Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Mediobanca Half Year 2021, 2022 Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question-and-answer session. At which time, if you wish to ask a question, you will need to press star followed by 1 on your telephone. I must advise you that the conference is being recorded today. I would now like to hand over to Mr. Alberto Nagel, CEO. Please go ahead, sir.
Good afternoon, and thank you for joining the call. I would like to draw your attention on four key remarks or messages in commenting these first half results. The first one is in terms of trajectory of revenues, +12%, supported by strong record in terms of fee development, +16%, and a very positive trend in NII, which is back to growth with 2%. Very good asset quality indicators, hence, a new record in terms of half-year profit. So EUR 526 up 28%, with 11% of return on tangible equity. The second key message is that this very good P&L trend were coupled with an interesting trajectory of capital optimization through deletion of shares and new buyback.
The two trends, or the two factors, meant that at the end, we have registered, recorded a 17% increase in terms of earnings per share, and our capital ratio is at 15.4% CET1, including 70% cash payout and 3% new buyback accrued. The fourth message is that we are accelerating in our revenue capacity in terms of stronger revenue capacity machine and new important digital project. We are commenting two of them in particular. One, the new state-of-the-art investment app, which was launched in our Premier segment, it is CheBanca!. And the second, the launch of PagoLight, our buy now, pay later solution in Compass. The fourth message is the important achievement we have made in our ESG policy. Mediobanca, as you know, has joined the Net-Zero Banking Alliance recently.
If we look at the six-month results, I have already highlighted certain trends, but these trends are positive from any aspect. In terms of revenue, in terms of loan loss provision, and in terms of GOP, we have had important increase, two-digit increase in revenue, two-digit increase in terms of GOP risk-adjusted, and +28% in terms of net profit. Cost-income was down to 43%. Core was at EUR 555, but as we will see, the ordinary or recurrent cost of risk is in the region of 40 basis points. And then we took an extra provision onto a bucket of loans, which we want to faster deleverage.
If we look at the three-month results on page six, we see that we have had a strong momentum with EUR 264 million of net profit, where basically EUR 753 is our new high in terms of revenue as well as of very good GOP. This is backed by solid performance across the different business, in particular in wealth management, where we have had a record net new money of roughly EUR 3 billion, and 62 are coming from AUM, assets under administration. We have increased by 25 unit our sales force. In consumer finance, we have had another new loans trajectory, quite positive, EUR 1.9 billion, close to the pre-COVID level. The loan book reached EUR 13.3, up 2% Q-on-Q, and asset quality recorded one of the best core, if not the best core quarterly, with 133 basis points.
Strong activity in CIB with double-digit growth in revenue due to strong fee contribution, which is coming mainly from advisory. We have had a very good year in advisory, and as well, asset quality, which confirmed is a very positive trend. Looking at page eight, you see commercial effort and commercial achievement in terms of different business. It is very interesting to see, and we will do this also at the end of the presentation, how Mediobanca is changing in only a few years of its life. You see that TFA, they reached EUR 80 billion. They were EUR 64 at basically soon after the COVID, or during the COVID. As I said, the corporate finance loan book is going back to growth. It was EUR 13.7 before COVID, it went down to EUR 12.8, and now is three quarter that is steady growing.
New loan in CIB has been quite good in terms of acquisition finance, in particular. The last point is that this activity is mainly focused on capital light revenue. You can see that we went from 33%-35% incidence, and we have materially increased the overall capital light revenue, which are up 16% year-on-year in the first half. On page nine, you see the comparison of basically the six-month revenue compared to the last year, but also to the pre-COVID. In pre-COVID, which was the peak, we had EUR 1.3 billion of revenue. This year, after the COVID, we had EUR 1.4, roughly EUR 1.5. The trajectory of growth is evident in wealth management, in CIB particular with 11%, but also was evident in consumer finance. The positive view is coming from NII. Why?
NII was a bit under pressure during the COVID, take into consideration the declining loan stock in Compass. On page 10, you see that we have achieved the same level of NII of Compass pre-COVID. It was this quarter, at least it was EUR 237 in pre-COVID, and it is now EUR 236. The rest of the NII source went up as well, so wealth management and CIB. You see the breakdown of this is a bit of a volume effect, is a bit of a margin and cost of funding, which has been improved and reduced. Overall loan book went up because pre-COVID it was EUR 46.3 and now is roughly EUR 51. Overall, as we said, a very positive trajectory also of the other bucket of core loans of the group.
Quite interesting news in terms of fees, recording EUR 240 million this quarter was 20% higher than the last one, but it was also 22% higher compared to basically the previous half year and above EUR 400 million, where before COVID, we had capacity to generate EUR 380 million of fee. When we look at the quality and the source, we can stress that we have managed to increase by 30% our management fee. You see that in Q1 2021, we were at EUR 60 million of management fee. Now we are at EUR 82, so a material increase in only one year. This is something that is reassuring also to the possible future trajectory of this category of income. Clearly, wealth management is the largest contributor with 33% year-on-year growth and 21% half year on half year.
This is, as I said, connected to the increase in management fee and the increase in AUM. We had also a new source of income, which is the Buyback consolidation, and we had also some positive events like Mediobanca BlackRock Co-investment, which has generated in this first half, EUR 14 million. Costs are up 7%. This trajectory is driven by an overall increase in personnel cost. This is due to two factor. The first one is that we are increasing the size of the distribution, in particular but not only in wealth management and in consumer. The second point is that, as many other banks, we are remunerating better our employees and preserve our talent pool. This led into labor cost plus 7%. The 8% in administrative cost is due to a number of projects that are technology, distribution, and revenue business related.
Growing the volume of the activity and the operation, of course, we have also to cope with the increase in administrative cost. Notwithstanding this, we are staying below 45% to a 43% cost income. When it comes to core and to cost of risk, we have played here with certain prudence. Why? Because we didn't want to change the macro scenario given the uncertainties of the Omicron variant and increase in energy price. We have not released overlays, and moreover, I can say that not only moratoria have ended, but the leftover of moratoria are very tiny because we are talking about EUR 70 million of residual exposure in leasing, because we have had the end of moratoria at the end of last January, so after this half year. We can say that even the ending of moratoria in leasing was really very good.
If you see at our asset quality on page 14, we have increased our coverage to 67% on stage 3, which are now well below 3%, 2.8%. If we look at the net, we are at 1%, and overall, all the performing loan coverage, in particular, the consumer one went up to 375%. As I said, we have to divide this quarter or half year provisioning in two buckets, the so-called operating one, ordinary one, and they are in the region of 40 basis points, particularly low.
We can add another 15 basis points to go to 55, which is the core at the end of the first half, because we wanted to facilitate the downsizing of two small credit buckets, one in the leasing and one in MBCredit Solutions, that given the new rules in terms of calendar provisioning and capital charge are two activities, in particular, the one of MBCredit Solutions that we are going to de-emphasize. We have posted an overall EUR 35 million of extra provisioning, EUR 10 million to leasing, EUR 25 million to MBCredit Solutions, to favor this kind of deleverage. Capital position, we are enjoying quite good capital trend where strong earning generation was then facing 70% dividend payout already embedded, 3% buyback and 25 basis points of RWA inflation because of very robust activity at the end of the year.
As I said, ESG is playing a major role in our daily agenda. We have adhered to the Net-Zero Banking Alliance. This will trigger a number of activities well before the due date because we have to, every year, make an action plan how to get there and monitor the delivery of this kind of initiative. We have already neutralized direct emission in Scope 1 and Scope 2. Of course, we are working on Scope 3. Important increase in every index you see on page 19. We went to A, Morgan Stanley, CDP, we went to C. We were included for the first year in S&P Global Sustainability Yearbook. The initiative in terms of green bond, green loan, and in support to our community, we're receiving an extra push.
In particular, we have decided an extraordinary donation of EUR 1.5 million to a charity we are discussing with, this is going to be financing a special project of this ONLUS. We have been working also on our governance to improve it. In particular, in remuneration policy, we have included quantitative ESG targets to be achieved in our scorecards. Divisional results, as you know, on page 21, every single business is more than returning cost of equity. We have with 15% core Tier 1, we have RoTE in the region of 11%. Steady increase in, an important increase, I would say impressive increase in wealth management and consumer finance. They went from 22%-30% ROAC and from 27%-35%. Corporate Investment Banking went to 15% and principal investing as well to 15%. Wealth management, as I said, very important net new money.
This is the results of, I would say, the two main buckets. One is in Premier, the second is in Private Banking. Premier has had and is normally having a very steady and positive trajectory, which is supported, you can see it on page 26, by the particularly good productivity. We had registered the most important financial advisory productivity year results. You see on page 26, we are top of the league in terms of per capita flow during the year. We are at the top of the league in terms of growth, in terms of AUM flow as a percentage of total AUM. With 20% and 14%, we are having one of the best results.
CheBanca! is growing steadily and is growing at a faster pace compared to the past because it's recruiting more people and, as we see on page 27, is also adding a new digital app, which is tailor-made for investment activity. We are going to release definitely this app throughout the first half of 2022, and will cover three main subjects. One is investment portfolio, the second is the remote interaction, and the third is customer experience. We were already ranked very high in terms of customer experience in all the normal transactional banking activity. With this new app, state of art, we want to be in the leading pack of the investment app available into the market.
This is going to support further the recruitment because, of course, it is also an important tool to advisors, support further the recruitment of FA and relationship management that would pave the way for a bigger growth in the future. Private Banking is having an excellent year. Why? Because basically the position alongside CIB, the fact that they are able to manage the most part of the money motion event in the market. Just consider that in the last six months, only in the last six months, Mediobanca Private Banking was able to manage EUR 1.3 billion of money motion events, out of which half has been generated by the IB dual coverage, IB, PB dual coverage. Synergies are working very nicely, and hence Private Banking is able to have a very important net new money.
The first part is going to be deposits, able to convert this into AUM, also thanks to a very strong push in private markets. You see this on page 28. We have closed the launch of BlackRock with great results, and we are starting to invest now this kind of commitment of soft commitment. In the meantime, we are planning new asset class in private markets that will support continuous growth of Private Banking. At a glance, wealth management results were quite impressive with 54% increase year-on-year and 36% half-year-on-half-year. With EUR 72 million of net profit, which is way higher than what we have forecasted when we started with the plan three years ago, two years ago. Consumer finance with EUR 190 million recorded the highest ever half-year results.
This is driven by a renewed push in terms of new loan, as I said, quasi-level of pre-COVID. This Compass compared to the pre-COVID is much stronger. Why? Because we have invested a lot in the digital platform. 26% of direct loan or personal loan are done through this digital platform. This means that we are retaining higher marginality because we tend to sell more loan or personal loan directly and through our digital platform instead of distributing with third-party. In the meantime, the distribution in terms of branches, agency, and Compass Link, which is a new project focused on serving clients out of the branch range, is supporting a different distribution capacity. Basically EUR 3.7 billion of new business, of new loans originated in the last six months, have then driven the loan book to EUR 13 billion.
It was 13.7. You see that compared to December 2019, we have a lower loan book, but we have much higher profitability that is linked to basically much better core and in general, better marginality. This led to a very high or very positive efficiency ratio with the cost income ratio, which was already very high, very good, but it went down to 28%. I have already commented the trend of personal loan. It is important to note that the incidence of personal loan compared on the overall loan went up. This has a direct impact on marginality, the higher is this proportion, the better is for the P&L of Compass. I want to draw the attention on the buy now, pay later solution that we have launched in the last six months.
We all know that it is a very interesting market in terms of revenue, in terms of future business. What we have done is we have been working the last two years to have two distinctive offer. One is the activity of buy now, pay later in physical store, where we have started to affiliate stores. There are now 3,000 affiliated stores to December 2021, where we have distributed our Smart POS, which incorporates the solution of buy now, pay later. We are working, and we will be distributing heavily during 2022, the e-commerce platform we have been developing with fintech partners in order to also be massively present in e-commerce. The beauty of this market and opportunity are several. First of all, we are going to do a different kind of buy now, pay later compared to the original one.
The original one are only related to three or four installment. We will do, and we are doing, a true consumer finance. Bigger ticket, up to 3,000, and for a longer period, 12 months. Here, the competition is not with Klarna and with the others, because we think that to do this, you need really consumer finance scoring, experienced team and activity. We have, I think, a lot of opportunity to grow in this business, and we will push hard in 2022 and onward. Asset quality, incredibly good. Basically, without reversing any overlay and increasing steadily the coverage into not only NPL, which is now 79, but also performing. Look at what happened in coverage of performing. In March 2020, our coverage of performing was 284. Now it is 375.
We have to say that Compass has adopted the new definition of default already more than a year ago. As you know, the market is still lagging behind us in terms of application of the new definition of default. The net NPL stock went down 24% to less than EUR 200 million. You see that the results are very interesting in terms of bottom line. Corporate investment banking has been a year of very strong activity in all segment. Notably, I would say in advisory. We have delivered EUR 100 million of advisory fee only in the last six months. This is driven by the efforts that you know very well we have been devoting to new bucket or new source of advisory revenue in mid-corporate and in France. They are paying off. In particular, France recorded the best results in 2021 of its history.
We have to say also financing and capital market solution went particularly well because there's been a lot of acquisition financing, and in particular in equity market, CMS, capital market solution, worked very well. Trend has been and is going to be very good in terms of revenue. The only difference compared to last year was that last year we had lower core because we had more write-backs, and this year we wanted to post this extra provisioning. Net of extraordinary, our ROIC would have been 17% instead of 15%. We are consolidating our presence not only in Italy but also in France, as I said, and this is going to be a trend, I think, also in 2022.
Principal investing, very good results because this year we haven't had to incorporate any negative one-off compared to last year, and we have enjoyed very positive results of Assicurazioni Generali. Holding function, nothing to note, rather than saying that we are working, as I said, to diminish our exposure to leasing. For this reason, we have posted this EUR 10 million of extra provisioning. We are managing down our cost of funding through better priced or lower cost of funding in terms of new bonds issuance and also lowering the cost of deposits. As a final section, I would like to draw your attention on page 47 to what we call the accretive value cycle of Mediobanca, which is Stronger than before.
This is true because of basically some business environment and structural trends, which are powering up our model, which is made of a specialized operator, which is working in a high margin sector, specialized, which are exposed to long-term growth. This is coupled with a very strong brand, which has also a brand value and is an approach to business, which is making the possibility to grow our market share faster and easier. This then is delivering important capital generation in important growth, which is in turn letting our shareholder benefiting from basically 100% payout, because basically we have between 70% payout and buyback, we are distributing 100%. This is a sort of fulfilling, the more we grow, the stronger we are in specialized business, and hence we manage to have better market share. This can be seen also from another angle.
Which kind of bank was Mediobanca five years ago and through the COVID? On page 48, you see that only five years ago, we were having basically half year, this is half year, 50% less in terms of revenue. We have roughly double our fee. They were at EUR 237, they are roughly EUR 450. A CAGR of 15% in TFA, we had only EUR 40, now we are EUR 80, and a CAGR of 6% in loan. Only in five years, but also through the COVID, we have a totally different machine in terms of revenue, which stick to 43% or 45% cost income, so in flexible and efficient business model, which is generating a very good GOP, so gross operating profit, before and after loan loss provision.
Basically, we have had a 50% increase in GOP before loan loss provision, we have had similarly the same amount of increase also after provision. A very important increase in the size of the bank. As a closing remark, I would say that for the next six months, what we forecast is the continuation of a robust commercial activity and revenues development across the different business. The market volatility could affect some half-on-half comparison. We will stick to higher investment in talents, innovation, and distribution. Of course, maintaining cost income discipline. We will stick to a low core because this low core, without even reversing overlay, is going to stay at least in the next six months. Basically, we are now 40. We will be between 40 and 50, but not above 50.
What we can say is that also core Tier 1, fully loaded, will be in excess of 14.5 by the end of our fiscal year, even including 70% cash out and the buyback which we are doing going to the market. Thank you very much for your patience, and now it's time for your questions.
Thank you. As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star followed by number one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your question, please press the hash or the pound key. Once again, it's star followed by number one, if you have any question or comment at this time. We have the first questions coming from the line of Antonio Reale from Morgan Stanley. Please ask your question.
Hi, good afternoon, everyone. It's Antonio from Morgan Stanley. Three questions from me, please. The first two on the sustainability of core revenues, lastly, one on interest rates. You've reported another strong set of numbers, particularly looking at your NII and fees. You've talked about consumable origination almost back at pre-COVID levels, the mix of personal loans improving, distribution increasingly an important part of your origination. My question is, what can we expect from NII, going forward? If you could perhaps comment around how much of this trend is sustainable. Secondly, a very similar question on fees, actually. Again, wealth management has had a record year, so has your CIB advisory business in the quarter. I'm wondering how much of the footprint is sustainable going forward. It would be great to get some color around the divisional trends.
Lastly, a more general question from me, how do you prepare a bank like yours to an increasing interest rate environment? You've significantly changed your asset and funding mix over the years, I'm wondering how you're thinking about that. Thank you.
Thank you, Antonio. Sustainability of revenues and NII, in particular, trajectory. We have been revising our guidance in terms of NII trajectory, now we can say that we are confident we have shown 2% growth is going to be sustainable at least till June. This is something that we can easily confirm. Wealth management, and in general, fees, 16%. They are well above our target of the year. We said that we're going to be mid-single digit growth. We have recorded more. Our new guidance is that we're going to have a low two digits, hence, I think it will be a very positive trend, even net of seasonal element, which may be present in some quarter and not in others. Interest rate, we are a bit matched between asset and liability.
Just to give you a sense, prudently, we say that 50% increase in interest rates will make another 2% or 3% grow in terms of NII. An additional 2% or 3% growth on top of what we have already told as a natural growth rate. Thank you.
Thank you.
We have the next questions coming from the line of Azzurra Guelfi from Citi. Please ask your question.
Hi, good morning. Afternoon. Two questions from me. One is on your buy now, pay later initiative. Looking at this, it seems it's more a kind of consumer credit in point of sale, whether is it physical or remote compared to the standard one. I wanted to check what are the main assessment, and how quickly you can do them on the risk management, and how quickly you can do the approval. As well as if you can give us some color of the marginality compared to your existing book there. The other question is on the cost outlook. Clearly they are linked to the revenue performance, do you see any pressure on talent retention or cost growth from that side? Lastly, I just wanted to hear your views, because when I look at the share price performance, it has been lagging peers.
Your fundamental performance is very, very strong. You already have NII growth and doesn't rely just on the interest rate environment. You have a high level of capital return already. Your GOP growth is there, your asset quality is good, it ticks many boxes. I just wanted to know, what do you think the market is missing of your strategy at this point? Thank you.
Thank you, Azzurra. Buy now, pay later. We want to be present, we are planning to be present in both physical and e-commerce. In physical, we are already there, because as I said, we have Smart POS distributed, we are campaigning to have new affiliates. We have already 3,000 merchants, there is an ongoing marketing and ad effort to gain new affiliates. In e-commerce, we have been working hard in the last year to have a friendly customer experience solution, we will be rolling out it as well in 2022. Definitely we want to be and will be present massively in physical and e-commerce. As I said, being a true consumer finance operator, very able to accept, because of sophisticated and updated scoring grid and tools, new clients for a true consumer finance loan. Not one of two or three installment.
I think we will have a major role in the market. I think I missed your second question, I start to answer to the third and the fourth. Cost outlook. Cost outlook, I think at this trend, maybe something slightly less. It would be between 5% and 6% growth in terms of inflation. That will depend also how we conclude, we end the CIB, because the bonus pool is already set aside on quarterly basis. Then depends on if we do better, we're going to pay more and hence, it would be, as you said, linked to revenue. In any case, we think that our cost income will stay in the region of 45 max %. In terms of valuation in the market, it's a question that I should ask you more than me.
I think that the more we go on in delivering our strategy, which I want to stress is a strategy that is also very valid and protecting investors also in the downturn. Now, on one end, market, rightly so, is focusing on increasing interest rates, also may focus on widening of spreads. As you know, and maybe you were saying before, Mediobanca is very well protected in this scenario because basically just to say that 50 basis points of increasing spread BTP versus Bund is generating 5 basis points of attrition in our core Tier 1. I think if we go into a period of greater volatility and a wide spread, sovereign spread, I think also we are well-equipped and well-protected to continue our journey. Maybe I missed your second question, Azzurra, if you want to repeat it, because maybe I'm missing something.
Azzurra, can you hear me?
Yes, sorry. Can I come back?
Yeah. Maybe I forgot your second question. Would you like to repeat it?
No, it's fine. Thanks.
Okay. Thank you. Take care about your cough.
We have the next questions coming from the line of Domenico Santoro from HSBC. Please ask your question.
Hello. Hi. Good afternoon. Thanks for the presentation. Just a couple of very geek questions at this point, because your revenue performance is very strong, and I just want to understand a bit more. First of all, the light, my understanding is that you have moved over the impact of the TLTRO, and there was some ALM optimization. Maybe you can explain this a bit better. All in all, when the cliff effect of this TLTRO will materialize at this point, I guess 2023, and if it is any, you can also quantify that. The second is on the wealth management fees, because when I look at the charts, the amount of upfront is getting bigger, is enlarging in terms of amount. Of course, performance fees are volatile and related to market performance. What's the nature of this upfront, and how much sustainable?
My understanding is that are more related to institutional. Then a clarification on the NII sensitivity. Have I got correctly that 50, 5-0, basis points means something like 30, EUR 40 million more NII in your case? Thank you.
Yes. Domenico, you got it right. We have smoothed the impact of this phasing out of the premium on TLTRO. As you know, it's 50 basis points. This means roughly EUR 40 million. We are incorporating basically half of this year and half the other year. We are already starting to charge and to incorporate this in this year before the maturity. Wealth management upfront. One upfront is related-
Sorry, just to finish. The EUR 20 million cliff effect will materialize in 2023, correct?
Yes.
All right. Okay.
To be more precise.
Sorry.
You got it already. The guidance that I gave you on NII is already incorporating this kind of effect. We will grow 2% this year, NII, having posted already this year a part of this phasing out of the premium in TLTRO. The upfront in wealth management. Our wealth management, in particular Mediobanca Private Banking, is made of innovation of product in private markets. Every single year, we are launching new thematic product that are on certain asset class. What happens is that once you launch them, you have an upfront. When they start to invest, as we are starting to operate the program with BlackRock, you have the recurring fee. We need to think that at the very start, we have the upfront, but then we have the management fee.
To give you the sense, this management fee, on average, could be between 60 and 90 basis points. It will take time to have EUR 1.4 billion at work, but in case, I think in two, three, four years, we will get there. Over time, on the amount that is invested, we have this kind of management fee, I would say between 60 and 90 basis point. Yeah. You got it right in terms of NII. As I said, it's 3%, it's EUR 30 million, if there is an increase of 50 basis points. As of today, we are quite much in terms of asset liability. Over time, we may take more exposure, but in general, we have a prudent approach in ALM.
I understand. Thank you very much.
We have the next questions coming from the line of Christian Carrese from Intermonte. Please ask your question.
Actually, my question has been already answered. Thank you.
We have the next questions coming from the line of Giovanni Razzoli from Deutsche Bank. Please ask your question.
Good afternoon to everybody. One question about the evolution of the NII in the consumer and in the CIB. You mentioned that you basically had a channel effect because you are internalizing more margins by distribution of a higher percentage of your loans with the digital channel. If I look at the evolution of the NII in the third quarter, it is up something like 9% on a year-on-year, which is significantly better than the growth in average volumes. I was wondering whether this trend reflects all this channel effect, or if there is also repricing or an effect on the product mix. In the CIB, seems to me the opposite, that is, the growth of NII is underperforming, so to say, the average volumes. I was wondering whether instead there is a little bit of increase in competition or a different pricing approach. Thank you.
Giovanni, you got it right, but we need to make some comments on this. Basically, the increase in NII in Compass is factor of volume, for sure. The higher penetration of personal loan. Why? Because during the COVID, the personal loan were less sold and finalized purpose loan were much more sold. The different incidents of personal loan is one reason. The second reason is also low early repayment, lower than expected early repayment. This made this big jump in NII. Coming to CIB is rather the opposite in the sense that there has been a compression of margin, which we have also a bit, I shouldn't say accelerated, because it was not an acceleration, but we have had an origination in terms of rating better than before.
We wanted to stay more on the safe side because you know that, I shouldn't say we are in a bubble, but somehow we are in a bubble in terms of leverage, acquisition price. Already more than a year ago, in terms of rating, we are originating higher rating portfolio compared to before. This meant that marginality was a bit compressed. We also work more on volume because there was a lot of acquisition finance, and then take out in bonds. This you can see from DCM activity. In general, I think we have also to take into consideration that last year we had EUR 8 million of extraordinary component in NII, because this, you remember, was the effect of the reclassification to stage 1 of Burgo. If you net of this EUR 8 million, the comparison is fairer, I would say.
Thank you.
Thank you.
We have the next questions coming from the line of Britta Schmidt from Autonomous Research. Please ask your question.
Yeah. Hi there. Thanks for taking my questions. I've got two, please. Regarding the net new money in the wealth management business, could you describe a little bit how much of that is coming from new advisors and what sort of pace of hiring you expect to maintain for the rest of the year? Secondly, with regards to your revenue outlook, you point to it potentially being impacted by higher volatility on markets. Could you give us any sort of indication as to what ranges we're talking about, in terms of revenue diversions versus the guidance? Thanks.
Sorry. The line was a bit confused, Britta, but your first question was about the net new money, in terms of what? Can you repeat it?
The net new money growth, how much of that is driven by the hiring of advisors versus gathering net new money from your existing network, and what pace of hiring you expect to maintain until the end of the year?
The vast majority, Britta, is of existing advisor. As we show here, we are adding basically 100 new salespeople in the network of CheBanca, because in Mediobanca Private, the growth is more related to the synergy with the investment banking. We are not adding massively because also in Italy, there are not a great amount of good private banker available. We prefer to grow through events which are linked to our IB. In private bank, we grow mainly through events and money motion events. In CheBanca, in Premier, we grow through also the increase of the network. If you take into consideration that we are adding basically 10% of workforce every year because we were 900 and we are 1,000 now, basically, we have the net new money is driven 50% by relationship management and financial advisor.
You come to the conclusion that the new hire is paying more during the year or during the different quarters rather than when you have hired them. As we are more in financial advisor, they have 50% of the net new money. The last 50% is more related to relationship managers. It's not that much related to the hire. I would say that the incidence of this is more spread into the quarters rather than having a sort of peak in one quarter. When it comes to your second question, it is related, can you repeat it again?
Yeah. You mentioned in your outlook statement that the revenue outlook could be impacted by higher volatility on markets. There seems to be a, significant enough, I don't want to say concern, but preoccupation that obviously there could be some impact there. What are you watching out for and what sort of magnitude would you expect?
Look, there can be one impact on management fee because, of course, if the NAV of the portfolio is lower, hence, we can have a sort of growth of AUM somehow filling the gap with decrease in NAV, if the market is still volatile or much lower than at the year-end. In terms of investment banking, I would say advisory has not been impacted, and I have to say up to today, and I have to say neither capital market. We are now doing the largest IPO in Italy of a tech company. Depend more on the quality of the name you bring into the market, of course, because you need a very buoyant market to list company that needs to be somehow supported by strong market. When you bring a very good company, you can do this also with markets that are more volatile.
I would see more impact in the level of management fee rather than investment banking fee if we continue to have a level of equity market, which is very much below the end of the last year.
Thanks for the color .
We have the next questions coming from the line of Luigi de Bellis from Equita. Please ask your questions.
Good afternoon. Thank you for taking my questions, two. One. The first one is on the CIB, very strong results for the advisory M&A. Can you elaborate on the outlook for the coming quarters looking to your visible pipeline? Do you expect to maintain the current run rate of total income and net income for CIB in the coming quarters? The second question on the consumer. Can you elaborate on the cost of risk evolution for the next two quarters? How do you expect also the evolution of margins for the division? On the digital distribution, now 26% of direct personal loan, have you some target to reach over 12, 24 months period, which benefits for margins? Thank you.
Thank you, Luigi. In terms of revenue in CIB, every single quarter, we may have either a stronger M&A and/or a stronger ECM. As you know, for the time being, ECM, compared to the rest, was more muted in 2021. I do expect a stronger ECM in 2022. In investment banking, there will be volatility or seasonality depending when you close one deal on the other, but I would expect in 2022 compared to 2021, a higher level of ECM, a confirmation of a good trend of 2021 in advisory. Of course, we need to net it from single transaction and peak of quarter, but the distribution and the pipeline is pretty robust. In terms of core in consumer, we do expect always that this core is going to go up. For the time being, as I said, we don't see sign of core going up.
Basically, we think that in the first half we had 145. We do expect core to be 150, 155. This is for the time being, a matter of prudence. We shall see, basically. For today, we did not expect that we had 136 in this quarter, honestly. As I said, the overall core is going to stay within the 50 basis points. Knowing that as of today, the real core would have been 40. Basically, the 15 basis points, as I said, are related to two extraordinary intervention. The ordinary core was in the region of 40.
Thank you. In terms of margins evolution.
Margin evolution, in particular in consumer. It will depend on two main facts or items. First of all, the incidence on personal loans on the rest. The more we grow, the more we defend marginality or even slight increase, and the prepayment. Maybe we have to factor a higher prepayment in the second half because the first half was very low. Hence we may have some more prepayment, which may be somehow reduced by the fact that we sell more personal loans compared to the other loans. The two effects will be one against the other, and maybe we don't have big evolution of marginality in the second half.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Luigi.
We have the next questions coming from the line of Adele Palama from UBS. Please ask your question.
Hi, good morning. Two question. Apologies if they have been asked already. One question is on buyback. If you see any possibility to replicate the buyback, also like beyond June 2022. The second question is, on CET1. Do you have any moving parts going forward, headwinds or tailwinds that you foresee? Thank you.
Good afternoon, Adele. Thank you for your question. Buyback, I think they enter in our capital plan more steadily in the last few years. We'll consider this as a real option because basically we'll see at the time, the capital used, the capital position, we'll see the RWA increase, possible M&A, decide. Every year, I think a piece of buyback is welcome. We need to see the amount and the timing. We don't have any material tailwind or headwinds in CET1. When we will have the validation of consumer, we will have a slight increase. We expect a slight increase in RWA, but nothing material. On the rest, we can optimize. We don't flag, as of today, major inflation or deflation in quarter one because of regulation.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you, Adele.
There are no further questions at this time, sir. Please continue.
Thank you very much to everybody who had the patience to follow me and to ask questions. I hope that we can have your presence also in the next earnings call, which will be held in May. Thank you very much. A nice continuation of the day. Bye.
Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.