Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon from MLP headquarters in Wiesloch, and welcome to our Analyst and Investor Conference. I also welcome our CEO, Dr. Uwe Schroeder-Wildberg, and our CFO, Reinhard Lohse. Before we move into our presentation, I will give you some information on today's setup. After our presentation, we are happy to answer your questions. An announcement or entry of your questions is possible at any time, also during the presentation. Please use your input mask in the browser. If you want to ask your questions personally with audio and video or with audio only, please note this in the text field. After the presentation, we will ask you to activate your camera or microphone as soon as it is your turn. If you want to ask your questions purely in writing, please use the text field. Now I hand over to Uwe Schroeder-Wildberg. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. A warm welcome to our online analyst conference. I would like to start with the most important news upfront. The MLP Group can look back on a highly successful financial year 2025. A successful operating business development of the past year once again underlines the strategic strength of MLP Group. We operate with a deliberately integrated setup that secures stability and enables sustainable growth. This is strongly supported by our innovative use of artificial intelligence. First of all, please allow me to provide some more details on the development of MLP over the past twelve months, using the key figures that are most important to us. Firstly, at EUR 1.08 billion, we recorded the highest revenue volume in MLP's history to date for the twelfth time in a row, by the way.
The proportion of recurring sales revenue is now 72% and is an important indicator of our sustained earnings stability. The assets under management in the MLP Group and the non-life insurance portfolio are material factors which we were also able to increase to new record levels. Secondly, we recorded EBIT of EUR 87.9 million. This figure already includes the one-off effect resulting from the focusing of our real estate business. Without this effect, we would have recorded EBIT of EUR 97.1 million in the financial year 2025. We are now forecasting EBIT of EUR 100-110 million for 2026, and are therefore resolutely continuing on the path towards our midterm plan of recording EBIT of EUR 140-155 million by the end of 2028.
Thirdly, we remain an attractive share for our shareholders, not only offering potential for further share price growth, but also paying an appropriate dividend for the financial year 2025. The Executive Board is proposing a dividend of EUR 0.36 per share to Supervisory Board and the annual general meeting, which once again corresponds to a dividend yield of 5%. Accordingly, we are maintaining the high level of a previous year's dividend. On the one hand, the MLP Group enjoys a very high degree of stability, which is of enormous importance, particularly in the face of challenging macroeconomic developments. Most recently also in view of the war in Ukraine and the possible consequences for the economy. On the other hand, our unique business model in which we support and advise private, institutional, and corporate clients on all financial matters, offers significant growth potential.
Our clients and our consultants are also increasingly benefiting from our successful digital strategy, in which artificial intelligence already plays a significant role today, and will become an even more important factor for success in the future. We primarily use AI where it directly benefits our clients and our consultants, always acting in a targeted and responsible manner. Artificial intelligence will dramatically change our society and our economy in the coming years. This is already recognizable today and is irreversible. Nobody will be able to escape this development. In the MLP Group, we have developed great innovative strength in this area and are utilizing the massive opportunities both strategically and operationally. At the same time, it is always clear that our clients must ultimately benefit from our efforts. We see AI as an opportunity, not a threat.
That is why we are already integrating it into our processes on a broad scale. Allow me to provide some concrete examples. For some time now, we have been successfully using a sophisticated AI agent at our subsidiary, Domcura, to process non-life insurance claims fully automatically for our clients. Most recently, we have introduced another AI agent in this area, which can handle full automated policy optimization and conclusion on request. In doing so, we are entering in the field of genuine AI broker while continuing to combine this with all the benefits of MLP's personal and comprehensive consulting. AI is also enabling us to significantly enhance the overall effectiveness of our consultants for our clients. Indeed, AI agents will support them in many aspects of their discerning work, from arranging appointments all the way to producing documentation. Above all, this means more time for actual client consulting.
This has also made us even more attractive to young people who want to pursue financial advisory as a profession. Highly skilled in terms of expertise, personally close to the client, and maximally supported by AI in all administrative manners. In terms of use and further development of AI applications, we are already positioned in such a way that we do not have to fear competitors that rely entirely on AI, should they gain a foothold in the market at all. Regardless of this, one thing remains true when it comes to their key and sometimes complex financial matters, people want to be advised by people. Empathy, a blind spot of every AI system, is more important than ever in this context. With this positioning, the MLP Group benefits disproportionately from other important trends compared with the market.
Alongside personal asset succession, meaning the transfer of family wealth to the next generation, demographic developments are creating an immense need for financial provision and in turn, increasing demand for consulting and management services. Last but not least, the increase of environmental risks, in particular the growing climate and cyber risk, is leading to greater demand for cover, including complex cover among both private and corporate clients. In short, the MLP Group has established an excellent position to successfully continuing its growth path in an increasingly AI-driven world. AI acts as an accelerator for a unique business model, which has long combined pronounced stability with major growth opportunities.
Before I now hand over to Reinhard Lohse, who will go into greater detail regarding the business figures for 25, I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere thanks to all MLP consultants as well as all employees in the group. They have all achieved a great deal for our clients.
Thank you very much, Uwe. You can find an overview of revenue development on slide 5 of the presentation. In the financial year 2025, MLP increased its total revenue to a new high of EUR 1.08 billion. The share of recurring sales revenue was 72% at the end of 2025, a sign of the impressive long-term stability of our business model. Across the MLP Group, we generate recurring revenue from the continuous high-quality service we provide to our clients, particularly in the property and casualty and wealth competence fields. The remaining share of sales revenue is generated from our new business, particularly the life and health competence fields.
The group recorded revenue growth of 8% to EUR 223 million in the property and casualty competence field, while revenue in the life and health competence field remained largely stable at EUR 303 million, as did revenue in the wealth competence field at EUR 510 million. The increase in the property and casualty area, which comprises the non-life insurance business with both corporate and private clients, can be attributed in part to the fact that both client groups have a high demand for professional insurance coverage. Awareness of climate, cyber, and other risks is increasing. In the life and health competence field, which comprises old age provision and health insurance, there was a continued high level of interest in high-quality healthcare services, particularly in the area of private health insurance, but also in occupational health insurance schemes.
With regard to occupational pension schemes, on the other hand, there was a certain reluctance among employers to introduce new concepts for their employees. As expected, the interest rate business in the wealth competence field declined due to the interest rate cuts by the European Central Bank, while loans and mortgages and real estate brokerage were able to profit from precisely this. Wealth management revenue, to which both MLP's private client business and the consulting services provided to institutional and high-net-worth clients by its subsidiary, FERI, contributed, remain stable. Performance-based compensation totaled EUR 10.7 million, significantly below the previous year's figure of EUR 33.9 million, reflecting developments on the capital markets during the year. Performance-based compensation is accrued for the positive performance of investment concepts and is largely recognized in the results.
Excluding this performance-based compensation, wealth management revenue would have risen by 7% in the financial year 25. Here, too, it is clear that we have successfully earned the trust of our clients. The growing and continuing trust in our consulting services displayed by our clients is also reflected in the key figures. These are extremely important for our future revenue development. It is therefore all the more pleasing that we were able to increase assets under management to a new high of EUR 65.9 billion. To the best of our knowledge, this makes us the second largest bank-independent asset manager in Germany today. Let's now take a quick look at our key figures. We were also able to increase the managed non-life insurance premium volume to another record high at EUR 809 million.
This is roughly equivalent to the size of a mid-sized non-life insurer in the German market. You can find an abridged version of the current income statement on slide 8. The MLP Group's EBIT was EUR 87.9 million in the financial year 2025. As roughly communicated in November, this is lower than in 2024, although significantly higher than the 2023 figure when we recorded EUR 70.7 million. EBIT for 2025 includes the one-off effect from a focusing of the real estate business at the subsidiary, Deutschland.Immobilien, which has also already been communicated and processed, amounting to -EUR 9.2 million. Without this effect, EBIT would have totaled EUR 97.1 million.
Despite otherwise successful operating performance and stable administrative costs, EBIT development in 2025 was also characterized by a significantly lower earnings contribution from performance-based compensation and lower income from the interest rate business, as previously reported. Group net profit for the financial year 25 is EUR 55.7 million. Shareholders' equity rose to EUR 585 million as of the 31st of December 2025. The core capital ratio for the financial holding group was a solid 16.6%. The liquidity coverage ratio, LCR, also serves as a benchmark for the short-term liquidity in stress scenarios and is therefore an indicator of resilience. At 972%, it is also well above the 100% minimum required by regulatory authorities.
For the financial year 2025, the executive board at MLP proposes a constant dividend of EUR 0.36 per share. The dividend payout ratio will then be almost 71% of net profit and therefore, in terms of dividend continuity, even very slightly above the announced corridor of 50%-70%. The dividend yield remains at just over 5% and is therefore another good argument that speaks in favor of our share. We will discuss our significant business potential, which is above all reflected in our midterm outlook in more detail later. Let me start with our forecast. MLP is anticipating EBIT of EUR 100 million-EUR 110 million for the financial year 2026. This is based on the continuation of the successful operating business development, the further intensified use of artificial intelligence, and continued disciplined cost management.
The forecasted earnings growth in 2026 is expected to be fueled in particular by rising sales revenue in all three competence fields, wealth, life, and health, and property and casualty. The performance-based compensation that we received in the wealth competence field are traditionally considered cautiously and therefore only included to a limited extent. With that, I hand over once again to Uwe Schroeder-Wildberg.
Thank you very much, Reinhard. I would now like to give you an insight into our strategic developments in the MLP Group. As I already mentioned at the start, within the scope of our digitalization strategy, we are driving forward the use of artificial intelligence throughout the group at a considerable pace, yet always responsibly, always with a clear focus on delivering value to clients. With the help of our subsidiary, Domcura, for example, we have introduced a fully automated analysis and policy purchase process in MLP's private client business for non-life insurance products requiring little consultation and are gradually expanding it further. The process is illustrated here on the slide. Once a consultant has initiated the process during the client meeting and the client has uploaded their insurance policy from another provider, for example, a residential building policy, the AI takes over from there.
The AI agent analyzes the existing contract, requests any missing data if necessary, and offers the client a new contract optimized for their needs, which they can then also sign digitally. The AI agent then takes over again, issuing the new policy and canceling the old one. There are generally no acquisition costs in this field. AI then takes care of everything else, including for the consultant. MLP consultants are continuously kept informed by the AI about the current status and can, of course, be contacted by their clients at any time if needed. This new AI methodology at MLP is not just an example of how we are already well-equipped to handle potential competition, particularly with AI brokers. It also demonstrates how pronounced the transfer of expertise within the MLP Group has become, creating tangible added value for both clients and consultants.
However, it's also important for the personal client relationship to remain the key element at MLP. After all, it is the linchpin of our consulting services, because ultimately people still want to be looked after by people, and this is good news. AI can also provide support, but ultimately, if it's people, it is people who make the difference. This is exactly what we have focused on with an AI agent system that underpins our innovative approach to artificial intelligence. Slide 12 shows an overview of this. Essentially, we are organizing the interaction of multiple AI agents so as to reduce administrative burden on our consultants in MLP's private client business. The focus on the ongoing implementation and expansion is on client data, contracts and products, specialist knowledge, as well as consulting expertise.
Thanks to the AI agent system, our clients have a digital contact person available around the clock for self-services and information for our clients, which is embedded in the established MLP Financial Home, where they already have a comprehensive digital overview of their contracts and assets. Our consultants have access to a digital assistant in the form of an AI agent system to support them in their day-to-day work, integrated into the existing consultant portal, their central tool for personalized client support. Indeed, AI agents will support our consultants in many aspects of their demanding work, from daily planning and meeting preparation to tariff calculation and applications, as well as follow-up work. In short, our consultants can practice financial consulting more than ever as a true profession, highly skilled in terms of expertise, personally close to the client, and maximally supported by AI in all administrative matters.
With AI as an accelerator in our unique business model, we will benefit greatly from opportunities in our markets. This is something that is already visible today. Wealth management, for example, continues to show great potential. According to a recent study, some 700,000 households in Germany have liquid assets of between EUR 0.5 million and EUR 3 million. In addition, the authors of a study are forecasting annual growth 4%-5% for these assets. This generally results in a growing need for competent advice. This increasing demand for professional wealth management can be seen in our client groups. We have a long since established a position in MLP's private client business where we are sought after contact partner.
It is a central part of our service commitment for our clients as we see ourselves as the dialogue partner for all our clients in all financial matters. The successful expansion of wealth management among MLP private clients to date underlines this, while at the same time revealing further potential. In the time of 2020 to 2025, we reached annual growth rates of 15% in the assets under management by MLP consultants, amounting to almost EUR 15 billion today. In that same period, annual net cash inflows showed annual growth rates of 16%, amounting to EUR 1.3 billion in 2025. It is also important to note that almost half of these net cash inflows came from saving plans. These are therefore deposits that are very likely to be recurring.
With a view to our midterm planning, we can state that this part of wealth management in particular will make a substantial contribution to a further growth of our assets under management in the MLP Group. We expect another strong contribution in the businesses with our clients to come from growth in alternative investments managed by the experts at FERI. Here too, our highly developed positioning meets significant market potential. The proportion of alternative investments in institutional portfolios throughout the markets is more than 30%. Added to this is the fact that according to market forecasts, investment growth in alternative investments will likely reach 10% in each of the next four years. FERI has a particularly strong position in the highly relevant fields of hedge funds, volatility strategies, and private markets.
The headquarters in Bad Homburg are home to what we believe to be the largest bank-independent research and investment team for hedge funds in Germany. We recently announced a cooperation between this team and Goldman Sachs for the launch of two new UCITS hedge funds with net inflows of more than EUR 80 million in the first three months. This alone shows what a unique position FERI has achieved in this field. This is also clearly evident in volatility strategies. The responsible team delivers market-leading performance, providing the best calling card for the sales initiative already launched in neighboring European countries. In particular, a cooperation with Citywire as the industry-leading news and conference provider will help us to make further progress here.
In this context, the three active FERI funds for volatility strategies, which already have a combined volume of more than EUR 3 billion and have received numerous awards, will be marketed at high-profile specialist events. FERI is just a professionally positioned in the field of private markets with expertise that is highly visible in the market as well as experience that has been built up over decades. I would now like to turn to another strategic focus for the MLP Group over the coming years, the expansion of our corporate client business. With more than 27,000 corporate and institutional clients, this is already of great importance for the MLP Group.
The potential in this growth area is considerable. Among the roughly 3 million micro companies in Germany, our MLP consultants' focus is in particular on freelancers such as doctors with their own practices and lawyers or tax advisors with their own firms. We have also systematized another still young field in our corporate client business with a highly digitized approach through our recently founded commercial insurance broker, RVM Smart Protect. This digital platform draws on the expertise and specialists of the RVM Group, but unlike the industrial insurance broker FOM, it is aimed at commercial clients, meaning small and medium-sized enterprises, usually abbreviated as SMEs. RVM Smart Protect acts as a professional point of contact with highly digitized processes that arrange insurance cover for such companies. The market-wide potential in the area of commercial clients totals more than 400,000 companies nationwide.
MLP consultants that are also keen to become active in the corporate client business can take a very targeted approach in the commercial insurance field with the latest offer. As they already have their own private client base, which often includes managing directors and company owners, they are also able to gain a foothold when advising those companies. We have set up the internal structures and processes for this. This is therefore also a clear example of strategic integration within our group. For larger companies, our industrial clients, we have an established point of contact in the RVM Group. The group of industrial companies with annual revenues of more than EUR 10 million amounts to just under 80,000 in Germany. This potential is addressed by RVM, which is well established in the German market, thanks to its experience and expertise.
Here too, we see revenue synergies within the MLP Group, particularly with regard to occupational pension scheme clients and vice versa. A cross-divisional approach through which we unlock further potential within the MLP Group is also reflected in the expansion of MLP offerings to the corporate client business. We are the largest German occupational pension broker. Our expertise in the area of pension provision has long been valued not only in the private client business, but also in the corporate client business. From this leading position, we plan to increase sales revenue in the area of occupational pension schemes with annual growth rates of 19% until 2028. In terms of occupational health insurance schemes, we are planning an annual growth of 46% in new business over the same period.
Corporate provision is playing an increasingly important part at companies looking to attract and retain skilled professionals. In the property and casualty, the P&C competence field, we are aiming to increase our non-life insurance portfolio in relation to the corporate clients business brokered by MLP consultants with annual growth rates of 13% until 2028. Here too, we make equal use of our expertise for corporate clients. Last but not least, we have also set ourselves a goal in the wealth competence field of further developing the MLP client base with regards to the corporate client business. A key step will be the introduction of a wealth deposit account for corporate clients. This means that funds from the companies we serve that are intended for medium-term investments can be redeployed far more profitably than in overnight deposit accounts.
A step of this kind grants MLP Group access to further and generally higher investment volumes. Not least against this backdrop, it identified market potential in our further optimized positioning in the MLP Group. We are happy to confirm the planned continuation of our midterm growth path, which is expected to bring the group to EBIT of EUR 140 million-EUR 155 million and total revenue of EUR 1.3 billion-EUR 1.4 billion by the end of 2028. The targeted expansion of the corporate client business and various multi-asset approach for institutional and high net worth clients are particular focal points here. Overall, we are anticipating growth in all competence fields, wealth, life and health, and property and casualty.
Performance-based compensation at FERI, which can be only be planned and influenced to a limited extent, are therefore only considered to a limited extent here. Our planning also envisage a significant expansion of our key figures. Accordingly, we are planning to increase assets under management from EUR 65.9 billion to EUR 75 billion up to EUR 81 billion, and the non-life insurance portfolio from EUR 0.8 billion to EUR 1.0 billion to EUR 1.1 billion. Achieving the targeted significant increase in earnings will be also supported by the effects of our consistent digitalization strategy and in particular by the extensive use of AI throughout the entire MLP Group, as already outlined. Alongside noticeable improvements that benefit clients, this also results in ongoing efficiency gains. Our planning for 2028 is complemented by continued disciplined cost management.
Ladies and gentlemen, allow me now to move on to the summary. Firstly, our strategically developed positioning proves its impressive resilience and growth potential. This applies in particular to difficult market phases and also to the processing of one-off effects which can never be completely ruled out. It is precisely in such phases that resilience of our earnings becomes evident, a hallmark of our unique business model that clearly sets us apart from others in the market. Secondly, artificial intelligence as a part of our digital strategy is already an accelerator in our unique business model and is set to come even more so in future. We have developed great innovative strength in the use of AI. Our action always aims to deliver benefits for our discerning clients. This also puts us in a strong position with regard to the competition, both existing and in the future.
Thirdly, our confirmed planning for the end of 2028 underpins our sustainable midterm growth path. In the coming years, we will benefit even more from our approach to strategically drive increase in client assets under management. The same applies to a further development of our corporate client business as another strategic focus of our growth agenda. Many thanks for your time and your interest. We are now happy to answer your questions.
Thank you very much, Uwe and Reinhard, and now we are happy to answer your questions. Once again, please use your input mask in the browser. If you want to ask your questions personally with audio and video or with audio only, please make a note in the text field so that I can call you later on. We will then ask you to activate your camera or microphone as soon as it is your turn. If you want to ask your questions purely in writing, please use the text field. Now let's start with the first question that we have here. We have some questions from Olaf Hein. He wrote us the questions, so I will just read them out here.
The first question is: Are you aware that the dividend of EUR 0.36 yields only to 5.2% because the share price development is rather disappointing?
Yeah, I take over this question. I think we all agree that everyone here, also in the room, is not totally happy with the share price development, Mr. Hein. Nevertheless, that's the fact where we are right now. We're working where we can, especially that means increasing our EBIT figure. In the meantime, I think it's very interesting for the ones who now want to invest at this moment, it's this moment, that he has a dividend yield of 5%, which I personally think is not the worst way to invest money, and then additionally, with the idea of also growing share price. Nevertheless, we are aware of this, and we all hope that our share price will go up in the future, for example, due to this reason.
Okay, we will go on with the next question. The next question from Olaf Hein is: What is the basis for the optimistic EBIT forecast for 2026?
It's a good question if it's an optimistic EBIT forecast. If I, again, might answer this question. As said before, if you take out the one-time effect for Deutschland.Immobilien would have reached an EBIT of EUR 97 million, and this 97 million obviously is very close to the 100 million. That means the step to reaching 100 million is extremely low. In the past years, we always saw increases, for example, in our main in the asset under management in the area of property and casualty. Therefore, this I think gives enough argument that I personally think more than 100 million is not optimistic.
Perhaps may I add to this question coming from the top line. As we all see in the political discussion in Germany, the sensitivity for old age provisioning in private and occupational schemes is stepping forward. That means this all will help generally in this sector. By the way, if you look to our cost discipline, we have seen the last years, especially if you compare 2025 and 2024. It demonstrates that we are on the one hand able to go forward, as I mentioned, for example, with digital projects and AI projects, and on the other side, keep costs at a very reasonable level.
This together with our step we announced in November to reorganize our real estate business to concentrate on the broking of real estate mainly will also lower risk significantly and also will help to make this segment as soon as possible. We expect that for this year, 2026, profitable again. This together with the remarks Reinhard made, I think should demonstrate that the new guidance should be very reasonable for 2026.
We go on with the third question from Olaf Hein, and it's about M&A projects. Are any M&A projects in the pipeline?
Obviously, we can't answer this right now. I would answer, I think, the typical sentence we always have at the time. The time we are, as always, in talks what's going on in the market. You should not expect the next few days something like this. Therefore, we can't give you a precise answer there.
Oops, one additional remark. As you know, Mr. Hein, that one of the targets we had was for industrial broker segment, where we made very good steps with our RVM acquisition, which is, I think, now very well established in MLP Group and going ahead in market development. Here we stopped for the time being because of prices, which have come up step by step, were to our viewpoint much too high. This makes no sense because we want to have meaningful prices and good culture and good competency to buy in. That means here we are more in a waiting position not to make silly things. But for sure, as Reinhard mentioned, we are looking carefully what is going on in general, but also in this part of the market.
We go on with the next two questions from Zafer Rüzgar from Pareto Securities, also in written form here. I just read it out. Property and casualty is the clearest growth engine today, and your midterm plan implies a certain CAGR acceleration here. How much of that growth trajectory should already be visible in 2026? The same applies for life and health, where growth was broadly stable over the past years.
I will start again if I might. The property and casualty business now for 20 years in a row grow year by year with a growth rate between, I would say, 3%-8% normally. This year, meaning 2025, was a quite positive year. Therefore, altogether during the last years, we had something like a CAGR of 7% in this area. Sorry, 13%, but our projection for the next year is only between 7%-11%. This is nothing like a hockey stick, but we expect that this growth rate will be seen year by year and therefore also in 2026. It's a little bit more, let's say, less stable, the development in the life and health area.
This year we had a very strong year in health. Life was more or less stable. For 2026, we expect a little more growth in life and less growth in health. Nevertheless, altogether, we expect a growth in this whole segment.
Great. I hope this answers the question. We will go on with the next question from Zafer Rüzgar, and I will read it out again. Wealth revenue was down 2% reported, but you mentioned that wealth management revenue would have risen 7%, excluding performance-based compensation, which dropped sharply to around EUR 10 million. What does the guidance assume? What is the expected normalized level in performance fees?
Shall I again? Okay.
Typical financial.
Okay, for the next years, in our plans, we have a performance fee which is a little bit lower than we would have seen in 2025. In 2025, just to remember the question, EUR 10.7 million performance fee was a finally reported figure there, and therefore it is a little bit lower for 2026 and the next following years. The expected growth rate, again, if I see at the development of assets under management, perhaps in the last years, the CAGR there was around 9%, which obviously is not totally but closely linked to the revenues there. Our plan expects a little lower growth rate for the next years, but nevertheless a growth rate which is more above 5%.
We will go on with the next question. It comes from Klaus Breitenbach from Oddo BHF, and he is asking about our expectations for interest income in 2026.
I like this question, especially in the world we are right now. I would say it changes day by day, depending on what's going on in the world. To be a little bit more serious, obviously, especially our interest income has a link to what is the ECB rate due to the fact that we have a very high liquidity. For example, right now, today, EUR 1 billion is parked at the ECB, and therefore it depends if the ECB rate would go up or would go down. At the moment in our plans, we still or we have expected at that time a decline in ECB rate. If you would ask me today, I would see more like the market an upside in ECB rates.
Nevertheless, in our plans is reflected one little decline of ECB rate.
Okay. We have the announcement of Simon Keller from NuWays that he wants to ask his questions verbally. Please turn on your camera and microphone, and then we will answer your questions.
Awesome. Can you hear me?
Yes.
Yes.
Okay. Hi, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. I have three. Firstly, on Ukraine, do you see any impact on your property and casualty insurance business? For example, clients delaying decisions. If you see or saw that, does or did this normalize already? Secondly, could you provide an outlook on personnel costs and other OPEX for 2026? My third question might be linked to this, and it's regarding the guidance, because I noticed basically the implied growth rate for adjusted EBIT is 3%-13%, which to me seems rather conservative, especially as basically 2025 already had rather low performance fees. Also looking at the Q4 growth rate of over 20%, is there any costs that we should know about that you have baked into your 2026 EBIT guidance? Thank you.
Thank you, Michael Klat. I will start with the first one. It's still new, this crisis in Ukraine, and for sure it affects many companies directly or indirectly. We can't see any direct correlation so far on our P&C business. In opposite, there's some general movement: the more tough competition and cost pressure is the more sensitive, especially with mid-sized companies are also on a proper risk protection. That means proper means good risk protection on one hand, but also reasonable prices. This is the positive development we are seeing since some years, and we also realize that our RVM is in a very good position. This is the reason why we had the growth rates we just spoke of.
The counter effect to some extent is for sure if there are bankruptcies or whatever, if companies or takeovers of firms by bigger groups, there could be also some pressure on existing contracts. Overall, for the time being, we see a very good perspective for this still quite young business for MLP with a very specific service level we can offer.
I take over the OpEx question, and answering this allow me to look back to 2025. In 2025, we have all together a stable development of the OpEx, especially if you take out the one-time effect for the depreciation of Deutschland.Immobilien that then we have a 0% development there. I think this is a good basis, especially if you look even a little bit more in detail, you will find out that in 2025 we have 10% growth in IT costs due to the fact that we are investing, for example, in AI. That means we have we're able to save in other areas. Obviously we intend to continue with this. For 2026, we did not plan 0% development, but only a little growth rate there.
It's our target. I think we have a good track record there to keep our costs under control. For the EBIT.
Forecast.
F-
Is it conservative?
Yeah. Exactly. For the EBIT forecast for 2026, I think this is the counterpart of my or it's the same answer what I answered Mr. Hein. I think it's reasonable. I do not think it's too optimistic. That was my answer right now. I also do not think it's too pessimistic. Therefore, obviously I have to say it's realistic, otherwise we would have seen other figures there.
Thank you very much.
Yep. Thank you, Simon Keller.
Thank you very much. Yeah. We go on with the next question. It's from Jochen Schmitt from Metzler, and he has two questions. The first one is on the real estate development, and he's asking: could you give some information about the remaining development projects? How much is the total project volume, the pre-marketing or disposal rate, and the progress on construction? When do you expect the ongoing projects to leave your accounts?
Right now we have on our balance sheet four projects, which are at the moment only real estate, and that means there is no building. Therefore the question is how do we proceed with this? Do we sell this as project with the allowance to build on this, which makes it a little bit more valuable? Do we start the business or do we start the project? This is not final decided, therefore I can't give you the final project volume due to the fact there are many ways where we can continue on how we can continue in the next weeks and months. When do we expect to leave the accounts?
Also this depends on will we sell them before the project development really starts or not? If not, if we start the project development, then we expect to see them leaving our balance sheet around 2030.
Okay. I hope this answers the questions, and then we will go on with the next question. It's from Gerhard Schwarz from Baader Bank. He has a question on the tax rate, which was quite high with 34.6% in full year 2025. He is asking: what is driving the huge variances in the tax rate over the last few years? What is kind of normalized tax rate in our view?
Yes. Thank you. The normalized tax rate for us is 29.8%. The reasons for the variance is especially the results of Deutschland.Immobilien because the majority of our companies are in one tax group. The Deutschland.Immobilien is not, which means that if we have losses in this area, we can't deduct them from the profits on the other side. This especially you can see in this year when we have a tax rate of over 34%, it's only mainly the main reason is there are higher losses in Deutschland.Immobilien. I hope, again, this answers your question.
We go on with the next question from Gerhard Schwarz, and he's asking: following the amortization of EUR 9.2 million of the EUR 11.7 million goodwill in Deutschland.Immobilien, is the remaining goodwill of EUR 2.5 million still under threat or considered relatively safe?
We see it as relatively safe due to the fact that we continue with something which we call Projektkonzeption, where we use the knowledge which is in this company, in the group, to advise or to help support developers, for example, or investors. We have a business plan out of this area. This business plan obviously has some profitable numbers, and this profitable numbers allow us to keep this goodwill of EUR 2.5 million in our balance sheet.
Okay. We will go on with the next question. It's from Werner Friedmann, and he's asking: Can you remind me, please, about the size of performance-related fees and the net cash in the holding in 2025?
The net cash in the holding, then I think it's my question. The net cash in the holding is at the year-end, or was at the year-end EUR 177 billion. The performance fees or the performance-based compensation for 2025 was EUR 10.7 million. In the year before, it was EUR 33.9 million.
Okay. Hope this answers the question, and I hope all other questions are answered with this. It seems that we have no further questions in the moment, and this would bring us to the end of our conference. Should you have any further questions later, please do not hesitate to contact us. A recording of our conference will be available on our website later. Now we say thank you for your attention and wish you a good day. Goodbye from Wiesloch.
Thank you.
Thank you. Bye.