Okay, now I think everyone can hear me. Right, thank you. I am delighted to be joined on stage once again by Lars Machenil, CFO of BNP Paribas, a regular guest at the conference. Lars, thank you for making the journey up this year once again to help share your insights. Let's begin maybe on the operating backdrop, the current operating environment. You had a very solid start to the year with Q1 numbers, but clearly a lot has happened since the end of Q1. Maybe let's just begin by outlining how the business is currently performing and how the business has demonstrated its resilience through this recent period of uncertainty.
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All right, good. Now let's listen. I mean, you've seen, I mean, Europe since the beginning of the year, there have been several changes. Several countries are putting things in motion and putting things in motion. We, as a pan-European bank focused on corporates and institutional, we really accompany that growth. Indeed, we had strong operating performance. You've seen it. I'm not going to come back to it, but top-line growth of 6% with jaws of 2. Costs growing a lot slower. Cost of risk is benign, 33 basis points over outstanding. We've guided to 40 over this cycle. It's better than that. That's basically what we've seen. Intrinsically, that rhythm, because Europe continues to do all the investments, we are there to serve. This trend that you see in Q1 should basically continue in Q2.
Now, some of you might have some concerns. There are things like what's happening with tariffs and the likes. Then again, listen, if I look at the clients of BNP Paribas, why do I feel comfortable of the trend continuing? It's because if you look at, if you take credit, our outstanding 80%- 88.0% of our credit portfolio is investment grade. There is not one sector that represents more than 4% of outstanding. From that point of view, we feel comfortable and we see on cost of risk, no reason why we would shy away from our over the cycle, 40 basis points. Now, that's cost of risk, I hear you say. That's true. What do we see business-wise? If you look at each of the businesses, what do we see? CIB, it basically continues its good form that we saw in Q1.
Here, I have to remind you that if you compare to the quarter of last year, that was an exceptional one. It was one where both the fixed income demand and equity demand was very strong. They were exceptional. That is what you should keep in mind. Then again, on the CIB, when you look at what institutionals and what corporates are doing, they are still operating and continuing to use banks and financing in a positive way. They come for investment money. They do not come for working capital. For the institutionals, they have no problems to put their initial margins. That is basically what we see. Now, the corporates, it is the same thing. They are ready to invest. They are not retracting. They are not shrinking.
They may be a bit taking more time or to see should we invest in the U.S. to basically be less impacted by the tariffs or should we do Europe, given the fact that so many countries are pumping growth. That is what we see on CIB, on CPBS. Basically on networks in Europe, on the corporate side, it is the same thing as what we at BNP Paribas, we are in the metropolitan areas. That is where the industrial texture is. We are in Paris, Lyon, Marseille. If you look at the individuals, the benchmark I would look at is what is happening to deposits. There is nothing particular happening to that. Then you have IPS. As you know, IPS is basically insurance, wealth management, and asset management. The demand for long-term savings in Europe is very high. It remains high.
I mean, Europeans, they come along that it's not no longer the nation-states that will pay for their pensions. And so they go after these kinds of products. Having said all that, Chris, before handing it back to you, is that this basically makes us confirm our objectives that we set out. We set out 5% top-line growth, ramping up to 26% with operating jaws with low cost of risk. Therefore, bottom line 7%. We do share buybacks. The earnings growth of 7% triggers an 8% earnings per share growth. This is what we see, a bit of a shift. You know, justify me before handing it over. If I share a bit, I was roadshowing in Asia. In Asia, that's also what we basically picked up. Yeah, there is some recalibration.
It is not that they shy away from the U.S., but they calibrate a bit differently. When they look at it, they say, hey, Europe is growing. We will shift into Europe. Moreover, when there is growth, banks are typically doing very well. We go into banks. Then basically, we have a preference for BNP Paribas. Why? Because on one hand, it is diversified. Even if there would be some headwinds, BNP Paribas will do very well. Moreover, you have all now in the wings already, in the wings to basically continue to grow the top line by 5%. That is a bit what we see on the horizon, Chris.
If we turn to some of the divisions themselves and start with the CIB, you know, the recent uncertainty stemmed from the United States. Do you feel as though this period of uncertainty has the potential to add any more momentum into some of the progress you want to see in terms of developing European capital markets, whether it's savings and investment union? Maybe also, do you already sense or do you get the sense that some European corporates are looking more to transact with the European Investment Bank versus the U.S. investment bank?
Yeah, the short answer is yes. Now, let's be fair. I mean, we at BNP Paribas, and particularly our CIB, we have quote-and- quote been anticipating this. There has always been a financing need. Regulation in Europe has always been a bit quote unquote a bit bizarre. Not supporting banks to do that always massively. You will need to see some changes. What I see with whatever is happening in the world, it basically triggers Europe to change stance. When I take the train to Brussels, I pick up things that I haven't heard in years. It's a bit like the thing quote unquote that I can say. They say, listen, when it comes to banking, we shouldn't do, we Europe shouldn't do like what we've done with defense and basically outsource it to the U.S.
That is the kind of things that I pick up that I hear. That basically means they are aware that they should basically create an environment where the financing for the economy can happen out of the market. Now, again, this will not be that easy. In order to do so, they do realize they need banks in order to do that. Banks, and particularly like what BNP Paribas has been preparing for, because in the sense that if you need to get the loans out, you need to originate. In order to originate, you need as a bank to have a good view of origination taking place.
On one hand, we are present in many countries in Europe, and we have a setup to underwrite, to have a close view on what is needed, what the quality is, and of the underwriting. That is what we are doing with our networks and with our CIB. Once you have originated it, you have to be able to structure it and place it into the market, so-called distribute, right? With CIB, we are able to structure it very well and to place it into the market because we have that relationship with the institutionals. In a couple of weeks, when we will close the deal with AXA IM, we will even step up the distribution capacity to all those. That is basically, we are well prepared.
In the meantime, the demand that we have been seeing for a while now in Europe is basically going to be stepped up because Europe now has to spend more money on defense, bringing back technologies, stepping up sustainability and all these kinds of things. That is why it will be needed more. We understand that next week, Europe will come up with a first step of how these things could evolve. That will be very positive. It is really something that Europe needs. We, BNP Paribas, we will be there to basically, well, lighten up our balance sheet. It might be 10% or so that we get out of the balance sheet, our own balance sheet. We will be very instrumental for the European banking system. Now, do not get me wrong, the large diversified banks, they can do that.
All of the other of those 6,000 banks in Europe, they will need this kind of service. So it is important and we are very well positioned to do so, Chris.
If we look at markets, revenues in markets were up 17% in the first quarter. I think equities was up over 40%. I guess the first question is just how sustainable do you see that momentum in being? Secondly, how complete would you say that platform now is in terms of breadth and where would you prioritize any further expansion on the market side?
Yeah, listen, if I can do some history and blend in with the need I mentioned. I mean, if we go back 10 years ago, BNP Paribas was a fixed income house. That was the main things that we had. Then we had some equity derivatives, but if you wanted cash equities, you need to go somewhere else and prime brokerage is the same. Now, over the last couple of years, we have been able to bolt on those remaining activities. So with Exane on cash equities and then prime brokerage, we got in from another bank and said that basically makes a coherent set and we all bundle that into one activity. Now all of a sudden, the treasurer, she has one banker in front of her out of BNP Paribas in one company and doing all that.
That basically allowed us to have a different change. If I look at numbers, I mean, if you look at the European banks positioning, the European banks in EMIA, today we are the number one European bank in EMIA. If you go back to those 10 years ago when we were, quote unquote, a fixed income house, we were basically number nine. You see how we have been scaling up. As I mentioned, this is not luck. There is no fairy tale with a magical wand that came along and basically, no, that is not what it is. We have been able to, when we have a client, we attract a client and then we are able to cross-sell massively products to it. Many of those products are basically fee-based, so it does not consume much capital.
You know, I have this saying within the bank, basically the top line has to grow faster than the cost has to grow faster than the capital. That is basically what we're doing. That basically leads to a pre-tax return on equity of 25%. Again, this is quote unquote, don't get me wrong, Chris, but it's a flow business. Yeah. It's not, that's why we call this activity CIB, corporate and institutional banking. We bring the flows together. It's not a one trick pony. On day one of the quarter, the PL is not zero. PL is not zero. There is a demand and we will take our market share. To make it very simple, when I do the outlook for this kind of activities, I look at somebody who's judging the market, what the growth is.
They see a growth of these products in Europe and we basically step up our market share. That is what we continue to do. Intrinsically, that is what we have. We continue to grow. We do not start from zero and we take market share. That does not mean that one given quarter, there can be a flux of all activities coming together, exceptions like basically, as I mentioned in the introduction that we had a year ago, but the trend on which we are, we basically continue to do so. That trend, Europe keeps on growing, there is demand, we keep on taking market share. Basically, you could say, but at some point in time, that will stop. Yeah, at some point in time, but that point in time is still far away.
Again, if I put that in numbers, if you take, if I take the equity space, I take the equity space where I said we have the three products, cash, derivatives, prime. If I take the 100 top equity institutionals, out of those, there are 53 of them that take those three products. Fifty-three. There is still a lot to go where we can step up our market share. Looking good.
Pivoting to IPS. IPS, as you mentioned earlier, spans three main businesses. It's obviously a focus view. It's a business that as a group accounts for 15% roughly of your revenues, but it's accounted for around 40% of the reinvested capital that you've taken from Bank of the West. Maybe you can outline what exactly are you building here and how would you expect that build out to impact the outlook for BNP Paribas?
Yes, thank you. I mean, this is really, I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm an insurer at the base. Basically, IPS is a unique setup. It's unique in Europe. IPS, maybe the acronym doesn't mean, but if you look at the numbers, it stands for I Investments, P Protection, and S Savings. If I now translate that into businesses, it's basically wealth management, asset management, and insurance. That's basically what it is. On one hand, there is a very strong demand. As I mentioned, Europeans figured out that they have to cater for their own savings. We, BNP Paribas, with IPS, we have a unique set. We have a unique set of skills. We have a unique set of distribution. We have a unique set of technology to make it happen.
We basically, within three weeks' time, are going to make it even stronger. I come back to that. The thing is, this is so important because there is this need to accompany our clients in the key projects along the life cycle of what they have ahead of them. The other thing, which is amazing about this activity, when I say, we have all this unique positioning, there is this demand. We not only distribute it to our own clients. 50% of what IPS is doing is basically distributed to, let's say, BNP Paribas. The other half is stemming from other distributors. What are those other distributors? It can be other banks that do not have these bank insurance products. It is not only other banks.
It can be black good companies, you know, so those who sell you these kinds of projectors, whatever, television stations, whatever. It's very often, if you would walk in, that you will walk out with an insurance that is basically originated with us. That's basically why it's so interesting, this activity. If you indeed look at the numbers, I mean, it represents today 15% of our earnings, but it only consumes 6% of our capital. That 15% will go up with whatever we have in the wings. Look, I mentioned we're going to grow intrinsically. The demand is there. We're going to bolt on new activities. I think of, and I'll come back to AXA, but there's also the HSBC Wealth in Germany. There's IKEA in Italy. There is [Neflis] in France.
All of these things are really strengthening what we are doing. That will mean that on the horizon of 2026, somewhere around there, the 15% will go to 20%. If we continue that growth, 2030-ish, it will basically go to 25%. That is really, quote unquote, a charming evolution that we have. If I zoom just for a second, it is a growth of intrinsic, the products that we have and the distribution channels that we have. It is external distribution channels. Then it is further things that we bolt on, bolting on. Yes. The wealth management in Germany, it is bolting on. Yeah. HSBC is leaving Germany. We are basically taking on that. It doubles our assets under management. It gives us scale and it allows us to roll out the systems into Europe.
Because if you look at wealth management, listen, the day that they just need asset management plus wealth management, I mean, yeah, that's behind us. Yeah. You need to provide them close to investment banking services and platforms. We are having this in our network. In Belgium, in Luxembourg, in France, and in Italy. Basically, that platform, we basically see that those services are also needed in the other areas in Europe where there is value creation. Yeah. Where you have the startups that are doing. We are rolling out that platform and we're starting with the rollout in Germany, on the back of what we've been acquiring from clients on HSBC. That's that. On the other one, of course, there is end of the month, there is the closure to come of AXA Investment Managers.
That will basically bundle the long-term asset expertise. It will basically create a setup with $1.5 trillion in assets under management. It basically creates a platform that basically reminds me of what CIB was a couple of years ago and from where we will be able to grow, taking market share, bolting on. That is basically why we are so confident on IPS, Chris.
Maybe let's just follow up on AXA IM quickly. That deal is expected to close, I think, in the coming weeks. If you could just run us through sort of the expected synergies and the integration timeline for AXA IM. Also, how do you plan on managing the CET1 impact in the absence of the Danish compromise?
Oh, yes. So indeed, we are supposed to close on July 1. You know, the thing is, the closing is a process where you need to get all the approvals from the authorities. Yeah. These can be banking authorities, insurance authorities, market authorities, you name it. Basically, we are merging in 10 countries. That basically means a lot. We are getting all the authorities in. The big one that we needed was the European anti-trust, and we basically got that one on board. We are on track. We are getting country after country. We are on track to close that by July 1st. As I mentioned, and I'll come back to your regulatory point, the deal makes sense from an industrial point of view. Yeah. You bring together two major amounts of assets.
That basically means you can optimize when it comes to the systems, the people, and so forth. You have a lot of cost savings going on. Moreover, I do not know how much you are aware of this, but the products that you distribute through a bank insurance are, quote unquote, more straightforward than what you distribute to a broker, yeah, which typically tend to be more alternative products, prime. All of a sudden, you will bundle those two kinds of products. You get a wide range of products and you basically double the distribution channel. As I mentioned, you have the ones of BNP Paribas and the external ones, and then you have the one that come with AXA. That is why it basically makes a lot of sense independent of what the capital impact is.
For us, just very quickly, we consider it's Cardiff Insurance buying something from AXA Insurance. You heard the word insurance twice, right? That means that normally insurance regulation applies. If you are a bank and you insure, that thing is called the Danish compromise. There are discussions with what Europe is basically saying that it should be considered not only this deal, but all of these deals should be considered asset management, therefore banking regulation should apply. If this is the case, to put it in numbers, instead of consuming 25 basis points in capital, it will consume 35 basis points. Which basically means that the return on the investment of more than 20% that we forecasted in year three, in that case, would be basically within year four.
That is basically where we stand. Again, for us, the main important thing is this is a very profitable deal. It makes industrial sense as if there is no tomorrow. It is basically something that will position IPS just like CIBS. We will be able to grow profitably in market share supporting Europe needs.
Okay. Pivoting to CPBS, two days ago, you hosted an investor deep dive on the personal finance business. What are the main messages and takeaways you'd like people to have from that event?
Yes. The first thing, let's be fair, what we have seen is that in that space, personal finance, we were active. We took our skill and we basically applied it a bit across the world. Yes, in the Eurozone, in Latin America, in Eastern Europe. That was basically fine because we had the skill. We were able to serve customers at the right price. When we had this wave of interest rates coming down, it basically triggered a lot of local players out of the Eurozone to also go into that market, basically break the prices. Very low prices, attracting those customers. That's the easy part. If you say, "Cuckoo, you can have very cheap money," people will come along. At the moment when they cannot pay doing the workout, that is not that easy.
That basically made us observe that in some of the regions where we do not have alternative products, we are not the right competitive answer to the question. That is why we said on personal finance, those areas, I think of Latin America, I think of Eastern Europe, where we only had one product, we were faced with other players that basically broke the price so that we could not make it profitable. That weighed onto personal finance. Personal finance return on equity was single digit. Yeah. That is something we cannot continue. We saw no solution to adapt that situation in those areas. We basically said, "These are non-core," and we are basically going to sell those activities or stop those activities. That is what we are doing. We are focusing on the core, which is basically the Eurozone.
In the Eurozone, we do have a lot of products that we can cross-sell. We have also a lot of unique products. Think of whatever is mobility or the financing of your phones and what have you not. In mobility, we have very structural deals with large car manufacturers so that if you walk in and buy a car, you probably walk out with an insurance that is coming from our side. That's basically what we're doing. On personal finance, we will continue to grow at high margins in the regions that I mentioned. We will continue to focus on cost by further industrializing. We will focus on the higher end, bringing down the cost of risk. We will really optimize the capital.
What I mean by that, if I put it in numbers, yeah, I anticipate with what I mentioned, the optimizations that we will do, that I will be able to grow my revenues by more than 5%. Okay. I will grow my revenues by more than 5%. As this is personal finance, this will be accompanied by loans growing by 4%. And now when you look at TRWAs linked to that, it will grow by 1%. Yeah. That basically means revenues are by more than 5.5%, jaws, cost of risk contained, capital contained. You can clearly see that the return on equity will become double digit and go to the 17% that we set forward. That is really important. Again, this is within the current regulation. I know that next week there will be whatever that I mentioned on the Save and Invest Union.
Within the current regulation, we can really step up because what I mentioned that we focus more on collateralized kind of lending. That collateral, we can package it and place it into the market.
I can see we've got 20 minutes into this discussion without mentioning NII, which must be a new record for a banks conference. Maybe if you could just outline, you know, how would a steeper yield curve or a more aggressive ECB easing cycle actually impact your NII trajectory, particularly in CPBS?
Yes. You have indeed, you mentioned CPBS because, basically, BNP Paribas is driven by three divisions. There is only actually CPBS that is driven by the rates environment. CIB is driven by the overall GDP growth and the demand for products. IPS, so the insurance does not intrinsically know what interest rates are. They are driven by the markets. That is a bit it. If we look at CPBS, let me just say the things we always know. If a yield curve is steepening, that is good because it basically means your deposits are cheaper, quote unquote, and your loans are more expensive. Let us put it this way. However, there is the steepening of the curve, but I could use another word to describe the yield curve. It is normalization.
That normalization is in particularly good for BNP Paribas because normalization means, yes, it might be steepening, but it will also be coming down. That coming down, that's where it might be peculiar because if you are used to a bank that is lending at the variable rates, when rates go down, your net interest income goes down. Whereas for basically French, Belgian banks like ourselves, it's a bit different between the loans, a big chunk of the loans that we have are fixed rate. That basically means the repricing is taking the time of the renewal of the loans. The loans that we are originating today, they are reflecting the rates of today. Yeah. They are replacing loans. I'm simplifying. That's where it originated 10 years ago. Ten years ago in Europe, we were in a rate environment of zero.
We were not yet negative, but we were at zero. We are basically replacing a loan which was originated in a zero rate environment and we are originating it in the rate environment of today. That normalization is basically a positive point for us. The second thing, that is on the lending side. That is the positive side that we see, that there is the pickup. There is the other thing. Last year, there were some headwinds that BNP Paribas was facing, and particularly in France and Belgium. I'm not going to go into it, but the Belgian state went into competition with the banks that basically weighed on the deposits. That is gone as well because Belgium realized, "I have a Belgian passport. Yeah, I can mock them." They realized that they cannot continue to do so. Yeah.
That's basically what we see. That's why we're basically saying we're back to normal. Even if the interest rates are coming down, we forecast in the region, in the networks, that the net interest income will be up 3% this year given the normalization and even 5% the year thereafter. The parallel shocks or whatever are relatively limited for the dynamic that I just mentioned.
I wanted to maybe if we turn to some of the more group level topics, I wanted to squeeze together a question on cost OpEx and also on cost of risk. You know, as you mentioned, I think earlier in your comments, jaws or positive operating jaws has been really a cornerstone of your strategy, of the team strategy. In Q1, it was slightly negative. How confident are you on achieving the 1.5 percentage points of annual jaws effect? At the same time, you know, how do you see cost of risk evolving for the bank, both in the near term, but also through the medium term?
Yes. If you look at cost first, let's be fair, remember on cost, we want to operate at marginal cost. Yeah. That basically means we have the platforms. If we grow, we grow marginal cost. Silly thing, if Arval or Carfleet Leasing sells more cars, which is a good thing, they have to buy more cars. Yeah. That is the kind of marginal cost. Same is true, if CIB does better, we probably have to pay bonuses. Yeah. That is the kind of cost and element. That is what we go for. In order to do so, we need the platforms to grow and we need options to fight inflation. Yeah. Inflation, we basically fight it by capturing scale, putting activities together and putting activities in areas where we really have an advantage setup.
For example, in France, do not get me wrong, but in France, we do not hire anyone. Yeah. A year, we hire 2,000 people in Mumbai. Yeah. Just to show you the dynamic on what that means. Then again, on a given quarter, if you look at in the first quarter on our operating division, the jaws of CIB, CPBS, and IPS, they are basically positive. Revenues are growing a lot faster than the cost. Why at the group level this is a bit tainted negatively is because of what we call the corporate center. In the corporate center, you can have things which are punctual. Yeah. It can be market valuation or stuff, stuff that we do not consider run of the mill. Therefore, it is not in the business. What we have over the year, it is basically ironed out.
Yes, you can look in the first quarter that this was this negative effect. We had that, by the way, a year ago as well. Typically, year after year, the corporate center irons out at zero over the year. That is why we feel comfortable that what you saw on the operational divisions will be the basis for what you see at the group level. Yeah. That is basically on the cost side. On the asset quality, listen, if you look at it, again, the cost of risk, if you look at the cost of risk at what we call the gross operating income, so revenues minus cost, there is only 16.16% of leakage of that gross operating income in cost of risk. That is fine. That is basically because we are focused on the high grade.
As I mentioned, 80% of our loan book is investment grade. Yeah. That is why we feel comfortable that we will stay at the 40 basis point. Allow me to give you other indicators. Yeah. When I look at indicators, again, when I look at institutions and corporates, they are not coming for working capital. They do not have issues of posting their initial margins. From that point of view, I see the evolution being positive. Even if things would go wrong, you know, you have under IFRS, you have your specific loan reserves for when a company runs into trouble, but you also have these forward-looking provisions. Yeah. We have more than $4 billion. I remind you, we have on average $3 billion of cost of risk. We have more than $4 billion in anticipation that we have.
Moreover, if we have some activities that are structurally high on cost of risk, I think of what Italy was for us a couple of years ago and personal finance, then we basically adapted. Yeah. BNL really focused it on the core international clients where we can make a difference. Personal finance, I told you a couple of minutes ago what we are doing. There we are also structurally bringing down the cost of riskers.
My last question before opening up more broadly to the audience on returns on CET1, you've recently reaffirmed that 2025 ROT target of 11.5% and then it's 12% for next year. I guess give us a sense of what your degree of confidence is in hitting those numbers and where the ceiling would be for returns beyond 2026. I guess sort of embedded within that question is an ask on what you think the right CET1 number for the business is.
Yes. Twelve. I'll start with that. Twelve percent. I'll tell you why. I mean, if I first look at what the supervisor wants, now the supervisor says 10.4% is more than enough. That's basically where we stand. We are at 12.4%. So we're basically well above that. Moreover, for those who have been following structurally, we have been improving our capital position year after year. Yeah. If you look at the last 10 years, there is not one given year where a common equity T1 went down, bar the years when you have massive new regulations like this year. Why? Because the intrinsic capital generation of BNP Paribas is so strong that it basically allows to cover growth of BNP Paribas and to cover all of the things that fall on us on the regulatory side.
That is why we have, in percentage wise, we have been stepping up over the last couple of years. We have this intrinsic capacity to create capital every given year. That is what we want to do. Now the thing is, and I will come back to that, we believe as we are well above what the regulatory requirements are, we are fine. Our capitalization is fine. We do create a lot of capital and we prefer to use that capital to fuel growth in Europe. To be very fair, if you want me to be at 50 basis points to my common equity T1, I can do that in one year. I just slow down the support of growth and I generate. I have this capacity to generate capital.
That is why we feel so comfortable that in no given year with whatever, I mean, I talked about the bizarre things on regulation, but there has also been all kinds of environments. You had in the euro, the Eurozone crisis, the Greek crisis, whatever kind of word with the word crisis in it. We basically in every of those given years, we were able to strengthen our capital position. That is why we feel comfortable. Even if you look at it another way, even if percentage wise, our capital ratio remains the same. The fact that the RWAs have been growing like there is no tomorrow means that in euros, we have set aside much more capital. Yeah. The RWAs have been growing. I do not know if she talked about it in this
book but there have been the trims, the internal reviews, the basils, what have you not. From that point of view, we feel that the capital levels that we have are fine and that the 12% finds us in the right balance to support growth, but having the capacity to adapt. Now, to be fair, we talked about supervision and the likes. Everything is relatively clear. The only uncertainty today is FRTB. Europe says on FRTB, we will align with what the U.K. and the U.S. are doing. For the moment, it looks like the U.K. and the U.S. are not going to do it. Europe is basically going to announce it next week, I suppose, that they're going to push it forward. That basically means it could be that it does not come or that it comes.
We are on the prudent side so that FRTB would be 30 basis points. That is why we fly at 12.3% for the moment.
Okay. With that, let's see if we have any questions from the audience.
Don't be shy. My shoe size is 42. I don't bite.
Right at the back, next to the microphone, conveniently.
Thank you for your comments. Very impressive story. Tell me please, who is your most feared competitor in Germany and in France and all of your markets?
Yeah. It depends what you mean by competitor. I mean, if you say, who is your competitor for the large institutions that come to us and want to have a full field of options? Don't get me wrong. If your question is what European player is, there is, or Eurozone player, there's basically no Eurozone player. Whenever we go out to these kinds of things, what we have in front of us is a company that is basically US based. Yeah. That's the kind of thing. If you look at what it is on specific products, then it can be different, of course. Deutsche Bank is incredible when it comes to fixed income, other banks when it comes to equities and what have you not.
On that concept of one stop shop, in the Eurozone, we do not consider to see other plays at this stage that have a similar offering. Anything else?
Good.
What I do, my typical count on once, twice, three times.
Seven seconds left.
All right. Oh, perfect.
Excellent. Okay. Thank you so much for your time. Appreciate it.
Thank you. Thank you for your interest. Have a good conference.