Good morning, everyone. Need a strong coffee for today's session. Full room, we would expect no less than that. I think we could have charged entry fees, and it would still have been packed. So, we're just very proud and pleased that... Well, every time you come to Bank of America conference, you have something to announce. Last year it was the special distribution. This year, we are testing the boundaries for the European project. Warm welcome to Andrea Orcel, CEO of UniCredit. Andrea, thank you for coming.
Thank you, Antonio.
So we've got a lot to cover. As usual, we'll try to go through some, questions and then leave enough time for Q&A from the audience. It's a big room today, so, let's do that, and maybe let's start looking back at the journey, really, right? Because, I mean, UniCredit has changed a lot in the last three, four years, that, you know, you've gone from a restructuring story to effectively a market leader, as evidenced by the fourteen consecutive quarters of growth. You've really set the benchmark for European banks. You've been posting the best KPIs in the sector, RoTE, per share growth metrics, capital distribution. When you look ahead, what lies, for UniCredit?
Thank you, Antonio. I think that, first and foremost, I'm sure you're interested in an investment we made in Commerzbank.
Fair enough.
Before we get there, I think it is important that we all understand that the focus of the team and the main show is UniCredit, and we are completely focused on that. The rest is an investment. We will talk about that later. Where are we, and where are we going? I think in the last three and a half years, we've transformed the bank. We've been quite obsessive in reviewing everything that could be done more efficiently, more effectively, better, returning growth. Indeed, the bank is transformed. We came from consistent fourteen or twenty quarters of consistent decline of revenues. Now we have had fourteen quarters of growth. We are now the most efficient bank in Europe at the end of the first half, at 36% cost-income ratio. We are the bank that generates the most capital organically.
Our net profit went from about EUR 900 million a quarter to EUR 2.5 billion a quarter. Our return on tangible went from 4.5%, all the way up to 21%. Of course, there is a rate effect in there. And most importantly, I think for all the investors, our distribution were multiplied 14x between what they were in 2017, 2019 on average, and what they are today. So these are KPI of leadership in the sector, which I also hope have dragged the industry to attention, and, because there are a lot of other banks that are good, we hope to be able to maintain the leadership going forward. So what lies next? What lies next is really a change in the core of a story.
We're moving from, call it transformation, to sector leadership, sustainably, and delivering superior, profitable growth and outsized distribution. We think that this is the key, because this bank, this group, can deliver the combination of more growth and more distribution that nobody, no other bank, in our opinion, puts the two together at that level. That's what we're gonna try to do in the future, and we're quite confident we're gonna achieve that.
Right. And so from a restructuring to sector leadership, what makes you confident you can continue to provide the superior profitable growth and distributions, while at the same time retaining market-leading KPIs in the future?
Firstly, the starting point. The starting point is one of leadership in all the main KPIs in banking, and we think that that is very important, not only because it's a starting point, but because of the confidence it gives to a team in terms of what we're now confident we're capable of doing. The second thing is, while we are a transformed bank, we are not at the end of our transformation, so we're obsessive about it, and we try to review and review and review everything we've done and see if there is more scope for improvement. We think that that tail of transformation will propel whatever we're doing more structurally, further, certainly in the next three to five years.
But then there is the core of the topic and what has not been apparent, because in the midst of a rate cycle that was very beneficial and a transformation that got our net income to jump up, people missed the... in my opinion, the structural exposure that UniCredit as a group has, both geographically and business-wise. What do I mean by that? Geographically, we have a mix that is very interesting. About 45% of the bank is in Italy. We have demonstrated that Italy is highly profitable, highly cash generative, and the quality of earnings is very high. In Italy, we're already at a 40% fee to revenue base, and that will grow further as NII gets under pressure. Then we have Austria, and most importantly, Germany as an anchor.
Triple A country, solid industrial base, and a lot of potential, especially in the Mittelstand and in the corporate sector for us. And then we have the growth of Central and Eastern Europe. And when you put all of that together, you have a profile that is superior to many. And I would underscore that all of that is done either in Europe or in economies that are converging to Europe, and therefore, you have less, especially when we will have compressed exposure to Russia, impact from economies that have issues with FX, with inflation, and with other things. So it is a quality earnings base.
When you look at the business mix, w hile we were building for the future and recreating the fee base and the other income base by recreating the factories, and we've been successful, because now we are 34%, and it's gonna climb at 40% for the entire group this time. We also were quite obsessive about the NII being on a self-standing basis well above cost of equity. Therefore, we were very obsessive about we need to grow in the right places, and it needs to be a quality growth, not a volume growth. Therefore, as of today, if you do the numbers, we have the most profitable NII return of any bank in Europe today. Therefore, when rates compress, it will go down, but we will remain substantially above the cost of equity.
So, you are going to see a revenue base from a business standpoint that has profitable NII on its own merit, and an increase of fees, with the anchor that is Italy on fees, which will move well above 40%, and the growth that we can get from fees and insurance, going forward, especially in Central and Eastern Europe. Today, we will announce that, the exact timing of our internalization of life insurance in Italy. We've approved it last night, so that will give you a timing for those, earnings and that net income to contribute to, the bank overall, and is consistent with all of that.
So, you seem quite upbeat with respect to the future. However, if I look back at your second quarter results, you didn't upgrade the 2024 net profit guidance, technically, at least, although you did upgrade net revenues by over EUR 500 million for the year. So you're retaining flexibility to secure 2025 and 2026 numbers. How are you going to manage this, and what measures have you taken or plan to take to continue to defend your profitability going forward in the outer years?
If you look at our last three and a half years, we've been trying to accustom you to, we deliver first, we talk later. And we're quite. We don't want to squeeze the lemon and maximize what we can extract at the moment, but we want to continue investing or creating lines of defense for the future, which, by the way, we're gonna reap the benefit of going in 2025 and beyond. That was the spirit. I think the spirit was maybe interpreted as cautiousness. I think it was the spirit. Let me now be more clear. If you compare what we said at the beginning of the year, we said we will be broadly in line with a net income of EUR 8.6 billion to what it was in 2023.
Then we "upgraded," in inverted commas, that to in excess of EUR 8.5 billion. Today, if I take the same identical metrics, so no extraordinary integration cost, no extraordinary charges, no investment for 2025 and 2026, we are confident that this year we will reach EUR 10 billion. So that is the clean number, excluding DTA, obviously. Then you say, "Okay, but we said we're gonna make some investment, and now we are closer to the end of the year, and we can have a better call on what those investments could be." Whatever they are, and we're not final, we think the year all-in will have a net income in excess of EUR 9 billion. So these are the numbers that compare with what we had at the beginning. And it obviously compares to the EUR 8.6 billion of 2023.
Now then, because of all of that, we're now confident we will be able to absorb the effect from the cycle on rates, which now is quite clear. Absorb the effect from the accelerated compression in Russia. Don't underestimate that. And still beat EUR 9 billion next year as well. By how much? We'll see, but for the time being, we will beat it. Then when you move into 2026 and 2027, we think there it's where you will see the sustainable growth, because we won't have to absorb the rate cycle, absorb Russia, but actually you will see in full the franchise producing from a more stable environment. And therefore, that's what we are expecting going forward.
That's as clear as it gets when it comes to guidance on bottom line. What does that all mean for distribution? I guess your current guidance in terms of capital distribution is to return EUR 8.6 billion this year and in excess of that in each of the next two years, based, of course, on the net profit guidance and organic capital generation that you've talked about, but as you return the excess to 13%, is there any update on that distribution, particularly given the acquisition of your stake in Commerzbank?
With respect to distribution, let's start with that. Our guidance is almost unchanged, meaning this year we're currently confirming EUR 8.6 billion of total distribution. In fact, we're already in execution of the interim. We are also confirming that our total distribution for 2025, 2026 will exceed EUR 8.6 billion, again, based on the net income we're expecting and the organic capital generation that we're expecting. This is also predicated on our commitment to investors that we will return the excess capital above 13% to investors by 2027. That does not change for now. The tweak that is changing now, and that is consistent through our conviction that we're moving to a different type of story, is that our dividend payout is gonna be accelerated in terms of moving to 50%.
From 2025 onward, our dividend payout will move from 40% to 50%. That puts it at benchmark and underscore the movement of a story from a restructuring and transformation to more profitable, sustainable growth. In the mix of that EUR 8.6 billion, we will have more dividend and more cash yield. We think that that will take our cash yield at the top side of the sector as well.
And with respect to the second part of the question, is there any changes to that?
Apologies. No change whatsoever. The investment in Commerzbank, as it is today, has no impact on our distribution, no significant impact on our capital.
So, nice increase in the dividend payout, nice signal of the sustainability of the earnings that you've talked about. Let's move on to sort of Commerzbank a little bit more in detail. You just bought a 21% stake, and the German government has indicated that it will not sell any more shares on the market, and it's supporting Commerzbank's independence. What is your response to the German Chancellor's statement, and what are your plans going forward?
As I said at the beginning, let's always remember two things going forward. One, our focus is UniCredit, and continuing in the transformation, and giving investor a ride that is at least as good as the one they've had in the last three years. That is the focus. Consistent with that, we have said many times that if we find ways to accelerate things and to propel further that meet our metrics, we will intervene, and we will move quickly. If we don't find them, we'll return the capital to our investor. That's exactly what we have to say. Second point, very important because we've read a lot of things: Commerzbank, for us, at the moment, is an investment, nothing else, and people should comment and think about that as an investment and nothing else. There is no offer. There is no bid. It's an investor.
We are indeed a large shareholder or a strategic shareholder now, but it is an investment. So why did we make the investment? We made the investment, and where does that take us from here? We made the investment because I don't think anybody in the room would be surprised with the fit that Commerzbank has with our metrics. The strategic fits, and if you look at the price at which we bought and the returns that we can get with the consumption of capital, we're well above 15% return. We always said that this was our financial metric. Furthermore, we've taken the opportunity to floor the downside of this investment, and that allows us to be very calmly evaluating upside, reaping the more than 15% return, and seeing what we do next, and that is it.
What can we do next, and where does it take us? We have really three alternatives. One, is we remain where we are, and hopefully we help Commerzbank crystallize the substantial unexpressed value that we think is in there. Why do we think that it is in there? Because we've run the mirror bank. We've gone through exactly the transformation that we think can occur. Incidentally, that transformation was great for all stakeholders of HVB, the shareholders, the people of HVB, the clients, the communities where we operate. You just need to ask. It is consistent with what we've done at UniCredit. Lots of potential. Can we unlock it? We've unlocked it.
So hopefully, because we believe in what Commerzbank can do, and we believe that that could be good not only for the shareholders, but for the other stakeholders, we can trigger an acceleration of all of that. So that's one possibility that will reward our investment well beyond what I have just said. The second possibility is, in this journey, we find a way to come together and do something greater. But to come together and do something greater, both parties need to want to come together and do something greater. Few things: number one, I think in the past, a lot of people talked about. Do not underestimate how disciplined we are. It doesn't meet our metrics. We won't do it, and very, very clearly, we are in an investment, and we are floored. We don't need to do something together.
We think it will add a lot of value. We think it will be best for both banks, for both sets of shareholders, for the people of both banks, including Commerzbank, for the clients, who would have a strong competition and a stronger bank in a moment where Europe is transforming, that it is good for Germany, and we think that it's a test case for Europe, demonstrating whether we can come together and create stronger bank that can support the economy and the growth that needs to accelerate in our block. So, it's a test. But do we need to do that? Are we obliged to do that? Are we going to be dragged to do that at terms that don't make sense? Absolutely not. The third option is we can sell. If that does not work, we can sell. We're floored.
We took some capital that was sitting to be distributed to investor. We've invested it. We tried to do something great with it. If it doesn't work, we sell. It goes back into our capital. Hopefully, it goes more back into our capital. We return it to investor, and that is very important that people understand that all scenarios are open now, and there is no scenario that is predominant, and that's it, and we will view what is best for us as an investor, and whether that develops more, stays as it is, or we will go back because we can't find the right level of support by all stakeholders, and that's where we are.
That's definitely a big test for Europe, I'd say. When we look at... Oh, this year actually is quite interesting. We've seen a big increase in global investors attending this year's conference, especially out of the U.S. So, steep increase in participation. However, that's not followed with European banks' valuation, and they are still trading at a steep discount to their American counterparts. And the market doesn't really seem to do differentiating much among European banks, with very few exceptions. What will it take, in your view, for this to change and for UniCredit to be appropriately valued for the leading KPIs with, and distributions we just talked about?
I think European banks have left a very bad taste to investors in the last fifteen years. Probably not the last three, but before that. Somebody was telling me that anybody who was really focused on financial institution or on research on bank or whatever, probably does not have a job or a career at the back end, so we're exceptions because of how badly the European financial sector has done. I wouldn't blame journalists or you know or investor across the pond to say, "Well, hang on, these banks, we've tried before, and we're still licking our wounds." I do think that they are, and they're looking to see through the cycle. We're gonna support if this is just a blip.
And I do think there are a few structural things that are being missed because of the whole noise on rates. Yeah, rates are going to go up, and they're gonna come back down, and we're not. NII is gonna be compressed by that cycle. But let's look at the big picture, and let's go 10 years from now and look back. We're going from - 50% to plus +2% to 25%, 2.5%. That is massive for bank. If you look at every bank, now, 60% NII, 70% NII, 80% NII, try to make money on - 50 or make money at 2.5. It's a completely different environment, and an environment that Americans have gone back to a lot earlier than ours. I think that is missed.
So, we're so focused on seeing how much does it compress, but we're missing, that if we had never gone to four, and we had done - 50% to 2.5%, we would all be drinking champagne today. The second thing is asset quality. Unfortunately, our continent, contrary to the U.S., is not about take the hit, clean it up, start again. We bleed things over a long time. A long time. And by the way, banks have done that. But it's 15 years of bleeding. So, people are underestimating the jump in improvement in asset quality that all the banks have. I'm not saying that everybody's perfect, we're not.
But if you look at the average of where we were and where we are today, not only there has been a cleanup going for more than a decade, but during that decade, because of limited growth, there has been little add-ons, so the vintage of that asset quality is quite secure. That's why bank appeared to be so positive. And therefore, that block that used to explode every time and take the profitability down, I think it's under control now. In some place more, in some place less, but I don't think you have anything that is extreme. The third thing that comes out of that is, if you look at the profitability and the yield of banks in Europe, they've converged to the U.S. So the question is, how long will it take for people to understand that?
If I take UniCredit, we are a little bit of a poster child because we did particularly bad during the last decade, and we're doing particularly well now as we're bouncing back. But I think if you look at the metrics, I mean, look at cost of risk. We used to, on average, run at 65 basis points. Forget what we are now, because it's the bottom of a cycle, but we will be running at 20-25 max. So it's a completely different. Every 10 basis points is EUR 450 million- EUR 500 million of earnings that drop down, and we are at 40 basis points lower. And because we come from so many years of no income, we all crushed the cost. Now, the income goes back up, and we all have operating leverage.
We have not stopped, because even there, because we see inflation, we've cut costs even further. Look at the distribution, 14x. Look at the net profit. So I do think in all of that, if you look at what happened to all the European banks between 2021 and today, all of our multiples compressed. So we made more money, but instead of getting the multiple to stay where it was or increase, it compressed. And what is it telling you? That the market is saying: "The money is great, it's not recurrent." The problem is, it is mostly recurrent. And we have been crushed in multiple more than anybody else. I think very few banks trade above 8x . We trade below 7x , and with the guidance today, it's even lower.
I think if you put in any model, or if we demonstrate quarter after quarter, that we are going to hold to what our ambitious needs in terms of net income and distribution, people who are not investing are losing a great opportunity. At some point, I hope that there is more convergence in multiples. But so far, we've been wrong. Let's see.
So far, we drink water, and we'll stick to that until we've built a track record of a show me story for European banks. I think we can open up for questions, 'cause we are right on time, 15, 16 minutes to go. I'm sure there will be plenty. It's a full room. Questions from the audience for Andrea, please raise your hand and introduce yourself. Any questions?
I'll be honest, we answered everything.
We've answered everything.
Hi, it's Mark from BDL. Just going back to Commerzbank, I guess, it's hard to resist that, but. So there's synergies, and there's return on invested capital that you mentioned, and you have those hurdles, and, you know, you're pretty clear that you're gonna stick to those. But what about the impact on the balance sheet and profitability of large transformational deals? A s you say, your returns are basically highest in the sector. Any kind of merger will inevitably lead to lower returns, and I would assume less distribution capacity. I'd just like to hear your thoughts on that. Thank you.
So, I would say the following, a few things. First of all, while we all talk about cross-border deal, this is really mostly about an in-market consolidation, right? We have a German market that is very fragmented, 60% dominated by public sector cooperatives, where the private banks are playing on the sidelines, de facto. Now, and, so anything that brings more consolidation and more strengths there, in my opinion, will change a little bit of the dynamic of the sector. And I would distinguish between retail, which is very rate sensitive and okay, but the corporate side, especially the Mittelstand, is very driven by the quality of the services and the strengths of balance sheet that you can give.
So, while we haven't factored anything in, we strongly believe that there are very significant revenue synergies in anything that we do, because in this case in point, we have our factories. We've built them over the last four years, advisory, capital markets, trade finance, payments, et cetera. But I think Commerzbank, in this case, does not have the same, and therefore, the ability to offer those clients, which are in alternative places to ours, those services, would bring quite a lot of that without much work. And we know we can do that because HVB was in the same position, and as we rebuild the factories, we see the penetration we have on our own clients.
With respect to the returns and the distribution, more generally, yes, of course, at the beginning, if you take an entity that makes a, t ake us, UniCredit Group, 21% return on equity, with another entity that makes 9%, and you put them together, you get a weighted average. So, at the starting block, you're getting a weighted average. I do believe, however, that if you look at the speed at which we transform HVB, and I chair that bank, okay? We've done that in three years, and you can look at the number for three years. We've done that in three years, and that is nothing about mergers. That is about applying the philosophy, the methodology, the discipline of UniCredit Unlocked to HVB. We feel that Commerzbank is what HVB used to be in Germany, and therefore, we have a blueprint of what we can do, excluding any merger.
And we think that the timeline to do the efficiency that I would call not from synergies, but from running it as it can and should be run, is quite compressed and fast, because we just went through that for three and a half years. I think having learned on what we have done and knowing what we're capable of doing with the team in Germany, I think we can either from the outside or from the inside, help drive that at speed. And therefore, any dilution of profitability will be, in inverted commas, "short-lived," because we are confident we can bring the two to par quite quickly. Then, if there was a deal, that's only running things more efficiently, then on top, you get what we call synergies, i.e., what you need to put two things together to get something more than one plus one.
That's on top, so I think we are quite confident that there is a lot to do. I will also highlight a few things. You know that the story of UniCredit is not only more operational efficiency or whatever, it's also about capital allocation and about deploying our capital to support our clients, but where it can be rewarded appropriately above the cost of equity, and by the way, I haven't heard any clients screaming. Actually, given the services we are giving, we are increasing our penetration. At the moment, Commerzbank is at less than 6% return, revenue over RWA. HVB is over 8%, and the trend lines are doing this.
So from the standpoint of releasing capital employed inefficiently and/or deploying more capital efficiently, you may be surprised at how fast in terms of distribution, as many were surprised, how fast at UniCredit in terms of distribution. What we can do there will generate distribution. But with respect to profitability, I think there will be a couple of years where you feel the average and then an acceleration after that.
Thank you.
Any more? One question here.
Thank you, Andrea. What you said makes a lot of sense, and if anyone can show them, you know, how to improve, it's you. Would you require a board seat? Do you think that's feasible? Can you show them, you know, what you learned through HVB with precedent or, I mean, what's the sequencing we should look at?
Look, I think I take you back. I guess I can't see anybody, but I guess it's Arancha. Look, I'll take you back to this. Let's go back. And I know it's difficult because usually we don't have many of this situation. We are an investor, okay? Number one, I usually do not believe in investor having board seats, and in this specific case, I think it's inappropriate for us to have a board seat because we're also a competitor. I don't think that that's correct. I think as an investor, we expect to get the same information as all of the other investors, and maybe in the same way, investor kind of debate, challenge, and tell you, "Well, what about this? What are you doing about that? Have you tried this? Have you tried that?" At least that's the meeting I get.
We can do the same. The answer to your question is no, we're not gonna ask for a Board seat. I was clear when we were at nine, I'm clear now that we are 21. Secondly, for as long as we're an investor, what counts is acting as one, to the same high standards and having only access to public information and performing our role as a, "Well, look, this is public data. This is what we did. We did it this way. Maybe you wanna try it." But that's where it stays and where it is. If during that dialogue, hoping that we get one, it develop into something more, well, let's see. But if not, not, and I think these things, one can make a strong statement or whatever, but ultimately, you need broad stakeholder support to make things successful.
The reason why we have been able to go to take HVB where it is in such a short time is because the relationship between the UniCredit board members, the independent board members, and most importantly, the works council, is very good. But by the way, don't confuse very good with no challenge. We have plenty of challenge. Every decision is really challenged through, but we have found a way to say: What is the best for HVB, for its people, for the clients? Where is the industry going? Can we just put our head in the sand and not do anything? Now, how are we gonna get there? There are a lot of trade-offs and discussion how we get there. I do think that if you go around, you will find that that cohesion and working together at HVB is palpable.
But if you do not have that, it is very difficult to do the same thing that we've done there, so it requires broad stakeholder support. It requires not only shareholders, it's also for their benefit, what I'm saying, but it requires people, it requires client to believe, like we believe, that there is value to unlock, and therefore we may debate if we wanna do it this way or not this way, but at the end of the day, we have in common where we want to get, and that, I think, is the critical point to do anything more than where we are today.
All right, thanks. Any more questions, Wanda?
Thank you. It's me, Marshall Wace. Could you share your thoughts, please, on the outlook for Poland?
Poland?
Poland mBank.
So Poland. So firstly, it is a market that, for us, makes a lot of sense. It is. Let's put it this way, a little bit at the margin, because we said the preference is to grow strengths and potentially make acquisition in the economies where we are, in the markets where we are, because we get in-market synergies, and we have 12 markets where we can do that. And that's what we've done so far. Poland is a hybrid, i.e., on the one hand, we're not there, unfortunately, we exited. At the same time, it's very integrated in terms of trade flows and in terms of business flows with the rest of Central and Eastern Europe, with Germany, to a lesser extent, with Austria and Italy.
Therefore, what we have realized running UniCredit is that where we distinguish ourselves and make a disproportionate amount of value is when we intermediate those flows. So we have a mid-cap companies in Poland, and it usually has subsidiary, or it trades, or it buys, or it has providers in the rest of the CEE in Germany, or vice versa, and we have leading banks on both sides. Not a leading bank and a branch, no. Leading bank on both sides. At that point, the relationships strengthen on both sides. We get the payment flows in the middle. We get all the ancillary revenues that come from hedging effects, hedging commodities, hedging rates, and all the other things.
And therefore, because of the integration of Poland in our model, it is probably one of the economies where we're quite confident that we can extract value, although there is no overlap or there is no in-market. I will add another thing. As you have seen, because we announced it at Q2, we bought Vodeno. And Vodeno is not only a core banking system, it's also 200 technologists and a founder, but by the way, founded Alior, and is quite well respected, if not very well respected in Poland, and they're all sitting in Poland.
So anything we may do in Poland, either organically, as we said on Q2, or inorganically, we think we have a very good setup to move in, not only because of the business, but also because the team is there, and that's why we're excited about that as well. The other thing that I would say in the specific case at hand is, this is normal. When you're undergoing difficulties, you're not going to put on the table all the capital that needs to be put to pursue further growth.
You're not gonna be optimistic about what can be done. You're actually going to be more restrictive. And I think because of our excess capital and where we are in our cycle, we would be able to propel that forward as opposed to refrain. So I do think we are excited about that part of the business as well, but this is about Poland in general.
Very clear. Thank you.
Very last question there, please, but we have to take it quickly.
Going back to the Commerzbank investment. In the process of building up your stake, did you have any meaningful conversation with the government? Can you share anything about that with us?
Look, I would just share the following. I think any bank that makes a move like that has a tendency to talk to all the stakeholders that are relevant, and not only once, but more than once. And, ascertain whether, at least in the assessment you make at the beginning, whether most of the stakeholders are in the right place. So, I would say more generally, that we spoke repeatedly with several stakeholders of Commerzbank, and therefore, when we were invited to buy a 4.5% stake, we felt that that was a normal consequence of that process. And that's where we are today, but we're very keen to reopen those dialogues and have constructive dialogue with all the stakeholders. As I said, we're all interested in the best interest of Commerzbank.
At this point in time, although we have downside protection, we have EUR 3.5 billion invested there. So we're keen to make sure that Commerzbank does well. We're also keen to. And if people go, and I've done this presentation many, many times, but people think that these are just writing on the wall, but we really do believe in our principle and values, and what our principles are, is to find a balancing point between shareholders, employees, and clients, and community. You cannot do that if you don't have broad stakeholder support. I think, as I said, for HVB, we have been successful, not because only of management. It's because employees, clients, communities, state of Bavaria, go look there if they think we're doing a good job or not, and management have come together to do something else. Any way forward requires continued dialogue and better dialogue.
Great! Interesting times ahead for the next twelve months or so. So, interesting for UniCredit and the industry. I thank you, Andrea, for today's session.
Thank you.
Thank you, everyone, for taking the time to attend.
Thank you.