Ladies and gentlemen, good morning from Wiesloch and welcome to our analyst conference. I also welcome the CEO of MLP, Dr. Uwe Schroeder-Wildberg, as well as our CFO, Reinhard Loose. Before we move straight into our business development, please allow me a brief comment on the agenda. Following the presentations, you can ask your questions. You can already submit your questions during the presentations. Please use your input mask in the browser. If you want to ask your questions personally, meaning with audio and video, please note this in the text field. Audio only is also possible. During the Q&A session, our operator will then ask you to activate your camera or microphone as soon as it's your turn. You can directly address your questions to the speakers. If you want to ask your questions purely in writing, please use the text field.
An announcement or entry of your questions is possible at any time, also during the presentations. Now to the exciting topics. I hand over to Uwe Schroeder-Wildberg. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Frank. Warm welcome from my side to you, ladies and gentlemen. It's a pleasure to inform you about our business year 2022, and to speak with you about our forecast and our planning up to the year 2025. We are looking back on a satisfying business year 2022, a year that burdened us challenges in historical dimensions. We all together were faced with a war in Ukraine, geopolitical shifts, energy availability question, rising prices of energy, problems in global supply chains, comeback of inflation, fast and significant rise of interest rates. During this remarkable year, MLP again proved its relevance for our customers and again its resilience. Total revenues increased to EUR 949.1 million.
We again demonstrated broadly diversified revenue structure as a newcomer after 10 years of rather poor banking business, strong interest rate development. Even wealth management in, as you know in detail, after difficult capital markets demonstrated strength with successful investments of client funds, reasonable and good net cash inflows, and for sure burdened by what we have anticipated at the beginning of this year, a reduction of performance-based compensation after a record year, extremely record year we had in 2021, and even for sure, also in 2020. Despite all that, with market changes and challenging framework conditions, earnings before interest and taxes, the EBIT, came up to EUR 75.6 million after the EUR 96.8 million last year. Again, also heavily driven by the performance-based compensation.
Perhaps as a better comparison, the EBIT of 2022 with EUR 59.4 million. Overall, we remained within the forecast corridor we announced one year before. Due to that, and due to the business model, and due to our confidence about the future development, the executive board proposes a dividend of EUR 0.30 per share, which is more the higher region of our payout ratio. That means also that the dividend in EUR cents will remain stable compared to 2022. We will see in the next minutes that beside that, the strong fundament we have built also an significant and interesting growth potential for the future. The challenges I spoke about will not diminish. They will remain. Just to highlight some few aspects, we are all aware that international political and trade relations are changing and are getting realigned.
We should also be aware that we have still historical dependencies in extreme dimensions. Just to look on the left side of the slide, the dependence on China in questions of solar wafers, wind turbines. Rare earth elements, here it's very clear that we are still very dependent, and we are also dependent, but we find good ways out of the situation that we have today. That is, when I said this, it's also very clear that we are doing that worldwide in the situation where our and the next two generations' main and big task is the question of decarbonization. Which requires all focus, all energy, and immense dimensions of innovation and new technique to cope with this very important but also big requirement.
On the other side, we see that innovation technology is going forward, especially optimization, artificial intelligence. We see that in innovation cycles are shortening. That means also that there are new challenges on one hand, but this is our result. There are much more opportunities to some extent, also huge opportunities also to cope with the requirements which are coming up or came up due to demographic issues and cost inflation and whatever. Optimization will be also one of our answers to all these challenges in the future. Overall, and this should be also the main message coming from this slide. In such a world, where so many new developments, new challenges, rebalancing of relations, a diversified business model is key. Diversified model, especially with further growth potential. This is what we have established in the last 15 years.
We established a group with very strong customer-focused brands, with leading positions in their segments, which is in the meantime, clearly visible in the allocation of revenues and step by step, with growing importance in the steadily growing synergies between the components, the partners, in the MLP Group. Just give you two examples. For example, the cooperation between MLP and FERI. When MLP advisors have customers with bigger volumes to invest, they're able to ask FERI colleagues for participation and cooperation. For example, we reached a new peak in the meantime, out of that, with EUR 0.5 Billion of assets which have been won and are administered together with MLP and FERI. The next huge potential between RVM and TPC, both working and are very good positioned in the German SME market.
For sure it's clear that we try to focus and to work on both customer groups on the same time. These examples, there are many more, demonstrate that our unique network offers very interesting opportunities to expand our services to our customers. That means also that on one hand, the personal business will be very relevant and also what we are willing to invest, for example, the ongoing education of our people, our advisors. For sure we'll go ahead with strong initiatives in the fields of digitization and IT overall. There are a few examples, I will come back to that after Reinhard Loose gave you more details into the worlds of figures. Examples like our investment in a startup named :pxtra in the corporate benefit segment. Our developments for our direct brand, MLP Choice, for example.
It means all these digital solutions with new techniques, good spirit, entrepreneurial spirit, but, and very important, also backed by the strong MLP network. Before I hand over to Reinhard, I would use the opportunity to thank the whole MLP team, advisors, employees, overall, more than 4,000 people who did an excellent job in this extraordinary challenging year. I'm, together with my colleagues on the board, very proud and thankful and grateful. Now it's time for the CFO.
Thank you, Uwe. The warm welcome also from my side. Total revenues rose to EUR 949.1 million in the last financial year, which represents an increase of around 2%. Revenue from commissions and fees was EUR 842.4 million, while revenue from the product business and interest income both recorded a significant increase. When broken down by consulting field, we can observe various revenue developments. In real estate, the product business was able to more than compensate for the market-related decline in real estate brokerage. As such, total revenue of EUR 88 million was recorded here, albeit with declining earnings. In loans and mortgages, the drastic rise in interest rates encountered during the year had a strong impact. Consequently, revenue declined to EUR 22.3 million. As anticipated, wealth management revenue also suffered a decline.
Indeed, as a result of the negative capital market development, just under EUR 6 million in performance-based compensation were recorded in 2022, following around EUR 67 million in the previous year. The successful development was recorded in investment consulting at FERI. In 2022, the MLP Group recorded wealth management revenues of EUR 316.5 million. Wealth management continues to make the greatest contribution in our broadly diversified revenue structure. Disruptive supply chains, the energy crisis, and the inflation trend all had a negative impact on old age provision consulting. Companies displayed reservations in terms of expanding their occupational provision, while private clients were more hesitant in reaching decisions regarding long-term provision contacts. Nevertheless, MLP still recorded strong demand among clients for occupational disability policies, often in combination with initial old age provision components.
Despite all the negative external effects, MLP generated old age provision revenues of EUR 228.8 million. Health insurance revenue rose slightly, while non-life insurance revenue enjoyed a significant increase of 17%. The first time consolidation of the new companies of the industrial broker segment acquired in the year 2022 also had an impact. DOMCURA, MLP's private client business, also enjoyed positive developments. We were able to record a particularly strong increase in the interest rate business at MLP Banking in the last year. Normalization of the interest rate level is having precisely the opposite effect to mortgage lending and real estate here. To date, we have had to pay negative interest on deposits at the Bundesbank. The situation has now been reversed, meaning that we were able to record a year-on-year increase in interest income of 68%.
What was previously a burden has now become an additional stabilizer. As we always do, let us now take a brief look at the key figures in the MLP Group. Despite the pronounced declines observed in the capital markets at EUR 54.3 million, assets under management remained virtually constant relative to the value recorded both at the end of the previous year and the previous quarter, the latter of which was EUR 54.4 billion. More than ever before, the MLP Group is now operating at eye level with renowned private banks. With their investment of client assets, our colleagues from FERI successfully met the challenges associated with the annus horribilis on the capital market, in which a standard securities account compromising 60% U.S. shares and 40% U.S. bonds recorded its worst ever performance in the post-war period. Multi-asset is the keyword here.
The successful development of the MLP Group is also reflected in other key figures. The non-life insurance portfolios we manage rose to EUR 632.2 million as of year-end. The MLP Group has long since reached the dimension of a medium-sized non-life insurer here. Growth was also recorded in terms of client numbers. The MLP Group was serving 569,200 family clients as of the 31st of December 2022. The gross number of newly acquired family clients in 2022 was 90,200. The number of corporate and institutional clients rose to 28,400. We were also able to increase the number of consultants in the MLP Group to 2,100. This reflects our successful persistent recruiting, above all, young consultants in an employment market that is proving challenging for all companies.
Since the young segment was established back in 2017, the total number of consultants working for MLP has risen from 1,909 to 2,100. This brings me to our EBIT for the financial year 2022. Despite the particularly difficult framework conditions caused by factors including Russia's invasion of Ukraine, a sharp rise in energy prices and spiraling inflation, at EUR 75.6 million, we were still able to record earnings within the corridor forecast for 2022 of EUR 75 million-EUR 85 million. Alongside the aforementioned decline in performance-based compensation in wealth management, which can be attributed to poor capital market development, negative market and valuation effects also served to dampen earnings in the real estate business. Delays in the project business were one key contributing factor to this.
We also increased the risk provision in real estate as a way of catering to the significantly altered conditions being faced by DEUTSCHLAND.Immobilien. Group net profit was EUR 48.6 million. Shareholder equity rose to EUR 525.5 million as of year-end. The core capital ratio was 20.1%. The net liquidity of the MLP Group was EUR 142 million at the end of the year, which once again represents a very solid basis. The satisfactory business development recorded by the MLP Group in the aforementioned difficult environment, our strong economic basis, and our confidence in the future are also expressed in the dividend proposed by the executive board, which is set at EUR 0.30 per share. At 67% of net profit, the payout ratio is in the upper end of the announced corridor.
We have also launched another share buyback program. Since the second of January 2023, we have acquired 605,000 shares with a total value of around EUR 3.1 billion via the stock exchange, which we are assigning to our participation program for MLP branch office managers as well as MLP consultants. By taking this step, we are keen to further strengthen the collaborative component in our business model. Please now allow me to briefly discuss our share price. Following a price increase of almost 60% in 2021, a significant decline was recorded in the last financial year. The MLP share was unable to avoid the effects associated with the collapse of the stock markets. However, the current price level does not reflect the real value or true potential of the company.
I will now hand over to Uwe Schroeder-Wildberg, who will talk a bit more about how we are further realizing this potential in the MLP Group.
Thank you, Reinhard.
If you speak about capital markets and share, we can come to this very important topic. We are facing investors and potential investors acknowledging our leading role in all questions of sustainability. We worked out and derived in the last years, for example, our carbon neutral position since last year for the whole MLP Group. As a new added value to our customers, we have developed extension of our product partner selection process towards the criteria of sustainability. Together with Assekurata rating agency, we developed queries and evaluation of life, health, and non-life insurers. For example, for the life sector, 26 life insurance companies contributed with their answers, representing 60% of market share.
What we're realizing is there is intensive activity in these fields concerning sustainability, location, ESG management, product management, and especially capital investments, which is for sure, as we know, also one of the hot topics as a contribution into a world of less and less carbon usage. What we are offering now, and this is very specific for MLP, we help. We don't deliver aggregated results. Just very much more important to offer individual help for customers, and we see increasing demand in this question. That means we have now the knowledge for also insurance world to help customers to make their decisions up to their preferences in their individual situation. This is quite unique, and we are sure that we, in this way, also contribute to a more and more, step-by-step, more and more sustainable world.
For sure, we give all sorts of back our results to insurance partners to help them also to develop and improve their position. That means also here, the next unique step of MLP. Besides sustainability, we have invested a lot in our digitalization strategy, and this, one of the next steps was our stake in a startup called :pxtra, working on corporate benefits. What is, has been developed and will come to the market this year is a all-in-one digital solution for selection and management. Very important of additional benefits for employers could be, for example, health programs, allowances for food, or for driving to the company and going back home, all of that stuff. Employees can compile their package of benefits, which perfectly suits to their own individual needs.
We have a stake of roughly 79%, so clear majority. That means also we integrate our customer contact, and you've just seen the big corporate customer base we have in the meantime. Additionally, for also we bring in the services we offering with TPC, our broker for corporate pension. It means here the offer we have in occupational pension provision, but also in occupational health insurance, to name two examples. Very important is for companies and employees, that is an integrated process coming from the budget up to the payments to the salary and wages process, which is part of our story. Overall, this initiative is the next clear signal and part of our corporate customer strategy, which is getting more and more relevant and successful.
The next important example for our digital offerings is our new direct client support under the label of MLP Choice. We're addressing here those customers who are not in a close relationship with an advisor, for whatever reason, because they try to do other aspects of their financial question on their own, or it's not relevant for them, for example. In this sector, we are mainly concentrated, not overall, but mainly in the first hand on the non-life insurance sector. Very important, it's heavily technology driven. That means automated and purely digital service and heavily event driven.
That means, for example, if, an easiest example, a kid is getting the age of being allowed for driving cars, getting driver license, there should pop up an offering to include the kid in the car, insurance and to avoid any risks, for the customers. Just one example. For sure, also, if customers realizing that they need more, so coming back to a real holistic advice, it's always possible to go back or, like, extend it to an advice process with the MLP consultant. For sure, also, on the left side, if that's also part of a life experience we have all, to some extent, digital is nice, but sometimes you're stuck in the process, you need help.
The good thing here is that MLP Choice can come back to what we already also established with MLP dialogue in north of Germany, a call center with also digital knowledge to help if necessary. We combine digital approach with fintech thinking here, with our personal contact opportunity and possibility and the direct contact if needed here. That means overall, we are clear and very convinced that there's a very, very competitive offering compared to the existing fintechs, insurtechs, using modern digital solutions. This is very important. It's also a distinctive factor and the power of the MLP network. Another spotlight of our activities, is the MLP School of Financial Education. Based on our well established corporate university. You know how important education and learning is in our company philosophy.
We have launched a new label MLP labeled MLP School of Financial Education. We released the MLP Financial Literacy Report together with Allensbach, which demonstrate, unfortunately, major gaps in basic financial knowledge overall in the population. Even the group of financial decision-makers. You can see that also in the slides, how important people think financial knowledge is, and how small the portion is of those people in the population who really are interested or even very interested. It's a big mismatch. Exactly here, we are, we poised our MLP School of Financial Education, which offers now, in the first time, we started last year, also for the public, for example, for experts from a financial services sector, for companies, entrepreneurs.
Companies, for example, if they can ask for a program for leadership circles or for a broader base of employees, it's we will customize that. For example, last example is health professionals, here in cooperation with WHU. Here also is very clear where the synergies are. As you perhaps know, we are one of the bigger players for the medical market. We have more than 110,000 medicines already as customers of MLP. For sure it makes sense also to give them the offering of further education, financial education, or business essential, whatever is needed. Very important, there's no offering of advice. The participants have to pay for it. Very important for sure, it gives opportunity for participants to experience the strong competency of the MLP brand. The co-op.
Before coming to the forecast and our midterm plan, I would like to comment on the current discussion, the future of old age provision. First, you can see that on the left side, the demographic shifts, no surprise, is going on. If you look back to the year 62, the year after the Second World War, the pay-as-you-go system in Germany has been established. Re-established. There was a region in the end of the 19th century. The relation between engineers and employees was something between one to six. So six active people working covered retirement of one. In the meantime, we are the level, no surprise. Even in these days, where research which expected already what happens later, we are now at the level of 1.1 to 1.8. Shortly, we'll be at 1 to 1.5.
Everybody should be clear that it does not work. All the discussions are coming up. It's working. The reason why it's still working is on the right side. It's working, but it's driven in the meantime by 30% the system by tax. Tax payments are allocated to this pay-as-you-go system. Nearly 30% of the federal budget is already allocated to the pension system. This is just what it is today.
It's clear that the steps which have been made in the past, pension reforms from 14 to 20, and the latest pension reform, the so-called German doppelte Haltelinie, double stop line, would end up, and this is the research of the ifo Institute, would end up in 2050 with exposure of a federal budget of 60% of the budget would have been allocated to the pay-as-you-go pension system. I think this is clear already now, it's not possible anymore. For sure, it would be a real threat for the next generation because they would never have the possibility to cope with the requirements they will have in education, infrastructure, and whatever. This is the truth like it is, and it is 100% clear it will come in this direction. It means, as a consequence, the following.
The political discussion should concentrate better today than tomorrow on optimizing the existing solutions, like the research products and very good proposals in discussion to do so. Strengthen occupational pension, for example. That means second, private and occupational old age provisioning is even more crucial for the future. That means, thirdly, qualified advice is getting even more important because it's clear that in this sector of older provisioning, you need the personal advice and the impulse to think about the right level of saving, and this on an ongoing basis. This is the clear consequence of the situation we have today.
Unfortunately, it's not obviously the direction the political discussion is going on. That means also, last point at this moment, the discussion about prohibition of commission would be fully counterproductive to the situation we have in our old age provision system, at least in Germany, but I know also in the most parts of Europe. I'm very happy that after the proposals which came up out of the box, it's obviously based on research which was not perfectly correct. I'm happy that it seems to be a very strong headwind against these plans. So we are hoping that we are coming to a solution which is positive for the question behind. That means we need good qualified advice. We already have in the market, for example, fee-based models. There's a competition. There's open market, customers can make the choice.
We sort see no reason at all for the discussion we had and we still have, for any prohibition or further regulation of commissions. Coming to the forecast, we cannot assume, very important, we cannot assume that the difficult market conditions we spoke about will improve suddenly. Nevertheless, we expect that we reach an EBIT for 2023 between EUR 75 billion and EUR 85 billion, which is based mainly on assumptions that interest rate business is picking up. We will have a rising non-life insurance portfolio volume, which, as you've seen, is in good track. We have a growth in the industrial broker segment. Additionally, we see that our established young segment, we established that in 2017 on a new basis, as you know, will further contribute, which developed very successfully.
For sure, we expect that we will keep our costs under control as we demonstrated again last year in an impressive way, as I think. This is our assumption for the year 2023. In more detail, you can see that if you go to the segments, starting with a non-life insurance business here, we expect due to the experience we made, ongoing, very positive development on an organic basis. We don't price any acquisitions in here at this in our forecast or planning. We are positive for the oldest provisioning because we see that after this very difficult year for companies, occupational pension business is coming up again. We see also good developments and as I also mentioned, a strong demand for private pension. Here we feel good on track and also expect strong business.
We will expect from this point of view that the interest rate business will have a positive development. It seems to be that we have not seen the last steps of a European Central Bank. Unfortunately, these steps come very late and therefore also quite dramatic. For sure, in our business model, it's also to some extent very helpful. We are positive on loans and mortgages after the market came down significantly in the fourth quarter, after this decisions of the European Central Bank. For sure, I have to mention here that here perhaps are some risks in our assumption, because we don't know how the next steps will be and what the effect will be.
On the other hand, we see that in our customer groups, for sure, there is a demand to buy houses for own usage or to, as an asset. That means also for sure we have a specific also view as a player in this mass affluent sector. For sure, I have to we should all be aware that there are some risks behind that. The same for the real estate brokerage and development here also, plus after the last year was not satisfying at all. Overall, it was okay, but we had also weak moments in the last year, especially in the later months of the year. Also here we are positive because we believe that the asset class, also in an inflation scenario, should play also a significant role.
Here, I should address the risks which are behind this assumption. We are neutral on wealth management. I can also say carefully positive. Carefully positive because MLP in the meantime is very well established also in this dimension, in this segment, which is one of the key strategic questions for MLP. It's real holistic advice. That means also that wealth management plays a role. As you have heard in the, what Reinhard said, good net inflows is a demonstration that we're in a good position. Also, Fairways in the meantime, the excellent market position made an excellent job last year. We should not just see these performance-related fees, which are never part of our planning.
The key behind that is strong customer base, good inflows, strong position, for example, in the meantime, in the sector of alternative investments, which is one of the key questions in these days for family office, but also for institutional investors. Here we should benefit out of a strong market position. Last but not least, health insurance neutral. Also here, we are carefully positive. In my words, there's no changing of market condition expected. Customers are sensible on this question of health protection and health insurance. Here we should have a good comfort in a good contribution to our overall goals. Let me come to the midterm planning. To remind you, this is the midterm planning from last year, from 2022 to 2025, now from 2023 to 2025. We confirm it.
This is a good message, despite all this market turmoil and changing environment. We want to come to EBIT between EUR 100 million and EUR 110 million. We expect the revenues to be above EUR 1.1 billion. The three blocks, which are the key drivers to reach that from a business side, is we want to increase the assets under management further. We want to see sustainable growth and group synergies on ongoing basis. Thirdly, we are much more confident in the meantime that we should see strong growing in the non-life insurance business, and you've seen the growth rates of the past. I'll come back to these three blocks in a second. Everything is based on good cost efficiency, which we are used to, and we are quite successful to do so.
I spoke about automation or artificial intelligence will be the next drivers also to be even more better and also to cope with inflation pressure, which is also on our desk. Additionally, which is not planned in these figures, M&A activities where it makes sense. As you know, in these days, we are focused to build up a strong position in the brokerage of industrial insurances. If you take a further look into the three blocks, we expect an increase in assets under management coming from EUR 54.3 to a range of EUR 62-EUR 68 up to 2025, using our strong position, going ahead with our customers, getting new customers. That would mean in growth rates, we are coming from 11.5% from 2019 to 2022.
We're speaking about growth rates between 5.5% and 7.8% per year. This seems to be, for sure, also depend on market condition, reasonable to reach this level. Just to bring it back to your mind, for sure, this would mean that the baseline for performance-based compensation will be improved step by step. Again, we don't plan it, but for sure, it's clear that there's a growing potential because the volume, the basic volume is expected to grow. We expect sustainable growth. Secondly, in all our other sectors of our group, I spoke about occupational pension schemes. There should be growth. We are very positive in our young segment, which has been established. We delivered exactly what has been planned. In 2021, we made the break even. We expect here further growth.
For sure, all the other groups should be on track also in the future. Thirdly, now even more prominent, the growing non-life business, which should bring us to premium volumes in 2025, between EUR 730 million-EUR 810 million. Again, here, if you discuss that in growth rates, we came from growth rates of 16% from 2019 to 2022. Growth rates for this assumption would be 4.9% up to 8.6%. It means there is some discount on it due to uncertainty. Future has always, but for sure, you see also that we coming from very, very strong growth track. We will go ahead. Organically, this is always the key in MLP private clients business at DOMCURA, and for sure, also in the new RVM group.
By the way, because it's one of our youngest parts in the groups, and also, as you know, acquisitions are necessary and make sense, especially in the way we are doing that, but also to some extent, critical because new worlds are coming together. Customers could be uncertain what happens. Again, here we demonstrated, RVM delivered the strongest year in the history last year. Stable customer base, new customers. That means we are very, very good on track. We are so very convinced that this new sector will bring us a lot of fun in the forthcoming years. This overall should be the track of the next forthcoming three years. Now to summarize, we demon strated that we are resilient, that we are well-poised, that we are relevant, as I mentioned, to our customers.
That means also we use the time to further optimize our positioning with the new initiatives. I just gave you some examples. It means we are always on track, and we see our potential, and we work consistently and heavily motivated now to make this next step. The stability has been proven. This is the good thing in bad times that you can see that it really works. It's more than paper or PowerPoint. It worked again. It's not just working. We see our growth potential to derive from a business model at all.
What I mentioned step by step, in a growing group, with stronger synergies, we are trying to realize and where it makes sense for customers and also for sure for the company. That means for 2025, we have consistent progress along the chosen path, and we want to head toward the next level in earnings growth, which should be at a level between EUR 100 million and EUR 110 million. We confirm what we said one year before. I think this is a good message because nobody spoke one year ago about what we are speaking now about. Thank you very much for your time and your patience, and we are now happy to answer your questions. Thank you.
Thank you, Uwe and Reinhard. We come to the Q&A session. Please use your input mask in the browser. You can choose whether you want to ask your question with audio and video, with audio only, or purely writing. Once again, if you want to ask your questions personally, meaning with audio and video, please make a note in the text field. Audio only is also possible. Our operator will ask you to activate your camera or microphone as soon as it's your turn. You can directly address your question to the speakers. We will start with the first question from NuWays, Mr. Wendisch. Please activate your microphone and your video so that you can go ahead.
Thank you. I hope you can all hear me fine. Okay, perfect. Thank you so much for the presentation. You said that, you know, you reported a strong intake of new consultants, and you mentioned that it's mainly because of the young segments. Also attributable to the new MLP training program. That would be my first question. Shall I do them all at once now, or would you like to answer them?
All at once, so give you
Okay.
give us some time to think about the right answer.
Okay, no problem. If you look at the segments, I mean, the overall EBIT margin went down a little. If you look at some particular segments like MLP Finanzberatung or banking or even FERI, if you take out performance fees, you managed to grow the EBIT margin. I would like to know what were the drivers of that EBIT margin growth. Was it, like, cost cutting effective or other other margin drivers? If you could provide some color on that would be very helpful. Next question is on the wealth management part. You reported that the valuation, negative valuation effect from the capital markets was compensated by net cash inflows. Do you have a rough number for us? That would be really helpful. Next question is on the share of recurring revenues.
You reported 64% per share of recurring revenues for full year 2022. I would like to know in the future if you calculate with an increasing share of recurring revenues or should it rather stay on that level? Next question is on old age provision. You said in 2022 it declined a little. Now you guide positively for 2023. What makes you feel so positive about this sector? I mean, we know the trend that the state pension is underfunded. What makes you personally or MLP so confident that you will grow in that field? Some color on :pxtra would be helpful. My next question is on :pxtra.
I would like to know if it's already profitable and how many customers you managed to acquire, since you took a majority share. Now on, I think All of the other questions have already been asked, so I'm done. Thank you.
Well, thank you so much. I will start with number one about the advisor place. The growth is not in relation to the new trainee model, which will be started in mid of this year in July. Yeah. It's just a result of our ongoing initiatives to convince people, make contact and convince people that we are offering a very unique business and job profile in our way of interpreting advice, as you know. This is the result. We start in July and then perhaps, and I think we will at least in late November, we'll give you some more details and impressions how it works.
What I can say today is that the first, out of the first interactions, it seems to be quite attractive and very reasonable and makes people the entry in this world easier. Young candidates, for example, can also be sure that the first, three, four months are safe, and they can concentrate on the first education and whatever. It seems the first reaction we have are positive, but much too early to say something more in detail. I take number five. Old age provisioning, why are we positive? We are positive because we see that companies have to go back also to this topic of they had to deal a lot with energy prices, energy availability and whatever. For sure, here with the situation calmed down to some extent.
It's a hot issue to get qualified people, so that means all that provisioning is for sure also a core part in this question, and this is what we are seeing. We see also that from the political side, there's a strong position that corporate pension is a key pillar in a reasonable old age provisioning system. This is part of our conviction and also what we see so far goes in the right direction. For the private pension, we see for sure, again, the young segment. That means if we get new advisors, we are getting more customers again. For sure, it's natural that for the young customers especially, all those provisioning disability protection are key. Here we are seeing also a very good movement, and this is the reason why we are positive.
For :pxtra, it's a little bit early. We are going live in the next few months with a beta version to test it. It's still too early to speak about real customer success. I will give you an update latest beginning of next year. Perhaps also we have some indication already when we speak in November about the nine-month results. I hope this is okay for you at this point of time.
Yes, perfect. Thank you.
I will try to take over with the other questions. The net cash or the net inflows overall in last year were at around EUR 2.7 billion. This was, I think, in this year, quite significant number. You ask concerning the EBIT development or even margins in different segments. You were mentioning our financial services sector there, the banking and the FERI. Obviously, there are many reasons for that. I will just give you the main drivers there. In the bank, it's very easy. It's the interest income and the therapy change in interest rates. Therefore, you see that we generated a quite interesting result there from the interest margin, quite opposite to the past.
In our financial services sector, I think the main driver was cost, especially in the, in our IT sector. We did some changes, some we had a new IT strategy, and on the cost base, we were quite successful there, and this helped us reducing the cost in the segment quite significantly. Additionally, we had some other incomes, which we can describe perhaps later on. Then in FERI, I think the main reason why, despite the decline in performance-related income, the result was quite good is that in FERI, we continue with our shift of assets towards alternative assets. These alternative assets definitely have a higher margin than others. Therefore, overall, we managed the margin in FERI also quite good. This, I think, was question number two.
You had a question concerning recurring revenues. What's our idea, our plan there? To be quite honest or to be honest, we feel comfortable with the ratio we have right now. Something around 60% is good. I think for business, you also need new business. We have inflows, we have income where we only have one-time income, like for example, this performance-based income. Definitely also, I'm not unhappy if we generate performance fees in the future. Obviously, you also know that our interest is to continue with the recurring revenues. Therefore, that was the reason why we feel good with this ratio, something around 60%. Thank you, Mr. Windisch.
Thank you.
All right, the next one is Philipp Hässler from Pareto Securities. Please activate your microphone and go ahead, sir.
Yes. Hello. Thank you. I have also a few questions, mainly on Q4. Let's start with the net interest income, which was very strong in Q4, EUR 9 billion. Could we extrapolate this for the current year, or was there some extra effect included or do we expect to pay higher interest expenses this year? That's maybe the reason why we can't take this by four for 2023. Minorities, they were quite high, if I've calculated correctly in Q4. Maybe you could elaborate on this. The other revenues were also quite high in Q4. Maybe you could also give some additional details on this. Last but not least, net liquidity was down by EUR 70 billion year-on-year to EUR 140 billion. Maybe you could also elaborate on this a little bit.
I think the acquisitions couldn't be the reason for that. Yeah, happy to hear your explanation. Thank you.
Yeah.
Four questions.
Hello, Mr. Hässler. Thank you for your questions. Yes, interest income in Q4 was quite positive. I think the main question there is, will we continue or will we be able to continue this high margin on Q4? I would not like to comment too much on 2023, but at least in the first quarter, I think we can continue on this. You can see, if you see what people get right now if they bring their money to the banks, which is significantly lower than what the banks receive, for example, at the ECB. Therefore, we'll also see a quite interesting interest income in the first quarter of 2023. For the next quarters, we will see our plans there are a little bit more conservative than what we saw in Q4.
I will take the net liquidity first. The net liquidity, why it went down. There are two reasons for that. One reason you mentioned already, obviously, the acquisitions we did. For example, during the year, we acquired in our industrial broker segment, another company. This was reason number one. Reason number two was also that we injected some liquidity to the business of DEUTSCHLAND.Immobilien, and this also reduced our overall liquidity. This also comes to the reason for, let's say, higher minorities. The Q4 results of DEUTSCHLAND.Immobilien were definitely not successful and not what we expected. In DEUTSCHLAND.Immobilien, we have a share of around 75%. Therefore, let's say the
The win, or in this case, the loss, goes to minorities. That might be the reason, if I understood your question correctly, why the minority area of our overall statement was a little bit extraordinary in Q4. Then you were asking why our other revenues went up so much. We were able to release some provisions which we had put for a legal case, which in our position nowadays don't seem to be necessary, and that helped us in our other revenues. Mr. Hässler, I hope this answered your questions.
Yes. Perfect. Thank you very much. Maybe may I ask a follow-up question so that your CEO doesn't get too bored? I have a question for him as well. Mr. Wildberg, could you perhaps comment on your thoughts on the, and I don't wanna say possible, but the threat of a E.U. ban on commissions? How do you see that in general? Would be interesting to hear your thoughts and what the impact of such a worst-case scenario would be on MLP.
Yeah. I made some comments in my speech, as you just have heard, we were, to some extent, surprised because it came out of the box very surprisingly. Obviously, also not very well prepared, as we all know in the meantime, because the basis of knowledge was obviously not completely accurate. Obviously also experience which have been made in the U.K., for example, where we have official statements of the FCA about the success or non-success of the ban of commissions which took place in U.K. a long time ago, also very clear.
For example, that the result was obviously that advice is getting more and more expensive and more and more rare and not available anymore, for especially for those groups of population which are financially not so strong. Obviously, this is all neglected. It seems to be some dogmatic view on that. You've seen also react in the, in the public, all the headwind which came up with good reasons as we, as we see. We also contributed in our discussions from a political side. We will be also on a next study, we support it coming up in the next days, to view on that also from a overall market perspective and question of competition.
It means I'm much more relaxed in the meantime than I have been some weeks ago due to the development, and this is what I can say today. Overall, you know that we are not dogmatic. We're also offering fee-based advice. For example, 10 years ago, we changed our model in the wealth management to pure fee-based model. We give back kickbacks to customers. That is not not the question, but we are clearly convinced that in the oldest provision and marked-market, you need commissions, otherwise there will be no supply, no offering anymore or not a sufficient offering in this sector. We also are in discussion for sure with the national authorities about that.
Even the question of some restrictions in the market are dangerous because every player is on their own basis. We are completely different as a broker to a tied agent, for example. It means any regulation with some flat commissions or whatever in discussion would not be appropriate. I'm also here quite happy. Perhaps you also have seen that of a BaFin changed the view. Obviously, we have official statement now that a ban of commissions, even capping it, seems to be not the right solution because the market is so different. We are supporting the idea, which also seems to be more and more prominent, that to have a close look on the effective costs of the contract. I think this is a fair approach.
We are used to that in other segments like mortgage or wealth management or wherever. Effective costs, I think, are the right viewpoint. You have seen perhaps also the BaFin survey about that. What are the average costs, which are at 1.9%, obviously. There are some players, obviously, also are being higher in their pricing. I can tell you that we are lower in our pricing than the average. We are very relaxed about that. I will ask the BaFin always, then go to those players who have a higher prices and make a concrete activity there, but not, don't blame the overall market. I think this is also the key, because also this brings uncertainty also to shareholders if we have to debate like that, of ban, of commissions.
It means, for sure, in the last part of the question, as you know, 10 years ago, it would have been a catastrophe for us. With 80% revenues from order provision. We did a lot to balance. Helpful also for this question. I would not calculate anything now because it's just theory. If something should happen, again, I would say it would be, we would have cope, we have to cope with that. We are, I think, the strongest position to do so. It would be, for the rest of the market, a real turmoil. This is from today's point of view, I would not expect this from what I know. Did that help you?
Yes, very, very much. Thank you. Just on such a possible ban, this would only apply for a new business. That's also your understanding?
Yes. This would be the understanding. Yeah.
Okay.
I said exactly my or our understanding.
Okay.
You never know. You never know. Again, for everybody, we can be much more calm than we thought about it three months ago when the surprise came up. A lot of things happened. It seems to be some very good movements and rational thinking. For sure, we also, we fight for more quality in the segment, but it's the wrong decision to solve this with a ban or further regulation of commission. It's not the real solution. We do what we can do to work for it, you can be sure.
Okay, perfect. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Okay, the next one is Fabien Le Disert from Kepler Cheuvreux . Please activate your microphone and camera and go ahead, sir.
Hello?
Hello. Okay.
Seems to be problem.
Mr. Le Disert? Your microphone seems to be open. Okay. Unfortunately, he can't hear us.
There's
Maybe you can write your questions in the text field. I think we just wait a few moments because there are no other questions right now.
No questions.
Okay. Okay. Now we got the questions, I'm going to read them out. The first one is, at first glance, your 2023 EBIT guidance might seem conservative. It is the same guidance as in 2022, which was a challenging year. Do you expect to reach the upper end of the range? Do you think macro outlook is still unclear and warrants some caution? This is the first question. Second one is, on performance fees. What do you expect for 2023, after a very difficult 2022? Maybe double-digit figure. Third question, the final one. On top of the dividend policy, what about a potential share buyback program if you think that MLP is undervalued?
Mr. Le Disert I will start with the first question about where we would see us at the end of this year, more at the upper end of a guidance. We'd be happy to do so. It's also a reason why we announced this range. Again, for sure, we have to see also the challenges which are still in the market. Nobody knows exactly when which defects will be also worked in. Maybe some example, for sure. Everybody has to cope now with a new situation, which was a normalizational situation with our interest rates again. For sure it makes it necessary on the customer side, but also advisor side, to cope with this new situation to find the next balance.
It means nobody can say exactly when it takes place. It will take place. This is the reason we have still this range of EUR 75-EUR 85. You can be sure that we will do everything. For sure, we'll be very happy to deliver at the end result, which should be more in the upper region, at least, of our range. This is what I can say today, and hopefully you see also that we have a strong ambition to do so. Again, we have to also speak about risks which are imminent in the market and we cannot put out of our viewpoint.
Okay. I will take over. For your second question, you asked about the plans for our performance fees for 2023. In our planning, we have a medium-sized single-digit million euro amount for this. Obviously, there are opportunities, there are also risks in it. Let's see how the capital markets will develop and our performance in comparison to the capital market will develop. Therefore, more or less, it's a similar figure what we have seen in 20 22. Your last question is on top of the dividend policy, what about a potential share buyback? First of all, I think our payout ratio is quite attractive. Our dividend ratio at the moment, more than 5%, almost 6%, is quite attractive.
That means that we feel quite well-positioned there. On a buyback, we are a little hesitating, first of all because I think with the dividend we pay out quite a lot and there are, let's say two second reasons. The reason number two is that overall we are a regulated company and the regulator looks quite intense onto our equity. The question of buyback programs there is little, is not the most or the best seen activity you might do, number one. Number two, obviously we would like to continue with investments via acquisitions, via the real estate sector or investments in IT. Therefore we also continue to be happy to have some liquidities on our book.
Especially, with a look back into the last 12 months, I think it's paid out that our cash ratio was quite good. Thank you.
Thank you, everyone. It seems as we have no further questions. This brings us to the end of our conference. Should you have any further questions later, please contact our team directly. You can find a recording of our conference on our website later today. Now we bid you farewell and wish you a good day. Goodbye.
Thank you.
Bye.