Dnb Asa Sp/Adr

Thank you very much and hello everyone and welcome to D&D's Endless Call for the third quarter. Around the table here in Oslo we have in addition to Kerstin and Ida, Maria Lövall from Personal Banking, Harald Erkansen, Large Corporates, and also Rasmus Figgenskaff from Norwegian Corporates, and of course Alex Oppstad from D&D Markets. Before we open up for questions, Ida will give you the highlights for the quarters.

Hello and thank you everyone for listening in. The Norwegian economy continues to remain robust with good activity level in the first quarter. Moderate growth outlook, low unemployment levels at around 2% and built-in stabilizers which provides ample room to maneuver should there be need for that. The Norwegian central bank has kept the key policy rate at 4.5%. The central bank is expected to cut the policy rate twice this year to end up at 4% by year end. Looking at our results for the quarter, there's really a strong performance across the board and also shows very strong signs of high activity levels going up from the fourth quarter and continuing so also in the first quarter. We're well positioned for future fee-related income, also now with inclusion of Carnegie as of March. Return on equity came in at 15.9%. NII was down 1.8% from the fourth quarter, but up 5.7% from the first quarter 2024. NII is impacted by profitable growth, both in loans and deposits, but was offset by two fewer interest rates in the quarter. Net commission and fees was up 29.5% from the first quarter of 2024, driven, of course, among other things by the inclusion of Carnegie, but also standalone, taking Carnegie aside, we were up 15% and it's a record high quarter in terms of commission and fees. We're seeing a strong development across the product areas, but I would in particular point to IBD, Asset Management and the very good activity level we saw in the real estate broking area, which also supports the loan growth that we saw in personal customers. On the loan growth side, we saw an uptick of 0.5% currency adjusted, negative 0.3% if we don't adjust for the currency, and it's predominantly in the large corporate area where you see an effect from the FX. Underlying strong growth in personal customers of up 0.8%, in small and medium-sized enterprises up 0.5%. And in that area, I think it's important also to bear in mind that we still haven't seen an uptick in activity level or growth in real estate, in the new builds of real estate or in the construction industry. So it's actually across the board in the small and medium-sized enterprises. There is a robust and well diversified portfolio across industries and geographies. 99.3% of our portfolio is in stage 1 and 2. and we take impairment provisions of 410 million in the quarter. The capital position remains to be robust, also taking into account that we've now deducted for the acquisition of Carnegie, consuming 120 basis points. The quarter one capital ratio is now at 18.5%. Apple's room to maneuver and uphold our dividend policy, as well as support our customers also in the times ahead. The General Assembly gave the Board of Directors an authorization to buy back up to 3.5% of outstanding shares. And what we're told today is that we are expecting to send an application of up to 1% of outstanding shares in buybacks. And we will come back to you when we receive approval for that later on. And with that, we open up for questions.

Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. If you change your mind and want to withdraw your question, please press star 2. And please ensure your lines are unmuted locally, as you'll be prompted when to ask your question. Our first question comes from a line of Gulnara Sidekulova from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.