Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Julius Bär analyst Q&A on interim management statement for the first four months of 2026. I am Matilde, the conference call operator. I would like to remind you that all participants will be in listen-only mode, and the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session. You can register for questions at any time by pressing star and one on your telephone. For operator assistance, please press star and zero. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Alexander van Leeuwen, Head Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Good morning, thank you for joining today's Q&A session with CEO Stefan Bollinger and CFO Evie Kostakis. The reference documents for this call is the interim management statement, or IMS, covering the first four months of 2026, issued earlier this morning as a media release. As noted in the release, the IMS is prepared on the basis of unaudited management accounts and presents financial information using non-IFRS alternative performance measures, or APMs. In that context, we also refer you to the APM section at the end of the release. The customary cautionary statement is also included there and applies equally to the remarks made during this call. We aim to conclude the session by 9:00, Swiss time. With that in mind, we kindly ask participants to limit themselves to a maximum of two questions each. With that, it is my pleasure to hand over to Stefan.
Thank you, Alex. Good morning, everyone. Today, we reported the best start to the year in Julius Bär's history, with a record operating income driven by all-time high assets under management and exceptional client activity. This overall strong performance is a testament to the strength of our franchise and the quality of our people. It is precisely in challenging times like this that Julius Bär demonstrates its ability to navigate complexity, seize opportunities, and delivers value both for our clients and shareholders. I want to take a moment to say that I'm particularly proud of our teams who have been directly affected by the war in the Middle East. They have demonstrated extraordinary resilience in dealing with multiple challenges, all while delivering the highest level of service to our clients.
Looking at our top-line performance, we reported that assets under management reached a record CHF 528 billion, driven by strong equity market performance and net new money inflows of CHF 3 billion. The analyzed net new money pace of 1.7% reflects a slower start to the year due to three factors. First, the continued implementation of our revised risk and compliance framework. Second, the heightened uncertainty linked to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, and third, a pause in client releveraging. We also announced the appointment of Thomas Frauenlob and [Rocheus Meloni] to our executive board. Thomas is Co-Head, Region, Western Markets and Switzerland based in Zurich, and [Rocheus Meloni ,] Co-Head, Global Products and Solutions, is based in Singapore. This change further strengthens our ExB, balancing group functions with region and product representation and reflects the group's pivot to growth.
In terms of outlook, the strong performance in the opening months, supported by the absence of significant one-off effects, positions us to deliver an IFRS net profit for the first half of 2026 that is substantially higher than in the first half of 2025. Furthermore, we are making good progress on executing the strategic priorities we outlined to you last June in London, with all our 5 programs up and running. As a result, we are on track to deliver on our midterm goals, including our net new money target of 4%-5% by 2028. Finally, to address it upfront, as of today, we don't have an update on the status of FINMA's enforcement action. However, we continue to have a transparent and constructive dialogue with our regulator. Let me now take this opportunity to personally thank Evie, our outgoing CFO, for her many contributions to Julius Bär.
Evie's leadership has been crucial in repositioning Julius Bär for long-term success, and I personally greatly appreciate her support and guidance since I joined the bank. She will stay with us until the end of the year to ensure an orderly transition. With that, over to you, Evi, for an update on our results.
Thank you, Stefan, for your kind words. Good morning, everyone. It's been an honor to work by your side and under your leadership. Julius Bär is an amazing company. I fully intend to remain a proud shareholder and a loyal client. First things first, I will ensure my successor can hit the ground running and get off to a flying start. In the first four months of the year, it was pleasing to see assets under management reach a record high of CHF 528 billion, despite the further 1.5% appreciation of the Swiss franc against the dollar in percentage terms. Operating jaws widened substantially with the cost-to-income ratio improving to 62% and the pre-tax margin to 32 basis points.
The strong capital generative nature of this business is evidenced by the capital buildup in the first four months of the year with the CET1 capital ratio now at 18.1%. Obviously, the results were helped by the very high activity in the first quarter when we experienced high levels of volatility. While we have no crystal ball in our planning, we do not assume that such an exceptional activity environment will continue in the near term. Indeed, in April, the exit gross margin normalized down to 81 basis points on the back of lower activity-driven income. Together with the fact that the Swiss franc shows no signs of weakening, this means that we need to remain laser-focused on cost discipline, as indeed we did in the first four months of the year. With that, let's now move on straight to Q&A.
We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star one on their telephone. You'll hear a tone to confirm that you have entered the queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star two. Questioners on the phone are requested to disable the loudspeaker mode while asking a question. Anyone who has a question may press star 1 at this time. The first question comes from the line of Flora Bocahut from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. The 1st question is on the RM number. I don't think I saw it in the press release. I may have missed it. Yeah, the end of period number of RMs, and any comments you can give us on the performance of your Relationship Manager this quarter in terms of net new money with the usual breakdown, if you can, between new RMs and seasoned RMs. I just wanted to ask you a broader question on the cost performance. Can you maybe tell us where you stand on the savings that you target? Also if you booked any restructuring costs these four months. Thank you.
Good morning, Flora, thank you very much for the questions. Let me start with the first one. In terms of the number of relationship managers, we ended April with 1,257. As we said, we've made good progress in hiring RMs in the first four months of the year with more than 30 already starting with us and 15 in advanced discussions. From where we stand today, we are quite reasonably confident that we'll get near the 150 number that we target for year-end. In terms of the CHF 3 billion net new money print for the first quarter, the contribution came mostly from RMs on business case. These RMs are tracking well. We're very pleased with their performance. They constitute about 30% of the total RM population, and the business case achievement rate is tracking at 68%.
In terms of our efficiency program and the CHF 130 million gross savings we target for this strategic cycle, we are well on track. You've seen our cost-to-income ratio for the first four months of the year. Of course, that was very much abetted by a very strong gross margin. Nonetheless, we continue to be very disciplined with respect to our cost management. We haven't taken too many restructuring charges in the first four months of the year or made investments that abet our cost takeout. However, we expect more of that to come through in the remaining couple of quarters, and we'll give you a full-fledged update with the half-year results.
Thank you.
The next question comes from the line of Amit Ranjan from JPMorgan. Please go ahead.
Good morning, thank you for taking my questions. Also, thanks, Evie, for all the engagement over the years. First one is on net new money flows. How should we think about the impact of the risk and compliance framework going forward? Is it expected to continue through the year? If you can tell us also what the impact was in the first four months from this, and how should we think about the slightly above 3% expectation on net new money for 2026 now? The second one is on gross margins. If you can please talk through the drivers of the change in mix between NII and Treasury swap income. Was it related to the size of the portfolio or something else, please? Thank you.
Thank you, Amit, for the question. Good morning. On the first question around net new money, maybe just I outlined what has happened so far this year, and then we can talk about what we expect going forward. As we said in our statement, the three reasons are the de-risking, the Middle East crisis, and the modest releveraging. Maybe on the last point, just to clarify, this added 0.6% to net new money in H2, and it came to a halt for now. On the de-risking, as we said before, de-risking is an ongoing exercise.
In the current year, the application of our revised risk and compliance framework is leading to more de-risking than in a normal year, including on compliance and reputational risk. What I would say is from a quality point of view, while this obviously does not help our flows in the short term, the key benefit is that it does lead to an improvement in the quality and long-term sustainability of the client book. I would also reiterate that we're relentlessly focused on introducing organic growth, and we can outline what the initiatives are that we're working on. I would also like to reiterate that we're highly confident that we can reach our net new money target of 4%-5% by 2028.
Amit, thank you. It's also been a big pleasure to work with you throughout the years, so thank you for your comments. Let me try and address the outlook question. Look, given where the slower start to the year in terms of net new money from today's perspective, we assume that net inflows will improve for the rest of the year, but that the 2026 net new money will be somewhat below the 2025 annualized growth rate. Nonetheless, as Stefan said, we are highly confident that we can reach our net new money target range of 4%-5% by 2028. Now, with respect to the second question and the dynamics around Treasury swap income and net interest income, you will have seen that the Treasury swap income came down to 18 basis points versus the 22 basis point print in the second half of the year.
It's important to note the Treasury swap income decline was largely offset by 3 basis points higher net interest income. As you know, the Federal Reserve cut rates 3x in the second half of 2025, and now that's fully reflected in the first four months of this year. Lower U.S. rates, ceteris paribus, are good for NII, given that we have more U.S. dollar deposits than assets, and negative for Treasury swap income as the difference between the U.S. and Swiss rates is reduced. Of course, in case the Federal Reserve were somehow to increase rates, then obviously the reverse would be true. This is why it is so important to look at the total interest-driven income rather than just the individual components.
Thank you.
We now have a question from the line of Anke Reingen from RBC. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thank you very much for taking my question. Firstly, just on your releveraging, I thought it was somewhat surprising. Is that because of your de-risking, and this is largely like an April trend you were seeing so that it's zero for the first four months? I was wondering, can you give us an indication about your exit margin in April, please? Thank you.
Hi, Anke. Good morning. Thanks for the couple of questions. On the first one, there's been a pause in client releveraging the first four months of the year, and with the reduced optimism around the possibility of central bank interest rates coming down meaningfully in the U.S., I've even heard some chatter about potential hikes and the potential rate hike in Europe being floated by ECB officials in combination with the sense of geopolitical and macroeconomic uncertainty. In our current thinking, we are not assuming any meaningful acceleration of client releveraging in the near term. You will recall that in the second half of last year, we had a 0.6 percentage points contribution of releveraging to the net new money, which we didn't see in the first four months of the year, but this had nothing to do with de-risking.
Anke, please remind me what the second question was?
Exit margin.
exit margin.
Exit margin.
Sorry. Yes, the exit margin was 81 basis points in April, and the delta between the 90s, for the most part, inactivity-driven.
Thank you very much, and thank you very much for everything. Thank you.
Thank you.
The next question comes from the line of [Ben Cave-Roberts] of Goldman Sachs International. Please go ahead.
Morning. Thanks very much for taking the questions. Just two, please. On the cost income, so in February, I think you'd given guidance that assuming similar inputs to last year's strategy update, you'd expect a slightly higher cost income in 2026 versus the 68% that you did in 2025. How do you think about that guidance now, given the four months of the year that are now behind you, and obviously revenue margins trending pretty solidly? A follow-up on net new money, please. Is there any color you'd give by geography, just in terms of if there was much of a different picture in Europe versus the Middle East versus Asia, and then how clients are navigating that backdrop now? Thank you.
Hey, Ben, good morning. Thanks for the questions. On the cost-to-income ratio, the low cost-to-income ratio achieved in the first four months of the year is primarily driven by the exceptionally high activity-driven income, which led to the gross margin print of 90 basis points, which is obviously well above the 80 basis points input factor that we applied in setting our medium-term cost-to-income ratio target.
However, I referenced the exit margin in April, and for now, I think that the guidance I gave in February still makes sense, i.e., with an input factor of 80 basis points, a dollar Swiss exchange rate at 0.8, and a reasonably normal AUM development, we would expect to get to a cost-to-income ratio this year that is around the levels of last year.In terms of net new money and color on geographies, for the first four months of the year, we had stronger contribution from Western Europe and Switzerland. Looking ahead, we expect more broad-based contribution from all the regions.
Thank you.
We now have a question from the line of Nicholas Herman from Citigroup. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Two for me, please. Firstly, on relationship managers, you mentioned the 1,257 at the end of April, 30 joiners. Could you just discuss departure trends and reaction to the revised comp model now that we've had a few months of that being implemented? The second question I had was on the capital build, which was quite strong in the first four months. I was just wondering if there was anything that you've done in terms of optimizing your risk-weighted assets to support that capital build or if that was just pure. Let me know if you can get reference, please. Thank you.
Hi, Nick. Thanks for the questions. Let me start with the second one on the capital buildup. We were at 17.4% at year-end. We had about a 200 basis point contribution from IFRS net profits. The treasury bond portfolio, for the most part, has pulled apart, so there was no movement there. You take away 80 basis points for the dividend accrual, and actually, RWAs increased slightly. That gets you to the 18.1%. That's a detail of the capital walk, so primarily driven by strong profits. With respect to the second question on RMs, as we said, we've hired quite well. We have 33 that we've signed on and 15 in advanced discussions. We've had some leavers. As you know, we're very diligent about low performer management.
We continue to do that at pace across the board, and I would not say that any leavers have anything to do with the RM comp model, which has been extremely well-received by our relationship managers. I'll let Stefan add some comments on that.
Thanks, Evie. Nick, the feedback from RMs on the new compensation framework has been positive. Just to reiterate what we did, the purpose of the new RM framework is to align RM's incentive with the interest of the bank, and hence, our shareholders. Give them an incentive to stay in our core wealth management lane, manage tail risk, and at the same time, pay for performance. Just to maybe make it clear what I mean with pay for performance, what we did is we changed the way we define performance in a way that aligns with our shareholders. So far, there has been no negative reaction and has not been a driver of departures.
That is very helpful. Hopefully you can say a proper goodbye too at the virtual year.
Thank you, Ben.
We now have a question from the line of Nicolas Payen from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Yes. Morning. Thank you for taking my question. I have two, please. The first one would be on RMs. If you could give us a bit of color regarding where you are hiring the most, notably the breakdown between EMEA and Asia, please. The second one would be on investments, because if I remember well, you mentioned that 2026 was an investment year, I just wanted to see what kind of pace we should expect for 2026 throughout the year. Should we expect some lumpiness in the investments after the first four months? Thank you very much.
Thanks for the question, and good morning. We are hiring across the board, and I would say the obvious one where we haven't hired that much is the Middle East, as clearly RMs are focusing on other things for now. We have been successful hiring across the board, and I would highlight in particular our focus on beefing up our RM population in Switzerland. We see some great talent there on the market.
On the investment side, Nicolas, I wouldn't talk about any lumpiness in our investment cycle. You know that we are investing in our core infrastructure in Switzerland. That's a multi-year program. Of course, we continue to invest in other areas of technology to augment our Relationship Managers, as well as investments in human capital.
Thank you very much.
Ladies and gentlemen, please hold the line. The connection with the speakers has been lost. The conference will continue shortly. Mr. Payen, your line is now open. You may go ahead with your question.
I think it was just answered. Thank you.
As a reminder, if you wish to register for a question, please press star and one on your telephone. The next question comes from the line of [Giulia Miotto ] from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. I have two. First of all, I'm going to go back on the net new money. How long do you envisage the revised risk and compliance framework to continue to be a headwind? I would think by now, basically, I would guess Julius Bär should have reviewed all the client book, and this should come to an end. I hear that you said net new money in 2026 perhaps was slightly below 2025, so below 2.9%, but I was wondering if we can basically see the end of this by mid-year, or if you think it continues until the end of the year. On cost income.
I was surprised that you basically reiterated the same guidance as you gave in February because the first four months have been incredibly strong, and the exit rate on gross margin is 81 basis points. Unless we see an increase in costs, cost income should be better. What am I missing? Thank you.
Hi, Julia. Let me start with the second question. Indeed, on the cost-to-income ratio, we haven't seen too much of cost to achieve in the first four months of the year in terms of the CHF 130 million efficiency program. We expect some cost increase in the second half of the year, and that also informs our guidance at 80 basis points gross margin input. The other point also to take note of is we did assume that this guidance was within spot 0.8 Swiss franc to a dollar exchange rate, and we've been slightly stronger than that in terms of the Swiss franc versus the dollar for the first four months of the year, and we don't expect that the Swiss franc is going to weaken in the next few months.
Julia, on your questions on the de-risking and how long it takes. To reiterate, this is an ongoing exercise, and as you pointed out in the current year, it's somewhat more than what we expected. As we mentioned before, you should expect a gradual uptick in net new money over time, but being now some months into 2026, it's too early to give you further guidance. I want to reiterate again that we are highly confident that we can reach our net new money target of 4%-5% by 2028. We are very focused on generating sustainable, high-quality growth in net new money and, of course, also in revenues. As you know, we are laser-focused on improving organic growth.
We launched this initiative at the beginning of the year, and we are very focused on increasing our product and service capabilities, have sharper client targeting, and really enable the frontline to deliver with initiatives such as ease of doing business.
Thank you very much.
Sorry, Julia. Just another component, of course, is also that we really want to empower our seasoned RMs to be an additional growth engine complementing the hiring of experienced RMs, and we start to see some progress on that.
Got it. Thank you.
We now have a question from the line of Jeremy Sigee from BNP. Please go ahead.
Hi there. Morning. I wanted to carry on the same discussion actually, about advisor hires and net new money. Apologies for being repetitive. On the advisors, I think at the full year in February or January, you were telling us that you did expect the attrition that you're seeing, but net-net, a small positive increase in advisors over the full year. Here, you've obviously seen a slight decrease in net terms, but is the expectation for a small positive increase in advisors over the full year, is that still intact? Secondly, just again circling back on net new money, now expecting slightly less than 2025. I think at full year you were expecting a slight improvement versus 2025. I just wondered how you'd characterize what's turning out differently or what's proving a bit more difficult than you were hoping.
Hi, Jeremy. Thanks for the questions. On the advisor hires, we still expect a small net positive increase for the end of the year. That remains unchanged. The only thing that sort of changed is the situation in the Middle East. Certain advanced discussions we had with RMs in that region have, for obvious reasons, stalled. Nonetheless, we're still quite confident that we'll see a small net increase by the end of the year. With respect to what's changed, well, what's changed was the slow start in the first four months of the year in terms of net new money, which makes us adjust slightly our guidance.
Thank you. Actually, just since you mentioned Middle East, how do you view the net impact of that in net new money terms? Obviously, it's a massive disruption, do you get a kind of flight to safety benefit as well from that going on?
Yeah, look, just to remind everyone, our AUM exposure to Middle East is about 11%, so it's unchanged from the end of 2025. What I would say is that the client segment that we are operating in, which is the wealthiest family, they have booked their assets offshore since a long time, Singapore and Switzerland being the most popular booking centers. We actually don't see the shift from onshore to offshore. Also to remind you, we actually don't have a booking center in the Middle East. I think what has been talked about in the press, it might be more something in the lower segments. Maybe not as much as you would have expected because, of course, these families also were focusing on their personal situations, their operating business, and other things.
I would say midterm, however, this has really highlighted the value of a stable offshore booking center. I think this was a period where people reflected again on the value of having their money in places like Switzerland with safety and stability.
That's very helpful. Thank you.
The next question comes from the line of Stefan Stalmann from Autonomous Research. Please go ahead.
Morning. Thank you very much for taking my questions and for hosting the call. My first question is going back to net new money and the de-risking effect. Are you actively exiting existing clients or existing client groups, or are you merely tightening the onboarding criteria for new clients? The second question I wanted to ask, also on net new money, you suggested, Evi, that most of the net new money is still coming from RMs on business plans. Effectively, very little net new money from the seasoned RMs. I find it a little surprising given that the new compensation system is now in place and well-supported from what you say. Why is it that there's no movement on the organic growth of the seasoned portfolios?
Hi, Stefan. Let me start with the second question. I said most of the net new money came from RMs on business case, and we're very pleased with the developments on that front, with the business case achievement rate of 68%. The split was around 70-30, so 70% from RMs on business case and 30% from existing RMs. I didn't mean to underplay the contribution of existing RMs. That being said, over the long term, we want to increase that percentage, and Stefan has talked extensively about all the initiatives underway in order to get our seasoned RMs to a place where they're very systematic contributors to our growth.
To your question around the clients, of course, we apply our group risk and compliance framework to both existing and new clients. Both are affected.
Okay. Thank you very much.
We now have a question from the line of Hubert Lam from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning. It's Hubert Lam from Bank of America. I've got two questions. Well, firstly, I'd like to thank Evie for all her hard work over the last few years. Good luck in the future. Onto the questions. Firstly, on flows. Evie, when you talked about the geographic mix and where the flows were mainly coming from, you mentioned Western Europe and Switzerland, but you did mention Asia. Can you talk about what the flows you're seeing coming from Asia and the competition you're seeing there, as a lot of the competitors have reported good inflows in the region? Second question is, if you can give us an update on progress on the Swiss IT platform, how's that coming along and timing for that in terms of progress? Thank you.
Thank you, Hubert, for the question. I start with the first one. Of course, when we talk about Asia, most people talk about the IPO boom we have seen in Hong Kong last summer. I would just remind you of how the life cycle of IPO proceeds work. Obviously, there's an IPO, then there's a lock-up that has to expire, then there's a single stock risk management transaction. The clients get cash, and then they do the deployment. Naturally, we are most interested in the fifth leg when clients actually put money to work, and we can develop a wealth management relationship and maybe universal banks that are looking for cash to finance their other banking activities like commercial banking. They're going to be a little bit earlier in that game, but I think we are very well-positioned to take advantage of that.
I would say right now, as you know, with markets at all-time high, to deploy cash particularly into the equities market, is obviously something that some clients are not keen to do, and therefore maybe we don't see the deployment happen as fast as you would have expected otherwise.
Hubert, hi. This is Evie. Thanks a lot. It's also been a pleasure to work with you over the last few years. On the IT platform project, I think what we can say is that we're making decent progress, and we're on track. I'm sure we will be updating you in coming quarters.
Thank you.
Once again, to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone. We have a follow-up question from the line of [Ben Cave-Roberts] from Goldman Sachs International. Please go ahead.
Hello there. Thanks. Just a technical follow-up on the cost-to-income ratio guidance for 2026 that we were just talking about. Not to put too fine a point on it, when you mention the 80 basis points gross margin input assumed, do you now mean for the full year or for the remainder of the year at this point? Even if you assume 80 basis points for the rest of this year, mechanically, given the four month print, that would imply a full-year run rate about 3 basis points higher, versus the 80 I think you mentioned a few months back. Of course, AUM is tracking a bit higher year-to-date. I recognize dollar-franc, as you say, is a bit weaker now than the 0.8.
Outside of that, does that mean that costs are now tracking a bit higher than what you'd expected previously, or there's just a bit of conservatism in the way you're talking about this? Thank you.
Thanks, Ben. Thanks for putting pressure on me. No, look, the 80 basis points is for a full year. I think the implication of my comments is we do expect a little bit of cost pressure coming in the second half of the year.
Okay. Thank you.
We now have a question from the line of Daniel Regli from ZKB. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thanks for having my questions. I must admit that I have missed due to technical reasons part of the Q&A, so if anything was already answered, just skip it. The first question is on net new money, and can you quantify the risk and compliance impact on the net new money number in the first four months in 2026? The second question is, do you have any comments on the ongoing FINMA enforcement and the timeline? Is there any kind of change or update on this one? Thank you.
Hi, Daniel. Good morning. We indeed actually already talked a bunch about net new money and what the impact was on the de-risking. On the question around FINMA, as we said upfront, there's no update, but we feel that we have a very constructive and proactive relationship, and I'm very hopeful that we're going to bring this to a conclusion.
Okay.
The timing, of course, as you know, is the timing of the regulator. It is not up to us to determine when that is going to happen.
Okay, you don't have any kind of indication that this will be in reasonable time, or Have you?
No, we don't. We're not going to speculate what FINMA's timeline is.
Okay. Thanks a lot.
Thank you.
For any further questions, please press star and one on your telephone. We have a follow-up question from the line of Anke Reingen from RBC. Please go ahead.
Hello. Yeah, thank you very much, and apologies for following up. I just wanted to ask about the 80 basis points for the full year. Is that your guidance for the gross margin where you think you land, or is that the input factor for your cost-to-income ratio guidance? Just on the net new money, you reiterate your high confidence on the 4%-5% in 2028. What is the key? What does give you the confidence? Thank you very much.
I'll take the first one, Anke. Thank you. It is indeed an input factor. It's not the guidance. We don't give guidance for gross margin, as you know, because we're reasonably confident about the trajectory of the recurring component of the margin. We are also reasonably comfortable with the interest-driven component of the margin, but the wild card also always is the activity-driven component. It's indeed an input factor and not a guidance.
Definitely.
Yeah. I'm happy to take your question, why we're so confident on the 2028 4%-5% net new money target. As we've talked to you before, we have many initiatives in place that we're well on track on. On the product and service capabilities, we're doubling down on strong capabilities such as discretionary mandates and structured products. We're selectively expanding other activities, namely in alternatives on the sharper client targeting. We are strengthening our key geographies and dedicate the client propositions. In terms of front enablement, I would highlight that we spend a lot of time streamlining our processes, democratizing sales management to give OREMs more time to serve clients. Everything that we're doing on the ease of doing business umbrella. There's, of course, also some benefits from AI coming in, for example, on the compliance side, determining source of wealth and other things.
I think all these initiatives are designed to accelerate our growth and really making our seasoned OREMs to deliver the organic growth. Maybe just to mention additional points on the OREM compensation. One key change we made is that we are really incentivizing people to deliver growth and deliver share of wallet. I think we have put both the infrastructure in place for our OREMs to have time to go out and find new business. At the same time, they have a financial incentive to do that.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Stefan Bollinger for any closing remarks.
Thank you all for your questions and for attending this morning. The strong performance we delivered in the first four months of the year is a further milestone in our ongoing strategic transformation. I look ahead with confidence. We have the right business model and the right strategy. Independence at scale resonates strongly with our clients. This, combined with the disciplined execution of our strategy, with a clear focus on tight risk management and organic growth, positions us well to achieve our midterm targets. We look forward to speaking to you again at our half-year results on the 21st of July. Thank you. Have a great day and have a nice weekend.
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