Poste Italiane Spa

after a nine-month 2024 Results Conference call. In a few moments, Matteo Delfante, our CEO, will take you through some opening remarks, and then Camillo Viejo, our CFO, will cover the financials. This will be followed by a Q&A session where you can ask questions either by phone or through our webcast platform. Please limit yourself to two questions. Over to you, Matteo.

Thank you, Giuseppe, and good afternoon, everybody. we are yet again reporting another strong set of results, demonstrating the ability of our unmatched platform company to deliver strong and sustainable profitability and cash generation. Starting with the top line, revenues for the nine months came in at $9.2 billion, up 5% year-on-year, or 8% on an underlying basis. Our best-ever nine-month results As you know, one of our key focuses remains expense management, and we continue to successfully mitigate inflationary impacts while, in general, cost increase came from growing business volumes. Adjusted EBITDA, excluding for consistency with business plan targets the contribution to the insurance guarantee fund, came in at nine months record of $2.3 billion, up 18% on an underlying basis. Net profits amounted to $1.6 billion, up 19% again on an underlying basis. We continue to see positive net flows in investment products with resilient results in asset management and improving flows in life insurance products in a challenging environment. We are strengthening our upgraded full-year 2024 adjusted EBIT guidance of €2.8 billion with a net profit guidance of €2 billion for the full year of 2024. Our interim dividend, which will be paid on November 20th, would be equal to 33 cents per share, for a total of $427 million, up 39% from last year, and in line with our new payout-based dividend policy. Let's move, please, to group financial results on slide 4. Group revenues came in at $3.1 billion in the quarter, up 10% year-on-year and 9.2% in the first nine months, up 8% on an underlying basis, excluding the impact of certain specific non-recurring items. In the first nine months of 2024, both adjusted EBIT and net profit were at a record level of 2.3 billion and 1.6 billion, respectively. with a year-on-year underlying growth of close to 20%, demonstrating the ability of our group to maintain cost discipline also in an inflationary environment. On slide five, you can see how the continuation of the positive commercial trends are resulting in healthy revenue growth across all business units in our platform company. In mail parcel and distribution, nine months revenues amount to $2.8 billion, driven by solid double-digit parcel growth and resilient mail revenues. In financial services, revenues were at $1.4 billion in the quarter and over $4 billion in the nine months, up 14% and 5% respectively, driven by strong NII and positive commercial trends across products. Insurance services revenues were up 8% in the quarter and 7% in the nine months as a result of a higher CSM release and growing protection business. Posted pay services also posted record top line results for the quarter at 396 million and 1.2 billion for the nine months. Revenues continue to grow strongly thanks to double GD transaction value growth backed by e-commerce leadership and demonstrating the effectiveness of the post-EPA everyday ecosystem in driving card usage. Let's go to slide six and look at adjusted EBIT evolution by segment. Mail pass and distribution shows a 29 million euro EBIT improvement compared to the first nine months of 2023, supported by strong revenue momentum across products. Financial services operating profitability is resilient and improving in Q3, reflecting positive revenue momentum while absorbing higher network costs. Insurance services EBIT reflects the positive performance of our life and protection businesses. Finally, post-EPA services double-digit EBIT growth is driven by strong top-line performance. Let's move to a more detailed review of our numbers by our CFO, Camillo Greco. Over to you, Camillo. Thank you, Matteo. Let's move to slide number eight on made parcel and distribution. Revenues amount to a record $909 million in Q3 and $2.8 billion in the nine months, up 6% and 2% respectively. In Q3, mail revenues at $496 million were up 2% and in the nine months are up a solid 4% to over $1.5 billion, supported by a favorable business mix with our volumes of registered mail and repricing. Pulsar revenues are up 15% to $3.84 million in Q3 and up 13% to $1.1 billion in the nine months, supported by all customer segments with a continuation of the positive commercial trends over the first half of the year. Distribution revenues from other business units are up 13% in Q3, reflecting positive commercial trends and compensating for higher network costs. Adjusted EBIT is up 19% in nine months to $183 million, with the solid trend reflecting top-line growth and continued cost discipline. Let's look at volumes and tariffs on slide number nine. Parcel volumes continue to grow up a robust 24% in both the quarter and the nine months, with growth in all customer segments as we are managing increasing volumes and gaining market shares across the merchant spectrum, from large e-commerce platforms to small and medium merchants. Parcels delivered via the Postini network increased from 38% to 40% in Q3, in line with full-year targets for 2024. Let's look at pricing, where the reduction in average parcel tariffs in the quarter is related to a mixed effect with higher growth of parcels with lower pricing and lower unit costs. Moving to mail, the volume decline remains related to lower margin and recorded items. Higher margin registered mail volumes have been resilient with a small single-digit growth year-to-date. These, coupled with effective advertising actions, have generated a 12% increase of the average tariff year-to-date. Moving to financial services, slide number 10. Gross revenues are at $1.6 billion in Q3, up 13%, and at $4.7 billion in the nine months. Net interest income came at $648 million in Q3, up 15%, and close to $1.9 billion in the nine months, up 13%. This is the highest nine-month NII record since listing. Such record NII is driven by higher interest rates combined with our proactive portfolio management activity, allowing us to lock in higher rates, thus enabling an increased visibility in future portfolio returns. With the rates and spreads going down, unrealized capital gains in our portfolio are also building up. Postal saving distribution fees are at $430 million in Q3, up 15%, and at $1.3 billion in the nine months, up a solid 6%, also supported by improving net flows. Transaction banking fees are resilient to $180 million in Q3, reflecting the same current account pricing as in Q3-23. In consumer loans distribution fees, we are happy to see the improving momentum with revenues at $176 million in the nine months, up 33%, supported by higher volumes and higher fee margin. Asset management fees came at $45 million in Q3, up 15%, and $142 million in the nine months, up 33%, supported by higher assets standard management. Finally, adjusted EBIT at $642 million in the nine months is flat year-on-year, reflecting positive revenue trends and higher distribution network costs. Moving to slide 11, TFA's reached $593 billion, up $12 billion since the end of 2023. We constantly adapt our offering to have a safe, fairly priced financial proposition in all market environments, This has allowed us to reach 4.8 billion net inflows in the nine months. Let's look at each component. We reported a remarkable 3.9 billion net inflows in investment products, which is the sum of mutual funds and life investment and pension. Within this component, we reported record high net inflows of mutual funds, driven by resilient demand for target date products. Our life insurance business remains resilient in a challenging market, still recording positive net inflows year-to-date and improving versus Q2 thanks to the new commercial initiatives mentioned in our Q2 24 results conference call. Postal savings net outflows have materially improved versus last year as high maturities have been compensated through successful new commercial initiatives. such as premium products generating 7 billion inflows in the nine months. Deposits benefited from higher balances from PA clients, while retail deposits are resilient, confirming the stickiness and loyalty of our customer base.

Moving to slide number 12.