Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the JSC Halyk Bank nine months and Q3 2019 results conference call. I will now hand over to your host, Mrs. Mira Kassenova. Madam, please go ahead.
Thank you very much, Kai. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Halyk Bank Conference Call and presentation of financial results for the nine months and third quarter of 2019. Participants to today's call on Halyk Bank side are Ms. Umut Shayakhmetova, Chief Executive Officer of Halyk Bank; Ms. Alya Karpykova, Deputy CEO, Chief Financial Officer; Mr. Murat Koshenov, Deputy CEO, Corporate Banking; Mr. Almas Makhanov, Chief Risk Officer; Mr. Viktor Skryl, Head of Strategic Office, International Activities; and myself, Mira Kassenova, Head of Financial Institutions and International Relations. First of all, we are glad to welcome our new investors who joined our shareholder base as a result of recent secondary public offering of Halyk Bank. Around 70 institutional investors from different parts of the world have participated in this call. As per our estimation, the bank's identified number of institutional investors has been almost doubled.
Following the successful transaction, the free float level increased from 16.2% to 26.2%, and the liquidity of GDR has been improved significantly. We are proud to note that it has been the largest secondary fully marketed foreign offering in EMEA since 2017 and the largest financial institutions group equity capital markets offering in CIS since 2018. Now let me switch to Halyk Group consolidated financial results. During nine months of 2019, the bank's net income increased by 53.3% to KZT 251.4 billion compared to KZT 164 billion for nine months 2018, mainly due to net interest income growth in nine months 2019.
In addition to this, as you remember, for nine months 2018, the bank had higher loss from impairment of non-financial assets of KZT 31.5 billion compared to nil for nine months 2019. In Q2 2018, there was the recognition of tax loss carry forward of KZT 43.3 billion by KKB due to the merger into Halyk Bank. Total assets increased by 0.4% versus the end of 2018, mainly as a result of increase in loans from National Bank of Kazakhstan under repo agreement and decreased by 0.7% versus Q2 2019, mainly because of decrease in loans and deposits from National Bank of Kazakhstan, including loans under repo agreements. Cash and cash equivalents decreased by 17.9% compared to Q2 2019, mainly as a result of decrease in the short-term deposits with the National Bank of Kazakhstan due to repayment of the swap transaction with the NBK.
Securities increased by 9% versus Q2 2019, mainly as a result of purchase of NBK notes and Astana Light Rail Transit bonds in the amount of $400 million with 3.25% coupon rate. Interest income increased by 5.7% to KZT 531.4 billion for nine months 2019 compared to KZT 502.6 billion for nine months 2018, mainly as a result of increase in average balances of interest earning assets by 10.3%. Interest expense for nine months 2019 decreased by 5.7% compared to nine months 2018, mainly due to continuous repricing of retail term deposits following the decrease of deposit interest rate cap by Kazakhstan Deposit Insurance Fund.
As a result of net interest income growth, net interest margin increased to 5.2% per annum for nine months 2019 compared to 4.9% per annum in nine months 2018, despite the negative effect from accelerated amortization of discount on advanced in the bond in the amount of KZT 7.4 billion due to early partial prepayment on the 1st of March 2019. Compared with Q2 2018, interest income decreased by 2.6%, mainly as a result of increase of share of lower yielding effect interest earning assets in total interest earning assets following the repayment of swap transaction with the NBK. Despite of this, in Q3 2018, the net interest income increased by 4.6% to KZT 102 billion, mainly due to one-off expenses in Q2 2019 related to the amortization of discount on receivables on sale of life insurance installments.
As a result, net interest margin increased to 5.4% per annum for Q3 2019 compared to 5.1% in Q2 2019, and net interest spread increased from 5% to 5.3% per annum respectively. The fee and commission income dynamics continues its positive trend in Q3 2019, increasing by 4.6% versus Q2 2019 as a result of growing volumes of transactional banking, mainly in payment card operations and bank transfer settlements. The decrease in fees derived from cash operations in Q3 2019 versus Q2 2019 and Q3 2018 was mainly due to increased volumes of non-cash transactions. Fee and commission expense increased by 10.1% compared to Q2 2018, mainly due to increased number of transactions of other banks charged in acquiring networks of the bank.
Operating expenses for nine months 2019 decreased by 27.5% versus nine months 2018, mainly due to loss from impairment of non-financial assets of KZT 28.5 billion in Q2 2018 and cost optimization on the back of synergy effect from merger of KKB into the bank. On the back of lower operating expenses and higher operating income for nine months 2019 versus nine months 2018, the bank's cost-to-income ratio decreased to 23.2% compared to 33.8%. Operating expenses for Q3 2019 increased by 3.3% versus Q2 2019, mainly due to increase in salaries and other employee benefits as a result of increase in premium reserves in Q3 2019. On the balance sheet, compared with the year end, the loans to customers increased by 2.6% on a gross basis and 2.5% on a net basis.
The increase in loan portfolio was attributable to increase in corporate loans, 1.7% on a gross basis, increase in SME loans, 0.4% on a gross basis, and increase in retail loans, 5.9% on a gross basis. The stage 1 gross loans grew by 5.6% from the beginning of the year, while the stage 2 and stage 3 gross loans decreased by 7.3%. Halyk Bank's 90DPD ratio decreased to 8.2% from 8.7% at the end of Q2 2019. Provisioning rates slightly decreased to 10.6%, and the 90DPD coverage ratio increased to 131.9%. Cost of risk on loans to customers for nine months 2019 was at 0.6% due to one of the payments of large problem loans in Q2 2019. Cost of risk on loans to customers for Q3 2019 was at a more normalized level of 0.8%.
Stage 3 ratio continued to decrease from 18.6% as at the end of Q2 2019 to 17.9%, mainly as a result of repayments of previously impaired indebtedness of corporate and retail borrowers. We're additionally showing here how well the work out of problem loans collateral was done by the bank's committees during nine months 2019. On liability side, the deposits of legal entities and individuals decreased by 3.5% and 6.7% respectively compared to year end 2018, mainly due to partial withdrawal of funds by the bank's customers to finance their ongoing needs, including the repayment of external debt obligation of national companies, and transfer of a part of FX retail deposits into USD denominated bonds placed at Astana International Exchange. As of the 30th of September 2019, the share of corporate KZT deposits in total corporate deposits was 49.6% compared to 55.8% as of the 30th of June 2019.
While the share of retail KZT deposits in total retail deposits slightly increased to 42.2%. Compared with the Q2 2019, total equity increased by 8.8% as a result of net profits earned by the bank during Q3 2019. The bank continues to maintain very high capital ratios. On slide 19, we are showing our selected strategic initiatives in digital space, such as customer-centric transformation and loyalty program enrollment, leading to increased number of clients and volume of transactions. Our whole digital division was created, and external consultants were hired by the bank to develop these two initiatives. We continue to improve the functionality of online banking and enhance our digital product proposition. On the following slides, you may see that the number of internet banking users is increasing, as well as growing transaction activities of our clients. This completes our presentation.
Now we would like to open for question please.
Dear ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin our question and answer session. If you have a question for our speakers, please dial zero one on the telephone keypad now to enter the queue. Thank you for holding and until we wait for the first question. The first question received is from Andrew Kyrios from STB. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Hi, good afternoon. Thank you for the call. I have a few questions. I can take them one by one. Just in terms of your earnings guidance, I don't see any change in terms of your outlook for this year. Given you've done KZT 250 billion or so far, do you keep your KZT 300 billion full year earnings guidance? If so, are you expecting a fairly significant drop in earnings in the fourth quarter relative to the past few quarters? Thank you.
Yes. Hello, Andrew. Thank you for your question. While we typically do not update our outlook during our three quarter results, currently we see that we're in a good position to beat the previous guidance, which was standing at the area of KZT 300 billion. We now feel that we can say that we expect consolidated net income at the level above KZT 320 billion.
Great. Thank you. That's very helpful, Murat. Thank you. Second question is on your capital and dividends. Clearly, you continue to accumulate capital very impressively. Just in light of that and previous comments from the CEO on potentially seeking waivers from bondholders in order to be able to pay out a higher dividend, could you just give us your current position and thinking on that and the dividends outlook? And would you say that there's any chance that you could pay out above 50% for 2019? Thank you.
Thank you for the questions. Yes, indeed. During our previous discussions with investment community, we were saying that this is one of the areas which we potentially could study. We're currently in the stage where we are evaluating the possible actions in that regard, but no decision is done yet at this point of time with regards to whether we would go and apply for waivers or not. This is currently work in process internally.
Okay, thank you. I guess a final question. Could you give us an update on the National Bank's Asset Quality Review process? Just be good to hear where things are with that and do you think that there's any chance that you would be required to write additional provisions as a result of this? Thank you.
The AQR process goes very well in terms of the process. With regards to our procedures, it's all going according to the schedule. It's progressing well. With regards to any potential outcome, we think that it's too premature to discuss or to provide any guidance, because currently we're still in the process of providing the information and responding to the inquiries from the parties which are engaged in the AQR. We are not receiving yet any feedback on the results. It's premature to discuss any potential outcome.
Okay. Thank you. Can you give us any sense of the timeline involved in terms of when you expect this kind of process to be wrapped up and recommendations suggested?
We expect it will be early next year.
Okay. Thank you.
From January, February.
Okay, thank you.
We have no other questions at this time. Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to remind you if you have any further questions, please press zero one on your telephone keypad now. The next question received is from Arvind Bose from QRG. Your line is now open, sir. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you. Congrats on the very strong results, and thank you for taking my question. Really quick question for you. Looking through your financial statements, I noticed that in the fee and commission segment, the fees and payments on debit cards have increased a lot more than the revenues from payment cards since last year. What is the reason for this?
Hello, Conrad. Thank you for your question. The fee and commission expenses grew somewhat higher than fee and commission income on the card side. This is due to the fact that because we are a large bank with the largest POS terminal network, we see increasing number of cards issued by other banks, which have been processed through our POS terminal network. Saying that, we also have to mention that we have a number of initiatives also to increase our fee and commission income on the card side. The one initiative to mention is the launch of a new loyalty program, which we launched at the 1st of October. We are planning to see on other initiatives going forward as well.
Thank you.
The next question received is from Conrad Skurka from Capital. Your line is now open, sir. Please go ahead.
Thank you, and congratulations with another set of solid results. Just on with your comment on fee and commissions, it seems a little bit lackluster and it's great to hear that you have initiatives in place. Actually, two questions. How long do you think it will take for us to start to see a more promising trend in fee and commission income? Then kind of similar to that, it looks as if expectations for GDP growth in Kazakhstan into 2020 is starting to look a little bit more positive. I'm talking here ex oil. I want to be clear on that. What I see, maybe you can also tell us whether you concur with that view that we start to see a little bit more activity in the economy away from energy? Will we potentially see better loan growth in 2020?
Do you start to see signs of that coming through the book?
Yes. Hello, Conrad. Thank you for your question. With regards to fees and commission income, yes, you are rightly pointing the dynamics which we see, the most recent dynamics. As I mentioned in my answer to the previous similar question, is that we have a set of initiatives. It's around the client-centric transformation, around the loyalty programs, around our mobile application. There is a set of initiatives on which we are working, and we expect them to announce once they would be coming on air. We expect that this set of initiatives would improve dynamics on the fees and commission income. With regards to your second question, we also see that this year's GDP growth is already quite strong. There are expectations that it will grow above 4%. We see that one of the main drivers is the government spending.
We probably expect also strong growth in GDP next year. It's probably a bit difficult to say whether it will be purely on the ex-oil side, but probably also including the oil part of the economy because, as you know, there are three big projects running in Kazakhstan, and particularly one of them, on TCO, there is a big project underway with a lot of capital spending, which also is one of the drivers, for example, for this year. Otherwise, we see that there is quite sufficient new loan, which is being underwritten, both on the retail part and on the corporate side, be it SME or large corporate. The thing is that we see that the banks, and I can also particularly talk about the Halyk Bank, we continue our workout process on the impaired loan side, which probably reducing the net increase, if you like.
What we see on the large corporate segment is that the rates, while being reducing, are still relatively high. That's why we also are seeing that whenever the company accumulates sufficient liquidity buffers, they try to use that in order to prepay the loans. In order for this relatively good new loan generation to be translated in a net increase, we think that somewhat more cleanup of impaired loans should happen. Secondly, probably the rates needs to drop in order to first, to stimulate further demand for the loans, and also to disincentivize the companies to prepay existing loans.
Okay. That's very helpful. Thank you very much. Maybe just to sort of round off this, sort of looking a little bit into the future, you kind of indicate. Well, we know we're running at KZT 250 billion. You said 320 is a reasonable number for the full year, so we will print somewhere around KZT 70 billion in Q4. That's sort of running slightly below, well, a bit below what we've seen on average through most of the year. Does that mean that on the OpEx line or on the cost of risk line, that there's something that we should be looking out for, or can we assume that the status quo in looking out for those two line items in Q4 will remain?
Typically, there are somewhat higher OpEx books in the fourth quarter. It's a historic trend. Secondly, when I said 320, I meant that it will be not less than 320.
Yeah. No, I got that. Yeah. Okay. That's helpful insofar as my question goes. Thank you very much. Good luck.
Thank you.
The next question received is from Michael Schlemmer from Votive Capital. Your line is now open, sir. Please go ahead.
Yes, good evening. Thank you very much for the question and for opportunity to ask a question and for the presentation. I wanted to ask about the recent headlines, which are actually coming from the National Bank of Kazakhstan about the state of unsecured consumer lending regulation in Kazakhstan. Whether you would be expecting any impact to come out of those initiatives and how they could impact both the pace of growth of the unsecured consumer part of the book, but also the profitability. The second question is regarding the slide devoted to the new digital initiative. Specifically, it seems like that you are going to introduce a cashback option for the customer. What impact you expect it to have on either your fee and commission income line, if it's going to be a fee and commission expense or on the operating expense going forward? Thank you.
Mikhail, thank you for your questions. One moment, please. Yes. With regards to your first question, yes, indeed, the Central Bank is taking the initiative to, let's say, somewhat tightens regulation with regards to unsecured consumer lending. Specifically, they're looking at tightening risk-weighted assets, risk weighting approach, and also the definition of income which the customer is receiving. We expect that in most cases, it will affect the customers with lower income and the customers who cannot prove fully the sources of income. Because we, as Halyk Bank, are typically aiming at the customers who are receiving salaries through us, so we rely on transparent and approved sources of income. We rely on the customers which have good employment. We expect that it would less affect Halyk Bank than some other banks in the system.
With regards to your second question, yes, the bonuses or cashbacks, they are typically showing in the fees and commission expenses. We expect that since we launch that initiative, we probably first would see increase of expenses as a first result. We expect that later on, it will attract more customers, it will stimulate the customers to make more payments, and gradually, income part would also grow in excess of expenses.
Thank you very much for this. If I may follow up with two things. Just first of all, in terms of the regulatory tightening, when you expect this to take place and whether it would happen in one go or in several stages? The second one regarding the loyalty expense, how you think this loyalty expense would actually impact the overall pace of growth of fee and commission income into the next year compared versus 2019?
On the regulation, we expect that they will introduce as of January 1, 2020. They will be applicable for new loans. You have to see what is the average tenure of the loans. There are banks which are focusing on the shorter term loans. For us, the tenure for consumer loans is close to 18 months. That element might also affect how quickly the new regulation would be translated to the whole portfolio of consumer loans for particular bank. With regards to your question, we are currently in the budget process. Typically, we are disclosing our outlook and guidance once we are coming with the full year results. We expect to do that March next year.
Okay. Thank you so much.
The next question received is from Simon Mullet from Citibank. Line is now open. Please go ahead.
Oh, hi. Thanks for the call. Just three quick questions. I see on slide 21, you have some interesting statistics on issued cards and card transaction volumes. I was just wondering if you could give us your figures for both, or market share or some kind of indicated market share for those two figures. Second question would be just on your capital position. You're well above the minimum requirements. I'm just wondering what kind of buffers you think you need above your minimum requirements to continue to be able to lend effectively to your corporate clients. Just last on lending growth, it seems that you are growing at a much slower pace on the retail than the sector. I think you kind of answered it. It seems like it's related to your strategy and lending to salary accounts, but if you could comment on why you're losing share.
On the corporate side, actually, why are you gaining share? Thank you.
Thank you for your questions. Just one, please. I think we got only your two questions, but I will respond first them and would kindly ask you to remind what was your third question. On the card business, according to our estimation, our market share is around 30%, so both in terms of card issued and in terms of the number of transactions. On the growth side, if we talk about the lending side on the consumer versus legal entities, on the consumer side, there are two portions. One is unsecured consumer lending, and secondly is the mortgages. On the mortgages, the market start growing this year, but around 80% of that growth is attributed only for one institution. It's a state-owned Housing Construction Bank. The rest of the banking sector is growing at much less pace than it is showing by the overall sector statistics.
On the unsecured consumer lending, yes, we typically focusing on the people who are receiving salaries through us. That is probably translated in somewhat slower growth than some of other banks, which particular focusing on the unsecured consumer lending. We also doing that in more secured way, which is translated in much lower cost of risk. Also, we have to be aware how the upcoming regulation starting from next year would affect the growth rate sector-wise as well as on the particular players. Saying that, we also mentioned before that we're looking at other opportunities in the consumer lending. We have a number of areas where we also currently looking at. As I mentioned before, once we would be ready to announce them, we'll do that in due course.
On the corporate lending side, which would include large corporates as well as SME lending, we at Halyk Bank traditionally had a very strong position, which particular on the SME side, strengthened by acquisition of KKB. This is the area where we see high growth. I'm talking about the particular SME sector. We see that particular segment is performing in terms of the growth very well this year. That probably would be the highest growing segment in Halyk Bank in 2019. Could you please remind what was your third question?
Yeah. The question was on your capital requirements.
Okay. Mm-hmm.
Your current capital position is much higher. Just wondering what kind of buffer above the minimum requirements you really think you need to have to be able to meet large single party exposure limits, et cetera?
Yes. There is no hard target or hard minimum, and I will explain you why. This is because the calculations which we are doing, it is based on the Basel as well as the regulatory requirements. For us, it is also important how, for example, rating agencies is calculating capital and capital adequacy ratio. They're looking at the risk-adjusted capital, which are looking at completely different set of risk weights on a different segment of the portfolio. They're looking at particular sector exposures. For example lending to the construction sector as a matter of example. That's why for us, it's difficult to give any hard figure. Still, we think that with return on equity above 20% or 24%, with growth in risk-weighted assets at the level of 5%-10%, we are still in position to improve our dividend payout ratio.
That's why starting from this year, we amended the dividend policy, as you know. Starting from this year, we said that the minimum payout ratio would be 50%. Yeah, you can refer to the first question which we discussed during the call as well.
Yeah. Is there a level of capital at which you wouldn't want to go below because it would impact your rating? I'm just trying to get a sense of how far above the minimum requirements you might be willing to go before you get uncomfortable.
Yeah. Again, please do not take it as a kind of the hard guidance.
Sure. No, of course not.
We feel that the level of somewhat 20 and above is the level which we believe that we should be comfortable with our ratings.
Excellent. Just maybe one follow-on question. You're talking about potentially higher risk weights on consumer lending, I think. Has there been any indication of what level, or would it be somehow tied to the APR as it is in Russia, for consumer lending?
It's a big table, which has a different, let's say, references to different aspects and which is translated to different level of risk weighting, but the maximum is going up to 300%.
Okay. Thanks very much.
First kind of loan, you look at the different risk parameters, and then it says that it's 100, 150, 200, and the maximum for the most risky type of loans. It's a matrix which incorporates the loan parameters as well as the borrower parameters. The highest risk weighting can go up to 300 on particular loans to particular customers.
I guess given the nature of your book, you would probably have a lower risk weight than the 300 maximum, right? That's fair to assume?
Yeah, sure. Even for other banks, you might have different tenors for the loan. You might have different debt service ratio for the customers. You might have different situation with his proof of salary. There are different components which are taken into account. In a typical portfolio, you have different sub-portfolios to which you would apply different risk weighting. For our bank, we expect that majority of loans should have lower risk weighting than average for the sector.
Okay. Thank you.
The next question received is from Andrew Mikhail from Sberbank CIB. Line is now open, sir. Please go ahead.
Good evening. Thank you very much for the call. I have two sets of questions. The first one is on this one-off effect on your NIM in Q2. What would be the magnitude of such effect in Q3, if any? What's the outstanding value of that receivable that gives the effect? The second set of questions on consumer lending. You mentioned a number of new initiatives. Could these include the purchases of existing loan books from other banks or maybe stakes in other banks which are doing consumer finance mostly? Thank you.
Yes. Hello, Andrew. Thank you for your question. With regards to your question on the second quarter impact on the net interest margin. Yes, there were few assets which have been sold by our SPVs in the second quarter. As far as I remember, the total value of those assets was at the level of close to $15 billion. Because they were sold with some repayments, it was sold in installments, so repayment should be coming in the next few quarters. We have to discount to the present value of these receivables, and the amount of that discount was equal roughly to $7 billion. With every quarter, we expect that discount should be amortized back to the face value of the transaction. It's a temporary effect on the net interest income.
All right. Just to make sure, I meant third quarter, not the second quarter, and I think you meant it too. Did I understand you correctly that the effect in nominal terms should be similar in Q4 to that in Q3?
We didn't have any special in the third quarter. There was somewhat decrease in net interest margin in the second quarter, and that was as explained due to discount on receivables. This is a timing difference. We expect that discount would be amortized in coming quarters. If your question is whether the impact of amortizing discount would be same in the fourth quarter compared to third quarter, yes, it should be more or less the same.
All right. Yeah. Thank you very much. Everything is clear on this one. The question on consumer finance?
Do I understand correctly that your question was whether we looking at acquisition potential?
Yeah, maybe.
especially?
Yes, exactly, but not maybe other banks, but maybe portions of their books.
No, we are not looking into such opportunities.
I'm sorry for another clarification. You aren't looking either at buying stakes in other banks or buying existing books of such banks. Is that correct?
Yes. We are not looking either in acquiring any bank, be it retail or non-retail, also we are not looking into acquiring any credit portfolio, be it retail or non-retail.
Okay. Thank you very much for this. Thank you.
We receive the follow-up question of Andrew Gilios from STB now open, sir, please go ahead.
Hi, I just have another quick question on the margin. I mean, your third quarter margin was obviously pretty strong relative to generally how you've been guiding margin over the last few quarters, and you've generally been of the view that 5% or so is a sustainable level. Do you think that this kind of quite elevated third quarter level can be sustained perhaps over the next few quarters? It seems like one of the reasons for the higher NIM in the third quarter is quite a strong drop in the cost of deposits. If you could just shed any light on what's happened there, that would be helpful. Thank you.
Andrew, thank you for your question. Just a moment, please. Yes, we do not see any big changes to NIM, which during recent quarters was between 5.1%-5.4%. Expect that largely NIM should remain in this range.
Thanks. Is there any particular reason why the cost of deposits fell quite strongly in the third quarter?
Yes. According to our calculations, there was decrease in cost of funding. It was kind of 0.1, 0.2, probably percentage points. We think that was basically due to repricing of retail deposits, which have higher tenors, typically compared to the corporate deposits. There was still some retail deposits, which was maturing and being repriced. That was, I think, for not material portion. There might be impact of changes in the currencies, because there are some fluctuations between dollar and tenge deposits, and they're fluctuating around a certain split between these two portions. In some quarters, there might be a higher portion of dollar deposits, whereby, during certain momentum, it might impact the overall cost of funds. Generally, we didn't see some big shifts in the cost of funding recently.
Okay. Thank you.
The next question received is from Sander Ojo, from Houlihan Lokey. Your line is now open, sir. Go ahead.
Thank you very much. Sorry, my question has already been answered. Thank you.
We received a follow-up question of Conrad Silcar from Alpha Capital. Your line is now open, sir, please go ahead.
Thank you. I just wanted to follow up on all the questions on the NIM margin. Could you perhaps explain or give us an indication, you mentioned that the SME side loans is growing pretty well. Can you provide us with some insight on how much that contributes to NIM expansion, the mix effect that's coming through from faster than Well, not faster than expected because you did tell us several quarters ago that this is an area that you focus on. Can you provide us with some insight on how much that contributes to NIM expansion, the mix effect?
For us, it's difficult to point any particular area, which, let's say, contributed to higher net interest margin. I think it's a combination because our consumer lending has been growing, our SME portfolio has been growing. We also saw probably a higher drop in the interest expenses. I would also add, because though similar to the previous question, I should also add probably that in the interest expense, we saw that our general trend in the interest expense was better, so due to previous partial repayments on bonds. There's no, I would say, particular area where we should say that was the main contributor to the net interest margin dynamics. It's a combination of factors.
Thank you very much.
We have no further questions. Please, speakers, back to you for the conclusion.
Dear ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for participating in our call today. As usual, our IR team remains open for any further questions. Thank you very much. Bye.
This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.