ISS stocks business in 2023. This buyout is a reaffirmation of our strategic vision and gives GA the necessary liquidity. It solidifies our ambition for ISS stocks to be a leading go-to provider of mission-critical data analytics and indices for the buy side. While we acknowledge the headwinds resulting from a changed attitude towards certain products, particularly in the U.S., we feel strongly confirmed by clients about the underlying business logic. We remain confident in a return to stronger growth in the medium term, as outlined during our Capital Markets Day last December. We also view the transformation through AI as a key opportunity, not a threat. ISS Stocks is uniquely positioned for this transformation to its unique historic databases. Our clients have a strong need for highly reliable, regulation-proof quality data with an algorithm alone cannot provide. Our strategy is to use AI as a powerful augmentation tool, combining our trusted data and human experience to enhance our offerings and maintain our market leadership. Taking full ownership reduces complexity, allowing us to accelerate the execution of our strategy for this highly attractive business. For example, we'll benefit from lower governance costs and closer integration with our global system and processes. It will also be easier for us to promote closer cooperation between our index and data businesses in areas such as financial derivatives and software solutions. Similarly, we can leverage ISS stocks' data handling and processing capability globally, as well as analytics competence over time in other parts of the group. The agreement with General Atlantic included a contractual path for their exit, and the valuation is based on the peer group multiple as we had agreed at the outset of the partnership in 2019 and 2023. We will finance this using available cash and debt. The transaction is expected to have a single-digit accretive effect on our cash APS obviously already this year. Finally, let me be very clear on a critical point. Integrity and independence of ISS research are paramount. We are fully committed to maintaining the established non-interference policies, ensuring that the research provided by ISS continues to be objective and trusted by the market. Both the all funds acquisition and the minority buyout of ISS stocks are clear logical steps in the further development of our group. Let me turn to the strategy for a second again. Our strategy leading the transformation provides a clear roadmap for the future. So let me come to the outlook for 2026 within the growth trajectory of our strategy on page three. This is best summarized in four key messages. First and foremost, We start from a position of strength. We are on track and fully committed to our 2026 financial targets. And you heard me say that a year ago when it came to 2025, and we deliver. Specifically for 2026, this is 5.7 billion euro in net revenue and 3.1 billion euro in EBITDA without our treasury results. But let me be clear, we see these ambitious goals not as a final destination, but as an important interim milestone in our journey as we have outlined already in London in December. Delivering on this plan demonstrates our credibility and provides the foundation for our next phase of growth. The second point is our ambition extends well beyond 2026. We are committed to delivering sustained growth targeting a high 8% organic net revenue growth through 2028. This isn't just a number. It's a plan powered by durable sector growth drivers and our leadership in technology. Our unique position allows us to lead key market transformations, unlocking new growth vectors that will propel us forward. As a third element of the strategy, we're evolving our operating model to efficiently deliver this growth. For a one-group model, we are building a more scalable and efficient organization. This is not just about cost control. It's about cultivating a culture of excellence. And obviously, we are not compromising our organic investment volume, which runs at around 600 million euro per year. By holding our operating cost growth to a disciplined 3% growth rate, we will ensure that the revenue growth translates directly into enhanced profitability and operating leverage. And therefore, finally, our financial ambition. The payoff from this strategy is very attractive. We will deliver strong structural top-line growth and significant scale benefits. This bottom-line performance gives us a powerful combination of strong investment capacity for organic growth and strategic M&A while delivering attractive and growing shareholder returns. In light of the recent market developments regarding artificial intelligence, let me also again reaffirm our clear position on the topic. We view AI not as a threat, but as a powerful engine for our growth. A thorough assessment confirmed our portfolio robustness, showing that less than 5% of our revenues are only potentially affected as AI cannot replace the regulated system-critical infrastructure and processes we operate. At the same time, our plans for scaling and limiting cost growth benefit greatly from AI. With over 75% of our infrastructure now cloud-based, we are strategically positioned to capitalize on this opportunity by developing AI at scale on a rapid, cost-effective, and secure manner. We are already leveraging AI to enhance internal efficiency and are rolling out product-embedded AI to boost client productivity. As a component of our leading the transformation strategy, AI is generating tangible value. In short, we are delivering on our current plan, and we have a clear path to sustained and profitable growth throughout 2028. We are evolving our operating model to support it, and this will all translate into strong returns for you, our shareholders. With that, I'll hand it over to Jens for a closer look at the financial and the segment details.