Poste Italiane Spa

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Poste Italiana's first quarter 2026 results conference call. In a few moments, the CEO, Matteo Versante, will take you through some opening remarks as well as a short update on the team offer. Then our CFO, Camillo Greco, will cover the financials. As usual, the presentation will be followed by a Q&A session where you can ask questions either via phone or through our webcast platform. For any topics we won't be able to cover today, please do contact the Investor Relations team, who will be happy to follow up. With that, over to you, Matteo. Good morning, everyone. Our Q1 2026 results highlight a very strong start of the year and confirm the strength of our platform model. We delivered a record first quarter with revenues of $3.5 billion and a healthy portfolio. 8% year-on-year growth supported by all business units. On profitability, we achieved a record adjusted EBIT of 9.5 million, up 14% year-on-year, reflecting continued cost discipline in the current inflationary environment. Net profit reached 617, up 3% year-on-year. Commercial trends remained solid with 1.7 billion investment inflows coupled with strong momentum in postal savings and stable retail deposits. We continue to operate from a position of strength. The group balance sheet remained robust with our solvency ratio of 294% and a 341 million improvement in our net financial position generated in the quarter. which is 43 million more than in the first quarter of last year. Finally, digital payments once again grew above the market, underlying the strength of our platform and its ability to generate sustainable growth. On the back of this strong start of the year and a better-than-expected interest rate environment, we have raised our full year 26 adjusted EBIT guidance to 3.4 billion. We present our standalone 2026-2030 plan together with Q2 results on July 24th. Let me move for a second on team and give you an update on the tender offer. Over the past few months, we have further strengthened our conviction on the strategic rationale of the transaction and it's perfect fit with Poste Italiane platform business model. With our solid balance sheet and strong cash generation, we're uniquely positioned to support digital investment and accelerate strategic initiatives that will deliver growth. The merger of Poste Telco and team consumer businesses will create the number one mobile operator in Italy, kick-starting the next leg of domestic Telco consolidation. Importantly, financial and insurance services will remain the dominant profit contributor within the combined entity, representing around 82% of domestic EBIT and approximately 64% of the overall EBIT, including Brazil. The financial profile of the proposed transaction is extremely strong, with positive EPS impact from 2027 rising to double-digit accretion from 2028. Our guidance implied 26 DPS is confirmed and the dividend policy going forward will be accreting compared to the standalone scenario. Proforma leverage is expected at 1.4 times by the end of 2026 and steady decreasing going forward thanks to the strong cash flow generation of Poste Italiane and Team Brazil. The offer terms are compelling for team shareholders, implying a 17% true premium to the pre-announcement price and up to over 50% premium on unencumbered average prices, with 40% value sharing from expected synergies and an attractive stable dividend outlook. The combined entity will have performed a free flow of around 20 billion, enhancing stock liquidity with a highly diversified shareholder base. We are on track to close the deal by Q3 2026. Let's go back to post and group financials on slide five. We have posted for the fourth quarter For the fourth consecutive time, a record first quarter, with revenues at $3.5 billion. Top-line growth translates very effectively into profitability, as adjusted EBIT for the quarter reached $9.05, up 14% year-on-year. Net profit, excluding the team stake contribution, was $617, up 3%. On slide six, the healthy underlying revenue momentum across all our business segments continues into the new year. In mail parcel and distribution, revenue growth was driven by increasing parcel volumes. The anticipated decline in mail volume is effectively mitigated through ongoing repricing actions. In financial services, revenue increased by 11% year-on-year to 1.6 billion. supported by investment portfolio strength and a solid commercial performance. Insurance services deliver strong results across both life and protections. Revenue rose 6% in the quarter, reflecting stable CSM stock, coupled with higher release percentage. Post-pay services deliver solid growth across payment and energy, ahead of integration into the new financial hub. Telco customer base remains stable with the number of energy clients has now reached around 1.1 million clients. Let's go to slide seven and look at EBIT evolution by segment. Mail parcel and distribution reported an adjusted EBIT of 43 million for the quarter in line with our full year guidance. Financial services operating profitability is up 22% $318 million driven by overall strong revenue trend. Insurance services EBIT is up 4% supported by both life investment and protection. Finally, post-pay services double-digit EBIT growth to $153 million is driven by resilient top-line performance and effective cost management. Let's now look at some examples of how our platform business model is delivering tangible results. We operate a scalable, digitally-enabled infrastructure supported by in-house product abilities and a unique combination of physical and digital distribution. The platform allows us to add clients and revenues at near zero marginal cost while addressing structural everyday needs such as digital payments, secure digital identities, energy and everyday services. You can see here a few examples highlighting the strength of the platform. We have become in fact Italy's largest payment ecosystem, reaching 1.6 billion revenues in 2025 from 0.4 billion in 2017, with transaction values growing at a 16% CAGR from 2018 to 2025, increasing our market share. Energy is another clear example of how we leverage the platform. Built on an in-house cloud-native backbone, we're scaling the customer base at near zero acquisition cost, reaching one million clients in three years since launch and becoming an increasingly meaningful contributor to group EBIT. Finally, digital identities address a systemic national need. It has rapidly scaled to around 30 million users with monetization now accelerating as adoption deepens and upselling opportunities materialize. This is the foundation on which we continue to build the new Poste Italiane as the leading integrated platform company in Italy. I would like now to move to a more detailed update on the team offer. The slide illustrates why Post Italiana and TEAM represent the perfect strategic fit enabling future growth. Post Italiana already operates a larger platform in Italy, combining financial and insurance services, logistics and distribution, energy, and digital identities, supported by an unmatched physical and digital network. TEAM adds connectivity and tech infrastructure leadership, completing the platform with an iconic cap market brand, a large retail telco client base, sovereign digital capabilities, enterprise commercial excellence, and a market-leading mobile operator in Brazil. The industrial logic is very strong. Together, we serve the largest Italian client base. leveraging a unique distribution footprint made of post offices, digital channels, third-party networks, and team outlets, underpinned by critical physical and digital infrastructure, supporting the country's digitalization, connectivity, and data plans. From an earning standpoint, the combined entity remains firmly anchored to post-Italian core strength with financial and insurance services accounting for around 82% of domestic EBIT and continue to present the bulk of the group cash generation. At the same time, connectivity and digital services to public administration and enterprises represent a powerful growth opportunity. And let me spend now a moment on our super app and why integrating the team consumer offer is so powerful. With 17 million users and over 4 million daily active users, we already operate an unmatched national scale platform. The super app is designed around everyday services, from payment and banking to connectivity, energy, driving higher frequency and greater stickiness than traditional e-commerce models. Today, close to 80% of our app users own more than one product, double the percentage of non-app users. Integrating team premium offering and broad customer base into the super app accelerates engagement, unlock cross-selling, and strengthens the flywheel effect. Important, this is built on critical infrastructure, not loosely assembled partnership. The results is a unique trusted marketplace for daily essential services and long-term needs, enhanced by AI-driven orchestration and personalization across key life events, supporting sustainable growth and multiple monetization levers over time. To summarize, it is much easier to sell one more product to an existing client than winning a new client, and this is thanks to our digital plus physical seamless assistance to our clients. Let me now hand over to Camillo for the financial aspects of the proposed transaction, as well as a detailed overview of our Q1 26 financial results. Over to you, Camillo. Thank you. Thank you, Matteo. Let's briefly focus on the shareholder value creation, which is a key pillar of the transaction. Our ongoing analysis confirms the initial assessment of circa 700 million synergies, with 400 million coming from cost efficiencies and a further 200 million EBIT from incremental revenues. From an earnings perspective, the transaction is EPS-accreted from 2027 with double-digit accretion in 2028, implying compelling pro forma 2028 TE multiple of eight to nine times. On dividends, we reconfirmed the 2026 guidance-implied DPS with dividends paid also to the new shares issued as a result of the team offer with an accretive dividend policy going forward. Leverage remains low at around 1.4 times the WBDA after lease by around 2026 and declining thereafter with current credit ratings as of today confirmed by all three rating agencies. Let's move to a more detailed overview of expected synergies. On the revenue side, with TIM, we will add a premium connectivity offer to our platform and unlock powerful cross and upselling opportunities through Italy's large distribution network and our 4.2 million super app daily active users. We will also accelerate growth across enterprise and public administrations as we expand the tech services offer of cloud, cybersecurity, IoT, and agentic AI, as well as integrated one-stop shop for financial, insurance, cloud-sovereign solutions, and other services. Overall, we confirm more than $200 million of EBIT from incremental revenues. On the cost side, the in-depth analysis confirms around $500 million efficiencies. The merger of Poste Telco and Team Consumer enables OPEX and workforce rationalization. The deal will generate efficiencies from digital and technology integration, optimization of the distribution networks and real estate footprint, as well as economies of scale on advertising and procurement costs. Additionally, the relaunch of our insourcing program will provide further structural cost benefits. Post-investment grade rating will allow for an optimization of the combined entity's funding costs. We expect one-off integration costs of around $700 million pre-tax, mainly over 2026-2027. Moving to slide 14. This page illustrates how we see the true premium offered to team shareholders and why we believe our value proposition is compelling. Considering both the cash component of the deal as well as the expected value of team shareholders' share of the combined entity, including synergies, the true premium embedded in our offer is 17%, calculated on a pre-deal spot basis. The embedded premium rises up to 50% if calculated on an unencumbered average price, as team shares have risen by around 110% since our first investment in February 2025. Importantly, our offer to team minority shareholders embeds a 40% sharing of the value of the synergies in line with the market standard 50-50 split when considering post-Italiani already owns 20% of team shares capital. Overall, this is a transaction structure to deliver an attractive premium, transparent value sharing, and long-term upside to all shareholders. Let's move to slide 15 for an update on the transaction timelines. We announced the deal on March 22nd, followed by the filing of the exchange and cash offer documentation and regulatory submissions on April 10th, both completed as planned. On June 18th, we will hold an EGM for the capital increase proposal. On July 24th, we will present post-Italian standalone 2026-2030 plan alongside with Q2 and H1 2026 results, providing full transparency and enabling a more informed assessment of the value of the equity component of the consideration. By the end of July, we expect Bank of Italy and Consul approvals along the offer period to start, with closing targeted for the end of Q3 2026. Overall, execution is progressing smoothly and in line with our stated timeline. Let's now move to our Q1 financial results from page number 17. In May, parcel and distribution revenues totaled just over $1 billion, up 6% year-on-year. May revenues of $5.5 million are down by 3%, in line with the trend that we anticipated for full year 2026. Pulsar revenues accelerated a remarkable 15% to $4, $5, $3 million, driven by market share gains across a diversified customer base and cost of logistics development. On the logistics front, we announced a JV with Benetton Logistics, leveraging our logistics and e-commerce leadership to create a scalable platform capable of attracting new customers and supporting profitable growth for the group. Distribution revenues from other business units are up 7% in the quarter, driven by strong commercial momentum and active portfolio management concentration in Q126. Adjusted EBITDA 43 million in Q126 is one in line with the full year guidance. Let's look at volumes and tariffs on slide number 18. Parcel volumes were up 15%, supported by continuing market share gains across customer segments. 43% of items are now delivered via the postal network, up 3 percentage points versus last year. Looking at parcel pricing, the average tariff remains broadly stable as volume growth is spread across customer segments and growth in lower-priced items comes with a lower unit cost to deliver. Moving to mail, the volume trend is in line with expectations down 8%, whilst the higher mail average tariff reflects ongoing repricing actions across both regulated and market products. Moving to financial services with gross revenues for the quarter at 1.8 billion, up 8%. Net interest income came at 658 million Q126, reflecting lower rates on variable portfolio versus Q125, while marginally ahead of 2026 guidance, as a result of an improved interest rate environment towards the end of the quarter. We expect this We expect this will provide more meaningful support to NII in the coming quarters. The $166 million active portfolio management revenues realized in the quarter represent most of the capital gains expected for the year. Postal saving distribution fees are stable at $440 million and supported by improving net inflows. Consumer loans fees reach $66 million. Asset management revenues are up 27% to $55 million in Q1. benefiting from higher assets under management. Finally, adjusted EBIT came in at 318 million, up 22% reflecting the positive revenue trend. Moving to slide 20, TFA has reached 606 billion, up 5.3 billion in the three months from the end of 2025. Looking briefly at each component, we reported strong 1.7 billion net inflows in investment products, confirming the positive trend in life insurance, with significant contribution from multi-class products as well as in asset management. Deposits were up, benefiting from higher balancing from PA clients and resilient deposits, retail deposits at 59 billion, confirming the stickiness and loyalty of our customer base. Improved postal savings net outflows were driven by higher flows in postal bonds. Moving to slide 21. Insurance service revenues amounted to $469 million in Q126, up 6% year-on-year. We continue to have positive net flows in Q126 with a significant contribution from multi-class products. Our improving lapse rate down to 7% is driven by normalizing market environment and lower client portfolio rebalancing activity. In Q126, at around 35% of our lapses have been reinvested into new life products. Life investment and pension revenues are up 6% to $4 to $3 million in Q1, driven by a growing CSM and higher release. Protection revenues are up 9% in the quarter, supported by higher growth return premium, up 6% to $3.92 million in Q1, and the market leading combined ratio. Adjusted EBITDA of $392 million is up 4% compared to Q125, supported by both life investment and protection. Net profit of $265 million reflects the lower free capital yield due to the additional remittance to the parent company and the temporarily higher ERAP tax rate. On slide 22, we show the CSM evolution in the quarter. Normalized CSM growth is positive at 2.9% annualized, with a strong increase in new business value and expected return more than compensated in the quarter release. Group CSM at the end of the quarter is at $13.8 billion, providing strong visibility on the division's sustainable profitability going forward. Importantly, both the CSM and the equity of our insurance business have grown in the quarter. Post Evita's Group Solvency Ratio was 294 at the end of March 2026, well above the managerial ambition of around 200% through the cycle. This ratio already embeds the accrual of the 100% net profit remittance to the parent company. The ratio remains solid, with the movement mainly driven by negative impact from economic variances due to high risk-free rates and spreads, while the impact external capital generation of the business fully covers the foreseeable dividend impact. Moving to post-pay services slide number 24, where solid revenue and EBIT progression continues ahead of integration into the financial hub. Revenues rose by 7% year-on-year to 4 to 5 million in Q1 as our unique everyday ecosystem continues to drive top line and profitability growth. Strong payment revenues at 297 million are up 5% in the quarter, supported by higher transaction value, up 10% year-on-year, and growth in total number of ecosystem transactions up 14%. Their core revenues are stable in Q1 at 82 million, thanks to solid client acquisition dynamics. The migration to the team network infrastructure has been completed in April. Energy revenues reach 46 million in the quarter, Driven by the expansion of the customer base, now 1.1 million clients. Top-line performance and effective cost management drove a strong 15% adjusted EBIT growth to 1.53 million in Q1. Let me now give you a brief overview of PostItaliana's telco business. Launched as an MVNO in 2012, the Telco business is now the fifth player in Italy with a total of 4 million customers with a 6% market share in mobile. Our Telco client base is extremely loyal with a 6% to 7% churn rate, well below market levels. 2025 revenues were 3 to 8 million, while in Q1 26 they reached 82 million. Profitability is meaningful and improving, contribution to Group C but implying a 25% margin. The business operates with a very lean structure, leveraging our nationwide physical distribution, network, and digital channels, including the super app. Against this backdrop, the envisaged possible combination of post-telco business with team consumer creates the number one mobile operator in Italy and effectively kick-starts the next leg of domestic telco consolidation. Since the end of 2025, the average headcount has fallen to just over 119,000. Importantly, the value added per FTE continues to improve by 7% and €93,000 per FTE. HR costs per FTE are up 2% to €48,800 per FTE as a result of higher variable compensation and labor agreement salary increase. Moving to slide 27, HR costs increased marginally by 1% to over $1.4 billion, mainly driven by $23 million of additional costs from higher variable compensation and labor agreement salary increase. In this quarter, ordinary HR costs on revenues are down to 39%. Non-HR costs increased by $116 million year-on-year, Fixed costs were up due to the concentration of marketing and advertising costs in the quarter. Variable costs are up 66 million reflecting business growth dynamics. DNA are up by 18 million in line with the increasing investment driving our continued transformation. In general, our focus on cost and capital discipline across all divisions remains at the shop and protecting the bottom line, profitability is a priority. Thank you for your time. Let me hand over to Matteo Ferrera-Papa. Thank you, Camillo. To conclude, Poste Italiana is delivering record results with healthy growth, rising profitability, and a very solid balance sheet, validating the strength of our platform business model. Looking ahead, in light of our strong Q1 results and an improved interest rate environment, we have raised our adjusted EBIT guidance to 3.4 billion for the year. Against this backdrop, we are even more convinced that the team transaction is the natural step in our platform evolution. Team adds connectivity and technological leadership, completes our offering with an iconic premium brand, and enables us to fully unlock the value of our physical digital ecosystem. The deal is financially disciplined. EPS and DPS are creative, also thanks to material expected synergies and is fully consistent with our capital and dividend framework. Execution is on track and the closing is expected by Q3 26. We're entering a new chapter of our journey, shaped by the progress we achieve and driven by a clear long-term ambition. On July 24, we will be unveiling our strategic 2026-2030 standalone plan alongside our Q2 26 results. I look forward to seeing you there or even before in our roadshow. Thank you, and over to Giuseppe, please. Thank you, Matteo. We are now ready to start the Q&A session. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star 1 and to remove yourself from the question queue, please press star 2. Please try to limit yourself to two questions. The first question we have today is from Antonio Reale, Bank of America. Please go ahead, Antonio.

Thank you. Good afternoon. It's Antonio from Bank of America. I've got a couple of questions and one clarification, if I may. The first one is you've upgraded your EBIT guidance for the year up to 3.4 billion. And I understand you'll be presenting your standalone plan targets in Q2. But if you could give us a bit more color around sort of the moving parts driving this and where you think you see better commercial momentum within the group, that would be my first question. My second one is a follow-up, a clarification, I think, on your dividend remarks. I think if I remember back in February, you got it for a net profit of 2.3 billion with a payout that was at least 70%. which in your existing share count, it implies something like 1.3 euros dividend per share or so, which will still be up year on year. And I think this is broadly in line with consensus expectations. Now, I also think you've said that you expect this number to be growing consistently with the accretion that would derive from the deal. I just want to make sure I've understood this right. You're sticking to a growing DPS ratio. even after accounting for the new share count, which you need to issue to fund the Telecom Italia acquisition. Did I understand that right? And if you could elaborate, I think it's an important point. The last question is really on your synergies on the Telecom Italia deal. You've talked about 700 million pre-tax, of which 500 million cost synergies from year two and 200 million in higher revenues from year three, if I look at your slide 13 correctly. You've given us good details on this slide. Maybe you can sort of work us through and tell us where you would see any relevant upside that is not included in these numbers. Thank you.

Thank you, Antonio. I'll take the first question and then hand it over to the CFO. I think we have... a strong momentum in our core business, the financial business. We have posted the first quarter with strong retail investment flows and I think this is there to stay for this year and obviously it will be a target for the plan. I would say that the over the plan up to 2030 the also energy business will also finally give a very meaningful contribution to the EBIT base of poste and then I think the other very important direction we're taking is with the consolidation of our payment business into Banco Posta and the ambition to present to the market a unified financial services segment including insurance. We have started more than a year ago a journey giving on the three segments a unified leadership that will break some of the normal internal segment and will allow us to present a real client center offering for financial services. And finally, before I hand over to Camillo, we will keep the evolution of our logistic presence. We reach almost 50% of our parcels delivered by lettermen, the 28th plan was targeting two-thirds so you know i'm curious to see where you know we will be able to commit for 2030 but that's another you know a big transformation step allowing our lettermen that day by day has less mail to deliver to be busier and busier with Parcel and you know this quarter 15% growth on Parcel give us a lot of confidence that we are in the right direction. We're gaining market share in B2C for the first couple of years so we started gaining market share in B2B and finally, you know, we've never seen it in poste, we start to see a meaningful growth on outbound products since we did our strategic agreement with DHL, we, you know, since two years we have a product, we have put together commercial focus on this. and finally we start to see numbers coming through. Please, Camillo, on dividend. Yes, so I'll start with 2026 and then I'll comment on the second part. With regards to 2026, yes, we had given guidance of 2.3 billion for 2026. And we also said at the time that the expected dividend was going to be within the range of 125 to 1.3. I think that the guidance that we gave, the increased guidance we gave at operating profit level gives us space to be very confident to be at least at the end of that range. With regards to the second question, which is dividend policy going forward if the transaction goes ahead, the CEO did guide towards single-digit accretion for EPS and double-digit accretion EPS for 2027 and 2028, respectively, and we expect the dividend to follow that same direction. And then there is... The third question on synergies. Yes, and now we talk about synergies. So with respect to synergies, the number that we gave on the 22nd of March was 700 million euro. That was the result of some outside-in work that we did within POST with a very small group of individuals involved. I think that since then we have done a massive amount of work internally with different stakeholders with different workstreams involving both the revenue side and the cost side involving every corporate function of the group. And at this point, we can say that we feel very comfortable of our ability to deliver that level of synergies. Obviously, there is a marginally different mix compared to what we expected initially, but the total is confirmed at least as a base.

Thank you.

Thank you. The next question is from Alberto Villa at Intermonte. Go ahead, Alberto.

Hi, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. The first one is again on the guidance. Just to be to understand correctly if the upward revision was only related to the financial segment and if you can provide us with the your now underlying assumption in terms of guidance for 2026 from investment portfolio. You also had a target of around 200 million of active portfolio management. You basically did most of capital gains in the first quarter. Can we assume that you are basically done there and for the rest of the year is mostly coming from the better environment in terms of interest rates that is boosting the investment portfolio and the guidance. The second question is on the announced agreement with the Benetton Group in logistics. If you can expand a little bit on that and let us understand better what are the implications and potential positive coming from this agreement that would be helpful. And finally, curiosity, since you launched the offer on theme, I was wondering if you can give us some color on what was the reaction by the different stakeholders on the offer, let's say the positive and pushback comments you have been gathering from the different side, let's say investors and also inside of the company and so on. That would be interesting to hear. Thank you very much.

I will follow your order and so you, Camillo, start and then I... Yes, so with regards to the guidance upgrade, I think that the key point which has led us to increase the guidance is the evolution of the NII. I think we said that in the speech and the script and the presentation. The backdrop to this is that we have the guided in February to 2.7 billion euro of total portfolio return, which was in line with the year before 2025, whereas in 2025 we had no capital gains and we were planning to do something between 100 and 200 in 2026. We have reached that level. First of all, there should be not much more in terms of capital gain compared to what we've already done. But overall, we are increasing our guidance to total portfolio return to 2.8 billion as we are going to have 100 million more of NII compared to the initial guidance of 2.7. Yeah, and... Just to top up, just one word on the answer. The capital gain we recorded on the first quarter, we had already anticipated. I think the market was aware of it. But please bear in mind, as you see on our appendix, that we still have... If you look at page 34 of our appendix, we still have 1.5 billion of gross unrealized gains, so that's our historical buffer that we use if and when need be. The agreement with Benetton is basically A very important step, we're creating a new company starting from their warehousing facilities in Castrette in northern east Italy. They basically spin off their premises into logistic 360, that's the name of the company, We will own 51% of this company, so we will consolidate the business. We will start serving, obviously, the Benetton Group, but the strategy behind the transaction is that the warehousing system is unsaturated, and therefore, we have already started offering that platform for warehousing to other prospect clients. And that obviously has a very interesting marginality because the warehousing is already amortized in the new core. It will give us additional revenues, some EBIT contribution. We'll have to do some capex to upgrade premises. But more importantly, it will allow us to go up the value chain. Whoever followed us for the last nine years, we started at the end of the line and today We are at the top of the logistic space in Italy, mainly driven by B2C, but we started already three to four years ago, a journey achieving more value-added services. That's obviously the B2B space, which will be coming also out of this JV. and it will be the warehousing. The third question is theme offering of March, reaction and pushback. The reaction overall, even though we are clearly pushing the envelope from some standpoint, because obviously we are asking a different client base to learn the ropes of the financial institution domain, which is where we belong, is overall positive. Clearly, there is always, as in any transaction, some price objectives and, you know, tensions on, you know, you could have offered more. Our page today on what we call the true premium I think is a good answer to that pushback. I'm referring to page 14 where we show that on a through premium basis looking at the value that the team shareholders had the Friday before the tender and comparing that value with the value that they will have after the transaction is completed and synergies are brought home. There is a 17% to the team shareholders, but we didn't mention in the presentation, there is a 10% for the post shareholders. So I think, you know, we have made an effort to be on the team side of investors. And as Camillo reminded on the call, These numbers are assuming an unencumbered asset. The reality is that obviously we were within for more than a year now, and so if you look at it on a longer timeframe, and I think we can debate as long as we want whether on the 22nd of March when we launched the offer on the Sunday Tim was encumbered or unencumbered but certainly it was not a totally unencumbered asset if you look at it on a longer time frame you reach as much as a 50% true premium. I think the most interesting trend we are seeing, the more time we spend on the road, mainly with obviously post-investors, is that our strategy, the more we detail it, becomes clearer to investors. It's clearly a long journey, we have three months more to go before there is the final launch of the offer and this is the time that we will spend explaining the opportunity to all investors and at the end of this period you will have also the opportunity like you know the first question of Antonio pointed out of our catalyst strategic plan standalone on the 24th of March and let me add and I finish that that plan will be a standalone plan Plus, obviously, we'll have, as we did today, the optionality that we will show and update to investors of the team transaction. Thank you, Alberto. I hope I answered your question. Yeah, thank you. Okay, thank you. Alberto, next question is from Tommaso Nierdo at Kepler. Go ahead, Tommaso.

Hello, and thank you a lot for taking my questions. The first one is on payments revenues, given we are ahead of its consolidation in the financial hub. In the quarter, they grew 5%, but the underlying KPIs were materially stronger, because if you look at transaction values plus 10%, total transaction plus 14%, And that's like a six to 10 percentage point gap. And we shouldn't have any more of the headwind from the instant payment. So my question would be, if you can help us decompose what is happening on the take rate, I understand it shouldn't follow closely, but still your view would be highly appreciated. And the second one on guidance, sorry, it's a follow-up. You have raised the adjusted debit guidance, but not the net profit guidance. Should we read this as flagging some offsetting headwinds below the line or it is just a matter of rounding when it goes down and you expect as well a positive, even if smaller upgrade on net income? Thank you a lot.

Thank you, Tommaso. I will let Camillo dig a little bit on payments as you required and remind everybody that on page 47 and 48 of the appendix we have some very strong data on our payment growth since 2018 when we created our payment division. Yes, so thank you, Matteo. So we are indeed pleased with the performance of the post-pay services division within what we call payments. There are a number of subset of payments or revenue contributors, which are grossly divided into categories. One are the card payments, and the card payments have enjoyed strong performance. And then we have another category, group of contributors which are called IDAR payments. And within IDAR payments, there are also things that have been, as we planned, performing a bit less strong. As an example, payment slips historically have been going down. So if you average out the two, this is where you get. And overall, the transaction metrics and the underlying trends in payments are indeed very strong as also you can look at in the appendix of our presentation. With respect to the second question, we have indeed upgraded our guidance at operating profit level. We have not done the same at Net profit was implicit in what I said to Antonio as we had 2.3 and 2.3 is 100 million, let's say, corridor. And with the EBIT upgrade, we are now in the upper end of that 2.3 compared to where we were at the presentation in February. Okay, thank you. Next question is from Andrea Lisi at Equita. Go ahead, Andrea.

Hello, everybody. Thank you for taking my questions. The first one is on the parcel segment where we saw a strong acceleration in volumes and that transmitted also to revenues that is even stronger than the past quarter. what should we expect going on, but also on this point, what are the actions you are putting in place to see in some way a transmission of the higher revenues also to higher EBIT level on the division. The second question is more a curiosity. We have seen a small decline in the card stock quarter on quarter. there is any reason or something you have observed on that. And really, last one on the GDP in life business, 7% year-on-year decline. Can you provide some more color on that and which trends are you experiencing and expecting going on? Thank you.

I'll start with Axel and then let Camillo on the second question. Yes, I mean, we keep our focus on parts of the future logistic space. The game nine years ago was to be able to go on the field and play, because to be entirely honest, nine years ago, we were not even in the top five players at home. forget about the international or the outbound. Now we're clearly at the lead of that game. So the market share game has worked. And Andrea, you're totally right saying when will you be able to extract margins out of this position. To be entirely honest, I think it's still a bit premature because the market is extremely competitive from what we hear. Nobody is really smiling out of our competitors and our competitors are all foreign-owned giants, you know, the likes of the FedEx, GPS, DHL, GLS, and Bartolini owned by La Poste. So I think, you know, there is still a very strong competitive environment that at least on the B2C and to some extent on the B2B doesn't leave a lot of value for you know, increasing pricing and margin. The way we're trying to address this, as I mentioned, is, you know, going up the value chain. We did the Plurima acquisition four years ago to move into healthcare logistics where we took a leadership and we keep growing there. We launched a contract logistic program company that has started making some meaningful inroads in contract logistics. So that's the first time in history that Poste enter the warehousing business in logistics and clearly Benetton is an evolution of that model. So the way we think we can extract margins out of the logistics space in the next two to three years in summary is more out of moving up the value chain than the pure B2C or B2B and let's not forget that's one very important item that is paying off very very very well the PUDO market so the delivery in fixed locations so everything which is not home delivery we have an absolute leadership there with you know today almost a quarter of all our B2C volumes going into a PUDO place. That's a staggering number and that applies to our network and that applies to our network because other than our post offices which are 12,000 unable to do parcels, we are Adding to those the Pulto Poste, which is our third party network, which is another 20,000 points. Then we launched three years ago the Locker Italia JV with DHL, which is also going very well. We have an intermediary target of 3,000 lockers, but the objective is 10,000. So that space, which is extremely important in terms of covering the ground because if you look at developed market, when a retail finds convenient to be delivered in a puddle, that habit becomes relatively sticky. So if you gain that space, you gain that client and you gain the fact that you have efficiency because obviously every time we stop and refill a locker or give our parcels to a third-party agent, we can do multiples of 10, 15 parcels items as opposed to you know the home delivery item which is obviously a one trip one drop as opposed to one trip 10 drops okay so i'll take the other questions so first question is around evolution of the stock of cards, I think that on this point we are where we want to be. If we look at, I think you are comparing the stock of cards to fiscal year 2025, we are up on post-EPAE evolutions, which are the cards which are the ones which have been investing more in terms of capabilities. We are also up on debit cards. We are down on post-EPA standard, but only that portion of cards which are associated to government grants or government bonds. So that stock of cars has been going down as the funds being transferred to Italian citizens on the cars has been going down progressively too. So that is what has led to that evolution. But the cars with which we work the most have been growing as we expected. With respect to the second question which I need to address, which was with regards to the Lapse rate, it has indeed gone down to 7% below where it was last year. It's still above our historical trend levels, and hopefully we'll manage to control that also going forward. Certainly at this level, we are in line with the budget levels for 2026, despite being ahead of where it was in the past. Let's not also forget, as I said in my script, that part of this lapse is self-induced as we are effectively rotating portfolios to different products within our product suite. So if you isolate that impact, the true lapse rate is around 4.5% as opposed to 7%.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you, Andrea. Next question is from Giovanni Razzoli at Deutsche Bank. Go ahead, Giovanni, please.

Good afternoon. One question and one clarification. I've seen that you had 2 billion euros of outflows in the postal savings in this quarter. In the previous conference, if I'm not mistaken, you mentioned that In these years, there will be a concentration of redemptions of this product. Can you please confirm if we have already added a peak of outflows in redemptions in 2025, or if you would expect it more in 26 and 27? And second question is a clarification as the line was pretty bad on your response, Camillo, about the dividend per share. You mentioned the range of 1.3, 1.5 euros of dividend guidance for 2026 or did they... No, I didn't say that, Giovanni, so stop immediately.

I said in February 1.25 to 1.3, and what I'm saying now is that as a result of the upgrade of the net profit, we feel very comfortable getting at least at the top end of that range.

Okay, thank you for the clarification. There is another question left.

On the first question of portal bonds, I can tell you that 27 is lower redemptions and that we had a very good year so far on postal savings so we continue the positive trend of reducing the net outflows And that's thanks to our focus on one end, our changing distribution model in the making, and the fact that we keep enjoying sort of a honeymoon with our colleagues and shareholders of Casa de Positive Presity that will keep providing us a very appealing and very interesting products for our clients. One thing that I mentioned a few times in the past few years, but I take the opportunity to repeat it, postal savings being in the hands of 35 million Italians and having meaningful redemptions every year are an engine in the engine of the platform. In other words, if you have a nice and good offering of postal savings on the shelf that you can offer to your clients, the dynamics with your clients across products is a positive one. and that allows you to get the client going to redemption to reinvest in postal savings. If risk parameters allows it to start a diversification trajectory into risk and into multi-class insurance products, And that's the basis also for our strong performance in protection, because that comes together with often an embedded offer in live products. And that drives many of our products. And when we talk about the flywheel effect, when we talk about the platform, when we say that it's much easier to sell a new product to a client that you already own, then go out and win a totally new client, that's exactly what we mean. Postal Savings Working is a new client, is a client satisfied with the performance of the product, that is in the perfect mood to receive a new offer on a product. And that's really, in a nutshell, if you allow me, kind of the secret weapon we're trying to put on the table every day with our 30,000 tellers and 9,000 consultants facing retail on the physical side and our more than 4 million daily average users, with, we've shown in February, an increasing participation of the postal savings sales on the digital platform. Thank you, Giovanni. We have one more question from Michael Appner at Bellenberg. Please go ahead, Michael.

Yeah, thank you so much. It was really a very light question. Well, actually two. One is on inflation and the other one is on solvency. I did ask you one slide, our team, and they said, no, inflation is light. No, nothing, 10 million or something. But I always worry a little bit about potential disruption to the cost part of your business. So that would be one question was the outlook there. And then the second is on solvency, so 294%. the managerial guidance 200. I know you're doing this 1.5 billion cash extractions from Prostivita. You've done 500, and I think in this number you've already deducted 1 billion. Is there more to come out of this, or how should we think about it? Thank you.

Please, Camille, if you start with the inflation impact. Yes, Michael, I do too worry about inflation. So we do ensure that that message is passed to our divisions. And with regards to 2026, we did have in the first quarter some inflation-related costs, I think to the tune of around 20 million in 2020. in the quarter and that has to do mainly with variable costs growing with inflation and also some of that 20 million related to transportation costs where I also add that we are systematically transferring extra potential transportation costs related to energy to our customers to the extent we can. And on solvency, the 294, for the sake of clarity, is including out of the 100, sorry, 1,500,000,000 special dividend upstream from post Evita, 1 billion. The last 500 million will have around 11 basis point impact. What we will do from here, I'm sorry, Michael, you need to be patient. Going back to the first question of Antonio Reale, it's going to be unveiled on the 24th of July.

Fantastic. I think we'll look forward to it. Thank you very much.

So that was the last question, so thank you all very much for joining us today.

Private dancer, a dancer for money, do what you want me to do. Just a private dancer, a dancer for money, and any old music will do. Well, the men come in these places, and the men are all the same. You don't look at their faces. You don't think of them as.