10/24/2023

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Before I hand over to Magda Polczynska, Head of Investor Relations, a reminder that today's call is being recorded. Madam, you may begin.

speaker
Magda Polczynska
Head of Investor Relations

Good morning and welcome to Unicredit's third quarter 2023 results conference call. Andrea Orchel, our CEO, will lead the call. Then Stefano Porro, our CFO, will take you through the financials in more detail. Following Andrea's closing remarks, there will be a Q&A session. Please limit yourself to two questions. With that, I will hand over to Andrea.

speaker
Andrea Orcel
CEO

Good morning. Thank you, Magda, and thank you all for joining us today. When we set out on this transformation journey, many people said that we were too ambitious. But looking back with these results, our 11th consecutive quarter of quality growth and record quarter and nine months numbers, you could argue that we were not optimistic enough. Unifred's potential has again been proven. This is particularly striking as from day one we have been faced with heightened uncertainty about European economic growth, the impact of central banks' reactions, and a backdrop even now of unprecedented geopolitical volatility which has redefined our understanding of a new normal. Despite the continued macro challenges, what I will explain today shows the potential of this bank, the result of which can be seen not only this year and next, but over the longer term as our strategy to invest in the future continues. We are not only producing excellent results, but more importantly, we are producing the right kind of results. Results that show the discipline with which we are focusing on quality profitable growth, operational and capital efficiency, building lines of defense, and continuing to invest in the business for the future. While we acknowledge that our performance has been further propelled by the rates environment net of inflation, it is grounded on the continued advancement of our financial, industrial, and cultural transformation. This means that we are not only confident in the profitability and distribution of this year, but also in our ability to deliver in the longer term. Let's start our presentation. Like every successful organization, Unicredit is united around a clear purpose and vision. For us, it is empowering communities to progress while becoming the bank for Europe's future and setting a new benchmark for banking. Our pan-European model delivers this vision through a winning strategy. Our people, united by common principles, values, and ambition, offering local service to clients and communities. Best-in-class products and content, leveraging our group scale and factories. The scale we are capturing in order to converge data and technology. More specifically, at our core, we build everything around our clients to whom we offer a unique gateway to Europe. We empower and trust our people to whom we offer a more connected organization capable of attracting and developing the best talent. we offer an attractive and sustainable opportunity for our investors, both in terms of returns and profitable growth delivering Europe. We foster a two-way approach with our partners, attracting the very best in class and providing them with access across 13 markets while obtaining reciprocal access to their client bases. We support and give back empowering the European communities in which we and our clients operate. In short, we are rebuilding this business from the bottom up, putting it back together block by block and propelling it forward with consistency quarter after quarter. Our underlying success giving us license to do increasingly and incrementally more beyond what is expected. Today we will guide you through three main sections. First, the demonstration of another great set of results confirming our quality profitable growth trajectory and delivery across all our levers beating expectation. Second, how our results are protected by lines of defense and propelled by investment to secure and boost profitability tomorrow. Third, what this means for our guidance 23-24 and beyond, both in terms of profitability and distribution, as we support current results and propel future successes. In Q3, we have delivered yet another strong quota of quality profitable growth across all our regions and all our levers, beating consensus once again by one margin. We maintained our excellent levels of net revenue growth, operational and capital excellence, return on tangible equity at 13% CD1, and organic capital generation, supporting our leadership in sustainable distribution relative to our market cap. This quarter, we have again beaten the targets for our three levers of net revenue, cost, and capital, as well as the related KPIs of cost-income ratio, net revenue to RWAs, and organic capital generation. The numbers I will refer to are year-over-year and on a group basis. Hence, they still include Russia. Our net revenues are up 33% in the nine months, supported by the quarter up 23%. I remind you that the heat from Russia was concentrated in the first quarter of 2022, which affects the year-on-year comparison. Gross revenue strengths are broadly the same. This is mostly driven by NII, up 43 percent in the nine months and 45 percent in the quarter, as we continue to manage the deposit path through well and we benefit from higher rates. but this is connected to the strengths of the organization and of our people. Our fees are flat over the nine months and down 1% in the quarter when adjusted for the current account fee reduction in Italy and the increased cost of securitization to support our RWA's efficiencies. This confirmed the resiliency of our fee base and the strong performance of our product factories in a challenging macro environment. Cost of risk is at 12 basis points and at 19 basis points, growth of write-backs in the quarter. This is not only consistent with our guidance of a cost of risk through the cycle of 20 to 25 basis points, but also confirms the quality of our credit portfolio and the conservativeness of our staging, provision and overlays, which are partially reflected in the write-backs we continue to see. Costs. Costs are a clean beat, down 1% in the nine months and down 2.3% in the quarter, driven by our disciplined and targeted approach on efficiencies. We have moved firmly from an organization hampered by a bloated corporate center and inefficient cost base to one increasingly streamlined and capable of absorbing inflation and significant continuing investments while decreasing absolute cost. We will continue to do so. It is important to note that were we not continuing to invest in the future, our absolute cost and cost-income ratio would significantly beat the trends that we are seeing today. Stefano will shortly take you through this. We have achieved this by streamlining and simplifying our business, our organization, our processes, and our way of working. We're increasingly leveraging our scale in procurement and eliminating waste, whilst gradually rolling out automation and digitization. And we are not done yet. This striving for operational excellence enables us to reinvest in our people in terms of hiring, training, further advancement of our career, so we have the best people empowered to serve our clients. It also enables us to continue building up our best-in-class product factories, complemented by our growing ecosystem of partnership. And finally, it allows us to progress in our digital and data offering, eventually transforming our client journeys. In summary, while funding our future growth, we are also delivering. a cost income ratio of 39%, a 44% increase of gross operating profit, a record net profit of 6.7 billion, a 9% reduction in our RWAs to 290 billion, All leading to a record 21.7% return on tangible equity at 13% CT1 and 9.9 billion of organic capital generation for the nine months. We are more than twice our expected organic capital generation of the year that we had in our lock. Such strength is reflected across all our regions that have either maintained or increased their overall market share with a shift towards our segments of choice, each one delivering to produce results that are strong in their own right. I will now guide you through each one of our regions' excellent performance, commenting trends on a year-over-year basis. Italy. our Italian business delivered another quarter of strong results. Net revenues rose 23%, reaching 7.8 billion in the nine months, further accelerated by a strong third quarter with a 33% growth. This was driven by NII up 67% with quota trend aligned. Thanks not only to a favorable rates environment, but also an excellent pass-through management. A confirmation of a unique value delivered by our people and the trust built with our customers. Fees in the nine months are down 6%, 8% in the quarter. This, however, was driven almost exclusively by an acceleration in securitization to maximize capital efficiency and a reduction in current account fees since April to support our clients. Excluding these, fees are down only 2%. And Stefano will take you through the various categories of fees and how that is differentiated. The pursuit of operational excellence continues with costs down 2%, both nine months over nine months and in the quarter, while continuing to invest in our frontline, in our products channels, and in our people. Our cost income ratio in Italy further declined to 35.6%. In parallel, our focus on capital efficiency improved our net revenue over RWAs by 2.7 percentage point to 9.2%. Profit before tax rose 44% in the nine months to 4.3 billion, boosted by a strong growth in Q3 of 82%, driven by NII and LLPs, all leading to increasing ROAC above 25%. This has been achieved while continuing to keep our clients at the center of all our decision. Body re-evolution is a case in point, which I will outline later. In parallel, we contribute and support our communities, investing in our branches and supporting our clients with a second tranche of Perlitalia, totally 10 billion to face the strained economic condition. We are providing financial support during emergency as with our ongoing post-flood work with the Emilia-Romagna region. We particularly focus on reconstruction projects for educational and youth support centers. With respect to the Italian windfall tax, we have opted to contribute 1.1 billion towards our non-distributable reserves. This is consistent with our broader approach towards distribution and capital, and a choice clearly given to us. Germany. Germany delivered further proof of the success of its ongoing client-centric transformation. Net revenue rose 15%, reaching 4.1 billion in the nine months, further accelerated by a strong third quarter with a 20% growth. NIA is up nine in the nine months and 11 on a quarterly basis. Fees are up two in the nine months, driven by positive contribution of corporate financial advisory business. while down four in the quarter, mainly due to lower demand on client hedging products consistent with the current macro and market condition. Operational excellence continues as costs fell by 5% in the nine months, with quarterly performance confirming the trend, leveraging the ongoing transformation, self-financing investment to enhance our client offering and our digital proposition. We further reduced cost-income ratio in Germany to 42.8%. Our focus on capital efficiency further increased our net revenue to RWA by 1.3% to 7.2%. Profit before tax rose 42% in the nine months to $2 billion, with a quota showing an accelerating trend up 57%, resulting in a ROAC of circa 18%. All this has been achieved while continuing supporting our community. Central Europe. Central Europe delivered another impressive performance collectively and on a country-by-country basis. Net revenue rose 31%, reaching 3.2 billion in the nine months, boosted by a strong third quarter up more than 34%. NII grew 44% in the nine months and 56% quarterly, reflecting the active management of pricing of assets and liabilities. Fees were down 3% in the nine months and 5% in the quarter, mostly driven by lower client hedging fees in Austria and Czech and Slovakia. Costs were actively managed, ending up only circa 1% in nine months and in Q3, despite a high inflationary environment and continuing investing in the business as we launch digital cash loans in Austria and mobile apps for small business in Hungary. Our cost-income ratio further declined to 37.5%. Our disciplined approach to RWA continued across countries, reaching a 7.1% net revenue to RWA, up 2.2 percentage point. Pre-tax rose 68% in the nine months to 1.8 billion, supported by a strong growth in Q3 of 73%, leading to an increasing ROAC exceeding 23%. All this has been achieved while relentlessly investing both in digital, including improving customer service experience, and in our people, assuring our frontline significant training to best serve our clients. Eastern Europe. Eastern Europe recorded an impressive quarter with strong top-line growth and a record profitability driven by all countries. Net revenues rose 45%, reaching 1.9 billion in the nine months, also benefiting from a strong third quarter with in excess of 40% growth. NII strong increase by 50% in the nine months and 60% in the quarter. Fees shows a positive trend in the nine months, growing 2%, slightly decreasing by 1% in the quarter due to seasonality. Eastern Europe confirmed its operational excellence with a best-in-class cost-income ratio of 32.7%, down 8.5 percentage points in the nine months, with limited inflation-driven drifts thanks to efficiency actions. Our disciplined approach on capital moved our net revenue to RWA further up 2.9 percentage points to 9.4%. We deliver 1.3 billion in pre-tax, up 78% in the nine months, and 62% in Q3, reaching an exception on ROAC of approximately 37%, all of which underscore the rationale and potential inherent in the recently announced bolt-on acquisition in Romania. Our regions are the backbone of our excellent results and allow us to connect our clients across Europe. Our cross-border revenue is up 21% versus previous year, and our cross-border payment market share is 3x the intra-country one. We continue to drive the quality of our results through centralized group factories that provide a kind of scale and scope. Client solution reached 7.6 billion revenues, up 2% in the quarter year over year and down only 1% in the nine months. Excluding the contraction in Russia, we would be up 2%. Our product factories are the engine of capital life fee generation. This quarter we have changed the composition of our corporate solution combining advisory and financing into single leadership to further drive efficiency and effectiveness. We have also separated our payment division that we will discuss later in the presentation and made significant investment to strengthen our individual solution business. Looking at the factories in detail, I will now comment trends on a year-over-year basis. Corporate Solutions reported a 2% growth in the nine months, 8% in the quarter, with sustained fee performance in advisory and financing, and positive NII development in trade and corresponding banking. Payment had a positive performance of 12% in the nine months and 8% in the quarter, propelled by our unique European presence, NII, and recent investment in the business. Individual solutions still operate in a challenging macro environment, resulting in a 3% reduction in the nine months, while flat in the quarter. We see, however, strong positive sign in the growth of managed funds and even more so in non-CPI protection. The attractiveness for our products is demonstrated by our partnership with Alfa Bank, a model that provides us with further growth potential. The extent of Unicredit transformation is clear. We're generating positive jobs while outperforming our peers across all levers. From quality revenue growth to portfolio solidity, capital and operational excellence to profitability, all have consistently outperformed the expectation while we have strengthened our lines of defense and invested in the future. And that is a critical point. By focusing equally on all metrics, Unicredit has moved from a laggard to a leader in each one of them, a position that this bank hasn't been in for over a decade. We have achieved a lot, but the relentless execution of our strategy and additional potential inherent with this bank means there is much more to come. These results are even more impressive if looked at in parallel with our strengths and balance sheet. Our CT1 remains at the top end amongst our peer. We continue to grow capital in spite of our best-in-class distribution thanks to our outsized organic capital generation. Our liquidity ratio remains strong, sustainable, and well above peer average, allowing better management of margins. We maintain a high-quality credit portfolio with conservative proactive staging and provisioning, further improved by high overlays and a lower default rate. Our consistent delivery on our three levers has led to an outperforming return on tangible equity of 21.7% at 13% CT1. On a per share basis, our progress is even more marked. Compared to the nine months of 21, our EPS is up 167%, our DPS is up three times, and our tangible book value per share is up 35%. Our distribution yield stands at more than 16%, aligned with 16% on average since 2021, and our total shareholder return year-to-date are up 80%. As we recently announced, we will front-load 2.5 billion of our 2023 share buyback, pending shareholder approval on Friday and supervisory approval. We're aiming to commence the buyback as soon as possible thereafter. I will now hand over to Stefano, who will provide more details on our third quarter 23 results.

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