Good afternoon. This is the Chorus Call Conference Operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Azimut Holding Full Year 2023 Results Conference Call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, they may signal an operator by pressing star and zero on their telephone. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Gabriele Blei, CEO of Azimut Holding. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you very much, and good afternoon to everyone. As always, we'll go through the slides as quickly as we can, and leave as much possible for Q&A. If we start and jump to slide number 4, we have summarized what has been achieved by the company in the last four years in terms of delivery of every target. This is also based on a history which is slightly longer, which means that in the last 20 years, the company, since being listed, has always delivered on its targets. In this last four years, we have set specific annual targets of inflows and net profit, and we are happy to say we have always delivered them accordingly.
Turning to slide number 5, we have a deep dive into the key metrics of the past five years, and you can see how assets have increased on average by 12%, thanks also to EUR 43 billion of cumulative net inflows in the same period. We are very happy with the development of our private market initiative. Since the beginning of this venture, assets have grown fourteen times to EUR 80.1 billion and increasing in the coming months. As far as clients are concerned, the weighted net average of performance, i.e., net of cost, is 12%, if not more.
During a period which we experienced, still some years of negative interest rate and then a normalization effect that came out from central bank with increasing rates and draining of the liquidity. As far as net profit is concerned, EUR 2.2 billion of cumulative net profit in the five years, and a dividend of EUR 825 million, the latest one is a proposal of EUR 1.4 per share as far as 2023 is concerned. Moving on, not much to say on slide number 6. Average assets have increased 7% year-over-year. This is a number that will help us in understanding the development also of the revenues going forward.
Turning to slide number 7, net flows. As we have commented in the last couple quarters during the 2023, as far as Italy is concerned, we have had the issue with one institutional client that has drained significant flows out of money market products, and a network that has been able to overcome and offset completely this this outflow. If we look into the foreign expansion, as far as EMEA is concerned, we would like to point out a good development of the flows out of Turkey for EUR 1.1 billion, and Monaco for EUR 290 million, thanks to the hiring of some private bankers.
Looking to Asia Pacific, Australia has been the dominant player down there with EUR 1.9 billion of net flows in the year, of which EUR 1.2 billion coming from M&A, which you can see in the column to the right. Moving to the Americas, U.S., EUR 3.7 billion of flows, of which EUR 1.3 billion are related to the acquisition of Kennedy Capital Management at the mid-February 2023.
Then a development which has been quite positive for Mexico, with more than EUR 450 million of net flows, which is partly offset from the outflows that we have discussed during 2023 as far as Brazil is concerned, which has been inverted from August to December 2023, following the turning point we observed during the summer. EUR 6.9 billion, the total AUM, which we concluded in 2023. Moving to slide number 8, assets have reached EUR 90.8 billion at the end of 2023.
In terms of geographical split, I have to say there is not much any difference between the full year and the nine months, so I won't spend any time. As far as February is concerned, 2024, as we announced this morning together with the press release of the full year results, we have collected in the two months of 2024, EUR 860 million, and assets have reached EUR 93.7 billion. Moving to slide number nine, this is something that we have also discussed several times in the past, since the changes in the fee pricing to our Luxembourg-based funds.
We were pointing out how we were moving from a situation in which volatility and performance-related revenues would have diminished over time. And effectively, this is the second year in a row where you can see that the bulk of the revenues is coming from recurring revenues, whereas performance fees component is a vast minority. And this is something we think will be with us and will stay with us also in the coming years. Moving to the deep dive of the results in the full year 2023, we start with the revenues. We have closed the year with EUR 1.38 billion revenues, of which EUR 1.3 billion of recurring revenues, a development of 8% year-over-year.
As far as the variable fees, EUR 18 million compared to EUR 46 million, and insurance fees of 180 - 111, forgive me, in full year 2023. If we try to explain the development year-over-year, recurring fees, there is an increase of EUR 84 million, net of Sanctuary, of course, of which this is equally split between Italy and the foreign business. As far as Italy is concerned, EUR 32 million comes from the new distribution, so the new fee structure, whereas private market and organic growth amount to more than EUR 11 million.
If I look at the foreign operations of the EUR 40, 40-ish million linked to the increase year-over-year of the recurring fees, EUR 24 million is explained by the new perimeter out of Australia, where we have completed several acquisitions during 2023, and the rest being EUR 19 million of organic growth as far as recurring revenue is concerned. With notable countries, not to mention Turkey, EUR 7 million, and Brazil, the private markets related development, EUR 4 million, development in full year 2023.
Moving to performance fees, as it is mentioned in the slide, the Fulcrum had a negative contribution of EUR 16 million over 2023, which has been offset by the good performance coming from our discretionary portfolio out of Italy for EUR 14 million. The Middle East, so Turkey, Egypt, has contributed for EUR 15 million of performance fees. If I look at the delta coming from the insurance revenue line, which is EUR 15 million, or if you prefer, EUR 18 million net of the restatement of the IFRS 17, this is explained by the performance fee element for almost EUR 15 million, and then the recurring business growth, which has increased by EUR 4 million.
As far as the other revenue lines, the development is mainly driven by the development and activities of our corporate and investment banking business, for, roughly speaking, EUR 4 million. Moving to the cost side, we closed the year with EUR 725 million of total cost, a development increase of 7%, which is, roughly speaking, in line with the guidelines that we had given at the beginning of the year. If we want to deep dive as well on the distribution cost, there is an increase year-over-year of EUR 13 million, of which EUR 12 million is related to some severance payments to Italian FAs.
This is something we have commented several times in the past, that we were benefiting in the past from a smaller contribution coming from the yield curve, whereas when this stabilizes, there is the inversion, and this is what we have seen over 2023. Moving to the variable compensation to FAs in selected countries abroad, this accounts for a EUR 6 million increase year-over-year. Whereas in terms of lower rebates and other elements within the distribution cost, there is a saving of EUR 6 million year-over-year.
G&A line, an increase of EUR 46 million, of which, if you prefer, we stated by, for the IFRS 17, once again, there is a difference of EUR 44 million year-over-year, of which, 38 million, is explained by our foreign business, which we can break down further into, new perimeter out of Australia, EUR 19 million, and organic growth, for EUR 19 million. As far as Italy is concerned, there is, an increase year-over-year of EUR 5 million, of which the bulk is the new perimeter. So, there is a good, flat development, of the, underlying business, in Italy. D&A and provisions, we had, the release, of, several, aspects during the, the year, which, produced a saving, year-over-year.
As you can see, we have broken down also on the slide the bulk of the distribution costs related to Italy and international, as well as SG&A, and you can see how the vast majority, 91% of distribution costs belongs to Italy, whereas this is equally split or almost equally split when we look at SG&A. Moving to slide number 12, EBIT margin, not much to say. We have continued on the trend that we observed during the last couple of years. There is a good development in the recurring margin, which has increased steadily from 20% in 2014 up to 43% in 2023.
If we go at an EBIT level and net profit on slide 13, we have maintained a very good and solid profitability level with 45% EBIT margin and an increase in the EBIT of five hundred and eighty-seven million. For your reference, we have broken down the finance income line to give you more light on what's in there. As you can see, there is the dividend contribution, which the bulk, vast majority, EUR 60 million, comes from our US GP Staking business and Kennedy Capital.
Then, we have the realized and underlying gains on our investment, which accounts for EUR 37 million, and then, some net interest charges for EUR 7 million, given the returns we earned on our cash. At an adjusted net profit level, bottom of the slide, we closed the year with EUR 554 million. We are simply adjusting full year 2023 to neutralize the effect of the tax settlement, which we discussed last year, for EUR 19 million, and the IFRS 17 impact, which is negligible, given a more conservative approach that we have taken, and we have developed over the course of the last quarters.
As far as margins are concerned, we closed the year with 53 basis points of net profit margin, and at an adjusted basis, a five percent- five basis points improvement vis-a-vis the year before. Moving to slide 14, this is another way of looking at things, and this is something on which we base our dividend policy, as you know. We reached EUR 389 million of recurring net profit, two times the level of 2019, and the highest in the firm's history, and based on this number, we have decided to pay out 50% dividend in line with our policy, and which we will discuss later.
In the next 3, 4 slides, we have broken down what we were showing to you in terms of the three -- the four verticals. We have preferred to split this into different slides in order to give you a better picture and more details. As you can see, there is quite a stable average AUM out of Italy, while we are benefiting from growth in terms of international and Private Markets. Slide 16 on the revenue line, there is a stability in Italy with very solid margins, whereas we're growing both internationally and as well as private markets with the latter with a very interesting margin profile which we are very happy to achieve.
Last but not least, the FinTech world is contributing nicely in terms of revenues, and we expect this to continue in the future. Moving to the EBIT vertical. As you can see, Italy is benefiting from the lower variable costs and some other cost-containing measures, and still expressed a 49% EBIT margin. International, we are discounting the some investments and changing perimeter that distorted a bit the picture, which will normalize on a run rate basis as we go forward, assuming no further addition in terms of M&A, and so on.
Private Markets, as well, a good evolution, consider that, in the Private Markets, we do have a bit of a distortion here, due to some costs linked to our U.S. presence that are recognized above EBIT, whereas some earnings come below EBIT. But we'll see this adjustment as we move to the next slide. In terms of net profit, as you can see, Private Markets still runs with a 59 basis point margin.
Italy stands at 79 net profit margin, also thanks to the unrealized and realized gains on our own investment, and our international business is rather stable in terms of margins, and there is a growth in the net profit, which is not as strong as one would expect on a year-on-year comparison, but there has been some effect due to the Sanctuary deconsolidation which occurred last year. Moving to the business update. As you know, on slide 20, we have completed during the course of Q4 the set up of Nova Investment Management. So the structure is fully compliant, operational with funds approved and launched.
There are 12 UCITS funds that have been authorized as of 28th of December. Four funds have already been actively distributed on the UniCredit onemarket platform, and you can see the names and the details of these four funds. Three more are in the IPO phase, and we expect, or better, UniCredit expect to complete this phase during the month of March. And then the other four or five funds will complete the offering that, as I mentioned, are composed or is composed of 12 UCITS funds.
As you can imagine, initially, these products, and as we've mentioned in the past, will be managed thanks to the capabilities of our global team, and over time, Nova will become independent in terms of investment management capabilities. Moving to slide 21. As we have had the chance to discuss in some occasions, starting from 1 January 2024, we will begin to consolidate the inflows that Nova will generate. This is gonna fall into the funds line of our monthly update that you typically receive.
As far as the accounting treatment instead, this is the earnings streams of this coming from this partnership fall within the IFRS 10 and this principle is quite articulated in terms of control of an entity and the impact of the consolidation that we have to take into account. We can discuss certainly this later, but effectively, what it will produce is that we will account for a service fee in the recurring revenue line. And then there is gonna be another component below the operating profit line in the finance income coming from the partnership.
All in all, the element of these two components of fees or income will contribute to the bottom line for an average 50 basis points, which is what we have stated during the course of 2023. Moving to slide number 22. There is the usual picture of the performance net to customers, net of our cost, which is roughly speaking, 20% over the last four years, and in excess of 80-100 basis points vis-à-vis the industry. Not much to say on slide 23. There is the usual snapshot of our breakdown of the funds, of the Luxembourg-based funds. Whereas on slide 24, you can see a focus on our Italian client base.
This is something we have mentioned several times in our discussion and conversation with you. But we would like- we wanted to provide you the details of the number here, where we show that clients that have that normally invest more than EUR 500,000 with us have increased over time reaching almost 60%. Another way of looking at things in Italy is the average total assets under management of financial advisors and wealth manager on slide 25, and you can see how this has developed over time from 2019 to 2023 for the different categories of banker and financial advisor.
Clearly, one thing that is interesting to note, which we tend to stress quite a lot also in our internal conversation with the advisors and the managers in the network, is the fact that teams, when they group and they work together, they tend to control more assets and develop more quickly their asset base. Slide 26. This is the usual snapshot. As we mentioned, EUR 8.1 billion with Italy being the largest market, then the U.S. with our GP Staking business, and last but not least, Brazil, which is really developing its expertise in the private market segment. More than 70 products and 13.3% of the assets, which is well on track to achieve our 15% target.
Slide 27, the usual snapshot, no big change. I just want to mention here that the private debt has slightly decreased in favor of real assets, thanks to some closing that we had on our infrastructure fund. ESG update, something that we take a lot of attention, especially internally and in managing our products. We have set up an additional team to basically coordinate all the different aspects of the business when it comes to ESG. This is built with very solid competencies and people that have been working with Azimut and within the group for a very long period of time.
On the right-hand side of the slide, instead, you see how there has been a development in the asset base with the funds that are Article 8 or 8 + that have grown two times, sorry, from EUR 7 billion to EUR 14 billion in the last four years. And of that, we can mention that almost 30% of the recurring revenues that we, the group, generates are coming from these funds. I will leave now the floor to Alessandro for the full year financials.
Thank you, Gabriele. As we already provided you with a deep dive of the full year 2022 numbers, I will focus on the trend of the last quarter of the 2023. In particular, as you can see from the slide 30, total revenue increased by EUR 25 million. The operating cost increased by EUR 14 million, with a net result of the operating profit that increased by EUR 11 million. As you can see, and following also the note, the recurring fees decreased by EUR 3.7 million. This is impacted by a mixed effect of the asset allocation and as well as time lag due to current market special allocation. On variable fees, we have a positive contribution on the quarter of EUR 22.5 million compared to the negative amount of the third quarter.
Thanks to the positive performance of the individual management portfolio, but as well, also the positive contribution from the international business, in particular from Turkey. Again, on the other income, EUR 3 million more compared to the last quarter, and this is explained by a positive contribution that improved, particularly in the last quarter from the neo-lending activities, from what we call the investment banking. Insurance revenue is slightly below the result of the third quarter, EUR 1.3 million less. This is due to lower performance fees compared to the previous quarter, and also as well as slightly below results from the recurring fees. In terms of cost, so distribution cost increased by EUR 10 million.
Here, again, following the note, we have a higher severance payment to the Italian financial advisor linked to the yield curve. And as well, we had higher variable compensation to the financial advisor from the international business, thanks to the great results that we reached during the year. On personnel and the D&A, also considering, we have an increase of EUR 6 million compared to the third quarter, but as well, we have less cost from the depreciation and amortization. And again, here we have a combination of the effect coming from additional and variable compensation on our portfolio manager global team, and as well as the release of few provision on a legal case that we conclude positively, therefore we recover.
In general, we can see a stable operating margin of 45% and 3 basis points less if we focus on the difference between third quarter and fourth quarter. Moving to next slide, we have the second part of the P&L. Probably may fail to consider the negative contribution of the financing income of almost EUR 6 million negative. This is including the reverse of the positive effect of the IFRS 17, that was impacting positively in the previous quarter. And this negative effect of the reversal has been offset by dividends from our partnership by million, and also the positive interest rate that we earn from our liquidity. We are almost flat on the non-operating cost and the finance expenses.
So in general, also looking to the last, let's say, line of the P&L, so, considering the net profit adjusted, because we have the reversal of the EUR 10 million from the IFRS, let's say that the difference is not so significant if we compare to the last quarter. Moving to next slide. So looking to the net financial position, we have three hundred and ninety-two million positive, one hundred million more compared to the last year. The variation could be reconciled starting from the net profit before tax of six hundred and twenty-five million.
Then we can take out the impact of the dividends, EUR 234 million, the M&A activities, EUR 182 million, and also if we take out the effect, the payment of tax of EUR 136 million, we reach EUR 83 million of results. That is almost one hundred of difference. I mean, simply consider that at the level of the finance income, we have also a positive effect, as we said at the beginning, from no valuation, I mean, no realized effect on the valuation. Therefore, I mean, this effect not goes to the, to the cash. I'm gonna leave again to, to, to Gabriele.
Thank you, Alessandro. Thank you very much. Capital management and return, slide number 33. As you have probably seen in the press release, we're proposing a dividend to the AGM for the AGM approval of EUR 1.4 per share. I just want to remind you that this is 50% of the entire payout of the recurring EPS, which is exactly within the boundaries of our dividend policy and implies a dividend yield of 5.1%. This comes in a year in which 2024, by December, we will repay EUR 500 million of outstanding bonds, which is the last remaining bit that we have outstanding, which was taken out back in 2019. Moving to slide 34.
of the 1.04 EUR per share, we have decided to propose a 1 EUR per share in cash and forty cents in shares. The number of shares that will be dedicated to the dividend has been set on the closing price of yesterday, sixth of March, and will not be adjusted upward or downward on the ex-dividend date. As you can appreciate, we do still see significant growth prospect for the group. We still believe that the stock is undervalued, and for this reason, all of us tied to Timone and locked up in the shareholders agreement are confident that the value of the shares will increase over time.
Moving to the outlook, we are just summarizing the key targets and outlook. We confirm net inflows for 2024 in excess of EUR 7 billion, also thanks to several partnerships that we have, and a EUR 500 million net profit target for the end of 2024. Private markets, once again, we reiterate the 15% AUM target at the end of this year. And as far as internationally is concerned, we are aiming to improve further the profitability, especially from key markets, and therefore reach the annualized run rate of EUR 150 million target by December 2024.
As far as M&A is concerned, we are, as we probably mentioned, at a high level basis, during the last conference call, we are in the process of finalizing some deals with new investors in some key foreign markets. This is, there are some very interesting discussions we are having, and this will lead to the unlock of substantial value in some of our strategic investment, while remaining, at the same time, invested in several of these ventures in order to benefit from a future upside. Lastly, as we just mentioned, the repayment of the EUR 500 million bond, which concludes our presentation. Thank you very much, and we are happy to take any questions.
This is the conference call operator. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. To remove yourself from the question queue, please press star and two. Please pick up the receiver when asking questions. Anyone with a question may press star and one at this time. The first question is from Hubert Lam with Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good afternoon. Thank you for taking my questions. I've got three of them. Firstly, Gabriele, can you elaborate more about what you said about the M&A, where you say you're finalizing deals with investors to unlock value? I'm just wondering what specifically you mean by this, and what would it involve? It sounds quite interesting. That's the first question. The second question is on Nova. Thank you for the update on that. Can you quantify how much Nova contributed to both the January and February flows? February flows were pretty good. I'm just wondering how much of that was driven by Nova, if any, at all.
Last question is on the fee margin, which fell, I think, quite a little more than expected in Q4. I was wondering if you could explain a bit what drove that and how you expect fee margins to be from that level in the first quarter and into 2024. Thank you.
Thank you, Hubert. Sure. So, I'll start backwards from the fee margin, for what we have recorded in Q4, is a slight erosion of 3 basis points vis-à-vis third quarter. If you recall, on the third quarter 2023, the erosion has been 6 basis points. So roughly speaking, the erosion during 2023 has been of 9 basis points, which falls within, if you want, the boundary of the ±10-15 basis points we typically refer when it comes to potential impact on our fee margin due to asset allocation, market effects, et cetera, et cetera. So, there has been a slight erosion.
We don't think this is an indication of any change vis-a-vis our commitment to clients to generate performance, and therefore, we are still believing that over time, this trend will be inverted, also thanks to the fact that we are continuing our development in the private market segment, which, as you have seen in the slides, are contributing with significant margins to our revenues. And consider there is always a bit of a time lag between the closing of a private markets fund or a club deal and when they effectively start to generate fee margin. As far as Nova is concerned...
I think, I'll try to answer in this way, and this is very important for us, given that the partnership with UniCredit started a year ago. It meant for us and for them a lot of work during 2023 to make it possible. And now that we are starting to truly work together on the execution of this partnership, we will never want to create problems or anticipate a disclosure during a period in which they are in a potential negotiation phase with their existing provider of asset management services. So we have decided to respect their willingness to maintain a very conservative approach when it comes to providing a monthly update.
And therefore, for the time being, we will stick to supporting them in the execution, which means waiving assets which are coming through. And as you can expect, there is an element of education and training towards new products that the network has to digest, and then there is the rollout of the full capability of asset gathering that UniCredit has on 7 million customers that we wouldn't have been able to address. On the M&A, well, yes, I mean, we are at an interesting development of a couple of negotiations, which means in a few markets we have developed our presence. We have been able to establish a brand.
The numbers are there for all of us to be satisfied, and believe that in the future we can do even more. But as we have argued several times, we can do more and quicker if we potentially enlarge the partnership to strategic, industrial or financial investors. And therefore, we are in the process of trying to evaluate and assess some opportunities to print the value on a couple of our investments.
which means that finally, also the market can appreciate the intrinsic value of some of our investments, while retaining a stake in order to continue to contribute to the growth of the project that we have developed over time, as well as benefiting from future potential reevaluation vis-à-vis the print that we will be able to have today, if these deals are going to be concluded. But I'm sure that we will be in a position to be a lot more clear in terms of rationale and numbers when effectively those transactions are going to be completed. And I'm sure in the coming quarters, we will be able to be in that position.
Great. Thank you so much.
Thank you very much.
The next question is from Giovanni Razzoli with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon to everybody. Thank you for taking my three questions, which one is on the dividend distribution, the other is on the tax rate, and the third is on Nova. Can you elaborate, please, a bit more on your dividend distribution? Because I think that the market is a little bit surprised that the reduction of the cash component of the payment in favor of the distribution of treasury shares. If I'm not mistaken, the cash payout has been cut to 35%, more or less, with the balance represented by the distribution of treasury shares. What is the rationale for such a move, which might have caught the market a little bit off guard? And is this, shall we see this as a new standard for the coming years?
So if I look to the EUR 500 million net profit for 2024, shall we assume that the cash component is going to remain, you know, unchanged vis-a-vis what you have just announced today? I understand that this is a little bit very early as a question, but, you know, from a strategic point of view, shall we look at this benchmark of payout, cash payout, as a new reference point for the future? The second question relates to, sorry, a detail on the slide number 31, about the tax rate, when you say that the performance fee, the booking of the performance fee resulted into a higher tax rate as they were recorded into, you know, high tax rate countries. My mistake, but I thought that performance fees would have been booked mostly in Luxembourg and Ireland.
I cannot reconcile your comments here, as those countries should be with lower taxation, or is my understanding wrong, so there are other geographies where those performance fees were booked? The last point on your pipeline of product distribution on onemarket platform with Nova. I'm surprised to see that you do not expect to launch private market funds in that platform, because clearly you are, I would say, in Italy, for sure, the market leader for those products. You pioneered the launch of this asset class, so I would have expected to see also these products into the onemarket platform for UniCredit. I haven't seen this. Is there a rationale for this, or shall we expect something for the end of this year? Thank you.
Thank you, Giovanni. Also in this case, I'll go backwards. As far as Nova is concerned, over time, it might be possible, but not at the beginning. Meaning when we started the discussion and we entered the partnership, we focused, and we agreed to focus with UniCredit on UCITS product only. A liquid product, at the beginning, as you can see from the range we have launched, initially, these are, I wouldn't call them plain vanilla funds, but not sophisticated or complicated products to understand, and market to their customer base. We rely on our internal capabilities, which means that they can refer potentially to the track record of our investment professionals in our fund range, when it comes to marketing activities.
Private market is an angle as we have mentioned in the past to further develop the partnership, as well as many other things that if we are successful in developing Nova, we could think of implementing together with UniCredit and its extensive reach in Italy and even outside of Italy. Tax rate, just maybe to clarify here on this point, the bulk of the performance fees have been generated in discretionary accounts in Italy, and the tax charge in Italy is higher relative to Luxembourg. On top of that, we have the generated performance fees out of Turkey and Brazil, where tax rate is in the region of 30%-40%.
So what Alessandro was saying before is, unfortunately, the regions of the world where performance fees have been generated have pushed higher in the quarter, the tax rate, vis-à-vis a normal scenario. Having said that, if you look at the full year number, excluding the one-off tax charge, we are still looking at a 21% tax rate, which is well in line with the new guidelines we have given a couple of years ago, of 22%-23%. Dividend distribution. Maybe just to clarify here, the cash component is EUR 1 per share, will not change, and this is what people will receive, investors, sorry, will receive on during the month of May.
This translates into a cash component of 71% as of or assuming that the sixth of March, the price of the shares of the sixth of March remain unchanged. The share component of EUR 0.40 is what we have decided to provide to our investors as additional components because we still think that shares have a significant value. I refer to Pietro's comment in the press release. If we imagine this company in a year or several years' time, this cash, this share component, if held, will be valued a lot more than what it is valued today. We are long-term shareholders. We're happy with receiving shares and hold them.
I think that, with 2024, we have completed the cycle of the dividend policy. By the end of this year, we have to repay the EUR 500 million bond, and therefore, this has been taken into account when formulating a dividend policy, bearing in mind the several projects that are involving us, both in terms of human capital as well as financial resources.
Thank you.
My pleasure.
The next question is from Elena Perini with Intesa Sanpaolo. Please go ahead.
Yes, good afternoon, and thank you for taking my questions. Actually, I've got three questions. The first one is on Nova. Do you expect any extraordinary costs potentially weighing on a reported basis on your 50 basis points profitability targets on the funds that you have launched for this year? The second question is on your net profit target for 2024. Is it, I assume that it is calculated on the application of IFRS 17, even considering that in 2023, over the full year, the impact was basically not material....
And then the third quarter is about your expectations for 2024 on distribution and operating costs in terms of year-on-year growth or bits on revenues or something like that. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much. I'll continue with the trend of going backwards. So, distribution and SG&A. As far as distribution costs are concerned, as you probably remember, the bulk of that line is related to the remuneration of financial advisors, which is based on 40% management fee, which is not going to be changed. So, this is going to go hand-in-hand with the recurring revenue evolution that you will factor in, in terms of 2024 numbers. We do think that our intention is to grow and generate inflows out of our FA network in Italy. So we expect this trend to be quite linear in terms of progression.
We do remind you that there is historical quarterly seasonality, which means, typically, there is the second and fourth quarter that tend to be more heavier than the first and the second and the third quarter in any given year. Personal and SG&A, based on a same perimeter assumption, our projection is to grow them in the region of 7%-10% year-over-year, which is consistent with what has been the evolution over the course of the past years.
Bearing in mind that this implies that we have to additionally increase net profit by EUR 50 million, which means that we need to remunerate people and invest in our capabilities to reach that EUR 500 million target. The EUR 500 million target does not take into account any input from IFRS 17. As you have seen with 2023 numbers, we are working on the assumption of netting off the effect, positive or negative, from the bottom line. As far as Nova extra cost, no, we don't think that there is any extra cost.
Of course, you have to think of our 50 basis point net profit contribution from Nova be resting on a certain asset mix that has to be there in order to generate the 50 basis point. This is why we are saying, since several quarters, that on average, the expectation is 50 basis points. And then of course, when it comes to the setup phase of Nova, but this is true for any new initiative, you do need a scale economy in order to to be able to match the cost base. But this is something that it's going to be very minor, even the activity that UniCredit is undergoing.
Okay. Thank you very much.
My pleasure.
The next question is from Alberto Villa with Intermonte SIM. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon. I have a couple of questions on the two items I believe are the most interesting today. One is the Nova again, and the M&A. On Nova, if we look at slide 21, you are showing how you should split the contribution. I was wondering if you can give us a ballpark of the split between service fee and net result of partnership. So the two components that will, let's say, contribute to the PNL from Nova.
Considering the agreement you signed with the UniCredit and the possibility for the bank to grow up to 80% in 2028 in Nova, if you confirm that the expected contribution after such an event will remain similar, so 50 basis points for Azimut, although I guess with the different methodology to book this contribution, and then I think it's gonna come as an associate or minority, but I wanted to check with you if I'm not wrong on that. And the second one on the potential M&A to unlock value seems interesting. Is there any specific region where you think there are more opportunities on that front? Thank you.
Thank you very much. So, the M&A, if I don't recall wrongly, we mentioned in the nine-month presentation two markets which were Australia and the U.S. And these are the regions in which potentially some of the transaction may occur. As far as Nova is concerned, the split between the service fee and the what will come below the EBIT, the operating profit line, is something that I would refer as strictly confidential between us and UniCredit. Unless they authorize us to disclose something, we will keep it at that.
When it comes to what happens if UniCredit exercise the 80%, or up to 80% of the call option after the first 5 years, then we will earn on 20% of the net profit if they exercise it, again, on 80%. And we will take 20% of the earnings of Nova, of any earnings that they will generate, up until the exercise of the call and put options, the second ones will take place. I don't think it's good for us to speculate how much net profit Nova will generate from year 6 onwards. So again, I will leave it at that.
Okay, thank you.
Thanks.
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Thank you very much for your time and your questions. Myself and my colleagues remain at your disposal for any further follow-up. Bye-bye.
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