Unicredito Spa Ord New

Good morning, and thank you for joining us today as we present another record set of results, ushering Unicredit in a new era of sustainable quality growth. I apologize in advance for my voice, but I'm a little bit under the weather. Over the last four years, Unicredit has undergone a successful transformation, achieving 15 consecutive quarters of quality growth and improvement, outperforming peers across all KPIs. and poised to establish a new sustainable run rate in 2024, a base from which we intend to grow. Our record-breaking results in Q3 and over the past nine months are further testaments to our success driven by the contribution of our people. Sustainable quality growth for us means a growing bottom line that does not sacrifice a top line of exceptional quality, driven by profitable NII and growing weight of fees, combined with operational and capital excellence. This delivers best-in-class profitability and organic capital generation, enabling us to return outsized distribution to our stakeholders. This is the benchmark we intend to set. Our transformation has ushered us into a new era where the work we have undertaken to strengthen our business will become even more apparent, and the full extent of our transformation will finally be for everyone to see. With our structural strengths fueled by unique accelerators and a clear quality growth trajectory, we're well prepared to navigate a challenging macro environment. We're excited about the future and look forward to continuing to deliver exceptional results for all our stakeholders, as confirmed by our upgraded 2024 guidance and future ambition. Unicredit Unlocked has proven to be a winning, flexible strategy built to adapt to a changing environment. Anchored by our vision of becoming the bank for Europe's future, it delivers consistent value to all stakeholders, setting a new benchmark in banking, Our strategy is entirely client-centric. We empower our people in a streamlined organization. We offer best-in-class products, both in-house and through partners, benefiting from group-wide scale. We leverage reliable digital and data capabilities to enhance the client experience, all to serve our clients where and when they need us, across fully integrated channels. All this is underpinned by a culture of empowerment, accountability, and continuous improvement. Over 15 consecutive quarters, this strategy and the dedication of our people allowed us to achieve sector leadership across key metrics. We lead in net revenue to RWA, cost income ratio, and return on tangible equity at 13% CD1. Our EPS growth and total distributions are also best in class. We are operating on a completely new run rate versus 2021. Our net profit is five times higher. Our return on tangible, three times higher. Our organic capital generation, two times higher. And so are our distributions. This quarter, we again achieved impressive results driven by our focus on profitable NII, increased fees, and improved operational and capital efficiency. All this leads to superior return on tangible equity and organic capital generation to support best-in-class distributions. Given the backdrop of rates and path through normalization, the profitable growth in NII of 3% in the nine months and almost flat performance sequentially, quarter on quarter, is particularly impressive. This performance is a direct result of our diversified geographic mix, a continued shift to higher risk adjusted profitability clients and products, and our strict discipline on deposit path through. Overall, cost of risk remain well below our target at nine basis points for nine months, thanks to continued significant writebacks, again, underscoring the conservativeness of our provisioning policy. As such, Net NII dynamics mirror gross NII. Our fee income grew 7.2% in the nine months and an impressive 8.5% in the quarter year-on-year, with fees to revenue reaching 33% and 32% respectively, thanks to our investment in the business and the focus of our people on our clients. Our focus on operational efficiency while investing and capital efficiency while targeting profitable growth continue to set the benchmark for the industry. Absolute costs declined by 1.2% over nine months and 1.4% in the quarter year-on-year, with our cost-to-income ratio at the industry-leading level of 36.6%, two and a half percentage points better than a year ago. Our net revenue to RWAs reached 8.9% at circa one percentage point from a year ago. RWAs were reduced to 278 billion. It is this combined performance across multiple levers that allowed us to reach a record return on tangible equity at 13% CT1 of circa 23.3%, about 20% reported for both the nine months and the quarter. a record organic capital generation of 10.1 billion or 357 basis points for the nine months, while increasing our CT1 ratio to 16.4% per investment. Net profit growth of 16% in the nine months and 8% in the quarter. In the nine months, our EPS increased by 31%, accrued DPS by 48%, and tangible book per share by 20%. Let's now look at the P&L in detail. Net revenue increased 5.4% to $18.6 billion in the nine months and 2.6% to $6 billion in the quarter. This is a result of, one, resilient NII despite lower rates and best-in-class NII ROAC at circa 19% in the quarter, well above the cost of equity. Two, top-tier fee-to-revenue, which continues to gain momentum. LLPs still a low point and stable, still benefiting from right back, confirming quality origination and conservative provisioning. Four, trading and others continues to be solid despite the impact from the Commerce Bank investment. Despite the reduction in rates, we have successfully maintained a stable NII both quarter on quarter and year on year. This achievement is testament to our effective deposit path through management, resulting in path through rate of 32% in the third quarter and growth strategies in selected areas. Our focus on quality has led to constrained overall volume growth, but it has also resulted in our NII ROAC reaching approximately 19% well above our cost of equity. This has put us in a position of strength as we weather the impact of rates normalization. This approach has been crucial in maintaining our financial stability and ensuring our continued success. Our cost of risk remained low at nine basis points for the first nine months, in line with the same period last year. This achievement is largely due to significant write-backs in Russia and elsewhere. This will eventually abate, bringing our cost of risk closer in line with our expectation. Our performing portfolio is highly covered and is of high quality. Our gross non-performing exposure stock and net NPE stock remain stable at 2.7% and 1.4% respectively. This stability reflects our disciplined approach to managing non-performing exposures and maintaining a healthy balance sheet. Our fees have experienced a significant increase across all main categories, growing by 7% over the first nine months of the year and 8.7% excluding the current account and securitization cost, and 8.5% year-over-year. Our fee-to-revenue ratio stands at a top tier 33%, highlighting the quality and diversification of our fee base. We continue to see strong momentum in assets under management and non-life insurance, driven by increased client appetite and a broader product offering. Payments and current account performance is driven by payment, up 6% over nine months, while down 3% in the quarter due to a change in contractual incentive features in Italy. We expect to catch up by year end. Our advisory and financing services have also seen strong acceleration reflecting the benefit of our past investments and a supportive environment. We believe we are the only bank that has consistently reduced our absolute cost base during the last two years of setting inflation across our footprint while increasing revenues and investing in the business quarter over quarter. This quarter and nine months are no exception with costs down respectively 1.4% and 1.2% year over year. Our cost to income ratio has improved to 36.6. We lead in our peer group. This achievement is a result of strong discipline combined with a targeted approach to streamlining our organization and reducing unnecessary overhead. Our operational excellence has been a key factor in our success, and we intend to defend it. Our best-in-class organic capital generation of $10.1 billion in the nine months and $3.5 billion in the quarter has allowed us to accrue 100% of net profit for distribution, while increasing CT1 to 16.4% pre-investment versus 15.9% in full year 2023. This quarter... we have also absorbed the initial capital impact of various strategic investments that will propel our results in the future. These include building a stake in Commerzbank, committing towards our insurance internalization, acquisition of Ion Vodeno and of Alfa Bank in Romania. Some further capital consumption is expected from these stakes in the future. Group RWA increased slightly as almost $5 billion of reduction was more than offset by the impact of strategic investments. We expect RWA to increase by a few billion next quarter. Looking to Basel IV, the full-year impact is expected at around 70 basis points as we implement mitigation action on credit risk, while the initial impact in Q1 2025 will be around 90 basis points. As we look at our region and product factories, I would like to remind you that Unicredit is more than the sum of its part. Our achievements stem from a collective effort across regions and factories, each contributing to our overall strengths, but all coming together as one group that is worth far more than the sum of its part. Italy. Italy continues to deliver high profitability and growth underpinned by earnings quality and operational and capital excellence. Net revenues were up 5% in the nine months, reaching 8.2 billion, with a quarter up 3%. NII was up 5% in the nine months, and remarkably, 1% in the quarter, with rates reduction more than compensated by the continued improvement in the mix of our business and strong management of the pass-through. Cost of risk remained mild at 28 basis points for the nine months and the quarter, showing continued stability. Fees were up 7% in the nine months and 9% in the quarter, with all product contributing and particular strengths in investments, non-life insurance, where we continue to grow our market share, and advisory and capital markets. Operational excellence was maintained. Costs were broadly flat in spite of the salary contract renewal, inflation, and investment in growth within the business. Cost-income ratio was reduced yet again to 34% in the nine months. Our focus on capital efficiency further increased our net revenue to RWAs by 1.4% to 10.5%. Profit before tax rose 17% in the nine months to reach 5 billion, up 19% in the quarter. ROARC reached 33% in the nine months. The region generated 4.4 billion or 156 basis points of capital organically, confirming it as a quality earnings powerhouse. Our client and community remained at the heart of our operation. as we rolled out the third iteration of Unicredit per l'Italia to support individuals and SMEs in navigating the continued challenging external environment. With the recent flooding in the centro-north region, Unicredit provided a program of financial support and flex for individual small businesses as well as providing financial and practical help for people. The full benefit of the investment in Unicredit University became more apparent this year increasing its access to training and upskilling for our people. The university also played a critical part on the landmark agreement with the Italian unions, which saw 600 employees moving into a bespoke risk-killing and re-employment program. Germany. Germany remains an anchor country for Unicredit and has once again surpassed expectations, delivering its best nine months and third quarter profit in over a decade. These results are thanks to continued discipline in improving the quality and profitability of our top line and the increased efficiency of our operations. These factors underscore the strengths of this franchise, both within its home country and as a core contributor to Unicredit. Net revenue was slightly down 1% in the nine months, as strong fees only partially compensated for a slight higher cost of risk. The quarter was up 6%. NII was down 5% in the nine months, driven by higher funding costs in client risk management. The quota was up 7% as this trend started reversing. Cost of risk was marginally up in the nine months to 19 basis points, driven by two large corporate defaults in Q1 and Q2, mitigated by a prudent coverage ratio. Q3 was back to trend line at 16 basis points. Fees were up 2% in the nine months, accelerating to 7% year on year, driven by investment, financing, and payments of a strong base. Operational efficiency continued to improve, with costs down 7% in the nine months and 9% in the quarter. This led to a cost-income ratio of 39.4% in the nine months. Our capital efficiency improved further with net revenue over RWA increasing 0.8 percentage point to 8% in the nine months. Profit before tax rose 17.5% in the nine months to $2.3 billion. And up 17% on a year-on-year basis, ROARC reached 22%. Germany generated 2.3 billion or 82 basis points of capital organically in the nine months. Germany continued to deliver on its commitment to invest in its business with a particular focus on the network. Training and upskilling was rolled out for 1,300 employees, enabling us to retain our talent, providing the opportunity for our people to broaden their skill set and adapt to new role in our private and corporate banking divisions. Germany was this year named top employer in Germany and was instrumental in Unicredit being the first bank in Europe to achieve a global edge certificate. It picked up seven Euromoney awards for its performance across all of its key markets. Central Europe continues to be a dynamic region, delivering resilient growth and continuing to improve operational and capital excellence. Net revenue were up 3% in the nine months, reaching $3.3 billion, driven by strong fees and resilient NII, while slightly down in the quarter due to lower rates and higher deposit path through. NII was up 1% in the nine months, remaining resilient amidst the declining rates and VAT. The quarter was down 8.5% year-on-year due to lower rates, higher deposit path through, particularly in Austria and Hungary, and a time delay in repricing savings accounts in Austria that shall be reversed at a later date. Cost of risk had net reversal of four basis points in the nine months due to write-backs in Q1 and Q2, while at zero basis points for the quarter. Fees were up an impressive 10% in the nine months, thanks to strong investment services and a large advisory mandate in checking Q2. Excluding such mandate, fees were up 8%. As with all our markets, the striving for operational excellence continued, with costs slightly decreasing in the quarter and growing by only 1% in the nine months. Cost-income ratio reduced yet again by 1 percentage point to 36.5% in the nine months, reaching 36.6% in the quarter. Our focus on capital efficiency led to an increase in our net revenue to RWA of 0.3 percentage point to 7.4%. Pre-tax profit rose 9% in the nine months to in excess of 1.9 billion, resulting in a ROAC of 24%. The region generated record 1.7 billion or 61 basis points of capital organically in the nine months. As the core gross engine of a group within our 13 market, Eastern Europe delivered again across all revenue streams. Net revenues were up 14%, reaching $2.2 billion in the nine months, with flat performance in the quarter due to LLP normalization. NII was up 11% in the nine months, driven by strong commercial growth with a quarter plus 2% year-over-year, with strong business growth across the region and good pass-through control compensating for rate reductions. Cost of risk had net reversal of 34 basis points in the nine months due to Q1 and Q2 writebacks. Q3 cost of risk moved towards trend line at 12 basis points as most of our writebacks reduced. Fees were up 10% in the nine months with a quarter up five year over year, driven by a positive momentum across all categories and supported mainly by client hedging fees and payments. As with all our market, operational excellence remains a focus balanced with investment in our business, people, and technology. This commitment saw costs increase just 3.5% in the nine months and in the quarter, offsetting most of the region's high inflation due to wage drift. Cost-income ratio reduced yet again to 30.3% in the nine months, and our focus on capital efficiency further increased our net revenue to RWA, by 0.3 percentage point to 9.8%. Pre-tax profit rose 20% in the nine months to one and a half billion with flat performance in the quarter due to LLP's normalization, resulting in a ROAC just below 40%. As with all our markets, our banks across the CEE remain focused on supporting those communities within which they operate, with Austria along with Czech and Slovakia providing emergency aid packages for those sadly impacted by the recent flooding. Our cross-market partnership with Teach for All and Junior Achievement Europe continue to receive both financial and practical support from the teams on the ground. Internally, Our next generation of employees were supported through bespoke peer-to-peer training for junior and digital skill training at all levels to ensure advanced skills and tools to thrive in a digital era. Our strategy in Russia has been to work towards an orderly, solvent wind-down as quickly as possible, always within both the letter and the spirit of complex legal, regulatory, and sanctioned limitations. Last quarter, we communicated our targets for full year 2025. We have already nearly met them. Local deposits are down 27% this quarter and 77% since Q1 2022, from 8.3 billion to 1.9 billion, already below our 2025 target. Local loans are down 31% this quarter and 78% since Q1 2022, from 7.3 billion to 1.6 billion, closing on our below 1 billion target for 2025. Cross-border exposure remained flat this quarter as most of the position will mature next year. Since Q1 2022, we are down 95% from 4.5 billion to 300 million, whilst minimizing our loss to 11% of principal. Cross-border payments are down 19% this quarter and 64% since Q1 2022, from 25.3 billion to nine, almost at our 2025 target. Cross-border payments are now strongly concentrated in US dollar, cleared by JP Morgan, and Euro, cleared by us. Our Euro payment volumes, which account for under one-third of the total, were almost 55% between Western multinationals and socially-oriented companies. We have reduced the capital impact of a full write-down of Russia from circa 130 basis points on a 14% CT1 ratio in Q1 2022 to circa 50 basis points on a 16.1% CT1 ratio today. Given the progress made, we will review further next steps regarding Russia and will communicate them in due course. Turning to our product factories, we see strong performance across the board. Client solution revenue grew by 8% in the nine months to $8.6 billion. Two-thirds are fees, growing at the same pace and well-balanced across all our factories. Corporate solution revenues rose by 7% to $4.1 billion in the nine months, driven by advisory and financing up 6%. 18% excluding securitization costs, and CRM up 11%. Payment solution rose by 4% to $2 billion, driven by payments up 9%. Individual solution rose by 13% to $2.5 billion, driven by investments up 17%. One market grew to 11.6 billion AUM, also supported by the Azimut Partnership in Italy, confirming the attractiveness for clients of our offering. Our transformation has led to remarkable results. We have focused on superior quality top-line growth, coupled with best-in-class operational and capital efficiency, resulting in best-in-class profitability and distribution. By making this our focus, we have registered the highest NII ROAC at 20%, almost double the peer average. Our stated fees and insurance income growth for full year 21 to the first half of 24 was an impressive 24%, five points higher than the peer average. Additionally, our fees to revenue ratio for the same period was 34%, seven points higher than our peers. We have reduced our cost income ratio to 36%, 15 points below the peer average. We have improved our net revenue to RWA's ratio to 9%, two points above our peers. Delivering on our three levers has led to superior profitability and distribution. Our return on tangible equity at 13% CT1 ratio was over 23%, 10 points higher than the peer average. Our distribution year, at circa 14%, is five percentage points higher than our peer average. As the industry faces headwinds, UniCredit stands ready to reveal its true differential value, qualities that were previously masked by a favorable market environment. We acknowledge the challenges such as NII headwinds, inflationary pressure on cost, cost of risk normalization, compression of Russia, and digital evolution. But we are confident in our ability to leverage our unique levers to overcome them. Differently from four years ago, we start from a leadership position in terms of performance. We know our strengths, our geographic client and product mix that we have been able to unify and leverage as one group. Powering this are several accelerators, the transformational initiatives in flight, our lines of defense, and our strategic flexibility. Finally, we have a quality growth trajectory which is relentlessly executed by people proven to be able to deliver alpha. Our unique geographical reach is one of our structural strengths providing us with a diversified presence across 13 European markets. We are one federation of individually empowered banks, all executing independently while leveraging significant cross-border flows. Simplifying, 41% of our net profit comes from Italy, a quality earnings powerhouse that combines a fee-to-revenue ratio in excess of 40%, pro forma for insurance internalization, and increasingly profitable NII with outstanding operational and capital efficiency. The next 30% comes from Germany and Austria, both highly rated economies that act as anchors of resiliency for the group and that are well advanced in operational efficiency and greater client-focused turnaround. The final 29% comes from Central and Eastern Europe, our proven engine for profitable growth, all within Europe, which increasingly puts our group's growth expectation at a premium to a peer group. We have a perfect combination of highly capital-generative and resilient regions balanced with dynamically growing ones all truly coming together in one group. This allows us to benefit from our global product offering, procurement, and technology infrastructure at scale, further enhancing our competitive edge. This has enabled us to occupy a dominant position across Europe with their individual leading position in each country, all significantly beating their cost of equity and connecting clients across Europe like no other. Our client franchise and product mix are core to our quality growth strategy. While we maintain our focus on large corporates and mass market individuals, we have been decisively tilting our client mix towards SMEs and private and affluent individual. We have also been building our factories to provide our clients with a broader array of products and services that they require. This strategy has been successful as demonstrated by our gaining market share in payments, in investments, in insurance, in consumer finance, and in trade finance. In parallel, we continue to enhance our distribution model towards a fully integrated distribution offering that combines digital innovation with personalized human interaction in various forms. This is at the origin of the work we have done on call centers, digital branch with Buddy, physical branch, and internet and mobile. Last but not least, we're investing in our people, some of the best in the industry, retraining them where necessary, at the Unicredit University and providing them with a product distribution channel and tool such as new risk models and clients data that they need. Whilst we have transformed into an industry leader focusing on delivering quality growth, we still have unique accelerators to propel us further. We're making transformative investment that will drive our progress and ensure we remain at the forefront of our industry. Our lines of defense are strong and ready to protect or propel our continued growth and success. Strategic investment remains a potential accelerator, helping us to achieve our goals faster, more efficiently and effectively. We're committed to making these investments, but always within our strict investment criteria. Unicredit has invested in Commerce Bank because we believe it can be a much better and stronger bank, particularly in and for Germany, better and stronger for its people, for its customers, and for its communities. This is true standalone, where most of the potential improvement lies, and even more so as a combined entity with HVB. As an industrial investor that has successfully overcome the same challenges, our aim is to see Commerce Bank unlock its significant unrealized potential. Indeed, as we all know, having potential on paper is not the same as crystallizing it. Unicredit Unlocked, and indeed HBB Unlocked, is a blueprint of what can be done. but we are open to alternative solutions and await these being outlined at Commerce Bank Investor Day. As a possible additional option, the combination of Commerce Bank and HVB could generate even greater value and opportunities for all employees, clients, and communities. But as we said before, this will depend on the outcome of engagement with Commerce Bank, its management supervisory board, as well as its wider stakeholders in Germany. A combination could offer Germany a bank operated by a fully empowered German legal entity that could more effectively compete in its home market and beyond. It will also insert M-Bank and Poland within the broader Unicredit franchise, both in the CEE and Europe as a whole. mBank would be provided with a capital, product and services, and indeed client connection across our 13 countries, plus one, to accelerate its growth and achieve its full potential. For Unicredit, such a combination would further transform the group and accelerate its path to become the bank for Europe's future, whilst crystallizing significant additional value creation to our base case. Italy, Germany, Austria, and Central and Eastern Europe would have a balanced contribution to the group and set its direction, strategy, and ambition for the future that they would then be fully empowered to individually achieve. Above and beyond what I just said, I would like to highlight a number of facts with respect to the two banks that support our strongly held views. HVB and Commerce Bank, excluding mBank and the opaque assets held at corporate center, are mirror images of each other. They are identical in many ways, but also highly complementary. Our respective geographic presence makes us a perfect match. HVB covers mainly the southern and the northern part of the country, while Commerce Bank is mostly present elsewhere in Germany. In corporate, we're all but the same. We both cover large corporate, as do many other banks, most Europeans through branches or U.S. banks. Whilst the combined institution would have the scale, product, and services to better support large corporates in Germany, it is the Mittelstand clients who would benefit most from the combination. we would be able to provide deeper and broader support and services to these companies who are at the heart of so many German communities and are the lifeblood of the economy. Commerzbank Mittelstand Klein could gain access to our market-leading suite of products and more comprehensive financing solutions, boosting their opportunity for growth domestically and internationally. Combined with our enhanced technology offering, we have the potential to become a larger, more profitable, one-stop shop for the Mittelstand in Germany, across Europe and beyond. On the retail side, Commerce Bank revenues are 2.1 times HVB's, although HVB has four times the revenue per retail client, both because of mix and because it can rely on our group product factories. The two banks are complementary geographically and by client segment, with HVB more focused on private wealth and affluent. The larger weight of retail in Commerce Bank Germany operation would nicely balance HVB higher weight of corporate. Having now addressed the point on similarity and complementarity of the two franchises that would support a potential combination with minimal impact on its client and frontline employees, let me now address with facts some of the other concerns that have been raised around this potential combination. Let's start with risk, both of protection of deposit and in terms of financial strengths. Far from being a concern, in the unlikely situation where deposit protection would be needed, HVB deposits are insured by the same German government deposit scheme as Commerce Bank. In fact, during the crisis, HVB and Unicredit, at group level, continued to function without any need for government support, maintaining an orderly service to our clients. In addition, clients of both banks benefited from additional protection of company capital and other resources, which are greater in the case of HVB, both standalone and relying on Unicredit Group. Indeed, both HVB and Unicredit have a greater common equity tier 1 ratio than Commerce Bank. Above 23% and 16% respectively, Commerce Bank stands at 14.8. This is further underpinned by a far greater level of profitability and efficiency at both Unicredit Group and HVB versus Commerce Bank. This brings us to ratings. At group level, Unicredit has recorded a consistently steady improvement in its ratings. with Fitch only last week raising again the rating of Unicredit to one notch above Italy's on par to Commerzbank. At HVB local legal entity level, the relative comparator to Commerzbank, the two banks are practically on par, as underscored by their similar cost of funding in Germany. Finally, Moody's has already indicated that a merger far from leading to a rating downgrade could warrant a rating increase at the parent company level benefit all banks. And as it relates to concern for stakeholders, we take pride in the investment we make in our employees and the commitment we have made to reskilling and retraining all colleagues to ensure that they can grow and develop in line with our industry. Where efficiency has been have to be looked at, the challenging yet constructive dialogue that we have with employees' representatives have resulted in outcomes that have worked well for all those involved. And to our clients, and the notion of overlap, far from being duplication, HVB and Commerce Bank are highly complementary, so concentration should not be an issue. This client commitment is reflected in the federal nature of our business, where, to be clear, the day-to-day running and decision-making for Germany occurs in Germany, and it could not be otherwise given regulation. This is also consistent with Unicredit Unlocked and our approach to empowerment of those closest to the client, or the matter at hand as opposed to those at the center. Our shareholders have benefited from 15 quarters of consistent growth and financial rewards repaying us with their long-term and often vocal support. Any discussion around current investment and future options must be underpinned by facts rather than unsubstantiated views and opinions, hence the need for this clarification. If we now go back to the symmetry, ALREADY OUTLINED, ALL STAKEHOLDERS SHOULD BE ABLE TO COMPARE RELATIVE PERFORMANCE OF GERMANY, EX-CORPORATE CENTER AND HVB, BASED ON SIMPLE KPIs EVEN BEFORE DISCUSSING THE BENEFIT OF A POTENTIAL COMBINATION. Let me now go through a comparison of the operating performance of the two banks in Germany, as this is the real crux of the issue. If we take as reference the 2021 first half to first half 24 period that so both Unicredit and Commerzbank deliver on their respective plans, the performance of both banks in Germany speaks for itself. HVB delivered much greater revenue growth, mostly driven by fees, achieved with much greater capital and cost efficiency. This all led to twice the net profit growth and ROAC of Commerce Bank, notwithstanding Commerce Bank benefiting to a much higher degree from the positive rates environment, given their greater weighting to retail. As such, HEB has been able to distribute its yearly net profit in 2022 and 2023, while increasing its CT1 to circa 24% as of the third quarter of 24, while Commerce Bank has distributed on average over the same period only 40% of its net profit, reaching a CT1 of 14.8%. There is no reason why Commerce Bank in Germany should not have the ambition to at least match what has been achieved by HEB, which is still progressing further as the results of today demonstrate. Our investment in Commerce Bank is both strategically and financially justified, given what I have just taken you through. The potential to generate substantial value for both institutions is there. The question remains whether it shall be unlocked by Commerce Bank alone, through a combination or not at all. We have purposely structured our investment to provide us with optionality to either benefit from the crystallization of commerce bank potential or to exit with protected downside for our shareholders' benefit. We have clear managerial action that will allow us to offset the headwinds from the normalization of the environment and the compression of Russia. to eventually secure sustainable quality growth. Our aim is to further strengthen the unparalleled quality and profitable mix of our top line, increasing our fee base to 40% of total revenue while keeping NII ROAC well above our internal cost of equity. To achieve this, we will continue our client and product mix shift, further leverage our product factories and better integrate them with our front lines. The internalization of insurance and retention of the asset management value chain will provide a further boost. We are committed to operational excellence while investing in business optimization. Our replicating strategy and quality approach will help us benefit from lower sensitivity to rates. We will maintain a cost of risk at 20 to 25 basis point over the cycle, also leveraging overlays. Our financial projection mean we are confident in upgrading our 2024 guidance. If we compare our performance like for like with our guidance at the beginning of 2024, so excluding integration and average charges and investment, we currently expect our net profit to be around $10 billion. with NII more or less flat year over year. Like for like, this is more than 500 million higher than 2023. That said, we anticipate closing the year with a net profit above 9 billion, although the ultimate number depends on our decision on integration and other charges. Integration charges are expected to exceed 500 million. There is much discussion as to the impact on the bottom line of European banking sector due to the much lower rate environment and higher cost of risk. For us, there is also the compression from Russia to be considered. As a result of our unique levers, fee and geographical diversification and the decisive action taken over recent year, we are confident that we will maintain a run rate of at least 9 billion in each of 25 and 26. For now, That is a strong ambition of the people of Unicredit. This is a testament to how well our underlying business is performing. We expect costs to remain broadly flat in the next couple of years on the same perimeter. The perimeter, as such, will change as we internalize life insurance, complete the merger in Romania, and integrate Vodeno Ion. And therefore, group fixed costs will increase, although with no impact on the net profit guidance for 2025 and 2026. We are increasing our return on tangible equity ambition to circa 17% and are looking to continue EPS and DPS strong growth. Annual average distribution for 2025 and 2026 of greater than for 2024 means that our shareholders will continue to be rewarded handsomely. We also have recently announced that we will increase the dividend accrual from next year to 50% of net profit from 40% as a sign of our confidence in the sustainability of our financial performance. And we remain with 6.5 billion of excess capital, which we will return or deploy strictly within our metrics by 2027 latest. The investment case for Unicred remains exciting and compelling. To conclude, I will leave you with five key reflections on today's results. Today's number reflects the output of a fully transformed bank. one that has moved away from retrenchment and is industry-leading across all KPIs. These results prove the success of our Unicredit Unlock strategy and usher in a new era of quality growth. Two, these are record results, with our best-ever Q3 and nine-month results marking 15 consecutive quarters of profitable growth with improvement across all key metrics. We have upgraded our guidance for 24, given we are operating on a completely new run rate compared to 21. Our net profit is five times higher, our return on tangible three times, our organic capital generation over two times, supporting our distribution that are more than two times higher. This new era of sustainable quality growth will be powered by conditions that are unique to our bank. We start from a position of strengths, And our structural strengths as a pan-European group, our accelerators such as a strategic investment in Vodeno and Commerce Bank, and our clear growth trajectory will support that quality growth. Structural strengths include unique geographic client and product mix underpinned by empowered countries leveraging group scale and scope. idiosyncratic accelerator defined by our continued transformation initiatives, our line of defense release, and strategic flexibility which has allowed us to invest in Vodeno, Romania, and Commerce Bank. And our clear growth trajectory executed by people passionate about our business proven repeatedly to be able to deliver alpha. Finally, thanks to Thanks to our new run rate and the investment we are making, we have great confidence in meeting our 25 and 26 ambition. Thank you, everyone. Let's move to questions.

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one under touchtone telephone. To remove yourself from the question queue, please press star and two. In the interest of time, we ask that you please limit yourself to questions only. Anyone who has a question may press star and 1 at this time. The first question is from Antonio Reale, Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Good morning. It's Antonio from Bank of America. I have two questions, please. The first one on the NII outlook and secondly on the strategic investment in Commerce Bank. So you've increased revenue guidance for this year, and I suspect this was mainly driven by NII, though I haven't seen reference to guidance on NII this year or next. Now, Russia has been growing still, deposit remuneration has been stable. Italy and Germany have had a strong quarter, and you still have tailwinds from the replicating portfolio. Can you maybe just talk us through your expectations for NII into 2025, please? That's my first question. The second question, is on the investment. You've bought a stake that gives you optionality. I think you've said that clearly this may or may not lead to a deal. I think in your remarks this morning to the media, you've also talked about this being a long process and you've cautioned it will take time and you want to convince Commerzbank stakeholders that M&A can create value, sort of implying that not all of the stakeholders are on the same page. Now, We're talking about an intramarket deal, and I think it's important not just for Unicoid and Commerce Bank, but for Europe as a whole in terms of signaling. So my question for you is what hurdles do you think we still need to overcome for this to move forward, given that I suspect by now you've engaged with all the key stakeholders? Thank you.