Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Full Year 2020 Results Conference Call and Live Webcast. I am Sandra, the Chorus 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 and A session. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast.
At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Jens Bruckner, Senior Vice President, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you very much. We are very glad that you can join us today for our full year 2020 results presentation. Unfortunately, obviously, It's via live webcast and via conference call and with no participants in the room as we already had it during last summer. But nevertheless, we're very happy to present to you this morning.
I'm joined, as usual, by Giorgio Bradley, CEO of EFG International and Dimitris Polides, CFO of EFG International. And without big comments, I would hand over to Giorgio for the introduction. Thank you.
Thank you, Jens, and good morning, everyone. Also from my side, a warm welcome to this 2020 full year results Presentation. As Jens said, it is a bit unusual to have this live webcasting From the 6 convention points here in Zurich with no one in the room. And Also, I would like to go back 2 years ago. In this very room, 2 years ago, in March 2019, we presented our 2019 2022 plan.
The plan was based on our profitable growth strategy. Today, 2 years later, we are at the midpoint of our 4 year plan, and we are very pleased to report that the strategy is Working very well. As you can see on the Slide 4, in 2020, EFG was able to grow Significantly, our business with net new asset inflows of $8,400,000,000 we actually achieved the best NNA inflow performance over the last 10 years. This growth was marked with an acceleration in profitability, And we were able to improve our IFRS net profit by 22% to CHF 115 CHF 1,000,000 Turning to the next page, Page 5. Clearly, 2020 Was also an unprecedented year, was a year marked by the coronavirus pandemic.
And I am very Proud and very pleased to report that EFG has reacted extremely well to this shock. This has been an event that has tested all of us as individuals, as professionals and as organization. And as you can see on the slide, we have demonstrated a very strong operational and financial resilience. We have switched Seamlessly, to work from home, we continue to focus on our business, on guiding our clients through these difficult and uncertain And in the meantime, we managed to improve the our liquidity and capital position, which is another sign of solidity of our bank. Overall, we are very pleased with the positive trajectory in executing our 2022 Strategic plan, we are convinced that the strategic course we charted 2 years ago is the right one.
And now it is a matter of execution and speed of execution. How this execution has translated into the 2020 Results, we will see in a minute, and I will hand over to Dimitris for the presentation of the 2020 financial performance. Dmitry, the
floor is yours. Good morning. A warm welcome from me, and I'm very pleased to report on a very solid Set of results for 2020, especially the second half. I will go in a lot of detail in that performance as we move along. So I'll take you straight to Page 8, where we have the highlights of this performance.
As Georgios said, it was the strongest NNA performance we had in the last decade with $8,400,000,000 of net new assets. This translates to an annual growth of 5 5%, which is at the higher end of the range that we have set ourselves through the financial targets. AUMs are up 3.3% At €158,800,000,000 this is because of the inflows. We had positive effect from markets, negative effect from currencies, but overall, we have a net growth. And we still continue hiring at our expected pace.
76 new CROs have been hired, signed or approved in 2020. I think what is even more important is that we are increasing the AUM per CRO. We'll come back to that point later, Which also allows us to gain on efficiency. In terms of profitability, the net IFRS profit is up 22% To $115,300,000 You'll see that the performance is also better with a step change In the second half of the year, so we had a net profit of €80,000,000 and an underlying operating profit of €120,000,000 in the second half of the year. This is mostly driven by cost efficiency measures.
Our underlying expenses are down 5% year on year. Cost to income has also improved to 82.7% for the year. But even more so, you will see that we have an acceleration of cost reduction measures in the second half of the year where we actually achieve a cost to income ratio of around 78%. Otherwise, legacy issues that we usually report, life insurance was positive with about a $15,000,000 net contribution. And going back to the capital position, it has been stable year on year with very good improvement compared to the first half.
I'll come back with some details on that. 130 basis points of organic capital generation. And on top of that, in January, we also placed €400,000,000 of Tier 1 in the market and repurchased part of our Tier 2, which further strengthens our capital position. Last but not least, dividend remains unchanged at 0.30 dollars per share as was the case last year. I'll skip pages 8 I'm sorry, Pages 910, which are the detailed financials.
And I'll go straight to Page 11. Page 11 gives you the highlights in graphic form and depicts the solid trends that we have in business development. On the top left, NNA growth, €84,000,000,000 at 5.5%. We had €5,200,000,000 the previous year, which was at 4% annual growth, so both years have been within the range. Clearly, this year have been much stronger than the previous year.
Realized significant efficiency gains at the bottom left with a minus 5% reduction In operating expenses, and on the right hand side, you'll see the impact of the bottom line. Underlying operating profit is up 14%. Actually, if you were to exclude the one off valuation gain we got from the SEKX valuation, and it's appropriate that we are here today On that, it is a 25% increase in underlying operating profit And the IFRS net profit is up 22% at €115,000,000 I will move to Page 12, Which I think is a very important page in this presentation because it gives you a very good understanding On our trajectory to achieve our 2022 targets. As you'll see on the left, We had 3 semesters starting from the first half of twenty nineteen where our underlying operating profit And by underlying operating profit is simply revenues less costs. Was it about €80,000,000 In the first half of the year, we were slightly lower because of also we had some COVID impact included in those figures.
And the cost to income ratio was roughly 85%, 87%. Now the step change we've seen in The last semester, which is the second half of twenty twenty, is that we've managed to maintain revenues at the same level. This is Because commissions have increased significantly compared to the previous year, we have an 11% increase in commissions year on year, And this has accommodated the impact we had from lower interest rates. And at the same time, we had a step change in operating expenses, Which have been reduced by €46,000,000 on a semester to semester basis, therefore, leading to an operating profit of €120,000,000 for the second half of the year and an underlying cost to income ratio of 78%, again, for the second half of the year. Moving to Page 13.
This is the standard page that we have where I explain the difference Between underlying and non underlying performance. It is the first time since the acquisition of BSI where our IFRS profit is higher And our underlying profit, but I think more importantly than that, what we have achieved is that we have achieved lower volatility In our non underlying items in the P and L, I think that gives better visibility in our progress to achieving our targets. And you'll see that life insurance has come in at about €15,000,000 of positive net contribution to profit. This is slightly higher from last year. We've actually had the best year we've had on a cash flow basis With a net cash flow of about €70,000,000 on the life insurance portfolio, there is more information on Page 43 on that topic.
The legacy legal costs and provisions are lower than what they were last year. This is also on the back of some favorable developments In a legal case that we have running in Hong Kong, an intangible amortization is fairly flat at the same level as last year. All in all, this is what also helps us record an increase in net profit of 22% on a year on year basis. On Page 14, you'll see a breakdown of the evolution of AUM, €8,400,000,000 of net new assets, positive €4,800,000,000 from the revaluation due to market movements, Clearly, a negative impact from the strengthening of the Swissy against other currencies of minus €7,000,000 which lead us to 158 €800,000,000 of assets under management, and I'm glad to say that this figure is also trending upwards in already in 2021. On the right hand side, we have the breakdown between the levers we have that we can use to increase our business.
So if you remember back in 2019, what we said was that before The strategic plan was presented. We had only one lever, which was our existing CROs, which is the top part on the right hand side chart. But we also wanted to introduce new CROs and new locations, new business initiatives. And I'm very glad To report that you will see that the balanced growth is coming from all three areas, this has been the case in 2019. This is Also the case in 2020, and we are looking forward to our continued contribution from all three streams in our future business development.
On Page 15, we have the breakdown of the business by region. Clearly, Switzerland is and has been our biggest region. In terms of growth, You should note that we have 2 regions which have been growing faster than the others, one being Continental Europe and Middle East and the other being U. K. U.
K. Has always been driving growth in EFG in the last few years, always posting growth rates which are Higher than 5%, so they have been between 5% 10% in the last few years. Continental Europe and Middle East is supported by New locations both in Dubai and in Portugal. We're very glad to see Switzerland and Italy posting a positive growth of about 2%. Clearly, we need to have that region performing strongly because it is the biggest region.
And in the past, It was not performing as strongly as now, but it has recovered, and it has recovered faster than what we were expecting when we presented in this very room 2 years ago. Asia Pacific had a bit of a setback because of deleveraging in the beginning of the year Due to the coronavirus pandemic and clients going risk off, but it has managed to recover strongly in the second half of the year. And last but not least, We had a very strong contribution from our EFCAM funds, dollars 2,400,000,000 of net new assets, which is an exceptional year. And this is also a testament to the quality of the offering we have, both to our private banking, but also to our institutional clients. On Page 16, again, along the same lines or along the same theme, You see that we are increasing our penetration of advisory discretionary and funds as a portion as a percentage of our AUM High quality service offering and Giorgio will touch upon that topic later on in his presentation.
We had a very solid performance both in our FCOM funds and our discretionary portfolios. And the name of the game for us is more digitalization, Becoming more automated in our offering, coming closer to the client through digital solutions. Clearly, the COVID pandemic has allowed us To accelerate on these, the target is for 60% by end of 2022, And we are trying to accelerate that achievement already in 2021. And in terms of developments, The 2 pronged strategy that we have is on one side, increase the functionality So that we come closer to the clients and at the same time increasing our offering so that we can cater for all our clients' needs. Last but not least, ESG, we have our own proprietary platform.
We have been building it for the last 10 years. So ESG is now Embedded in the investment process, and I think this is part of where the world is moving. And we are very happy to be moving in line with other banks on that front. Page 17 on CRO performance. You'll see that the hiring in 2020 has been more in line With what we were expecting 2 years ago, clearly, we had an exceptional year in 2019 because we had a lot of opportunities Coming up to hire good CROs, good CRO teams across the world, plus we are setting up some new locations.
We have hired, signed or approved 76 new CROs during the course of 2020. At the same time, there's been a lot of performance management To our existing CRO base, on a net basis, CROs have decreased by 62. I exclude Shawn Partners, which A new acquisition that we made in 2019 from those figures. But going again back, for us, What is very important is to increase the performance of the CROs and this is both on AUM per CRO basis, so we need To move to higher volume CROs and at the same time manage clearly the margin generated by those CROs, You will see from the bottom right chart that over the course of the last 5 years, we've managed to increase our average AUM per CRO by about 50%. And now it stands at about €270,000,000 of AUM per CRO.
On Page 18, you'll see the Move on the revenues, the development of revenues. Overall, revenues have been down 2% year on year. If we were to exclude the one off benefit from the valuation of the 6 stocks that we hold In 2019, it's practically flat. I think what is more interesting is to see the dynamics of this performance and we've tried to capture the dynamics of this In the top right chart, it has been clearly a year where a lot of things have been changing. You will notice that although we started the year with 79 basis points of margin, We estimate that the impact of COVID has been to shave 7 basis points of income.
To put it into perspective, this is about $100,000,000 a year, which is about 10% of our revenue base. And this is Almost exclusively on the back of lower interest rates, primarily on the dollar. What I'm very pleased to also present is that despite that impact, we've had actions taken by the bank To improve the margins by 4 basis points at the same time and this is about business development, it's about the repricing And it's about this bank being agile to deal with the headwinds that we have been facing from lower interest rates. And this is how we got to the 75 basis points for the full year 2020. How did we manage and what were the actions for us to improve?
It was about re pricing tariffs, re pricing services offered to the client. It's about Higher penetration of higher value products. We're talking about more structured products. We're talking about more mandates, more discretionary, more advisory. And we also had some strong client activity in 2020, and we're seeing also strong client activity continuing in 2021.
Now what is our expectation going forward? The 75 basis points That you see here as the average margin for 2020 comes in as 76 basis points in the first half of the year And 74 basis points in the second half of the year. I would say that most of the negative impact from lower interest rates Has already hit the P and L in the second half. There might be a little bit coming in, in 2021. But at the same time, All the repricing actions that we have been taking in 2020 have also not printed in the P and L.
And I do expect that By having the positive carryover effect from the repricing actions already taken, But also from other actions that we are starting to take in 2021, we'll manage to be able to say That the positives outweigh the negatives, so we are optimistic about our revenue evolution going forward, also supported by our overall growth momentum. Just to note that the commission income has been the driver in the recovery. Commission income has increased 11% year on year and also it has increased from 41 to 44 basis points. Now It accounts for 59% of the overall revenue base. It used to be 52% the previous year.
And this speaks to a higher quality and a larger or more important sustainability of the revenues going forward. On the following page, on Page 19, you'll see the evolution of the costs. Costs are down 5% year on year. I would say that for the people that have been following this bank over the last few years, this should not come as a surprise. We have been very tight in managing costs Since the acquisition of BSI, on a comparable basis, the reduction in cost has been more than 30% of the combined cost base when EFG and BSI joined forces.
And we're very glad to see that All these efforts are also printing in the P and L, especially in the second half of twenty twenty. So on the top right of Page 19, you'll see the performance by semester. You'll see that clearly we've managed to drop costs even more in the last semester and we've managed to have a cost to income ratio Of 78% for that semester. Question clearly is, what did we do to manage to achieve that result? So again, looking on a semester basis, what you'll notice is that the good performance comes from both the admin It's not just one line contributing.
On the admin costs, the efforts started Some time ago, you will see that the better performance in admin costs is not just the second half element. It is also something that had already come in the first half of the year. And this is about lowering third party fees, lowering consulting expenses, Lowering some of the other expenses are being tighter on the day to day management. On the personnel front, Again, it's not a single line impact. If you look at the underlyings, we've managed to reduce FTEs, we've managed to reduce fixed salaries, There is a reduction in incentives both to CROs and to non CROs.
Recruitment costs are down because obviously We've recruited about half the people that we recruited the previous year. So again, it is a concerted effort across the lines To reach that very good result in the second half of the year. I would say that this performance in the second half Comes as a very strong reaction from EFG to the risks that we saw materializing because of COVID. Clearly, there was a lot of uncertainty in the early part of the year in terms of how the P and L would evolve. So being very tight on the cost side was very important.
Does that mean that we can run at this level If you annualize the second half of the year, we're talking about roughly €880,000,000 of costs. My answer would be not exactly, because we need to invest for growth. Now we are running better than our average For 2019, and clearly, we are running higher than simply annualized in second half. So the truth It's somewhere in the middle between those two numbers. Having said that, there are 2 very big projects that we are running, Which have not hit the P and L.
One is what we call the FastNet project, which is about optimizing our 8 core booking centers. And the second one is the footprint project, which is about reducing our international footprint presence to make sure that we are more efficient and effective in the way that we deliver our services. You will see at the bottom right Of the page that we've clearly announced some actions. So we've announced the sale of our Ticino affluent business. We have announced the disposal of our Chile business and our Udar business in Paris.
And we've also announced that we have restructured Our Guernsey business and today we're also announcing that we are restructuring our fund management business Through a sale of a management company that we hold in Luxembourg. Just to note that the impact in the P and L From all these actions has not printed yet because not they have not closed yet. We're still waiting for some regulatory approvals And we still have some actions to close. So there's more to come in terms of cost management out of the footprint project. On Page 20, we have the balance sheet.
The balance sheet has not Moved substantially from the last time that we spoke. Most of the changes are also or some of the changes are due to currency movements. So you see a drop in loans. Actually, we have been generating net new loans Throughout the year, but the valuations have gone against us. Deposits are roughly flat compared to last year.
Overall, liquidity has improved. We're looking at a loan to deposit ratio of 52% and a liquidity covered ratio of 188%. The LCR was 182% at the end of 2019. So overall liquidity is improving. So we do not foresee any restrictions from a balance sheet perspective in terms of growing the business.
Same for capital, which is On the following page, you'll see that capital ratios are pretty much stable compared to last year. Actually, capital ratios have increased about 90 basis points compared to June 2020. So a strong rebound mostly or exclusively on our organic capital generation in the second half of the year. And over and above that, as I mentioned earlier, in January 2021, we issued 400,000,000 dollars of 81 instruments and we repurchased about $200,000,000 of our Tier 2. This was a proactive action because our Tier 2 instrument reaches its first call date in early 2022 And markets were very supportive in the end of last year and early this year for us to go ahead.
So we moved swiftly to execute And place the 81 in the market. Leverage ratio is at 4.7% at year end 2020. And just to reiterate, dividend remains unchanged from last year at €0.30 per share. On Page 22, you see the underlying capital generation. We created 130 basis points of organic capital through our underlying profitability.
Risk weighted assets actually went down, which gives us another 20 basis points in the core Tier 1 capital ratio. And we've used 90 basis points for the dividend distribution. So on a net basis, we are generating Organic capital. And otherwise, during the course of the year, we had some change of rules with the introduction of the SA CCR, Small negative impact from non underlying P and L and also 10 basis points because we increased our participation in our Australian subsidiary going for 51% to 61%. Now taking into account The issuance of the Tier 1, you'll see on the right hand side where we are overall on a pro form a basis, 16.2% core Tier 1, 3.7 percent additional Tier 1.
So our overall Tier 1 ratio is about 20% on a pro form a basis. And our total capital ratio is at 21.6%, again on a pro form a basis. Now as Georgios said, and I'm looking at Page 23, we have reached the midpoint of our journey To get to our 2022 results, I'm very pleased to report that the actions that we had Set ourselves to execute on which are on the in the left hand blocks of the 2019, 2020 actions have been achieved. I think that we've actually moved and we've managed To start executing on some of the actions that we had in mind for 2021 2022 already in 2020. To some extent, the impact of COVID has been for us to accelerate on some of this action, especially When it comes to cost management and you've seen the good results already in the second half of twenty twenty.
Clearly, we were not expecting dollar rates to be as low as they are, and we didn't expect the Swissy to appreciate Versus other currencies as much as it did. So we had to introduce re pricing actions, which we have. There is more to come, as I said. But overall, I believe that the performance of the plan in the 1st 2 years has been very solid, And we're looking forward to the next 2 years in order to achieve our financial targets. Finally, on Page 24, we've put together the 4 financial targets That we are tracking.
As I said earlier, we are halfway through our journey. It's a good time to stop And look at the performance and figure out whether you are on track or not. Overall, we are on a positive trajectory To achieve our targets, clearly, the key target is for us to improve our bottom line profitability. Perhaps the mix of how we get there will be different from what we had in mind When we were presenting in this very room 2 years ago, clearly, we're not expecting a pandemic that would lead to very low interest rates. So we had to adjust.
But the performance that you see to date and the performance is very strong Clearly, on the net new asset growth, it's very strong in delivering costs. And I'm pleased to say that we posted A double digit return on tangible equity in the second half of the year. All these results are on the back of a very concrete action plan, Which we are executing, and I'm optimistic that with this action plan and My expectations of how this action plan is going to be delivered in the next 2 years, I'm optimistic that we will manage to reach The end result that we have in mind for our overall targets in 2022. On that note, I'd like to thank you very much, and I'll pass it back to Georgio for the closing.
Thank you. Thank you, Dimitris. And let us now focus on the outlook and the strategic priorities for 2021 And beyond. But before doing that, on Page 26, I would like to put the performance that Dimitris so eloquently in 2020 in the context of what we have done over the last few years. And as you can see on the left hand side, all the key Performance indicators are pointing in the right direction.
If we talk about growth, if we talk about size, If we talk about profitability or if we talk about efficiency, we believe that in the last Few years, we have strengthened our competitive market position as one of the leading Swiss private banks. We have leveraged Our distinctive business model and as Dimitry said, we have improved our capital and liquidity position. Last but not least, we have strong teams across geographies and functions. We have very committed employees They have demonstrated their commitment during 2020, and we have an experienced top management Team, so all in all, we believe that we are well positioned to drive our strategy for profitable and sustainable growth. Now for 2021, if we move to Page 27, we want to focus on 3 strategic areas.
We want to focus obviously on clients. If we have a growth strategy, we must focus on clients, On acquiring new clients, on servicing better our existing clients, we need to deliver and produce better content to our clients, and we need to have simplicity driving across the board. Let us start on Page 28 with clients. Clients are obviously at the heart of everything we do, and not only for the client relationship officers, but across the organization. And obviously, we are dealing with very sophisticated clients in Private Banking Asset Management, and obviously, superior service remains key.
I am convinced that our experienced client relationship officers are second to none in the industry in servicing Our clients and satisfying their financial needs. What is also very important And we have seen, especially in 2020, is that this expertise and this independent and impartial advice that we can deliver It's particularly appealing for the ultrahigh net worth individuals. These are clients that we define have more than CHF 30,000,000 Swiss francs or dollars with us that typically have more than 100,000,000 investable assets at their disposal. And actually, they already account for more than onethree of the total AUM and about half of the NNA in 2020. We want to improve our service model for these sophisticated clients and also our offering and this will be a key focus for 2021 and beyond.
Moving on, on Page 29. As I said, Service remains in our industry key, remains the condition in Equinon to do business, but is not sufficient. We need also to deliver And to improve in the content we deliver and to our clients, as we already mentioned, We have comprehensive first class investments in wealth and credit solutions. We focus on an open architecture. But having said that, as Dimitris alluded to, we had in 2020 a very strong performance across our flagship products.
Our Eskom funds for the first time ever, they passed the mark of CHF 10,000,000,000 In terms of assets under management and the growth was driven mainly by institutional investor, which is a clear sign that the quality Of our performance and of our products is at the top level. Now obviously, everybody talks about ESG. ESG has become mainstream and obviously, the ESG criteria are embedded in our investment process. Going to Page 30, simplicity drives everything we do. And simplicity, if you want, in other words, we need to eliminate complexity Across the board, we need to have more simplicity when we deal with clients.
We need to have a better connectivity. Now here, as I said, our CROs are second to none in servicing clients, but we believe that technology can enable them even more to be close to our clients. We want to obviously improve The client experience and ensure that the connectivity between clients and the firm is the best possible in the industry. Now obviously, we need to improve further our efficiency. There is no doubt about that.
We need to We have done a lot of already progress in this respect, as Dimitris mentioned, but we believe that we can continue to improve. Efficiency technology can help you again. The beauty of the new technologies is that you can combine Economies of scale with economies of flexibility and also we believe that we can further centralize and harmonize processes And streamline our operating models across geographies. I think that if there is one area where COVID has helped, is probably in this area because obviously today to talk about virtual team is obvious, everybody He's working from home and the location where somebody is working doesn't matter and this allows to eliminate Silos that obviously create inefficiencies. Now the we want to continue to rationalize our Footprint, we need also here to reduce complexity.
Going forward, we believe that 8 Offshore booking centers are sufficient for our business. We are consequently, as Dimitris alluded to, closing down or Selling the centers that are not strategic or where the critical mass is not there. And clearly, we want to increase the operating leverage in the core booking center. Having said that, for us client proximity is key. And therefore, as you know, the new offices that we have set up are advisory offices, marketing offices, and this is very important to service to our clients.
So in closing and looking on Page 31 about our outlook, What do we see? We see that global markets are supportive. In following markets of More than 30 years is probably the first time that I see a concerted and synchronized expansionary policy both in fiscal And monetary terms for all the macro regions in the world. Clearly, this is supportive for equity markets. We see also a reflation in terms of the interest rates.
This is clearly for us very positive because obviously If interest rates gradually go up, this will improve our margins and our revenues and ultimately our profitability. We have seen in the 1st weeks of the year a strong level of client activity. Q4 was very strong. In general, the second half It was very good. And this strong client activity continued in January February, which is, I would say, quite unusual.
Very often, We have quite a slow start in the year. And also, as you know, we have put in place a very sophisticated Pipeline process and we see we continue to see a very promising NNA pipeline. So in this context, our Key priorities are very simple. We need to maintain our growth momentum. We know how to do it.
We have done it. We have done it now consistently over 2 years. We need to maintain this momentum. We need to focus on high value solutions and increase mandate penetration. This is important, obviously, Because as I said earlier, we need to deliver better content and better ideas, better solutions to our clients and this is also very important for our To improve our margins, I believe that we have room to improve our margins.
You have seen that despite the shock that we had in the first half of the year, in particular with the COVID impact, we were able to improve 4 basis points our margins in 20 2020. And finally, we need to continue to improve our operational efficiency, as I said earlier, and ultimately, to increase Profitability. As I mentioned, we are very pleased on the positive trajectory that we have to achieve our 2022 targets. Now is only a matter of execution and speed of execution, and I believe that in the last 2 years, we have demonstrated that we have when we have a clear plan, We can execute it. Now I pause here and I hand over the floor back to Jens for the Q and A session.
Thank you, Giorgio, and thank you, Dimitris, for your presentations this morning. As usual, we will now move on to take Questions as we obviously have only questions from the phone and not from the room. We obviously take the first question from the phone, please. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. The first question comes from Nicolas Hermann from Citigroup. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good morning, gentlemen. Thanks for taking my questions. Well done on a good set of results this morning. Two questions From my side or 2 broad questions, I should say, although each puts on the subset of individual questions, broadly on cost And on net interest income.
So on costs, it looks like your 4Q costs were somewhere in the range of €215,000,000 to €220,000,000 in Q4. So that's with a run rate of somewhere in the range of 8 £60,000,000 to £880,000,000 run rate. Is this a good base to go from, please? And as part of that, I think Dimitra said that there are still a lot of initiatives, actions that you've taken that are not yet in the P and L. Clearly, you announced a 10% Gross cost savings at the first half results, just what proportion of that is still to come through?
And I guess just as finally on cost, if I look at consensus, it looks like consensus 2022 costs are, I think, in the range underlying costs are somewhere in the range of 970,000,000 Is it fair to assume that this is just too high? So that's the first three questions on costs. The other question on net interest income, please. I think at the first half, you guided to an exit net interest margin, including swap income That was about 10% below the first half average. The pure NII component fell in the second half by 20% As a percentage of AUM, I guess, how did the NII and SWAP overall Compared to the first half.
And can you give us please a 2H20 exit NIM? And then just finally, apologies, I don't know, there are a few questions here. On the lending side, I mean, NII was also impacted By lower lending, I was a little surprised to see loan volumes fall in the second half Despite greater risk appetite and rising markets, I presume this is due to your repricing initiatives. I guess, I'll also make your net new money even more impressive. But how much of the can you kind of quantify, please, the loan outflows that you saw from repricing?
And how much there might still be potentially to go? Thank you very much.
Good morning, Erik. Let me take your questions 1 by 1. The first point that you have on costs. I think the way that you should look at it Is that in the if you annualize the second half of the year, as you rightly said, the figure is 880,000,000 of annual operating expenses. As I said earlier, this $880,000,000 is or this Low figure of $880,000,000 is because we took some very stringent cost management actions when COVID appeared because we were not certain about the extent of the impact and the timing of the impact.
Now in reality, what we expect as our, call it, a normalized cost base today, The truth is somewhere in the middle between the $925,000,000 that we posted for the full year of 2020 And the $880,000,000 which is the annualized second half. So we need to invest to grow. We were Keeping costs very, very tight because of COVID. At this point, we're seeing the revenue pressure bottoming out, And obviously, we are growing. So I do expect that our starting point for 2021 It's going to be sort of in the middle of the range.
Now I think there are 2 other elements when you look at it going forward. The more simple element is that as we increase revenues, we have some costs that we will increase In tandem, to give you an example, compensation for CROs and non CROs would, To some extent, move in tandem because we do have a formulaic model for our CROs. So growth will lead to cost increases. Now the 2 other elements that we are taking into account for cost efficiency is the simplification On our 8 core booking centers and also footprint actions. When we Communicated these figures, we said that each one was about 5% of operating expenses based on 2019 figures.
I think that some of the Fasten simplification, which is on the 8 offshore booking centers, It's already printing in the P and L already. We haven't seen any impact from footprint because the actions that we have announced Have not hit the P and L yet. Clearly, from footprint, there is also in some cases, if you sell something, there There's a loss of revenue also associated with that sale. But going back to whether The $970,000,000 which is the consensus for 2022 is high or not. I think that it will all largely depend On revenue performance, I think that the starting base, as I said, today is somewhere between €925,000,000 €880,000,000 of annual operating expenses with some actions already there to further reduce operating expenses.
Now on your second question about NII And why it dropped so much in the second half? I think the way you should view it is a combination of net interest income and net other income Because of the way that we account for swaps, there was more transfer between net other income to NII In the first half of the year than was in the second half of the year, if you compare the performance in net other income in the second half of the year, you'll see that was stronger compared to the first half In the second half of the year, you'll see that it was stronger compared to the first half of the year. I think the way you should view it overall is Our overall margin at the second half was 74 basis points. The continued Pressure from lower interest rates has been largely absorbed in the second half of the year, A little bit remaining probably for us to experience in 2021, but clearly, The repricing actions that we have already taken and we're also there are other actions that we're taking in 2021 We're planning to take in 2021 overall have an effect a positive effect that Should outweigh the negative impact from lower interest rates.
Now we can't debate the exact timing. Is it going to be first half, second half, Q1, Q2 of 2021, that is something that we need to see. But overall, I'm optimistic that the positives We'll outweigh the negatives on the margin evolution. Finally, on your points On the lower lending in the second half, actually, the reason you see lower loan balances is not because we've lost balances because of repricing. It's simply because of the currency conversion.
We actually this year, we generated About €700,000,000 to €800,000,000 of net new loans. So despite a drop of about close to €1,000,000,000 Year on year, on the face of the balance sheet, this is actually an increase in net new loans, less any currency impact That we're seeing printing on the balance sheet.
Having said that maybe on the lending side, Nick, I think It is clear that in the last couple of years, the lending has grown slower Than the rest of the NNAs. And for us, this is obviously very positive Because obviously demonstrates that we can grow without using the lever of the lending Too much. We had, as you know, a lot of deleveraging, in particular, in Asia. And this is an opportunity going forward, obviously, Because obviously our balance sheet is very solid and liquid at the same time and therefore will allow us to if There are the market conditions and obviously if the clients are the right clients and the right margins to use also this Growth lever to further grow.
Thank you very much for the answers. If I could just have two quick follow ups, please. On the lending side, Yes, I take your point about that. It is positive. It's good to see that you're growing without leverage.
It's just interesting to see the difference versus your peers, Particularly the larger peers, which are now being a lot more aggressive on lending growth. The second point I just wanted to make is on costs. If we take that midpoint of the range, Dimitris, that you mentioned, say €900,000,000 to round up for the sake of arguments. You said that footprint has not yet in the P and L. Some of FastNet is.
So I don't know, let's take something more than 5%, but less than 10%, let's say 6% or 7% Of 2019 costs, that looks something in the range, therefore, of gross takeout of €50,000,000,000 60 plus 1,000,000 So therefore, pro form a would be €840,000,000 of costs. I don't know what level of inflation You're assuming that €970,000,000 would clearly be So a 15% growth rate on that 8.40%. I was just curious in terms of what you see therefore as A normalized cost growth rate, please, on a per annum basis. Is it 5%, 6%? Thank you.
I think and rightly so, the expectation that the analyst community is putting out Cannot accommodate or cannot incorporate what plans we have on footprint Because these are very specific transactions that we're talking about, and we can only disclose them if and when they happen. So I think the figures that are being produced pretty much ignore The footprint element. So the figures that are there only incorporate the incremental, let's say, fast net or Optimization elements. So I would say that clearly, as you say, we have some way to go on the costs, And we hope to get to the figures that you are quoting. Just to mention clearly that if we do a sizable footprint Action that will probably also come with some reduction in revenues.
So you need to take them in tandem. I would say, though, overall, the our aspiration would be to optimize our operating leverage at this point. So our view is let's try to increase revenues the best way we can and hold costs pretty much Stable, let's say, while we're growing at the at our Aspire levels. So I think this is the way we view our business development. We have core booking centers which are efficient and can take more load and more business without No, incrementally high increases in the cost base.
So the only additional cost we would need to suffer Would be or to carry would be the real variable cost from this new business, be it incentives, being it some incremental investments. So I think the way you should view it is one element is whatever happens in footprint, which will move the bar both in costs and probably in revenues. And the second part is operating leverage driving the revenues without adding any substantial amount of cost going forward.
Very helpful. Thank you.
The next question comes from Andreas Venditti from Vontobel. Please go ahead.
Yes, thank you, and good morning from my side as well. Apologize to come back to the footprint question. Just as an understanding, Is my thinking right that I assume you to sell or close locations which are probably not Extremely profitable and therefore, obviously, revenues might come down close Towards the costs will come down as well? Or is this thinking wrong? Then on the NII, thank you for the Maybe just a follow-up there in terms of what we've seen in terms of seeping of U.
S. Dollar curve And long rates going up, maybe you can talk about sensitivity and timing of the impact On your P and L. Next one maybe on ESG. You mentioned the investment side. I would be interested also on the corporate side, what you're doing there in Also on the corporate side, what you're doing there in terms of ESG?
And finally, just a detail on the tax rate, maybe Dimitris
Yes. So let me take your first question about footprint. And I think you're right, Andreas. We have a very specific set of parameters that we use when we think about the our businesses which Could come into the footprint sphere. So these are businesses which are either Small, so by default, they cannot be very efficient.
Or they are low growth. They have low return on assets under management. They have high cost to income ratios. So these are all the businesses which do not contribute materially in the overall profitability of EFG, but still they consume resources and obviously they consume our attention instead of focusing On the booking centers, which have the potential to produce a lot more incremental profits. So in that respect, if you look at the ones that we have announced, Clearly, the affluent business in Ticino is a small business.
It's a €1,200,000,000 business that we're talking about in terms of AUM For us, and it's outside our core sphere of private banking, Chile was a very small operation. Udar is about $1,500,000,000 again, breakeven business, slightly, slightly So in other jurisdiction, which clearly is also Attracts some attention from management overall. And then Guernsey was a booking center, Which was there for historical reasons. We don't really need a booking center in Guernsey. That's the reason we are moving all the business to other booking centers.
And this is part of focusing on the 8 offshore booking center strategy that we have. And also, like the same principles apply to the choice we made for the Luxembourg Management Company, which we are announcing today. So yes, all of them like or some of them, especially the sales, come with some loss of revenue. But overall, the profitability impact from all these That we have announced is small and it's a matter of reducing complexity I'm making sure that we focus on the areas where we can improve efficiency and deliver large amounts And I'll take the last one on the tax rate as well just to get it out of the way. The effective tax rate that we have this year is close to 20%.
It is at the higher end Of our expectations, which was between 15% 20%, I think we have room to Optimize our taxes more than we have today. So we'll still keep the guidance of a range of 15% To 20% of the pretax underlying profit, and we will make sure that we are More efficient in the way that we work on taxes going forward.
On the steepening or the U. S. Dollar, let's say, potential movements, As I said, obviously, we see some reflation. This is clear. This is overall positive for the banking industry.
This is obviously positive for us. Now to be fair, simply a steepening would not have yes, you can do a bit more But they will not really have a major impact. What we need is we are if you look at our tenure of how we invest the money, It's more short term. So for us, what is very important is that the 2 to 5 year increases in terms Of the curve, now if you want to have some sensitivity, just maybe a couple of data points, we have over $20,000,000,000 of non interest bearing deposits, say that about half is in dollars. If you assume, I don't know, 100 basis points increase of the curve, you can do the math and you will see that basically we will be able We'll recover the basis points that we lost during COVID.
Now nobody knows how fast This curve will move up. What is the shape? Hopefully, it will be gradual to avoid to spook the markets, But you know these things better than I do. Clearly, for us, a inflation or an increase of the curve, especially in the Short end would be very important for our margin and our profitability. On the ESG, you are right that clearly we are much more advanced on our investing Process and proposition on the corporate side, we are on a catch up mode, but we are doing it quickly.
And clearly, as you know, there are Several regulatory deadlines very quickly and this is something that obviously we have taken it extremely seriously And I believe it's also an area that is very fascinating for the overall industry and for Yes, in particular.
Thank you very much.
The next question comes from Daniel Raley from Octavian. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thank you for Thank you for taking my questions and congrats to the good results you have achieved. I have maybe 2 questions or let's say 2 clusters of questions. First, Some follow ups on the questions around the costs. Can you give us some kind of a timeline when you expect these Measures which are still outstanding, in particular with regards to footprint and booking center optimization, when you expect them to be realized?
And then maybe secondly, can you remind me or give me again Some explanations on what exactly led to the, let's say, strong drop in costs, let's say, H2 versus H1. Was this a concerted, yes, realizing of several measures you have taken earlier? What was driving this significant H1, H2 drop in costs? And maybe also Do you expect some costs to come back, which were unnaturally low in 2020 because of the COVID situation, e. G, Reduced Traveling.
And then my second cluster of questions would be around Gross margins and the relation to net new money growth, I mean, as I see you explained a lot about net interest income and being the drop in gross margins we have seen there being related to Drops in U. S. Dollar rates, but I wonder what is your policy on the liability side, particularly with regards to deposits In how far are you passing on negative interest rates to your clients? And in how far are you willing to grant, let's say, Higher deposit rates to get to the net new money growth rates you have achieved, obviously, they are considerable. But I'm just wondering what are the dynamics there.
It just strikes me a bit odd that you're One of the only wealth managers I follow which saw lower gross margins in 2020 versus 2019. Thanks.
So let me start with the costs. In terms of timing of the actions, I would expect that the footprint Actions. So the disposals or the restructuring that we had, you will see them printing mostly in the first half of 2021. There might be a little bit going into the second half, but most of these actions will print in the first half of twenty twenty one, especially as we expect some regulatory approvals to be received during the 1st months of this year. And at that point, we will be allowed to book The transaction on our accounts.
Now there may be more actions coming up. We will announce as they are Agreed in a binding way and then we can also start discussing about the impact of those actions as we move along. On the Fastned side, The impact on the P and L is more gradual because it's a series of actions that come into play. Some of them have already Been included in the P and L and are part of the cost reduction that you've already seen in 2020. The framework and the time that we have overall For Fastenet is that all actions need to be concluded by year end 2021.
Clearly, that doesn't mean that we will get the full benefits in the P and L in 2021, but we're trying to accelerate as much as possible. So we record as much In the course of the year, there's going to be some carryover positive effect coming in the in 2022 as well because of these FastNet actions. To your second part of the question on costs about what drove In the second half, you'll see that most of the improvement in the second half of the year is in the personnel line. And again, it is not one specific element that is coming in. We've seen a reduction in fixed salaries.
We've seen a reduction in incentive payments, both for the frontline but also for support functions. We've seen lower recruiting costs in the second half compared to the first half. So it is I would say that the performance in the second half is clearly The printing in the P and L of a very stringent cost management reaction to COVID, which we had to take Because we were uncertain about the overall impact in the P and L of COVID. Now As I said also earlier, it is not sustainable at these levels. We need to invest because we are in a growth mode and we don't want to Stifle our growth.
So some of these costs might be coming back. And going back to Nick's question, I think the sustainable level of costs Where we are today is not at the second half run rate. It's somewhere between the $925,000,000 that we posted for the year and the annualized Run rate for the second half, which is 8.80, like the truth is somewhere in the middle. Some of these costs, as you say, will be coming back, like travel and entertainment It's one of the costs that was reduced throughout the year. It will definitely come back.
It will not come back at the same levels that we had back in 2019, let's say, because I think that the way that we work will be changing. And people have realized that some of the travel was probably unnecessary and Some of the interactions can be handled by video conferencing or telephone. But clearly, we need And we wish to increase the interaction of our clients. So on that aspect of interaction with clients, We are willing to invest and that will increase slightly the costs. So it's many drivers working at the same time.
We have many plans on the costs. So hopefully, you will have more clarity next time we report in terms of where we are on Now the second point, the second question was about Sort of the combination of return on assets or margin and growth, I don't agree with the assessment that we are growing because we are offering High deposit rates, this is not what we're doing. Actually, at the end of the year, we started introducing negative interest rates, Both to our Swiss accounts and to our euro accounts, clearly, we have some thresholds. So it's not for the small accounts. It has threshold of €1,000,000 or €2,000,000 depending on the currency and we charge Either 40 or 75 basis points depending on the currency again on the negative interest rates.
Actually, if you look at our annual report, The impact from negative interest rates in 2020 was about €25,000,000 for the year. That is Compared to €36,000,000 in 2019, if I'm not mistaken. So there's a lower impact from negative interest rates In 2020 versus 2019. So it's Our growth is not driven by deposits. Our growth is clearly driven by getting net assets, managed assets in for the clients.
That being said, in general, the way it works is the when you first get the assets in for a client, The return on assets that you make at least in the 1st months of that relationship is lower than what you're targeting because The CRO and the investment solutions team needs to work on the needs of the client and offer the high value product, Offer the right solution and usually that comes with an increase in margin for those specific clients. So I think what is happening is you have the acquisition of your new clients, which is coming in at lower margins. But at the same time, you have the clients that you probably acquired the year before and those clients are increasing Their return on assets as we move throughout the year. So it's, again, a combination of things in terms of how you manage the onboarding of clients.
Maybe to add on this, if you look at Page 40, where you see the breakdown of our assets under management, you actually see That cash and deposits as a percentage of total AUM is going down from 23% to 22% like bonds. And actually, the asset class that is increasing by 2 percentage points is equities. So obviously, There is no impact of what you alluded to that because of rates, we increased deposits. As you can see in percentage, the deposits went down. I think what is important to say on page 18, We improved by 11% our net commission income.
And as you can see on the right hand side on Page 18 at the top, Obviously, our repricing and business development actions have increased overall 4 basis points. Yes, we had an impact of 7 basis points. So this is why net net we had a reduction. Now obviously compared to other Banks, we don't have trading activities like others have. And so maybe this might be the difference.
But as you can see, the business It's growing on the let's say, in the investment side, we are becoming much more investment led And actually, the dependency on deposits and loans is lower than in previous years.
Okay. If I may follow-up on these repricing actions, can you give me some examples or Where exactly you're focusing when re pricing your mandates or your client relationships in general? And then secondly, again, a follow-up on the costs. You said also previously that you have reduced your fixed salaries. In how far do you fear to lose people because of this?
So let me take maybe the first one in terms of the repricing, what areas do we focus on? Well, the repricing is across the board, but clearly the best way To improve our overall margin is to focus much more on the sophisticated and high value services that we can provide to our clients. So to improve the share towards high margin, high value added versus commodity business, This is why, as you have on Page 16, we have a target to increase our mandate penetration to 60%. We are at about 50 now and we have a clear plan to increase in the next 2 years significantly These services, we are also looking across the board at the various Products and there are pockets of pricing that is below, Let's say what we believe it is fair. And despite the big talk in the industry of margin compression, I believe that there are certain areas where especially in the high value added products where actually the industry has a pricing power And obviously, we focus on those areas.
So it is a lot has to do also with the restyling of the offering and new solutions and new idea. This is why, as you saw in my presentation, I focus very much on content Because clearly, this is critical. Obviously, in the next years, I would say that we will transform. We have been transforming. We'll transform even more the company into being investment led And this is where we can drive our growth in margins.
On your second question on the fixed salaries, We are not reducing fixed salaries on a per person basis. The reason the fixed salary expense It's down is because we have been reducing our the number of our personnel throughout 2018, 2019 2020. So it's not that we are we're not reducing fixed salaries to for individuals clearly. It's just a matter of reducing the staff figures.
Okay. Very clear. Thanks a lot for the explanations.
The next question comes from Michael Koons from Tushnet Cantal Bank. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good morning and thank you very much for the presentation. I have 4 questions and I Try to be short and precise. First one, Page 37 of the presentation, the provisioning line. I guess in the first half year, they include this Italian tax case of close to €10,000,000 What exactly did you provide for in the second half?
Then the second question relates to the life insurance portfolio. Despite certain death It seems the insurance premium is permanently creeping up. Am I right with that impression? 3rd question, you mentioned share buybacks, special dividends, etcetera. Could you be please a bit more specific about what and when maybe?
And the last question is regarding the CRO number. If my math is correct, you had 138 Old CROs leaving the company, which almost looks like you have become a trading platform for CROs. And given this high turnover, are you not worried about the loyalty of some CROs that are with you longer now? And how do you try to make sure that you only lose those who you want to lose? Thanks.
So starting with your first question about provisioning. You are right. In the first half of the year, we had provisions of $15,700,000 which The 10,000,000 for the Italian tax. The figure for the second half of the year is 14,300,000 That includes about $10,000,000 or roughly $10,000,000 of provisions for restructuring. This is restructuring of people who are made redundant.
So it's not legal provisions or anything of that sort. Simply that some of the accounting for restructuring provisions goes for restructuring costs goes into the provisions line Rather than the operating expense, and this was also the case in the second half of twenty nineteen. Now on your second point on whether the premium payments are creeping up, I think that you are comparing probably The premium payments in 2019 compared to the premium payments in 2020, Just to note that at the end of 2019, we brought on balance sheet The indirect exposures that we had in what we call the LFS portfolio, again, if you look at At the back end of the 2019 presentation, these were reported separately. It was the first time it was incorporated at the end of 2019. So overall, the premium payments are not going up, but the comparison is not Like for like because clearly the premiums that we are reporting now are on a bigger portfolio, which was only indirectly included in our accounts Earlier.
Economically, it's pretty much the same because we were carrying the same amount of risk. So the onboarding of the portfolio in the end of 'nineteen didn't change But the reporting clearly had to accommodate a different way of reporting. Overall, I would say that On a per individual person basis, as time goes by, premium payments increase. And like we all know it, This is the same thing that we all face with insurance policies. Clearly, the number of insured people is decreasing over time, And that is what drives the premium payments down over time for this portfolio.
To your third question about buybacks and other actions to return capital to Shareholders, currently, we do not have an active buyback program. In terms of our overall view on capital Is that we do have excess capital. We are at core Tier 1, which is over 16%. And I would say that through the actions that we are envisaging, it should actually even grow. Now we have set ourselves a minimum or we've provided guidance for a minimum of 14%, which means that we have about Well, more than 2 percentage points of excess capital.
For us, ideally, We would like to use this excess capital for acquisitions. We have made one acquisition in Australia In 2019 with some top ups in 2020, but we are also thinking about The possibility of doing bolt on acquisitions in the booking centers where we have higher balances And we can be very cost effective when we onboard these. So for us, the primary Element is to scan what is available in that respect. Clearly, if there is nothing available over time, We will need to figure out if there is an action to return excess capital to shareholders, but there is no Specific time frame set for that action.
The last question was about CROs and how we manage CROs, now the way we manage CROs, I would say, is quite classic. Clearly, we have a very sophisticated and systemic approach when we onboard New teams and new CROs. Typically, we expect new teams and new CROs to be profitable in year 3. I must say that the teams that are successful very frequently reach breakeven earlier than that. Now when you hire about 100 CROs on the other hand, you always suspect that at least a third We'll not make it for a variety of reasons.
Clearly, 2020 for new CROs was quite challenging. On one hand, we have seen extraordinary performances by some of the new teams in some of the new locations, despite the lockdowns. On the other hand, for some was very complicated. So if you look in 2019 and in 2018, we hired over Or exactly, actually, 200 CROs, probably the success rate Is less than the 1 third I was mentioning. Although in aggregate, Actually, the 2 classes of 2018 2019 have performed better than expected.
So there obviously, there is some departures. You need to take into account that also the footprint has an impact. So when we sell Chile, obviously, the CROs that were in Chile or in France Are no longer considered here. You have retirements. In terms of the regretted CROs that leave us And that we would have liked them to stay across The years, this has been always single digit, less than 10 unit, 10 CROs and this has been the same for 2020.
In terms of the loyalty, I must say that When CROs and teams come to EFG and they marry somehow the philosophy and the approach we have, They tend to stay until retirement. And we have over 50% of our CRO cadre That have a tenure with us over 8 years. So I believe that this is a very strong testament that actually CROs stay long with ERG. Obviously, like everyone, we are focused on performance. We are very meritocratic.
And if this is not there, obviously, we need to park ways. Maybe last point. As you can see, obviously, another important strategic Driver for us is the increase the load and the productivity of Syros. And as you can see on Page 17, on the right hand side, We have constantly over the last few years improved that. We were at 180,000,000, so below 200,000,000 5 years ago and we are now, if you exclude Shaw and Partners and the new CROs higher in 2020 at 2.70.
So this obviously is another consideration when we manage the CROs.
Okay. Thank you very much.
The next question is a follow-up question from Daniel Ridley from Octavian. Please go ahead.
Hello. Thank you, Hakan, for taking another question from my side. Just coming back to the gross margin more generally and going forward, obviously, you still have the gross margin target of 85 Basis points are currently at 75, so you have to bridge some 10 basis points to get to your target. Can you maybe Bridge this or break this gap down for me into what you expect from repricing actions and what you Expect, let's say, from the normalization of the interest rate environment and are there other elements in this bridge from 75 to 85?
Maybe I can give an overall view on how we see margins. Maybe the first point, just to be very, very clear To with everyone and adding on what Dimitry said earlier, obviously, the ultimate target we have is profitability and return on Tangible equity, how we get there at the end of the day is quite secondary to be very transparent. Frankly, When we presented 2 years ago the strategic plan, we were not expecting to drive growth so fast immediately. Obviously, we were not expecting the COVID and an impact of 7 basis points in the year of the COVID. Now coming back to your specific Question and going back to Page 18, I am very confident on the ability of the organization To reprice and focus, as I said, on high margin and high value headed services to clients, we have seen this in the Second half of twenty twenty, you can see that we had in 1 year 4 basis points and the majority of this Was obviously in after the shock that we had last year in March, April.
Now it is also fair to say that last year client activity was particularly strong. We believe that some of that is induced By us, but clearly supporting markets have helped. But overall, I'm very confident about our ability to reprice. In terms of, let's say, the sensitivity on interest rates, I think I mentioned it already. We have, as I said, over $20,000,000,000 of non interest bearing deposits, Half in dollars, if there is a reflation on the short end of the curve, this will have a clear impact on margins.
And maybe Dimitry, obviously also footprint will have an impact on margins. I don't know if you want to elaborate on that.
Yes. So for footprint, simply putting it is that obviously we are trying to exit locations or businesses which are Have lower return on AUM and simply like the and maintaining the ones with a higher Return on AUM, so simply the blending of it is what will increase the average margin once we have something Or more things of the footprint actions coming in and printing in the P and L. But I think what Georgios is saying is that His confidence is on the actions on the 4 business points or the actions that led to the 4 business points that we had this year. Clearly, the interest element is on top. We like we all the actions have been planned In the absence of benefit from interest.
So for us, that will be sort of a cherry on the cake if hopefully interest rates move In a way that help us to improve our return on AUM.
The last question comes from Hermas Nikolas from Citigroup. Please go ahead.
Yes. Thank you for taking some follow-up, please. Just a couple from my side. Just on footprint, Just to clarify, the AUM that you are that is you would expect to exit, I think we obviously know also, you mentioned The Ticino retail affluent business is about 1.2, Chile is about 0.5. What is the total AUM that you would expect to exit, please, through footprint?
Secondly, On the advice on your commission income, what was that was incredibly stable. It's good to see That increasing. Were there any performance fees in the second half, please? I think you had some in the second half of twenty nineteen. I'm just curious what funds these are coming on.
Thirdly, on the funds side, I think you're surprised that there's some little bit more color on your EFCAM net new money. I think you mentioned it was driven by institutional clients. Does that mean they have a longer duration as well? And what assets were these inflows into? And then just finally on acquisitions, could you just remind us of Your criteria for acquisitions, I think you mentioned cost effectiveness due to In a region where you already have a booking center, clearly cost effectiveness is helpful, but we've obviously seen plenty Of examples in the past where cost takeout as a rationale for acquisition can result in high AUM and revenue attrition, and that will not be that ultimately the high returning to the acquirer.
So Yes, just that you could remind us to know on your criteria for acquisitions, please, including return targets? Thank you.
So I'll take them 1 by 1, Isaac. On the footprint, the actions that we have announced Capture about $3,000,000,000 of AUM in total. So between Uddar, Chile and the Ticino business, The disposal is about $3,000,000,000 We will see whatever else comes out of the footprint in due course, But the ones that we have announced is €3,000,000,000 of assets under management. On your second question on performance fees, We did have performance fees coming in, in the second half of the year. These were both on funds managed by FCAM.
Also from some we have some performance fees in our Spanish subsidiary. All in all, the revenues Generated for performance fees are single digit. So it's not that these are the items that have driven the performance in the second half. So all in all, it's a single digit in Swissy in terms of performance fees for the year. And as you rightly said, there was also Some performance fees in 2019, which were lower in 2019 than they were in 2020.
Now, I don't know, Georgi, if you want to talk about AFSCAM and parameter for acquisitions?
Yes. Regarding AFSCAM, as I mentioned earlier, We have crossed the €10,000,000,000 mark and we are very pleased about that and the performance. I think It is public. You can see it on the website. It has been extremely strong for all the flagship products And also, obviously, because obviously the strategies are similar for the discretionary portfolio management Mandates.
So on that, we are very, very pleased. And the inflows of the institution have gone in the Flagship products and the flagship funds, so you can look at those. Now, it's not I mean, the Point on I'm not so sure I understood the point on tenure because obviously the funds are open ended. So That's those are normal funds. But again, We're very pleased with the overall performance.
The calls of the team has been very timely Last year, obviously timing last year was critical. And again, this is a bit, I would say, This puts our AFCAM funds and our investment solutions expertise at the center of everything we do. And when we connect that with the superior service that our CROs can deliver is a very powerful Combination. Regarding acquisitions, I think that, I mean, the criteria have not changed. We elaborated on those 2 years ago in this very room, basically, we want obviously to focus on targets that cover markets that for us Our target markets, mainly that are in the locations where we already have a presence, International Private Banking in the 8 core centers.
This will be very synergetic and would allow us to realize synergies quickly. Obviously, this is not the only motivation. The motivation is to grow the business And in exceptional cases like the acquisition of Shaw and Partners, as shown, we would also acquire Some businesses in locations where we are not present, but would allow us to cover a market that is growing And very attractive, but I would say this is more the exception than the rule. The key other point that for us is critical It's more a cultural point, but it's very important. We have a very distinctive business model.
And obviously, we will look at acquisitions where the bankers would fit in our CRO model and would embrace it and drive it to the next level. So these are the key criteria. Obviously, at the end of the day, It's all a matter of bottom line acceleration after the integration of the target.
Great. Thank you. I think That is the end of the Q and A session. I think there was no further questions. Thank you, Giorgio.
Thank you, Dimitris, for your time in answering the questions. Thank you very much, ladies And as usual, obviously, if you have further questions, please get in touch with us. And we, as unfortunately, also said the last time, would obviously enjoy to see you again in person soon. So let's hope that maybe the next time or at least