Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Mediobanca One Brand, One Culture, Business Plan 2025-2028 Financial Update. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To enter the queue for questions, please press star one one at any time. You will then hear an automated message advising that your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Alberto Nagel, CEO. Please go ahead, sir.
Good morning. Thank you for joining this call. As you may remember, the Mediobanca issue is one plan in 2023, One Brand, One Culture, which was having an end to 2026. In the recent months, as you may know, there have been a lot of new events, like we received an offer from Monte Paschi . We have recently promoted an offer on Banca Generali, so we thought it was appropriate, and it is appropriate, to give to our shareholders a better and deeper outlook up until 2028. This plan is the continuation up until 2028 of One Brand, One Culture plan. The strategic roadmap sees Mediobanca more and more centered onto wealth management.
This is not only a priority, but is now a material business where Mediobanca, in terms of growth, organic growth, has shown growth rates that are much better or much bigger than the market, thanks to a model which we call PIB, so Private Investment Banking model, which is giving much more chance of raising TFA, net new money, at an accelerated process of attracting bankers and clients. They have now recently announced a transaction to buy Banca Generali and hence doubled the size of the wealth management. In the meantime, the CIB activity has been producing very good results on the back of profound transformation from a capital heavy into capital light, from balance sheet-driven CIB into advisory-driven CIB with much more diversification of revenues.
Compass and the consumer business has been producing record results across the different business plans and is continuing to deliver high margin, leveraging its well-recognized multi-channel distribution capability as well as risk assessment. Insurance exposure, as we know, has contributed very positively to our P&L and capital. We have always said that it could have been a reinvestment opportunity, which now materialized with the announced transaction on Banca Generali. We think that Mediobanca, thanks to the trajectory we have been pursuing the last 10 years, is now enjoying a unique business model which is able to deliver best-in-class growth, remuneration, and value creation for all stakeholders. This is a standalone plan up until 2028, but of course, this can be further enhanced with the Banca Generali offer, which is now on the table.
What we see and we will see up until 2028 is a coherent and stable strategy, consistently over-delivering on targets. We have been transforming deeply the group in the last 10 years, if you see on slide five, no matter what in terms of macro. We have had zero or negative interest rates, and then we have had an increasing rate cycle. Notwithstanding this, the bank has been doubling revenue from EUR 1.6 to EUR 3.7 , as well tripling EPS from EUR 0.7 to EUR 1.6. ROTA has been doubled, and CET1 has been growing, notwithstanding very important distribution. This has been coupled with a very good total return for a shareholder, on average beating industry standard in terms of comparison with EU banks and ITA banks in the last 10 years. Like always, the macro ahead of us is bringing challenges and opportunities.
We see a macro where we would enjoy a low GDP growth, decreasing interest rates in 2025, 2026, and then modest recovery under fiscal stimulus. Digitalization, AI, and cybersecurity will be at the core. EU is facing unprecedented challenges in terms of geo and trade issue, energy transition, defense. We have, of course, another structural trend, which is the aging of the population and generational changes, and with all what is bringing in terms of behavior also in the banking system. What does this mean or lead for us in the banking sector is seeing pressure on NII, especially up until 2026, margin compression on commoditized banking service and product, asset quality deterioration in some sectors, especially in SME. We have been in a very positive credit cycle. There will be a moment where this credit cycle can at least partly be reversed.
What we feel is that in the next three years, this differentiation between specialized bank and commercial bank will be bigger. AI, digitalization, generational changes will make harder for undifferentiated low value-added product or service in banking to be paid. Hence, we think that Mediobanca is very well positioned thanks to a distinctive business model centered on specialized higher margin business. That's why we want to make this differentiation deeper, investing and becoming bigger in each of our businesses, and not basically changing, I would say, ranking, moving from a specialized bank into a commercial bank. We see opportunity in wealth management, in corporate investment banking, consumer opportunity in wealth management is the size of the market, the Italian market, is the unique positioning now of Mediobanca in this business thanks to the mix of brand and CIB, and also the opportunity then to double the size with Banca Generali.
In corporate and investment banking, again, the euro zone is dense, is full of large mid-corporate which are doing and will do a lot of activity. There is space to increase the revenue pool for Mediobanca, provided that we keep on being disciplined in terms of where we operate, the cost associated, and the risk. Consumer finance is one of the few businesses which is seeing profitable loan growth. I have to say that Compass, in terms of proprietary distribution, digital and physical, and ability to price the risk, is very at the forefront in terms of profitability. This is something that we'll see also in the near future. This is the model. The model is based on the NII engine of Compass, which is generating 60% of the NII, while the private investment banking model is generating 30% of the rest in terms of fees.
In the next three years, we will deliver strong and capital-efficient growth. We will continue to print an important number of net new money every year. On average, EUR 10 billion, which is what we have been doing in the last few years. Even this year, we will have EUR 10 billion of net new money. We will resume a bit of a loan growth, but with discipline in terms of RWA generation. We will generate EUR 7 billion of extra loan, but this will convert only in EUR 4 billion RWA. We say here EUR 8 billion, in reality, EUR 7 billion, because one is leasing, which is going to be moved to CIB starting from next year. The net growth is, in reality, only EUR 7 billion. The growth in revenue will be 6% CAGR, and this will bring the revenue ratio on RWA from 8 to 9.
A growth, an important growth, which is associated with better use of capital and better profitability. This will be a continuation of our long-term value-driven journey. You see on slide 10 that we have doubled our revenue from 2016 to 2025. What is more important is how we grew. It is important to grow. I keep on saying because for me, it is very important. For us, it is very important. It is not important only the size of the growth, but the quality of growth, where we grow, in terms of how much of the balance sheet we use, how much of risk we take. It is easy to grow in banking and then have problems after. It is important to keep capital consumption and cost and risk under control. This is what we have been doing. If you see, we have been dramatically increasing the revenue of wealth management triple.
In particular, wealth management will have an important further growth up until 2028. We will reach EUR 1.2 billion of revenue. The other big contributor will be Compass and consumer with another extra EUR 200 million, and then CIB and insurance. This will revert into higher earnings, significantly higher earnings. If you see, we have doubled our profitability in the last 10 years, and we will grow another 30% recurrent and 45% if we take into consideration a non-recurrent element related to real estate valorization, which will be discussed and illustrated after. It is going to be an important organic growth, but it is going to be also something that is more than achievable because it is done on the back of what we have done in the last two years and on the back of important investment that we have been doing in the last two years.
When we go to EPS, CET1, and ROTA, we have even here some positive news. The kind of growth we are envisaging is going to bring the ROTA to 17% in terms of recurrent ROTA. It will be 20% with non-recurrent item. The EPS will go to EUR 2.1 recurrent and EUR 2.4 stated. This is an important increase, another 30% increase in EPS. This is on the back of improved profitability in terms of return on risk-weighted assets in all segments. You see on the right side of slide 12 that every single business but Compass, which is already very high in terms of return, will further improve its trajectory. In particular, wealth management will go to 5.2, so 120 basis points of growth. CIB will increase by 30 basis points, and also insurance will increase by 100 basis points.
CET1 will remain pretty solid in the region of 14%, but our capital structure will be slightly modified because we have decided to introduce tier-one capital instrument like AT1 and hence bring tier capital level to 15.5%. This increased profitability, coupled with very disciplined use of balance sheet, will make that we will distribute more cash to our shareholders. In the past, we have opted to 100% distribution, 70% in cash, and 30% in buybacks. We will do the last buyback coherently with what we have done, what we have envisaged in the one-brand, one-cash up to 2026. We will do the last buyback in the next fiscal year. We will move to 100% cash dividend payouts. This will mean that in three years, we will distribute EUR 4.5 billion.
Given the number of shares outstanding after the last buyback, we'll see doubling our DPS compared to the level of 2025. We will reach in the region of EUR 2.1 per share, which is a very important increase in cash distribution in terms of EPS. It is likely plus 50% in 2026 and then doubling in 2028. In 2026, we will reach EUR 1.7. As I said, in 2028, we will reach EUR 2.1, always with an interim dividend structure. This continuation, this update of one-brand, one-culture will deliver clear value creation. ROTA, as we said, up to 17%, tangible book value plus three years of cumulative DPS will bring to a level of EUR 18, EUR 19 per share.
If we go and see how this growth is coming and where it's coming, on page 16, we see that the EUR 700 million of extra revenue are going to be coming from all different sources. Basically, we will see 4% growth in NII, 7% growth in fees, and the rest is a mix of trading and insurance. The biggest contributor, as we said, are wealth management and consumer finance, but also we have CIB contributing for more than, I would say, 10% increase in revenue. How do we grow NII? Page 17. We grow NII thanks to volume, in particular consumer. As we said, consumer is the main engine of NII, and consumer has always been printing higher NII, especially when interest rates are going down.
The profitability of Compass will remain the same, but Compass will continue to print good new loan production, hence contributing with EUR 200 million of extra NII in the period. The rest will come from wealth management and CIB. Group loan yields and deposits cost are there on page 17. You see that stable loan yield with decreasing deposit cost and then going up, basically aligned to the trend of the Euribor as a benchmark. This growth will be funded through an increase in deposits. 10% increase in deposits. Our deposits will go to EUR 33 billion from EUR 30 billion. Our bond issuance or bond stock will reach EUR 37 billion. We will have same issuance as opposed to maturity. EUR 7 billion, EURO 6 billion of bond to be issued at, we estimate, at cost of 110, as opposed to EUR 6 billion of maturity at 124.
As I said, we will introduce AT1 to have more flexibility in terms of RWA, I would say, discipline and in terms of distribution. Up to EUR 750 billion. For the time being, we envisage a couple of transactions. We also envisage to issue tier two and senior non-preferred. The fee income is one of the main pillars of our growth story. Basically, again, as we see Compass and consumer as an AI contributor engine, we see wealth management as the main fee contributor. How? This is linked to the level of net new money we will be getting every year, so EUR 10 billion, EUR 11 billion per year. ROA, which is going to stay broadly stable, so in the region of 103 basis points. This will create further room for management fees level. We see basically EUR 210 million of extra management fee.
This is the bulk of the growth in wealth management. We have had a record year this year on CIB. We think that keeping this level and growing this level will be important and doable. In fees, in consumer finance, we have a shift thanks to the new regulation on Buy Now Pay Later. From 2026, we will have a shift between some items that today we consider or are to be accounted as fee into NII. We will have a shift between these two components. Overall, the revenue will stay the same. Gross operating profit, risk-adjusted, will go up 7% to EUR 2.3 billion. This is on the back of revenue growth, EUR 700 million. Cost income down EUR 160 million to 40% from 43%. This will entail an inflation of EUR 160 million.
We prudently have assessed a CoR that is going to be in the region of 60 basis points, so EUR 1.4 billion of extra CoR. This will bring the GOP at the level of 2.3. Cost income going down. We will have a more detailed slide on wealth management, but the main reason is that in the last two years, we have invested massively in basically digital platform in consumer and in wealth management. The main project has been now done. We have been growing, in particular in wealth management, a lot also on bankers, while in the future, we see more growth in IFA. Basically, less project, less personal cost, and more variable cost. This will bring down wealth management cost income. Cost income of CIB will stay stable.
Consumer finance cost income, which is very demanding, 30% will go down; 31 will go down 1 point based on revenue growth. As I said, we anticipated a more normalized core environment. We have always to remind that still some pre-COVID level of core is not there. We are enjoying a very good level of core. Even the recent data are very good in terms of cost of risk. Notwithstanding this, as a matter of prudence and also taking into consideration the new production of Compass, which is having higher margin and higher net profitability, is also commanding a higher cost. We have raised by 10 basis points the overall cost of risk up until 2028. Of course, there will be also based on actual rule, the use of overlay, which will be fading out up until 2028.
We have been setting aside more than what we thought we could use. We have arrived in 2025 with a higher level of overlays. These overlays will be put at work and used by 2028. This will bring down the stated consumer finance cost to 200 from 215, that is X overlay. This will mean 25 basis points for consumer finance extra cost from 190 to 215. CIB and wealth management core will remain immaterial, driven by very good rating of CIB and very selective production also on wealth management. As I said, among the different initiatives we have been seeding and working on in the last few years, there is also a real estate project, which is domicile located in Monaco. In Monaco, we have a very important private bank unit, Compagnie Monégasque.
Compagnie Monégasque is leading a project where it is going to build the new head office by 2028. The project includes disposal of the residential floor, which will not be used, of course, by our group. We will keep only the space which is needed to the bank and will sell the rest of the building. It is going to be an important project in terms of value creation because we will have roughly 17,000 sq m and 24 levels. We expect to start marketing and selling this initiative from 2026. You see on page 23 the estimated time of capital gain or profit, basically starting in 2027 and having the bulk in 2028. This will be a pre-tax profit of EUR 500 million in three years. As I said, the growth of the bank is going to be even capital lighter.
You see the comparison of this plan compared to the last two. In the last one, we had 220 basis points of capital generation, annual generation. In the previous one, 150. In this plan, we will have 280. Why? Because basically net earnings are generating 350. Then we still have some important optimization and positive effect of regulation. Wanted to mention to you the new PD model, which will be live next fiscal year. This will have a saving of EUR 1 billion of RWA. We will have SRT and AT1, AT1 issuance. Especially, we expect to have neutral FRTB introduction. We have, I would say, a bigger, stronger growth in terms of business, 55 basis points. We have the deduction of Generali associated with the book value of Generali, which is 45 basis points. Basically, this will generate 280 basis points of capital annually.
As I said, capital will stay at the level of 14 with issuance of AT1 instruments. So EUR 350 million, so basically 280 basis points of annual average creation we have already set. The distribution, which I was describing before, will bring a consumption of 315 basis points, 315. This will bring our capital ratio CET1 at 14%, but using also AT1, we will go back to tier one of 15.5%. Of course, this means that in the meantime, we will distribute 100% of recurrent earnings. These are earnings that are not coming from any special or non-recurrent item. We are going to distribute only the ordinary and recurrent part. It is going to be, as I said, 100% of the profit of every year. Wealth management, you know that's basically given also our announced transaction bank at Generali. This is the key area of growth.
It's not the only one. We want to grow in every single business, but we have prioritized this. Hence, we see most of the growth and the profitability jump in this segment. Also because we have more space to improve size and profitability compared to the other two businesses where we have operated since 1950, 1960 years. Basically, the trajectory in the next three years is that we're going to deliver EUR 10 billion-EUR 11 billion of net new money, mainly in AUM, AUC. Recruitment is going to be gross, 330 people, but mainly IFA. Revenue is going to go up by a good level of high single digits. Basically, it's going to be EUR 1.2 billion by 2028. Net profit is going to go up to EUR 370 million. We have been growing a lot in the last few years.
We want to do a further jump and consolidation in the next three. How we grew in the last two years. This is going to be something for you to assess whether the next three years are doable or not. I think it's the same growth rate we have been delivering in the last few years. The private investment banking model has been very effective, raising EUR 7 billion in the last two years. Premier is delivering very, very important numbers in terms of net new money and especially in terms of recruitment. Imagine that they have delivered EUR 8 billion of net new money in the last two years. Also, our asset management company, in particular the one that is devoted to third party, has delivered a very good level of net new money with more initiative, in particular in Polus and Visage in the near future.
If we look at 2028, all we have to do is keep growing at the industry leading standards, using more and more PIB. PIB can be used more on top clients. Today, we have been doing on mid-corporate entrepreneur. We can be doing this also on large corporate owner. Exploit and better our franchise and continue to have a strong recruitment of IFA and bankers thanks to the model. There is something to be done in the repositioning in efficiency. In terms of product, we need to internalize more our asset management capability. We have to expand our advisory service offering. In particular, Mediobanca Premier will introduce already next year this advanced advisory service. We are also targeting next-well generation product, in particular for Mediobanca Premier. There is space and the right moment to do scale efficiency, rationalize common function, cost center, and reduce marginal activities.
This, of course, will be done also using more and more the digital footprint and AI tools. In terms of KPI, as I said, TFA, we reached EUR 143 billion. We will have this particularly coming from AUM, AUR, which will grow by 11%. Gross marginality will stay basically flattish, three basis points of growth, and the revenue will go up, as I said, high single-digit growth at 8%. Going to detail more how we're going to bring down and drive down cost income. On slide 30, we see that one element, of course, is revenues, which is 85% fees and 25% growth of NII is going to be basically one important element. Labor cost headcount growth, this is going to be slightly less than last year.
The two elements that, apart from, of course, pickup in revenue, will make the difference is that we are at the end of a cycle of investment, big investment in the digital platform. We are also mature to do some process centralization and functional centralization after having developed the different parts of the group. This will bring down by 2.5% point efficiency. Hence, we will reach 56% of cost income. Financial of wealth management are on page 31. TFA will bring basically up the revenue. Using different growth in terms of cost will bring up the profitability, which will reach 5.2% in terms of return on risk-weighted assets. Looking at CIB, the actual CIB, as I said at the beginning, is quite different from the one we have been working in the last 10 years.
It has been always a profitable CIB, always not going after risky revenue, which can, in particular in CIB, as you know, deliver some extra cost down the line. I mean, the attention on using balance sheet was less at the core of the strategy. Since already three years, I would say at least from the last plan, we have totally changed this approach. We have changed the approach saying, okay, it has to be more capital light, more contained use of balance sheet, more disciplined growth in terms of RWA. This happened because basically we have been reducing substantially our RWA consumption. In the meantime, you see that RWA down 40% compared to the target of 2028. Already today we are at the same level because in 2025 we have EUR 14 billion of the RWA in CIB. This was 27 only in 2016.
Massive decrease in RWA, an important increase notwithstanding this in revenue and profitability. Hence, the ratio improved significantly. This is the trajectory we want to basically follow in the next three years. We want to bring revenue to EUR 1 billion where fees are going to be again above in the region of 50%. We want to maintain cost income below 50. We have also room to improve profitability because basically the growth of revenue and cost and some non-recurrent items that have to be booked in the last few years will make that at the end we will have a 7% growth in net profitability. What have we done and how we are confident to continue? I think the, I would say the structure, the image of CIB is totally different compared to some years ago. Think about what we have done in advisory.
We have massively expanded the part of advisory which is coming from abroad. The non-domestic or international part of advisory is now 50% of the transaction. Private capital is now 74% of the total. We have different geography and different sources of revenues. This is an advisory. In lending, despite the lower volume, we have achieved revenue stability thanks to fee driving better return on risk-weighted assets. In markets, we have been investing. We became BTP specialists. We have enlarged our basically product suite. We have managed to increase both revenue and profitability. We want to continue to have a CIB which is capital light, more diversified by geography, adding new products and working very well alongside more and more alongside wealth management. In capital light growth model, see that we will continue to diversify fee sources.
We will use always RWA optimization tools, the new PD model and SRT. We think there is room to expand advisory in the international core markets. In particular in France, in Spain, and in Italy, we can grow our market share and our revenue pool. We are going to expand as we have started to do already in the last few years. Think about Germany, the mid-cap platform. We are going to address new markets for markets activity. This is Middle East and the U.S. in particular in some product of the markets division. As I said, we are going to broaden our PIB model across large mid-cap. We have been doing in the last three years more on mid-cap. We are now addressing also large-cap. New product in the market division, gold and crypto. We're going to put more emphasis in that advisory.
That advisory is giving us a lot of satisfaction in the last few years, but more to come. Also in advisory, we think that private capital penetration can be improved through continuation funds and private credit partnership. We will have EUR 4 billion of extra loan, but only EUR 2 billion of extra RWA. The CoR will stay very low at five basis points. The revenue will grow by 5%, while the net profitability for the reason I said will grow more than five, will go to 7%, having a cost income flat to 46. Consumer finance has delivered outstanding results. This is the story of Compass, but if you just look at the last two years, we have done a very important job in terms of updating the digital platform of consumer, investing a lot of money, becoming a dominant player in Buy Now Pay Later in Italy.
This is changing completely the, I would say, not only the earnings power of Compass, but in particular the origination, the loan origination power of Compass. If you see, we have had EUR 9 billion of new loans. We have kept the marginality resilient after risk. And especially we have kept asset quality under control with NPL stable below 2%. We still have EUR 145 million of overlays. As I said, we thought we could use them before, but the reality is that the cost of risk has been pretty, pretty good. Buy Now Pay Later has become a key tool, a key ecosystem. It's not a product. It's an ecosystem which is now generating 40% of new clients monthly and is opening much more opportunity for Compass. Compass and consumer finance will continue to enhance its digital footprint. We also see some physical footprint development, but at variable cost.
Agents and franchising type. Swiss market is going to be a more important source of revenue. Of course, more activity has to be deployed in product innovation and in efficiency. Digital personal loan enhancement. We keep on improving customer experience in order that the dropout and the level of new loan origination fully digital is going to be higher. This, of course, has to do a lot with technology, which in consumer finance, as well as in many of our businesses, has become and will be even more important. We see an increase in distribution. We see an increase of up to 47% of new direct personal loan distributed digitally as opposed to 40%. RWA, return on RWA resilient at 2.9. On the back of strong commercial flows, this will revert into important loan growth. We will reach EUR 18 billion of loan book.
This will create 6%, sorry, CAGR of NII growth and 5% total, 5% because, as I said, we will have a shift between fees and NII. We said about CoR prudently assessed at 215 basis points. That is going to be 200 in terms of stated using the overlay. Marginality flat. Hence, thanks to basically higher loan book, this will revert into more than EUR 450 million, in the region of EUR 450 million of net profit. We think that on the foundation of our current plan, one brand, one culture, we have the opportunity to accelerate and to deepen our industrial trajectory. We want to have at the exit of this plan a bank which is stronger industrially. What do we mean by this? We mean maintaining, increasing our size, and especially maintaining the positioning of specialized bank.
A bank that is strong in three businesses where marginality is kept and defended and is becoming a leader, a stronger leader in each of these segments. This will create the opportunity to deliver sustainable growth. Being stronger industrially will generate a higher level of revenue, so 6% to EUR 4.4 billion. The EPS, thanks to more discipline on cost, will increase to 9% CAGR. While the EPS stated is going to be plus 14%. This will create a superior capital generation. ROTA is going to go up to 17%. The annual capital generation is going to be 280 basis points. This will produce a higher cash distribution, but which is more important. This higher cash distribution will be associated with low execution risk. Why? Because we are doing or accelerating what we have been doing the last five years.
Basically, we are not changing our business model. We are not taking risk associated to a big M&A or to a big shift in business model. Basically, this important cash distribution, which is going to be EUR 4.5 billion, is associated with low execution risk. If we benchmark, because of course, we need always to see what the industry is doing, and we benchmark Mediobanca projection to 2028 to the rest of the system, we see that our positioning is not bad at all. Page 44, Mediobanca ranks among the best banks in terms of cash yield. Basically, the EUR 4.5 billion on our market cap is equal to 30%. We are among the few banks that are able to distribute, having maintained very good capital ratio, almost 100% or 100% of cash payout.
This is also driven by the fact that we generate a lot of capital and we are among the top banks in terms of this metric. This is our standalone plan up until 2028 in terms of projection. Of course, we have an important news, which is our announced transaction on Banca Generali. We believe this is a very powerful combination and very transformative project for the bank. Why? Because it is a massive capital reallocation, which is going to basically affect our multiple in positive, reducing an old in discount embedded in our stake in Generali and getting a better rating associated to different multiple of wealth management because of the industry, but of course, because we will become a leader in this. The focus is on faster growing and capitalized wealth management. Of course, doubling the size, this will be more evident.
Hence, we think it's both a unique equity story and a creative transaction which can deliver important synergies. For a matter of comparison, we have put on page 46 what has been our trajectory, will be our trajectory on a standalone basis. We will reach, as I said, EUR 4.4 billion. The breakdown of revenues are those that you see here. We will reach 3% of wealth management revenue. If we do, as we plan to do, Banca Generali, and here we put basically the number of Banca Generali 2024, because, I mean, we don't have a clear visibility of a plan that the bank has not released. We put 28 plus synergies plus 24 of Banca Generali.
You see that the transformation in terms of revenue is going to be important because we will be at majority of wealth management and also the ROTA will be optimized at 20%. This is the recurrent ROTA. As we said already, but want to update on this, this is creating quite a unique story in terms of equity story. Because if we benchmark the new entity, so Mediobanca plus Banca Generali will be one of the few players, if not the only one, which can enjoy both AUM at a certain level, revenue that are more than 50% of the total coming from wealth management, and dividend yield above 8%. Last point is we cannot avoid to give to our shareholder the perspective of Mediobanca standalone as opposed to Mediobanca integrated in Monte Paschi. There is also the third option, as we said, Mediobanca standalone plus Banca Generali.
We have a comparison which is clearly telling us that there is no match between the two stories industrially, because as I said, more and more we will see the kind of Revolut and operator, which will eat market share on commercial bank and new attacker. If we are on more specialized value-added product, this position can be defended much better. The capital model is different. Our capital model is light. The one of Monte Paschi plus Mediobanca is more intensive. There is more, I would say, exposure to interest rates in the second case. In terms of multiple, of course, as we know, specialized bank in particular center on capital light and wealth management is attracting better earning mix. While if we are in a group which is an undifferentiated mid-size commercial bank, we likely be priced at a different multiple, a lower multiple.
On one end, to summarize our targets, we have a stated EPS growth of 14%, a recurrent EPS growth of 9%, while in the combination of Monte Paschi it is very difficult to assess the EPS. Why? Because the transaction is one of a kind in the sense that it is the first transaction where we see a commercial mid-size bank buying an investment bank and a private bank in a non-agreed way, in a style way. To us, this will generate important revenue attrition. It is very difficult to assess which is going to be the real EPS growth of the combined entity, taking into consideration that a substantial part of revenue in CIB and in wealth management can be erased. Hence, it is difficult to understand the distribution because, of course, distribution is coming out of, on one end, profitability and on the other also capital generation.
While on our standalone case, this is, I shouldn't say without risk. Our activity is always associated with risk, but we have showed in the last 10 years that when we issued some target, we normally reach them or beat them. Hence, the risk associated to this is contained, while the risk associated in an unprecedented transaction like Monte dei Paschi Mediobanca is very big. Thank you very much for your time. I'm now available for your question.
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To read through the question, please press star one and one again. We will now take the first question. One moment, please. From the line of Britta Schmidt from Autonomous Research, please go ahead.
Yeah, hello, good morning, and thank you very much for taking my questions.
I've got a few, please. The first one would be some more color on the cost income trajectory over the plan and also investment costs. Do you foresee a sort of hockey stick development with costs dropping off due to scale benefits in 2028, or how should we think about the medium term? Also, what was the absolute investment cost budget in wealth management in 2025? Or otherwise said, what would the 66% cost income ratio have looked like without the investment cost? One question on the flexibility of distributions: is 100% payout a cutoff, or what flexibility would you have if due to unforeseen circumstances, maybe your profit levels turn out to be somewhat different? Would you consider introducing share buybacks again at some point in the future?
Lastly, on the cost of risk, I think you previously guided in the past to a normalized cost of risk of 70 basis points, but obviously your credit risk exposure has changed as well. Is that still valid? What sort of overlay usage has been specifically included in the cost of risk in 2028? Thank you.
Thank you, Britta. Cost income trajectory, as I said, the cost income in particular in the big changes is in wealth management, because cost income in CIB is staying the same and the income pass is going down by one point. If we go and see better the different component on the section of wealth management, page 30, we see that basically the big element is on one end revenue pickup.
The labor cost is not going to be so different, will be a bit different compared to the last two years. I mean, the main difference are the two blocks, which are administrative expenses and efficiency. Administrative expenses is driven by the fact that in each of the business we have been growing, we had to make significant investment in digital platform, the introduction of new products like CMA. These projects now are having a phase out. We do not have, I would say, very important project in wealth management associated to new IT and digital initiative. Of course, we continue to invest, but I mean, there will not be new product or new big project in wealth management because we have done them in the last two years.
This is one important part because if you see this number was more in the region of four basis points rather than 1.5 basis points. The second is the fact that while we were growing, we put more emphasis on the digital improvement and on NII, sorry, net human growth. Here we can, and this is something that we have also work which we have been spending time before also looking at Banca Generali, we have room to centralize a number of functions which today are for historical reason and for growth reason in each of the single unit. We have Mediobanca Premier on one end, we have Mediobanca Private, we have Compagnie Monégasque. We think that we can do a centralization at wealth management level of common function, imagine credit department, imagine marketing, imagine product development.
This is something that is going to be done in the next three years. These are the main reasons why basically we will bring down the cost income to 56%. The investment, in total investment, are EUR 290 million, in IT EUR 280 million, at P&L EUR 180 million because you have the three years horizon. Maybe you can do a follow-up with Jessica that can give you a more granular, I would say, trajectory of the IT cost going to P&L and when they go to P&L. In terms of distribution, we feel that basically we have a model of capital light that is giving us all the room to distribute 100% of the recurrent earnings. Should we have, of course, should we have any contingency in terms of lower profitability, we will distribute the recurrent earnings. We will not change distributing something that is not recurrent. We never did.
If on the other end, we have higher capital generation and higher ratio, we can come back also to some buybacks program. As of today, also taking into consideration the return we have on a buyback at this price as opposed to basically giving to our shareholder 10% cash yield every year, we opted for the second solution rather than the first. Buyback, one, the last one has to be done and will be done in the current next year. It is going to be like EUR 400 million is the last one. We can resume buyback if we produce extra capital. Cost of risk. Look, cost of risk here, I mean, the trajectory today of cost of risk is very positive. If you look only at the trajectory, you would go even to lower level of overall cost of risk.
What we did is that a prudent assumption taking into consideration that the more we grow in personal loan, the more we net net we gain, but based on higher marginality, gross marginality, and higher cost of risk. Net is a positive contribution, but we cannot take only the positive and not taking also a bit of inflation in cost of risk. This is linked to the production in the sense that the production is more on personal loan, as I said, higher marginality, but higher cost. We will use basically all the overlay because we thought to use more overlays up until today. We are ending 2025 with higher level overlay. Again, as a matter of prudence, we said, okay, we are going to use this overlay in the next three years. This is the base of the reasoning behind these numbers.
Normally, Compass does better in terms of actual delivery compared to the prudent forecast. I think it's important to have a doable plan with some buffer of delivery in terms of we can have a higher profitability in Compass, and then we can have a lower profitability in CIB. Having buffer of conservatism that makes this plan as always doable and beatable. We will have basically roughly EUR 30 million, EUR 40 million of overlay in 2028 in consumer finance.
Thank you.
Thank you. We will now take the next question from the line of Luigi De Bellis from Equita SIM. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my question. The first one is on the capital position. This is your first issuance of AT1 instruments. Could you walk us through the reasoning behind this decision? The second question is on the insurance.
The plan includes Generali contribution. Could you just update on what is your current strategic view on the stake in Generali with or without Banca Generali? In the event of a disposal of Generali stake, what would be the optimal use of proceeds? Would they be used for shareholders' remuneration or M&A? Are you currently evaluating further M&A opportunities beyond Banca Generali or in other divisions? The last one, always in insurance, what are the key pros and cons of maintaining vis-à-vis disposing the Generali stake? Thank you.
Luigi, thank you for your question. AT1, why we have introduced AT1 in our capital plan? For different reasons. AT1 is improving our capital structure as it is basically giving us the chance to absorb better deduction of the Generali stake.
It is also lowering a bit the overall cost and basically is giving our chance of more flexibility in terms of distribution. There are several advantages of AT1, hence we decided to opt for that. In terms of insurance, the insurance contribution is basically the consensus on Generali with a little buffer. We are now very much focused on our transaction on Banca Generali. The stake of Generali is devoted to this transaction. We do not see alternative today. We are very focused on this project, which will, according to our timetable, be live in September, October. Hence today we have, on a standalone basis, taken into account the consensus of Generali, but we plan to dispose Generali in the swap with Banca Generali in October.
In general, what is our assessment of this important investment is that we have to have a very good alternative in terms of industrial story and financial impact to dispose. For sure, Banca Generali is this one. It's not easy to find alternatives that are so convincing and powerful as Banca Generali. In case we are not able to do Banca Generali for whatever reason, we will reassess this. Financially, the impact of Generali in our, I would say, metrics, in our number is supposed that we need to have a strong motivation to change the status quo. Banca Generali is a strong motivation, as I said.
Thank you.
Thank you. We will now take the next question from the line of Hugo Cruz from KBW. Please go ahead.
Hi, thank you for the time. Three questions for me.
First, you assume your Euribor will go up after 2026. Can you remind us of the NII sensitivity to your Euribor changes? Second question, when do you expect to issue the AT1s? When to start? Third, you have RWAs growing less than loans. I think you've explained well what's happening in CIB, but I was wondering in the consumer and the rest of the business, what are the RWA optimization measures included in the plan? Thank you.
Thank you, Hugo. Our sensitivity is that last 50 basis points, we have EUR 30 million of impact. In terms of AT1, we think that in the second, so at the end of 2026, and then in the last part of the plan, we will issue the remaining.
The optimizations are, one, as I said, in corporate, we have been receiving a new PD model in terms of RWA consumption, and this will be live in the new fiscal year. This will bring a saving of EUR 1 billion of RWA. We have SRT, which will be done in consumer, as we have done already one this year. Every single year, we will do a consumer SRT and a corporate SRT. These are basically the main important. There are other risk mitigation factors that we will use, but I mean, these are the main tools we can use to contain and to have a disciplined increase in RWA. This is basically the bulk of the measures.
Okay, thank you very much.
Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I would like to hand the conference back to Mr.
Alberto Nagel for closing remarks.
Thank you very much for attending this call. I hope to have you all in the next one, which will be at the end of July for the full year results. Thank you very much. See you soon.
This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.