Deutsche Boerse Unsp/Adr

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the Deutsche Beurse AG analyst and investor conference call regarding the second quarter of 2026. At this time all participants have been placed on listen-only mode and the floor will be open for questions following the presentation. The conference is being recorded. 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 second quarter of 2026. Present on today's call are Stephan Leithner, our Chief Executive Officer, and Jens Schulte, Chief Financial Officer. Stephan and Jens will take you through the presentation, and following their remarks, we will open the lines for your questions. The presentation materials have been distributed by email and can also be downloaded from our Investor Relations website. The call is being 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, Stephan.

Thank you, Jan, and welcome everyone. The first half of 2026 exceeded our expectations on the treasury side and confirmed our strong core growth trajectory with broad-based secular revenue growth, accelerating operating leverage, and an upgraded full-year outlook. Let me take you through five key points and key themes that we really want to emphasize. The first key theme is our performance. You will recall that Q1 benefited from a significant increase in volatility, particularly in March. As we said at the time, we expected activity levels to normalize after that spike. This is exactly what we saw in Q2 and was fully consistent with our expectations. What is important is that Even in this more normalized environment and against a strong prior year quarter, we delivered 9% net revenue growth without the treasury result and 13% EBITDA growth on the same basis. Six of our eight business areas delivered net revenue growth in the quarter, demonstrating the breadth and balance of our portfolio. This speaks to the quality of our growth. The long-term trends we have been investing into for years continue to support our performance. For the first half as a whole, net revenue grew by 11% and EBITDA by 16% with our treasury results. This is a strong performance and shows the resilience and scalability of our model. On the treasury result in Q1 we said that we were beginning to see an inflection point. Q2 confirms that trend. The treasury results declined by only 1% at the group level. This is the inflection we have been signaling. As a result, the drag on total net revenue growth has almost faded, with overall growth reaching 7% in Q2. A strong performance? Let me come to the second point, the secular growth across our portfolio. In the first half, security services, financial derivatives and fund services have been the strongest contributors, with each of the three delivering mid-teens net revenue growth driven mainly by structural factors. Let me touch on each of the three. In security services, we continue to achieve broad-based growth across all key metrics, with assets under custody reaching record levels due to strong fixed-income issuance and elevated settlement activity driven by retail participation. Collateral management outstandings crossed the €1 trillion mark for the first time, a milestone that underscores the essential role of our infrastructure. Clearstream's role as a core part of European financial market infrastructure remains highly relevant in this environment. Let me come to the second big contributor. In the financial derivatives, Eurex delivered strong performance in fixed income, with net revenues up 27%. As part of that, OTC clearing net revenue grew 49%, driven not only by the active account requirements translating into real activity, but also by improved revenue quality. The key drivers remain intact. The build-out of the Euro yield curve ecosystem, regulatory requirements and efficiencies for our clients. Eurex is fully on track to deliver on its 2026 fixed income commitments. That's a far from self-fulfilling prophecy. I think it's really enormous hard work by the teams. The third area of a very significant double-digit contribution is the fund services. We continue to benefit from outsourcing and fund distribution and the gradual shift towards more capital markets-based retirement savings in Europe. Assets under custody reached new record levels again. Importantly, the strength across our portfolio more than compensated for slow activity in commodities, where volumes normalized after the exceptional Q1 and the well-known headwinds in the ESG business. This is exactly the benefit of our diversified business model When individual areas face temporary headwinds, the breadth of our portfolio ensures continued delivery of our plans. On ISS stocks, with the minority buyout now complete, we are setting the course for the next chapter. Last week, we announced the appointment of Ginny Gomez as the new CEO effective August 3rd. She brings deep expertise in technology, data, and AI, and is the right leader to drive the next phase of growth, and we are very grateful to Gary Retelny. Let me touch on the third theme, the operating leverage and capital returns. The first half again demonstrates the operating leverage of our model. This is supported not only by disciplined cost management, but also by the progress we are making on AI and digitization, our global location concept, and the one group operating model benefits, while at the same time continuing to invest in the areas that support long-term growth. This balance between savings, efficiency, scaling, and on the other side, investing is important. We are not reducing investments in the future of the business, but we are ensuring that revenue growth translates into stronger EBITDA growth. The first half shows that the model is working as intended. 3% underlying cost growth, only 2% staff cost, and I think we'll hear more on it from Jens in a minute. On capital returns during the quarter, we completed our 500 million euro share buyback program. At the time of our Q1 call, less than half had been executed. Buybacks are now an established element of our capital return framework, complementing our progressive dividend policy. The fourth theme I would really want to leave with you is the progress on the transformation aspects. The themes set out in our leading the transformation strategy continue to gain momentum. Starting with the broader European opportunity, I do not want to repeat the full strategic case we discussed last quarter. The key point for Q2 is that the policy momentum in Europe continues to move in a direction that is closely aligned with the strategic choices we have made over many years. This is closely connected to the themes behind our strategy. Deeper and more transparent capital markets, stronger market infrastructure, more retail participation, and more efficient financing of the real economy. We are structurally positioned to benefit from all of these developments. As a concrete step in Germany's broad agenda to modernize the financial system, strengthen capital markets, and mobilize private wealth, the government is actively reforming private pensions. The new Tax Advantage Retirement Savings Depot, the Altersforsorge Depot, and the Early Start Pension for Young People, the Frühstart Rente, are important steps towards broader capital markets-based savings. In addition, at the end of June, a fast-tracked legislative process was initiated to introduce a capital-based component to the state pension scheme, similar to what has happened many years ago in Sweden. Over time, this should further accelerate higher participation in capital markets with positive implications for our trading and post-trading services in equities and our fund offerings. At the European level, we see increasing support and momentum. The recent joint initiative from the six large European economies underlined the shared ambition to deepen and integrate European capital markets. Among their top five points, number one was to strengthen fund and retail distribution, spot on for our all-fund acquisition. The priorities are clear. Stronger support for transparent trading venues in order to reduce fragmentation, more resilient clearing infrastructure, higher retail participation, better mobilization of private capital. Each of these priorities, if implemented well, will deepen European capital markets and drive incremental activity through our platforms. The same is true as a third area for the European Commission's Market Integration and Supervision Package. We have spent years building integrated, technology-enabled and regulated market infrastructure. Taken together, the German Retirement Reform, the Savings and Investment Union, the E6 Initiative and the MISP, We see a more constructive long-term environment for European capital markets. Deutsche Börse is well positioned to contribute to these developments and to benefit from them. We've invested ahead of the curve and will continue to do so. That is what leading the transformation really means. Let me come to the second aspect of our transformational themes, turning to digital assets and tokenization. Here as well, the focus is, for us, on execution. We've been investing in regulated digital asset infrastructure for years. The incremental point this quarter is that tokenization is moving further from experimentation towards real institutional use cases. A key development is Clearstream's next generation digital securities infrastructure, which we unveiled during the quarter. This is an important step in our digital strategy. It is designed to support the issuance, settlement, custody, and servicing of digital securities in a regulated and scalable environment and to connect digital instruments with existing institutional market infrastructure. We are ahead of the curve. We are ahead of what we see in other markets. This is exactly where we believe Deutsche Börse can add value. Not by creating parallel, unregulated markets, but by bringing digital securities into trusted, resilient and regulated infrastructure. A concrete example from the last quarter is the recent tokenization commercial paper issuance by the European Investment Bank through our digital infrastructure. This is not a proof of concept. It has passed through all lifecycle steps, from issuance to settlement to custody. It is a real transaction with a leading supranational issuer that validates the strategic investments we have been making for years. It shows that leading institutional issuers are looking for trusted, regulated, and operationally robust infrastructure when they enter tokenized markets. Deirdre is well positioned in this space. Combined with our broader digital assets initiatives and our strategic investment in Karken, we are building a secure and compliant gateway for institutional clients. The regulatory environment in Europe, including Mika, plays to our strengths. Clients want innovation, but they want it within a trusted and regulated framework. That is exactly where Deutsche Börse can add value. So let me come to the fifth theme, our outlook. As always, we take a measured view. The post Q1 normalization played out as anticipated. The breadth of our first half performance reinforces our confidence. We are in a strong position to raise our targets. The treasury result is now expected to exceed €0.7 billion, lifting total net revenue to above €6.4 billion. Jens will take you through the details. So let me conclude. H1 was a strong first half. We delivered broad-based growth, demonstrated operating leverage, completed our buyback program, and continued to execute on our strategic priorities. Therefore, the main message that I really want to re-emphasize with you is straightforward. The business is performing well as a portfolio and proves its structural ability to grow. The strategy is progressing and the long-term environment for European capital markets remains constructive. At the same time, we continue to build the infrastructure needed for the next phase of market development from integrated European capital markets to regulated digital securities. We are confident in our trajectory, fully on track to deliver on our 2026 goals and building a foundation for sustained growth for 2028 and beyond. With that, let me hand it over to Jens.